Veganuary - The BEST Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

Cookies.....Oh how I love myself a cookie or five! Theres nothing better than warm, home made chocolate chip cookies so today I thought I would  the BEST vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe! These are so addictive and their so easy to make, you literally only need one bowl a wooden spoon or spatula and your ingredients (which are also pretty basic) and your good to go. 

Terry's Chocolate Orange Loaf Cake Recipe

Who's ready for things to get a bit festive around these parts? I know I am, and what better way to kick start the super festive recipes than with a Terry's Chocolate Orange Loaf Cake! Chocolate orange is one of my favourite flavours, and lets face it a Terry's Chocolate Orange is a Christmas essential, their so festive and I think all of us receive one in our Christmas stockings don't we?! This recipe is based off of my Halloween layer cake I made back in October but the quantities are slightly different, so if you fancy giving this one a go just scroll down for the recipe!

Gingerbread Cupcakes Recipe

We've found ourselves in lockdown for the second time this year which means I'm furloughed and off work AGAIN! Although this sucks, it does give me plenty of time to start my festive bakes and cakes seeing as I'm stuck at home again, so I thought I'd kick things off with an absolute classic, the gingerbread cupcake! These taste so festive, there's just something about that gingerbread flavour that makes me feel all cosy and Christmas-y, I've finished them off with a yummy batch of vanilla buttercream and some cute little gingerbread biscuits and I think they look so cute! 

Halloween Chocolate Orange Cake - It's Immense

 Hey beaut's!

Chocolate orange is one of my favourite flavours when it comes to chocolate, that zesty addition of orange is just everything, and as Halloween is going to be a little bit different for all of us this year I thought I'd put that epic combination into a delicious 3 tier cake and jazz it up for Halloween! Of course chocolate orange is an epic festive flavour too, so you could use this recipe at Christmas time but just decorate it Christmassy.

Pumpkin Spice Cake Recipe!

Hey beaut's!

It's finally pumpkin season, and if you truly want to experience autumn in all it's glory then baking a pumpkin spice cake is essential. I have to say I absolutely loved creating this cake, I have been feeling a little bit meh this weekend after finding out on Friday that I could be losing my job soon (cheers covid) so combining my love for baking and autumn was sure to cheer me up, and it actually did! This cake is made up of all those delicious autumnal spices plus the addition of pumpkin puree and I finished the cake off with some yummy vanilla buttercream and some cute Halloween sweetie decorations!

Spiced Apple Loaf - A Yummy Autumnal Bake

Hey beaut's!

It's finally October which means I can dust off the spices and do an autumnal, cosy bake. This time around I opted for a spiced apple loaf and wow it's yummy and get's me right in that warm, snugly mood! This loaf has apple and cinnamon within the sponge and the most amazing brown sugar buttercream on the top - which might I add is the best buttercream ever made, the addition of brown sugar is just immense and gives it a slight caramel vibe, oh my! 

Kinder Bueno Cupcakes

Hey beaut's!

If your a Kinder Bueno lover then these cupcakes will be right up your street, their made up of a gorgeous chocolate sponge with a chocolate hazelnut buttercream and finished off with lots of different Kinder goodies. You can also mix chopped hazelnuts into the cupcake batter, this really intensifies the chocolate hazelnut flavour, I've made these before and will pop the measurements you need down below, however this time I skipped the chopped hazelnuts as I didn't have any left over but they still taste just as amazing! 

Malteaser Drip Cake Recipe!

Hey beaut's!

I'm back with another recipe today and this one is of the birthday cake I had. Yup, I made myself a yummy Malteaser cake and wow it tasted incredible!The cake is made up of three layers of delicious malty chocolate sponge, filled with a malty buttercream and finished with a chocolate drip and lots of Malteasers and Malteaser buttons! I chose a Malteaser cake as I love my Malteaser cupcake recipe and their always a requested bake by my friends and family so it just had to be a Malteaser cake this year.

Basic Bakes - Lemon Drizzle Loaf

Hey beaut's!

Today I'm back with the second recipe in my 'Basic Bakes' series. This series will include simple bakes and cakes as well as well known family favourites and I thought today it was time for the Lemon Drizzle Loaf to shine! Lemon drizzle is such an absolute classic and tastes sooo fresh and yummy, it's also a really easy bake and and has quite a small list of ingredients so it's perfect really!

Nutella Stuffed Cookies!

 Hey beaut's!

Nutella fans rejoice because today I have the easiest and the most delicious cookie recipe for you! These cookies might be made up of a basic cookie dough recipe but the Nutella stuffed centre is literally out of this world, it honestly turns your cookies from basic to totally bougie! I would go as far as saying this is up there as one of my top 5 favourite recipes as they just taste so bloody good, you have to give these a go!

Raspberry & White Chocolate No-Bake Cheesecake

 Hey beaut's!

It's been a hot minute since a rustled up one of my no-bake cheesecakes so this weekend I thought sod it, so I whipped up a raspberry and white chocolate flavoured cheesecake and I just had to share the recipe with you all. Raspberry and white chocolate is such a winning combination, they just work so well together and really taste amazing in a cheesecake! Theres fresh raspberries and melted white chocolate through the cheesecake which sits on the yummiest biscuit base and is topped with more melted white chocolate, more raspberries and swirls of whipped up double cream, it's the ultimate summer dessert! 

Basic Bakes - Nut-Free Carrot Cake Cupcakes

Hey beaut's!

Today I'm back with not only a scrumptious recipe but a new little series I'm going to be adding to my blog called basic bakes! This series will include simple bakes and cakes as well as well known family favourites, so I'm kicking things off with yummy carrot cake cupcakes! Usually carrot cake comes as a full cake, but I wanted to keep things faff free so theres no greasing cake tins or lining with grease-proof paper, as long as you have some cupcake cases your good to go. These are also nut-free carrot cake cupcakes because personally I hate nuts, also so many people have nut allergy's so I think it's essential to have a super tasty nut-free carrot cake recipe to hand. 

Epic Oreo Cupcake Recipe!

Hey beaut's!

If your an Oreo lover then your going to love today's recipe, behold the Oreo cupcake! This cupcake is light, fluffy and chocolatey and the Oreo buttercream is honestly the stuff of dreams! 

Biscoff Lovers Rejoice - Biscoff Brownie Recipe!

Hey beaut's!

It's been a while hasn't it...You might of noticed that the ole blog has had a bit of a face lift, it was time for a much cleaner looking blog and one that I was really passionate about, so you'll be seeing a lot of food and recipe content from now on! I'm kicking things off with a Biscoff bang, yup beaut's,  it's Biscoff brownie time. The brownies start with a crumbly Biscoff biscuit base which is then topped with the most indulgent brownie batter with that yummy Biscoff spread swirled through, I'm actually drooling right now!

The Ultimate Triple Chocolate Cookies!

Hey beaut's!

Like many, during lock down I have been baking like theres no tomorrow, and yesterday I thought it was about time I whipped up a batch of the ultimate triple chocolate cookies! The recipe for these cookies is actually from my old Tanya Bakes book, but I thought I'd re-share the recipe just in case you guys and gals don't have the book and fancy baking some of these cookies for yourself! The recipe is actually really simple and quick which is always a bonus, and it makes 10 of the most enormous cookies!

Super Basic Easter Cupcakes To Make While On Lockdown!

Hey beaut's!

It's been a while...about 3 weeks to be exact and that's all down to the horrendous situation we are all in! The place I work thankfully closed it's doors a week and a half ago, and although that means I'm temporary out of work until the store re-opens I'm just so glad I can stay home and keep as safe as possible! Making sure we all stay at home can be boring but it's absolutely essential right now to protect our NHS and ourselves, so something fun you could do alone or with your kiddies is bake!

The recipe I'm sharing today is pretty basic (plain sponge and chocolate buttercream) and is made up of the simplest ingredients which hopefully you'll already have in your cupboards at home, I bake a lot so I do always have a stash of ingredients in my baking cupboard and the Easter mini eggs I already had as I was planing on doing lots of Easter recipes for you guys, but that's not worked out as I'd hoped so I'm using up the bit's and pieces I'd bought already! 

What You Will Need For The Cupcakes - Makes 12
125g butter
2 free-range eggs
125g self raising flour
100g caster sugar
25g light brown sugar
1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
pinch of salt
splash of milk

What You Will Need For The Icing
150g unsalted butter
300g icing sugar
15g cocoa powder
2-3 tbsp milk
Any Easter treats you have to decorate.

How To - Cupcakes
1. Firstly pre-heat your oven to gas mark 4 /180 and line a muffin tin with your cupcake cases.
2. In a large mixing bowl, whack in your butter and both of your sugars and cream together, then pop in the rest of your cupcake ingredients and mix until smooth with a hand whizzer or standing mixer. If the mixture is a bit thick then add a splash of milk to loosen things up.
3. Pop a heaped tablespoon of the cupcake batter into each cupcake case and bake in the oven for around 16-18 minutes or until the top of the cupcakes are springy to the touch, then transfer onto a wire rack to cool.

How To - Icing
1. In a large bowl, beat the butter until it becomes smooth and silky, then start adding the icing sugar and cocoa powder slowly to avoid the dreaded icing sugar cloud and mix again until combined. If your buttercream becomes thick just add in a tablespoon of milk at a time until you get the perfect consistency.
2. Pipe or spoon the icing on top of the cupcakes and decorate how you wish, I used up some Cadbury Mini Eggs and some Smarties Orange Eggs for mine.

 And there you have it, a simple yet effective bake which can be adapted if needs be, if you don't have any light brown sugar then just add an extra 25 grams of caster sugar or vice versa, if you only have light brown just use that. If you only have plain flour that's fine too but you'll need to add some baking powder!

Do let me know if you give these a go beaut's!

Galaxy Enchanted Eggs Cupcakes Perfect For Easter!

I bloody love Galaxy chocolate, so it's quite shocking that I haven't created a bake or cake with the yummy stuff yet, well until now I should say! Yup, today I am bringing you a scrumptious yet easy Galaxy chocolate cupcake recipe decorated with those pretty rose gold Enchanted Eggs to add an Easter feel! The cupcake itself is just a regular chocolate cupcake but it's been spruced up with chunks of chopped up Galaxy bar within it, it's so yummy and perfect for any chocoholics out there!

What You Will Need For The Cupcakes
125g butter
2 large free-range eggs or 3 medium
100g self raising flour
25g cocoa powder
125g light brown sugar
100g Galaxy chocolate chopped up into chunks.

What You Will Need For The Icing
150g unsalted butter
300g icing sugar
15g cocoa powder
2-3 tbsp milk
2 bags of Galaxy Enchanted Eggs to decorate

How To - Cupcakes
1. Firstly pre-heat your oven to gas mark 4 /180 and line a muffin tin with your cupcake cases.
2. In a large mixing bowl, whack in your butter and sugar and cream together, then pop in the rest of your cupcake ingredients (apart from the Galaxy) and mix until smooth with a hand whizzer or standing mixer.
3. Chop up your Galaxy bar into chunks, these can be as big or as small as you like then gently fold them through the batter.
4. Pop a heaped tablespoon of the cupcake batter into each cupcake case and bake in the oven for around 16-18 minutes or until the top of the cupcakes are springy to the touch, then transfer onto a wire rack to cool.

How To - Icing
1. In a large bowl, beat the butter until it becomes smooth and silky, then start adding the icing sugar and cocoa powder slowly to avoid the dreaded icing sugar cloud and mix again until combined. If your buttercream becomes thick just add in a tablespoon of milk at a time until you get the perfect consistency.
2. Pipe or spoon the icing on top of the cupcakes and decorate how you wish, because I wanted to make these Easter themed I used the new Galaxy Enchanted Eggs because they just look so freakin' pretty, but you could also use squares of the Galaxy bar or Galaxy Minstrels if it wasn't Easter time.

And there you have it, super yummy Galaxy cupcakes that are so easy to make and will look amazing on your Easter table this Easter! I will warn you, these are quite sickly and definitely for the chocoholics out there, my Nephew absolutely loved them and polished 3 off in one day (little piggy), one was definitely enough for me though he he!

No-Bake Biscoff Cheesecake Recipe

Hey beaut's!

Your'll all know by now that I love my bakes and cakes, but last year I go into making no-bake cheesecakes and to be honest I couldn't quite believe how easy they where, so obviously I got hooked! One cheesecake flavour I hadn't attempted yet was Lotus Biscoff, this is quite shocking for me because I bloody love Biscoff biscuits and the Biscoff spread so it was a no brainer really! If your a Biscoff lover then you NEED to give this a go, what's not to love about a Biscoff biscuit base, Biscoff spread mixed within the cheesecake filling and more melted Biscoff spread drizzled on top with whipped cream, wowza!

What You Will Need - Biscuit Base

*250g Lotus Biscoff Biscuits

*85g Melted Unsalted Butter

What You Will Need - Cheesecake Filling

*250g Cream Cheese

*50g Icing Sugar

*150ml Double Cream 

*125g Lotus Biscoff Spread

*Half a tsp Vanilla Extract

*2-3 tbsp Lotus Biscoff Biscuit Crumbs

What You Will Need - To Decorate

*150 ml Double Cream

*2 tbsp Icing Sugar

* 2-3 tbsp Lotus Biscoff Spread

* Lotus Biscoff Biscuits

How To - Biscuit Base

1. Blitz up the Biscoff biscuits to a fine crumb and pour in your melted butter and mix until it feels and looks like wet sand then pop it in a spring form tin and press down firm to pack those crumbs together. 

2. Pop into the fridge or freezer to chill/set whilst you work on the cheesecake filling.

How To - Cheesecake Filling

1. Pop the cream cheese, icing sugar, Biscoff spread and vanilla extract into a large mixing bowl and whizz together with an electric/standing mixer until smooth.

2. Once smooth, pop in your double cream and mix again until well combined and it's thickened.

3. To add some crunch I mixed through a couple of tablespoons of Biscoff biscuits that I had roughly broken up into small bits, if you can find the crunchy Biscoff spread then you wont need to do this but I could only get my hands on the smooth kind. 

4. Heap the cheesecake mixture on top of the biscuit base and chill in the fridge ideally overnight however, I made mine first thing in the morning and left it to chill all day until dinner time and ours was fine. Basically the longer you can chill it the better!

5. Once the cheesecake has completely chilled and firmed up decorate how you like, I melted some Biscoff spread and drizzled it over the top on the cheesecake, then I whipped up some double cream and added swirls on top then I used left over Biscoff biscuits

And there you have it, the most scrumptious cheesecake I think I've made yet! The cheesecake will keep in the fridge for 3 days starting from the day you made it being the first day! Also if you do add the Biscoff biscuits on top with the whipped cream to decorate they will probably go a bit soft by day two so just bare that in mind!

Easy and Affordable Gingerbread Truffles

 Hey beaut's!

If your having any festive get together's, dinner parties or you just want something sweet but picky to add to your Christmas Day table then I have the perfect bite size sweet treat for you - Gingerbread Truffles covered in white chocolate, oh my! These cost me around £2.50 to make and don't require much effort either, there so easy but so effective!

What You Will Need

1 packet of ginger-nut biscuits
2-3 tablespoons of cream cheese
2 bars of white chocolate
Sprinkles to decorate (optional)

How To
* Blitz the entire packet of ginger biscuits in a food processor, once the biscuits are blitzed pop 2 tablespoons of cream cheese into a bowl and whack in the ginger biscuit crumbs and mix until you get a wet sand like consistency!
* Once thoroughly combined, mould the mixture into little balls and pop into the fridge for an hour to set, if your in a rush just whack them in the freezer! If you find your mixture is too dry and you cant roll them into balls add in a third tablespoon of cream cheese and that will help bring everything together!
* Once your balls are firm and set (oh wow that sounds interesting doesn't it LOL) melt your white chocolate a coat the balls evenly and decorate whilst their still wet! I had some Christmas sprinkles in my baking cupboard so I used them on a few of my truffles, I was also using a block of milk chocolate that day for another recipe so I grated some milk chocolate on some and drizzled some melted milk chocolate on some others, you could literally use whatever you like to decorate them really!
* Once decorated pop them back in the fridge until your ready to serve them and voila! The truffles will stay good in the fridge for 4-5 days then you'll need to whip up another batch he he!

Will you be giving these a whirl beaut's? Or have you already tried them? I'd love to know!

Gingerbread Christmas Light Cupcakes Recipe

Hey beaut's!

Finally I've found some time to do one of my favourite things....festive baking! I love baking at Christmas time, you can include all those yummy spices within your recipes and have fun with decorations, and lets face it - we all love naughty treats at this time of the year don't we! Today I decided to whip up a batch of yummy gingerbread cupcakes with some simple vanilla buttercream, but what makes these fun is how cute the Christmas light decoration is, I saw this idea on Pinterest so I just had to give it a go for myself and I actually loved going to town whilst decorating these! 

What You Will Need For The Cupcakes

75g unsalted butter, softened

100g caster sugar 125ml black treacle 1 large egg 1 large egg yolk 175g self-raising flour 1tbsp cocoa powder 2tsp ground ginger 1tsp ground cinnamon 1/2tsp ground allspice 1/2tsp ground nutmeg 1/4tsp salt 3/4 tbsp milk

What You Will Need For The Buttercream
200g unsalted butter
450g icing sugar
1tsp vanilla extract
A splash of milk
M&M's and melted chocolate for decorating

How To - Cupcakes
* Pre-heat your oven to gas mark 4 /180 and line a muffin tin with your cupcake cases.
* In a large mixing bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until smooth then add in the treacle and eggs and mix again until well combined!
* Once the wet ingredients are well mixed add in all of your dry ingredients and mix again, you'll find the mixture goes quite thick so you'll need to add in some milk a tablespoon at a time until you get a nice whippy cupcake batter consistency, mine took around 4 tablespoons of milk.
*Once your mixture is completely smooth pop a heaped tablespoon of the cupcake batter into each cupcake case and 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.

How To - Buttercream
* In a large bowl, beat the butter until it becomes super whippy, then start adding the icing sugar slowly to avoid the dreaded icing sugar cloud and mix until combined. As usual if the buttercream is too stiff then pop in some milk until you get your desired constancy. 
* Pipe the icing on top of the cupcakes and then go to town on the 'Cristmas Light' effect decoration, I melted some milk chocolate and popped it into a piping bag and created little swirly lines around my cupcakes to act as the Christmas light cable, I then stuck M&Ms vertically into the side of the cupcakes onto my little make-shift cable. 

And there you have it, 12 super yummy and super festive cupcakes that are really fun to make, I feel like kids would love the decorating process of these too. You could also use other things to act as the cables like those gummy strawberry laces or you could colour some buttercream black and pipe that on with a tiny round pipping nozzle, what ever you find easiest really!

Will you be doing any baking over the festivities beaut's? What will you be making? I'd love to know!