I made this heart shaped Chocolate Eclair for Carter when he was here.

Baking: Coconut Chocolate Cupcakes/Cake

Coconut Chocolate Cupcakes/Cake
This post was from the friday cupcake party...

One of my dear friends and past flatmates was not only dairy-free but soy also. Therefore this made it very difficult when going out to cafes and restaurants, as soy is often used as a replacement for diary (i.e. soy milk instead of normal milk). 

When my current flatmates and I decided to put on a little party at the end of the year I we thought a little about what we could bake that would include everyone.

One of the items we choose were various types of cupcakes, and to make the cheating chocolate cake recipe I often make.

Kath (my dear friend) is dairy-free so we decided to replace the buttermilk with coconut milk. I tried it out as a cake and Heather LOVE LOVE LOVED it. However you will see here it was made in cupcake form (note the icing has salad oil instead of butter substituted in it).

Ingredients:
1 1/2 Cup Coconut Milk
1/2 Cup Oil
1/2 Cup Water

was substituted for the Quickest Easiest One Bowl and Spoon Chocolate Cake's buttermilk/oil and water

Dessert: Tiramisu

Tiramisu

To be honest I don't believe Tiramisu is one of those desserts which needs to be made with carefully measured out ingredients. Its more of a add, test taste then add some more type of recipe. Mine loosely revolves around the measurements found below, however sometimes depending on the occasion is is more boozy than others.


As Carter pointed out that this after indulging in this weekends creation, perhaps driving after may not be a good idea.

Ingredients
4 Large Eggs
Approx 1 Cup Caster Sugar
2 Packets/ Pottles 200/250g Mascapone
1/4 Cup Cream2 Teaspoons Vanilla Essence
2 Packets Dried Sponge Fingers
1 Teaspoon Vanilla Bean Paste
1/4 Cup Strong Coffee
2 Tablespoons to 1/4 Cup Brandy
1 60g Bar Dark Chocolate
2 Tablespoons Dutched Cocoa1. Separate eggs, putting the egg whites into a medium sized glass/metal bowl and the egg yolks in a large glass/metal bowl.

2. Using an electric mixer, beat egg yolks and sugar together until pale, light and fluffy.

3. Add cream and masapone and beat until combined.

4. Clean beater thoroughly, then beat egg whites until stiff.

5. Fold in vanilla and then the egg white into cream mixture.

6. Combine, brandy and coffee in another bowl.

7. Lightly dip sponge fingers into the coffee mixture and use them to line the bottom of a large rectangular dish. Use approximately half (I use just under as the width of the top of my container is slightly larger than the bottom).

8. Chop up half the chocolate and sprinkle it over the fingers.

9. Layer half the cream mixture on top of the sponge and spread out evenly.

10. Dip the rest of the sponge fingers and place orderly on top of the cream mixture.

11. Cover the sponge fingers with the remaining cream mixture and spread out evenly.

12. Dust using a sieve with cocoa powder and grate the rest of the chocolate over.

Biscuits, Cookies and Slices: Macarons

Macarons

Before Christmas I had a little bit of a macaroon bake-a-thon. I then placed the unfilled shells in airtight containers in which they kept perfectly until Christmas (shells last unfilled for over a month - once filled they only last up to a week).

I personally prefer the Lavender, Rosewater, Orange Blossom and Vanilla over the Chocolate and Raspberry.

My biggest problem when I first made these was that my mixture was to light and airly! I didn't combine my mixture enough, therefore I recommend that when you combine the icing sugar and almonds your combine it thoroughly! Don't be afraid it it loses alot of volume.

Lavender
2 Teaspoons Dried Culinary Lavender
1 Teaspoon Vanilla Bean Paste
2 Teaspoon Blue Food Colouring
1 Teaspoon Red Food Colouring

Rosewater
2 Teaspoons Rosewater
2 Teaspoons Red Food Colouring

Orange Blossom
2 Teaspoons Orange Blossom
2 Teaspoons Yellow Food Colouring
1/2 Teaspoon Red Food Colouring

Vanilla
1 Teaspoon Vanilla Essence
2 Teaspoons Vanilla Bean Paste
1 Teaspoon Yellow Food Colouring

Chocolate
2 Teaspoons Dutched Cocoa

Raspberry
1 Teaspoon Raspberry Essence
2 Teaspoons Red Food Colouring

Basic Recipe (Summarised From Dish)
Ingredients:
100g Egg Whites
Pinch of Cream of Tartar
2 Tablespoons Caster Sugar
140g Almond Meal
220g Icing Sugar

85g Butter, Softened 
175g Icing Sugar


1. Preheat oven to 150C.

2. Beat, using an electric mixer, egg whites and cream of tartar until soft peaks form.

3. Add food colouring, caster sugar and flavouring and beat until stiff peaks form.

4. Sift almond meal and icing sugar into egg white mixture and fold in until well combined.

5. Spoon into piping bag and pipe small rounds about 3cm apart on to a lined baking tray.

6. Drop trays onto a hard surface about five times (this gets rid of any excess bubbles in the mixture and also creates nice round and flat macaroons).

7. Leave for 45 - 50 minutes until a good skin has formed on top of the macaroons, then bake for 12 minutes.

8. Leave to cool for about 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.


Icing

Beat butter and icing sugar together with second measure of flavouring and colouring.


To assemble I just you a knife and spread dollop a little icing in the centre of a macaroon half, then place the other half on top and gently smush it down. This insures it forms a nice little circle of icing in the middle.

Baking: Herritage Azores Cake (Island Cake - Bolo da ilha)

Heritage Azores Cake (Island Cake - Bolo da ilha)

My Nannys (grandmothers) family originally came from the Azores (Portuguese island inbetween Portugal and the USA). This cake originates from there (I found it as part of an ancestry project when I was at high school) and has become a cake i make about once or twice a year. The original icing recipe was not quite right, so that has been adapted but apart from that it is quite authentic.

 Ingredients:

5 Eggs

3/4 Cup Sugar

Just under 1 Cup Flour

2 Dessertspoons Dutched Cocoa

2 Tablespoons Honey

1 Teaspoon Cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 150C.

2. Beat eggs and sugar together until pale and fluffy.

3. Add honey and beat until combined.

3. Add flour, cocoa and cinnamon and mix fold into mixture.

4. Pour into a greased and floured pan and back for 35 minutes.

5. Allow to cool.

6. Cut cake in half (through the middle), and fill centre with half icing.

7. Place top of cake back on and ice top of cake aswell.

Icing
Ingredients:
250g Butter
1 Cup Icing Sugar
2 Eggs
2 Tablespoons Honey
1/2 Teaspoon Cinnamon
100g Chocolate, Melted

Beat all ingredients together until pale and fluffy.

We ate this for a treat after lunch one very hot day while on holiday (hence why it melted).

Baking: Marbled Chocolate Tart/Slice

Marbled Chocolate Tart/Slice

This recipe could be very easily made gluten free by either not having any pastry and cooking it as a cake or by using gluten free flour in the pastry (or using store bought gluten free pastry). This is a very rich chocolate tart/slice

Ingredients:

Filling

300 g Dark Chocolate (Energy Chocolate)
150g Butter

1 Teaspoon Instant Coffee

1/2 Cup White Sugar

1 Teaspoon Vanilla Essence

2 Tablespoons Almond Meal

4 Small Eggs

Vanilla Cream Swirl

250g Low Fat Cream Cheese

1/2 Cup Sugar

2 Teaspoons Vanilla Essence

2 Small Eggs

1 Recipe Sweet Almond Pastry

1. Preheat oven to 180C.

2. Roll out pastry and line a 20 x 30 cm tin (I line mine with baking paper), and blind bake pastry for 10 minutes.

3. Melt butter and chocolate using a double boiler, and add remaining filling ingredients apart from the eggs while the mixture is cooling down.

4. Combine vanilla cream cheese swirl mixture ingredients in a bowl until smooth.

5. When the mixture is at room temperature, add eggs and mix until thoroughly combined.

6. Pour chocolate filling into the pastry case and then spoon in cream chesse mixture, using a knife to then swirl it through. 

7. Bake for 40 minutes until cooked, then allow to cool.

8. After cool cut with a clean knife the slice into squares.

Dessert: Eat Your Heart Out Bleeding Hearts

Dessert: Eat Your Heart Out Bleeding Hearts

They have a spongy dense cakey crust and a gooey chocolate centre. 

Quick to make and sooo satisfying! This is what I whip up when unexpected guests arrive. They are also a favourite of my brother, so when I was at Uni and he was still living at home, before I went back to Christchurch I would make a batch and freeze them in a silicon muffin or friand tray. He could then take them straight from the freezer and pop them in the oven (baking takes a wee bit longer...perhaps approx 15 minutes) 

I find that perhaps the full mixture makes a little much, and consumes a lot of eggs. I often make a half batch (using 4 small eggs), and this makes enough to fill 8 friand cups. However if you have more than five people perhaps making the full batch is safer (someone always wants seconds)!

Ingredients:

250g Butter

250g Good Quality Chocolate (at least 60% Cocoa)

¾ Cup Sugar
1 teaspoon Vanilla Essence
7 Eggs
Pinch Salt

7 Tablespoons Flour

1. Preheat oven to 160C.

2. Melt butter and chocolate in a double boiler. Remove from heat and allow to cool to luke warm.

3. Add vanilla sugar and salt. Then eggs one at a time and mix after each addition and then untill completely combined.

4. Add flour and fold gently in until just combined.

5. Spoon into greased and cocoaed muffin trays (or what I use are greased silcon trays as it makes it easy to get them out after baking) until each of 12 cups are 3/4 full.

5. Bake for about 10 minutes or until cooked around outside and just set on top.

6. Use a knife to run around the cups, then turn all out onto a plate.

7. Serve with cream or as desired.

Baking: Marsden Slice

Marsden Slice

This has been made over and over for many occasions. It takes only moments to prepare, and I have often taken it to someones house and popped it in the fridge to finished setting when I get there.

This is from the "a taste of Marsden" cookbook which was a fundraiser for my secondary school Samuel Marsden Collegiate School in Wellington (links are provided and if anyone does decide to buy one please list your house as "Johnson" as this was my house when I was at school).

NOTE: I have been caught at a before with only one packet of superwine and therefore had to use half superwine and half crispies, however I felt the coconut from the crispies was a little over powering. I have also tried other types of biscuits and would strongly recommend using only the superwine.

Ingredients

2 Packets Superwine Biscuits

200g Butter

1 Tin Sweetened Condensed Milk

4 Tablespoons Golden Syrup

1 Teaspoon Vanilla Essence

500g Hazelnut Chocolate (Almond could be used)

1. Grease and line 20 x 28cm tin

2. Melt butter together with condensed milk and golden syrup.

3. Remove from heat and milk in vanilla essence.

4. Press mixture into tin and refrigerate.

5. Break up and melt chocolate in double boiler.

6. Pour and smooth out melted chocolate over refrigerate base and place back in fridge until chocolate is just set. 

7. Slice and cut into small squares before storing in the fridge.  

It makes a fab late night nibble with a cup of tea

Baking: Quickest Easiest One Bowl and Spoon Chocolate Cake

Quickest Easiest One Bowl and Spoon Chocolate Cake

This was ripped out of a weekend Dommion Post at least a year ago eagerly by my mother. Therefore it is no surprise that it is a Ruth Pretty passalong creation. She calls it Serena's Cheating Chocolate Cake - Her website says  "New York caterer, Serena Bass, says this cake takes less time to make than it does to heat the oven to bake it so she calls it a cheating cake. She describes it as damp, dark and toothsome."

Living in a flat and being a student, I don't often have Buttermilk in the fridge therefore use low fat natural youghurt as a substitute. It works beautifully, if not better! The cake must be cover in either chocolate buttercream icing or ganche!

I am very much a cup and teaspoon girl so will post the recipe as I use it below. I am also even lazier with this recipe, i.e. i don't sift the flour etc. and I only use one bowl! A link to her recipe is displayed above.

Ingredients:
3/4 cup Dutched cocoa 
2 cups Sugar
1 3/4 cups Flour
1 1/2 teaspoons Baking Powder
1 1/2 teaspoons Baking Soda
1 pinch Salt
1 cup  Yoghurt (she uses Buttermilk)
2 large Eggs
1/2 cup Vegetable Oil
2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract + 1 teaspoon of Vanilla Bean Paste
1 cup Boiling Water


Preheat oven to 180°C.

Lightly grease base and sides of a 23cm deep round cake tin with oil and line with baking paper.


Into a large bowl sift cocoa, sugar, flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and combine. 

Make a well in flour mixtures centre and add eggs, oil and vanilla extract/ paste and whisk to combine.

Pour in water and whisk till combined and batter is smooth.

Immediately pour batter into prepared tin and place into preheated oven for 40-45 minutes or till cake skewer when inserted comes out clean.

Remove cake from oven and cool completely before removing from baking paper and tin. Ice !

Biscuits, Cookies and Slice: Oaty Chocolate Chunk Crisp Cookies

Oaty Chocolate Chunk Crisp Cookies

My mother has brought us up to like crispy cookies that you can eat easily with a cup of tea (perhaps have a little dip). Therefore cakey cookies esp. those with eggs in them are shunned.

These are my favourite delightfully crispy chocolate cookies with rolled oats so you can feel virtuous that it contains something healthy.

I didn't think in detail directions were required so below is what I use when making them.

CREAM

250 g Butter, Softened

¾ Cup Brown Sugar (tightly packed)

MIX

3 (very large) Tablespoons Sweetened Condensed Milk ~ perhaps almost but not quite a half can

JUST COMBINE

1 ¾ Cup Flour

1/2 Cup Rolled Oats

1 Teaspoon Baking Powder

250g Eating Chocolate (Dark or Milk)

BAKE for 15 - 20 mins til lightly golden 

- turn off oven leaving oven door open a little and leave to crispen

Baking: Raspberry and Chocolate Brownies

Raspberry and Chocolate Brownies

These are my favorite treat out of the tin. To make extra special swirl some melted white chocolate over the top before cutting into pieces.

Ingredients:

250g Butter, Melted but not hot (unsalted works nicely but salted will do)
1 ½ Cups Sugar
½ Cup Brown Sugar
4 Eggs
¾ Cup Dutched Cocoa
2 Teaspoon Vanilla Essence
2 Teaspoon Vanilla Paste
450 g Good Quality Dark Chocolate (70% Cocoa)
4/5 Cup Flour
1 Cup White Chocolate Chips (Optional)
1 Cup Raspberries

Beat butter, sugars, eggs, cocoa, vanillas together until pale and creamy.

Add dark chocolate and fold in.

Once combined, add white chocolate and flour and fold until just combined.

Spoon out into large tin (20 x 30cm). Use a knife to smooth out into an even layer.

Place berries scattered on top and gentle press in so still visible.

Bake for fifty-five to sixty minutes at 150C, until crunchy on top.

Allow to cool for 30 minutes before cutting.