POWERPUFF GIRL CUPCAKES! (With homemade marshmallow fondant!)

'Sugar, spice, and everything nice, these were the ingredients chosen to create the perfect little girls...'

Okay, so maybe the sugar, spice and everything nice was more like caster sugar, flour and eggs - buuuuuuuut we still have three perfect little girls - Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup - they're just in a more edible form! 

So this idea started when I decided I wanted to have a go and making my own fondant icing! And after having a good ole' google it seemed that marshmallow fondant was the way to go - and 'thus the powerpuff girl cupcakes were born!' (get the reference? heh) The Powerpuff Girls was one of my all time favourite TV shows when I was younger, I had all the toys, played all the games and people used to compare me to Bubbles a lot - she was my favourite too which made it even better! Basically I HAD to try and make some cupcakes powerpuff themed!

If you'd like to make my powerpuff girl cupcakes you will need -

FOR THE CAKE - 
- 110g Self Raising Flour
- 110g Caster Sugar
- 110g butter (I use Stork!)
- 2 eggs
- 2-3 drops of Vanilla Extract
- Food colouring - (Blue, Green and Pink!) I use ProGel!

FOR THE FONDANT - 
- 450g little marshmellows
- 600g-900g icing sugar (reason I put it between 600-900 is because when I made the fondant I only used 600g and it turned out fine however the recipe I followed said 900g!)
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract!
- 1 1/2 tbsp cooled boiled water
- Food Colouring - (Yellow, Blue, Green, Orange, Red, Black, & Peach)
- Some white fondant - (just in case your homemade fondant goes pink - if you used pink marshmallows!)

+ I used some Betty Crocker butter cream for the fondant just to ensure it was all stuck together!

HEADS UP -  I just thought I'd better mention that these cakes are quite time consuming. For me these cakes took up two days - so be prepared! But have fun! 

♥ METHOD ♥ 

(For this recipe I wont put pictures on detailing the cake mixture - if you are unsure for the cake mix on how it should look my previous posts (Whimsical Rainbow Cupcakes + Cute as a button cupcakes) have the cake mix well photographed ^_^) I'll still put the recipe on here so don't worry! Okay so lets fight crime by making some powerpuff girls!

FOR THE CAKE - 

1. Pre-heat your oven to 180ºC/350ºF/Gas Mark 4.

2. So first things first you will need to cream your 110g of caster sugar and 110g of butter together until it looks nice and fluffy & lightly coloured!

3. Beat your eggs in a separate bowl and then add them to your mixture gradually - at this point you can add in your vanilla extract too!

4. Now you'll need your 110g of Self Raising and sieve it into the mixture gradually (add some, fold it in, add some, fold it in - the cycle continues!) For folding I normally use a spatula as it just guarantees that every bit of the mixture has been dealt with and it also makes it easier to get every little bit of the mix into the cupcake cakes!

5. And that's the mixture itself done! (Yay) Now you need to split your mixture roughly into 3 bowls, and add the different food dye's to the different bowls. So one bowl with have blue cake mix, one will have green and the other pink!

6. Now all there is to do is to put your coloured cake mix into the cupcake cases! You can use whatever colours you like however I used 2 yellow and 1 blue for Bubbles, 2 orange and 1 pink for Blossom and 3 green cases for Buttercup! This is only because it fitted with with the PPG theme!

Nine Powerpuff Girls coming your way!

Normally this cake mixture would make 12 perfect cakes however because of how I wanted the decoration to look I wanted them to have a domed appearance on the top so I added more mix into the cakes than normal. (I hope I worded that right..)










7. All there is to do for now is to put your cakes into the oven for 15-20 minutes! My cakes are normally done around the 15 minute mark however they have been known to need a little more. Basically just keep an eye on them after 15 minutes! ^_^

♥ 15 minutes later... ♥

And here we have nine coloured cupcakes! Now it's time for the fondant! Dun dun dun! 

♥ THE FONDANT ♥

Remember when I said this recipe would be a little time consuming? This is where it happens! But its fun and we like to try things so lets go! Also, this is the recipe I followed as it was my first ever time making my own fondant! Aaah!

1. So to begin with you need to put your 450g of marshmallows into a microwaveable bowl and put in the microwave for 30 seconds. (this filled up my entire bowl and after microwaving it didn't appear like anything had happened - so don't worry if yours does the same!)

Look at all those marshmallows! (I might have pinched one or two to eat... sh!)

2. Now add the vanilla extract and the 1 1/2 tbsp of cooled boiled water. (I literally boiled it and put it in the freezer for a like a minute) Then grab a spoon - put some butter on to grease it - and stir the mixture so far. (The reason you need to grease it is because it goes SO sticky)

3. Put your marshmallows into the microwave for another 30 seconds and keep doing this until the marshmallows have all melted and are nice and smooth. (so basically heat in microwave, stir the mixture and see what its like, repeat if need to). I tallied the time I did this step and I had to put my marshmallows in the microwave three times until it was nice and smooth. 

 <- In mid melt!

<- All melted (and in a different bowl)

4.  Gradually add in the icing sugar ('stirring after each addition'). For this step I added the icing sugar in 200g intervals and even that seemed a lot. I tried to fold it in the best I could have and then proceeded to add another 200g. The recipe I followed said to use 900g of icing sugar but by 600g I had icing sugar that was not going into the mixture at all and my fondant seemed to be pretty firm anyway, so I just used 600g of icing sugar in the end. However it is up to you and whether you want to go all in for the 900g or cut it a little short is your call! (Sorry, that step was a bit 'waffley' wasn't it?)

5. So in the recipe I followed it said to 'grease hands and work surface. Turn out and knead until smooth and no longer sticky' - I didn't do this. (Rebel) All I did was treat it like a normal fondant and I sprinkled icing sugar on my work surface and onto my hands and kneaded it that way. It worked out fine however I provided the actual recipes step so you can follow it in whatever way you wish. ^_^

<- My fondant! 

6. For the normal recipe this is where your marshmallow fondant is done! However because we are making powerpuff cupcakes we need to add some colour to this fondant! Here is where the food dye comes in. First of all split your fondant into the amount of colours you want to use - so for me I had to split it into 8 chunks (I kept the biggest chunks for the main colours - blue, pink and green!). Add a colour to each chunk and knead it in. This step can get messy for your hands so be prepared!

<- And there are all my colors! (I think I needed to knead some of the colours in better in retrospect - but hey for a first time it wasn't bad right?)

7. And now you are done for the day! Wrap up your fondant tightly in some clingfilm and place in a airtight container and leave to firm up overnight!

♥ DECORATION ♥

And here we are! The last and most frustrating (but fun) part! I will show you guys how I made my favourite powerpuff girl (Bubbles) and then you can just simply follow the steps regarding the eyes and background for the other girls. (Just remember to change the colour). This was my first time making my own fondant and this was my most ambitious idea ever regarding cakes so some of the steps may not be done in the best way it can - but here is how I made these super cakes! 

1. So Bubbles - the 'joy and laughter'. Her main colour is blue and that was the first colour I used in order to make the background for the faces. I kneaded my fondant first just to get it all soft again and then rolled it out until it very thin. (Simply so when they were eaten no one would get a big mouthful of fondant!)


Once it's all rolled out and smooth you need to cut out a circle (or three as that's how many Bubbles' there will be in total) that fits nicely over your little cake. I luckily found something that was exactly the right size.

Then put a little bit of butter cream on your cake (So it acts like glue) and pop your circle on the top!

                                                           

                                                           Like this ->

2. Put the blue fondant away for now but keep it nearby as you will need it again for the eyes. However for now you will need the peachy colour fondant as this will be the face. Cut out a circle that is smaller than the circle you did for the blue - as you want the face to sit nicely in the middle - not so its squished in. Cut out nine of these circles. You can use the other 6 for Blossom and Buttercup!

(This reminds of that episode of Doctor Who where people had no faces? Anyone?) 

3. This is where it gets 'fiddley'. For this step I used an edible black pen (these can be purchased at Hobbycraft) and drew on the outline for the face. I drew where the hair would be and the mouth and also filled in the black parts of the eyes. If you don't have a edible pen the same can be done with your black fondant - it will just be a little harder. 

Left - The just drawn out face. Right - the filled in with icing faces!

4. This is where you need to bring back your blue fondant and also get the white. With the blue fondant first get a teeny little bit of fondant and make a little sausage shape big enough to fit in the outline you have drawn - or iced - on your eye. Do this again for the white. For the pupil I made a hole and then made a little white fondant ball and simply put that where I made the hole. Do this carefully as if you have filled in the black with edible pen it may not be dry yet. (I realised this too late and one of my Bubbles went a bit smudged!)

5. Next step is the hair! Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures during this process (Sorry) But Bubbles' hair was pretty simple! For the fringe I cut out two almost 'tear' shaped pieces of yellow fondant and fitted them into the outline I had drawn on the face. (If it doesn't stick on by itself use some butter cream to help glue it on!') And then all that's left was the pigtails. Which again were like a tear shape just more curved at the ends. (I'd recommend using a image for reference).

6. And that's a Bubbles face done! All there is to do is to put a little bit of butter cream on your blue background and stick the face on! The pigtails might also need a little bit just to ensure they stay where they should be! I also used a icing instrument (but you can use anything with a sharp pointy end) to place little dots around the edge - simply for no other reason but just to add a little 'something'.

AND NOW YOU HAVE DONE A BUBBLES!

You can use the same steps for the background, faces and hair for both Blossom and Buttercup. Just make sure to use their colours and their hairstyles. (Also Buttercup tends to have a more angrier looking face), But hopefully I've shown you the basics! (I've tried my best hehe) 

P.S. When making the circles for the background - I made a sort of triangle shape (for each colour) so that when they are all together with a cake at the top they look like they are flying. (in the style that the powerpuff girls would fly!) Like this; 

Cool huh? 

So that is it! I really hope you enjoyed my powerpuff girl cupcakes post - I tried my best to make it seem as simple as possible and I'm sorry if there were any mistakes or confusing parts! I am personally really proud of myself as these were my first attempt at fondant faces and my most ambitious cakes to date. I felt they came out really good and were better than what I could have imagined! 

Yet again thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy your own Powerpuff Girl cupcakes! Maybe we should make some Rowdyruff Boy cupcakes too... 

Have a lovely day.. or night!

Ricicle x

P.S. I am now on Bloglovin'!

POWERPUFF!

'Cute as a Button' Cupcakes (with edible buttons)

Eeee hello there! Today I made these super cute button topped cupcakes - with edible buttons! (How cool is that?!)

I think they would be perfect for parties, as a little gift or for just a bit of fun!

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If you'd like to make these adorable little cakes you will need;

FOR THE CAKES - (This cake recipe is my usual cupcake mix - I used it last time in my 'Whimsical Rainbow Cupcakes' post and the link to the recipe is on there. I will list everything you will need to mix and do on here for ease but just remember the original recipe is on that post! ^_^  ♥)

Anyway - for the cakes you will need;

- 110g Butter or Margarine (I used Stork)
- 110g Caster Sugar
- 100g Self Raising Flour
- 2 Eggs
- 2-3 Drops of Vanilla Extract


FOR DECORATION -
- 110g Unsalted Butter
- 500g Icing Sugar
- 1tsp Vanilla Extract
- A little bit of milk if you need it
- Pink Food Colouring (I use Pro Gel Rainbow Dust)
- Writing Icing
- Candy Melts! (I used blue and yellow candy melts but any colours of your choosing will look equally as cute - if you'd rather keep it simple you can also use just plain chocolate!)

And here we go! (Just remember that the original recipe for cake mix can be found in my 'Rainbow Cupcakes' post) Photo's will be posted alongside the steps to give you a vague idea of what it should - sort of - look like!

FOR THE CAKES -  ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ 

1. First of all you'll need to preheat your oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4. You can also at this point place you're baking cases into a cupcake tin. (I normally do this step right before the mix is completed, but its completely up to you!) 

2. Now you'll need to cream together the 110g of butter and 110g of caster sugar until the mixture is light, creamy and fluffy! Like this;

3. Once this step is done you'll need to beat the two eggs in a separate bowl and then add that to the mix. This should be done gradually. Once the eggs have been added then mix in either two or three drops of Vanilla Essence. 

<- You should have something that looks a little bit like this.














4. Now you'll need to sieve in the 110g of self raising flour. For this method I normally fold in the flour with a spatula as I know that way every bit of the of the flour will be added into the mix. (It also makes it a lot easier to use all of the cake mix when it comes to putting it into the baking cases as you don't waste any)

All mixed in and ready to go into the cupcake cases!















Step 5. Finally all that is left for the cupcakes is for them to be added into the baking cases! You can either do this in spoonfuls or by piping them in. I used to do the piping method as it did allow the mix to go in a lot neater however I just opt for adding the mix in spoonfuls now - purely for speed.

Here are my cupcakes before going into the oven. I used brightly coloured baking cases as I wanted every bit of the cake to stand out colour wise. However of course - the choice is up to you! ^_^








Step 6. Your cakes will need to go into the oven for around 15-20 minutes or until they are a nice golden colour. Normally my cakes are pretty much ready by 15 minutes, but sometimes I have needed to leave them in up until the 20 minute mark. Best advice is to just keep an eye on them and keep checking!

And that's your cake mix done! You should be left with some pretty yummy looking cakes - but they're not done yet! They need some decoration! 

FOR THE DECORATION - ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

1. What I did firstly for the decoration was to make the chocolate buttons. (This can be done while the cupcakes are cooling) For this step I used a silicone button mould that I purchased recently (from the Range) and the chocolate coloured candy melts in the colours blue and yellow. You can use normal chocolate if you'd rather or different colours!

These are the candy melts and my silicone button mould!

2. The next step is to then melt your chocolate - this step for me was a bit of a estimated guess as I didn't know how much chocolate would be needed for my silicone mould. It was a bit of a trial and error but my best advice would be start with small amounts of chocolate first. Its easier to start with a little and add more than to use too much and waste it! Unfortunately my camera lost charge at this point so I don't have any pictures of this step. Sorry :(

3. Once you've melted your chocolate and poured it as best you can into the mould you'll then need to leave it at room temperature for around 10 minutes, then put it in the fridge for however long you need.

4. Now it's time for the - dun dun dun - buttercream! For the buttercream I actually had the help of THIS recipe. What you need to do firstly is to add the 110g unsalted butter into a bowl and cream together until it is light and creamy. Like this; 

5. Then you'll want to add in the 500g of icing sugar and gradually sieve and beat it into the creamy butter. For this I also used a spatula, its my weapon of choice when it comes to anything that needs a thorough mix!

^ Above is how my buttercream looked after the addition of the icing sugar!

6. Add in the 1tsp of vanilla essence and mix well again. At this point you can also add a little bit of milk if you need too to help loosen your mixture. But if you don't consider your buttercream ready for some serious colouring!

^- And that is the kind of colouring I am talking about! How amazing does that look! 

7. Okay so for this step add in only a small amount of pink food colouring (you can add more if you need to) and mix this into your buttercream until you have a colour that you are happy with. When you are, its time to grab a piping bag and get ready for piping! 

Ready for battle - of the cake variety!

And here are how your cakes should look - or something similar! All colourful and fun!

8. Once your cakes have the buttercream on, its now time to get your chocolate buttons out of the fridge and very carefully popped out of the silicone mould. If there are any parts of the chocolate that are sticking out you can just carefully slice them off with a knife.

^ Above is a photo of me just taking my chocolate button out of the mould. And to the right is a photo of all of my lovely colourful chocolate buttons! (I was really excited at this point)












9. All that is left is to simply add to the buttercream with your chocolate buttons, place them anywhere you like and however many you want on each cake. Either way they will look super adorable.

To the left is some button ideas that I tried out just to see how they would turn out. The far left one is done simply by placing some normal cake sprinkles in the mould before I added the melted chocolate. It left me with a very funky polka dot button! The other button has the same sprinkle method for the spots, however I used some writing icing to give of the effect that its been sewn onto the cake! Cool huh?

And that's it! You should hopefully have some 'Cute as a button' cupcakes!

I am so happy with these cakes - they turned out better than I could have hoped! Thank you for taking the time to read and if you do make these adorable cakes please let me know as I would love to see them!

As always sorry if there were any spelling errors or confusing parts, this is my first ever post where I add my own instructions so I hope it was okay. Any advice or tips would be appreciated! But anyway, thank you for reading regardless!

Have a wonderful day and I hope to see you soon! ♥

Ricicle x

P.S. Just as a disclaimer I am in no way a professional baker, baking is just something I enjoy to do in my spare time. ^_^ 

Take On A Bake - (Off!) / Cranberry and Orange (Sweet) Soda Bread

This week I wanted to try a Soda Bread or 'Quick Bread', which I think was the first challenge attempted by the contestants this week. (Okay technically it was last week, but for the purpose of this blog it was this week - heh)

We are using Paul's  recipe this week - as in the contestant... not Hollywood, although they weirdly look alike??? (weird) I found that this recipe was so easy to follow and it was really quite quick too. Honestly, the longest process was the cooking time!

Anyway, for Paul 'not Hollywood's recipe you will need;

- 400g Plain Flour
- 50g Caster Sugar
- 50g Caraway Seeds (I found these at the spices section in my local supermarket)
- 50g Unsalted Butter
- 100g dried cranberries
- 175ml Buttermilk
- 1 egg
- 1 1/2 Unwaxed Orange (only the zest)
- 1 tsp table salt
- 2 tsp baking powder

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/180C Fan/Gas 6. Line a baking tray with baking parchment.

^ First step was nice and easy wasn't it - 'easy peasy lemon squeezey'. Onto step 2!

2. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, salt, baking powder, caster sugar and caraway seeds. Using your fingers, rub in the butter until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Mix in the cranberries and orange zest.

Here we go, as always I will put images of my attempts at each step on here for you - to simply give you a vague idea of how it should - or kind of - look like!

This is the flour, salt, baking power, caster sugar and caraway seeds looked after being mixed together.

This is the butter before it ended up looking like breadcrumbs! I cut up my butter into little cubes simply to make it a little easier as it wouldn't be very pleasant to try and rub a whole block of butter between your fingers... *shudders*.

As a side note I always loved doing this at school when we did cooking - I don't know why there is something kind of soothing about the whole technique. I don't know. I'm weird.

Admittedly its not the best picture but is after rubbing in the butter.

Ta-da breadcrumbs!






Okay so all that is done lets go for step three!

3. Mix the egg and buttermilk together then stir into the dry mixture using a wooden spoon. Use your hands to bring the dough together, then turn out onto a lightly floured surface and shape into a ball.

 Basically this is just a very weird picture of the egg and buttermilk before being beaten together.

And this is the egg and buttermilk combo being added to the original mixture.

As you can see the cranberries have just appeared magically, this is because someone silly - A.K.A. me, forgot to add them when I should have in step 2. However, FEAR NOT, this didn't ruin anything, I just mixed the cranberries and orange zest in with the egg and buttermilk. It just meant a little more mixing in to make sure the cranberries were separated into the mix well.

The orange zest decided to make an appearance.

And now we have our soda bread dough, on the lightly floured surface, shaped in a ball with no missing ingredients, all ready to go into the oven. Hooray! Now we head to the final step - step 4!

4. Place the dough on the prepared baking tray and cut a cross into the top using a sharp knife. Bake for 30–35 minutes, or until risen and golden-brown. Cool completely on a wire rack before serving.

This is how my soda bread looked before being placed into the oven with my cross in the middle. Looks a little bit like a Hot Cross Bun doesn't it?







30 minutes later...

Voila! Soda Bread! Sweet Cranberry and Orange Soda Bread!





Just as a side note Paul 'Not Hollywood's recipe said to leave it in between 30-35 minutes, I personally had to leave mine in a little bit longer than that as at 30 minutes my dough wasn't quite cooked. However I'd just suggest cooking it for the recommended time and just keep checking it.

And that it for today! Yet again I am super excited by how this bake turned out as I've never made a soda bread before. I felt it looked nice in appearance and it tasted delicious!

Thank you again for reading and I hope you have a lovely day... or evening!
If you do try this bake let me know and see you guys again next week for another Take On a Bake -(Off!) post. ♥

Ricicle x

Take On A Bake - (Off!) / Arlettes

Arlette's. They are something I had never baked, eaten or even heard of before! But I love cinnamon so they had to be the task I chose to bake this week! (I ended up regretting this halfway through making them as they are so faffy! - but we persevere in the face of annoying recipes! ... right guys? *yeah*)

This week I chose to follow the recipe set out by the Hollywood himself - and my gosh was it frustrating. Not through anything he had done in the recipe, just because of how many steps where actually needed to make the biscuits. I had probably underestimated the amount of work needed for these biscuits... like - really underestimated! But hey ho, here we go!

It looks like pop art!

So for the Arlette's you will need:

• Strong white bread flour (I didn't even know this was a thing?)
• Plain flour
• 1 tsp salt
• Unsalted Butter
• Granulated Sugar 
• Ground Cinnamon 
• Icing Sugar

Lets get started with Paul Hollywood's recipe; (like last week I will place images of each step to help give you a idea of what it should look like)

1. Put the flours, salt, butter and 50ml/2fl oz cold water in a bowl and gently mix to form a dough.

So in the bowl is 60g of strong white bread flour and 60g of plain flour, alongside 1 tsp salt and 40g unsalted butter (which needs to be slightly melted) this was just before I mixed it all and got it into a dough form! 

DOUGH FORM

2. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured work surface and knead for 5 minutes until smooth. Shape the dough into a square, wrap in cling film and chill for an hour (or freeze for 20-30 minutes).

Before kneading. 

After kneading - I wasn't sure of the size the square needed to be so I took a guess. Once this is done plop it into the fridge and start on the butter layer - dun dun dun. 

3. For the butter layer, cream the butter and flours together using an electric mixer. Sandwich the mixture between two sheets of cling film and roll out to a rectangle the same width as the square of dough, but twice as long. Chill in the fridge for 25 minutes.

 So this is after I mixed the 125g of unsalted butter and 25g of strong white bread flour and 25g of plain flour. It took maybe a good 2 minutes to get it nice and creamy.

I got a little confused by this step - I'm not really sure why I was just a bit unsure on how I could shape the butter. The clingfilm kept splitting on me so this was the best shape I could get! But anyway, once you have something like a rectangle, plop it in the fridge like the dough.

4. Unwrap the chilled dough and butter layer. Place the chilled butter layer, short end facing towards you on a lightly floured surface and place the square of dough in the centre of the butter sheet. Make sure it is positioned neatly and covers almost to the edges. Lift the exposed butter sheet at the top and fold it down over the dough, then fold the exposed butter sheet at the bottom up over the top, so the dough is completely enclosed in the butter sheet.

So this is what happened when I did this step.. I don't even know what happened. It was just a mess, butter was everywhere and well I really don't know how I fixed it. A lot of flour I guess. But I wanted to share it because retrospectively it was kinda funny. But don't worry if yours goes wrong either, its nothing flour wont fix! #TeamFlour

5. Place the dough on a lightly floured surface, short end towards you. Roll out to a rectangle, keeping the edges as even as possible. Fold the top quarter down and the bottom quarter up so they meet neatly in the centre. Then fold the dough in half along the centre line. This is called a book turn. Wrap the dough in cling film and chill for 25 minutes.

See? Flour is the hero for your dough problems! From here it went back into the fridge for.. you guessed, another 25 minutes.................................

6. Remove the dough from the fridge and make another book turn. Wrap the dough in cling film and chill for 25 minutes.

ANOTHER BOOK TURN GUYS - DO THE BOOK TURN.

Original photo found here!, but that masterpiece was edited by yours truly! (sorry Paul) 

7. For the filling, mix the granulated sugar and the cinnamon together in a bowl. On a lightly floured surface roll out the pastry to a rectangle as before and sprinkle over the sugar.

 So here is the 50g of granulated sugar mixed in with the 2 tsp of ground cinnamon

8. Make another book turn to incorporate the sugar, then roll out the pastry 1cm/½in thick, to a rectangle 12x20cm/4½x8in. Roll up the pastry from the short end like a Swiss roll. Wrap in cling film and chill for 25 minutes.

So above is how my pastry looked with the cinnamon all 'book turned' in and before I rolled into a tight swiss roll shape. As you can see its not a perfect rectangle shape but it really doesn't matter as in the next step we will chop the wonky ends of the swiss roll! So don't worry too much. Also so I can give credit, the second photo of Hollywood before I edited it was found here!

9. Preheat the oven to 200C/180C Fan/Gas 6. Line 2 baking trays lines with silicon sheets or non-stick baking paper.

Easy step! We can do that!

10. Trim the ends of the roll and cut into 8 x 1cm/½in thick slices. Dust the work surface heavily with icing sugar and roll each piece of dough out very thinly, turning to coat in the sugar and to prevent sticking. Place the biscuits on the prepared trays and bake for 5 minutes. Remove from the oven, carefully turn the biscuits and cook for a further 3-4 minutes, or until golden-brown. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

This is the Arlette before being chopped up! As you can see the ends have been cut off so no matter what each section will be near enough equal! So like I said don't worry too much about forming a perfect rectangle.

Unfortunately I was engrossed in rolling out each biscuit that I forgot to take a picture of this step! Sorry!

This is what my Arlette's looked like before going into the oven! I made some smaller ones too out as I was able to make more than eight! I ended up using three different baking trays as I didn't have one that fitted them all in! They went in the oven for 5 minutes, and then what I had to do was flip them over and wait either another 3-4 minutes or until they were golden brown! I must add here that they smelt, delicious!

And here are the finished Arlette's -

They don't look too shabby do they? I am so happy with how they turned out as I have never attempted something as time consuming as this. I love how you can still see the swirl and the layers of cinnamon. I think its safe to say the frustration was worth it in the end!




And that's it for this weeks 'Take on A Bake - (Off!)', I hope you enjoyed this post and if you attempt this bake yourself be sure to let me know! I hope you all are enjoying The Great British Bake Off too, I know I am. Thank you again for reading and have a lovely day. (Sorry if there were any mistakes)

Ricicle x

P.S. I'm also sorry this post was up pretty much at the last minute, with tomorrow being the third episode of 'TGBBO', I've had a pretty busy and stressful few days so today was pretty much the first chance I've had to make them. But I did and I'm so glad I had time to do them as it was a great experience and learning curve baking wise! Hooray! ♥