Strawberry Brule Cheesecake Squares

I crumbled 150g of Nice biscuits and 150g of Gingernut biscuits and mixed with 100g of melted unsalted butter and 200g melted vanilla white chocolate and pressed into a loose bottom tin with a fork and refridgerated for 30 minutes.

I preheated the oven to 150c, mixed 200g Philadelphia and 250g Mascapone with 2 large eggs, 150g caster sugar, 2 tsp's of vanilla paste, 1 tbsp. of lime juice and 1 tbsp of honey put into the prepared tin and baked for 18 minutes.

I pushed halved strawberries in as soon as I took it out of the oven and dusted the entire thing with icing sugar then used the blow torch to caramelise the sugar.

Everyone said they loved it, it was gone really quick and I have had requests to make it again already so I think it went down well!

Caramelised Banana & Snickers Mini Cupcakes

Making Cupcakes With Lola

I made the peanut butter cakes but for the topping I just whipped up Nutella, Biscoff and some butter and it was really really good (peanut, chocolate and caramel - all the snickers requirements)! I ran out of the frosting though (possibly because I kept tasting it to check it was ok?!) so used sliced snickers for the rest which looked good but didn't taste as good.

I made the banana cakes which were really easy, I added an extra banana as well for a bit more of a banana hit. I made the cream cheese frosting but put half in a separate bowl and added vanilla paste, cinnamon and yellow food colouring then put them both in a two colour piping bag which was much messier than I thought it would be! For more of a banana flavour, I caramelised sliced banana in sugar and butter (I used salted butter here) and used to decorate the cakes. The caramel really held the banana flavour.

Mexican Feast - Wahaca Cook Book

Wahaca Mexican Food At Home - Tinga de Pollo with Guacamole, Fresh Tomato Salsa, Mexican Rice, Refried Beans, Feta, Sour Cream and Blue Corn Tortilla's

The Tinga de Pollo was easy to make though had to order the chipotles online and it took about 20 minutes just to shred the chicken but it was worth it.

The recipe for the Fresh Tomato Salasa said 1tbsp!!! of salt which nearly ruined the salsa so I had to make up more of it to calm down the salsa!

The guacamole was really good, I will definitely make my own again, the same with the tortilla's, it does take a while but it gives a lot more flavour.

Great Saturday night feast!

Black Bean Soup

Wahaca Mexican Food At Home cook book - Black Bean Soup

This was amazing, I made the fresh tomato salsa to go with it and served it with feta, sour cream and coriander leaves as it suggested. My only complaint is the recipe didn't make nearly enough! I made it for lunch for 4 adults and there was none left over for seconds at all!!! I will make double next time, it was a great start to my Mexican feast day!

Jerk Pork Grilled Corn & Crunchy Tortilla Salad

Jamie's 15 Minute Meals - Jerk Pork Grilled Corn & Crunchy Tortilla Salad

This was really tasty but not nearly spicy enough, the 30 Minute Meals Jerk Chicken is far better but this is great for mid-week (though of course took me about 45 mins!)

Crispy Parma Pork Minted Courgettes & Brown Rice

Jamie's 15 Minute Meals - Crispy Parma Pork, Minted Courgettes & Brown Rice

It was pretty straight forward to make and tasted yummy but took me about 45 mins, I would make it again though

Vanilla Funfetti Cake With Blueberry Jam, Vanilla Buttercream & Pink White Chocolate Ganache

Olivia's 2nd Birthday Cake

http://bakedbree.com/funfetti-cake

Unfortunately it was a disaster, sometimes it just is!

• The Hello Kitty had a split in the head at the bottom but it was too late to make another one
• The cake was supposed to not rise in the middle as I put extra insulation round the edge of the tin but this didn't seem to make any difference except they didn't rise much.
• The funfetti seems to have disolved in the cake so there are coloured bits but there was no crunch. The cake was very soft inside but had a tough sugar crust so my wire cutter seemed to want to tear the cake apart and a corner ended up coming off.
• The jam seeped where the corner had to to fixed in place with butter cream and made the butter cream look like raspberry ripple ice cream. 
• To fix the crumbling corner and discoloured buttercream I made a pink white chocolate ganache which worked wonderfully well and hid most of the damage. When I put my paper (never again, I will use something else next time) stencil on for the writing it pulled the ganache with it making it look very messy though the ganache was very pliable when trying to minimise the damage.
• When eaten it cut really well and looked nice inside but overall was way too sweet. The blueberry jam (ikea) was the best bit of the hole thing, I wish I had put in another layer of cake and much thicker layers of jam.

I think I rushed it and was out of practice maybe - that just means I need to make more cake!!!