Cardamon...

...not usually something you would associate with baking (more like curries!) but after checking out Jamie Olivers website, it is mentioned quite a lot in a few recipes, so thought I would experiment and give adding it to my baking a go.

First I made blueberry, orange & cardamon bread rolls...

They are sooo messy to make but lots of fun and really yummy!

I also tried adding cardamon to a banana loaf recipe (minus the bananas). It adds a nice spicy flavour that does work really well (and it tastes delish with a cup of herbal tea).

Super Chocolate Mousse...

This chocolate mousse is super for three reasons:

1. Super quick
2. Super easy
3. Super cheap

It seriously takes 5 minutes to make, 30 mins to set in the fridge and tastes amazing! I have also tried by adding a dash of orange juice and some orange zest (as my hubby loves chocolate orange), which also works really well.

Leftovers...

We had friends over for Pancake Day a few days ago, for pancakes, funnily enough. I got lots of different toppings in for all of our guests like the usual golden syrup, lemon and sugar.

I laos got in one of my favourite toppings; nutella and banana (it tastes amaze honestly)! Apparently not many of our guest are fans of those pancakes as we had so many bananas left over!

So with quite a cold day the following day, my baby boy and I decided to stay in and make a banana loaf and cinnamon and banana breakfast muffins - there are loads of possibilities with bananas. They aren't much to look at (hence why there aren't any pictures), but they taste great for a bit more of a savoury treat.

Bake sale

My little sister asked me to help make some buns for a charity bake sale at school and of course I jumped at the chance. Baking and helping a good cause at the same time, how can you resist!? However, I got a little bit carried away and was baking late into the night.

I didn't make any buns in the end. First I made some cake pops: Vanilla with white chocolate icing and hundreds and thousands and double chocoate with chocolate sprinkles! Yum!

Next I chose to adapt a bake sale favourite - rice krispies and made a rather delicious chocolate, fudge, peanut butter, rice krispie bar concoction. The bottom layer is corn syrup with peanut butter mixed with rice krispsies, put into a deep baking tin then I melted chocolate and fudge together to make the top layer. Wait for it to set then cut into bars! Simples.

Then I decided to experiment even more! I saw how to make honeycomb on the Great British Bake Off on BBC a while ago and thought it looked great fun and so I gave it a go. To be honest, I found it really simple and when it set I simply snapped it, weighed it into sweet bags and tied it up.

The bake sale was a success, so I hear, which is good news all round.

The honeycomb also gave me an idea for Crunchie-inspired cake pops. Watch this space....

Happy Valentines Day

Celebrate the day of love with simple heart shaped sugar cookies...

These ones are decorated with coloured royal icing, but for chocolate lovers they could be half dipped in your favourite chocolate and could even add sprinkles or chopped nuts.

First birthday!

Time goes so fast with a little one, I really cannot believe he is one already! We didn't want to make too much of a fuss for his first birthday so we didn't have a party but he certainly did need a cake! I took my inspiration from Toy Story since Harrison absolutely LOVES his Woody toy. I baked a simple madeira cake and filled with a layer of vanilla buttercream and raspberry jam. Then I covered with a blue sugarpaste icing with white sugarpaste stars. I used my new embossing tool from Lakeland which makes writing a message really simple. "Harrison is one!" Last but not least, a Woody cake topper. (That was pretty much the only bit he was interested in!)

 Definitely more interested in Woody than the cake!

 Now to the fun part! He ate it all up - it must have been good!

Chocolate Caramel Cake...

Guests were coming over for Sunday dinner so Saturday afternoon was spent whipping up a cake for dessert.

This has 3 chocolate cake layers, with home made caramel and caramel chocolate frosting in between each layer. The rest of the frosting was then used around and on top of the cake, with chocolate shavings and some extra caramel drizzled on top (don't even think about the calories)!

It was rich and delicious and went down a treat!

Welcome...

Lottie B's started with two sisters that love to bake!

This blog is to inspire others and share our creations. Please follow us to see what we love to bake, what we have on offer and where we will be.