Iron Cupcake

I know, I know, Valentines day has long been and passed now, but I've been separated from my memory card and my laptop so haven't had a chance to post these pictures from the latest Iron Cupcake competition until now. If you've not seen me post about the competition before then I'll fill you in a little first. My lovely friend Charlie runs Iron Cupcake monthly in Leeds and every month there's a different theme to challenge bakers skills. You can then go along to the competition as either a baker or an eater (or both if you really want to get involved!) and spend your Sunday evening surrounded by cake. There's always some great prizes for the bakers, and eaters get to eat tonnes of cake (can you tell why I like going so much?!).

This month's theme was a seasonal one, "Valentines: Love it or Hate it". I was slightly disappointed that there weren't more entries on the hate it side of things as I'm really not a fan of Valentine's day, I just don't like the whole forced sentiment around it and the abundance of unoriginal pictures of roses that took over Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for the weekend, but the standard was impressive and there were some pretty beautiful (and very, very tasty) cakes to try! 

The cakes above won two prizes on the night, the Baker's Panel (chosen by bakers who also took part in the judging) and the Best in Show. They were lovely passionfruit and raspberry flavoured cakes and everybody seemed to love the marshmallows!

I found it really difficult to pick a favourite as they were all so yummy, but these cute little Bee My Valentine cupcakes pipped the others to the post in my eyes as I'm an absolute sucker for anything lemon flavoured, give me homemade lemon curd and I'm yours forever.

 Next month's competition falls on my birthday (9th March) and the theme is Vegan cakes... Charlie didn't take me up on my suggestion to make the theme Kaz's Birthday sadly. I'm intrigued to see what the bakers come up with as I'm sure it'll be out of a lot of people's comfort zones! There's one baker who comes every month to the competition who always makes really tasty vegan cakes so I've got high expectations of the other bakers! 

If anybody wants to know, our love is getting low

 Last week, everyone at work was (semi) jokingly talking about how I haven't provided them with cake in a while, I fully blame this on the massive quantity of Christmas chocolate we still had in every corner of the office throughout January... working in education is possibly the most chocolate filled career ever. Teachers always have tonnes of the stuff! Towards the end of last week, we miraculously polished off the last of our supplies, so I agreed that we probably needed something to get us through so we weren't all experiencing withdrawal symptoms from a lack of Roses in our lives.

And so, not wanting to do things by halves, I went for possibly the most gooey, unhealthy option ever. Salted Caramel Brownies. They're quickly becoming my favourite thing in the world to make and they went down an absolute treat with everyone at work (which I'm not sure is the highest accolade really as we'll literally eat ANYTHING if its left on the table for more than five minutes!). The recipe is based on this one from The Boy Who Bakes and its surprisingly easy to do!

Salted Caramel Brownies

Ingredients:

180g plain flour

3tbsp cocoa powder

1/4tsp salt

300g dark chocolate

150g butter

150g caster sugar

220g soft brown sugar

4 eggs

1tsp vanilla extract

for the filling:

1 tin of Caramel

1 or 2 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 160C (fan) and grease your baking tin (I'd probably suggest using some baking paper to line it with but I didn't have any in the cupboard... the brownies still came out ok though!). 

Place the chocolate and butter into a heatproof bowl over a pan of water and stir on a medium heat until all has melted.

Add the eggs, sugar and vanilla extract to a bowl, add the chocolate and mix together until smooth. Sieve in the flour and cocoa powder and beat the mixture until it is all combined. 

Pour half of the mixture into the tin, making sure it is evenly spread across the whole tin. 

Take the tin of caramel and add the salt to the tin, mixing thoroughly. 

Add a layer of caramel on top of the brownie mixture in the tin- make sure you don't get the caramel too near to the edge of the brownie- leave a gap of about 1-2 cm. 

Layer the remaining brownie mixture on top of the caramel, making sure none of the caramel is visible afterwards.

Bake the brownies in the oven for about 30 mins and then leave to cool before serving (unless you're as lazy/greedy as I am... in which case tuck in- they taste pretty damn good warm!).

Let me know if you try these!

Carry Me: Bombay Bicycle Club

It's three in the morning and I'm trying to change your mind

I think I deserve an award for managing to tear myself away from eating samples of homemade pop-tarts (made by Cupcake Cafe in Leeds) long enough to give my blog a little attention. This weekend has been a bit of a crazy one. Aside from acquiring lots of cake, pop tarts and moustache biscuits after Iron Cupcake Leeds and also having a baking disaster when I tried to enter the competition myself (I'm trying to erase that part of the weekend from my memory- it caused me far too much distress!) I've just been hanging with my friends which has been looovely. We had a house night out on Friday with a few friends to a Rock and Roll night in Leeds which was great fun and one of those nights where I spent half of the time stood at the DJ booth requesting songs (all of which actually got played so top marks to him for that... usually DJs just roll their eyes at me when I start dictating what they should play!). 

Speaking of music... the new Arctic Monkeys song has been played about 6000 times in our household this weekend and I've spent the last few days wandering about singing "why'd you only call me when you're high?". I realised today that although that may be appropriate behaviour in the comfort of my own home, it doesn't quite have the same effect when I sing it at work. Whoops.

dress: c/o Clothing at Tesco, jacket: Republic, shoes: Topshop, socks: Primark

Anyway, this is one of my new favourite items in my wardrobe. I've been trying on so many dresses lately and all to often find myself wishing that smocks didn't make me look like an 8 man tent. I've decided that sticking to ever so slightly baggy skater dresses is more my way of doing things.

Why'd you only call me when you're high?: Arctic Monkeys

Iron Cupcake: Great British Summer

This post is long, long overdue and I contemplated not posting it since it was a few Sundays back now but I didn't want to deprive you lovely people of cake! As I mentioned last month, my friend Charlie has recently taken over running Iron Cupcake: Leeds and this month was her first challenge.

This month's theme was Great British Summer, very fitting for the heatwave we were experiencing at the time (although the current weather is probably more what we've come to expect from a British 'Summer' in recent years!), and the bakers managed to conquer the heat and still make some beautiful cakes. This month was one of my all time favourites as there were so many yummy flavours and gorgeous designs. If I had to choose just one favourite from the 13 different entries I'd definitely have to say that Jess's Doughnut Cupcakes took the crown- she'd put so much effort into the design and presentation but also had INCREDIBLE doughnut flavoured cakes with homemade doughnuts making up part of the cakes and a display which even included cake 'chips'. Wow. The actual winner of the competition was also incredibly tasty- toffee cake batter ice cream cupcakes decorated to look like beaches- there wasn't a single crumb of those cakes left at the end as word had spread so quickly about how lovely they were!

The eagle-eyed amongst you might have noticed that my pictures are the same as some of the ones from the Iron Cupcake website. I've not been stealing their pictures- I've taken over as the photographer at the events which is proving to be so much fun as I get a nice chance to be really nosy at all of the cakes close up before the eaters start tucking in! Works great for you guys too as it means I'll always have lots of pretty pictures of cake to show you!

If you're ever in Leeds and fancy your hand at baking then the competitions are once a month and the theme is always posted on the website (next month's theme is Disney... I might actually bake again if you're lucky!). Failing that, if you ever fancy coming along as an eater then I'd highly recommend it- who wouldn't enjoy testing loads of cupcakes?!

Also, just wanted to say a huge thank you to Amy for organising the Manchester Blogger Meet-Up on Saturday- I had a great time and met loads of lovely people!

Smiles of the week: Take me dancing in the wild

This week started off on a fairly unpleasant note. I shuffled sleepily into the bathroom this morning and in an attempt to grab all of my toiletries off the shelf in one go for my shower I just about managed to open my eyes enough to watch my razor tumble into the toilet. Cue a good five minutes spent trying to play hook a duck with the toilet brush whilst my razor taunted me from the bottom of the toilet bowl. Sometimes my life is too glamorous for words. This is why posts like this are necessary on a Monday (although the start of this post would make a pretty good attempt at a Mundane Midweek post a la Charlotte's Web), I love reminding myself of the little moments that have happened over the last seven days to make me remember that life isn't all as traumatic as this morning was. Hope you enjoy reading this week's little list of highlights from the last couple of days.

There's been a lot of chocolate cake involved in the last seven days. Firstly, Charlie's birthday cake, closely followed by cakes I made for work (we had a pack of eggs left over from our baking sessions at work so I was cajoled into using them up and feeding the office in the process). Then it was all topped off with a cake from Zuger's- literally the best chocolate cupcakes EVER. If you're ever on The Wirral or in Chester then visit one of their cafes or you'll regret it forever. 

Making said birthday cake and laughing LOADS at our ridiculous attempts to create a twin for the easiest pig character we'd spent about 10 seconds putting together. It suddenly became impossible to make another so after about 50 attempts we went for what was technically a far more complicated option and got it right first time.

Meeting up with two of my old best friends from school and hearing about all of the exciting grown up things that are happening in their lives. Meanwhile, I chose that day to strongly resemble that picture you can see of my five year old self with a pinafore and my big plastic Ray Bans. I may not be getting a mortgage and may look like an overgrown reception child but I'm very, very happy with my little lot. I'll happily watch my friends grow up around me but for now I'm perfectly content to stay just the way I am.

Finally reaching a point where I no longer felt absolutely stuffed from my meal out on Tuesday (three days later...) and enjoying a good gossip over a bowl of nachos and a bottle or two of wine with another of my besties from school. 

Playing scrabble with my Mum and Dad. I even helped my Dad by pointing out how he could make his three letter word add up to 42 points just by moving it one space to the left (and as a result lost the game...). 

Going to a charity Afternoon Tea party at my Mum's friend's house. Despite it being so windy we felt like we were battling a tornado to reach the scones it was really lovely to be sat out in the garden surrounded by people drinking tea (well, I had a lemonade) from vintage china under a canopy of pretty bunting. 

I'd love to hear what's happened in your world over the last week, here's to this one being a good 'un :)

Torso of the week- Everything Everything

Iron Cupcake: Showstoppers

My favourite Sunday evening activity rolled around again last weekend- cake o'clock at Iron Cupcake Leeds. For those of you that regularly visit this little space on the internet, you'll have heard me waffling on about this on quite a regular basis; I've been a regular at the monthly competition for a good few years now and pride myself on my excellent eating cake judging abilities. Plus I have experienced life as a baker (once out of the last 44 competitions...). This month's theme was a special one as it was advertised as the last competition that Zoe would be running, so to mark the end of an era, the bakers had to create Showstoppers. 

There were some real beauties as usual, the bakers had gone all out to make some showstopping designs and flavours for us lucky eaters to test. I had two real favourites this time- Curtain Closer Chocolate Orange Cupcakes (apparently I'm not the only one who's a sucker for chocolate orange as these were the winners!), and Its Always The Quiet Ones Rhubarb and Custards (they were just so beautiful and really delicious too!). 

Here's a few of the other entries too- it always amazes me how much effort goes into each and every cake!

Although last week was Zoe's last ever Iron Cupcake, there was an exciting announcement that the competition was not over for good... cue sighs of relief from keen bakers and hungry bellies across Leeds. My best friend Charlie has taken over the event now which is flipping fantastic news- she's going to make a great little hostess (I'm not biased at all, honest!). So if you live around Leeds you can rest safe in the knowledge that once a month, the upstairs room in The Adelphi will still be filled to the brim with cake, cake and more cake.

She takes my time and I don't mind

You may have seen me mention earlier in the week that I'd had a stroke of madness and decided to enter a cupcake competition. I've been a regular at the Iron Cupcake competition since it started a few years ago but have always seen my role as one of the judges more than as a baker. I'm definitely quite talented at eating cake, not many people can munch through a selection of entries as quickly  skilfully as I can. And yet, despite knowing where my real talents lie, I somehow convinced myself that this was going to be the month I'd bake lots of cupcakes fit to be scrutinised by a hoard hungry people with score cards. 

I didn't win the competition, there were far too many amazing entries as always (sneak a peek at the rest of the entries here), but I'm more proud of myself for actually challenging myself to bake for an audience other than my office at work (who quite frankly will eat anything I put in front of them!). Plus being a baker meant I saved myself from the usual Sunday evening sugar induced coma I tend to experience after the competition. I'd like to say I'd turned over a new leaf and was becoming a healthy little bean, but then I'd be lying about what happened to the leftover back-up cakes I'd made in case my first set went wrong...

So, my efforts for the competition were Cookie Dough cupcakes. I'm one of those people that enjoys eating raw mixture just as much as I love the end product, so if you're anything like me this cake is the absolute best of both worlds as a hefty chunk of uncooked cookie dough is hiding inside each cupcake. The basic recipe was from Making Cupcakes with Lola and, not that I'm one to blow my own trumpet or anything, they tasted bloomin' amazing!

Cookie dough cupcakes

makes 12 (although I doubled the recipe and it made 28... the mixture goes a long way!)

for the cookie dough and cookies for decoration:

4 tablespoons butter

100g light brown sugar

150g plain flour

6 tablespoons condensed milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

6 tablespoons of chocolate chunks/chips

for the cake mixture

200g plain flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

180g butter

175g light brown sugar

1tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs

3 tbsp milk

60g of chocolate chunks/chips (I used chopped up bars of milk chocolate because I'm not a big fan of chocolate chips, plus I decided the chunks looked more authentic!)

for the cookie flavoured icing

175g butter

150g light brown sugar

150g icing sugar

50g plain flour

3 tbsp milk

2 tsp vanilla extract

(You're best off starting with the cookie dough as this needs to sit in the fridge for an hour after making)

Combine the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then add the flour, condensed milk and vanilla extract and beat until the mixture is smooth and combined. 

Once you've done this, add the chocolate chips/chunks and mix them into the dough.

Form into 12 balls (pictured below) and 12 small, flat cookie shapes for the cookie toppings. 

Bake the small cookies in the oven at 180C for about 5 minutes/ until they're just starting to go brown around the edges. 

Place the balls of cookie dough in the fridge for an hour or so whilst you make the cakes.

For the cupcakes, preheat the oven to 180C. 

Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla extract. Once you've got a fluffy mixture, add the eggs and beat well. 

Sift about a third of the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt and mix well. Add about 1/3 of the milk and mix well. Repeat this until all of the milk and dry ingredients have been added and mixed together. 

Once this is done, add in the chocolate chips.

Divide the mixture between your cake cases and bake in the oven for about 20 minutes, until springy to touch.

When your cupcakes have had time to fully cool, using a sharp knife, cut a hole in the middle and fill each cupcake with a ball of the cookie dough mixture.

Whilst you're waiting patiently for your cupcakes to cool, make the cookie flavoured icing. 

Cream butter and brown sugar together then add in the icing sugar until it has formed a smooth mixture. 

Beat in the flour and salt, then add the milk and vanilla extract and mix until smooth.

Spoon the icing into a piping bag and pipe onto the cupcakes.

Top each of your cakes with one of the cookies you made earlier. 

Apparently its World Baking Day today, so if you're feeling like rising to the occasion, these would be a perfect way to spend your Sunday! 

She changes the weather- Swim Deep

And I'll never look back, just hold your head up

Last night I had two of my friends over for a night of burgers and brownies. Quite frankly, I'm not sure there's a better way to spend a Monday evening. Or any evening for that matter.

I got this recipe book for my birthday and I literally spend whole evenings gazing longingly (and dribbling a little) at the arghsoincrediblyyummy looking pictures and recipes, so I've been dying to get stuck in and actually make something from the book. I started in quite an odd place for a burger recipe book, going for one of the few veggie offerings instead of a real, meatilicious burger. I blame the halloumi for sucking me in, its just too tasty not to be eaten at every possible moment. 

Needless to say, the halloumi didn't let me down, the burgers tasted INCREDIBLE (even if they did look a bit like fancy baby food in a bun). And since the book was such a success with the first recipe I tried, I'm going to have to make burger night a regular occurrence. 

And just because I'm a nice, thoughtful person, I thought I'd share the recipe for anyone else who's as enthusiastic about burgers, halloumi and sweet potato as I am. 

Sweet Potato and Halloumi Burgers

450g sweet potato
175g broccoli
3 cloves of garlic
1 red onion (finely chopped)
2 red chillis
175g halloumi (plus extra to fry for the tops of the burgers)
2 tbsp flour
Salt and Pepper
1tbsp ground coriander (the recipe said fresh coriander but I decided I wasn't buying a whole bunch just for a tbsp... ground coriander worked just as well!)

Cook the sweet potato in a saucepan until tender (about 15 mins or so should do it). Once it is cooked, drain the water and then mash. 

Meanwhile, cut the broccoli into small chunks and cook in a saucepan for about 4-5 minutes. 

In a bowl, get together the garlic, onion, chilli, cheese and seasoning then add the sweet potato and broccoli to the mixture, mixing well until all of the ingredients are incorporated with each other. 

Shape the mixture into 4-6 equally sized patties, pour the flour onto a plate/worktop and coat the burgers in the flour. Then put the burgers into the fridge for at least 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 180C and cook the burgers for about 15-20 minutes until cooked through. Flip the burgers half way through cooking. You could grill the burgers too, I just chose to use the oven because I was making potato wedges and can't use the grill at the same time! 

If you fancy adding a bit of extra excitement to your burgers, fry more red onion in a pan along with the remaining halloumi to add to the tops of the burgers. 

And now on to the second part of my B&B night, I was sucked into the creme egg brownie club after seeing so many people posting pictures of their own versions on twitter and instagram. I already had the brownie mix I got as a birthday present which I posted about here so it seemed like the perfect excuse. Plus, creme eggs were 8 for £1 in Home Bargains so I think it was meant to be.

I haven't got a recipe as such to post since my mixture came from the jar, but I've seen plenty of posts about them including this one on Cat's blog if you want to try them yourself. Which you definitely should do RIGHT NOW. I've ended up eating a few slices this evening and they somehow taste even better cold than they did warm last night. Amazing.

Falling- Haim

But you know that we've changed so much since then

I thought it would be rude not to show you all my incredible birthday cake made by my lovely friend Charlie. It was such a lovely surprise and made a brilliant day even better. A MASSIVE thank you if you're reading this buddy! 

I had a lovely time celebrating getting another year older, although every time anybody asks "how does it feel to be 23 then?" I do keep having small heart attacks... WHEN DID I GET THIS OLD?! A jam packed day filled with lots of my friends did a great job at making me forget about the unfortunate fact that no matter how hard I try, I'm just not getting any younger. We spent the afternoon playing crazy golf and having a game of Laserquest surrounded by hoards of noisy seven year olds who share my birthday.  It was so much fun, our team got very competitive- especially when it came to trying to seek revenge on a bald middle aged man who had a particularly evil glint in his eyes every time he shot someone. 

In the evening, we grew up ever so slightly and went out for drinks and a bit of a boogie. I boogied so hard that I tripped over myself and landed on top of a table of empty drinks. The theme song to the night quickly turned into "I see you Kaz, shaking that ass, breaking that glass, shaking that ass". I'm glad my misfortune and general lack of coordination provided so much entertainment to my friends. We'll call it a special treat for them as thanks for joining me on my birthday.

 In my case, growing older really doesn't seem to have any link with maturing. And I fully intend to keep it that way for as long as I possibly can- life is far more fun that way.

Now, please excuse me while I spend the rest of my evening polishing off the remains of the cake and slobbing out on the sofa nursing my hangover. 

Do You Remember The First Time? Pulp

 

Iron Cupcake: Be My Valentine

Some of you might remember my last post about the monthly Iron Cupcake competition that takes place in Leeds. For those of you that don't know, its a monthly competition for bakers who are given the challenge of creating a set of cupcakes based around a given theme. Then fatties cake enthusiasts like me get to sample the selection and give marks to each cake based on their taste and appearance (not an easy task when there's such a talented bunch of bakers but someone's got to do it!). 

This month's theme was "Be My Valentine", and I was expecting table after table filled with pink, flowers and hearts and not a lot else. And, ok there were a lot of hearts. But they were all so beautifully presented that I didn't mind. Plus there were some slightly less traditional ideas floating around too, particularly the 'last rolo' cupcakes which I thought were a fab little idea (as far as I'm concerned, sharing your last rolo is what romance is all about!). There was another great take on this cheesy holiday from Charlie who made a savoury cupcake that was made of cheese upon cheese with a puff pastry cheese heart on top (the Valentine's cynic in me gave her the inspiration for that little number when moaning about the holiday!). 

This is just a little snippet of the cupcakes the bakers brought along, the full line up will be on the Iron Cupcake website if you fancy a gander. 

If you're in Leeds on the 10th March and enjoy cake as much as I do, then come along and judge- its a great excuse to allow yourself to eat a tonne of cake and not feel in the slightest bit guilty about it... after all you need to sample them all to be able to crown a winner, its only fair!

Hey Kemosabe, I'm alone.

This week has been l-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ng. We had a special event for patients and their families today that I was running a lot of, so if I haven't been swimming in thousands of mind-maps and plans for the workshops I've been whizzing around the hospital at 90mph trying to get all my normal work done too. Its been one of those weeks where I haven't truly been able to unwind or switch my mind off, with a constant to do list whirling around in my head. 

And so, by Thursday evening, cake became necessary. 

Lemon drizzle cake to be precise. 

If you've had a crazynonstopgogogoaaaaaaahhhhhhhh week too, this is the perfect cure. And even if you haven't been suffering from headless chicken syndrome but just fancy some cakey goodness, there's no reason why you can't enjoy a cheeky bit of baking too.

You will need:

225g butter

225g caster sugar (+ 85g for the drizzle icing)

4 eggs

grated zest of 1 lemon

225g self raising flour

juice of 1 and a half lemons

Pre-heat oven to 180C (or 160C if you have a fan oven).

Cream together the butter and caster sugar in a bowl then gradually add the eggs to the mixture, stirring as you go. 

Sift in the flour and then add the grated lemon zest.

Stir until it is all combined into a smooth mixture.

Pour the mixture into a lined loaf tin and bake for about 50 minutes (or until you can insert a skewer into the middle of the cake and have it come out clean). 

Leave the cake to cool and then mix the caster sugar and lemon juice to make the drizzle icing. 

Pierce the cake all over with a skewer before pouring the drizzle over the cake (I made a huge messy puddle of the mixture on the worktop because I got a bit keen with pouring... go slowly here!). 

When the cake has fully cooled (I sneakily stood outside on the balcony at this point and let the freezing cold Leeds air speed up the cake cooling for me) remove from the tin and serve.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy. 

Bearing in mind my flatmate and I didn't finish making this until about 10pm on Thursday evening, there isn't even a crumb  left on the plate now. 

If that's not a winning recommendation then I don't know what is.

Kemosabe- Everything Everything