Our rosemary bush is a beast of a thing – large, unwieldy but capable of producing the most fragrant and delicious tasting leaves. No matter how much we use or give away there is always more, more, more taking over our herb garden.
Looking for another way to use it I stumbled across the mistress of original cooking concepts, Nigella Lawson. My well-thumbed copy of ‘How To Be A Domestic Goddess’ provided the answer with this luscious cake.
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If you are trying to watch your waistline or worried about the soaring costs of dental care avert your eyes. For this treat be both fat-and-sugar laden *but* it is super delicious and a cinch to make. Continue reading
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – cinnamon is the new black. The older I get the less I’m interested in sickly sweet desserts and cakes but I still want something with a real taste. I love vanilla [real, actual vanilla – not the nasty synthetic stuff] and I love cinnamon. This cinnamon tea cake has both which makes it a real winner. Continue reading
I was sent a copy of ‘After Toast – Recipes for Aspiring Cooks’ by Kate Gibbs to review in my day job as a journalist at The Leader newspaper. I brought it home to test some recipes and the first one to get the Hungry Mum treatment was her recipe called All About The Chocolate Loaf. I adore chocolate cakes that actually use chocolate, rather than cocoa, and this delivers that intense choc hit I was after. Ms Gibbs said the cake improves over a day or two but I served mine that evening. She suggests sesame & almond praline as an accompaniment but I lathered mine with dark chocolate ganache and walnut pieces.
GATHER:
1 1/3 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon bicarb soda
130g dark choc melted
200 g butter, diced, at room temperature
1 ¼ cups brown sugar
2 large eggs
splash vanilla
1 cup boiling water
LET’S GET TO IT:
Preheat oven to 190C and grease and line a 23cmx 13cm loaf pan.
Sift flour with bicarb, set aside.
Cream butter and sugar in bowl of electric mixer until pale, then add eggs one at a time, then vanilla.
Fold in melted chocolate. Add one heaped spoon of flour at a time and boiling water alternately, stirring after each addition [I didn’t end up using all the water]. Batter will be runny. Make sure there are no lumps.
Pour into pan and bake for 30 minutes. Reduce heat to 170C and cook for another 15 minutes.
Remove and allow to cool for about two hours before turning on a wire rack. When cold dress with choc ganache or icing sugar.
Yes, it is muffin mania at the Hungry Mum! What’s not to love about a portable sweet treat that requires no icing and no cutting?
Pumpkin has long been my favourite vegetable but it is only recently that I have been attracted to the idea of adding it to sweet dishes. In Australia it is served roasted or sometimes mashed but always savoury. Thanks to international baking blogs I am becoming somewhat obsessed with plonking pumpkin into my baking repertoire. Unlike the US we don’t have canned pumpkin here so it requires a fair bit of effort to chop/boil/mash the pumpkin but it is so worth it. Continue reading
I love making muffins – they are quick and easy and people tend to think it is fine to eat what is essentially cake at any time of the day. Win! I felt like making something with a hit of ginger recently and stumbled across this recipe on bestrecipes.com.au and knew it would be good. It creates quick, fast muffins that are moist and flavoursome.
GATHER:
1 cup of boiling water
¼ cup golden syrup
1 teaspoon bicarb
2 eggs
½ cup vegetable oil
¾ cup caster sugar
2 cups plain flour
1 tablespoon ground ginger
LET’S GET TO IT:
Preheat oven to 170C and line a 12 tin muffin pan with wrappers.
Pour boiling water into a bowl, add golden syrup, bicarb and mix, then allow to cool for 5 minutes.
Stir in oil, eggs and sugar and mix.
Add remaining ingredients and stir with a silver spoon until just combined [do not over-mix or muffins will be tough]. Mixture will be very wet so use a ladle to fill up muffin wrappers.
Bake 15-ish minutes.
Serve warm as is or allow to cool, then dust with icing sugar.
Joy the Baker is a legend. Her eponymous website is an inspiration and her recipes always work. I had a hankering to make some bickies the other day and her site was my first port of call. She wrote about these lovely brown sugar cookies last September and said she found the recipe in Epicure. Continue reading
I blame By The (Cook) Book blog for my fall into planet s’mores. As an Australian I have heard so much about this sweet American treat but have never tried them. Part of the reason is the lack of graham crackers here but after the Hungry Dad explained they were similar to digestive biscuits I was ready to make me some s’mores! Continue reading
I love, love, LOVE syrup cakes. Pouring a heap of sugared water over a warm cake and letting all the sweet, sugary goodness be soaked up? Mmmm, what’s not to love? This lemon syrup cake, by my baking hero Donna Hay, is so moist and divine that one piece will not suffice. Serve it cooled, or for mega accolades, warm with cream. Don’t mind if I do… Continue reading
Fact: I’m not a big fan of sickly sweet iced and sprinkled donuts but once every couple of years I will indulge in a warm cinnamon donut. The planets need to be aligned in order for this to happen: the donut needs to be freshly cooked, in something other than lard [uurrggh] and inevitably we will be at a country show.
I often make baked donuts at home as they are easy and oh so moreish. I also enjoying dusting off my mini bundt pan, which you’ll need one of to make these lovelies. I do like me some cinnamon.
This recipe is from preparedpantry.com and makes 12 mini bundt size donuts.
GATHER:
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 large egg
1/2 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup caster sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
LET’S GET TO IT:
Preheat oven to 180C. Spray cooking spray onto mini bundt pan, ensuring it gets into all the nooks and crannies.
Whisk flour, baking powder, 1/2 cup sugar, and nutmeg in a medium bowl .
Beat the egg, melted butter, milk, and vanilla in another bowl. Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir just until combined – do not over-mix.
Spoon the batter into mini bundt pans and smooth the tops.
Bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until golden.
While the donuts are baking, mix the remaining 1/4 cup sugar and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon in a bowl.
After donuts are cooked allow to stand for a few minutes in pan before removing and rolling in cinnamon sugar mix while still warm.
the hungry mum 