I found this on pinterest and loved how the layers looked so I had to make some!

I used a basic cake recipe and added strawberry flavouring and pink colouring for the icing.

Ingredients:

Cupcakes -

4 oz self raising flour

4 oz butter

4 oz sugar

2 eggs

½ oz cocoa powder

A splash of vanilla essence

Icing –

5 oz butter

10 oz icing sugar

1 – 2 tbsp milk

Pink food colouring

Strawberry flavouring

Start by making the basic cake recipe, if you have a mixer you can chuck all the ingredients together. Having just started my job, I’m yet to be able to afford such equipment.

So for you all in similar situations, cream the sugar and butter together. Followed by beating in the eggs then folding in the flour.

Halve the mixture, to one half add some vanilla essence and to the other half add the cocoa powder.

In each cupcake case, put a layer of chocolate mixture and smooth it down so the top is even. Then put a layer of vanilla mixture and smooth it down evenly again.

Don’t forget that you only have half the mixture that you need to divide evenly between 12 cases.

Bake in the oven at 170C for 15 – 20 minutes. Then allow to cool.

While they are cooking, make the icing to this recipe, replacing the blue colouring with pink and adding some strawberry flavouring.

I love the layers in this cupcake, it makes it really different to any that I’ve made before and as with the ice cream, the flavours all work together.

What’s your favourite flavour cupcake you’ve made or tried?

Madame Tussauds September 2014

As I mentioned previously I went on a tourist trip into Central London. On this day I went to Madame Tussauds. We hopped on the underground to go to Baker Street and Madame Tussauds was only a minute away from the station. Buying your tickets in advance means that you get to skip the queue, even though there wasn’t one anyway.

We headed in and an entire room of wax figures greeted us and we suddenly turned into overexcited kids! Literally…we didn’t know where to head first.

Now I’m going to warn you, it is no secret that I love One Direction (sorry not sorry). About a year ago, they made their wax figures that went all over the world to all the different Madame Tussauds locations. They are now back in London so I was a bit overexcited, but don’t worry I’m not like one of those completely crazy fans who basically lives for them. Anyway, I just had to buy the professional photos but luckily Sarah works for Merlin Entertainment and we got a discount!

After we both managed to calm down a little, we carried on seeing all the different wax figures. There are hundreds and I don’t want to bore you by describing them all! So I’ll show you some of my favourite ones here…

If you ever get the chance to go to London and you are looking for something to do then I would highly recommend going on the London Eye and to Madame Tussauds.

It was one of the best days out I’ve had and I haven’t laughed that much in a while.

Moussaka

This is a traditional Greek recipe, which my family fell in love with when we visited Athens last month. I used beef in my recipe instead of lamb but you could use any minced meat that you have available. I made it in the same way as a lasagne with a couple of layers whereas it is traditionally made with one.

Ingredients:

A batch of white sauce

A batch of bolognaise sauce

4 medium potatoes

1 aubergine

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

Method:

1. First of all make up your batches of white sauce and bolognaise sauce.
2. Peel your potatoes and chop them up into slices. Boil them for about 8 minutes; tip them into a colander and blast with cold water to cool them down.
3. Next chop the aubergine into slices, put them in a colander with some salt for 10 minutes. Then put them into a saucepan with some olive oil and cook on each side for 5 minutes, do this for all of the slices. Put them onto some kitchen towel to soak up all of the oil that isn’t required.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. Assemble the moussaka. Put a layer of bolognaise sauce, then a layer of aubergine, followed by a layer of potatoes and then the white sauce over it all. As mentioned before I repeated this again but you could just do one layer of all of them but use all of the mixture for each layer.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. Place in the oven for 45 minutes at 180C. I served this by itself and my sister said it was really good! I will take that from her!!

White Sauce

Over the years I’ve made this countless amount of times, so here’s the recipe I use and my tips to go with it.

Ingredients:

25g butter

25g plain flour

600ml milk

25g cheddar cheese

Method:

Melt the butter in a saucepan, over a low heat.

Stir in the flour and cook for 1 to 2 minutes. I recommend constantly stirring to avoid it sticking and not burning.

Take the pan of the heat and gradually stir in the milk to get a smooth sauce. Return to the heat and, stirring all the time, bring to the boil. It’s important not to leave it, keep your eye on it at all times to avoid it catching or it will ruin.

Add in the cheese and whisk while it is on the heat, this will allow it to thicken it up quite quickly but leave it on the heat until it does, whisking regularly.

I will be referencing this recipe quite a lot in my next few recipes.