Recipe: Pineapple upside down cake

It's that time of the week again.. GBBO night! So of course here is another recipe that I made lately, I actually made this last week when I didn't manage to upload the post (ooops) but I'm starting to get use to baking every week! So for this weeks recipe I thought I'd bake something I've never tried before and that is a pineapple upside down cake from the recipe book Tanya Bakes, by Tanya Burr. I may have to do a separate review of this recipe book because it is SO good. Almost everything you could ever want to bake and more is in this book so it took me a while to decide what to bake first.

Ingredients:

150g butter

3 tablespoons golden syrup

6 slices tinned pineapple

150g golden caster sugar

2 eggs

150g plain flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

60ml pineapple juice (leftover from the tin of pineapple slices)

Method:

1. Firstly preheat the oven to 200 degrees/gas mark 6. Grease the cake tin with some spare butter and microwave the golden syrup for 20 seconds and add it to the cake tin, covering the bottom.

2. Dry the pineapple rings slightly with kitchen paper and lay in the bottom of the cake tin. In Tanya's recipe she added glace cherries too but I decided not to along with a splash of rum.

3. Cream together the butter and sugar in a bowl before beating in the eggs. Then add the flour and baking powder before slowly adding the pineapple juice and beat the mixture again.

4. Pour the cake mixture on top of the pineapple in the cake tin, smooth over and bake for 30-35 mins until risen and golden. Turn the cake out onto a plate and ta-daaa, pineapple upside down cake.

I hope you enjoyed reading this post and maybe even creating this recipe. Let's hope I can keep up all of this baking through this series of bake-off. Who knows what the Great British Bake Off will be like next year after this weeks news!

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Recipe: Easter Caramel Eggs Cheesecake

Last night I made this cheesecake and decorated it this morning, and I just couldn't wait to write this post to share the recipe with you all just in time for Easter! I love baking when I come home from uni and thought Easter was the perfect excuse although when searching pinterest for something to make I just couldn't decide. I wanted to make something I've never tried before and most of the recipes seemed to be creme egg based - so as I don't like creme eggs I wanted to mix a few recipes together to use these Galaxy caramel eggs instead! It's the first time I've made a cheesecake so I had no idea what to expect or whether it was going to even work and I'm so glad it did! Half of the cheesecake has disappeared already....

Ingredients:

Base:

300g Digestive Biscuits

125g Melted Butter

Cheesecake:

500g Full Fat Cream Cheese

1tsp Vanilla Extract

100g Icing Sugar

150g Carnation Caramel

300ml Double Cream

175g Caramel Eggs (or more/less if you'd like)

Topping:

Leftover Caramel

Mini Caramel Eggs to decorate

Method:

1. Smash up the biscuits and mix in with the melted butter. (I put the biscuits in a sandwich bag and used a rolling pin to crush them.

2. Add the biscuit and butter mix to a tin lined with baking paper and leave to set in the fridge.

3. Whisk together the cream cheeses, vanilla, icing sugar and caramel until smooth.

4. Pour in the double cream and whisk for a few more minutes until it almost becomes a meringue type texture.

5. Chop the caramel eggs that are going into the cheesecake and fold through the mixture, then add the mixture to the tin on top of the biscuit base and return to the fridge. You will then need to leave this for at least 5 hours, but I chose to leave mine overnight just to make sure it was ready for decorating the next morning.

6. Decorate the cheesecake however you like with the left over caramel and the caramel eggs and enjoy!

Let me know if any of you decide to make this or any other Easter recipes! You can leave me a comment below or tweet me @AbigailsWorld94.

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Autumn Apple Crumble Recipe

One of my favourite desserts to have during the autumn and winter months has to be Apple Crumble! There's something about them, the cinnamon taste and the warmth that are just perfect at this time of year. I decided to use my usual crumble recipe to make this which actually includes a crumble base which I prefer, the more crumble the better right? And I just swapped the fruit I'd used before in the recipe for apples and extra cinnamon instead.

Ingredients:

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup white sugar

1 tsp baking powder

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp cinnamon

1 cup cold unsalted butter

1 large egg

About 4 medium apples

Method:

• Pre-heat the oven to around gas mark 6 and cover a tray in either foil or baking paper.
• Peel and chop the apples and set aside.
• Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl, except for the apples and egg.
• Mix these together with your fingers (or whatever you prefer) this will be used as both the crumble base and topping.
• After these look to be mixed together enough, add the egg and mix together in the same way again until you get a much more crumble-looking mixture.
• Then you can use about three-quarters of the crumble mixture for the bottom of the crumble and press down so it sticks together.
• Put the apples in a pan with a little water and heat until softened, I also added some cinnamon too.
• Now you can add your apples as the next layer of the crumble
• And finally add the rest of the crumble mixture on top of the apples, BUT don't press down on it this time, leave it scattered but covered as much as you like for a nice crumble topping.
• And then place in the oven for around 20-25 minutes or until the crumble top is looking golden.

And there you have a lovely warm apple crumble to keep you warm and feeling Christmassy through Autumn and Winter!

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Funfetti Cupcakes Recipe

I've been wanting to make Funfetti cupcakes for a while now and after watching Zoella's Video here, I wanted to even more. So seen as hers worked out so well I decided to use her exact recipe! I usually change something about a recipe slightly each time I bake something but this time it was only accidental. I wanted the brightest coloured sprinkles they had in the supermarket but what I didn't realise until I got home was that they were also sour flavoured! They still turned out okay, well pretty good actually and you could only taste it on the ones on top a little bit and not on the ones inside the cupcakes so panic over they still worked.

This recipe makes 12 Funfetti Cupcakes!

Cupcake Ingredients:

125g caster sugar

125g self raising flour

2 large free range eggs

125g unsalted butter

¼ teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda

1 ½ tablespoons of milk

¼ teaspoon of vanilla extract

Sprinkles

Method:

1. Pre-Heat the oven to 170 degrees celsius.

2. Add the sugar, flour, eggs, butter and bicarbonate of soda to a bowl and mix together well with a blender or mixer.

3. Add the milk and vanilla extract and mix together again.

4. Now you can add as many brightly coloured sprinkles as you like, I couldn't make my mind up so I kept adding until it looked like a good amount. Blend these in to the cake mix and add to the cupcake cases in a cake/muffin baking tray.

5. Put them in the oven for around 20 minutes or until golden brown.

Butter Cream Icing Ingredients:

335g icing sugar

150g unsalted butter

1- 2 tablespoons of whole milk

¼ teaspoon of vanilla extract

Sprinkles on the top

Method:

1. Whilst allowing the cupcakes to completely cool, add the butter to a bowl and mix well until the butter seems lighter.

2. Add the icing sugar in slowly, a bit at a time not all at once and mix well.

3. The icing will be quite thick now so you will need to add the milk and the vanilla extract and mix again.

4. Then add the icing to a piping bag and pipe onto the cooled cakes.

5. Don't forget to decorate with the rest of the sprinkles and you'll have some fabulous looking funfetti cupcakes!

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Strawberry & Lemon Meringues Recipe

Another bit of baking I've done lately is little meringues. These didn't exactly go to plan with how they look, I think they look more like macaroons but oh well they still taste just as they should! I was originally going to make something like a Lemon Meringue Pie but I thought this was a much easier option and then I can make different flavours too. Why not try adding Nutella instead of the lemon/strawberry?

Makes around 10 completed 'sandwiches'

Ingredients:

2 egg whites

150g sugar

pinch of salt

tea spoon of vanilla essence

strawberry jam

lemon curd

Method:

1. Line two baking trays with baking paper and pre-heat the oven to 90 degrees C.

2. Whisk the eggs until foamy, add the salt and whisk again.

3. Slowly add the sugar and keep whisking.

4. Add the vanilla essence and whisk again until the mixture becomes stiff.

5. Use a spoon or a piping bag to when dotting them onto the baking sheets and place in the oven for up to 2 hours. I thought this sounded like a long time from the recipe I looked at but I baked mine for about 1 hour and 45 minutes.

6. When they're done allow them to cool and then choose either Strawberry Jam or Lemon Curd to spread on one and place another on top to create a sandwich/

7. Then they're ready to tuck into and eat.

Let me know if you decide to recreate this recipe, I'd love to know how it turns out!

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Millionaire's Shortbread Recipe

It's now the Great British Bake Off season and it makes me want to bake even more than I usually do. With last week them focusing on biscuits I decided to bake Millionaire's Shortbread. I've never made this before and I was surprised it went so well, I'll definitely be trying other shortbread recipes now. I used this recipe here from BBC Good Food but just tried something a little different for the chocolate on top to make it look (and taste) even better.

Ingredients

For the shortbread:

• 225g/8oz plain flour
• 175g/6oz cold unsalted butter
• 75g/2¾oz caster sugar

For the topping:

• 150g/5oz butter
• 1 x 379g can condensed milk
• 100g/3½oz golden syrup
• 350g/12oz chocolate (I used 300g milk chocolate and 50g white chocolate)

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 150C/300F/Gas 2. Line a square cake tin with baking paper.

2. Combine the flour and butter cubes and mix until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. (Alternatively, you can rub the butter in by hand.) 

3. Add in the caster sugar and mix again until combined.

4. Tip the mixture into the lined cake tin and spread it out evenly with the back of a spoon. Then press the shortbread down firmly with your knuckles so that it is tightly packed in the tin.

5. Bake the shortbread for 30 minutes or until very light golden brown. Set aside to cool.

6. Meanwhile, for the topping, heat the butter, condensed milk and golden syrup in a saucepan, stirring occasionally until the butter is melted and the mixture is smooth.

7. Increase the heat and bring the mixture to the boil, stirring frequently. The caramel will thicken and turn golden-brown. Set aside to cool slightly, then pour over the cooled shortbread. Allow to cool completely.

8. Melt the chocolate in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water or in the microwave.

9. Pour the melted chocolate over the caramel and set aside until the chocolate has cooled completely.

10. Cut into squares and serve. (Or broken pieces like mine)

I'm looking forward to tomorrows episode for more ideas on what to bake next.

Watch technique

0:46 min

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