I am quite addicted to piping a rose pattern having honed my skills on a wedding cake, a cake for the local Inner Wheel group as well as on the top of cupcakes. So why not use the same technique for biscuits? The blog that inspired the rose pattern posted some Neapolitan Spritz Cookies earlier this year and I knew straight away that I had to make them. Although I didn’t package them quite the way Amanda at i am baker did (which is super cute), I did show them off on my new high tea stand so these Chocolate Rose Biscuits with Rose Water Buttercream could be part two of my high tea series.
Mars Bar Slice – High Tea Series (Part 1)
Mars Bar Slice is probably not something that you usually see on a high tea menu, but when I recently purchased a new three tiered server I was in an extreme chocolate mood and given had a few Mars Bars on hand, I thought it was a good enough reason to make a childhood favourite.
My dad played golf a lot and when we would head out to the club to pick him up my brother and I would sometime be allowed to have a Mars Bar while we waited. I did get a bit over them for a while but when started making Mars Bar Slice I certainly started to appreciate them again.
Red Velvet Cupcakes and My First Blogiversary
Can you believe that on Wednesday it will be one year since I published the first post about My Best Friend’s Wedding Cake? It is just absolutely crazy.
So for my celebratory post on my first blogiversary (as those in the biz call it) I thought I would share the cupcakes that inspired the cake that inspired the blog. These red velvet cupcakes are always popular whenever I make them, so much so that I made over 300 of them one weekend for a bunch of my brother’s friends. I absolutely adore everything about them.
Chocolate Coconut Slice
I remember my mum making this Chocolate Coconut Slice often when I was a kid. The recipe my mum used was originally from a friend of hers and it was made using a butter cake packet mix as the base.
When I got the urge to make it a few years ago I didn’t have mum’s recipe at hand but I found something very similar in one of my Super Food Ideas magazines which made it from scratch and it tasted just like mum used to make.
Purple Corset Cake
One of the hubby’s best mates turned 40 at the beginning of March and the hubby came home one night and asked if I would like to make the cake for J’s birthday. Of course I said yes, and then he asked if I could make the cake in the shape of breasts. Even though I haven’t really made a lot of “novelty” cakes, well, make that none whatsoever, I thought what the heck and started planning.
Now when you type into Mr Google breast/boob/corset cake there are a plethora of images at your disposal, some of which are a little bit to tacky for my liking (there is no way to make a nipple look good on a cake in my opinion) but I found some inspiration in a couple of cakes, and a corset from an online lingerie shop and proceeded to order the fondant, tins and a few other bits and pieces from my favourite supplier Cake Decorating Central. With all of this in hand, and J’s favourite colour, I proceeded to make a purple corset cake.
Chocolate Cupcakes with Rose Buttercream
Hi. My name is Cath, and I am a cupcake-a-holic.
As you may have gathered, I love to cook, and especially bake. I do love all kinds of baking, but at the end of the day, as much as I love macarons, cakes, biscuits and brownies, my true love is cupcakes. They are cute little packages of delight, sure to bring a smile to anyone’s dial. For years and years and years and years they have been my go to treat and a few of the many varieties I have made are lemon and lime, red velvet (it started the whole red velvet craze in my world), chocolate, lemon meringue and the trusty old vanilla. I love cupcakes that much that I have cupcakes on my dressing gown, apron, two bags, a tea towel and a cupcake shaped plate. I am also going to be getting a vinyl sticker for a wall in my kitchen that reads “love and cupcakes are all you need” after seeing a print that Sally from Sally’s Baking Addiction received. So yes, a little obsessed over here.
So for my first foray back into the cupcake world after a long hiatus, I asked my friend C what her favourite chocolate bar was to inspire a cupcake for her birthday. Originally I was going to call these Turkish Delight cupcakes (as that was the answer to my question), and I guess I sort of can because the flavour is essentially there. But when you search for Turkish Delight cupcakes on the interweb, there usually is Turkish Delight in/on them. So I am going to go with the much longer name of Chocolate Cupcakes with Rose Buttercream. Phew!
Lamingtons and Sprinkletons
There is a rule, in my house anyway, that on Australia Day you must eat a lamington. I did kind of break that rule this year, although we did eat Pavlova instead, but I think I more than made up for it by making a whole bunch of them a couple of days later.
A friend of mine from Mexico Victoria was staying with us at the time, and they do things a little differently down there by filling their lamingtons with jam so I made half of the batch the traditional way with just the plain cake dipped in chocolate and covered with coconut, and the remainder filled with jam and covered in coconut. I did run out of coconut so the remainder of the jam lamingtons were covered with coloured sprinkles, hence Sprinkletons were born.
Rose Macarons
In November there is a little race which stops the nation going by the name of the Melbourne Cup. I am not really into the whole horse racing thing, but I would not knock back the opportunity for time out of the office for afternoon tea.
This year we put on a spread, and over catered as usual, with my contribution being some Rose Macarons.
Christmas 2012 – Red Velvet White Christmas Cake
After having Christmas at our house last year, the hubby was pretty keen to host it again pretty well deciding that day. So the hunt began for a new dessert to top the Bûche de Noël from last year. I toyed with a couple of different “trees”, being macaron or meringue as well as a cake decorated with fondant from the front of the Creative SugarCraft magazine. Given the hubby’s immense dislike of fondant the last idea was thrown out the window but then I recalled a post on Raspberri Cupcakes’ blog for a red velvet cake with snowman macarons. It was very much reflecting a white Christmas, which we do not have here in Australia (although my parents inform me they did have snow many moons ago on Christmas Day) but it was still a winner in my books.
Soft Pretzels
Recently the hubby and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary with a weekend away to the Blue Mountains. When I was looking for what was on that weekend I noticed that Oktoberfest was on at The Carrington but neglected to tell my husband about it. It was probably a subconscious thing (well that is what I am going with) as given I don’t drink I didn’t really find the appeal in spending our anniversary with “cheery” people.
It just so happens that we were driving down the main street of Katoomba and the hubby noticed the big tent and his eyes lit up. We parked the car and headed back towards Oktoberfest and joined the queue for a beer. The hubby was happy when he picked up his 1 litre stein of beer and I got my 300ml bottle of water. For an afternoon snack, and to soak up a little bit of the alcohol, we also bought a pretzel. This pretzel then put the idea in the hubby’s head about making our own.