Just eight every day ingredients stand between you and these luscious, luxurious dark chocolate and raspberry brownies. And should you not have any of these items to hand I urge you to abandon your post, buy them, then bake these rich, easy, delicious brownies from scratch. Continue reading
Summer in Sydney is just too hot. Balmy days. Hot nights with no drop in temperature. Cooking is just too hard and dinner is often salad or something equally refreshing.
While I won’t go near the stove for make a meal I will happily prepare something sweet. Continue reading
Despite being Sydney born and bred I am a winter gal through and through. The cool air, the fabulous clothes and the amazing winter fare is my kind of lifestyle. Forget frolicking at the beach or being burnt to a crisp – give me the great indoors, a fire and some cookbooks and I’m in hog heaven.
Of all the winter foods my favourite to cook and eat must be puddings. Despite not having an overly sweet tooth I am always drawn to puddings: self-saucing, gooey, oozy numbers are what the cold weather is all about. Wand when it comes to a hearty dessert to make you happy to be alive it is hard to go past a bread and butter pud.
Australian blogger and writer Kate Gibbs’ recipe for choc raspberry bread and butter pudding, from her book After Toast, had my name on it: I had a stale loaf of chunky white bread and due to shopping miscommunication about 8 litres of milk in the fridge.
I made a few tweaks including the amount of eggs and milk and omitting jam that was used on the bread slices.
GATHER:
8 thick slices of good quality white bread
Enough butter to generously butter bread with
150g fresh or frozen raspberries
1/3 cup dark choc bits / buttons/ roughly chopped chocolate
3 eggs
2 cups milk
Good splash best quality vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon sugar plus extra for sprinkling
LET’S GET TO IT:
Preheat oven to 180C .
Cut bread into small rectangles or triangles then butter each piece on one side.
Arrange in shallow ovenproof dish and scatter with half the raspberries and all of the chocolate. Cover with remaining bread.
In a large jug whisk eggs until frothy then beat in milk, vanilla and cinnamon.
Pour over bread and scatter over remaining berries.
Stand for 15 minutes.
Sprinkle over the extra sugar, cover with baking paper and bake for 20 minutes. Remove paper and bake for another 15.
Serve warm.
It is so cold in Sydney at the moment that I’m spending most of my time in the kitchen baking. Standing in front of a lovely warm oven is the best way to while a way a bit of time. The downside is I’m burning through flour, milk, eggs and butter at a rate of knots! Oh well…
Recently I flicked through some of my so-huge-it-needs-to-be-culled cookbook collection and landed on a recipe from The Australian Women’s Weekly book, The Baking Collection. This marvellous book is, as they say in certain circles, all thriller – no filler. Page after page of tempting bakes to make and I could think of no happier way to spend a day than creating some of these treats.
I chose the recipe for raspberry and walnut slice, though I used ground almonds instead of ground walnuts. I think any ground nut [or nut meal] would work here so feel free to experiment. The recipe called for ½ teaspoon of ground cinnamon but I am such a lover of this scented spice that I just freehanded a massive amount.
GATHER:
150g butter, diced and softened
2/3 cup icing sugar
1 ¾ cup plain flour
at least one teaspoon ground cinnamon [more if you prefer]
½ cup ground almonds
300g frozen raspberries
LET’S GET TO IT:
Preheat oven to 180C and grease and line a 20cm x 30cm rectangular slice pan.
In bowl of electric mixer beat butter and icing sugar until pale [you may need to scrape down sides of bowl a few times]
Stir in sifted flour, cinnamon and nut meal until mixture is crumble [do not over-mix].
Set aside one cup of crumble mix, then place the rest of the crumble mix in the pan and use the base of a glass to firmly pat down. Sprinkle over raspberries, then sprinkle over remaining mix.
Bake for around 20 minutes or until golden.
Inhale – the smell is amazing.
Allow to cool in tin before slicing into squares.
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.
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.
Once again my trusty AWW bible, Bake, has provided me with a delicious, easy, can’t-stuff-it-up cake. I present the buttery and moreish raspberry butter cake that can be made with fresh or frozen berries [I always use frozen but never defrost them before use].
Thank you to the wonderfully wonderful Anna Warr for the gorgeous photos [http://www.facebook.com/AnnaWarrPhotography]
GATHER:
125g diced butter, softened
3/4 cup caster sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups self-raising flour, sifted
1/2 cup milk
3/4 cup raspberries
LET’S GET TO IT:
Preheat oven to 180C and grease and line a round 20cm cake tin.
Butter butter and sugar in bowl of electric mixer until light and fluffy and then beat in eggs one at a time.
Stir in milk and flour in two batches.
Fold in 1/4 cup raspeberries.
Spread 3/4 of cake mix into pan and sprinkle with remaining berries then spread remainder of batter over the top.
Bake for between 45-60 mins [depending on oven]. Stand cake in pan 5 minutes, turn top side up onto wire rcak.
When cold sprinkle with sifted icing sugar and decorate with a few extra berries.
the hungry mum 