Best of 2011

Better late than never eh? :) These are the bakes that stood out for me in 2011. Either because they were challenging, or new, or particularly enjoyable to bake and more importantly, particularly enjoyable to EAT!

Please let me know which of my recipes you tried in 2011 and how they turned out. Which ones made you go 'wow!' (hopefully there were some ;p), and what you want to see me bake more of in 2012 and I promise to try and oblige as many of you as I can.

Thanks for your support in 2011!

Irish Car Bomb Cake 

I made this cake for my 'Great British Bake off' audition and both Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood loved it :) It's Guinness chocolate cake filled with chocolate ganache and frosted with Baileys buttercream frosting. It's yummy! Even if I do say so myself.

The Best Brownies in the World. Ever!

I swear I'm not just tooting my own horn - these brownies really are amazing! And trust me, I've eaten A LOT of brownies - ahem, only in the name of research of course. Obviously *cough*. I intend to experiment with them a lot, throw some cookies in them (like in the entry below), swirl some peanut butter and throw in some chopped Snickers bars (coming soon) etc so watch this space.

Oreo Stuffed Brownies

I tried some cookies and cream brownies but I was left underwhelmed. And let's be honest. 'underwhelmed' is a word that shouldn't even feature when we're talking about brownies AND Oreos! Together! So when I saw a recipe for Oreo Stuffed Brownies, I decided there and then to just adapt my recipe slightly and throw some Oreos in them and voila! A friend told me two days ago that whenever he goes to markets and sees a brownie stall, he goes up to them and starts telling them all about these amazing Oreo brownies that his friend Vickii made - that's how cool these brownies are! And easy! Try them!

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Brown Butter Frosting

2011 will go down in history - well, my history anyway. The history in my head which is oh so important to me and I'll recount to my kids over and over again - as the year when I discovered how amazing pumpkin in baking tastes! And also that when you cook butter till it melts and starts to burn slightly, it's an actual technique that makes everything taste amazing; brown butter! I also used brown butter in these Snickers cookies.

Red Velvet Cake Pops
Cake pops were 2011's cupcakes. Remarkably easy to make and not to mention smooshing a cake you've just baked is strangely satisfying :) I need to make some more in 2012!

Triple Layer Oreo Cake
The natural choice of cake for my mum's birthday as she is a chocolate fiend. There's no such thing as too chocolatey in her book! A vanilla sponge layer speckled with Oreo cookies sandwiched between two layers of intense, rich chocolate cake with the aid of a light and creamy filling containing large Oreo pieces. All covered in a rich fudge frosting and decorated with Oreos ... *sigh* ... sorry, I just had a moment there recalling the taste - it was kinda like chocolate and Oreo heaven.

Mojito Cupcakes
A cupcake inspired by my favourite cocktail - what's not to like? ;p

Puffy Peanut Butter, Chocolate Chip and Golden Oreo Cookies
This had to be the year of the cookie for me! Turns out I'm not genetically incapable of baking cookies afterall. In fact, I'm pretty good :) I made Cinnamon Roll Cookies, Lemon Sugar Cookies, Lofthouse cookies and Snickers Cookies but these were my favourite! They were also the easiest to make and the most versatile. You can throw whatever you want in them!

My Beautiful Cupcakes
I'm still in love with how amazing Onada made my cupcakes look so of course they made the list! The recipe for the Snickerdoodle cupcakes (the ones with plain white frosting and a dusting of cinnamon sugar) will be posted next week.