Wednesday 25 March 2015

Chocolate Orange Hot Cross Buns


One of my favourite parts of Easter is the food, and I feel the same with Christmas as well! I decided it's time to make Hot Cross Buns! I wanted to take them into work, but I was aware that one of the people I work with doesn't like dried fruit, so I decided to add my own spin on things with chocolate orange ones!

You will need:
4 cups plain flour
1.5 tsp mixed spice
14g dried yeast
1/4 cup caster sugar
350ml slightly warmed milk
2 lightly beaten eggs
300g dark chocolate chips
200g milk chocolate chips
Zest of 1 orange

Crosses:
1/2 cup of plain flour
1/2-1 cup of water

Glaze
3 tbsp orange juice
3 tbsp granulated sugar

1. Combine the flour, spice, yeast and sugar in a bowl and mix. Add in the milk and the eggs and mix until the dough comes together. Add in the chocolate chips and orange zest and continue to mix.

2. Knead the dough for around 8-10 minutes and it's smooth and elastic. Pop it back in the bowl, cover it in cling film and leave it in a warm place for an hour, until it's doubled in size.

3. Knead the dough a little more and then split it into 12 equal sized balls. Place them on a lined baking tray. Cover once again in cling film and pop into the warm place for about half an hour.

4. Meanwhile, mix together the flour and water until it's a smooth paste. Add the water little by little, not all at once. Put this into a resealable bag/piping bag, snip off a little corner and pipe crosses onto the now-risen buns. Cook the buns at 190 degrees for about 20-25 minutes.

5. When they are done, take them out of the oven and transfer onto the cooling rack. While they cool slightly, heat up the orange juice and sugar in a saucepan until the sugar dissolves and the syrup thickens. With a pastry brush, brush the warm glaze over the warm hot cross buns and enjoy!





Thursday 12 March 2015

Cheat's Fudge - Cookies & Cream

I found some instructions online on how to make cheats fudge, and I knew that I had to try it! The recipe I found was for just a basic dark chocolate fudge, but I wanted to switch things up.

Cookies and Cream has been one of my favourite flavourings for a long time. I have an extremely sweet tooth, and I'm not ashamed of that! So it only seemed logical to me to try out a cookies and cream fudge, because, well, Oreo's are the best thing ever.

All you will need is:
350g of White Chocolate
1 397g tin of condensed milk
1 pack of Oreos.

That's it... Madness I know! Watch my video to see how it's made :)


Sunday 8 March 2015

Crochet Button Stars




So I had a photo of crochet button flowers shared on my Facebook page by my godmother, who knows that I do love to crochet! After seeing that picture, I knew that I needed to work out the pattern. In the process, I managed to work out a pattern for these crochet button stars! After posting the video of the flowers on my YouTube account, I received requests to share how I made the stars, and I couldn't resist. I cleverly lost the original star so this pattern may not match the original, but it sure does the job! Below I have written out the pattern for both the US pattern and the UK pattern to save confusion :) Please let me know if it doesn't make sense or if I need to make amendments.

You will need:
4 hole button
Crochet cotton
A crochet hook that is small enough to fit though the button holes
Scissors
Needle

UK pattern:
Row 1: SS into first button hole, ch 4, dc into 2nd button hole, ch 4, dc into 3rd button hole, ch 4, dc into 4th button hole, ch 4, dc into 1st button hole, ch4 and ss to first chain.

Row 2: *dc, htr, tr, dtr, tr, htr, dc* into each ch 4 gap around. Finish off and sew in ends.

US pattern:

Row 1: SS into first button hole, ch 4, sc into 2nd button hole, ch 4, sc into 3rd button hole, ch 4, sc into 4th button hole, ch 4, sc into 1st button hole, ch4 and ss to first chain.

Row 2: *sc, hdc, dc, tr, dc, hdc, sc* into each ch 4 gap around. Finish off and sew in ends.