Marbled With Love.

I want to take this time to ask one simple question first.
Just to give me some peace of mind, and to reassure myself that I am not actually an alien, or a Geordie Shore cast member, or something...
Did anyone else realise that the clocks went forward today?

I didn't. And it was a shock to the system.
There I was, snuggled like a little caterpillar in my bed. No rush.
10:30am... yeah. I still got time.
'JESS. NANA AND GRANFY ARE HERE!'
What the.. ?!!?!?!?!

Turns out. I hadn't changed my clock the night before. It was actually 11:30. And my fam had arrived in all their Easter-Egg-bearing glory, and I was still in my jammies...
Daylight savings. You rascal.

Despite that one (rather embarrassing) occasion... I like to think I'm kinda good at remembering things.
Like an elephant.
They have good memories, right? Yeah. I'm an elephant.

So when it comes to birthdays, I reckon I'm pretty much on that.
Okay, so remembering your friends' birthdays is a given. Yeah?
Well no. It's not.
There are people who check their facebooks. Just in case.
I know who you are.
And in a lot of cases, birthdays just kind of... come and go. People don't really want a fuss.
But I like love making a fuss. People secretly love being fussed about. They do.
And when I say 'people', I mean my friends.
My wonderful, crazy, cake-eating, instagram-loving friends.
We make a fuss of each other, even when we say 'ooh noo, it's just another birthday. Don't do anything special! It's not worth it.' - when really, we know we're going to be absolutely BOMBARDED with cake.
Because that's what we do on a birthday.. We bake and bake and bake, until there's cake on the floor, cake in our hands, cake round our mouths, and at least 50 new photos on everyone's instagram accounts.
I love it so much!

This latest Birthday Gift Extravaganza was for my really close friend, Sunny.
Let's talk about Sunny.
She's the kind of girl who can just do everything,
she can cook, bake, take a good photo, do maths...
And thanks to her, I've now found somewhere to buy pumpkin pie filling!
(Tesco have this new American grocery section which makes me so happy)

So what do you give a girl who does all that, for her birthday?

Well, you make a heart shaped marble cake,
put it on a miniature cake plate,
and wrap it in spotty cellophane with beautiful pink ribbon.
Duh!

Making a fuss is totally worth it. Especially when you get a smile at the end. :)
Oh.. and an instagram picture on Sunny's account.
If that's not appreciation. I don't know what is.


N.B - I'm just going to give you the recipe for a whole cake. Is that okay?
Cause of course, my heart-shaped tin was really small so I made cupcakes with the rest of my mixture.
Experiment with it!
Makes 1 Batch of Chocolate Chip and Vanilla Marble Cake Mixture
Ingredients
225g soft margarine
225g caster sugar
275g self-raising flour
2tsp baking powder
4eggs
2tbsp milk
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1 1/2 tbsp cocoa
2tbsp of hot water
50g plain chocolate chips

Method
Preheat the oven to 180 degress
Grease and line a 30x23cm cake tin
Measure the margarine, sugar, flour, baking powder, eggs, milk and vanilla essence into a large bowl and beat well until blended
Spoon half the mixture into the prepared tin, but blob the spoonfuls apart
In another bowl, blend the cocoa and hot water and add it to the remaining mixture with the chocolate chips
Spoon mixture in between the blobs of vanilla mixture to fill the gaps
Bake for about 35-40 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean
leave to cool and enjoy!!

[recipe taken from Mary Berry's Ultimate Cake Book, cake tin from Kitchenmonger]

Tweet Pin It Now!

Woozy Oozy Choccy Egg Cupcakes!

OHMIGOSH, HEY!

I am shattered. Absolutely. Zonked. Out.
Want to know why?
Of course you do. That's why you're here.
I love you for that.

Basically, I've had a scary/great/bake-worthy week all in one.

Scary - Exams are on the horizon. I've been given a stupid amount of essays to do, and I've still got to re-read Frankenstein. Mary Shelley didn't think through the complexity of her book. Oh, Maz. What do you do to me?
Great - This to me seems to vastly outweigh the 'scary' stuff. Thank the great Mary Berry for that.
1) I did my good deed for the week and made a surprise cookie delivery to my boyfriend before he went away on a trip. Okay, so he was only away for three days. But I think he was happy to see me... or the cookies. Probably the latter.
2) I finally made the most of being a part of sixth form. I ventured out of school campus to have lunch. OUT OF SCHOOL. It was great. Thanks to my friend Sunny, I'll never work in my study periods again. I've officially been corrupted. And in the best way possible.
Bake-worthy - I've baked. Quite a bit actually! In one week.

It's been fabulous.

Oh gosh everyone. What is this beautiful thing??
I'll explain.
So basically... My tutor group at school (a group of cool dudes/dudettes you hang with every morning until it's time to trudge on to lessons) have a cake Tuesday... no prizes for guessing who assisted in thinking up that initiative.

And this week, it was my turn to bake. We have a rota and everything... we're an extremely organised tutor group.
I relished this challenge.
Well, not too much. I DO have essays to write in the evenings, you know.
So what did I do? I continued the Easter spirit, and hoped to instil it in a few others too.

So I made cupcakes. With a special guest.
These bab-aaaaysss.
Aw yeah.

The result? UBER, SUPER, DUPER CUTENESS.
And if you get a caramel one?
Well, lets just say that's where the 'oozy' begins.
The 'wooziness' is the pure fact that you'll be drunk on chocolate...



Man, I love Easter. And it's only just begun!

Makes 12 cupcakes
Ingredients
1 bag of Cadburys mini assorted eggs
150g unsalted butter
125g golden caster sugar
2 large eggs
130g self raising flour
20g cocoa
75ml crème fraiche
100g plain chocolate

Method
Preheat oven to 180 degrees and lay out 12 cupcake cases in a muffin tray
Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy
Add the eggs
Sieve in the flour and cocoa
Beat briefly together
Add the crème fraiche in nice dollops and melted chocolate
Mix this together until combined and spoon the mixture into the cupcake cases until just about half full
Unwrap your miniature eggs, one for each cupcake and press the egg lightly into the mixture in each case until it reaches the bottom and you can only see the top
Bake for about 30 mins - or until a skewer comes out clean

If some look a bit liquid-y still in the middle around the egg. Don't panic!
They'll be totally oozy, totally yummy caramel ones. x

[adapted from a recipe in Making Cakes and Bakes. Latest issue]

Tweet Pin It Now!

Lazy Baking

I feel I owe you all an apology.
Okay, I owe you two.
1) On this cold freezing Sunday evening (it's the end of March and 2 degrees outside. what, even?) I am FINALLY uploading a post. I know, it's been a while... I've neglected my blogging duties somewhat. And I've totally missed it, and you!
Of course, I've been musing through endless amounts of blog posts every evening and thinking 'okay, I've really gotta bake something soon. I'm lacking tremendously in the Pretty Little Bakes department'.
So yes, I'm infinitely sorry for being so slow. I just.. have had no baking inspiration as of late. And everyone I know seems to be on a diet.
Mwaha, that'll go out of the metaphorical window soon. It's Easter next weekend.

2) Apology number two, (it's been said that I say 'sorry' too much. It's my favourite word. I even say sorry for saying sorry, if you get what I mean. Which must get very brain-shreddingly annoying. But what can I do? I'm a genuinely apologetic person.) is that this post is a lazy one.
However, it is a Sunday. Surely that is justification enough?

And after all that, my friends. This is what I've done with my day.

I have taken my favourite chocolate chip cookie recipe...

And added 'poowsh' Easter-egg chocolate - kindly donated by ma bro. (Cheers Joe.)

I thought I'd get in the spirit of Easter, which seems to be sprinting towards us at an alarming rate.
In a sophisticated way, of course.
The only UNsophisticated thing about it all was that I had these while watching National Treasure... 2.
It's a guilty pleasure guys. Guilty pleasure.

However, the problem with this now, you see, is that every time I bake these... I'm going to have to buy Lindor 'irresistibly smooth' chocolate.
Goodbye money. Hello beautiful cookies!

I promise double promise that I'll produce something more interesting soon.
Perhaps Cadbury-mini-egg- themed?
Hey, tell you what... I'd absolutely LOVE some suggestions!

Toldya it was simple.
But heyhideyho, 'tis only Sunday!
Sorry, guys. ;) x

Tweet Pin It Now!

Zingalingin' Orange Cake.

Okay everyone, please don't diss me for being unoriginal.. I reckon I've seen a photo like this before.

Is it deja vu? OH YEAH, because I've used a similar one on this post. But actually, now that you look at them both... if you scrutinise them side by side (as I am doing right now... me = no life) they're not that similar at all... what was I worrying about?
Stop making me worry.

So basically. Here's the deal. I live in England. Therefore, there's hardly any sun.. like, nil sun. Zilch. None.
Especially in this first part of the year. I know it's been wintery and all... but just so DREARY. It really makes me sad. And I lose all my baking mojo when I'm sad.
So whenever we have good weather... I'm gonna blog about it. That's just how deprived I am!

BUT, HEY, LOOK!
The sun came out on Tuesday!!! I mean... it went straight back in again (as in, the next day Mr Sunshine was nowhere to be found and I woke up to the same old grey, misty murk that I've been used to for the last 16 years of my life) and has rained for the the rest of this week.
But it was there, I saw it! I swear!!

And, as I'm sure you'll all agree, everything just seems so much better in the sun!!

Your clothes fit better, your skin looks clearer and you can forget your coat at the door, striding out with a confident smile that says 'No need for an umbrella. No need. At all. About-bloomin'-time.'
Sometimes you just feel like you deserve to smile like that, y'know?

And so, in this crazy whirlwind of happiness, sunglasses and 'gradual tan' buying - yes. I know what you're all thinking. IT'S MARCH JESS. Well... I believe it's good to be prepared - my Nana's birthday came around. On the sunniest day!!
It must be fate.

And to match my sunny disposition, I baked Nana an equally sunny and zingalingin' - yeah, I made this up. It's kinda like crackalackin', but so much more fabulous - orange cake!

I tell you, my friends. I was feelin' freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh!

This is my kinda cake.
So light. So... so... ORANGE-Y.

I don't know why but I never really imagined liking an orange cake.
Please don't ask me for a reason, because I totally LOVE oranges!
I knew it could be incorporated into a cake... but... really? To tell you the truth, I was sceptical.

However, Mary Berry said it was, and I quote - 'always popular with the family'.
She's never wrong. Why is this? Because she's a Goddess. Truly.

You just bung every ingredient in...

And waheeeeeeeey we go!!!

I'm going to call this my 'sunshine' cake from now on.
Happy Birthday Nana! x

Ingredients

For the Cake

175g soft margarine

175g caster sugar

3 eggs

175g self-raising flour

1 and a half teaspoons of baking powder

grated rind and juice of 1 orange

For the Icing

2 tablespoons of apricot jam

100g icing sugar

finely shredded rind and juice of 1/2 an orange

Method

Preheat the oven 180 degrees.

Lightly grease and base line a 20cm deep round cake tin with greaseproof paper

Measure all the ingredients into a large bowl and beat well until thoroughly blended

Turn into the prepared tin and level the surface

Bake in the pre-heated oven for about 35 minutes until well risen and springy to the touch

Leave to cool

For the Icing

Measure the apricot jam into a small pan and gently warm through

Brush onto the top of the cake

Sift the icing sugar into a bowl and mix in the orange juice

Pour over the top of the cake and spread with a palette knife

Leave to set then decorate with the orange rind
(I added the little iced flowers... as a spring-time addition to my Sunshine cake!)

P.S. I'm now getting a wised up on the ol'social network front!
You can follow me on twitter : here

And, you can follow me on pinterest : here

Check it out! I'd love to hear from you all!
Much love. xx

[recipe taken from Mary Berry's Ultimate Cake Book]

Tweet Pin It Now!