Farewell Cupcakes

These were made for the boys final day at work. I really do hope the office enjoyed them :)

Orange & Coconut Tea Cakes

An orange cake has been on my list of things to make for a while now. The craving for this cake came from tasting the teacakes from the café downstairs at work (i believe they get them from Brasserie Bread, Sydney)

I liked the sponginess of the cake, paired with the zestiness of the orange.

The recipe I used to re-create these cakes is from the exclusively food website. I swapped the lemon for orange, and used coconut milk in place of normal milk. I also added a little milk and a bit of orange zest to the icing.

The cake was beautiful and moist, although next time I would add a little more of the dessicated coconut.


Orange & Coconut Tea Cakes
125g butter, softened
225g (1 cup) caster sugar
1 teaspoon finely grated orange rind
2 large eggs
40ml (2 tablespoons) orange juice
30g (1/3 cup) dessicated coconut
210ml (3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon) coconut milk
225g (1 1/2 cups) self-raising flour

Orange Glaze
150g (1 cup plus 1 tablespoon) pure icing sugar (sifted if lumpy)
25ml (1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon) lemon juice
(add a little milk if the icing is too stiff for your liking)

Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius (150 degrees Celsius fan-forced).

Grease a 12 hole muffin pan (I used a mini bundt pan).

Using an electric mixer or electric hand-held beaters on low speed, beat the butter in a large bowl until creamy (about 2 minutes).

Add the caster sugar and orange rind and beat on medium speed. Stop the machine once or twice during beating to scrape down the side and base of the bowl with a spatula. Beat the mixture until it is pale and creamy (about 5-7 minutes).

Add the first egg to the butter mixture and beat on medium speed for about one minute. Stop the machine and scrape down the side and base of the bowl. Add the remaining egg, beating on medium speed for about one minute. Scrape down the side and base of the bowl.

To the butter mixture, add two tablespoons orange juice, coconut, half the coconut milk and half the flour. Using a large spoon or spatula, gently fold ingredients together until just combined. Add the remaining flour and coconut milk and fold ingredients together until combined. Don't over mix the batter.

Spoon batter into prepared pans.

Bake for about 20-25 minutes, or until the crust is golden in colour and the cake springs back when lightly pressed in the centre. Insert a thin-bladed knife or wooden skewer into the centre of the cake to test whether it is cooked through

Allow cakes to cool in pan on a wire rack. When cooled, remove cake from pan.

Stir icing sugar and 25ml (1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon) orange juice together in a small bowl until smooth. Spoon over the cooled cakes.

Baked Pears with Spiced Mascarpone

I needed a simple dessert to make for a Sunday feast with friends.

After uming and ahring my way through my piles of recipe's, I decided on these. I have made these baked pears before, after seeing them on this fellow bloggers site, and they were beautiful. The texture of the pear against the silky mascarpone is just divine.

This recipe is definitely a keeper.


Baked Pears with Spiced Mascarpone
8 large buerre bosc pears
1 vanilla bean, halved lengthways
80g butter
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 1/2 cups apple juice

Spiced mascarpone
250g mascarpone cheese
1 1/2 tablespoons icing sugar mixture
1 teaspoon finely grated orange rind
1/2 teaspoon mixed spice

Preheat oven to 200°C/180°C fan-forced. Peel the pears and Place them in a medium baking dish.

Scrape seeds from vanilla bean. Reserve bean. Place seeds, butter and sugar in a saucepan over low heat. Cook, stirring, for 2 minutes or until sugar has dissolved. Add reserved bean to baking dish.

Brush pears with butter mixture. Add juice and remaining butter mixture to dish. Bake for 1 hour or until pears are tender. Stand 15 minutes. Discard bean.

Meanwhile, make Spiced mascarpone: Place mascarpone, sugar, orange rind and mixed spice in a bowl. Stir to combine. Place pears on plates. Drizzle with pan juices. Serve with spiced mascarpone.

Caramel Chocolate Mousse Tart

I bought myself a new camera this weekend. I was originally going to invest in a Canon 450 DSLR, but as I am now heading off on a holiday to France in a month, I decided on a compact digital camera (hopefully I will purchase the DSLR later in the year).

I ended up with the Canon IXIS 130 camera, and I must say I was pleasantly surprised by its capabilities.

To break in my camera, I took some photographs of this little baby.



Now this tart is the shit. It is rich, decadent, gooey, and loaded with calories.
I decided to make it for my boyfriend’s friend who is currently stuck in hospital. I wasn’t exactly sure what she would like, but I was sure I couldn’t fail with this tart. Everyone who has eaten it has died and gone to tart heaven.

I changed it up a bit this time, and used some leftover chocolate pastry I had in the freezer. It was a chocoholics dream. (the original pastry recipe can be found here)

What I like about this particular tart is the mousse. I generally don’t like chocolate tarts as I find ganache quite heavy and sickly. The mousse in this recipe gives you the chocolate hit, without the heaviness.



Caramel Chocolate Mousse Tart

Chocolate Pastry
320g plain flour
60g cocoa
160g caster sugar
Pinch salt
160g cold butter, diced
2 eggs

Preheat oven to 180°C. Place the flour, cocoa, sugar, salt and butter in the bowl of a food processor and process until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the eggs and process until dough just starts to come together.

Turn on to a lightly floured surface and gently knead until just smooth. Shape into a disc and cover with plastic wrap, then place in the fridge for 10 minutes to rest.

Roll out the pastry to a 15 x 40cm rectangle, about 3mm thick. Line a shallow rectangle 10 x 34cm (base measurement) fluted tart tin with a removable base with the pastry and trim any excess. Place in the fridge for 15 minutes to rest.

Line pastry with baking paper and fill with baking weights. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove paper and rice and bake for a further 5-10 minutes or until firm to touch. Cool pastry in tin

Caramel
225g caster sugar
250ml water
80ml thickened cream
70g butter, roughly chopped

Combine sugar and water in a heavy-based saucepan and stir over a low flame until sugar is dissolved.

Increase the heat to high and cook sugar, while brushing down the sugar crystals on the sides of the pan with a wet pastry brush, until it's a deep golden colour (about 10-15 minutes). As soon as it starts to turn amber, do not take your eyes of it!

As soon as it hits the right colour, remove quickly from the heat and immediately add cream and butter (this will stop it cooking). Be careful as the mixture will spit and foam.

Stir to combine and pour into the tart case. Refrigerate until firm (about 1-2 hours)

Chocolate Mousse
250g dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
4 eggs, separated
185ml thickened cream
2 Tbl caster sugar

Melt chocolate in a double-boiler or heatproof bowl over a pan of low simmering water. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature.

Add the yolks, stir to combine and set aside (it will look a bit weird and gluggy but this is ok).

In a separate bowl, whisk cream until soft peaks and set aside.

In another bowl, whisk eggwhites with an electric mixer until frothy. Then gradually add the sugar and continue whisking until it forms soft peaks.

Add a little of the cream and stir into the chocolate mixture to soften it up and make it easier to mix.

Fold a 1/3 of the eggwhite mixture gently into the chocolate mixture, then fold in a 1/3 of the remainder of the cream. Repeat with remaining eggwhite and cream until all combined.

Spoon over cold caramel in the tart case. Spread the mousse to the edges and smooth the top. Refrigerate until firm (about 2-3 hours).

To Finish
150g dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
60ml pouring cream
20g unsalted butter, softened

Combine chocolate and cream in a small saucepan and stir over low heat until chocolate melts.

Remove from the heat, add butter and stir to combine.

Cool until it's a touch warm, then spread over the fully chilled chocolate mousse in the tart case and smooth top. Refrigerate immediately until set (about 30-40 minutes).

Caramel Mud Cupcakes

Each week I make a sweet treat for the boy to take to work. This week he requested something creamy and crispy, or caramel mud. I chose the latter (mainly because I have had a recipe sitting in my to do pile for a while).

So the cake part was easy, it was finding a frosting that was the hard part. I couldn’t find any recipe for a caramel buttercream that I was completely happy with.

I eventually settled on one that involved butter, brown sugar and golden syrup. After making it, it wasn’t really what I was after. I ended up adding some icing sugar and extra golden syrup, but still, it tasted too much like the start of a butter cake, rather than a fluffy frosting. I wouldn't use this frosting recipe again.

For a garnish, I was inspired by Masterchef to make some honeycomb. I was surprised at how easy it was. I didn’t used the Masterchef recipe, as I didn’t have any glucose, so used one with golden syrup instead.



Caramel Mud Cupcakes
125g butter, chopped coarsely
100g white eating chocolate, chopped coarsely
2/3 cup (150g) firmly pack brown sugar
1/4 cup (90g) golden syrup
2/3 cup (160ml) milk
1 cup (150g) plain flour
1/3 cup (50g) self-raising flour
1 egg

Preheat oven to 170°C/150°C fan-forced. Line 12-hole muffin pan with paper cases.

Stir butter, chocolate, sugar, syrup and milk in small saucepan over low heat until smooth. Transfer mixture to medium bowl; cool 15 minutes.

Whisk sifted flours into chocolate mixture, then egg.

Drop 1/4 cup of mixture into cases. Bake about 30 minutes. Stand cakes 5 minutes before turning top-side up onto wire rack to cool.

Caramel Buttercream
125g butter, at room temperature
100g (1/2 cup, firmly packed) brown sugar
2 tbs golden syrup (i probably added another tbs)
1 tbs milk
(i also included about 1 Cup of icing sugar)

Use an electric beater to beat together the butter, sugar and golden syrup in a medium bowl until light brown and fluffy. Add the milk and beat until well combined. Pipe or spread onto cooled cupcakes.

Honeycomb
6 tbs white sugar
2 tbs golden syrup
2 tsp water
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Place sugar, golden syrup and water in a heavy saucepan and stir over a gentle heat until the sugar is dissolved

Bring to the boil and boil for seven minutes

Remove from the heat and quickly add the bicarbonate of soda. At this point the mixture will froth.

Stir quickly and pour into a greased 28x18cm lamington tin. When cold, cut into pieces and sprinkle over cupcakes. Store leftovers in an airtight container.

Moroccan Sweet Potato & Carrot Soup

Another soup I came across this weekend was a recipe for Moroccan Sweet Potato & Carrot Soup. I thought this would be a nice alternative to the good ol’ Pumpkin soup that I dearly love.

The soup itself was incredibly easy to make. I especially love soups where the preparation is minimal and involves cutting the vegies into careless chucks rather than delicate dices.

The Moroccan spices add a beautiful subtle taste, which balanced well with the sweetness of the potato and carrots. This soup would be lovely served with some toasted Turkish bread.



Moroccan Sweet Potato & Carrot Soup
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large brown onion, roughly chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 teaspoon ground coriander
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon chilli powder
600g orange sweet potato, peeled, diced
500g carrots, peeled, sliced
6 cups reduced-salt chicken stock
300g can chickpeas, drained, rinsed
1/2 small lemon, juiced

Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic. Cook, stirring often, for 3 minutes. Stir in coriander, cumin and chilli powder. Cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Add sweet potato and carrot. Cook, stirring often, for 5 minutes. Add stock. Cover. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 20 minutes.

Add chickpeas to soup and simmer, covered, for 10 minutes or until chickpeas are tender.

Blend soup, in batches, until smooth. Return to saucepan over medium-low heat. Season with salt and pepper. Stir in 1 tablespoon lemon juice. Heat, stirring, until hot (do not boil). Ladle into bowls. Top with croutons. Sprinkle with pepper. Serve.

Cream of Mushroom Soup

My boyfriend and I are trying to be a little more frugal these days. As a result I have been trying to send him to work with packed lunches rather then buying it each day. This week he asked me to make him some soups to take to work, a mushroom soup to be exact.

I'm not a huge fan of mushies, but I knew he would be after something creamy to satisfy his tastebuds. After checking out a couple of recipes on Google, I ended up with the following.

It was quite nice, although next time i would use a reduced salt stock, as the saltiness overpowered the delicate taste of the mushrooms.



Cream of Mushroom Soup
60 g butter
2 medium leeks, trimmed, halved and thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, crushed
300 g flat mushrooms, diced
300 g cup mushrooms, diced
1/3 cup plain flour
4 cups chicken stock
2/3 cup cream
‘A cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
Salt and ground black pepper, to taste
Toasted bread, to serve

Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium-high heat until butter begins to foam. Add leeks and garlic and cook, stirring often for 3- 4 minutes or until soft.

Add mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally for 10 minutes or until mushrooms are tender. Add flour and cook, stirring constantly for 2 minutes.

Gradually add stock. Bring to boil, stirring constantly over high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook for 10 minutes.

Remove from heat, allow to cool and process to desired consistency. Stir in cream and parsley.

Heat soup over medium to low heat, without boiling until hot. Season with salt and pepper and serve with toasted bread.