Gypsy Sue Creams

A recipe inspired by Gypsy Sue, the fortune teller in Bree McCready and the Realm of the Lost

Junior has returned home from his holiday!

I think it's safe to say he is glad to be 'home sweet home'. Baby the cat was beyond ecstatic to see his boy. It was like a love-fest when Junior walked through the door. Very cute indeed.

I've missed you, crazy boy!

I think Junior missed my home cooking as he texted me all through the week to put in orders for what he wanted to eat when he came home! 

He put in a special request in for Mrs Oxter's Oaty Crumbles as these are his very favourite. But I like to try new things and I was well overdue posting something on the Bake With Bree blog so I made some Gypsy Creams instead. They are similar enough to the Oaty Crumbles to put a smile on my boy's face - more of a biscuit than a flapjack. 

I had also been feeding a friend's cats over the weekend so I made a few extra to leave for their return.

The inspiration for my Gypsy Creams came from a character in the third novel in the Bree McCready series. 

Bree, Sandy and Honey visit a fortune teller called Gypsy Sue at the funfair and get a little more than they bargained for! 

Here is an abridged extract from chapter 1 of Bree McCready and the Realm of the Lost.

'The top half of the wagon door swung open with a creak. A plump lady appeared, her black hair peppered with grey and mostly concealed under a shimmering headscarf.

"I am Gypsy Sue," she smiled, her hoop earrings swinging from side to side.

"Hello," Bree said awkwardly. "Can you tell me my future please?"

Candles and fairy lights lit the inside of the caravan. It was a tiny space, so small that Bree could touch either side without stretching. Bree admired the walls, which were decorated with gold scrollwork and carvings of birds. 

Gypsy Sue gestured to a pack of cards lying face down at the centre of a table.

"Pick them up and shuffle them," she said to Bree with an encouraging nod.

Bree picked up the pack of cards, shuffled them clumsily and put them back, face down. Gypsy Sue fanned them across the table with a graceful sweep of her hand. 

"Now choose one."

Bree pulled a card from the middle of the deck. A skeleton, carrying a black flag emblazoned with a white flower, was riding a horse. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the bold lettering along the bottom.

DEATH.

She dropped it quickly, as if it had burned her fingers."

Here are the ingredients you'll need to make about 10 medium Gypsy Sue Creams.

For the biscuits:

100g of butter

50g of caster sugar

150g of self-raising flour

1 tablespoon of chocolate powder

100g of rolled oats

2 tablespoons of Golden Syrup melted in 1 tablespoon of hot water

For the butter icing:

50g of butter

100g of icing sugar

A few drops of vanilla essence

1 tablespoon of chocolate powder

I used my electric mixer but this recipe can easily be prepared the old fashioned way.

Method:

Pre-heat the oven to 170 degrees.

 Mix together until light and creamy.

Thank you, big sis for my terrific new mixer!

 Meanwhile...

Sieve the flour and chocolate powder together to get rid of any lumps...

Weigh out the oats...

And melt the syrup in the hot water.

Add the flour, chocolate powder, oats and syrup to the creamed sugar and butter. Mix again for a short while. I did this on 'pulse' as the mixer seemed to struggle a little with the thick mixture. 

It looked like this at the end... 

I did a little stirring with a spatula to make sure all the ingredients were properly combined and then I rolled dollops of the sticky dough into little balls using the palms of my hands.

I then flattened the balls onto a well greased baking tray with the back of a fork. I have to confess to thinking they resembled little hamburgers at this point!

Space them well apart on the tray as they do swell and spread during cooking. 

Bake for a total of 20 minutes. I did 10 minutes - flipped - then another 10 to get a nice even bake. The biscuits will still be soft when they come out of the oven but they will crisp up on the cooling rack.

Don't worry about the cracks as the buttercream will fill these.

While the Gypsy Creams are cooling you can prepare the butter icing. Again, I did this in my mixer but you can just as easily whip this up by hand.

I chilled the butter icing for about half an hour as I find it easier to work with when it's a little more solid.

Wait for the biscuits to cool completely before icing them or the buttercream will slide right off! Spread some of the butter icing over half the biscuits...

 ...then sandwich them together.

Using a fork to press down the dough gives a nice finish

Chill the Gypsy Sue Creams for about an hour (if you can wait that long!) to set the butter icing.

Put the kettle on and enjoy!

I left a few 'open-topped' ones and added some sprinkles

We'll enjoy these a little later when Junior has finished Pokemon hunting with his best mate and my washing machine isn't in overdrive!

Holidays are fun but there's no place like home.

Until next time...

      

Firework Goodies

The days are slipping past at a rate of knots. One minute it's Halloween and the next it's Bonfire Night! Before we know it it'll be Christmas.

Here are some simple ideas for tomorrow night. Remember, remember the 5th of November!

I'll be back around the middle of November with a more structured blog post - I'm thinking Chocolate Ferris Wheel as it's still a 'Realm of the Lost' theme until we move onto the more Christmassy recipes that accompany 'Bree McCready and the Half Heart Locket'. 

It's Junior's birthday soon and he is a Nutella freak so I'm thinking his birthday cake will be a less traditional cheescake affair this year. You'll have to wait and see. Until then wrap up and have fun!

Chocolate Catherine Wheels

Mmm. I wonder what I'll do with that extra Flake?...

I used ready rolled shortcrust pastry

Crush the Flakes inside their wrapper then sprinkle over

Crispy and sweet

Chocolate Banana Skyrockets

These go in the freezer and are delicious - like chocolate covered ice-cream

Chocolate Sparklers

Orange sparkly Matchmakers dipped in white chocolate and sprinkled with sugar strands

Marshmallow Missiles

Preparation - Marshmallows on sticks & melted chocolate

Decorated with Popping Candy and coloured confetti

Stay safe!

Halloween Treats

"Chills in the night air are tingling skin

The veil between worlds is now growing thin

Bright spirits gather, the dead return

Drawn to the flickers where candles burn"

Louise Heyden

Did I scare you? Sorry! But I'm getting into the Halloween spirit. It's tomorrow in case you didn't already know. As promised, here are a few simple goodies which require no baking whatsoever...just a few hours in the kitchen and A LOT of chocolate!

Have a lovely time tomorrow night. Stay safe if you're out Trick or Treating and remember to give your teeth an extra clean before you go to bed.

Mummy lecture over.

These took the longest to make...and the most mess to clear up (at 1 o'clock this morning!)

It's a pretty simple idea but tricky to assemble. Inside these chocolate hats are lots of little sweets - Skittles, chocolate buttons, Smarties etc - so attaching the ice cream cone to the Wagon Wheel base involved some pretty impressive construction skills and lots of patience! To my frustration I discovered that because of a slight slant to the waffle style cone, there was a gap at the bottom of the cone - big enough to allow some of the smaller sweets to spill out. So I had to carefully craft thin strips of Royal icing (luckily I had some ready made stuff to hand) to wrap around the bottom of the cone. I knew this 'patch up job' would be invisible once the chocolate was painted on. 

Once the basic structure was complete it was a case of painting on melted chocolate with a pastry brush then waiting for that to set in the fridge before adding the finishing touches. I'm hoping the final result will be like a Pinata so the kids will bite into the top of the hats to reveal the hidden goodies inside. I won't know for sure how everything has turned out until tomorrow night but I can hear the sweets rattling around inside so that's a good sign. And I'm quite sure these are going to taste amazing.

Again, a very simple idea which looks effective. I used small waffle biscuits for the base but you could use Oreos or even made your own basic cookies. 

I rolled out icing, cut it to size with a cookie cutter then stuck it onto the biscuit base using jam. I used edible writing icing (which I bought from Lakeland) to give a bloodshot effect and Smarties were used to create the different coloured Irises.

These don't require much skill but they're pretty and magical. A nice change to blood and gore! 

I dipped chocolate fingers into melted chocolate  then laid them flat onto greaseproof paper before sprinkling multi-coloured stars on top.

Make a wish!

 

Cadbury's Mini Rolls are fab at this time of year as you get the kind with green slime jam and raspberry blood inside.

The monster faces were made using white chocolate buttons, mini chocolate beans and black icing. I got the small gummy teeth from Morrisons.

Line up white chocolate fingers along a cooling rack and drizzle over melted white chocolate to create the look of bandages. Use tiny dots of black writing icing for the eyes. 

I love these! 

So, there you have it. Couldn't be simpler really and yet I know the kids are going to love these treats.

I have to confess to having eaten a few 'spare' chocolate fingers and to licking a few bowls over the last couple of days so I will probably not be partaking in the scoffing of any more Halloween goodies. In fact I am craving some homemade soup and fruit! 

Have fun!

Until next time, here is a spooky extract from Bree McCready and the Realm of the Lost, which of course is my inspiration for all these Halloween goodies.

"Bree hit the fresh air with a stitch in her side. Running in the direction of Gillespie Gardens, she hoped that Sandy had made his way back to Freesia House. She slowed when she spotted some children heading her way, dressed for Halloween in ghoulish costumes, shouting 'Trick or Treat!'

Stepping off the pavement to let them pass, she spotted three small figures whizz by on the other side of the road. At first she thought it was another group of children, wearing gruesome masks, but when she looked closer she caught a glimpse of bare, red skin and yellow eyes. Gargoyles."

 

 

Seriously Decadent Hot Chocolate

A recipe inspired by October and the Ramthorpe Funfair

I absolutely love Autumn. It's my favourite time of year. Yes, it's colder and it's definitely getting darker but I like that. Crisp leaves, conkers, scarves and the smell of bonfires are just some of the things that make October special for me. This month always conjures up birthday excitement and cosy nights in beside the fire. October makes me feel warm inside.

I quite often get asked which of the Bree novels was my favourite to write. It's a tricky one to answer because each of the books has something special and unique about it and each one has memories attached  - how I was feeling and what I was doing at the time of writing them. But if I really had to choose I would have to say my favourite book to write was the third book, Bree McCready and the Realm of the Lost. This is partly due to the story being set during Halloween. It gave me such an opportunity to use my senses to bring the story to life.

As a writer you get pulled into the story and therefore it was a delight to experience the Ramthorpe Funfair with Bree, Sandy and Honey. It was a very visual and sensual experience which included all the things that made my own childhood so special around this time of year. Bonfires, fireworks, toffee apples, being outside with your friends after dark, making patterns in the night air with sparklers and warming chilly fingers on a cup of hot chocolate. So what would be a more fitting recipe to offer you than Hot Chocolate? And do I have the most Seriously Decadent Hot Chocolate for you! Weight watchers look away now.

It's a straightforward recipe which will give you enough for about three or four drinks. I put everything in a jar with a lid so I can use it again and again. Here's what you'll need:

6 tablespoons of Cocoa powder

6 tablespoons of milk powder (Coffee Compliment)

1 tablespoon of Caster sugar

1 sachet of Fudge flavour Cadbury's Highlights

4 tablespoons of milk chocolate chips

Marshmallows for the topping

Milk to make

Put the first five ingredients in a jar and shake well. Add three heaped teaspoons of this chocolate mix to a saucepan, add 200ml of milk and whisk over a low heat until melted, warm and frothy.

Transfer to a mug and top with marshmallows.

 

If you're feeling very sweet-toothed you might like to add some fudge pieces to this for an extra special twist. Now all you need is a dry, crisp evening, a roaring bonfire and some good friends to share the occasion. 

Enjoy!

"As Bree sipped her hot chocolate, hands curled round the cup, face buried in the steam, she sensed someone staring at her. A hooded figure stood perfectly still amidst the throng of activity. His hands were tucked into the sleeves of his cloak. A memory stirred at the back of her mind, but before she could pin it down the man lowered his hood to reveal a shiny, bald head. He stared at her with eyelids that showed up bright red against his chalk white skin. Black lips muttered something before he turned and walked away, melting into the crowd. Bree searched every face, but he had simply vanished into thin air."

Excerpt from chapter 1 of Bree McCready and the Realm of the Lost.