Hummingbird Bakery Sweet and Salty Chocolate Cake

Happy bank holiday weekend, guys! 

For me, baking cures in two ways.

One, the process itself is extremely therapeutic and two, you get to eat yummy cake after. Chocolate is the big daddy of cakes and in my opinion no one does them better than Hummingbird Bakery, so when I'm in need of a pick me up I always reach from my Cake Days bakery book. 

This time around I made the Sweet and Salty Chocolate Cake and luckily I found the recipe online to share with you guys! The only exception is that I topped mine with gold sprinkles instead of grated chocolate. This the recipe for the exact cake above and is a little more complex to make - 

Sweet and Salty Chocolate Cake

If your a total newbie baker then I'd suggest this one from BBC Recipes (be quick though because they're changing the recipe section soon!)

Easy Chocolate Cake 

Happy baking! 

Keeks Bakes - Christmas Gingerbread Biscuits

Christmas baking - two of my most favourite things smushed together. Any excuse to make the sweet stuff, I'm all over it and gingerbread is the ultimate in Christmas confectionary for me. 

Sugar and spice combining to create a rich, warming treat, perfect with a cup of tea under a blanket in front of Elf or Home Alone. Mmmmmm. So having failed at gingerbread in the past I was determined to find a recipe that was simple but effective and that I did with this gem from the BBC (click the link for the method).

BBC Gingerbread Men Recipe

350g/12oz plain flour, plus extra for rolling out

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

125g/4½oz butter

175g/6oz light soft brown sugar

1 free-range egg

4 tbsp golden syrup

I only made a couple adjustments to make the perfect gingerbread for me. 

- After creating the dough I added a few sprinklings more plain flour as it was too wet to work with.

- The recipe states it makes 20 biscuits rolling the dough out to a 0.5 cm thickness - I rolled it out thinner (about half as thick) and therefore made almost twice as many. I made one batch at the stated thickness but the thinner ones had a beautiful crunch once cooled. 

This is an excellent recipe to do with kids. I decorated the biscuits with my niece Sienna, which was so fun and they were a big hit with the family and friends!

Let me know if you try them! 

Healthy cookies!

You know when you really really want cookies? Like when the craving encompasses your soul and you have to have some? Yeah I had that the other day. BUT I was in a 'can't eat anything bad' kind of funk, that I was determined to not break - so I improvised and made these healthy (read - not unhealthy) cookies with no flour, sugar or butter. It can be done!

To make these little nuggets of heaven you'll need 

60g coconut flour 

1/4 cup coconut oil, melted

1/4 cup agave nectar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda

1 teaspoon of almond butter

2 eggs

Dark chocolate chips (a generous handful is about right)

There isn't really a method for this. Just preheat the oven to 180c, then literally just bung everything into a mixing bowl and need until all the ingredients are well-blended and you have yourself a nice dough. If you haven't and it's too soggy, add some more coconut flour. Roll them into balls, place on a lined baking tray then gently flatten them and stuff them into the oven. They need about 10-12 minutes but use your judgement if they need a bit longer or less time!

Enjoy!

Do you know the muffin man?

Well I don’t. In fact muffins aren’t really ever on my radar, apart from that moment you’re in Starbucks or whatever and are waiting for your latte and you eye up the muffin selection in the sudden realisation that actually muffins go really well with coffee. They aren’t really something I choose to bake. But I did the other day.

I kind of cheated with one batch; I simply used a ginger cake mix and added a touch of Valencian orange extract but the others I made from scratch. I followed this recipe for Lemon Poppyseed Muffins and just chopped and changed a few things. Firstly, I didn’t have any poppyseeds so I went with chia seeds, which I did have and added a bit of the orange extract for extra citrusy-ness.

Literally warm from the oven these are the perfect brunch treat. I’m a muffin convert.

Love Keeks xo

Keeks Bakes - Lemon Sponge Cake

Sometimes only a cake will do. When I have the house to myself, there’s nothing I love to do more than bake (and maybe watch an episode or 4 of Real Housewives of New York). But as much as I love attempting fancy-pants recipes, from time to time laziness overcomes me and all I want to do is throw together a basic sponge. So that’s what I did this week when I had a few days off work.

I don’t really like Victoria sponge cake (I know, I’m not a normal person) so in order to add a splash of pizzazz I added the zest and juice of a lemon, French almond extract and vanilla extract.

After removing the cake from the oven, while it was still hot I pricked it with a fork multiple times.

I made a drizzle from the juice of a lemon and about 85g of icing sugar. I poured this all over the top while the cake was warm to allow it to seep easily into the holes I made. 

Then finally, once the icing had set I sprinkled lemon zest on top and dusted on a little more icing sugar. Et voila! A super easy, uncomplicated yet delicious sponge.

I really didn’t follow a recipe myself so I have found ingredients for a good basic sponge and adapted it for my lemony-ness.

Sponge

125g/4oz butter or margarine, softened

125g/4oz caster sugar

2 medium eggs

125g/4oz self raising flour

1 ½ teaspoons of French almond extract

2 teaspoons of Vanilla extract

The zest and juice of one lemon

(If the batter is too thick you’ll need milk too!)

Drizzle

85g of icing sugar

The juice of one lemon

To decorate

The zest of one lemon

Icing sugar

Love Keeks xo 

Keeks Bakes - Lemon Tart.

Hi Lovelies!

So I've gone and done a bit of baking! (shock) but this time a went for something a bit out of my forte. You see I'm more of a cakey baker... I'm not very 'tartey'. In all honesty I try and stay away from tarts (don't we all?), but when my older sister commissioned me to make a lemon tart I couldn't say no.

I found a great recipe on BBC GoodFood where you make your own pastry. I made a large tart with my own pastry and a few mini owns with shop bought shortcrust pastry and I honestly preferred the taste of the tart using the pastry made from the recipe. It was sweeter and gave a good contrast to the tangy-ness of the filling. 

Another note is that in the comments of the recipe page people kept saying that the recipe is great but they added more lemon juice so I used the juice of five lemons but only used 1 tbsp of lemon zest. 

Anywho here is the unchanged ingredients list from BBC Good Food...

  

For the pastry (makes double)

500g plain flour, plus extra for dusting

140g icing sugar

250g unsalted butter, cube

4 egg yolks

For the filling

 5 eggs

140g caster sugar

150ml double cream

juice 2-3 lemon (about 100ml/3½ fl oz) and 2 tbsp lemon zest

Click here for the recipe!

Happy Baking!

Love Keeks xo