C is for Choc Chip Christmas Cookies!

When I was growing up my favourite part of Christmas was our family baking day. On this day we made about seven different types of cookies and enough cookies to feed a small army (which is probably what my family is). One of my favourite cookies to make was the classic chocolate chip cookie. This year I decided that my small family army could feed themselves and so I only made make one batch of cookies- the Choc Chip Christmas Cookie!



The magical ingredients that make the end results possible



Cookie Dough- can you say DELICIOUS?

Choc Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

1 1/3 cup margarine

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup white sugar

2 eggs

2 t. vanilla essence

3 1/2 cups flour

200g chocolate chips (bar of chocolate cut up)

1 t. bicarb

Method:

1. Mix margarine, sugar, eggs and vanilla essence together.

2. Add the flour, chocolate chips and bicarb.

3. Beat well.

4. Spoon small balls onto a lightly greased tray.

5. Bake at 180 degrees for 8-10 minutes.

6. Allow to cool.

sugar HIGH

With exams over I decided to celebrate by making the brightest and sweetest cupcakes ever known to mankind. I was so delighted when faced with the prospect of picking out s many colourful, crazy sweets as possible in the shops. I also got to feel like a kid again when I was piling the cupcakes sky high with the sweets.



The best part of making these cupcakes is when you get to eat all of the left over sweets.



You can decide on your favourite colours, I loved the way pink and yellow look together

Sugar overload: check

Decorating with reckless abandon: check

Yip, these cupcakes are bound to make you feel warm and fuzzy inside.

 

I used a buttercream icing that I piped onto each cupcake.

Vanilla Cupcake Recipe
I used the same recipe that I used for my Spring day cake
The recipe makes 24 cupcakes

Just enough crunch

Although I am still busy writing exams I finally got a day off to do what I want, and for me that means it is time to get baking! I decided to try out another cupcake recipe from the new book I got.



The secret ingredient in these cupcakes is chocolate covered honeycomb, I used a crunchie chocolate



The chocolate honeycomb is used to decorate the top of the cupcakes and is also mixed into the batter. Also it is very delicious to eat if you have any left over afterwards.

Delicious chocolate and honey flavour cupcakes



Chocolate Honeycomb Cupcakes

Ingredients:

175g plain flour

1 tbsp baking powder

175g butter, softened

175g castor sugar

3 eggs lightly beaten

1 tsp vanilla extract

85g chocolate honeycomb, finely chopped

200g icing sugar

2 tsp cocoa powder

a little water

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 190 degrees c. Put 24 paper cases in muffin trays.

2. Sift the flour and baking powder into a large  bowl.

3. Add the butter, castor sugar, eggs and vanilla extract, using an electric mixer beat together until smooth.

4. Stir in half of the honeycomb.

5. Spoon the mixture into the paper cases.

6. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until risen and golden (mine baked very quickly). Transfer to wire rack and leave to cool.

7. To make the icing, sift the icing sugar and the cocoa powder into a bowl and stir in the water to make a smooth paste.

8. Spoon the icing over the cupcakes and top with the remaining honeycomb. Leave to set.

9. Enjoy!



just too good!



delicious chocolate layer, under the cream cheese layer

I could hardly wait until they had been baked

Chocolate & Cream Cheese Cupcakes - just what I needed to make my weekend.

 Ingredients:                                                                             Method:

Lucky ME!

It was my Birthday last week and I received many great gifts. One of them was this amazing cookbook that I got from my friend. It is called "The Cupcake". It has so many beautiful and wonderful cupcakes that I cannot wait to bake. I am so very EXCITED!

These amazing recipes make me hungry just looking through the book; I think I might have to start eating cupcakes for breakfast, lunch and supper.



Chocolate ,Chocolate, Chocolate!

The past two weeks of university have been crazy. I have finally finished with all of my studying and assignments and I decided to do what I wanted to do- not what I had to do- so I decided to bake my favourite dark chocolate cake. This was so that I could eat it all weekend long while relaxing and watching too much t.v.

The secret to this cake is the layer of caramel underneath the butter cream icing.

My dad says that this cake is too sweet for him, but I love, love, love it. If you really don't like your cake too sweet you can just use butter cream icing, or even eat it without any icing, because the cake is that moist and tasty. 

Delicious dark chocolate cake!



Dark Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:

2 cups sugar

2 cups flour

3/4 cup cocoa

4 T. margarine

2 cups hot water

2 t. bicarb

2 eggs

1 t. vanilla essence

Method:

1. Mix and sift together the flour, sugar and cocoa.

2. Make a hollow and put in the margarine, water and bicarb.

3. Mix very well.

4. Add eggs and vanilla essence.

5. Beat well.

6. Bake at 200 degrees Celsius for 25 minutes.

7. Allow to coll and then ice.

I wrote a letter to my love (kind of)

It was Sheryl's (one of my sisters) third Wedding Anniversary yesterday so I decided to give her and her husband a cookie bouquet instead of real flowers. I wrote words on each cookie so that the bouquet could send a message. I piped the words onto each cookie using chocolate icing.

Plain biscuit recipe
Ingredients
350g plain flour
100g self raising flour
125g sugar
125g salted butter, diced
125g golden syrup
1 large egg lightly beaten


Method
1. Sift flours together in a mixing bowl, add the sugar and mix well.
2. Add the butter. Using the tips of your fingers, rub together ingredients until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
3. Make well in the centre and add the syrup and the egg.
4. Mix well; stop when a ball has formed.
5. Place dough onto worktop. Divide into two and squash into flat discs. Cover and chill until ready to use.
6. Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius.
7. Roll the dough between two pieces of parchment paper until about 5mm thick. Use cookie cutter to cut out shapes. At this point I carefully pushed kebab sticks into the middle if each flower.
8. Place cookies on baking paper on tray and bake for 14-18 minutes (until golden).
9. Allow to cool. Decorate with icing sugar.
 

I wrapped each cookie in a plastic bag and used a piece of ribbon to tie it in place.



Meringue with a tWiSt

My family had a get together last night and I nominated myself to be on dessert duty, which was an exciting prospect until I decided to make pecan nut meringue at which point it became a kind of scary prospect. My past experiences with meringue have not been so successful. But I decided to try out the pecan nut meringue recipe that came highly recommended by my mother.



I was delighted when my meringue emerged out of the oven and it wasn't cracked or burnt.



I covered the meringue with whipped cream and then sprinkled it with cocoa.



"Best dessert I have ever had!" - Is what my uncle said.

Crush the salticrax by placing them in a plastic packet and crushing them with a
rolling pin, which is my favourite part of this recipe.

 

Pecan nut Meringue Recipe

Ingredients:

3 egg whites

1 cup Castor sugar

100g pecan nuts

11 crushed salticrax biscuits

1 t baking powder

1 t vanilla essence

 

Method:

1. Beat egg whites until stiff, slowly add Castor sugar.

2. Mix pecan nuts, crushed salticrax biscuits, baking powder and vanilla essence into egg mixture.

3. Pour mixture into greased pie dish (I used a 25 cm dish).

4. Bake for 30 minutes at 180 degrees Celcius, turn down to 110 degrees Celcius half way through.

5. After 30 minutes turn oven off open door slightly leave the dish in the oven for another 30 minutes.

6. Pipe/ cover with whipped cream.

 

I want cake with some cheese please!

This cheesecake is kind of like the continuum transfunctioner (from Dude, Where's My Car?), its mystery is only exceeded by its greatness. Well that is what my sister would say at least. Growing up, one of my sister’s friend’s mother had a cheesecake recipe that my sister loved. Finally my mom got the recipe and from then on my sister always used to beg my mom to make it. The recipe famously became known as Mary's mom's cheesecake in my family. So today I decided to surprise my sister with Mary's Mom's Cheesecake.

The recipe which as you can see has been well used.

 

Before the trip to the oven



Also I am super excited to use my new baking pan that I bought. It is a springform base baking pan and I can't wait to see if I will succeed when using it. One day I would love to get a ceramic baking dish like this, or a springform base baking pan like this, but for now I will stick to what I can afford.



Ingredients

500 g cream cheese

2 eggs

1 T flour

1 packet Marie biscuits

125ml cream

1/2 cup sugar

1 t custard powder

butter to melt

Method

1. Crush the Marie biscuits into breadcrumbs. Melt some butter and then mix into the crushed Marie biscuits. Keep a few  of the crumbs to put on top at the end.

2. Grease a dish about 6cm deep and then put the breadcrumb mixture into the dish. Press down lightly to form a base.

3. In a bowl mix together lightly the cream cheese, 2 egg yolks (separate and keep the whites), the cream, the flour, the sugar and the custard powder.

4. In a separate bowl beat the egg whites until stiff. Fold the egg whites lightly into the cream cheese mixture. It should be fluffy.

5. Pour the mixture onto the biscuit base. Sprinkle the remaining crumbs over the top.

6. Bake in the oven at 180 degrees C for half an hour. Switch off the oven, open the door slightly and leave to cool gradually. Leave for about another half hour. If you take it out straight away it will crack on top.

7. Remove from oven and leave out to cool completely.

8. Then put in the fridge overnight (sometimes I put it in the fridge for a few hours if I am in a rush).

After the trip to the oven and ready to be eaten

My sister -Vanessa- who said that the delicious cheesecake made her day

NUTS about cookies

White chocolate and macadamia nut cookies are my go-to cookies, when I feel happy, when I feel down, or just when I feel like a cookie celebration. Whenever I need to bake cookies for an event or a party I bake these, they are my absolute favourite cookies. Also because they are so easy to make it means you can bake them all the time.

The thing about these cookies are that they are so very addictive once you have made them, you need to make them again, and again, and again. Also you may find yourself uncontrollably eating the cookie dough when you are making the mixture.



Although delicious, these cookies may be more dangerous than you think, always warn people that they contain macadamia nuts.


Ingredients
1 cup butter (softened)
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup coarsely chopped macadamia nuts
1 cup coarsely chopped white chocolate

Method
Preheat oven to 175 degrees C.
In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar until smooth.
Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in the vanilla and almond extracts.
Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt; gradually stir into the creamed mixture.
Mix in the macadamia nuts and white chocolate.
Drop dough by teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake for 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden brown.

A nice way to insult someone's baking

I was thinking about Charlie's Angels, more specifically about the Chinese fighting muffins that Alex bakes in the movie. This got me thinking about some of the more tactful  (yet somehow still slightly insulting) things that people sometimes say about something that you have baked. Here is my list of the things people may say:

12 things you don’t want to hear people say about your baked goods:

1. Are those Chinese fighting muffins?
2. Those look INTERESTING!
3. I’m sure that they are still going to taste good.
4. Are those meant to look like that?
5.  Maybe we can give them to…the dogs…
6.  If you cut the bottoms off, they will be fine!
7. It’s not your fault, our oven doesn’t work properly.
8. What exactly are those?
9. Maybe if you put more icing on the top they will be okay.
10. Are you meant to eat these?
11. Sometimes it is just easier to buy the stuff ready made.
12. Do I need to report you to the authorities for baking cookies of mass destruction?

Spring Day = Cake Time

I love watching the Cake Boss, it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside, when it’s not giving my baking skills a serious inferiority complex. I watched an episode where I saw Buddy make a checkerboard cake. Which I thought looked incredibly cool. I decided that in honour of spring day I would make a spring theme checkerboard cake. When I think of spring I think of pink and purple so I decided to make my vanilla checkerboard cake pink and purple. For the cake recipe see below (I doubled it for this cake).



With the checkerboard cake you need to cut out round circles, because I didn’t have round cookie cutters I used three different round items that I found around my kitchen and cut around them. When you have cut the circles out you put the purple circles inside the pink ones and the pink circles in the purple ones.

I made butter-cream icing that I put between the layers.



 I also iced the outside of the cake with the icing. I decided to use ready-to-roll icing over the butter-cream icing just to neaten it up a bit. It was my first time using it so needless to say I encountered a few problems.

I got the icing on the cake in the end but there were a few bumps here and there, especially at the foot of the cake so I decided to add a green piece of ready-to-roll icing around the base of the cake to neaten and brighten it up a bit. 

I decorated the cake with a flower and piped the writing on with my butter-cream icing




My Pink and Purple Checkerboard Spring Day Cake- it makes me wish every day was Spring Day!



Vanilla Cake Recipe
260g flour
200g white sugar
12,5 mls baking powder
120g margarine
3 eggs
1/2 cup milk
10 mls vanilla essence

Mix dry ingredients.
Soften margarine, mix into the dry ingredients (can be a bit clumpy).
Add the eggs, mix until smooth.
Add the milk and the vanilla essence, mix until smooth.
Place mixture into greased cake pans.
Bake for 25-30 minutes at 180 c.