Strawberry and mint mojitos by Lorraine Pascale

So we were away celebrating our wedding anniversary, and picked out this cocktail from Lorraine's book to make and enjoy whilst the boys were in bed.  

The ingredients were demerara sugar, limes, strawberries, fresh mint, crushed ice, white rum and soda water. 

They were delicious, but as you can see, the wine glasses weren't quite big enough!  I would recommend a straw or cocktail stirrer (as Lorraine advises, but we didn't have either of these in our holiday cottage!) so that you can mix everything together before sipping.  Yum yum. 

I particularly liked the combination of fresh lime juice and demerara sugar which you bash together with the end of a rolling pin in the glass before you start.  Sounds odd, but it is so lovely when combined with all of the other ingredients!

Apple tarte tatin by Mary Berry

I liked the sound of this dessert very much, but I'm not sure I'd eaten it before, so I wasn't sure what it should taste like! For me the pastry was a real winner, crunchy, golden brown, light and flaky, sweetened with the caramel apple sauce.  Absolutely gorgeous and so easy to make too.

 

The apples were deliciously sweet and soft but my only complaint about this dessert was that the apples were not caramelised, rather they seemed to have steamed in the juices.  They were delicious, but I was expecting a bit of sticky caramelisation.  Maybe with a tweak I will get this next time!

 

This apple tarte tatin was delicious served hot with vanilla ice cream and with some of the juices spooned over it.  I can't wait to bake this again!

 

 

Cappuccino cakes

I got the inspiration for these cappuccino cakes from Lorraine Pascale's mini strawberries and cream cakes recipe.  Again I wanted to keep the cakes small so I used fairy cake cases and Mary Berry's chocolate fairy cake recipe.



 

I must admit to watching Eric Lanlard's baking programme and picking up a tip from the master baker himself - piping the cake batter into the cake cases!  Totally unnecessary of course, as the cake batter spreads and finds its own level in the heat of the oven, but soo much fun, I will definitely do this again.

The filling and topping was simply double cream sweetened with a little icing sugar, and 1tsp instant coffee granules (I used Nescafe Gold Blend as this is what we buy for visitors, we don't usually drink coffee!) dissolved in a little hot water. 

I sliced each cake in half, filled one half of each with a little coffee cream, and sandwiched the two layers back together.  For the topping I simply piped a little coffee cream onto the top of each cake before adding a square of my favourite chocolate, Galaxy cookie crumble.

These little cakes went down well, I would bake these again for something a little different yet delicious.