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Hi Everyone, 

This is me and my giant birthday cake, I did some green piping on top to try and make succulents, it was a LOT of cake. But it was my birthday so who cares.

Thanks for stopping by, 

Soph

So it was my sister’s birthday the other day, I made some PANDOLINES, panda madeline hybrids. Not a great pun but a great birthday breakfast for sure.

ands a pic of the birthday girl looking like a small mole

thanks for stopping by,

HEYHEllo Everybody!

You guessed it - its that time of the year for awful paint cookie drawings and procrastibaking

These are sugar cookies (actually is all vegan too - so high 5 s all round). Was practising my buttecream roses - hence why they are a bit extra.

Modelled famously by my loving friends <3

Thanks for stopping by, 

I made Sushi! For reals.

They look quite cute actually, and weren’t too tricky, so definitely worth showing off to your friends. The only thing is you need to buy a few ingredients/utensils. 

You’ll need:

- sushi rice (is smaller and rounder than basmati)

- A bamboo roll matt (not for sleeping on - it is very small)

- Nori Paper - shown above

Now, making the rice,woah, sit down for this one boyyos. Ok so there is  SCIENCE to this. Properly wash the rice (my fave job), then cook it in 20% more water than rice. No stirring. With a bit of salt, and RICE VINEGAR (this is majorly key hence the capitals). This makes it proper.

Spread your cool rice on top of your nori paper. use damp hands to press to the corners. 

Place your desired fillings a few inches away from the edge of the paper. Then roll roll roll. Roll it tight. Then cut the nori when you have done a 360 around your fillings. 

All my fillings are vegetables of sorts, I made a carrot and miso mix, avocado, cucumber and red pepper. Went down like a house on fire, but less flammable.

Thanks for stopping by, 

Hello Everybody!

She back. and with a slightly boring recipe. But WHO CARES EY. Loyal supporters I know will eat up quite literally anything posted here - thanks M&D.

So, this is a classic for El Soph, turmeric in my rice, chickpeas and spinach fried with spices. Rice, I have learnt is not as easy as I presumed before. It takes a careful amount of washing (my favourite thing is washing rice), but more importantly the amount of water and the lack of stiring. At least my theory is stirring rice is bad - will check with my Grandma and get back to you. 

This is delicious and good for you and the world. Eat spinach because it gives you iron (less than PopEye tells you but its still a good attempt). 

Anyway, lovely to see you again,

Thanks for stopping by, 

Soph xxx

Sugar work has always been one of my ultimate nemesis’, but I’ve never tried making honeycomb, so thought I would give it a go.

Ingredients

a smidge of butter

200g caster sugar

5 tablespoons of golden syrup

2 teaspoons of bicarbonate of soda

Methods

Grease a tin with the smidge of butter.

Mix the caster sugar and syrup in a saucepan and stir over a gentle heat until the sugar has melted. 

All the sugar must melt before the mixture bubbles. Try not to let the mixture bubble until the sugar grains have disappeared. 

Once they are melted, turn up the heat and let it simmer. Once it has turned amber coloured, pop in the bicarbonate and mix it with a wooden spoon until combined and bubbling. Make sure it has fully combined.

Scrape into the tin quickly and let to set.

Then crush or snap and devour.

It does take a bit of practice, here is my first attempt, it looks pretty but is basically pure toffee so you WILL lose a tooth. Lesson learnt- next time leave the bicarbonate mixing on the heat for a fraction longer - seemed to do the trick!

Thanks for stopping by,

Hey Everybody!

Quick post, made a vegan loaf cake the other day - was with almond yoghurt. Must admit yoghurt cakes have still got the better of me texture wise but this still tasted alright. Made up the flavour combo a bit and also topped it off with some coconut caramel sauce.

Thanks for stopping by!

Hello Everybody,

SO I have already made a biscotti recipe on here, but is a mighty fine biscuit. According to my dad anyway and he’s just got a new coffee grinder (courtesy of me and my sister for xmas) so thought it’d be the right biscuitti to have with coffee.

This time I made a pistachio and cranberry version.

Ingredients

250g plain white flour (although I found I needed more to de-stickify the dough)

250g caster sugar

½ tsp baking powder

2 medium eggs

150g roughly chopped pistachios (no shell please)

50g roughly chopped blanched almonds

125g dried cranberries

Finely grated zest of 1 lemon

Method

Turn the oven on for 160°C, and get yo baking trays a-lined. 

Mix together the flour, baking powder and sugar, then slowly add your eggs

Knead the dough for about 5 minutes. Apparently the dough shouldn’t be sticky, so I found myself adding some extra flour at this time.

Add the lemon zest (or orange if you have it)

To make the next part easier I separated my dough into 2 equal portions. Then added half of the filling to each. (roughly chopped pistachios, almonds and cranberries). Make sure it is well combined.

Make the dough into a log about the size of your middle finger.

Bake for 30-35 minutes

Leave the logs to cool so the dough can firm up a bit, then cut them into 1/2cm slices. DIAGONALLY OF COURSE.

Then lie the slices flat on the baking tray and return to the oven for 20 minutes until they are dry.

Leave to cool and then dunk into a beverage of choice! (kind of mandatory as they are real hard to eat otherwise)

Here’s a pic of my flatmate Lydia having the time of her life

Heyhey Everybody!

Decided to try something a little bit fancy this time. And a big bit fondanty. Oh would you look at that, it’s fondant fancy time.

I’m actually so glad I tried these out because they are waay easier than I thought at first. Essentially you just have to make a sponge, add some marzipan, buttercream and royal icing. The last 2 stages I’ll admit are fiddly as heck but it’s  super satisfying when they are done. And aren’t they just the CUTEST WIDDLE CAKES EVER!

Top tip – fridging makes the whole icing shenanigans so much easier, trust me you can’t fridge enough. Use the fridge luke.

First make a genoise sponge Disclaimer – not actually sure if this sponge is a genoise but I like to think it is. As most sponges are it’s pretty much put all the ingredients together and mix them up

Bake this till when you put a knife in it comes out clean

Let this cool down real smooth

Roll out a thin layer of marzipan, place on top of the sponge

Chill chill chill

Slice into squares

Now for the buttercream (whip up some up equal parts butter and icing sugar) and cover the 4 sides, not the top with the marzipan or the bottom

Then either pipe or somewhat dollop a bit of buttercream in the centre of the marzipan square, this is the little button of goodness on top of the fondant fancy.

Leave to chill

Neaten up any crumby sides, you want these to look as smooth as possible but it doesn’t matter too much, (we can call it rustic)

Make you royal icing (either with royal icing sugar or get ready to roll royal icing and add water to mash it into a paste). The consistency you are looking for is on the dollop-y side of runny. Very important to get this right. Don’t forget to add cute pastel colours.

Then to #dip or #dunk. I actually dribbled my royal icing over the top, not the quickest method but for me it got good coverage and my sponge didn’t suffer any damage.

Finish off with a splattering of dark chocolate

I must admit quite proud of these cute lumps of sponge!

Have a go yourself - they are easier than you think!

Thanks for stopping by,

Hola everybody!

Chocolate banana empanadas are absolutely fabulous. They really are in all senses a 10/10. They are so quick and easy, a little quirky, great for a surprise treat. I made these for our Mexican night and now every night is Mexican night.

All you need is: Puff pastry (mine was shop bought - don't hate) 2 bananas 175g of chocolate

Method: 1. Roll out pastry. 2. Cut out circles of pastry approx. 5cm in diameter. 3. Add some small pieces of chocolate and a few banana slices to the pastry circle. *try not to overfill as you need to be able to seal it* 6. Fold circle in half and close the edges. 7. If you are feeling crimpy, go ahead and crimp 8. Bung in the oven for 12mins at 180 degrees.

Finally, top with icing sugar and consume whilst warm!

Thanks for stopping by,

Soph

Hi Everybody!

I got the chance to make a ‘surprise cake’ for BakeSoc this week. After much thought and careful procrastination I found a great idea online from ‘The Partiologist’. A hidden carrot cake! The surface looks like soil with adorable green leaves sticking out the top. When you cut into it the cross section is a orange carrot!

I know what you’re thinking, if the carrot part is actually carrot cake that would be amazing x 2. You’re right it really should be, but I won’t lie to you through the security of the inedible computer screen, alas it is just a plain vanilla sponge. But next time, I promise :) 

First I baked the vanilla sponge with orange food colouring in, on a large sheet then simply cut out little carrot shapes. Lined them up in the middle of the loaf tin and poured a chocolate sponge mixture around. Then bake again (and pray profusely for it to work)

My favourite part : decoration!

I made a chocolate ganache, slightly runny for ease of spreading over the cooled cake. Then crumble a few oreo cookies on top for extra soil realism. Pop on your royal icing leaves (easiest to do if they have hardened in the freezer for 1 hour) and marvel at, and devour, your creation.

Thanks for stopping by!

Birthday Cake!

My first real attempt at butter icing flowers, hope you enjoy!

Thanks for stopping by,

Hola Everyone!

Quick meal prep from me!

Quinoa and Bulgar wheat salad with a bucket of veg in (cucombre, peppers, tomates) with some humus and falafel! omnomnom

Hello Everybody,

Food prep, the king of all kings. What a thrill it is to see the next 4 days food laid out in front of you in glorious shining Tupperware (another one of my ultimate baes).

So, keeping things quick in the style of food prep. Here is what I made.

It’s a tomato chickpea and spinach curry with quinoa and naan bread.

 Ingredients:

1 can of chopped tomatoes.

1 bag of spino

1 can of chickpeas

1 onion

Some cumin

Some turmeric

A dash of chilli

A wee bit of oregano.

Fry onions in spices, then add tomates and chickpeas and finally add spinach on top to lightly wilt.

Meanwhile cook quinoa.

Toast naan bread.

Load up Tupperware.

Begin Meal prep party!

How satisfying! Hope you’re all having a great week! 

Thanks for stopping by,

Hello Everyone

So I have allegedly given up chocolate for lent. Despite cheating a fair bit, I have made some conscious decisions to not eat choc. Thus was born my romance with nakd bars.

It all started as all love stories should, on a train. Traveling to Edinburgh I was struck but at first a not so appealing sight, but alas I gave love a chance and swapped by chocolate bar for a cocoa (will power still not that strong) and orange variety. And oh boy did it pay off. To start, they aren't actually grim, they are pretty tasty. To end, they are super healthy.

Aaaand inevitably after that I tried to make my own

And fantastically they are sooooo easy.

All you need is

Cashews (a whole lidl bag)

Dates (20 bigguns)

Orange zest (1 zests worth, add some juice too)

Cocoa powder (2 tbsps)

Dedicated coconut (3 tbsps)

Blitzer

This is a recipe I made up but be sure to experiment! Try adding raisins, gogi berries, cranberries.

Blitz all together, then individually wrap in cling film and leave in the fridge.

They are great! And healthy too. And you'll feel so much cooler not buying them. You'll probably definitely save money but I don't know how much... BASICALLY you should try it for sure.

Wishing you all a pleasant and productive day,

Thanks for stopping by,

Hello Everyone!

I made this previously for a thinksgiving post recently but now have more funky photos and who doesn’t like pumpkin at all times of the year!

Now before you go yelling about tiramisu being not v thanksgivingy, IT HAD PUMPKIN IN IT OK. There. So in fact it was actually a pumpkin and almond liqueur tiramisu. Mmmm.

It very simple but requires immense self restraint to prevent instant consumption.

Ingredients •1 tub mascarpone cheese •1 tub cold heavy cream •3/4 cup icing sugar •5 tablespoons almond-flavoured liqueur •1 can of pumpkin stuff? People seem to know what it is, puree or such-like. •50g dark chocolate •1 tablespoon cocoa powder           •1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon •50g dark chocolate •As many lady fingers as you can count

◦I jest but seriously if you can find them buy at least 20. I ended up buying madeira cake and cutting it up into fingers. Then I baked them to make sure they didn’t completely squish when I soaked them later.

Directions

1.       Whisk mascarpone until smooth. Add ¾ of cream, icing sugar and ONLY 2 tablespoons liqueur. The rest is not to drink just yet but what you do on your own time is not my business. Just at least save 3 tablespoons for later, please. Whisk this until soft peaks form.

2.       Gently fold in pumpkin puree until completely incorporated.        

3.       Melt the chocolate and ¼ cup cream until chocolate is just melted. Stir until smooth. Then, transfer 1/3 of the pumpkin mixture to a medium bowl and fold in chocolate mixture until combined.

4.       In another small bowl, whisk 1 tablespoon cocoa into 25ml hot water; add 3 tablespoons liqueur. This is the soaking mixture.

5.       Cover bottom of your desired tiramisu home with ladyfingers. Either brush with the soaking mix or (like I did) dunk them in before you assemble.

6.       Then mix and match layers of chocolate pumpkin, pumpkin and lady fingers.

7.       Cover with clingfilm and fridge it.

8.       Dust the top, THEN FEAST. (Ideally share with others but not necessary)

I really liked this and I'mma make it for just myself next time :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Hi everyone,

Today is a post that I am sure will fast become one of my uni staples! It's superbly easy, healthy and cheap! Also tres versatile, basically food of the gods.

Traditionally caponata is a Sicilian dish based around the infamous aubergine. Similar to the humble ratatouille but with added capers, and in my opinion more tomato! I also love adding anchovies for their saltiness.

Simply put, bung any vegetables you can get your hands on in the oven and give them a good ol' roastin'. Ergo plenty of oil and garlic and any herbs you fancy (I like some rosemary but from experience keep it whole so you can remove it in one easy motion). I often like to fry the tomatoes slightly first to give them a bit of extra colour.

This is really great for freezing/fridging and I like to have it on pasta/toast/quinoa/rice.