Ju-bi-lu-beeee

Sorry for not being around.
It was a nightmare for this blog- not because my computer broke or a rabid monkeys stole my keyboard.
No it was worse.

My oven broke.

I know, I know, It was tragic. We were ovenless for a whole 3 weeks. But now we have a BOOOOOTTTIFFUULLL shiny new one :) shame, i've only got another month in this house, I wish i could run away to my new house with this new oven. But anyway.

We recently had a garden party to prematurely celebrate the Queen's Jubilee as well as a kind of celebratory graduate party... So i thought it would be a perfect time to bake some patriotic cakes. However, as I was just putting the finishing touches to my project for uni as well as setting up an exhibition, I had minimal time to be creative and serve up an original recipe, so I baked recipes o ut of a book to save time- however, they were things that I haven't made before :) so it was still very exciting.

I decided to make:

Raspberry Trifle Cupcakes (Cake Days- Hummingbird Bakery Book)
and
Melting Moments (The Great British Bake Off Book- Mary Berry)

I will let you know now that I was so strapped for time and energy that I didn't actually get to buttercream and fill my melting moments, so they were a bit of a challenge to eat (imagine eating a jacob's cracker with no water) but nevertheless, they were definitely melty! But err, yeah next time I should really cream them up. Lazy me.

Oh and kudos to my lovely big sister buying me these union jack cupcake cases :)
They were probably the only things that had me itching to be patriotic (for once) teehee.

Here's some happy pictures documenting the experience:

filling the cupcakes- jam, then raspberry, then CUSTARDDDD, then cake, then MORE CUSTARRRD! (then another raspberry)

photos started to get a bit rubbish now as it started to rain. Typical.

Sad cupcake looks onwards at our wet bunting.

Two Chocolate Zebras

These super fancy looking shortbreads were the least stressful things to bake. Honestly. And i think they are the best biscuits i've EVER made, they're not overbaked or hard in the slightest, and has all the richness of white and dark chocolate. Beautiful with a a cuppa.

raw and ready for the oven

Unfortunately it didn't make as many as Mary Berry said it would. 40. It probably would have made 40 if i had a ruler and epic rolling out skills, but there's only so much a student can do with a smirnoff bottle. But it kinda turned out as a blessing in disguise as my housemate got creative and used the off-cuts to make cute little animals, letters and a rather unflattering portrait of what she thought my face looks like. I let her look after these, so her's were left in for a little too long and a bit overdone. But nonetheless, a lot more fun that mine :)

fresh out of the oven

close-up of my babies coolin'

Lizzie's (the housemate)... yep, that burnt face in the top left is meant to be me.. Cheers Lizzie.

looking pretty glam in the tin :)... minus a few *nom nom* :x

Brown Sugar Shortbread

After rooting through a few blogs that i usually cry over (as my talent is not nearly anywhere near as amazing)... i found this awesome recipe from Bakergirl and started drooling over the keyboard and clawing at the screen...

i'm cool.

So yeah, anyway, i felt determined that those sugary buttery treats HAD to be mine. So after converting all the cups to grams (nightmare! why is it that the americans always have the best recipes?!!)... i had a good old stab..

Let's not compare now shall we :(..

Anywaysssss, what i noticed about the dough when i was preparing it was that it was MEGA CRUMBLY. 

Like, almost too crumbly to deal with- and i thought "Crap. Done it wrong already and there's only like 3 ingredients. Worst Baker Ever." And then had a look at the recipe blog again... She stated that her dad helped her out of this sitch... BUT HOW?! I don't have a Dad on call to help me solve a crumble crisis!

I got round it by being very gentle and moulding and rolling the dough out in small batches (hence, i had many round edged, rustic-looking pieces) and using the warmth of my hands to try and melt the butter in the dough to make it stick a bit better...

Ready for the oven...

 Here's one straight out of the oven... Nice and golden... I thought..

So i tried to be very nurturing over my shortbread and tried not to over-bake it or under-bake... I think I caught them just in time.. well, they looked that way...

But once the biscuits cooled down, they were actually a little hard.. Might have needed them in the oven a little less time then... Oh well. But nonetheless, still edible and lovely with a hot cuppa.

I got a little indulgent and decided to dunk them all half in milk chocolate... OMERNOMNOM.