Strawberry Glazed Baked Donuts!

I know which plate I want...

It’s that time of year again! Everything is pink and there are hearts everywhere. And then on Feb 15th the frugal ones can score some half off chocolates.

Stage 1 - baked

I don’t really “do” Valentine’s – this year me and the Swede are getting a Chinese takeout and calling it a day. But I do love any excuse to bake pretty things, so I decided to do a baked version of the strawberry (“Homer Simpson”) donuts that I made a few years ago.

Stage 2 - glazed once

Because I’m obsessed with baked donuts.

And you will be too. If you do presents for Valentine’s, ask your other half to buy you a donut pan. You won’t regret it.

Stage 3 - strawberry glaze and sprinkles

These are really simple to make, and feature a cheeky double glaze (plain/classic and strawberry/pink). Feel free to halve the glaze ingredients if you don’t want to double dip. But sugar = love, so I dipped twice.

Neapolitan Cake

This cake is SO. MUCH. FUN. Chocolate! Strawberry! Vanilla! Rosettes! Sprinkles!!

The nights are getting longer and colder, so I think we all need a little more cake in our lives in these dire times.

Neapolitan combines my favourite simple and sweet flavours, and I think the colours are absolutely classic together. I have been trying to up my cake decoration game lately, but I’m still quite cack-handed and impatient.  So I needed something which looked nice but was relatively simple. Enter, the buttercream rosette!

To make this, you just need buttercream icing, piping bag with star shaped nozzle, and a little bit of effort. To make the rosette, start in the centre with a blob of icing and then move the tip around the centre part, piping the entire time. I quickly youtubed it before having a go the first time.

You will have noted that this is a Neapolitan cake which is quite heavy on the chocolate. But I think that it looks quite impressive (if I do say so myself) and by decorating it all in chocolate on the outside, the inside becomes a complete surprise. I put some chocolate sprinkles on it because this is a lighthearted little cake, and I wanted to hint at the insides. Feel free to decorate however you like, but this was easy peasy!

Strawberry Icecream

All hail the strawberry!! So versatile. Of course they are perfect in a bowl with a sprinkle of sugar or cream, but if you’re willing to put a bit more effort in then you can create this sumptuous ice-cream. I'm currently on my jolly holidays in Bournemouth:

..and this icecream reminds me of the creamy deliciousness you can get on the pier.

My mother, who knows me very well, got me Nigella’s summer cookbook, and it is full of delicious light sweets and savouries. Of course, I flicked right to the ice-cream section. I’m only human.

It does take a bit of effort, making your custard-base (the only way to do ice-cream) and prepping the strawbs, then letting it cool, then churning in the good old ice-cream maker, then freezing. But I can’t think of a better way to spend my day, especially when the outcome is food perfection.

Strawberry Crumble and Custard

It's my BIRTHDAY! And, instead of a traditional cake, I present to you my latest food favourite.

You might say that I have a slightly obsessive personality. When I find a TV show I love I will watch old episodes over and over. When I hear a song I like I have been known to sing along on repeat for like an hour.

So too, with cooking. I find a recipe that I just love, and you better believe we’ll be eating it twice a week until my boyfriend begs for variety. And that is what I have done here, so there’s a good few photos from different forays into this crumble.

Individual version

Heart shaped version

Oval version

This crumble is AMAZING. I always feel guilty when I buy strawberries because it always seems like there’s a few bruised or hard ones left over that I don’t want to eat and end up throwing out. In this recipe, they are transformed into juicy, flavoursome bursts of summer. And the crumble on top is so nice that I pretty much use double what was suggested by the original recipe because, while fruit is nice, I am all about the crumble.

Never will you need to ditch those sad little strawbs again! And again, I have Nigella to thank. She’s got my back.

This is a double whammy post, brought to you by my two fave ladies, because the custard part is courtesy of Mary Berry.

She’s pretty much infallible, so of course she was the one I turned to when I wanted a classic, foolproof custard recipe. Custard from scratch isn’t so hard, it’s all about the heat. Keep it gentle, don’t let it boil! 

Honestly, I’m not a principled person in general. But I have my standards. And my standards basically consist of: don’t use premade custard. There’s no excuse for the packet stuff when it’s so simple to whip up a fresh, creamy batch of silky loveliness.

Swedish Summer Cake

So many strawbs..

Here comes the sun! Quick, run outside before it disappears again.

Probably my favourite thing about this time of year is the fact that big juicy strawberries are coming back into the shops. And I love cooking with strawbs. Of course, you can just wash them, dip them in sugar and eat straight from a bowl. Clearly that is perfectly acceptable.

But if you want to get slightly more impressive, look no further. This is a take on a traditional cake that you’d get in Sweden in the summer time, of course inspired from a delicious Nigella recipe. Incidentally, it comes right beside my favourite cake recipe of all time, coffee and walnut cake.

It’s a bit fiddly, and there are a few stages, but they are easily broken down into manageable parts. I think the hardest part is slicing the cake, and I did wimp out in the end and just slice it into two rather than the recommended three. But even if it breaks, or cracks, slather it with whipped cream and all will be well. That’s pretty much my life motto.

Slight confession: I was fairly tipsy taking these "sliced" photos