Tag Archives: homemade

Blueberry pudding cake (egg-free)

23 Oct

Blueberry pudding cake (no egg)

This blueberry pudding cake is such a moist, easy-to-bake, delicious cake that you’ll throw away all your other blueberry baking recipes.

The fact that it is an egg-free cake recipe is a bonus, especially if you buy 36 eggs at a time but plough through them so quickly you often are left with just one solitary egg in the carton. Or is that just me?

Before our chooks went to hen heaven – RIP Kaitlyn and Jakeson – we always had a stash of perfect, huge, delicious eggs at our disposal. Now, I only buy free range eggs but what with all the scandal and court cases RE certain egg producers lying about their free range status it is really hard. I often leave smaller supermarkets empty-handed if I can’t find my brands. Farmers markets are the best but that doesn’t help if it is Tuesday night and the market isn’t until Saturday!

This cake is perfect when it is just under baked so it retains a pudding-like consistency. I think lashings of custard would make a wonderful friend for this cake – try my easy recipe here: the best custard recipe from scratch

Blueberry pudding cake (egg-free)

GATHER:

2 cups self-raising flour

250 grams unsalted butter, diced, softened

¾ cup caster sugar

3/4 cup milk

1 cup Greek yogurt

1 cup blueberries – frozen is fine, don’t defrost

1 tsp vanilla extract

Blueberry pudding cake (eggfree)

LET’S GET TO IT:

Grease a 20cm by 20cm square baking pan and line with non-stick baking paper and preheat oven to 180C.

In bowl of electric mixer beat the sugar and butter until pale and creamy.

Scrape down sides with a spatula then beat in vanilla and yogurt.

Add half the milk, then half the flour, then repeat. Beat until mixed – do not overbeat.

Use a silver spoon to stir in the berries carefully – you don’t want to stain the batter blue.

Scrape into tin, level the top with offset spatula and bake in oven for around 45 minutes – insert skewer to check, you want it moist but not raw.

Leave in tin to cool, then slice into squares to serve. Sprinkle with icing sugar to serve.

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Gooey Maltesers brownies

27 Aug

Gooey Malteser brownies The Hungry Mum

I often bypass the sweeties aisle in the supermarket but recently I’ve noticed just how cheap chocolate bars are becoming. This isn’t a case of childhood nostalgia – growing up, my dad worked at Nestle so our house was always awash with chocolate – but a recent phenomenon. Continue reading

Donna Hay black forest cake

19 Aug

The Hungry Mum black forest cake

The Hungry Dad is a huge fan of black forest cake and it recently occurred to me that I had yet to make it for him.

We were headed out on a picnic with some friends and I decided to bake this cake. Let me interrupt myself here by saying that picnics for me are heaven, while The Hungry Dad treats them as something along the lines of purgatory. All that eating in the fresh air – pah, says he.

So this cake was a peace offering / bribe to encourage him to enjoy the day. And a good time was had by all. Hooray! Continue reading

Whisky salted caramel pecan pie squares

23 Apr

Whiskey salted caramel pecan pie squares 1

The saying ‘better than sex’ is thrown around a lot in relation to certain foods. This pie – served as squares – with the addition of whiskey caramel sauce, may not be better than sex but it sure is up there with some of the best PG-rated times you’ll ever have.  Continue reading

Home-made berry and meringue icecream

7 Dec

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As I’ve mentioned before, summer and I are not friends. I don’t like heat, humidity, flies, insects, sweating. Obviously I shouldn’t be living in steamy Sydney but here I am. And as much as I adore baking it is sometimes just too damn hot to turn the oven.

That’s where this beauty of a dessert comes in. I found the recipe in a back issue of the wonderful delicious magazine and had, serendipitously, made meringues a few days earlier. Continue reading

Chocolate hot toddy tarts – a warming dessert with whisky

2 Sep

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Have I told you about the amazing book Lily Vanilli’s Sweet Tooth? Subtitled ‘recipes and tips from a modern artisan bakery’ it is an incredible collection of fantastical baked goods with gorgeous photos to match. I was sent a review copy in my day job as a journalist and I couldn’t wait to get this book into my kitchen to try out the recipes. If you have a loved one who is into baking, buy them this book. Continue reading

Mmmm, homemade pumpkin pie from scratch

1 May

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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!]

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The best triple chocolate brownie recipe

27 Feb

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I bake so often that I am rarely tempted by my own sweet baked goods. Whenever I make a new recipe I try a piece but other than that I can take or leave cakes & things. A notable exception = brownies. I adore brownies – they are rich, gooey and not OTT in terms of sugary sweetness. Continue reading