Saturday 17 September 2011

Back to my childhood....

It is my birthday today and my mum and my little brother have visited me here  in London. So my mum baked me an apple cake (not a pie) as my birthday cake (well I requested that from her). It is very basic cake and even my brother could have baked it, but it brings back good childhood memories... Well, around twenty years ago, when I think I was 9years old my mum baked it for my personal birthday party where the only guests were me and her (I had a bigger birthday party on the weekend but my actual birthday was on weekday). So I remember I really liked it as it was quite nice to have another birthday "party"!...

Other then the cake, me and my family visited the Legoland in Windsor (I used my little brother, who is aged 9 years as an excuse to visit there...). I think what I liked most is the mini London made out of Lego (never mind the long queues and the fact that we only were able to make to seven rides through all day because of that). Here are the pics...




And back to my birthday cake, here is the recipe...

MY MUM'S APPLE CAKE

Ingredients:  5 apples (medium size)
                         7 eggs
                         8 tbsp sugar
                         8 tbsp flour (with the heap)
                         Pinch of cinnamon (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 180C and grease the baking tin with butter
2. Cube the apples (remove seeds, but no need to peal the apple peal) and put them into the bottom of the tin
3.  To make the cake mixture whisk eggs with the sugar until pale, then add flour and cinnamon (if wanted).
4. Pour the mixture over the cubed apples and put into oven. Bake the cake for around an hour until golden brown.

Tuesday 13 September 2011

Inspired by Sims game... (if you not in it please skip this)

I promised to someone (anonymous) to write a feedback about my previous bake sale, but I took quite a long time as you can see :(. You see.... I got addicted to Sims (literally) and I know that is very sad story, but this was the reason why I took sooo long to write this post (I will write more about this in the minute). Anyway, the bake sale... it was great experience, even though it wasn't as busy as the previous one  (I blame the rain for that!). But it was still fun as Bekka (my thoughtful helper) managed to keep me entertained at all times!... And, as embarrassed as I am (can't be more embarrassed after my Sims confession) I did try to dance ballet...

And here are few pics from the actual bake sale as well as new mini bakes, the mini cheesecakes...
 
Now back to Sims(if you have never played it this might sound like gibberish to you, so I recommend you skip it to the last paragraph)... Initially I got addicted to actual Sims computer game (later I got addicted to the Facebook Sims Social as well) and then only lived "their" life (or shall I say I was creating my own), even at night until 6am in the morning sometimes! I think what got me addicted is that I could achieve everything so easily... So, I have joined culinary career at Little Corsican Bistro where I started as The Kitchen Scullion (apparently the one who gets all the rubbish jobs from Chef) and meanwhile  I was learning recipes (some interesting ones like Goopy Carbonara, Eggs Machiavellian  and Baked Angel Food Cake that I would like to try to make in real life) from books at home so I could get up the level in cooking.  Eventually I became Five-Star Chef earning 350 Simeons per hour and recipe Librarian (???), builded a big house (not so pretty but really practical!), Had five children (long story, but in my defence one was adopted), and became "Filthy Rich" (at least that's the phrase they use to describe rich people :D). I even bought that Little Corsican Bistro and renamed it to The Friendly Nettle Cafe! So after all this no wonder I got inspired (or shall I say I got carried away) to take similar actions in real life... Last Sunday I popped in to one of my favourite cafes by Cambridge Heath  station to  "join culinary career".... Turns out they did not have any vacancies, I suppose it is not that easy to get any job in this life :(

To end on the happy note here is the recipe for the best seller so far, the Banoffee cupcakes. After all, this is supposed to be the feedback for my bake sale;)




BANOFFEE CUPCAKES

Ingredients:     300g flour
                        1tbsp baking power
                        1 egg
                        200ml milk
                        150g soft brown sugar
                        85g melted butter
                        2 bananas
                        150ml double cream (preferably elmlea)
                        Milk based toffee ( to make it boil a can of condensed milk for three hours) or 4 tablespoons of dulce de leche

1. Preheat the oven to 200C and line 12-hole muffin pan with cupcake cases.
2. Sift flour and baking powder into the mixing bawl
3. In separate bowl beat the egg with milk, than add the sugar, melted butter and chopped banana. Mix it all up and tip it into the flour. After mixing it one more time divide the mixture into the cup cases.
4. Bake for about 25min until cupcakes are risen and golden (I am usually tempted to eat them at this stage... but don't, you will enjoy it even more with the topping!)
5. So, whip the Elmlea cream. I recommend Elmlea, because it goes velvety (not grainy) and never turns yellow! I know this might sound like I am promoting this brand but it is really good. I give the credit for this discovery to my dear friend Jacqueline who suggested this as I was not happy with double cream I was always using.
6. Pipe (or spoon) the double cream on the top of the cupcakes and follow it by toffee swirl. Enjoy ;)