Blogmas Day 4 - Christmas Tree Brownie Recipe

Hey beaut's!

It's blogmas day 4 and today I have a baking post for you all, it's no secret that I adore to bake and when I was planning all my blogmas posts I knew I wanted a few yummy Christmas treats to be thrown into the mix so today I have my Christmas Tree Brownies recipe for you all, you can actually find quite a few different variations of this recipe on pinterest but I tweaked it and created something a little easier for me he he. 

What You Will Need For The Brownies

100g Chocolate (plain or milk works well)

100g Butter/Marg

200g Self Raising Flour

200g Sugar (Soft brown sugar works best as it makes a fudgey brownie but caster sugar still works well)

3 Large Eggs

2 Tablespoons Cocoa Powder

What You Will Need For The Brownies Icing/Decoration

1 Large Bar of White Chocolate

Green Food Colouring (coloured gels work best)

Christmas Sprinkles of Choice

White Chocolate Stars

Candy Canes

How To - Brownies

1. Melt the chocolate and butter together in a sauce pan over a low heat.

2. Once the chocolate and butter have completely melted turn off the heat and gradually stir in the sugar and eggs, it's best to let your chocolate and butter mixture cool ever so slightly first as you don't want to scramble you eggs.

3. Add the self raising flour and cocoa powder and blend with a hand whizzer until the mixture is completely smooth.

4. Pour the brownie mixture into a greased tin of choice, I actually used two circular cake tins because I thought this would be easier when cutting the triangle tree shapes.

5. Bake in the oven for around 15 minutes on gas mark 4/180C until the top of the brownies are slightly firm on top then let the brownies cool in the tin completely.

How To - Ice/Decorate

1. Once the brownies have completely cooled take them out of the tin and cute into triangle shapes to replicate trees, this is so easy if you have used round cake tins.

2. Once you have lots of triangle 'Christmas Tree' brownies you need to make their little trunks so I just chopped up some candy canes and carefully shoved them into the bottom of the brownies. 

3. To ice the brownies I simply melted a bar of white chocolate in the microwave in 20 second bursts and used green food colouring gel to get my desired green colour, be careful if your using liquid food colouring instead of the gel because if you add too much liquid you can water down the melted chocolates consistency and it will be far too runny to use.

4. Pop your melted-coloured chocolate into a piping bag (I actually used a sandwich bag and just snipped off the corner) and quickly pipe the melted chocolate onto the brownies from left to right, this can be a bit messy so I'd suggest popping all your brownies on greaseproof paper first.

5. After you've piped your melted chocolate onto the brownies add as many sprinkles as you like to act as baubles and top the tree with a little star, I found some white chocolate star sprinkles in Tesco so I just used those and voila!

 These Christmas Tree Brownies where so easy to make and I'm so pleased with how they came out, I actually surprised myself as I thought they where going to be quite difficult but actually they where so much fun to make. I'd definitely suggest giving these a whirl over the festive season, their easy, look great and taste incredible.

What will you be baking over the festive season beaut's? I'd love to know!

Easy Halloween Cupcakes with a Blood-Filled Centre

Hey beaut's!

I've been baking again, but this time around I've done some super easy Halloween themed cupcakes! I got the inspiration for these cupcakes from my Tanya Bakes book and because I found them so easy and fun to do I thought I'd share them all with you! Their basically super yummy chocolate cupcakes with chocolate chips within the batter and what makes them slightly spooky is that they have a blood filled centre which is actually jam, they taste absolutely divine and I was so pleased with how they turned out!

What You Will Need For The Cupcakes

50g butter, softened

180g caster sugar

1 egg

splash of vanilla extract

100g plain flour

60g cocoa powder

2 teaspoons of baking powder

160ml milk

100g milk chocolate chips

Jar of raspberry or strawberry jam

What You Will Need For The Icing

400g icing sugar

200g unsalted butter at room temperature 

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Food colouring or coloured gels of your choice

How To - Cupcakes

1. Firstly pre-heat your oven to gas mark 4 /180 and line a muffin tin with your cupcake cases.

2. Then in a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy.

3. Stir in the egg and vanilla extract and then fold in your flour, cocoa powder and baking powder.

4. Slowly add in your milk until you get a smooth batter then stir in your chocolate chips until their well distributed through the batter.

 5. Pop a tablespoon of the cupcake batter into each cupcake case and the top each one with any left over batter.

6. Bake in the oven for around 15 minutes or until the top of the cupcakes are springy to the touch, then transfer onto a wire rack to cool.

7. Once the cupcakes are completely cool you want to make a hole in the middle of them and squeeze in jam for a jammy 'blood' like centre, I done mine by using the end of a teaspoon to push into the cupcakes to make the holes (you could also use a straw if you had one) and then I filled a sandwich bag with jam, I cut the corner of the sandwich bag off which then made a makeshift piping bag and squeezed the jam into the cupcakes that way, it was a lot less messy and super precise doing it like that. 

How To - Buttercream

1. In a large bowl, beat the butter until smooth and slighter paler in colour and then start adding the icing sugar slowly to avoid the dreaded icing sugar cloud and again mix until smooth.

2. Once your buttercream is ready you then want to divine it evenly between three bowls (this is only if your going for three different coloured icings like me) then start added in your food colourings to the buttercream and mix well until you get your desired colour.

3. Pipe or spoon the buttercream on top of the cupcakes and top with any Halloween themed sprinkles or sweets and voila!

And there you have it, very easy yet extremely scrumptious and a tad spooky Halloween cupcakes. I found these so simple and fun to make and the texture is lovely, their so light yet moist and I love the gooey, jammy centre and topped with the Halloween coloured buttercream it just finishes them off perfectly!

Do let me know if you give these Halloween Cupcakes a whirl beaut's, I'd love to know!

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