my christmas baking list.

This post is a christmas baking list, essentially what I want to cook for Christmas. And now that I am back from being away, I went down to Albany for a few days.....it was wet, considering it was summer though it was a bit of a bummer. I've also finished jury duty so I think I'll be baking some more...just in time for christmas.

My mum is in the process of making a christmas pudding, its a tradition in our house..well we have to have it. My grandmother actually used to make it for us and she would send it over, but now my mum makes it. Because you have to leave it hanging, i think its so funny to see a pudding hanging from the clothes line.

Anywho!

Back to the purpose of this post....my baking list for this holiday period.

• Gingerbread house
• Fruit Mince Pies
• Turkish Delight
• Truffles
• And maybe some christmas-sy themed cupcakes.

There will definetly be some photos up from a christmas day feast, and it truly is a feast.

My brothers birthday cake.

So it's my brothers birthday tomorrow (Monday), and I asked him what kind of cake he would like me to make for him.

His response?

"a tim tam cake, with tim tams all around the outer edge, betty crocker icing and soft lollies on top."

Whats a tim tam? A tim tam is an Australian biscuit...chocolate, with a chocolate filling coated in chocolate. You can also get other flavours aswell, like caramel.

I think I might have to compromise though...

So now I'm searching for some good chocolate cake recipes to be able to make this tomorrow. I'll let you know how it goes...

A day full of food.

So this blog post should have been done like a week ago, how fast time flies when your on holidays. This post is food that I ate and made during one day.

So my friend stayed over the night before and we couldn't be bothered to do much so we went and got some fresh vegetables and then lounged in front of the tv. This is our lunch...lebanese cucumber, roma tomatoes and red capsicum......and some pistachios. Maybe a bit more than some.

I had to go and get something to make for dinner, but I didn't have much money. I made Lentil Burgers, Chorizo and Corn Frittata and salad. Everything cost less than $15 for the whole meal. In fact, I made ice cream as well so I needed stuff for that.

 

Lentil Burgers: you can get the recipe here. Though for some reason, I don't remember adding the Tahini which is probably why they didn't bind that well.

Chorizo and Corn Frittata: you can get the recipe here. This was a bit bland but I added some Sweet Chilli sauce to mine...it wasn't that bad.

Finally for dessert I made ice cream, I've been wanting to make some more for awhile and it was the perfect weather for it. The recipe was Strawberry icecream, but I didn't quite have 500g grams so I added some frozen raspberries and blueberries. You blend the fruit up and add lemon juice and icing sugar and then put it in the fridge to cool. Once cool, place the mix in the ice cream maker (should place in the freezer for 24 hours before use) and churn until it comes together, add 300ml of whipping cream (liquid form - not whipped) and churn until thick. Serve straight away.

Churning away.

The mixer.

The end product....so yummy.

Cupcakes.

So in a previous post, I think it was like two weeks ago, I mentioned that I was baking some cupcakes for a good friends farewell picnic/catch up thing before she leaves. I'm going to miss her lots but I am flying out to see her over New Years.

The cupcakes I made were Rainbow Marshmallow with strawberry butter cream, Raspberry again with strawberry butter cream and finally Chocolate Mint.

The plate in the top left corner is my friend Tara's famous bread dip....absolutely amazing....*drool*...its gets gobbled up every time she brings it out.

These lovelies are the Rainbow Marshmallow cupcakes, in the photo above they are the ones that are topped with skittles! To get this effect I just divided the plain cupcakes mixture into four bowls and then added food colouring to make whatever colours I wanted. They looked really fun and I will definetly be making them again sometime soon. When you bite into them, there's a burst of colour. These were the first batch I made, they overflowed a lil' bit. But I have finally worked out the temperature to get the perfect cupcake top.

Unfortunately I don't have any photos of the Raspberry cupcakes, but they tasted delicious. When I cooked them though they did sink a little in the cases...I'm not too sure why that was. In a couple I put a couple of chopped up White Chocolate raspberry bullets. It was good, but they were a bit chewy.

And finally....These are the Chocolate Mint cupcakes. With a Choc Mint slice biscuit in each! Topped with mint butter cream and crushed Aero chocolate. These one's had the perfect top...finally! I put the biscuit half way through the cupcake but for some reason it floated to nearly the top of the cake.

For all these cupcakes I used my go-to recipe, which I have used since I was like 10. You cook them at 180C, in my oven anyway. In the book it says 220C, but that causes them to not have the perfect cupcake top. So cook them slower.

2 eggs

60g butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 cup milk, sometimes a little extra

1/2 cup sugar

1 1/4 cup self-raising flour

Place all in a bowl and mix using mixmaster. Place in cupcake cases and then bake for 10-20 minutes (depending on oven) or until golden brown. 

Rainbow Marshmallow: Separated normal mix and then added food colouring.

Raspberry: Placed a handful or raspberries in a bowl and heated in the microwave for about 20 seconds and then added some icing sugar, stir and it makes a raspberry sauce. I stirred that through the cupcake mix.

Chocolate Mint: For this I took a handful of chocolate and melted it and then stirred through the micture. I think I may have added a lil' bit of cocoa.

That it for me,

XOXO

Anika

Tonights marinade.....

So tonight my dad gave me the task of making a marinade for the chicken thigh fillet. I asked, he said whatever I wanted. Well....that didn't answer my question.

The marinade that I came up with......

Juice of half a lime
3 cloves of garlic
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon sambal oelek (sp?)
Few drops of Nando's Peri Peri
About 1/4 cup of soy sauce
About the same of sweet chilli sauce
Dash of spicy red sauce
Tablespoon tomato sauce
Pepper
And finally some water. It was maybe like a 1/2 of a cup.

I'll let you know how it goes,

XOXO
Anika

my 2010/11 summer baking/cooking bucket list.

So....

I'm officially on summer holidays!!! yay. I have nearly four months off of uni, I go back at the end of February.

Here is a list of things that I am currently doing, so far;

• friends farewell party (of which I am baking a selection of cupcakes - rainbow marshmallow, raspberry, and choc mint).
• license next week
• going away camping for a few days
• something that can not be named
• christmas
• going away over new years to another city, to stay with friend that is moving away.
• festival work
• and finally, finding a job after I get back after the new year.

In the mean time, I keep thinking of things that I want to try and bake over the summer.

• Continue making cupakes (I keep thinking of different flavors I want to make - custard apple for example)
• I want to attempt making artisan bread
• Vietnamese food
• Ice cream/sorbet/gelato. We have a ice cream maker, but I have only used it twice. I want to try raw ice cream, and see what it tastes like. I've been reading up on it the past couple of days after seeing a blog post on Not Just Apples. It really got me interested in it.
• This lovely raspberry cream pie recipe that I saw in this new baking book my mum bought last week. I can't recall the name of it at the moment...I think it was a Williams-Sonoma though.
• I might try some gluten-free baking aswell.

That is all I can remember at the moment, but the list will no doubt continue to grow. My computer is dead and have lost all my photos of my baking, luckily some of it was on facebook. But now that uni and exams are over, there will be some more posts.

Have a good day.

Blast of baking from the past #1...

I decided that my next few blog posts will be goods that have baked in the past that I have taken photos of. So in saying that....


My first will be these cupcakes....

These are vanilla cupcakes with white chocolate ganache with ready to roll icing (I think Orchid is the brand - it comes in a pink box), I added Winton Teal icing gel to get the colour. I didn't mean for them to look like a Tiffany's & Co box, they just turned out that way. Thanks to my brother for doing the bows...I couldn't do them!

These are them with the white chocolate ganache on them, hot knifed!

And the icing...

Without the bows...

If I remember correctly, I got the vanilla cupcake recipe from the Planet Cake book (recipe if requested). These turned out really well, they were gobbled up pretty quickly! They were rich with the actual cupcake, ganache and icing. And they took me awhile to do them, over the weekend, but they were worth it.


Until next time, lovelies.

Anika