Archive | February, 2013

Chocolate freckle slice

21 Feb

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I love making slices and from my wide experience, people love eating them. Cutting them isn’t as faffy as cutting a cake, and a piece of slice is usually more exciting than a bickie. Continue reading →

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Lemon honey biscuits / cookies

17 Feb

ImageAt the library recently, I place where I love to hang out, I found the quirkily titled ‘The Cookiepedia’ by Stacy Adimando. This bible to cookies inspired me no end and the first recipe I road-tested was what the author called lemon chewies with honey.

Baking with lemons  produces such a wonderful aroma, and I think the smell of baking is sometimes better than eating the end product  🙂 Continue reading →

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Lemony cupcakes with crushed raspberry icing

10 Feb

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I had a hankering to bake something lemony this morning and trawled though pinterest, fav websites and some blogs. What caught my eye was a recipe for lemony cupcakes in the book After Toast by food writer Kate Gibbs.

Simple and light they are perfect for a morning tea when dusted with sifted icing sugar. Ms Gibbs includes a recipe for lemon icing but I instead used a crushed raspberry icing that Miss 7 had made for something she was baking [I’ll upload that recipe soon]. I then topped each cake with a single raspberry to make them look extra pretty and more suitable for the evening birthday soiree that I’ll be taking them to.

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GATHER:

125g diced butter at room temperature

¼ cup caster sugar

zest for one large lemon

2 free range eggs

2 cups self-raising flour

vanilla

 

LET’S GET TO IT:

Preheat oven to 180C and line cupcake tin with wrappers [this made 12 large muffins and 6 small, patty-cake size ones].

In bowl of electric mixer cream butter then add sugar until soft and combined. Add vanilla, zest then eggs one at a time.

Gently fold flour in, alternating with milk,on low speed until smooth.

Spoon into cases and bake for between 12-15 minutes/ until golden.

Remove from oven, place on wore rack and allow to cool before adding any icing.

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Toffee chip blondies – easy and yummy

3 Feb

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My cousin by marriage is Canadian and as a fellow baker understands my obsession with all things sweet and home-made. The very lovely Heather and her family spent Christmas with us in 2012 and regularly had to listen to my gripes about the lack of creative baking supplies available in Australia. As a surprise she sent me two boxes of various chips: cinnamon, mint, toffee, peanut butter: the types of things I read about but could never pin down. I may or may not have done a real, actual happy dance on receipt of these delish morsels.

When I saw this recipe on the labyrinth-like food.com I couldn’t wait to bake it. So simple and so delish – nibble one little corner and give the rest away, like I did.

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Gather:

115grams butter, diced, at room temperature

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
100g English toffee bits 

Let’s get to it:

Preheat oven to 170C and grease and line a 9×13 pan.

Beat butter, sugar and eggs in bowl of KitchenAid until creamy and well-combined.

Stir in flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and toffee bits, reserving a bit.

Bake 20 – 26 minutes: you want it to be moist like a brownie, not dry.

Remove from oven and sprinkle over remaining toffee chips.

Allow to cool for 10 minutes or so before slicing into chunky squares.

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