Party Lamingtons - A fun Idea for Australia Day

Lamingtons were rife during my primary school years. Being part of an expanding school meant there was always a reason to raise funds, so lamington drives, as well as the giant lamington stand at our annual school feté were an omnipresent occurrence. I’m going to now guestimate that during that period I must have consumed at least my own body weight in these icing and coconut encrusted sponge cubes. The ones back then seemed massive (especially compared with my five year old hands) and were bursting with cream – they were a meal in themselves… The creation of a migrant French patissier and named after Lord and Lady Lamington, the humble lamington has now been elevated to icon status in it’s home state of Queensland.

Whilst flicking through the Faking It cookbook, I found this recipe for a more colourful version of this treat. In line with the convenience aspect of the cookbook, the sponge cake is store bought and little preparation and time is required. With this in mind, the overall result is largely dependent on the quality of cake and unlike it’s vibrant colours would suggest, the flavour of the jelly crystals isn’t overly dominant in the final product.

I’ll be using this recipe with yellow and green jelly crystals for Australia Day this year wherever that ends up being, and am still debating whether or not I’d like to pipe some cream in as well!

Party Lamingtons from the Faking It Cookbook

Ingredients
85g packet of strawberry jelly crystals
85g packet of orange jelly crystals
1 tbs unsalted butter/margarine
1 tbs cocoa powder
½ cup (85g) icing sugar, sifted
3 tbs boiling water
350g store bought vanilla sponge cake (or if making your own, 1 day old), cut into cubes
Desiccated coconut

Method
1. Boil 500ml water in a kettle
2. Place jelly crystals in separate containers/jugs and add 250ml water to each
3. Mix until crystals are dissolved and pour jelly into separate shallow containers
4. Chill in fridge for 1 – 1.5 hours (you want the jelly to be semi set)
5. To make chocolate icing, place cocoa powder, icing sugar, butter/marg and water in a bowl and whisk with fork until combined. If icing sets over time, add another tablespoon of boiling water.
6. To make lamingtons, dip sponge cubes into jelly/chocolate icing, then straight into desiccated coconut, place on rack to set. If the jelly is too firm, you can sit the container in a hot water bath for a couple of minutes.

Ricotta Cheesecake with Balsamic Strawberries

This recipe was lifted from the Taste website after initially thinking of baking a regular cheesecake. Much lighter than it’s cream cheese counterpart, it’s also a lot less sweet, balanced with the perfect match of strawberries and balsamic vinegar in the syrup. Being a lot less rich than a regular cheesecake it’s also a lot easier to fit in more slices lol. In the process of experimenting with other recipes, so will keep you posted.

Ricotta Cheesecake with Balsamic Strawberries – Original recipe here

Ingredients
200g digestive biscuits
75g unsalted butter/margarin, melted
125g caster sugar, plus extra 2 tbs
650g ricotta
1 tbs cornflour
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 eggs, separated
150ml sour cream

Strawberry Syrup
55g (1/4 cup) caster sugar
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp cornflour
¼ cup water
250g strawberries, cut

Method
Preheat the oven to 160°C and grease line a springform tin, mine was 20cm.

Pulse biscuits in food processor, then add 2 tbs of caster sugar and melted butter/margarine. Press mixture into tin.

Beat together the ricotta, cornflour, vanilla, 125g of the caster sugar, egg yolks and sour cream.

In a separate clean bowl, beat the eggwhites until stiff peaks form, then fold into the ricotta mixture. Pour into tin and bake for 50-60 minutes until golden (mine took 70 min).

Mix cornflour with a little water. Combine water, caster sugar, vinegar in pan over low heat, stirring until sugar has dissolved. Add cornflour mixture and cook for a few minutes until sauce has thickened. Remove from heat, leave to cool slightly then add the strawberries.

To serve, allow cake to cool slightly (will sink in the middle), then remove from tin and serve drizzled with syrup.

Other baking fruity/cheesecakey posts

Cheesecake Brownie

Strawberry Custard Tart

Apricot Buttermilk Slice

Sweet Potato and Salmon Quiche

What’s a girl to do when she’s got new tart/quiche pan and a whole stack of shortcrust pastry in the freezer? Earlier in the week, I made a Lime Tart, which was a complete disaster (but I’m still psyching myself up for another try lol), so to avoid another sweet gooey mess, I decided to go in the entirely opposite direction and make a quiche.

The last time I had quiche, it was in Paris, from a little boulangerie tucked away in one of the many enchanting streets that make up Montemarte. I remember marvelling over the sheer choice and beauty of these quiches, the French really do know how to bake:D Herr Moutarde and I bought some extra for travel food as we had a flight later that afternoon to Rome – yummy quiche sure as hell beats airplane food!

I found this recipe on the Taste website and was convinced by the number of positive reader comments at the bottom. I’ve made a few little changes to the recipe so for the original please check this link:)


Ingredients
1 ½ sheets of regular sized frozen shortcrust pastry or 1 if you’re using the larger size
250g orange sweet potato, peeled, cut into 2cm pieces
1 garlic clove, crushed
2 cups baby spinach
210g can red salmon, drained
1/2 cup low-fat feta cheese, crumbled
3 eggs
½ cup milk

Method
Make the quiche shell, by fitting the pastry into a greased flan tin (I used a 25cm one), and blind baking with either rice or baking weights in a 200˚C oven for 15 min, then baking a further 10 min without any weights to crisp.

Lightly toss sweet potato in olive oil or spray (any oil really, but please choose a plant/vegetable source) and bake at 200˚C for about 20 min until tender (may take longer or shorter depending on oven). Lower oven to 180˚C after the sweet potato and pastry shell are done.

Wilt baby spinach with garlic in a small amount of oil in pan.

Whisk together eggs and milk

Layer sweet potato, then baby spinach, salmon then feta cheese into the baked shell. Pour over egg mixture.

Bake in oven for ~40 min or until set (mine took about an hour…) Cool in pan for 10 min then release and slice:) Enjoy.

A really tasty recipe, I was a little apprehensive at first that it would be too fishy for me, but the combination of flavours works really well. We had it as a (very) quick lunch, while bustling around the house, multitasking:)

Apricot Buttermilk Slice

I’m undoubtedly a summer person. Being brought up in the tropics, I thrive in sweltering, hot conditions and morph into a whiney, miserable, shivering woman who constantly feels suffocated by the numerous layers needed to keep herself warm. So in a sense, it’s quite unfortunate for me to be now living in Sydney, where the weather is both unpredictable and never consistently sunny/warm enough for my liking (fingers crossed for this summer). That being said, I love Sydney and realise there are much worse places weatherwise lol.

So now that it’s December, we’re in stone fruit season – yet another reason I simply adore summer. Currently up in Cairns, I’ve lost access to all my recipe books down in Sydney. Never fear, the trusty and easily accessible Delicious Magazine is here! Of all the juicy, sweet stone fruits, I must admit, I tend to neglect the humble apricot. For some reason every time I think of apricots, my mind conjures up images of giant, rubbery dried ones:S So this week, while at the grocers, I noticed a tempting display of apricots and the very next day, saw this recipe in this month’s Delicious magazine – How can I say no?

Recipe from Delicious Magazine, December 2008/January 2009, pg 178.

Ingredients
200g self raising flour (1 1/3 cups)
150g almond meal
200g caster sugar
175 unsalted butter/margarine
150ml buttermilk
3 large free range eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
6 ripe apricots, stoned and halved
2 tbs runny honey
50g (2/3 cup) flaked almonds

Apricots

Method
After processing the flour, almond meal and caster sugar together in a food processor, the remaining ingredients (except the apricots, honey and almonds) are added and pulsed until the mixture is just combined. I’ll use this opportunity to advocate for the use of margarine (plant based fat) instead of butter. I used it in this recipe:)

This mixture is then spread into a greased and lined 30X23 cm (5cm high) baking pan, and topped with the apricot halves.

The runny honey, I used a little more than 2 tbs, was drizzled on top, followed by a scattering of the almond flakes.

The recipe recommends baking for 40min in an 180˚C oven, until a skewer in the centre comes out clean. Up here in Cairns, it took an extra 20 min, but since all ovens are different, check at 40 min and see how you go.

Cool for 20 min, then slice. The recipe also gave ingredients for a honey cream to serve, but I simply laced some natural yoghurt I found in the fridge with honey.

YUM!!!

Well, that’s definitely miles away from rubbery dried apricots! This recipes also fits in well with the the baking bug that I’ve caught since I’ve been up here, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing as I love the smell of baking wafting though the house and now there’s an abundance of yummy baked goods in the house:)

Chocolate Cake

So I'm entering into (Not Quite) Nigella's baking/chocolate cake competition:) Not because I'm a stellar baker, but because droolworthy recipes should really be shared:)

This is my favourite cake recipe at the moment. It’s moist and fudgy, with a dark rich chocolate flavour and is covered with mouth-watering ganache. The recipe can be found here from the Epicurious website and is designed to produce a double layered cake but I usually make two separate cakes (I get twice the amount of icing/decorating fun lol).

Coffee and chocolate mixture

At first I was a bit apprehensive about the coffee content in the recipe, but you really can’t taste it at all in the end product, it simply acts to bring out the flavour of the chocolate:)

Dry Mixture

Wet Mixture

The addition of buttermilk helps with keeping the cake moist, almost fudgy. Another great thing about this recipe for me is that the fat content is attributed to oil and not butter. Firstly, it’s better for our hearts, and secondly, it adds to the softer crumb and overall texture of the cake, which would otherwise be a little harder if butter were used.

Into the oven

I use two 20cm round cake tins and the mixture almost comes to the top of them.

Ready for icing

At this point, the cakes have been baked for just over an hour and have been left to cool completely. The recipe says at this stage you can wrap it up in cling wrap to keep overnight if you want to ice it later, but I never do – by this stage, I’m hungry for cake! Being the time efficient person I am, the ganache has already been made and ready for spreading:)

Chocolate for the icing

Ganache

The ganache is easy to make, simply heating up the cream, sugar and glucose syrup and then adding chocolate. The recipe also asks for some butter to be melted in afterwards, but I always forget and never seem to notice anything wrong

The first one was sprinkled with cachous. I’m sure other people will think of more creative and exciting ways to decorate a cake, but I love these silver balls – so pretty!

The second cake was topped with little coloured chocolate pieces, what better to dress a chocolate cake than...more chocolate!

Goodness inside

This is a great recipe, being easy to make and utterly delicious. I’ve considered cutting the recipe in half (to only make 1 singular cake), but having 1.5 eggs in a recipe is awkward and there’s nothing like the comfort of knowing there is More Cake, even if we finish this one lol.
I highly recommend this recipe - give it a go:)

Cheesecake Brownie

If there is one brownie recipe you try, make it this one – you’ll never look back:) I am by no means a pro baker and even I managed to make this mouthwatering recipe! I found this recipe during a trawl through the Taste Website.

Starting the base

The usual suspects in an indulgent bakery treat – fat, sugar and eggs. I use a regular electric hand beater and the sheer amount of sugar meant I was standing there for a very long time…wishing I had one of those fancy ones that mix All By Themselves.

Putting together the brownie mixture

It really was a simple brownie mix, because after all that initial beating, all I had to do was add some melted chocolate. Licking the melted chocolate bowl is good...

So then it was time to make the cheesecake bit.

Time to pull out another mixing bowl

While mixing the eggs, sugar, cream cheese and vanilla extract together, the dietitian within me started screaming. I shuddered when I realised the recipe had effectively amounted to almost ½ kilo worth of fat, most of which was saturated.

For the record, I bought extra light cream cheese and always advocate the use of margarine instead of butter when cooking, so while this brownie was indeed energy dense, heart damage capacity was still significantly reduced:)

Assembling the brownie

Putting it together was quite easy. Most of the brownie mixture was spread on the bottom and then layered on top with the cheesecake. The remaining brownie mixture is then swirled through the top. Size wise, I used a shallow rectangular baking tray (about 20cm long) and it was fine.

Fruit!

The recipe asked for raspberries on the top, but our fridge offered up strawberries and our freezer had a box of frozen blackberries, so I used those instead.

It’s baking time!

I found that it took a little bit longer to bake than the recipe stated, not long, only about 15 min which I guess is due to oven differences.

Time to eat!

An apology for the poor, poor shot above, it does no justice to the recipe at all! Impatience may have led me to prematurely slicing and eating before adequate cooling :S

But wow was it fantastic! Even in theory, a slice with brownie AND cheesecake was always going to be good, but this exceeded my expectations. The whole thing was gone within a few hours, and no, it wasn’t entirely due to myself, I must give credit to Daisy Moo, Chocolate Queen, Herr Moutarde and Sindel for their time and effort lol.

Sindel and I had a moment when we thought we might actually be drooling – classy…

Anyway, the recipe was found here

Enjoy!

Study Food

I’m still bitter about my study imposed exile. Sure, I love learning, but I’m convinced the cram rate that I’m currently on is going to make my brain explode… You would think a second degree would be easier - but it is sooo not… I blame high expectations and subsequent pressure levels…

Speaking of said brain, like every other exam session, I’ve made a conscious effort to provide her with nutritious and think facilitating food. My diet at the moment is packed with low GI, wholegrain breads and cereals, low fat dairy and obligatory fruit and veg. Not to mention the gallons of water I drink these days…

At the same time, I’m also consuming copious amounts of caffeine via multiple vehicles (coffee, coke, tea, V), eating my way through loaves and loaves of raisin toast and craving foods like chocolate biscuits and icecream… I miss eating out…

Another yummy snack that I’ve been having are these wholemeal, buttermilk blueberry and banana muffins that Daisy Moo baked - they are fabulous! Healthy AND Tasty:D Firstly they have wholemeal flour in them, instead of plain, which gives them a grainy and nutty flavour. Secondly, they use buttermilk and banana as the moistening agents, which take place of the regular fat, and lastly they are bursting with antioxidant rich blueberries!! I love them!

Orange Almond Cake

Herr Moutarde rarely makes baking requests, but recently, he asked if I could make him this almond cake. The recipe is from Jane Lawson’s Cocina Nueva, The New Spanish Kitchen, which darling H gave me as a birthday present a couple of years back.

I still haven’t cooked my way through the entire book yet, but this cake is really yummy. When I first got the book I would make it quite regularly, but haven’t done so in a while….

The cake is deliciously moist, sweet with the orange permeating through. In the book, it also gives the recipe for a citrus ice cream to serve, which looks great in the photo, but I’ve never bothered to make lol.

Butter mixture

The butter (yes, I used Real Butter), was beaten with the orange and lemon zest with quite a lot of icing sugar and touch of vanilla. Using icing sugar made this step soo much quicker than with normal sugar!

Adding egg yolks

Finely ground almonds

I toasted the almonds lightly and finely ground them. I’ve recently gotten a new food processor so any reason to use it is fine by me! These almonds were added to the butter mixture along with a touch of milk.

Egg whites at firm peak

I really appreciate all recipes which manage to incorporate the egg yolks AND whites:) There’s no waste and I don’t have to think about what I’m going to do with the unused part lol.

Combining egg whites with almond mixture

After everything was combined, I put the mixture into a rectangular cake tin and baked it in the oven for about an hour.

This cake can be served warm – which I love, and I recommend serving it in smallish portions as it’s quite dense lol.

Dusted with more of that icing sugar!

Like I said, I haven’t managed to get through most of the recipes in this book, but if this anything to go by – I’m definitely looking forward to it!

Mini Scone Surprise!!

I love being baked for, which is exactly what happened during the weekend. I emerged mid-morning to find Chocolate Queen baking miniature scones in our kitchen, a great surprise:) It’s been a while since I’ve had scones, the last time being at a high tea in the city. Due to the impromptu-ness of it all, there was no cream, but we had ample jam and butter!!!

Which quickly became

Which very quickly became

What a fabulous way to start the weekend!!!