Rainbow Cake for Courtenay’s birthday!

It was Courtenay’s birthday this Sunday just been, so I made her a cake to have at school on Friday.  The recipe comes from an old Donna Hay magazine – I only kept the page so I don’t know what issue, but it does say ‘Spring’ at the bottom of the page if that helps anyone.  Anyway, here’s the recipe:

Serves: 10

8 eggs
1 cup caster sugar
1 ⅓ cups self raising flour, sifted
100g butter, melted
2 tablespoons cocoa powder, sifted
¼ teaspoon pink food colouring
strawberries to serve

Cream Cheese Frosting:
100g butter, softened
500g cream cheese
2 cups icing sugar

Preheat oven to 180˚C.  Place the eggs and sugar into the bowl of an electric mixer and beat for 8–10 minutes or until the mixture is thick, pale and triples in volume.

Gently fold through the flour and butter.  Divide the mixture between three bowls.  Add the cocoa to one mixture and gently fold through.  Add the food colouring to another mixture and gently fold through.  Spoon each mixture into a lightly greased, shallow 19cm round cake tin, with the base lined with baking paper.  Bake for 12-15 minutes or until the cakes are springy to touch and come away from the sides of the tins.  Cool on wire racks.

To make the cream cheese frosting, place the butter and cream cheese in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat for 6–8 minutes, or until pale and creamy.  Add the icing sugar and beat for a further 6-8 minutes, or until light and fluffy.

Spread ¼ of the frosting on the cocoa cake.  Top with another cake and spread with another ¼ of the frosting.

Top with the final cake and spread the whole layered cake with the remaining frosting.  Serve with strawberries (which I didn’t because Courtenay doesn’t like them :P)

 
Happy Birthday Courtenay!  Hope you had a good one!

Birthday Cake!

 
It was my birthday yesterday and I was very spoilt not just in the ‘normal’ presents and time with loved ones but also with delicious cakes!  Wendy (my lovely Step-Mum) made me this delicious rich chocolate cake that was decorated with small meringues – two of my faves combined – YUMMO!  I will have to give this cake a go soon.  Wendy also made me some gorgeous chocolate cupcakes; it’s lucky that I am pregnant and no one can tell the ‘cake baby’ from the real baby.  Melissa also made me a delicious rainbow cake that we enjoyed at work, I’m sure she will post about soon.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Work was kinda average today so on the way home I decided some baking would be in order.  Chocolate Chip Cookies in fact.  This recipe makes heaps and they are yum - probably because you can’t really go wrong with a choc chip cookie :)


Makes: 36          Prep and Cooking time: 30 minutes

250g butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¾ cup caster sugar
¾ cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 egg
2 ¼ cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
375g dark chocolate melts, chopped coarsely

Preheat oven to 180˚C.  Grease a couple of oven trays.
Beat butter, vanilla extract, sugars and egg in a large bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy.  Stir in the sifted flour and baking soda in two batches.  Stir in the chocolate.
Roll tablespoons of mixture into balls, place about 5cm apart on the trays.  Bake for about 7 to 15 minutes depending how crispy you want your cookies.  Leave to cool slightly on the tray before transferring to a wire rack.
Cookies will keep in an airtight container for up to a week.

*Dark chocolate can be replaced with other chocolate if desired. I actually used a mix of Nestle dark and milk choc drops. If you want to add nuts you can substitute out a third of the chocolate.

 

Caramel Brownie

 
I decided to take part in Magazine Mondays again, a little weekly event run by Cream Puffs in Venice.  This time I made Caramel Brownie.  The recipe comes from the October 2010 issue of the New Zealand recipes+ magazine.  It was really simple to make :)

Makes: 20 pieces          Preparation: 10 minutes          Cooking: 30 minutes

125g butter, at room temperature
200g dark chocolate melts
¾ cup caster sugar
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup plain flour
380g can caramel condensed milk
50g white chocolate, chopped coarsely

Preheat the oven to 180˚C.  Grease and line a a 28 x 18cm slice pan with baking paper.

Place butter and dark chocolate in a small saucepan over a moderately low heat.  Stir until just melted.  Remove from heat and stir in sugar.  Transfer the mixture to a medium bowl and stir in the flour and eggs.

Pour the mixture into the prepared tin.  Marble spoonfuls of caramel through the brownie mixture.  Sprinkle the white chocolate over the top.  Bake for 25 minutes or until just set (mixture should still be a little moist in the centre).  Remove from oven and cool in the pan.  Cut into pieces.

Inspiration: Christmas Gift Ideas

 
Basically I have made this collage because I would be happy to receive any of the products highlighted in it.  If you can’t find anything to get me for Christmas from the Donna Hay website as mentioned in my last post, then get something from the collage above :)

There are heaps of new cookbooks out at the moment.  Kiwi cook’s Annabel Langbein and Jo Seagar have new titles out; called ‘The Free Range Cook’ and ‘It’s Easier than you Think’ respectively.  Donna Hay has a new book coming out this month titled ‘fast, fresh, simple.’  Also, I’ve always wanted Nigella Lawson’s cookbook ‘Nigella Express’ because I liked watching the TV show, but the book is quite expensive.  She has also recently released a new cookbook called ‘Kitchen: recipes from the heart of the home’.

Then I have chucked in a picture of a recipe organiser from Kikki.K – I don’t really need one, I just like their products.  I love the funky colours of the Joseph Joseph Elevate kitchen utensil set.  Finally, I lust after a KitchenAid stand mixer and have kitchen envy of all who have one.

Top left to right: KitchenAid Stand mixer, ‘fast, fresh, simple.’ by Donna Hay, ‘The Free Range Cook’ by Annabel Langbein.
Bottom left to right: ‘Nigella Express’ by Nigella Lawson, Kikki.K baking recipe organiser, ‘It’s easier than you think’ by Jo Segar, Joseph Joseph Elevate 6pc kitchen utensil set.

Donna Hay Online

Donna Hay has just made her products available for purchase online :)
Unfortunately the food products can only be shipped around Australia, so I miss out there, but there is heaps of other gorgeous stuff to choose from.
 
I like the cupcake papers, the fondant buttons and the cake stands.  I also think the favour boxes are really cute.

I LOVE the ‘Keep Glam and Rock On’ poster, as I have a ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ poster and have been thinking for ages that it would be cool to get some variations on the famous saying.

Also available is a poster that says ‘When life gives you lemons make a gin and tonic’.  I already own one of these – picked it up at an Auckland craft fair; so I am wondering if it is made by some NZ peeps.  Very cool.

If you do live in Australia and can have the food items sent to you, I made the Vanilla Cupcakes from the mix that you can buy while I was on my holiday in Melbourne.  Check out the post on them.

And, if you are awesome and still reading, please take note that it is Christmas soon…

Pavlova Magic

 
I haven’t done any real baking lately.  I’ve been consumed with getting crafty; been making these little owls out of felt.

However, last Wednesday night right before deciding to go to the movies, I thought it would be a brilliant moment to try making a pavlova using this ‘Edmonds Pavlova Magic’ stuff I purchased on a whim a couple of months back at shopping.

Now, I’ve never made a pavlova so I was worried it would be a disaster as I believe they are quite hard to make.  Using this stuff was easy.  You mix whatever is in the magic egg with water and castor sugar and whah-la, you have a pav.

This is how mine came out of the oven after baking for an hour and then being left to dry out for another hour.  Yes, the perfect thing to be doing just before going to the movies.  Now, since I was in a rush and making the pav was a spur of the moment thing, I didn’t have any nice fresh fruit to cut up and put on the top, so I just added to my crazy baking effort by decorating it with cream and sprinkles :)

I was quite pleased with the result, the outside was crunchy and the middle was nice and marshmallow-like.  Making this was very no-fuss and easy.

Marshmallow brownie cupcakes

One of the blogs I follow, Cream Puffs in Venice, has a weekly feature called Magazine Mondays.  Basically the blog author makes something from a magazine so that she hasn’t purchased them for nothing.  This makes me feel a little bad.  I buy A LOT of magazines.  And about 3 – 4 of my monthly magazine purchases are foodie ones.  And I never end up making anything from them.  This changed has hopefully now changed and I would like to thank Ivonne from Cream Puffs for motivating me.  Also, last weeks Magazine Monday post was hosted on ReTorte, which is another fab food blog that you should check out :)

I made the ‘marshmallow-topped brownie cupcakes’ from the Oct/Nov 2010 issue of Donna Hay magazine.  They were beautiful.  The marshmallow was so sweet and delicious and the brownie base was intensely chocolate.  I will be making these again.


Makes 12

50g dark chocolate, chopped (after my experience in Melbourne I used Lindt.)
60g butter, chopped
⅓ cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 tablespoon cocoa
¼ cup plain flour, sifted
¼ teaspoon baking powder

Marshmallow topping:
1 cup water
1 cup caster sugar
1 teaspoon gelatine powder
1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped
pink food colouring

Preheat the oven to 160˚C.  Place the chocolate and butter in a saucepan over a low heat and stir until smooth.  Allow to cool slightly.  Place the sugar, egg, cocoa, flour, baking powder and chocolate mixture in a bowl and stir until well combined.  Spoon into 12 x ½ cup capacity muffin tins lined with paper cases and bake for 12 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer.  Allow to cool completely.

For the marshmallow topping: place the water, sugar, gelatine and vanilla in a saucepan over a high heat, bring to the boil and simmer for  3-4 minutes.  Allow to cool completely.  Place the cooled mixture and a few drops of pink food colouring into the bowl of an electric mixer and beat from 10 minutes until thick and fluffy.  Spoon the mixture over the brownies and refrigerate for 1 hour or until set. 


Donna Hay topped her cupcakes with ½ cup of toasted desiccated coconut.  I used pink sparkly sugar crystals.  Also, my cupcakes are flat on the top – in the magazine the cupcake that has been given a close up peaks up in the middle like a proper cupcake.  I reckon Donna Hay has poured a little bit of the marshmallow mixture on the brownie, let it set, added to it, let it set, added to it… as it kind of looks layered.  Meh.