The Teddy Bear Tea Rooms

(These pictures are making me wish I was back in York...)

I have been to the Teddy Bear shop many times when I have been in York, but until recently I didnt know they had a Tea Room upstairs. 

The Tea Room is on 2 floors over three small rooms, Its a very traditional looking place but with a non traditional and modern way of presenting food. As I hadn't been in here before I expected it to be like an old cafe that hasn't updated itself since the 80s - where it would smell of bake potatoes and have a variety of odd sandwiches.

I was overly impressed with everything.

I opted for a gingerbread hot chocolate (Which I wish I had in-front of me right now...) and a Toasted Tea cake. The gingerbread  hot chocolate was hands down one of the most amazing hot chocolate I have ever had - I am now obsessed with Gingerbread Hot chocolates.
They have a wide variety of foods and drinks - from a Teddy Bears Picnic to a fancy Victoria sponge cake displayed on a wooden board with cream - Everything is reasonably priced as well.

If you are ever in York I highly recommend the Teddy Bear Tea Rooms.

http://www.stonegateteddybears.co.uk/

Salted Caramel Cupcakes

Salted Caramel Cupcakes has been at the top of my list of things to bake for such a long long time...and I finally got around to baking them.
I did in-fact bake these a while ago but I just stumbled upon the image recently and had to do a blog post on how to make them...so lets get into it:

The cakes:
120g butter
100g sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
170g self raising flour
11/2 tablespoon milk

Filling:
Dr Oetker Salted Caramel filling
Icing:
110g Icing Sugar
70g butter
caramel flavoring
1/2 teaspoon salted caramel filling
1 broken up curlywurly

Like usual lets start by getting the boring stuff out the way first - Pre-heat the oven to 160 degrees and line the cupcake tin with cases.

1. In a bowl begin by creaming together the butter and sugar until smooth using a trusty wooden spoon (or mixer), next add in your eggs one by one, followed by the vanilla.

2. Once the butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla are mixed together sift in the flour and fold everything together followed by the milk and mix.

3. Once everything is mixed together add the mixture evenly into the cases and pop into the oven for 10-15 minutes.

4. When the cupcakes are done in the oven leave them to cool down for around 10 mins, whilst still remotely warm cut a small circle into the cake and fill with the salted caramel.

Icing:
To begin with you want to add the butter into the bowl and beat it on its own for a while before slowly adding in the icing sugar. When all the icing has been added add in a couple of drops of the caramel flavouring along with the salted caramel and mix until all combined.
Once the cakes are completely cool pipe on the icing (over the top of the salted caramel hole), place on a chunk of the curlywurly and (optional) a drizzel of salted caramel.

These are so nice...I could literally eat one right now.
Let me know if you try and make them!

Sand Witches

While in York last week, we were wandering around trying to find somewhere to get something to eat, we wanted something not to fussy and inexpensive. We ended up coming across a place in the shambles called 'Sand Witches'. The cafe main speciality is sandwiches with a huge variety to choose from, Out of all of the sandwiches they made the one thing that caught my eye was 'Hot American Pancakes'. So I had 3 American pancakes with lemon and sugar with two dolops of wiped cream either side.

The rooms in the cafe were themed, we ended up sitting in the music room. This was plastered with quotes from musicians, Pictures of Blondie, Bowie and Iggy Pop, another half of the room was Jazz inspired. We stayed on the good music side with Bowie, On one wall there was a section of some bands from Yorkshire (pictured above) and my favourite 5 Kaiser Chiefs were featured. The top floor was film inspired.

If you ever visit York I highly recommend this place to eat, inexpensive and super scrummy!

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How to make Garibaldi biscuits!

If I had a list of my top 10 favourite biscuits this would be close to the top. I love Garibaldi biscuits!  I fist came across these when I was watching Call the Midwife the episode where Jenny met Alec. Over the weekend I chose to have ago at making them they turned out alot better than expected. Its a bit impossible to find many recipes to make these and I wanted to share mine with you.

What you will need:

110g Self-raising flour

pinch of salt

30g butter

25g caster sugar

2 tablespoons milk

25g currants

1 egg white

The fist thing your going to need to do is pre heat the oven I put mine at 150.

Put the flour,salt and butter into a mixing bowl and rub the butter in until it turns to fine crumbs. If doesn't matter if it still has some bigger crumbs.

Next, add the sugar to the crumbs and after enough milk to mix into a firm dough. After you have made the dough roll it out onto a lightly floured surface. You want to roll it out enough so you can fold it back on itself.

Sprinkle the currants on one half of the dough and then fold the other half of the dough over the top and roll again.  Once you have the desired length cut the dough into a rectangle. (With the cut of dough pieces use it again to create another 2/3)

Line your baking tray with the baking paper and then place the dough on the tray. Once the dough is on the tray lightly dent lines across and down the dough to create the rectangle size biscuit. Brush with a little egg and sprinkle with a little bit of sugar.

Let your biscuits bake in the centre of the oven for 12-15 mins, take them out when they are slightly golden brown around the edge. Leave to cool and cut out the biscuits whilst still warm.