The sweet stuff!

Hopefully I haven't bored you to tears yet. 

Now the good stuff.  Starting with...

Fairy cakes.  I think.

These were part one of a 2-part concoction I made for work a few years ago.  I wasn't really into baking much back then, but decided to try these fairy cakes.  The icing was mint flavour and I hoped that the mintiness would seep through into the chocolate of the sponge and be lovely.

It didn't.

If I remember correctly, most of them went in the bin.  It takes a lot for a ward full of nurses to refuse cake.  I managed to make it happen.  Part of the reason was also these...

Mint chocolate truffles

They were vile.  I'm not sure how I could have got it so wrong but, alas, I managed.  They also ended up in the bin.

I did manage to make decent fairy cakes eventually, but the first ones I tried to ice went a bit wrong.  I honestly don't know how people manage to ice cakes well.  I'll do it one day, I hope.

I'm getting to something now that I'm right proud of.  I used Jamie Oliver's Bloomin' Brilliant Brownie recipe as my first ever attempt of brownies.

They. Were. Amazing.

I opted not to use the chopped fruit and nuts that he uses, and instead used even more chopped chocolate in their place.  Best move I ever made. I also took these into work and they were gone within about 20 minutes.  That was when I knew I'd done good :)

Once Blogger allows me to add more photos, you'll be treated to the delights of my first ever attempt of lemon drizzle cake:

The cut off bits from the burnt lemon drizzle cake.

Burnt lemon drizzle cake.

and a pimped-up, giant jaffa cake that looked brilliant but was unfortunately too dry to eat without at least a pint of tea!! 

Also, my rhubarb crumble float.  It moved about a lot in the dish.  It was pretty tasteless.  Looks a wee bit like a map though, don't you think? :)

And a half-decent attempt at scones (as in gone, not as in bone).  As I obviously can't get guidance from mum anymore, I use Mary Berry as my substitute, and she helped me make right nice scones.

Oooh, and the Richard E Grant recipe for sticky toffee pudding that I made at my pal Johanne's house one day (I can't remember the occassion, and I got toffee sauce all over her cooker as I didn't expect it to boil quite as high as it did...)

So that just about brings me to tonight, and the reason this blog started.  Today I attempted to make profiteroles.  I'm sure I've made choux pastry before, but unfortunately todays effort didn't quite work as planned.

They were very flat.  And the caramel didn't quite go to plan.  But on the plus side, I didn't burn myself this time!!  And the pan got to go back into the cupboard, unlike the last attempt where it had to go in the bin!!!

Go me!

And there I shall leave you for tonight.  To whet your whistle, I recently bought the Sweets Made Simple book that was on the telly recently, and I plan to attempt some sort of sweetie soon!  That, and whatever else takes my fancy for my friends and family to devour (or bin when I'm not looking!!).

See you soon,
S
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