Hummingbird's peanut butter cookies

Oh wow! these peanut butter cookies from the Hummingbird recipe book were AMAZING! Hummingbird, you are firmly back in my good books.

I knew it was a good sign when i couldn't stop eating the leftover cookie dough and the final product was probably the best cookie i've ever tasted and definately the best i've ever made.

I have absolutely no criticism of this recipe, all i'm going to say is you should absolutely try baking these beauties on the weekend. The combination of crunchy peanut butter and Green & Blacks dark chocolate was delicious, but then I am a big fan of salty/sweet flavours.

Only tips I can really give you are to buy the best ingredients you can afford, use whole milk and crunchy over smooth peanut butter.

Happy Baking! xxx

Lemon Buttercream Cupcakes

I've ignored the Hummingbird Cupcake book for a while, having had quite a few disappointments, but these lemon buttercream cupcakes turned out much better than i'd initially expected.

The recipe only uses one egg, replacing it with more milk, i'm not entirely convinced of this method and the sponge broke apart when prised from the cases. Another minor criticism is the use of plain flour instead of a combination of plain and self raising. The cupcakes didn't rise as much as usual and I prefer mine to rise into domes which makes the buttercream look more impressive. That being said, the sponge was just lemon-y enough without being overpowering.

Using plain flour and bicarb made the cupcakes pretty flat!

From experience with the Hummingbird recipe book i know that the buttercream quantities are a little mean, so i decided to double the quantity. I guess this is down to personal preference and the style in which you decorate, but I just like lashings of the stuff! The buttercream was ok, but i'd definately recommend using less butter and milk and replacing with more icing sugar, the texture was a bit too sloppy for my liking. I also prefer to use both the rind and juice in lemon buttercream (Hummingbird only used the rind) to give an extra zesty kick

Do excuse the rather garish colour of these cupcakes, the yellow food colouring from Waitrose came out somewhat brighter than i'd imagined! I also thought i'd better have some sort of nod to Easter, hence the mini egg decoration.

Finally for the scoring, a respectable 7/10.

Happy Easter Baking xxx

Green and Blacks lemon drizzle cake

It may not look too pretty, but it was delicious!

Ok so I know this isn't a cupcake post, but its definately worth a mention! After twittering about what I should make over the Easter holiday, my friend Daisy suggested I make the Green & Blacks lemon drizzle cake with sunken dark chococlate. Hubby was reluctant as he wanted, quote 'a proper cake' but I ignored his pleas for yet another victoria sponge and persevered and it was AMAZING!

It's definately the best lemon drizzle cake I have ever made and the dark chocolate (I used G&B's cooks choc) went beautifully with the lemon. Orignally I was baking this to take home for Easter weekend for my family and friends to enjoy, but I have to confess that hubby and I ate most of it whilst it was still warm, so tomorrow I shall make another.

I followed the G&B recipe to the letter, aside from using caster sugar for the topping instead of golden granulated sugar. Daisy's other suggestion, which I shall definately try another time, was to slice the cake in half and add a lemon zest cream cheese filling...yummers!

Happy Easter Baking xxx