Lush Chocolate Tart!

I've been collect Baked and Delicious and I must say it is certainly worth the money (£4.99 an Issue) and its sooo fun to Bake out of it too!
This is a Chocolate Tart I have baked and it's never lasted longer than half a day so thats good.

Dark Chocolate Tart

300g Sweet Shortcrust Pastry
or
250g Plain Flour
125g Butter, softened and cubed
75g Caster Sugar
1 Egg, beaten

Place butter and flour together and rub together using fingertips until Bread Crumbs with a few lumps of butter.
Chill until needed

Filling

1 Egg
1 Egg Yolk
50g Caster Sugar
150g Plain Chocolate (Dark)
25g Butter (I use salted as I think it enhances the richness of the Chocolate)
1 tbsp of Double Cream
1-2 tsp Dark Rum (I never put the rum in as I'm only 15 and I don't fancy having that in but if you want to by all means do.)

Roll out the pastry until 1 cm thick and roll over the Rolling Pin and place into the Pie dish.
Preheat oven to 180C.
Set the Pie dish on a baking sheet and line Pastry shell with Grease-Proof paper or Tin Foil greased on the side which will meet the Pastry shell, fill with Baking Beans, Rice or any dried beans or lentils. Bake for 15 minutes and remove the Paper/Foil and leave to cool.
Melt the Butter, Chocolate, Cream (and Rum) in a bowl either in the Microwave stirring at 30 second intervals or over a pan of simmering water.
While the Chocolate is melting whisk the Egg, Egg Yolk and Sugar until thick, pale and doubled in volume.
Fold the melted Chocolate carefully down the side of the Egg mixture as to not knock the air out.
Pour the mixture into the cooled Pastry Shell and bake for 12 minutes until set.
Leave to cool until decorating with some Chocolate Curls, Icing Sugar and/or some Cocoa Powder.

Best served Chilled as the Chocolate filling melts in the mouth!

Enjoy!!!

Happy Birthday Mum!

            Over the past week I have been making the Decorations for my Mums Birthday Cake including Roses, Flowers and of course Nemo.
            Yesterday I banned my Mum from the kitchen while I made her cake, I made a Chocolate Sponge with a Chocolate Buttercream and Raspberry Coulis Filling, Yummy!!! I then Crumb Coated it in Vanilla Buttercream and I must admit it was my second time Crumb-Coating and it was Awesome!! I rolled out the 500g of Red Fondant I had and I must admit I had been looking at charts to see how much Fondant I would need to cover the cake and it said for a 7 Inch Cake you would need 600g and I only had 500g but when I rolled it out and put it on the cake I had LOADS left over so obviously for this Cake you didn't need 600g!
           After the Fondant was on the Cake I went to town on it, my Artistic Skills came through, I piped with Royal Icing the Nottingham Forest Badge with Forest written under it and then added the Fondant Nemo (Which my Mum loved more than the Forest Badge!!) and a Orange Rose to the side with 2 leaves. Around the edge I stuck some Fondant Flowers and leaves with some more Royal Icing and the Cake was starting to come together. The area inbetween the Flowers looked bare so using some chocolate Moons, Stars and Heart I stuck them on with a small dot of Royal Icing and it just looked Ah-mazing! I finished off with a Shell Border along the bottom edge (the cake was sliding a little) and some edible glitter painted along the top added a sense of Femininism to it so.

Sorry it's sideways, I don't know how to rotate!

From the Side.

Voila!

Fondant Flowers.

My Mum found the Fondant Flowers I made yesterday for her cake, well I showed her as I was proud. I rolled the Fondant out thinly and used 2 Blossom Cutters one smaller than the other so it made a 3D effect and glued them together with a little bit of water, I veined the larger blossom by using a toothpick and brushed some edible glitter onto the smaller blossom, I then placed a small Sugar coated Chocolate bean in the middle for the Pistil (centre) and then carefully placed each Flower in a Egg Box Cup to form and dry in a Flower shape.

B-e-a-utiful!

The leaves were just made from the leftover Yellow Fondant with Blue Paste food colouring added, then rolled out and using a Plunger Cutter cut the Leaf out and then the end was wrapped around the end of a toothpick to made the shape.

And today I made these:

Free Style Orange Rose!

I made 3 Orange Roses, these will go on my Mums cake too hopefully (If I've got enough room) This was the first time I had made Roses Free Hand (No Cutters) I am very proud of myself for them and they are Gorgeous!

My Busy Day.

Well today I made Banana Bran Cupcakes and  Red Velvet Cakes with a Brushed Embroidery Decor (Lets just say theres a lot to be desired in that skill.)

Red Velvet Cupcakes

The Royal Icing wasn't Thick enough nor
did I really know what I was doing.

75g Butter

150g Sugar

1 Egg

10g Cocoa Powder

20ml Red Food Colouring (Preferably Dr Oetker or some Paste)

1/2 tsp Vanilla Essense
120ml Buttermilk (120ml Milk with 2 tsp Lemon Juice)
150g Plain Flour
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
1 1/2 tsp White Wine Vinegar

Preheat the oven to 170C
Beat Butter and Sugar until Pale and Fluffy
In a separate small bowl mix the Cocoa,Red Food Colouring and Vanilla together to make a paste.
Add the paste to the Butter and Sugar then add the Egg,
Add half of the Buttermilk and Flour, mix thoroughly then add the rest.

My Favourite One.

Add the Salt, Bicarb of Soda and White Wine Vinegar.

Beat for a few minutes and then put the mixture into cupcake cases, should fill 2/3 full.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, this gave me a batch of 24.

Banana Bran Cupcakes

2 Cups of Bran Cereal

1 1/4 Cup of Plain Flour

1/2 Cup of Sugar

1/2 tsp Salt
1 tbsp Baking Powder
1 1/4 Cups Milk
1 Egg
4 Bananas

Preheat oven to 204C
Stir together Dry ingredients apart from the Bran.
Combine Milk and Bran in a separate bowl and leave for 5-10 minutes until the Bran is softer,
Mash the Bananas in a bowl and add them and the egg to the Milk and Bran.
Add the Banana and Bran mixture to the dry ingredients and mix until incorporated.
I found that the bottoms of the mixture stuck to the paper cases so spray your cupcake cases with some 1 Cal spray and it stops them from sticking.
Fill the cases 2/3 full and bake for 20 minutes.



Yummy!



Garden Cupcakes.

One of the few Cupcakes I made!

Today I made some Garden Cupcakes by making a Chocolate Cupcake, then using the Wilton 233 from

http://www.luvcupcakes.co.uk/ to make the Grass with Green Buttercream on top then my sister and I decorated them. :D

The Garden Cupcakes, Look Yummy!

Bits and Bobs

Well yesterday I ordered £15 pounds worth of Decorating stuff for my Mums Birthday Cake to be made very soon, I shall add pictures and tell you more after the 29th as my Mum could have a gander here on my blog and I'd rather not ruin the surprise! Anyway today I took to The Challenge a tin of the Apple Crumble Cupcakes and I must say...I think they enjoyed them! I took about 20 and only 1 came home with me so overall a good Cupcake but in my quest of Dessert Cupcakes if you come across any desserts that you think I should have a go of making into a Cupcake, comment or send me and email on taste_the_rainbow_eat_crayons_2k8@hotmail.com .

Thank You :D

Eventful Day?

Well today I made some Citrus and Honey Cookies to later decorate with Royal Icing, I thought the cookies would spread but they didn't so they were rather small. I made Royal Icing and that was too runny so just did some small decs and left then to dry. Don't get me wrong the Cookies are good and the Royal Icing will hopefully harden but overall not a very fun nor productive day, especially since it hasn't stopped raining all day :L