Bride Of Frankenstein Cookies

I was so very excited to be asked to do a guest post by the lovely Kathia at Pink Little Cake. She has put together a series of posts by a group of bloggers- 28 days of sweet Halloween ideas.


Head on over to see my Bride of Frankie cookies and everyone’s amazing Halloween treats.

Be Back Soon

I’m going on holidays! It’s been a long time coming but it’s finally here. I will be away for the next month visiting the east coast of America.

I’ll try and update if I can, I just know that half the pictures from my travels will be of cupcakes. If anyone has any recommendations of places to see or things to eat let me know. I’ll be heading to Boston, Providence, New Haven, New York, Philadelphia and Washington.

I’m super excited about experiencing my first real Halloween while I’m away, people do really celebrate it here in Australia. I’m going to eat so much candy corn.

I did my best to try and make some quick Halloween cupcakes before I leaving but with the rain and the humidity the fondant bone cupcake toppers didn’t look too pretty.


Oh well I’m sure I’ll have A billion post when I get back.

Black Forest Cake

I have a secret to tell you. Until now I have been scared of black forest cake.

As a child I loved the look of black forest cakes, they were always so impressive. My fondness for the cake was ruined by some awful tasting cherries, the danger of getting a mouthful of sour cherries in amongst the yumminess of the chocolate cake and cream really turned me off.

Boyfriend loves black forest cake and after seeing it all over the TV lately he asked if i could make one. I faced my black forest fears and made him one for his birthday.

Super Dooper Happy Birthday boyfriend!! You are the awesome-est!

I’m so pleased with how this cake turned out, everyone loved it, including me.

For the chocolate cake I used a recipe from the essential baking cookbook, It turned out perfectly, it was so very chocolaty and moist. (Buttermilk is my new favourite best friend). I decided to keep things pretty simple with the fillings, I looked through so many recipes, with so many versions in my head I just made it up as I went.


For the chocolate cake

200 grams softened butter
¾ cup caster sugar
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 2/3 cup self raising flour
1/3 cup plain flour
¾ cup cocoa powder
1 tablespoon instant coffee powder
½ teaspoon bicarb soda
½ cup buttermilk
1/3 cup milk

To make the chocolate cake- preheat oven to 180 degrees c. grease a 23 cm cake tin and line the base and sides with baking paper. Sift together flours, cocoa, coffee and soda.

Cream butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add one egg at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition, add the vanilla essence and beat until well combined.



With a metal spoon fold in the sifted dry ingredients alternatively with the combined milk and buttermilk. Stir until the mixture is just combined and almost smooth.

Pour the cake mixture into the tin and smooth the surface. Bake for 40-50 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.


Leave the cake in the tin 20 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool.


For the cream filling

400 mls thickened cream
1 teaspoon cherry brandy essence
1 tablespoon caster sugar

To make the cream filling- in a medium bowl, beat together cream, sugar and essence until soft peaks form.

For the cherry syrup

1 can pitted cherries (drained with juice reserved)
1 teaspoon cherry brandy essence

To prepare syrup- in a small saucepan, boil reserved juice until reduced by half. Add brandy essence.


For the ganache

100 grams dark chocolate (chopped)
100 mls cream

To make the ganache- place chocolate in a bowl. In a small saucepan bring cream to the boil. Pour boiling cream over chocolate. Whisk until chocolate is melted and the mix is smooth and glossy. Cool the ganache to room temperature before spreading over cake.


To assemble the cake

Set aside about 10 cherries to decorate. Slice the top off the cake to leave a level surface. Evenly cut the cake into 3 horizontal layers. Place the first layer down onto the serving plate. Sprinkle the first layer with a little of the cherry syrup.


Spread evenly with a third of the cream, top with half of the cherries.


Carefully place on the second layer of cake, sprinkle again with cherry syrup followed by another third of cream and the remaining half of the cherries. Top with the final layer of cake.


Once the cake is assembled, pour over the chocolate ganache. Spread the ganache over the top of the cake.


Spoon the remaining cream into a piping bag fitted with a large star tip, pipe rosettes around the top edge of the cake. Top each rosette with a cherry.

Eat it up! Its Yummy!

Macaron Gelato Sandwiches

I find that the weather is a huge influence on what I bake. With this week’s weather turning hot and humid I found myself daydreaming about ice-cream. I remember in the summer holidays when I was little, my Nanna would make my brother and I ice cream sandwiches. She would use pre-packaged rectangles of vanilla ice cream (I forget what they’re called) and sandwich them between two wafers.


Inspired by the frozen treats of my childhood, I decided to make something a little more fancy than the ice cream sandwich, gelato macaron sandwiches.


For the macarons I used the same recipe I have used previously from I love macarons by Hisako Ogita. One day I’ll try out the Italian method but for now I’m just getting comfortable using the French meringue method of making macarons. I cheated with the gelato and picked up a couple of flavours from my favourite gelato place, strawberry and caramel macadamia.


Macarons plus gelato equals love, seriously! It may take a little while to work out how to go about eating them without squishing gelato all over yourself. Sure you could use one of the cute little gelato spoons or you can embrace the mess, it’s all part of the ice cream sandwich fun!

Raspberry Mulberry Crumble Pie

It has been cold and rainy for most of the week, the kind of weather that always gets me down. Plus I kinda feel like I might be getting a cold. Bummer!

The perfect pick me up for a dreary week? Pie! Seriously pie and icecream can cure almost anything.

Quite some time ago boyfriends Mum gave me the Delicious. Sweet cookbook, it has so many great looking recipes in it but this is the first time I’ve tried one. The recipe in the book is for raspberry pie but I also used mulberries, the tree in my little yard just won’t stop growing them.

The crumble topping was definelty my favorite part of this pie, the cinnamon made it so yummy. My only little teensy weensy complaint about this pie is that the berries were a little bit tart for my liking, but that’s easy fixed with a scoop of icecream. I don't think I'm every going to find a pie I love more than my farvorite caramel apple pie, but this is definelty up there.

Raspberry and Mulberry Crumble Pie (based on a recipe from Delicious. Sweet)

Pastry
1 ½ cups plain flour
150 grams chilled butter (cubed)
55 grams caster sugar
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon cold water

Filling
600 grams berries (I used half raspberries half mulberries)
150 grams caster sugar
1 tablespoon cornflour

Crumble
¾ cup plain flour

1/2 cup ground almond meal
115 grams chilled butter (cubed)
30 grams caster sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon

To make the pastry, place flour and butter in a bowl. Using your fingertips, rub together until mix resembles fine breadcrumbs.


Add the sugar, egg and water, mix together to form a soft dough. Press the dough into a disk shape and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate the dough for at least 30 minutes.

While the dough is chilling, mix the berries, sugar and cornflour in a bowl and set aside.

In a second bowl mix together almond meal and flour, add the butter cinnamon and 30 grams of sugar and mix with fingertips to form a soft crumble.

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees c. Grease a 25cm loose bottom tart pan. Roll out pastry between 2 sheets of non-stick paper to 5mm thick and line tart pan.


Line the pastry with baking paper and pastry weights or uncooked rice. Blind bake for 15 minutes. Remove paper and weights and bake for another 5 minutes until golden.


Add the raspberry and mulberry filling and top with crumble mixture.


Bake for 20 to 25 minutes until the crumble is golden.


Serve warm or cold with icecream or custard.

Army Man Cookies

These cookies are probably the furthest things from cute and pink that I have posted so far. Sometimes its hard not to only bake pretty things, I'm a girl its what I do. The thing about boys though is that not many of them share my love of pink, they like brown and green and playing with toys in the mud.

So when it came to making something for a good friends Birthday I decided on cookies based on the toys that most guys I know grew up with. Sugar cookies inspired by little plastic green and grey army men toys.

Happy Birthday Benny!


For the cookies

2 cups plain flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup (one stick) butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

To make the cookies: Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.

Cream butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla. On a low speed gradually add dry ingredients, mix until combined.

Flatten dough into a disk, wrap in clingwrap and refrigerate for at least an hour. Take dough out of the fridge and let soften till workable.

Place the dough between sheets of baking paper and roll out to around ½ to ¾ centimetre thick. Place sheet in the freezer until firm.

Preheat oven to 180 degrees c. Line trays with non stick paper.

Cut out the man cookies and place on lined trays about 3cms apart. (If the dough has softened a lot, chill again before baking to ensure the cookies keep there shape)

Bake cookies until just coloured around the edges, about 15-20 minutes. Let cool on baking trays.


For the Royal Icing

4 cups icing sugar
1/4 cup meringue powder
2-3 tablespoons water (as needed)
green, black and brown food colourings

To make the icing- add all the ingredients into a medium bowl, beat the ingredients about 7 minutes until smooth. If the icing is too thick add a little more water at a time. (Thin the icing as needed when flooding the cookies)

Using a fine piping tip, outline each of the cookies. Allow the outlines to set before flooding with icing.


To make the camouflage randomly dot the cookies with each of the colours. Using a toothpick spread out the colours and slightly swirl together. Allow the icing to set hard.


Eat them up.

Mulberry Muffins

My little garden had really picked up its game these last few months, first with the passionfruit and now mulberries. The best part is I didn’t have to do any work to get them, spring came and bam mulberries everywhere!

So now I have a billion berries but am not really sure what to do with them. I can’t remember seeing any recipes using mulberries. Does anyone have any ideas? I thought about maybe using them in a pie.

Not wanting the hungry birdies to beat me to all of the best berries, I picked all the ripe ones I could reach and made some quick mulberry muffins.


The slightly tart berries work really nicely with the sweetness of the cake, the cooked berries are almost like little pockets of jam dotted through the muffins.

My favorite part? The colour, the swirls of pinky purple inside the mulberry muffins definitely impressed me.

For the Muffins
(addapted from basic muffins in The Essential Baking Cookbook)

2 ½ cups self raising flour
½ cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs (slightly beaten)
1 ½ cups of milk
150 grams butter (melted and cooled)
250 grams ripe mulberries

To make the Muffins- Grease a regular size 12 hole muffin tin. Preheat your oven to 200 degrees c.

Sift the flour into a large bowl. Add the sugar to the flour and stir through. Make a well in the dry ingredients.

In a jug mix together the milk, eggs and vanilla.

Pour the liquid into the well in the dry ingredients and add the cooled butter.

Gently fold the ingredients together with a metal spoon until just combined. Be careful not to over mix the muffins or they will be tough and rubbery.

Gently fold in the mulberries. The mixture will be rather lumpy.


Spoon the muffin mix evenly into the muffin tin, fill each about ¾ full.


Bake the muffins for 20-25 minutes, until they are risen and golden and bounce back when poked.


Let the muffins cool in the tray for a few minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.