Roasted Pumpkin and Garlic Soup

Hello from a frosty Dunedin!

Yesterday (Sunday) was a dreary rainy morning (perfect for studying). It also coincided with the last weekend before exams start. Now dearest Alix is beginning to live at the library (gross) so dinner plans are a bit more fend for yourself than usual. A few weeks ago I bought this massive pumpkin down at the farmers market for $2 and it has been sitting getting hacked away at for various things. So since we (mainly Alix) was in need for nutritious food that wasn't in the form of frozen convenience meals I decided to procrastinate and make pumpkin soup. The funny thing is, is that I don't really like pumpkin soup. Never have. One cup and that will do me for the year. Leek and potato is way better. Anyway, I gave Mum a text and she replied (eventually) with basic instructions for her recipe.

Now this soup is more like add a bit of this and a splash of that. If you like garlic, you add more garlic. If you like curry powder, add more :) In the end I also added a few chopped carrots to bulk and thicken it up a bit.

By roasting your pumpkin first, you get a lovely caramelised flavour developing which just makes it extra tasty (if you like pumpkin soup that is). Also roasting garlic in whole cloves with the pumpkin is awesome. When they come out of the oven you can either peel their skin off or squeeze the gooey garlic pulp out into the soup. You don't get the strong bite of garlic, instead a nice subtle roasted flavour. Mmm mm.


Sophie's Mum's Pumpkin Soup
Makes 13-14 cups

What you will need:

A big stock pot
A food processor, blender or stick blender
A plastic bag

1 large pumpkin
1 bulb of garlic
2 teaspoons curry powder
salt and pepper
10-12 cups chicken stock
40ish grams of butter
2 onions, diced
(2-3 chopped carrots - optional)

Firstly pierce some holes in the top of your pumpkin skin. Place the pumpkin and a small bowl or mug of water in the microwave and microwave on high for about 10 minutes (checking after five or so). This will soften the pumpkin before you chop it, reducing the risk of pre-exam amputation.

Next, chop the pumpkin up into cubes and place in a plastic bag along with a good shake of salt and a good grind of pepper. Splash in some of your best oil, grab the bag around the top and give it a good shake to coat the cubes with oil. Tip the bag contents onto a roasting tray lined with baking paper.

Get your bulb of garlic and split the cloves up and dot them in between the pumpkin pieces.

Bake at 180 degrees for around 40 minutes (more until they are slightly black at the tips and soft in the middle).

Saute your onion and butter in the stock pot until the onion is translucent. Add the curry powder and stir for a minutes to help develop the flavours. Add your pumpkin cubes and squeeze out the garlic into the pot. Stir to coat the pumpkin in the curry powder.

Add your chicken stock and a few thinly chopped carrots (you can roast those too if you want), then leave to simmer for 45ish minutes (I just left mine simmering away while I did some more study.

Once the carrots are cooked through and you think it tastes all right, either use a stick blender, food processor or blender to purée it until the soup is more or less smooth. I personally like my thick soups a little bit chunky.

Pop it back into the pop to heat it up again if you are eating it straight away or leave to cool before transferring into a container. If you are planning on putting it in the fridge or freezer make sure it is completely cool before doing so. Won't take too long in a Dunedin flat kitchen and it prevents you raising the temperature of your fridge (which leads to increased growth rates of pathogens and spoilage organisms such as. . . . sorry micro study haha).

I am a bit of a garlic lover, I added a few more dried garlic granules to pack some more garlicky punch!

Ok, so my pouring was a little messy . .

Water baths cool them down faster

I have all these left over pottles from work which fit a perfect serving size in them. I managed to get 12 pottles plus one mug of soup for me. I cooled them down in a cold water bath in the sink then froze them. That way when we need a quickie dinner we can just pop one from the freezer into the microwave and bam! 5 minutes to a healthier dinner.


Happy studying! (with soup!)

A Carrot Cake for Jamal

Good Sunday morning to you all!

Being the baked good enthusiast that I am, I am always looking for a good excuse to bake a cake. It just so happened that it was dear Jamal's birthday yesterday which was more than enough excuse to bake a carrot cake upon request.

The recipe I used is my Mum's recipe. She got it from one of her old books in her cupboard above the fridge. Since I don't have access to that cupboard right now (slight geographical hurdle) I can't confirm which book. Anyway it is a rather good recipe. Stays moist (yes I said it, moooiistt) for days and days (if it even lasts that long). The best bit about it is that it gives you the excuse to smother it in cream cheese icing. Om nom nom. One of Mum's secret tricks is to put chopped prunes in the cake. Prunes! They are surprisingly good in this cake as it makes it lovely and moist (moooissttt). Another thing she does is she always makes a 1.5x recipe. So that the cake is nice and tall in her 25cm tin. Haha and wait there is a third thing! Crushed pineapple. This ups the moisture content and provides a lovely fruity texture.

So here we go,

Sophie's Mum's Delicious Carrot Cake
(this is the single recipe - if you want a bigger cake just multiply quantities by 1.5)
ingredients:
1 1/2 cups whole meal flour
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cups oil
2 eggs
1 cup grated carrot (about 2 carrots)
1/2 cup crushed pineapple with juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
about half a cup of chopped prunes and/or dried apricots

1x25cm cake tin or 2x 20cm cake tins lined and greased
two sheets of tin foil to place over the top of the tins


Method:

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees.

Combine flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, grated carrot and dried fruit. Mix until evenly distributed.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the oil, eggs, vanilla and pineapple (and its juice) until evenly combined.

Pour the wet mixture into the dry and stir until combined. Try not to over mix as we don't want the cake getting tough. Just make sure there are no pockets of dry ingredients lying around.

Pour into your tin(s). Now if you made two small cakes bake for 45 minutes (check at 40 minutes though). For one large cake it takes around 1 hour 10 minutes but check at an hour just to be sure as all ovens are different. If you notice your cakes going a bit too brown on top place the tin foil over the tin. This will stop the browning but not the cooking.

Let the cakes cool down before popping out of their tins. Leave to cool completely before icing (overnight in a chilly Dunedin flat works well).

Could we count this as a healthy cake? fibre, carrots, fruits! haha

Now for the icing, I doubled the recipe here as I wanted to put icing between the cakes and down the sides, If you want to cut calories (haha like you would want to) just do a single recipe and just ice the top. This recipe is from The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook.

300g icing sugar, sifted
50 unsalted butter, softened
125g cream cheese, cold

Beat the icing sugar and butter together with an electric hand beater or free standing mixer until well incorporated and semi fluffy. Add cubes of cream cheese one at a time, beating until well incorporated. Once all the cream cheese is added, beat on high for a few minutes until the icing becomes nice and fluffy. Do not over beat as the icing can become runny (I can give you a nice long explanation as to why that happens if you want). Add a teaspoon of vanilla if you wish.

Sweet, now apply that to your cold cake(s).

I recommend checking out Kaitlin over at Whisk Kid to learn how to ice a cake properly. She will teach you how to crumb coat which is essential when using a light coloured icing (ie anything other than chocolate). What is a crumb coat you ask? Go and see for yourself haha.

I even added sparkles

Well I do believe this cake turned out quite nicely. I hope it tasted all right haha.Carrying it on a plate all the way to Jamal's flat was the host terrifying ordeal. I was more nervous that public speaking and sitting an exam combined! It got there in one piece and damage-free thankfully. I did get some funny looks though as I walked down the main streets of Dunedin.

Time for some food chemistry I do believe, hmm or maybe just food . .

See you later!

Pineapple (and a wee bit of Coconut) Cupcakes

Hello all!

Now this adventure all began with my food innovation class. Wait no it didn't, it started with me gazing at the gourmet food isle at New World for City Centre 40 minutes one Friday night (yes that is how raving my life is).

During this awe struck state I came across these packets of freeze dried fruit powders. Now this made me really quite excited as I had heard before that some cupcake shops use fruit powders to flavour their cupcakes. Now each packet was $8.99 for 40g, a bit pricey for me at the time. Fast forward to our ice cream making lab and were were in a flavour dilemma. Then it hit me, why not colour and flavour the ice cream with some of the fruit powder I found. So we ended up getting raspberry and pineapple and our raspberry chocolate fudge ice cream was a success. But alas! There was powder left over, so I took on the burden of giving it a home with the promise that I would bring out class cupcakes (which I did haha). The first lot I made were vanilla with a raspberry cream cheese icing. Boy was that icing good. It tasted like yoghurt-berry chupa chups. Ill pop a photo down below of them. I was a bit hesitant about putting the pineapple powder into the cupcake batter due to it's acidity. From this experience I would limit the amount in the batter and just knock people out with super pineappley icing, just to ensure a super fluffy sponge.

Now these powders I found at New World City Centre in Dunedin but I imagine places like Farro and Nosh should have them too. I would be surprised if they didn't. They come in all sorts of flavours, actually here is the link, explore for yourself http://www.fresh-as.com. All made here in New Zealand. Very cool I think.

Once again I took a Hummingbird Bakery Recipe for vanilla cupcakes but swapped the vanilla for a tablespoon of the pineapple powder. If you didn't have pineapple powder, hmm perhaps if you get a tin of pineapple in full syrup, drain a small amount of syrup into a sauce pan then boil it until it becomes a thicker syrup then add a tablespoon of that? I imagine that would work. Same with the icing, heat some of the juice up and add the hot juice instead of water when mixing your simple buttercream icing. Yeah that would definitely work.


Slightly altered Hummingbird Vanilla Pineapple Cupcakes

makes 12

40g softened butter
140g caster sugar
120g plain flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon of pineapple powder (or pineapple syrup)
1 egg
1/2 cup milk

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees and line a muffin tray with 12 cases.

Beat the sugar and butter together. They won't cream but the mixture should lighten in colour. Beat until the sugar is evenly distributed and there are no lumps of butter. Sieve in the flour, baking powder and pineapple powder. Beat until a sandy consistency is achieved. Whisk the egg into the milk, pour half of it into the dry mixture. Beat until smooth then add the rest and continue to beat. Add in the syrup if needed. Beat until smooth. Spoon into cases until they are two thirds full. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden on top and a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool on a wire rack. Once completely (!!!) cool ice them with a simple butter-icing sugar-hot water buttercream. Add a few tablespoons of the pineapple powder or replace the water with hot pineapple syrup. Sprinkle on some desiccated  or threaded coconut and serve.

I piped the icing on these with a Wilton 1M tip. I piped starting from the outside, swirling in and over. Here is the tutorial that taught me how to swirl and do roses :)

and here are the raspberry ones

Don't they look delicious?

Any of the fruit powders could be substituted for pineapple, the raspberry I know works excellently.

I hope this encourages you to venture down the gourmet aisle and look a little bit more closely at all the wonders that lie there! :)

See you later!

ANZAC Biscuits

Good ANZAC day morning to you,

On this day of remembrance where we have all been up since 5am at dawn services, by the time 10am comes around we are all quite keen for a nice big cup of tea and an ANZAC bickie.

Now these biscuits were sent to soldiers on the front line by the women back home during World War 1. They were sent because due to the high sugar content acting as a preservative. However they contain a high amount of butter which went rancid by the time they got to their men. So yes they were safe to eat but not so tasty after a couple of months of postage. However there is no chance of even seeing how long these ones will last in the pantry for as I know for a fact that Alix and Lucy shall gobble them up before they even have time to make a cup of tea to go with them.

Now my Mum says I am the better biscuit maker between her and I. I however disagree, ANZAC biscuits are the one biscuit that seems to fall apart on me. Mum's are far better, they are big, fat and chewy. Maybe perhaps because I eat half the mixture before it can even make it to a ball on the baking tray. Anyway I use the Edmonds Cookbook recipe but use 120g of butter rather than 100g. It makes them more moist and less likely to fall apart.

Edmonds Cookery Book ANZAC biscuits (modified slightly)

Makes 12

120g butter
1 tablespoon golden syrup
125g flour
150g sugar
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup desiccated or threaded coconut (threaded looks a bit fancier for those looking to impress)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
2 tablespoons boiling water


Method:

Preheat the oven to bake at 180 degrees.

In a saucepan, melt together the butter and golden syrup.

Sieve your flour, mix together with your sugar, coconut and oats.

In a small bowl (a mug or a small measuring cup will do) mix together your baking soda and just boiled water. Quickly add this to the hot butter and golden syrup mixture in the saucepan, stirring as you add. It will foam up.

Once the butter has foamed up all it can, pour this into the dry ingredients. Stir to combine with a spoon.

Roll ping pong ball sized balls of mixture and place onto a baking tray lined with baking paper. Flatten the balls gently with a fork.

Bake at 180 degrees for 15 minutes or until golden brown. You may find the back row brown faster than the front row due to your oven. If this is the case just turn your tray around halfway though.

Leave to cool once out of the oven so that they firm up.

Make yourself a cup of tea an enjoy!

Have a good day!

Butter Chicken on Spiced Rice

Good evening all!

I know this post isn't about cake, but . . .

Last night I was fortunate enough to be invited to a cooking demonstration by Ray McVinnie (one of the judges from Master Chef, amongst other things) (he did the cooking, not I was invited by him). It was amazing. He believes in good, fresh simple food (with no additive nonsense as he pointed out to me haha) and drawing inspiration from older societies which have had long histories of good food made from few ingredients. Now all I have to do is somehow source a rack of lamb for my flat  . . .

Mix this inspiration with my re-visited obsession for World Kitchen and we have a need to a) travel and b) try making some (semi) authentic cuisine. I decided to try out Nici Wickes's Delhi  Style Butter Chicken. From scratch I must say. None of this canned and bottled rubbish (much to the horror of some people in my food class - you know who you are :) )

Overall I think it was a success, although not as SPECTACULAR as my Mum's one (which is epic and hard to beat I must say).

The initial expenditure for all the spices can be a bit pricey but well worth it. Remember, you can get more than one use out of each one. Once you are set up, it is a relatively cheap meal to cook.

Nici Wicke's Delhi Style Butter Chicken slightly ammended

Serves 4

3 diced chicken thighs or breasts (chunky is good)

Marinade:
5 cloves of garlic, diced
2cm ginger, grated
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 heaped teaspoon ground coriander
1 heaped teaspoon cumin
1 heaped teaspoon turmeric
1 heaped teaspoon garam masala
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons (or a good squeeze) of lemon or lime juice
1 cup of natural yoghurt (they come in small 150g pottles which is ideal)
2 tablespoons of cooking oil

Mahkani Sauce:
2 tablespoons of butter
3 cloves of garlic, diced
1 cm ginger, grated
1 teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon garam masala
1/2 teaspoon of chilli powder (or to taste)
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 cardamom pop, split and crushed (with a cooks knife, flatten them - this should split them open then just throw this opened pod into the sauce)
800g crushed tomatoes
1 teaspoon (or squeeze) of lemon juice
25 g unsalted butter
100ml cream (I used reduced fat)
Fresh coriander to garnish


Method:

In a plastic container or bowl, mix your marinade ingredients together. Mix through the chicken and leave to sit in the fridge. This can be done the morning or night before for extra flavour. Once it is time to cook the chicken, turn your oven onto a high grill, place chicken pieces in a greased oven dish and grill until the pieces are browning on the outside (this is to imitate the tandoor). Once one side it nice and done, flip the pieces over and repeat on the other side. Once both have been done, remove from the oven.

For the sauce, melt the butter in a deep dished saucepan, add your garlic and ginger and cook for a few minutes. Then add your spices and cardamom pod. Cook for a minute or two then add your lemon juice and tomatoes. Simmer for 20 minutes. Add your cooked chicken pieces. Stir in the cream and butter and then season to taste. Serve this atop basmati rice with a sprig of fresh coriander and you are ready to roll!

Mix your marinade ingredients together

 Place along with your diced chicken inside a snap lock bag. Pop into the fridge for 15 minutes or overnight

 For the sauce, fry your garlic and ginger in the butter

 Add your spices and cook for a few minutes to activate them

 Add 800g of tomatoes

 Place your chicken in an oven dish and grill on high until browned (10 or so minutes)

 Once cooked, stir into the sauce. Then add the cream and rest of the butter.

 I rinsed my marinade bag out with the cream, as to include all that spicy goodness.

and one more knob of butter for luck!

Or . .

If you are feeling a bit more adventurous, while your sauce is simmering, make up this tasty spiced rice.


Spiced Rice with Dried Fruit (according to Mum on the phone who was reading from the Ripe Deli Cookbook) and off the top of my head again.

50g butter
2 onions, diced
1 tablespoon cumin seeds (or just less than a tablespoon of ground cumin)
1 cinnamon quill (or 1 teaspoon of cinnamon)
4 cardamom pods, split and crushed as above
1 cup of dried fruit (sultanas, raisins, diced dried apricots, diced prunes, whatever really)
1 1/2 cups basmati rice
3 and a bit cups of water

In a saucepan, saute and soft the onions in the butter. Do not brown them. We don't want the caramelised flavour in this. Add your cumin seeds and cinnamon quill (or ground cinnamon), cardamom pods and fruit, stir and cook for a minute or two. Add the rice. Stir for 2 minutes to make sure it is nice and coated with butter. Add the water, bring to the boil then reduce to a simmer. Leave to simmer for 10 minutes (stirring occasionally) then pop the lid on, remove from heat and leave to sit for 15 minutes. This should work, if not then pop the rice in a microwaveable container, add a splash more water and microwave on high for another 3 minutes or so. Hmm not very specific I know. Just as long as the rice isn't crunchy! :) Once nice and done, serve underneath (or along side) your delicious butter chicken and devour like the hungry students that you are.

Cook the spiced rice in a pot

Excellent!

I hope you enjoy

We sure did!

Cinnamon Pinwheel Scones/ Chelsea Buns

Good afternoon! 

Isn't it a lovely day today? I feel as though I have wasted it by being inside and cleaning the kitchen and making scones. Oh well it is only 2pm! Many more hours in the day to come!

So for a few weeks now I have been saying to myself that I will make some of my Mum's pinwheel scones. I finally got off my bum and bought some cream and lemonade and got down to it.

The Edmonds Cookbook calls these Chelsea buns. Actually so does my Mum. When someone says Chelsea bun, I think of bread based and covered in pink icing . . I am so confused.

These are super easy. The scones most people are used to are ones with butter as the fat source. We used to make those then one day Mum tried making this recipe and she has never turned back. They are just so much easier.

All you will need is:

4 cups of self raising flour (or 4 cups of standard flour with 8 teaspoons of baking powder)

1 cup (approx) of cream

1 cup (approx) of lemonade

30g melted butter

2 tablespoons of brown sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

Method (makes 16 ish):

Preheat your oven to 220 degrees on bake.

Sieve your flour into a large bowl.

In a separate container, pour in half a cup of cream and half a cup of lemonade to begin with.

Make a well in the flour, then pour in the liquids.

Mix with a knife or spoon and keep gradually adding equal parts of lemonade and cream until you have a nice dough that is not too sticky but not too dry either.

Roll the dough out on a floured surface into a large rectangle.

Brush the melted butter over the whole rectangle either with a pastry brush or your fingers.

Sprinkle the brown sugar and cinnamon over all the dough.

Roll the dough up like a giant sushi roll.

Using a sharp knife, slice the roll into slices 2cm thick (mine were thinner than that - whoops).

Place on a baking tray lined with baking paper.

Using your fingers, pat some milk over the top of each pinwheel. This keeps them moist but also makes them colour up nicely on the top.

Bake at 220 degrees for 15 minutes.

Remove from oven and leave to cool on a cooling rack.

Once completely cool, make up a simple white icing. Use about a cup of icing sugar, 10g of butter, teaspoon of vanilla and enough hot water to make it reasonably runny.

Put a dollop of icing over each scone. Or you could trail it over to make stripes. Up to you.

Pull the scones apart and enjoy!


A few tips on scones:

-Don't over handle the dough. Probably something to do with over working the glutent. Mum just told me -not to do it, so I don't.
-Mix with a knife (again Mum said so, so it must be true)
-When making normal scones (ie date, sultana, cheese etc), place them close together on the baking tray so that they rise upwards rather than outwards.
-Sieve sieve sieve!

We didn't exactly have a conventional rolling pin handy. . . .

(This is just to show you how big the rectangle was in relation to my hand)

There you have it!

So, next time it is a dreary Dunedin day, whip up these scones, they are sure to brighten things up!

Banana Chocolate (and Spice) Cupcakes

Hello!

Sorry it has been so long. I dunno, I guess I have just been lazy. This is more of a post on how NOT to make these cupcakes. Everything was going hunky dory until I misread the important wee bit of info regarding the baking powder. Turns out it was 1 TABLESPOON not 1 teaspoon. So my lovely fluffy cupcakes to be turned out as little runt cakes that were about as flat as my chest (which is VERY flat haha). Anyway they still tasted mighty fine so I decided to go ahead and write up this post. Haha thank goodness I didn't make the black bottomed cheesecake cupcakes tonight. That would have been tragic had I ruined good cheesecake. Since dear Jamal isn't around this weekend to consume cheesecakey things I decided to do these ones instead. Thanks Jamal for sort of helping me avoid cheesecake CATASTROPHE!!

As per usual I got the recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook (I have my cakelet eye on their Cake Days one - oh it looks amazing!).

They called these Banana and Chocolate Cupcakes, but the only chocolate in them is from the icing and I was surprised to find that there was ginger and cinnamon in the recipe. I think they would be more accurately called banana spice cupcakes. For the chocolate icing, I just made a normal butter cream (with not that much butter really) and mixed in around 1 1/2 teaspoons of ginger and maybe 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of cinnamon into it. It gives the chocolate this lovely warming sensation, just like ginger chocolate. Do it :)

So you will need:

120g plain flour
140g caster sugar
1 TABLESPOON baking powder
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
80g butter at room temperature (they say unsalted and then include a pinch of salt in the recipe - I don't have unsalted so I just use normal and then exclude the pinch)
120ml whole milk
2 eggs
120g mashed banana

Chocolate icing (with another 1 1/2 teaspoons of ground ginger and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon added if you wish)

A few words on bananas. The browner the bananas the better. The blacker the bananas are, technically the riper they are. Ripe bananas (ie when they fall off the tree) are black. The starches in the flesh have been broken down into their simpler sugar constituents resulting in a more caramelised, sweeter baked result. Bananas are a climateric, ethylene dependent fruit. To speed up the browning process either throw your bananas around about an hour before you need them (against a wall works well) or pop them in a paper bag with half a cut apple. The bruising causes the production of ethylene (the ripening hormone) which speeds up the process of ripening. Apples are naturally high ethylene producers so their ethylene can be used to ripen other fruits as well. Make sense? Or you could just hide a few bananas behind your couch for a week. That too would make good black banana . . .


Anyway  . . . the method:

(Makes 16)

Preheat your oven to 170 degrees on bake.

In a bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until combined.

Sieve in the flour, baking powder, ginger and cinnamon then mix until a sandy consistency is reached. Make sure you scrape down the edges of the bowl with a spatula regularly though the batter making process.

Slowly pour in the milk, beating well until it is all combined and the mixture is smooth.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating until they are well incorporated and the mixture is smooth. Remember to scrape those edges.

Stir in the mashed banana using a spoon.

Spoon the mixture into patty cases until they are two thirds full.

Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes or until they are golden brown on top and the sponge bounces back when touched.

Leave the cupcakes to cool in the muffin tray for a few minutes before removing and transferring to a wire rack or clean tea towel.

Once the cupcakes are completely cool, whip up your chocolate icing (75g softened butter, 250g (ish) icing sugar, 100g (I think) of cocoa, a few tablespoons of boiling water and a teaspoon or two of ginger and a teaspoon of cinnamon). Either ice them using a palate knife, butter knife or pipe the icing on using a nozzle and bag.

Enjoy!!


 The method in pictures for all you visual learners out there . . .

Ok children, so caster sugar and butter. Go!

Beat until it looks like this.

Oh dear, the egg went for a bit of a wander . . .

So sieve in your dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, ginger and cinnamon).

Beat until a sandy consistency is achieved.

Like this :)

I have started making up milk powder milk. I know it sounds gross (it does smell odd I have to admit) but lovely my flattie Alix and I consume a vast (I mean VAST) quantity of custard at very odd times of the night. We go through a lot of milk between the three of us (Lucy sometimes joins us on our late night custardapades) and I figured if we make the custard up with milk powder milk we a) wont taste the milk powder and b) save $1 per litre of milk we use. I figure I can also use it in baking, it has the same solids content as fresh milk. All milk powder is is fresh milk that has been homogenised, pasteurised (like fresh milk) and then spray dried. I have started to get used to it. I even had it over my cereal at lunchtime (haha slash managed to drink a litre of it in the last 24 hours).

What are we doing again? Ah right, adding the 120ml (aka half a cup) of  milk. Add it slowly and beat until the batter is smooth and starts to fluff up.

Next beat in the eggs one at a time. Beat until they are well incorporated and the mixture is . . . you guessed it . . . smooth!

Next the gross bit. Mashed banana *shudder* I hate the stuff. It activates my gag reflex. It is all right in cake though. Actually it is excellent in cake. Excuse the 10g too many of banana.

Mash up the banana and then mix it gently into the batter.

Spoon into the patty cases until two thirds full.

Pop these in the oven for around 20 minutes (or until they are golden brown etc etc you know the drill).

If you have any bananas that are looking a bit sad, peel them, pop them in a snap lock bag and then freeze them. Next time you want to make banana cake/loaf/cupcakes, just whip these bad boys out and you will have instant mushy banana. Just a word of warning, they will go really black and gloopy looking. Why all the better for baking with! They are safe to eat don't worry :) They have just undergone cellular damage during the freezing process (oh god I am a nerd).

Haha remember how I said I didn't put the right amount of baking powder in? These looked fine when they first came out of the oven but as they cooled they started to sink. They sunk until the tops were wrinkled like cerebral cortex. Lovely.

Icing time!

I used a 1M nozzle. But just ignore the poor icing effort. I was disheartened by my brain looking dense cakes so I didn't put any effort into piping them into a nice ruffley swirl.

Oh yeah, then I dropped my camera into one of them :( Shot Sophie.

So there you go :)

They were actually really tasty. I love the ginger in the icing. Next time I will remember to put the right amount of baking powder in haha as these were very cakey and squidgy not light and airy. If at first you do not succeed . . . hide all evidence that you tried :) so I am in the process of mass cupcake consumption.

catch you later alligators!

Peanut Butter and Dark Choc Chunk Cookies

Hello!

Isn't it an excellent afternoon to bake cookies? I just heard thunder in the sky in amongst the thumping of rain against our tin roof. Oh and now hail! This is wonderful! It sounds like I have a rain simulator going. But I don't.

Well since the weather is so delicious, can I tempt you in some as equally delicious peanut butter cookies?

The other day I was told that Whittakers had just released a new peanut butter flavoured chocolate. I haven't tried it yet but in semi celebration/inspiration I decided to make these cookies. Whilst flicking through my Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook, I found this recipe. A bit of forewarning though, they have a tonne of butter and even more sugar in them! (400g!). Oh but they are sure worth it.

The recipe says it makes 24 but I managed to get 32 out of this lot, and the cookies still turned out huge! The important thing is to make sure you cream your butter and sugar enough and then once the eggs are added beat until the volume almost doubles. I cannot stress the important of creaming enough - it makes the cookies light and fluffy but also yields a greater dough volume which means more cookies!

So here is what you will need:

225g unsalted softened butter
200g caster sugar
200g brown sugar
2 eggs (large/size 7)
240g crunchy peanut butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (I always throw more in)
340g plain flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
75g dark chocolate, chopped

Method:

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees.

Cream the butter and both the sugars together in a bowl and bea ton high for around three minutes, or until the mixture lightens in colour. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Continue beating until mixture almost doubles in size. You want it to be very fluffy.

Next, weigh out your peanut butter and then add that to the mixture. Add in the vanilla. Beat until combined.

Sieve in the flour, baking soda and salt. Beat until evenly dispersed.

Once a smooth dough has formed, stir in the chopped chocolate.

Roll the dough into balls (somewhere in between a ping pong ball and a gold ball in size).

These cookies expand quite a bit so place only 8 at a time, evenly spaced on a baking tray lined with baking paper.

Press the balls down with a flour fork.

Bake for 11 minutes. Remove from oven, leave to cool on the tray before transferring with a spatula onto a cooling rack or paper towel. Repeat for the rest of the cookies.



Ok so the method in pictures for all you visual learners out there :)

 (So much sugar!!)

 Cream together your butter and sugars until nice the fluffy.

 Since there is brown sugar in the mix, it wont go white but it should go a light brown colour like above.

 Such tiny tiny eggs! We had tiny eggs so I chose the smallest and used three instead of two large ones. It worked out fine.

 Beat beat beat until super fluffy!

 Now get your peanut butter ready .

 The extra crunchy meant there were extra peanutty bits!

 That is quarter of a 1kg jar . . .

 Mmm yum

 Beat this together until nice and evenly dispersed.

 See how smooth it looks :)

 Don't forget your vanilla!

 Haha who sealed our baking soda bag with a paper clip! Very cool.

 Sieve in your flour, salt and baking soda. Beat the mixture until a smooth dough has formed.

 Now for the fun bit. Chop your chocolate into chunks. You want a few big chunks in there.

 Mix that in . . .

It helps if you flour your hands before rolling the balls of dough. That way it wont stick to your hands as much.

 In between pressing the dough balls down, dip your fork in some flour, that way the balls wont stick to your fork. Once pressed, pop them in the oven for 11 minutes.

 While waiting for the first lot to cook, roll the rest of your dough. It saves time later.

 And Bam!! 11 minutes later they come out looking like these beauties. See how large they became? You don't want to space them any closer. Once they are cool, remove them from the tray and pop the next lot in :)

 Serve with a nice glass of milk :)

 Chris managed to pick up one that had just come out of the oven. The chocolate was still gooey. Jealous. But it did sort of fall apart.

 So many cookies!

Now before Alix, Lucy and I get to them, I put them in a freezer bag and then into the freezer where they shall live and only come out one at a time! haha. Just put them in the microwave for 10 seconds and you have warm fresh cookies every day!

Have a good rainy afternoon!

xoxo

Funfetti Vanilla Cupcakes

Happy Friday!

TGIF indeed

So last night after taking a break from researching this terrible jelly lab report (yes I am writing a lab report on jelly) I stumbled across some excellent uses of sprinkles! Such as funfetti cakes and cupcakes and just generally sprinkles on top of everything. The best ones I found were on Sweetapolita's blog. Oh my goodness! I love her blog. It's like her life was plucked from a home and garden magazine. Her two girls are the two most adorable cakelets (as she calls them) on the planet! Anyway I am now in love with 100s and 1000s. So after class I ran to the supermarket to stock up.

Throwing in a canister of sprinkles is a great way to make vanilla cupcakes a bit more visually appealing. Lot  of people complain that vanilla is boring, I have to disagree. It is my favourite cupcake flavour. You can ice them with almost any icing type and they still taste delicious!

The recipe II used is just a plain vanilla cupcake mixture from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook. It makes lovely fluffy vanillary cupcakes. You just can't beat them. Then I just literally poured in a canister of 100s and 1000s into the batter. Super easy. I decided that keeping the icing plain white against the sprinkles would be best and I think they turned out rather well. I have already devoured three of them since they were iced an hour and a half ago.

Ok so what you will need:

40g softened butter
140g castor sugar (castor sugar gives a better texture than regular sugar as it dissolves more)
120g flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla essence (although I am pretty sure I used near to three . . .)
A pinch of salt
A canister of 100s and 1000s


Preheat the oven to 170 degrees

First beat the sugar and butter until it is a nice evenly grained sandy consistency. You want to make sure there are no clumps of butter.

Next, sieve in the flour, baking powder and salt. Beat into the sugar and butter until it is nice and evenly sandy.

Next crack the egg in and splash in the milk. Beat beat beat until the mixture becomes smooth and fluffs up and becomes more voluminous.

Sprinkle time! Pour in about half to three quarters of a canister of 100s and 1000s - depending on how many you want left for the top. Mix those gently in - the colours may start to run so act quickly.

Spoon into 12 cupcake cases (in a muffin tray) and bake for 17-20 minutes or until they are starting to turn that lovely golden colour.

Take them out of the oven, leave to cool.

Make up your icing (lets say 30g butter, 3ish cups icing sugar, a good splash of vanilla, tablespoon of boiling water). Just add more icing sugar or hot water if it is too runny/thick. I don't really follow a recipe for icing. It just happens.

I used a piping bag with a 1M wilton tip on the end (the same for doing roses). I swirled them starting from the outside edge, swirling inwards.

DOUSE them in more sprinkles!

and you are good to go :)

 Sprinkles!

 Sprinkles!

 Sprinkles!

 Sprinkles!

Ok method by pictures:

 Beat your butter and sugar together until it is an even sandy consistency with no butter lumps.

 Sieve in your baking powder and flour

 Beat until a sandy consistency is reached again.

 See how sandy it is?

 Don't forget your pinch of salt.

 Add the milk and egg.

 Beat beat beat until smooth and fluffy :)

 Line your muffin tray.

 See how smooth it is? You can also see air bubbles in the batter.

 Pour in your sprinkles.

 and a few more . . .

 Yay! It looks like a unicorn threw up in my cupcake batter!

 Evenly fill up your cases.

 Pop them in the oven for 17-20 minutes

 and Bam! they come out looking lovely.

 I definately reccommend buying a piping bag and a 1M tip - you can use it for so many icing designs and no matter what, the result will always look good.

 Oh look! there is a rainbow inside! How exciting!

 I may or may not have consumed a few while "writing my report".

So here you have it. The best way to jazz up some vanilla cupcakes. This recipe is nice and cheap to make as you don't need a huge amount of butter, eggs or milk. Excellent! Also makes them kind of healthy . . . until you ice them :)

Time to watch Vampire Diaries now I think :)

Have a good night!

Afghans

Good afternoon to you all!

I am having a bit of a nana revival here. First sultana cake and date loaves, now afghans? Almost borderline retro, or should I dare say hipster baking! I am pretty sure baking is too mainstream for hipsters, especially measuring ingredients. Sounds way to restrictive for their way of life. Although it's the sort of thing hipsters take over exposed instagram photos of when chilling at known hipster food outlet locations. Ok to be honest I myself take lots of food photos using instagram (along with stalking photos of certain TVD actors . . . ). Anyway I think the message here is that sometimes the best things are the tried and true recipes without all the fandangled swirly twirly sprinkly bits. I dunno, what do you think? At least you can eat these without feeling guilty that you are destroying a work of art.

The other day we ran out of cereal. As in the only cereal we had left was Coco Pops and Weetbix (both I do not classify as suitable breakfast foods, too sugary and too mushy - bleeeeh). As it was only Thursday (our shopping day here is Sunday) I only had a few dollars to tide us over for the next few days. Turns out cornflakes were on special (score!!) at $1.69 (double score!!).  Then I thought what else can I do with cornflakes other than eat them with milk?  . . . Oh I wonder.

(Too right you are a box full of golden crispy corn flakes!)

Oh and guess what:

This must mean they are healthy!! Haha justification to eat five afghans in one go! Hmm whilst eating my cereal this morning I noticed that it also contained in one serving 50% of your RDI of folate. Why do they not put this on the packet? Is this so annoying uneducated anti folate buffs arn't put off? It's important to have. I don't want any accidental children of mine to have spina bifida (Mum don't you worry! haha). Hmm why isn't there calcium fortified into it? Special K is pumping with it (which is why if I am feeling rich I buy it). Milk is expensive for poor students to buy (except in our house of three girls where we have gone through 6L this week . . .) so we need to get it from other sources (please no one suggest eating a tin of salmon with bones). Anyway where was I? . . .


In African countries (where the majority of people are illiterate) they put pictures of the package contents on the box to avoid confusion. There was a hilarious case of an American baby food producer that put a picture of a white baby on the front of their tins. Delish! Why is there a rooster on the pack? So there is a rooster in the box? Do roosters eat corn? Why Kellogs why? Roosters crowing in the morning? Morning = breakfast time? Roosters are found on farms, they want to bring that country lifestyle to the inner city breakfast table? Is there some historical thing going on?


At least its not a kangaroo . . 


I hate you food science!. Why do you do this to me? Actually I love it. You guys are missing out :)


Hmm where did the name for this biscuit come from anyway? This is all Wikipedia had to say about the baked morsel in question: 


An Afghan biscuit is a traditional New Zealand biscuit made from cocoa powder, butter, flour and cornflakes, topped with chocolate icing and a walnut. The origin of the recipe and the derivation of the name are unknown, but the recipe has appeared in many editions of the influential New Zealand Edmonds Cookery Book. 

Yes I did just copy that all off the Wiki page. Is this a uni assignment? No. But if you want to see for yourself, here is the link :) 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_biscuit 

I have this sneaking suspicion that it is another New Zealand vs Australia type recipe. Like the pav and that a New Zealander beat the Aussie to writing the wiki page. 


Hmm I think I might go ask my Food and Culture lecturer from last year . . .

Anyway back to it

Using of course the trusty Edmonds Cookbook (It seems to be the bible for all these nana type cakes) the recipe I used was the first listed in their biscuit section.

You will need:

200g softened butter
75g sugar
175g flour
25g cocoa powder
50g (Although I am sure I used 70g+) corn flakes

Chocolate icing (lots of it - afghans are not a very sweet biscuit so you need the icing to balance it out)


Method:

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees. Cream together the butter and sugar until white and fluffy. Sieve in the flour and cocoa and then mix in well. Pour in the cornflakes and stir in with a spoon (the beater just crushes the flakes of corny goodness). Once well combined, spoon and roll into balls and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Press the balls down with a floured fork then pop them into the oven for 15-17 minutes. Once done, take out of the own the leave to cool. Once cool slather them in icing in whichever fashion you prefer.

And here is the method in pictures (as usual)

 Cream together your butter and sugar

 Sieve in the flour and cocoa. Beat until combined.

Add your golden flakes of corn

Mix in with a spoon (or spatula)

Roll into balls and flatten with a floured fork

Set the timer . . .

And bam! 15-17 minutes later these delicious creations come out.

Once they are cool, mix up your icing.

(It's St Patrick's day by the way. Chris is pointing out all the green ones we could extract to make our afghans more festive)

Now ice them and decorate :) Pop walnuts on the top if you wish :)

Hmm the person who invented afghans obviously didn't know about water activity and the migration of moisture from a high moisture area to a low one in mixed medium food products, ie the water in the butter into the cornflakes making them soft and soggy.

Although a few hours later these are still good :D

And once again I have added an obscene number of biscuit photos . . .

Ok time to eat more . . .

See you next week!