A box full of yummyness

I've had this idea in my head for absolutely ages, but i just havn't had the chance to "execute" it. The idea? to bake a box of.... well loads of cakes and biscuits for Mishy as a birthday present, why Mishy? well she always seems to be fascinated everytime i make/cook something, so i thought a perfect present for her would be one that i've made myself, particularly as i knew it would be well appreciated. The original idea was to bake 20 different things seeing as she had turned 20, but to be honest when i was baking it all i totally forgot to count it out!! I had also planned to take arty farty pictures of everything...again picking up a camera was the last thing on my mind while i was cooking, so i've got two pictures, neither of which are very arty farty....

How everything was supposed to look before my reckless driving messed it all up....

Anywho, i've been requested to "put up" the recipes so here goes...

Fairy cakes

As soon as my sister saw these she yelled out "bakewell tarts!", she was adamant that i had made bakewell tarts. Ok i admit they do look like bakewell tarts but infact there not...it's just muffins with icing and a cherry on top. The muffin recipe is the same as the one i used here.. The Glace icing is just icing sugar mixed with warm water until you get the required consistency, i used about 5oz which iced about 10 cakes. To finish pop a cherry half on top! (or if you're feeling greedy a whole cherry!)

Shortbread

This was one of the first things i ever learnt how to cook in food technology and it is probably one of the easiest things to bake...

Ingredients

• 150g/6oz of plain flour
• 100g/4oz of butter
• 75g/3oz of caster sugar

Method

• Mix together the flour and butter until it resembles breadcrumbs (in a simillar manner when making crumble)
• Stir in the sugar and squeeze the mixture togther to form a dough, adding a couple of tablespoons of water if necessary
• Roll the dough out onto a floured surface and use a biscuit cutter to get whatever shaped biscuits you want ( the trick with shortbread is not to handle the dough too much because it will ruin the "short" texture of the biscuits)
• Place on a baking tray and cook (in a preheated oven for 170c or a very low heat) for 10-15 mins until a light golden brown
• While they're still hot sprinkle a bit of caster sugar on top

Butterscotch cookies

Ingredients

• 100g/4oz of butter
• 100g/4oz of dark brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon of golden syrup
• 3 crushed weetabix ( we actually didn't have any weetabix so i used crushed crunchy nut instead)
• 150g/60z of self raising flour

Method

• Beat together the sugar, the butter and the syrup
• Stir in the weetabix and self raising flour
• When a dough is formed take small handfuls of the mixture, roll into a ball and flatten onto the baking tray. These spread quite abit so make sure there is adequate space between them
• Place in a preheated oven at 170c for about 10-15 mins until golden brown

Cookies

'Cus who doesn't love cookies!? I was slightly annoyed at the way the ones i made turned out. Seeing as i havn't made them for ages, i totally forgot i needed brown sugar (which i had used up for the butterscotch cookies) as well as dessicated coconut ( which my mum had used up for something or another...), but they tasted ok never the less

Ingredients

• 75g/3oz of butter
• 75g/3oz of soft brown sugar
• one egg
• 150g/60z of self raising flour
• 50g/20z of dessicated coconut
• 75g/30z of chocolate chunks ( i prefer to buy chocolate then cut it up into chunks rather than having chocolate chips) i used both white and milk chocolate

Method

• Mix together the butter and sugar, then mix in the egg
• Add the flour, coconut and chocolate, mix well
• When a dough is formed get a small handfull of the mixture and place it on the baking tray flatten slightly ( you can roll it into a ball first but cookies always look better when they're slighlty uneven around the edges). Again these will spread so leave some space around each one
• Cook in a preheated oven at 170c for about 10-15 mins until golden brown

ALL DONE!!