My super zingy three lemon tart

For any occasion be it in your own house or as a guest in someone else's there is nothing better than has a stylishly simple tart to have for your sweet moment. So I thought id share this fantastic recipe my Lemon tart. Iv found when flicking through recipe books that a lot of lemon tarts call for nine to ten lemons which in fairness sounds like a lot for a tart that you just want to whip up in a jiffy.
So for this tart you will need:
175g flour
25g icing sugar
100g cold butter
1 egg yolk
1 tbl water

This is your short crust pastry, I like to combine it by hand but if you have a food processor be my guest.  In a bowl pop your flour, icing tugar and diced cold butter. next rub the contents through your fingers and thumbs basically until all the butter has reduced into teeny tiny pea like crumbs. Next I pour in the tablespoon of water and one egg yolk and combine with one hand(so you you have one left to answer that phone that always rings when your mucked up to the elbows!!) once its come together plonk it out on your board and knead it briefly so as it rolls out perfectly but not to much that makes it tough as old boots!!!

Next I roll it out nice and evenly thin making sure its large enough to fit in your flan tin which is 23cm wide. Now you might think iv lost it altogether but iv actually used a silicone flan tin for this, so when the pastry is rolled out I put an upside down silcone tin over it I then gently and I mean gently fold the pastry up onto the tin and whip it right side up because I can find if I roll the pastry onto the rolling pin to put in your tin its an accident waiting to happen lol. A little trick I saw on the telly box one time was if you get a scrap of left over pasty roll it into a ball it works as the perfect tool to press your pastry into the sides of your crinkly tin.
Pop tinfoil over the pastry leaving the pastry uncut over the sides, then pour some baking beans over that. Pop in your pre heated oven at 190' for 10 minutes. After that trim edges and pop back in uncovered for a following 8-10 mins. Once thats done take out and let cool.
Whilst your base is baking in the oven get stuck in to your filling, for this you will need:


zest of 3 large lemons
130mls juice
4 eggs
220g caster sugar
125ml cream

so in a bowl whisk your eggs and sugar together, next add the zest and juice of your lemons until its light and well combined. Once your happy with your mixture pour in the cream and mix again. When your crust has cooled pop it back on your oven tray( oven temp reduced to 150') and SLOWLY pour in your lemony goodness. And whatever you do slowly push the tray back in and gingerly close the door. Set your timer for 30minutes you will be looking for a set filling with a wobbly middle ha ha never thught so dont be afraid to check it just before the time. if its baked to long cracks will appear and it will taste of lemon rubber!!!!

what i like to do as a cheeky finale is sprinkle some sieved icing sugar over the top and gently bronze with a wee blow torch and voila we are done....ENJOY(",)

Out of this world brown soda bread

When you think brown soda bread you think of mini you sitting at your Grannys kitchen table, and on  your plate homemade soda bread with thick cut slices of ham on top...YUM...basically brown soda bread equals nostalgia.
There are certain shops you will drive to just to get your brown bread fix like Avoca  or Superquinn your guaranteed perfection every time.So i thought to my self its about time I make my own brown soda bread that I can pass on down to my kids and so on. I tried a few recipes over the past year from friends and recipy books but I just couldn't seem to master them, they would come out stogy and half raw which for a semi perfectionist drove me bonkers. Even my best friends Mam has a fantastic recipy  she got from her Mam that we used to eat when we were younger whenever Grandma used to come and stay in hers and it was DIVINE, but when I went to make it id fall flat on my face lol...
So here we are after a year of tinkering and tedious testing I have finally perfected my brown soda bread , and maybe its the Lemsip talking and making me feel awfully generous but iv decided to share my recipy.....ENJOY

230g Hearts Delight
210g Plain Flour
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp Bicarb Soda
50g Sesame Seeds, extra for the top
50g Poppy Seeds
2 Medium Free range eggs
410ml Buttermilk

In a large bowl add the Hearts Delight, Plain flour, salt and bicarb and mix with your hand then sprinkle in the seeds and give the mixture another swirl. In another bowl/measuring cup break in the two eggs and whisk lightly then pour in the buttermilk and mix. Combine your wet ingredients now with your dry and combine with a wooden spoon. This mixture will be quite wet but that is the consistency we are looking for.
Next line your 2lb loaf tin with grease proof paper and slowly pour it in. Pop it in your pre heated oven and bake for 40mins @ 200'c
When it comes out of the oven take it out of the tin and peel off the grease proof paper and give it a wee pat under neath and it will have a hollow sound, thats exactly what your looking for that means its baked through if you didn't have that sound you are guaranteed that when you put in your skewer it would come out sticky!!!!
i love the way the seeds give this bread a fantastic texture not only on the top of each slice but the whole way through it has a super crunch to it without been overwhelming ha ha...ENJOY

wedding cake no.2

The next wedding cake I'm going to dissect for you is one of my fave cakes. The concept for the cake was so far fetched I had to jump at the chance to do it as I knew an opportunity like that doesn't come along every day.
Visually we wanted this cake to look like a giant bouquet of roses all in gorgeous pastel colors. So first things first I had to work out how many hand made roses it would take to cover the three tier cakes, an eight, ten and twelve inch cake, long story short I decided it would take close to three hundred roses to cover this bad boy. To make the rose I used sugar paste and a lot of it, I think it would actually hurt my head to work out how many kilos i used in the end. The roses were quite time consuming as each petal was made from scratch and each rose needed at least seven petals. Like a real rose it should be assembled in layers, the bud in the middle three petals hugging the bud and finally three more petals hugging the first layer of petals. Each petal then has to be gently folded back to give the delicate look of the rose, now picture that times 300 lol.
Once the cakes and roses were complete it was the daunting task of assembling it all together. I found these cool cake wires especially for sugar paste flowers, once I had them all cut to size I then inserted them into the base of the roses using whisked egg whites as a natural adhesive.
Now you know that moment before you try something out for the first  time and god only knows if its even going to bloody work or not well picture me sitting at my kitchen table with a sea of roses sitting in front of me, talk about anxiety but BOOM it all came together without a hitch...and BREATH.
So the fun part was now upon us putting all the roses in their new homes , making sure the colors were even steven and all snuggly fit beside each other.

The best part of it all was hearing the screams of excitment from Emma the bride through her text after i sent her the final pic, and then even better was the moment I closed the door after the cakes were collected and were driven off ha ha....

Its a dirty job but someones gotta do it

So part of my blogging adventures into the world of baked treats are busy not only am i sharing about my yummy creations but I'm also taking on the tedious task(ha ha) of trying out treats that are on the market ready prepared for us to combine and whack in the oven...

The first "almost ready" treat i delved into was the JUST' ROL(bake it fresh) DOUGH....in the form of Pain au chocolat. Instantly when i clapped eyes on this wee red box i got giddy, to me pain au chocolat are yummy pillows of buttery goodness that you usually see in the baked section of M&S or in Starbucks but they are not something that i or many of us would just whip up on a whim.

The istructions read quite well. Firstly open the cardboard can fully and unroll the pastry, once you have that done you then have to divide up the flattened dough into six pieces which is super easy as the pieces are practically separated for you. Next you take two pieces of the dark chocolate sticks and pop them on either end of the dough and roll each end over the chocolate sticks, when you have all six pastries assembled you then place them on your baking tray upside down. Whack them in your pre heated oven set your timer for the required time, pop your coffee machine on and sit back and chill out.

I was so chuffed with the end result they were exactly like the real mc Coy and the taste well all i can say is ate two of them with the greatest of ease that i felt it only right to give the rest away because if i didn't i would have eaten them all in one breath (",)