Apple & Blackberry Crumble

Thanks to Peppa Pig the kids are having this tonight for dessert. Zachie requested by asking Mummy do we have any apples? Do we have any Blackberries? Yes, yes Zachie we do… why? Can you please make apple and blackberry crumble?

I made a small one probably enough to serve 2-3 or 4 for kids. It’s a very easy dish to make and takes no time at all!

You will need

Apples

Blackberries

Sugar

Water

Butter

Plain Flour

I worked on equal parts of apples to blackberries, for this one it was 2 Royal Gala apples to about a cup of blackberries. (If you’re using frozen make sure they’re Australian Grown and packaged to avoid any nasty chemicals, or better yet use fresh ones.

Simply stew the fruit in about 1/2 a cup of water. When the fruit is soft but still holding it’s shape add sugar to taste and reduce the liquid. Pour the fruit and syrup into an oven proof dish. Heat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius. While the fruit is cooking rub butter into the sugar and flour so that you have the consistency of wet sand. I used approx 1 cup of flour to 1/3 cup of sugar and 100g of butter, you want the crumble mix to hold together if you crush it in your hand.

Sprinkle over the fruit and bake for approx 20 mins or until golden brown.

Serve with either ice cream or cream.

 

100′s & 1000′s Cupcakes aka Funfetti Cupcakes

I have seen a few images of these cakes or cupcakes around since joining Pinterest a while ago and thought they look amazing and delicious and would be great for birthday parties – bit of frivolous fun.

Zachie’s birthday was earlier in the week and when I was thinking about what we’d have at the party I asked him what he’d like and he went through a list of his favourite foods, cheese & chutney sandwiches, cucumber, carrots etc and cakes, red, blue, yellow, green and so on. Now while I am a bit of a whizz in the kitchen I wasn’t about to make a cake in every colour of the rainbow which is where the 100′s & 1000′s cupcakes came into play. I’d already decided on the chocolate cake for his actual birthday cake and thought I need to find a recipe for cup cakes.

The hunt began – Google has lots of ideas, but they all seem to use a packet mix and that is so far from my style it’s not funny! I then found Sweet Peony Blog who had a recipe for home made cup cakes – which looked like it would for the most part work, so we had a trial run and Voila! They’re delicious, I doubled the quantity for the party as I wanted 24 cakes and when I tried it intially I got 12 fairly perfect little cakes, I topped them with Vanilla Buttercream Icing as she suggests, but it was way too sickly sweet even for my taste buds. I have iced my cupcakes with a Lemon cream cheese icing which was perfect with just the right amount of sweetness without going over the top. Below is the recipe which I doubled to make 24 cupcakes you can halve it if you only want 12.

You will need:

450g or 3 cups plain flour
2 teaspoon baking powder
210g or 1 cup butter
450 g or 2 cup sugar
4 eggs
3 tsp vanilla extract
175ml or 2/3 cup milk
1/2 cup 100′s & 1000′s

Pre heat your oven to 180 degrees celsius or 350 farenheit & line a 12 cupcake tin with patty pans or cupcake liners.

Cream the butter, sugar & vanilla until it’s light & fluffy and the sugar is completely dissolved. Add the eggs one at a time ensuring that you beat well after each addition, Sift the flour & baking powder over the butter mixture and as you start to mix this slowly pour the milk in and beat well to combine, remove the beaters, scrap off the excess and very gently fold in the 100′s & 1000′s – you need to do this carefully as you don’t want the dye from the sprinkles to come off, if this happens they will taste great, but you will end up with the cupcakes being a funny colour.

Divide the mixture evenly between each cupcake in the tins & bake until golden or a toothpick comes out clean. Remove from the oven and allow to cook for 5 mins in the tin before moving to a cooling rack.

For the Icing you will need:

125 g Butter softened

125g Cream Cheese, softened

1 1/2 cups of pure icing sugar, sifted

Juice of 1 lemon

100′s & 1000′s for the tops.

Cream the butter, cream cheese and sifted icing sugar together, add 1/2 the lemon juice and check the consistency, if it’s really thick still you can add some more lemon juice, if you feel that you have added a bit too much lemon juice and the icing is too runny, you can add another 1/2 a cup of icing sugar. You can also refrigerate the icing for 20 mins or so so it thickens up again.

Spread the icing over the cupcakes with a pallet knife and decorate with the 100′s & 1000′s.

Chocolate Cake

So tomorrow is our son Zachie’s 4th birthday, we had a party for him today at Hays Paddock, a fantastic park in Kew East, there is an enclosed section which has an adventure playground and loads of room to run around, there are a couple of ovals as well just to make sure there is enough space for just about everyone!

It’s autumn here in Melbourne and we had a glorious day of sunshine & cool breezes without a cloud in the sky. I saw a cake similar to the design I made and always thought it’d be great for our boy who loves everything to do with trucks and construction.

You will need

250g Butter

400g Sugar

250g Self Raising Flour

50g Cocoa

1 tsp Vanilla

200ml Milk

4 Eggs

Pre heat your oven to 170 degrees Celsius.

Cream the butter & sugar until it’s light and fluffy, add the eggs one by one beating well in between. Sift the flour & cocoa and add to the mix, while slowly beating pour in the milk, mix well for about a minute and ensure it’s all combined.

Grease & line a 26 cm spring form or round tin, pour the batter into prepared tin and bake at 170 degrees Celsius for approx 40 mins or until a skewer comes out clean.  Allow to stand in the tin for 5 mins or so and then remove and allow to cool completely.

You could leave it at that, but I made some chocolate butter icing, for which you’ll need 250g butter softened, 3 cups pure icing sugar and a tablespoon of cocoa, make sure you sift the icing sugar to remove all the lumps and add to the butter after you have creamed it and it’s light and fluffy, also add the cocoa.

I used violet crumbles & small snickers bars as the rocks, violet crumble is chocolate covered honeycomb.

Enjoy & happy happy birthday my darling boy – I love you right up to the moon and back and up again and back! xxx Mumma

Passionfruit Cake

Delicious? Yes it is and oh so easy to make.. Light, fluffy and something you could easily whip up in no time… I promise!

You will need:

250g Butter

400g Sugar

1tsp Vanilla extract

2 large ripe passionfruit (the Pulp only)

4 eggs

300g Self Raising Flour

200ml Milk

What to do:

Pre heat your oven to 170 degrees celsius or 320 farenheit. Grease & line the base of a spring form tin, measuring 26cm.

Cream the butter, sugar & vanilla until it’s light & fluffy and the sugar is dissolved. Add the eggs one at a time and beat after each addition. Add the passionfruit pulp, mix and then slowly add the milk beating on a very low speed, then spoon in the sifted flour, mix well, but not too much, say for a minute or so. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for approx 40 mins.

Would go beautifully with some passionfruit icing as well and whipped cream on the side, but hubby isn’t a fan of icing so I went with icing sugar (powdered sugar).

Enjoy! xx

Chocolate Pecan Brownies

I had an urge for chocolate yesterday so I should at least share this recipe with you all, it’s very delicious, easy to make and something you can get the kids involved in making too, although Sophie isn’t that interested in eating it at this stage. No great loss there I say… This recipe is a bit lighter & cakey rather than stodgy as brownies often are, I am not sure whether it’s me, the oven or what, but they are yummy so I am not concerned.

You will need

1 cup of Pecans roughly chopped

250g Butter softened

1tsp Vanilla

1 1/2 cups of sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

4 eggs

1 1/2 cups plain flour

3/4 cup cocoa powder

1/4 tsp baking powder

What you do

Preheat your oven to 170 degrees Celsius. Cream the butter, sugars & vanilla until light & fluffy, add the eggs one at a time mixing well between each addition. Sift the flour, cocoa & baking powder and then fold into the batter, add the chopped pecans & mix well. Pour into a lined tin, I used a round 26cm spring form tin which was lined on the based & sides greased. This resulted in good sized chunks of brownies about 3-4 cm high. Not too big, not too small. Bake for 40-50 mins or until your skewer comes out clean when tested, cool in the tin and guard with your life.

Raspberry & Lemon Baked Cheesecake

As promised here is my recipe for a Classic Baked Lemon Cheesecake, my inclusion of Raspberries is optional, you could use blueberries or just go with the classic!

It’s pretty damn sensational if I do say so myself and I tested it on family today and asked them to be critical and it was a success, I would love to hear what you think if you try it.

It will serve at least 8 people possibly more or less if you aren’t willing to share

You will need:

For the base; 200g Roasted Almonds ground

1 cup plain flour

1/2 cup sugar

200g softened butter

For the cheese part;

500g Ricotta

500g Cream Cheese

1 cup sugar

3 Tbsp Lemon Juice

Finely grated Zest of 1 large lemon

250-300g Raspberries

3 eggs

1Tbsp Cornflour

1Tbsp Water

Combine the ground almonds, flour & sugar in a mixing bowl and rub in the softened butter, you should be able to take a handful of the mix and squeeze it together and have it stay in a ball.

Line & grease a 24cm diameter spring form tin, to line the tin don’t cut the baking paper in a circle, leave it square and have it stick out the sides of the tin, that way you have something to help you move the cheesecake from the base of the spring form tin to the serving plate.

Spray the sides of the tin with a non stick baking spray or grease very well with butter. Tip the base mix into the tin and push down into the base ensuring it is evenly spread out. Bake for 10 mins at 180 degrees celsius.

In a large mixing bowl combine the ricotta & cream cheese, whisk together and add the sugar, mix for a few minutes and add the eggs one by one, beat for at least 5 minutes. Add the lemon zest & juice, in a small bowl or glass mix the cornflour with the water and pour into the cheesecake mix and beat for another 5 minutes.

Pour the cream cheese mix over the baked base and smooth out so it’s fairly flat, lift the tin about 5cm off the bench and drop it a couple of times on your kitchen bench to remove any air bubbles.

Top with the raspberries and push some into the mix and leave some on top, bake at 150 degrees celsius for an hour or until just set, then turn off the oven and leave it for another hour. Refrigerate until cold.

This isn’t a really really sweet cheesecake especially with the raspberries. The consensus was that it was lovely and creamy, rich without being too sweet and over the top. If you were to make it and leave out the raspberries I would probably increase the sugar by 1/4 cup.

Tips: The low oven temperature helps to prevent the cheesecake from cracking – as you can see from the photo this wasn’t the case with our oven which is very temperamental. Some say you can’t make the cheese cake in a mix master, but I did, still tapped the uncooked cake on the bench to remove any air bubbles and we didn’t notice any so I figure go with what you have, if you want to you can make the mix in a food processor.

Enjoy!

Joyce’s Lemon Cake

We have an abundance of lemons at the moment, I have made about 20 jars of preserved lemons & still have loads left over so seeing as we need to use them this is a wonderful way to do so.

I have made this cake quite a few times and it’s become a staple in our house, my hubby LOVES a lemon cake and I was making a pound cake, but it’s very dry for some reason so we’ve moved to this recipe which is divine, it’s light & fluffy, moist & very lemony which I believe is the whole point of a lemon cake.

The recipe comes from French By Damien Pignolet and I hope he doesn’t mind me sharing it. I double the recipe because I cut it up and freeze it for Hubby to take it to work for his morning tea. He takes his lunch every day because it’s cheaper, healthier and there isn’t anywhere nearby for him to buy lunch, oh & he’s fussy bum and says why would he eat out when his wife is such a good cook

So I/we highly recommend this recipe and I hope your family enjoys it as much as we do. The quantities below are not doubled as I make it.

You will need:

125g Soft unsalted butter

200g caster sugar

finely grated zest of 1 lemon

2 large eggs

100ml milk

150g self-raising flour, sifted

Grease a 24cm square or round tin and line with baking paper,  pre heat the oven to 170 degrees celsius. Place the butter & sugar in your mixing bowl and cream together until very pale & fluffy. Add the lemon zest and mix, add the eggs one at a time mixing well between each addition. With the mixer running slowly add the milk, then add the flour & mix well ensuring you scrap the sides, but don’t over mix.

Transfer to the prepared tin & bake for 35 mins or until golden & when pricked with a skewer it comes out clean & dry.

Now Joyce apparently pours over a lemon syrup which will obviously increase the lemonyness we don’t, but I will include it as it does make it a bit special especially if you’re making it for a special occasion. Combine 100g caster sugar & 100 ml of lemon juice in a saucepan and bring to a simmer for 2 minutes ensuring the sugar is dissolved. It’s best to do this while the cake is baking. When the cake is ready remove from the oven but leave in the tin to cool for 5-10 mins. Use a bamboo skewer to pierce the cake all over then slowly spoon the syrup over the cake and leave until completely cool before turning it out.

P.S. I always double the recipe and the cake pictured is it. Double the recipe, line the tin & if you have one, use a springform tin. Enjoy!

Self Saucing Chocolate Pudding

So we held a vote & I thought the Raspberry Frangipane Tart was going to take it out, but it was neck in neck at the end & the Self Saucing Pud is the easier by far so we’ll start with that one! I can’t take the credit for this, it’s my Mummy’s recipe and it’s fantastic! By all means double the recipe if you are serving 4 or more people.

You will need:

1 cup Self Raising Flour

½ Cup White Sugar

Pinch of Salt

1 Tbsp Cocoa

2 Tbsp Butter

½ cup of Milk

Sauce – ½ Cup Brown Sugar

1 Tbsp Cocoa

1 ½ Cups hot water

Preheat your oven to 180°C. Melt the butter & milk in a large saucepan, sift dry ingredients into the saucepan & mix into a firm dough. Pour into a greased baking dish – 4 cup capacity.

In a small bowl mix the cocoa & brown sugar, then sprinkle over the pudding dough, pour over the hot water & bake for 30 mins or until set.

Serve with Vanilla Ice Cream or Cream.

Moroccan Desserts

Apart from lots of little biscuits & cakes there aren’t really loads of obviously Moroccan desserts. There’s sliced oranges sprinkled with cinnamon, usually after each meal (lunch time is the main meal) fresh fruit is offered and then about 6pm or so it’s afternoon tea time where everyone sits down & has a coffee, pastry, croissant or something similar.

Given the french spent so much time in Morocco there are a number of french pastries that you can get in Morocco from Baguettes to Croissants the choices are unlimited, but you would be forgiven for thinking you’ve stumbled into a Patisserie, not necessarily a bad thing.

So inspiration for something Moroccan will come from using some of the spices used most commonly in cooking, there is always the Snakey Cakey as Jamie Oliver refers to it, but that requires a long kitchen bench, both children in childcare or asleep & I promised my dear friend Banana that we’d make it together so I will save it for another day.

Let’s start with something simple or in theory simple.. in practice it can be a bit tricky, but unless you’re cooking for a Moroccan (like I am) your family & or guest won’t know the difference.

1000 Hole Pancakes

Serves 2 adults & 2 small children for breakfast & makes approx 10 medium size pancakes.

You will need:

1 Cup of Self Raising Flour

1Tbsp Caster Sugar

1 Egg

a pinch of salt

1 – 1 & 1/2 cups

of milk

125 g butter, plus extra for frying

1/2 cup of honey

Olive oil for frying

In a large mixing bowl sift the flour, sugar & salt, add the egg and begin to whisk, slowly incorporating the milk until you have quite a runny batter. Leave it to rest for about 10 mins.

Melt a little butter with olive oil in a non stick frying pan, you just need enough to aid in the non sticking part. Heat your pan until the butter sizzles, but ensure to turn it down to about 1/2 the heat, pour a large spoonful of the batter onto the pan and either shake the pan to spread the batter or lift the pan and swirl it around, you want the pancakes to be even in thickness but only about 5mm thick.

Allow the pancake to cook until you have all the little holes appearing and it’s almost set all over. Then flip the pancake for just a moment and remove and place on a serving dish. Continue this process until you’ve used all the batter.

Meanwhile in a small saucepan melt the butter with the honey stirring until combined. Once all the pancakes are made, pour this mixture over the pancakes and serve.