A brilliant breakfast treat!

If you've been keeping up with my blog you might have noticed that I have quite a sweet tooth! A lot of my posts so far have involved cakes and biscuits! Well I do in fact also make savoury items (see also my previous post on bread) and I thought I would share with you one of my favourites!

Bacon and Cornmeal Muffins - one word: yummy!

The Ingredients:

 Cornmeal, bacon, butter (melted), baking powder, salt, eggs, caster sugar, plain flour, and milk.

I suggest the first thing you do is cook the bacon. I have a rather trusty George Foreman, which gets used for these sorts of things! Obviously a frying pan or standard grill works just as well! Once it is cooked leave it to cool and start with the muffins.

In a bowl put the cornmeal, plain flour, caster sugar, salt, and baking powder, and mix everything together.

 Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients.

 In a seperate bowl (although I used a mug!) measure out the milk and add to it the melted butter and the eggs.

 Pour the liquid mixture into the dry ingredients and combine thouroughly.

 Chop up the now cooled bacon into small pieces and add to the muffin mixture.

 Spoon the mixture into prepared muffin tins and cook in the oven

I foolishly forgot to take a picture of the finished product! When cooked they are beautiful golden muffins that are an excellent breakfast treat! Serve warm and spread with butter for absolute perfection!

Kate 

xxx

Nothing beats fresh bread

I have the Women's institute to thank for my love of bread making. Up until last summer I had never made bread in my life - not kidding! It seemed such a daunting thing to do! But then in August I went to the WI cookery school at Denman College in Oxford, and realised that bread is not a thing to be scared of! Our lovely tutor Sue gave us an amazing recipe for cheese tear and share rolls, and ever since making them, I have been on the look out for bread recipes that are both easy and quick, but also taste gorgeous!

This post contains two different types of bread, both simple and exceptionally tasty!

The first is Pesto and Olive Soda bread. I love soda bread because it is such a cheat bread! No yeast or proving involved! A recommendation for anyone who wants fresh bread without it taking too much time. I love this recipe because it takes a standard soda loaf and gives it some extra pizzazz!

The Ingredients:

 White bread flour, Wholemeal bread flour, Bicarbonate of Soda, Salt, Buttermilk, Pesto, and Black olives.

Into a large bowl sieve the white flour, then the wholemeal flour (adding back any bran from the sieve), then add the bicarbonate of soda and the salt.

 Measure out the buttermilk and add the pesto to it.

 Pour the liquid into the dry ingredients.

 Chop the olives into fairly small pieces and add to the rest of the ingredients.

 Mix everything into a dough and knead into a round. Cut a fairly deep cross into the top of the loaf and place in the oven to bake for 30 to 35 minutes.

 And voila! 

The end result is a crusty, sumptuous loaf that you will not be able to resist! Plus it hardly took any time at all!

The second is a White Seeded Loaf. While it does require time it isn't difficult!

The Ingredients:

 White bread flour, yeast, salt, sugar, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, sunflower oil, and hot water. (Also milk and extra seeds for the top.)

Combine the flour, sugar, salt, yeast and seeds in a large bowl.

 Make a well in the centre and add the oil and water.

 Mix it to a soft dough - it might be quite sticky so have extra flour on hand. Knead the dough for around 10 minutes, until it is smooth. Place in an oiled bag (e.g. a ziploc) and leave in a warm place until it has doubled in size (around an hour).

 Once the dough has risen, knead it again to knock out the air, then shape into a round and place on a lined/greased baking sheet. Using a sharp knife cut three deep lines across the top of the dough.

 Then cover the dough (a tea towel is a good thing to use) and leave to rise again for about another hour, until it has doubled in size once more.

 Brush the top of the dough with milk and scatter the extra seeds over the top, then bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes, until golden. Once out of the oven allow to cool.

 And there is the second loaf. Beautiful, soft white bread with crunchy seeds. Perfect toasted too!

So there you have two lovely loaves! Bread is nothing to be scared of so why not try making some even if it isn't something you would normally do!

Loving everyone's support so far, thank you very much! Hope you all keep reading and enjoying!

Kate 

xxx

P.S. I promise I will get recipes up on the recipe page very soon! 

Summer's Here!

Well, maybe not in weather form, depending on where you are in the world, but it is in cake form! Even if it is absolutely chucking it down outside the cake in this post will cheer up any dull day! So, if you are curled up on the sofa inside, this cake will make everything seem better!

The cake in question is an orange cake - a soft, subtle sponge, sandwiched together with buttercream, and finished off with icing and orange zest. Upon finding this recipe in one of my many cookbooks I was instantly struck with the urge to make it! It is truly beautiful and (oddly enough for cake) extremely refreshing.

So if the rain is getting you down, create your own sunshine and make this beautiful orange cake!

The Ingredients:

 Butter, golden caster sugar, plain flour, eggs, and oranges. (Plus some icing sugar for later on.)

Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Then add the zest of one orange and mix together.

 Next add the eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition. 

 Finally, carefully fold in the flour - don't over-mix!

 Spoon the mixture into prepared round cake tins (once again I am showing my love for all things silicone!) and make them as even as possible - no one wants a lopsided cake!

 Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes, until nice and golden, and then leave to cool slightly before removing from the tins and allowing them to cool completely.

 When the cakes are cold, make up the buttercream. Whisk together butter and icing sugar, and then add orange zest (half an orange) and 15ml of orange juice - you want the buttercream to remain fairly thick.

 Spread the butter cream over the lower half of the cake...

 ...and sandwich the two halves together.

 Then make up the icing for the top of the cake by mixing orange juice with icing sugar.

 The icing should be thick but still runny so it can be poured over the cake and able to run off down the sides.

 Once the icing is on, finish the cake off with some freshly grated orange zest and there you have it!

Doesn't it just make you want to smile and think thoughts of sunny days! 

As a bit of a tip, I keep this cake in the fridge. It makes it into more of a gateau and becomes a perfect pudding because it is so refreshing!

Hope you keep reading!

Kate
xxx

Roses are Red...well in this case they are pink!

It has been a little while since my last post - things have been rather hectic in the Appleby household over the last few weeks! My mother also owns her own business and has been moving premises after ten years in the same place and her new premises have taken quite a lot of work to get into a decent shape and there is still work to do! As a result I have been busy with a paintbrush and a screwdriver! Thank god I'm not trying to sort my premises out at the same time! Anyway, here is the first post of the new month and hopefully I will have more time to go back to regular posts!

I am a complete and utter girly girl! My favourite colour is pink, I love soppy romantic books and films,  I think life should resemble a Disney movie, and shoes are my downfall! I am a walking, talking cliche basically! If I can find a reason for something to be girly-fied then it has to be done!

From cases for my electrical gadgets to my nail varnish you'll find it is pink, glittery, flowery, or all three! Therefore, if I can make my baking pink, it will happen! When I stumbled upon these beauties, I couldn't resist making them straight away! Therefore, I give you Rose Biscuits. They take time and patience but are so worth it because the end result is a beautiful crumbly biscuit with delicately sweet icing.

The Ingredients:

 Butter, golden caster sugar (although I actually had to use normal caster sugar as I ran out!), rose water, plain flour, an egg, baking powder, and a pinch of salt.

Cream together the butter and caster sugar.

 Add to this mixture the egg and the rose water and combine thoroughly.

 Gently mix in the flour, baking powder, and pinch of salt and form a dough. If it appears to be too sticky to roll out add a small amount of extra flour.

 Wrap in clingfilm and place in the fridge to chill for one hour.

 When the dough is ready to be used, get out your boards, rolling pins, and a round cutter of about 5.5cm.

 Make sure the surface is well floured as this is quite a soft dough to begin with, and roll the dough out to the thickness of 5mm.

 Cut out as many disks as you can from the dough, constantly gathering and re-rolling the dough.

 Place in the oven and bake for 10-12 minutes, until they are crisp and golden.

 When they are cooled mix up the icing using icing sugar, hot water, rose water, and pink food colouring.

 Sandwich the disks together with the icing and then use it to decorate the top. Finish each biscuit with a piece of crystalised rose (or another decoration if you prefer).

And there you go - beautiful and delicate biscuits that go perfectly with a cup of tea.

Hope you enjoyed this post!

Kate

xxx