Key lime pie cupcakes

Key lime pie is my favourite dessert in the world, I made a lovely one a few months ago:

I have just purchased the Hummingbird bakery cookbook and found the key lime pie cupcake recipe and couldn't resist making them. It was a bit faffy - making a lime curd for the centre of the cupcake (SO DELICIOUS) and a custard to go on top. They took me quite a while to make but I thoroughly enjoyed it and they tasted amazing. The book suggested cutting out the centre of the cupcake with a knife to put the lime curd in but I used an apple corer instead which was much quicker. I also added some edible glitter to decorate alongside crushed digestive biscuit and lime zest.

:)

OH! & this is my kenwood mixer that I couldn't live without, it helps me make all my lovely cakes and treats:

Chocolate shortcake

I've had a pretty busy baking day today, aside from the dinner I cooked (see post below), I also made Chocolate shortcake with peanut butter frosting, a recipe I found in the Hummingbird bakery - Home Sweet Home cook book. They taste much better than they look.

This recipe was pretty time consuming as you had to put the cakes in the freezer for 20 minutes before baking them. I think if I made them again I wouldn't put the demerara sugar on the top as it makes them a bit too crunchy. 

Pizza night

Today I made pizza and dough balls as a Saturday night treat. I used a simple pizza base recipe:

1kg strong white bread flour
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
14g dried yeast
1 tablespoon caster sugar
4 tablespoons of good quality olive oil
700ml water

I sieved the flour and salt together on to my kitchen surface and made a small well in the middle. I then mixed the yeast, olive oil and sugar together and gradually poured the mixture in to the well - using my hands to mix together and make a dough. After the dough had come together I placed it in a bowl with a damp cloth and let it rise for approximately 1 hour.

I used a rolling pin to make two pizza bases and used the left over dough to roll in to little balls. I put a small amount of olive oil on the dough balls and cooked for 8 minutes in the oven at 250°C. To make the garlic butter I cut up two cloves of garlic and heated up some unsalted butter and mixed the garlic in.

I used passata as the tomato base, mozzarella for the cheese and chorizo, salami, prosciutto, fresh chillies and red peppers to top it all off.

Christmas

My attempt at festive cupcakes featuring candy cane, gingerbread, egg nog and Christmas cake cupcakes.
This was the first time I used a piping bag to create the pink and white candy cane effect and I was pretty pleased with them. I made them for a family Christmas party and they went down wonderfully.

Merry Christmas :)