Tonight i made traybakes

Well, tomorrow is my best pal's wedding party after she got married 2 weeks ago. I originally said I'd make lots of cupcakes but someone else who is better at them offered instead so when i asked her what she wanted she said traybakes! So here i am! 

My stuff!!!

The plan was to make about 7 different ones to cut into wee bits so everyone could get a bit of something. So far I'm  finished 4 of them! 

First off was the base for peppermint slice, then when that was in the oven i smooshed up some custard creams for a different one.  Then i made a mars bar crispie because that's the easiest one. With the mars cooling i made peppermint icing (a bit too minty i think but fuck it) and popped the tons of condensed milk i bought into the  custard cream thingy! 

Peppermint slice base and custard cream thingy.

And then i was done! Its amazing how simple things still take bloody ages to make!

But then i thought no- if i finish now them I'll have even more to do in the morning! So i made some fudge which -by the way- is fucking amazing! First time I've ever made fudge and its just brilliant! It doesn't look very much portion wise, but it says it cuts into 60!! 60!?! That should be interesting! 

Mars bar crispy.  Nom.

Custard cream slice with rainbow drop top.  How fancy am I?!?!! :)

So tomorrow I'll get cracking with boiled fruit cake (smiddy loaf to my friends), tiffin cake and millionaire's shortcake.  I'll probably have to buy more syrup as Andrew realised the other night that the combination of syrup and digestives was his favourite thing ever (wee shite).

Off to bed with a bottle of wine :-) see yall tomorrow!

Fudge, 74c

Fudge, 112c

Fudge, 118c

Goodies in the fridge!!!

Today i made some Mars Bar krispie.

Well, not exactly.

It was made from Titan bars- ALDIs own tale on a Mars Bar.  Titans, butter, syrup and ALDIs own brand rice crispies and voila!

I'm enjoying a sweet supper tonight, with some Seed&Bean chocolate for good measure.

Yum!

http://www.seedandbean.co.uk/

Today i enjoyed some of my wares

Tonight i enjoyed some Perthshire ginger oatcakes spread (spreaded?) with crunchy Biscuit Butter and Nutella, washed down with ginger chai tea by The Wee Tea Company :-)

I never actually made any of it myself, and it was far from crappy, but it's definitely worth a mention!

Yum!!!!

This morning I used up stuff that was about to go bad.

This morning I woke up with the intention of making a cake.  I still intend to, but first I decided to make stuff with the butternut squash and potatoes that were in the process of going off in the kitchen.  I always do that - buy things with the intention of making something lovely, then just don't!

So I made roasted butternut squash.  Ooh how exciting...  

Squtternut Bosh

I was thinking of doing something else with it so my next task is to find something to make with roasted butternut squash!!!

I also had to use up the tatties, so I opted for dauphenois (I had some double cream that I got earlier in the week, that actually went off a couple of days ago - but it still smells ok so bugger it).  Creamy, potatoey, garlicky goodness :D 

Dauphenois. Nom.

I'll probably be back later to update the cake attempt.

It was disastrous.  The first attempt of chocolate buttercream split bad and - as per the next photo - it was cuttable with a knife.  Not ideal.  But I pressed on and made another batch.

Which I then split again!!  This time I didn't use butter, only melted Dairy Milk and icing sugar.  It still split.  

But fuck it, I used it anyway!!

It's very dry, and could probably so with a ganache or something over the top of it but I'm out of ingredients lol!!

TA DA!!!

Stand Up To Cancer

I initially wrote this massive thing about losing both my parents to cancer, but it was awfully depressing.  So i just deleted it and replace it with this.  

Live every day like it's your best day.

Stand Up To Cancer
CRUK
Macmillan

xx

Tonight i used up the rest of my pumpkin puree

Well tonight i watched the GBBO Masterclass and decided to make something with the rest of my pumpkin puree that i done last night. I didn't want another roulade  (i didn't have enough pumpy left and also it was bloody messy!) so i took to t'internet and found a cupcake recipe :-)

Plain flour, bicarb and mixed spice combined with pumpy, egg, milk and a fair wee whack of sugar and i ended up with a no bad looking mixture!

Batter :)

I went to pop it into my cases them remembered i bought an ice cream scoop just for this very purpose :-D unfortunately, i overestimated the first cake and had to scoop half of it out again  (but i live and learn! !)

Ice cream scoopin :)

25 minutes in a 170° oven and wallah!

They wouldn't win a beauty contest, but well neither would I :)

There no bad eh? I've got the rest of my frosting left over from last night to use up so that'll get used up when they're cool!

I'm not counting my chickens yet, they might be mingin! But at least they're made :-)

Tonight i pureed my own pumpkin!

Right I'm doing this from my phone so i don't even know if i can post pics BUT tonight i found a method on the Pioneer Woman  to tell you how to puree your own pumpkin.  So i did. Try. 

This is what I'm aiming for...

I roasted it in chunks and then took the skin off. It was awfully watery, which it wasn't in her photo, but I seived it to get rid of the excess. Then i blitzed it in a food processor and drained it some more! Them i looked for something to make it with. 

My pumpkin.

Yesterday i found a Hummingbird bakery book at 2 for  £10 in WH Smith (i got Tom Kerridge too) and in there is a pumpkin roulade thing. 

So its in the oven just now. I'll update when it's out...

Ooh i also started making my Christmas limoncello so that's happily infusing in the cupboard!

Fingers crossed...

Limoncello stage one!

15 minutes later...

The cake's out the oven!  It's a bit pale!

To be fair, the other side looked a bit better!  Well, darker.

Cream cheese frosting...

Unfortunately I forgot that butter wrapper has metal in it, and I put it in the microwave to soften it a bit.  Oops.  

It was a lovely light show though :)

And all for..  Doo doo doo dooooooooo...

IT WORKED!!!!!

Look at all that lovely cakiness!!!

The view from above!

Unfortunately (I should probably get that word on auto-use, I can tell it's going to be used a lot lol) when I attempted to slice it, a lot of the filling squished out the end.  I never understood how people managed to make roulade neatly.  

Anyway, I just scooped up the frosting stuff and shoved it on top!!  It's bloody lovely :D  Even Andrew likes it, and that's saying something!!!

A slice!

An actual bake!!!!  I made that!!  From a book and I didn't even make any of it up!!!  WOOOOO!!!