Peanut Cookies

    To make these, I washed salted peanuts and left them to dry before melting butter, brown sugar and syrup in a saucepan. Next, I sifted in flour and the peanuts before shaping into walnut shaped pieces and baking for 20 minutes. They were really easy to make and tasted good too!

The cookies

Chocolate Vanilla Flowers

The flowers with the chocolate beans

   I used a simple vanilla cupcake recipe and once the cakes had cooled. I rolled out white fondant circles before adding cocoa powder to the remaining icing. Then I thinly rolled out the chocolate icing and used the five petal rose cutter before curling up the edges with a ball tool on a foam board. Using a small amount of icing gel, I stuck the flower to the fondant circle on the cupcake. To finish, I put a chocolate bean in the centre of each flower.

Lavender Cupcakes

Happy World Baking Day :)
 
   I brought some lavender essence from a fair and thought that I would use some as it is a typically ‘spring’ fragrance. The cupcakes had a grey tinge as I took them out of the oven (courtesy of the purple food colouring) so I don’t think I’ll do that again!

Brushing Apricot Jam onto the flowers

   For the icing, I split a small amount of white fondant into two smaller parts. I added 2 drops of red colouring to one to make baby pink icing. Then, I rolled it out, cut out 6 varying flowers and 2 large circles to cover the cupcakes with. I repeated with the other piece of icing, but I dyed it purple. Using apricot jam, I stuck the fondant onto the cake. I chose to make some pastel coloured buttercream and the pink turned out nicely but the purple icing went grey. I need to work out how to stop my purple icing from going grey!

The finished flower cupcakes

Chocolate, Orange Marble Sponge Cake

The mixture in the tins, one worked much better!

    I thought I’d make a chocolate, orange sponge cake but I wanted to make it differently. This time I chose to separate the mixture into two sections and I made one half orange flavoured and the other chocolate. When putting the mixture into the tins the first tin didn’t work because the two flavours mixed because I randomly swirled the cake mixture, yet the second time worked because I used a circular motion to combine the flavours. Upon tasting I found the cake rather dense and I then realised that because I’d split the flour I had forgotten to put the baking powder in. However the result wasn’t too disastrous! 

The finished cake!

Peanut Butter Cookies

The finished cookies

   These cookies taste really nice and the crunchy peanut butter gives it that extra crunch! To begin with I creamed soft margarine with light brown sugar; this was very solid so it took a lot of beating to get smooth. Once I had added an egg discovered that I didn’t have enough crunchy peanut butter but I substituted it with smooth peanut butter so everything was ok! I had to leave it in the fridge for 30 minutes to become more firm as it was too soft to shape. After the 30 minutes I rolled the mixture into balls and gently pressed flat with a fork, creating a criss-cross effect. After 20 minutes in the oven they we cooked – a bit over cooked – but still a golden brown colour.

Flower Paste Roses

Wrapping the petals around the cone

   Sorry for the long post but this is my first time ever making flower paste roses. First of all I made several cones about 1cm high out of flower paste (you use this because it sets really hard). Next I thinly rolled out the paste before using a five petal rose cutter to cut out the petals. Using edible glue, I stuck the petals to the body of the rose, closing the first petals around the cone before opening them up. Gradually I used a ball tool to thin the edges of the petals and to give them a more realistic texture and I added individual petals to build up the rose.

A flower with the calyx

   After colouring some flower paste dark green, I cut out the calyx of the flower (the green pointy leaves under a flower) and used more glue to secure these to the base of each flower before moulding them to the shape of the flower.

My finished roses!

   Also using the green paste, I cut out several leaves using a rose leaf cutter. Next I added veins to the leaves to make them look more realistic. I plan to put them on a cake soon!