The shortbread for the millionaires?

Millionaires shortbread? Why is it called millionaires shortbread? I asked myself whilst looking at Mary Berry's  recipe for this particular baked good. However as I looked at the photo of the crumbly shortbread topped with a gooey looking creamy fudge like topping finished with a layer of melted chocolate my question was answered.

To my surprise we had all the ingredients to make the millionaires shortbread in the house-it must have been destiny. Once I had proceeded on to make this recipe I had found it extremely hard to resist eating the fudge like mixture and the melted chocolate straight from the pan-I'd even go as far as to say that it could be considered torture to some-however I managed to resist; Once I took the millionaires shortbread out of the fridge I cut it into pieces and as I did so I heard the crisp snap of the chocolate and the squelch of the fudge like center. I then delegated a slice to myself immediately.

They were very scrummy however I still don't know if they really are 'millionaires standard' but lets just put it this way; If I was a millionaire I would be more than satisfied if someone was to present these to me.

The disappearing brownies...

I made up my own recipe for brownies today... the tray of brownies were gone by the end of the day. I guess I should call it luck as it was my first attempt of making up my own brownie recipe (adapting it from a lot of others) and judging by the empty tray I am looking at now, they were a success. They were gooey inside yet firm on the outside; real comfort food.

My recipe for these brownies were as follows:

Ingredients:
60g Self Raising Flour
60g Cocoa Powder
4 Eggs (Beaten)
100g Butter
250g Caster Sugar
200g Dark Chocolate
1tsp Vanilla Essence
Icing sugar (For sprinkling on at the end)

Method:
1) Melt the dark chocolate in a bowl and then leave to cool. In the mean time beat the butter and sugar in to another bowl until light and fluffy.
2) Beat the eggs and vanilla essence into the butter and sugar mixture until well combined.
3)Sift the flour and cocoa into the butter and sugar mixture and stir in the cooled dark chocolate until well combined.
4) Pour into a greased and lined tin and put into the oven for 30-35 minutes at a preheated gas mark 4 oven. Or until firm to touch but still sticky inside.
5) Leave to cool and sprinkle with icing sugar.

An advance warning on making these brownies; they do disappear so enjoy them before they're gone!

So apparently hedgehogs are a birthday icon.

When my mum asked me to make a Hedgehog cake for my brothers 3rd birthday the first thing that crossed my mind was, a hedgehog? remind me what that has to do with birthdays. Never the less I did make the cake as my brothers mind was set on receiving this cake for his birthday. The cake recipe I used was Nigella Lawsons chocolate 'Birthday Cake' from her book 'How To Eat'. This went down a great success as some of the parents of who's children attended my brothers party were asking for the recipe the next day.

Although the making of the cake wasn't to much of a challenge, the assembling was a mission and a half. I thought it would be impossible. However after a lot of time trying to assemble this cake together I did end up with a half decent hedgehog shape. After shaping the cake I then covered it in a chocolate butter cream icing. On top of this I put chocolate sprinkles and chocolate buttons to make the spike. I then used fondant Icing for the eyes and a chocolate button for the nose. I also piped green icing for grass and a plaque of fondant icing with rather dodgy lettering which spelled out my brothers name, to give it a personal touch. 

Judging by the oohs and aahs I got when I presented the cake to my brother I am sure that it didn't turn out half bad- although this is being judged by the standards of a 3 year old-who in my opinion are very tough critics. I still am unaware as to how a hedgehog cake is related to birthdays. But hey for all I know hedgehogs could be the latest birthday icon.

Dainty? I prefer the term rustic.

I made these cupcakes with a perhaps little to pretentious goal as to how they would turn out. I imagined these red velvet cupcakes to be dainty with the perfect amount of icing, like the ones you see on the windows of french patisseries. Let me tell you that although my vision was not achieved I did end up with a dozen rustic looking cupcakes with a more than hearty portion of cream cheese icing dolloped on top and topped with a handful of crumbs sprinkled on to top to give them that homey rustic feel. In fact now that I think about it they turned out the exact opposite to how I had imagined. But to my relief no one complained in fact inside I'm sure that they secretly loved the over average sized dollop of icing on top of the cupcakes-well I did at least- and I have to say they tasted pretty darn good. 

I put the stripe into the cake

Earlier this week I had a serious dilemma, what cake should I make? I looked through endless amounts of cookbooks but none of them suited the mood I was in. After looking through cookbooks for what felt like an eternity (don't get me wrong all of the cakes looked mouth watering. But I felt like making something different-and we only had the basic ingredients in the house at the time) I then stumbled across Lorraine Pascales zebra cake. My mouth dropped, I knew that this would be my mission to make this master piece of a cake. Once I had gathered my self together I started to prepare the ingredients;to my relief the cake recipe wasn't to complex and it was rather quick to make. But when it got to constructing the cake-holy macaroni- you don't want to know the stress I went through when it came down to constructing this cake. I'm overreacting? I think not. To construct the cake I had to pipe a small dollop of the chocolate mix into the center of the baking tin and then inside this chocolate dollop put a small dollop of the plain mix in the middle of it, I had to keep doing this until the cake mix was finished. Although I shouldn't complain to much,it was to be fair a great chance for me to catch up on my less than average singing skills-which I'm sure the neighbors just loved-once the mission of constructing this cake was finished I felt a sigh of relief, carefully I then placed the cake in the oven. The wait was agonizing but well worth it, once I took the marbled top cake out of the oven, I sliced it into bigger than average pieces of course, and when I sliced into the ingenious stripes which filled the cake all I could bring myself to say was I really did put the stripe into the cake. Appearance aside the cake was very scrummy however a little dry as you can probably tell from the picture. If I was to make this cake again (which I defiantly will, and you should too) I will alter the recipe to try and get the cake to be less dry.