RECIPE: Cheese biscuits

I made about 6 batches of these cheese biscuits before Christmas, most of them were wrapped up for Christmas gifts, but I did keep a few for myself. They are so tasty and very moreish...so be warned you wont just be able to eat one :D 

I've been asked about the recipe and I am really bad at finding recipes on the internet, scribbling them down in my note book and then tweaking the recipe as I go a long and then forgetting where the original came from. 

So here is the one straight from my note book.....

You will need: 

3oz Butter (cubed)

4oz Strong cheddar

2oz Corn flour

4oz Plain flour

Pinch of salt

Pinch of cayenne pepper

(Handful of grated parmesan for sprinkling on top

Method:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius 

Cover baking tray with greaseproof paper

Sieve plain flour, corn flour, cayenne pepper and salt into a bowl

Add cheese and butter (cubed) into the dry mix and rub together

Once combined knead a little and roll into a ball

Roll out onto a floured surface

Use cookie cutters to cut out shapes

Place onto your baking tray and sprinkle with the parmesan

Bake for 10 mins or until golden brown

Leave to cool for 15 mins then you can either transfer to a tin of scoff them whilst warm

Hope you enjoy making them as much as you do eating them. 

RECIPE : Cappuccino cake

If you like coffee you will love this cake, if you like chocolate you will love this cake, if you love cake you will definitely love this cake!!!!! Don't be put off if you're not a coffee lover, its not as intense as it sounds, its more of a chocolate cake with a hint of coffee. And if you really hate coffee then why not substitute it with caramel flavouring? 

To make the cake you will need :

50 gms Cocoa powder

6 tblsps boiling water

3 eggs

50 mls milk

175 gms self raising flour

1 tsp baking powder 

100 gms margarine/butter

275 gms caster sugar

To make the coffee cream filling/topping you will need :

300 mls whipping cream

1 tsp coffee

2 tsp boiling water

Method : Cake

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius and prepare x2 cake tins

Mix cocoa powder with the hot water until it makes a smooth paste (dont be tempted to stick your finger in to taste as it smells so chocolatey and delicious - it is bitter and will not taste as nice as it smells - I found out the hard way ha ha ha!)

Cream the butter and sugar together

Beat the eggs together with the milk and add to the creamed butter and sugar

Mix in your cocoa mix

Sift in your flour and baking powder - don't over mix

Pour into the two prepared tins and bake for 25-30 mins (test with a skewer to make sure its cooked in the centre)

All to cool and then remove from the tins

Place on a wire rack to cool completely before adding the cream filling/topping

Method : Coffee cream filling/topping

Whip 300mls whipping cream (or double cream) 

Mix 1 tsp of coffee with 2 tsp of boiling water - stir till dissolved

Add to the whipped cream and fold in til mixed

Spilt into two lots and sandwich one half in-between the two cakes and use the other half to spread on the top.

Dust with cocoa powder and add walnuts/pecans if you wish :D 

Enjoy!

Festive fun

Taking a breath this morning to take it all in. We've had a wonderful Christmas shared with our nearest and dearest. Admittedly eaten waaaaayyy too much and over indulged in a little too much alcohol but we've had a great time. I made Christmas dinner with the help of everyone and it was absolutely delicious, even attempted Nigella's glazed ham to go with our Turkey, I changed the black treacle to maple syrup and it was fantastic!!! 

We had 4 cats in the house, 3 of ours and my Mam and Stepdad brought their cat Gordon down too. Surprisingly they all got on fine. Everyone seemed to have a great time, lots of laughing and stories of Christmas's before.

Thankfully all my home-made gifts made it to their destinations in time for opening on Christmas day, they included: Cheese biscuits, gingerbread biscuits, chocolate shards, lemon curd, reindeer decorations, a wreath (which I totally forgot to take a photo of when finished - doh!!) and some other bits and bobs.

For the first time I treated myself to a bit of pampering and got some sparkly nails. 

We received some lovely gifts, I cant thank everyone enough. My crafty friends, you know who you are, thank you for your so thoughtful gifts xxx I am so very lucky!!!! 

All thats left to say is that I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with your family and friends.

Now its time to relax and enjoy the time off before going back to work in the new year. xxx

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Having more time to myself in the run up to Christmas has meant that I've been able to do some of the things I'd always wished I had time for. We normally have a real wreath for the front door but this year I wanted make a fake one that we could use year after year. I wanted to keep it simple with Holly and berries, a few tiny gold baubles, and a gold hessian bow.

I also made this one for indoors it is hanging in our dining room. I added some little copper wire lights and a wired ribbon bow. 

The tree is up and looking very traditional, I have an eclectic collection of baubles but I try to stick to a red and green colour theme. 

The only thing left is to decorate the table. I have no idea exactly what I'm going for this year but I have some bits and bobs and I've been searching for ideas on Pintrest. Just need to put it all together.

My favourite cake to date!

Home-made Cappuccino cake

I've been spending a lot of time since changing my eating habits looking for recipes so that I can enjoy some treats that I can cook from scratch so I know exactly what is in them. I've realised that no one should really eat processed food, we have no idea what's in it half the time. 

On my search I've been trying to fill my recipe book up with lots of different dishes, one of them being this delicious Cappuccino cake. Its one of the easiest cakes I've made and was pleasantly surprised at how it turned out. I love coffee......so a perfect choice for me :)

I also made this cake for a charity Bake sale at work and it went down a treat!!! 

Let me know if you would like me to post the recipe and I'll add a tab at the top. 

Definitely my most favourite cake to date!

Feeling festive

So this started off the feeling festive bug......

So then I listed all of these in my Etsy shop.....

Which then led to lots of little ginger cuties globe-trotting their little sugared socks off :D