Cinnamon Brown Sugar Advent Calendar Cookies

For the last couple of years I've wanted to do a kind of blog post advent calender, 25 themed posts counting down to Christmas Day. This year I'm going to give it a go, I might be biting off a bit much at this busy time of year, but we'll see how it goes.

So here we go, very fitting as day one I think, a cookie advent calender. 

These cookies are much like a standard sugar cookie with a two yummy differences, brown sugar and cinnamon. Replacing the usual granulated or powdered sugar with brown sugar gives the cookies a slight caramel taste and a nice golden colour. If you get tired of gingerbread (I guess it happens to some people, maybe?) these cookies would make a nice alternative.

Cinnamon Brown Sugar Cookies (makes around 3 dozen)
225 grams salted butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 3/4 cups plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

To make the Cookies- Cream together the butter and brown sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla, continue beating until well combine.

Sift the flour, baking powder and cinnamon together in a separate bowl. Gradually add the sifted dry ingredients to the butter mixture beating until it forms a dough.

Preheat oven to 180 degrees c. and line baking trays with baking paper.

Working with a 1/4 of the dough at a time, place between 2 sheets of baking paper sprinkled with a little flour and roll out to 1/4 inch thickness.

Cut out various Christmas shapes with cookie cutters, remove the off-cuts and continue using until all the dough is used up.

Transfer the cut cookie shapes to the lined baking tray (1 inch apart) using a knife or spatula. If the cookies are too soft to move place them in the freezer for a minute until they are just firm enough to transfer.

Bake the cookies until just they are lightly golden, 10-15 minutes. The time will vary oven to oven so keep an eye on the first tray to see how long they take. Remove the cookies from the oven and allow to cool completely on trays.

Decorate the cooled cookies, piping design in white royal icing and don't forget to number them 1 to 25.

For the Royal Icing
500 grams icing sugar
15 grams meringue powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
90 mls water

To make the Royal Icing- Add the icing sugar, meringue powder, vanilla and water to a large mixer bowl. Using the paddle attachment if possible beat on low until the ingredients come together, increase the speed to medium and beat for 2 minutes until the icing is a smooth toothpaste consistency.

Note- don't add all the water at once, add gradually until you get the right consistency, it could be a little more or less. This should make more than enough icing for all of your cookies.

Double Choc Chip Cookies

There is nothing better than a chocolate chip cookie, so I'm hoping this delicious recipe will tide you over while I'm working on some big plans for December/ Christmas. 

These cookies are everything I could want in choc chip cookie. The recipe makes the perfect cookie, crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, with a caramelly flavour and a generous amount of choc chips in every bite.

Double Choc Chip Cookies

250 grams salted butter, melted

1 table spoon golgen syrup

1/2 cup white sugar

1 cup dark brown sugar

1 egg plus 1 egg yolk

2 1/3 cups plain flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 tablespoon milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup white choc chips

1 cup roughly chopped dark eating chocolate

To make the Cookies- preheat oven to 190 degrees c. and line 2 trays with baking paper.

Cream together butter, syrup and sugars.

Add in the egg plus egg yolk and milk and mix until well combined.

Gradually add the sifted flour, salt and baking soda, mixing until all the flour is incorporated.

Lastly stir through the chocolate chips and pieces.

Cover the bowl with cling wrap and chill the dough in the fridge for half and hour.

After the dough is chilled scoop heaped tablespoons and roll into balls.

Place the balls of dough onto the cookie sheets about 5cm apart.

Flatten the dough down slightly

Bake the cookies for about 15 minutes until golden brown. Allow the cookies to cool on trays.

Dia de los Muertos Wedding Cake

With Dia de los Muertos celebrations finishing up this past weekend I though I should get in and quickly share this themed wedding cake I got to do recently.

The cake was a special request from a friend for her sisters day of the dead inspired wedding. I have to say I think its one of my favourites. 

In the spirit of the theme the cake was decorated with fondant sugar skulls and paper banners all in bight colours.

The cake was finished with a traditional folk art topper of a skeleton bride and groom ridding in a cart, sadly I didn't get it in the pictures.

New recipes coming next post. 

Halloween Birthday Cake

Happy Halloween!! I wish you all a fantastically spooky day! 

I know know Halloween is meant to be a day of scares and squeals, but what I find most frightening is tomorrow is the first day of November. November already!!

This Halloween coloured cake was for a little girls 6th Birthday, decorated with bats to match the birthday girl's costume. The inside of the cake mirrored the theme with orange coloured and flavoured polka dots in my favourite chocolate cake. I love the idea of a Halloween birthday party, maybe next year I'll have my own. My birthday's in October so it's close enough, right? 

Vamp Attack Halloween Cake

It's Halloween time! I thought a vampire themed cake would be fitting this year as I spent most of my spare time reading vampire stories when I should have been writing blog posts. Its started with the Sookie Stackhouse (SVM/True Blood) books, then when the ending of those was an epic disappointment I moved on to fan fiction.

I've never been one to read fan fiction before, but after stumbling upon Bored to Death from ericizmine I'm hooked. Her stories, the multi-verse, are so intricate and well written that I've read each of them a number of times and am hanging out for new updates.

Getting back to Vamp attack cake. I made a red velvet cake figuring the deep red colour is nice and vampy and perfect for Halloween. The filling added to the look in all its raspberry deliciousness oozy gruesomeness. But the best part about the vamp attack cake? Its pretty simple to decorate.

The vampire bites were made easy thanks a set of plastic costume teeth, you know the ones that make you look like your wearing a mouth guard rather than having fangs. Who knew they'd have other uses than looking dorky, pressing the fake fangs into the outer fondant layer of the cake leaves a prefect bite mark. A bit of red makes the bites stand out against the stark white of the cake, giving you a yummy Halloween centrepiece.

Vamp Attack Cake (printable recipe)
600 grams white fondant
plastic vampire fangs

Raspberry Filling
2 cup fresh or thawed raspberries
6 tablespoons sugar
3 teaspoon cornstarch
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoon fresh squeezed lemon juice

To make the filling- Combine the raspberries, sugar, cornstarch, vanilla and lemon juice in a small saucepan. Cook, until the raspberries begin to break apart and lose their juices.

Press the mixture through a fine sieve to remove the majority of the pips, return the strained mixture to the pan, Stir, and cook until the filling boils and thickens (about 5 minutes). Remove from the heat and allow to cool completely. While the filling is cooling make the cakes.

Put 2 tablespoons of the filling aside to make the fake blood for the outside of the cake.

Red Velvet Cake
3 1/2 cups plain flour, sifted
170 grams butter, softened
2 cups sugar
3 large eggs, at room temperature
6 tablespoons red food colouring
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1 1/2 teaspoons cider vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

To make the cake- Preheat your oven to 180°C. Grease and lightly flour two 8 inch cake pans, line the bottoms with baking paper circles and lightly flour the sides.

Add the butter and sugar to your mixer bowl, beat on medium until very light and fluffy, it will take a few minutes.

Add in the eggs, one at a time, beat well after each addition.

Stir the red food colouring, cocoa, and vanilla in a small bowl to form a paste . Add the red paste to the batter and mix well, evenly dispersing the colour.

Mix the salt into the buttermilk. Add a third of the buttermilk and a third of the flour to the batter, beat until just incorporated (do not over beat). Repeat with the remaining thirds.

Stir the vinegar and baking soda in a small bowl. Add to the batter and mix well.

Scrape down the sides of the bowl making sure all the ingredients are evenly mixed and the batter is smooth.

Divide the batter evenly between the two cake tins. Bake for 40-45 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Allow the cakes to cool in the pans for 1 hour. Gently remove the cakes from the tins and allow to cool completely on a wire rack. While the cakes are cooling make the vanilla frosting.

Fluffy Vanilla Frosting
200 grams unsalted butter, room temperature
3 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 tablespoon of milk (if necessary)

To make the frosting- Beat butter with mixer on medium-high until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Switch the speed to low-medium so you don't end up in a cloud of sugar. Add the confectioners' sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down the side with a spatula. Add the vanilla and beat frosting on high for about 3 minutes, it will get very pale and be light and airy. If the frosting is too thick beat in a little milk.

Raspberry Chocolate 'Blood' Sauce
2 tablespoons raspberry filling
1 tablespoon cornflour
1 teaspoon red food colouring
1 teaspoon chocolate syrup

To make the fake blood- Strain the raspberry filling to make sure there are not leftover seeds. Add all ingredients to a small bowl and mix well . The Chocolate syrup will give the fake blood a bit more realistic colour.

To Assemble the cake- trim the raised tops off each of the cakes. Cut each of the cakes into 2 even layers. ( I finally bought a cake cutting wire, its the best thing ever people! If you don't have one I'd really recommend it, even layers every time!)

Spoon roughly 1/2 of a cup of the vanilla frosting into a piping bag. Place bottom layer of cake onto plate. Pipe a ring of frosting around the edge of the cake to stop the raspberry filling escaping.

Spoon in a third for the raspberry frosting and smooth over. Top with the next layer of cake and repeat the piping and filling, finishing with the top layer of cake.

Spread a thin crumb coat of vanilla frosting over the entire cake.

Spoon on the remaining frosting and spread in a thicker smooth layer over the entire cake.

Dust your work surface (I use a silicone mat) with a little cornflour and roll out the fondant to roughly 7mm thickness. 

Drape the rolled fondant over the cake. Smooth the fondant over the cake, starting at the top then working down the sides. Pull the fondant away from the cake sides as necessary to avoid creases forming.

Run the fondant smoothers over the top and around the sides to get a nice flat Finish. 

Trim the excess fondant from the base of the cake with a sharp knife.

Now for the fun part. Press fang marks all over the cake using the plastic teeth.

Spoon some of the raspberry chocolate 'blood' into a small squeesy bottle. Fill each of the teeth marks with a little fake blood. Add drips and puddles where you like.

To make the spray splatter look, start by placing the cake on top of newspaper to ensure you do not make a mess. Make sure you cover the wall behind too.

Empty most of the remaining raspberry chocolate sauce from the squeezy bottle.The little bit of sauce left the the bottle should squeeze out in a splatter. The less sauce in the bottle the finer the spray with be. Go crazy and cover the cake as much as you like.

Have A fantastic Halloween Weekend!!

S'mores Brownies

A recent trip to the video store (yep they still exist) had me thinking about my favourite movies from my childhood. I must have had a thing for sports movies, The Mighty Ducks was pretty high on my list and another movie that got borrowed over and over was the Sandlot Kids. Sure I always had to close my eyes through the carnival scene, but the thing I really remember from the movie is being taught how to make s'mores. It was the first time I learned of s'mores and I've been fascinated since.

Mix those thoughts of s'mores with my current craving for brownies and you get a fudgey chocolate treat topped with clouds of gooey marshmallow and melty chocolate, sound dreamy? Well they sure are! If that description isn't enough to temp you to give these ago, did I mention I give them two thumbs up.

Dreamy S'mores Brownies (printable recipe)

For the crust
100 grams melted salted butter
1 1/2 cups graham crackers crumbled (digestive biscuits in Australia)
2 tablespoon sugar

For the brownie
115 grams butter
120 grams dark chocolate broken into pieces
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 eggs
1 cup plain flour
3 tablespoon cocoa powder

For the topping
250 grams white marshmallows ( I used a mixture of big and smalls)
1/3 cup roughly crumbled graham crackers/ digestive biscuits
1 cup chocolate pieces or chips (I used a broken up Hershey bar)

To make the brownie base- Preheat oven to 180 degrees c. and line a brownie tin with baking paper, my tin is roughly 7-11 inches.

Add the biscuit crumbs, butter and sugar to a medium bowl and mix well. Press the crumb mixture into the base of your prepared pan. Bake the crumb base for 15 to 20 minutes until golden.  Remove from oven while preparing the brownie filling.

To make the brownie filling- add the chocolate and butter to a medium microwave safe bowl and microwave for one minute intervals, stirring after each minute, until melted together.

Add both sugars, vanilla and salt into the melted chocolate mix and stir until well mixed.

Whisk in the eggs, one at a time, until the mixture thickens and get glossy.

Finally add the flour and cocoa and mix until just combined.

Pour the brownie mixture over the baked crumb crust and return to the oven for about 30 to 40 minutes, until the top of the brownie is set and a skewer to the centre of the brownie comes out almost clean.

For the s'mores topping- turn on grill/broil part of your oven to high. Sprinkle the marshmallows, cookie crumbs and chocolate pieces over the top of the baked brownie.

Grill or broil the topping for 1-2 minutes until nicely toasted and golden. Make sure to watch it the whole time, it could burn quickly.

Allow the brownies to cool slightly before removing from the pan and cutting with a wet knife, clean knife after each cut for best cutting result.

Enjoy!!

Vintage Birdcage Wedding Cake and Cupcakes

A little while back I was lucky enough to get to do a wedding cake and matching cupcakes for a friends special day. I thought I'd share a few pictures before sharing a yummy new recipe over the weekend.

I had so much fun with the cake, loving the vintage birdcage theme I had to work with. The cake was a mix of chocolate and white chocolate mudcakes while the cupcakes were vanilla with my favourite vanilla buttercream. 

Each guest got their own cupcake to take home in one of these cute little boxes, lovingly decorated by the bride and friends.