ANNIVERSARY CHOCOLATE CAKE

I made this cake for my grandparents their 60 year anniversary. That definitely deserves a nice cake so I made a chocolate cake which I covered with a layer of abricot marmelade and over that I spread a chocolate frosting. To top it off I made some chocolate decorations. I went a bit overboard to cover the cake but my grandmother loves dark chocolate so I had no choice :)

VANILLA CUPCAKE & SPRINKLES

Please use this recipe to make 6 cupcakes. I left out the lemon zest for these cupcakes. After letting them cool off you can cover them with sugar paste. To make big cupcakes I used my muffin tin (6).

Ingredients buttercream frosting:

• 2 cups (230 grams) confectioners sugar (icing or powdered sugar), sifted
• 1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons milk or light cream
• pink colouring
• strawberry essence

Steps:

• In an electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, cream the butter until smooth and well blended
• Add the vanilla extract
• With the mixer on low speed, gradually beat in the sugar
• Scrape down the sides of the bowl
• Add the milk and beat on high speed until frosting is light and fluffy (about 3-4 minutes)
• Add a little more milk or sugar, if needed
• Tint the frosting with pink food colouring
• add a few drops of strawberry essence

To end I covered the cupcakes with the frosting and cover that with coloured sprinkles.

VANILLA CUPCAKE COVERED WITH CHOCOLATE

I made these chocolate covered cupcakes with this cupcake recipe. I did however use my big muffin case of 6 muffins so that I could make big cupcakes. You follow the recipe but you fill 6 in stead of 12 and you use bigger muffin papers. I also left out the lemon zest for these cupcakes.

After letting them cool off I covered them with a vanilla buttercream frosting (recipe below) and some cut up dark chocolate filled with praliné. In stead of just cutting up chocolate I thought it would be nice to use filled chocolate

Ingredients buttercream frosting:

• 2 cups (230 grams) confectioners sugar (icing or powdered sugar), sifted
• 1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons milk or light cream

Steps:

• In an electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, cream the butter until smooth and well blended
• Add the vanilla extract
• With the mixer on low speed, gradually beat in the sugar
• Scrape down the sides of the bowl
• Add the milk and beat on high speed until frosting is light and fluffy (about 3-4 minutes)
• Add a little more milk or sugar, if needed

Do not keep the covered big cupcakes in the fridge as that will ruin the frosting.

APPLE CUPCAKE

I made these little apple cupcakes based on my classic apple pie recipe. I made about 12 cupcakes with the batter. I just divided the batter into a cupcake case of 6 cupcakes and did that twice. You prepare the cupcake case with cupcake papers. I sliced a few apples and covered the batter before putting it in the oven, I did make sure not to over-cover them as they will not rise otherwise.

BAKEWELL TART

This type of cake is called a "bakewell tart" but as often I changed a few things.

Ingredients:

• shortcrust pastry
• 90 grams unsalted butter
• 80 grams white granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons of almond extract
• 40 grams selfraising flour
• 160 grams raspberry jam

Steps:

• preheat the oven to 180°C
• lay the pastry in the tin, make sure that it takes the shape of the tin, cut off the pastry that falls over the tin
• cover the pastry with parchment paper and cover with some rice or dried beans, this will prevend the pastry from rising too much whilst being prebaked in the oven
• put the tin in the oven for about 10 minutes, afterwards take out the parchment paper and contents and put it back into the oven for another 5 minutes
• once it is out of the oven let it cool off
• whilst it cools off you can make the filling, you mix the butter and sugar until light and fluffy in a bowl
• you mix in the eggs and the extract
• spoon through the flour
• to prepare the tart you cover the pastry with the jam
• you cover the jam with the filling, put it in the oven for 30-35 minutes until it's golden brown and risen
• I covered the tart with almonds to give it something extra

CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

These are delicious but something to pass on to others for me, personally I’m not really tempted to eat loads so there is no danger in making a batch. Call me strange but I’m more a vanilla kind of girl.

Ingredients for 48 cookies:

• 4 eggs
• 285 grams flour
• 120 grams unsalted softened butter
• 220 grams brown sugar
• 100 grams white granulated sugar
• 280 grams bittersweet chocolate
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon powered instant espresso
• 400 grams milk chocolate chopped in little pieces
• 1 teaspoon salt

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 175°C
• Place a bowl over a saucepan with simmering water. Break up the bittersweet chocolate and let it melt.
• Cream together the butter, white granulated sugar and brown sugar until light and fluffy.
• Slowly mix in the eggs.
• In a separate bowl mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and espresso powder.
• Add half of the flour mixture to the previously made batter and mix well. Add half of the melted chocolate and stir until everything is incorporated. Add the remaining flour and melted chocolate.
• Stir in the milk chocolate
• Prepare your baking tray with parchment paper so the cookies won’t stick. Just to be sure I always l dip a bit of vegetable oil on the paper, it makes it so much easier to get the cookies off!
• Bake them in the oven for about 15 minutes.

Let them cool (if you can wait that long!) and enjoy!!