Cooking is always a fail safe activity to keep the children busy in the holidays. These cupcakes are a delicious treat and perfect for the summer, making good use of fruit that is in season, and which you may even have growing in your own garden. They look great and taste even better!

Ingredients

115g butter
115g caster sugar
2 eggs
115g self raising flour
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons milk

 Topping

90g white chocolate
90g cream cheese
3 tablespoons of crème fraiche
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons icing sugar
Fresh strawberries

(Please note I have halved the quantities suggested in the book as I had loads left over when I made mine)

 Method for cakes

• Beat flour and sugar together
• Beat in egg
• Add flour
• Stir in vanilla extract and milk
• Spoon into cases
• Cook for approx 10minutes at 180C/350F until golden and risen
• Cool on a wire rack

 To decorate

• Melt chocolate in bowl and allow to cool slightly
• Beat other ingredients together and then add cooled chocolate
• Smooth mixture over cakes to top of cases
• Chill for 1 ½ hours and add the fresh strawberries to decorate

And by making these cakes, not only have you kept the children amused for half an hour, you now have the perfect reason to put your feet up and have a cuppa. Enjoy!

Popularity: 14% [?]

As a result of my blog post last week,  containing 10 recipes using squishy bananas, I had a go at making Caramel Banana Blondies. However I have renamed them Banoffee Brownies because I think it’s a more catchy name!  

If you are looking for a more exciting use for your overripe bananas then I can’t recommend these highly enough. And I have a sneaky suspicion that they might prove popular with any small people in your house too!

Chewy, squidgy, sweet, moist, crunchy, unctuous – just some of the words I could use to describe these absolutely gorgeous cakes! But let’s face it – anything that contains butter, sugar, white chocolate and caramel is going to get the thumbs up from me!

Ingredients
250g golden caster sugar
100g butter
100g caramel , from a jar or tin (Nestlé Carnation Caramel works well) plus 2 tbsp for the top
100g white chocolate
2 eggs
200g self-raising flour
2 ripe bananas , sliced

• Heat the oven 180C/fan 170C/gas 4.
• Melt the sugar, butter, caramel and chocolate together until smooth.
• Cool a little, then add the eggs and fold in the flour and banana.
• Pour into a lined 20cm square tin and add a few blobs of caramel to the top
• Bake for 45-50 minutes or until risen and set.

I only hope my photo does them justice and you can see  the dollops of caramel and the gooey banana middle. And even if you don’t eat them, they are worth making just for the delicious smell that comes from your oven!!

If you do go away and try them, please come back and leave a comment afterwards – would love to know what you think!

Popularity: 21% [?]

One thing you can guarantee about kids is that they are contrary. One week they love something, the next they won’t touch it with a barge-pole. Such is the case, in our house, with bananas. My girls always used to enjoy a banana or two, but now they are met with scorn and disdain. Trouble is, I keep buying them on autopilot, so every week or so I find myself lumbered with squishy, overripe bananas and a lack of ideas for what to do with them.  

A few weeks ago I put out a cry for help on Twitter for recipe ideas for my surplus bananas and half an hour later I had a long list of suggestions. At the time I joked that “I could feel a blog post coming on”. So, as promised, here it is - my 10 Uses for Squishy Bananas.

One of my favourite websites for leftover ideas is Love Food Hate Waste. They have a recipe section which is split into different pages for each main ingredient. Their Banana section is full of ideas, my favourite of which is Banana & Peanut Milkshake.  They also have a lovely recipe for Banana & Walnut Loaf, with added vanilla and cinnamon, which can be adapted to make mini muffins.

Another favourite online cookery website of mine is the BBC Good Food site. The site contains over 5,000 recipes so is always a great resource if you are lacking in culinary inspiration. And their recipe for Caramel Banana Blondies has got to be work a try!

For basic, child-friendly dinners and recipes to cook with your children you can’t beat Netmums. Most of the recipes have been submitted by mums, or tested by them, and they have a great receipe for Banana Flapjack which is perfect for school lunchboxes. They also have a great page of Smoothie Ideas, all of which contain bananas.

Think a Banana Split is just a banana cut in half, a scoop of ice cream and a smattering of chocolate sauce, then think again! Food Network has a whole collection of banana split recipes so you need never get bored, including a Banana Split Brownie Pizza!

If I’m after a recipe that’s a bit special I normally reach for my Nigella cookbooks and as squishy banana recipes go, her Banana & Butterscotch Muffins are a little posher than your average muffin! You can use the same recipe but substitute the butterscotch for chocolate chips or cranberries – so 3 for the price of 1 with that recipe! And as an idea for a dessert, or breakfast with a difference, how about trying Nigella’s recipe for Banana Pancakes – yum.

Now you can’t think of bananas without thinking of Banoffee Pie (well I can’t!). There are lots of recipes out there but one very simple one that I have tried is Cheats Chocolate Banoffee Pie using Carnation Caramel, and it is delicious.

And finally, if none of my suggestions have whetted your appetite, then you need to visit  www.bananarecipes.net – a website dedicated solely to all things banana. If you can’t find something on their site to transform your squishy bananas, then quite frankly, you must be a lost cause!!

If you have any other great banana recipes then please do share and leave us a comment.

Popularity: 40% [?]

A month ago, if you had asked me what my dream job would be, I would probably have replied with something flippant like Johnny Depp’s personal secretary or a chocolate taste tester. Well, my friends, be careful what you wish for, because sometimes dreams do come true!

Thanks to the magic of Twitter and the British Mummy Blogger community I heard that Green and Blacks were looking for blogging taste testers. Without hesitation I volunteered my services and several weeks later, quite unannounced, a large jiffy bag arrived in the post, bursting at the seams with scrumptious chocolate! Since then I have been on a culinary chocolate journey, using my Green & Blacks bars to nibble, suck, scoff, melt and bake.

My surprise parcel contained 11 bars of chocolate – 8 to eat, and 3 bars of cooking chocolate. First off I ate the ‘flavoured’ bars – Butterscotch, Cherry and Almond.  Now I am a firm fan of Milk Chocolate so found both the Butterscotch and the Almond bars quite divine – both creamy and sweet with the perfect amount of burnt toffee flavour crunch in the Butterscotch and whole almonds in the other. Last up I tried the Cherry bar. I normally find dark chocolate too bitter for my taste, but the bittersweet tang of the whole cherry pieces made this bar really enjoyable, and not harsh in the way I normally find dark chocolate – in fact it’s definitely a combination I could get used to!

Onto the plain bars – Milk, Cream Milk, White, Dark 70% and Dark 85%. Now I could have just eaten these – no problem – but I thought I’d be a bit more creative and use some to bake with (although I’m ashamed to say the Cream Milk did disappear in a single sitting!). The Dark 70% was lovingly turned into Valentines Molten Chocolate Pots (see right) by being melted down and mixed with butter, ground almonds, 1 egg, 1 yolk, caster sugar and Baileys liqueur. Once melted the 70% Dark was like pure, black silk and the resulting pudding was incredibly rich but not in a sickly sweet way. Needless to say, my ‘Valentine’ was very impressed!

The Dark 85% was both eaten and baked. I felt I had to try the 85% because I don’t think I have ever eaten chocolate with that high cocoa content before. However the 85% Dark is ’softened with Madagascen Vanilla’ which you could really taste and did take any bitter edge away from the chocolate. The rest of the bar, along with a bar of G&B cooking chocolate, was melted down and turned into Best Ever Brownies (see left). When I make Brownies I normally use cocoa powder so I needed a recipe that used real chocolate  – and boy could I tell the difference! When I got them out of the oven I was too impatient to wait for them to cool down completely so cut them up while they were still warm. The insides of the Brownies were still gooey but they cooled to an absolutely perfect velvety chocolate consistency which was met with lots of appreciative “ooohs” and “aahs” when I took them along to one of our Mum’s The Boss meetings for some of our members to sample. And to make them even better they also contained chunks of the Milk Chocolate and White Chocolate bars for good measure – chocolate cake heaven personified!!

Which just leaves me with 2 bars of cooking chocolate left. One of these is earmarked to make some chocolate cornflake cakes with the girls and the other will be used to make our signature cake at meetings, and the most popular search phrase that leads people to our blog – Chocolate Fridge Cake!

When I excitedly posted on Facebook that I would be taste testing for Green and Blacks one of my friends replied “What’s to review? It’s chocolate. ‘Nuff said!”  Turns out though, that there’s more to this chocolate lark than meets the eye - and I’m more than willing to learn!

Popularity: 25% [?]

My discovery of this yummy recipe is all thanks to writer and Daddy Blogger Tim over at Bringing Up Charlie. I made these Brownies for our last Business Drop-In and, unusually, politeness/January diets went out the window and everyone came back for seconds.

Some people might find white chocolate a little sweet and sickly but teamed with the raspberries these cakes are moist and delicious whilst maintaining a hint of virtue in the tartness of the fresh fruit.

Ingredients
250g white chocolate
75g butter
125g caster sugar
2 large eggs
5ml vanilla essence
150g plain flour
2.5ml salt
150g raspberries (fresh or frozen)

There weren’t very many leftovers to bring home last time I made them so I will be making some more very soon!

Popularity: 31% [?]

As most of you will know, cake is very important to me – I love baking it and I love eating it. It never ceases to amaze me how so few ingredients can metamorphosise into something quite so delicious.

I love reading cookery books and trying out new recipes and, having relatively few ingredients, cake is a great thing to experiment with.  A dash of lemon juice, a teaspoon of ginger or a scoop of cocoa and you have 3 completely different tasting cales! Plus cake is generally very well received by willing taste testers so it’s lovely to get positive feedback on something you’ve made!

Cake is also a big part of Mum’s the Boss meetings, so much so that I have a sneaking suspicion that for some people cake may be the driving force behind their regular attendance!

All of which is why I now find myself the proud new owner of the word ‘cake’. For £20 I have adopted the word for a year through the Adopt a Word scheme, which raises money for the children’s communication charity I CAN.

One in ten children has a communication difficulty – almost three in every UK classroom. A difficulty with language and communication impacts on all aspects of children’s lives – making friends, reading and writing, passing exams or finding a job later in life. I CAN helps in several way:

• running specialist schools to help children with the most severe problems whose needs cannot be met in mainstream school
• giving expert advice to parents and families about what to look for and how to get help
• providing assessments for children so that their families know what support will best meet their needs
• training teachers and other childcare workers in what a communication difficulty looks like and how to best help children who struggle
• increasing awareness and understanding of the problem

So if you have something that means a lot to you, why not see if the word is available from Adopt a Word and nab it for yourself, and help a great cause at the same time.

Popularity: 15% [?]

We are delighted to be hosting our very first Carnival on a subject very close to our hearts – baking! We asked you to send us links to recipes for some of your favourite festive cakes, biscuits and puddings and we have had some scrumptious entries which we will definitely be trying out ourselves. And so without further ado, we are pleased to introduce:

The Mum’s The Boss 12 Bakes of Christmas!

Cranberries are synonymous with Christmas and Mum’s The Boss member Sarah Barnes from Ivy House Interiors sent us a fabulous recipe for White Chocolate and Cranberry Christmas Cheesecake – how can you possibly resist that one?!

Wendy Mallins has shared another cranberry-inspired recipe with her Festive Rocky Road Crunch Bars – they might not look pretty, says Wendy, but what they lack in looks they more than make up for in yumminess!

There is always an abundance of chocolate around at Christmas, and if you have any going spare you could always melt some down and have a go at Sam Thewlis’  recipe for Christmas Caramel Slice, which she has provided in a traditional version and also in an allergy-free version which, incredibly, is wheat, gluten, dairy, soya and egg free!

Our recipe for Chocolate Brownies is perfect at any time of the year, but can be given a festive feel with a liberal sprinkling of icing sugar (otherwise known as snow!) – and if you’re feeling really festive, how about a holly leaf and a glace cherry too. And you don’t just have to take our word for it – Insomniac Mummy wrote a poem dedicated to these brownies on her blog! 

If Christmas Cookies are more your thing, then we have 3 cookie recipes for you to choose from. Liz Jarvis from LivingwithKids posted her favourite recipe for Annabel Karmel’s angel cut-out cookies, perfect for threading with ribbon and hanging on your Christmas Tree.

Another Mum’s the Boss member Helen Lindop from Business Plus Baby is wishing everyone a Very Biscuity Christmas by sharing a simple recipe accompanied by a touching story about the true meaning of gift-giving at Christmas.

And over at Who’s The Mummy, Sally Whittle is sharing her hilarious Christmas Baking Masterclass. While the biscuit recipe itself isn’t that important, the chaotic experience of baking with your kids will be familiar to mums (and culinary dads) everywhere!

Your Spice Rack will undoubtedly provide some of your key ingredients at Christmas, particularly spices like Nutmeg, Cinnamon and Allspice. Amanda Morison from Angels and Urchins has a wonderful recipe for Christmas Spice Muffins which contains a big teaspoon of mixed spice as well as orange and lemon zest for some extra zing, and make a lovely alternative breakfast treat, fresh from the oven.

Plus Liana Stevens from Star Bakery has shared with us a multi-purpose recipe for Gingerbread dough, which can be used to make cookies or to build a magical Gingerbread House, adorned with icing and sweeties of your choice.

Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without a recipe for Fruit Cake and Bev Toogood from Little Sunflowers has kindly pointed us in the direction of Delicious Magazine’s How to make a Christmas Cake Guide, featuring step-by-step instructions along with the most amazing ideas for contemporary ways to decorate it.

And if you fancy trying somethng really different, how about this recipe for Baked Mincemeat Doughnuts. I am a massive fan of the BBC Good Food 101 series of cook books (I have 12 of their themed mini-sized books at the last count!) and love their magazine and website too.  So if you are ever in need of some cooking inspiration www.bbcgoodfood.com is a great place to start.

And our Twelfth Cake of Christmas was sent to us by Penny Woolf from Journey Training, and originates from one of my personal favourites, the fabulously decadent Nigella Lawson. As Penny doesn’t have a blog we have included the recipe for Chocolate Cloud Cake in it’s entirety at the end of this post, for your delectation.

So there you have it – the Mum’s The Boss 12 Bakes of Christmas. Thank you so much to everyone who has contributed a recipe and we hope you will have found at least one new recipe to try out before the 25th. All that remains for us to say is have a very merry Christmas and a calorific, cake-filled 2010!

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Chocolate Cloud Cake (Serves 8-12)

Ingredients

Cake
250g dark chocolate minimum 70% cocoa solids
125g unsalted butter, softened
6 eggs: 2 whole, 4 separated
175g caster sugar: 75g in the cake, 100g in whites
2 tbspns Cointreau (optional)
grated zest of an orange (optional)
23cm springform cake tin

Cream topping
500ml double cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbspn Cointreau (optional)
half tsp unsweetened cocoa powder for sprinkling

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4.

2. Line the bottom of a 23cm Springform cake tin with baking parchment. Melt the chocolate either in a double boiler or a microwave, and then let the butter melt in the warm chocolate.

3. Beat the 2 whole eggs and 4 egg yolks with 75g caster sugar, then gently add the chocolate mixture, the Cointreau and orange zest.

4. In another bowl, whisk the 4 egg whites until foamy, then gradually add the 100g of sugar and whisk until the whites are holding their shape but not too stiff. Lighten the chocolate mixture with a dollop of egg whites, and then fold in the rest of the whites. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for about 35 to 40 minutes or until the cake is risen and cracked and the centre is no longer wobbly. Cool the cake in it’s tin on a wire rack; the middle will sink as it cools.

5. When you are ready to eat, place the still tin-bound cake on a cake stand or plate for serving and carefully remove the cake from its tin. Don’t worry about cracks or rough edges: it’s the crater look we’re going for here. Whip the cream until soft and then add the vanilla and Cointreau and continue whisking until the cream is firm but not stiff. Fill the crater of the cake with the whipped cream, easing it out gently towards the edges of the cake, and dust the top lightly with cocoa powder pushed through a tea-strainer.

Popularity: 20% [?]

As you know, cake is very important at Mum’s the Boss. We like baking it, decorating it, eating it and blogging about it! And what better time to get excited about cake than at Christmas!

So we have decided to host a Christmas Baking Carnival. The idea is, you post a blog about a favourite festive cake or biscuit, including the recipe, and then the week before Christmas we will put them all together, so we hopefully end up with our very own Twelve Cakes of Christmas!

Email us the link to your Cake post at info@mumstheboss.co.uk by Sunday 20th December. If you don’t have a blog but would like to contribute a recipe then please leave your offering in the Comments section after this post. Then on 21st December we will publish your posts, so that everyone has a few baking days to try out any recipes that take their fancy.

My mouth is literally watering at the prospect!!!

Popularity: 12% [?]

This recipe came from my friend after I tasted it at her house – so I have no idea of its true origins, but it is a great cake to make – quick, easy and very tasty. I have made this for Mum’s The Boss meetings and other occasions and it has always received many compliments. The other great thing about this cake is that it only uses ingredients that I would always have in the house. And maybe – just maybe – the squirt of lemon juice goes some way towards your 5-a-Day!!

Lemon Cake
4oz soft margarine
6oz self raising flour
6oz sugar
4 tablespoons of milk
2 large eggs
Squirt of lemon juice

• Put all ingredients in a bowl and mix well.
• Pour into a lined loaf tin
• Bake at 180C for approx 35 – 45 mins
• Once cool slice and fill with butter cream and/or lemon curd
• I often drizzle with lemon icing –just icing sugar mixed with lemon juice

Good luck – and enjoy!

2EZ2YE4F2VNT

Popularity: 33% [?]

Last week 8 of us attended a Mums Who Bake Cupcake Decorating Course in Milton Keynes. Vicki Hoskins, the founder of Mums Who Bake, started running the courses as a way to demonstrate the amazing cake decorating equipment she sells in her online shop, but the courses have proved so popular in their own right that she is finding herself booked up months in advance.

When we arrived we were each presented with a box of 12 plain cupcakes for us to decorate. We were then taught about the different types of icing – glace, fondant and buttercream – and how to colour and pipe it. Then we were let loose on the vast array of cutters, icing pens, edible glitter, coloured balls and pearlescent spray and given free reign to decorate our cakes however we wished. Vicki was partly trialling her Christmas Decorating Course on us, so the finished results were a mixture of Christmas/Kiddy/Wedding style cakes because everyone just wanted to have a go at everything that was on offer. So the finished result was 8 boxes of rather eclectic looking cakes which looked surprisingly professional – and tasted absolutely divine!

It was such a lovely way to spend an evening with friends, doing something creative without little hands getting in the way! It also gave me a great sense of achievement, coming away with a box of beautifully decorated cakes. I love baking, but I normally opt for no nonsense home baking without the frills – but it boosted my cooking confidence knowing that I can now make the things I bake look pretty too.

I can’t recommend Vicki’s courses highly enough and am looking forward to going back to do one of the specialist courses, now that I know what I’m letting myself in for, so I can come away with an even more presentable box of cakes!

NB. For those of you on Twitter, if you want to put names to faces, going rouns the table left to right is Pippa (non-tweeter), Sarah @Ivy_House, Susie @susie72, Sue @pulsescreening, Helen @mumstheboss, Lesley (non-tweeter) and Sam @mumstheboss. So now you know!

Popularity: 14% [?]

I have been making Chocolate Fridge cake for as long as I can remember, and is probably the most popular and requested cake that I make. In fact I have been known to ‘pay’ for things in fridge cake, and in some households a whole tray has been known to be eaten in one evening! I am never without these ingredients in my house and it is something I make at least once a month.

Like most things I enjoy cooking it is very quick & easy, but also a recipe without the use of scales, and with some flexibility with ingredients – which makes writing it down quite tricky! However I have been asked so many times now how to make it I felt I should give it a go……..

*** All quantities are approx, but with all these lovely ingredients you shouldn’t go too wrong***

Chocolate Fridge Cake

200g soft margarine
4 large spoons golden syrup
1 heaped tablespoon coco powder
1 packet plain digestive biscuits (rich tea, malted milk or others will also do)
Large handful raisins (this is optional – can also be sultanas, currants)
Large sprinkle chopped mixed nuts (this is optional)
Approx 200-250g dark or milk chocolate

• Bash biscuits into crumbs and small pieces with a rolling pin
• Put in a bowl with raisins and nuts
• Melt margarine, syrup and coco powder in pan until well combined and just starting to bubble – I always taste this as you should be able to tell if it needs  more of anything
• Pour over dry ingredients and mix well  so all combined
• Press down into a foil lined baking tray (approx 24cm x 21cm)
• Melt chocolate and pour over the top
• Leave overnight in fridge and cut up
• Best kept and served straight from the fridge.

Warning: Share this with family & friends at your peril – it may lead to repeated requests for making, and you may find it disappearing from the fridge at an alarming rate. I also take no responsibility for the amount of calories or the addictive nature of this!

And if anyone masters some exact quantities then feel free to come back and post them!

Popularity: 100% [?]

I have lost count of the times I have made these brownies and they have always turned our perfectly. As long as I always make sure I have a few packets of chocolate chips in the cupboard I know I can rustle up some gooey goodies at short notice, and have often made them on receiving a phone call from someone planning an impromptu visit!

Incredibly these chocolatey beauties come from one of my many kiddie recipe books – Finger Food for Babies & Toddlers by Jennie Maizels, which is a beautifully presented little book, ideal if your toddler prefers eating food they can hold rather than spoon in. These brownies went down so well at one of our Start-Up Events that one of our event sponsors assumed that cake making must be another business of ours!

Chocolate Brownies
100g (4oz) butter
50g (2oz) cocoa powder
2 eggs
225g (8oz) caster sugar
1tsp vanilla essence
50g (2oz) self-raising flour
50g (2oz) chocolate chips

• Preheat oven to 180C/350F/Gas mark 4
• Take a shallow baking tin, approx 23cm (9 inch) square and line with baking parchment
• Melt the butter, then add the cocoa powder, stirring well to remove any lumps.
• Beat the eggs in a large bowl. Add the sugar and mix until smooth. Then stir in the cocoa mixture and the vanilla essence.
• Gradually add the flour, stirring until everything is combined. Then mix in the chocolate chips.
• Pour the mixture into the lined tin and place in the middle of the oven for about 30mins. When done the brownies should be crisp on top and soft in the middle.
• Leave to cool for 10 mins before cutting into squares. I always dust the brownies with icing sugar to make them look pretty!

If you find yourself unable to resist trying this recipe, please pop back and leave a comment and rate them out of 5!

Popularity: 18% [?]

Cake has been a fundamental part of Mum’s The Boss right from the start, so much so that’s it high time it had a blog post of it’s own!

Both of us like baking and eating cake, and from our very first meeting we have always brought homemade cakes or biscuits to our meetings. Our cakes have become somewhat of a talking point – both at meetings and on Twitter, so we have decided to add a dedicated Cake section on the blog to post some of our favourite recipes. That way, if you can’t make it to a meeting, you never have to miss out on the cake!

Apart from just liking the taste, there is something intrinsically comforting and familiar about cake. Whenever I am expecting visitors I always try and bake something to offer with a cup of tea or coffee. To me it shows I’ve made an effort and that this visit is important to me. For this reason it is important at our meetings to extend this same warm welcome – as for many of our members, this is their first and only experience of the terrifying world of networking! To be welcomed with a cup of tea and a piece of cake is a far cry from most business events, but has become a popular unique selling point for us!

So, to kick off our new recipe section, I will start with the cake that I have received rave reviews about most recently – my mum’s Carrot Cake. I made this cake especially for the meeting when The Efficiency Coach, Heather Townsend, was our speaker, as she has a dairy intolerance. Generally our cakes are quite heavily biased towards butter and chocolate, so it was a relief to have this recipe up my sleeve, as it uses sunflower oil in place of butter or margarine, and is a healthier take on Carrot Cake compared to the frosting laden versions you normally see.

Sam’s Mum’s Carrot Cake (I have no idea where this originated from!)

6oz soft brown sugar
6oz self raising flour
6oz finely grated carrot
6fl oz sunflower oil
2oz chopped prunes
2oz chopped walnuts
3 eggs
3tsp mixed spice
 
Sift flour & spice into a large bowl – mix well.
In a separate bowl beat the oil, eggs and sugar until mixture is light.
Stir in the fruit, nuts, carrot and dry mixture and fold together.
Place in a 2lb loaf tin
Bake in a preheated oven 350F, 180C for 50-60 mins

If you do decide to give this a try, please come back and leave a comment and let us know how you rate it, out of 5.

And next time I make one, I will take a photo and replace the picture that accompanies the post

Popularity: 20% [?]