Weekend with the family and a spot of baking.

Hey there bloggers!

It's time for blog no. 2! I hope you're as excited as I am.

I've had a really nice couple of days with my parents and my older brother came up to visit with his lovely girlfriend who had got me a cupcake bouquet to help me celebrate finishing uni - the cakes were iced to look like flowers while the cake itself was really buttery and light. I find so often that beautifully decorated cakes can be very bland or dry or heavy but these were gorgeous.

I work at a wedding venue as a waitress and so I see a lot of wedding cakes that don't quite hit the mark.

I'd done a bit of baking myself ready for their arrival - white chocolate and raspberry brownies with a cheesecake swirl (I'll but the recipe at the bottom) which were lush but we had the age old issue of raspberry seeds stuck in our teeth. 

My brothers girlfriend told me she wanted to learn how to bake so on Saturday I made a Bakewell tart - a personal favourite of mine - while she watched on (very simple - line your pastry case with sweet desert pastry, spoon raspberry jam over the top and spread to the edges (no need to blind bake the pastry) and then whisk together butter, sugar, eggs, ground almonds, almond essence and flour until you have a mix at cake batter consistency and spread this over the jam. Sprinkle with flaked almonds and bake for 35 minutes). I love the idea of teaching other people how to bake and cook but unfortunately I'd have to get some qualifications before I can teach others, plus I'd need to find space where I could do it. I'd like small groups though, maybe 4 or 5 people at a time making a main course and a desert/cake and then being able to take their food home to their families or whatever to show them what they'd achieved. Essentially I want to be Mary Berry, including that section of her job description where she has to flirt with Paul Hollywood. Those two together make me giggle like a child.

A slightly depressing fact in my life is that I weigh more right now than I ever have in my life - I just bought my dress for graduation ball and the only way to get it to zip up over my DD boobs was to get a size 18. So I've made a drastic decision and forked out £25 on three tubs of Slim Fast meal shakes, five boxes of Slim Fast meal bars and a selection of Slim Fast snacks (all this would have been worth a small fortune in a supermarket but on Amazon you can get it at wholesale prices rather than retail). I'm also going cycling with my dad - 9 miles every day - and I'm using the dumb-bells my brother left behind to tone up my flabby arms. I will get back to a size 14 before September. I'm fully aware of how hard it's going to be, especially when I'm working my summer job at the wedding venue surrounded by cake and delicious food all day, and I am worried that doing a 10-hour shift powered by a milkshake and a cereal bar is not going to work well but the work is good exercise for me since I'm standing up 90% of the time. So this is my challenge - two stone (at least) in 5 months. Wish me luck, Bloggers!! 

White chocolate and raspberry brownies with cheesecake swirl.

100g dark chocolate, broken into pieces

100g butter
200g light muscovardo sugar

2 large eggs, beaten

100g plain flour

100g white chocolate, chopped

150g raspberries (I used frozen)

 For the cheesecake swirl-

1 large egg

200g cream cheese

50g caster sugar

1 tbs plain flour.

Preheat the oven to 180oC (160oc fan assisted).

Grease and line an 18cm square cake tin.

Melt the dark chocolate either in a microwave or over a pan of simmering water.

Beat the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy, add the eggs a little at a time and mix for a few minutes  Tip in the flour along with a pinch of salt and melted chocolate and mix again, making sure all the flour is incorporated and not all up the sides of the bowl.

Fold in the chopped white chocolate and the raspberries.

In another bowl, whisk together all the ingredients for the cheesecake. Tip 2/3 of the brownie mix into the prepared tin. Pour over the cheesecake mix and swirl the two together with a skewer. Spoon over the remaining brownie. Bake for 50 minutes. Leave to cool before cutting into squares. 

Cupcake bouquet!