So whilst my first thought was to make something out of the book for my Granny as a thank you, in the end I chickened out and asked if we could bake something together instead.
We went for the obvious, cupcakes!
Be-Ro Cupcakes Recipe
4oz Be-Ro self raising flour
4oz caster sugar
4oz unsalted butter
2 eggs beaten
2 Tbsp milk
(Plus a few drops of vanilla essence which we didn't actually have in.)
Preheat the oven to fan 160, conventional 180 or gas 4. Line your muffin tin with paper cases (this recipe is supposed to be enough to make 6 big buns, we doubled so I could bring some in for work mates Monday - plus the buns are enormous, you can get 8 easily out of this recipe). First sift the flour into a bowl and put it to one side. Now using an electric whisk, cream your sugar and butter together until it goes floaty light and fluffy. Gradually add the beaten eggs, vanilla essence and milk with a little bit of flour after each addition until all the ingrediants are combined.
Divide the mixture into the cases and bake for 20 minutes until lightly golden. We actually baked for nearer 30 minutes because they were so big we werent convinced 20 minutes would do it. Then get decorating - my favourite part!
The decorations were a bit of an improvisation. I went for 3 themes - strawberry, lemon and a very sweet Hokey Pokey topping from the Be-Ro recipe book. We also adapted the Hokey Pokey ones slightly to have chocolate cake rather than plain, and because we didn't have maply syrup we used golden.
Hokey Pokey Frosting
Gently melt 3oz butter, 1 Tbsp milk, 1 Tbsp soft dark brown sugar and 1 Tbsp maple syrup in a saucepan. Beat in 7oz sieved icing sugar and let it cool before swirling over cupcakes and finishing with a crushed honey comb bar.
The lemon and strawberry frosting was a comination of butter, icing sugar and milk with pink colouring for strawberry and lemon juice for lemon! A Granny top tip was to microwave the lemon juice before adding it to the butter/icing mixture. I'm taking her word on it too because the lemon cupcakes were my favourite - they also had a hidden filling of lemon curd!
All in all what a lovely way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Even if I do say so myself, the are gorgeous - and according to family and colleagues they taste just as good!
