Very easy Biscotti

When my husband and I go out for a coffee I usually buy my son a Biscotti. He loves it and I prefer he eats that rather than the chocolate fish accompanying the fluffy I generally order him. Since my husband recently had surgery to his knee and is home bound, I decided to bring the Café to us so not only is our little espresso machine but we have our own Biscotti. My parents were here as well for the last couple of days and when I made the first batch my Dad really liked it so I made 3 different ones:
- crystalised ginger, dried apricots and hazelnuts
- cranberry, white chocolate and almonds
- cacao, hazelnuts and cranberries.

Here is the basic recipe:
- 1 cup of white sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1/3 cup of self- raising flour
- 1 1/3 cup of flour
- Nuts and dried fruit of your choice.

Preheat the oven to 180 Degree C.
Put the sugar in a medium bow with the eggs. Mix well until combined. Add the flours and the dried fruit and nuts.
Put the dough on a lightly floured work surface and bring everything together.
Shape it into 2 logs and place them onto a baking tray lined with some baking paper and bake in the oven for about 30 minutes.
Turn the oven down to 150 Degree C.
Take the logs out of the oven and let them cool on a tray for about 10 minutes.
Slice the logs and place the slices back onto the baking tray. Bake for a further 30 minutes. Leave to cool on a tray.

Here are some pics of the ones I made. There were more than that but I had to make a little bag for my Dad to take away.

Latest Birthday cakes- Merliah the Mermaid and All Blacks Jersey

Last week end was my nephew's First Birthday and my niece's 5th Birthday. They had a combined party and I made their cakes.
My niece wanted a Merliah Mermaid cake and she loves chocolate. I made the bottom tier an orange and white chocolate cake and the "rock" where Merliah is sitting is made out of Red Devil Chocolate cake and a Chocolate Mousse frosting. I bought a dolly and made the tail entirely out of fondant, as well as the bra. The Dolphin is made out of white chocolate.
Here are a couple of pics:

My sister- in aw had asked me to make a All Backs Rugby Jersey for my nephew. This was a simple chocolate cake with vanilla frosting covered in fondant. The accents are made by hand in Royal Icing.

Baby shower cake

This is a cake I made for a baby shower recently. I obviously still need a lot of training with fondant. My covering is still awful but I feel I'm getting there. I need to remember to add a border to my top tiers as well.

The bottom tier is banana cake with Ducle De Leche and Cream Cheese icing and the top tier is Red Devil Chocolate cake with Orange Icing.
The feedback I received was that some people found the bottom tier too sweet. I have to admit this was one of my concerns from the start. Dulce De Leche is very sweet so I made 2 batches of the banana cake one with and one without sugar. I guess I didn't take into consideration that it was brown sugar and that the original recipe has loads in it. So if you want to make this, I would recommend that either you half the sugar in the cake recipe or put more butter in the icing.

I have not had any feedback on the top tier yet as the Mum- to- be kept it.

I made the shoes and the rest of the decorations with fondant. I then "painted" them and the top of the cake with a mix of blue and silver glitters.

So here are the recipes I have used:

Banana Cake (taken from 500 cakes by Susannah Blake):
Ingredients:
2 ripe bananas
2 eggs
175ml vegetabe oil
3 tbsp milk
300g light brown sugar
150g self- raising flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger

Preheat the over to 180 Degree C. Grease a 20cm round cake tin, then line the bottom with greaseproof paper.

Roughly mash the bananas in a large bowl, then beat in the eggs. Stir in the oil and milk. Break up any lumps in the brown sugar, then stir it inot the banana mixture until we combined. Sift the flour and spices over the mixture, then fold in.

Tip the mixture into the prepared tin. Bake for 1 hour until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn onto a wire rack to cool completely.


For the Icing:
200g of cream cheese 
85g icing sugar, sifted
2 tbsp of butter
4 tbsp of Dulce De Leche

Beat together the cream cheese, icing sugar and butter until smooth and cream, fold the Dulce De Leche and spread over the cake.

Here is a close up of the shoes.

Happy baking everyone:)

Meringues- pavlova style

I had 4 eggs whites left from some curds I made earlier in the week so I decided to make a pav... But then I had a big sugar craving and decided to make little meringue treats for me to get my sugar fix.
I have found the recipe a couple of years on the New Zealand Herald website.

Ingredients:
4 egg whites
1/4 tsp salt
220g caster sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp vinegar
2 tsp cornflour


Preheat the oven to 110 Degree C. 

Whisk egg whites and salt until soft foam.

Gradually whisk in the sugar until the mixture forms stiff peaks. Whisk in the vanilla, vinegar and cornflour.

Turn on to the prepared tray, shaping into an 18-20cm circle, drawing the mixture up high and smoothing off the top. (I didn't take a picture of the meringue on the tray since I made mini ones)
 
Bake for 1 1/2 hours. Do not open the oven during cooking.

Turn off the oven, open the door slightly and allow the pavlova to cool in the oven.

When completely cold, decorate with whipped cream and fresh fruit or passionfruit pulp.

Almost as soon as the first batch came out of the oven 4 of them disappeared... I then dipped some in chocolate and they were even better. 

And here is the result:

Then dipped in chocolate:

I also made some bigger ones that looked like nests... and I will not tell how many I ate, but surely meringues have to be good for you, they are so light. Happy Baking everyone :)

The dreaded Chocolate Macaroons

I made macaroons about 4 times before. The first time was for my Baby Shower (in May 2010). I didn't know that the whole thing could so easily go wrong when I first made them so obviously they turned out perfect! And when I was fooled into a sense of false security I tried again and they turn out awful. They either didn't cook properly or I couldn't take them off the baking paper.
One thing that people who know me well would definitely agree with is that I don't give up easily and sooner or later I will succeed!!! Some might even say that I am stubborn (wonder where they would get that from???)
SO I made another attempt and "Victory"...

I got the recipe (for every attempts) from "The Australian Women's Weekly, Macaroons and Biscuits":
Ingredients for the Macaroons:
3 egg whites
1/4 cup of caster sugar
1 cup of icing sugar
1/4 cup of cocoa powder
 1 cup of ground almonds
2 teaspoons of cocoa powder (extra for dusting)

Ingredients for the chocolate ganache filling:
1/4 cup of pouring cream
150g dark eating chocolate, chopped finely (I grate mine just to be sure)

To make the Macaroons
1- Grease an oven tray; line with baking paper. I use a cookie tray and I have not actually greased it beforehand. The baking paper is enough.
2- Beat the egg whites in a small bowl with electric mixer until soft peaks form. Add caster sugar, beat until  sugar dissolves; transfer mixture to a large bowl (mine was already big so I kept that one). Fold in the sifted icing sugar and cocoa, and ground almonds in two batches.
3- Spoon the mixture into a pipping bag fitted with 2cm plain tube. (At this stage, I use a little amount of the mixture to the baking paper to the tray, on that same day I made some meringue and I have taken a picture of it so check the "Meringues" post). Pipe 4 cm rounds about 2 cm apart onto the trays. Tap the trays on the bench so the macaroons spread slightly. Dust with extra sifted cocoa (It was getting late and I forgot that step); stand for 30 minutes (for them to crust).
4- Meanwhile preheat the oven to 150 Degree C.
5- Bake the macaroons about 20 minutes. Cool on trays.

To make the ganache:
Bring the cream to the boil in a small saucepan, remove from heat; add the chocolate, stir until smooth. Refrigerate about 20 minutes or until spreadable.

Sandwich macaroons with the chocolate filling.

I ran out of ganache so I made about 3 of them with Nutella instead. No complaints from what I have been told.

Chocolate and Dulce De Leche layer cake

My beloved niece Ataraiti is leaving in a couple of days for her OE so we went to say Goodbye today. I wanted to make something special for her so I created this cake. It's a 2 layer chocolate cake with homemade Dulce De Leche in the middle and buttercream Dulce De Leche icing, topped with Maltesers. We couldn't stay for dinner so at this stage I am not sure how it went but I have tasted all the elements separately and I was pretty happy with them so fingers crossed.

Right let's get to the recipe:

For the cake: (recipe take from the book "500 cakes" by Susannah Blake that my wonderful Sister- in Law and Brother gave me).

- 170g of butter, at room temperature (if you have forgotten to take the butter our of the fridge then try grating it)
- 140g caster sugar (for some reason I put 100g of caster sugar and the rest was brown sugar)
- 3 eggs
- 140g self- raising flour
- 3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease two 20 cm round cake tins and line the bottoms with greaseproof paper. (I just sprayed my tins with neutral oil spray).

Beat together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Sift the flour and cocoa over the top, then fold in.

Spoon the batter into the prepared tins and spread out evenly using the back of a spoon. It will look like there is not enough batter for the pan but persevere, it'll work.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.

Then a tip I have pinched from Bakerella: let the cakes cool enough to be able to handle them and get them out of the pan. Once that's done, wrap them in cling film so lock in the moisture.

For the Dulce De Leche: (www.joyofbaking.com)

This recipe makes about 1 cup and a quarter.
There are 3 different ways to make Dulce De Leche. 1 with the tin of condensed milk in the oven, another one still with condensed  milk but this time in saucepan filled with water and the last one by combining and cooking all the ingredients. I chose the last one, mainly because I didn't have any condensed milk and the end product was phenomenal!

Ingredients:
- 4 cups of whole milk
- 3/4 cup (150g) granulated white sugar
- 2 tbsp light corn syrup (I have never found corn syrup in New Zealand so I use glucose which can easily be found in supermarket)
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/8 tsp of salt
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Put the milk, sugar, corn syrup, baking soda and salt in a large heavy- duty saucepan.

Place over medium heat and bring just to a boil. Watch carefully and as soon as the milk begins to foam up, stir with a heatproof spatula or wooden spoon (I used a whisk), and reduce the heat until the milk is just at a low rolling boil.

Continue to cook the milk, stirring the sides of the saucepan frequently until the mixture become very thick and sticky and caramel colored (about 40 to 60 minutes).

It is important to stir the milk so it doesn't burn. Adjust the heat as necessary. Remove from the heat and strain if necessary (I didn't do it and it turned out fine).

Stir in the vanilla extract.

Let cool before covering and storing.

This will keep in the fridge for up to a month.

For the Dulce De Leche buttercream: (www.bakespace.com)

This makes enough buttercream to cover a two layer 20cm cake and to decorate it.

Ingredients:
- 2 sticks of softened unsalted butter (1/2 cup)
- 4 cups of sifted icing sugar
- 1 can of Dulce De Leche (4 to 5 tablespoons of homemade one)
- 2 tsp of pure vanilla extract (I didn't use it since I had already put some vanilla in the Dulce De Leche and this was to go with a chocolate cake anyway)

- Approx 1/4 cup of heavy cream or milk (I used milk in mine)
- A pinch of salt

Cream the butter.
Slowly add 2 cup of the sifted icing sugar.
Add the vanilla (if using) and half of the cream/ milk.
Mix until well incorporated.
Add half of the Dulce De Leche.
Mix until blended well.
Add the remaining cream/ milk.
Add the remaining Dulce De Leche.
Blend well.
Add the salt.
Continue with the remaining 2 cups of sugar until you reach the desired consistency. Depending on your desired consistency. You might use a little more or less of the sugar.
Mix on medium for about 4-5 minutes. Keep your eye on this as it mixes and DO NOT over mix as the mixture can become grainy.


Assembly:
Place one of the chocolate sponge on the serving plate. Pour approx 5 tablespoons of Dulce De Leche and spread it over the top of the cake.
Place the second cake on top. Place it in the fridge for the Dulce De Leche to stick both cakes together (especially if it's warm). I didn't do it at first and when I covered the cakes with buttercream the cakes kept sliding which made it quite difficult.
Once you are confident the cakes are not going to move too much, remove it from the fridge and pour 3/4 of the buttercream on top of the cake. Spread to the sides.
Fill a pipping bag with the rest of the icing to decorate. I used the Wilton tip 2D (I actually wanted to use the 3M to make big roses but I was running out of time and couldn't find it so I had to improvise). I added some Maltesers on top but you could drizzle some more Dulce De Leche or leave it as is.
And Tadaaaaa, here is the final result (again). I hope you enjoy making this cake and especially eating it. Happy Baking Everyone :)

Creme Anglaise

If you have read the previous post you would have seen that I made a creme Anglaise to accompany my apple crumble pie. I took the recipe from Annabel Langbein's website: (www.annabel-langbein.com)

Ingredients:
- 2 cups of milk
- 1/4 cup of sugar
- 3 egg yolks
- 2 Tbsp of cornflour
- 1 tsp of vanilla extract

Heat the milk in a pot. While it is heating put the sugar, egg yolks and cornflour in a bowl and whisk to combine.

Mix a little hot milk into the aboe mixture, then stir the egg mixture into the remaining milk.

Add the vanilla. Stir over low heat until thikened slightly.

Allow to simmer for another 40 to 50 seconds, stirring gently.

If you are not going to use it straight away, cover it with plastic wrap (touching the top of the creme) otherwise it will form a skin.