Oat, Coconut and Raisin Flapjacks.

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I'm still amazed by how delicious these flapjacks are in comparison to how quick they were to make. They're sweet, chewy and would be perfect for snacks or dessert. I also think they're healthier than cakes which is an added bonus!

Ingredients:

200g butter

200g brown sugar

2 tbsp golden syrup

275g porridge oats

200g desiccated coconut

75g raisins (you could use other dried fruits such as sultanas, dates, prunes or glacé cherries)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 160°C.

2. Put butter, sugar and syrup in a pan and heat until just melted.

3. Turn off the heat and stir in the remaining ingredients thoroughly.

4. Spoon mixture into a rectangular baking tin and flatten with a spatula.

5. Bake for 30 minutes.

6. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes.

7. Turn out of the tin onto a chopping board and slice up into desire shapes and sizes (I made around 20 rectangles).

 Enjoy!

Harry Potter cake.

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This is a cake which I made for a friend's birthday (the same one as the rubber duck cake) in April of last year. Sadly, the icing tasted really strange so the cake didn't taste amazing but I was really really happy with how it looked. As with all my cakes, I made the physical sponge cake (see standard sponge cake recipe down the side) two days before it's needed and decorate it the day before. 

I hope this has inspired you, enjoy!

Microwave chocolate chip cookie.

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In case you haven't realised yet, I'm obsessed with baking things that are quick and easy but also taste good. I stumbledupon this recipe a while ago but didn't have the chocolate to try it out at the time. It says you should microwave for 2 minutes but after reading the comments I microwaved it for 1 minute 30 seconds and then a further 15 seconds to make sure it was properly cooked (don't forget to use a cake tester just because it hasn't been in the oven).

 I'm not going to take credit for another blogger's recipe but I just really wanted to share it. It says it's for one but I would really struggle to eat this by myself, definitely one to share. I ate it with custard but ice cream or whipped cream would be really nice too.

If you're still interested click here to see the recipe. Alternatively, if you'd prefer more of a pizza hut-style warm cookie dough, click here for the original recipe. Enjoy!

Chocolate Chunk/Chip Cookies.

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These just so happen to be the first thing I ever baked by myself, it was Halloween and I was only 9. I felt so bad that we'd forgotten to buy anything for trick or treaters and so I made these (we didn't get any trick or treaters in the end, but more for me!). My point is, these are so quick and easy to make that even an inexperienced 9 year old can make them. They're ready to eat in around 20-30 minutes so are perfect if you just fancy a snack or have friends coming round and need to bake something last minute. I actually made these as a present for a friend's birthday and I'm sure she'll enjoy them! This recipe should make 10-16, depending on how large you make them.

Ingredients:

115g/4oz butter

75g/3oz soft light brown sugar

1 egg yolk

150g/5oz self-raising flour

75g/3oz chocolate

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C.

2. Beat butter until soft.

3. Add sugar and beat in.

4. Add egg yolk and beat in.

5. Add self-raising flour and beat in.

6. Stir in chocolate (I use broken up chunks as I'm sort of against chocolate chips, try experimenting with different types of chocolate).

7. Scoop up a ping-pong ball sized amount in your hand and put onto the baking try. Flatten them out and shape them if you wish. Be aware that they do expand a fair amount in the oven so remember to space them out.

8. Bake for around 10 minutes or until golden brown.

9. Allow to cool and harden on a cooling rack.

It really is that easy! These can be eaten warm straight out of the oven or cool, try them with ice cream or chocolate sauce. An alternative would be to put chunks of ginger in too, as the original recipe suggests, or replace the chocolate with raisins for a healthy option.

Enjoy!

Low fat Chocolate Brownies.

New year, new you? On a post-Christmas diet but don't want to give up your favourite treats? Well you don't have to with this super delicious low fat chocolate brownie recipe. They're so quick and easy that you can make them whenever you fancy. They're not your typical gooey centred brownie with a crispy top (they're halfway between brownies and chocolate cake) but I love them just as much. Yoghurt is used to replace some of the fat in normal brownies but it provides a really moist texture whilst adding calcium and protein to your diet! The optional walnuts contain omega 3 oils which can help to lower blood cholesterol and the reduced amount of margarine and sugar means a huge decrease in calories and fat.

Ingredients:

85g self-raising flour

40g cocoa powder

175g caster sugar

125g vanilla yoghurt (I often use the muller vanilla yoghurt with dark chocolate sprinkles in)

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence

1.5 tbsp oil

25g chopped walnuts (optional)

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/360°F
2. Sift the flour and cocoa powder into a bowl.
3. Add the all the remaining ingredients and combine thoroughly.
4. Pour the mixture into a greased baking tin, I often use a square pyrex dish though.
5. Bake for around 25 minutes.

In an average serving of a traditional chocolate brownie you would find 318 Kcal, 16g of fat and 10g of saturated fat. However, in this recipe, there is only 98 Kcal, 2.6g of fat and 0.7g of saturated fat!

Enjoy!

Ultimate Chocolate Muffins.

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If you're searching for the best chocolate muffin recipe in the world, look no further! I have been testing out countless chocolate muffin recipes for several years now but this is the one I always come back to. It has a perfect texture and I always get compliments with them. As I say in most of my recipes, you can choose what chocolate you want to go inside, I usually use chunks (not chips) of white or milk chocolate but experiment around with different combinations. With this recipe you can have double, triple or even quadruple chocolate! The possibilities are endless! 

Ingredients:

200g/7oz plain flour

25g/1oz cocoa powder

1 tbsp baking powder

115/4oz caster sugar

185g/6.5oz chocolate

2 eggs

100ml/3.5 fl oz sunflower oil

200ml/7 fl oz milk

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 200°C/400°F.

2. Line your cupcake/muffin tin with 12 muffin cases

3. Sift the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder into a bowl. Stir in the sugar.

4. Place the eggs and oil in a separate bowl and whisk until frothy. Gradually whisk in the milk.

5. Stir the eggs, oil and milk mixture into the dry ingredients. 

6. Add in your chocolate and stir.

7. Pour your mixture into the cases and fill each to about three quarters.

8. Bake for 20 minutes or until well risen and spongy.

You can also decorate the muffins with some melted chocolate and dust with cocoa powder, this is optional.

Enjoy!

Cappuccino Cake with Chocolate Orange Frosting.

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Okay, I know what you're thinking. 'Coffee and orange? Surely they are two flavours that should not be mixed!' That's what I thought when I tried this out, but you'll never know unless you have a go. I was pleasantly surprised that, because the coffee flavour in the cake isn't too strong, the orange in the frosting actually brings out the coffee and compliments it really well. This recipe is really easy to follow and produces a really moist cake with a delicious frosting. However, if you don't like the idea of chocolate orange, any chocolate can be used in the frosting. The original recipe suggested white chocolate to make the cake look like an actual cappuccino but sadly I didn't have enough so I decided to experiment with some Christmas leftovers instead.

Ingredients:

Cake: 225g/8oz Butter

225g/8oz Self-Raising Flour

1tsp Baking Powder

1tsp Cocoa Powder

225g/8oz Caster Sugar

4 Eggs (beaten)

3 tbsp Instant Coffee Powder (dissolved in 2 tbsp of hot water)

Frosting: 115g/4oz of your choice of Chocolate

55g/2oz Butter

3 tbsp Milk

175g/6oz Icing Sugar

Method:

1. Pre-heat your oven to 180°C.
2. Sift the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder into a bowl. Add the butter, caster sugar, beaten eggs and coffee and combine thoroughly until the mixture is smooth.
3. Pour the mixture into the tin lined with greaseproof paper and bake for 40 minutes or until the cake is well risen and firm.
4. Allow the cake to cool in the tin for around 10 minutes and then turn it out onto a cooling rack. Peel off the greaseproof paper carefully as the bottom of the cake will become the new top to offer a flat base for the frosting.
5. To make the frosting, melt the chocolate, butter and milk together in a bowl over simmering water. Keep stirring until it's well melted and smooth.
6. Sift the icing sugar into the melted mix and beat until combined.
7. When the cake is completely cool, spread evenly over the cake using a spatula or a kitchen palette knife.
8. To finish off, dust with an even amount of cocoa powder all over!

Enjoy!

The Photo Cookbook - Quick & Easy (iTunes 12 days of Christmas gift).

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I may be making a completely wrong assumption here but if you are into baking then there is a great chance you'll be into cooking too. If you have an iPhone/iPod/iPad etc you may or may not be aware of iTunes' 12 days of Christmas offer. Everyday of Christmas, iTunes are giving away a free gift. Be it a music video, a game, a book but today they are offering an app which gives you some delicious looking recipes with pictures to guide you along. Sadly, this only includes the 'Quick & Easy' section of the app which has meat, fish, vegetarian and dessert recipes.

There are also a 4 free recipes from the Italian, Asian and most importantly the Baking section but in order to unlock all of them you must pay £1.99 per section. This might be a good idea if you like the look of the 'ghosted-out' recipes. 

The layout of the recipes is very similar to a 'Bake with me' series I was planning. The first ever time I baked a cake I was really worried about how the mixture should look at each stage of the process and I thought it would be useful if I posted recipes that included pictures of this. Keep a look out for these posts soon! There are also quite a few recipes from this app that I'm really looking forward to trying out, especially the no-bake chocolate fudge cake, chocolate orange pots and feta & olive scones so I'll mention that it's from the app if I feature them in a post.

In order to get this app for free you must download the iTunes 12 days of Christmas app (it is in the top free apps in the app store) and follow the steps from there.

Enjoy!

Rubber Duck cake.

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Here is a birthday cake I made a while ago for a friend. She originally posted a picture of it on Facebook and I agreed to make it for her, not realising that it would be as easy as it was. This was the first properly decorated cake I ever made and it started of my obsession. Please bear in mind that I was only 13 when I made this so it clearly isn't perfect!

This isn't the best picture in the world, but as you can see it's simply a sponge cake covered in blue fondant icing (I would've preferred a darker blue but that's all the shop had). This acted as the bath water. Then there are pieces of torn up marshmallow that acted as the bubbles and the centre piece were the two marzipan rubber ducks in the middle.

It was inspired by this cake from 'sweetangelbakery', I'm not sure if the rubber ducks are edible here though.

I bet you're dying to know how I made these adorable little rubber duckies myself? Here's how:
1. Soften the marzipan in your hands.
2. Using your finger, make a hole in the marzipan and put yellow/orange food colouring in. The amount depends on what type of food colouring you use, there's the little bottles of it that you can buy from the supermarket (you would need to use a lot) or the small tubs of more gel-like food colouring that is available from most craft stores and cakes shops as well as the internet. I personally recommend the gel-like food colouring for a more vibrant and variable colour and you only need to use a very small amount for the desired effect.
3. I would advise to wear some form of latex gloves for this step, you need to work the food colouring into the marzipan which can be very messy and will stain clothes and skin. Keep folding the marzipan over and over on itself until the colour is worked in properly. Here is a good visual demonstration of this if that made no sense to you.
4. This step is modelling the ducks. Split the marzipan into 5 sections, 2 for the bodies, 2 for the heads and just a little for the beak and eyes. I used a video to guide me but as it was a while ago when I made this, I can no longer find it. However, this video is very similar except she's using fondant instead of marzipan. This makes no difference to the shaping of it but do not use the water that she talks about to stick them together.

Et voilà! You have your rubber duckies! I made one slightly bigger to act as a parent duck and a baby duck but this is totally optional. To attach them to the cake I simply used a cocktail stick. For the marshmallows, I simply cut them up into different sized pieces and stuck them down with icing. Play around with them until you get nice shapes.

Enjoy!

Chocolate truffles.

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Suddenly realised you've forgotten to buy someone a present? Looking for a really quick after-dinner chocolates recipe? Look no further! These chocolate truffles are quick, easy, delicious and will go down a treat!

Ingredients:

125g plain chocolate

2 tbsp of your choice of liquor (optional)

40g unsalted butter

55g icing sugar

55g ground almonds

cocoa powder for dusting (optional)

Method:

1. Put the plain chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of boiling water and melt, make sure you stir it regularly so chocolate doesn't burn.

2. Carefully remove form the heat and stir in your choice of liquor (I like to use rum).

3. Beat in the butter, sugar and almonds until thoroughly combined.

4. Shape the mixture into balls, I usually use 1 tsp per truffle to ensure they are all of a similar size. This recipe should make on average 18 but it depends on how big or small you make them.

5. If you are going to dust them with cocoa then spread some cocoa powder onto a plate and simply roll the truffles around in it until they are coated all over. Be careful not to put too much cocoa powder on them as this can make them very bitter and have an almost furry texture. An alternative decoration, which I prefer, is melting some chocolate and either dipping them in or drizzling it over them. I would advise refrigerating them for a while before and after doing this.

Enjoy!

Ps... I did also promise you a cheesecake recipe that I made for Christmas day, however it was the first time I used the recipe and they didn't turn out how I would've liked them too. The texture was really strange - the base wasn't crunchy enough and the topping was almost gunky and I did not enjoy them at all so it isn't a recipe I want to recommend to you. I do, however, have a tried and tested Gordon Ramsay recipe for a whole cheesecake which is delicious so I'm sure I'll be sharing that with you very soon!

What I got for Christmas 2012 - baking edition!

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After watching an excessive amount of YouTube 'beauty gurus' do their highly requested 'What I got for Christmas 2012' videos, I decided to jump on the bandwagon and do my own but with baking-related items I received. I did get quite a few this year and I'm so grateful for all of them so here's what I got...

Firstly, from one of my best friends, I got The Hummingbird Bakery cupcakes and muffins recipe book. It's only tiny but boy is it filled with loads of amazing recipes that I am so excited to try out! 

Then from another friend I received a Rosie's pantry baking book, not only does this have recipes but also techniques on how to make your baking perfect which will be greatly useful for me!

Next, from my mom I got a few things. We are both obsessed with the TV show Great British Bake Off and she did try to get me the cookery book from that but it was sold out so instead she got me one of the judge's book - Paul Hollywood how to bake. Again, like the previous book, he goes through baking techniques as well as some incredible recipes for breads, cakes and pastries. 

She also got me two pieces of equipment from the Broadway Cookshop on a recent trip to The Cotswolds - a cake taster (which I have been needing for years as I only use a fondue fork out of a set) and a piping bag. I am yet to figure out how to use the piping bag but I'm sure it'll produce great results when I can use it!

I hope you've all had an amazing Christmas too and if you got any baking themed presents then feel free to tweet me them @emmamorley7. I'd also like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Happy New Year and I hope 2013 brings great things for you!