Strawberry Scones

Sadly the above is the only picture I took :( It was night time too so it's a bit dark. Sorry about that!

These scones are my new favourite, they were absolutely delicious and are great for summer! I highly suggest everyone try these out!

Strawberry Scones & Cream.

Ingredients

• 3 cups of self raising flour
• 2 teaspoons of caster sugar
• pinch of salt
• 1/4 cup of butter at room temperature (60grams) 
• 1 1/4 cups of milk
• 250g of strawberries, hulled and diced
• Your choice of cream 

1. Preheat the oven. 
2. line a baking tray with baking paper or grease the tray to your liking and lightly dust with flour. 
3. Sift flour, sugar and salt into a large bowl and rub the butter into the mixture until it looks like breadcrumbs.
4. Add milk (don't put the 1/4 milk in, I did and it was too much, keep it on hand and just apply a little here and there if its still too dry, if you add too much don't worry and just add a little more flour.) and half the strawberries (I added a little over a half) and stir gently with a butter knife until everything has combined.  
5. Move your to a lightly floured surface and gently knead three to four times. Don't over do this or the scones will turn out tough and we want them to be nice and fluffy.
6. Get out your preferred cookie cutter, I use a medium sized round cutter, my scones were a bit sticky cause i used too much milk, so even though I did this they turned out more like round balls. 
7. Brush tops lightly with milk. (you can use the 1/4 cup you already have if you didn't use it all!) This will make your scones nice and golden! (I didn't use this step because I forgot, but I think it will be a nice touch!) 
8. Bake for 15 minutes, but again keep an eye on your oven and when they start to golden get them out! It may take longer or shorter depending on your own oven! 
9. Serve with your choice of cream and the remaining chopped up strawberries!

A little tip on cream:
What I like to do for scones is whip up my own cream. If you don't have and thickened cream on hand I highly suggest buying some long life cream and keeping it in the pantry and some in the fridge. This way if you ever need cream for meals as well as sweets you have some at hand!

For whipped cream for the best results always use cream after its cooled in the fridge, it turns out much more fluffy and light!

Get your mix master out, pour the life long cream after its been cooled in the fridge into a bowl and add two teaspoons of icing sugar (you can use more if you want) and then whip on high speed until nice and fluffy! Make sure to watch it cause if you over do it you can curdle the cream.

Store the leftover cream in the fridge to use on your leftover scones or for pancakes or something else yummy!

Hope you enjoy!
-Kate xo

Witch Cupcakes

Vanilla Green Swirl Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing!

I'm so proud of how these cupcakes turned out! Not only do they look great, they tasted pretty good too! It was my first time making a Cream Cheese Icing and I can honestly say that it's my new favourite! I'll probably use it a bit too much.

Ingredients

• 2 1/3 cups of all purpose flour.
• 2 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder.
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt.
• 1 cup of butter or margarine, softened.
• 1 1/4 cups of sugar.
• 3 eggs.
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla.
• 2/3 cup of milk.
• Green food colouring.

1. Heat the oven and get your cupcake/muffin tray out and pop some cupcake liners of your choice in the cups! Grease the tray if you wish but I suppose I'm bad and lazy since I never do (if im using cupcake liners I don't anyway.)
2. In a medium bowl mix flour, baking powder and salt and set aside for later.
3. In a large bowl, get your mix master out (or electric hand mixer) and beat on medium speed for 30 seconds. Gradually add sugar (about 1/4 cup a time - beat well) Scrape your bowl on occasion if needed. 
4. Add eggs one at a time, beat well each time and then beat in the vanilla.
5. On low speed beat in the flour gradually (about 1/3 a cup a time) and then the milk at about 1/2 a cup at a time.
   Beat until just blended.
6. Then the fun part, divide into your cupcake patties! Don't worry if it looks messy as about they straighten out nicely (pic below)
7. What I did then was dip a tooth pick into green food colouring and make swirls like about - i did this twice for each cupcake - honestly was really time consuming and will probably just mix it in the bowl next time!
8. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes until they look nice and pretty and a bit gold on the edges (like pic below) and a toot pick inserted comes out clean - Oven times may vary so if you don't know the quirks of your oven watch closely first time around then you will know the perfect time for next time!

This makes a lot of cupcakes, up to 24 for me, but it can vary on how much batter you put in each cupcake, I prefer it this way! 

Cream Cheese Icing

Ingredients

• 1 Philadelphia Cream Cheese. (If you keep it in the fridge make sure you get it out and get it to room temperature with the butter for the best results! Otherwise it will be lumpy!)
• 1/4 cup of butter, softened to room temperature.
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence.
• 2 to 3 teaspoons of milk.
• 4 cups of icing sugar. (I used only 3 though) 
• Green Food Colouring.

1.  In a large bowl, beat cream cheese, butter, vailla and 2 teaspoons of milk with an electric mixer on low speed until smooth, make sure you scrape the edges and the bottom for the cream cheese likes to get stuck!
2. Gradually beat in the last teaspoon of milk so everything gets nice and smooth, if your icing gets too thick add a little bit more milk at a time until it gets as smooth as you desire. 
3. Then add 2 to 3 drops of food colouring to get a nice pastel green colour! But you may make it as dark or light as you wish!

You can freeze the leftover icing for up to a month, or keep it in the fridge for up to 5 days. but allow the icing to soften before you apply if you do either of these! I always have so much leftover icing because I don't usually like to pack my cupcakes with it, although I found myself doing that with the Cream cheese frosting (picture below) because it was so so nice.

Sadly you can't really see the green swirls, and well this was a leftover cupcake so no witch feet, and packed with icing! Just wanted everyone to see the inside!

I also suggest after each cup of Icing Sugar to taste your icing, it will get sweeter with each cup and personally I liked it tasting more cheesy than sugary - but that's my personal preference!!

If you use this recipe let me know how it went and I would LOVE to see pictures!

-Kate xo