raspberri cupcakes

Giant Fairy Bread Cake

2013-06-17T10:00:00.000+10:00

Here it is! My Giant Fairy Bread Cake. I shared it on instagram and facebook last week and now I can finally share the post with you! Fairy bread, for those of you that don't know, is a much loved treat of buttered white bread covered in rainbow sprinkles (or 100s and 1000s as we know them here). It might sound weird or gross to the unfamiliar but don't knock it until you've tried it. It's the best. But even if you don't like fairy bread, you're gonna love this cake. It's so simple and so fun; a vanilla pound cake baked into the shape of a perfect, giant slice of bread, covered in salted butter icing and topped with ALL the sprinkles.

You know that this blog is the land of sprinkles, and desserts that look like giant versions of other desserts. So this fairy bread cake should come as no surprise. Check out the full post and recipe on the Kidspot website here. It's my last post for the Voices of 2013, so next week I'll be back to posting regularly! Yay!

Milo Macarons

2013-06-14T10:00:00.000+10:00

This combination was always going to happen wasn't it? My two loves; macarons and milo. I've been in a bit of a funk with my macaron baking recently, I had to bake FOUR batches of these macarons before I had a batch that I was happy with. But it was totally worth the effort cos they were delicious. Chewy, chocolatey and malty. I'm still guest posting over at Kidspot so please click through here to see the full post and recipe. Dooo it.

Single-Serve Chocolate Self-Saucing Pudding with Butterscotch Sauce

2013-06-05T11:00:00.000+10:00

What happened to the regularly scheduled post on Monday? I was on holiday. Over the weekend I was celebrating my one year wedding anniversary. We returned to the scene of the crime, Quay Restaurant (I wrote about it here). It was spectacular, especially with a perfect view of the Vivid Festival while we dined. The other reason that there was no post this week is because, as mentioned previously, this week (and for the next two weeks) I am guest blogging over at Kidspot! And here's a preview of the first of three posts; a single-serve chocolate self-saucing pudding with butterscotch sauce.

You can see the full post on the Kidspot website here, with more photos, the full recipe and where I describe it as 'a hug in dessert form'. Go look!

Vanilla Bean Sponge Cake with Salted Caramel Apples

2013-05-27T09:00:00.000+10:00

Salted Caramel. It's one of the current food trends that I hope never goes away. I love it a little bit too much. The weird thing is, when I think of regular old plain caramel I immediately think it's too rich for me, too sweet, too heavy. But when it's salted caramel, I think BLISS. Just the simple addition of some sea salt flakes and I could have it with nearly every dessert and it would be happier for it, and I will eat it straight from the jar with a spoon.

This time around it was drizzled, no, drenched on top of a simple but lovely vanilla bean sponge cake. I was making a dessert to finish off a family afternoon tea but I didn't feel like making an ordinary Victoria sponge (as much as I love them). This particular vanilla bean sponge was filled with whipped cream and creme fraiche (I had enough people ask me what the heck it was last week that I feel obligated to google it for you) and more vanilla beans. Then I cooked some apple chunks until they were tender and golden and stirred them into some salted caramel sauce and piled it all on top of the cake. There's nothing quite like a river of oozing salted caramel down the side of a cake to get you drooling.

It may not be as pretty as a cake topped with berries or icing, but I assure you it's worth it for the flavours. I didn't expect to love this cake as much as I did. Especially after tasting all the separate components all day while I was making it, followed by a very filling meal of sandwiches, cheese, vol au vents, sausage rolls and quiche. But even after all that this cake was well received, with some people even going back for seconds. The richness of the caramel was easily offset by the light sponge, tart apples and slightly sour flavour of the creme fraiche.

Of course, the important part of this dessert is getting the sponge right. I have to admit I was a little nervous since this was my first time making sponge in my new place, but I didn't need to worry. If you're not too comfortable with making sponge I suppose you can play it safe and get storebought. But there's nothing quite like a homemade sponge cake. Make sure you read up on tips for making a successful sponge. My main ones are; make sure your eggs are at room temperature, go nuts when whipping your egg mixture (easily done with a stand mixer or with a bit of elbow grease and a hand mixer) to ensure that your cake batter is as stable as possible while baking. And make sure your butter is melted but not hot when you add it to the batter at the end.

Edit: Ooh and in other news, last week I found out that I'm lucky enough to be part of the Top 5 Food & Wellbeing Voices of 2013. Yay! It's very exciting to be chosen along side some seriously talented bloggers. As part of it I will be guest posting on Kidspot throughout the month of June, and I'll make sure to link to all my posts here so that you guys can check them out!

Vanilla Bean Sponge Cake with Salted Caramel Apples

(sponge cake from Gourmet Traveller, salted caramel sauce adapted from Brown Eyed Baker)

Note: If you are new to sponge cakes make sure you click through to the Gourmet Traveller link above for extra tips. This sponge cake relies solely on the whipped eggs for leavening and it is important you follow all the steps carefully.

For the sponge cake:

40g (about 3 tbsp) butter, melted and cooled plus extra for greasing tins

120g (about 1 cup) plain/all-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting

4 eggs, at room temperature

110g (about 1/2 cup) caster/superfine sugar

1 vanilla bean, scraped seeds only

Preheat oven to 180°C (350° F) (you may need to adjust to 170°C (340° F) for fan-forced) . Brush an 18-20cm round cake tin with melted butter, line base and sides with baking paper, grease paper with a little extra butter and then dust lightly with flour. Triple-sift flour and set aside. Whisk eggs, sugar and vanilla seeds in an electric mixer until thick, pale and tripled in volume (about 7-8 minutes). Sift over flour in two batches, folding each batch in with a large metal spoon or spatula. Fold in melted butter. Carefully pour into prepared tin and bake until light golden and centre springs back when pressed lightly with your fingertip (20-25 minutes). Pull cake gently away from sides of tin with your fingers or carefully loosen with a knife. Turn onto a wire rack, remove baking paper, turn back over swiftly and cool completely. Best eaten on the day of baking, but you can store it in an airtight container overnight and assemble the rest of the cake the next day.

For the salted caramel apples:

1/2 cup sugar

40g (about 3 tbsp) butter, at room temperature, cut into pieces

1/4 cup pure or thickened (heavy) cream, at room temperature

1 tsp flaky sea salted, adjusted to taste

3 baking apples (I used Granny Smiths), peeled cored and chopped into chunks

Place sugar in an even layer on the bottom of a small (preferably heavy-based) saucepan on medium heat, whisking as it begins to melt. It may start to clump, but this is fine. Continue to whisk until the sugar is all melted and then stop whisking, swirling the pan occasionally while the sugar cooks. If you have a sugar thermometer, place it in the sugar at this point and cook it until the mixture is a deep amber colour and reaches 180°C (350° F) and absolutely no higher or it will likely burn. I like to take mine off the heat as it approaches the temperature. Quickly and carefully add all the butter at once, whisking as it bubbles up, melts and combines. Keeping the pan off the heat, add the cream and whisk until the mixture is smooth. Add sea salt to taste (careful not to burn yourself!) and set aside to cool and thicken. Place chopped apples in a medium to large frying pan with a bit of melted butter and cook, tossing regularly, until apples are golden and tender. Stir apples into salted caramel sauce.

To assemble cake:

200g creme fraiche (if unavailable you can replace this with another 1/2 cup of thickened cream)

120ml (about 1/2 cup) thickened (heavy) cream

1/2 cup icing/powdered sugar, sifted

1 vanilla bean, scraped seeds only

Place ingredients in a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer until it reaches soft peaks. Take care not to overmix. Carefully cut your sponge cake in half using a long serrated knife. Place bottom half on cake stand and spread whipped cream over the top with a spatula. Top with the other half of the cake and then carefully top with apples and caramel sauce. Make sure the sauce has cooled enough to be thicken enough not to run straight off the cake but is still pourable.

Caramelised White Chocolate Cheesecake with Blueberries

2013-05-20T09:00:00.000+10:00

I'm pretty cranky today. I had a full-on weekend, but in a mostly good way. Yesterday I was happily baking in the kitchen and everything was going great. I had made some awesome caramelised white chocolate, the cheesecake I was preparing for my sister-in-law's birthday looked great going into the oven and baking in the oven. Then somehow things just went completely downhill. I got impatient waiting for the damn cheesecake to cool, and not only managed to deflate it quite badly, it was still soft while I was taking it out of it's tin and I managed to crack it into two ugly pieces. DISASTER. It was only barely saved by covering the whole thing with a crapload of blueberries. Sad face.

Anyway, that's the reason there's not many pictures of anything but a lot of blueberries. But I still wanted to share this recipe with you because I'm pretty certain it is great. It tasted great the last time I made it (even after dropping it on the floor), and I really wanted to make it pretty this time so I could share it with you guys. Sigh. I haven't tasted or cut into this one yet because it's her birthday today, fingers crossed it tastes as good as the mixture did before it went into the oven. I'm so irritated with myself for being impatient with the cooling process, I just really wanted to take some photos and have a nap yesterday. I never learn!

So, about the caramelised white chocolate. I posted the picture on my instagram and facebook yesterday and there was a giant chorus of "HOW?!". For the record, google is your friend. But I've been hearing great things about caramelised white chocolate from all of my favourite blogs, in particular David Lebovitz and Poires au Chocolat. It looked so good, I knew I was going to love it. I made some for my husband's birthday cake and it was fab. I made it again for this cheesecake and it was even better. It was almost a shame to mix it into the cheesecake, I just wanted to sit there and eat it with a spoon. But the cheesecake mixture tasted so great that I knew it was worth it. Anyway, if you have yet to try caramelised white chocolate, YOU MUST DO IT NOW. Just make sure you find the best quality white chocolate you can and stay far far away from anything compound.

Caramelised White Chocolate Cheesecake with Blueberries

(serves 10, adapted from this Lifestyle Food recipe)

For the crust:

2 cups Digestive biscuit crumbs (about 1 packet) (or graham crackers, or your favourite biscuit. It works great with ginger nuts)

1 tbsp sugar

100g (7 tbsp) butter, melted

Preheat oven to 150°C (320°F), grease and line the base of a 20cm springform tin. Crush biscuits and mix in sugar and butter until combined. Press mixture into the base of the prepared tin in an even layer. Bake for 10-15 minutes, or until the edges turn golden brown. Set aside to cool.

Optional blueberry sauce mixture:

1 punnet (125g) fresh or frozen blueberries

1 tsp lemon juice

2 tsp sugar

2 tsp cornflour/cornstach

1/2 cup water

Place ingredients in a small saucepan and stir to combined. Bring to the boil and then simmer for about 3-5 minutes stirring regularly, until blueberries have broken down and mixture starts to thicken. Set aside to cool, strain and chill until needed, after it reaches room temp.

For the caramelised white chocolate (from David Lebovitz):

250g (about 9oz) good quality white chocolate, chopped into small pieces (highest cocoa butter content you can get, preferably more than 30%, minimum 24%)

A pinch of sea salt

Preheat oven to 120°C (250°F). Place white chocolate pieces in a large baking dish/sheet and heat for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and spread with a dry, clean spatula. Return to the oven and continue to cook for 30-60 minutes, stirring it every 10 minutes until the mixture is a deep-golden brown. Don't freak out if the mixture starts to get dry and chalky, it is more likely to do that the lower cocoa solids are in it. Just be patient and stir the mixture and it should smooth out. (It doesn't matter if it doesn't as it will be blended with cream later) Remove from the oven and stir in sea salt. See David's recipe for extra tips and troubleshooting.

For the cheesecake mixture:

250g (about 9oz) cream cheese, softened

1 vanilla bean pod

250g caramelised white chocolate prepared above

250g sour cream

250g crème friache

3 large eggs

1 punnet (125g) fresh blueberries, to serve

Preheat oven to 150°C (320°F). Place cream cheese and scraped seeds of the vanilla bean pod in a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer on high until smooth. Mix the melted and slightly cooled caramelised white chocolate with the crème friache. (Blend together if there are any lumps) Add white chocolate mixture and sour cream to the cream cheese mixture and beat to combine, scraping bowl wit ha spatula every now and then. With the mixer on low, add eggs one at a time and beat until smooth. Pour mixture over prepared crust. If you are using the blueberry sauce, drizzle it over the top of the cheesecake mixture and use a butter knife to swirl it into the surface. Bake in oven until the middle is just wobbly and the edges are set, about 50-60 minutes. Turn off oven and cool inside for 15 minutes, then cool completely in tin on a wire rack. Can be stored in fridge overnight before serving. Top with extra blueberries.

Chocolate & Passionfruit Brulee Tart

2013-05-13T09:00:00.000+10:00

It's funny that there are so many passionfruit recipes on a blog owned by someone who has never really enjoyed passionfruit. I would blame my best friend Asian Gaga, who loves passionfruit-flavoured desserts and I made this tart for her birthday, but this time around she specifically told me I didn't have to do anymore passionfruit desserts. But I was still drawn to it, for some unknown reason. Asian Gaga mentioned how much she loves the brûlée tarts at Bourke St Bakery (who doesn't?) and so I toyed with the idea of trying it with a chocolate shell instead, similar to the lovely lime version that Karen does. And I really do love the combination of chocolate with passionfruit. Two very strong flavours that can still stand up well when placed together.

For the pastry I adapted a recipe from BraveTart, it's a really fantastic recipe. Since I was making one large tart shell I erred on the side of caution and added an extra egg yolk to the mixture to make sure it did fall apart of me when I rolled out the pastry. I am really clumsy with pastry, which is probably why you don't see a huge amount of pastry recipes on this blog. I'm a messy baker. But feel free to use Stella's awesome original recipe, especially if you're making smaller individual tarts instead. It's so good, even the raw pastry dough tastes amazing. That is always a good sign.

Unfortunately for you guys I didn't have the heart to cut into this particular birthday present. I thought it would be just a little too harsh to hand over a broken tart to my best friend, especially when the best part about a brulee is that first crack through that thin layer of toffee on top. But I can show you some flamey action shots of me torching the sugar. Yeah! Don't try this at home kids; holding a blowtorch in one hand and trying to focus with a camera is not fun. I really need to get myself a tripod.

I love my blowtorch! Since I left Asian Gaga with her birthday tart I didn't get to try a piece myself but I can definitely tell you that all the separate elements tasted great, so fingers crossed the tart as a whole tasted good too.

Ooh random change of subject; thanks to Women's Fitness Magazine for the mini-mention in their June issue (sorry about the crappy phone photo). Pretty sure my gummy bear cake is the exact opposite of women's fitness heehee but it was super nice of them to give a shoutout!

The filling recipe is adapted from the original brulee tart recipe from Bourke St Bakery. It's a little time consuming with all the whisking and chilling but totally worth the effort. I actually ended up with just a little less filling than I wanted, so I have increased the amounts for you. I will definitely want to try this recipe again as smaller individual tarts. If you do plan to try that out I would use BraveTart's original tart shell recipe and then double the amount of filling described.

Chocolate & Passionfruit Brûlée Tart

(chocolate tart shell adapted from BraveTart, filling adapted from Bourke St Bakery)

For the tart dough:

105g (3.75 ounces/about 1/2 cup) sugar

35g (1.25 ounces) brown sugar

Scrapings from half a vanilla bean

1/2 tsp instant coffee powder

1/4 tsp salt

125g (4.5 ounces) butter, room temperature

3 egg yolks

255g (9 ounces) plain/all purpose flour, sifted

50g (1.75 ounces) cocoa powder, sifted

For rolling: 30g (1oz) cocoa powder + 30g (1oz) icing/powdered sugar sifted together

With a hand or stand mixer, combine sugars, vanilla bean seeds, coffee powder, salt and butter on medium speed. Mix only until ingredients are thoroughly combined, but by no means light and fluffy. Add in the yolks, one at a time then reduce speed to low. Add in the flour and cocoa powder all at once and mix until homogenous. If you’re comfortable with dough and a pin, you can roll it right away. Otherwise, form the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate about 15 minutes to make the it easier to handle.

You can refrigerate the dough for up to a week or freeze for several months. Before rolling, set the dough out and let it slowly come to room temperature over a few hours.

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350° F) and lightly grease a 22cm loose bottomed tart tin. Dust the counter with the prepared cocoa/powdered sugar mixture. Don’t use flour, it will toughen the dough and dull the richness of the chocolate color. Roll to 0.75cm (1/3") thickness.Carefully set dough over the tart shell and use your thumbs to press the dough into the corners of the pan. Press the overhanging dough against the edges of the tart pan to trim off the excess and leave the dough flush with the edges. Dock tart lightly with a fork. The dough is extremely forgiving and can be rerolled two or three times, you should be able to press any cracks together to mend them.

Bake for 20-25 minutes. After 10 minutes or so, check on the tart. If it has formed an air bubble; use a skewer to gently poke a small hole in the bubble to deflate it. Continue baking until the tart is firm and dry to the touch. Cool in tin for about 10 minutes, then carefully remove from tin and cool completely on a wire rack. Shell can be stored in an airtight container overnight.

For the passionfruit brûlée filling:

430ml (about 1 3/4 cups) pure/pouring (whipping) cream (35% fat)

Remaining 1/2 vanilla bean (leftover from the pastry), split lengthways

6 egg yolks

50g g (about 1/4 cup) caster/superfine sugar, plus plenty for burning

Fresh pulp of one passionfruit

Place cream, passionfruit pulp, scraped vanilla bean seeds and vanilla pod in a small saucepan and bring just to the boil. Remove from the heat and set aside. Place the egg yolks in a stainless steel/heatproof bowl and use a whisk to combine. Add the sugar and continue whisking for about 30 seconds, or until the sugar has dissolved. Pour the slightly cooled cream mixture through a fine sieve, discarding the vanilla bean, then pour the cream into the egg yolk mixture, stirring well to combine. Place bowl over a saucepan of simmering water, making sure the base of the bowl does not touch the water, and continue stirring with a whisk for about 10-15 minutes, or until the mixture is smooth and thick, scraping down the sides of the bowl regularly with a rubber spatula. It is important to keep stirring at all times or the mixture will curdle. Remove the bowl from the heat and whisk briskly for about 2 minutes to cool it quickly. Over the next 1 hour, whisk the mixture every 10 minutes until cooled. Use a rubber spatula to clean the sides of the bowl thoroughly and place plastic wrap directly on top of the mixture; refrigerate overnight to set. Pour mixture into baked tart shell, using a palette knife or offset spatula to smooth the top so that it is flush with top of the tart shell. If you wish you can decorate the surface of the filling with a few extra passionfruit seeds. Chill in the fridge for a further 4 hours. When ready to serve, sprinkle an even layer of sugar over the top of the filling and burn with a blowtorch. Try to do this as close to serving time as possibly, sugar will eventually melt over the course of a day and will lose the crisp layer of toffee.

Grape Tea Cake with Vanilla Bean Glaze

2013-05-06T09:00:00.000+10:00

I had a pretty good weekend. I had friends over for a BBQ where we put on a ridiculous spread of food, I finally won the battle against my recent bout of the flu and I managed to squeeze in family time. After all of that it didn't leave me with a huge amount of time for baking. That's why this cake recipe was perfect; it was quick to throw together, it was a perfect afternoon tea snack and it used up some of the leftover grapes from the BBQ. Nothing too crazy or over the top, just a bit of comfort baking.

I was curious to see how this recipe would turn out. I've never tried baking with grapes before, but they worked surprisingly well. Sure they do add a fair bit of moisture to the cake but it works well in this particular cake, which is wonderfully soft and buttery. I also got to use up some of the last bottle of dessert wine that I brought back from my last Hunter Valley trip. It gives the cake a great depth of flavour without actually making it taste boozy.

Since the cake itself isn't very sweet (made even less sweet since I substituted unsalted butter for my regular slightly salted butter as always), I decided to top it with a simple vanilla bean glaze. I really think this adds something special to the cake. The original French recipe uses a butter & sugar topping but I love this thin, crisp layer of icing with little pops of vanilla bean. I was actually a little bit stingy with the icing for the photos; I was worried I would be drowning the cake in it if I added much more, but to be honest after tasting it I added all the leftover glaze to the top of the cake because it was so amazing together. Anyway, it would be a shame to waste any vanilla bean!

It may not be much to look at, but these kind of cakes rarely are. It's something that you want to throw together in an hour so that you can enjoy it on the same day (still slightly warm) a with a cup of tea of coffee. This cake disappeared so fast yesterday afternoon, especially since it was a particular chilly day.

My only regrets about the cake; I did wrap a damp tea towel around my cake tin again to achieve that super flat cake surface, but to be honest this kind of cake doesn't need to look that neat on top and it means I missed out on having a lovely golden brown crust around the edge of the cake. I definitely won't be using the tea towel next time. I also pushed some of my grapes a little too far into the batter and they sunk to the bottom, which wasn't as nice as the grapes that stayed up the top. Learn from my mistakes people!

Grape Tea Cake with Vanilla Bean Glaze

(adapted from this Bon Apppétit recipe, serves 8-10)

1 1/2 cups (about 190g) plain/all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp bicarb (baking) soda

3/4 cup (170g) caster (superfine) sugar

85g (6 tbsp) butter, room temperature

3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

2 large eggs

1 tsp grated lemon zest

1 tsp grated orange zest

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1 cup Muscat wine

1 1/2 cups red seedless grapes

Preheat oven to 200°C (400°F) (180°C (350°F) fan-forced) and grease and line the base of a 20cm springform tin with baking paper. Sift flour, baking powder, salt and bicarb soda into a bowl and set aside. Place butter, sugar and olive oil in a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer on high until smooth. Beat in eggs, zest, and vanilla extract until combined. Add flour mixture alternately with wine in 3 additions each, whisking just until smooth after each addition. Spread mixture evenly in prepared tin and sprinkle grapes on top. Bake for 30-40 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.Cool cake in tin for 15 minutes, then carefully remove from tin and cool completely on a wire rack.

For the vanilla bean glaze:

1 cup icing sugar, sifted

1/2 vanilla bean pod, seeds scraped (or 1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste)

2-3 tbsp milk

Optional: extra fresh red grapes to serve

Place icing sugar in a bowl and add vanilla beans. Gradually mix in enough milk to form a smooth, thick paste.Once cake has cooled, drizzle glaze over the top of mixture. (Feel free to use more glaze than what is shown in the photographs, I actually poured on double the amount of glaze after the photos were done!) You can also sprinkle a few leftover fresh grapes on top of the cake before you glaze it, but it doesn't really need it.

Strawberry Panna Cotta with Roasted Rhubarb

2013-04-29T09:00:00.000+10:00

I have had a strange relationship with panna cotta. A weird fact about me; until about the age of 14 I was an extremely fussy eater. I couldn't handle any amount of chilli, I hated most vegetables and hardly ate any seafood. I'd rather stay home and eat a bowl of spaghetti bolognese than go out with my family and eat Malaysian hawker food. All those years living in KL were completely wasted on me. Sad, I know. But I remember on my first visit to Melbourne we went to this Italian restaurant (which I totally can't remember anymore) and I had my first vanilla bean panna cotta. I fell in love. It was so silky smooth and creamy with little pops of vanilla bean and just the right amount of wobble from the gelatine; it was heaven on a plate. My brother and I spent the better half of the next year trying to recreate that panna cotta at home, trying all kinds of gelatine leaves and all sorts of recipes but we could never get it quite right. But I like to think that was the end of my fussy period and the start of my love of trying new things.

So panna cottas have a special place in my heart. Unfortunately they did seem to become the default dessert on the menu at a lot of restaurants all over the place for a couple of years, so it became a little bit less exciting for me. But I still love it. This weekend we had a BBQ and I decided to try a bit of an untraditional panna cotta, flavouring it with fresh strawberries instead of vanilla bean. I thought it would be a nice refreshing way to end the day after all that meat. And since it's coming into the cooler months of the year, some roasted rhubarb was the perfect way to top off these pretty pink panna cottas.

I found a great recipe for strawberry panna cotta from Gourmet (link below). It's really packed full of strawberry flavour, and surprisingly smooth even though it uses powdered gelatine instead of leaves. But feel free to try to convert it to gelatine leaves if you prefer. Unfortunately I made the mistake of chilling them in the top shelf of my fridge (the rest of it was packed full of sausages and potato salad), which made some of them freeze a little and ruined the smooth texture a little. Bummer. But the flavour was still great, and the roasted rhubarb had such a vibrant colour and tasted amazing with the strawberry.

The one bad thing about collecting props from all over the place is that I rarely have more than 3 of the same serving glass. So I used all sorts of random glasses and teacups to hold my panna cottas. I thought the tea cups were pretty cute but sometimes you can't go past a regular clear serving glass, especially when the dessert has such a pretty colour on its own! Either way, this dessert went down so well at the end of our BBQ and really is the perfect light way to end any meal.

Strawberry Panna Cotta with Roasted Rhubarb

(adapted from Gourmet, serves 6)

2 punnets (500g) sliced strawberries

1 3/4 cups well-shaken buttermilk

6 tbsp sugar

2 1/2 tsp gelatine powder

1/4 cup milk

1/4 cup pure/heavy cream (min 35% fat unthickened)

Blend strawberries, buttermilk, and sugar in a blender/food processor until very smooth, then pour through a very fine sieve into a medium bowl, pressing hard on solids. Discard solids. Sprinkle gelatine over milk in a small bowl and let stand 1 minute to soften. Bring cream to a boil in a small saucepan. Remove from heat and add gelatin mixture, stirring until dissolved. Whisk cream mixture into strawberry purée and pour equal amounts into 6 molds or serving glasses. Chill molds/glasses, covered, until firm, at least 8 hours.

(If using moulds; dip molds in a small bowl of hot water 2 or 3 seconds, then invert panna cottas onto dessert plates and remove molds.) Let stand at room temperature 20 minutes to soften slightly.

For the roasted rhubarb (from Dorie Greenspan):

450g (1lb, trimmed weight) rhubarb

1/2 cup sugar (or more to taste)

Grated zest of 1 lemon

Preheat oven to 200°C (400°F). Cut rhubarb into pieces 1-2 inches long (whatever you prefer) and place in a baking dish/roasting pan that will hold them comfortably. Sprinkle over sugar and zest and stir until the rhubarb is covered in sugar. Set aside for about 5 minutes, or just long enough for a little syrup to start to form. Cover baking dish with foil and roast in preheated oven for 15 minutes. Take a peek and if the sugar isn't almost completely melted, stir the rhubarb, re-cover the pan with the foil and roast a few mintues more. Remove the foil and let the rhubarb roast for another 5 minutes or so, until the syrup is bubbling. Remove from oven and cool before serving. Can be prepared the night before serving and chilled in an airtight container.

Gummy Bear Layer Cake

2013-04-15T09:00:00.002+10:00

Yep. I covered an entire cake in gummy bears. It's been a while since I did a ridiculously over the top sugar high insanity cake (see Fudge Brownie Cookie Dough Cake), and what better occasion to do one than my friend Tomred's birthday? He is the supplier of all sorts of sweet treats in our office, with a constant supply of Tim Tams and gummy lollies, so this cake seemed appropriate for him. After all, I've already made him a Giant Tim Tam Cake. And I just wanted an excuse to cover a cake in gummy bears. If I learnt anything from my Sprinkle Covered Purple Ombre Cake, cakes are always awesome when covered in sugar.

My point is, try not to be too mad at me for making this entirely ridiculous and unnecessarily over the top cake. It's fun to go there every now and then. I mean, look at how pretty it is when you cut into it! It's 5 layers of chocolate buttermilk cake layered with salted butter icing and each layer of icing is tinted to match the colours of the gummy bears on top. SO FUN.

I did learn some hard lessons while making this cake. First of all, as great as this chocolate cake recipe is, the cake tends to crumble quite easily so it is not the most ideal for cutting into thin layers and covering in icing. It was a messy job. I'd definitely recommend chilling the cakes overnight before you cut them up, or you can use your favourite chocolate cake recipe as a substitute. I kept the icing simple, using a LOT if salted butter to try to counteract the amount of gummy bears (and I took sugar out of the cake batter too). You could use a Swiss meringue buttercream instead, but I tend to prefer regular butter icing to buttercreams.

The gummy bears are a lot chewier than I remembered. So as awesome as it looks as a cake decoration, it makes it a little impractical when you are trying to have a bite of everything at once. And it does make it a little harder to cut slices, I felt bad cutting into the gummy bears! Of course you could skip the gummy bears or use less of them, but I just had to try this out to see how it looked.

It was totally worth it. Just looking at this cake makes me happy. Even though I know that most people who eat the cake will end up picking off the gummy bears and saving them for later, I love the effect of the gummies. Plus it's like getting a slice of cake plus a lolly bag for later!

So Happy Birthday for tomorrow Tomred! Thanks for being a friend who understands that your birthday cake will almost always come with a slice cut out of it for photographic purposes. It would have been cruel not to share an inside shot with you guys, right? Don't get too freaked out by the recipe, it makes a lot of cake so the amounts sound insane. You can halve everything to make a more normal sounding cake.

Gummy Bear Layer Cake

(cake recipe from Martha Stewart, makes a 5-layer 18-20cm round cake, serves 30ish people)

For the cake: (You can halve this recipe to make a smaller cake)

3 cups (about 385g) plain/all-purpose flour

2 &1/2 cups (about 560g) sugar (I used caster/superfine but white/granulated is fine too)

1 tbsp baking powder

2 tsp baking/bicarb soda

1 tsp salt

1 & 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder, preferably Dutch-process

340g (3 sticks) butter, melted

1 & 1/2 cups (about 360ml) buttermilk

4 large egg

4 large egg whites

Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F). Grease and line three 18-20cm round cake tins (if you have taller cake tins you can do this in two tins, don't risk it if your tins are shallow like mine as the batter may overflow). Line a standard cupcake tray with papers. In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, bicarb soda, and salt; set aside. With an electric mixer, combine cocoa and 3/4 cup hot water until a thick paste forms (this process intensifies the chocolate flavor). Add butter, buttermilk, eggs, and egg whites; beat until combined. Whisk in flour mixture until smooth. Pour mixture into tins, distributing to make 5 layers (2/5 in two of the tins and 1/5 in the 3rd, or if using two tall tins; 3/5 in one and 2/5 in the other). Bake until a skewer inserted in the center of cake comes out clean, about 45-60 minutes.Cool in tin for 10 minutes then carefully remove from tin and cool completely on a wire rack. You can chill the cakes at this point to make them easier to cut. Using a long serrated knife, cut cakes into 5 even layers and trim off any doming that may have occurred during baking. (I used this trick to help my cakes bake more evenly)

For the icing:

(It sounds like a lot of butter and sugar but you need a lot to cover all 5 layers. Feel free to halve the amounts for a smaller cake)

500g (about 4 1/3 sticks) salted butter, softened

500g (about 4 cups) icing/confectioner's sugar, sifted

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

2-3 tbsp milk

Optional: Green, yellow, red food colouring

375g (3 & 1/3 sticks) salted butter, softened

375 (3 cups) icing/confectioner's sugar, sifted

1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

1-2 tbsp milk

4 packs (700g) of gummy bear candies

To fill the cake layers and crumb coat the cake, place the 500g of butter in a large mixing bowl and beat until light and fluffy. Gradually add 500g sifted icing sugar while beating on low speed until combined, then add vanilla extract and beat on high until fluffy. Add milk 1 tbsp at a time while beating on high until you achieve desired icing consistency. Icing should be very fluffy and light in colour, easy to spread but stiff enough to hold its shape. Split mixture into 5 equal portions. Add food colouring to four of the portions, green, yellow, orange and red. Sandwich coloured icing between the 5 layers of cake. Use the remaining icing to crumb coat the outside of your cake. Chill in fridge for at least an hour, can be left overnight.

Prepare more icing using the remaining ingredients and repeating the steps above, without adding food colouring. Using a spatula, spread icing smoothly over the top of the crumb coat. Decorate cake with gummy bears. Serve immediately or store in an airtight container until ready to serve.

Brown Butter Waffles with No-Churn Blueberry Ice Cream

2013-04-15T09:00:00.000+10:00

Oh my. That photo right there makes me salivate profusely everytime I look at it. Every. Time. It's probably worse for me because I know exactly what it tastes like, and it tastes even better than it looks in that photo. This is the first time I've ever made waffles for this blog, because this is the first time I've had a waffle iron since I moved out of home! YAY. Thanks to the awesome Suze for letting me borrow her waffle iron. I'm the kinda person who cannot eat waffles without ice cream. The combination of those piping hot, golden waffles with some creamy ice cream melting on top makes me happy. So this weekend I made my own ice cream and waffles. And ate it with maple syrup. And bacon. Yup.

Once you have a waffle iron, you need a good waffle recipe. Luckily for me, my brother has a great one. We've been using it for years and it has never failed us. It may seem a bit more tedious than some of the more basic recipes (because you have to separate your eggs and whip the egg whites separately), but it is definitely worth the extra effort. The waffles you give lots of love will love you back! My brother's one complaint was that the recipe uses vegetable oil and he would have loved to try it with butter instead. We are a butter-loving family. So I took it to the next level and made these waffles with browned butter. If you've been reading my blog for long enough you know how much I love the aroma and flavour of brown butter. It's ridiculously good with pretty much everything. These waffles are no exception.

Rather than flavouring the waffles with blueberries, I decided to make Blueberry Ice Cream instead. It's been a while since I've made ice cream and there are two big reasons for that. 1. It can be a pain to make the custard base for an ice cream, chilling it, then waiting for it to churn and freeze. 2. I HATE HATE HATE photographing things that melt. It is incredibly stressful to try and scoop that pretty, perfect little scoop of ice cream and then shoot it before it turns into a puddle. I usually end up covered in melted ice cream. The awesome Lisa solved one of these problems by sharing an amazing no-churn ice cream recipe (linked below). It's so ridiculously easy and works just as well as churned ice cream in my opinion. And it's so pretty that it was worth running around to get the shot of one scoop of ice cream.

When I was a kid I remembered tasting a sample of blueberry ice cream in the supermarket. It was so good, it stuck with me forever (even though my Mum refused to buy a tub for me no matter how much I whinged). I remember searching in the supermarket ever since then for blueberry ice cream and never finding one that was like the one I tasted. This recipe tastes JUST like how I remembered that blueberry ice cream. You have no idea how happy that makes me. I'm surprised that it's not a more popular ice cream flavour because it works so well and the colour is so beautiful. Look at all those pretty swirls of purple! It is definitely worth making at home, and you can use frozen berries if you want to save a bit of money. 6 dollars for a fresh punnet eek.

In other news, it was really fantastic to hear that I was included in the Top 100 Voices of 2013. And even better, two of my best friends Karen & Lisa are included in the top 25 Food and Wellbeing category with me! Love you crazy, talented girls. You can see the other great bloggers included in the category here.

Speaking of nominations, go check out the Saveur food blog awards and if you have the time make sure you vote for the incredibly talented Top with Cinnamon. And check out Izy's blog if you haven't already, I'm currently slightly obsessed with it. To celebrate I made a (crappy) gif, which is no where near as amazing as the mesmerising ones you'll find on her blog. Blame my handheld photography and dodgy photoshopping skills. But I do love a good drizzle of maple syrup.

Brown Butter Waffles with No-Churn Blueberry Ice Cream
(makes approx 8 waffles and about 1-1.5L of ice cream)
For the blueberry ice cream (adapted from spicy ice cream):
2 punnets (250g) fresh or frozen (and thawed) blueberries
Juice of 1/2 lemon
3-4 tbsp sugar, adjusted to taste
2 cups cream (pure/pouring cream (or heavy cream in the US, min 35% fat unthickened))
1 can (395g) sweetened condensed milk

Place blueberries, lemon juice and sugar in a small saucepan (I used 3 tbsp of sugar first and then added another tbsp after tasting it later) on low-medium heat. Stir regularly until the sugar dissolves and the skins of the blueberries start to split. Continue to stir and allow mixture to simmer for 5-10 minutes, and try to mash the blueberries with a fork as they soften. When mixture starts to thicken slightly, remove from the heat and allow to cool. When at room temperature, transfer to a bowl and chill in the fridge until needed.

Place cream in a large mixing bowl and beat with electric mixer on high until it reaches soft peaks (take care not to overmix). Gently fold in condensed milk until combined and then pour mixture into a large loaf tin (about 1.5L capacity). Dollop blueberry mixture over the top of the cream mixture and then use a spatula to fold the fruit carefully throughout the cream. Alternatively, blend the fruit mixture and add it at the same time as the condensed milk for a smoother colour and texture (I prefer the rustic, swirly look). Freeze overnight.

For the waffles (adapted from this Toastmaster Waffle Iron recipe):

110g (about 7 tbsp) butter (can be substituted with 7 tbsp vegetable oil)
1 3/4 cup flour (plain/all-purpose)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
3 large eggs, separated and at room temperature
1 1/2 cups milk, room temperature

Preheat your waffle iron. Place butter in a small saucepan on low heat stirring occasionally, until foamy, about 5 minutes. Continue to cook, stirring frequently, until the milk solids turn brown and the butter smells nutty, about 4 minutes longer (take care not to burn, I removed mine from the heat just as it started turning brown as it continues to cook in the saucepan even after it's off the heat). Set aside.

Sift flour, baking powder, salt and sugar in a large mixing bowl and set aside. In another mixing bowl, whip egg whites to stiff peaks, set aside. While slowly mixing (either with a whisk or an electric mixer on low), add egg yolks to mixture, follow by the butter, and then the milk. Mix until combined. (If your milk is too cold this may cause the mixture to go a bit grainy because of the butter solidifying, but this is okay). Fold egg white into mixture until combined. Pour mixture into your heated waffle iron, I used about 1/2 cup of mixture per waffle. Cook to your waffle iron's instructions, until waffles are golden brown and crisp. Serve immediately with your blueberry ice cream, and some maple syrup and streaky bacon if you're into that sorta thing ;)

Leftover waffles can be frozen once they have cooled completely, then reheated in the toaster or microwave before serving.

Passionfruit Cupcakes with Marshmallow Toppers

2013-04-08T09:00:00.000+10:00

I'm a bad friend. At the very least, I've been a bad friend recently. When your life is a mess you tend to be incapable of doing the most obvious of tasks, like keeping in touch with your friends and getting your hair cut (it's getting ridiculously long now). So when my best friend Asian Gaga had a housewarming party and I knew that I was going to be a bad friend and wouldn't be able to go, I became determined this weekend to bake something for her party. It was the least I could do.

Of course, sometimes when you try to channel your frustration into your baking it can be a bit of a disaster. I had this vision of the cutest cupcakes topped with these neat, elegant, fluffy white house-shaped marshmallow with chocolate-dipped roofs. It sorta went to plan at first; I made Passionfruit Cupcakes topped with the best Fruit Tingles (Fizzy Candy) Icing. Then I made a batch of Homemade Passionfruit Marshmallows. But when it came to making them house-shaped, it was nearly impossible without a proper cookie cutter to do the job. I tried to cut it free-hand, and also around a stencil which I cut out of plastic, but it was just way too messy. After cutting through about 1/3 of the marshmallow I had about 2 decent houses. So I cut my losses and switched to the good old-faithful heart-shaped cutter. You can never go wrong with hearts!

They look pretty cute in the photos but about 10 minutes after I took these shots the marshmallows started sliding slow down the lollipop sticks. Learn from my lessons people; I cut and dusted the marshmallows and stuck them straight on to the lollipop sticks upright. You really can't do that with homemade marshmallows, they need plenty of time to dry out once they've been cut. I ended up having to cut my lollipop sticks in half so the hearts were sitting right above the icing. A rather bumpy car trip left the cupcakes barely recognisable by the time they reached their destination :( I hate transporting fiddly baked goods!

But the good news is, I think they tasted pretty good. I mean, you can't go wrong with the Fruit Tingles Icing. It's sweet, with a hint of salt from some good quality butter and then every now and then you come across a nubbin of sour, fizzy candy. I mixed fresh passionfruit pulp into my foolproof cupcake recipe, and into my usual marshmallow recipe. Even though I'm not a fan of passionfruit it really works great in marshmallows. And I can't repeat this enough; MAKE HOMEMADE MARSHMALLOWS. They are so much better than store-bought.

With any cupcake recipe, I always make too much icing. There's nothing worse than running out of icing when you are decorating cupcakes! It seemed like a gigantic waste to throw out any of the leftover icing, so I whipped up a batch of macarons (using my usual macaron shell recipe, topped with crushed up Fruit Tingles for those wondering) and filled them with the leftover icing. Ta-daaa!!! Fruit Tingle Macarons! How cute are they?? So I managed to make lots of great separate bits and bobs this weekend, but my execution of putting them all together was a bit shit. Hopefully the cupcakes went down well even though they were all smashed up.

Passionfruit Cupcakes, Fizzy Candy Icing and Passionfruit Marshmallows

(makes about 12 cupcakes, and about 30-40 marshmallows)

For the cupcakes:

125g (about 1 stick + 1 tbsp) butter

3/4 cup sugar (I used caster/superfine but regular/granulated works fine)

2 eggs, room temperature

1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract

Pulp of 3-4 fresh passionfruit (optional: strain to remove seeds)

225g (about 1 & 3/4 cups) self-raising flour

For the icing:

250g (about 2 & 1/4 sticks) salted butter (or use unsalted and add 1/4 tsp salt), softened

375g (about 3 cups) icing sugar, sifted

3 sticks (105g) Fruit Tingles (for non-Australians, replace with any other fizzy tablet candies like Bottle Caps or Smarties (not the chocolate covered candy with the same name), SweeTarts or Barratt's Refreshers)

Prepare the cupcakes; line a 12-hole cupcake tray with papers and preheat oven to 180°C (350°F) (if fan-forced use 170°C (340°F)). Place butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl and beat on high with an electric mixer for 3-5 minutes, until light and fluffy. Continue to beat on medium speed and add one egg at a time, mixing until combined. Add vanilla extract, passionfruit pulp and self-raising flour and mix on low until just combined. Spoon equal amounts into the cupcake papers, filling them about 3/4 full (I use an ice cream scoop to make this easier). Bake for 15-20 minutes, until golden brown on top and a skewer inserted into the centre of a cake comes out clean. Cool in tin for 5 minutes then cool completely on a wire rack.

When cakes are cool, prepare the icing. Crush Fruit Tingles into very fine pieces (you don't want anyone to break a tooth!), I did this by placing it into the food processor and pulsing it fine. You may end up with some very fine powder as well as small pieces, but that's fine. Place butter in a large mixing bowl and beat on high with an electric mixer until smooth and fluffy. Gradually add icing sugar, and beat again until combined and fluffy. Gradually mix crushed candies into the mixture, adjusting to taste. Place mixture in a piping bag and pipe over cupcakes.

For the Passionfruit Marshmallows:

500g (about 2 cups) sugar
1 tbsp liquid glucose (or light corn syrup)
Pulp of 3-4 fresh passionfruit, strained to remove seeds

2 tbsp gelatine powder
2 large egg whites
Vegetable oil (or melted butter) for greasing
1 cup (75g) icing sugar, sifted
1 cup (75g) cornflour (cornstarch)

Grease and line the base and sides with baking paper of a 24x32cm rectangular cake tray, or two 20cm square cake tins. Place caster sugar, glucose and 200ml water in a small saucepan. Place on low heat and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Top up passionfruit pulp with cold water to make a total of 200ml liquid and place in a small bowl. Sprinkle gelatine powder over it and set aside to soften. Increase heat on saucepan to medium-high and insert a sugar thermometer. Boil for 5-10 minutes, until sugar thermometer reaches 120°C (250°F) (I got my candy thermometer from a $2 dollar shop for those wondering). Remove from the heat and carefully add gelatine to mixture and whisk until gelatine dissolves and no lumps remain (if you are worried about this step you can heat the bowl of gelatine over a pot of simmering water first to make it smoother before adding it).

Place egg whites in a large mixing bowl and start beating with an electric mixer with a whisk attachment on high speed until it reaches soft peaks (if you are using a hand mixer you should beat your egg whites to a stiff peak before you start adding the syrup). Gradually add hot sugar syrup to the egg white while mixing. Beat until mixture is glossy and white, about 5 minutes on a stand mixer and closer to 10 with a hand mixer. Before mixture starts to cool too much, pour mixture into prepared tin and use a spatula to quickly smooth top. Leave to set at room temperature overnight. Use a greased knife to cut into squares or your favourite cookie cutter to cut out shapes. Mix icing sugar and cornstarch together and use to dust each marshmallow (dip your cookie cutter into the icing sugar mixture to make it easier to cut out shapes). Place on a piece of baking paper to dry at least 2 hours, then store in an airtight container in a cool place. If placing on sticks, insert lollipop sticks into marshmallows and leave to dry overnight. Best eaten within two days.

raspberri cupcakes on facebook

2013-03-26T16:22:00.000+11:00

Hi! Just a quick note to let you know that by popular demand, I have FINALLY set up a Facebook page for raspberri cupcakes! Yay! Yeah I know, it's about 3 years too late but I honestly thought I would never do it since I am a bit wary of Facebook. I know a lot of you had asked me to make the page for a while now and I finally caved because I wanted to make sure there's plenty of options for everyone to get updated when I post a new recipe. Of course you can still subscribe via e-mail or rss to get my new posts, but now you can also LIKE my facebook page too! So please go and like away! I will try my best to keep it updated regularly with plenty of good shizz.

Easter Trifles (with Chick Macarons)

2013-03-25T09:00:00.000+11:00

Let's not beat around the bush; I've had a spectacularly shit week. Oh hell, I've had a spectacularly shit month. Excuse the language but I need to get it out there. My blog is my favourite place to get ranty. The one good thing that came out of this week was these Easter-themed trifles. Aren't they adorbs?! They are individual serve chocolate & orange trifles topped with a white chocolate nest, speckled eggs and orange white chocolate chick macarons. A bit of a mouthful and certainly much more complicated than last years super popular Cheesecake-Filled Chocolate Easter Eggs, but so worth the effort.

I love a good trifle any time of the year. I was inspired to put these together after my brother bought me the cutest, tiniest pastel coloured speckled eggs from Aldi (love Aldi!). I really wanted to do some sort of nest-like dessert and trifle was the first thing that came to mind. It was hard to think of the best flavours to use at Easter, but since I was using chocolate eggs I settled for the classic combination of orange and chocolate (a family favourite).

It's taken me a while to work up the energy to make a trifle again. I'm still emotionally scarred from my epic 7-layer passionfruit trifle that I made for Asian Gaga's birthday last year, which I managed to upend on the floor right after I finished the first attempt. I can still picture the smashed ruins of jelly, cream, sponge and macarons all over the white carpet. I thought that individual serves would be cuter for this themed trifle, especially topped with grated white chocolate to make it look almost like a nest. And then the sweetest chicklet macarons!

For the record, I know that chick macarons have been done for Easter by other blogs. Everyone seems to be into making animal-shaped macarons these days! But since these were just one component of a dessert I figured it would be fun to try. Plus I get to add them to my growing animal macaron zoo on this blog (which now includes koalas, cats, pigs, and another Easter favourite; bunnies). I had so much fun making them, but I did manage to nearly forget to add the salt until the last minute, which led to bumpier than usual shells since the salt grains didn't dissolve.

The macarons are filled with a simple white chocolate orange ganache. They are so good to eat once you get over the fact that you are chomping into their cute little faces. I made a simple chocolate sponge, which I brushed with Grand Marnier and then layered with a homemade orange jelly and whipped cream dotted with vanilla beans. I also added a dash of Grand Marnier to the cream which gave it wonderful richness and got me just a leeeeeetle bit tipsy after eating one of the trifles.

I KNOW, you're probably thinking this is all way too complicated to attempt. But if you prep all the components the day before it isn't that bad, and you can even use store-bought sponge and packet orange jelly (this is one of the few times I will condone store-bought cake) or fruit to save time. You can skip the macarons or make sugar cookies instead. Or you could just make the macarons on their own. The possibilities are endless! Make sure you check out all my other Easter recipes from previous years. It's one of my all-time favourite holidays to bake for.

Chocolate & Orange Trifles with Chick Macarons

(serves approx 6-8 people, makes about 15 macarons)

For the macarons: (if you are a beginner with macarons, read up and practice plain macarons first. BraveTart has lots of useful advice and info on the subject)

100g aged egg whites (you can use fresh eggs too, just make sure they are room temperature. I always use fresh these days, and zap it in the microwave on defrost for 10 seconds)

1/2 tsp salt
110g almond meal, at room temperature and well sifted
200g icing sugar
50g caster sugar

Yellow food colouring (powdered or gel)
Optional: 1 tsp powdered egg whites (available from The Essential Ingredient), helps to stabilise egg whites but is not necessary

To decorate: Orange heart sprinkles/orange candy coated fennel seeds, black food colouring,

Line two baking sheets with baking paper. Place icing sugar in food processor and pulse for a minute to remove any lumps. Stir in almond meal and pulse for about 30 seconds to combine. Sift into a large mixing bowl and set aside. Using an electric mixer, beat egg whitesm salt and egg white powder in a medium mixing bowl until the egg white powder dissolves and it reaches soft peaks. With the mixer on high speed, gradually add sugar and beat until it reaches stiff peaks. (You can add the food colouring to the meringue as you are beating it to stiff peaks, it makes it easier to adjust how much colouring to add. Otherwise add it in the next step.)

Add meringue to your dry mixture and mix, quickly at first to break down the bubbles in the egg white (you really want to beat all the large bubbles out of the mixture, be rough!), then mix carefully as the dry mixture becomes incorporated and it starts to become shiny again. Take care not to overmix, the mixture should flow like lava and a streak of mixture spread over the surface of the rest of the mixture should disappear after about 30 seconds. Place mixture in a piping bag with a 1cm round piping tip. Pipe rounds about 3cm diameter, leaving at least 2cm space around each one. Tap baking sheets carefully and firmly on the benchtop a couple times to remove any large bubbles. I carefully topped half the macarons with two heart-shaped orange sprinkles for the feet and a candy coated fennel seed for the beak, then piped the wings on using a narrow star tip. (This does make the shells more susceptible to cracking, as an alternative you can bake the shells plain and pipe on decorations later with royal icing.)

Leave to dry for about an hour, so that when you press the surface of one gently it does not break. This will help prevent any cracking and help the feet to form on the macs. Preheat your oven to 130-150°C (265-300°F), depending on your oven. You can place the sheet of piped shells on top of an upside-down roasting tray or another baking sheet if your sheets are not professional grade, for better heat distribution. Bake for 20-25 minutes, depending on the size of your shells. Carefully test if the base of the shell is ready by gently lifting one and if it's still soft and sticking to the baking paper, then it needs to bake for a few minutes longer. Remove from the oven and cool on the tray for a few minutes, then gently remove from the sheet and place on a wire rack to cool completely. I used a wooden skewer dipped in black food colouring to draw on the eyes.

For the orange ganache:

200g (7oz) white chocolate, finely chopped

100ml (just over 1/3 cup) thickened (heavy) cream

Zest of one orange + 1 tbsp orange juice

Place white chocolate and orange juice in a medium mixing bowl. Heat cream and orange zest in a small saucepan over low heat until it just comes to the boil, stirring regularly. If you want a smoother ganache, strain the zest out at this point. Pour hot cream over white chocolate and leave to sit for about 3-5 minutes, then gently whisk until the chocolate melts and the mixture is smooth. (If it does not completely melt, place bowl over a small pot of boiling water and whisk until smooth.) Chill until mixture thickens but is still pipable, then sandwich in between macaron shells.

For the orange jelly (feel free to replace with packet orange jelly or segmented fresh orange slices):

1/2 cup water

Peeled rind and juice from 3-4 oranges

1-2 tbsp sugar, adjust to taste

2 tbsp powdered gelatine + 1/2 cup water

Optional: 1 tbsp Grand Marnier

Grease a 20cm square cake tin with vegetable oil or line with baking paper. Place powdered gelatine in 1/2 cup water and set aside to soften. Heat 1/2 cup water plus the peeled rind and juice in a small saucepan and simmer for about 5 minutes. Strain out the rind and add sugar to taste. Gently whisk in softened gelatine and Grand Marnier and pour into prepared tin. Chill for at least 3-4 hours until set or overnight.

For the chocolate sponge:

Use this recipe from Gourmet Traveller, which I always use for my Tim Tam Cake. You can also use store-bought sponge.

To assemble:

475ml (about 2 cups) thickened cream

1 tsp vanilla bean paste (or scraped seeds of 1 vanilla bean pod)

White chocolate (about 100g), grated

Optional: 1 tbsp Grand Marnier plus extra for brushing sponge, easter eggs to decorate

Chop orange jelly into 1 cm cubes. Whip cream with vanilla beans to soft peaks and then fold in Grand Marnier. Cut rounds of chocolate sponge about 2 cm thick to fit into about 6 serving glasses (I found my sponge baked quite high so I could actually cut each round into two layers). Place one layer of sponge, brush with Grand Marnier, top with a layer of jelly cubes followed by a layer of cream. Repeat. Top with a layer of grated white chocolate, a chick macaron and easter eggs to decorate. Chill in the fridge for an hour and then serve. If you are not serving immediately do not assemble and do not whip the cream. Keep other components in fridge and then whip cream and assemble when ready to serve.

Check out the rest of my Easter recipes!

Mint Chocolate Chip Macarons

2013-03-18T09:00:00.000+11:00

The fun thing about working with an unfamiliar oven is having an excuse to go back to basics. I was super scared to try macarons in the oven in my new place since it took me many, many failed batches to get used to my last oven. But I decided bite the bullet and try a pretty uncomplicated recipe. It's essentially the macaron version of my Mint Chocolate Chip Cake, which included the icing version of the ice cream flavour. It's like dessert inception!

I used the same mint chocolate chip icing from the cake recipe, with a slightly stronger peppermint flavour since you're not going to be eating a whole slice worth of icing. I made some plain macaron shells tinted with a bit of green and blue colouring and sprinkled with cocoa nibs. I love using cocoa nibs and they are perfect for this macaron flavour. I know they're not that easy to get a hold of so you can always substitute it with a dusting of cocoa powder instead.

Thankfully the my first batch of macaron shells turned out pretty good. A little bumpy, but the shells had good feet and weren't hollow inside. But I have learnt that my oven is much hotter than the previous oven, so I pretty much have to lower the temperature about 20 degrees from what is stated in most recipes. It's an important thing to learn; every oven is totally different and you need to get to know how hot or cool your oven operates and adjust the oven temperature accordingly. It's handy to get an oven thermometer but I tend to get a feel for it over time.

You might end up with some extra icing after filling your macarons. You could throw it out, or ice some cupcakes, or go totally nuts and bake some Salted & Malted Chocolate Chip Cookies and sandwich it with a bucketload of icing. Oh yeahhhh.

I know this macaron flavour has totally been done before, but it was fun to try out anyway. I knew that the macaron would probably look a lot more elegant with a simple mint flavoured chocolate ganache, but I wanted to get the full mint chocolate chip experience by using the fabulous icing that looks just like the ice cream flavour. Of course I couldn't resist picking up some mini ice cream cones to play with too!

Mint Chocolate Chip Macarons

(makes about 15-16 macarons)

For the macarons: (if you are a beginner with macarons, read up and practice plain macarons first. BraveTart has lots of useful advice and info on the subject)
100g aged egg whites (you can use fresh eggs too, just make sure they are room temperature. I always use fresh these days, and zap it in the microwave on defrost for 10 seconds)
110g almond meal, at room temperature and well sifted
200g icing sugar
50g caster sugar
Optional: 1 tsp powdered egg whites (available from The Essential Ingredient), helps to stabilise egg whites but is not necessary

Blue/green food colouring (powdered or gel)
To decorate: cocoa nibs (also available from The Essential Ingredient)

Line two baking sheets with baking paper. Place icing sugar in food processor and pulse for a minute to remove any lumps. Stir in almond meal and pulse for about 30 seconds to combine. Sift into a large mixing bowl and set aside. Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites and egg white powder in a medium mixing bowl until the egg white powder dissolves and it reaches soft peaks. With the mixer on high speed, gradually add sugar and beat until it reaches stiff peaks. (You can add the food colouring to the meringue as you are beating it to stiff peaks, it makes it easier to adjust how much colouring to add. Otherwise add it in the next step. I used a green gel colouring with a hint of aqua gel as well.)

Add meringue to your dry mixture and mix, quickly at first to break down the bubbles in the egg white (you really want to beat all the large bubbles out of the mixture, be rough!), then mix carefully as the dry mixture becomes incorporated and it starts to become shiny again. Take care not to overmix, the mixture should flow like lava and a streak of mixture spread over the surface of the rest of the mixture should disappear after about 30 seconds. Place mixture in a piping bag with a 1cm round piping tip. Pipe rounds about 3cm diameter, leaving at least 2cm space around each one. Tap baking sheets carefully and firmly on the benchtop a couple times to remove any large bubbles. If you wish, you can decorate the shells with cocoa nibs or a dusting of cocoa powder.

Leave to dry for about an hour, so that when you press the surface of one gently it does not break. This will help prevent any cracking and help the feet to form on the macs. Preheat your oven to 130-150°C (265-300°F), depending on your oven. You can place the sheet of piped shells on top of an overturned roasting tray or another baking sheet if your sheets are not professional grade, for better heat distribution. Bake for 20-25 minutes, depending on the size of your shells. Carefully test if the base of the shell is ready by gently lifting one and if it's still soft and sticking to the baking paper, then it needs to bake for a few minutes longer. Remove from the oven and cool on the tray for a few minutes, then gently remove from the sheet and place on a wire rack to cool completely.

For the mint chocolate chip icing:

125g salted butter, softened (or use unsalted and add 1/2 tsp salt)

1 1/2 cups icing sugar (about 190g)

3 tsp peppermint essence

75g semi-sweet dark chocolate, either very, very finely chopped (I pulsed mine down in a food processor, sifting away the finer powder) or mini chocolate chips

Optional: green/blue food colouring

Place butter in a large mixing bowl and beat on high using an electric mixer until the butter is smooth and fluffy. Gradually beat in icing sugar until smooth. Add peppermint essence and food colouring, try to match the colour of the shells. Stir in chocolate bits gradually, you want to make sure you don't add too much and that your chocolate isn't too fine or it will turn the icing brown. Spoon or pipe into the macaron shells, sandwiching them together. Store in an airtight container overnight to allow them to mature. Serve at room temperature.

Maple Syrup Glazed Scones

2013-03-11T09:00:00.000+11:00

I am generally resistant to a lot of change. I like my comfort zones. You could probably tell from the large amount of whinging that I've done over the last few weeks how much I hated the whole moving process. But now that I'm finally settled in my new place I think I am kind of loving it. We managed to throw a metric shitload of stuff away while packing, which means that our new place is so much less cluttered. I can actually see all my props now! I've also realised that I've inherited some of my Mum's hoarding habits, because I was holding on to so much ridiculous stuff that I was never going to conceivably use or need or want to see any time in the future.

So this was my first proper weekend in my new place. A newer oven, hopefully better than the old clunker that I've grown accustomed to working with in my old place. I decided the best way to test it out was to make a good ol' batch of scones. (I am too scared to try macarons in it yet) As part of the whole nostalgic experience of leaving my old place got me looking into my very early blog posts and I came across these golden syrup scones from way back when. I couldn't believe I hadn't made them more since then. I remember this recipe was ridiculously good.

I decided to try it out with a bit of a change, switching the sticky super sweet golden syrup for the slightly runnier, darker maple syrup. As much as I love golden syrup I know it can be hard to get hold of good quality stuff in a lot of places. And I had a bottle of maple syrup sitting in the cupboard begging to be used. I was interested to see which version would be better.

To be honest they were pretty similar but they are both amazing so you can't go wrong with either version. You end up with the soft, fluffy pillows of scone goodness thanks to the cream scone base, and the sticky sweetness from the syrup. It's only just a hint of sweetness, so you can still eat it with jam and cream. But I would definitely recommend trying it with a slightly less sweet jam like a cherry jam. I also served it with crème fraîche, which worked really well because it had a slight tartness to offset the sweetness of the scones. I always love a classic plain scone but I think the sweet tooth in me secretly likes these ones better. Anyway you might have to bear with me as I get used to working with a new oven and figuring out the light and the best places to take photos in my new place, I'm definitely looking forward to finding my new comfort zones.

Maple Syrup Glazed Scones

(makes 8-9 scones, adapted from these Golden Syrup Scones)

2 cups self-raising flour

2 tbsp sugar (I used caster (superfine) but regular granulated white sugar is fine too)

2 tbsp pure maple syrup + about 1/4 cup extra for glazing after baking

1/2 cup (125ml) milk

1/2 cup (125ml) pure/pouring cream (or heavy cream in the US, min 35% fat unthickened)

Recommended to serve: crème fraîche or clotted cream, and a not too sweet jam (I used a black cherry jam)

Preheat oven to 200°C (390°F) (fan-forced 180°C (350°F)) and line a heavy based baking dish with sides (or a 20cm square cake tin) with baking paper. Sift flour and sugar together in a large mixing bowl. Make a well in the centre, place the maple syrup in and then pour cream on top. While gradually adding the milk, start to mix lightly and quickly with your butter knife using a cutting motion until just combined. You may want to slow down adding the milk just as you get to the last 1-2 tbsp of liquid as you may not need to add all of it. the mixture should be sticky but you should be able to gently handle it with floured hands.

Working quickly and gently, gather dough together on a floured bench. Try to handle the dough as little as possible, using lightly floured hands to stop dough sticking to you, and pat the dough into a rectangle about 3-3.5cm thick. You can lightly knead the dough with your hands for a smoother appearance but overknead it and your scones will be tough and hard.

Cut out round using a 5-6cm scone cutter (push the cutter into the dough, don't twist) and place next to each other in prepared tray (scones baked close together will rise higher and thus be lighter). I usually manage to cut about 5-6 scones, then I pat the scraps together and cut out another 2 and finally pat the scraps from that together into a ball to form the final scone.

Bake for 15-20 mins, until scones are cooked through and tops are lightly browned. You can test in the insides to check if they are done by inserting a skewer in between two if the scones. If it comes out with any raw dough attached it needs to bake for longer. As soon as you remove the scones from the oven, brush the tops with maple syrup. Make sure to only brush a thin, even layer while the scones are still piping hot or the tops will go soggy. Serve immediately with crème fraîche and jam. If you have leftover scones let them cool completely then store in an air-tight container in the fridge and warm up in the microwave for 20-30 seconds before serving again later.

Date & Strawberry Oatmeal Cookies

2013-02-25T09:00:00.000+11:00

In case you can't already tell, I'm sticking to the really easy comfort-food recipes at the moment. I wanted something that I could whip up really quickly to have with a cup of tea while I whinged about how tired I was and how achey all my muscled are from packing and moving. These oatmeal cookies sandwiched with a date & strawberry filling were perfect.

I didn't realise until after I was done making these that they would be the last thing I would ever bake in my current kitchen. It's made me a little sad because this is the kitchen where I really learnt to bake, the kitchen where I started my baking blog. Oatmeal cookies are definitely not the prettiest of baked goods, but something about them is so happy and warm. It wasn't a bad way to say goodbye to my current oven.

The original recipe that I used for the cookies was a fantastic one from Joy of Baking, but it was a tad too much oats and not enough cookie for my liking so I have adjusted the quantities of the oats slightly in the recipe below. Feel free to use the original recipe though, it may be because the original recipe mixes fruits and nuts into the cookie dough as well. Vanilla beans and strawberry jam are mixed into a date puree to make the filling, which was quite sweet so I reduced the amount of sugar in the recipe. They look a bit like Kingston biscuits, so there was some initial confusion from the people tasting them when they realised it was fruit and not chocolate in the middle. It's not usually a good thing to give people fruit when they are expecting chocolate but these biscuits are pretty great so they'll just have to get over it.

It took me nearly three days to pack up all my props. I can't believe how much blogging-related crap I have accumulated over the last four years! A got all judgey and was like, "Do you really need that many cake stands?". The answer is OF COURSE. Have you seen how many cakes I bake?! Geez. The next post will be coming to you from my new place, it will definitely be interesting to find out how the oven over there performs, and to get used to photographing with different light. I really need a nap right now.

Date & Strawberry Oatmeal Cookies

(makes about 20 sandwiched cookies, adapted from Joy of Baking)

170 g (3/4 cup) butter, room temperature

3/4 cup (about 150 g) packed brown sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

3/4 cup (about 100g) plain/all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 1/2 cups (about 220g) old-fashioned rolled oats

For the date filling:

1 1/2 cups (about 200g) dried pitted dates

1/2 cup water

1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste or pure vanilla extract

1/3 cup strawberry jam

Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F) and line two cookie trays with baking paper. Cream butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer on high until light and fluffly. Add egg and vanilla extract and beat to combine. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, and ground cinnamon. Add the flour mixture and beat on low until incorporated. Stir in the oats until mixture is uniform. Roll about 1 tbsp worth of mixture in your hands and gently flatten into the prepared trays so they are about 1cm thick. Make sure to leave about 1.5 cm space around each cookie as they will spread slightly. Bake for about 10-12 minutes or until golden brown but still soft in the centre. Cool for 5 minutes on the tray then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

For the filling, place dates. vanilla bean paste and water in a small saucepan on low heat and stir occasionally, until the dates are soft and have absorbed most of the water (about 5-10 minutes). Cool to room temperature and puree in a food processor or blender with the strawberry jam. Sandwich biscuits with a small dollop of filling. Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days (I kept mine in the fridge to stop them from getting too soggy).

Blueberry, White Chocolate & Lime Muffins

2013-02-17T09:00:00.000+11:00

I AM SO TIRED. Moving is tiring, and I've barely even started. It's a bit of a struggle to lift my arms to type.

There is no long explanation for these muffins, I'm trying to get rid of stuff from my kitchen. Frozen blueberries, limes from Mum and a random block of white chocolate went into these Blueberry, White Chocolate & Lime Muffins.

I based it on a muffin recipe from Exclusively Food, they always have great basic recipes. These muffins are great; a crisp, golden crunchy muffin top and not the least bit dry inside. No mixer needed, just two bowls and some stirring.

You may notice in the before pics I had different muffin papers than the ones that ended up in the after photos. Yeah, the original papers had some serious structural integrity issues. It got messy. Anyway muffins good, Steph tired. I gave up after taking a few photos and ate a muffin right there.

Blueberry, White Chocolate & Lime Muffins

(adapted from Exclusively Food, makes 9-12 muffins)

2 tsp lime juice + finely grated zest of 1 lime

250ml (about 1 cup) milk, at room temperature

1 large egg

300g (about 2 1/3 cups) self-raising flour

150g (3/4 cup) brown sugar (can replace with white sugar)

200g (7oz, about 1 cup) white chocolate chopped into small chunks

200g blueberries (I used frozen (not defrosted) but fresh will work too)

125g butter, melted (can replace with vegetable oil)

Preheat oven to 190°C (375°F) (170°C (340°F) if fan-forced). Line a muffin tray with papers. Whisk lime juice, zest, milk and egg in a medium bowl until well combined. Place self-raising flour, brown sugar and white chocolate in a large bowl. Add blueberries and gently stir to combine.

Add butter and egg mixture to the dry ingredients. Gently stir until just combined and take care not to overmix. Fill prepared muffin papers about 3/4 full. Bake for about 22-27 mins, a skewer or knife inserted into the centre of a muffin should come out without any batter attached and if you press lightly on the centre of a muffin; if it springs back, it's ready. (I used oversized muffin papers so it took a bit longer.) Best eaten fresh out of the oven, but can be stored in an airtight container at room temp for a couple days (and can be microwaved before eaten, or frozen to store).

Chocolate Buttermilk Cupcakes with Earl Grey Buttercream & Salted Caramel

2013-02-11T09:00:00.000+11:00

Gong Hei Fatt Choy! Happy Lunar New Year everyone! If you follow me on instagram you would have seen my favourite part of CNY eve is arranging the yee sang. This year I made it look like a snake. It was tricky because I was trying my hardest to make sure it didn't look too, er, phallic. And I was sad to destroy him (even though it was very tasty). I named him Harold, I don't know why.

I didn't have the chance to bake any new year treats this year and my Mum brought back heaps of cookies from KL, so I randomly baked up these cupcakes instead. Chocolate Buttermilk Cupcakes with Earl Grey Icing and Salted Caramel. It was a good excuse to use up some leftover buttermilk and I love doing dessert recipes involving any kind of tea, especially Earl Grey.

You might think it sounds like a strange combination, but the moist, slightly bitter dark chocolate cake is heavenly when you add the fluffy meringue-style icing with a hint of bergamot. It's pretty much chocolate and orange! And salted caramel goes with everything. I just love the way it looks drizzled into the swirls of icing.

I know Valentine's Day is coming up soon but this year I seem to be allergic to anything pink or heart-shaped when it comes to V-day baking. I've done it before but I'm avoiding it this year. Maybe because my husband totally loathes the holiday I'm try not to cheese it up. To be honest I find this cupcake a way more sexy, awesome treat to make for someone you love.

I totally over-estimated how much icing I would need for the cupcakes (but adjusted the amounts in the recipe below), so I doubled the same chocolate buttermilk batter recipe to make a full-sized cake. It was just as good, if not better. I brought the big cake over for dessert with my family and even after all our reunion dinner feasting everyone still went back for seconds of this cake.

The cupcakes might be a more sensible option if you want to stop yourself from eating too much of this cake. It's so moreish because surprisingly it's not that sweet and there's so many contrasting textures in one bite. Hopefully in the next few weeks I can keep up the regular posts because I'm in the middle of moving apartments. I'm nervous to see how the oven in my new place performs! There may be several baking failures coming up.

Chocolate Buttermilk Cupcakes with Earl Grey Icing & Salted Caramel

(cupcake recipe from Martha Stewart, icing adapted from Honey & Jam)

Note: This recipe yields 10-12 cupcakes, if you want to make a whole cake, double the cake batter quantity and bake in a 18-20cm round tin greased and lined with baking paper for about 45 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean

For the cupcakes:

3/4 cup (about 95g) plain/all-purpose flour

3/4 cup (about 170g) sugar (I used caster/superfine but white/granulated is fine too)

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking/bicarb soda

1/4 tsp salt

6 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder, preferably Dutch-process

85g (6 tbsp) butter, melted

6 tbsp (about 90ml) buttermilk

1 large egg

1 large egg white

Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F). Line a standard cupcake tray with papers. In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, bicarb soda, and salt; set aside. With an electric mixer, combine cocoa and 3 tablespoons hot water until a thick paste forms (this process intensifies the chocolate flavor). Add butter, buttermilk, egg, and egg white; beat until combined. Whisk in flour mixture until smooth. Scoop (or spoon) batter into prepared papers, filling them about 3/4 full. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Transfer cupcakes to a wire rack to cool completely.

For the Earl Grey Icing:

2 large egg whites

3/4 cup tightly packed brown sugar

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup strongly brewed Earl Grey tea (I used 3 teabags/about 3 tsp loose leaf tea)

Beat egg whites in a large mixing bowl until foamy & thick, they should mound, but not peak. In a saucepan, combine the sugar, cream of tartar, 1/4 cup Earl Grey tea & salt. Bring to a boil. Boil for 3-4 minutes, or until a candy thermometer reads 117°C (242°F) and all sugar is dissolved. Begin beating the egg whites again and slowly pour in boiling sugar syrup in a slow steam. Continue to beat on high for 7 minutes or until stiff peaks form. Add remaining tea by the tablespoon, beating after each addition. Continue beating until icing reaches desired consistency (it should hold its shape when piped and cooled), about 2 minutes.

For the salted caramel, I made a half batch of this recipe from Brown Eyed Baker. To assemble, pipe or spread icing on the cupcakes. Spoon cooled salted caramel over the top. Serve immediately or store in an airtight container for several days.

Banana Layer Cake with Passionfruit Cream Cheese Icing

2013-02-04T15:30:00.000+11:00

Sorry this post is slightly late and will probably be slightly incoherent and delirious. It was a very busy weekend and I woke up this morning totally sick and gross. Damn you immune system, you were doing so well this year! Anyway this weekend we were celebrating my niece's one month with a traditional Chinese full moon party. It was a pretty small gathering with pretty much just family and I was in charge of the cake.

My brother & sis-in-law requested their favourite cake flavour, banana cake with passionfruit cream cheese icing, a flavour combination we learnt about from Simmone Logue and have loved ever since. The construction of this cake was a nightmare, nothing went to plan for me. But we'll talk about that later. It was worth all the effort because it was for this cute face:

All together now: AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

So anyway, I used the same recipe as last time but I was gonna make it special by baking four layers of cake and using this petal icing technique. I usually stay far away from icing techniques like this that require tidy and precise work. I am not good at either. But the tutorials online make it look so doable that I just had to try it. I learnt very quickly that the cream cheese icing I had made was WAY WAY too runny for it. And it was so runny that my cake semi-collapsed, so I had to make a whole new batch of icing and start over. The macarons I wanted to make in rainbow colours spelling out her name turned out so uneven and ugly but I didn't have time to redo them. BAH.

Like any full moon celebrations there was ang koo kueh from Alice's (tortoise-shaped glutinous rice flour cakes filled with mung bean paste). I love this kueh.

I also helped prepare the red eggs, which are meant to symbolise fertility and harmony.

Lunch was ordered off the Mamak catering menu; a gigantic pile of fried chicken, huge serves of nasi lemak, mee goreng and chicken satay and a HUGE 4 FREAKIN LITRES of teh o ais limau (Malaysian iced tea with lime). I drank a lot of tea and ate a lot of chicken.

We had to wake up little Sarah to cut the cake...

...which made her bawl her eyes out at first, hence the funny face below.

And there's a shot below of the layers inside the cake. Not as wonky as I thought, and super moist and delicious. Yay! I also decorated the cake with gold coin chocolates and some red Lindt chocolate eggs. It's the first time that having the supermarkets selling Easter eggs ridiculously early has actually come in handy! I don't want to talk about the macarons, sometimes you just make a bad batch of macs. Now I need to go make myself some chicken soup.

Banana Layer Cake with Passionfruit Cream Cheese Icing

(based on this recipe, makes a 4-layer 20cm square or round cake)

For the banana cake:

250g softened unsalted butter (salted is fine too)

2&1/4 cups (about 500g) sugar (I used caster/superfine but granulated white sugar is fine too)

4 eggs

2 cups mashed very over-ripe bananas (about 4 bananas)

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

500g (4 cups) plain flour

2 tsp bicarb (baking) soda

1 tsp salt

1&1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/3 tsp ground allspice

1 cup buttermilk (or 1 cup milk + 2 tsp lemon juice)

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F), grease well and line the base of two 20cm square tins with baking paper (or round tins if you prefer a round cake). Cream butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer on high until pale and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time until combined then add banana and vanilla and beat until combined. Sift dry ingredients (flour, bicarb, salt, cinnamon, allspice) together in a separate bowl. Add half the dry ingredients and half the buttermilk to them mixture, fold until just combined, then add the remaining dry mixture and buttermilk and repeat. Divide mixture between the tins and bake for 50-60 mins or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean and the cake is golden brown. (If you only have one tin bake one cake after the other) Cool cake in its tin on a wire rack for a few minutes before turning out.

For the passionfruit cream cheese icing:

500g (about 4.5 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

250g (about 9oz) cream cheese, softened

3-5 passionfruit pulp(adjust to taste, you need more if you strain out the seeds)

2 tsp lemon juice (optional)

About 500g (4 cups) icing sugar, sifted, adjust to correct texture

Place butter and cream cheese in a large mixing bowl and beat on high until smooth and fluffy. Add passionfruit pulp and lemon juice (I strained the seeds out of the passionfruit pulp so I would have a smooth pipable icing but this isn't necessary). Gradually add icing sugar and mix on low until it starts to come together, then mix on high until fluffy. You may need to add more icing sugar to get the ideal consistency, you want the icing to be easy to pipe but to hold its shape.

To assemble cake, slice the two banana cakes if half if you wish to have four layers. Sandwich a layer of icing between the cake layers and crumb coat the outside. You may need to chill the cake and the leftover icing if it is too runny. Spread or pipe remaining icing on the outside of the cake. If you wish you try the petal icing technique I used in the photos, there is a tutorial here but I wouldn't recommend it for a soft icing like this cream cheese one.

Pink Peppercorn Brownies

2013-01-28T09:00:00.000+11:00

I could go into a long and detailed explanation about how I was inspired to experiment with some different spices after buying a small tub of pink peppercorns...but let's be real, I just wanted an excuse to bake brownies. Perfectly fudgy chocolate brownies with that wonderful crackly layer on top. At the moment my baking schedule is completely determined by whatever naughty sweet treat I've been fantasising about while eating my tuna salad lunches. I needed the brownies.

But I really was eager to try out the pink peppercorns with a dessert of some sort. I already love using black pepper in desserts, and yes I know that pink peppercorns are not technically peppercorns but they have that great peppery flavour and a vibrant pink colour, which I think looks fantastic sprinkled on top of the dark chocolate brownies.

This recipe is essentially a twist on the spiced blondies I made a few months ago (one of my favourite recent creations). I used the pink peppercorns, with a bit of real vanilla bean, cinnamon, cloves and cardamom. It's fun to try out if you want something different to the regular brownie, and the colour of the pink peppercorns on top make it pretty enough for some Valentine's Day baking.

Recently I've struggled with over-baked, cakey, dry brownies that are missing the ideal crackly top and chewy edges. This time I decided to base this recipe on David Lebovitz's recipe from his book Ready for Dessert: My Best Recipes, available online at Babble. Dear David, you are so awesome. Never change. I will definitely be using this recipe again, it made the prettiest, fudgiest, chewy brownies ever. Oh, and if the idea of using pink peppercorns freaks you out too much just replace it with freeze-dried raspberries or something.

Pink Peppercorn Brownies

(adapted from David Lebovitz's Absolute Best Brownie recipe, makes 16 brownies)

85g (3oz / 6 tbsp) butter, cut into pieces (I used salted, add a pinch of salt if using unsalted)

225g (8oz) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped

3/4 cup (150g) sugar

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/8-1/4 tsp ground cardamom (adjust to taste, 1/4 tsp is quite strong)
1/8 tsp ground cloves

1 tsp vanilla bean paste, or vanilla extract, or scraped seeds from one vanilla bean pod

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1/4 cup (35 g) all-purpose flour

About 2 tsp freshly ground pink peppercorns

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F), I'd recommend lowering it to 170°C if using fan-forced. Grease well and line the bottom and two long sides of a 20x30cm slice/brownie tin (can be substituted with a 20cm/23cm square cake tin). Let the baking paper hang over the long edges, it will make it easier to lift brownie out later. Grease the paper lightly as well.

In a medium saucepan, melt the butter, then add the chocolate and stir over low heat until the chocolate is melted and smooth. Remove from the heat and stir in the sugar, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and vanilla bean until combined. Stir in the eggs one at a time until smooth. Add the flour and stir energetically for just a minute, until the batter loses its graininess, becomes smooth and glossy, and pulls away a bit from the sides of the saucepan.

Scrape the mixture into the prepared pan. Sprinkle pink peppercorns evenly over the top of the mixture and then bake until the center feels almost set, about 27-30 minutes. Don’t overbake. Let cool completely in the pan before lifting out the brownies using the baking paper overhang. Slice into 16 equal pieces. Store in in airtight container (I kept mine in the fridge to keep it from going soggy), can be stored for 4 days or frozen for up to a month.

Milo Cheesecake with Chocolate Crackle Crust

2013-01-21T09:00:00.000+11:00

You guys, we need to talk about this cheesecake. It might not look like much, it's brown and kinda rough around the edges. But OH MY GOD it tastes amazing. It's like a party in your mouth. I'm pretty chuffed with myself for making this. It seemed like a pretty simple flavour combo; I wanted something with an Australian twist to it since Australia Day is coming up very soon, so I decided to make a Milo Cheesecake with chocolate crackles for the base.

For those of you outside Australia, chocolate crackles might mean something different to you. I know they sometimes refer to those chocolate cookies that are dusted in icing sugar, but here chocolate crackles is the name of one of our favourite childhood treats. It's similar to rice krispies squares, except the marshmallow is replaced with chocolate and coconut and set into cupcake paper liners. Pretty much the best thing ever at the school bake sales. And here I've used it as the base of my cheesecake, and it works so well. The original chocolate crackles are made with Copha and cocoa powder, but I have issues with Copha with so I replaced it with real milk chocolate. It works just as well in this case since you are keeping the entire thing chilled.

Now I know there are going to be people who don't know what Milo is, there always is. It's a chocolate malt powder that's mixed with milk (or sometimes mixed with water and condensed milk if you're Malaysian), and it's one of my favourite things in the whole world. Just search for milo on this blog if you don't believe me. If you can't get Milo wherever you are, Ovaltine will be an adequate substitute, or malted milk powder with some cocoa powder might work as well. But nothing beats the real deal. I mixed it into the cheesecake filling, as well as using it as a topping on the cheesecake in the shape of Australia! Husband gets props for suggesting the shape.

Sydney just experienced it's hottest day on record, so when planning my baking for this weekend I was determined to keep the oven turned off. This cheesecake is entirely no-bake, you need to melt some chocolate for the base and then heat some milk for the chilled cheesecake filling. Pretty straightforward and worth the small amount of effort. I used my usual chilled cheesecake recipe, and added a sh*tload of Milo. I wanted to make sure it really packed a strong punch when it came to that malted chocolate flavour.

Remember, I'm still in the middle of my new year's health kick at the moment so I had to force myself to only have the smallest taste of this cheesecake. It was TORTURE. I could pretty much eat the whole thing. You might be concerned about this being too rich or sweet but it's not too bad. The whipped cream in the gelatine keeps it pretty light. You might need some elbow grease to cut through the chocolate crackle base, just use a sharp serrated knife. Seriously, I encourage you to try this out for Australia day, everyone will love it!

Australian Milo Cheesecake with a Chocolate Crackle Crust

(serves 8-10)

For the chocolate crackle base:

250g good quality milk chocolate, finely chopped

1/3 cup dessicated coconut

2 cups rice bubbles/rice krispies cereal

For the cheesecake filling:

300ml (about 1 1/3 cups) thickened (heavy) cream
340g (12oz) cream cheese, softened
1/3 cup (75g) sugar (I used caster/superfine)
200ml (about 3/4 cup) milk
1 1/2 cups Milo powder (can substitute with Ovaltine or malted milk powder + cocoa to taste)
4 tsp powdered gelatine
Optional: Extra Milo powder to decorate

Grease and line the base (with baking paper) of a 18cm or 20cm springform tin. Place chopped chocolate in a heatproof bowl and place bowl over a small saucepan of simmering water and stir until melted. (Okay I am lazy and melted mine in the microwave) Stir in coconut, then stir in rice bubbles. Pour into prepared tin and flatten into the base of tin in an even layer, using a spatula or the back of a spoon. (Sneak in a spoonful of the mixture for yourself to taste, it's good for the soul.) Place in the fridge for at least half an hour or until the chocolate is set.

Prepare the cheesecake filling; whip cream in a mixing bowl until it reaches soft peaks (take care not to overmix). Place cream cheese in a separate large mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer on high until smooth. Add sugar and beat until combined. Place gelatin in a small separate bowl with 3 tbsp cold water to soften it. In a small saucepan, heat milk until it just comes to a boil, remove from heat then whisk in milo powder to dissolve. Add softened gelatin and whisk again to combine. Ensure there are no lumps. Add warm milk mixture to cream cheese and beat until smooth. Fold in whipped cream until smooth and then pour mixture over crumb layer. Chill for at least 3 hours or overnight. To serve, run a thin-bladed knife under hot water and then carefully run around the edge of the pan to loosen it. Carefully remove from pan and serve, or store in an airtight container in the fridge until ready to serve.

If you wish to decorate the top like mine, trace a map of Australia out on a piece of baking paper and cut out. Press baking paper stencil over the top of the cheesecake and sprinkle milo on top. Brush off excess powder and then carefully lift up stencil.

P.S. Thanks to Lisa at filtered media for sending me a Profiline PushPan several months ago to try out. It worked perfectly for this recipe!

Assorted Condensed Milk Cookies

2013-01-14T09:00:00.000+11:00

Since the new year, I've been guilt-tripped on to the inevitable health-kick that follows all the unhealthy holiday eating. Because of this, I've had trouble getting thoughts of fried chicken out of my head. And cookies. All I wanted to eat this week was masses and masses of junk food. I'm a stress-eater, and nothing sounded better at the end of a shit day than some milk and cookies. So when the weekend came around, it was not surprising that I didn't feel like baking anything but cookies.

I can't take credit for this recipe. I didn't have much ingredients in my cupboard except for the basics and a can of condensed milk, so I googled 'condensed milk cookies'. Interestingly I found several similar looking basic recipes that everyone seemed to remember from their childhood. It sounded so wonderfully straight-foward and easily adaptable, it was essentially three ingredients plus whatever toppings you like. I had to give it a go.

I can't believe I haven't heard of this recipe before. It is kind of magical. It deepens my love for condensed milk further, if that's even possible. Some recipes called for additions of sugar and/or vanilla extract, but I simplified it down to just butter, condensed milk and (self-raising) flour. I wasn't entirely sure it would taste like much, but it totally works. The cookies turn out crisp and golden, and pretty much melt in the mouth. (However I should mention that I used good quality butter, which always helps. I do not approve of those who use margarine to bake.)

Because I am undecisive, I experimented with several cookie flavours. They all tasted great, I can't pick a favourite. Chocolate chips mixed into the dough is always a classic, and though they are very different from my two favourite choc chip cookie recipes, I am always willing to try new recipes. Especially when they simple! The child in me loves the rainbow sprinkle coated cookies, in the same way I will always love chocolate freckles. And the cookies coated in dessicated coconut are so light and aromatic (mmm toasted coconut...), they remind me of some of the cookies you can get in Malaysia during Chinese New Year.

Anyway, I had to share this recipe with you. I love the idea that the base of this recipe is just butter, condensed milk, flour and toppings. It was perfect for me, who was trying to use up the scraps in my cupboard without having to run down to the shops. You can use whatever toppings you feel like, I would love to try these again with sultanas or chopped up dates, and maybe some triple chocolate ones with cocoa powder mixed into the dough. I might be on a health-kick, but I still had to try at least one of each cookie for taste-testing purposes. Cookie cravings begone!

Condensed Milk Cookies (with Chocolate Chips, Sprinkles or Coconut)

(makes a LOT of cookies, based on several recipes available online: 1 2 3 4)

400g (3.5 sticks) butter, softened (I used some salted butter, you might want to add a pinch of salt if using unsalted butter)

1 can (395g) sweetened condensed milk

4 cups (about 500g) self-raising flour (you can make your own using plain flour + baking powder, just follow instructions on baking powder pack)

Toppings of your choice: I mixed 200g chocolate chips into half the dough, and coated 1/4 of the remaining cookies with coconut, and the other 1/4 with 100s & 1000s (rainbow sprinkles), you can also use nuts, sultanas, milo, cocoa powder, candied fruit, all kinds of stuff! If you want to make plain cookies you might want to add some extra sugar or vanilla because the dough needs a little extra something to go with it.

Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F) and line two cookie sheets with baking paper. Place butter in a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer on high until smooth and fluffy. Add condensed milk and beat until smooth, scraping the sides of the bowl every now and then to ensure it mixes evenly. Stir in flour until just combined. The mixture should come together easily as a dough that is soft but still easy to handle with lightly-floured hands. (You may need to add extra flour, a tablespoon at a time if the mixture is too sticky). Take care not to overmix or you will make your biscuits tougher.

Add your desired toppings. As mentioned, I split my mixture in half and stirred chocolate chips into one half. Roll balls of cookie dough (I used a heaped tsp amount for small bite-sized cookies, and a heaped tbsp for larger cookies), press into discs and arrange on prepared trays. Leave at least a cm around each cookie. For the cookies I coated in toppings (sprinkles or coconut), I rolled them into balls with unfloured hands, then pressed them flat into a bowl of the toppings to coat the cookie.

Bake until cookies are light golden (about 12-15 mins for small cookies, 15-20 for larger cookies). If baking in hot weather, keep the uncooked cookies in the fridge until ready to go into the oven. Remove from oven and cool on tray for 5 mins, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container for several days.

This recipe makes a large amount of cookies, you can stir in the toppings and then roll the mixture into logs and wrap in clingfilm. These logs can be refrigerated for up to a week and sliced and baked at your convenience. Alternatively you can freeze the cookie dough logs to store it for longer, just defrost in the fridge for half an hour and do the same thing.

Banana Bread with Dark Chocolate Spread

2013-01-07T09:00:00.000+11:00

I'm keeping it pretty simple this week after all the effort that went into this layered cake. This is a really fantastic and easy recipe for banana bread, with a small twist. It comes with a silky smooth dark chocolate spread. It's not like nutella, there's no nuts in it because of my allergies. But it's a gorgeous chocolate spread that is full of good quality bitter dark chocolate, and just a very thin layer of it on a slice of banana bread is perfection.

This particularly banana bread recipe has no yeast it in, so it's like most of the cake-like banana breads that you get here in Australia. The important part to getting a really tasty banana bread is to make sure your bananas are ridiculously overripe. Like black to the point where they are nearly (but not) rotten. I had a few bananas sitting on my kitchen counter for a good week and a half and they were completely blackened. It might seem gross when you're peeling them but all that strong smell and flavour will give you a great tasting banana bread.

The chocolate spread might seem like too much to go with something that is already as sweet as a banana bread, but trust me it works. I've put dark chocolate chips into my banana bread before and loved it, so this is essentially the same but you can control how much chocolate you want to use. Because I used a very dark chocolate, it's not very sweet at all. Even so, it's still quite a rich spread so you only need to use it sparingly. If you're not a fan of the bitterness of dark chocolate, feel free to use milk chocolate but skip on the golden syrup in both the banana bread and the spread recipes.

A giant lump of banana bread might not be the most appealing to photograph, but it was so good to eat. The smell of this banana bread baking in the oven was incredible. I made sure to increase the smount of spices in the recipe but you could increase it even more if you like your spices. Just make sure not to overbake it, there's nothing worse than dried out banana bread.

Banana Bread with Dark Chocolate Spread

(banana bread adapted from Taste.com.au, chocolate spread recipe adapted from SugarHero)

3 very overripe medium bananas, peeled

2 tbsp golden syrup

2 1/3 cups (about 300g) self-raising flour

1/3 cup (about 50g) plain flour

3 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp all spice

3/4 cup, firmly packed (about 150g) brown sugar

3/4 cup (about 185ml) milk

3 eggs, lightly whisked

75g (2/3 stick) butter, melted, cooled

Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F) and grease the base and sides of a 21x11cm (base measurement) loaf tin. Line the base and 2 opposite sides with non-stick baking paper, allowing it to overhang. If you have a smaller tin like me you can pour the extra batter into a lined muffin tin. In a medium bowl, mash banana together with the golden syrup. Stir in milk, eggs and melted butter until combined and then set aside.

Sift the combined flours, allspice and cinnamon into a large bowl. Stir in the sugar and make a well in the centre. Add the banana mixture to the flour mixture and stir until just combined. Spoon the mixture into the prepared pan and smooth the surface. Bake in oven for 45-50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre just comes out clean. Remove from oven and set aside in the pan for 5 minutes. Turn onto a wire rack to cool completely. Cut into slices to serve.

For the dark chocolate spread:

1/4 cup water

1/2 cup sugar

1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

100g dark chocolate, finely chopped (about 2/3 cup, I used 70% cocoa)

140g (5 ounces) unsalted butter, softened and cubed

2-4 tbsp golden syrup, adjust to taste

In a small saucepan, combine the water, sugar, cocoa powder and salt. Place the pan over medium heat and stir until the sugar and cocoa powder dissolve. Keep stirring until it just starts to simmer, then remove the pan from the heat and add the vanilla extract, chopped chocolate, and cubed butter. Whisk until smooth. If you wish to make the spread any sweeter, whisk in golden syrup a tablespoon at a time, adjusting to taste. Pour into a jar or other container with a lid. Press a layer of plastic wrap on top of the chocolate to prevent a skin from forming, and refrigerate it until it thickens. If it is too cold to spread easily, let it sit at room temperature until it softens before serving. Store it in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.

Pink & White Layered Sprinkle Cake with Macarons

2013-01-01T20:00:00.000+11:00

Happy 2013 everyone!!! It's a brand new year, can you believe it? It felt like 2012 went by so ridiculously fast. To start the new year I made a cake for my brother and sister-in-law to celebrate their soon to be born baby (we're still waiting impatiently for her to show up!). Since we know it's going to be a girl I decided to go crazy with the pink and the sprinkles. You can't go wrong with lots and lots of sprinkles.

I made my usual trusty yellow cake for the four cake layers, adding a tiny bit of strawberry flavouring and pink food colouring to half the cake batter. I've done ombre layered cakes before, and checkerboard cakes, but I thought this time I would try making it pink and white striped. It's easier and it still has a striking appearance.

For the icing I made a Swiss meringue buttercream, flavoured with strawberry jam and mixed with a ton of rainbow sprinkles to make it a funfetti buttercream. The sprinkles add such a pretty colour to the icing as well as a bit of texture.

I made some plain macarons as a cute cake topper, filled with the same buttercream that I used for the whole cake. On my first attempt I made some teal-coloured macarons but I completely stuffed them up (even after all the practice I've had I can still mess up my macarons all the time). And of course, lots of sprinkles! MOAR SPRINKLES! Happy New Year!

Pink & White Layered Cake with Strawberry Funfetti Buttercream & Macarons

(makes a four-layered 18cm cake, yellow cake recipe adapted from Le Cordon Bleu Complete Cooking Step-by-Step)

355g (approx 2 & 2/3 cups) plain flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
225ml (about 1 cup minus 1 tbsp) milk
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
400g (approx 1 & 2/3 cups) white sugar (I used caster/superfine)
225g (approx 2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
4 medium eggs

Optional: 1 tsp strawberry essence + pink food colouring for half the cake

Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F) and grease whatever 18cm (7 inch) round cake tins you have (I only had two so I had to bake it in two rounds, it also works fine with just one tin). You can also use 20cm (8 inch) pans but the layers will be thinner. Line the base of tins with baking paper and grease paper and dust tins with flour. Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl and set aside. Mix milk and vanilla together in a measuring jug.

Using an electric mixer on low speed, beat sugar and butter in a large bowl until blended. Increase speed to high and beat for 2 mins or until pale and creamy. Reduce speed to medium low, add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Alternately add flour mix and milk mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture (I did it by adding 1/4 of of the dry mixture followed by 1/3 of the wet mixture at a time). Beat until smooth, occasionaly scraping bowl with a spatula. Divide mixture evenly into 2 medium bowls (I did this by weighing the batter, it ended up being about 700g per bowl for me). Gently fold pink colouring and (optionally) strawberry essence into one bowl. Pour HALF of each bowl of batter into the prepared tins (so you end up with two pink layers and two white layers) bake each layer for about 15-20 minutes or until a skewer into the centre comes out clean and the outside is golden. Cool in tin for 5 mins and then turn out onto wire racks to cool completely. Wrap in clingfilm and chill in the fridge for at least 1 hour or overnight. If your cake layers are slightly domed in the middle you may need to slice a little bit off the top of them to make sure they are flat

For the strawberry funfetti buttercream:

(If you're new to making Swiss meringue buttercream, these wonderful tutorials from two of my favourite bloggers will help)

7 large egg whites
1 1/3 cup sugar white sugar (I used caster/superfine)

400g butter, room temperature

1/2-2/3 cup strawberry jam, adjust to taste

1/2 cup funfetti/rainbow sprinkles (optional)

To prepare the buttercream, whisk together egg whites and sugar in a large heatproof bowl. Clip a candy thermometer to side of bowl. Set bowl over a pan of simmering water, and whisk until mixture reaches 70°C (160°F) and sugar has dissolved, about 5 minutes.

With a mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat egg white mixture on high speed until cooled and thick, about 5 minutes. Reduce speed to medium, and add butter, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating until incorporated after each addition. Add strawberry jam and whip until smooth and thick. If the mixture is runny or splits, don't worry just keep on whipping and it will eventually come together. Buttercream can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 3 days; bring to room temperature before using, and beat on low speed until smooth. Sandwich alternating pink and white layers with about 1/2cm layer of buttercream, then crumb coat the outside of the cake. Cover cake with another layer of icing and smooth with an offset spatula (or go for the easier uneven icing technique if you can't be bothered smoothing it). Make sure to leave at least a cup of buttercream behind if you are filling the macarons with it. To make the macarons, follow the instructions for these plain macarons, but do not add food colouring and pipe simple 3-4cm circles. Top with more rainbow/funfetti sprinkles before baking. Fill baked and cooled macaron shell with the remaining buttercream. Top cake with macarons and refrigerate overnight. Remove from the fridge at least 30 mins before serving.

Pandan Cotton Soft Cheesecake with Kaya

2012-12-24T18:30:00.000+11:00

I didn't make this cake for Christmas, I made it for my brother's birthday a couple weeks ago. But I thought I'd share it with you guys because it is SO GOOD, and it's red and green so it's still relevant to the season. I've made plain Japanese cotton soft cheesecake before, the such a magical hybrid of cheesecake and sponge cake but this one has a Malaysian spin to it. This one is flavoured with pandan, and the cake is filled with kaya. If you've read my blog for a while and you don't know what either of those are then I will be sad. I've written about it a lot. Pandan-flavoured stuff is awesome. Kaya is AWESOME. This cake is awesome.

The pandan flavouring gives the cake that neon green hue, and I think the strawberries work really well as a topping, both looks and flavourwise. The super light and soft pandan cheesecake is fun alternative to the usual pandan chiffon cake, and it works really well as a cheesecake flavour. Because the cake itself is so light and has a bit of a tangy flavour from the cream cheese, it goes well with that thick layer of coconut jam in the middle. Kaya is the sort of thing that shouldn't be eaten in moderation.

I'm silly and completely forgot that I needed to bake cakes in a water bath, which is why the outside is a little browner than you might expect. But when you cut into the cake it looks pretty impressive. If you couldn't be bothered splitting the cake into two separate layers you can bake it as one cake and spread the kaya on top instead. And if you can't be bothered making your own kaya or buying some from the Asian supermarket, you could try filling the cake with some coconut flavoured cream.

Anyway, I wanted to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I hope everyone has a safe and happy holidays. I'll be back next year with more sugary, buttery recipes!

Pandan Cotton Soft Cheesecake with Kaya

(serves 12, adapted from this recipe from Diana's Desserts)

140g/5 oz fine granulated sugar

6 egg whites

6 egg yolks

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

50g/2 oz butter

250g/9 oz cream cheese

100 ml/3 fluid oz fresh milk

2 tsp pandan paste (you will need more if using pandan essence, adjust to taste)

1 tbsp lemon juice

50g/1.75 oz plain/all-purpose flour

30g/1 oz cornflour (cornstarch)

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup kaya (Malaysian coconut jam, available at most Asian groceries or here's a recipe to make your own)

Optional: Fresh strawberries or other fruit to decorate

Preheat oven to 160°C (320°F). Grease base and sides, and line the base of two 18cm round cake tins with baking paper. Melt cream cheese, butter and milk over a double boiler. Cool the mixture. Fold in the flour, the cornflour, egg yolks, lemon juice and pandan paste and mix well. In a separate mixing bowl, whisk egg whites with cream of tartar until foamy. Add in the sugar and whisk until soft peaks form. Add cream cheese mixture to egg white mixture and stir until combined. Split mixture between the two cake tins. Bake cheesecake in a water bath (I forgot the water bath, this isn't the end of the world it will just be a little drier on the outside) for about 50 mins or until set and golden brown at 160°C (320°F).

When cakes are ready, cool them very slowly to stop the cakes from collapsing in the centre. Turn the oven off first for 5 mins, then open the oven door and let it cool for another 10 mins, then cool in tin for 15 mins. Remove from tin and cool completely on a wire rack. Sandwich the two cake layers together with the kaya in between. I topped my cake with strawberries, which had been hulled, halved and marinated in sugar for an hour. Serve immediately or store in the fridge in an airtight container for up to about 3 days.