My love for Collies, Cakes, Cooking, Eating Out & Days Out.
When it comes to making and eating scones my husband is the expert. He was
gifted the National Trust Book of Scones a while ago so for National Cream Tea Day we got baking together. We chose the Chocolate Orange Scone Recipe from Goddard’s House and Garden for a delicious treat. We made a couple of adjustments to the recipe but they were delicious.
I recently visited Amy’s Place in Torrin on the Isle of Skye. A lovely little tea room with amazing views of Bla Bheinn. Whilst I was there I purchased a jar of Butterscotch Sauce from The Wee Dairy from the Isle of Gigha. So this week I decided to create a cake to compliment the sauce. Here is my recipe for White Chocolate and Butterscotch Cake.
With Christmas little over a month away my mind has turned to festive baking. This Luxury Giant Mince Pie is a fabulous festive dessert that can be served warm with cream, ice crem or brandy butter. Or, you could just enjoy a slice cold as a cheeky treat. Follow my recipe below to create your own Luxury Giant Mince Pie.
Simple Citrus Muffins are a quick and easy sweet treat to make. No fancy ingredients or tricky techniques are needed. This recipe makes 12 tangy muffins which can be frozen before being iced if you need to.
Well, you can take the girl out of Yorkshire but you can’t take Yorkshire out of the girl! One thing I do miss from my home county of Yorkshire is a Traditional Yorkshire Curd Tart, not something readily found outside the county boundaries. My husband used to buy fresh or frozen curds from the local farm shop and occasionally bake one but there are no such curds on the Isle of Skye. So I had to give it my best shot and make my own curds. So my recipe for Yorkshire Curd goes back to basics and demonstrates how to make curds, pastry and what to do with the left over buttermilk.
The English Cherry season tends to end around mid-September but my local supermarket here on Skye had some in stock this week. Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth I grabbed myself a punnet and embarked on a cake recipe. It would be very easy to fall into the trap of rehashing a Black Forest style cake so I opted for something a little different. Fresh Cherry and Marzipan Cake, the marzipan gives the almond flavour a real boost!
Pasteis de Nata or Portuguese Custard Tarts as they are known in English are something I have been meaning to make for a while now. Whilst I have never eaten one in Portugal I have devoured my fair share of the Spanish equivalent – Pastel de Nata when I lived in Catalunya. My hens are laying 6 eggs a day at the moment so the time was right for my first try at Pasteis de Nata.
I have simplified the recipe by using ready made Puff Pastry. But feel free to make your own pastry and then just follow the assembly instructions. This recipe makes 24 tarts but it could easily be halved. Continue reading “Pasteis de Nata Portuguese Custard Tarts”
Browsing through a few cookbooks last week searching for a recipe my husband stumbled across Louise Cake in Sweet by Ottolenghi. However after a bit of hunting around this wasn’t a traditional Louise Cake recipe, rather an adaptation. Louise Cake is a popular New Zealand bake which resembles more of a slice than a cake. The story goes it was named after Queen
Victoria’s daughter Princess Louise and arrived on New Zealand shores with British travellers at the time.
A few months ago I found a recipe for a Maple Syrup Cake which turned out to be a disaster. The quantities, nor the method seemed correct but I ploughed ahead and baked a dreadful dry and sunken cake. So after a bit of experimentation I now have a recipe I have created for a delicious Maple Syrup, Orange & Pecan Cake with an orange buttercream filling. Even better, you can always swap the Pecans for Walnuts and it will be just as tasty!
My recipes for Chocolate Bundt Cakes have proven to be very popular. However there has been many calls for a smaller version to be made in sandwich tins. I’ve re-written and tested the recipe so it fits into 2 x 20cm/8inch round cake tins. This version is a Chocolate Orange Cake but you could swap the orange for 120g of fresh raspberries and make a Chocolate Raspberry Cake.
To boost the flavour of the Chocolate Orange Cake I used a 100g bar of 
Fairtrade Dark Orange Chocolate from the Co-op topped up to 50g with Callebaut 54% Dark Chocolate Callets. This combination gives a rich chocolate flavour without being too bitter. I also used Yorkshire Rapeseed Oil but this can be substituted for any rapeseed, sunflower or vegetable oil.
