Do you watch Masterchef?  It’s one reality show we enjoy watching.  Once I made this ridiculous dessert they had for a pressure test. Lots of caramel and chocolate involved.  I swear it took me about 5 hours to get something on a plate that only slightly resembled the dish on the show.  Anyway I was watching the masterclass last week when they made an apple tarte tatin.  I love apple tarte tatin but always thought it would be difficult to make.

Maybe not so I gave it a go.

This is the recipe I used from the show.  I left out the vanilla beans as I didn’t have any, swapped five spice for cinnamon and used a frozen pastry sheet.

It was pretty easy and for a first attempt I was really happy.

It tasted amazing!

I’m going to try this one next.  What recipes are you trying at the moment?

As promised, although a little later than planned, here is how I made the Plane birthday cake.

Plane birthday cake

What you need:
– a loaf tin
– a slice tin
– a cake mix (I used a vanilla packet mix)
– one batch of butter cream icing
– food colouring of choice ( I’ve used green & blue)
– lollies to decorate

I based the cake on the design of the plane I created for the Happy Birthday banner.

I baked the cakes splitting the mixture between the 2 tins.  Once cooled I placed the smaller cake upside down on the short edge of the other cake and cut it.  Using the rest of the cake to cut 4 triangles for the wings and 2 triangles for the tail.  A small rectangle was used for the top of the plane.  Cut the corners off the main cake and use 2 of them to create the nose. I also tucked a small square under the back of the main cake to help support the tail.  Using toothpicks and butter cream secure the tail and the nose to the main cake.  There was i little bit of cake left so I cut out a few small circles and made a cloud for the candle to sit in.

cakes ready for cutting

plane assembled with butter cream and toothpicks

All thats left now is to ice and decorate.  I’ve used a snake and raspberry lolly to make the propellor and its held in with a toothpick.  The windows are the bottom of strawberry and creams and the lights on the wings and tail are mini choc buttons.

Linking up with ASWC

Happy plane making,

It was hubby’s birthday this week and I made the silly mistake of asking what kind of cake he’d like.   Sticky date was his reply.  This just happens to be his favourite dessert and possibly the only cake he bakes (he is a chef so the pressure was on for me).  Of course I headed to google for help and found a recipe on taste.com that looked good.  You can check it out here.  I always like to see a photo of what it should look like!

Do you have a few treats you bake at Christmas time?

Over the years I have made plum pudding truffles, peanut butter balls, shortbread, chocolate fudge, rocky road and coconut ice.  This year I decided to just make the last two and they are so easy to make especially the Rocky Road.