Edible christmas gifts

Wow in only 6 months time or less I'll be making these again! :p I collected empty glass jars and after scrubbing off the labels we put them in the dishwasher to sterilise them. After filling with chutney I put some of my Christmas napkins over the lids and tied with bakers string. They looked great - I had different shapes and sizes and better then spending £3 on a new fancy glass jar with the gingham lid.

Spicey tomato and apple chutney

By Rachel Allan (http://uktv.co.uk/food/recipe/aid/573902) and I made this last year but the consistency wasn't as good so I simmered it for an extra hour and the result was perfect. And very popular.

Spiced courgette chutney

 Recommended by Richard Freeman (http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/6342/spiced-courgette-chutney) and it was really interesting actually! supposedly a summer chutney but worked well with gammon at Christmas.

Homemade fudge
 

Two variations by Sophie Dahl and Hairy bikers. Sophie Dahl's was easy but melted when out of fridge and the Bikers one has a slight gritty texture that people seemed to enjoy? I'm not sure - must try and find the perfect recipe.
















Peanut butter cookies

I've blogged about this before - delish and as it was Christmas I used white chocolate. (http://tanyadoescooking.blogspot.com/2010/09/best-peanut-butter-cookies-ever.html)

Sweet things

Looking through my unpublished food snaps, I realised that 1) I bake A LOT 2) No wonder why I put on weight in the last year and 3) this has been a good couple of months in the McCarthy household with all these cakes. So have decided to put them all in one post.

Date Oat Bars

James's favourite thing I've ever baked apparently - an accolade indeed! the dates tasted like caramel once cooked in water - lovely. A Rachel Allen recipe.

Apple almond cinnamon muffins

A lovely Saturday morning breakfast - must make again. From Nigella's 'Kitchen' book.

Raspberry bakewell

I've made this twice in a few months! Everyone who's tried it loved it. With a pastry bottom, jam and fresh fruit middle then an almond cake sponge on the top this was lovely, fruity and almost a sweet tartness to it (an oxy moron I hear you cry?) no it''s possible, this was lovely, I must try a plum version in autumn with plum jam - that would be amazing! Or maybe a rhubarb and ginger version....

Chocolate beetroot cakes

When I was on my pre-wedding diet I still wanted the occasional treat at the weekend and knowing these weren't unhealthy made me feel better about my diet sin :p Dark chocolate, beetroot and honey instead of sugar - they were great and gluten free so my mother in law could eat them.

Coffee walnut cake

A layered coffee walnut cake! I made this to go with a new 1979 tea set I bought from a charity shop (that I hid from James for a year in my wardrobe - a long story). Why did this cake go out of fashion? It's lovely and I'm not a massive coffee fan but the sweet coffee taste/scent is so lovely. MUST make again or try cupcake versions.

Disco Dolly Cupcakes

Tanya's thoughts:

This idea came to me just before Mother's day, unforuntaely it was also the day of the garden cake epophony which trumped this one obviously. My mum's name is Dolly and she loves pink - add a bit of edible glitter and disco dolly cakes were born. I piped the icing on but now I have a bigger nozzle (!) next time I expect better peaks! :p They had plain sponge and a cream cheese topping - lovely.

Becky's baby shower cake

Pink or blue...

If you google 'baby shower cakes' and look through the images you'll see some pretty foul ones of mother's pushing out their babies. Luckily for Becky I'm not that skillful so had to go down a more simplistic route... :p

Becky and Steve are keeping the baby's sex a surprise which inspired my 'Pink or blue' theme. So I cooked two sandwich tins of cake batter (4 eggs used but omitted 2 of the egg yolks so the batter wasn't too much of a yellow batter) coloured pink and blue (not much food colouring needed-i used an 'angel cake' recipe as a guide). Then tricky part - I cut each cake in half (very tricky!! any advice on how to cut this straight and evenly would be appreciated!) I then sandwiched them together with a butter-cream cheese icing (Asked Becky is she minded, she did not - she's not being too strict about what she can eat!) Then covered the cake in the same icing but I coloured this blue too. I then rolled out ready made icing and cut out the stork with baby and clouds with a message.

Easy!? We all enjoyed it and ensured Becky ate the part of cake which had the baby's head. Is that weird/wrong?? :p

Garden Cake for Mother's Day

Tanya's thoughts:















I had an epiphany with this cake. It turns out after research that designing a cake that looks like a garden is not a unique idea however I've yet to see one that has a dark chocolate - earth like sponge! My mum was delighted.

Cake:










 I made Nigella's chocolate guinness cake - as have made this before and remembered what a dark dense colour and texture it was - it worked brilliantly for this cake.





Icing:

 I then used some coloured paste in a cream cheese-butter icing (from Lorraine Pascal's 'baking made easy' book to ice the cake (twice - chilling the cake in the fridge after first coat).








White fence:



The white chocolate fingers was a a brilliant idea - I was looking for trifle sponges to do the trick then I saw these.







Other decorations:


  I used some liquid food dye with dessicated coconut and put that in the oven for a while to dry out - these looked like grass/seedlings.

 The edible flowers were from the cakes, cookies and crafts website and although they took exactly 7 days to deliver (which Im a bit annoyed about as only took a few days last time so must factor in their longer time-scales next time I order)but they looked great.
















The only downside was I probably put too much green food paste into the icing so some people's teeth went green! :p Only until they had a drink so only last a couple of minutes but it caused lots of laughs.

Gingerbread cupcakes

 













Tanya's thoughts:

So I had this brilliant idea to make gingerbread muffins but in cake cases (as i find a whole muffin too filling sometimes) and then added a lovely cream cheese icing on top (and this is the really exciting bit) then added some gingerbread men sprinkles!! they tasted of cinnamon to be honest but looked great. If any of my family are reading this - I may make these again for Heather's buffet.

Jack's birthday beer cakes

 















Tanya's thoughts:

Ok, so I used a Mrs Beeton recipe for cider cake and substituted the cider for ale. Then made a butter icing with more ale - the icing was lovely and frothy like a beer! A decorated the cakes with pints of lager sweets.

(I was going to ask Jack for his 'thoughts' but then realise why bother when a picture says a thousand words - insert funny photo of jack eating cake)