Macmillan Biggest Coffee Morning

The never ending requests!

My Smallest Mini Bean is still in primary school...at least for one more year anyway.  We get requests quite often for things to come into school..or money for this charity or that sponsored event.   This week is Macmillan's Biggest Coffee morning and so the school, for the first time that I know of, have decided to invite parents/grandparents in from 2.30pm for the opportunity to "buy" cake and coffee in aid of Macmillan.  A lovely idea...but where do the cakes come from? Well we parents have been asked to donate the cakes.   I wasn't going to do anything when the letter came home..."too busy" "I always do cakes" etc etc...but today after my usual Brownie bake I found myself looking through recipe books to see if there was something suitable to make with the rather large supply of apples I had given to me by my very very good friend Kate (of Kate's Creations).

I found my Eat Me book by Xanthe Milton (http://www.cookiegirl.co.uk)

Now I love this book, I love the way it is set out in seasons and the fairytale stories at each chapter. I turned to the Autumn section and lo and behold there were 2 recipes for Apple... Apple biscuits and Toffee Apple Cupcakes.  The Toffee won me over.








So here are my Toffee Apple Cupcakes...I left out the lolly sticks as they are going to school...safety first!!  I kept back 8 of these for us...only 3 remain!!

I may have to make more of these!

xx

ok....erm....sorry...Can we start afresh and make friends again??

Please?  I will try very hard to be good?

So...how long has it been? I know, lets ignore how long it has been and turn that new leaf right over! And begin as if this was a new shiny Blog.

Hello! *waves* I am Ruth...Coco Bean.  I am a Chocolatier, Mother, Brownie Baker, talker, dog owner, slightly eccentric (in a good way) and ****Newsflash**** a girlfriend to a wonderful man and (yes I know that is two ands) I have Brown Hair!

So now we are friends I will tell you what I have been up to....

Today I made 3 kinds of chocolates for my lovely Boyfriend (from now we shall refer to him as LB) to give to his Mum for her birthday.  I only had a day to make them so I have made what I call "raw" truffles, these are fresh cream truffles that are just rolled in either sugar or cocoa powder and kept in the fridge, with a very short life.  I made a Muscavado Sugar truffle, from Paul A Young's book, a Blueberry truffle made with Blue sauce which I reduced further down to a very sticky syrup and used that to make the ganache.  And a version of Almond Rocher in little piles.  

Left is the Muscavado, Rocher in the middle and the Blueberry in on the right.

They are ok for a quick job!! I will let you know the feedback I get.

I will save any more news for tomorrow! (after a baking session). Be good until then!

xx