Birthday treats for a first birthday!

It was my daughter's first birthday at the end of April. I really can't believe she is 1 already! How time flies!! I wanted to blog about some of the treats I made for her birthday, as I felt the recipes were pretty good!

Nigella Lawson's chocolate chip cookies.

This recipe can be found in Nigella Lawson's latest book: Kitchen, the recipe can be found here, though I would highly recommend buying the book, it's filled with practical easy recipes, handy for those of us who have hungry mouths to feed and not much time!

Nigella Lawson's millionnaire shortbread:

 Oh these Milionaire shortbread were wonderful! The recipe can be found via the link or in Nigella Lawson's How to be a domestic goddess book. These are very sweet, but that is to be expected from Milionaire shortbread!I struggled to cut these and later read that I should have made slight cut marks with the knife before the chocolate set. I will remember to try this next time! I used chocolate transfer sheets to decorate, which are very simple to use and give a great affect! This was only the first time I had ever used these, and I loved the result.

I used a classic Victoria Sponge recipe for my daughter's main cake. This was my first ever iced cake! It was iced using sugarpaste, and then decorated with sugarpaste, fondant and chocolate decorations, and here is the end result

I made plenty of vanilla cupcakes that I decorated with buttercream and fondant butterflies:

I also made Nigel Slater's very good chocolate brownies, these were so so so yummy! I'm afraid I forgot to take a close up picture of these! These tasted like the brownies you get from Boots! They were fantastic! And everyone said how good they were! I'm tempted to buy his book, just to have the recipe on tap! I have just bought some new mini loaf moulds, which I plan to make some individual chocolate brownies in, then they really will be like the ones from Boots!

And here was the final spread! I did make a little too much food and my poor neighbours were eating cakes for the next week! Although they didn't seem to complain too much! All in all it was a good day, and I felt like I had piled on the pounds in the few hours the guests were here for!! I can't wait to bake for her 2nd birthday!