Mini Pineapple Upside Down Cakes

These turned out better than I expected, and are absolutely delicious.
Can be eaten on there own, or served as individual desserts with custard or cream.

4oz Castor Sugar
4oz Margarine
4oz SR Flour
2 Eggs

Tin of pineapple slices
Glace Cherries
Golden Syrup

Drain pineapple slices, and put to one side.

Cream together margarine and sugar until light and fluffy, beat in beaten eggs a little at a time, (with a little flour to prevent curdling).
Fold in rest of flour.

Put cake papers in muffin tin.
Place one pineapple ring at bottom, (depending on size of your pineapple rings or paper cases, you may want to use scone cutter on pineapple rings to make the smaller).

Place half a cherry in centre of ring, then drizzle aprox half a tsp of golden syrup over fruit at bottom.
Put 1 small ice-cream scoop of cake mix in each paper case.
Bake in oven gas 6, until risen and golden brown.
Place on wire rack, and allow to cool for about 5 minutes, before careful removing papers and cooling completely, with cherry facing up.

Enjoy!

Batten-burg Cake

This is the freshest batten burg cake I have ever tasted!
Goes to show how many preservatives are in shop bought cakes to make them last on the supermarket shelves....

Ingredients listed below, actually made 4 good sized cakes.

1lb SR Flour
1lb Castor Sugar
1lb Margarine
8 Eggs (beaten)
2tsp vanilla essence

strawberry or apricot jam
White marzipan
red & yellow food colouring


Make cakes by beating sugar and margarine till light and fluffy.
Beat in eggs and vanilla a little at a time, with a spoonful of the flour to prevent curdling.
Fold in rest of flour.
Divide cake mix into 2 separate bowls, add a little red food colouring into one bowl, and mix gently, and yellow into other.

Grease and flour 2 tins, ( I used 11" x 8" tins, with 2" depth)

Put yellow mix in one, and pink in other.
Bake in oven Gas 5, until risen and starting to turn golden brown.

Turn onto wire racks to cool.

When cool, trim tops and edges so you have straight sides, and cut into 4 rectangles.

For each cake, finish as follows:

Take one yellow rectangle, spread jam on top, and place pink cake on top.
Cut down middle length ways, reverse colours and stick together with jam again.

Roll out marzipan thinly, use knife or pizza cutter to straighten edges, spread with jam, and roll cakes gently on marzipan till covered, and trim again.

Trim ends of cakes to get a straight and even finish.

Hope you enjoy making these!

Carrot Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Hi all, hope all you mums out there had a lovely mothers day, I was spoilt as usual, chocolate, flowers, wine (hic!) oh and a ticket to go and see Harry Potter World near London for later in the year! yay! big HP fan, even at my age.

Been a quiet couple of days here, wasn't raining yesterday, so took my 2 little Chihuahuas out for a walk, needless to say, being so close to the ground, they got their bellies full of mud in the woods.

This Winky and Molly, worn out after their walk!




Today, the cars in for its MOT, so thought I'd make some cupcakes for the home round the corner.



For cakes:

6oz Castor Sugar
6oz Margarine
8oz SR Flour
3 Eggs (beaten)
1 Medium Carrot (grated)
2tsp Mixed Spice
2tbsp Chopped Nuts


For Frosting:

300ml Double Cream
2tbsp Cream Cheese
1tbsp Icing Sugar
1tsp Lemon Flavouring
chopped nuts and grated carrot to decorate

Make cakes by beating sugar and margarine together till light and fluffy, add beaten eggs a little at a time, with a spoonful of the flour mix.
Fold in flour, mixed spice, grated carrot and nuts.
I used an icecream scoop to measure and placed one scoop in each cupcake paper case, (made 18).

Bake Gas 6 until risen and light golden brown.
Place on wire rack to cool.

For frosting: Whisk double cream and cream cheese till thickens a little, add icing sugar and flavouring and beat till thickens.


When cakes cooled, pipe frosting on cakes, then sprinkle with chopped nuts and a little of the grated carrot.

Enjoy!

Coconut Tartlets

This is another of Mums recipes that brings back memories.
I had some pastry left from the almond tarts, so made these.

Grease and line a 12 cupcake tray with the pastry using a round cutter.

For Filling:

4oz Margarine
4oz Castor Sugar
2 Eggs (beaten)
4oz Desiccated Coconut
Strawberry Jam

Beat together margarine and sugar until light and fluffy.
Bet in eggs and coconut.

Add 1/2 tsp jam in bottom of pastry tarts, then add 1 dessert spoon of cake mix in each, spreading and sealing the edges.

Bake Gas 6, until risen and golden brown.

Enjoy!

Delicious Caramel Filled Profiteroles

I was inspired watching Masterchef USA the other day, and decided I would try making profiteroles, something I've never got round to making before, OMG I'm so glad I did!
These were easier than I thought.
They are filled with caramel cheese cream, and topped with caramel.
This recipe made about 4 trays, I filled half of them, and the spare shells were frozen.

For the pastry:

6oz Butter
7 1/2oz P Flour
6 Eggs (beaten)
3/4 pint of water (400mls)

For Filling:

large tub of mascarpone 
1 dessert spoon of milk
1tbsp icing sugar

1 sml tin of Nestles caramel

Draw 1" circles onto parchment paper, the turn over and place on baking tray, dampen slightly with water.

Cut the butter into small pieces and put in large pan with the water.
Heat gently until butter melted, then bring to boil quickly, remove from heat immediately.
Beat in sifted flour until the mixture is smooth and leaves the side of the pan.

Allow to cool...

Then beat in eggs a little at a time, keeping the mixture stiff.

Put in large piping bag with large plain nozzle, and pipe onto marked parchment.
Press down any peaks gently with damp small brush.

Bake in oven Gas 6 until risen, golden brown and has a crispy shell.

Don't take then out the oven too soon, as they will deflate.

For the filling, beat together mascarpone, milk and icing sugar, (add 1tsp caramel flavouring if you wish).

As soon as profiteroles are cool, poke small hole in bottom, and pipe filling in, making sure they are filled.
Dip top in caramel.

Spare shells, allow to cool, the freeze, also the finished profiteroles can be frozen, place flat on tray with parchment, and place in freezer, once frozen, you can put then in bags or boxes, and back in the freezer.

Enjoy!