Looking back I really should have named my blog ‘Donna Hay’s biggest fan bakes’ for that pretty much sums up my approach to cooking and blogging. And life, really. Continue reading
Tag Archives: recipe
Sweet and salty pretzel caramel chocolate chip cookies
7 Apr
So, the salty/sweet taste craze is a winner in my books. My first toe-in-the-water test was Nigella’s uber-good salted caramel sauce which I believe to be the answer to most of life’s ills.
These cookies were next. The crunch of the pretzel. The sweetness of the caramel. The softness of the cookie. The sighs of goodness…
Continue reading
Easy lemon yogurt cake
23 Mar
Baking with lemon creates such a lovely fresh smell throughout your kitchen that you’ll wonder why you ever bake anything else. This super simple cake is just delish for morning tea, and is perfect with a liberal dusting of icing sugar. The recipe is from my stand-by AWW Quick Mix Cakes book, and all I did was reduce the amount of sugar from the suggested one cup.
Gather:
125g butter at room temp, diced
2 teaspoons grated lemon rind
2 eggs
¾ cup caster sugar
1 ½ cups self-raising flour
¾ cup plain yogurt
Let’s get to it:
Preheat oven to 170C and grease and line a 14cmx21cm loaf tin with baking paper.
Put all ingredients into bowl of electric mixer and beat until light and changed in colour.
Scrape into pan and bake for 50-60 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.
Allow to cool in pan for 10 minutes before cooling completely on wire rack.
Serve as is, or make up a simple icing by mixing 2/3 cup sifted icing sugar with 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice and enough water to make a pouring consistency. Sprinkle over extra lemon zest.
Donna Hay hot cross buns for Easter
16 Mar
I make a batch of Donna Hay’s hot cross buns every Easter and when eaten fresh from the oven they are heaven on Earth. Like many baked goods they are best the day they are made. You can pop them under the griller after a day or two [if they last that long!].
Home-made Monte Carlo biscuit / cookie recipe
9 Mar
As a child I thought Monte Carlo biscuits were the very height of sophistication. They were the ‘fancy’ bickies that relatives offered when you visited and I used to make the treat last by pulling apart the two halves then scraping the raspberry icing off with my teeth. Oh, yes – so sophisticated. Continue reading
Chocolate fudge birthday cake
3 Mar
It was my baby brother’s birthday recently and a cake was absolutely in order. By baby I meant he is nudging the upper end of his 30s but in my heart he’s still the funny little boy who used to fall asleep standing up while playing with Matchbox cars.
My mum hosted a family lunch and bought my bros an ice-cream cake – sort of as a joke, sort of because he actually requested one. Obviously a real, actual chocolate birthday would also be needed.
I found the ideal recipe in David Herbert’s Best Ever Baking Recipes and it was not only a snap to make, it turned out exactly like the photo in the book! Huzzah! It tasted rich and fudgy and decadent – a perfect birthday cake.
Gather:
100 g butter, diced, at room temperature
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
250g caster sugar
100g dark chocolate melted
280g self-raising flour
1 teaspoon bicarb
2 tablespoons cocoa
250ML milk
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Let’s get to it:
Preheat oven to 180C and grease a 20cm springform tin and line the base with baking paper.
Combine butter, egg, sugar and meted chocolate in a large bowl. Sift in flour, bicarb and cocoa.
Combine milk and lemon juice in a small jug (it should curdle slightly) and pour into the bowl.
Beat with hand held beaters or spoon for 2minutes / until smooth.
Pour into tin and bake for 50 minutes/ until a skewer comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before turning out to wire rack to cool.
When cold dress with ganache [I cheated and tried a new product I’d seen in the chilled section – Philly chocolate frosting. It tasted good & is perfect for when you don’t have time to whip up ganache].
Chocolate freckle slice
21 Feb
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
Lemon honey biscuits / cookies
17 Feb
At 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
Lemony cupcakes with crushed raspberry icing
10 Feb
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.
Toffee chip blondies – easy and yummy
3 Feb
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.
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.
Popular posts on The Hungry Mum
Chocolate brownie tart
Lavender & lemon cake
Margarita tequila cake
Salted caramel brownies
Home-made Monte Carlo biscuits / cookies
Easter brownie cookies
Lemon meringue pie
Easy raspberry butter cake – click here for recipe https://thehungrymum.com/2012/05/04/easy-raspberry-butter-cake-11/
the hungry mum 