Icing On the Cake!

‘Icing on the cake’ is an amazing cake shop in Herne Bay, Auckland. Today Melissa, Jarrah (a friend of ours) and I went in and bought some of their gorgeous cupcakes – which come in super cute bright pink or brown boxes. They were absolutely delicious! I had a lovely lemon syrup cupcake and even bought some mini cupcakes, to take home and share with my husband. If you want to check them out, take a look at their website. 

Triple Chocolate, Strawberry, Lemon, Jaffa and Choc Peanut Cupcakes.

Jarrah’s Strawberry and Jaffa mini cupcakes.

Melissa about to devour her Strawberry cupcake.

Icing on the Cake
188 Jervois Road, Herne Bay, Auckland
Ph: 09 360 9797 or 021 684 496
E: yummy@icingonthecake.co.nz

I love cupcakes, in fact they are one of my favourite things to make.  Check out some of my efforts and let me know what you think.

Wedding shower cupcakes.

Halloween cupcakes.

Ben 10 cupcakes for my nephews 4th birthday.

Pretty Coloured Icing

Look what I just found…

Hansells have set up a website – you can join a baking club, access a whole heap of recipes, watch videos, etc.  They also have this cute little chart in the ‘tips’ section which tells you what colour food colouring to add and how much you need, to get your desired colour when making butter icing.  Brilliant.  I found this through an advert in the latest ‘Indulge’ magazine that Foodtown, Countdown and Woolworths give out for free to their One Card Holders which is out now for April – May 2010.

Birthday Cake!

That’s me (Melissa) on the left and Courtenay on the right, with the cake she made me for my birthday.  LOVE.

Moist Yellow Cake

My Red Velvet Cake wasn’t the first time I made something from ‘Bakerella’. Last year I saw this cake on her website and had to give it a go! It’s not quite as lovely looking as hers, but man did it taste good. If you want to give it a go, the recipe can be found here.  In fact if you do give this a go,or try anything else that is interesting, post a comment and maybe share a picture with us :-)

Peanut Butter Chocolate Fudge Cake

Well as you all now know it was Melissa’s Birthday last week. I wanted to make her a special cake and saw this one in a cake cookbook included with a recent ‘New Zealand Woman’s Weekly’.

To make it you will need:

200g butter, cubed
100g dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
½ cup cream
¼ cup peanut butter
¾ cup caster sugar
1 ¼ cups self raising flour
⅓ cup cocoa
2 eggs, lightly beaten

Chocolate Ganache:

200g dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
⅓ cup cream
Chocolate covered peanuts to decorate

1. Pre-heat a fan bake oven to 160˚C. Grease a 20cm spring form tin (I use a cooking spray).

2. Place butter, chocolate, cream, peanut butter and sugar in a saucepan over a low heat until melted, stirring until sugar is dissolved.

3. Sift the flour and cocoa over the melted mixture and whisk gently to just combine. Next, whisk in the beaten eggs, but do not overbeat. Pour mixture into prepared tin. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until a skewer is inserted and comes out with a few moist crumbs attached.

4. Cool cake in baking tin before removing and decorating.

5. For ganache, melt chocolate and cream together (I did this in a double boiler so that the chocolate would not over heat). Set aside to cool a little and then pour over the cake (I recommend doing this while cake is on a baking rack as the ganache will drip). Decorate with chocolate-covered peanuts.

 
The finished product looked almost identical to the one in the book, which was very exciting! The peanut taste was very subtle so you could probably play around with the amount and trade off with some of the butter if you would prefer it to be stronger.

* The first cake I made (pictured) was a little drier than I had anticipated on the inside, when I made the second cake for my husband, I combined everything on a very low heat (on my stove it was on 4), and only very gently whisked the eggs through. The second cake was much more moist inside.

Mint Chocolate Truffles

I LOVE these truffles.  So, I decided that my birthday was the perfect excuse to make some :)

Makes: 40 approximately

2 x packets of Mint Slice biscuits
250g regular cream cheese
375g dark chocolate melts

Place the biscuits in a food processor and grind them up.  Add the cream cheese and mix well.  It does not matter if there are bits of biscuit still intact.  Place the mixture in the freezer until it has hardened (approx. 20 minutes).

Line a tray with non-stick baking paper or tin foil.  Spoon out little balls of the mixture and line the tray (if the mixture is too soft and will not roll into balls easily, place back into the freezer to harden some more).  Place the tray back into the freezer for at least another 10 minutes. 
Melt the chocolate.  Using a fork, dip each frozen truffle into the chocolate and allow to set (If the chocolate is taking ages to set, put the truffles back in the freezer for a while to make the mixture really cold).  Personally, I have a system going where I get all my forks out and dip each truffle in the chocolate so they are half covered. Then, once the chocolate has set I take them off the forks and hand dip the other side.  To prevent the truffles from rolling around while the chocolate on the other half is setting I find placing them on teaspoons does the trick.

Store in an airtight container in a cool, dark place.  To prevent the chocolate sweating, do not store in the fridge or freezer – however this means that the filling will be soft.

*I use Griffins Mint Treat biscuits because they have mint oil in them which gives the truffles a stronger flavour.
** I noticed on a packet of Country Goodness Cream Cheese that they suggest making truffles, but they simply state to use ‘chocolate biscuits’ – I’m intrigued to know if anyone has tried any other variations on these truffles.  Please leave a comment and let me know.

Banana Choc Chip Muffins

If you have bananas at home that are starting to look a little past their best, this is a quick little recipe to use them up :)

The recipe is really easy, but the muffins are delicious.  This is my favourite recipe for using up bananas.  You can make 6 – 8 larger muffins like the ones pictured above or about 12 smaller ones like the muffins pictures below – it really just depends on what muffin papers you use.  The muffins in the blue cases have been topped with banana chips.

Makes: 12                          Ready in: 30 minutes

1 ½ cups self raising flour
⅓ cup caster sugar
60g butter
⅔ cup mashed banana
¾ cup chocolate chips
1 egg
½ cup milk

Preheat the oven to 190°C.  Prepare a standard 12 hole muffin pan.
In a large bowl mix together flour, sugar and butter until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
Add in mashed banana, chocolate chips, egg and milk and stir to combine.
Spoon the mixture into the prepared muffin pans and bake for 20 minutes.

It’s my birthday this Friday…

Which means CAKE :)

And just to get in the mood I thought I would post up a few gorgeous cake pictures.  (I stumbled across the rainbow cake today while I was hard at work…)

Found here.

   Found here. Eat me Elmo?

Found here.

Found here.  Yay – I had a Strawberry Shortcake duvet when I was younger!

Found here.  Robots rock!

Found here.

Ok so, I am not expecting anything like the cakes above because they are AMAZING and hours of work.  However, I’m sure the people who received the next couple of cakes weren’t expecting what they got either :)

Found here.

Found here.

Gutted.  At least they can comfort eat…

Chocolate Muesli Bars

 
I love these muesli bars (or granola, what ever you fancy), I’ve made them a few times now.  They taste quite good and you know what has gone into them.  They are dense and delicious.  You can always add in your own favourite muesli bar ingredients if you want too :)

Makes: 24

1 cup desiccated coconut
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup cashew nut pieces
1 cup sunflower seeds
1 cup milk chocolate, melted
½ cup sesame seeds
½ cup pumpkin seeds
½ cup liquid honey
¾ cup Milo powder
¼ cup raw sugar
125g butter

Preheat oven to 180°C.  Line the base of a large slice tin (30cm x 25cm).  Combine the coconut, rolled oats, cashew nuts, seeds and Milo in a large bowl.

Place the honey, raw sugar and butter in a small saucepan and, stirring constantly, bring to the boil.  Continue to stir and simmer the mixture for 5 minutes.  Add the dry ingredients and mix well.

Press the mixture evenly into the tin.  Bake for 18 – 20 minutes, until the top is golden brown.  Cool in the tin and drizzle with the melted chocolate (I mixed my chocolate in while the mixture was still warm).  Cut into bars and store in an airtight container.

*Notes: You could always add dried fruit such as raisins or apricots to this.  I think bits of banana chips could be quite tasty.  I would probably add about half a cup.

Check out the Lunchbox Bakes page for more great lunchbox baking ideas!