Rolo Cupcakes

I impulse-bought a sharing bag of Rolos a few weeks ago with the intention of baking something with them, and today seemed like the perfect time to plug in my KitchenAid, switch on the oven and briefly take over the kitchen for a spot of Bank Holiday baking.

These Rolo Cupcakes were a bit of an experiment, and I'm pleased to say they worked pretty well! Like my Raspberry & White Chocolate Easter Cake I knew exactly what I wanted to do, it just took a bit of research to find the right recipes to combine to make my vision a reality. After a lot of consideration I decided on a fluffy chocolate sponge topped with a sweet caramel frosting and crowned with a Rolo (I couldn't make my mind up with the chocolate/caramel cake/frosting combination!).

This is a ridiculously easy recipe. I'm not kidding: it's virtually impossible to go wrong with and it requires very little baking knowledge at all. So, if you're not the most confident of bakers this is the recipe for you!

Rocky Road Nests

As far as my baking posts go, one of the most popular has always been my recipe for Rocky Road.

With absolutely no baking required, no fancy ingredients and only the most basic of utensils needed it's the perfect choice for everyone, from the novice that burns water to the expert looking for something simple to mix things up. Plus, it's so open to personal preference and adaptation that it's impossible not to love it!

Given the time of year I've had a play around with my traditional recipe and given it an Easter twist, changing to white chocolate, adding mixed dried berries and topping with Smarties mini eggs. The original has been upgraded: say hello to my Rocky Road Nests!

Raspberry & White Chocolate Easter Cake

As much as I love baking, I'm the most unadventurous person in the world.

I don't experiment. At all. Yes, I'll try new recipes and attempt to challenge myself, but when it comes to even slightly straying from the instructions I panic and completely refuse. Technical Thursdays meant I tried recipes for things I'd never heard of and could barely pronounce, but I followed the instructions to the letter. I have lots of ideas for recipes but never have the courage to try them out, but for some reason I'm feeling vaguely brave at the moment, so decided to transform an annotated doodle of a cake on a post-it note into reality.

For full disclaimer: this is a baby step and not nearly as impressive as it sounds! I worked out exactly how I wanted the cake to look, then trawled through the BBC Good Food website to find various recipes that I could mix together to make it happen.

The Raspberry & White Chocolate Easter Cake was born, combining a duck egg sponge with tart raspberry jam, a white chocolate buttercream and enough Mini Eggs to potentially single-handedly keep Cadbury's in business this year. Boom.