It's been a little while! COOOOOKIES!!!!!!!!!!

Well it's been a while wince i posted a new entry... week and half or so, we haven't made to many new treats just went and tweaked some other recipes.!!

So we've made snickers cookies, mars cookies and twix cookies!!!!! All of these where absolutely delicious!! I'm not gonna ad in a new recipe for these because now this is great news its the same recipe as the M&M cookies!!! You just have to take out the m&ms and ad in whatever your favorite chocolate is!! So the M&M cookies that where my last blog entry is just for everything... I'd say the snickers ones where my favorite i ate way to many of them!  Here's a link to those M&M cookies http://bakingwiththedereks.blogspot.com/2012/01/m-cookies-and-tennis-great-combo-p.html

Also we made some chocolate mud cookies... Heres a link to the blog entry about them.. Made these a while back
http://bakingwiththedereks.blogspot.com/2012/01/new-years-eve.html

Here's some pics, these pics are of some mars cookies and some chocolate mud cookies....

The Cookies on the left are Snickers Cookies and the ones on the right are the Chocolate Mud Cookies :D!


AND here's a pic of some Mars Cookies

So Follow that recipe and just ad in whatever your fav choc is!!! Snickers, Mars and twix just worked great because i love caramel and i loved the way it melted through the cookies!!!


All you need to do is roughly chop up your chocolate into chunks... In the M&M one it was crush the m&ms... or put them in whole...

Anyways!!!!! Next Blog entry is going to be White Chocolate Chip Cupcakes and Milk Choc Chip Cupcakes....

YUM YUM!!! We've made them and have the pics all ready to go but im just to lazy to go post another entry hahaha!!!!

M&M Cookies and Tennis!!!! Great Combo :P

Well last night the Australian Open started! For those of you who don't know im a HUGE tennis fan and the Australian Open is one out of Four Major Tournaments in the Tennis Calender!! So myself and my two friends went over to one of their houses and we decided to watch the tennis together... got proper dedicated in that we had 3 matches going on our laptops and the tv... obsessed much?? eh YEAH!!!!! Now as the tennis is in Australia and we're in Ireland the tennis was on live at midnight for us, so i decided that we'd need some sugary goodness to keep us awake and this is where M&M cookies came from!! Now i know these have been done before and i'm not the first person in the world to do them but it was my first time to make them. So heres how to give them a go!

Ingredients:
130g Unsalted Butter
200g Soft Brown Sugar
1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1 Egg
1 Tablespoon Milk
210g Plain Flour
1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
150g M&Ms (I used the crispy M&Ms)

Extras:
Large Mixing Bowl
Electric Mixers
Mixing Spoon (i use a rubber one)
Sieve
Baking Paper
Baking Tray

How to Make:
Preheat your oven to 180c, Line your Baking Tray with your baking paper.

Cream the butter and sugar together until fully combined... Takes a while keep going at it, It will kind of form together into balls first then it all gradually joins together.

Next add in your Vanilla and your egg and mix again until fully combined add in the milk and stir with your mixing spoon to combine.

Sift in the Flour and Baking Powder.

With the M&Ms i put in half of the bag full and then i crushed the other half of the bag and put them in.

Mix together with your mixing spoon (as i said i use a rubber one a wooden on is fine) this will take some time, just be patient the dough will come together.

Shape Tablespoons of the dough into balls, place on your baking paper. This should make between 15-20 cookies depending on how big you make them. Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes or until lightly golden around the edges.

Once done allow to cool for a minute or two an then transfer onto a wire rack.

Thats it!!!!! Now i forgot to take a picture :( i was just waaaay to busy eating them) I'll make sure i put up a photo when i make them again

For now these are pics i found on google!!! This is similar to how the dough looked >>>>ihttp://farm3.static.flickr.com/2463/3613183628_e4b6a56250.jpg



And this is similar to how the cookies looked >>>>>>http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4081/4922823132_abb54b7b25.jpg

Those are not my pics though!!!

Anyways give them a go! They're so tasty and wernt to hard to make!!

Gimme a shout if you feel ive left anything out in this blog or if youve any questions or feedback for me.

The Dereks

Chocolate Orange Cake

Well our friend is off out of the country so we've decided to bake her a cake!!! A chocolate orange cake!!! Well a three tiered choc orange cake haha!!


So firstly to make the sponge part of the cake you need these


Ingredients:
3 Eggs
Self Raisin Flour
Margarine
Caster Sugar
1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
100g Cocoa Powder
1 Teaspoon Orange Essence
50 Ml Milk


To Measure out the Ingredients weigh the Eggs, whatever the eggs weigh measure the Flour, Sugar and Margarine to the same weight (so if the eggs weigh 200g measure the flour, sugar and margarine to 200g)


This will make one Normal Sized Cake but because we made a 3 tiered one we made this same batter again for the other two tiers and because they were smaller the second batter worked fine for two more tiers.


For The Buttercream icing you'll need these


Ingredients:
150g Unsalted Butter
Icing Sugar
Cocoa Powder
Few Drops Orange Essence


Extra things you may need:


Large Mixing Bowl
Medium Mixing Bowl
Electric Mixer
Spatula
Palet Knife
10" Round baking tin (we generally use our spring form tin) I suppose you could make a square cake if you have a square tin!!!




To make the Sponge Cake 


Beat the margarine and sugar in a large mixing bowl using your electric mixer. Keep going until the mixture is creamy.


Next Break the 3 eggs into the mixture, add the flour, baking powder, cocoa powder, orange essence and milk.


Mix all the ingredients together until everything is combined.


The mixture when fully combined should be able to when lifted with a spoon just drop back into the bowl without any force being used.


Get your spatula now and slowly spoon out the mixture into your baking tin, i like to use a spatula because you can really scrape out every last drop of the mixture!! Level out the mixture and pop it in your pre heated oven for 20-25 mins or until the cake is fully cooked. Cooking times will vary depending on the size of your baking tin and oven so just keep an eye on it!


A small tip is to insert a sharp knife sideways into the centre of the cake if it comes out clean your cake is done :D!!!


Now we made a 3 tiered cake so to make the other two tiers use the same ingredients again and the same instructions again but you'll need two smaller baking tins for this and then when you have the mixture made just spoon out the mixture between the two tins. The smaller tins will cook a little bit quicker so just keep an eye on them.

Now this is the three tiers before i assembled them.. i will admit that i had a few little problems... im very impatient and didnt wait for the two larger ones to cool properly and they broke when i was taking them outta the tin!!! But sure it was grand pieced them back together and they get covered in icing anyways!!!!


So to make the icing:


Ingredients:
100g unslated butter
Cocoa
Icing Sugar
1teaspoon Orange Essence


Now this is nice and easy make sure the butter is soft your going to beat together the butter icing sugar, cocoa powder and the orange essence.


Use as much Icing sugar and cocoa powder as you want... i find its all about how sweet you like your icing, i use just enough so the butter taste is gone! Anyway keep mixing until its a nice creamy icing!!


Now that makes enough icing to cover one cake... Double that to make enough icing for the three tiers if you going for that!


Lastly we needed to put our three tiers together just sit them on top of each other making sure theyre centered.


Icing is easy enough if you have a palet knife i tried it once with just a normal spoon... mistake!!! it looked sooo bad!!! but it's great with a palet knife. So just spread the icing around lightly and evenly!! I get very bored doing this so i tend not to leave it perfect!! and last night I had literally 5 minutes to ice this cake... Didn't do to badly!!! We got some Orange Jellys then and decorated around the edges!!


So this is the finished products

Thats the two pics i took of it!! You can see that the cake started in the middle of the silver cake plate but as i was driving over to my friends it slid nearly off it!!! My Fault!!!! I took some corners to fast for a cake!! Woops!!!


It was YUMMY!!!! our friend who's leaving LOVED it!!!! So it was nice to give her a treat before she heads off!!!




Anyways!!  If you read the blog from start to finish good look to ya haha!!! This is a long enough entry!!! But seriously this recipe is SOOOOOOO easy!!!! Takes bout 2 hours to make the 3 tiered one... but like an hour would do for a normal sized one!!


Any questions about anything! Or if you feel i left any stages out leave me a comment :D!!!


Thanks
The Dereks

No Cake!!!

Well we cant make a cake :(!!! Went and bought all the extra ingredients we needed only to come home and find out someone (i know who did it) has thrown out all of our other stuff!!! which are basic essentials! but i dont have enough time now to go and replace them :(

Ahwell we'll be baking again on Wednesday so in addition to the stuff we have planned for wednesday we shall be making a Chocolate Orange Sponge Cake!!! Fun times :)

The Derek's

Derek's Birthday!!

Well Last Night was Derek's Birthday ( Derek S)!! Loads of people came out for his birthday and a brilliant night was had! Everyone got a little bit drunk which was very funny at the end of the night!!

Well we haven't baked anything all week not one thing! So tonight is our friends going away party :( Shes leaving us for 6 months!!!!! But she'll be back in between so we'll get to see her before the 6 months and fingers crossed we may get to go and see her :)!!!! Anyways we're gonna make a Chocolate Orange Sponge cake its a chocolate lovers dream and if your not a fan of the orange part you could just make it as normal chocolate!! I think it tastes like a Terry's Chocolate Orange but in cake form!!

What it basically is is two layers of chocolate orange sponge, a layer of chocolate orange buttercream icing in between and all over the top and sides!! I love it!!

We're gonna try and use writing icing to write on the top of this one... we shall see if that works haha

Anyways don't have all of the ingredients in the house so we need to run (drive) over to the shop and pick up the lat few things!!!

Ill be posting later on about the cake :)

The Derek's

IT'S 2012!!!!!!!!

Well ive just posted my New Years Eve blog because before i went out last night i forgot to hit the Publish post button!!!

Anyways last night was great rang in the New Year with all my best pals!!! Didn't get home until 6 am and i then only woke up at 3:30pm.... This day is basically over as its getting dark already! So no baking today for us as we're still wrecked!!

Everyone LOVED the cookies last night!! My boyf Derek S also made cupcakes and it was quite funny because as we were leaving the house to go the party he was still icing the cupcakes because we where running late!!!

I'll get him to pop up his recipe for the cupcakes because they were DELICIOUS!!!!

Anyways Happy New Year!!!!

The Dereks

New Year's Eve

Well it's New Years Eve!! Hope everyone is going out to have a great night!

I should differ between me and Derek somehow so im Derek C and my boyf is Derek S

So We're off to our friends New Years party and we decided to bring some treats along with us!

I decided to make cookies! So ive made Chocolate Mud Cookies! This was not my own recipe but i have tweeked it a bit! The recipe is very simple and worked the 1st night i made them last week so ive decided to give them a go again!

The Ingredients are as follows:
200g of Milk Chocolate.
100g White Chocolate.
125g of Unsalted butter, softened.
185g of soft brown sugar.
1 teaspoon of Vanilla Extract.
1 Egg.
185g of Plain (all purpose) Flower.
40g Cocoa Powder.

These are easy to make and you will need a few extra things as well:
Electric Mixer (even though you could mix by hand if you wanted it would just take longer)
Sieve
Large Mixing Bowl
Food Processor (Or a Cheese Grater)
Baking Paper
Baking Tray

So Firstly Get all that milk chocolate and put it in the food processor and pulse until it is finely chopped.
Now i don't actually have a food processor so i decided randomly to use a cheese grater and i just grated all the chocolate works perfectly just takes a while!  Once its done leave in the fridge so it doesnt melt.

Chop up the White Choc into small chunks. Leave aside.

Preheat your oven to 180c

Next Cream the butter, sugar and the vanilla in your large mixing bowl using an electric mixer. If you dont have an electric mixer guess your gonna have to put a bit more elbow grease in and mix it by hand. Keep Mixing until its pale and fluffy.

Next step is to add in the egg mix again until its fully combined, Then Sift in the Flour and Cocoa and add the Chopped/Grated Milk Choc and the white choc chunks.

Now Make sure your hands are nice and Clean so give them a good wash!!! Your gonna get your hands into that mixture and mix everything together until it forms a soft dough.

Shape the Dough into balls and flatten, the flattened dough should be about the diameter of a 2 euro coin but about 1inch in thickness. Place onto the baking paper on your baking tray. Leave about a 2inch gap between each dough ball and then go ahead and pop it into your oven for 10 Minutes or until fully cooked. The cookies should be still slightly soft when cooked.

After you take them out of the oven slide the baking paper onto a wire rack and leave to cool. Place another sheet of baking paper on your tray and make some more dough balls and bake again!!!!

The whole mixture usually makes between 28-34 cookies. It all Depends on what size you make them!!!

Well i have attached a picture which isn't the best quality!! But that's the best i could do with my phone haha!!! Anyways they are yummy yummy!!! Soft with a little bit of a crunch around the edge and a big chocolate flavour!!!

Hope you enjoyed and sure go on give urself a treat and make these cookies!!!

The Dereks