Rosey Turkish Delight Cupcakes

As mentioned in my last post (which I posted like an hour ago) I have had a rather cupcake oriented day. Yes an hour later I am still in my pajamas. Yes it it 4pm on a Sunday. This is bad. Really bad. It's almost dinner time. For the record I did get up at 8am.

I had too many cupcake flavours that I wanted to try out at once. So I used Chris' thank you party for his helpers for the Cystic Fibrosis NZ street collection he organised to try two of them out.

The first one was the banoffee cupcakes and the second ones are these rose cupcakes. The recipe says they are rose but because they use rose water, just like Turkish delight, I associate them with being a Turkish delight flavour rather than a rose flavour.

I was really excited to buy some rose water, I found it in the international section of New World, City Centre. It was $8.99 for a 300ml bottle. A bit of a splurge if you are only just trying these out but I think it was well worth it. It lasts for ages and I plan on making Turkish delight in the holidays coming up. And once it is all gone you are left with a really really cool shaped bottle.

Flip I wish I could write essays as fast as I write blog posts.

This is really just a vanilla cupcake recipe that has two teaspoons of rose water added to the batter and 2 teaspoons added to the icing. Simple as!


Rose Cupcakes (adapted from the Hummingbird Bakery's Cake Days)
Makes 12

40g butter, softened
140g castor sugar
120g plain flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup whole milk
2 teaspoons rose water

Icing:
300g icing sugar
80g butter, softened
25ml whole milk
2 teaspoons rose water

A few drops of pink food colouring


Preheat the oven to 190 degrees bake (or 170 if your oven is fan forced). Line your muffin tray with cupcake cases.

Beat together your butter and sugar until all the butter lumps have been broken down and the consistency is even. Sieve in your flour and baking powder and beat until a sandy consistency is reached.

Add in your milk, vanilla and rose water, beat in. Next add your egg and beat until thick and smooth.

Fill your cupcake cases 2/3 full and bake for 20 minutes or until the sponge springs back when lightly pressed.

Leave your cupcakes to cool a wee bit before transferring them to a cake rack or a clean tea towel.

Make sure your cupcakes are completely cold before you ice them. 

Icing:

Cream the butter and sugar together with the addition of the milk to loosen it up. You may need more milk or icing sugar if the icing isn't thin or thick enough. Add in your rose water and food colouring and beat until smooth and fluffy. Make sure your icing is relatively stiff, you don't want it slopping off your cupcake and making a mess.

Insert the icing into a piping bag fitted with a 1M nozzle and swirl away! :)

Decorate with anything you wish :) I found those wee flowers at the supermarket.

Things got a bit messy after 50 cupcakes came through my kitchen

Tidy time I think

These cupcakes are amazing! If you love that amazing rose flavour of Turkish delight you won't be able to stop eating these :)

TTFN!!

Banoffee Cupcakes

Once again I am still in my pajamas at 3pm on a Sunday and the only think I have to show for myself are 50 or so cupcakes and 1000 extra words on my essay. You wouldn't have thought I got up at 8am would you?

So dearest Chris organises his friends together every year to raise money for Cystic Fibrosis New Zealand. As a thank you for everything I offered to make Chris some thank you cupcakes for a wee gathering to be held this evening. I made banoffee cupcakes (since he loves banana cake) and rose cupcakes which tasted a lot like rose Turkish delight as I was itching to try out the new rose water I bought a few days ago.

This post however will be on the banoffee ones. I'll post about the rose ones when I am not feeling so cupcaked out :S

Once again the dear old

Cake Days

book comes into play. It had a recipe for banoffee cupcakes with a caramel-whipped cream thing going on on top of them. To be honest I couldn't really be bothered putting on my face and putting on actual clothes to go down to the supermarket to buy the cream. So I just made a toffee icing like I did in my

sticky date toffee cupcakes

I made last weekend.

Remember that expensive issue I had with the

dulche de leche

? Well Linda at work said to try out Jamie Oliver's method of placing unopened tins of condensed milk in a full pot of simmering water for three hours, topping the water up when it goes down. I tried it out last night and boy did I get a pleasant surprise this morning when I opened up one of the tins! It was delicious! Sure three hours is a long time but I boiled up two tins, one for these cupcakes and one for next time. If you were super efficient you would put like five in at a time and leave them sitting on your shelf - after all you haven't opened them so they are still shelf stable.

Moment of truth!

Sweet mother of goodness!

Uugh I feel so sick. Too much icing has been consumed today and not enough actual food!

Don't let that put you off though, these are delicious. They comprise of a banana cake and caramel sponge with a sneaky dollop of caramel on top piled further with delicious toffee caramel icing :)

Don't kid yourself. The banana in these does not make these things the least bit healthy.

Give them a go, impress your mum and your friends when you show up with the most delicious treats out!

Banoffee Cupcakes

(adapted from the Hummingbird Bakery's Cake Days

 recipe)

Makes 12

40g butter, softened

140g castor sugar

120g plain flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 large egg

1/2 cup whole milk

100g mashed banana (about 3/4 of a large banana)

50g of dulche de leche  or the tinned condensed milk caramel

Icing:

300g icing sugar

80g butter, softened

25ml whole milk

100g tinned caramel

Splash of vanilla

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees bake (or 170 if your oven is fan forced). Line your muffin tray with cupcake cases.

Beat together your butter and sugar until all the butter lumps have been broken down and the consistency is even. Sieve in your flour and baking powder and beat until a sandy consistency is reached.

Add in your milk and vanilla, beat in. Next add your egg and beat until thick and smooth. 

Pop in your mashed banana and caramel and mix until evenly distributed.

Fill your cupcake cases 3/4 full (they tend to sink quite a bit when they cool) and bake for 20 minutes or until the sponge springs back when lightly pressed. 

Leave your cupcakes to cool a wee bit before transferring them to a cake rack or a clean tea towel. 

Make sure your cupcakes are completely cold before you ice them. 

Icing:

Cream the butter and sugar together with the addition of the milk to loosen it up. You may need more milk or icing sugar if the icing isn't thin or thick enough after you add the caramel. Add in your vanilla and caramel and beat until smooth and fluffy. Make sure your icing is relatively stiff, you don't want it slopping off your cupcake and making a mess.

Take the caramel and place a small blob (about 1/4 teaspoon) on each cupcake before you ice them.

Insert the icing into a piping bag fitted with a 1M nozzle and swirl away! :)

This is what a 1M nozzle looks like

Haha lucky is the person who gets this one :)

I think these are even better than the plain caramel cupcakes I did last week. Give them a go, you won't regret it :)

TTFN!!

Delicious oozing caramel :)

Strawberry Milkshake Cupcakes

Hi there!

So I really should have been writing an essay this morning. I sort of did. Then I got distracted . . .

I know you guys must be sick of me going on about the Hummingbird Bakery. To be honest I am getting embarassed writing about it all the time. The problem is that their cupcake recipes are too good. They always work. Plus they don't use much butter so are really cheap and quick to whip up. Anyway on their website they post their weekly specials. This week they were running their milkshake and frappé inspired range of cupcakes. They listed the ingredients (not in quantities) and the strawberry ones just had some strawberry milkshake powder in addition to their usual ingredients. I assumed that they just added some of the powder to a standard vanilla recipe and some simple vanilla icing.

So I gave them a go. I used Hansells strawberry milkshake powder (it was the only one there apart from Nesquik) and put one tablespoon in with the milk then added that to the mix just as I usually would. I added one teaspoon to the icing.

The powder gave the cupcakes a pretty pink colour. Overall these are dead simple to make. I wish I had some candy straws to pop on the top though.

I think they turned out rather well, not that I actually got a whole one, only a wee nibble, I gave them all away :) From the nibble I did had they tasted really yummy and milky, just like strawberry milk funnily enough.

I used a 1M nozzle to ruffle the icing on like a frothy milkshake top :)


Strawberry Milkshake Cupcakes (adapted from the Hummingbird Bakery Vanilla cupcake recipe)
Makes 12

40g butter, softened
140g castor sugar
120g flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 egg
120ml milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon strawberry milkshake powder

Icing:
60g butter, softened
300g icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 teaspoons strawberry milkshake powder
3 tablespoons whole milk
A few drops of pink food colouring

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees on bake. Line a muffin tray with cupcake cases.

Beat with an electric beater the butter, sugar, sieved flour and baking powder until a fine sandy consistency is reached.

Add the milkshake powder, vanilla essence and egg to the milk, whisk until combined. Add this to the dry mixture, beat for a few minutes until smooth and slightly fluffy.

Fill each cupcake case two thirds full.

Bake for 20 minutes or until the sponge springs back when lightly pressed.

Leave cupcakes to cool completely before icing.

Trying to multi-task . . . failing

To make the icing, sieve the dry ingredients then beat everything together until smooth and fluffy. You want it so the icing forms fairly stiff pipe-able peaks that won't flip down when applied to the cupcake.

Put the icing in a piping bag with a 1M nozzle attached and swirl inwards starting from the outer edge. Sprinkle over whatever you fancy :)

All ready to go :)

I hope you enjoy these, super easy to make and a fun twist on the usual vanilla and strawberry :)

Byee!

My First Attempt at Whoopie Pies: Peanut butter and chocolate

Hello there.

Whoopie pies. Only recently have I heard of such a baked good. They are apparently comprised of two cakey blobs sandwiched together with fluffy frosting. They are commonly the size of small cheese burgers. Typical Americans continuously coming up with new ideas to become obese.

To celebrate my 10 00th view on my blog I decided to try something new. These whoopie pies in my Hummingbird Cake Days book looked delicious, almost comical in their perfectness. Unfortunately mine turned out a big more knobbly that they should have. Maybe I should have squished them down a bit, who knows?

I also found the mixture to be quite sticky, gummy and chewy, like the flour had been over mixed, like my overcooked mug brownies that stick to the roof of my mouth (not ideal). Oh well there is a first time for everything.

Once cooked (and popped in the fridge for a bit) they become quite fudgy. An unusual texture but I wouldn't say a bad one. I am actually rather enjoying this late night fat snack. Without the icing they wouldn't be so great though.

Whoopie pies are like really dense cakes, they use plain yoghurt and a wee bit of milk rather than mostly milk (like cupcakes). You also start off by beating the egg and sugar together, rather than the butter and sugar. What else is strange is that you add the butter melted, rather than softened. Quite a peculiar method to follow, but an easy one.

Cake Days says to use marshmallow fluff in the icing between the two pie pieces. Unfortunately I don't know where to get that in Dunedin and there is something about buying a can of marshmallow fluff that creeps me out a bit. Maybe its the thought of all the processing and additives that must be in it. I'm a food sci student, for additives to freak me out it must be pretty bad. Usually those sorts of products taste no where near as good as freshly made alternatives.

To compensate for my lack of fluff, I added a good hunk of butter as well as a nice heaped dessert spoon of crunchy peanut butter to the icing. The icing reminded me of the new Whittaker's peanut butter chocolate. That can't be a bad thing right?

I have not given up completely. Far from it. I shall try again! probably with a different flavour though. These will work for me! They will! For the mean time I shall use my food class to dispose of them tomorrow morning, hide all evidence that I failed!


Peanut Butter and Chocolate Whoopie Pies (adapted from the Hummingbird Bakery's Cake Days)
Makes 8-10 sandwiches

1 large egg
150g castor sugar
125g plain yoghurt (I just bought a single serve pottle from the supermarket for like $1)
25ml whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
75g melted butter
275g plain flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
60g crunchy peanut butter

Icing:
40g softened butter
2 ish cups icing sugar
25ml milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 dessert spoon peanut butter


Beat the egg and sugar together until thick and a very pale yellow colour.

In a separate bowl, mix together the milk, yoghurt and vanilla together. Pour this into the egg and sugar mix and beat well.

Pour in the melted butter then mix well again.

Sieve the flour, baking powder, baking soda and cocoa together. Add half of the dry ingredients into the wet mixture, beat well on a low speed until smooth then add the rest of the dry mix and beat again until smooth.

Add the peanut butter then mix through until evenly distributed.

Place the mix in the fridge for 20-30 minutes to cool down.

Preheat your oven to 170 degrees and line a baking tray with baking paper.

Once the batter is cool, roll into balls (mine weighed 40g each) place in the tray and flatten with your fingers. I should have done this step. Ahh hind sight, its a wonderful thing.

Bake for 10 minutes or until they spring back when lightly pressed. The dough is quite a dry mix and you definitely don't want to overcook these or else they will be horrid and dry.

Transfer the half whoopies onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Whilst they are cooling, beat your butter, milk and icing sugar well until light and fluffy. Add your peanut butter and continue to beat to regain the fluffiness. I found I had to add some more icing sugar to stiffen the icing up. If the icing is too soft the whoopie halves will slip off each other.

Transfer the icing into a piping bag with a large circular tip. Pipe the icing onto one half then sandwich another on top to make a sandwich. Unfortunately with sandwich biscuits as soon as all of them are stuck together the total yield of biscuits is halved, meaning they run out twice as fast!

Store these in an airtight container in the fridge to set the icing (or on the bench if your flat kitchen is cold enough).

I hope you enjoy, they do not taste bad at all. A little big for my liking (I feel like I have eaten a cake burger after only one).

Byeee!!!

Caramel Cupcakes: A rainy day treat

Good rainy evening!

Wow sure is pouring down out there in dear old Dunedin. There is something about wet miserable weather that gives me this sense of 'you can eat whatever the hell you like, the calories don't count; it's raining'. Do you guys get that?

Anyway I had some of the caramel I made for my sticky date cupcakes left over in the fridge as well as some left over icing. I had to use them up! Waste not, want not!

Ohhh guess what!!! Exciting!! Exciting!!! (No Alix, it's not Taylor Swift's new single). I bought the Hummingbird Bakery App! Now I can have my favourite baking cookbook permenantly in my pocket so I cant have easy access and impromptu baking sessions!

EXCIIITTTINNGGG!!! I reccommend you get it. It's super cool!!

Right, enough of that. It's cupcake time.

This recipe is basically just a plain vanilla recipe with the addition of caramel. The recipe says to use dulche de leche, a South American tinned caramel. Unfortunately that sells in the international isle at New World for $8.99. A bit out of range for a casual baking session. They also suggest normal tinned caramel as a substitute. I dunno about you but I find the highlander tinned condensed milk caramel a bit weird tasting. Jamie Oliver suggests placing tins of condensed milk, unopened, in a high sided pot filled with boiling water and leaving them to cook for three hours. Apparently this turns the condensed milk into a caramel. I am keen to try that. I didn't know this at the time I made my sticky date cupcakes so I just made up a normal caramel filling recipe that I use in my caramel slices, it's here under my sticky date cupcake post.


Caramel Cupcakes (Hummingbird Bakery's Cake Days book)
Makes 12-15

40g softened butter
140g castor sugar
120g sieved flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 egg, room temperature
1/2 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
75g (I sneakily used 100g) of dulche le leche or normal caramel

Icing
300g icing sugar, sieved
60g butter, softened
25ml whole milk
75g dulche de leche or caramel


Preheat the oven to 170 degrees, bake.

In a bowl, beat the butter, sugar, flour and baking powder together until it becomes a sandy consistency. Once all the lumps are removed, pour in the milk and vanilla and beat until smooth. Crack in the egg and beat until smooth and fluffy. Add the caramel and beat until incorporated.

Spoon into paper cases in a muffin tray until 2/3 full.

Bake for 18-20 minutes or until the tops are golden and the tops spring back when you press them. Leave them to cool slightly before turning out into a wire rack. Leave to cool completely before icing.

Beat the butter, sieved icing sugar and milk until light and fluffy. You may need to add more milk to smooth it out. Add the caramel and beat until smooth. I found I needed to add a bit more icing sugar to thicken it up. The caramel can cause it to become slightly sloppy and if you want to pipe it out nicely you need it to form really stiff peaks otherwise they will slop down.

Place a small spoon of caramel on each cupcake, pipe the icing using a 1M tip (or however you want) then drizzle over some more runny caramel or golden syrup. Nom nom nom.

I recommend you eat at least all of them instantly.

Excellent!

Happy rainy day!!

Sticky Date Toffee Cupcakes

Hi there!

So I got bored this afternoon and my baking itch wasn't satisfied with just the carrot cake I had made. I flipped through my Hummingbird Bakery Cakes Days book that Chris bought me (best present ever) and found this recipe for sticky date and caramel cupcakes. I was originally put off because they used this it called for an ingredient for dulche de leche, which is a South American tinned milk caramel. I found this at the Centre City New World but it was a hefty $8.99. Instead I bought a tin of condensed milk and made my own version on the stove top. (Right next to it, in the picture is the best lemon honey/curd you can buy in a jar! Aunty Von's, I highly recommend it).

I like sticky date pudding. I like it a lot. It is so moist and delicious, especially when drowned in caramel sauce and a bit dollop of sloppy whipped cream on top. As cupcakes, these are pretty close to the real deal. You include some of the caramel you made into the icing so the light and fluffy icing has a hint of caramel to it.

The other day I saw that you could buy caramel food flavouring in the baking isle now. That is pretty cool. If you were feeling a bit poor you could probably substitute the caramel in the icing for a few drops of essence. I might go and invest in some tomorrow.

What you cant substitute the essence for is the gooey layer of caramel that hides between the sponge and the icing. When you bite into it, it oozes outwards and all over the exposed sponge. Only one word can describe the deliciousness; NOMMMM.

Oh and if you want to make this even worse for you, top it all off with some pieces of caramel sprinkled over the top. It's worth it. I promise.

And just a special shout out to my brand new handbeater! Courtesy of Mum and Dad. I am sad to announce the passing of my dear old friend. He came to me second hand from my Mother and we had many happy memories together. Unfortunately he came to a very grinding halt. I shall miss him.

So anyway this is my new beater's maiden voyage :)

It's still so clean!


Hummingbird's Sticky Toffee Cupcakes

For the cupcake:
180g chopped dried dates
180 ml boiling water
80g unsalted butter, softened
150g soft brown sugar
2 large eggs
180g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla essence


For the caramel:
375g (1 tin) condensed milk
50g butter, chopped into small pieces
4 tablespoons golden syrup

For the icing:
80g butter, softened
400g icing sugar, sieved
3 tablespoons whole milk
100g caramel or dulche de leche


Cupcakes:

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius on bake.

First soak the dates in the boiling water for 20 minutes (if you are impatient like me pop them in the microwave for 1 minute to help speed up the process).

Cream together the butter and sugar until pale brown in colour and fluffy in consistency.

Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well between each addition. Beat until the mixture roughly doubles in volume.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add this dry mix into the butter, sugar and egg mix in thirds, beating after each addition. Beat until the batter is smooth and even.

Add the vanilla to the water and date mix. Pour all of this into the rest of the mixture. Mix by hand until the dates and water are incorporated.

Line a muffin tray with cupcake cases and fill them 2/3 full.

Bake for 18 minutes or until they spring back when touched. Leave to cool slightly before turning out onto a wire rack or clean tea towel.

Caramel:
In a small saucepan, heat the condensed milk, butter and golden syrup together on a medium heat. Stirring regularly. Heat until the butter has melted and has been incorporated into the condensed milk. Keep heating and stirring until it turns a darker tan colour (a wee bit darker than the photo below) and becomes quite thick. Take it off the heat and leave it to cool.

Icing:
Cream the butter and a small amount of the sieved icing sugar. Keep adding icing sugar slowly, adding milk in between additions to moisten the mixture. If the mixture is too stiff, add a splash more milk. Add more icing sugar if it is too sloppy. Next add the caramel.I found that after the addition of the caramel the icing becomes quite soft and a bit more icing sugar was needed to stiffen it up again. Beat until fluffy and smooth.

Place a small dollop of the left over caramel onto the top of each cupcake. Next place the icing into a piping bag fitted with a Wilton 1M tip (or equivalent). Starting at the outer edge, squeeze the piping bag and start and inward spiral, overlapping the previous circle ever so slightly. Swirl around and up, moving the nozzle up and down quickly at the top to release the peak from the nozzle. sprinkle over a few caramel pieces (I used jersey caramels) and you are good to go.

Do give these a go, they are not that difficult actually. A few components to think about but the left over jar of caramel sitting in our fridge is well worth the effort!

See you later! :)

Pancake Party!

Hello!


So my lovely flatmate Alix is away this weekend so I am all by myself for a few days. This afternoon I had epic pancake cravings but I couldn't be bothered leaving the freezingness of our flat to go into the freezingness of outside to go to New World to get maple syrup. I finally worked up the enthusiasm, donned a puffer jacket and went. 


In the meantime a few friends commented on my "Pancake party! pancake party! . . . all by myself" status on facebook and promptly invited themselves over. Luckily! Because pancake parties are always better with people. What's better is that they brought all sorts of exciting toppings with them.

So it turns out the recipe for pancakes that we have at home that our Auntie Rachel gave us is basically identical to Whisk Kid's except mine is without the almond essence. My brother is surprisingly the pancake master in our house. Probably because he has so much practice at making them. He has the whole batch to himself. And no he is not obese. He loves to walk around the house with no top on so he can show off his abs to everyone (mainly himself in the mirror :P) and no they are not skinny boy abs. Actual abs. Dick eh. 


A few pancake making tips: Don't have the pan too hot as you will burn the outside but the inside will still be gooey. However do make sure your pan is fully heated up before you pop the first one in; a hot pan helps prevent the pancake from sticking and making a mess. 


I haven't included many finished pancake shots. Mainly because they didn't survive out of the pan long and also my flipping ability is less than desirable (ie it SUCKS) and so most of them looked a wee bit munted. Also if you are using butter to grease the pan up (which I highly reccommend - it turns the pancakes a lovely golden colour) make sure you wipe it up between each lot so that it doesn't burn.
Also, pancakes are a totally acceptable dinner option. Just saying. Don't judge me. 


Rachel's Yankee Pancakes
(makes 15ish - depending on how small they are)
1 1/2 cups plain flour
3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons sugar (ok so its supposed to be only 3 but one can never have too much sugar . . .)
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/4 cups milk
3 tablespoons of melted butter (which is really just a big knob of it, lets say 20-30g)


Sieve the dry ingredients together in a medium sized mixing bowl. Make a well in the centre.

Melt the butter in the microwave. Add the milk to the butter then pop back in the microwave for another 40 seconds to warm the milk up, so that the butter doesn't solidify again (thanks Whisk Kid! never would have thought of that myself). Add the vanilla, then beat in the egg. Make sure the milk isn't hot, just tepid. Don't want to scramble the egg!

Pour this mixture into the well. Beat together until smooth. Don't overmix this mixture as you will develop the gluten, resulting in dense, chewy pancakes. Bleh!

Sometimes I squeeze some maple syrup into the batter too, just for flavour.
Place a small chunk of butter into your hot pan, swirl it around to coat the base.

I tend to like small pancakes so I use a 1/4 cup measure to scoop the batter into the pan. Make them as big or as small as you like. It really depends how many people are demanding pancake at once and how much pan space you have. 

Wait until air bubbles form on the surface and you can see the edge of the pancake cooking a little. Also, the pancakes should slide around the pan if they are done on that side. Give them a flip and cook until the other side is golden. 

So FLUFFAAYY!!

Serve hot with maple syrup/golden syrup/honey/ lemon and sugar/ caramel sauce/ whipped cream/ chocolate sauce/ banana  . . (don't judge us - it was an epic pancake party).

Our table got a wee bit carried away will all the pancake excitement.


This is my brother making pancakes earlier in the year, he gets about five pancakes out of the whole batch when he makes them this big.

Breakfast for one, how romantic.


I hope you host a pancake party (for more than just yourself :P) soon!


Please excuse the horrific formatting here. Blogger is being a bit special . . don't know why half the writing is highlighted and don't know why the spacing between paragraphs is HUGEEE either. ugh. 


Byee!!


OOh also, I am now blogging my cheap flat cooking recipes for the Otago Daily Times website, so they may or may not appear in full on here. But do check it out if you are in need of some inspiration :)

Slow Cooked Chilli Chicken

Good evening!

This recipe happens to come from my flatmate, Alix's Mum. So full credit of excellence goes to her! It is best served with lots of sour cream and a good sprinkling of fresh coriander. Unfortunately tonight we have no coriander (I think my plant got frozen to death over the holidays) we will just have to make do with extra cheese! (How sad . .)

This dinner was first described to me as 'tinny', as in all you really need is a few tins of this and that and Bam! you have dinner. It takes about 11 mins to assemble and 10 hours on slow in the crockpot or 6 hours on high. I bumped it up to high for the last few hours just to make sure it was done. This can also be made on the stove top, just like you would when making a spag bol or normal chilli. When I made it for my Mum during the holidays on the stove top I used strips of chicken thigh. Chicken thigh is more tender than breast (or leg in tonight's case) and it works well if the cooking time is much shorter. Because we are cooking the chicken for such a long time in the slow cooker it doesn't matter what meat cut you get, since the slow cooking time will melt it straight off the bone. Drumsticks are the cheapest and we only used three (really chunky ones) in this recipe and there was enough to feed 8 (or 6 very (very) hungry males). I froze the left overs to use another night. The original recipe Alix gave me has a packet of Old el Paso taco seasoning in it. I checked the back out and all that is in it is common spices mixed in with a bit of anti-caking agent. So if you want to save money and spend probably an extra 2 minutes of time just use the spices I list below.

Lets do this shall we?

Lets pretend its 9am . .

Slow cooked Chilli Chicken

2 onions, sliced
4-5 cloves garlic, diced
1 tin black beans in chilli sauce
2 tins chopped tomatoes
1 tin whole kernel corn, drained
1 small tin tomato paste
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon salt
A few tablespoons of sweet chilli sauce
1 heaped teaspoons of each of the following: chilli powder, paprika, ground cumin
A sprinkling of cumin seeds (optional)
A sprinkling of dried oregano
OR
an Old el Paso taco seasoning packet
Enough chicken for each person (so a drumstick/thigh per person and one for the pot, three breasts if serving six)

Pop everything in the slow cooker, give it a stir, pop the lid on, turn on either low or high depending on time available then walk away. 6 hours on high or 10 on low. At about 5pm get two forks and pull the meat off the bone and the chunks of meat apart, it should fall right apart. Pop the lid back on and let it cook for another hour more.

Now all there is left to do is wait! (and cook rice later)

All done!

If you want to do this on the stove top, use breast or thigh as it will need to be mostly cooked before the liquids go in.

For the stove top:

Saute the onions and garlic. Slice the same amount of chicken into nice decent sized strips, brown these up in the pan, don't worry about cooking them through, just aim to get a bit of colour on the meat. Sprinkle in your spices and stir the pan contents around to ensure a nice coating. Let the spices cook for a minute or two to help release some of their flavours. Next add the tomatoes, beans, corn, sweet chilli sauce, salt and water. Bring to a simmer and cook for a further 40mins to an hour.

Serve with rice/corn chips/ in tortilla bread with a good dollop of sour cream, cheese and a sprinkling of fresh coriander.

Enjoy!

Be careful of bones!

Pink Ombre Vanilla Cake

Good Monday morning!

I got up rather early this morning. 7am, ok so not that early really but early respective to standard holiday rising times. When I got up it was pouring, no, bucketing with rain. There was even a clap of thunder.

So I proceeded to watch the season 5 finale of Grey's Anatomy. How is it possible to kill off two characters in one episode? or does George come back to life? I hope so. Anyway since I was shocked at such an episode as well as the rain going on in the background I decided to search out a vanilla cake recipe and make an ombre effect with the layers.

I have seen these ombre cakes lurking around Pinterest lately and it wasn't until that I saw a friend of a friends one that I decided to muster up the courage to do one. It was just a matter of when . .

Sweetapolita did this excellent tutorial on a pastel swirl cake that I eyed up whilst sitting in the airport.

Ombre + pastel swirl = an excellent morning activity.

I searched and searched the blogs of iambaker, Sweetapolita and even Whisk-Kid but to no avail. All of Sweetapolita's recipes included copious amounts of egg whites. I don't know about you but I feel guilty leaving 6 or so egg yolks sitting in the fridge. Its not like I am going to make mayonnaise.

Then I pondered whether or not I could turn my vanilla cupcake recipe into a cake. Then it struck me!

Chris bought me the Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days book, however it got delivered to his Dunedin address. Chris is in Auckland, not Dunedin so I couldn't search the book. But I could search the internet!

So I googled Hummingbird Bakery vanilla cake recipes and sure enough one popped up. Thank goodness!

I had my recipe. It used three eggs. I could live with that.

Lets do this shall we?


Hummingbird Bakery's Vanilla Cake
(makes three 20cm layers)

360g plain flour
360g caster sugar
120g softened butter
360ml whole milk (1 1/2 cups)
3 eggs
4 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3 teaspoons vanilla essence
pink food colouring

and for the icing:

500g icing sugar
160g butter, softened
50ml whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
pink food colouring
a drop or two of strawberry essence if you wish :)

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees on bake. Line three 20cm cake tins with baking paper and grease the edges.

Beat the butter and sugar together until evenly distributed. It won't cream so don't worry. Sieve in the flour and baking powder and beat until a fine sandy consistency is reached. Add an egg and half a cup of the milk. Beat until incorporated. Repeat until all the eggs and milk are included. Add the vanilla. Beat until smooth. If it is a good day, the stars are aligned and you are wearing your lucky underwear the batter should fluff up a bit. I obviously wasn't wearing the right undies today. The batter was runny. But that's ok, it will still work.

Here is the fiddly bit.

Tare another large bowl over your kitchen scales (digital is best). Pour and scrape all of your batter into the bowl, weighing the total batter volume. Divide this number (1312g in my case) by three. Then get three separate bowls and weigh out three equal portions of batter (437ish g in my case).

Now its time to colour. Drop by drop, colour the batters until you have a light, medium and dark shade of pink. Once the colour is evenly mixed, pour the batter into each lined tin.

Our oven wasn't big enough for all three so I had to bake two first then the last one.

Bake for 25 minutes (or until the skewer comes out clean). If the tops start browning a little too much, place some tin foil over the top. This will stop the browning but let the cake to continue to cook.

Once out of the oven, leave to cool in the tins before turning out onto a wire cake rack.

Ok you have your cakes. Leave these to cool completely before you even start to think about icing them.

Follow Sweetapolita's tutorial on how to ice this baby all swirly and the like. She has a video which is far better than my mushed holiday brain trying to pump out comprehensible sentences.

Beat all your icing ingredients together until they are super fluffy and smooth. The volume should increase quite substantially. Colour all of the icing the lightest shade of pink. Then crumb coat the whole cake with that colour. Then split the remaining icing into three lots and colour two of the bowls a dark and darker shade of pink.

Yeah best to follow Sweetapolita's instructions for this. I have sugar on the brain.

Pop your crumb coated cake in the fridge for half an hour. This allows you the perfect time to revisit the tutorial video. . .

Start by placing a good dollop of icing on the top. Spread this evenly across the surface, letting excess overhang the sides.

Get the darkest shade and carefully dab it onto the bottom third. Do it one small blob at a time. It does not need to be smooth at this point.

Get your middle shade of pink and repeat the same process in the middle third.

Get a mug full of boiling water and a nice long knife, a palate knife would be best. Hold the knife parallel to the cake side, angling  slightly forward. In one cleanish sweep ,  glide the knife around the cake, turning the cake stand beneath it. The colours should start to blend together.

Dipping the knife in hot water and wiping it each time, smooth the edges of the cake. Be careful not to over work it as you will loose the gradient effect. This sort of cake suits a  rougher finish rather than a totally smooth one.

Anyway once done sprinkle with some sprinkles and some edible glitter. Now I just have to find someone to give this cake to. I will post cross section photos once it has been cut into. Which could be a while yet. The cake is sitting on our coffee table looking a little lonely. . . .

I shall update you as soon as the cake is cut!

TTFN! :)

UPDATE!!

So Jack came home from school and became rather impatient waiting for dessert time. Couldn't let him spoil his dinner now could we?

Dessert time finally came around. . .

Hmm well I think that is more than enough cake for one day :) 

Hmm wait, I think Mum needs a batch of cupcakes made for work tomorrow. 

Date, Walnut and Lemon Syrup Loaf

Good evening all from rainy Auckland!

I am home for the mid year uni holidays. I have been home a week and already I have watched three seasons of Greys Anatomy, baked four batches of cupcakes and two batches of cookies for Mum. I am bored of the basics and in need of something new and exciting. I really want to make a pink ombre pastel cake, that might be tomorrow's activity.

When I get bored at home, I pull out all of Mum's recipe books searching for inspiration and pretty pictures haha.

In today's Sunday Star Times' Sunday insert, there was a feature by Ray McVinnie. In this feature there was a recipe for these date, walnut and lemon syrup loaves. Since I am a fan of McVinnie's work I decided to give them a try. They looked so nicely styled in the photo.

I am so glad I gave them a go. Chris even liked them. The dates made it rich and moist and the sugar syrup goes crunchy on the top. All with a subtle lemony flavour going on in the background. Oh wait and the crunchy walnuts. Don't forget the walnuts!

Ray McVinnie's Date, Walnut and Lemon Syrup Loaf
(from Sunday 24.06.2012)


1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup boiling water
1 cup chopped dried dates
1 egg
1 cup caster sugar
2 tablespoons melted butter
2 cups flour
1 teaspoons baking powder
zest of 1 lemon
1 cup walnut pieces

Pre-heat the oven to 175 degrees and line a loaf tin with baking paper.

Dissolve the baking soda in the hot water, then add the chopped dates. Let these soak.

Beat the egg and sugar together until thick and a pale yellow colour. Stir in the melted butter. Sieve in the flour and baking powder and add the lemon zest. Fold these in. Stir in the date mixture (including the water) and the walnuts.

Pour the mixture into the loaf tin and bake for 40-45 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

Mix together the juice and zest of 1 large lemon and half a cup of caster sugar and pour this cold mixture over the hot loaf (as in as soon as it comes out of the oven hot).

Once cooled slightly, slice into nice chunky slices and cover in butter :) This is best served still warm and with a cup of tea.

Enjoy!!