Tag: cake

End of Term Sadness and a Textually Dynamic Cake

And so it has been said

All good things must come to an end.

 

For so many students this week marks is the end of high school and the beginning of the rest of their lives. While I finished high school many years ago, this is a little bit of a special time for me as I farewell my own two amazing Year Twelve classes. And when I say ‘special’ I mean it in both ways:

1. It’s wonderful to be part of such an important moment in the lives of these extraordinary young men and to have seen them grow and develop over the past year

2. I turn a bit ‘special’ as I totally forget everything I want to tell them about how proud I am of them and how I have absolutely no doubt that they will do amazing things. Instead I just demand more practice essays. Sorry!

Before I unload all my sookiness, have a look at these cute bunnies!

As a fairly new teacher, seeing a Year Twelve class go through to finish the HSC is much more emotional than I expected and I really didn’t realise just how attached I had become to my classes. I think that this has been heightened by the fact that this is my first year teaching boys and first year at this particular school so my classes have been integral for helping me find my feet and settle in. I often found myself relying on my older students to teach me the culture of the school and help me figure out exactly what I should be doing!

The last few weeks of school are always a bit of a whirlwind and because of various timetable changes I never got to have a proper ‘last’ lesson with my Advanced class . To tell you the truth, I feel like Spencer Tracy in the last scenes of Father of the Bride. Remember the part where his daughter is all married and busy at the reception? And he isn’t able to really talk to her and tell her how proud he is of her because there are so many people around and so much going on? And then she leaves with her husband for her honeymoon and he is sad that he never got to see her off properly? Yes im a sap, yes im a sucker, yes I feel that way about this class. I am just so proud to see the wonderful, intelligent young men that they have grown up to be. Words fail me (and the irony of me being an English Teacher is not lost here!)

I was lucky to have a farewell lesson for my Extension class, and here enters the baking part of this post. The students found out about my blog midway through the year and since then I had promised to bake a cake for our final lesson. However, as these students are particularly great, it was necessary to up the ante. Thus, The Bake Off was born. The theme was ‘Textual Dynamics’ (which was the elective that the boys studied this year and roughly concerns looking at film and literature that challenges societies values regarding authorship, text construction, gender, history etc… and does so in a particularly ground breaking or creative way). I have to admit that I was particularly nerdy and planned my idea weeks in advance. What eventuated was…

Textually Dynamic?

One of the texts studied this year was a novel by Italo Calvino called If On a Winter’s Night A Traveller. A highly unconventional novel, the opening of this book goes a little something like this:

“You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino’s new novel, ‘If On a Winter’s Night a Traveller’. Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade.”

I wanted the cake to look like the magnetic poetry kits that you can get to go on your fridge and re-write the opening to be more baking appropriate. I used the Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cake and filled it with musk buttercream.

Tah dah!

I really didn’t have any expectation that anyone else would bake but was happily surprised to have THREE other entries!

Jack and Nathan’s take on the Salvador Dali melting clocks

(perhaps otherwise titled “The Sponge Cake That Wasn’t”?)

And Dan and Pat’s amazing brownies. I really had no idea that these boys had such hidden talents in the baking arena!

To my Extension boys, you have been such a source of energy and creativity this year. It has often been a relief to see you all after some particularly crazy junior classes, particularly in the afternoon! The intellectual depth to our discussions has really blown me away and it has just been such a privilege to have been able to teach such insightful and generally amazing students.

This has been a rather text heavy post, so if you made it this far though im very impressed! I really just wanted to say thank you to all my Year Twelve students and tell you all just how proud I am of you and how honoured I am to have been able to teach you this year. Good luck in your final exams!

Winter Wishing – Quince Cake

What’s in the pot?

Well… now that the weather has turned in time for Spring, do you really care what’s in the pot? Clearly it’s something that involves baking and we all know that the hot Australian summer is not conducive to baking. But Spring/Summer baking is not what this post is all about. While I love the sunshine and flowers, a part of me yearns for the sharp clarity of winter mornings and the satisfaction of warm winter desserts. So this post is a throw back to all the things we wish for during winter. Mostly…

Quinces!

I hate that the Quince season is so woefully short. I hate that Quinces are not readily available as they should be. I hate that I don’t have my own Quince tree in my own backyard. And while I am trying harder to make the most of produce that is in season, I wish that Quinces that had been transported in cold storage did not taste so awful. Then we wouldn’t have to wait until winter to enjoy them. But all things come to those who wait, and as I wait patiently all year I know that I will always have time for at least one Quince Cake during winter.

Look at those beautiful pieces of quince. Yummo!

This particular recipe is quite simple, the only time consuming part is poaching the quinces but

1. having the oven on for so long keeps the house warm

2. the smell is gorgeous! I would like nothing better than to have my house continuously smell like quinces poaching


 So in the end, after all the deliciousness and warmth of the poaching process you end up with a wonderful buttery, soft, sweet, spicy cake. Particularly tasty with the crunchy munchy cinnamon topping and jewels of quince peeking out.

mmmmmmmm!

So, my lovelies, what seasonal food would you eat all year round if you could? I’ll give you three wishes!

 

Poached Quince – From The Cook’s Companion by Stephanie Alexander

Ingredients

6 Quinces, peeled and cored

2.25 litres sugar syrup (2 parts water to 1 part sugar, heat and dissolve sugar to make the syrup)

1 vanilla bean

juice of 1 lemon

 

Method

1. Put sugar syrup into a large enamelled cast iron casserole dish along with the quinces, vanilla bean and lemon juice

2. Cover tightly and bake at 150 degrees celsius  for at least 4 (and up to 8) hours until the quinces are a deep red colour. Do not stir.

3. Cool

 

Quince and Cinnamon Cake – From The Cook’s Companion by Stephanie Alexander

Ingredients

180g softened butter

150g caster sugar

135g plain flour

135g self raising flour

pinch of salt

2 large eggs (lightly beaten)

70ml milk

1/2 cup almond meal

poached quinces

Topping

60g butter

1/2 cup caster sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

2 large eggs

 

Method

1. To make the topping, melt the butter and stir in the sugar and cinnamon, then allow to cool a little. Whisk the eggs and stir into the cooled butter mixture

2. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy

3. Mix in flours and salt

4. Mix the eggs with the milk and add to the flour mixture. Mix to a softish dough.

5. Spoon the batter into a prepared tin (it will rise quite a bit so don’t overfill) and sprinkle the almond meal over the top

6. Arrange the quinces cut side up on top of the batter and spoon the topping over and around the quinces.

7. Bake at 180 degrees celsius for 50 mins-1 hour

8. Serve warm with cream

 

 

Chocolate Cake like your Grandma used to Make

So I have to start this post with a disclaimer: I don’t ever remember my grandma making cakes. My mum assures me that she did, and regales me with tales of amazing pavlovas made by whipping the eggs and sugar on a giant plate with a knife, but have no memories of this whatsoever. The cake I am going to tell you about is the kind of cake I imagine my grandma would have made.

The chill of winter calls for simple food and after browsing through my cookbooks again I stumbled upon my CWA cookbook. An oldie but a goodie. And no requirements for crazy fancy or difficult to find ingredients which is a huge saving on my time poor days. Having said that, I did use two rather special ingredients that were not necessary but definitely added to the final cake. These were some particularly indulgent cocoa and chocolate sprinkles that I bought on a trip to Josophans chocolate shop in Leura, Blue Mountains.

I have a thing about cocoa powder. I used to be a staunch Bourneville user until I realised how much lighter in colour it and the Nestle cocoa powder was compared to other brands. While expensive, Josophans’ cocoa powder drew me in with its rich, dark colour and I knew it would be a winner in any recipe.

I had intended to make this cake and bring it in to work for morning tea but I was turning into the driveway at work when I realised that I had left it at home. Along with my sanity it seems.

So, there was nothing else for it but to serve it as a particularly tasty morning tea on Saturday morning. Remember, when there’s chocolate cake involved the glass is always half full people! It was lightly chocolatey and moist. Definitely not the super rich chocolate hit of other cakes ive made but just right for morning tea. Simple yet satisfying.

Now I know that this photo is grainy, but I wanted to show you the tea I drank with this cake. It was Wedgewood Earl Grey that I was given as a present for Christmas. It was absolutely delicious! One of the best Earl Greys i’ve tasted in a long time.

mmmmmmmm…. chocolate cake…..

So, my lovelies, are you as forgetful as me? My terrible memory has been well documented in this blog. What is the silliest thing you have forgotten and did it turn out ok in the end? Tell me a story to help me procrastinate from doing my marking!

Recipe – Kim’s Chocolate Cake – From the CWA Cakes Cookbook

Ingredients

2 cups self raising flour

3 tablespoons cocoa

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 1/2 cups milk

2 eggs

2 tablespoons butter, melted

Method

1. Sift flour and cocoa into a bowl

2. Add the sugar, milk and eggs and beat well

3. Add the melted butter and beat for another two minutes

4. Pour into a tin (recipe does not specify, use your common sense!) and bake in an oven at 180 degrees celsius for 1 hour

Icing Note:

You can use your favourite chocolate icing for this cake but I used the Donna Hay Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting that you can find here. Enjoy!

Happy Easter To You!

Firstly, before you read any further , I want to wish you happy easter and offer you a cupcake

HAPPY EASTER!

Now, on to business. Ever since I was a little girl i’ve always been a fan of movies that contain singing and dancing. I’m sure it all started with Disney and the Disney Princesses who I have, of course, still watch outgrown. Ok, i’ve never been a good liar, I will happily sit down to a marathon of The Little Mermaid, Peter Pan, Mulan and Beauty and the Beast. But what girl wouldn’t?

However, for the sake of my job (in answer to the ever popular question from teenagers “miss, what’s your favourite movie?”) I have had to come up with some more adult sounding favourite movies.

1. Rush Hour

2. Any of the following: Grease, The Wizard of Oz, The Holiday Inn, The Easter Parade, Moulin Rouge, any kind of musical (i’m always living in hope that they will make Wicked the movie)

Thankfully, many musical movies end up being tied to a particular holiday. Exhibit A:

The Easter Parade

After all, what is a holiday without Fred Astaire? The addition of Judy Garland only elevates this movie from amazing to absolutely amazing! And so, every year when Easter rolls around, you will find me humming the tune to the Easter Parade. Humming because the only lines I can ever remember when singing it are

“here’s a hat that is trimmed with lace – happy easter”

and

“happy easter to you”

I clearly have a very short attention span.

Thankfully, one thing that can keep me focussed is baking, while watching The Easter Parade of course! So what did I bake for easter? Well, firstly I made some pretty little Easter Cucpakes

Here they are baking in the oven. Lookin’ pretty cute!

And here they are all iced with chocolate eggs.

The yellow and white ones are vanilla, the pink ones are musk and the blue ones are violet. Who says I can’t diversify?

For the cake and icing I used this Magnolia Bakery recipe which is always a winner. I also added a few drops of flavouring to each icing mixture t make them all different.

But something was still lacking. There had been a little idea for a big easter cake growing in my mind over the past few weeks. The cake version of the easter bunny basket. I used the same recipe as for the cupcakes above and it made two good sized cakes that could be cut in half to make four layers.

So first comes the basket.

This was my first attempt at basket weave and I have to say I’m pretty pleased with the results. A little wonky but nothing some more practice wont fix.

Then come the decorations!

And a better shot of the easter bunnies and eggs with better lighting and a better camera!

And the vanilla-y chocolatey innards!

It’s not really wonky, I carved the sides a little so that it would look more slopey like a real basket would. Ho hum.

So, all in all, it was a pretty happy, delicious and relaxing easter. How was your easter my lovelies? Did the easter bunny visit?