I was a teenage mother....godmother that is!

I was 12 when my youngest cousin, FireBug was born.

I was shocked (but thrilled) to be asked to be his godmother.

To say that FireBug is a character is a bit of an understatement.

He has been entertaining our family with his antics for the last 17 years.

Imagine a 5 year old who is home sick from school, asks his grandmother (who is babysitting him) if he can phone his friends but instead calls the police for a chat and you have my godson.

Today is Firebug's birthday.

He's never been a big one for sweet food but has always loved plain shop brought biscuits covered in icing and splattered with sprinkles.

So I've put on my godmother hat and made him some of his favourite treats.

It's over....

...my career as a uni student that is.
After two of the hardest years of my life, a research project that gave me insomnia, limited spare time and being stuck in front of a computer for 2/3 of the day I am finally free.

My final research report is ready to be bound and presented to my supervisor.
I'm returning to teaching while I look for a job and I could not be happier with all the free time that awaits me this year. Well, once we finish renovating our house and get married in April that is.222My reward for finally writing that 12000 word report?



A chance to bake a cake using real Cacao.
Yep, I've never used real Cacao before. After this I don't think I'll use anything but Dutch-processed Cacao from now on.
Opening the box of Droste Cacao was like breathing into a chocolate cloud.



Some internet research opened my eyes to the fact that not every recipe calling for cacao allows you to substitute Dutch-processed instead of the natural form. Apparently only recipes that list baking powder instead of soda can contain the Dutch-processed. Whoops! My bad.

Recipe for Chocolate Layer Cake
150g chopped butter
1 cup castor sugar
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
1/2 cup plain flour
1/3 cup cocoa (I used Dutch-Processed but you already knew that)
1/2 bicarb soda
1/2 milk (I made mine buttermilk by adding vinegar)



Grease a deep 20cm round cake pan.
Combine all ingredients in a medium sized bowl. Beat on low speed with either a handheld or electric miser until ingredients are combined.
Beat on medium speed until mixture is smooth and has changed colour.
Spoon and spread mixture into prepared pan.
Bake in a moderate over for roughly 70 minutes. (I actually texted mine at 60 minutes and it was already perfect)



Cover cake with the icing of your choice.
I used lemon buttercream as I'm slightly obsessed with buttercreams at present.

Australia Day

Australia Day BBQ's mean many things to many people:
Friends
Family
Alcohol (possibly too much of it)

Pavlova
Sunburn
Triple J Hottest 100 Countdown

Lamingtons
Flies
Back to School

Cupcakes don't immediately spring to mind.

It was my plan to change all that when I was invited to a friend's Australia Day BBQ.

This friend will be marrying a butcher (my butcher in fact) shortly so there was no need to offer to bring our own meat along.

I, of course opted to take care of sweets deciding on chocolate cupcakes.

Being pressed for time I cheated slightly and used a White Wings packet mix adding in extra vanilla of course.

When it came time to decorate them there was no cheating.

Of course green buttercream was the way to go.

To add the Australian yellow/gold element into the mix I went with Allen's Banana Lollies.

You can't get much more Australian than a Banana Lolly.

Some of my fondest childhood memories involve leaving a friend's

birthday party clutching my lolly bag

that always contained a few of the little gems.

So here they are,

Chocolate (Packet Cake!) Cupcakes with

buttercream icing and banana lollies.

I've been asked to make them for next year's BBQ so they must have been good!

Eating in Robe and Kingston

Carrot cake slice (Robe Bakery)

I took a short little break to visit a few lovely beach towns off the south eastern coast of my state. While both Robe and Kingston may be known for their gorgeous sandy beaches and increasingly magnificent holiday homes I think their marketing people have got it wrong. Robe and Kingston should be known for their amazing bakeries.

Donut (Robe Bakery)

Vanilla slice (Robe Bakery)

Mr High Heels did not grow up touring from one South Australian bakery to another under the guise of a 'family holiday' so he still doesn't understand why we can't just drive past a bakery. Or why we have to buy several cakes, both a pie and a pasty and numerous loaves of bread. What he really struggles with is comprehending my obsession with the vanilla slice (which I inherited from my father).

Fresh finger bun with currents, vanilla icing and spread with butter (Kingston Bakery)

Two thirds of my all-time favourite junk food meal, hotdog and orange soft drink.

Lobster for tea, I now love seafood.

Plain meat pie (Kingston Bakery)

Vanilla slice (Kingston Bakery)

Cheese cake slice (Robe Bakery)

Caramela's Caramel Slice

Today is my mother's birthday.

She is a bit of a caramel queen.

Two of her many signature dishes are

creme caramel and

caramel slice.

I did not bake the caramel slice featured above and below this text.It is mum's recipe and there is no way I'd attempt it myself. It just wouldn't taste right made my anyone other than mum.

It's an easy recipe but I don't want to make my mum's signature dish.

I don't want to mess with my favourite slice of all time. As a child my heart would leap with joy upon seeing Mum pull this slice from the fridge.

She can't remember where she got the recipe from, most likely the back of a packet.

Or perhaps it was on a tin of condensed milk.

Base:

1 cup self raising flour

1 cup coconut

1/2 cup brown sugar

4 ozs of melted butter

Mix together and press into a greased flat tin approx 9 by 6 inches. Bake in a moderate over for 15 minutes.

Topping:

1 tin condensed milk

2 tablespoons golden syrup

1 oz butter

Mix together in a saucepan on low heat until blended.

Remove cooked biscuit from oven and put topping on (while both still hot) and put back into the over for a further 15 minutes.

Once completely cooled ice thinly with either melted chocolate or your favourite chocolate icing.

What do you mean it's not Christmas yet?

I love Christmas.

I love cookies.

I love planning my Christmas Cookie Exchange party.

This year will be the second time I have hosted one. I can't wait.

I've got a few cookie recipes to try out.

The first one is a cranberry and white chocolate biscuit recipe involving one of my all time favourite ingredients, condensed milk.

This recipe yields a lot of biscuits. It would work very well if you needed to bake for a school fete. They are really yummy with a semi-crisp shell but a soft and crumbly centre which is owed mostly to the condensed milk.

The cranberries and white chocolate work well together and give the biscuit a very festive look. If I go with this recipe I will drizzle each biscuit with melted milk chocolate, maybe with sugar sprinkles too.

I think a decoration trial will be in order soon too.

Multi-tasking into Spring

I am now 14 days into Spring 2009 but have just baked a classic winter warmer, apple and berry crumble. The last few days of sunny, warming weather have quickly moved on to make way for a colder temperature with even a spot of rain on the weekend. While I frantically went around the house looking for warmer clothes tonight I realised that I had no choice but to bake this crumble recipe from taste.com my favourite go-to online recipe bank.

This recipe is one of my favourite kinds to work with. I like to refer to them as 'multi-tasking recipes'. You sort out one part of the recipe and get it going (in this case cooking the apples) while you prepare the final touches (in this case the crumble topping). I always feel super efficient after following recipes like this crumble one, such a good confidence booster!

I only had mixed berries on hand but they seemed to work well with the apple and cinnamon flavours and there were certainly no complaints from the eaters. I will admit that I was a tad naughty with this recipe and actually doubled the topping. Double the amount of corn flakes and oats surely balances out double the amount of brown sugar and butter, doesn't it?

That extra topping is so worth it!


The addition of the mixed berries give the apples an extra tangy kick.

Gourmet Obsessions

Since reading about bloggers raving about Gourmet magazine a few weeks back I decided to trawl it's website. I have fortunately managed to locate a newsagent that stocks Gourmet magazine and have in my posession two copies, one being the latest A-Z issue.

Both copies have numerous pages that have gone onto my baking 'to do' list. The website has provided me not just with hours of fun but also this refreshing biscuit recipe for buttermilk cookies with a tangy hint of lemon.

Any recipe that lists buttermilk as an ingredient will always get my attention.

French Toast for Australian Father's Day

It's Father's Day here in Australia. So I thought I'd give French Toast a go. As usual I used a recipe from taste.com.au my mecca for online recipes. I left out the bacon and tomatoes. I also found that the egg/milk mixture yielded more than enough for 8 slices of thick bread. If I hadn't gotten slightly lazy I could have made 10 slices but hey, it's Sunday morning!

My father hits 65 soon and a friend remarked that perhaps he should be eating something healthier for breakfast on Father's Day. No way! I get my super sweet tooth from this man, he'll be eating voraciously for a very long time. His usual breakfast consists of a cereal of some sort, toast with his home-made plum jam, two cups of tea and a slice of whatever home-made cake my mother has in the pantry slathered with his home-made apricot jam and cream. For what it's worth dad is extremely active. You know it's either bitterly cold outside or outrageously hot if you find my father sitting down inside.

Can't stop craving coffee

The whole point of this earlier post was to cure my coffee cravings my making a coffee cake. It worked reasonably well.

Inspite of some strong cravings and the fact that on any given work day I walk past at least six establishments where I could purchase a cup, I have been off the liquid bliss for quite a while.

As a result my sinus headaches all but disappeared.

I got over-confident last Sunday morning when I found myself at a friend's house for brunch. A friend who has a fantastic coffee machine. It would have been rude to refuse a cup.

That latte was out of this world.

Did I ever pay for it though.

A few short hours later and I started to lose my sense of smell and I knew I'd pushed it too far. Just proof that coffee really isn't for me.

So I'm back on the coffee cake wagon.

Today's coffee cake version is care of Delia Smith, the merticulousy magnificant English cook.

While my list of 'favourite' chefs/cooks/food writers

is long and varied Delia will always be number 1.

I promise you, that no harm can come to your baking

or cooking when a Delia recipe is being followed.

Here is the recipe for Delia Smith's Austrian Coffee and Walnut Cake with Coffee Cream.

The only variation I made to the recipe

was to use only mascapone in the coffee cream,

I simply doubled the amount required.