Lockdown Love

As I spent most of my time during lockdown baking and didn’t have this blog set up, I thought I’d share some of my creations 

Victoria sponge cupcakes

I wanted to make some pretty cupcakes for the warm weather and I love jam and cream.. who doesn’t! It took me a while to decide how to decorate them so I did a mix. Some I scoped out the sponge, put the jam inside and put the lid back on top before covering with buttercream. The others I repeated the same however I put the buttercream on top of the jam, cut the sponge lids in half and placed them on like little wings. I wanted to try out piping but didn’t have a bag or the nozzles so I got a sandwich bag and cut a whole in the end. It certainly wasn’t perfect but I gave it a go. 

Chocolate chip cookies

This is something I will be trying again. Unfortunately the cookies were baked in various different sizes, definitely over baked and were more like a biscuit but hey, I could still dunk them in my coffee.

Scones

I love scones!! I didn’t have a scone cutter at the time so I used a pint glass to get the shape. When putting them in the oven I was really skeptical as they didn’t look very appetising, however once cut in half, smothered in jam and butter they were yummy!  

Chelsea buns #1 

I was really going out of my comfort zone as I had never used yeast before. I was chuffed with how the buns turned out and loved see them rise. I knew I wanted to try them again as I wanted to have a better roll in order to get more filling.

Sausages rolls with filo pastry 

I had some left over filo pastry and since it was VE Day celebrations I decided I wanted to have afternoon tea. As I’ve done slimming world for a while, I’ve always been told filo pastry was the healthier option but probably not when covered in butter! I cooked them a lot longer than the recipe stated as I wanted to have the golden brown pastry but in the end I was chuffed with them and ate way more than I should have.

Victoria sandwich 

My other half and I really wanted to do a Victoria sandwich as a previous attempt a few months back left me with a sunken sponge. We only had one tin that wasn’t quite the right size so it wasn’t as tall as I would have liked and I made the mistake of buying raspberry seedless jam so really struggled to spread it evenly but I have now purchased 2 new tins and can’t wait to give it another go.

White bloomer

I had wanted to make bread for a long time as it seems to be what successful bakers make. I tried the Paul Hollywood white bloomer recipe and I was so surprised with how few ingredients it involved. It came out with the scoring on top looking great and a lovely crust.

Chelsea buns #2

I just couldn’t resist giving this another try. I was determined to get more rolls on the buns and try a thicker icing for decoration. I was super happy with how they turned out and loved delivering them to my family and friends.