Goodbye Winter, Hello Spring!

My morning face!

Yesterday was the official start of Spring, there was a New Moon and there was also a a solar eclipse; unfortunately the clouds came out just in time to obscure everything so I didn't see it! I hear it was pretty cool.

Yesterday was also the day that I did something that I've been talking about doing for the last 5-7 years. I couldn't sleep the night before and when I finally did it I had a sense of relief, happiness, and a sadness for how long it had taken me.

I'm excited about this new phase in my life and the possibilities,so this morning, I woke up and made glitter lollipops with edible flowers (as you do!).

  

Recipe 

(makes 6 large lollipops in a mould)

250g granulated sugar

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

100ml water

1 tsp strawberry flavouring

6 edible flowers (I got mine from eat my flowers this time but you can use violas, pansies or roses. They can be found at a garden centre or B&Q)

Lollipop moulds

6 lollipop sticks (you may have to cut them in half to fit the moulds)

Sugar thermometer 

Edible glitter, for decorating

Prepare the moulds by liberally greasing with vegetable oil and then lightly dusting with icing sugar.

Put the sugar and cream of tartar into a saucepan with the water. Gently stir and heat until the sugar has completely melted. Stop stirring & put the sugar thermometer into the pan (if you haven't done so already), and increase the heat, boiling the mixture until it reaches the ‘hard crack’ stage, or a small spoonful dropped into cold water sets hard.  You will  also need to watch it closely so that it doesn't burn or turn into caramel. It will be helpful to have a small cup of cold water nearby to keep testing the mixture.

Remove from heat immediately and swirl in strawberry flavouring. It is best to add the glitter to the warm mixture so that it spreads evenly, rather than once it is in the mould.

One mould at a time, carefully fill to halfway then place a flower in. Fill to the top, covering the flower with the warm mixture and place a lollipop stick in. Leave to cool for approximately 15 minutes until the lollipop comes out of the mould easily!

Clean your utensils and pots by soaking them in warm water.

This is relatively easy but you will need to keep an eye on the sugar so that it doesn't burn. You also don't need a mould or the sugar thermometer, but they do make things a little easier!

Here's to love, lollipops & Spring.

Peace & Love
xx

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Birthdays And Bows....

Rashonye!

Today is the birthday of my beautiful sister, Rashida, Rashonye, Rae!!!

Here are 10 things you need to know about my sister. 

1. She's my oldest & most trusted confidante, I used to make her squirm with all of my teenage secrets, (things are even worse these days!)

Old school us!

2. Back in the days, when there was stalemate in my flat over who would clean the kitchen and there wasn't a single clean dish, my sister would come and wash up the dishes and tidy up to make my life bearable.

Rashonye, DJ & Ellie

3. When my son was born, my sister took about 6 months (maybe more) after graduating to look after him for me because I wasn't ready to send him to nursery. 

My sis & Bailey

4. I've lost count of the number of times my sister has helped me complete cake orders. Usually, I'm too (proud, disorganised, deluded about my capabilities) to ask in advance. She doesn't ask, she just rolls her sleeves up and gets involved.

5. She never takes any credit for any input or involvement with anything I do. Instead, she sings my praises and celebrates my work.

Chocolate fans, Ferrero Rocher and glitter

6. Rashida is an incredible cook, the OG chef in the family. Whenever I'm going through one of my ever frequent loss of appetite/skinny phases, her food is the only thing that I can eat and have seconds of.

Living life like it's golden

7. She's gotten me out of a tricky situation a ridiculous number of times. Two favourites are the time I missed my train home from Paris and she wired money across so that I could catch the next one. Or the time she paid my hotel bill when I had a problem with my debit card.

Cake fit for a beautiful person

8. She knows me better than myself. To be fair it's borderline witchcraft. She can verbalise what I'm feeling without me having to say a single word, (like I said, it's witchery!!!!!)

African Queen

9. Aside from being beautiful, she is INCREDIBLY talented. She can play the guitar, sing, cook, bake, dance, sew, paint, draw, play sports, teach, entertain, do hair, the list goes on and on and on.

Sister vibes!

10. I love her because she's awesome.

Happy Birthday Sis

Peace & Love

xx

(p.s. The cake is a chocolate sponge sandwiched together with vanilla buttercream and chocolate fudge frosting. It's then covered with chocolate fans and Ferrero Rochers.)

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Advent Calendars & Chocolate Biscuits

“Better late than never, but never late is better..” (Drake)

Yes, it’s that time of year again & even though it’s almost halfway through the month, these biscuits are just too cute to not share with you!

The biscuits are based on a recipe I found on the BBC Good Food website, (click here for the link). I’m always on the look-out for a nice biscuit recipe, personally I’m into crunchy biscuits rather than soft ones. I found that the combination of the dark chocolate and the thick layer of white chocolate made this a really tasty mix.

Chocolate, ginger and white chocolate biscuits

• 300g plain flour

• 50g cocoa

• 1.5 tbsp ground ginger

• 120g butter, cubed

• 120g molasses or brown sugar

• 140g golden syrup

• 200g white chocolate

• Glitter, sprinkles and royal icing to decorate

• Put the flour, cocoa, ginger, butter and sugar in a processor, and mix until you can’t see any lumps of butter. You can also rub in the butter using your fingers. Slowly pour in the syrup and pulse until you get a smooth dough.

• Take about a quarter of the dough at a time and roll out between 2 sheets of baking parchment to the thickness of a £1 coin. Leave to chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.

• While the biscuits are in the fridge, heat the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4.

• Peel away the top layer of baking paper and use cookie cutters to make shapes. Circles, triangles, stars and Christmas shapes, whatever takes your fancy. Leave a small space between each biscuit as they spread slightly while they cook.

• Continue rolling and shaping all the remaining dough and trimmings while you bake a tray at a time, until all the dough is used up and you have at least 24 biscuits.

• Bake for 8-10 mins until firm. The time needed in the oven will vary according to the size of your cookies and your oven. It might be an idea to test with one or two first. My first batch burnt because I left them in for too long! Leave the biscuits to cool completely before decorating.

• While the biscuits are cooling, melt the white chocolate. White chocolate has a lower boiling point than milk chocolate so can be a bit tricky. Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to do it http://www.wikihow.com/Melt-White-Chocolate.

• Pipe a border around the edges of the biscuits and then cover completely using the melted white chocolate. If you don’t want perfect edges you can cover the biscuits using a spoon.

• Whilst the chocolate is drying, add sprinkles, glitter and anything else you want to use to decorate. I piped on numbers using coloured royal icing, but seeing as we are almost halfway through the month, it’s arguable if that’s totally necessary!

Let me know how you get on!

Peace & Love

Xx

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Easiest chocolate fudge sauce recipe ever!

If you know me, you'll know how excited I get when anyone asks me to make a chocolate cake. I think I got into baking for the sole purpose of baking chocolate cakes.

What you may (or may not as the case may be), surprised to know, is that there is an art to getting chocolate cake right. You need the right quality chocolate and sufficient moisture to make it wonderful. Dry chocolate cake is like stale cake - an exercise in disappointment and dissatisfaction.

Similarly, getting the right frosting to accompany said cake is another skill in itself. One of my favourites is the mighty chocolate fudge sauce. Fortunately, fairly early on in my chocolate fudge making journey, I stumbled across the easiest recipe ever from Nestle (click here for the recipe). 

Once you've got the perfect cake (complete with vanilla biscuits and strawberries no less), then all that's left to do is adorn the cake with candles and sing harmoniously to the birthday girls.

Peace & Love

xx

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Make A Wish Cupcakes!

So I've been away for a while! Over the last month I have been working, playing, travelling and baking! There is so much to update you on, but first things first, take a look at these 'Make a Wish Cupcakes.

The birthday girl had a special banquet and requested individual cupcakes for the guests. The theme was 'Make a Wish'. I've been thinking about edible flowers for a while and this felt like the perfect opportunity to try it out. I tell you though, it was trickier than I expected to find edible flowers. Unfortunately florists only really know roses to be edible so I came up against a brick wall. After going to a number of stores, it turns out the garden centre is the place to go to find them.

So now you've seen the birthday girl and the cakes, here's how to recreate them;

Vanilla Butter Cupcakes (adapted from Amy Atlas's Sweet Design Book)

makes 

1 stick/ ½ cup (114g) unsalted butter at room temperature

1 cup caster sugar

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups plain flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

¾ cup whole milk

1. Adjust oven to 350oF/ 180oC/ Gas Mark 4. Beat together the butter & sugar until they are light & fluffy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, then add one egg at a time along with the vanilla until they are thoroughly combined. 

2. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together in a small bowl. With the mixer on a slow speed add the flour mixture alternatively with the milk. Beat for about 3 minutes until the cake batter is smooth.

3. Divide the cupcake mixture between the cupcake cases and bake for about 17-20 minutes minutes until the a skewer entered into the centre comes out clean.

4. Leave to cool fully before topping with a generous amount of buttercream.

Vanilla Buttercream

250g unsalted softened butter

500g icing sugar

2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

2 tablespoons whole milk

1. Mix together the butter, sugar and vanilla extract until light and fluffy. Once they are all mixed, add the milk and whisk for at least 5 more minutes to get a deliciously fluffy buttercream.

Edible Flowers (the fun bit!)

Selection of edible flowers; pansies & viola

1 egg white

½ cup golden caster sugar

½ cup granulated sugar

1. Separate the flowers from the stems, then wash and dry them.

2. Lightly cover the flowers in egg white and carefully dip or sprinkle both the sugars over the petals.

3. Leave to dry on greaseproof paper, or if you don't have time (which I didn't), put the oven on the coolest setting with the door open and leave to dry.

4. Once they are dry, add glitter to make them fabulous!

The banquet!

These bad boys are a collaborative effort with my girl, Alexia Lenoir, the talented Event Stylist. Check out her blog post for her version of the day! :) 

If you do make these, please let me know how you get on!

Peace & Love

xx

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It's a British Thing....

I've been sharing my old pictures on Instagram lately, (follow me by the way (@baileyana), and last week I posted some 'Cool Britannia' cake pops. I made them just over a year ago, because a friend of mine asked me for some British themed cakes that he could use as the cover artwork for his mixtape.

After I shared them, it occurred to me that I don't think I ever made a song and dance about having my very first album cover (see what I did there?) 

It's A British Thing by Dr Kwest on Mixcloud

A strange but true fact is that I actually have a song named after me. My dad wrote it the year after I was born. He was in a band (still is to be fair) called Black Slate although I think this was a solo venture. 

Track No. 4 Side Two if you're wondering...

The only problem is that I can't find it anywhere because it's no longer in circulation and he doesn't have a copy!!! 

Internet friends help me. If there are any hardcore, UK (red hot) dub reggae enthusiasts out there who can find this song for me then please do. 

If you find and give me a copy of the song, I will love you forever. 

And make you delicious cakes. 

And be really grateful.

My Dad's band back in the day. Amigo was one of their most popular songs, check it out!

Failing that, you could just write me a new song and maybe buy me some balloons.

(Just a suggestion, no pressure).

Peace & Love

xx

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Champagne and kisses...xxx

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