Alphabakes Roundup: V

I've just managed to squeeze in this round-up before the end of the month and the day before we find out what the next letter is - I don't know myself yet! The letter I chose for February was V so there were lots of Valentine's entries but plenty (well, a few) more besides. It turns out there were a couple of entries I've missed so scroll right down to see the new additions!

Kat from The Baking Explorer kicked us off this month with a beautiful raspberry and limonello tart for Valentine's day. I love how she cut out heart shapes from the pastry lid and made some mini heart-shaped versions as well.

I also went with the Valentine heart theme with this no-bake ice cream cake; it was easy to make and delicious if you use good-quality ice cream. I used a new flower-shaped mould I got for Christmas which gives you heart-shaped slices, and drizzled it with butterscotch sauce.

I also wanted to share this wedding cake with you - I didn't actually make the cake (it's part dummy, part shop bought!) but I decorated it as part of the wedding cake decoration evening class I'm taking at the moment. You can read all about how I did it in the post. I think weddings fits the Valentine's theme!

And finally my third Valentine's entry; I made these chocolate hearts using Hershey's kisses and a few decorations. They were quick and easy to make and made a lovely Valentine's gift for my boyfriend.

If you still have chocolates from Valentine's day you could make these wonderful chocolate box brownies by Dom at Belleau Kitchen. And if you're feeling romantic you could cut them into heart shapes like he did!

From brownies to blondies - Stuart at Cakeyboi sent us these raspberry mint chip blondies, which are pink from the raspberry so perfect for Valentine's day. It's not a flavour combination I've seen before but if Stuart says it works, that's good enough for me!

My mum Jacqueline sent in two entries, first these Viennese fingers, which would be perfect for Sunday tea:

and secondly Valentine's heart cakes, though she says the icing came out more pink than she intended!

Here's another heart-shaped cake from Corina at Searching for Spice; it has dark and white chocolate ganache as well as chocolate buttercream and looks very decadent. I'd love to try a slice!

Kate at The Gluten-Free Alchemist made this raspberry lemon drizzle trifle with some leftover homemade cake; the raspberries were also left over from another cake so turning it into a dessert was a great idea. The serving glasses are really pretty too!

My Alphabakes co-host Ros at The More Than Occasional Baker decorated these cookies to look like penguins as a Valentine's treat. They are easy to make and so cute!

Laura at How To Cook Good Food had a Valentine's meal at home with her family and made this pretty mochaccino mousse, which consists of a chocolate espresso mousse topped with a caffe latte cream. This looks like a lovely treat to round off a dinner party.

Here's another no-bake recipe from Ros at The More Than Occasional Baker; she used the candy canes you can buy at Christmas to make chocolate hearts, and includes a short video showing how to make them.

Fiona at Sweet Thing You Make My Heart Sing has got some new cookie stamps and tried them out on these Valentine's shortbread biscuits, which are gluten free and lactose free. They look really cute!

Our first entry using V for an ingredient rather than for Valentine's! These vanilla buttermilk pancakes come from Kate aka The Gluten Free Alchemist, and are served with berries and homemade chocolate sauce. These are too good to keep for pancake day alone!

Johanna at Green Gourmet Giraffe also used vanilla as her V ingredient in these gluten free vanilla cupcakes, which she decorated with jelly beans and took as a snack on a day at the zoo. It looks like a fun day out!

For something a bit different this month we have a savoury dish: vermicelli (semiya) upma, from Revathi at Revi's Foodography. This is a quick south Indian breakfast dish which Revathi says is easy to make and looks very tasty.

Choclette from Chocolate Log Blog made this chocolate cashew nut butter, which is suitable for vegans (hence the 'V') and a healthier take on a well-known chocolate hazelnut spread. I spied from a later blog post that she then used this in chocolate brownies which looks great!

These Viennese hazelnut bars are a bit like wafer biscuits, according to Suelle at Mainly Baking; they are made of hazelnut shortbread with redcurrant jelly sandwiched between, glazed with apricot jam and then iced. Suelle says they are quite crumbly and delicate but sound delicious!

Finally we had these pretty Valentine's cupcakes from my sister Clare. They are red velvet cupcakes - a great V entry and one I hadn't thought of - with vanilla icing. I bet her boyfriend enjoyed them!

I missed a couple of entries which ended up in a different folder of the inbox somehow so apologies to Helen from Family Friends Food. She sent in these Nutella shortbread hearts, which only use three ingredients, and are perfect to dunk in a cup of tea:

and also these white chocolate & raspberry hamantaschen sandwich biscuits (which feature vanilla). Helen had to improvise as she didn't have the right shaped cookie cutter, but I think these look really good!

Thanks to everyone who took part - head on over to The More Than Occasional baker tomorrow to find out which letter we are baking with in March!