the Nightmare Before Valentine's Day

I finally managed to finish crafting for one of my partners for the Tim Burton Nightmare Before Valentine's Day craft swap. Though I had millions of ideas buzzing around my brain for the swap I ended up running late with the actual crafting of it. This morning I invited my friends Emma and Alison over for coffee and cake and while they were here I finished making a Burton-esque pincushion for Alison who ended up being one of my two craft partners in the swap. So instead of me posting her things I made coffee and gave her a red glitter covered triple chocolate and espresso brownie.... I'm nice like that.

We geekily talked about books, iphone apps and crafts, while I finished sewing and gluing the pincushion in place. I made the pincushion from a little silver plated bowl (possibly a sugar bowl?) that I found at a little junk/antique shop in Cromford (Arkwright's Attic in the mill). When I saw the bowl with it's lovely tarnished silver I knew it would be right for Alison and would fit perfectly into any Burton world.... OK maybe not Mars Attacks or Batman Returns but certainly it wouldn't go amiss in Beetlejuice, Nightmare before Christmas, or Alice in Wonderland. I used a scrap of vintage doily and some black and white ticking that I thought would fit in with the worlds of Burton.

I also gave her a copy of the Meloncholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories by Tim Burton and a small zombie doll with a loose eye as Alison loves books and zombies too. The Corpse Bride is a zombie right? I really had a ball crafting for the swap, when we weren't all under the weather with awful colds and luckily for me I still have one more thing to finish crafting for my second craft partner the lovely Jessica of Kids Napping? I'm Scrapping before I can blog that too.

triple chocolate and espresso brownies

(I should probably write up the recipe)

I best go do some crafting... or put the kettle on for another cup of coffee. It's Valentine's Day and we never do very much but we will watch some crappy horror flicks later.. I quite fancy a zombie film as nothing quite says love like zombies eating brains...right?

Snowmen Cupcakes

who you lookin at?

ingredients:

cupcakes:
Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups self raising flour
1 ½ cup caster (white) sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter (softened)
1 cup milk
3 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (180 C).
Grease 12 cupcake cups or line with paper muffin liners. (recipe makes 24 cupcakes (not fairycake size, muffin tin size.)

Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl and set aside.In a small bowl mix the milk and the vanilla.

In a large bowl cream butter and sugar until fluffy.

add half the flour and mix well. Add half the milk and vanilla mixture.

Add eggs, one at a time mixing well. slowly add in the remainder of the dry mixture.

Add the last of the milk and vanilla.

spoon the batter into the cups and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until the cake springs back when touched.

Remove from oven and let cool for about 10 minutes, then turn out of pan and onto a rack to finish cooling completely.

Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting
ingredients:
1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup unsalted butter (softened)
1-1/2 cups powdered (icing) sugar
1-2 teaspoons vanilla extract (or vanilla flavouring)

Place the cream cheese, butter, and vanilla in a bowl and slowly add in the powdered (icing) sugar as you mix. Blend until smooth.

decoration:
1 large bag of plain m&ms
1 industrious child to separate the m&ms ( you only need the brown and orange ones so bribery is easy)
sweetened and tenderized coconut
1 bag plain chocolate chips


assembly:

place the sweet coconut in a bowl.

ice a cupcake with the vanilla icing and gently dip the cupcake into the coconut.

use the brown m&ms for the eyes and the orange ones for the nose, and chocolate chip (coal) for the snowman's smile. Its a fun job that the kids can help you with, especially separating out the m&m colours, as H quite happily sat for an unheard of 10 minutes separating out all the m&ms and was quite happy to steal a few.

alternatively you could use other orange sweets for the snowman's nose or colour some marzipan orange and roll flat and cut small triangles (carrots) or roll into small carrot shapes.

cooks notes: I made two batches 48 cupcakes to sell after H's school Christmas Concert, every single cupcake sold!, M assures me they were very nice I never got one though I may have made myself just the teensiest bit sickly "tasting" the icing....and cake batter... I also made 24 Double Chocolate Brownie Cupcakes which sold too, so I was quite pleased that even if my crafts aren't selling my cakes were appreciated and raised some money for H's school.

Skellingtons, vampires and applesauce

cinnamon apple sauce

I should be doing a post for each of these creations but I just finished the Jack Skellington cake for H's birthday party later and I am terrible pleased I think I may fly about the room in a minute.. or at least fly up to wash my hair....

Jack Skellington cake

really must run as I cant find my witches hat and I need it for H's party (his actual 6th birthday isn't till Monday)

vampire cupcake

OMG THE BOY WILL BE SIX!! SIX!!!!

flour and apples

flour and apples

The last few weeks seem to have gone by in a blur of getting H ready for school, and running around like a zombie chicken with my head cut off (decapitation is not an effective means of incapacitating poultry). I baked a loved cinnamon apple crumble on Saturday after visiting a lovely little apple stall on a farm not far from here. I haven't tried to write a recipe because I just threw things together and then added more cinnamon just to be sure in was autumnal enough.

mmmm crumble

The last two Sundays M has taken us to Tansley car boot for a wander around and I managed to find a few little gems to play about with for not much money at all. My favourite item is the tea cup which I bought with the intention of turning into a tea cup candle but I have yet to order any soy wax or wicks yet, but I will do....one of these days... The glass jar was 50p and is filled with some mother of pearl buttons that I'm sure will be put to good crafting one of these days. I miss yardsales and thrifting in the States, its just not the same here.

boot sale treasure

We (and by we I mostly mean me) have also been working in the garden, I took down the plastic green house and stripped the few weedy tomatoes from it which now sit in a dish on the windowsill slowly turning ripe. And with a little help we have the shed/summer house up and painted except for the windows. When it is finished I will order M out with the proper camera to take photos and make everything look much prettier than it actually is.

one, two, three little tomatoes all forlorn

Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes

ice cream cone cupcake

Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes
ingredients:
2 1/2 cups self raising flour
1 ½ cup caster (white) sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter (softened)
1 cup milk
2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

24 flat bottomed ice-cream cones

Put the flour, salt, and baking powder in a small bowl. In another bowl mix the vanilla and milk together.

Beat the butter and sugar together in a large bowl.

Add half the flour and beat until well blended.

Add half the milk and the vanilla and beat until well mixed.

Add the eggs one at a time mixing well between additions.

Add the remainder of the flour blend thoroughly.

Add the remainder of the milk and vanilla.


Spoon the batter into the ice cream cones filling them ¾ full. bake for 15-20 minutes at 180 C until it springs back when you touch them.

Remove from oven and let cool for about 5 minutes, before placing onto a rack to finish cooling completely. When cool ice with cream cheese frosting.


Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients:
1 8oz package cream cheese
½ cup butter (softened)
2 ½ cups powdered/icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Blend together cream cheese, vanilla and butter, slowly adding in the sugar a bit at a time… you can separate the icing into different bowls to add food colouring, and you can sprinkle the “ice cream” with sprinkles, shaved chocolate, fruit or even a flake as I did.


Cook’s notes: I made these for H’s school fair, every single ice cream cone, cupcake and brownie I made sold. *preens* sorry the pictures aren't as good as they could be, the day was manic with baking cupcakes, brownie cupcakes, and decorating them that I only managed a few quick pictures.

a few cupcakes too

gardening, baking, playing

H doing very important planting

Yesterday H and I did some baking and gardening, what else is a boy to do at half term? He helped make some banana coconut and pecan muffins, and had been practicing his barista skills with M making coffee. We haven't really got much done, but that doesn't matter he has helped to plant a little plant in the garden, and played at being dragons, monsters, Jedi knights and Darth Vader, most of this didn't involve me as he was twirling around the garden having a merry time for himself.

liliac in the garden

About five minutes ago H went off with his grandma to go to his swimming lesson so I have the house to myself for an hour or two before M comes home, I'm not feeling particularly motivated to craft, or bake or clean, but then again I rarely ever feel the desire to clean, Martha I am not nor will I ever be. Instead I'm watching an episode of Veronica Mars that I downloaded and mulling over some ideas for working on the fairy tale I still haven't finished writing (honest one day it will be done) and thinking about all the comments that were left after my last blog post. Thank you so much everyone who shared their thoughts and themselves with me, it means agreat deal to me, and I will attempt to email you all back individually, but as you should all know by now I'm very slow at writing emails.

banana, coconut, and pecan muffin

p.s. I'll write up a recipe for the muffins if anyone requests it.. they did turn out very nice and got rid of half of the bananas in the fruit bowl that were turning a nice shade of brown.

Pumpkins, Pancakes, and Peach Cake Oh My!

Today nothing much has happened I had good intentions to finish off winterising the garden but that didn't happen, I planned to make a Lemon Drizzle Cake for MNWI ( mumsnet womens institute) and take a picture of it in a lovely outdoorsy setting of natural and historical significance, but we didn't really go anywhere except Asda and that is neither historical or natural, or even remotely pretty in anyway.

So what did I do aside from the usual round of dishes, laundry, and scrubbing? Well for breakfast I made chocolate chip pancakes, they were going to be fruit pancakes but as I had no fruit aside from some canned pineapple rings rusting quietly at the back of a shelf, they became chocolate chip ones. Because if you haven't got fruit you should at least have chocolate!





Later armed with some nearly over ripe, but not quite, nectarines I made an peach upside-down cake to go along with dinner. It turned out gorgeous and M says its much better than the apple version, Which I'm not quite sure about but it did turn out lovely. And for once I turned an upside-down cake over before the bottom/top stuck to the pan. The recipe I used was the same as the apple one but slightly modified, I'll write it all down tomorrow when I have more time. http://meridianariel.blogspot.com/2007/06/apple-upside-down-cake.html


Oh and the pumpkins are what H and I grew in the garden now residing on the mantle. Its nearly October after all..

Nutella Cupcakes

Very Vanilla Cupcakes with Nutella Iceing


Ingredients:
2 cups self raising flour
1 ¼ cups caster sugar
½ cup butter or margarine (softened)
¾ cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1 jar of nutella spread

Preheat the oven to 375 F

Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Then add half of the flour to the butter beating well. Add half the milk and beat well then add the eggs one at a time. Add the rest of the flour then the remaining milk and the vanilla mixing till smooth, Fill paper cup liners, or greaded and floured muffin tins half full. bake for 15 minutes or until the top of the cupcakes are golden and spring back when pressed. Remove from onve and let cool on wire rack. Ice the cupcakes with the nutella spread. easy delicious. gone.

cooks notes:

The cup cake recipe is my basic yellow cake recipe, althoug in this instance i had only plain cake flour and had to add baking powder (1 teaspoon)and salt (about a 1/4 teaspoon) that I would normally omit from my recipes as I'm lasy and prefer self raising flour.

M loves nutella and has been looking for an excuse to buy some so I thought why not use it as icing and I think the result is great. So easy and yummy too. Move over Nigella.

Key Lime Cheesecake (no bake version)

Key Lime Cheesecake With Biscuit Base

3 pkg. (8 oz. (200 g) each) Cream Cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. grated lime zest (2 limes)
2 Tbsp. fresh lime juice (2 limes)
1 cup whipping cream
pie crust*
Beat cream cheese, sugar, zest, and lime juice with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended.
In a separate bowl whip the cream then add it to the cheese mixture. Pour the cheesecake mixture into the crust.
refrigerate for 3 hours or overnight.
Top with fresh whipped cream just before serving. Store any leftover cheesecake in the refrigerator.

For the crust
12 biscuits (digestives or coconut or graham crackers makes roughly 1½ cups crumbs) 3 tablespoons melted butter
Crush the biscuits and add the melted butter. Mix well and press firmly into a 8-inch pie pan. refrigerate while preparing the cheesecake filling.

cooks notes:

The cheesecake was much easier to make than the baked version, the addition of the whipped cream made for a much lighter density. I'm quite happy with the result the only drawback is that I used a new zester which was a little bit keen to zest the limes. I think I will definatle use this recipe again in the future. THe origional recipe I found online and adapted it to my way of thinking. Afterall I'm left handed and we do think diffrently! Next time I might experiment with some lemongrass or a bit of ginger, or possibly some cherry topping.

Apple Upside Down Cake II

Upside-Down Apple Cake with Cream Filling


The recipe for this is essentally the same as that of the original Apple Upside Down cake but this time I took pictures and instead of using my large cake tin, I seperated the batter into two smaller tins, then when the cake was cooled I whipped some double cream that was lurking in the back of the fridge trying to hide until it turned into sour cream. I slatered the whipped cream over the bottom layer of cake and the carefully manuvered the top (upside down layer) carefully over the cream.

A closer view of the cake

Apple Upside Down Cake


½ cup butter
½ cup caster sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1½ cups self-raising flour
½ cup milk
2 to 4 firm-fleshed apples (granny smiths are best but this time a used small royal gala apples that were perishing in the fruit bowl)
1/2 cup butter (melted)
2 teaspoons cinnamon
¼ cup light brown sugar (I used dark brown this time as thats all I had it just gives a much richer taste)

Cream the butter and the sugar together, add the eggs one at a time. Add half of the self-raising flour, then half of the milk and the vanilla.Add the remainder of the flour followed by the remaining milk and beat till well blended.

Melt butter in baking pan in the oven while pre-heating, remove and sprinkle with the cinnamon and sugar mixture. Pare, quarter, and slice the apples thin. Spread in an over-lapping layer on the bottom of the baking dish . Pour the cake mixture over the apples. I'n this instance i used two small 8" cake tins and seperated the batter. The batter will be thick and may need to be smoothed on top with a knife.

Bake at 300° to 325° F. for 45 minutes. Until the cake is golden brown on top and springy to the touch. Leave on a wire rack to cool for 5 minutes. Loosen the sides of the cake with a knife , Cover the cake with a large serving dish or baking tray and turn it out carefully, upside down.

original post

http://meridianariel.blogspot.com/2007/06/apple-upside-down-cake.html

Strawberry Vanilla Cupcakes

I have been in the icing sugar again as you can clearly see from the above image of a very yummy vanilla cupcake with a strawberry on top. I have been baking because I singned up for a cupcake competition on www.mumsnet.com the teme is summer and songs the picture I entered into the contest is the one below of a ice-cream shaped cupcake. Basically a cupcake shoved into a cone with lots of butter cream icing.

Update on the mumsnet contest.

tigi on Mon 25-Jun-07 19:31:54
Overall Winner – Daemara This prize is awarded for the perfection of the solitary cake seen at the end of Daemars’s photographic album. It is seen with a swirl of icing with a succulent strawberry dropped on top. The symmetry of the image is a marvel to behold. The judge was bowled over with delight and ecstasy to see the absolute perfection of Daemara’s cake. Completely perfect and 100% round, sat in the case proudly, with no excess dollops or slops of icing sugar or sweeties to be seen. A marvellous specimen that makes me very proud indeed to be a member of the WI. Daemara will receive automatic entry to the ‘All England Cupcake Championships’ to be held in the Blackpool Ballroom on 1 April 2008. All spectators welcome (subject to £20 entry fee and smart dress code to be adhered to – no flipflops accepted into the the pimms and champagne reception tent). To summarise, the cake is a perfect shape in perfect proportion, with a simple effective swirl of creamy icing, with a perfect strawberry. A perfect cake, and it tasted delicious too.

Thats me I won I won... I know its only online but I won and I am totally stoked. Big thanks to Tigi for her Judging, and everone else from http://www.mumsnet.com/ that participated. The pictures for all the cakes can be located here: http://www.picturetrail.com/mncupcakes . Daemara = Meridian Ariel.

Cupcakes for Everyone!

Devil With a Blue Apron On

Tales of a Semi-Domestic Diva

Perhaps it’s the knitting that did it, or the baking or even the gardening. I think I’m being turned into a semi-domestic diva! I did always like to cook though so that doesn’t count towards my emanate domesticity or does it? My father is to blame for my cooking, He is one of the best cooks I have ever known and I was always in the kitchen with him from before I could talk, and probably walk for that matter. My mother does not cook, she does seasonal baking, the reheating of leftovers, and the ordering of pizza. As my dad’s galley slave I learned more than just how to boil water, I learned the real basics of cooking, not the measuring and fussy things, just real good food and ingredients, a bit of this a lot of that, usually in vast quantities. The art of cooking with a wooden spoon.
Being in the kitchen makes me happy. I love to bake and cook and fiddle about with recipes to make them my own. I keep thinking about writing a cook book, but that would take some doing as aside from all my recipes for cookies and cakes which I do write down, the majority of the things I do cook are a bit more organic that that and I tend to just throw things together from vague recipes and they mostly seem to work out. Does a cook book constitute as writing a book though? Would that still be creative? Could even rope my other half into taking the pictures for it, he will easily take payment in cakes!

I have also been toying with idea of taking some cupcakes around to one of the local cafes in town. Not sure about that, a friend things it’s a good idea, well actually it was her idea, but it smacks of being out going and I have never been good at selling myself just good at making cakes apparently. That would take an awful lot of mulling over, and a lot more guts than I think I have. But it would be something that is my own, my kitchen, my cupcakes, my life sort of thing. To bake or not to bake that is the question. Or vacuum my floors, maybe I'm not so domestic after all.