christmas in summertime!

a taste of what we have been getting up to in south africa
mince pies and father christmas cupcakes

mince pies on the farm

many hands make light work

rose cupcakes and my new cupcake stand!

vanilla cupcakes and buttercream icing

mm delicious

I'm so sorry.. I missed your birthday

Dear Kirsty this post is all for you. im very very sorry indeed that i forgot to wish you good wishes on your birthday. i wrote reminders everywhere and even on the 18th i reminded myself to remind myself to contact you the next day. but the next day was very stressful and i clean forgot im sorry.

 I am ashamed. but by making these biscuits for you i feel much less guilty because they were difficult like a red headed stepchild! they went wrong from beginning to end and im sorry they look so messed up. i think its because i was trying so hard not to mess them up! 

of course as my duty, i will eat every last one of these cookies. they are surprisingly rather tasty in spite of the recipe problems i had. imagine.. very flat brownies with icing on top, not anything like what i planned but yummy none the less.  i will try make you some proper awesome ones when i get home.

i hope you had a wonderful day and felt special and loved surrounded by friends and family, wish i was there, see you soon!
p.s theres even a cookie monster!

Chocolate chip cookies

Saturday baking.. well i baked these last saturday because this saturday im going to be in Hong Kong and i dont think i will be doing much baking there! i shall also take photos of the wierd and wonderful foods we discover there and im going to be brave because asian cuisine is not one of my favourite foods... but we will see.
anyway, back to the chocolate chip cookies

i used  this recipe, but thirded it. so that i only made a third of the quantity (30 biscuits).
 I followed the recipe exactly, the only thing i changed was using 100gr dark choc and 100gr milk choc with hazelnuts.

I think if my oven had a top element, my cookies would look more like they were supposed to!
mine came out a bit flat :(

i havent made many chocolate chip cookies in my life and im not really wild about them, i prefer the dough!
(which tasted wonderful by the way)

but should you so desire these biscuits, this recipe yields a chewy, sweet biscuit. 

Orange cupcakes with chocolate filling...

so cute, no-one would ever guess that they are secretly filled... 

..with chocolate! great party trick.
 bursting with orange flavour  and a light orange glaze icing, topped with dark orange chocolateness,  these were so yummy, they have already been polished off!

used this cute chocolate mold i for some dark orange chocolate buttons!

Orange cupcakes with chocolate filling 

This is simply orange cupcakes with chocolate filling and orange glaze. if youre in a hurry you can skip the filling and special chocolate molds. Although they do add a lot. this recipe was adapted and draws inspiration from cupcake number 7 here

Makes 8 medium cupcakes

1. In bowl Cream: ¾ cup white sugar and ¼ cup butter 

2. Beat in 1 egg, fast (but not like a maniac! if you mix it in slow, the butter may start seperating and the mixture will curdle) 

3. Mix (sifted) dry ingredients: 1 cup flour, ¾ tsp baking powder, Pinch salt 

into wet alternating with 1/3 cup buttermilk 

(don’t overmix mixture. Buttermilk substitute can be made by adding a tsp lemon juice to fresh milk and letting it stand for a bit) 

4. Speedily (otherwise curdling will occur) mix in: ¼ cup fresh orange juice and 1 generous tbsp orange zest (aprox 1 small orange) 

bake at 180’ for 15 min or until knife comes out clean

while these are cooling, you can make the...

 Chocolate Buttons and bows

to get these very cute and very easy to make little chocolate goodies, you have to have the mold.

if you dont have this, never fear you can still have pretty cupcakes!

ideas: 

-make cool shapes with the melted chocolate on baking paper, allow to harden,

 then peel off and decorate your cupcakes.

- get leaves (wash them), coat one side with chocolate, allow to harden and peel off leaf,

you now have a chocolate leaf ! cool no? see, all is not lost, be creative!

so, for these molds i melted about 40gr dark chocolate (used 72% cocoa chocolate with orange bits! heaven)
the amount of choc you need will depend on your mold size.

1. put boiling water in a pot, put chocolate in a smaller pot/mug in water.

2. put chocolate in mug, stir until choc has melted completely.

3. spoon melted choc into molds clean edges of molds, allow choc to harden (put in fridge to speed up this process)

if youre planning on investing in molds, silicone molds are a dream, you can just pop the chocolate right out without any fuss or finger marks! silicone is the way

easy peasy!

now for the..

Chocolate filling 

45 gr melted dark orange chocolate (used 72% cocoa with orange bits, yumm) 

2 tbsp softened butter(not liquid butter!) 

4 tbsp icing sugar 

1. Melt chocolate, pour over butter, add icing sugar and mix it up. (It should be thick) 

2. Put in an icing bag/gun with the plain round icing tip

click to enlarge image

they should be filled up like jam doughnuts!

Now the icing...

Orage glaze icing

cupcakes should be completely cold when you ice them. 

125gr icing sugar 

Enough freshly squeezed orange juice to make a thickish icing. (Sorry this is so vague but I don’t use exact measurements when I make icing.) 

1. Start with a tablespoon of orange juice and add a little at a time to the icing sugar. 

make the icing thicker than you think. Whatever you do, it should not be runny! It shouldn’t slop around the bowl yet not completely hard icing either, it should always slide back to a smooth surface. 

2. When applying it to cupcake, take a loaded spoonful and drop it in the centre, resist the urge to spread it all around. Pick the cupcake up and tap the bottom, the icing should start spreading, with your teaspoon you can help it spread into a circle rather than drippy blob. 

3. Plop cute chocolate piece on top or decorate with whatever sprinkle you like.

use your cute chocolates to top your cupcakes (and hide the chocolate icing shadow underneath the glaze!)

looks just like a twinkie, except so much better

serve and savour the delicious taste of your hard work

Marbled chocolate-vanilla espresso cupcakes

Saturdays for us is a lazy, quiet day of rest after working all week. We take it easy and lock ourselves away from the italian world by staying in our apartment for most of the day, watching movies and doing all the other time passing stuff we like to do. I decided that Saturdays will be my new baking days! So here is the first installment of Saturday baking

Marble choc-vanilla cupcakes

Heat oven to 180c 

Cream: ¾ cup sugar and ¼ cup butter 

Beat in 2 eggs 

Beat dry: (1 cup flour, ¾ tsp baking powder, Pinch salt) 

into wet alternating with 1/3 cup buttermilk 

Mix in bowl 

Halve mixture, 

In a cup mix ¼ cup cocoa powder and 4 tbsp stong espresso (or strong coffee, already made) 

Mix it into one half of the mixture

Wait for gas oven to heat up! unless you are blessed with a magical electric oven! 

At the last minute, gradually fill cupcake cases, alternating between teaspoonfuls of chocolate and vanilla mixture. Swirl a spoon around in each cupcake case or leave as is to have a layered effect.

Allow to cool and ice with buttercream chocolate espresso icing.

baked they look beautiful, you dont even have to ice them to make them look good

Just to show you that these are actually heart shaped cupcakes, even though it doesn’t really show in the shape!

These caramel fudge type sweets which I chopped and mixed into the icing 

serve with coffee and enjoy

Chocolate Brownie cinnamon bites

Soo… it has been a while since my last post but in between then and now, we moved apartments and although I have still been baking, I havent had time or internet to put posts up. (yes, sadly there is no internet at our new apartment) and the oven is.. a gas oven! which only heats from the bottom Shock, Horror! So.. I am learning just how to work this ancient contraption. It was upon first inspection, very very dirty and covered in about two generations worth of grime, much like the rest of our apartment! Ben, with the promise of pizza, set upon the oven with some heavy duty cleaning materials and maniacle energy. The result is by some miracle that we now have a sparlky clean oven. Ben demanded that i christen the oven by making chocolate biscuits. I obliged with..

Cinnamon sugar brownie bites

Yummy anytime treats, really quick and easy to whip up.

Makes about 20 cookies (depending on the size)

Preheat oven to 180                                                                                                                                                                                   

Cream: 1 cup brown sugar with 200gr softened butter

Mix in: 2 small eggs (one at a time)

Add: Half cup cocoa, 1.5 tsp baking powder, 1.5 cup flour

Mix it all together and roll into balls as big or small as you like! Mine were about 3cm wide

Then roll your balls of dough in cinnamon sugar and place on baking paper on oven tray

Bake in oven for 10-12 min.

Carrot cake cupcakes

very yummy, simple carrot cake recipe with crushed pineapple which really makes them moist and tasty.
look at the gorgeous cupcakes on her site, you will wish you never did! 

ive never made carrot cake before so i didnt expect it to quite so full of carrot and empty of batter as it turned out but i think thats how they are supposed to be. and i actually followed the recipe on this one!

baked to perfection! (in my cute new heartshaped cup cake holders)

voila! for the icing i mixed cream cheese with honey because i dont have anymore icing sugar and it tastes pretty divine.
happy baking :)

Lemon and almond ginger pinwheels

look at these beauties! the recipe i started from is here but i really used it as more of a guideline. crisp outside, softer inside tastes like ginger biscuits and lemons and almonds all rolled into one. (scuse the corniness!)

  

These biscuits take time because you have to let the dough get cold in the fridge and freezer. so do it on a day youre busy at home.
here is the revised version of the biscuits i made, they are delicious. i only changed this cookie recipe because the one i was following was a bit wierd so i added a few things. also, i like lemons and i like spicy biscuits, so my recipe is made for me. if u dont like these things just add less to decrease the flavours.

Lemon and almond ginger pinwheels:


25 biscuits


Ginger dough
· 2 tbsp softened butter
· 2.5 tbsp sugar
· 2 tbsp honey or molasses
· 1 large egg yolk
· cup flour
· half tsp ginger
· half tsp cinnamon
  pinch salt
· pinch nutmeg
· pinch mixedspice


· Lemon dough:

· 2.5 tbsp softened butter
· 2/3 cup sugar
· large egg white
· 1tbsp grated lemon rind, 2 tsp lemon juice
· few drops vanilla extract
· 2/3 cup flour
· pinch salt

Method
· 1. To prepare ginger dough, beat butter and sugar. Add honey and egg yolk; beat until well blended. Add flour, ginger, salt and spices; stir with a whisk. beat at low speed just until combined. Wrap dough in plastic wrap; chill 30 minutes.

· 2. To prepare lemon dough beat butter and sugar. Add egg white; beat until blended. Beat in rind and vanilla. Add flour and salt to butter mixture; beat at low speed just until combined. Wrap dough in plastic wrap; chill 30 minutes.

· 3. Unwrap ginger dough. Roll ginger dough between sheets of plastic wrap into a rectangle (8mm thick). chill 10 minutes. Unwrap lemon dough. Roll lemon dough between sheets of plastic wrap into a rectangle (8mm thick); chill 10 minutes. Carefully stack ginger dough on top of lemon dough, leaving a cm border along one long edge. Starting with the long side without a border, roll up dough. Seal edges (do not seal ends of roll). Cover with plastic wrap; freeze 30 minutes.(seriously 30 min or until really hard)

· 4. Preheat oven to 180°c.

· 5. Unwrap dough. Cut with a sharp knife into 20 slices (about 1cm thick). Reshape rounds, if necessary. Arrange slices 1 inch apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Bake, 1 batch at a time, at 180° for 8 to 9 minutes, take them out even if they arent brown, take them out! Cool on wire racks.

rolling the doughs together

yummy pinwheels ready for the oven. do not cut your cookie dough log into slices unless it is rock hard

ps. these biscuits have the Ben stamp of approval, which means theyre pretty tasty!