Tag: chocolate

Pretty In Pink

While I absolutely love to bake and decorate cakes I am the first to admit that I am still only an amateur. Which is why i’m always surprised and alarmed when people ask me to cook something for them for a party or occasion. I normally dirty ice fondant covered cakes with buttercream but earlier in the year decided to experiment with using ganache. I had incredible trouble creating a smooth base for the fondant so the first cake I tried was bumpy bumpy on top and just generally not that great (i’m definitely my own worst critic!). In an effort to curb my ever expanding waistline I brought it into work where the pink/yellow combination caught the eye of the lovely Maryanne who said he daughter would love something similar for her birthday.

This is what I came up with

I was a bit apprehensive about making a proper cake for people I didn’t really know. I couldn’t think of anything worse than disappointing a beautiful little girl on her birthday! In fact, I will admit that I had several cake related nightmares in the lead up to creating and delivering this cake. One involved trying to bake a cake but finding that when I opened the carton of eggs, each egg that I picked up had either a massive crack in the shell or a hairline fracture that made the egg unusable. This picking up and discarding of eggs must have gone on for hours in my dream because I woke up terribly frustrated and upset and needed to go to the fridge and check all my eggs again. I also had dreams of dropping the cake, having to swerve violently when driving and ending up with a smooshed cake.

I should have had faith after seeing the batter. How yummy does it look!

Three layers with chocolate fudge filling

Then dirty iced with chocolate ganache. I know its not super smooth but it is a whole lot smoother than my last cake!

Under a layer of pink fondant

Then finished of with pink and blue hearts as requested by the birthday girl.

From all accounts the cake arrived at the party in tact and was swiftly demolished. The birthday girl was pleased with her pink and blue vanilla and chocolate and everyone was happy. Phew! No cake wrecks for me… yet!

So, my lovelies, can you remember having a delicious/good looking cake for your birthday? I remember my mum making me an amazing pink princess castle for my birthday (good old AWW childrens birthday cake cookbook!). Or did you have a cake wreck? Spill the beans!

 

 

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!

Broken Rules – Hot Cross Buns After Easter

Im the first to admit that I play it pretty safe. I figure that most rules are there to make life easier and keep me safe. I don’t like to cross the road against the lights, I don’t break the speed limit, I always put I before E except after C. However, I am also the first to admit that there are certain rules that are absolutely made to be broken. I like to wear odd socks, I frequently miss deadlines and I eat Hot Cross Buns whenever I damn well like. Not just at Easter. Want to know why?

The answer lies beneath this enormous thesaurus.

Oozing Chocolate Hot Cross Bun French Toast

I got the idea from Kitchen Wench when I was browsing around Easter time for some different ideas for Hot Cross Buns. However, with the craziness that inevitably comes with Easter and the end of school holidays, I didn’t get around to testing this one out until after Easter was over. But boy was it worth it. Worth it enough to justify the baking of Choc Chip Hot Cross Buns well after Easter has ended. I guess if I don’t bake them with a cross, they don’t necessarily count as hot cross buns?

And the recipe is so ridiculously easy! Slice your buns lengthways three times. Scatter some choc chips between the slices, squish under something heavy (e.g. the weight of the entire English Language) and dip into your french toast mixture.

Fry it so that it is crispy and caramelised on the outside, and soft and gooey on the inside

Sprinkle with icing sugar and serve with double cream. Why would you bother with anything less than double?

mmmmmm…. gooey….

And the best part is, if you make a whole batch of choc chip buns, you can make this for breakfast every day for a week. What could be better than that?

You can find the recipe here.

So, my lovelies, what rules do you like to break?

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?