I love you more than....

I love you more than....Heart Biscuits 


These are so sweet and you can use your imagination when it comes to the details. They would be a great unique gift for any partner.

Ingredients

650g Plain Flour
1 tsp. baking powder
250g Butter
260g Caster Sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract or chosen flavouring
1/2 tsp. salt

you will need a heart shaped cookie cutter and coloured icing of your choice.

• Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
• Mix in the egg and vanilla.
• Combine all the dry ingredients and add to butter mixture a little at a time.
• There is a lot of flour in this recipe so it is important to take your time to ensure all of the flour is absorbed. Keep working the dough until it comes together with no crumbs.
• Roll the dough into flat slabs cover and place in the fridge to chill for 30 mins.
• Pre heat the oven to 180c Gas Mark 4.

When your oven has reached temperature roll dough to approx. 1cm thick and using your cookie cutter, cut to shape. Using a non-stick baking tray, bake for about 10 minutes or until the edges of your cookies begin to turn brown. Leave to cool on a cooling rack before decorating.

V-day Cupcake Decorations

Chocolate cupcake vanilla frosting and red heart shape fondant


Red Velvet cup cakes with icing stencil


Sponge cupcakes with Strawberry frosting red sugar sprinkles and cut strawberries


Sponge cupcake with strawberry icing and love heart sweets

Cinnamon cake

Yummy Cinnamon Cake with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting


The abundant amounts of cinnamon in both the cake and icing may be too much for some, but I think the balance is just right. The orange peel packs a refreshing punch that really shouldn't be skipped--I've gone without it and been left wanting. Be forewarned: It's a dense cake, but the texture is fabulous and the degree of moistness is pretty near perfect. The thick layers of that sweet and tangy frosting complete this fabulous creation.

Ingredients

Cake:
2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup whole milk
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
4 large eggs
1 3/4 cups sugar
2 teaspoons grated orange peel
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Frosting:
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
8 oz cream cheese, room temperature
2-3 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons cinnamon

• Preheat oven to 180°c. 
• Butter and flour two 9-inch cake pans. Sift first 4 ingredients into small bowl. Stir milk and butter in small saucepan over low heat just until butter melts; set aside.

• Using electric mixer, beat eggs and sugar in large bowl until thick enough for batter to fall in heavy ribbon when beaters are lifted, about 5 minutes. 

• Beat in orange peel and vanilla. Add flour mixture; beat just until blended. Add warm milk mixture; beat just until blended. Divide batter between prepared pans.

• Bake cakes until tester inserted into centre comes out clean and cakes begin to pull away from sides of pans, about 24 minutes.

• Cool cakes in pans on racks 20 minutes. Cut around pan sides and turn cakes out onto racks. Turn cakes right side up.

• For frosting, mix the butter and cream cheese together with an electric mixer until very smooth. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl to ensure even mixing.

• Add the vanilla extract and cinnamon and mix. Slowly add the powdered sugar. Keep adding until you get to desired sweetness. Spread one cup of frosting onto first layer. 

• Top with second layer. Smooth the rest of the frosting onto the top and sides using your preferred technique.

Oreo Cookie Butter

Oreo Chocolate spread 

Yes, I made Oreo cookie butter... Like peanut butter that tastes like Oreos and has no peanuts. Spreadable Oreo chocolate fudgy goodness.
If you've ever had an Oreo cookie (and who hasn't?) you know that flavour. It's the perfect cookie to transform into something else, and have people say HUH? and wonder how you did it.

It's so easy, it's embarrassing. It's almost not a recipe. It's magic.

What can you do with this magic cookie butter goodness?

Well, to start with, I spread it on Graham crackers. You could spread it between other cookies to make sandwich cookies .You could eat it with a spoon. You could mix it into ice cream. So many options, so easy to make ...

Oreo Cookie Butter

12 Oreo cookies*
2 tablespoons water


Put the cookies in your food processor and process until you have a very very fine powder. Scrape down the sides and make sure you don't have any chunky pieces left. Keep processing until it's all a fine powder.


Add the water a teaspoon at a time until you have a thick, shiny, fudgy spread.

And that's it. Pure magic.

*Note: I haven't tried this with the double-stuffed. I suspect it would take less water - maybe none.

Santa Hat Brownies

Christmas Special Santa Hat Brownies


Now here's a great idea for the family. Kids and adults will love these. They look and taste fabulous and you can also use the recipe for white chocolate brownies as a substitute for the chocolate http://forbakessake.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/white-winter-chocolate-brownies.html
You can use ready-made brownie bites or bake a pan of your favourite brownies. I whipped up some vanilla-mascarpone buttercream to simulate the white trim on the hats But you can use your own flavour buttercream if it suits. Voila! A festive dessert to get everyone into the spirit of the holidays. It really is beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here!

Ingredients:
1 pan of your favourite brownies, cooled and cut into desired size and shape (I used a round cutter)
12-16 small strawberries, cleaned and hulled
vanilla-mascarpone buttercream (recipe below)
Mascarpone Buttercream
Ingredients:
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
8 ounces mascarpone cheese, room temperature
2-1/2 to 3 cups powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
pinch of salt

Method:

• Using a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, beat butter and mascarpone cheese until light and creamy, about 2 minutes. Add vanilla extract and salt. 
•  Add 2-1/2 cups of sugar, half a cup at a time and continue beating until smooth. 
•  Add more sugar, if needed to reach desired consistency and sweetness.
• To assemble, pipe a ring of vanilla buttercream on top of each brownie. Cut off the base of a strawberry so it is flat and place it upside down on each brownie, pushing slightly to secure in place. 
•  Top the tip of the strawberry with a dot of buttercream to finish the Santa hat.

Strawberry Shortcake Muffins

Sweet Smelling Strawberry Shortcake Muffins

This is one for the strawberry lovers. These taste amazing and will fill your house with the mouthwatering smell of strawberry shortcake. They are pretty simple to make and contain no flour...that's right these babies are made from oats and yoghurt.  I will give you the option of adding sweeteners instead of sugar in the recipe below. I personally prefer sugar as I generally as a rule don't like to use artificial sweeteners, but for those on a diet looking for something low cal the sweeteners work just as well.

Ingredients

2 1/2 cup Oats (old fashioned kind, not quick cooking)
1 cup Plain low fat greek yogurt
2 Eggs

1 cup sugar OR
1/2 cup Baking stevia OR 1 cup sweetener of choice that measures like sugar 1

1 1/2 tsp Baking powder
1/2 tsp Baking soda
1 1/2 cup Strawberries, diced, and patted dry + (optional 1/2 cup strawberries, diced to place on top of muffins)

Optional 1 tsp lemon juice

*Note The paper liners don’t work well when baking with a base that does not include flour (which is the case with this recipe), they always seem to stick to the paper. If you don’t have a silicone muffin tin or liners, I recommend buying the foil cupcake liners at the store, and removing the paper inserts so you are only using the foil part of the liner! That way no sticking will occur!

How to make them

• Preheat oven to 200 c  195 c for fan assist. Line 12 muffin tins with silicone or foil liners, (or just use a silicone muffin pan)
• Place all of the ingredients (except the strawberries) in a blender or food processor, and blend until oats are smooth. Pour mixture into a medium sized bowl, and stir in strawberries. Divide remaining 1/2 cup diced strawberries over the top of each muffin. (This step is optional, but it really makes the strawberries burst with colour and flavour on top of each muffin!)
• Divide batter among cupcake liners, and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.

Yummy enjoy!!!

Marshmallow snowmen cupcakes

These are great little festive cakes to really get the children excited about Christmas. Eye catching and really cute they are fantastic for Christmas fairs or parties or even just to entertain. The kids can get stuck into decorating these little snowmen as well,

To make just follow the basic cupcake recipe of your choice in the links below:

Vanilla cupcake recipe
http://forbakessake.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/simple-vanilla-cupcakes.html

Chocolate cupcake recipe
http://forbakessake.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/simple-chocolate-cupcakes.html

Once your cakes are baked leave them on a wire rack to cool down.  Once cooled they are ready for decoration. You will need:

• Icing of your choice, I find a marshmallow buttercream frosting works great (recipe at bottom of page) or simply marshmallow fluff which you can by from Asda and other leading supermarkets. You can also use a basic buttercream or cream cheese frosting as long as it is white in colour.
• 1 pack of white large marshmallows
• Black writing icing pen to pipe >>>
• Colour of your choice writing icing for buttons
• Orange fondant

How to decorate

• Pipe your frosting in a circular motion up into a peak. 
• make your snowman's nose with orange fondant icing and attach to each marshmallow by dabbing into the icing and glueing to the face.
• Place a single marshmallow on top of each cupcake and leave to set for 25 mins or so in the fridge.
• Once removed from the fridge you can begin to detail. Start by drawing the eyes, nose and arms with the black writing icing pen. then draw your snowman's buttons with a contrasting colour such as red, green ect...
• you can also use flavoured laced to make a scarf if you like. 
• Another great quirky idea would be to place a marshmallow inside the cupcake before baking so there is a soft fluffy centre surprise, kids will love it.

Marshmallow buttercream recipe

Ingredients

• 1 cup room temperature butter
• 1 (7-ounce) jar marshmallow creme/fluff
• 2 cups confectioners sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 vanilla bean (optional)

Instructions

1. Cream the butter until it is light and fluffy. Add the marshmallow creme.
2. Whip for 2 minutes.
3. Add the confectioners sugar and continue to beat for 2 minutes. Add vanilla extract and vanilla bean.