Slimming World black forest roulade

We had a food-tasting session at Slimming World recently, where everyone was encouraged to make or bring a sweet snack or dessert. I couldn't resist the chance to bake, especially as it meant I wouldn't necessarily have to eat any of it - so I decided to use the opportunity to use an ingredient I don't actually like!

The new Slimming World recipe book "Love desserts, love Slimming World" had a recipe for black forest roulade, and since I don't like cherries I knew I was unlikely to make it otherwise. I was a little nervous as the only other time I've made a swiss roll, it completely broke when I tried to roll it up, but I was prepared to have a second shot!

The quantities given in the recipe said it would serve 8, and I halved them (only because I realised at the last minute I didn't have enough eggs!) and decided that the resulting dish would either serve 4 with quite large portions, or still serve 8 if you only wanted a thin slice. It also gave 4 syns per slice but since I've halved the quantities, if you did have a thin slice and still got eight out of it, then it's 2 syns apiece.

So feel free to double these quantities, but this is what I did:

3 eggs, separated
50g caster sugar
4 tbsp sweetener
25g cocoa powder
50g fat free plain yogurt or natural fromage frais
100g quark
half a can of black cherries in natural juice, drained
cocoa powder to dust - though I used icing sugar

Preheat oven to 180C/ fan 160C/ gas 4. Line a swiss roll tin with baking paper.

Whisk together the egg yolks, sugar and half the sweetener. Sift in the cocoa and fold together.

Whisk the egg whites in a separate bowl until stiff, and fold into the egg yolk mixture.

Spoon into the tin and bake for about 15 mins until it feels slightly springy

Leave to cool in the tin. Then turn out upside down onto a piece of greaseproof paper.

Mix the fromage frais, quark and remaining sweetener and spread over the sponge. Scatter with cherries.

Carefully roll up, using the piece of baking paper it is on to help. It actually rolled quite easily and didn't break at all!

Finally sprinkle with cocoa powder - or icing sugar as I did, and serve.

Black forest roulade is a spin-off from Black forest gateau, which of course is a German recipe, so I'm sending this into Calendar Cakes for the German team to enjoy. The theme for this month's Calendar Cakes, hosted by Laura from Laura Loves Cakes and Rachel from Dolly Bakes.

Meal planning Monday - week 5

Slightly late as it's already Monday night and I've only just got around to doing this... better late than never!

Monday
Breakfast Ryvita with Philly light - option a/b, free
Lunch Leftover cauliflower and pasta bake - 2.5 syns
Dinner Sea bass fillet with beurre blanc and dill sauce - sounds impressive, non? But it's a piece of fish and ready made sauce I picked up in Sainsbury's the other day, never mind! Just looked it up on the syns calculator and if I have all the sauce that will be 8.5 syns. With new potatoes and veg

Did I stick to it? Breakfast: cereal (option b). Lunch: as above, cauli and pasta bake 2.5 syns. Afternoon snacks: crabsticks, laughing cow light triangles, diet Lilt - all free. Dinner: as above and it was delicious - and the little bit of sauce didn't go far - 8.5 syns. Also roasted a chicken so I could have it cold for lunches and ate a bit this evening, but luckily that's free.
Total syns for the day: 11. Finally back on track!

Tuesday
Breakfast Ryvita and Philly light
Lunch I've cooked a chicken with the aim of eating the meat cold (the weather is too hot at the moment for a roast) so I'm planning to have roast chicken and cous cous for lunch
Dinner Going to my boyfriend's for dinner and we're going to bbq again. There's half of all the fish left that I had on Sunday so hopefully I can have that and only use a couple of syns.

Did I stick to it? Breakfast: cereal. Morning snack: laughing cow light triangles, wafer thin ham - free. Slimming World Hi-Fi bar: 3 syns. Lunch: roast chicken, cold roast potatoes (yum!), cous cous (1 syn as it's flavoured). BBQ at my boyfriend's in the evening - I wasn't so good this time as they had some sausages and burgers from the local butcher that looked so tempting. I had some of the fish as before - so am counting 2 syns for the marinade - plus some plain boiled new potatoes, and 2 sausages - I'm going for 12 syns - in a bread roll - 5 syns - and half a burger in half a roll - probably about 12 syns. For dessert I cut up a whole pineapple, sprinkled it with brown sugar and barbecued it, and served it with fat-free fromage frais - it tasted amazing! I should probably count 2 syns for the sugar though. I did stay off the wine this time and just drank diet coke so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Plus, while the sausages were nice, they weren't quite as delicious as I'd hoped (maybe a little overcooked?) and I think I actually preferred the fish I had the other day. So next time I should hopefully be able to resist the temptation to have sausages and burgers!
Total syns for the day: 37, I think


Wednesday
Breakfast Cereal
Lunch Leftover roast chicken with cous cous
Dinner Pieminister Heide Pie, containing sweet potato, spinach and goat's cheese in a pastry crust. Really wanted to try this when I saw it in the supermarket, though I knew it would be high in syns. Looked it up when I got home and found it has 25 syns. Pretty high but could be worse.... I think I will make it my dinner treat this week and try to be good the rest of the time.

Did I stick to it? Breakfast: cereal. Am filling this in on Friday but can't remember what I had as snacks.. I have been pretty good though and think I only had laughing cow light triangles and wafer thin ham, plus I think I had a Hi-Fi bar (3 syns) in the afternoon, and a diet Lilt which is free. Lunch was leftover roast chicken, leftover roast potatoes and cous cous. Dinner: I was sent home from the barbecue last night with some leftovers so I had some leftover salmon (as I didn't think it would keep as long as the other stuff), new potatoes - both of which are free, which I served with veg and a lovely ready-made sauce from Schwartz - a low fat orange and dill sauce. According to the SW website it has 9 syns for the packet and I had a third of the packet, so that's 3 syns. Will keep the pie for another day.
Total syns for the day: 6. Really? Gosh, that's good!


Thursday
Breakfast cereal
Lunch leftover chicken with couscous or similar
Dinner Hopefully out with my boyfriend

Did I stick to it? Breakfast: actually decided to have wholemeal toast instead and will count 2 syns for the marg. Morning snack: Hi Fi bar, 3 syns. Lunch: leftover chicken, but thought the couscous tasted a bit funny (how long does it keep once it's been made up?) so had a tomato Mug Shot instead (free). Packet of Skips in the afternoon - 4.5. In the evening my boyfriend and I drove down to Newhaven (near Brighton) to meet his cousin and her fiance - and we went out on their speedboat! It was the first time I'd done that and it was really fun, though a little scary when the boat went fast - at least I thought it was scary, my boyfriend loved it! They had picked up a picnic tea for us and unfortunately it wasn't very healthy - I had one slice of a takeaway pizza - am guessing 8 syns - and a Greggs sausage roll - 18 syns, oh dear - I didn't know that at the time! I also had a small chunk of crusty bread with some ham and cheese that I should probably count 10 syns for, and a cornetto - 9 syns - and a homemade cupcake - maybe 6 syns. At least I drank diet coke rather than wine though a glass of wine on a boat on a summer's evening would have been lovely!

Total syns for the day: about 60. Have a feeling this Saturday's weigh in won't be good!


Friday
Working from home today - the Olympics are starting and I'm not particularly excited (I couldn't care less about sport) though I do have tickets to the beach volleyball, not that I understand the rules! I work in central London and commuting is going to be a nightmare, so my company has decided to allow a third of staff to work from home at any one time. That means that over the 12 working days the Olympics are on, I'm working from home on four of them. Which is better than nothing... and today is one of those days :-)

Breakfast cereal
Lunch jacket potato with cottage cheese
Dinner Hoping my boyfriend will come to dinner as I'll have been home all day and can cook something nice. I'm thinking of doing a filled Yorkshire pudding, as inspired by the Best of British blogging challenge - I just need to figure out how to make it first! And there will be a few syns as Yorkshires aren't free.. with any luck whatever I put in it will be though.

Did I stick to it? Breakfast: spent 2 hours trying to get on line to my company's work systems - despite testing this extensively from home in the last few weeks, today it seemed to be overloaded and I couldn't get access until 11am! I spent a lot of that time stressing and on the phone to the helpdesk so didn't make breakfast, then realised I was starving and grabbed a leftover cupcake from yesterday - 6 syns. Am going to put a jacket potato in the oven now though! Baked potato took ages to cook so had a packet of crisps around midday - 7 syns. Later had the potato with cottage cheese (free) but also added some marg to part of the potato (3 syns). Trying to remember what I ate in the afternoon... think I had a can of cherry coke - 7 syns. Dinner: did the Yorkshire pudding, which turned out really well! I filled mine with 1 sausage chopped into pieces, some roast potatoes, veg and gravy. I think it comes to around 15 syns but that's more of an educated guess. I then had 2 glasses of wine while watching the Olympic opening ceremony on TV which is another 15 syns.

Total syns for the day: 52, hope the other days I'm working from home are better!
Saturday
Breakfast Mullerlight before Slimming World (free) then ryvita and soft cheese (option a/b).
Lunch Ooh, just realised I hadn't planned anything... will probably be having lunch on my own and dinner with my boyfriend.
Dinner I need to use up the rest of the roast chicken so will use it in a curry. I've got the Slimming World book Curry Heaven and have decided to make a chicken tikka masala, which hopefully Mr. Fussy will like! It's free on extra easy and I will do it with some rice and a naan bread for my boyfriend (which I might steal a little bit of, but it's mainly for him!)


Did I stick to it? Breakfast: Mullerlight (free). Got to lunchtime and realised I hadn't remembered to plan anything so I had a piece of salmon, vegetables, a mixture of noodles and couscous - all free- and some leftover Schwartz orange and dill sauce (3 syns). I had a late dinner with my boyfriend so was a bit hungry in the afternoon and had a packet of skips - 4.5 syns - and a Kitkat - 4.5 syns. For dinner I made the chicken tikka masala which was lovely! I had it with half a microwavable pouch of Uncle Ben's basmati rice - 1 syn - and a small piece of my boyfriend's naan with some mango chutney - 6 syns? For dessert I made a caramel cheesecake from the Slimming World desserts book which was 6 syns and not bad but not quite as nice as I'd hoped. Also had another glass of wine - 6 syns.

Total syns for the day: 31. Definitely not doing so well this week... in fact I put on 1 pound at my weigh-in today. Really need to get back on track next week.


Sunday
Breakfast Hopefully my boyfriend will have stayed over; I just saw in a Slimming World meal planner the suggestion to have cheese on toast for breakfast. If I use wholemeal bread and reduced-fat cheddar that's free on my option a and b choice, and my boyfriend can have extra cheese.
Lunch Depends what time we have breakfast and whether it's more brunch... I could make him an omlette with cheese and bacon, though I don't like omlettes so I could have something that he doesn't like - which could be anything really!
Dinner Need to use up the Heidi Pie I didn't have earlier this week - 25 syns (it had better taste amazing!)

Did I stick to it? Didn't have breakfast then had cheese on toast for lunch. Supposedly free as my option a and b choices but think I had more cheese than I'm supposed to so will count 5 syns for it. Then had a can of cherry coke in the afternoon - 7 syns. Oh and ate 2 Maryland chocolate chip cookies while my boyfriend ate the rest - 5 syns. Had a packet of Skips while I was waiting for dinner to cook too - 4.5 syns. I need to get out of the habit of this! The Heidi Pie for dinner was nice- that is, the filling was lovely but the pastry was too thick for me. I had it with potatoes and veg -25 syns. Also had a glass of wine afterwards - 6 syns. At least that finishes the bottle and my pledge is not to open another one before I go on holiday (which is only 11 days from now!). I made an apple betty recipe from the Slimming World website which was lovely and only half a syn for the portion, but I still had the munchies and found a lonely Wispa bar in the cupboard. And now I learn it has 14 syns, I won't be doing that again! Quite a bad end to the week in fact.

Total syns for the day: 61, about half of which was down to the pie and chocolate!

Brown and cream birthday card

Just a quick craft post as I haven't done one for a while.. here's a birthday card I made intending it to be unisex, and ended up giving to a male friend.

I used a cream square card blank and cut a strip of brown and white spotted paper with a wiggly line and stuck it along the bottom of the card. I then cut out a rectangle with a pointed end from a similar piece of paper, brown with pink spots, and used a button embellishment that I mounted onto a circle of brown paper from the same set to anchor it to the card, and make a kind of tag or label effect. I used another button embellishment near the bottom and another one at the top, to pull the sections of the card together, and finally placed a gold 'happy birthday' outline sticker along the bottom. I wasn't following any particular design, just making it up as I went along!

Flower pot cupcakes

We recently had a charity bake sale at work, which I only found out about at the last minute - literally ten to five on the day before! It was apparently a last-minute decision and not very well publicised... so I thought I would go home and see if I had any ingredients in the cupboard and if I could think of anything to bake.

I'd seen some flowerpot cupcakes on a couple of blogs and thought they looked brilliant, and also saw them in a new recipe book I bought recently - Peggy Porschen's Favourite Cakes and Cookies. I realised I had everything I needed to make them and decided to have a go.

I followed the recipe for chocolate cake from the Peggy Porschen book, but found the cakes very sof and crumbly and not really very easy for this recipe - next time I would make something a bit denser like a chocolate mud cake.

Melt chocolate with milk and brown sugar in a pan

Beat butter and rest of sugar then add the eggs. Then sift in the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and bicarb of soda.

Pour in the melted chocolate mixture

Pour into cake cases and bake.

Next to make the cakes look like flowerpots - I freestyled and used the recipe for inspiration rather than following the exact instructions. Peggy's book shows you how to make very elaborate flowers but I knew I wouldn't have time for this so I decided to use a shortcut as well.

I took some white fondant and coloured it a caramel brown with some colouring that I already had. I then cut a wide strip, turned the cupcake upside down and used chocolate buttercream to stick the fondant around the cake.

Turning it the right way up, it looks like  a flowerpot filled with mud! I cut leaves using a plunger cutter from green fondant.

I also topped them off with some Dr. Oetker wafer daisies. When the lovely people at Dr. Oetker recently agreed to offer a prize for this month's Alphabakes, they also sent me a set of the same items to review. One of those items was a packet of wafer daisies.

I've used these before, but they came in particularly handy for this last-minute baking as I just wouldn't have had time to make my own fondant flowers. They cost around £1.49 (current Tesco price) and there were 12 in the pack - just right for a batch of cupcakes. They come in three colours - pink, white and yellow - with a yellow or white-coloured centre. All you do is place them on top of the icing just before it sets - they're quite large, so one would be enough on top of a cupcake, or you could use the whole packet to decorate a large cake. They don't really taste of much so don't detract from the flavour of the icing. I also think it's good that there's a long time before the best before date - this packet that I got in July (2012) said best before March 2013, so you can definitely keep them in the cupboard for when you're short of inspiration, or short of time!

I ended up making quite a few of these - they were a bit fiddly and time consuming but the Dr Oetker flowers really sped up the process!

I had to take the cakes out of the paper cases to put the fondant around them, so I put them into larger muffin cases afterwards, which I think added to the flowerpot effect. They went down really well at the bake sale!

As these were actually made for a bake sale, I'm entering them in Tea Time Treats, a blogging challenge hosted by Karen from Lavender and Lovage and Kate from What Kate Baked, as their theme for July is cake stall cakes.

I am also entering them in Cupcake Tuesday, hosted by Hoosier Homemade

Disclaimer: the wafer daisies were provided free of charge by Dr. Oetker. I was not required to write a positive review. All other ingredients were paid for by myself.

Meal Planning Monday - week 4

Being ill last week meant food was the last thing on my mind, so I'm really behind with my meal planning - it also doesn't help that it can be quite hard to pin down my boyfriend about what he wants to do and whether we are likely to be at my house or his or out for dinner! On the plus side, being ill last week meant I lost a whopping 5 pounds and *finally* got my half-stone award (and then some) at Slimming World. I'm a bit worried that I'll put at least some if not all of that weight back on this week though, now I'm not spending half the time in the bathroom!


Monday
Breakfast Mullerlight (free)
Lunch Homemade butternut squash soup (free), bread (option b)
Dinner Salmon, squeeze of lemon juice, new potatoes, veg - really in the mood for fish.

Did I stick to it? Breakfast: Mullerlight (free). Cheese triangles (option a), crabsticks (free). Slimming WOrld Hi-Fi bar: 3 syns. Diet coke (free). Lunch: soup and bread (free/option b). Weightwatchers strawberry and vanilla mousse (4.5 syns). Another Hi-Fi bar (3 syns). Dinner:salmon, new potatoes, veg (free). Choc ice - don't have packaging, estimate 7 syns. 2 finger Kitkat 5.5 syns.
Total syns for the day: 23

Tuesday 
Breakfast Mullerlight
Lunch Wholemeal tuna roll (option b/ free)
Dinner - The Other Half (OH) is coming for dinner, I bought a ready-prepared meal of chicken breasts with cheese wrapped in bacon - I wouldn't usually as this is so easy to make myself, but it was reduced and therefore actually cheaper than buying plain chicken breasts. Need to check how many syns... will serve with roast potatoes if I get home in time, and gravy and veg for me. (The OH doesn't like gravy, he's weird!).

Did I stick to it? Breakfast: was far too hungry for just a yogurt so had cereal (option b). Morning snack: Hi-Fi bar (3 syns), noodle Mug Shot (free). Lunch: salmon, leftover new potatoes and veg in the microwave at work - free. Went to the gym at lunchtime. Afternoon snack: Weightwatchers smokey bacon crisps (4 syns). Low far cheese triangles (option a). Dinner: Tesco Simply Cook Chicken Breasts topped with Cheese & wrapped in Bacon, as above - absolutely amazed to look it up on the SW website and find it only has 2 syns (for the cheese) - I thought it would be a lot more! Roast potatoes and veg with it - free. 1 Maryland chocolate chip cookie - 2.5 syns. Not bad that I stopped at one given my boyfriend ate half a packet!

Total syns for the day: 11.5 - a lot less than I was expecting given how much I've eaten today!

Wednesday
Breakfast Cereal (option b)
Lunch Baked potato with cottage cheese (free)
Dinner Sausages with roast butternut squash (12 syns if I have 2 sausages)

Did I stick to it? Breakfast: Mullerlight (free). This is because I didn't have time to check what I was meant to do for lunch today and made myself a tuna wholemeal roll, meaning I couldn't have cereal for breakfast. Morning snack: leftover roast potatoes (free), Hi Fi bar (3 syns).Lunch: tuna and mayo wholemeal roll (1 syn for the mayo). Went to gym at lunchtime, was starving again afterwards. Afternoon snack: 2 cereal bars (10 syns). Dinner: roast butternut squash cooked in the oven with 2 sausages on top (12 syns) with honey drizzled over the top (1 syn) with broccoli. Later, a 2 finger Kit Kat (5.5 syns) and a ready mixed Archers and lemonade drink (no idea- 5 syns?)


Total syns for the day: 37.5. Sausages are really going to have to be an occasional treat.

Thursday
Breakfast Cereal (option b)
Lunch Uncle Ben's risotto rice with leftover butternut squash (4.5 syns)
Dinner -Maybe going out with the OH? Haven't sorted it out yet

Did I stick to it? Breakfast: cereal (option b). Morning snack: Hi-Fi bar (3 syns), Weightwatchers smokey bacon crisps (4 syns). Lunch: risotto rice with leftover butternut squash (4.5 syns)., Weightwatchers strawberry mousse (4.5 syns). Went to gym at lunchtime, which was horrible as the air con wasn't working! Can't remember if I had an afternoon snack... don't think so? As for dinner... I hang my head in shame. I went to McDonald's! It's kind of my boyfriend's fault... I had tickets to see a play called the Maids this evening, which I really wanted to see as it was one of the first texts I studied at university (Jean Genet's Les Bonnes, as part of my Modern and Medieval Languages degree). My boyfriend said he would come if I couldn't find anyone else, and as it happened, nobody else was free or wanted to come - I wonder what exactly it was about French existentialism that put them off?! Then at the last minute my boyfriend said he had to help his mum with something that evening (sigh) so I decided that rather than miss it, I would go on my own. I needed somewhere for a quick dinner, and I didn't fancy paying a lot or sitting in a nice restaurant by myself, and there was a Mcdonalds nearby, so I popped in there. In my defence I can't remember the last time I went to Mcdonalds! I bet it will show up on the scales though....I had a quarter pounder with cheese, which I now learn is 24.5 syns (oh dear...) and medium fries, which are 11.5 syns. At least I had a diet coke, which is free! But coming home from the theatre afterwards I had a cherry coke which is 7.5 syns. I also bought some nail varnish and a necklace, I'm not sure whether it was being stood up by my boyfriend or the rather dark and sinister play I saw that meant I needed cheering up!


Total syns for the day:  Oh dear I don't want to add it up.. OK, grits teeth... 59.5. By far the worst day I've had these past 4 weeks!

Friday
Breakfast Cereal (option b)
Lunch Depends if I had time to prepare anything last night - could have pasta Mug Shot that I keep at work (free) or buy something otherwise.
Dinner -At London Zoo for Zoo Lates (summer late night opening). Hope it's not raining! Will probably have a burger for dinner :-)

Did I stick to it? Ryvita (option b) and Philly light. Morning snack: Skips (4 syns), crabsticks (free). Lunch: bought a sandwich as I got home at midnight last night and was too tired this morning to prepare anything - which will teach me. A simple ham sandwich from Sainsburys (OK with mustard mayo) was 15 syns! Also had a Hi-Fi bar (3 syns).For reasons that I don't understand, I was absolutely ravenous this afternoon. I had another Hi-Fi bar (3 syns), another packet of Skips (4 syns) and a Snickers from the office vending machine - something I've not done in months. And now I know one of them has 15 syns, I won't be doing that again! But after all that I still felt hungry so had a hot chocolate, not sure how many syns but I will guess 5. And that's all before I go out this evening... and I'm still craving carbs! Dinner: at London Zoo Lates with my boyfriend which was really good fun! I ate a burger in a bun - guessing 18 syns. Chocolate brownie - guessing 15 syns. Pint of cider - not sure, about 8 syns.
Total syns for the day: I've lost track but I think about 80, which is dreadful - I couldn't stop eating today!

Saturday
Breakfast Mullerlight (free) probably followed by ryvita and Philly light as a mid-morning snack (option b)
Lunch Pasta and cauliflower cheese bake - adapting a Slimming World recipe which will make it 2.5 syns.
DinnerNo idea what I'm doing yet, could be out or at my boyfriend's. If we're at my house I might make something from the Slimming World curry recipe book.

Did I stick to it? Breakfast: Stayed at my boyfriend's and didn't have any breakfast, then went to Slimming World then the supermarket so was starving by 11am... bought a Danish pastry and ate it at the bus stop! Oh dear... 15 syns. Made the pasta and cauliflower cheese bake for lunch - 2.5 syns. Went to my boyfriend's sister in law's at 5pm and stayed there til 8, so by the time we got back to his house it was 8.30 and we were starving... cooking just seemed like it was going to take too long so we went to the chip shop. Oh dear, oh dear! Had a saveloy - 6.5 syns, chips 17.5, onion rings 10 syns. At least I had diet coke which was free!

Total syns for the day: 51.5. Really not good after yesterday!

Unsurprisingly when I had my weigh-in today I found I'd put on 2 pounds! Though I was ill the week before and lost 5 pounds, which I didn't realistically expect to keep off... and so over two weeks I've still lost 3 pounds.

Sunday
Breakfast- Could be at my boyfriend's or he could be at my house. If we're at his, I'll have a sausage sandwich with 2 Quorn sausages (2 syns) and brown bread (option b) which will also cover lunch. If we're at my house I'd like to do the turkey ciabatta I planned last week which will count the bread as the option b choice and a few syns for some cheese.
Lunch See above
Dinner Most likely at home alone - steak and homemade potato wedges (free)

Did I stick to it Brunch: bacon roll (free). As we finally had some nice weather we decided to have a bbq, and went off to pick a few things up. They already had burgers and sausages at home but I felt I really couldn't face eating anything like that after the past few days, so I picked up some fish - a special bbq from frozen range at Tesco where the products were 3 for £5. I had two tuna skewers, some prawns and some salmon, which was delicious, and all free- well, I will count 2 syns for any potential marinade. I had it with a baked potato with marg - so 2 syns for that - and not a burger in sight! I did have a glass of wine though for 6 syns.
Total syns for the day: 10 syns, probably the healthiest bbq I've ever eaten!

White Russian cupcakes

For my birthday party back in April (yes, I'm a bit behind with the blogging...) I wanted some kind of cupcake that said "party" which to me meant cocktails! I have the Xanthe Milton book "Eat Me" and she has a recipe for White Russian cupcakes which I thought sounded pretty cool. White Russians are made from vodka, coffee liqueur (so I learned - I always thought it was chocolate) and cream, and this recipe doesn't exactly use those ingredients but does give the same sort of flavour - and a bit of a kick!

As the party had a shoe theme, I bought some cute shoe-patterned cupcake cases over the internet; this isn't the best photo but you can just make out the design!

So it goes a little something like this.... cream butter and sugar and beat in eggs

Add flour and baking powder, then some Kahlua - which I always thought was chocolate liqueur but apparently it's coffee. I didn't have any of that, and I preferred to use chocolate anyway, and I did have some creme de cacao liqueur (which is a clear liquid) and a thick, syrupy chocolate liqueur that I bought in Rome. I decided to add equal quantities of both in place of the Kahlua.

Spoon into cake cases and bake in the oven

To go with the shoe theme I used a small cookie cutter to cut shoe shapes out of Mexican paste to use as cake toppers.

I also made the buttercream according to the recipe, which is a mixture of icing sugar, melted white chocolate, sour cream and the chocolate liqueur. It had a bit of a kick but not too much and tasted really nice. I piped the buttercream onto the cupcakes and placed a shoe on top.

I'm blaming the fact that I can't find many photos for this recipe on the fact that it has taken me over two months to blog - that will teach me!

This month's letter for Alphabakes, the blogging challenge hosted by me and Ros from TheMoreThanOccasionalBaker, is W, so I decided to make these White Russian cupcakes my third entry for this month!

I'm also enjoying taking part in Calendar Cakes, hosted by Laura from Laura Loves Cakes and Rachel of Dolly Bakes. Their theme for this month is the Olympics and amongst other ideas, are accepting entries relating to the different countries entering teams in the Olymics. And we all know how good the Russians are at winning medals, so I'm going to send them my White Russian cupcakes.

I'm updating this to send it to Baking With Spirit, hosted by Janine at Cake of the Week, as her theme this month is cocktails.

Walnut Whip Whoopie Pies

It's been a while since I've made - or even come across - any whoopie pies, once touted as the 'new cupcake', so when the letter W came up for this month's Alphabakes, I thought it would be a great thing to bake.

I have a recipe book entirely dedicated to whoopie pies, called - originally enough - The Whoopie Pie Book, by Claire Ptak of Violet bakery. Flicking through, I came across the perfect bake for a triple W whammy - the Walnut Whip Whoopie! I don't know if anyone outside the UK has had these, they are a chocolate pyramid filled with marshmallow with a walnut half on top. They were my grandmother's favourite and are absolutely yummy!

Ingredients:

300g plain flour

1 tsp bicarb of soda

1/2 tsp salt

125g butter, softened

200g sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla flavouring

200ml buttermilk

100g walnuts, ground, plus extra for decorating

100g ground almonds

Whoopie pies are fairly simple to make: mix flour, bicarb of soda and salt and set aside. In a separate bowl, cream the butter and sugar, add egg and mix well.

Grind some walnuts

Mix the buttermilk and vanilla and add half to the butter mixture. Slowly mix in the dry ingredients other than the nuts. Pour in the remaining buttermilk and mix, then fold in the nuts. Chill the mixture for 30 mins.

Place a spoonful into your whoopie pie tin (thanks David!) or onto a baking tray. Bake for around 10 minutes and leave to cool.

I did attempt to make the vanilla swiss buttercream recipe from the book, which involves whisking egg whites, sugar and golden syrup over a pan of simmering water, but I obviously did something wrong as the mixture stayed really runny and I couldn't use it to sandwich the whoopie pies together. I took some pretty pictures anyway :-)

In the end I resorted to a standard buttercream to sandwich the whoopie pies together. To make them look like walnut whips, I piped a small swirl of chocolate buttercream on top and placed a walnut half on top.

I took these on a picnic with my boyfriend's family and friends - which was eaten largely huddled under coats and blankets as the weather was rubbish, but we were there to see an outdoor concert and by darn it, we're British and that's just what we do! Anyway, these would also be good for a bake sale as they are individually portioned, so I am sending this in to Tea Time Treats as their theme for June is cake stall cakes and bakes. This month the challenge is hosted by Karen from Lavender and Lovage; her co-host is Kate from What Kate Baked.

As it's a triple W whammy I'm also sending it into Alphabakes, which I am hosting - our letter this month is W, and there's a prize (only available for entrants in the UK). Check out the rules here if you fancy taking part!

I am updating this to send to Cooking Around the World, as their challenge this month (for which they accept old posts) is American food, and whoopie pies originated in America.

My cookery book collection

Dom at Belleau Kitchen, who hosts the Random Recipes blogging challenge, decided to set us a different challenge this month: to share a photograph of our cookery book collections. It will be interesting to see how many everyone has, where the keep them in their homes, and whether everyone is untidy as me! (That last one is unlikely...)

My recipe book collection has probably doubled in the last couple of years; as friends and family realise how much I like cooking and how I'm increasingly getting into baking and cake decorating, they are never short of a present idea! In fact I had absolutely no idea how many books I've got and I've just counted... if you don't include the files I've got of recipes torn out of magazines, I've got.... 72 cookery books! That's enough recipes to probably cook something different every day for the next 50 years!

My books are on a kitchen worktop -just to the left of the books (which you can't see in my picture) is my oven and just to the right (next to the cake stand) is my sink. You can just see the bottom of my kitchen windowsill in the right of the picture as well.

My books started out in a nice neat row along the wall at the back of the worktop, but have now spread to a second row. At the front is a book stand that I got at a car boot sale, holding open a book at the page of the last thing I made. On top of the back row of books are three A4 box files from Paperchase - I love the Russian doll pattern as it reminds me of a brilliant holiday to Moscow - which contain recipes I've printed from the internet or torn out of magazines. There are a couple of small notebooks stacked up as well, where I used to copy recipes out of magazines, but I just don't have time to do that any more.

In front of my books is a ceramic decorative word saying "cake" that came from Next, and a flat cake stand (one of several that I have, but the only one that I have room to keep on display); on top of the cake stand are four decorative knitted cakes from Bombay Duck. I think that's everything... as you can see, I am rapidly running out of space for any more books!

Meal planning Monday - week 3

Monday
Breakfast Tortilla - as long as I've had time to make it at the weekend!
Lunch Tuna "mayo" sandwich using fat free natural yogurt - having the bread as a b choice means it will be free, as long as I do have the tortilla for breakfast and don't need to resort to museli.
Dinner invited my boyfriend over for dinner as he's quite busy with work things for the rest of this week I will make the Cannelloni that I planned to do last Saturday but didn't get a chance to. I will make a vegetarian one for me and a meat version for my boyfriend. Mine will use dried cannelloni tubes, basil leaves (growing on my windowsill!), canned spinach (a bit adventurous as I don't actually like spinach but when I've eaten spinach and ricotta cannelloni in restaurants I haven't really tasted it), and cottage cheese as it's lower fat than ricotta or other options. I'll also add some seasoning and use passata to pour over the top. I'm crossing my fingers that my boyfriend will like his meat version as he's only ever eaten cannelloni once before, and he did like it, but it was ready made from Tesco Finest! I'll do him some garlic bread with it and some broccoli for me. My recipe from the Slimming World website should only have 1 syn.

Did I stick to it? Tortilla for breakfast as planned. SW Hi-Fi bar 3 syns. Weightwatchers caramel wafer bar - 4 syns. Lunch - tuna and fat-free natural yogurt in a wholemeal roll - free/option b choice. Special K bar - 4.5 syns. Special K mini breaks cereal bites - 5 syns. For some reason I really had the munchies today and really didn't fancy fruit, but I've had 16.5 syns already today and I haven't even left the office yet! Dinner was as planned, I had the veggie cannelloni (1 syn) and Weightwatchers 2 garlic dough balls (3 syns) - I gave my boyfriend the rest of the packet! He was angling for some angel delight ever since I told him it was in the cupboard and I shared it with him, which meant 7.5 syns for my dessert - a lot given there isn't much to it.
Total syns for the day: 28

Tuesday
Breakfast Either museli or tortilla.
Lunch Planning to meet my boyfriend for lunch as we work within a 15 min walk of each other - not sure where we're going yet.
Dinner  Leftover Chicken, lemon and garlic casserole (Slimming World recipe) with mashed potatoes or rice from Sunday
Make tuna pasta for lunch tomorrow

Did I stick to it? Breakfast - tortilla (free). Lunch: pulled pork ciabatta with apple sauce and skinny fries, if I count the ciabatta as an option b choice and the pork is free, I think I can get away with counting 15 syns for this. I wasn't feeling well all day, and felt a bit better at lunchtime, but felt worse in the afternoon and when I got home at 7pm I went straight to bed!
Total syns for the day: 15

Wednesday
Breakfast  leftover tortilla (free) if there is hopefully some left
Lunch - Tuna pasta (free if I use passata, a couple of syns if I use a low fat sauce.. and lots of syns if I don't use a low fat sauce!)
Dinner beefburger in a wholemeal roll with chips. I never eat this sort of thing at home (although I do like the occasional burger when I'm eating out) and realised that I have a lonely burger in the freezer leftover from ages ago. I also never buy chips - partly because I have a pretty small freezer and I'd rather use the room for chicken breasts, pork chops etc, which always come in multipacks and I live on my own. Also, if I bought chips I would probably eat them all the time! I bought some last week when my boyfriend came over and there are some left, and since I'm not seeing him much this week I think I will cheer myself up with burger and chips. I ought to make homemade Slimming World chips but I find they take over an hour (they just don't crisp up very quickly for some reason) and I won't have time when I get home from work. Having looked up beefburgers on the Slimming World website I've found that they are an average of 5 syns each, which is a lot better than I thought. The roll will be my b choice for today. I'll have mustard in the burger instead of cheese as that's free, and the chips are McCain 5% fat ones so a portion - even a big portion - should be no more than 5 syns. Which potentially means 10 syns for what feels like a very naughty dinner - I just have to be good with snacks today!

Did I stick to it? Called in sick but ended up working from home for most of the day anyway! Didn't really feel like I could face any 'proper' food so had two poptarts (I know, but I'm ill!) for breakfast. Can't find them on the Slimming World website and I'd thrown away the outer packaging, but Googling it suggests they have 10 syns each - oops. I had a late lunch of homemade butternut squash soup (free) and a packet of Skips (5 syns). For dinner I wanted something really plain, along the lines of dry toast but I didn't have any bread in the house, so cooked a portion of oven chips and still left half of them (I must be ill!). Probably had 5 syns worth.
Total syns for the day: 30, that's the last time I eat pop tarts!

Thursday
Breakfast Poached egg with smoked salmon (free)
Lunch butternut squash soup with a wholemeal bread roll
Dinner salmon with new potatoes and veg

Did I stick to it? Still feeling a bit ropey though I did go back into work. Couldn't face eggs so had a Mullerlight for breakfast (free) then during the morning a packet of Weightwatchers smokey bacon crisps (4 syns). Lunch: tuna and fat-free yogurt in a wholemeal roll (free/ option b. Had a diet coke in the afternoon (free). For some reason when I got home I felt absolutely shattered but also starving hungry so slumped on the sofa... with a 'grab the first thing that looks nice from the cupboard' snack. Remember those choc dip things where you got a little pot of chocolate and some biscuity sticks? Well, I kinda made my own... from some breadsticks and a pot of nutella. Like an adult-sized version of one of my childhood snacks! But no, this won't be going on my blog... and I did feel a bit sick afterwards which will teach me a lesson. No idea how much I ate so I'm going to say 20 syns and that's probably on the conservative side. At least the dinner I cooked later was syn free- roast chicken portion with boiled potatoes.
Total syns for the day: 24... ish. Probably more than that but I don't want to admit it!

Friday 
Breakfast Poached egg with smoked salmon (free)
Lunch baked potato with cottage cheese (free)
Dinner with my boyfriend - probably at my house though we may go out
 I'm going to make a recipe I saw on the Slimming World website for stuffed conchiglie pasta. I've found some giant pasta shells at Tesco and you stuff them with a mixture of bacon, spinach and quark - the recipe looks lovely and has 2 syns per portion. I'll cook garlic bread for my boyfriend to have with it but I will have broccoli with mine.

Did I stick to it? Breakfast: cereal (option b). Stayed home from work again today as I felt far too ill to manage the hour-long commute. So for lunch I had a small tin of macaroni cheese - 3 syns for a small can, but I couldn't have it on toast as I had no bread. So of course I was still hungry but just fancied something simple so I cooked and ate an entire pouch of Uncle Ben's tomato risotto rice - 4.5 syns. In the afternoon I had two packets of mini Maryland cookies which I have only now discovered have 10 syns per packet - damn! I was feeling a lot better by the evening but my boyfriend wasn't able to come over after all as he had to work late. Haven't seen much of him at all these past few weeks, he's promised he will make it up to me this weekend but I won't hold my breath! I cooked a pork escalope and only ate half of it and gave the other half to the cat, and had some roast potatoes, veg and gravy (1 syn). Later I had a mini pot of Weightwatchers chocolate ice cream which I was quite pleased to find only have 4 syns.
Total syns for the day: 32.5. Wouldn't have had two packets of cookies if I'd known they had 10 syns each!


Saturday
Breakfast  yogurt or ryvita with Philadelphia light
Lunch baked potato with cottage cheese if there is any left, if not should be able to find another relatively healthy filling
Dinner  with my boyfriend - probably at my house unless we go out Ham joint with mashed potatoes; I will either glaze the ham or make a parsley sauce or something.

Did I stick to it? Running late for Slimming World this morning so had a Special K cereal bar for breakfast (option b). I thought I would probably have lost a couple of pounds as I haven't been well and spent so much time in the bathroom these past few days, but I was amazed to find I'd lost 5 pounds! That got me my half stone award (finally!) and I'm not too far off losing 1 stone- though I know it's down to being ill and I expect I will put some of the weight back on next week. I have to try really hard not to! Lunch: baked potato with cottage cheese(free).
Total syns for the day:

Sunday  
Breakfast brunch with my boyfriend - probably at my house Turkey, bacon and mozzarella ciabatta - the bread will be my option b choice and the turkey and bacon are free, so I only have to count the syns for the mozzarella.
Lunch See above. Though if I have an early brunch I will probably want an afternoon snack before dinner - maybe a pasta Mug Shot if I have any left as they are free.
Dinner  Pork chop with roast potatoes, gravy, vegetables (2 syns for the gravy) and apple sauce if I have any (1 syn)

Did I stick to it?
Total syns for the day:

Tunnocks Teacakes - homemade style

Guess which teacake is home made?!

Before I get onto the subject of teacakes, have any of you come across Marshmallow Fluff? I'd heard of it but never eaten it - I think it's American (I could be wrong) and is often used as a cake filling or topping. I was very excited when I found a jar in TK Maxx for only £1.50 (though I have since been told you can get it from Asda, why did I not know that?!) and had to buy it.

It tastes like marshmallow but is very soft and creamy (yes, I had to test it... and ate it straight from the jar with a spoon!) and is absolutely delicious. I'm sure something that light and fluffy can't have any calories...my boyfriend loved it too, and we immediately realised it reminded us of one thing - the marshmallow filling in Tunnocks teacakes (which are far superior to any other kind of teacake!).

That got me thinking and I decided to have a go at making my very own Tunnocks teacakes!

I had a look online to find some inspiration for the base, which is a sort of cake-y biscuit texture. I ended up adapting a recipe that I found, and used:

30g butter

30g caster sugar

1 egg yolk

splash of vanilla flavouring

1/2 tbsp fat free plain yogurt

55g plain flour

pinch of baking powder

pinch of bicarb of soda

large pinch of salt

I mixed the wet ingredients first

Then added the dry ingredients

I dropped spoonfuls of the mixture onto a lined baking sheet - this quantity of ingredients makes six. Which is just enough for two people :-)

Here's the marshmallow fluff...

I dolloped a spoonful of the marshmallow fluff onto the teacake bases once they had cooled.

Then melted some chocolate in the microwave

Carefully turn the teacakes upside down and dip in the melted chocolate. Luckily the marshmallow fluff isn't runny

I still needed to use a spoon to make sure the teacakes were fully coated though

They do look a little messy! I left them to set on a piece of greaseproof paper

Ta da! My very own Tunnocks tea cake

It doesn't look quite so impressive when compared with the real one! But the true test is how do they taste....

Absolutely amazing! The outer coating of chocolate is a little too thick but I think it's impossible to make such a thin coating as the factory-made teacakes (unless I used a spray gun and sprayed the melted chocolate over - now there's an idea!). The base is also a bit deeper than the real thing, but they tasted absolutely wonderful. I'd happily make these again, and if I was feeling brave maybe even make my own marshmallow next time!

I'm entering my teacakes in the Best of British challenge, hosted by Janice from Farmersgirl Kitchen. The theme this month is Scottish, and Janice asks "When you think of Scottish cooking what comes to mind?" - well for me I have to say it's not shortbread or haggis but Tunnocks tea cakes! Tunnocks is a Scottish company even though their products are loved around the world... so I hope I'm allowed to enter this!

The challenge is sponsored by The Face of New World Appliances.