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.

Ricotta Cannoli

Yum! Really this is something that falls into the once in a while category of food, because they’re just so yummy and once you make your own I don’t know why you’d bother buying them. I do cheat however and buy the shells from a fantastic bakery at the Preston Market. You get 16 shells for $5 add some ricotta, cream mixed peel & cinnamon and you have a dessert that will knock peoples socks off and make a fantastic impression!
You will need: 300g fresh Ricotta, 1/4 cup mixed peel, 1 tsp ground cinnamon, 300mls cream & 1/4 cup caster sugar & cannoli shells.
Combine all ingredients into the bowl of your mix master. Beat until thick and check the sweetness, if you have a very sweet tooth you can add more sugar, but they really shouldn’t be too sweet.
Fill a piping bag and squeeze the mix into the shells. Dust with icing sugar and serve, you can make these a few hours ahead of time. Enjoy!