Queen Rosie’s Royal Rose Cupcakes

I’d like to introduce you to a delightful 6-year old who will become my sister’s stepdaughter next year … (will that make me a step-aunty?). My sister is obviously failing to live up to the evil stepmother cliché but instead has been busy in the kitchen stirring up wonderful magic and regal surprises. Here’s the tale of Rose Fairy …

Rose Fairy writes letters to me. I make houses for her out of boxes and glitter. Lucy and I read a story called The Fairies Cupcake Ball (we borrowed the book from Kate, L, M and T) which is about a girl called Flossie and she dresses up when she’s cooking. Flossie and her Mum bake cakes for fairies. We chose the recipe for Queen Rosie’s Royal Rose Cupcakes because we were making them for my Rose Fairy.

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We chose special ingredients to make the cake taste of rose and we decorated them.

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Here’s me putting the decorations on the cakes.

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This is the cake I decorated for Rose and her friends.

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In the afternoon, I made a fairy house for Rose. I used a shoe box and made a bed and a bath for Rose. I used a match box for Rose’s bed. I made some perfume for her too. I used rose water and a drop of food colouring and put it in a tiny perfume bottle. Wainwright, the dog, got very messy because he got pink paint on his chin! My Dad loves clearing up glitter…especially when he gets all sparkly!!

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The inside of the house

In the evening, I put the house outside before I went to bed. I left out the special cake for Rose. The next morning, Rose had left me a card and she’d eaten the cake with her friends. There were crumbs all around the house and in the friends’ bed!

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This is what she did.

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It’s really fun making houses and cakes for Rose.
Amazingly, my tooth fell out the following day so I was lucky enough to be visited by two fairies on two nights!

Queen Rosie’s Royal Rose Cupcakes

Ingredients

Cakes
115g sugar
115g softened butter
115g self-raising flour
2 eggs (we used medium organic)
½ teaspoon rose water

Icing
25g melted butter (only we forgot that bit and it worked out fine!)
400g icing sugar
4 tablespoons cold water
A few drops of natural pink food colouring

Finishing Touches (all bought from Cake Expectations)
Pink icing roses
Edible diamonds
Jelly roses

Method

Ask a grown-up to turn on the oven to 190 degrees C

Mix all the cake ingredients together really well.

Put 12 cupcake paper cases into a 12-hole fairy cake tin and spoon the mixture evenly between the cases.

Bake for 15 minutes and then ask a grown-up to place them carefully onto a wire rack to cool.

When cool, place all of the icing ingredients into a mixing bowl and mix them together for a few minutes. You might need some help with this because it’s really stiff.

We used a piping bag to swirl the icing onto the cakes but you can just use a warmed teaspoon if you don’t have the icing bag and nozzle.

The best bit is decorating the cakes – have fun!

Calling Young Chefs for CiTV Cooking Show!

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It only takes a quick glance through the archives to realise that A Merrier World has grown up over the last seven years alongside my three young (and now not so young) children.

(Seven years?? I mean, really? 7?? Wow! How did that happen?)

Sorry … picking myself up from the floor again …

L (now nearly 12 years old), M (now 9 years old) and T (now 7 years old) have featured in, inspired and even written many posts during that time. Just a few examples ……

Way back in October 2007, I made Gingersnaps after taking “my younger daughter (M) and baby son (T) to a local toddler group.”

Two years later in 2009, M baked Smarties Cookies after drooling over some in a bakery window while we were out shopping.

Fast forward another couple of years to 2011 and L wrote a guest blog about her Mum’s Random Bread Recipe as part of a homework assignment she was set for the weekend.

When M was set a cross curricular challenge at school a year ago in July 2013, she also wrote a guest blog to present her Sweet Salad Trifle invention.

And earlier this year in February 2014, T revealed the secret of making the best chocolate brownies in the world in the Singing Baker Brownies.

One of my own most fondly remembered cooking sessions with my ‘kids in the kitchen’ was in September 2009 (five whole years ago!!! … sorry, I’m still in shock over the timescale) when we made Look and Cook Vegetable Soup

Last month on her seventh birthday, L read proudly to us all from her new, special Aunty-Lucy present – Look and Cook, a gloriously vintage cookbook for children by Tina Davis. Not only does this superbly illustrated book provide recipes for such evocative things as popcorn balls and forgotten cookies, L was also captivated by the various sections that name each different kitchen utensil, discuss safety in the kitchen and describe how to measure, chop, dice, boil, steam and sauté with skill.

“Now I can cook dinner for all of us,” L announced, feeling sophisticated and grown-up.

She took her job very seriously. In her role as Mummy, she knew that cakes and cookies, however tempting, were not what she should be serving to her children as their main source of nourishment. I watched as she slowly thumbed her way from the delicious puddings and sweet treats at the end of the book, through the pasta and rice of the middle sections, towards the vegetables and main dishes in the opening chapters.

Then her eyes lit up as she spotted a recipe for vegetable soup.

So … are you getting the idea that I think it’s important to involve children as much as possible in kitchen adventures? Not only is it enjoyable, educational, etc for them … but also … I mean … who wouldn’t want to be friends with someone who can bake the most sinfully sinful chocolate cake? Give your children some cooking skills and you’re setting them up for life (and a great social network at University).

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I was therefore very interested when I received an email yesterday about the CiTV cooking show for children, The Munch Box, and I’m more than happy to pass on the call for young chefs to my readers …

Hi there,

I wondered if you might be able to help me in my quest to find children to take part in the next series of the hugely popular Saturday morning cooking show, ‘The Munch Box’ which is going to be filming in London during the Autumn. The show features a mix of cookery challenges alongside fun food-related games and the chance for the children to learn from a celebrity chef.

I’m looking for children aged 9-12 who love cooking, can do it on their own, and who have the confidence to come into a TV studio with two friends (who can help them out) to cook their favourite food in front of the cameras. In addition, I’d also like to speak to children of that age-range who are very vocal and have a great love of food to potentially be our ‘Masterchef’-style judges, telling the chefs what they think of their cooking! In both cases, we’re not looking for children who can sing, dance and have a background in TV performance, just children who can speak confidently and are able to cook or talk about amazing food.

As well as being fun, the children who took part in the filming last year benefitted hugely from the experience. Not only did it encourage their love of cooking, but one child became determined to improve his reading because he wanted to learn how to read complicated recipes. It really is a great experience for them so any help you can provide is hugely appreciated.

Many thanks, look forward to hearing from you soon.

I say, “Go for it!”

If you are aged 9-12 and are interested, ask a parent/guardian to send an email by Saturday 9th August to:

themunchbox@cactustv.co.uk

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Choc Chip Cookie Brownie Cake

Five years ago today, I wrote about rainbows and unicorns. That was when M was four years old, and the Rainbow Cake that I made for her birthday soon became one of my most visited posts on A Merrier World. Now, little M has just turned nine and the rainbows and unicorns have grown up into cookies and brownies.

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And M herself is not so little now, either. Her ‘good toes and naughty toes’ have transformed into Junior Associate feet of The Royal Ballet School

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But there is still plenty of time for dreams …

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… and choc chip cookie brownie cake.

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Choc Chip Cookie Brownie Cake

Cookie base
8 oz butter
5 1/2 oz golden castor sugar
6 oz light muscovado sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
13 oz strong white flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
12 oz choc chips

Brownie top
5 oz butter
9 oz castor sugar
3 oz cocoa powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 oz plain flour

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.

Grease and baseline a circular 9″ springform pan.

To make the cookie base, cream the butter and sugar. Add the vanilla and eggs gradually, beating to incorporate. Mix together the dry ingredients then stir into the dough. Stir in the choc chips.

Press the cookie dough into the base of the prepared pan (I filled it to about 1/3 full and used the leftover dough to make a giant cookie, about the size of my hand …)

Put the pan in the fridge while you prepare the brownie batter.

To make the brownie topping, melt the butter, sugar, cocoa and salt together in a bowl over a pan of hot water. It will look like it’s never going to come together, but it does …

Remove the bowl from the heat and stir in the eggs, one at a time. Stir in the vanilla.

Fold in the flour, then give the batter a good stir for about 5 seconds to strengthen it a little (there isn’t much flour in the recipe, so it’s okay to develop a bit of gluten to give the brownie some structure).

Remove the springform pan from the fridge and pour the brownie batter on top of the cookie dough. Level the top.

Bake in the centre of the oven for 30 to 35 minutes.

Cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then loosen the sides and remove the springform ring.

Cool completely (I left the cake on the base of the pan because I didn’t want to risk losing the whole thing if it collapsed while I tried to unstick it … nobody seemed to mind and it made it easier to carry to M’s ballet class!).

Melt some white chocolate and use a fork to drizzle over the top in a pretty pattern.

My True Love Gave Me a Milka Colada

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Today is the 8th day of Christmas.

So what? Yesterday was the 7th and tomorrow will be the 9th. What’s so special about the 8th that you have to write a blog post about it?

Well, you see – I didn’t get the 7th or the 9th. For that matter, I didn’t get the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th …

Okay, okay – we get the picture. Thanks for the maths lesson – but what are you talking about??

Sorry. Didn’t I say? The fantastically wonderful Clemmie of Innocent Drinks challenged me as one of 12 bloggers to create a non-alcoholic mocktail inspired by the Twelve Days of Christmas. I got the 8th day – eight maids a milking, and all that. Karen got the 1st, Marie got the 2nd, Nanya got the 3rd, Helen got the 4th, Dom got the 5th, Kate (not me – another Kate) got the 6th and Jacqueline got the 7th.

And the 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th? Or did you think we wouldn’t notice? It’s hardly advanced number theory here, you know.

Err. Not sure. You’ll have to check Innocent’s Twitter updates for those mocktail recipes – each drink is linked to the matching recipe card on the day itself. BUT … as a special Christmas pressie, Innocent are going to compile all of the mocktails in a downloadable recipe book, which will be available once the 12 days are completed.

And you got the 8th day?

Yep.

Soooo … where’s your milkmaid-inspired recipe then?

Ah, yes. I was wondering who’d be the first to spot that …

Ta daaaah!!

milkacolada

Milka Colada (inspired by the 8th Day of Christmas)

Serves 2

250ml Innocent Tropical juice
250ml coconut milk
3 tbsp condensed milk
2 pineapple wedges for garnish
2 maraschino cherries for garnish

Combine the Innocent Tropical juice, coconut milk and condensed milk in a blender. Add a handful of ice and blend until smooth.

Pour into 2 cocktail glasses and serve with a garnish of pineapple wedge and maraschino cherry on the rim of each glass.

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Christmas Hampers

Before now, the only hamper I’ve ever received was a basket of smelly stuff wrapped tightly in blow-dried cellophane from The Body Shop. This was when I was twelve years old and White Musk was a coveted scent among teenage girls. Do you remember those little sniff bottles they had with tester samples from each range? Seaweed, tangerine … Perhaps they still have them – I haven’t been into a Body Shop for decades, so they’re firmly placed in the realms of nostalgia for me. Like Pizzaland …

Okay, I seem to have strayed from the point a bit. The important thing is that I’ve never received a gourmet food hamper. Never, that is, until a couple of weeks or so ago when Hampergifts sent me some Yuletide Delight in the form of foodie heaven – a beautifully-parceled hamper from their lovely Christmas Hampers range.

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I have to confess that a large part of Hamper Fun lies in the unwrapping. Firstly, there’s a knock on the door and a courier hands you a large – a very large – brown, cardboard box. My childhood dream is instantly fulfilled at this point. But then comes the tearing off of sellotape, the opening of the box, the discovery of a bow-tied basket, the satisfying splitting of the cellophane and the feverish excitement as the bursting goodies tumble out. Never mind what’s actually in the basket – I’m having too much fun already with just the packaging!

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Fortunately, my husband and children are less easily pleased than me and have questions that need to be answered before they will consider endorsing my fave review. Is the bottle of wine drinkable? Is the chocolate delicious? How good is the Turkish Delight? What are the yellow things in that jar there?

After judicious tasting, the answers turned out to be yes, yes, very and preserved pears.

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So, I’m happy to report that if you’re stuck on what to send those friends and relatives who live further away from you than on your doorstep, one of the gift hampers from Hampergifts may be the answer to your problems (unless you think your friends would share my delight in receiving just a cardboard box, of course – admittedly a cheaper alternative, but don’t blame me if they fail to recognise the Christmas spirit in that idea).

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