Obsession

So I've indulged in a little comfort baking lately. Which is to be understood given my current situation. I'm not saying it's the best idea in the world, being that it means I now seek comfort in baking rather than, I don't know, socialising, meeting people and friends. These days my social circle is limited to a few stress-heads that I know and love, and somehow I've left the rest of my world just to fall away because it's too hard to concentrate. Either way, enjoy some of my little delectations. The above is a Lemon cupcake with lemon butter icing. The recipe for the cake is as follows, but it gives you slightly too little for the cupcake size and alarmingly grease soaks into the cupcake papers like crazy. The buttercream icing I suggest you find your own as, whilst I had a recipe, I possibly ended up putting twice as much icing sugar in as required, and felt it could have used a lot more lemon juice to give that punch. The swirls I was quite happy with, a bit...

Here we go. Early as usual, but these few weeks are manic and since I had to be home to sort out my expenses and the state of my room, why not bake at the same time? Here in lies Martha Stewart's rendition of Strawberries and Cream in cookie form. The recipe is remarkably easy, just make a crumble and add cream to it and then the fruit. In essence it's not bad, but makes it feel more fattening because you're tipping in a load of cream to boot. The recipe is here , but I made a few changes. One, I added a tablespoon of lemon juice because I didn't read it before I chucked it in (and I cba to drain it off either). Two, there's no sanding sugar because I don't own any. Three, I added a slug of vanilla to the mix because I could. All in all, a very nice cookie, especially fresh from the oven. But after that I think it lacks a certain punch, even with the lemon juice. Maybe I should have considered adding black pepper or balsamic? Those tend to add some tang to the m...

So I forked out some hard-earned cash this Friday (well, less forked out, more electronic transferred and therefore it didn't feel like I paid anything at all... dangerous that!) to go to a buttercream class. The lady in question is of Faircakes. She's been in business for about a year and has quite a following on facebook and twitter (which I don't use). Anyhow, in an effort to get some me time, and just blowing stuff on something "for me" I went along. It was a small class (just two students including me) and it was pretty damn interesting. Firstly, she's from the same university as me, and evidently experienced the hideous office politics barricade and left the rat race for the baking tray. Interestingly enough she's not a lover of cake. It is to her, a business, which makes a lot of sense to an LSE girl like me as well. Whilst I love, love cake, I'd be reluctant to lose my tastebuds in an "Eat, Drink, Man, Woman" sense. If you didn't ...

I made these insanely early, but here is my schedule: 4th May the Cookie Carnival email came out from Kate, this weekend I made them, next weekend I'm in Scotland, that gives me two weekends left. Yeah, looking at that, now I have no idea why I thought I HAD to make them this weekend (10th) :S I'll figure out what I HAVE to do in May soon. Probably some hen-do or wedding for someone I've forgotten. Ouch. I've always struggled with macaroons. I've made them... twice. Once using the Roux brother's book, once from the wonderful Tartlette blog (see right). Both failed miserably. The first one was edible. It probably wasn't a good idea to try and use teaspoons which they SAID was okay, the second time I tried to risk it with greaseproof and naturally everything stuck everywhere. They also make scarily little so by the time you've peeled them off the tray, you've eaten most of them. This recipe made a shed-load. There's pictures of the macaroons on eve...

What with my new cupcake books arriving from Amazon, one look at the Raspberry Cream Cheese buns on someone elses's site (made with blackcurrant there) and I had to make them. Knowing full well my family wouldn't touch them. Four of these babies were therefore made with big dollops of lemon curd instead, which made delightfully caramelly messes of the tin, but also on the buns, not that I get to touch those - I have eight buns to eat! The original recipe is from Buttercup Bakery book (New York) and one of these days I'll try the dried cherry one from Magnolias (since I own the book...) What you need to know about these is that the recipe is easy - as easy as muffins are, but they sink like heck given the amount of preserves you're putting in them. What they give back though, is something so moist and rich you just want to sink yourself into them. And since I've eaten two of them, I'm doing quite well! As you can see, massive craters. If you don't want that...

I accept that no one should really put more than one, MAYBE two pictures up on any baked good. It's like looking at pictures of people's kids. Odds are, one is enough, unless of course your child is super-adorable and super fantabulous. Which of course they are! But hey I was playing with icing and I actually made the effort to crumble gingernut biscuits over the top as decoration (I know, I know, the effort...) so appreciate the fact that I am insane. Carrot cake cupcakes are a stalwart of cupcake books. They go with the peanutbutter and chocolate ones I have yet to make. But anyway, I love really good carrot cake and after the super finance woman who made amazing cupcakes blew me away with the her carrot cake one (recipe was not forthcoming - grrrrrr) I decided I needed to try my own. These ones were from Elinor Klivans Cupcakes! book. They were pretty decent. I love golden raisins/sultanas in carrot cake so it worked well. The frosting had butter and cream cheese in and I h...

Oh happy day!! Oh happy Dayyyy... last weekend I made snickerdoodles. As you do. It came from the Ultimate cookie book and I downsized on the sugar for the parentals and they liked it. Snickerdoodles (such a cool name) to me should be softer and more cookie bendy like the chocolate chip things you get in shops. However, that might be because M&S once upon a time had bendy snickerdoodles in their shops. Those might have been more peanutty and chocolatey though. Not sure if it's my memory or whether they thought that was a cool name to call american cookies. Anyhow, as usual, I digress. Snickerdoodles are apparently originally German and the name got mutilated by the good ol' US of A. But it is such a cool name! These babies, probably because instead of making 36, I made 15 -20 golfball sized blobs on a few baking pans, turned out a bit humped and less cracked, which doesn't look like the wikipedia picture but I'm not that bummed. As a result they kept really well...