These are not the cakes pops that have become popular recently, these are the pops that I have been making for yonks, ever since I found myself with cake off cuts and leftover butter cream.

You can now buy 'cake pop baking tins', which makes me wonder why not just bake cupcakes? Sure it's a different shape but it's basically just a cupcake on a stick. Truffle cake pop's satisfy two  requirements: 1) They are a thrifty way to use up leftovers 2) They are an entirely different treat to a cupcake.

You may find yourself with cake off cuts if you are making an odd shaped cake, like my doll house cake, and I usually find I may way too much icing, i'm not sure if this is due to a lack of understanding of volume or my sub conscious desire to always have cake pops in the fridge?

Crumble up your left over cake and add it into the buttercream, I have no specific measurements for you as this is always a left over recipes, but you want to be sure that the cake crumbs are quite fine and that there is enough butter cream to coat all the crumbs well.

When it's all mixed into a sticky mess, pop it into the fridge for the butter to firm up and make forming the pops easier.

After a couple of hours, scoop out a heaped table spoon of the mix and roll between your palms to form into a ball. The butter will melt if handled too much so try and keep the shaping time to a minimum.

The sticky surface of the buttercream is great for sticking coatings like sprinkles or edible glitter to. Other coatings you can try are edible spray paint or dipping in melted chocolate. This is really a recipe you make work for you based on your preferences and what you have in the pantry!

Slide a stick into the pop- I used robust paper straws ad I likes the pattern (or make smaller balls and serve as little truffles), and pop back into the fridge for the butter to harden.

These little lovelies are a total sugar over load so whilst thrifty and healthy for your pocket, they are certainly falling onto the naughty but exceptionally nice category!

Making a cake for someones birthday is always fun, but when you know you're making a cake for about seventy people to celebrate the first anniversary of an incredible event- it's even better!

This week i've been up to my eyes in cupcakes and buttercream, making sure I have enough mini cakes to keep all the musicians and music lovers attending PVD Hoot's first birthday party happy.

Keeping it simple (which as we know is always a winner!) I stuck with the traditional birthday cake, vanilla sponge topped with sweet butter cream icing. These were of course coloured in the HLTC style and topped with some edible shimmer- don't just live the brand, eat it. And then stick some glitter on top!

Although many recipes will tell you otherwise, I always bake with salted butter. Some recipes will call for an addition of salt but I find that slated butter has just the right ratio of salt to sweet and has never ended up with cakes or bakes resembling a horse lick.

Using salted butter in the buttercream give the icing a sweet and tangy flavour- think of how salt is added to super sweet thinks like toffee, caramel or chocolate to bring out the flavour, it's exactly the same principle.

Have you got an event that you'd like some tiny sparkly cakes or something a little bigger baked for? Having a holiday party in desperate need of some fancy canapes? If so let me know!

This seems like an appropriate recipes to be posting on a Monday- perfect for a meatless meal!

Root vegetables are deliciously in season right now. Normally steamed or boiled, root vegetables really come into their own when roasted. Much like roasting meat, the key to roasting vegetables it to keep it simples, with just a couple of flavour enhancers to bring out the natural sweetness.

The age old partner of the carrot is coriander, both in the ground spice and green herb variety (in
America the leafy part of the coriander is called cilantro). Orange is a really great fragrant addition, adding a bit of lightness to the earthy carrots.


Ingredients: Serves 2 as an entree or 4 as a side

1lb carrots
6 oz couscous
1 orange, juice and zest
a couple of glugs of olive oil
1 tsp ground coriander
small bunch cilantro/coriander leaf
Salt and pepper

Method:

Peel the carrots and slice into chunks diagonally. This isn't just to look fancy, by slicing diagonally you create lots of sharp edges that will roast up to be crispy and incredibly sweet.

Zest the orange and set the zest aside, you don't need it just yet but it's a lot easier to zest a whole orange rather than squeezed halves.

Tumble the carrots into a baking dish then squeeze over the orange juice, a couple of glugs of olive oil, the ground coriander and some shakes of salt and pepper.

Pop into a preheated oven at 375F and roast for about 15 to 20 minutes.

In the mean time, pour the dried couscous into a tupperware dish that has a lid- you can put it into any bowl that can be covered with cling film but as it's only going to need to be covered for about 10 minutes so using a lidded dish seems less wasteful.

Season the couscous with salt and pepper then pour in enough boiling water to just cover the grains, too much water and the couscous will become soggy. It's better to use less, make crunchy couscous and need to add a little more water to get it just right. Cover the dish or pop the tupperware lid on and leave to absorb the water for about 10 minutes. Use a fork to fluff up the couscous and check the consistency.

Finely chop the cilantro and add it with the orange zest to the couscous, stir in well.

When the carrots are roasted and still warm mix them into the herby, orangey couscous

Serve warm for a seasonal salad or let cool and keep in the fridge for a heathy, tasty lunchtime treat!

Mignonette masterclass #oyster #shellfish #shucking

A video posted by Holly Vine (@hollylikestocook) on Oct 10, 2014 at 2:15pm PDT

Aside from the brilliant demonstration, tons of fresh oysters and flowing wine, it was wonderful to be surrounded by the incredible selection of kitchen loveliness Stock has on offer. Rather than just a store, Stock represents a culinary community hub on Hope Street for home cooks and chefs alike.

Whilst I didn't indulge this time, the huge urn of cold pressed olive oil and the local honey was incredibly tempting.

We could resist taking some of the wonderful breads and pastries along for the rest of our journey. the cheese bread was rich, savoury and delicious when toasted and topped with apple sauce, whilst the individual bread pudding lasted no longer than the first half an hour of our continuing trek!