Saturday 30 July 2011

More Excuses...

I'm really very sorry that I've fallen behind on the posts again. I'm using all the same excuses as before, in addition to the fact that I'm completely rubbish.

I am, as we speak, baking for Tangled... so I'll try to type that up at the same time as typing The (very delayed) Princess and the Frog...

Until then...
Happy Thoughts
x

Wednesday 20 July 2011

That Meat Lover's Pizza is NOT Loving Me Back

Disney Classic # 48 - Bolt

Again I apologise for the (lack of) Quality of these photos - my camera was still in for repair :-(


As a complete side note... WOW! I honestly cannot believe we've made it this far! After Bolt there are only two more to go, then there will be a Disney Movie and cake shaped hole in my heart! It has been rather a long time coming though... don't you think?

Anyways, Bolt was the final of the list that I hadn't cared to watch before, but the premise behind the choice of baked goods was simple enough. Bolt is a film about a dog (named Bolt) and dogs have a baked treat of their very own... Doggy Biscuits!




My aunty, a couple of my cousins and by brother all used to eat Boneos. Like actual Boneos intended for a dog. It really grossed me out. But anyways, I wanted to create something that looked like a doggy biscuit, but that was suitable for human consumption (and preferably tasty, too!) So I ran a Google search for "Doggy Biscuits for People" and this was the first site that came up.

Yes - it is a website for Dog Biscuits recipes, for dogs. But the recipe I based my doggy biscuits on is the one called "Peanut Butter Dog People Biscuits".  A recipe for dogs AND people... or at least that's how I chose to look at it. I figured there was nothing in the recipe that I wouldn't normally put in a biscuit (flour, oats, peanut butter, honey... all seemed fairly standard to me!) and besides, I made (and we ate) bacon cupcakes for Angel's birthday a few weeks ago. If we can eat cupcakes that contain bacon, then we can eat biscuits containing biscuit-y things, even if they were intended for dogs.

To make them more appetising, more people friendly and completely unsuitable for doggy consumption, I decided to add a layer of peanut butter and cover the whole thing in chocolate. Because, even though I am distinctly not American, I can only agree that everything tastes better with added peanut butter and chocolate.

Prep time: 45 minutes
Cook time: 20 minutes
Makes 48 cookies

Ingredients:

For the biscuits:
180g plain flour
30g rolled oats
75g crunchy peanut butter
1 tbsp honey
1 medium egg
drop of vanilla extract
30g shortening

For the topping:
400g milk chocolate
50g shortening
100g crunchy peanut butter
250g icing sugar
milk, as required

  1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 4 and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
  2. Place all of the biscuit ingredients in a large bowl and beat until a dough is formed.
  3. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface and cut into shapes. Place these on the baking tray and bake for 20 minutes, or until golden. Place on a rack to cool. (You may need to bake these in batches.)
  4. One cool, melt 100g of the chocolate. Dip the bottom of each biscuit into the chocolate and place back onto the tray, chocolate side up, to set.
  5. Meanwhile prepare the peanut butter frosting: place the shortening and peanut butter into a bowl and beat until combined. Add the icing sugar and beat well. Add a little milk if the frosting becomes too think. place the frosting into a piping bag.
  6. One the chocolate on the biscuits has set, turn them over to be chocolate side down. Pipe peanut butter frosting onto each biscuit, trying to maintain the bone shape. Melt the remaining chocolate and spoon over the top of the biscuits and frosting. Leave to set for another 5-10 minutes and then serve!




The next time we're watching The Princess and the Frog, and I'll be paying baked homage to New Orleans/mardi gras by baking a king cake, (complete with an inedible baby!)

Happy Thoughts
x

Monday 18 July 2011

Excuses...

I'm really, really sorry that I haven't posted for a while...

You see what happened was my dad went out to a science fair, but took a wrong turning and ended up as a prisoner in an enchanted castle, and when I went to find him I decided to take his place, and... no wait, that wasn't me.

What actually happened was that I fell in love. With a Prince. Only I had to make a pact with a sea witch in which I exchanged my voice for a pair of legs and spent the last few days loitering about town trying to get the Prince to kiss me, but then the sea witch started playing dirty and... no wait, that wasn't me either.

If you've read a lot of this blog you'll probably know that I spent a lot of time last year in and out of hospital, and a lot more time feeling really sorry for myself being in and out of hospital. And that's kinda the reason why I've been so slack with this blog recently - not because I've been back in hospital, oh no, I'm steering well clear of that place this summer. But because I felt like I missed out on so much last year that I'm really trying to make up for it this year by saying YES to every social event I'm invited to (unless I'm already doing something equally social that day) - the problem being that doing stuff takes time. So much time. And you know what else takes time... work. Plus I'm taking advantage of physically being able to do stuff again and trying to regain some level of fitness by exercising 3 evenings a week. And I don't mean exercise like having a go on the wii fit, I mean exercise like physically going to the gym and swimming half a mile or spending an hour jumping around like a loony (I LOVE Zumba!), and unfortunately, that also takes time.

So between working full time, exercising and being overly sociable, I simply haven't had the time to myself to sit down and type up the blog posts for the past couple of cakes. And for that I apologise - despite all of that prattle above, the only excuse I really have is that I AM MEGA LAME!

But I have a bit of time tonight (after making dinner and before going swimming...!) so I'll get to typing - the Bolt post will be with you on Wednesday, and The Princess and the Frog with you the following Wednesday. There may be a little break between that and Tangled, because of various people being away we've had to change Disney Night from being a weekly thing to being a "when most people are in the country" thing. But I promise I'll get the Tangled post to you as soon as I'm able to, and definitely before 16th August (when I take my own holiday! woop!)

So, my friends, until Wednesday... Happy Thoughts!
x