Bakes and Cakes Show: Meeting Mary Berry

On Saturday 25th October, I made Orange cookies with Chocolate chips in and I went up to the Bakes and Cakes show in London.

I thought that I really wouldn't win because it was very low chances of winning because there were lots of really good entries. But the last winner called out was my name! I won the Junior Bakes category.

The judge was Eric Lanlard. I saw him at the Bakes and Cakes show in the morning in the theatre and I watched him make a fig and lardon pie and a southern chocolate pie where he licked the camera man's finger to taste it because he wasn't allowed to lick his own finger because of germs!

Eric Lanlard is really cool because his nickname is Cake Boy.

This photo courtesy of  BBC Good Food / River Street Events

I met Mary Berry as part of my prize as well as a K Mix mixer as well as a signed Mary Berry book which she signed when I met her myself for afternoon tea.

She was nice. I sat right next to her. She said well done to me. My mum thought it was all a dream because she couldn't believe it.

My Visit to The Hinds Head in Bray.

When I went on holiday it was great! But what I liked mosted was The Hinds head in bray.

For starter I had scotch egg.

For my main course I had chicin (Chicken) and then for pud it was ice cream then I went and looked around the kitchen and I had a picture taken with my Brother and the lady who makes Desserts. I like to call her miss Dessert lady.

Me, my brother and Miss dessert lady

The lady who showed us round was the waitress and she had a photo with me afterwards and she was really nice.

after that I had a Really nice new Drink called hocus pocus then we paid and went home and I fell asleep in the car.

Ordering my Hocus Pocus Mocktail at the bar

I had Hocus Pocus, my brother had Tutti Frutti

I give the Restaront a five stare Rating!

I also got a cookery book with Heston's autograph in it to add to my other cheffing autographs.

Written up by Daniel, aged 8.

Orange Choc Chip Cookies

Yesterday I made some Orange flavoured chocolate chip cookies and decorated them with chocolate dots. They looked pretty and they were colourful.

I did all of it by myself except the oven part. So I would recommend this recipe for other children to try. Oh and the zesting was tricky because our zester wasn't working properly so I got my mum to do that bit.

Ingredients:
1 orange - zest only (you can squeeze the rest and drink it as orange juice afterwards if you like).
75g butter or margarine
75g caster sugar
75g light brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
150g plain flour (sifted)
half a tsp baking powder
4 tablespoons of cocoa powder
100g chocolate chips (you can use white, plain, or milk chocolate ones - I used white choc chip)
Chocolate dots to decorate (or you can use an additional 50g of chocolate chips to decorate)

This is supposed to make 24 cookies but ours were less as I made some big cookies too.

Method:
1. Pre-heat oven to 180C.
2. Line 2 baking trays with greaseproof paper.
3. Grate the zest from the orange.
4. Beat together the butter, sugar (both types) and orange zest.
5. In a separate bowl beat the egg with the vanilla extract, then gradually pour into your mixture of butter and sugar, beating each time as you add a bit.
6. Sift in the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder. Then add in 100g chocolate chips and mix.
7. At this stage, your mixture should look quite thick, so you can take a bit out and make it like a ball and put on the baking tray pushing it a bit flatter. If your mixture is too sticky to do this, then you can just use a spoon to dollop it onto the baking tray a little at a time.

8. Decorate the tops of the cookies with more chocolate chips or colourful chocolate dots.

9. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes.
10. Put onto a cooling rack to cool down. They will be soft to start with as if they aren't fully cooked, but don't worry because as they cool, they will get firmer.

They tasted fabalicious!

Linking up with Kids in the Kitchen:

My FAVOURITE way to spend a sunny day outside is...

Hello. My name's Daniel and I'm eight years old. I actually have two blogs. This one which is called The Brilliant Chef and I write about what I cook and stuff and what cheffing adventures I have. My other blog is called Outside of the Kitchen which is what I get up to when I'm not cooking.

I decided to write this blogpost on this blog because it involves cooking outside too.

I decided to write my blogpost about TODAY because TODAY has been the BEST DAY EVER!!!!!
So my FAVOURITE way to spend a sunny day outside is...just how I spent it today. This is what I did...

I got changed as usual for the day but then I found out it was really hot so I had to change again because I was wearing long-sleeves and trousers not shorts. So I changed again into 'cool' clothes and then we had lunch outside in the garden.

After that we set up the paddling pool and we all splashed around in it and got really wet. My daddy was naughty because he splashed us with the hose when he was filling the pool up. Then we put in the ballpool balls into the water and my little sister Trinity came to play. She splashed a lot.

We got the paddling pool out today because it was really hot and sunny. Me and my brother Josh used our water guns at each other. We also threw buckets of water at each other and it was REALLY fun. It felt nice because we'd been in the sun for a long time.

I sat down in the sun for a break and put a towel around me. I ate a banana and berry muffin and I drank some warm milk. It was really nice.

Then it was time for one more play in the pool and then it was time for emptying the pool. Me and my brother had to fill up buckets of water from in the pool to tip it out. We tipped it on the plants to water them.

In the evening I cooked a really nice dinner for everyone to eat outside. Here's what I did. I got starters ready by chopping up some peppers, some carrots and cucumber into sticks. I also got some sauces ready to dunk them in. And that was for the starters.

For the main course I made some burgers and we had a big barbecue and everyone said the burgers were nice because I made them. I put onions and carrots and herbs in it and I had to mix it all together with my hands. It was all gooey and squidgy.

When we got the barbecue ready, my dad used some powerful fire stuff which makes a big burst of fire and keeps the fire going. And daddy almost got really hurt from the fire because he added a little much mixture. I watched and I helped him get ready because I couldn't do the firey bits because it was dangerous.

When the fire was going out, we blew it and used frisbees as fans to make the fire keep on going. It was good fun because me and my brother worked as a team.

After that, I helped get the plates ready.

After dinner, we got marshmallows and some skewers and with the leftover heat from the barbecue we cooked the marshmallows. I cooked mine quite hot so they went all gooey and squidgy. We only had small marshmallows but it wasn't a problem because it still tasted really nice. That's what me and my brother were allowed to do round the barbecue ourselves - me and my brother.

But Trinity wasn't allowed to cook the marshmallows because she was only 2.

And it was the perfect day because although we stayed at home and only went as far as the garden, it was really fun and I'll always remember this day!

I wrote this all myself and chose the pictures myself. And I'm very proud of it. I even learnt how to do my own picmonkeying. My mum checked my spellings with me and showed me how to put the photos in. I wrote this up on Sunday 18th May 2014.

A Divine Day out with Dubble Chocolate!

Daniel was the lucky winner of Dubble chocolate's search for a Pa Pa Paa Star and spent a celeb style day in London. Here he is telling us all about it...

Last Saturday I went to the Oxfam store to do my pictures. After that I bought some toys from Oxfam. I bought a toy fish for my little sister and a toy for me and my brother.

For the photo shoot, to start with, I did a few, what I like to call 'less exciting' photos but then after a while I did some photos with CHOCOLATE! And then I got to eat the chocolate. So you can imagine why I think the ones with chocolate involved are really exciting.

I also got to do some photos with 2 GIANT Dubble chocolate bars (but those ones weren't made of real chocolate).

After I did the photos in the Oxfam store, I went to a coffee shop with Sara from Divine chocolate and she got me a GIANT milkshake with rainbow sprinkles while she was interviewing me about being a Dubble agent.

Next we went on to the next bit of my prize which was going to the Rainforest Cafe.

There were lots of realistic looking animals that moved and in the entrance there was a crocodile that moved.

We met up with my dad, brother and sister so that we could all have our meal together. Me and my brother both had an Ozzie burger to eat and I have no idea what mummy and daddy had to eat as I was more interested in my colouring that I did.

When mummy and daddy had pudding, they had a chocolate volcano which had a sparkler on it! Loads of sparks flew out and it was really pretty.

After the Rainforest Cafe we decided to go to The Transport Museum because it was nearby and I'd never been there before.

Thank you to Dubble and Divine Chocolate for my amazing day out and remember to buy fairtrade chocolate and other fairtrade ingredients because then the farmers get a fair amount of money.