Michelle Makes: Honeycomb

Everyone is already talking about Christmas, so I thought I would share with you a super fun and easy treat that you can adapt for the children or the grown-ups in your life, for sharing over the holidays or packaging up and giving as gifts.

This really is such a fun easy treat to make that you might never buy another Crunchie in your life!

The ingredients are simple, all you need is caster sugar, golden syrup and bicarbonate of soda.

You could also do with a sugar thermometer for this one, but it’s not essential.

So start by weighing out 100g of caster sugar in your pan and add 4 tablespoons of golden syrup.  My that stuffs sticky!!

Mix it together to form a paste.

Then on a very low heat, bring the mixture to the boil slowly.

Let it bubble away gently like this for about 3–4 minutes until the mixture reaches the soft boil stage (112-115c on a sugar thermometer) or drop a tiny amount in a bowl of cold water, (if you can squish it flat, then it’s ready).

At this stage add 1.5 tsp of bicarbonate of soda to the mixture, take it off the heat and give it a couple of stirs. It will froth up pretty quickly so don’t get scared!

I am glad that I got this in shot because it was a pretty quick frothing moment!

Pour the mixture into your prepared tin and leave it to set for a couple of hours.

At this stage I wanted to make my honeycomb for the children a bit more fun and playful so I added some marshmallows and jelly tots to it straight away so that they set in the mixture and poured a little chocolate over it.

When the mixture has hardened, you can just break it up into pieces with your hands.

This is where I decorated my pieces for the grown-ups! I did some covered in a drizzle of chocolate like this:

Quite pretty.

And for the ones below, I wanted a nice sophisticated look, so I dipped the thin pieces in chocolate and playing with the gold packaging of a Crunchie, I added a few little edible gold balls for a nice ‘posh afternoon tea’ effect.

What do you think ?

You can add anything you like at this stage – be creative! I tried some edible glitter on a few of mine.

So if you have any left, (I had eaten about 5 by now) then why not package them up in clear cellophane bag, add some Christmas ribbon and voila, some lovely Christmas Handmade Honeycomb !

I really hope you enjoyed this post and do give it a go, it’s a lot easier than you think and really quite addictive to make and even more so to eat!

Thank you so much for reading xxx

Michelle Makes: Halloween Toffee Apples

Michelle from Spotted Rose is back today with a fun Autumnal treat for you all to try.

I am a big fan of Autumn, especially Halloween.  It’s full of lovely baking, running through the autumn leaves, hot chocolate and toffee apples.  They are a real childhood memory for me so I just HAD to try these for myself. 

I was a little nervous because it means heating sugar to the right temperature, but these were really 

fun to make!  You don’t need a sugar thermometer either, there is a little test you can do, which i’ll explain.  There are quite a few different recipes for these so I kind of adapted them all and made up my own. 

Here’s what you will need:

Small apples (I don’t like biting into big ones, but use what you prefer)

Lolly sticks / paper straws

2 cups caster sugar

½ cup water

½ teaspoon white wine vinegar 

2 tbsp golden syrup

Get the sticks ready first – I stamped my families names on some of the lolly sticks as a special little touch, you could add names or Halloween references !

Stick them into the bottom of the washed and dried apples.

I really wanted to try using paper straws in place of the sticks but they are quite flimsy, BUT by just

using the end of a circular ended teaspoon and sticking this in the bottom of an apple, it made a circular hole and they then fitted in perfectly.

Next to make the toffee, add the sugar and water to a pan and bring to the boil.

Then stir in the vinegar and syrup. Set a sugar thermometer in the pan and boil to 140C or the 'hard crack' stage as they call it.  If you don’t have a thermometer you can test the toffee by dropping a little into a bowl of cold water.  It should harden instantly and when removed be brittle and easy to break. If you can still squish the toffee, it’s not quite ready !

So, this is the fun bit – I decided to make my toffee apples a bit more ‘spooky’ and added some green food colouring and edible green glitter.

Slimy and gross hey! 

Then, very quickly dip the apples in the toffee, swirl them around and drip off any excess.  I used some flower oasis to pop these in and keep them upright to dry.

Here they are…

I then added red colouring to the next ones ...

... and decided to add a little sugar witch and some green glitter !

But the below are my all time favourite ones – I have been dying to try the new edible gold spray from Dr Oktker and this was the perfect opportunity!! 

Gold toffee apples – doesn’t get much better than that hey!

Why not package them up in cellophane and ribbon and give them away as pressies!

If they aren't devoured first like mine were.

Thanks so much for reading & happy Autumn!

Michelle, x 

Michelle Makes ... Mini Cinnamon Churros

Hello there, we are starting a new series of posts over here in our little blog world and we thought you could all do with a little break from us talking all the time and so we would get the lovely Michelle from Spotted Rose to do some recipe posts for us once a month!

We are really excited as it means we can look what yummy things she makes and amaze at how she has the time.  We have known Michelle since our College days and so it's nice to share the love through the blog world.

Enough of our rambling, it's over to her for her first post.  I know you will all be lovely to her and definitely go check out her blog once you have read this.

Firstly I’d like to say a huge thank you to H & Sammy for having me over on their gorgeous blog !! I have been an admirer of it for some time and it’s a great pleasure to be guest posting for them.

A little about me: I run the little craft, baking & lifestyle blog www.spottedrose.co.uk and I blog about all things pretty.  I am always creating things and baking and get so much enjoyment from it – I want to share it with everyone and help you to be creative too!

I LOVE baking and I want to try making everything that looks as good as it tastes – so I share tried and tested recipes for all sorts (normally sweet things!)  I also love crafting – so I share tutorials on how to make gorgeous things yourself!  There is a little bit on healthy foods too (this is growing) and a few lovely reviews thrown in just for fun!

I also run a little Etsy shop where I sell some of the pretty crafts I make. You might be able to guess looking at it, that I love roses.

So here is my first post and I REALLY hope you like it.

Mini Cinnamon Churros.

I have had these for dessert a few times recently in one of my favourite restaurants and ooh they are yummy and moreish!  I always thought they would be really tricky to make though so never gave them ago.  But now I am in trouble, because they are super easy and SO much fun to make!

I really hope if you feel the same and you will give them a go!

Ingredients

• 100g unsalted butter

• 175g plain flour

• ¼ tsp baking powder

• 3 large eggs, beaten

• sunflower oil, for frying

• 2tbsp caster sugar & tsp of cinnamon, for sprinkling

• 200ml water

• pinch of salt

• chocolate to melt (amount is up to you!)

Adapted from BBC Good Food Recipe http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1715635/churros-with-hot-chocolate-sauce

Special Equipment

You will need a cooking/sugar thermometer for the oil (although once it has been boiling for 5-10mins you should be at the right temp and just leave the heat on or do the bread test mentioned below). I got mine from a local hardware store for about £3.

I also used a wire rack from a deep fat fryer, but you can just use a big fork/spoon with holes in.

So first measure out all your ingredients…

Pop the butter in a pan, you can cut into chunks to make it easier.  Add 200ml of water and a pinch of salt and bring to the boil.

Whilst this is boiling, sieve the flour and baking powder together.

When the mixture is boiling, remove it from the heat and quickly stir in the sifted flour and baking powder.

Beat the mix with a wooden spoon or mixer until it’s smooth.

It will all come together and form a bit of a ball of dough like mixture as below.

Tip the mixture into a bowl and cool for a couple of minutes.

Then gradually add the beaten eggs one at a time, beating well until the mixture is smooth, glossy and drops reluctantly from a spoon.

It will look like this:

Cover the bowl with a clean tea towel and leave the batter to one side to rest for 30 minutes.

Mix your sugar and cinnamon in a bowl to get it ready for sprinkling.

Now for the fun bit!! (and slightly dangerous so be careful, although I felt very safe and it didn’t really spit!)

Fill your saucepan (as large as you have) one third full with oil. Boil it until it reaches 180 – 190c on your thermometer.  Or if you don’t have one there is a trick with a piece of bread that will tell you when it’s ready  – pop a little square into the oil and it will turn brown in about a minute)

Fill your piping bag with the mixture, fitted with a star nozzle and once your oil is hot enough you are ready for the super fun bit! I was SO excited at this point.

So, holding your piping bag really tight - pipe 2 small strips of batter directly into the hot oil, be careful and get some help if you need it or just for a spectator, because it’s so cool!

Chop the batter off with a pair of scissors and let it drop gently into the oil.  Only do 2 or 3 at a time as they don’t take very long to cook.

Ooh look at them sizzling!!

Cook them for about 45 seconds.

You can keep pulling them out of the oil to see they when they are browned enough for your liking!

Perfect!

Tip them out on some kitchen roll for a few seconds.

Then dip them, roll them or sprinkle them in your delicious cinnamon sugar mix!

Ooh they smell SO delicious at this point – obviously you have to try one (or two, or ….eight)!

Melt your chocolate at this point or if you are adventurous, make a nice chocolate sauce.

If you have any left at this point – display them nicely with your melted chocolate in a dish, I tried a couple of different ways and serve to you family & friends, I promise they will be devoured in seconds!

I really hope you like them and are inspired to try them, as they really are so much fun to make and OH SO delicious to eat!

Thank you for reading

Michelle x