I think it is terminal...

My mixmaster hiding on the right
I was trying to make butter cream icing today and I was having problems getting my beaters to click into my mixmaster. It worked okay last night when I made the cupcakes but for some reason today was not my day.

I wrestled a few times, getting more and more frustrated and eventually decided that they just were not going to click in! I finished off the icing on one beater but it was nowhere near as fluffy or full as usual and I ran out of icing - usually I have too much!

The mixmaster was inherited from a family member. I think it belonged to my grandmother but possibly it was my Aunt's. It has seen a good innings and if C cannot fix it then I shall have to replace it with something new and shiny and that will hopefully last just as long!

Chai cupcakes

Last weekend I gave the chai cupcake recipe another spin! One of my new workmates drinks chai latte in the office and every time I smelt it I told him that I would make him a chai cupcake to eat.

I found it easier to make the cupcakes in a single flavour rather than splitting it between vanilla and chai. I am not too sure what I did differently but the first time I tried the recipe I only had enough batter for ten cupcakes. This time around I had too much for twelve and should have made a spare thirteenth... or eaten the leftover batter.

At any rate I wanted to spice up the icing - rather than having just a plain vanilla - and KroissantK* suggested that cinnamon would complement the chai cupcake nicely. I added ground cinnamon to the icing recipe and also sprinkled the icing with the cinnamon. The spice in the icing was nice but I am not so sure about the sprinkle as the cinnamon has melted into the icing and made it look slightly diseased.

Still, the cupcakes were appreciated by C and the boys at work and that is all that matters!


The chai flavour in the cupcakes comes from chai latte powder. It is a quick and easy way to impart a pseudo chai flavour into the cupcakes. Even though it says "spice" on the tin, the ingredients list is a bit scary and I hesitated before I purchased the box. (Image)

* My mother and I visited KroissantK to meet her new baby. We were impressed that with a month old baby and a toddler she managed to make us beautiful croissants and pain au chocolat from scratch! In honour of that, and to differentiate all of the random letters that make up my friends, I have deemed her KroissantK.

Lime and coconut cupcakes

A few weekends ago I felt the urge to test the lime and coconut recipe that I received from the Cupcake Class. I had already tried the Vanilla and Chai recipes and decided to experiment with another flavour.

I had thought that the lime and coconut cupcakes that we tried at the class were lovely and lime flavoured but lacking in a coconut hit, so I played with the flavourings to see if I could bring it out more.

I was very happy with the icing. It was so lovely and smooth and had a great texture! I used coconut cream rather than coconut milk as that was all that was in my pantry, and in future will stick with that.

125g butter
220g caster sugar (1 cup)
2 eggs
113g self raising flour (3/4 cup)
94g plain flour (5/8 cup)
63mL coconut cream (1/4 cup)
63mL sour cream (1/4 cup)
1 teaspoon coconut essence
zest of four limes
juice of half a lime
2 tablespoons desiccated coconut

Method here.

The mixture made twelve cupcakes. I used the Fox Run Cup Cake Baking Paper sized cupcake liners in my Analon Commercial Muffin Pan.

The original recipe called for 20 minutes in the oven at 170C. When I checked the cupcakes after 20 minutes I found that they were already overcooked! Next time I will start looking at 18 minutes and take it from there. The cakes were not too dehydrated but were lacking a bit of moistness and were slightly crumbly.

I was also only able to get the zest off three limes and this meant that the cakes did not have the zingy lime flavour that I was expecting. In future I will try to make sure that I use the zest of at least four limes.

I was very happy with the icing that I made. It was so light and fluffy and creamy and when piped it looked so much like soft serve ice cream!

125g butter
1 1/2 cups pure icing sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon coconut essence
1/8 cup coconut cream

Beat butter to an inch of its life, until pale and fluffy.
Gradually add the icing sugar, beating well after each addition. Beat some more.
Add the essence and keep beating.
Finally, add the coconut cream.

There should be a lot of beating of the icing to get it nice and light and fluffy.

I finished off the cupcakes with some toasted shredded coconut. It was pretty easy to toast. I put some shredded coconut onto a baking tray lined with baking paper and put it in the oven for two minutes at 170C. It could probably do with only one and a half minutes however my oven timer only works in one minute increments, and I was too lazy to time it any other way.

Cupcake Icing tutorials

I have been trawling the depths of the internet, looking for alternative ways to decorate cupcakes! I am slightly ashamed of my plastic tips and I think that the next time I head to a kitchenware shop I will be adding to my collection of tips and piping bags.

Cupcake mania

A couple of weeks ago I thought that I would test out the new cupcake recipe that BakingN and I received from the cupcake class. It was fairly simple and I wanted to try some of the little tips that Brittany had passed on for myself.

Gather your ingredients. Make sure that you have everything that you need to cook.


Cream your butter and sugar. My butter had been out of the fridge for a couple of days and so was nice and softened by the time I was ready to bake! Start beating the butter first, then gradually add the sugar.


Mix in the vanilla extract and eggs. Add the eggs one at a time and incorporate each egg well before adding the next one. Brittany maintains that the reason why we do this is that it helps to prevent the mixture from splitting.


Mix in the sifted flours. Brittany's recommendation is to do it with a spatula, as beating it with the electric beaters can make the batter chewy.

Finally add in the wet ingredients and mix well with your trusty spatula.


The batter is now ready to either decant into cupcake liners or to add flavourings.


I was fairly conservative and made vanilla cupcakes and chai cupcakes. I wanted to see how the mixture went first before branching out!



If I make this recipe again before the lime season is over then I might just try the lime and coconut flavour.

The icing recipe was new for me, usually when I make buttercream icing I just use butter and icing sugar. This time around I added vanilla and milk as directed.

Beat your softened butter, then gradually add the sifted icing sugar. Add the vanilla and milk. Remove the beaters and mix further with your spatula.


I was a little more conservative with my icing and tried to pipe it flat onto the cakes, rather than swirling it to a peak. This meant that there was less icing and I found that the equivalent amount of butter (125g in the cupcakes and 125g in the icing) was the perfect proportion.

Berry and white chocolate muffins

Following my efforts with the baci semifreddo I found myself with a surplus of double cream and creme fraiche. I knew just the recipe and pulled out my Donna Hay simple essentials: chocolate cook book. Muffins are simple to make and easy to share with my work mates!

2 cups self-raising flour
3/4 cup caster sugar
1 cup sour cream
2 eggs
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon rind
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups raspberries
1 cup chopped white chocolate


Preheat the oven to 180C.

Place the flour and sugar into a bowl and mix to combine.

Combine the sour cream, eggs, lemon rind and oil and whisk together.


Stir the sour cream mixture into the flour mixture until just combined. Fold through the raspberries and chocolate. I do not think that I mixed well enough before I added the berries and chocolate, if you look closely you can see a fair amount of flour in the batter.



Spoon the mixture into 8 texas muffin tins lined with paper patty cases.
Bake for 25-30 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer.



Notes

• I made 12 muffins in cases in a 1/3 cup tray. Cook for approximately 20 minutes


• I made a few tweaks to the recipe, substituting wholemeal flour and using a combination of sour cream, creme fraiche and double cream, as well as lime rind instead of the lemon rind as we have an oversupply


• For vegetable oil I always use a light olive oil


• The berries that were in my freezer were mixed berries, and quite icy. I tried to pick out the ice as best I could


• For chocolate I had a combination of chocolate melts and white chocolate.

Queen of hearts at Koko Black

Last Sunday E and I topped off our exhausting shopping efforts at the Upmarket with a visit to the recently opened Koko Black in Claremont.

It was lunchtime and I was a little unsure as to whether we would be able to find anything savoury at a chocolate salon! They luckily had a couple of sandwiches on the menu and we combined those with a Queen of Hearts high tea.


We had a choice of drinks with our high tea. There were so many interesting options on the menu and E went for a chocolate chai. It needed to be strained and was so thick that she could not pass it through the strainer! I was concerned about a sugar overload - I had to run around later in the afternoon - and stayed conservative with a pot of English Breakfast Tea.


Our stack of loveliness had two tiers. The bottom, savoury tier included toasted sandwiches with fillings of roasted vegetable and also pastrami & gruyere, and mini tarts with fillings of tomato as well as leek. The top sweet tier had a selection of five of the sweet treats that tantalised us from the display cabinet. Our selection included a cream filled lamington, creme brulee, lemon tart, chocolate opera cake and an orange tart. My favourite was the creme brulee. It had a nice top that you cracked through to get to the runny vanilla centre. Bliss!



The Queen of Hearts was $37 for two people, including the drinks. We were very impressed with the spread and I thought it was great value for money. It was all very tasty and so well presented. We made sure to bring a few sweet treats home for C! I got in trouble for not bringing him anything home from E's and my visit to the Sherbert Cafe.

Revisiting the lime curd tart

C came home from work on Saturday and asked if I would make a lime tart for him to share with his workmates. There was nothing on television so I was happy to get creative in the kitchen! He gave me a hand making the pastry and the curd, then went to bed and left it to me to roll and blind bake the pastry!

I used the lime curd tart recipe that I had made last year for Mother's Day.

I am not sure why but this time around I really struggled to get my pastry into the tart shell. Initially it was too soft, even after an hour or so in the fridge, and when I tried to put it into the tart shell it just fell apart. After pulling it back into a ball I rolled it out and put it back into the fridge for some more chilling. I then tried to put the chilled pastry into the tart. It was too rigid and I ended up slicing off the edges of the pastry on the top of the tart.

It's terribly sad but on Sunday night I stayed awake for a little while trying to figure out how to best get the pastry into the tart shell. The best I could come up with was to have two tart tins of the same size, and to first shape the pastry over an upside down tart tin before I put the tart tin that I am using upside down onto the pastry and inverting. It sounds complicated when I try to explain but I might give it a try next time I pull out the pastry.

Even though my efforts in putting the pastry into the tin ended up a shambles, the pastry still baked well and I had no shrinkage at all. At least I have some positives!

Another positive from the tart this time around is that my new Kitchenaid Food Processor was quite happy in making the pastry. I am so glad that I spent the bucks last year to buy it, and it might be the last treat I give myself for some time!

A class of cupcakes!

On Wednesday night BakingN and I made our way to The Home Provedore in Fremantle to take part in their Cupcake Class! We were not sure what exactly to expect. We have made the odd cupcake or two before but thought that it would be fun to see another perspective.

We were running a little late (damn traffic!) and so the class had started as we came in. Chef Brittany Kemp talked us through the steps of her Vanilla Cupcake recipe, and we were able to see the batter through its various stages. Once the batter was made, she split it into four and added flavourings so that we could sample more than just Vanilla.

Whilst the cupcakes were baking Brittany showed us how to make buttercream icing and demonstrated some basics with the piping bags. It was then our turn to swirl small blobs of icing and try and master the technique. BakingN showed her perfect skills off, whereas my blogs looked, well, blobby!

We were able to sample all of the cake flavours fresh from the oven. It was difficult to stop but I remembered that I had to share.

The (pleasant) surprise for me was that we all got to take four cupcakes home, one of each flavour. They had been previously baked and hidden from in boxes at the back of the room. Brittany had piped icing on two of them and we got to practice our skills again on our own cakes.

If you look closely at this photo of my cakes you can quite easily tell the two cupcakes that were piped by the experienced professional. The flavours were vanilla, coconut & lime, pear & white chocolate and chai. I was impressed by the chai flavoured cupcakes, and next time I go to a supermarket I am going to look for the chai powder.

Things that I learned
I cannot speak for BakingN, but I did learn a few things from the class. For starters, I have a new cupcake recipe using natural yoghurt, and I cannot wait to try it! I already have my unsalted butter out of the fridge to soften in anticipation of making them tomorrow or Sunday.

One of the things that impressed me about the class was that Brittany showed us how easy it was to flavour the cakes. I have never really experimented with my cupcake recipes and follow them fairly closely. I can see the advantage of making a batch of batter and then mixing different flavours into it, and plan to do just that when I make my first batch.

My piping skills were shown to be lacking, and I will try to apply the advice that we were given. Essentially, squeeze the piping bag from the top, hold the bag vertically and keep the nozzle at the correct distance away from the icing swirl.

If you are a beginner cupcake baker, or looking to improve your cupcake skills, then this could be the class for you! As for me, I am looking forward to eating more chai flavoured cupcakes as well as experimenting a bit more with flavours. Yum!

The Sherbet Cafe and Bake Shop

Last Saturday E and I headed into uncharted territory to try out the Sherbet Cafe and Bake Shop in Maylands. We had originally planned to have afternoon tea however we turned up with an appetite for lunch and we ordered accordingly.

The cafe had a steady stream of customers, both for dining in and take away service. We admired the cakes - beautiful cupcakes piled high with icing, towering layer cakes and other treats. There was also a small savoury section and it was from this that I chose a roasted vegetable and gruyere tart. E went with a frittata and we also ordered a slice of the red velvet layer cake to share.

The servings were very generous and E could not eat all of her frittata. I think that she was trying to save room for the cake!


The slice of cake that we were served was enormous. It was accompanied by double cream and I really that the purpose of the cream was to cut the richness of the icing!

We tried our best but in the end we were defeated by the cake. It was lovely and light with extremely rich icing.

I definitely would like to make another visit (or two or three!) and sample more of the cakes on offer. Yum!

Roasting hazelnuts

The baci semifreddo recipe I made last weekend called for roasted hazelnuts. I armed myself with a packet of hazelnuts and made a beeline for Stephanie Alexander's the cook's companion for advice on how to roast them. It is such a great reference book, with many simple tips and lots of information on all different types of foods.


Roast the hazelnuts at 180C on a baking tray for approximately 10 minutes. Rub them with a clean tea towel to try and remove as much of the skin as you can.

Put them into a sieve and shake to try and separate the nuts and skin. I ended up picking whatever skin was left off by hand.

Baci Semifreddo

After making friands the previous week I was left with a surplus of egg yolks. I considered various recipes to make use of them and kept coming back to custard. In the end I decided that the Baci Semifreddo recipe from Gourment Traveller would fit the bill nicely.

I had six egg yolks and so I adjusted the recipe accordingly.

I really like the hazelnut flavour and the crunch. The Semifreddo also met with my sister E's seal of approval. Yay! I froze this in a loaf tin and have been cutting slices as I go. If I was going to serve this as a fancy dessert I might just invest in some proper moulds...

6 egg yolks
180g caster sugar
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
20 ml Frangelico
140 g dark chocolate, melted
1 1/2 tablespoons Dutch-process cocoa, sieved
400 ml thickened cream
180 g crème fraîche
110g roasted hazelnuts, skins removed, coarsely chopped

Line a loaf pan with plastic wrap.

Whisk yolks, sugar, vanilla and Frangelico in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water until mixture is tripled in volume, thick and pale and holds a ribbon (4-5 minutes). I used the stab mixer that we received as a wedding present. It has a whick attachment and it was so much easier than the options of my sunbeam mixer (heavy) or by hand (laborious).

Transfer semifreddo mixture to an electric mixer and whisk until cool (2-3 minutes).

Add melted chocolate and cocoa and mix to combine.

Meanwhile, whisk cream and crème fraîche in a bowl until soft peaks form. Again, the stab mixer came in handy for whisking the dairy products.

Fold one-third of dairy into egg mixture to loosen mixture, then fold through remaining cream and hazelnuts.

Spoon into container, cover, freeze until firm (6 hours or overnight).


Notes

• The original recipe called for a vanilla bean or vanilla paste. I had only vanilla extract or essence in the pantry and so went with vanilla extract


• I bought a 125g packet of hazelnuts and ended up roasting and using the whole packet


• I forgot to adjust the Frangelico amount from the recipe! Yum

Nigella's Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake

The first time I made Nigella's Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake I realised that my food processor did not have the grunt! In December I upgraded to a Kitchenaid Food Processor and last week I finally got around to testing it out on Nigella's cake.

This cake is so easy! Just add all the ingredients to the food processor and mix. Yum.

I have described here how I assembled the cake. If you would like the original Nigella method click here.

Chocolate Cake
200g plain flour
200g caster sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
40g best-quality cocoa
175g unsalted butter
2 eggs
2 teaspoons real vanilla extract
150ml sour cream

Chocolate icing
75g unsalted butter
175g dark chocolate
300g icing sugar
1 tablespoon golden syrup
125ml sour cream
1 teaspoon real vanilla extract

Chocolate Cake
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line and grease two 20cm cake tins.


Add all of the cake ingredients to the bowl of your food processor and process until you have a smooth, thick batter.

Divide the batter into the two prepared cake tins. Spread the batter out evenly. I weigh my tins to ensure that the cakes are as even as I can get them!

Bake the cakes for approximately 25 minutes. The cakes will be cooked when a skewer comes out clean. The cakes will also start to come away from the sides of the tins.

Remove the cakes, in their tins, to a wire rack and let cool for 10 minutes before turning out of their tins.


Chocolate icing
Melt the butter and chocolate in a heat proof jug (or bowl) in the microwave. I started with 60 second bursts at 30% power and stirred between each burst with a wooden chopstick. As the chocolate and butter melts I reduced the time of the bursts. You can also melt it over a pot of simmering water.

Sift the icing sugar into the food processor.

Mix the golden syrup into the to the cooled chocolate mixture, followed by the sour cream and vanilla.

Add this mixture to the icing sugar in the food processor and process until well mixed.

Cake assembly
Place one of the cakes upside down on your serving platter. Spoon a third of the icing on to the centre of the cake half and spread until you cover the top of it evenly. Leave a centimetre or so gap between the icing and the edge of the cake as the icing will spread when the top cake is placed on top of the icing.

Sit the other cake on top, normal way up, pressing gently to sandwich the two together.

Spoon the remainder of the icing on top of the cake and spread it over the top and sides of the cake.

Notes

• Nigella recommends taking everything out of the fridge to bring the ingredients up to room temperature


• If you are not fortunate enough to own a decent food processor then Nigella also gives an alternative method


• Nigella decorates the top of her cake with sugar pansies. Making these is another skill I shall have to acquire

Lime friands

My good friend M was kind enough to gift me a friand pan for my birthday this year, and I took the opportunity of afternoon tea to try it out.

I used the powers of the internet search engine to find a recipe, and settled on this lemon friand recipe for inspiration. I tweaked it only slightly to make use of the abundance of limes that we have.

I was very happy with the result, after being concerned that my batter was a bit too lumpy and unmixed. I was informed by BakingN that the lovely crust on the friands is due to the use of butter, rather than oil, to grease the tins. I shall have to remember that for future reference!

I now have to figure out what to make with six egg yolks. Custard springs to mind, or taking that a step further, ice cream. Hmmm, lime icecream sounds good...

185g unsalted butter
2 tsp grated lime rind (approximately two limes)
1/2 cup plain flour
1 cup almond meal
1 1/2 cups pure icing sugar
6 egg whites

Extra icing sugar and lime zest to decorate

Preheat oven to 200C. Grease a twelve hole friand pan with butter.

Melt butter in a large heatproof mixing bowl.

Add lime rind to the butter and sift in plain flour, almond meal and icing sugar. Mix until well combined.

In a separate bowl, lightly beat egg whites with a fork until frothy. This should take approximately thirty seconds.

Fold egg whites into the almond mixture until just combined. Take care not to overmix the batter.

Spoon the mixture into the greased friand pan. Bake for appximately 20 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean and the friand starts to come away from the sides of the pan.

Stand the friand pan on a wire rack for five minutes before turning friands out to cool.

Dust friands with sifted icing sugar and decorate with lime zest.

Notes

• This recipe used the zest of three limes. I made use of one of the limes by slicing it and adding to a glass jug. The jug can be used to serve water or lemonade at your afternoon tea, depending on your fancy


• The original recipe was for ten friands, however I divided my batter into twelve