Felicity's Bakewell Tart

This is one of my absolute favourites so I couldn't wait to get started!

I used the recipe from The Great British Book of Baking and it was brilliant. I decided not to make the pastry by hand (extra points to anyone who does!) and instead bought sweet shortcrust pastry.

Once I'd rolled the pastry and lined a flan tin, I covered with blackcurrant jam - home-made by mum Pointer, no less!

The filling was straightforward and I beat the butter, sugar, egg, flour, ground almonds and almond essence altogether by hand. I spread it evenly on to the pastry and popped in the oven.

Once cooked I left to cool, then topped with icing sugar and flaked almonds - and voila:

This is, without a doubt, the best thing I have ever made - it was absolutely delicious! Special thanks to my assistant Leanne for her baking/tasting help!

February: Bakewell Tart

For February's theme I've chosen the Bakewell Tart - what better way to celebrate our Derbyshire heritage?!

Historically these beauties come from the small Derbyshire town of Bakewell, right in the heart of the Peak District, dating back to the Tudor times (or possibly even earlier).

There are a few different versions:

• the traditional Bakewell pudding - made with a puff pastry base and a creamy custard topping
• the newer Bakewell tart  - made with sweet shortcrust pastry, raspberry jam and filled with an almond infused sponge-like filling (frangipane) 
• the cherry Bakewell -  individual tarts covered in a layer of fondant and topped with a glacé cherry.

I'll leave that decision up to you! 

Anna's January Cupcakes!

Every January, I vow to be more healthy. Less of the bad stuff and more of the good! So, when Emma set the challenge of a January cupcake challenge I decided that I was going to see if I could find a recipe for guilt free cake eating! Thankfully, my foresight (in a bid to become more healthy) of purchasing the Hairy Bikers, Hairy Dieters recipe book, completely paid off. However, I also could not resist having a browse through my Humming Bird book. I was completely torn between what I saw as the 'healthy' option and what I believed to be the 'tasty' option, so...I decided to bake a recipe from both!

My first recipe was Banana and Chocolate cupcakes from the Humming Bird Bakery. I followed the recipe exactly, which produced a light bananary cake with an extremely rich and chocolatey icing. These cakes were extremely rich, possibly a bit too much for me, however, they did have that 'Humming Bird taste.'

My second bake was skinny lemon cupcakes with drizzly icing, from the Hairy Dieters recipe book. These were delicious and I think I preferred them to my chocolate and banana ones. They have reduced the sugar content and used half fat natural yoghurt and blueberries to make up for it. The lemon flavoured icing gave the cake a zingy kick and added sweetness. I will definitely be making these again!

Sarah's Amaretto Cupcakes

So, for my January bake I made Amaretto and Orange Cupcakes. This is a bit of an invention I must admit, however I am quite impressed with them. I just made a basic cupcake mix, and then added the zest of a large orange, and about 50 ml of Amaretto.



I tried to lighten the calorie load by not using butter icing so I used Royal icing instead - with half an Amaretti biscuit crumbled on top - yum yum!

Felicity's Chocolate Peanut Heaven Cupcakes

I love nuts (!) so for January's cupcake theme I chose chocolate peanut heaven cakes from my new Cupcakes & Cookies book from Lakeland (thanks Santa!). It doesn't get much nuttier than this...

The cupcake recipe was a rich mixture of butter, eggs, sugar, flour, cocoa, ground almonds and melted dark chocolate. The resulting mixture was quite thick, but not particularly fluffy like the book suggested.

However they rose well and after 25 minutes in the oven they came out smelling delicious. I left them to cool on my makeshift cooling rack (the upside-down draining board!)

For the chocolate ganache topping I heated cream before adding milk chocolate to melt. After refrigerating for 30 minutes I added (almost a whole pot of) peanut butter.

I forwent the dreaded piping bag in favour of a spatula and covered the cakes in the ganache, topping with crushed peanut brittle. There was an excess of ganache so I heaped a small mountain on to each cake...

My baking buddy and special guest taster Leanne rated them a 7.5 - very rich, nutty and definitely best served chilled!