Scones (Plain & Cheese) Recipe

Hello Everyone!

This is yet another recipe for your empty tummies to enjoy! I love cooking and baking so much, so this is the reason I have written so many posts of this genre. Sharing my experiences and recipes with you is a privilege, and I hope you like them so much that you even take it upon yourself to bake/ cook your own creations.
For this scones recipe, it was a very last minute decision to bake these. I was sat, bored in my IT lecture (it's just revision), when I was moaning as I was so hungry- I had no food or money. I could roughly remember the simple ingredients we had at home, and had a thought "I haven't made scones in a while…"so thats when my decision was made- I'd be baking scones, plain for everyone (mainly my dad) and a few cheese for me and my sister. I was very serious about making these when I got home from college that day, that whilst sat on the bus I messaged my sister with my adamant intentions.


Ingredients:
Plain Scones-
*350g Self-raising Flour
*1/4 tsp Salt
*1 tsp Baking Powder
*85g Butter (Cut into cubes)
*3 tbsp Caster Sugar
*175ml Milk
*1 tsp Vanilla Extract/Essence
Cheese Scones-
*Everything as above, minus the Caster Sugar and Vanilla Extract/Essence
*Instead add cheese-grated ( as much as you want)

Pre-Heat the oven at 200c/ Gas Mark 7

Method:
1. Place the flour into a mixing bowl, along with the salt and baking powder. Mix these together.
2. Add the butter to the dry mixture and rub together with your fingers until you get what looks like fine bread crumbs. 

3. Stir the sugar (only necessary for the plain scones) into the mixture. -> Here would be where you'd add the grated cheese.

4. Pour the milk into a jug and place in the microwave to warm it up for around 30 seconds. (make sure the milk does not turn hot) Add in the vanilla essence (only necessary for plain scones) to the milk.
5. Make a well (hole) in the dry mix and pour in the milk and vanilla. Quickly combine together (in a ball)-easier to use your hands.

6. Sprinkle flour over the work surface an tip the dough out. Knead the dough slightly to assure it is together well and a bit smoother.

7. Roll out the dough to the thickness that you require. (the thicker the dough, the less scones you'll make)

8. Take a cutter (or something round) and cut out as many scones as you can- place them on a greased baking tray reading for baking. With the left over dough, repeat the last process of rolling it out and cutting the shapes, until all the dough has gone. 

9. Place all of the 'cut outs' on a baking tray. Glaze the shapes with either a beaten egg or milk.

10. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes until risen or golden on the top. Enjoy these on their own or with jam and cream (the plain scones).

Sorry for the quality of this image, I took it one handed! :/

I hope you enjoy making this really simple recipe, it involves simple, everyday ingredients and doesn't take that long to make or bake. Enjoy the simplicity of such a typical British food- loved all year round. 
Comment or upload images of how you found the recipe and your final result. I'd love to her how you all got on. :D

Oreo Muffins

Hello Everyone!

It was my dads birthday last week and he asked me to bake him some cakes to take to work with him on the Tuesday. His work does this thing where when it's someone's birthday, that person brings in cakes for everyone to share and celebrate their day (cute right!). So this year he allowed me to decide what I was going to bake, (I was the one making them, it's only right!) and I found a recipe for Oreo Cupcakes and instantly fell in love.
Below is the Oreo Cupcake recipe (ingredients and method included) with some lovely images to display the processes I went through.

Ingredients:
(For the cake)
* 250g Self raising flour
* 250g Light brown soft sugar
* 50g Cocoa
* 250g Dark chocolate
* 250g Butter
* 4 Eggs
(For the filling)
* 154g Pack of Oreo's
* 250g Butter
* 300g Sifted icing sugar
* A few drops of vanilla extract
* 1-2 Milk (if necessary)

Pre-Heat the oven at 160c/ Gas Mark 3

Method:
1. Mix together the sugar, cocoa and flour.

2. Melt the dark chocolate together with the butter over low heat- so you don't burn the chocolate. (I used a saucepan half full with boiling water from the kettle and a bowl with the chocolate and butter in over the top to melt it).

3. Into the dry mixture stir in the melted chocolate and the crack the eggs in. Beat the mixture until light and fluffy (a typical cake mixture consistency).

4. Poor the cake mixture into the muffin cases. Use up all the mixture topping up any cases that look too sparse. (You could do what I always do and use your finger or spoon to eat the leftover mixture- Yum)

5. Place in the oven for about 40 mins, until the cakes have risen. (Another way of checking whether a cake is baked properly is to stick a knife into the cake and if it comes out clean then it is done).
6. Transfer the cakes onto a wire rack and leave until cool.
7. Whilst the cakes are cooling, you can make a start on the buttercream icing. Beat the butter until it is of a creamy consistency. To this add the icing sugar and vanilla essence, then mix well. If you find that the mixture is slighlty dry then you could add a tablespoon of milk at a time, or if your mixture is too wet then you could add more icing sugar. (It can sometimes be a trial and error)
8. Crush the Oreo cookie biscuit parts and add about 3/4 to the mixture. (Here you could place the cookies into a food blender/processor, or simply get something hard and bash them)
9. Spread the buttercream icing over the cupcakes. To do this I used a piping bag to get a nice effect, but a knife or spoon will do just fine.

10.  Lastly sprinkle the remaining cookie crumbs over the cakes.

I hope that you enjoy baking these as much as I did. Oreo's are just simply amazing and anything you try to make with them turn out great!

Merry Christmas!

Hello Everyone! Or should I say Merry Christmas Everyone!

Wow! I can not believe it is Christmas already, it doesn't seem that long ago I was sat at my Grandma's house with my family tucking into our Christmas dinner (Ooo, those pigs in blankets!) This is my most favourite time of year, it makes me all excited and happy inside, I guess you could say I'm full of Christmas joy! :D As I'm writing this I am watching elf in my living room with my sister after just getting back from our families annual curry at a restaurant around the corner, what a great way to celebrate Christmas Eve.

Anyway I just wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year! I hope that you get the gifts you want and that you just have an all round good time what ever you end up doing. Only a few hours till the big man himself (Santa Clause) tries to squeeze through your chimneys to deliver all your presents.

After Christmas I will be posting a few Christmassy posts to make everyone feel happy! :D