Golden Syrup Cake

Happy New Year! I'm back from a long break and it's quite difficult to get back into the swing of things. I've not actually felt like baking which does happen from time to time. However, I wanted to bake something for our AlphaBakes challenge this month so I chose a simple recipe from BBC Good Food. It's a golden syrup cake which is really simple to make and tastes absolutely delicious! I've had it on its own, with creme fraiche and with ice cream and they are all equally good. My colleagues were extremely happy as they've been without cake for quite a few weeks! The cake smells of golden syrup and you can really taste it in the cake as it's the main ingredient. It's a lovely moist cake with a crispy topping. A definite winner! 

I'm sending this to AlphaBakes hosted by myself this month and Caroline from Caroline Makes on alternate months. The letter this month is G for Golden syrup.

 cooking the golden syrup, butter and sugar 

 ready to go in the oven - my batter was still a bit lumpy but it turned out ok in the end! 

 delicious moist cake with a crispy top 

Recipe from BBC Good Food

Ginger Bonfire Cupcakes

As promised I have a Bonfire Night recipe for you. Today is Guy Fawkes Night celebrated annually on November 5th to commemorate the failure of the Gunpowder Plot. The traditional cake eaten today is parkin cake which is a sticky gingerbread cake. I've taken inspiration and come up with a fun cupcake that has flavours of traditional parkin.

These cupcakes are perfect for the occasion and relatively simple to bake. I baked these twice as I had to experiment with the spice levels and different frosting and I think they are now almost perfect. It has a sticky gingerbread cake base topped with  lemon buttercream and orange matchmaker sticks. The flavours work well together as the sweet and zesty lemon frosting sets of the fiery, spiced cupcake. My initial trial I made a golden syrup cinnamon cream cheese frosting which was absolutely delicious but unfortunately the icing was too soft to pipe tall peaks required for the bonfire effect. The lemon frosting worked equally well in terms of flavour pairing and visually it looks much better. 

I'm sending this to a few blog challenges this month.

Treat Petite hosted by Kat from The Baking Explorer and Stuart fromCakeyboi. The theme this month is Autumn.

Recipe of the Week hosted by Emily from A Mummy Too.

#FoodYearLinkUp hosted by Charlotte from Charlotte's Lively Kitchen. Lots of foodies events in November and this is for Guy Fawkes Night.

 adding golden syrup to the cake batter 

 ready to go in the oven 

 I made 2 bags of frosting - 1 yellow and 1 orange and then placed them both in another piping bag with a 1M star tip to create the two tone piping effect.

 Pipe the frosting a high as you can

 Add orange matchmaker sticks so that it looks like a bonfire and add a sprinkling of orange sugar if you have it. 

 This is my initial failed attempt with the cream cheese frosting - absolutely delicious but less visually appealing! 

Makes 15cupcakes 

For the cupcakes

150g butter

130g soft brown sugar

3 eggs

150g self raising flour

60mls golden syrup

2.5 teaspoons ground ginger

1.5 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

For the frosting

110g butter

zest of 1 lemon

300g icing sugar, sifted

1-2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

food colouring - orange and yellow

For the decoration

Orange matchmaker sticks

Orange sanding sugar 

• Preheat the oven to 180C.
• Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
• Add in the golden syrup.
• Add in the eggs one at a time, beating well between each addition.
• In a separate bowl, sift the flour and spices and add it to the butter mixture.
• Divide the mixture between the cupcake cases - I use an ice cream scoop to get an even amount of cake batter per cupcake case.
• Bake for approximately 16-18 minutes or until golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
• Allow to cool completely. 
• I made a double batch of frosting and it's plenty to frost all the cupcakes - I didn't want to risk running out as it would be difficult to get the same colour again. If you have leftover frosting, you can use it to make cookies! 
• To make the frosting, beat the butter and icing sugar for at least 5 minutes until smooth and fluffy. Add in the lemon zest and slowly add in the lemon juice until you get the required consistency. 
• Add the food colouring and mix well - I use colour paste.
• Repeat for the second batch.
• As shown in the pictures, place each colour of icing in a disposable piping bag and snip the end of the bag off. 
• Place both bags side by side into another piping bag fitted with a 1M star tip ensuring that the ends of the bags go into the piping nozzle.
• Pipe the buttercream on a plate initially to get a good mix of colour then decorate the cupcakes as shown.

Wedding Favour Cupcakes

In case you missed the announcement in my last post, I got married recently and this is my first post as Mrs! It was a really beautiful day and everyone had a good time. The day turned out better than either of us could have imagined and we are still recovering from the celebrations. My AlphaBakes co-host and friend Caroline from Caroline Makes made our wedding cake which turned out beautifully. It was absolutely gorgeous and we had so many compliments about the look and the taste of the cake, I won't be surprised if she gets wedding cake orders from now! She made a chocolate layer and a lemon layer as requested and they were both equally delicious. I've just noticed that she has blogged about it so you can read all about it here. Here's a sneak preview of the cake. Thanks again Caroline for the most amazing wedding cake! 

I knew quite early on that I would not be baking my own wedding cake but I did want to bake something so I decided to bake some mini cupcakes as wedding favours. Our colour theme was red and gold so I decided to bake golden syrup cupakes. It's a really quick and easy bake particularly as I baked them in mini cupcake cases. I found some really pretty gift boxes which I wanted to use but I had trouble sourcing the correct sized cupcake cases. I eventually found some but they only came in white. We had some gorgeous wedding invitations made and I took a picture of the logo with our initials on and got them printed on edible paper to use as cupcake toppers. The easiest part of this process was baking and frosting the cake. The most difficult part was making up the gift boxes, putting the cupcakes inside, tying the ribbons with a custom made tag. However, it was well worth the effort as the cakes looked beautiful in the gift boxes and they tasted good too! 

 mini golden syrup cupcakes

 ready to be boxed 

 This is our table setting and you can see the cupcake boxes on the table

 close up of the cupcake

I'm sending this to a few blog challenges this month. 

AlphaBakes hosted by Caroline from Caroline Makes this month and co hosted by myself on alternate months. The letter this month is W for Wedding Favour Cupcakes.

Simply Eggcellent hosted by Dom from Belleau Kitchen. The theme this month is anything goes.

Love Cake hosted by Ness from Jibber Jabber UK. The theme this month is 'in a hurry' and the cakes have to be made and baked in less than 60 minutes. These cupcakes took about 5 minutes to prepare, 10- 15 minutes to bake and another 10 minutes to decorate.

Recipe is from Lyle's website

I doubled the recipe to make 54 mini cupcakes which were approximately 4cm x 3cm x 4cm.

Baking time was approximately 10-15 minutes. 

I added a small bit of icing using a piping bag with a star tip nozzle as shown and an edible cupcake topper.  

Fruit, Nut and Seed Flapjacks

This week I've been busy baking breakfast food. I've already posted my banana, blueberry and apple muffins and I have another muffin recipe to share with you later. For a change, I decided to make some chunky flapjacks which are brilliant for breakfast on the go. I bought some packets of fruit, nut and seed mix from Aldi as healthier snacks during a recent road trip. However, we didn't get round to eating them so I thought I'd use them to make flapjacks. These are really crunchy and chunky and I loved the addition of the fruits, nuts and seeds.  

 adding the fruit, nut and seed mix 

 I used my individual loaf tray to get chunky flapjacks 

Makes 6 large, chunky flapjacks
150g butter
125g golden caster sugar
50g golden syrup
225g porridge oats
2 tablespoons plain flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
200g dried fruit, nut and seed mix

• Preheat the oven to 180C.
• Melt the butter, sugar and golden syrup in a medium sized pan. 
• In a medium sized bowl, mix the oats, cinnamon and flour.
• Add the oat mixture to the butter mixture and stir.
• Add in the fruit, nut and seed mix and sitr well. 
• Spoon into the baking tray (you can use a shallow baking tin) and level the top with a spatula.
• Bake for approximately 30 minutes or until golden brown. 
• Cut into squares before serving (if you used a shallow baking tin). 

Churros with Chocolate Sauce

I've never made my own churros until now and I'm wondering why I waited so long. The main reason is because I don't like deep frying in my kitchen and very rarely deep fry anything especially since I bought my air fryer which is amazing. However, we had a Mexican night recently and used some recipes from Wahaca. We made the Mexican slaw, crispy fish fajitas and sweetcorn & chorizo fritters. I decided to make some churros for dessert and as we had to deep fry the fish I managed to re-use the oil. For obvious reasons, I cooked the churros first and then fried the fish in the same oil which was then discarded. 

I found a recipe from Nigella.com which is a recipe from Mexican Food Made Easy by Thomasina Miers - perfect! It's a really simple recipe and it worked beautifully. The churros were light and crispy and the chocolate sauce was to die for. The frying part was not too difficult or messy which I was worried about. I'll definitely be making this recipe again and I think it will be cute to make mini churros. 

 vegetable oil, self raising flour, caster sugar, ground cinnamon, olive oil, golden syrup, dark chocolate, milk chocolate and double cream 

 dough on left and the cinnamon sugar on the right 

 frying the churos 

 almost ready 

 naked churros

 with a generous sprinkling of cinnamon sugar 

 Dipped in heavenly chocolate sauce 

Recipe can be found online here 

Golden Syrup Cupcakes

Quick post today for simple golden syrup cupcakes. I used the recipe on the Lyle's Golden Syrup website and it turned out beautifully. It's a really quick mix all in one recipe and you can really taste the golden syrup. Sometimes simple is best and this is one of those times. It would be perfect for the festive season esepcially with a bit of sparkle and glitter!

I'm sending it to the Tea Time Treats Table hosted by Karen from Lavender and Lovage and Jane from The Hedgecombers. The theme this month is glitter, sprinkles, candles and shiny stuff! 

It's also perfect for Treat Petite hosted by Kat from the Baking Explorer and Stuart from Cakeyboi. The theme this month is Christmas. 

I used the recipe from Lyle's Golden syrup website. The recipe makes 6 large cupcakes as shown but will probably make 12 mini cakes. These were so good I've actually made 36 cupcakes so far and counting.

Chocolate and Mint Biscuit Slice

This is a quick and simple no bake recipe which is a guaranteed crowd pleaser. It's perfect for parties or picnics or BBQs and I'm sure I'll be making more of these as we are heading into summer. The recipe is based on a malteser traybake recipe from BBC Good Food but I've used Mint Aero Bubbles instead. 

I'm entering this to the Biscuit Barrel Challenge hosted by Laura from I'd Much Rather Bake Than... The theme this month is summer and this refreshing no bake recipe is perfect for summer. 

I'm also sending it to Dead Easy Desserts hosted by Sarah from Maison Cupcake. This takes less than 30 minutes to prepare excluding chilling time.

 mint aero bubbles, golden syrup, butter, digestive biscuits, milk chocolate

 adding the crushed digestive biscuits to the chocolate mixture

 stirring in the mint aero bubbles

 press into a tray and chill for a few hours then slice

 I love that you can still the green aero bubbles

Recipe adapted from BBC Good Food
I'd recommend making a double recipe as one won't be enough!

100g butter
200g milk chocolate
3 tablespoon golden syrup
250g crushed digestive biscuits
225g Mint Aero Bubbles

• Melt the butter, chocolate and golden syrup in a medium sized saucepan.
• Add in the crushed digestive biscuits
• Allow to cool slightly before adding the Mint Aero Bubble otherwise it will melt 
• Press into a square or rectangle baking tray and chill in the fridge for a few hours or preferably overnight.
• Slice and enjoy.