A Wee Bit of Cake

Meal Planning Monday

By A Wee Bit of Cake - February 01, 2016

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BBC Good Food Show 2016

By A Wee Bit of Cake - January 27, 2016

I adore going to food shows – getting to meet my foodie idols, geek out on the latest kitchen gadgets, try all sorts of free samples and of course I always end up spending too much money.

Last year I was fortunate enough to collaborate with the lovely folks at The Cake and Bake Show where I manned their Instagram account for one day at their show in Harrogate and this year the BBC Good Food Show have asked me to join in with their Bloggers Program. Now initially I was unsure as baby is due in a matter of weeks but it gives me something other than baby to focus my mind on.

Last year I also went to the BBC Good Food Show when it came to Harrogate with my CCC friend Sam and we had such an amazing day. We stuffed ourselves silly with free samples, got to watch a fabulous demo by Paul and Mary and even got to meet them and the Hairy Bikers too at a book signing. I was definitely star struck many times during that day – who knew Paul was so short? Now I’m not exactly tall at the grand old height of 5’4” but he gives off such a domineering presence I really expected him to tower over us all. Mary was a sweetheart who spoke to each and every one of us at the book signing (and there were a lot of people there!) and the Hairy Bikers were exactly like you see on tv – happy, jolly and chilled out.

This year The BBC Good Food Show Spring will be at Harrogate once again from the 8 - 10 April 2016. We are hoping to go with a one month old in tow (am I mad? Maybe….) but I’ve been persuading Mr T it will be a nice way to get out of the house for a couple of hours and Harrogate is only 20mins away from us.

For the first time at the Show, Michelin starred chefs Michel Roux Jr. and Tom Kerridge will be demonstrating delicious dishes alongside The Hairy Bikers and Paul Hollywood. Now I went to the Paul and Mary demo last year and I would strongly recommend going to one. It’s great fun and a good way to escape the crowds for half an hour.

WHSmith will also be there with their Book Shop – I “may” have bought a book from here last year even though I’ve already got a huge cookbook collection. I blame the Hairy Bikers and them doing a book signing haha!

It’s so nice to have one of these shows come up North and to Harrogate too. Usually everything is in London or if they do come up here it usually involves traipsing to Manchester or Birmingham so having it in good old Yorkshire is a lovely treat. Also there’s a Bettys in Harrogate so you can finish your day off in style (well that’s what Sam and I did last year).

If you fancy going to the show in April, tickets are on sale now. I have been gifted with a 20% off code for you lovely lot – BL20.

*20% off Adult/Over 65s tickets only. Not valid on VIP or with any other offer. Ends 10/4/16. Standard Supertheatre seat included with Super tickets, subject to availability, Gold seat upgrade £3. Offer valid on Value tickets where available. Details correct at time of print. £1.50 fulfilment fee per advance order. Good Food® Good Food Logo © BBC Worldwide. Organised and presented by River Street Events.

Visit www.bbcgoodfoodshowspring.com for more information.

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meal planning monday

Meal Planning Monday

By A Wee Bit of Cake - January 25, 2016

6 Comments

clandestine cake club

Wharfedale Clandestine Cake Club

By A Wee Bit of Cake - January 22, 2016

I’ve mentioned The Clandestine Cake Club (CCC) on here many a time but I’m quite bad for remembering to share the write-ups of our events.

For any of you that are new to this blog or have never heard of CCC before (where have you been?) the basic jist of it is a group of home bakers meet at a secret venue once a month armed with a cake and we meet to chat, share cake and make new friends. I’ve been a member of CCC for almost 4 years now and running Wharfedale for 2 or 3 of those years.

Through CCC I have made some amazing friends and now I cannot imagine life without it. If it wasn’t for Lynn, CCC wouldn’t exist, I wouldn’t have a published recipe in a book and I probably wouldn’t have had the confidence to set up this blog.

Anyway…. back to some of recent events at Wharfedale….

Back in November we returned to the Hermit Inn in Burley-in-Wharfedale for our Autumnal Delights event. The weekend previously had seen some nasty flooding so a few of us were quite apprehensive as to whether the event would go ahead. Thankfully fate was on our side and even though only 5 of us attended (including 2 new members) it was a great evening. I still think about that delicious apple cake with caramel sauce that one of our newbies made. Honestly that cake was divine, I really need to make it myself!

As for the Hermit Inn they were wonderful hosts. Providing us with a cosy corner of the pub to tuck into our cakes, we could ignore the cold and dreary night outside. It’s the second time we have been there for an event and I really need to go back with Mr T for a meal. The owners are so friendly and welcoming and in return for their hospitality we left them a selection of our cakes to enjoy.

Fast forward to after Christmas and we held our first event of 2016 at The Yard in Ilkley. This is another venue we have been to before and I also went there for lunch at my Hen Party. They recently changed their menu and I’ve already said to Mr T we have to go and try it out.

Once again The Yard reserved their private bar upstairs for us to enjoy our Anything Goes event. Once a year the cake only rule is relaxed and members can bake whatever they want. We had a delicious Amaretto Cake from Dianne, Sam made some yummy cupcakes with Sugar and Crumbs Strawberry Milkshake Icing, I made my Mars Bar brownies and Amy balanced out all the sweet stuff with her yummy Cornbread.

Even though only four of us were there it was lovely to get some proper one on one time with members and have a good old natter. Sometimes when it’s too busy I find myself rushing around making sure everyone is ok but this time we all got to chat with each other and enjoy or bakes without hitting the dreaded cake wall.

Living where I do I feel so fortunate that we have so many different venues to visit for CCC but there is also something comforting about returning to a place we have been to before.

My next mission is to book another event in before baby arrives at the end of February. Just a small matter of choosing where to have it…

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meal planning monday

Meal Planning Monday

By A Wee Bit of Cake - January 11, 2016

11 Comments

billingtons

Mars Bar Brownie Cake

By A Wee Bit of Cake - January 06, 2016

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meal planning monday

Meal Planning Monday

By A Wee Bit of Cake - January 04, 2016

10 Comments

new year

Happy New Year!!!

By A Wee Bit of Cake - January 01, 2016

Happy New Year everyone!!! Did you all have a great Christmas and New Year's Eve? After a busy week I crashed out last night at 10pm. I've discovered a week of late nights and being almost 32 weeks pregnant do not mix well!

Over the past couple of days lots of reflective posts have appeared on my Bloglovin' feed and it got me thinking about 2015 and 2016. This time last year I was so excited that our wedding was coming up and now we are a matter of weeks away from meeting our little man. I remember setting myself a goal that by the time I turned 30 I wanted to have moved jobs from architecture to marketing, learn to drive, get married, be pregnant and hopefully own my own house. So far I have achieved almost all of these goals apart from owning our own house. We actually have the deposit sat in the bank, we just haven't found the right house yet - that's an aim for 2016 after the baby is born. I turn 30 on the 28th January so I'm feeling pretty pleased that I have reached my ambitions. I know some people want to travel the world and have all these high hopes and expectations but for me my goals are much smaller and simpler. I prefer to appreciate the little things in life and everything extra that is bigger than this is a massive bonus.

Looking back on 2015...

January

This is always a quiet month for us. After the expense of Christmas and the craziness of December it's nice to take some time out to bake, spend time together and end the month on a high with my birthday. I made a Fish Pie, baked brownies and cookies for Sugar and Crumbs Meringue Challenge, shared one of our favourite meals of Paneer Curry and went to Blackhouse for my birthday meal.

February

I joined the gym where I found an addiction for Spinning. Since falling pregnant I cancelled my gym membership once I hit around the 5 month mark as I was just too tired and finding it too much after a long day at work. I cannot wait to go back after the baby is born! I also took part in a few campaigns for Sainsburys including trying out their Panna Cotta box mix and their freezer challenge. I discovered the wonder that is Mars Bar brownies, shared my baking fails and wrote a Happy List.

March

I discussed my thoughts on cooking from scratch and my favourite cookbooks, I celebrated St Patrick's Day with this Guinness Cake, made some Oaty cookies, made this delicious garlic rump for Sainsbury's Black Garlic challenge and tried out their Creme Brulee box kit. I also made some Easter Rocky Road and ended the month with a new layout for my blog.

April

I continued with a bit more Easter baking including Creme Egg Brownies and Easter Cupcakes. I collaborated with the Cake and Bake Show for a few posts, discussed some wedding cake inspiration, went to the BBC Good Food show where I got to meet Mary Berry, Paul Hollywood and the Hairy Bikers (woop!), made a Shrek Birthday Cake and a Pulled Pork Cottage Pie - yum!

May

A bit of a quieter month on the blog front but I did make some Wedding Rocky Road that I went on to make for our actual wedding cake table, discussed my thoughts on the General Election, made Mr T a Chocolate Birthday Bundt and baked a Lemon and Blueberry Loaf.

June

Another quieter month on the blog, I think you can tell I was getting busier with wedding planning! I did write a few posts though including Foodie Penpals, taking part in Sainsbury's Switch the Fish campaign and I shared the photos from our engagement shoot.

July

Unfortunately I didn't blog at all during July but this was down to early days of pregnancy and the final run up to the wedding. Pretty good excuses... yes??

August

As our wedding was on the 2nd August and we were away on honeymoon for a few weeks after it I didn't blog until the end of the month where we shared our baby news.

September

I didn't blog much in September apart from these Chocolate Caramel Puds for the Godiva Chocolate challenge and my thoughts on the Syria Refugee crisis. Reading over that post now still makes me feel so sad yet grateful for my life too - does that make sense?

October

This month I blogged about the times when you just need a chocolate cake, how to make easy caramel from condensed milk, I baked Cherry Brownies and talked about the launch of the much awaited Clandestine Cake Club Book 2, a Year of Cake. I also shared the wedding cake I made for my besties and posted a few pregnancy updates including finding out we are expecting a wee boy!

November

I rarely blogged at all this month, I'm blaming pregnancy tiredness haha! I did review a Spiralizer though and shared the Sweetie Cake that I made for my nephew's 8th Birthday.

December

The end of the year! There was my Mum's yummy Irish Stew recipe, a festive banana loaf and the photos from our wedding day. I reviewed a box mix for Little Sins Cupcakery and also shared a 30 week pregnancy update.

Looking back it really has been a busy but amazing year too. I didn't blog on everything I wanted to but I committed so many memories and recipes to this little corner of the web, I'd actually forgotten some until I wrote this post.

2015 was pretty awesome and even though the year ended quietly I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. Here's to 2016, the birth of our little man at the end of February and hopefully many more happy memories.

Thank-you to all who read this blog, comment, follow me on all social media platforms and share in my ramblings. It really does mean a lot.

Happy New Year!!!

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chocolate

Little Sins Cupcakery

By A Wee Bit of Cake - December 23, 2015

As a rule I don’t like to use box or packet mixes for baking but every so often I am sent one to try and I’m always intrigued by them and their results.

A few weeks ago a box landed on my desk at work and I opened it to find four cardboard tubes of packet mixes from the The Little Sins Cupcakery. The flavours included were vanilla, chocolate, red velvet and carrot. On first impressions I liked what I saw. It wasn’t a cheap grotty box like you pick up from the supermarket, in fact it looked quite fancy.

I decided to test out the chocolate ones as let’s be honest, we all love a good chocolate cupcake. The instructions were simple and easy to follow and there was no weighing needed, just a jug for measuring. I didn’t have any buttermilk in which the recipe requested so I added half a tablespoon of lemon juice to some normal milk instead.

Everything mixed easily enough with a balloon whisk so there was no getting out the electric whisk or mixer.

Using an ice-cream scoop I evenly distributed the filling between all the cupcake cases and sprinkled the chocolate chips included on top. Important to note here that the cases are very good quality. I hate making cupcakes with cheap cases only to find out they have peeled once cooled. The cases in this set did not peel at all. I baked them in the oven for 22mins and they came out looking delicious. My only concern was the tops were very rounded like a muffin, I prefer my cupcakes to rise with a level top as this makes icing them a lot easier. I did debate about slicing off the tops but I didn’t want to lose the chocolate chips that miraculously did not sink to the bottom while baking.

I opted to follow the Little Sin's recipe for buttercream instead of my usual one and I’m so glad I did. By using melted chocolate instead of cocoa it wasn’t as rich but silky smooth and fluffy – delicious!

The kit makes 12 cupcakes so I brought 6 over to a friend as I was seeing her that afternoon and the rest into work the following day. Taste wise I wasn’t sold on the flavour of the sponge but the buttercream was delicious. Everyone else who had one said they couldn’t tell it was a packet mix and thought the cupcakes were made from scratch so maybe I’m just being fussy.

For me I’m not sure if I would use them again but then I enjoy the whole process of baking; from creaming the butter and sugar to folding in the flour, I find it quite therapeutic. I would recommend these kits to those of you who want to get into baking but are nervous or if you want to bake with children as there is very little weighing and measuring involved.

Thanks to The Little Sins Cupcakery for sending me this product out to review. I’ll definitely pass some of the other boxes on to friends so they can try them out too.

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pregnancy

30 Week Update

By A Wee Bit of Cake - December 22, 2015

30 weeks! I can’t actually believe it if I’m honest. It doesn’t feel that long ago that I wrote this post when we reached the 20 week mark and found out we were team blue.

Since then time has flown by at an alarming rate. I’m feeling good bar the tiredness and backache. If I’m sat in the one position for more than half an hour I tend to get quite stiff so I’m finding my drive to work a bit of a challenge these days. Thankfully I finish work tomorrow (23^rd) and don’t go back until the 4^th so I’m looking forward to a much needed break. After Christmas I’ve only got 6 weeks left at work before my maternity leave kicks in – I cannot wait!

At my 28 week midwife appointment we discovered baby is currently transverse breech so he’s laid horizontally across my tummy instead of head down. The midwife said not to worry until I hit 34 weeks but so far this chappy is not for moving. Yesterday I thought his head was going to pop out of the side of my belly but Mr T reckons it felt like he was trying to move head down but couldn’t. It explains why my bump is so low and I’ve felt so much pressure low down as if he’s trying to escape.

Equipment wise all we have left to buy is his pram, car seat and cot bedding. My parents and brothers have kindly bought us a Snuzpod as we have had our eye on it from the start. Mr T does not like the idea of controlled crying or self-soothing so this ticked all the boxes for us as we could constantly see baby and react to him more quickly too.

I’ve bought most of his clothes in the sales or had things donated from family and friends. It’s amazing what you could spend but we have tried to be quite frugal and practical with what we buy – spend money on the big important things but find bargains as much as possible too.

After Christmas our hospital and NCT classes start which I’m so excited about. Coming from a big family I feel fairly confident and comfortable on most baby issues apart from the feeding. I was bottle fed as were most people in my family but I’m determined to breastfeed. I’ve watched endless YouTube videos and read so much that I’m hoping we can manage it. If anyone has any tips or advice please let me know in the comments below.

As for a birth plan I’ve decided not to make one. All I want is for this baby to be born healthy and for me to be ok at the end of it all too. Other than that I really don’t care. You can’t control labour or what will happen so I’ve just decided to aim for a happy outcome.

So that’s my 30 week update, I really can’t believe our little man will be here in the next 10-12 weeks it just feels so surreal. I’m so ready for this next chapter in our lives to begin. I know it will be so hard but at the same time I just can’t wait for it.

I hope you all have a very happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year.

See you in 2016!

23 -30 weeks!

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banana

Festive Banana Loaf

By A Wee Bit of Cake - December 21, 2015

A few weeks back an interesting email dropped into my inbox asking me to create a festive banana recipe. Now I enjoy a good banana cake as much as the next person but never would I consider banana as a festive ingredient. I mentioned it to a few work colleagues and I was met with the same response “Banana? At Christmas?” I tend to associate Christmas baking with chocolate, spices, and most of all indulgence. When I make banana bread it’s usually frugal baking to use up the last bit of fruit in the bowl as I loathe wasting food.

I started thinking about what festive ingredients work well with banana and initially I didn’t want to use chocolate , I wanted something different but I soon realised – if it’s not broke why fix it? Banana and chocolate are a match made in heaven but for this to be a festive bake it needed to be a lot more indulgent and luxurious.

Pregnancy also has me constantly knackered at the moment (hello third trimester!) so I wanted to bake something that wouldn’t have me in the kitchen for hours. Also when it comes to Christmas you don’t want to be in the kitchen for hours either; you want to be curled up on the sofa with your loved ones with a glass of something in one hand and a slice of something indulgent in the other.

I had a look over this Mary Berry recipe that I had made before and knew instantly how I would glam it up without devoting too much time to the kitchen. I swapped the sugar for soft dark brown sugar which resulted in a rich and decadent sponge. Instead of an icing glaze chocolate ganache was the order of the day and for that extra bit of indulgence a few generous tablespoons of caramel where added on top. Sprinkled with a generous helping of chocolate chips, fudge pieces and gold sprinkles the humble banana cake was transformed to something wonderful that would not look out of place served as pudding on Christmas Day.

Festive Banana Loaf

150g dark chocolate

150ml double cream

2 ripe bananas

2 tbsp milk

100g Stork

150g plain flour

150g soft dark brown sugar

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp baking powder

2 eggs

80g dark chocolate chips

Preheat the oven 160C (fan).
Grease and line a standard loaf tin
Heat the cream until warm, stir in the chocolate until melted and leave aside to cool.
Whisk all the ingredients together (except for the banana and chocolate chips) until smooth.
In a separate bowl break the banana up with a fork.
Gently fold the banana into the mixture.
Stir in the chocolate chips and spoon the mixture into the prepared loaf tin.
Bake for 45-50 minutes until a skewer inserted comes out clean.
Leave in the tin for 10minutes then remove and place on a wire rack to cool.

To Decorate

Chocolate ganache

A few tablespoon of caramel

Handful of chocolate chips, fudge pieces and gold sprinkes

Spread a generous amount of chocolate ganache over the top of the cake setting aside a little to serve with the cake
Spread the caramel on top
Tumble over the chocolate chips, fudge pieces and gold sprinkles

Enjoy!