Pumpkins are for more than just Halloween

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all year round, bake, batch, bicarbonate of soda, blender, boil, carving, caster sugar, chickpeas, cloves, cook, crème fraise, cubes, doorstep decorations, easy to make, eggs, fireworks, flour, fun, garlic, ginger, golden squash, great tasting recipes, ground cinnamon, icing, ingredients, lemon, olive oil, pan, pitta bread, Pumpkin Cupcakes, Pumpkin Hummus, pumpkin soup, pumpkins, red onion, salt and pepper, seasonal beauties, self-raising flour, simmer, soft and golden, spoon, stirring, stock, super smooth soup, tablespoon, tahini paste, teaspoon, vanilla essence, vegetable oil, vegetable stock cube, warm crusty bread, washed, wet ingredients, winter warmer, yellow pepper

With Halloween fast creeping up on us, many people will be buying pumpkins and carving them out to create impressive doorstep decorations.

Rather than throwing the golden squash away, we have put together some easy to make, great tasting recipes that will help make your celebrations go even better.

Pumpkin Hummus

Hummus comes in many wonderful varieties and we love the creamy consistency of it when you make it with pumpkins.

You will need:
Around 500g of pumpkin flesh
A little olive oil
Garlic (we would say two cloves)
The juice of half a lemon
2 tablespoons of tahini paste
A 400g can of chickpeas, washed and drained
1 orange and one yellow pepper, deseeded and sliced thinly
Pitta bread and carrot sticks to serve

Firstly, heat your oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6. Scoop out the pumpkin and cut the flesh into cubes, discarding the seeds, drizzle with oil and cook for around 45 minutes, with the garlic.

Once cool, add the pumpkin and garlic into a blender together with the chickpeas, lemon juice and tahini paste and chickpeas. Add a little salt then blend until smooth and serve.

Pumpkin Soup

As well as being perfect for Halloween, this is a great winter warmer for fireworks night too.

The ingredients needed for one batch are:
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 medium red onion (finely chopped)
500g of pumpkin flesh
1 vegetable stock cube and water for dissolving
100ml of crème fraise
Salt and pepper to season

Put the onions in a large saucepan and gently cook for around 5 minutes, until soft. Then add the pumpkin flesh and continue to cook for ten minutes, stirring now and again. Make up the stock and add to the pan, using salt and pepper to season as required. Bring the mixture to the boil and then simmer until the pumpkin is very soft and golden. At this point add the crème fraiche then bring back to the boil. If you want super smooth soup, use a blender, then serve with warm crusty bread and enjoy.

Pumpkin Cupcakes
Everyone loves cupcakes and these seasonal beauties taste so fantastic you’ll want to eat them all year round.

For 12 cakes, you will need:

225g of self-raising flour
1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon and the same of ginger
2 large eggs
150ml of vegetable oil
225g of caster sugar
150g of pumpkin, grated
½ a teaspoon of vanilla essence

For icing you will need:
50g of soft butter
200g of cream cheese
50g if icing sugar
½ teaspoon of vanilla extract
Pinch of ground cinnamon

Preheat your oven to 200°C/fan180°C/gas 6 and line your cake tin with paper cases – Halloween patterned ones if you can find them. Put the flour, bicarbonate of soda, ginger and cinnamon into a bowl. Pour in the oil, sugar and eggs into another bowl and beat until blended. Mix the wet ingredients with the dry, then add the pumpkin and stir together.

Spoon this mix into the paper cases and bake for 15 minutes, until well risen and firm but do not burn, then leave to cool.

Make the icing but mixing the butter and cream cheese until soft then stir in the icing sugar, vanilla and spices until totally smooth. Spread over the tops of the cooled cakes and if you can find some spooky sweets, add them to the top.

Whatever you do this Halloween, be safe and have fun.

Team Pure Beauty

Bake a cake and be happy

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baking, beauties, butter, cakes, caster sugar, chocolate, cloth, cocoa powder, cool, creations, crisp, cup cake, decorate, drizzle, dusted, eggs, even, fab, firm, free range eggs, golden brown, granulated sugar, grated orange, greased, icing, juice, kid, lemon curd, lemon drizzle, marzipan, minutes, mix, mixed, muffins, pale, paper cases, paste, pennies, pink, recipe, risen, roll out, sandwich, satisfying, self-raising flour, share, sift, slices of lemon, smooth, Special, sticky, Sunday afternoon, supermarket, topping, traditional, unsalted butter, wire rack, yellow Battenberg, zest

There is something relaxing about switching off, putting on your apron and baking a cake.

Yes, we know you can buy them for pennies in the shops, but making a batch of muffins or baking the perfect sponge is one of the most satisfying ways of spending Sunday afternoon and eating your creations is pretty special too.

We are big bakers here at Pure Beauty and today we are sharing a couple of our favourite tea time treats with you.

We have taken the traditional pink and yellow Battenberg and put a twist on it. This chocolate and orange version looks complicated but it is simply two flavoured sponge cakes cut into strips and wrapped in glorious marzipan.

Ingredients:
225g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
225g caster sugar
225g butter, softened
4 large free range eggs, beaten
2 tsp finely grated orange peel
1 tbsp orange juice
1 tbsp cocoa powder mixed into a paste with 1 tbsp hot water
4 tbsp apricot jam, warmed
450g good quality marzipan

To start, pre-heat your oven to 180C/160C fan/Gas 4.

Sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl then add the sugar, butter and eggs and beat until the mixture is pale, smooth and creamy. Divide the mixture into two bowls then fold the orange rind and juice into one and the blended cocoa powder into the other.

Spoon the mixture into two separate square cake tins and level the surface, make sure they are greased and we go for an 18cm tin.

Bake for 25-30 minutes until the cakes are risen and firm to the touch.

Cool for 5 minutes then place on a wire rack and leave to totally cool.

Trim the edges from each cake then cut each cake into four even-sized strips. Use a little of the jam to sandwich two of the chocolate strips of cake with two of the orange strips and this will create one chequered effect cake – it looks pretty fab!

Roll out half the marzipan on an icing sugar dusted surface and create an 18 x 30cm rectangle. Brush the top of the cake with jam and press this gently onto the marzipan. Brush the other sides of the cake with jam and wrap marzipan around all of the cake and crimp along the top edges of the cake with your fingertips – have a clean cloth ready for sticky fingers.

Repeat to make a second cake and serve with tea.

If you are more of a cup cake kind of kid, then how about these lemon drizzle beauties? For a dozen you will need:

175g unsalted butter, softened and at room temperature
175g golden caster sugar
175g self-raising flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
3 large free range eggs
2 tablespoons of lemon curd
If you want to add the topping, you will need:
100g granulated sugar
The juice and grated zest of one, organic lemon – they taste the most zingy – and slices of lemon to decorate

To make you will need to preheat your oven to 180C / Fan 160C / Gas Mark 4 and line a 12 hole muffin tray with paper cases.

Put the butter, sugar, flour, baking powder and eggs in a bowl and whisk until pale and creamy then gently fold in the lemon curd.

Put the mixture into the muffin cases and bake for 15-20 minutes until the cakes have risen and are golden brown.

Whilst the cakes are baking, mix the granulated sugar and lemon juice and zest together and drizzle a little on each cake a couple of minutes after they have come out of the oven, put a slice of lemon on each one, then leave to cool so the topping goes crisp and enjoy at any time of the day.

Got a recipe you love? Send it our way and we might share with everyone else.

Team Pure Beauty

Chocolate Week Comes to Town

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baking powder, bars, boiling point, boiling water, buttons, cake, caster sugar, chocolate, cinnamon stick, cold, cream, dark, egg, free range eggs, fridge, greate, jam, jar, marshmallows, milk, mug, mugs, organic, pan, recipe, salt, seeds, self-raising flour, semi-skimmed milk, smaller pieces, strawberry jam, sugar, tins, vanilla pod, white

Love chocolate then you will love the fact that this week is Chocolate Week, culminating in The Chocolate Show at Olympia National Hall, London.

Milk, white, dark, organic, buttons, bars, the list goes on so we have looked at the best ways to indulge in this worldwide food phenomena.

Let’s face is, everyone loves chocolate cake, don’t they?

It is easy to make and for one cake you will need:

50g cocoa powder
3 large free range eggs
6 tablespoons of boiling water
4 tablespoons of semi-skimmed milk
175g self-raising flour
1 rounded teaspoon of baking powder
100g of softened butter
300g /caster sugar

For the icing you will need:
150g of broken up, good quality dark
150ml double cream
3 tablespoons of strawberry jam
Icing sugar for dusting

The method for baking this chocolate delight is very simple:

Preheat your oven to 180C / 350F / Gas 4, then grease two 20cm sandwich tins.

Put the cocoa powder and boiling water in a large bowl and mix into a smooth paste. Add the rest of the ingredients and beat until they are all combined well.

Divide the mixture into the two tins then place in the oven. Bake for around 30 minutes, until well risen and slightly coming away from the sides of the tin.

As the cake cooks, start on your icing. Pop the chocolate pieces and cream in a bowl, put the bowl over a pan of simmering water until melted, then leave to cool.

When cool, move the cakes from the tins and spread the bottom of each one with jam . Spread half the icing on the jam, sandwich together and put the rest of the icing on the top. Dust with icing sugar and serve in slices with a mug of hot

When we talk about hot chocolate we don’t mean a packet mix but a delicious, creamy drink that leaves you full and satisfied.

This recipe is perfect for cold winter days and you will need:

1 litre of semi-skimmed milk
150g good quality, plain chocolate, broken into small pieces
Extra chocolate for grating
1 vanilla pod split and seeds scraped out
1 cinnamon stick
A little caster sugar
Mini marshmallows

Making this luxurious drink is super-easy:
Gently heat the vanilla pod and seeds, cinnamon stick and milk in a saucepan until boiling.
With the pan taken away from the heat, add the chocolate pieces and then stir until it melts.
Whisk the liquid until frothy, pour into your favourite mugs. Grate a little chocolate on the top and together with several marshmallows and you are good to go.

Chocolate spread is a kitchen cupboard staple for many but why buy it when you can make your own? For one decent sized jar, you will need:

140g of dark, good quality chocolate, chopped into smaller pieces
160g of double cream
45g of caster sugar
2g of salt

To make the spread put the cream, sugar and salt into a pain and bring to boiling point. Pour the hot mixture over the chopped chocolate and whisk until smooth. Use a hand blender to smooth the mix and once cooled, pour into a sterlised jar and put in the fridge.

Happy Chocolate Week.

Team Pure-Beauty