I made these pink cupcakes for no other reason than to make cupcakes. Pink cupcakes with sprinkles that is. These cake forks belong to my nanna and I loved using them when I was young. I remember eating some type of cake at her house, I’m pretty sure the cake had sprinkles too. The best part of having cake at nanna’s house was picking out a cake fork to use. The one with the pink flowers, or the purple or yellow. Never the fork that had somehow lost its artwork though!
One of my favourite things to do in summer is eat fish and chips by the beach. I love being near the water, and am pretty spoiled to live just a 10 minute drive from the ocean. This Australia Day I created my own version of this seaside treat. Do you eat your chips with tomato sauce?
Beer-Battered Flathead Fillets with Oven-Baked Chips
Ingredients
Flathead fillets, or other white fish
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
375 chilled beer
vegetable oil for frying
extra flour
potatoes, unpeeled and chopped
olive oil
butter, melted
sea salt
Directions
Place egg into a bowl and add flour. Add beer to bowl gradually, while whisking.
Cover bowl and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
Parboil chopped potato chips until just tender. Drain.
Lay chips flat on oven tray, coat with oil and melted butter as desired. Season with sea salt.
Bake approximately 45 minutes or until golden and crunchy. Serve.
Heat oil to 190 degrees Celsius.
Coat fillets in extra flour, the dip into batter. Drain excess batter and cook in oil 3-4 minutes or until golden brown and cooked through. Drain and serve.
A few years ago, when we were newly married and had just moved in to our first home together hubby baked me a birthday cake. Looking back, it was my first homemade birthday cake in quite a few years. He literally stayed up all night to make it for me, it was a German chocolate cake. Not a German recipe for chocolate cake, the cake was apparently named after a brand of chocolate. The cake he made was delicious and shared with my family on the night of my birthday. German chocolate cake has a specific frosting – a pecan and coconut frosting made with evaporated milk and egg yolks.
The recipe I used today is from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking. I’m yet to find a recipe I don’t like in either of the two Baked cookbooks (New Frontiers in Baking and Baked Explorations). Could be because I keep choosing to make the chocolate recipes? I made one substitution today - I used regular pain flour instead of cake flour as my local supermarket didn’t have it in stock. I read somewhere you should subtract two tablespoons of plain flour for each cup used when making this substitution. Of course, I read this after I’d made the cake. The crumb is so soft, almost too soft. I wonder if this is due to the flour, I’ll have to pick up some cake flour and try it again. Sweetapolita did an interesting post on types of flour recently.
I still have the original recipe hubby used, written on the back of two envelopes. Me, sentimental?
Click here for German chocolate cake recipe
Click here for the Baked: New Frontiers in Baking cookbook
The most common question I’m asked about this blog is Do you take the photos yourself? The answer is yes, I bake or make and then photograph. This time, however, I didn’t do the making. This was hubby’s project from start to finish. He makes ice cream a couple of times a year. I’m still wanting some more of the chocolate ice cream he made last Easter. The first batch for 2012 is cinnamon, a flavour I know he has been wanting to make for a while. If you like snickerdoodles and ice cream, you’ll love this recipe. It’s creamy, with all the flavour of a snickerdoodle. The original calls for just white sugar; this batch substitutes brown sugar and Equal for 1/2 of the white sugar.
Hubby recommends letting the ice cream freeze for at least a night, but says the texture will be best after two days. If you add anything to the recipe, like walnuts or pecans, be sure to chill them first and add them to the ice cream machine late in the freezing process. That goes for any goodies you add to homemade ice cream, says hubby.
Cinnamon Ice Cream
Adapted from recipe from All Recipes
Ingredients
Directions
Christmas treats for my co-workers have been baked, packaged and gifted. The out-of-office alert is active on my e-mail account and work is done for 2011. Now it’s time to wrap presents, bake food to share with family and friends and to look towards 2012. I’m looking forward to the new year and the possibilities it brings. I hope you all have a safe and happy holiday season.
Christmas Kitchen Sink Cookies
Homemade Oreos (without filling)
Reindeer tages by Eat Drink Chic
Knit tags also by Eat Drink Chic
Wood type tags by Ellinee
Kitchen Sink Cookies
Adapted from recipe by Martha Stewart
Makes about 40
Ingredients
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed light-brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 and 1/2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
2 cups milk chocolate chips
1 cup chopped milk chocolate
2 cups Christmas M&Ms
Directions
My philosophy when it comes to dessert is usually If it’s not chocolate, why bother? While I don’t mind a coconutty treat or a caramel-flavoured delight, chocolate has a special place in my heart and on my dessert menu. Imagine my surprise when hubby introduced me to sweet potato pie. Magical, delicious sweet potato pie. There is a reason I only make this at Thanksgiving and Christmas time. It’s too tempting to resist, warmed and served with vanilla bean ice-cream. Now, if only I could get my chocolate habit down to two indulgences a year.
Sweet Shortcrust Pastry
from Modern Classics Book 2 by Donna Hay
2 cups flour
3 tbs caster sugar
150 g (5 oz) cold butter, diced
2-3 tbs ice water
Process the flour, sugar and butter in a food processor until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. With the motor running add enough water for the dough to cling together.
Knead lightly and wrap in plastic wrap. Allow to sit in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F).
Roll out the dough between 2 sheets of baking paper until 2-3 mm (⅛ in) thick. Line the greased tart tin. Blind bake for 10 minutes. (I don’t do this next step unless it’s a big pie with thicker pastry – Remove the baking weights and bake for another 10 minutes or until the crust is golden.)
Sweet Potato Pie
Adapted from: Allrecipes.com View recipe and reviews here.
1 (1 pound/454 g) sweet potato
1/2 (115 g) cup butter, softened
1/2 cup (100 g) white sugar
1/2 cup (100 g) brown sugar
1/2 (120 ml) cup milk
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Peel sweet potato and boil until soft.
Break apart sweet potato in a bowl. Add butter, and mix well with mixer. Stir in sugar, milk, eggs, nutmeg, cinnamon and vanilla. Beat on medium speed until mixture is smooth. Pour filling into pie crust (see recipe above).
Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 55 to 60 minutes, or until knife inserted in center comes out clean. Pie will puff up like a souffle, and then will sink down as it cools.
Basic Macarons
Adapted from recipe in Donna Hay Magazine Issue 59 Oct/Nov 2011
1 1/4 (200g) cups icing (confectioner’s) sugar
1 cup (120g) almond meal
3 eggwhites, at room temp
1 tablespoon caster (superfine) sugar
Food colouring
Preheat oven to 150 degrees Celsius (300 degrees Fahrenheit).
Sift the icing sugar and almond meal into a bowl and mix to combine. Set aside.
Place the eggwhites and food colouring in an electric mixer and whisk on high for 30 seconds.
Add the caster sugar and whisk until stiff peaks form.
Fold through the almond meal mixture in two batches until smooth.
Place the mixture in a piping bag fitted with a 1 1/2cm plan nozzle and pipe 4cm rounds onto baking trays lined with non-stick baking paper.
Lightly tap trays.
Allow to stand for 20 minutes or until a “skin” forms on top of the macarons.
Reduce temperature to 130 degrees Celsius (260 degrees Fahrenheit) and bake macarons for 17-18 minutes or until crisp on the outside and moist in the centre.
Allow to cool completely on trays.
Spread half the macarons with your chosen filling and sandwich the remaining macarons.
Makes 24.
My fascination with layer cakes continues, this time it’s a chocolate cake. I made this cake for no other reason than just to make a cake. With all the sewing and crochet projects I have going on, sometimes it’s nice to start something and finish it a few hours later.
This is the second time I’ve made Swiss meringue buttercream frosting and I’m happy to report all went well. After I added half the butter (the amount of butter in this recipe is crazy, try not to think about it for too long) to the egg white and sugar mixture, I popped the whole bowl in the fridge for a few minutes. I was worried the mixture was too soupy and I’d read cooling the mixture would help this. It worked like a charm! I added the rest of the butter and let the KitchenAid mix away. It was only afterwards that I realised I was supposed to change the whisk attachment to the paddle. It looks like no harm done though; the frosting was fluffy and dense and easy to spread. I couldn’t decide whether to colour the icing but after reading about people having trouble mixing Wilton gel food colouring and Swiss meringue buttercream, I decided against it. I quite like the dark cake against the white frosting. I think the next cake I make will be pink, a pink layer cake. Perhaps gluten free. Wish me luck with that one!
Rich and Dark Chocolate Cake recipe by Sweetapolita here
Swiss Meringue Buttercream Frosting recipe by Whisk Kid here (I used nine egg whites and had enough for the whole cake)
Rug from Urban Outfitters (yes they ship to Australia!)
And just for laughs: I can’t think of chocolate cake without thinking of Bill Cosby
Cake plate from Freedom
Is it a cupcake or a muffin? If I add frosting will it become a cupcake, but remain a muffin if un-iced? I’m leaning towards calling these muffins, but either way they are delicious. The recipe comes from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking. The original recipe makes two loaves, however this time I baked the batter in about 30 cupcake liners for 25 minutes. The loaves and muffins freeze well, I usually serve one loaf and freeze the other. In Australia canned pumpkin can be hard to find - I ordered some cans recently from USA Foods and have bought some from Sugar Fix in the past.
