It feels like it's been forever since I dove into the Nerdy Nummies cookbook. There's still so many amazing creations in here that I'm dying to make, as well as what's on Ro's YouTube channel. 

This past weekend was crazy busy with two birthdays in my family. Every year I love making some kind of cake for my Dad (my brother doesn't like icing, so I bake him brownies instead.) This year I thought it would be fun to put a theme to it and make a moon cake! My Dad is obsessed with anything space related and we are going to be seeing the new Star Wars film, Rogue One. Perfect!

This cake is very simple; it's essentially a vanilla white cake that is baked in a bowl instead of a tin. I used the recipe given by Ro in her book. The measurement conversion is always tricky, but it turned out really well.

Ingredients: 

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder 

1/8 tsp salt

1 stick salted butter, at room temp

1/4 cup solid vegetable shortening

 1 1/2 cups sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp almond extract

5 large egg whites

3/4 cup whole milk

Note: I didn't have any shortening, so I just added slightly more butter and it worked fine.

Preheat oven to 350*F or 175*C

Grease an oven-proof glass bowl with butter or cooking spray.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set the bowl aside. 

In a large bowl, beat the butter and shortening with an electric mixer until it has softened. Add the sugar and beat until it's light and fluffy, scraping down the side of the bowl as you go (about 3-5 minutes.)

Beat in both of the extracts. Add the egg whites one at a time, beating well after each. 

On a slow speed, alternate adding the flour mixture and the milk, beginning and ending with the flour. The mixture will be thick once mixed together. 

Pour into the prepared bowl and smooth the top with a spatula. Bake in the oven for fifteen minutes, then drop the temperature slightly and slow-bake it for another 40 minutes or until a tester comes out clean.

Leave to cool them remove from the bowl carefully. Level the top with a knife if needed, then place flat side down on a cake board or large plate. 

Place the cake in the freezer for 30 minutes to chill and to stop the surface from crumbling as you decorate. 

For the craters, use a small ice cream scoop to make holes in the surface. 

Using whichever buttercream frosting you like, mix in a little black food coloring until you get the desired grey. Make sure to mix it well, so that the color has blended evenly. 

Spread the icing over the cake and level it out using a spatula. I used a spoon to help spread the icing in the craters. 

Hint: If you aren't happy with the texture, simply chill the the cake in the fridge for thirty minutes and try again with another layer. Or have a tall glass with hot water to dip your spatula into to help get a smooth texture and get rid of excess icing. 

Feel free to add any other space-themed decorations on top. And it's done! 

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, and it was super-easy to make. 

Make sure you check out Ro's book and her YouTube channel for more ideas like this one. You'll be baking like a pro in no time. 

What do you think of the cake?

Steph x. 

Baking With Ro: Unicorn Poop Cookies

Hello Everyone!

I'm back with another attempt at a Nerdy Nummies recipe. I actually made these first a couple weeks for my friend's son's rainbow themed birthday party. I wasn't sure I would make a post on them, but I shared a picture on Twitter and so many of you lovely people thought I should. It's the type of recipe that you have to try a couple of times to get it right, because it can get a little messy. So it's probably for the better that I give you a more polished attempt. 

Once again all of the credit goes to Rosanna Pansino for creating these little beauties in her amazing cookbook. I can't recommend this enough if you're looking to have a bit more fun baking!

Allow yourself plenty of time to make these, because there are a lot of times where you mixture will need to chill in the fridge before you can handle it. If you're super busy you can always do this in stages over a couple of days, which is what I have done and it still worked out great. But all of your effort will be worth it in the end! This recipe will make 12 cookies.

Step 1: Cream Cheese Cookie Mix

These aren't just your regular sugar cookies. Oh no, these are soft and chewy with the added cream cheese (which makes everything in life better, am I right?) I did have to adjust the ingredients a little bit for a couple of reasons. The mix was just so sticky last time and it made rolling very difficult. The cookies were also a little oily when they came out of the oven, so this time I have reduced the amount of oil (shortening) and added more flour. 

Ingredients:

1/2 cup vegetable shortening or oil

1/3 cup butter, at room temperture

3 ounces (80g) cream cheese, at room temperature

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 tablespoon powered sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 large egg

2 & 1/4 cups all purpose flour

Food coloring (yellow, orange, pink, green, blue, purple) Or any 6 colors you like

Note: These cookies are quite plain, so for extra flavor you could add some lemon zest or essence!

Mix the shortening, butter, cream cheese, both sugars, salt, vanilla and the egg, in a large bowl with an electric mixer. Beat until it's light and fluffy. 

Beat in the flour until blended. Use a spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix in any loose flour. 

Now it's time to make it colorful!

You can do this one of two ways: 

1. Get out 6 small bowls and evenly divide your cookie mix into each bowl. Thoroughly mix in you colors until you are pleased with how they look. Transfer each color individually onto a square of cling-wrap and pop them in the fridge.

or

2. Using one small bowl, mix in one colors one at a time and once you have wrapped one, rinse the bowl of any remaining color, dry, them do the next section of the mix. 

It's up to you how you do it, but the second method means less dishes to deal with!

Leave the wrapped colors in the fridge for at least an hour for them to be firm enough to handle. 

Step 2: Assemble the rainbow

This is where things can get a little sticky, so take your time and just have fun with it. And if it's too difficult to handle, just put it back in the fridge. 

Unwrap one color at a time and roll the mixture into a log on top of  the cling-wrap. Don't use flour! Cut in half, then roll into another log and cut into six even pieces. Take one piece and roll into a ball (they don't have to be perfect) and do the same with the other half. You should have 12 balls of each color in a similar size.

I placed mine onto plates as I went and when I was done I put them back into the fridge for another 15 minute. *Cue snack and Twitter time while you wait for them to firm up again. 

Get out two baking trays and line them with baking paper. I used pizza trays so that it was easier for me to fit them in the fridge and I could spin it around whilst arranging the cookies.

Place down a layer of cling-wrap (or baking paper) on your bench and get the plates out of the fridge.

You're gonna grab one color at a time and roll the ball into a log about 5 inches long. Using one of each color, you're going to make two layers of three logs.
On the bottom put yellow, orange, then pink. Then put the green on top of yellow, then blue and purple.

When you're done, put them onto the baking trays and leave them in the fridge to set for 20 minutes. This way they will be much easier to handle.

When they have had enough time in the fridge, pull the cookies out and preheat your oven to 180*C (or 350*F)

Note: If you have an oven with a fan-bake option, just stick to the normal bake setting or they will lose their shape!  

To form the cookie shape, gently take one end of the colored log and twist once or twice. Do the same with the other end, but twisting the opposite way until it forms a rainbow spiral log. Then take one end and gently curl it into the other and place one end on top.

You can pat down any bits that start to break and they will easily smooth out again.

Do the same for the rest of the logs and gently arrange them so that they are spaced out on the baking tray.

Put them back to the fridge for another ten minutes, then in the freezer for 2 to ensure they hold their shape. Told you there was a lot of fridge time involved! This is the last time, I promise.

Now you can finally put them in the oven for about 11 minutes or until they feel set/dry but not brown.

Let the cookies cool for 2 minutes, then transfer them to a wire rack. While they're still warm you can decorate them with some pearls and rainbow sprinkles to make them look even more magical!

Ta Da! How cute are these cookies! They were definitely a lot easier to make when I changed the mix a little bit. Perfect if you want to cheer someone up with colorful cookies!

Here's the YouTube video Ro posted for the cookies if you are interested.

Hope you enjoy!
Do you guys have a favorite cookie recipe? I need to make more! : ) 
Steph x.

Baking with Ro: Instagram Brownies

 

Hello Everybody!

I'm back with another attempt at a Nerdy Nummies recipe and today it's in honor of my favorite social media platform, Instagram! The lovely Rosanna Pansino gives you the recipe and instructions over on her YouTube channel. I'm a bit obsessed with her Nerdy Nummies series and cookbook, her creations are genius. I promise you that these brownies are super easy to both bake and decorate, as well as tasting amazing.

I doubled this recipe to make sure there were enough to decorate and for my family to enjoy some too. Like most of Ro's recipes, you simply whisk your dry ingredients, add in the wet, and mix until combined. So easy! I love a good one-bowl recipe.

Ro recommends baking these for 20-25 minutes, but mine were ready by about 15 so remember to check on these a bit earlier just in case. How good does that batter look? The best thing about baking is licking the bowl!

 

I didn't have a square cookie cutter, so I just used a sharp knife to cut a square using an Oreo as my guide for how big it needed to be. I had to use a lot of self-restraint to not eat the rest of the brownies while I decorated...

To decorate the brownies you will need: 

Oreos 

Peanut butter or chocolate icing
A piping bag

Rainbow candy  

I found it easier to prep the Oreos first before icing the brownies. Twist the Oreos to separate the two halves and scrap off the icing in the middle. These are going to be your lenses so prep as many as you will need. 

For the corner square, I took a sharp knife and cut a couple of the halved Oreos into small squares.

For the base color Ro uses peanut butter, but Kiwi brands tend to make it very thick so I opted for making a simple chocolate American butter cream icing instead. It's a great creamy mix that is perfect for this project and is a good alternative if you aren't a peanut butter fan. Whichever you choose to go with pop it into an icing bag and cut off a corner.

Place one of the square Oreos at the top corner of the brownie to use as your icing guideline. Pipe a square of your icing (or PB) leaving a strip at the top.

Using a mini spatula (a butter knife or spoon will do fine if you don't have one) flatten down the icing until it is smooth all over. Don't worry if it's not perfect, mine certainly wasn't!

Carefully place an Oreo half in the center of the icing and put the rainbow candy in the top left-hand corner. And you're done!

My brownies came out a bit darker than Ro's, but I don't think the color matters too much. These were really fun and so simple to make. If you want to show off your baking skills to your friends these would definitely do the trick! They're seriously delicious too.

What do you think? I'm kind of in love with them.
Let me know if you've done any baking recently!
Steph x.

Baking with Ro: Galaxy Cupcakes

Hello Everyone! I'm back with more baking adventures thanks to the Nerdy Nummies cookbook, which is helping me with my baking confidence this year. I spent a whole lot of time last week watching Anna Saccone baking videos with her adorable children, a lot of which were cupcake recipes, so I've been craving them so bad all week! As usual, all credit goes to the amazing Rosanna Pansino and her team for creating these. I am simply sharing my experience with the recipe and any extra tips and tricks I learn along the way. 

These cupcakes were actually really fun and so easy to make! I thought the icing would be harder than it was, but they turned out great! Even if you haven't done much baking before, you'll still be able to create these little beauties

This is by far the easiest cupcake mix I have ever made. It's just mixing your dry ingredients, mixing your wet ingredients, then add them together and you're done! No electronics needed for this recipe, which I personally appreciate. There's no bitter chocolate taste to these or any butter, so they're great to make for kids. Here's the recipe:

Chocolate Cupcake Mix: (Makes 24 cupcakes)
1 1/3 cup all purpose flour
2/3 unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
2/3 cup firm brown sugar
4 large eggs
1/3 cup water
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup sour cream
1/4 cup vegetable oil (I used canola oil)

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees F (160C) and line your muffin tins with cupcake cases. I had to use three muffin tins which hold 6 cupcakes, but you can just do a second batch in the oven if you need to.

In a large bowl, whisk the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Whisk in both the granulated and the brown sugar until evenly combined. If you still have a few lumps of brown sugar, I just used a spoon and flattened the mix until they were gone. 

In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, water and vanilla. Then whisk the sour cream and oil. Make sure your sour cream dissolves and there are no lumps.

Make a well in the centre of your dry ingredients and add the wet mixture. Stir until combined and there are no dry streaks of flour. Be careful to not over-mix it!

Pour the mixture into your prepared cases until they are 2/3 full. I used a 1/4 measuring cup which got a pretty perfect amount into each. 

Bake for 18-20 minutes until your knife or a wooden prick come out clean. 

Leave to cool on a wire rack (and try not to eat them all straight away! ; ) )

I made these on a rainy Sunday morning, but didn't end up icing them until the next day. I had a few errands to do, and the lighting was so poor in our kitchen. The only problem with this was that by the time I got up my brother and Dad had eaten over half of them, so I was only left with about 7 to ice! Remind me to hide them next time.

Once your cupcakes have cooled completely, you need to make a batch of buttercream frosting that comes out nice and thick. Here's a recipe similar to the one I used, which tastes heavenly. Rosanna just uses store-bought frosting, but home-made always tastes so much better to me. Separate into four bowls and add blue, black, pink, and purple coloring into one of each. Remember to add just a little at a time.

Spoon into four separate icing bags (I just used sandwich bags) and cut one corner off. Set up a separate, larger bag with your frosting tip in a tall container.

Here's the trickiest part: Pipe a line of each of the frosting into your larger bag. Try and use a quarter of the bag for each color. I used a bread knife to flatten some of my frosting out to stop it from mixing with the others. It doesn't have to be perfect, mine certainly wasn't but the colors still came out great. I'm really sorry I forgot to take a picture until afterwards! Also, make sure you have a nozzle that is quite big to make sure the colors can come out evenly. 

You'll want to test your icing bag on one cupcake first (or just on a plate) to get it to the point where the different colors start to come together. Ice it in a spiral, going from the outside to the center. It's easiest to hole the bag at the top, to stop the icing from coming out and you having to squeeze the icing down, which might accidentally mix the colors. 

Add your decorations on top and you're done! I used some silver balls and edible blue crystals since I couldn't find any stars. 

I am so happy with how these turned out! Cupcakes are always easy to make, and it's fun to change up the decorating every once in a while. I thought the icing might have been worse, but if it's thick enough you really can't go wrong. 

Make sure to check out Ro's cookbook for more nerdy treats! I am in love with it and it's been amazing for helping me boost my baking confidence. 

What do you like to bake? 

Steph x.