I was going to start this post by writing everyone loves banana cake but that’s so not true. My mum abhors bananas in any way, shape or form. The poor woman often peers hopefully into my cake tin when she comes over, only to firmly replace the lid when she discovers the baked good is banana cake/bread/muffin. Continue reading
You may already know I worship at the shrine of Donna Hay. My bible is Modern Classics Book 2 and it is a well-thumbed book. When a lovely friend at work announced she was leaving for an amazing job opportunity I knew a choc cake was in order. Continue reading
My love of choc chips in baked goods is well known so when I came across recipe for a chocolate cake with choc chips I was sold. I found the recipe on the allrecipes.co.uk site but the original didn’t specify how much milk so I had to guesstimate. I think I guessed correctly! This isn’t a fancy cake but I bet it will be gratefully received by your guests. Continue reading
I adore Donna Hay. I love her magazine, her homewares, her style, her gorgeous store, everything. I’ve been lucky enough to meet her a few times and begged her for a job [no luck there, unfortunately]. I have every edition of her magazines and the vast majority of her cookbooks. All get a workout in my kitchen and her recipes are versatile, simple and usually no fuss.
For my mum’s birthday recently she decreed a ‘no gifts’ policy. The exception was anything home made. With this in mind I set about making her some gingerbread bickies. Mum adores gingerbread and I knew she’d love these.
The recipe is from Donna Hay Magazine issue 6. I use it every year to make gingerbread men at Christmas and it always turns out beautifully.
I dressed the biscuits up with dark chocolate glaze, another Donna Hay recipe, this time from the Simple Essentials – Chocolate book.
GATHER:
125g softened diced butter
½ cup brown sugar
½ cup golden syrup
2 ½ cups self-raising flour
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon bicarb soda
LET’S GET TO IT:
Preheat oven to 190C, line two baking trays with baking paper.
Place butter and sugar in bowl of electric mixer and beat until light and creamy then add golden syrup.
Add sifted flour, ginger and bicarb soda and stir to combine.
Knead lighty on a floured benchtop to form a smooth dough.
Roll dough between two sheets of non-stick paper until 5mm thick. Use cookie cutter to cut out shapes.
Bake for 8 or so minutes/until golden.
Cool on trays.
When totally cold decorate with choc glaze.
CHOCOLATE GLAZE:
Melt 150g best quality dark chocolate with ½ cup pouring cream in a small pan over low heat, stirring until melted and smooth. Stand for 20 minutes to thicken. Then dunk the biscuits in the melted, gooey mix. Yum.
I keep a container of this in the fridge as it can be used to top a big cake, cupcakes, sandwich biscuits together, heated to pour over ice cream or eaten by the spoonful.
I’ve come across these biscuits before with different names but I think the genius cooks at The Australian Women’s Weekly have bestowed upon these sweet morsels the best name: chocolate lace crisps. Once again this recipe is from their bible Bake.
I’ve made these many times and despite not having an overly sweet tooth I adore them. According to the notes I’ve scrawled in my cook book I first made them for a mother’s day picnic in 2010 and I made them recently for another picnic that was called off [due to bad weather]. In fact I love them so much that they are used as my WordPress image.
These are so delicious due to the dark chocolate so make sure you don’t use nasty compound stuff or they won’t taste anywhere near as good.
GATHER:
100g chopped dark chocolate
80g butter, diced
1 egg
¾ cup caster sugar [or even a smidge less]
1 cup plain flour, sifted
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
¼ teaspoon bicarb of soda
¼ cup sifted icing sugar
LET’S GET TO IT:
Place chocolate and butter in a medium sized pan and melt over a very low heat until glossy and smooth.
Remove from heat, allow to cool for about five minutes, then stir in sugar, cocoa, flour, soda and egg.
Place in fridge for 10-15 minutes or until mix is firm enough to handle.
Heat oven to 180C and line two baking sheets with baking paper.
Place icing sugar on a small plate.
Make a ball [about the size of a golf ball] with mixture, roll in icing sugar and place on baking tray.
Bake 12-15 minutes and cool on trays.
I adore pumpkin and love it in any incarnation. In Australia it is not really used in desserts but I know pumpkin pie is a true American tradition. Many moons ago I had pumpkin pie in Canada and loved it. I’d been wanting to make it for ages but most recipes seem to start with ‘one can of pumpkin puree’ – that’s not a thing in Australia.
The I stumbled across the magnificent book ‘Bake’ by pastry chef Alison Thompson and lo and behold – a pumpkin pie recipe. This book makes you want to stop everything and get into the kitchen to bake. Highly recommend it.
My iphone pictures do not do this delicious dessert justice. Note to self: use a better camera…
The pastry recipe is the easiest I’ve ever made [and I have a bit of a phobia about making pastry as it always seem so fragile and delicate but this is a hardy yet gorgeous pastry].
GATHER:
Sweet shortcrust pastry
225g sifted plain flour
60g sifted icing sugar
100g diced unsalted butter at room temperature
2 egg yolks
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment combine the flour, icing sugar and butter. Mix on low speed until no lumps of butter are visible. Add the egg yolks and mix on low speed until the mixture comes together to form a dough.
Wrap dough in cling wrap place in fridge for at least two hours
Filling
1kg pumpkin, peeled and cut into small pieces
125mL pouring cream
3 eggs
60g brown sugar
60g caster sugar
½ teaspoon ground ginger
pinch of ground cloves [I didn’t have any so used nutmeg instead]
LET’S GET TO IT
Make your dough. Leave in fridge for two hours.
Preheat oven to 170C.
Place pumpkin on baking tray, cover with foil and bake until pumpkin is very soft [Alison Thompson said around an hour, mine took about 1.5 hours. Maybe my pieces were too big].
While pumpkin is cooking take pastry out of fridge and allow it to come to room temperature.
Place sheet of baking paper on bench, unwrap pastry and using a rolling pin roll out to shape of non-stick tart tin with removable base [I used a rectangle tin approx 35cmx11cm]. Gently place in tart tin.
Place in fridge for half an hour.
Remove pumpkin carefully from oven [there may be water and steam] and place in bowl.
Increase oven temp to 180C.
Meanwhile place baking paper over pastry, fill with baking weights and bake until pastry is golden. Remove paper and weights and bake for a further 5 minutes.
Remove to bench; allow to cool for ten minutes.
Using a stick blender puree pumpkin until smooth and measure out 500ml of puree and pour into a bowl.
Whisk in cream, then the eggs, sugars and spices.
Pour into tart case, bake for 40 minutes until the filling is set.
Serve warm [or cold or eaten straight from the left over container at room temperature – it is amazing!]
This is a one bowl, super easy, kid-friendly chocolate cake. It isn’t glam and won’t impress baking experts but for morning tea or a fast dessert you can’t beat it. If you can turn on an oven you can make this chocolate cake, which is great served with ice cream, cream or even just a sprinkling of icing sugar on top.
Making it in a ring baking tin makes it look a little bit more fancy than using a round tin. You could fill the berries to serve if you want to up the glam factor.
It is from a book called Quick Mix Cakes by AWW.
GATHER:
125g melted butter
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cocoa powder [Dutch for preference]
1 cup self-raising flour
3/4 cup caster sugar
dash best vanilla
LET’S GET TO IT
Preheat oven to 170C, and grease a ring pan with non-stick cooking spray.
Place everything in bowl of electric mixer and beat until smooth and mixture has changed colour.
Pour into pan, bake 35-ish minutes/until a skewer comes out clean.
Leave in tin 5 minutes then remove to wire rack to cool.
The Hungry Mum family is meeting some friends in the morning for a beachside breakfast BBQ. We thought this mild autumn weather in Sydney would be a perfect time to catchup out of doors. Knowing how ravenous kids can be I baked some strawberry muffins for them to munch on while our breakfast poper is cooking. This recipe, from bestrecipes.com.au, was originally titled ‘Kim’s Moist Muffins.’ It is super easy and failsafe and versatile – everything you want in a muffin receipe [or any recipe, really]. If I knew how to link the site I would but I’m not that talented…
I had three punnets of strawberries in the fridge so I added some of those plus a handful of blueberries that were hanging around. I rounded that out with a pinch of allspice, which is my go to ingredient for all things baked. Kim herself suggested white choc & raspberry but almost anything can be used: mashed banana/sultanas/grated apple…
GATHER:
220g sifted self raising flour
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
3/4 cup of milk [or buttermik if you have it]
1/4 cup vegetable oil [not olive oil as it is too strong-tasting]
150g added flavours [eg strawberries]
LET’S GET TO IT:
Preheat oven to 170C and line a muffin tin with wrappers.
Place flour and sugar in a large bowl, stir with a wooden spoon.
In a jug place egg, oil and milk, whisk. Add to flour mix and stir until just mixed [do not over mix]
Add in flavours then pour into muffin pans.
Bake 15-20 mins / until golden.
These are fab warm but also can be frozen in a ziplock bag when completely cool.
This recipe is, as Miss 4 would say, easy peasy lemon squeezy. The original recipe, which I’ve tweaked, is from my primary school’s fundraising cookbook, along with taste sensations such as fish finger kebabs and prunes & bacon [subtitled, and I kid you not, ‘a delicious combination] from *many* moons ago. Fear not, this cake is super yum and so super easy that kids can make it without much help. The original makes a very small loaf but I decided to use my mini pan this time & the results were great. It made 4 mini loaves which is ideal if you don’t want to be a guts and eat all the cake are just having one friend over for a cuppa.
This is such a versatile recipe: it can de doubled and if you don’t like lime use orange or lemon zest. Or omit the zest and just add mixed spice or vanilla.
And what about these amazing photos by Anna Warr? Don’t they make you want to lick the screen? Or is that just me? Check out more of her amazing work at annawarr.com.
GATHER:
1 cup self-raising flour
1 cup coconut [dessicated]
1/4 cup caster sugar
slightly more than 1/2 cup milk
zest from 2 small or one large lime
LET’S DO IT:
Preheat oven to 170C and grease 4 holes from a mini loaf tin.
Place everything in bowl and stir until combined. It will be a stiff batter.
Pour into 4 holes, bake 20-25ish minutes/until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Allow to cool five minutes before removing to a wire rack.
Chocolate marsala cake, listed in the book ’50 Fabulous Chooclate Cakes’ as ‘never fail chocolate cake’ is my go recipe that I have made countless times. Each year I make it for my daughter’s birthdays, I’ve made it it for friends grieving and for friends celebrating. Continue reading
the hungry mum 