Happy Easter 2015

Happy Easter! Lent is over, so you can go back to eating chocolate, drinking or generally whatever you promised not to do for all of Lent. But now its over, so in order to celebrate "the day of guilt free Chocolate day" try these Easter recipes to get you in the mood. Or just eat a Lindt Rabbit, your choice.

Hot Cross Buns Cupcakes

Easter Lemon and Ginger Cupcakes

Simnel Cake

Steamed Lemon Pudding

Farewell Blondies
 
Have a wonderful Easter

Fat Friday #34 Hot Cross Cupcakes

Its not long until Easter creeps up on us and there's a number of treats that you bake at this time at year. In this case, hot cross buns are a well known Easter time treat. This recipe was designed to put all the flavour of a hot cross bun into a cute cupcake. Its a fairly easy recipe to master as well!   

Cupcakes Makes 12 Cupcakes (Recipe Adapted from The Cake Book by Jemma Wilson):

• 12g currants
• 50ml orange juice
• 125g self raising flour
• 100g caster sugar
• 25g soft dark brown sugar 
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon mixed spice
• 20g mixed peel
• 135g unsalted butter
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 tablespoons whole milk 
• 1/4 teaspoon golden syrup
• Chocolate Buttercream recipe here or Vanilla Butter Cream recipe here

Equipment:

• Muffin tin lined with muffin cases
• Piping bag
• Bowl x 2
• Jug
• Sieve
• Wire Rack
• Whisk
• Pastry brush
• Scissors

Method: 

1.Preheat oven to 170c/375f/gas mark 5.

2.Soak the currants in the orange juice for 30 minutes, then drain.

3.Put the dry ingredients into a bowl and stir to combine. Add the currants when drained.

4.Cream the butter and sugars together. Then add the eggs and beat to combine.

5.Add the milk and golden syrup to the sugar mixture, then whisk for 20 seconds, or until well combined. Then add the dry ingredients and mix again until incorporated.

6.Fill the papercases about 2/3 full with the cupcake batter mixture. 

7.Bake for 20 minutes. Leave to cool on a wire rack.

8. Meanwhile, warm the marmalade up in a saucepan and brush the tops of the cupcakes with a pastry brush.

9.Once cooled completely, decorate with a cross of vanilla (or chocolate) buttercream, using a piping bag.

 

Have a great weekend!

Simnel Cake aka Easter Fruit Cake

I know what some of readers are thinking:

• "Where have you been?"
• "What on earth have you been doing to not publish on this blog?!"
• "Where did I put my sandwich?"

Well in order:

• In classrooms, at work or eating.
• In the world of revision and university coursework. Its not a good holiday destination. 
• I most likely ate your sandwich because of all the revision and travelling I've been up to. 

I've been darting back and forth to London, to celebrate my friends birthday and my own birthday as well. I've also been doing revision for the ridiculously hard last year of university. So excuse my blogging absence for the next few weeks. There will be some pictures, tweets and the occasional facebook update but until the exams are completely over! Woo!! So onto this weeks recipe post:

(PS there is a serious lack of pictures-This is due to me not being at my home computer. My bad! UPDATE: pictures have been added) 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Its nearly Easter again, where chocolate officially is on the menu. As much as stuffing your face with chocolate is possibly the best thing in the world, its sometimes best to step away from the cocoa. 
Instead why not try and bake this fruity alternative to chocolate?

This traditional light fruit decorated with marzipan. This Easter cake originated in the UK, which is served at the end of Lent. At times the marzipan balls (make your own jokes) are toasted using a blowtorch. There are 12 marzipan balls to represent the 12 apostles and Jesus minus Judas. 

Recipe: Simnel Cake

·       75g sultanas

·       185g currents

·       75g glace cherries (chopped)

·       75g mix peel

·       75g steam ginger (finely chopped)

·       2 lemon zested and juiced

·       1 orange zested and juiced

·       165g strong flour, sieved

·       2 tsp ground cinnamon, sieved

·       2 tsp ground nutmeg, sieved

·       1 tsp ground ginger, sieved

·       30g ground almonds

·       130g light brown sugar

·       130g soft unsalted butter

·       2 eggs

·       1 egg yolk

·       pinch of salt

·       (A little bit of milk, if necessary)
·       Marzipan 
·      Food Colouring (optional to colour the marzipan)

Equipment

·       Chopping board

·       Large knife

·       Grater or zester 

·       Bowl

·       Small Bowl

·       Electric hand held whisk/spatula

·       7 inch cake tin lined with silicone paper

·       Sieve

·      Fork
·       Rolling pin
·       Flower cutters/bunny cutters/ other Easter decorating cutters

1.Combine all the flour, spices and ground almonds in a bowl.
2.Beat the eggs and the egg yolk in a small bowl with a fork.

3.Cream butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and

  fluffy. Beat the eggs slightly and add gradually to creamed mix.
4. Fold in the dry ingredients using a spatula and mix until just combined.
5. Fold in fruits, zests and orange and lemon juice. (Add milk if needed to dropping consistency.)
6.Bake at 300f/150c/Gas Mark 2 for 45 minutes in the lined cake tin. Insert a cake skewer into the middle of the cake, if it comes out clean then its done. 
  7. Once the cake is completely cool cut in half.

Step 8. Cut a circle of marzipan for the middle layer

Step 8.Middle layer

  8. Roll out marzipan and cut into a circle that's large enough to cover one layer of the cake.

Step 9. Make indents for decoration

  9. Roll out another circle of marzipan and make small indents

around the edges. This is for the top of the cake. 

  10. Decorate as desired: Bunnies, chicks and flowers are excellent! I made flowers using coloured marzipan. 
Have a fab Easter! 

Easter Lemon and Ginger Cupcakes

With less then a week until Easter (and my mum's birthday) its time for some Easter cupcakes!

I'm keeping this blog post short as my eyes are killing me. I've been told that I need to wear glasses when I'm on computers but thats cool I'm mostly in the kitchen baking anyway. Next Sunday I'm making 50 cupcakes for my mums 50th birthday! I'm fine with making cupcakes but all in one go. Yikes, but challenge accepted. Will definitely keep you posted.

Ginger and Lemon Easter cupcakes.

(Recipe from Making Cupcakes with Lola)

Recipe: Cupcakes (Makes 17 normal cupcakes and 24 mini cakes)

·       75g Steamed Ginger syrup

·       75g Golden syrup

·       170ml double cream

·       300g all purpose flour

·       1 tsp ground cinnamon

·       ½ tsp ground cloves

·       2 tsp baking powder

·       1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda

·       ¼ tsp salt

·       125g unsalted butter, room temperature

·       180g dark brown sugar

·       3 eggs

Recipe: Lemon Buttercream

·       125g unsalted butter, room temperature

·       300g icing sugar

·       Grated zest of 1 lemon

·       Lemon juice 1 teaspoon lemon juice

·       Food Colouring (Purple, pink, green)

·       Various sprinkles, and Easter decorations of your choice. (IF YOUR USING PLASTIC DECORATIONS, REMOVE THEM FOR CHILDREN)

Equipment:

·       Bowl x 2

·       Electric Whisk

·       Saucepan

·       Wooden spoon

·       Sieve

·       Muffin tray lined with 17 cupcake cases x 2

·       Mini cupcake lined with 24 cases x 1

·       Palette knife

Step 1

1.    Put the golden syrup and ginger syrup in a saucepan with the cream and heat gently until well mixed and melted. (Do not allow to boil!)

Step 1. After the syrup has turned golden.

Step 2. Sieve dry ingredients

2.    Sieve the flour, ground cinnamon, ginger, cloves, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt in a bowl. Set aside.

Step 3. Cream the sugar and butter

3.    Cream the butter and sugar in a separate bowl with an electric whisk. Stop occasionally to scrape down the sides. Add the eggs in one at a time.

Step 4 Add the dry ingredients and syrup mix

4.    Gradually add the syrup mix and the sifted dry mix alternately, beating well between each addition.

Step 5 Spoon into cases

5.    Divide the mixture between the muffin cases. Bake in the preheated oven. 20-23 minutes for the normal cupcakes and 15 minutes for the mini cupcakes. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack.

6.    To make the buttercream, put the butter and mix until really smooth with an electric mixer. Stir in the lemon juice and sift the icing sugar in 4 batches, mixing really well so that the frosting is smooth.

7.    If the mixture is stiff, add a teaspoon of lemon juice or milk if you prefer.

8.    Separate the frostings into different bowls and colour as desired.

9.    Spread the frosting with a palette knife when the cupcakes are cold.

10.   Sprinkle and decorate. 

With this recipe you can really be creative with the decoration. I used stuff that was just sitting in the cupboards. 
Happy Easter and Happy Baking!