Keeks Bakes - Zesty Flapjacks with Berries and Ice Cream

Happy Easter you lovely lot! 

I hope you've had the best 4 day weekend ever and have eaten so so much chocolate. I've had the best time chilling with my family and celebrating my dad's birthday. 

When it comes to any kind of social gathering with my family, it always revolves around food. Always. Luckily this time round I was excused from the kitchen, my only task was to sort out the bun and cheese (literally slicing cheese and buttering bun) so I put my feet up and enjoyed all the eating. 

A few weeks back though I did have a lil throw around in the kitchen and put together something that was so delicious it was crazy to me that I'd never made it for dessert before. Basically, it's warm flapjacks with berries and ice cream. So flipping good and so flipping simples. 

I got the base ingredients from BBC Good Food and then added in a few ingredients.

250g Porridge Oats

125g Butter

125g Brown Sugar

2-3 tbsps Golden Syrup

Zest of one lemon

Juice of half an orange

I warmed up the berries when the flapjacks were a couple minutes off being ready and then served them hot from the oven (well , like 5 minutes cooling time so that you don't burn fingers or mouths) and then added a dollop of clotted ice cream. Also the best part is that left overs make an awesome snack the next day! Win. 

Here is the recipe xo

Keeks Bakes: Chocolate Orange Cake

So I haven’t done a proper baking blogpost in donkey’s years, and there are two reasons for this. One, I didn’t really have the time, and two I didn’t really know what to bake when I did. Baking for the sake of baking isn’t really my thang, I want to want to bake. Anywho this weekend I was in the mood and the groove to bake something rich and decadent. Enter chocolate cake. This cake is a bit different from your average as it uses SIX eggs, only 4 tablespoons of plain flour and no raising agent (the egg whites are the raising agent). This is a lovely, rich cake for tea and chat with the girls or a dessert with a dollop of cream or ice cream.

Ingredients

Cake

225g Dark Chocolate

175g Butter

225g Caster Sugar

4 tbsp Plain Flour

6 Eggs (separated)

2 tsp Orange Extract

Ganache

225g Dark Chocolate

225ml Double Cream

2 tsp Orange Extract

1 - Pre heat the oven at 170c

2- Break up the chocolate into small chunks 

3 - Separate the eggs and then place to the side. 

4 - Take the butter and chocolate and melt together over boiling water until smooth.

5 - Add the orange extract 

6 - Once the mixture has cooled slightly then add the caster sugar, flour and egg yolks.

7 - Whisk the egg whites until stiff (wahey!) 

8 - Gently fold in half of the egg whites, then the other half.

9 - Pour the mixture into a 20cm greased tin

10 - Bake for 40 minutes or until a skewer comes out cleanly

11- Allow the cake to cool completely before icing. The cake might collapse slightly, that's fine. Fret not. 

11 - For the Ganache melt the chocolate and double cream over hot water until smooth. Allow to cool. 

12 - Slice oranges for decoration

13 - Pour the ganache over the cake and sides, evening out the middle if it has sunken slightly.

14 - ENJOY

Love Keeks xo

Keeks Bakes - Baking with Betty Crocker

I feel like if you haven’t experienced the delight of Betty Crocker you haven’t fully lived. It’s my favourite baking brand for two reasons – a) the Devil’s Food chocolate cake mix b) The Buttercream Icing. So you can imagine my delight when I was invited to attend an event with them - of course I didn’t hesitate!

 A bunch of us baking/blogging enthusiasts gathered at Central Street Cookery School to bake up a storm with Betty’s packet mixes and icing (hubba hubba). Under the guidance of the lovely Louise we got into groups and made more cake then I have ever seen in life. EVER.

We made a gorgeous vanilla and red velvet swirled loaf (and decorated for Christmas!), Devil’s Food Chocolate cupcakes and chocolate chip cookies encased with chocolate brownies. Suffice to say a sugar coma is imminent.

I had so much fun baking and meeting fellow bloggers. We even got to take home a few mixes so you will definitely be seeing some more baking on the blog very soon. In the meantime check out the Betty Crocker range here - they have an awesome new Vanilla Icing and Rainbow Sprinkles combo in time for everyone who loves a bit of Christmas baking!

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 - Chocolate Almond Fudge Cake

It's been far, far too long since I baked properly; blame it on the full-time job and lack of motivation to get in the kitchen at the weekend. However, I was determined to bake last Sunday, it was rather dreary and so I thought I'd perk the day up with some chocolate cake. I used this recipe and then adapted it a smidge. I wanted to experiment by adding French almond extract into the batter mix to break up the chocolate-y-ness (what a brilliant word). 

I also decided to buy Betty Crocker ready-made icing. There is no other reason beside the fact that I wanted it and it tastes amazing. Next time I'd definitely pop a little bit of almond extract into the icing too for that added kick. 

I sprinkled on some flaked almonds and grated on some dark chocolate...

Et voila!

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

Keeks Bakes: Raspberry and Coconut Macarons.

Raspberry Macaron Kit - Sainsburys 

I've always been in love with Macaron's. Well, since I bought my first ones from Pauls bakery in Victoria station when I was about 17 and have been hooked ever since. But I definitely see them as a treat. The fact that I have to venture into town to get them and they are just so delicate and decadent, makes me always want to save them for special occasions (my best friend Emma bought me some from Pierre Herme as a part of my 21st birthday present - seriously the best macarons ever ever. Ever.).

As much as I love these fancy little biscuit-slash-cakes confections, I have never attempted to make them. Until now. They have always seemed too delicate for my clunky hands to master, but when aforementioned best friend brought round this Raspberry macaron kit from Sainsburys (she fuels the macaron love inside of me), how exactly could I resist? 

Almost everything you need is included; the only things you'll need are:

- 2 egg whites

-50g of butter

-1 tablespoon of milk

-And an electric whisk (unless you have bionic manual whisking skills) 

Because the kit makes baking so easy (It's basically cheating, right?) I thought I'd vary the filling slightly by adding 1/4 tsp of coconut cream to the filling mixture to break up the raspberry-ness. 

For my first attempt, I think they turned out ok; they are no Pierre Herme or Laduree, but edible. For £2 for the kit I think that if you're a macaron enthusiast a la moi you should definitely give it a go. 

Next time I'm doing it kit-less though. I am.

Love Keeks xo

Keeks Bakes: Vanilla Sponge.

Hey Girlies!

So apparently today was 'Blue Monday' - aka the saddest day of the year! So I couldn't think of a better excuse to post about cake. Ermmm... because everyone likes cake, right?

Today was pretty lazy for me, I was supposed to go and help my friend plan something but got to the station to find all the trains delayed or cancelled so instead I bought some Haribo Strawbs (they're the best sweets aren't they?) and stayed in all day. 

I baked this cake the other day with my very helpful little niece. We used the Hummingbird Bakery vanilla cupcakes recipe, just making a cake instead. It was super simple to make and I think it turned out pretty well, judging by the amount the boy scoffed.

Love Keeks xo