White Chocolate & Strawberry Cake

Raspberry and white chocolate cake

I looked in my fridge and saw a huge punnet of strawberries that was calling out to be baked in something. So I scoured through my cook books looking for the recipe that most satisfied me. Strawberry shortcake? Strawberry tart with crème patisserie? And then I found it….John Whaite’s white chocolate and raspberry cake. I already had white chocolate in the cupboard and figured that strawberries would do the same job as raspberries. The recipe was so easy to follow and the cake was so moist and moreish – I will definitely be cooking this one again (especially if the people in my office have anything to say about it!)

Ingredients:

• 200g butter, chopped into small cubes, plus extra for greasing
• 100g white chocolate, broken into pieces
• 4 large eggs
• 200g caster sugar
• 200g self-raising flour
• 175g raspberries, fresh or frozen

For the cream filling:

• 200g white chocolate, chopped
• 250ml double cream
• a little icing sugar, for dusting
• (Although I just whipped up some cream and flavoured it with some vanilla extract)

Method:

1. Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Grease and line the base of 2 x 20cm round, loose-bottomed cake tins. Put the butter and chocolate in a heatproof mixing bowl, set over a pan of barely simmering water and allow to melt slowly, stirring occasionally.
2. When the butter and chocolate have melted, remove from the heat and allow to cool for 1-2 mins, then beat in the eggs and sugar with an electric whisk. Fold in the flour and raspberries.
3. Gently pour the mixture into the tins and bake for 20-25 mins or until golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean (the raspberries may leave a residue on the skewer, so don’t be fooled by their juiciness). Remove the cakes from the oven and allow to cool in the tins for 10 mins before turning out onto a wire rack.
4. To make the ganache, put the chocolate in a heatproof bowl with 100ml of the cream, set over a pan of barely simmering water. Stir until the chocolate has melted into the cream and you are left with a smooth, glossy ganache. Leave the ganache to cool to room temperature, then beat in the rest of the cream.
5. When the cakes have cooled, sandwich them together with the chocolate ganache. Dust with icing sugar just before serving.

Enjoy and please share if you like or bake this recipe! xx

Crumpies

Crumpies – a cross between crumpets and Yorkshire puddings 🙂

Crumpies! What a wonderful creation – a cross between a Yorkshire pudding and a crumpet, perfect hot out of the oven with lots of butter and a cup of tea!

They are a Jamie Oliver recipe and are a lot easier to make than crumpets – so if you’re in a rush these are perfect.

Makes 12

Ingredients:

• Vegetable oil for greasing
• 500g strong bread flour
• 1 tea spoon caster sugar
• 7g sachet of yeast
• A good pinch of bicarb
• 2 tea spoon salt

Method:

1. Preheat the oven 170C/Gas 3 and grease a muffin tray with veg oil
2. Place all ingredients in a bowl and pour 600ml of tepid water into the mix, whisk until combined and leave for 10 minutes
3. When batters thickened pour into muffin holes until the mixture reaches the top
4. Bake for 35 minutes or until golden
5. Enjoy with lots of butter 🙂

Enjoy and please share if you like the recipe or leave me a comment – I’d love to hear from you 🙂

Holly x

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Leek and Bacon Tartlets

Leek and Bacon Tartlet

Tartlet with a side salad

HollyRachelBakes 🙂

Dished up and ready to go!

One of my monthly treats is my subscription to Style at Home Magazine.

When it arrives through the door each month I am full of the joys and grab a cuppa straight away to flick through all it’s amazing stylist tips and not to mention the recipe section at the back! This month they featured a fab Leek and Bacon Tartlet recipe to wow your friends and family this Easter. So I gave it a try and it really was so yummy! So here it is!

Takes 40 minutes & serves 6 (I reckon 4 people though if you’re greedy like me and Tim :))

Ingredients:

• 100g streaky bacon
• 20g butter
• 2 leeks
• 100ml white wine
• 6 tbsp. crème fraiche
• 500g puff pastry (I used shop bought – so much quicker!)
• 2 sprigs of thyme

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 190C and fry the bacon for 10 minutes until crispy. Set aside and heat the butter in the same pan and fry the sliced leeks for 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
2. Pour in the white wine and bubble for 5 minutes until the leeks are soft and most of the liquid has evaporated. Stir in 3 tablespoons of crème fraiche and add the bacon.
3. Roll out the pastry until just thicker than a £1 coin. Cut out 6 x12 cm circles (I just baked one giant tartlet then cut it up once baked) Score a 1cm margin around the edge and put on a baking tray. Spread 3 tbsp of crème fraiche over the pastry, top with the bacon and leek mixture and thyme leaves.
4. Bake for 15-20 minutes until the pastry is puffed up and golden, sprinkle with a few extra thyme leaves before serving.

Hope you like this recipe – it really is so easy and a great weekday dinner with a big old salad 🙂

Thanks for stopping by!

Holly x

Chocolate Orange Cookies

Terry’s Chocolate Orange Cookies

Freshly out the oven

Melted gooey chocolate orange

Close up of the yummy cookies!

My latest bake is a recipe from Janes Patisserie – another fellow food blogger. When I saw her post of these cookies, I knew that I HAD to make them and as soon as possible. They were super easy to make and taste just like the giant cookies you would buy in a shop. I ran out of chocolate orange segments so with my final few cookies I used some left over Thorntons truffles on top and they were so yummy too.

This blog post is dedicated to my dear friend Sarah as it’s her birthday today and her comment when I posted a picture of these cookies online totally made me chuckle – “Oh my actual days….you’ve just revolutionized EVERYTHING I EVER KNEW!…” Happy birthday lovely! 🙂

Makes 12-14

Ingredients:

• 125g butter
• 100g granulated sugar
• 100g light brown sugar (I used dark brown as its all I had!)
• 1 egg beaten
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 25g cocoa powder
• 175g self raising flour
• 1/2 tsp bicarb of soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• Zest of 1/2 a medium orange (I left this out as I hadn’t got any oranges – but they still tasted lovely)
• x2 175g Terry’s Chocolate Orange (350g in total)

I took 12 segments to decorate the tops of the cookies and whizzed up the rest of the chocolate orange in a food processor along with some milk chocolate – use to your discretion – as much or as little as you’d like 🙂

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 190C and line 2 baking sheets with baking parchment
2. Mix together the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. I used an electric hand whisk as it makes thing easier.
3. Mix in the vanilla essence and the beaten egg
4. Mix in the cocoa powder, flour, bicarb, baking powder and salt until a thick cookie paste is formed
5. Whizz the chocolate pieces in a mixer or chop them up and add to the mixture with the orange zest and mix together
6. Spoon the mixture onto the trays – making sure there is enough room for them to grow in the oven. I did 6 per tray as advised by Jane – about a tablespoon of mixture per cookie
7. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes, then take them out of the oven, add a segment of chocolate on top and put back in the oven for 1-2 minutes
8. Once baked remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly. I ate one when they were still warm and the chocolate went everywhere but it was totally worth it!

A big thank you to Jane for the recipe! These are gorgeous cookies – chocolate over load indeed 🙂 x