Sweet Perfection

Well, hasn't it been a while between posts?  Unfortunately, I have been a touch under the weather.  Fortunately, I have a very good reason for feeling so.  It's not that I've been completely off the baking bandwagon - just a little cooking here and there.  And I have missed it!

I thought that I simply must share this fabulous dessert with you.  It's been a favourite of mine for quite a few years but I made it most recently, last week.  The event was the lovely baby shower of one of my gorgeous teaching partners.  Mel's little "wombat" is due on the first of August and I just cannot wait to squeeze (his) cubby cheeks!  This wonderful gathering required a pregnancy friendly dessert and so I chose this beautiful White Chocolate and Strawberry Tart. 

This tart is perfect in it's simplicity.  Essentially, it is a sweet shortcrust, filled with a white chocolate custard, which is baked and topped with fresh strawberries.  It is perfection on a plate.  The filling is light, smooth and creamy all at once.  Needless to say, I took a clean cake stand home at the conclusion of the shower!  I have also made this when strawberries were out of season and made a sweet, fresh raspberry coulis to serve.  It was just as delightful.  I'm sure there is so much more you could do to modify this recipe but I haven't looked too much into it.  It's pretty darn good as it is!

Sweet Shortcrust

1 3/4 cups plain flour

1/4 cup icing sugar

125g cold unsalted butter, cubed

1 egg, lightly beaten

Place flour, sugar and butter into the food processor.  Pulse until the mixture has a fine crumb consistency.  Add the egg and process again in short bursts until the mixture starts to come together.  Turn the mixture onto a work surface and press dough together into a thick disk.  Wrap in cling wrap and refrigerate for thirty minutes.

Roll dough out between two sheets of baking paper.  Line your greased flan tin, easing (not stretching) the dough into the corners.  Refrigerate for another thirty minutes and preheat oven to 180 degrees.  Blind bake the pastry case with weights for 15 minutes, then remove weights and bake for a further 15 minutes or until golden.  Allow the case to cool completely.

White Chocolate Custard

225g white chocolate, chopped

375mL pouring (single) cream

3 egg yolks

Place chocolate and cream into a saucepan and stir over a low heat until melted together and smooth.  Remove from heat and whisk through the egg yolks.  Pour mixture into the pastry case and bake for 35-40 minutes.  It should be just set.  Allow to cool in tin and then refrigerate.

The Tart

To assemble the tart, top the filling with 500g of hulled strawberries and dust with icing sugar.

Too lovely!

F. x

For the love of cake.

Last week marked yet another wonderful Wednesday at Blackwater North State School.  Apparently the intrigue began as early as 8am as to what was 'inside' the cake that lay on the table. 

Mud cake?
No.
Carrot cake?
No.
White chocolate cake?
No.

It was Dark Chocolate Guinness Cake: the smooth, moist centre in stunning contrast to the sweet cream cheese outer.  As soon as this beautiful cake was cut, it was a fight as to who could get a piece before it ran out and it was completely and utterly worth the fight.  This cake is impressive to say the least, and yet a one pot wonder (yes, I did say pot).  All of the ingredients are combined and whipped up in a large saucepan before entering the oven.  It's certainly minimum effort for maximum effect.  I recommend that this be the next wonder to come out of your oven.

Dark Chocolate Guinness Cake

250ml Guinness

250g unsalted butter

75g cocoa

400g caster sugar

1 x 142ml pot sour cream

2 eggs

1 tablespoon real vanilla extract

275g plain flour

2 1/2teaspoons bicarbonate of soda

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and line the bottom of a 23cm springform tin with baking paper.

In a large saucepan, place your guinness and butter and stir over a low heat.  When the butter has melted into the guinness, add the sugar and cocoa.  Separately beat the eggs, sour cream and vanilla together before whisking into the dark guinness liquid.  Finally you can stir in the plain flour and bicarb until combined.  Pour the batter in the cake tin and bake for an hour. 

I literally baked this cake twice within a week.  It freezes beautifully if you want to slice it up, as I have, for my lovely husband to take in his lunch; it is simply sublime with custard or icecream as a dessert; or you can frost it, as I have here, with my divine Cream Cheese Frosting and adding some chocolate coated strawberries.

F. x



Who's a clever girl?



Isn't this a magnificent thing of beauty?  Look out, because this weekend I will be sharing the recipe for this amazing Dark Chocolate Guinness Cake.  Yum! Yum, indeed!

F. x

Tarting it up!

Lime is one of my favourite fruits.  Not to stick down and eat, of course but it's just so fresh when squeezed into a glass of sparkling mineral water or as part of a marinade for chicken or fish.  Now, I am not one for artificial lime flavours or syrups but give me a Key Lime Pie and I will be one happy girl!  This recipe is a delightful one.  While traditionally, this pie is baked, this easy cheat's version is a pretty fantastic interpretation.  Containing a good amount of sweet condensed milk, this seems like the perfect candidate for a too-sweet dessert (as if that's really possible).  However, the lime lifts it on the palette and it's crisp flavour prevents this from being an issue.  What you have here is a beautifully light pie of cheesecake-like consistency.  Drizzled with bitter dark chocolate, it is a stunning dessert.  You can easily see how this is elegant enough to provide the perfect finale to a dinner party and yet unpretentious enough for a friendly barbeque.

No-Cook Key Lime Pie

Base

200g digestive biscuits

70g unsalted butter, softened

2 heaped tbsp cocoa powder

4 tbsp dessicated coconut

Filling

juice and zest of 4 limes

397g tin of sweetened condensed milk

300mL double cream

Put all of the ingredients for the base into the food processor and pulse so you have oily crumbs.  Press the crumbs into 4 small tart tins or one large flan tin.  Place these into the freezer to set while you get on with the filling.

With an electic mixer, whisk the zest, juice, condensed milk and cream until thick and creamy.

Pour into the tart shells and put into the fridge to set.

F. x

Strawberries and Cream

Last night, I was lucky enough to be invited to the celebration of a very lovely lady's birthday.  While I haven't known her very long, Miss M is well on track to becoming one of my favourite humans.  The night was full of fun and laughter, with not an air or grace in sight.  Unsure what would make a suitable or appreciated gift, I did what I do best: bake.  So cupcakes it was!  I baked a basic white chocolate sponge but it was all about that frosting.  Divine!  The light Strawberries and Cream frosting was compared to the famous strawberry icecreams of Brisbane's "Ekka" and deservedly so.  Delightfully simple to create; it is perfect in the simplicity of it ingredients and the soft, elegant colour.  And so today, I give you my Strawberries and Cream Frosting...

Strawberries and Cream

6-8 medium sized strawberries

1/3 cup icing sugar

1 cup thickened cream 

Before you begin, there are two very important details you must note: your cream must be full fat and your strawberries must be sweet (so try them first).  Whizz up the strawberries in a blended until you have a syrup-like consistency and set aside.  Whip cream with an electric mixer until you have stiff peaks.  Sift over icing sugar and begin to mix.  Add in the strawberry pulp, one tablespoon at a time.  Stop when you have reached the desired consistency. Your cream will be a soft pink but you could add a little powdered food colouring for a richer colour.  Pipe onto the cupcakes of your choice but I suggest you do this as quickly as possible before you eat it all out of the bowl!

F. x

Lest we forget.

ANZAC Day holds a special place in the heart of all Australians.  I spent this morning (as did most of the Blackwater community, so it seems) at the local war memorial for a rememberance service.  It is so touching to see that this important aspect of our Australian culture is being preserved: not in a glorification of war but as a celebration of those who have and who continue to serve our nation in the armed forces.  I also hold close the cultural values that ANZAC day represents - mateship, determination and pride.  As such, it would be wholly UN-Australian to bake anything today that wasn't an ANZAC biscuit. 

In addition to a recipe, I also thought it incredibly important to include the history of the ANZAC biscuit.  This is a recipe that stays true to that which was cooked in the kitchens of our great great Grandmothers during WW1.  It is heartwarming to know that the love that these women demonstrated for our soldiers lives on in our kitchens today.

During World War 1, the wives, mothers and girlfriends of the Australian soldiers were concerned for the nutritional value of the food being supplied to their men. Here was a problem. Any food they sent to the fighting men had to be carried in the ships of the Merchant Navy. Most of these were lucky to maintain a speed of ten knots (18.5 kilometers per hour). Most had no refrigerated facilities, so any food sent had to be able to remain edible after periods in excess of two months. A body of women came up with the answer - a biscuit with all the nutritional value possible. The basis was a Scottish recipe using rolled oats. These oats were used extensively in Scotland, especially for a heavy porridge that helped counteract the extremely cold climate.

The ingredients they used were: rolled oats, sugar, plain flour, coconut, butter, golden syrup or treacle, bi-carbonate of soda and boiling water. All these items did not readily spoil. At first the biscuits were called Soldiers’ Biscuits, but after the landing on Gallipoli, they were renamed ANZAC Biscuits.

Source: http://www.anzacday.org.au/

ANZAC Biscuits

1 cup rolled oats

1 cup plain flour

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup desiccated coconut

125g butter

2 tbsp golden syrup (or treacle)

1 tsbp water

1/2 tsp baking soda

Combine all of your dry ingredients.  Place butter, syrup and water in a saucepan and stir over a medium heat until butter has melted.  Stir in the baking soda before combining wet and dry ingredients.  Roll tablespoons of the mixture into balls and press firmly to flatten. Bake in a 160 degree oven for 15 minutes. 

This recipe gives you biscuits with a crunchy outer and a soft middle.  If you prefer you ANZAC biscuits really crunchy, flatten them more on the tray before they go in the oven and cook for 20 minutes instead of the stated 15.

F. x

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