AlcoCake Pops - These are my new favourite things

This story starts a few months ago, so please forgive me if I ramble a bit. I had been on a trip to Northern Ireland. As so often during my masters in Belfast, I decided to stock up on the amazing baking products that UK stores have so readily available and southern irish stores are lacking. Among the many things that I bought were some bags of different flavoured candy covering. I left the bags in the cupboard until about 2 months ago. During a time when I was off chocolate and sweets but craving sweetness I opened the orange flavoured candy covering and was immediately hit by inspiration - cointreau cake pops with orange candy covering!

I stewed the idea for a while and looked for a good opportunity to try it out. My brother's 21st birthday was coming up and I thought this was a good opportunity to try them on others. I spoke with my brother and he said the concept was grand but he appeared unenthused. This didn't discourage me as I was full to the brim with enthusiasm and confidence about my idea.

I planned every detail from another trip up north to get ingredients and equipment (cake-pop sticks are not easy to find here) down to the precise proportion of alcohol to cake. The whole process and the recipe (also adapting a lactose free version for myself) took up all the imagining time I had in the gym for a while.

Finally last week the birthday arrived and I spent days making the alco-cake pops and decorating them and then the moment of truth arrived and I presented the pops to my brother and the party-goers. And the result? My brother said they looked amazing and tasted really really good. He seemed to be properly impressed and happy with the outcome and his friends all ate them up. In fact everyone who tried them had the same the reaction so it's safe to say that these were a success...... now to concoct other flavours ;)

Three different covering types

Chocolate Orange Alco-cake Pops

800g Good Dark Chocolate Cake
250ml Double Cream (Alpro Fresh Soy Cream if you're tending away from lactose)
3/4 Tbsp Cointreau
1 tsp lemon extract
34 cake pop sticks
300g orange candy covering or chocolate

Crush up your cake until it's in large crumbs. Add the cointreau into the cream and mix it gently then let it sit for a few minutes. You can whip the cream until it forms peaks (if using ordinary cream). Fold the cake into the cream until you cannot see any white in the mixture. Form the mixture into 34 balls and let them sit in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Melt a small amount of your candy covering or chocolate and dip the tops of your cake pop sticks before sticking them upside down into the balls. Let these rest in the fridge again for another 30 minutes.

Then melt the rest of your candy covering, stand your alcocake pops upright in some styrofoam (or a box with holes poked in it) and decorate. I dipped some and did a squiggle design on others. My brother actually preferred the squiggle and I think they look more adult somehow. Here they are anyway so you decide.

 

Wanna bite??

(More pictures coming soon)

Don't trust the B in apartment 23 Review (some mild language)

This show is also titled 'Apartment 23' in some places. I discovered this show in the most unlikely of places. I was scanning channels the day that I posted about having a lazy day and saw James Van Der Beek on the E! network, unlikely as I rarely learn anything from there. He was talking about some new show where he plays himself, except himself as a bastard. I changed after that, as I said I was flicking, but the idea had peaked my interest. I googled the show and watched the promo and that was it....... I'm hooked.

The basic premise of the show follows a small town twenty something year old girl (June) who is moving to a new city to start her dream job and her dream life when her world comes crashing down around her and during this time she moves in with the B**** in apartment 23(Chloe).
The B is played by Krysten Ritter, previous roles in 'Breaking Bad,'  'Killing Bono,' 'Gilmore Girls,' and 'Veronica Mars,' to name but a few. I have to say although many of her characters share similarities (arty, rich, acting ditzy but being intelligent), I have always liked what I have seen from her work. June is played by Dreama Walker, who if I'm honest I've never seen before but you plays the role of the innocent coming-of-ager very well, in my opinion. James Van Der Beek, as previously mentioned, plays himself as a male B and Chloe's best friend. This leads to hilarious scenes playing on his fame. For example in episode one while talking to Chloe on the phone we hear the title track from Dawson's creak starting in the background. Chloe immediately responds by asking if he has a girl over and if that girl is asking him to wear a flannel shirt while we see a scantily clad lady standing on the stairs holding a typical Dawson style shirt.


Throughout the episodes we see the interesting dynamics in the relationships between June, the eternal optimist, Chloe, the morally corrupt party girl and James, the actor who is struggling to break free from his previous roles while also bleeding it for every bit of attention and meaningless sex that it can provide him. We see snippets of the hearts beneath our bad characters being played against the heart on her sleeve approach to life taken by June and this creates for amusing comedy.

To be fair, this is not some cerebral thriller/drama that will keep you glued to the set and it definitely fits the type of show that could be missed for a week and still enjoyed without catching up. That said however, I really enjoyed the episodes and the comedy so far, it's witty, it's topical and it's random as all hell! All in all I really enjoyed this show and I would recommend it.

Going back to my lazy post, I mentioned that I had a crazy week coming up. That week has past more or less successfully. It involved a whole ton of baking and working and the result of this will be posted on Wednesday this week, please check it out as it is a recipe that I have worked on for almost 2 months.

(All photos property of the ABC network and used to review the show only.)

It's been a lazy week, and in truly lazy style I'm now posting two days late. There are days sometimes when you can't manage to do anything, where laziness prevails and chores get put on the long finger. I have had a week like that. It is true that these days, or weeks, often coincide with times when there is a big job coming up, particularly one that is intimidating. It can feel like this is a bad thing, it can feel like everyone else is out achieving things and you're not.... but actually I think lazy days exist solely to create some equilibrium in life. It's your subconscious saying rest now, work better later. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it's ok to sit around in pyjamas every single day and watch television. However when it does happen on a rare day off, why isn't that ok?
This is gonna sound all lifetime, daytime tv special but I think lazy should be appreciated for what it is when it can happen, because the rest of the time we are all running around like there is no tomorrow, doing a million things at once and getting insufficient appreciation for those efforts. This is my appreciation of my hard work!

And what's a lazy afternoon without a snack? Preferably one that you would (perhaps should) feel bad about but in the spirit of the day is the perfect treat, whoopie pies!
I'll be honest this was my first real attempt at whoopie pies and there may have been a few unexpected aspects that, how do I say this, detracted from the perfection that I had aimed for. Either way they taste delicious and although the aesthetics need work, they really work for the day that's in it. So in light of the trial and error process these are called whoopsie pies! Also they match my bootie slippers, so that's a bonus =)

Whoopsie Pies!

Red Velvet Whoopsie Pies with cream-cheese frosting

300g Flour
25g Good Cocao Powder
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda (I accidentally used only one)
175g white sugar
125g room temperature butter
1 egg white and 2 egg yolks
250ml Buttermilk (or ordinary milk with 2tsp lemon juice)
1 tsp distilled vinegar
1 tsp Vanilla essence
16ml Red food colouring


Cream-cheese frosting

200g Cream Cheese
200g Mascarpone Cheese
250g Icing Sugar
1.5 tsp Vanilla essence (NOT FLAVOUR)

Preheat oven to 190C then beat together your butter and sugar. Add the vanilla and beat until light. Add the eggs and mix only until incorporated. Add the red food colouring and vinegar to the buttermilk  and then whisk together the dry ingredients. Add in batches of thirds, alternating between the milk mix and the dry ingredients. Again beat only enough to incorporate everything.

Line a baking sheet and drop tablespoon sized amounts onto it spaced well apart (mistake I made). Bake for 10-15minutes, remove and cool.

Beat together your cream and mascarpone cheese, add the vanilla and then slowly whisk in the icing sugar. Whisk until completely smooth. The icing should be quite thick.

Pipe the icing onto the bottom of one little cake and then sandwich with another one. All you have left to do is relax and bite into the deliciousness.

Mini Carrot Cakes - a way to someone's heart?

It was my boyfriends mother's birthday recently. It has become something of tradition now for me to make cake for his parents on their birthdays and other random occasions. Carrot cake is a particular favourite of his mum's so last year I made her a log cake of it. This year to change it up I think cupcakes are in order. The Barefoot Contessa said that carrot cake is merely a transportation device for icing. I believe she had a point there. What is carrot cake without the icing?! Cupcakes are the perfect method to get the most icing with the cake and needless to say they went down a treat (the ones that the bf didn't eat first anyway!)

Carrot Cupcakes

200 g Grated carrots
100g chopped roasted walnuts (optional)
150g Cake Flour
50g Wholemeal Flour
1 tsp Mixed Spice
1 tsp Cinnamon
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp baking powder
75g Stevia or caster sugar
75g brown caster sugar
75g Melted Butter
2 egg yolks and 1 whole egg
50ml whole milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
zest of one orange 

Icing
100g Cream Cheese
400g Icing Sugar
Whole Roasted Walnuts for decoration

Preheat oven to  190C/Gas mark 5 and prepare your cupcake tin, either butter and flour or use paper liners. Sieve together the flours, baking powder, salt and spices. Add the grated carrot and walnuts and mix until everything is fully incorporated. Add the sugar. Beat together the butter, milk, eggs and vanilla. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix only until everything is combined. Scoop into the cupcake tin and bake for 20mins or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Beat your cream cheese until it looks fluffy and then add the icing sugar until it looks firm. This is a delicate process and the mixture must be well beaten so that it is not grainy.

Let your cupcakes cool fully and then ice them whatever way you like. Top with a toasted walnut half and present!

Key Lime Cheesecake - A mother's day present and her review

Mother's day gift's are a difficult decision for anyone. My mum has lots of interests to choose from but the question is always whether to go with a significant present that is specific to her or something more cliche like chocolates or flowers. It seems like an obvious choice - go for something thoughtful for her but then there is something nice about flowers at the start of spring and cliche are cliches for a reason right?! This year we decided to go for a combo flowers and something she might specifically enjoy. I couldn't actually go to my parents house for dinner that day but as a part of the present I decided to provide desert. I love the concept of Key-Lime pie but in fact I have never ever eaten it so I can't be 100% sure that this tastes similar enough but I am hoping. I really focused on the citrus zing and contrasting that with sweetness. I tried to make the most of the zest oils in this recipe. My mum was delighted with the present and the cheesecake and when she rang me yesterday her review was 'It's delicious, maybe a little too delicious, it tastes very naughty!'

Key - Lime Cheesecake

Base
250g Reduced fat Digestive Biscuit crumbs
75g   Melted Butter
Zest of one lemon

Cheese Layer
600g Cream Cheese
3 egg whites & 2 egg yolks beaten together
90 g Stevia/ Sugar
Zest and Juice of 2 limes
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tsp Green Food colouring (optional)

Preheat your oven to 190/375/Gas mark 5. Mix the biscuit crumbs and lemon zest for 2-3 minutes. (the idea is to distribute the zest and the oils as much as possible through the base). Add the melted butter and mix thoroughly. Line the base of a spring-form cake tin and press the biscuit mixture down firmly. Let it rest in the fridge while you mix the cheese layer.

In a stand mixer or using a beater whip up the cream cheese. Add the zest, juice and colouring then beat thoroughly. Add the eggs and sugar and continue to beat until the mixture is smooth. Pour the mixture on top of the base and place the cake tin inside a larger baking tin and bake for 50 minutes or until the outside is firm with only a little movement in the center. Remove from the over and leave in the larger cake tin until cool. Once cool place in a fridge until fully cold. Place some lime slices on the top for decoration and serve.

I also made individual heart-shaped cheese cakes for some other people's mothers.

The fluffy yet creamy cheesecake that is almost 'too delicious'

Misfits Review after a personal encounter with Nathan

If you know me at all, you know that last night I met Robert Sheehan in the shops. How do you know this? Well possible because I texted or rang everyone I could think of that likes misfits, then updated my facebook status and would have tweeted if I could remember my password in work. Inspired by this my Wednesday post is a review of the show Misfits.

Misfits is a British science fiction drama comedy produced by E4. It follows the antics of 5 juvenile ex-cons doing community service together when they get hit by lightning. This lightning occurs during an unusual storm and the lightning gives the whole group and their probation officer super-powers that are very specific to their personality types (e.g. Nathan Stewart-Jarrett plays an ex-running star who lost out on his dreams when he is caught using drugs but after the storm he has the power to turn back time). The fun begins straight away as it appears that the probation worker was turned into some evil monster and thus starts a running joke of killing probation officers, which to someone in my industry is not funny, but in this context it is so outrageous that it is.

The main characters are Simon (Iwan Rheon), Kelly (Lauren Socha), Alisha (Antonia Thomas), Curtis (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) and Nathan (Robert Sheehan). These five are joined in seasons 2 and 3 by  Nikki (Ruth Negga), Seth (Mathew McNulty) and Rudy (Joseph Gilgun). Well one of the five is replaced and unfortunately it is not an improvement.....at all. The acting is very strong and considering some of the other shows produced by E4 (not naming names but I may have reviewed a certain season of a certain show very negatively before). No spoilers but there is one point in season 2 where the same actor plays two different versions of himself and I was blown away. I genuinely thought that one version had a better body than the other, entirely based on his depiction of confidence levels.

Overall Misfits is one of the most interest exploration of the phrase 'With great power comes great responsibility.' Here we are presented with complex characters with a variety of histories and problems who are now faced with powers greater than they could have previously dreamed of. The classic image of a superhero frequently entails someone who has faced hard-times but who perseveres with a unyielding set of morals that guides their treatment of this power, an underlying passion to conquer evil and fight for the greater good. Now we are presented with a set of characters who are inherently capable of bad choices and have all done things that have landed them in trouble.

I'm not saying that all superhero stories are completely two dimensional or that this show presents only multidimensional villains that challenge our notions of right and wrong. The lines are drawn throughout the show and the basic decider of who's good and who's evil appears to be based on the underlying reasons for people's decisions. This creates an interesting universe where the lines of good and evil aren't always straight and our heroes aren't always understood for what they are but eventually good can prevail and it frequently does.

Needless to say I would recommend this show to anyone and I am counting the days til season 4.
Although I don't like the idea of more new cast members but that's life ;)

Sick days and Baking Mad with Eric Lanlard Review

Today I'm posting later than planned. I had intended to give a delicious batch of health banana walnut muffins but they will have to wait as I have been out sick from life, so instead of making muffins yesterday I just slept. Today I spent the day on the couch catching up on tv shows on 4od. In particular I watched every episode (so far) of Baking Mad with Eric Lanlard. The only difficult question was whether or not to review it.
It would seem like an obvious choice to review a show about baking on a blog about baking, but what if you offended someone. Obviously the likelihood of anyone involved with the show seeing this is slim to non but it's important to remember that what you post online stays there indefinitely. Having said that I measured my thoughts and decided that I felt my comments were fair and not intended to insult but merely challenge.
The series follows the life of professional pastry chef Eric Lanlard as he bakes, makes displays of pastries for a variety of clients and works with amatuer bakers to teach themhow to improve their baking.
Firstly it goes without saying that Eric Lanlard is an unbelievably talented patissier. He also appears to a genuinely lovely guy. His approach to teaching and judging other people's work appears to be serious but at a reachable level for everyday bakers. I have to say that even though he was baking complicated recipes I felt that just watching it I could apply his techniques at home and I definitely learned a few little tricks that I will apply in other recipes. I thoroughly enjoy the typically french way that he brings elegance to all his recipes and adds flare to even the simplest cupcake or tart. There is no question that his recipes are decadent but he makes delicious looking healthy muffins as well.

However as a television show I feel that Baking Mad lacks focus. One might say that the hint is there in the title but I feel that the editors over in chanel 4 have a lot to answer for. These are experienced television producers we are talking about but the programme feels like something designed for the ADHD generation. There is far too much going on, in one show alone he will make two different recipes at different times then be talking about making cakes for an art exhibition and we're meeting three budding bakers from Kent and learning their life-stories and then we're back to the art show-house and then we're watching the budding bakers getting shown how to make pastry and all in all it just lacks focus.  In the second series they changed the format even further and have Eric judging some kind of one episode great british bake off kinda thing. It's just too muddled.
I have said before that I am a big fan of the food network and as such I could easily see Eric Lanlard host several different shows; one where we follow the projects and day to day dealings in his bakeries, one traditional baking show and another where he judges contestants and teaches them in a masterclass set up. This has been done with many a chef on the food network and has worked well in my humble opinion. Baking Mad, however, is trying to mash all these shows together and the result is like eating in an overly modern sophisticated restaurant when you are hungry; you're getting a teaspoon of each section when you could easily have a plateful and it leaves you feeling thoroughly unsatisfied.
Having said this I did watch every episode and I enjoyed them for the baking, not the format. So I would recommend that anyone have a look at this show (it's free on 4od) and if by any chance the producers happen to come upon this little blog please re-think the way the show is put together. On a happier not look what Eric Lanlard's inspiration did for my Ooey Gooey Stick Chewy.

Ooey Gooey Sticky Chewy (or Rocky Road Bars to everyone else)