Lovecakes

Oh goodness!  It does appear that I have gone slightly cupcake mad but I just couldn't help but share these ones with you.

Every week, I bake a batch of cupcakes for my hunky husband to take in his lunch every day.  In so much, these are not truly cupcakes, but lovecakes.  It's quite sweet really.  We have a ritual whereby, I bake the cupcakes and he gets very excited about how good they are.  Despite there sometimes being copious amounts of lovecakes, he doesn't even like taking extras into work to share - they are HIS.  When this is the case, he will simply eat another cake after dinner, just to get through them in the week.

This week, I decided to try a recipe that I haven't used before - a good ol' Women's Weekly favourite.  Cream Cheese Lemon Cakes.  I love how citrus cuts through the overt sweetness of the cake while the cream cheese offers a subtle tang on the palette.  Wrapped up in their gorgeous green polka-dot cases, these lovecakes just seem like happiness in a cupcake.  I topped them with a Buttercream flavoured with some finely grated lemon zest.  While I thought of colouring the buttercream a lovely pastel yellow, I am glad that I didn't as they are perfect, just as they are.

Cream Cheese Lemon Lovecakes

90g unsalted butter, softened

90g cream cheese, softened

2 tsp finely grated lemon rind

150g caster sugar

2 eggs

50g SR flour

75g P flour

Preheat oven to 180 degrees and prepare your baking cups.  Beat together the butter, cream cheese, rind, sugar and eggs until light and fluffy.  This is definitely one for the electric mixer.

Sift in the flours and beat on a low speed until combined. You will have quite a thick batter.

Divide batter into baking cups and smooth the surface. 

Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a skewer comes out fairly clean. Allow to cool.

Lemon Buttercream

125g unsalted butter, room temperature

3 cups icing sugar, sifted

1-2 tsp lemon rind, finely grated

1-2 tbsp milk

Beat butter and icing sugar until light and fluffy.  Grate in lemon rind and thin buttercream to the desired consistency with the milk.  Pipe onto your lovecakes.

Lovely!

F. x

In a whizz...tizz

This week marked the first week back at school after holidays.  Please don't take my lack of postings during the week as I didn't have time to cook.  Oh no, lovelies.  I just didn't have time to post!  And now you reap the benefits of this as you are about to be in absolute sweetness overload.  I begin with Sunday night... 

During the working week, dessert in the evening is not a regular occurrence - despite what my lovely husband would prefer.  However, weekends mean baking time, cookbook reading time and....dessert time!  Sunday night mean soft, sweet Sticky Date Pudding.  While the dish itself oozes effort and time, in reality, it was whizzed up in the blender in about five minutes and cooked in the oven while we were eating dinner.  This is the easiest Sticky Date Pudding recipe you will ever come across.  You can just cook these in your muffin pans for perfect individual serves or in a dariol mould, as I did, for presentation. What you end up with is a delightfully moreish sponge pudding which becomes dense and sickly sweet with the addition of the warm butterscotch sauce - oooohhhh yes!!!

Sticky Date Pudding

200g dried dates, roughly chopped

1 tsp baking soda

1 1/4 cups boiling water

60g unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup dark brown sugar

1 cup S R Flour

2 eggs, lightly beaten

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees and grease your chosen moulds.  Put the chopped dates, bicarb and boiling water into the blender jug and leave to soak.  After around 5 minutes, add the butter and sugar before pulsing 2 - 3 times.  Any more and your dates will be mush.  Tip in the flour and eggs and pulse again until just combined.

Use an icecream scoop to divide the mixture between the moulds.  This will ensure even distribution.  Bake for 25-30 minutes, depending on your oven.  You want a few crumbs on the skewer when tested.  Remove from oven and allow to sit for 5 minutes before turning out.  While they are resting, you can get on with your butterscotch sauce.

Butterscotch Sauce

1 1/4 cups dark brown sugar

300mL single (pure) cream

125g unsalted butter

Put all of your ingredients into a saucepan over a low heat.  Stir continuously as all ingredients melt in together.  Put into a pouring jug to serve with your puddings.

Don't forget the Vanilla Bean Icecream!

F. x

Mr and Mrs Strawberries and Cream

Well this Mr and Mrs are now residing in Blackwater!  Everything is going well despite a few initial hiccups.  Sadly, I arrived to an oven that is not in working order so naturally, am DEVASTATED! I am now on the countdown until it gets fixed - be prepared for updates.  Not one to be a downer, I have been trying to work around this slight speed bump by hunting down "no oven required" recipes.

Seeing as it is unbelievably toasty warm in happy little Blackwater, I felt it apt that my first Central Queensland post be a heat extinguishing number.  Introducing my delightfully refreshing Strawberries and Cream Sparkling Iced Tea.  Gloriously crimson in colour, icy cold and deliciously fresh with strawberries and lime, all this tea needed was a touch of sparkling water for added class and glamour.  Serving it up with lunch, which my husband had come home for (in itself so quaint and country) I felt need to "man it up" a tad with the most fabulous "tousche" glass for my Mr.  Seeing how adorable they looked together, I couldn't help but take a quick snap of our Mr and Mrs Iced Teas.  Now let me whole-heartedly assure you that these tasted just as amazing as they look and definitely hit the spot!

F. x