Meal Planning Monday Week 45

My other half was working late a lot last week and may have to work late every night this week as well as the weekend :-( So I'm going to plan meals for me and find something for him depending on what time he gets home or if he's already eaten at the train station.

For breakfasts and lunches I'm still doing the protein shakes recommended by my personal trainer.

Monday
Chicken piccata with butternut squash noodles from this recipe, with beansprouts, not sure they really go but they need using up!

 

Tuesday

Spaghetti Bolognese

 

Wednesday

Probably out for drinks after work and either will eat on the way home or have left over spag bol

 

Thursday

Our five year anniversary - hope we can go out for dinner but my fiancé will probably have to be at work so I will have tahini chicken and carrot noodles from this recipe with beansprouts, not sure they really go but they need using up!

 

Friday
Slimming World burger and chips

Saturday
My fiancé is working all weekend on a big office move (it's his responsibility to make sure all the IT stuff from servers to the door pass system is working)
Lunch: baked potato
Dinner: hopefully he will be home in time for dinner: steak and dauphinoise potatoes

Sunday
Lunch: just me again. Creamy avocado pasta like this recipe as I have an avocado to use up and I don't really like them.
Dinner: hopefully he will be home in time for dinner: roast chicken

 

 

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Alphabakes Round-up October 2015: W

 

Happy Halloween! I was hoping for one or two witchy recipes for this month’s Alphabakes as the letter we chose was W, but instead we had a lot of wedding-related entries!

 

There was a good reason for that: once again, congratulations to the lovely Ros from The More Than Occasional Baker, my co-host for this challenge, who has become a Mrs! It was a beautiful wedding though I probably had as many nerves in the morning as the bride herself, as I was making the wedding cake! Luckily it arrived at the venue in one piece and went down very well; you can read more about it below as it was one of my entries into the Alphabakes challenge this month.

 

But as always I will go through the entries in the order in which they were received. First, I took the opportunity to publish a post I have been working on for a while – a wedding cake decorated with rose petals, brush embroidery and a wire flower on top. It took me a while to finish the post as I’d done separate ‘how to’ posts for each separate element first! This isn’t the cake I made for Ros, in fact it isn’t actually a real cake – we used a polystyrene cake dummy –so strictly speaking it isn’t something I baked but as a lot of baking blog posts are about decorating techniques I wanted to share it with you all as well.

 

 

 

The next entry comes from Elizabeth’s Kitchen Diary; she made this Hungarian plum cake from a recipe given by a neighbour, who in turn received it from a Hungarian friend. She says that despite the sugar content, the cake is almost savoury. The W in the recipe comes from chopped walnuts, though Elizabeth actually used almonds instead. Still, I guess if I can enter a cake that isn’t real, she can enter an ingredient she was supposed to use but didn’t!

 

 

Stuart at Cakeyboi made this chocolate pecan cake, which is topped with whipped cream; he says it’s perfect as a Sunday afternoon treat with the howling wind outside.

 

Jean at Baking in Franglais made this beautiful gluten free wedding cake for her friend and the recipe for the cake itself is very versatile - you could make it for a birthday or Sunday tea just by decorating it differently.

 

 

These raspberry fudge brownies come from Choclette at Tin and Thyme; she made them using dark chocolate containing raspberries and are slightly healthier than many brownies as they are made with wholemeal flour and less butter, but still taste really fudgy. They also contain white chocolate chips as well as raspberries.

 

 

 

Suelle at Mainly Baking made a date and walnut pudding which is gluten free and dairy free; she replaced butter with coconut oil which is something that wouldn't have occurred to me, so I might have to try it! This looks delicious:

 

 

More walnuts, this time in these sweet potato, cranberry and walnut cupcakes from Lili’s Cakes. She lives in Barcelona where October 31 is celebrated with the Catalan tradition of la Castanyada, which translates as chestnut time. Sweet potatoes as well as chestnuts are eaten so Lili has made these cupcakes and decorated them in Halloween colours. The contrasting flavours and textures sound really good.

 

 

 

These ‘easy-peasy’ five ingredient waffles from Family Friends Food are very simple, but you do need a waffle maker of course- though you can pick them up quite cheaply these days. You can serve them however you like as they are very versatile. Have a read of Helen’s blog post to find out what to look for when buying a waffle maker as well.

 

Shaheen at Allotment 2 Kitchen sent in these white chocolate blondies, a version of chocolate brownies, which she says are very sweet and best eaten while warm - now why didn't I think of that?

 

 

Ros from The More Than Occasional Baker decided to bake cakes to give out as favours to guests at her own wedding – I know she had a lot of other things to do in the run-up to the big day so I was very impressed! The cakes tasted very nice (I was a guest at her wedding) and had cute little discs with her and her husband’s initials on. I loved the way they were packaged up as well – there was one at each place setting.

 

 

 

And finally, Ros’ wedding cake itself, which I made. The bottom layer was actually fake, which made my task a lot easier! The middle layer is chocolate and the top layer is lemon, and I made the roses on top myself. I was very pleased with the way that it turned out and thoroughly enjoyed my first experience of making a wedding cake!

 

 

 

As I'm slightly late with the round-up Ros has already announced which letter we are baking with in November - enjoy!

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Halloween Cake Pops - Skulls and Ghosts

Halloween is definitely more fun if you have kids - or if you are in your 20s and want an excuse to dress in a sexy costume! This year I'm not doing anything for Halloween - I was going to carve a pumpkin but it's 5pm on October 31 and I haven't been to the supermarket yet!

 

I suddenly remembered a cake pop mould I bought in the Selfridges January sale and had put in a cupboard; I also had some offcuts of another cake in the freezer so I decided to make cake pops.

This mould is made of silicon and is designed so you can actually bake your cake mixture into the appropriate shapes, but I found you can also use it as a mould.

I mixed the crumbled cake with some buttercream until I had a dough-like consistency - I've written several posts before on how to make cake pops so won't explain in detail again.

I then pressed the mixture into the silicon mould, put both sides of the mould together and put it in the fridge for an hour to set.

The shapes came out of the mould very easily - there was a skull, a ghost, a pumpkin and a ball that you can decorate as an eyeball. I stuck the end of some cake pop sticks into some melted candy melts and put them into the cake balls and left them to set.

Unfortunately I hadn't left them quite long enough (or my dough was too soft - you can always pop them in the freezer if you are worried) because the pumpkins and eyeballs fell apart when I was dipping them into the candy melts (I was only making one or two of each as they were only for my fiancé and I - I don't get trick or treaters where I live!).

However, the skulls and ghost turned out really well and you can still see the detail of the shapes, eg the hollows of the skulls eyes.

I dipped them in melted white candy melts and left them to set, then used a brush and a little black food colouring to paint on the details.

For the final touch I stood them in these mini pumpkins, called 'munchkins' - I had to make a hole with a skewer first, then pushed the cake pop sticks in.

Last year I made ghost and Frankenstein cake pops, which you can see here.

The Food Year Linkup on Charlotte's Lively Kitchen is still open so I am sending her these Halloween cake pops.

 

I've also just got time to share this with Treat Petite hosted by Stuart at Cakeyboi and Kat at the Baking Explorer, as their theme is black and orange.

 

 

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Haunted Halloween Gingerbread House

Gingerbread houses are really cute, aren’t they – and actually a bit tricky to make, as it turns out!

 

For a few years now I’ve wondered about asking for a set of gingerbread house cutters for Christmas but then thought there was no point, as it’s something that people really make in the run-up to Christmas, not after. A few weeks ago my fiancé mentioned something about gingerbread and I explained why I’d never asked for one as a gift for the reason I’ve just explained, and we left it at that. Two days later a parcel from Lakeland turned up containing a gingerbread house kit! That was very sweet of him – one of the many reasons I’m marrying him J

 

He also had a great suggestion – that rather than just using the kit before Christmas, I make a haunted gingerbread house for Halloween. Of course, that way he gets more gingerbread, but I’m not complaining!

 

The Lakeland kit comes with instructions for making the gingerbread itself which was very easy to do. I was worried the mixture was a bit sticky but once I rolled it out on a floured board it was fine.

 

 

I cut the front and back of the house out first and they were so large I couldn’t get anything else on the baking tray, so I realised I was going to have to bake the gingerbread in batches.

 

Each piece only spread slightly when it came out of the oven and I used the cutters again after baking but while the gingerbread was still a little soft to cut off the excess again. I was worried that if I didn’t do this, the pieces wouldn’t fit together exactly. As it happened, they still didn’t fit together exactly! I don’t know how I ended up with such big gaps and whether it was down to the baking or the assembly. It held together and looked pretty much OK but there must be a knack to doing it perfectly!

 

Once I had left the house sections to cool, I made up some royal icing using egg whites according to the instructions on the house kit. It said to use 3 egg whites and 500g icing sugar which seemed a lot, so I used two egg whites, and was going to use two thirds of the icing sugar but ended up having to put in nearly another 100g of icing sugar to get it stiff enough. And it meant I had far more icing than I needed, so I suggest – since royal icing goes hard quite quickly – that you use 1 egg and reduce the other ingredients by a third and then make more if you need it.

 

 

I used a piping bag to apply the icing along the edges of the building sections. The assembly instructions were quite minimal and not that easy to follow – I have no idea how to stick the chimney onto the roof and could have worked it out I’m sure, but decided not to bother with the chimney! 

 

 
 

First you stick the walls to the cake board – I happened to have a black cake board in the cupboard which was perfect for Halloween – and then put the front and back on the house. Each time you have to leave it to set for about 20 minutes and use a cup or glass to keep the sides propped up. Finally we stuck on the roof – my sister was helping and I do think it’s easier with two people!

 

 

Once the house was set I added the doors and windows and decided to decorate the roof first. I had a packet of candy corn M&Ms and another of pumpkin spice M&Ms which I’d bought in America. Each packet didn’t quite have enough to cover the whole roof so I did one side one way and the other side another. I think the white, orange and yellow looks more like Thanksgiving colours than Halloween but never mind.

I made some ghosts out of giant marshmallows and black food colouring and made a path out the front from more M&Ms.

 

I had some Haribo Halloween sweets which I used to decorate the front of the house – you can’t see too well but they are ghosts, spiders and witches heads. I wasn’t sure that I liked the overall effect but wasn’t sure how else to decorate it – I think this would be good for kids but if you want a more professional look I wouldn’t use the gummy sweets. I have an idea for how to decorate the gingerbread house at Christmas which I think will be smarter so you will have to wait and see!

For my first ever gingerbread house I don't think this was bad at all, and it certainly tasted good!

I'm sending this to the Food Year Linkup, hosted by Charlotte's Lively Kitchen, as it's Halloween!

 

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Halloween Toffee Apple Cupcakes

It was announced at work yesterday that we were going to have a bake sale - today. A bit short notice for my liking but I really wanted to make something! I didn't have time to buy any extra ingredients so had to make do with what I had at home (and one thing I picked up in M&S at the train station) - but this is me after all. I had plenty of stuff at home!

 

I decided cupcakes would be quickest and easiest and I could decorate them with different Halloween toppers. I was originally going to make chocolate cakes but decided to use a flavour combination that you get a lot at this time of year: toffee apple.

I decided to go with a basic recipe and then add my flavourings and see how it turned out; the result was a light, bouncy cake with both flavours definitely coming through.

Toffee Apple Cupcakes - an original recipe by Caroline Makes

175g butter
175g caster sugar
3 eggs
175g apple sauce
175g Carnation caramel
175g self-raising flour

to decorate:
400g icing sugar
2 egg whites
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
assorted coloured fondant and mini cookie cutters
I also used Marks & Spencer meringue ghosts to decorate - you can easily make your own but I didn't have time

Preheat oven to 175C.

Cream the butter and sugar and add the eggs, the mix in the apple sauce and the caramel.

Finally fold in the flour.

Spoon into cake cases - I had some Halloween ones left over from last year. Bake in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes until cooked but still springy to the touch.

Allow to cool. When the cakes are cool, decorate them however you wish.

I made up some royal icing for another recipe, by  whisking egg whites and cream of tartar with the icing sugar, and spread this on top of several of the cupcakes.

I sat the M&S meringue ghosts on top of some of the cupcakes, and for others used black fondant and a mini cookie cutter to cut out bat shapes. I also moulded a skull and some pumpkins from white fondant that I coloured orange and green. I made a monster's head with the rest of the green fondant.

I am sending these to the blog challenge Food 'n' Flix, hosted this month by Elizabeth at the Lawyer's Cookbook, as the film she has chosen is perfect for Halloween - Hocus Pocus.

I'm also sending this to the Food Year Linkup, hosted by Charlotte's Lively Kitchen, as she welcomes recipes that fit to the time of year or topical events that are happening.

 

Finally I am sharing these with Treat Petite, hosted by Stuart at Cakeyboi and Kat aka the Baking Explorer. Their theme is black and orange, or anything Halloween related.

 

 

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