Category: Baking & Sweet Treats

This came about due to the lack of baking powder and plain flour in the Scottish Mum Household.  The boys wanted pancakes, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to make them rise like fluffy pancakes, so I bit the bullet and went for self raising flour ones.  They are more of a consistency like crepe style pancakes than the traditional ones that we are used to up here in Scotland, but they kept the boys bellies full.

Crepe Style Pancakes

Lesley Smith

5 from 1 vote

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 10 minutes mins

Cook Time 10 minutes mins

Total Time 20 minutes mins

Course Baking

Servings 15 Medium Pancakes

Ingredients

  

• 2 Medium Eggs
• 30 g Butter or Margarine
• 300 ml Milk
• 250 g Self Raising Flour
• 30 g Sugar

Instructions

 

• Fold the ingredients until the flour is incorporated. Then whisk the ingredients briskly until it forms a smooth batter consistency.
  
  
• Heat a thick bottomed pan on the hob. I don't use oil to cook my pancakes, but some do. I keep the temperature low, and cook slowly.
  
  
• When the top of the pancake mix begins to show bubbles, it's time to flip it over and cook the other side. As I don't use oil, the pancakes don't have that smooth single colour, but they do have significantly less calories than an oil cooked pancake.
  
  
• We get around 15 medium sized pancakes from this recipe. It will depend on how large you make yours.
  
  

Looking for a way to get more water into kids or adults with dementia who have an aversion to drinking from a cup?

Sneaking fluid in through food is a great way to do things.  These are so easy, and can be calorific or zero calorie, depending on the type of jelly you use.

These are not like adding glycerine to make the firm jellies which are like the harder Haribo type sweets, and they’re simply a way to change up the diet and make jelly more appetising.

Using the usual concentration, jelly is too wobbly to set in moulds.

These are made in ice cube trays and are made in minutes.  They are about to become a staple part of mums diet in the sugar free form.  I may even splash out on a few nice moulds too.

For these, I have used two different strengths.

Green
Simply a regular lime jelly at half the consistency, ie 1/4 pint of hot water to dissolve the jelly, then top up with 1/4 pint of cold water before pouring into the moulds.  These are still squeezable although slightly tacky to the touch.

Red
Made using the sugar free jelly option in powder form at half the above consistency.  I used 2 sachets here with 1/4 pint hot water, dissolved and added 1/4 pint cold before pouring into the moulds.

The red ones are far more firm than the green, and although both are squeezy, the red have a far firmer effect.

Water Content

250ml / Half Pint water per 18 jellies

Use

Leave these colourful ‘treats,’ out for someone who struggles to drink fluid, to sneak just that little extra in a day.   It’s far more attractive to eat something that looks like a sweetie than it is to eat a bowl of jelly.

National Cupcake Week 2018

Bakers at the ready! National Cupcake Week returns to the UK from 18-24 September 2018. To celebrate the occasion, Royal Lancaster London will be serving up an exclusive cupcake-creation from Head Pastry Chef Steve Penny: Dark Chocolate and Dulcey de Leche Cupcakes.

The indulgent treat will be served in the hotel’s Hyde Lobby Bar throughout the week and is priced at £3 per cupcake. Steve Penny shares his recipe for a twist on a classic that’s sure to be the icing on top of a sweet week.

Dark Chocolate and Dulcey de Leche Cupcake by Steve Penny

Ingredients (10-12 cupcakes):

250g   Softened butter

150g   Caster sugar

100g   Light brown sugar

250g   Eggs

20ml   Milk

250g   Self-raising flour

30g     Cocoa powder

20g     Cocoa nibs

2 cans Condensed milk

100g   Dulcey de leche

Valrhona Dulcey pearls

Chocolate Butter Cream:

50g Dark chocolate (minimum 70% cocoa solids)

100g Unsalted butter, softened

200g Icing sugar

1 tsp Vanilla extract

Splash of Milk (to loosen)

Method

To make the Dulcey de Leche:

Step 1: Take two cans of condensed milk and place them unopened in a bain-marie in the oven. Set the oven temperature to 120 degrees for around 2-3 hours. Be careful when opening the cans as they will remain hot for a long time!

To make Chocolate Butter Cream:

Step 1: Melt the chocolate in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Allow to cool until the chocolate no longer feels hot to the touch.

Step 2: Beat the butter in a second bowl until soft then gradually add the icing sugar. Add the vanilla extract and beat again.

Step 3: Add the melted chocolate to the butter mixture until completely mixed, you can add a few drops of milk if the mixture is a little stiff.

To make the Cupcakes:

Step 1: In a bowl mix together the flour, cocoa and cocoa nibs.

Step 2: Cream the butter and sugars together until light and fluffy.

Step 3: Slowly add the milk, eggs and lastly the dried ingredients (flour, cocoa and cocoa nibs). Fold in the Dulcey de Leche into the mix.

Step 4: Fill 10-12 muffin tins. Don’t fill to the top, only ¾ of the cases should be full!

Step 5: Bake at 180 degrees for approximately 15-20 minutes (or until a knife inserted into one of the cakes comes out clean) and allow to cool.

Step 6: Once cool, carefully make a hole in the top of the cakes using a teaspoon and pipe in the dulcey de leche. Top with a spread of the milk chocolate butter cream to give a smooth velvety finish.

Step 7: Sprinkle Valrhona Dulcey pearls and drizzle more chocolate on top just for luck!

Royal Lancaster London, Lancaster Terrace, London W2 2TY
Reservations on 020 7551 6000 or visit wwww.royallancaster.com

Ever wondered what to do with that spare apple or two that nobody wants, or the odd ones that fall from the tree?  My youngest came home from school, all fired up to show us what he’d made so quickly with an apple at school.

Who am I to say no to that…..

No measurements, no being picky, this is just a pinch here and there and off you go.

I’d a block of 425g Puff Pastry, and we used about a third to a half for this.

Yield: 4-4.5 Apple Turnovers.

Ingredients

• Puff Pastry – around 200g.
• Sugar.
• Milk.
• 2 Small Apples or 1 Large.

Method

1. Roll out the pastry, to an approximate large square.

   

2. Cut the pastry into smaller squares, so that you have four. Tidy the edges if you feel you need to. Littlest had made a couple of his more of a rectangle, so we had to fiddle around with it a bit at the stuffing stage.

   

3. Peel, core and chop the apple, then divide it up into your pastry pieces, in the centre.

   

4. Fold the squares over, point to point, then press down on the edges with a fork.

   

5. Brush the tops with milk, then sprinkle on sugar before piercing the turnovers.  Then, simply bake in pre-heated over at 220 Degrees, or following your own pastry pack advice, for around 15 minutes.