D322: Ah! Bees!!

There's a buzz, buzz, buzz at the partyyyy...

So I committed to making our new little 2-year old a cake she would recognise and enjoy.  She loves Buzzbee and I'm very glad I chose this option.  It's a character that doesn't change much and I can't very a lot.  He has very few features and only two colours, and is based on a simple shape common to cakes.  He doesn't even have limbs.  Why I deliberated for so long over other options is a mystery.

After watching lots of YouTube videos of people making buttercream, and colouring, rolling and laying down fondant, I decided to dive in.

Two 12" cakes layered with bought ganache.

The cake is one I've previously used and quite like.  Well, love, actually - it's so quick!  I made up a chocolate variation for this cake.
Take one Nigella Lawson Awesome Vanilla Cake recipe; add 3 tbsp of cocoa to the dry ingredients and 1 tspn of instant coffee, dissolved in just enough water, to the liquids.
I used a lined 12" round tin and baked it at 350F for 50-55mins.  See the lighter spots on the top? It's done when those finally appear in the centre.

So I baked one cake during nap, had a shop (of course!) and then baked the second before dinner.

The face was put down first, on a thin layer of buttercream icing.
The features were placed on top afterward.

I did all the decorating and arranging after dinner, which took about 4 hours.

I prepared the buttercream first (a double helping: 800g pure icing sugar to 250g of whipped butter), but didn't colour it.
Then I put the buttercream aside and tackled the construction.

I put down a thin layer of buttercream to help the cake stick to the board, and placed the first cake down.  I took about half a cm off the top of this bottom layer to level it a little.  To flatten it completely would've taken a third of the bulk, which felt like a terrible waste, even though my hovering Hub and MIL felt it would've been very, very worthwhile.  So, while the bottom layer wasn't completely flat, the 500g of ganache did a great job levelling the difference between the layers, and the bottom of the upper layer barely curved at all.

I decided to do the face next, while my brain was still pretty good.  This face used about 750g of fondant and I used gel food colouring for both the fondant and the buttercream.

My post from a few days ago shows the templates I used for this cake.  They were made with a dinner plate for the face and some food containers for the eyes.  I used a Math-o-mat and trial-and-error for the mouth.

I also made a strip of paper that fits inside the top half of the face to help place the eyes.  The strip was a wide as the distance from the edge to the eye (about 15mm) and marked where the top of the eyes should align.

With the yellow band of 'fuzz' on the base.  I patted it with the prongs of a fork
to make it look fuzzy.   The fondant yellow is a richer colour than the bright stripe.

With the black buttercream.  Look at the widdle hand...

I wish I'd made the face features much thinner, instead of the 1/4" of the face.

I asked Hub to stay up with me by this stage, for company and moral support.  He was the one who looked up how to adhere fondant to fondant: with a paste made from melting a bit of fondant in hot water.


Making the black was so much fun.  Doing the two yellows was a careful task, adding a little bit at a time. (Two dips of Lemon yellow plus a little dab of Tulip red.) But with the black... well, you can hardly make it too dark.  That was fun.

The hands and feet were cut without a template.  I flipped the first hand and made the second by cutting around that; ditto with the feet.  I also chickened out of fingers, which Buzzbee normally has.  Midnight brain said no.

...and the widdle feet. 
Hard to see, but the hand on the right side is waving.

We added the antennae on the day - just some 12mm x 30cm black pipe-cleaners curled as you like, stuck into the ganache layer at an angle.

On Sunday morning Bub saw the cake in the kitchen and exclaimed "Wow! Big cake! That's amazing!"  It was a success already!

D321: Mmaaaadness!

As well sa the Lemon yellow and black, I also bought Tulip red and Sky blue...

Why? Just in case I felt inclined to do something silly...

You know, like breaking a biscuit recipe into six (100g each for this recipe), colouring them differently, rolling them into 30cm long strips, overlapping them by about a third and rolling them up.  The uuuuusual shenanigans...

It's tricky to get something this layered perfectly flat, and then perfectly round!

Slightly reshaped with my fingers.

Yep, oven still dirty, but bikkies going well.

I used this good old recipe, basing my idea on the pinwheel version.

They turned out quite well and are headed for some short guests via some goodie bags.

Hypnotic yumminess

D320: Guess what's coming?

Bub turns two on Saturday. I'm predicting Sunday's party will be bigger than I expected...

It was a close call between this and a colourful rocket.  But I haven't worked with fondant before so I thought I should take it easy and choose something with just two colours.  It's going to be a 12" cake, sandwiched with ganache. 

Thinking of and choosing cake designs, planning and checking party stuff.  That's how I've spent my creative energy since the Junebug dress. 

Wish me luck.

Bits and Pieces

There are a few other things I've chipped away at in the past fortnight.

I went to a friend's fortieth and made some little cakes to share.  Turns out the Awesome Vanilla cake will convert to about 40 mini cupcakes.  I made up an orange glaze with some vanilla-orange sugar gifted to me.

I also bit the bullet and bought some capsules for my toy projects.  This is one of the few less-than-a-hundred-items I could find and thoughts I'd give it a bash.  Fingers crossed.

This means I've held off finishing the bowling pins and ball.  I'm still thinking of sending them OS to my nephew.  He's about to get a new sibling, but the baby's gift is still only on paper.  How much does my butt need to get in gear over that?!  I'm hoping, once this lurgy passes, I'll be able to spend a few hot hours over the machine and punch out this single-bed quilt in a few nights.  Bam, mothergoosers.

D308: Recipe - Easy Strawberry icing

This is an easy recipe for a lightly flavoured strawberry icing.  It's enough for a tray cake of about 23x30cm.

Ingredients

200g pure icing sugar

3-4 tbsp spoons of recently boiled water

2 tbsp strawberry jam (preferably a conserve, chunk free)

Red or pink food dye (optional)

Method

This is made the way most glazes are made but with added jam.  It's that simple. But just in case it's new to you, it goes like this: 

Boil the water.

Sift the icing sugar into a bowl.

Add 3 tbsp of water to the sugar, one at a time. Stop when it's still quite thick and hard to stir.  

Add the jam and stir well.

Add one more tspn of water if required.

Add a drop of food colouring if you like.

D293: A brownie by any other name...

There must be as many brownie recipes as there are types of chocolate.  This one is quite simple and from CTAW.  I didn't have walnuts so chucked in some choc chips.

It's meant for a 18cm pan, and mine is larger, but I'm pretty sure that the shorter cake, plus 25°F less on the dial, helped this be nicely done.

Last piece... Almost missed it...

D285: Scones and quarter circles

There are lots of tutorials about making quarter my circle templates.  This one at Sew Inspired blog was just the second one I found, and close to how I imagined I'd be making mine, so off I went.

"Now?"

The main difference between my quarter circles and most on the net is that I want to take my curve to the very edge, not short of it like in a Drunkard's Path block.  So I decided to make my own and have made an instructional post for that. 

In the meantime, Bub and I made scones!!  

Tip of the day: Any time you ever make or do something for the first time with one of your children, get someone to take photos.  I'm a bit sad I didn't drag in Hub from the shed to take snaps.

Scones, Cookery the Australian Way

We used the recipe from CTAW.  I probably didn't need to rush as much as I did between steps, when I was asking her to wait while I faffed about with ingredients and tools.  Although I've looked forward to cooking with Bub, I've been a little worried about how it would go - nothing like having your dreams dashed with pure indifference.  But I needn't have worried so much, she was darling and I loved watching some much of her character come out in the activity.  It also helped that she really likes scones.

There are probably lots of tips and instructional posts about cooking with toddlers too (hundreds? Probably.) But, obviously, I don't care.   Here are my pointers for cooking with a littlie, keeping in mind I have a toddler who can focus on a task.  Some of these are pretty obvious, but I put them here in case you're new to baby-sitting or just wondering...

Set expectations to 'Low'.  Start with a simple recipe, something with mixing and pouring, where mess and waste don't matter.  It doesn't even matter if the food is no good.

Pull out all the ingredients and tools before you start.  If you're using the oven, set that off early too, unless you're up to teaching that part.  If things need to be chopped preparing that prior might be good too, unless your helper has an activity to do while you're chopping.  

Choose to make something they already like to eat.  I mean, I rarely cook things I don't like eating... And this way, they can get excited about the result.  

Prepare an accessible space for your helper. If they can't easily reach across the bench top, do it at the table or on the floor.  We have some picnic cloth, left over from a previous project, that I threw on the kitchen floor.  This is just the sort of thing I imagined using it for.  One of my friends sits her bubba on the table top.  I opted out of standing on a chair at the table because we're discouraging standing on chairs right now and she's too young to understand 'special occasions'.

It's called 'hands on', not 'eyes on'. Any 'thing' they can do that's related to the task is worthwhile, even if it's not what needs to be done right now, or even needed at all!  At step 2. I used my crumbing tool; Bub stirred with a spoon and scooped the flour about which was 'very important help'.  Scooping and pouring are tricky and occupy her well.  Every now and then I'd point and say "More here please," or she'd say "More?" and she'd feel involved.

Pouring is a great way to involve your helper.  Some people hog this task for fear of spillage.  Please don't - there's no real need.  At step 3. I measured the milk and she poured it in with my guidance.  While bub held the handle I had my fingers on the base of the jug.  My table top friend will break eggs into a cup and her little one will tip them in.  Use as many containers as necessary.  The involvement is what it's all about and the dishes are worth it.

Pretending still counts.  Although I pulled the dough together and got it into a ball shape, I was able to put a big bread board on the floor mat and we took turns kneading.  Bub also put her hands on the middle of the rolling pin, while I used the handles at the ends.

Get tools that help your little one.  Bub was a star with the cutter.  I got cutters with handles over the top especially for her.  She needed help to press hard enough, but I pressed my fingers on the circle rim when I helped, not on her hands or the handle.

Don't be in a rush.  Bub was really good at the procedure of cutting ("Scone!" every time) then putting the cut-out on the pre-floured tray.  Just pulling the dough out of the cutter is new and tricky and putting each scone in it's own carefully chosen place on the tray is a thoughtful task.  If you've done anything with toddlers you may already know that rushing something (or someone) that shouldn't be rushed is a sure-fire way to create trouble*.

Look at that messy tray! So much shuffling :)

Mess means it's going well.  I use a little sushi dipping dish for milk when brushing.  Bub hasn't been very good at painting - very random and without much concern for colours or making a mark - but all her concentration went into loading that brush and carefully putting milk onto each scone.  She was very deliberate and thorough, with milk going everywhere because she wanted lots of it on her brush.  It was cute as all get out.  By the end she even had the obligatory flour in the hair.  This is what washing is for.

The next time we make scones someone will take pictures.  I might even make it into a picture story for Bub because she loves the photobooks of family holidays & activities.  As I type this, I think I might actually have become one of those mummy bloggers for real.  Pictures stories of our scone baking?  More pureed fruit for the reusable food pouches?  Oh, and Hub was busy in the shed cutting out parts to make a stepping stool for Bub - because we're that adorable.  I can least reassure myself that I still have rubbish photography on my blog.  Plus I don't remember when the laundry was hung up and I have no idea how to grow veggies.  Stereotypical perfection is a long way off for me folks!

"More scone?"

*I think there's probably some law out there about it... "The stamina and creativity of your toddler's resistance is inversely proportionate to your task's urgency and importance." Or some such.

D269: Other Other Brownies

My eldest nephew turned 15 today!  He's a pretty awesome kid so I made sure I hunted down a gift that was just right for him - something that connected to his interests and is something he actually needs.  Pretty sure I nailed with the $30 in an envelope! 

I had just enough time to make something for the birthday arvo tea so went for what was one of the quicker recipes from this great cake book I found in the library.  It's a chuck-it-all-in-a-bowl-and-mix recipe.  It took 45mins to prepare, with interruptions ;)  

Same same yeah?

Hub likes them better than the Moosehead brownies but not as much as the Two-tone brownies...

D257: Blackberry Muffins

Well they look fine but I'm not sold on the taste...

I used the CTAW muffin recipe, which I love coz it's got butter and not veggie oil, and substituted the blueberry variation with blackberries.  I was concerned about their juices making it too moist, or the purple-ish colour making them grey.  The juice was fine, the colouring is a little bleh.  

I think what it needs though is a squeeze of lemon, or something sharp to raise the berry flavour.  They're just a bit meh.  I'm not sure what compliments blackberry... Maybe it needs to be blackberry jam and not the berries alone. Maybe more sugar would do it...? 

Speaking of lemons, did it tell you I made up some lemon madeleines the other day? Just the juice and jest of half a juicy lemon in the mix, in place of honey. I made a light syrup of juice and sugar (to taste, zapped for batches of 10sec to dissolve) and gave their wavy backs one generous brush each, so as not to drown them and keep them light.  Was very pleased... Might do a recipe post for that one...

D239&40: Banana Bread

The pink, yellow and green strips were sewn together yesterday and the top and bottom strips for orange and purple happened today.  We had a cool change come through today and it's apparently going to be quite cool tomorrow.   Pressing stuff tomorrow night will be much nicer than the pressing last night. O_o`

While tonight's dinner cooked*, though, I prepared a banana bread.  I've never made banana bread before - who has two or three bananas that last that long?!  Well, when you have a heat wave or two... you can arrange it.

Banana Bread

I chose a recipe from Plenty of Lesely. I found it on Pinterest (and pinned it!) and am reblogging it here with the weights so that if you've got your mixing bowl on scales you can just keep hitting zero.  It's dead simple.

Best Banana Bread

• 1 3/4 cup Flour - 260g
• 2/3 cup Sugar - 165g
• 1 cup Mashed bananas (around three)
• 1/3 cup Margarine - 75g
• 2 Eggs
• 2 Teaspoons Baking powder - 5g
• 1/4 Teaspoon bicarb soda - uuuh... 0.625g.  Maybe just go with a good pinch.

The instructions say "Grease your loaf dish or spray with pan. Bake for 1 hour 275 degrees. Let sit for half an hour before cutting."

So that's 275°F/135°C.  I used a fork and started by mashing the bananas (only two for us), and adding the very soft butter, then eggs, sugar and flour/powders.  I think Lesley put it all in the mixmaster with a kneading attachment and just mixed till combined.  I also lined my pan with grease proof paper, which works a treat too.

Even though I'm pretty sure my two bananas would've filled a cup, I wish I'd had three.

*Settle down. It was rice in the cooker and reheated curry.

D235: Wee Apple Danishes!

My mum recently turned 80!  We had a lovely afternoon tea with family and I made these little apple Danishes, or turnovers, to share.  Unfortunately, I only made 18, which was too few for the 16 adults and children there.  I varied this from other recipes, but it's terribly simple. 

I recommend making the apple mix a few days before the day you plan on making the pastries.  The mix will also do for a pie.*

Need:

• 4 apples, cored, peeled, cut into 6 wedges, which are then sliced.
• Cinnamon
• Nutmeg
• 1-2 tbsp sugar
• 1-2 tbsp plain flour
• 3 sheets of puff pastry for sweets
• Some milk for brushing
• Some jam for glazing (apricot is most popular, plum works too: anything seedless but probably not marmalade!)

To make the apple filling:

1. If you have one of those peeler/corer/spiral-slicer things for apples, it is perfect for cutting the apples for this project. Once you've peeled/cored/spiral-sliced the apple, cut the stacked spiral into 6 wedges.  About one of these stacks will do for each little Danish.
2. Put the cut apple in a snap seal bag.
3. Add the cinnamon and nutmeg to a fragrance you like.
4. Do this twice: put a tbsp each of sugar and flour in with the apple, then seal and gently toss the bag.
5. Put the bag in the fridge if you don't need it straight away.  I left it there for two days and it was pretty perfect.  Freeze it if you're cooking it much later than that.

On the day:

Apple! Not bacon!

1. Preheat a moderate oven (375°F/180°C).
2. Line your baking tray with grease proof paper.
3. Take a sheet of puff pastry (leave on the backing sheet) and put the others back in the freezer. (The pastry gets soft and 'melts' quite quickly.)
4. Cut your pastry sheet into 9 even squares by scoring it (don't cut the backing plastic) into three even parts vertically and then horizontally.
5. Arrange a spoon or two of apple mix diagonally on a small square of pastry. Pick up the empty corners and overlap the points on top of the apple.
6. Move it to your lined baking tray.
7. When you've filled your tray (I did 9 per tray), brush all the exposed pastry with milk and bake for 25 mins.
8. Prepare the next sheet of pastries while the first bakes, and so on with the third. 
9. Once the pastries are cooked and have cooled a little, heat your jam and glaze your pastries generously.

Enjoy!

*If you are going to freeze the apple mix for pie, freeze the bag in your pie dish. Then, when you're ready to bake, you can take it out of the bag and pop it straight into your pie dish with a snug fit!

D227: Happy New Year's Day

After a shoddy and wet start to the day, it turned out pretty well.  Bub and Hub got out in the rain and I had a few moments to myself to stitch some squares together.  I even got a brownie cake done and hopefully I'll cut these puppies into half-triangle squares before the night is done.  It was very rewarding after so many days of not getting into any project work :D

D208: Simple & complicated

Well, its not terribly creative but it is made.

Bub now has a small stash of chicken and leek risotto in the freezer.  Luckily she seemed quite happy with it for the next day's lunch.  It is exactly what it sounds like:

One finely diced leek, softened with a bit of oil in a saucepan, about 200g of chicken mince added and cooked, about two handfuls of arborio rice heated through and then about 2¹/₄ cups of water, added a half cup at a time, and stirred through until the rice is tender.  I added some thyme, rosemary and a smidge of dill and salt.

Two trays went in together - the tall ones are from the top rack :)

These are the spicy pumpkin muffins I've made before. 

I had a little extra pumpkin so decided to increase the recipe in proportion and, although it was only an extra fifth of stuff, I added a second egg.  

I know egg binds and acts as an emulsifier, and I've definitely had brownies that have had a yucky egg flavour, but otherwise I wasn't too sure what it would do.  Nothing disastrous, it would seem.  This time...

D202: Square Lemon Drizzle Cake

Works so much better in a square tin.  I knocked back the syrup sugar to 75g and it was still light and sweet with a fresh tang.  Something happened in the creaming and the sugar didn't dissolve that well - I can still see little square granules around the edge of the cake.  Maybe that's because it browned so well...

Regardless, I was quite glad to be able to take this along to a Cup Day catch up.

D201: Citrus lactation cookies

Bub has been unwell these past few days - a bit of a fever and actual malaise.  I'm not sure I've witnessed malaise before. It seems such a generic, vague description, but she demonstrated it perfectly.  Today the doctor said she had rosiola, thank goodness, coz I thought it was measles.

As a result we won't be cancelling our Melbourne Cup Day visit to our lovely friends tomorrow!  So lactation cookies are on the books tonight because I love donating them to my lovely friend!

Usually I make them with grated apple (to counter the peppery flavour of the flaxseed, and add some moisture), apricots and sultanas.  However I'm out of apricots right now, and while sultanas are always about I thought a bit of a variation might be nice.

These ones have the juice and zest of a large orange added to the flaxseed soaking stage.  It was basically a big ball of juice so I added a little more flaxseed to the first step.  I planned to split the recipe and put dried peel and sultanas in one third, and chocolate chips in the other two thirds.  The peel, however, had seen better days, and once I smelled the lovely zestiness in the mix nothing but chocolate - dark chocolate - would do.  I'm hoping my friend will put aside any guilt about chocolate for the cookies: she's mumming three beautiful kids, breastfeeding and house-holding it all together. Two choc chip cookies a day are the bare minimum in my opinion ;)

D190-200! Persistence and indulgence

Two hundred?! I thought I'd be doing something special for this little milestone. But no, we're just chugging away at the moment.  Anyway...

Last weekend I had some much loved friends from my teaching degree visit for dinner and some telly.  For quite some time now (4 years?) we've been meeting at my place every few months and catching up on episodes of Supernatural.  It's marvellous, indulgent, cheesy and so good for the soul.  This time was our first evening catch up.  Previously, they've been during the school holidays, but Bub can no longer tolerate such a long time of me being so distracted and her nap doesn't occupy her enough.  We managed to organise delivered Thai and bringing a dessert each.  Genius.  Supernatural evenings may become more common :D

Next to the ice-cream and the apple & rhubarb and apple & apricot crumbles (yum!) was my bread pudding.  If you happen to be on Pinterest, and you happen to follow my board for food, you may have seen my pin for this recipe.  It is a beautful looking website and the photos are gorgeous, but there're lots of them and they're huge.  I found it very frustrating to have to wait for the photos to load; every time I'd scroll down to get the recipe a few more pics would load and it would shuffle down again!  I'm copying the recipe here, exactly as it appears, to save you small-device grief while you cook.

It went really well, although I used some surplus wholemeal bread and my new cinnamon is Dutch Cinnamon, which has a subtly different flavour to regular cinnamon.  I'm not sure I won't replace it soon and keep the Dutch stuff for beverages, or something, or find specific recipes for it.

Ugly, messy and yum

I also managed to make the butterscotch sauce, which I've never attempted before.  I'm very happy with it!

All my other days have been spent keeping on with my secret project, less the two I used for completing my tax return. (Ugh. I seriously considered subtracting creative days from my count, it was that uncreative.)   The project is going well, about 40% done if I do all I hope to do.  More like 60% if I skip a step.  It's not exactly as I'd like but I'm not sure it could really have been any different, all things considered.  I hope the recipient likes it anyway.

Today I'm doing the bread pudding again, but using left over crusts and a layer of maple syrup on the bottom with sultanas mixed throughout.  It probably doesn't need the syrup on the bottom as well as the butterscotch sauce, but when has less been more with desserts like these?!

-------------------
"Recipe: Classic Bread Pudding with Vanilla Sauce
Ingredients: 
4 Cups Dried White Bread (I used a french loaf, crust removed and cut into cubes)
2 Eggs, Slightly Beaten
2 Cups Milk
1/4 Cup Butter, Melted
1/2 Cup Sugar
1 Teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
1/2 Teaspoon Ground Nutmeg
1 Teaspoon Vanilla
Vanilla Sauce:
1 Stick Butter
1/2 Cup Sugar
1/2 Cup Packed Brown Sugar
1/2 Cup Whipping Cream
1 Tablespoon Vanilla
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 Degrees.
Bread should be stale. Either cut into cubes and let sit out overnight or preheat oven to 300 degrees and place cubed bread into oven for about 15 minutes or until they feel stale to touch.
Grease a 1 1/2 quart casserole, or 9×13 pan and set aside.
In a bowl, combine eggs, milk, melted butter, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla.
Pour mixture over bread cubes and let sit about 5 minutes. Pour into greased pan and bake, uncovered for 50-55 minutes or until puffed and browned on top.
Remove from oven and serve warm with vanilla ice cream and sauce.
Sauce Directions: 
Combine all sauce ingredients except vanilla in a small saucepan. Heat until melted and begins to boil. Once it comes to a rolling boil, remove from heat and add vanilla. Mixture will bubble up, this is normal. Stir in vanilla and let cool. Pour over ice cream and bread pudding and serve. Store in a jar for up to 2 weeks and use as a topping on all your favorite desserts!
Recipe adapted from Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook."
from http://mikeysinmykitchen.com/2013/03/22/classic-bread-pudding-with-vanilla-sauce/ by Bee of Mikey's In My Kitchen

D185-9: Lemon Impatience

While that is an excellent name for a dessert, it's not what this one is called.

This Lemon Drizzle Cake comes from lemons: recipes and remedies ("text by Sara Burford" it says, which is apparently different to being the author). It's the sort of book you'd find at a $5 discount bookstore, and I think that's where I got it, years ago.

This was my first experience at making my own self-raising flour.  According to CTAW, you add 10g (1 tbsp) of baking powder to 300g (2 cups) of plain flour.  It seemed to work out fine - hurrah!

I was surprised at the ingredient measurements as the weights were all less than the amounts suggested.  For instance, it asked for "225g/1 cup of unsalted butter" but I've always counted a cup of butter as 250g.  All the gram measurements were similarly less than expected, and somewhat explained in the back with a conversion table that I'd call just plain wrong.

Density anyone? 225ml what?

Then, after I'd read "4 eggs" I was surprised to see this go into a loaf pan.  I even lined the square tin I've used for all the brownie recipes, which have comparable amounts of flour, butter and eggs, but decided to do as the recipe said as I've never made a syrupy cake before.

In hindsight, I wish I had used the 23cm square tin.  I wasn't sure I'd be able to evenly drizzle the syrup across the size of a square cake but the pastry brush did a very good job and I shouldn't have worried.  It would've also meant that the syrup would've soaked further into the cake, and hopefully the heat would've gotten through the thickness better than on this occasion. 

At 50mins, the cake was beginning to burn on the edge but, eventhough the skewer came out clean, it sunk considerably (more shallow than when it started!) once the syrup was on.  We also cut it while still warm coz Hub and I couldn't wait for supper and as, as he said, you couldn't break it any more!

Here is the recipe, with [my adjustments].

Lemon Drizzle Cake

Ingredients

• Zest of 1 lemon (finely grated)
• 230g / 2 cups self-raising flour [300g]
• 225g / 1 cup sugar [250g]
• 225g / 1 cup of unsalted butter (softened) [250g]
• 4 eggs 

• Topping: juice of 1¹/₂ lemons and 110g / ¹/₂ cup of caster sugar [125g]

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas mark 4. Line a loaf tin with grease proof paper. 

Cake:

1. Place the butter and sugar into a bowl and beat together until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each new addition.
2. Add the lemon zest and sift in the flour. Mix together well.
3. Transfer the mixture into the loaf tin and level the top.  Place in the oven and bake for 45-50 mins. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool a little.

Topping:

1. Place the lemon juice and caster sugar in a bowl and mix together to make the topping. [Microwave for three 10sec bursts to help dissolve the sugar, but do not make it warm.]
2. Prick the still-warm cake with a fork and then [use a pastry brush to] drizzle the topping over the cake.  Leave in the loaf tin until completely cooled.
3. Once cooled, remove from the tin and serve.

Obviously, I haven't spent four days making a cake.  I've been chipping away at my secret gift too.

D174: Moosehead Brownies

All the brownie recipes I've tried thus far have melted the butter and chocolate together in the pan.  This one, however, using the creaming method.

Sometimes, when I can't be bothered (or haven't time) to wait for our frozen butter to melt I've zapped it a bit to speed things up.  Done too fast and you get melted butter, not softened butter, which separates the oil and translates to a shine in the cake of final product.  This shine is something I've realised I expect to see in brownies, but it's not in this one.  So it felt a bit more like a chocolate slice, but that essentially semantics: 

This

Is

A 

Great 

Brownie

Recipe

I made it for a grand final BBQ and none of it came home.

Apologies for not catching a snap of the cut brownies.  Pretty sure I can fix that soon.

Here is a typed version of the recipe, including a few extra weights.  Photo of a photocopy of the recipe is below, taken from The Age back in 2005 (!) who got it from Mollie Katzen's The Moosewood Cookbook.

Moosewood Fudge Brownies

Preheat oven 180°C/390°F

Need

• 155g dark chocolate
• 250g softened butter (not melted)
• 1 cup (180g) brown sugar
• 5 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 1 cup (150g) plain flour
• Buttered or lined 23x33cm pan

To make

1. Melt chocolate* and set aside
2. Cream butter and sugar and add eggs
3. Add vanilla
4. Beat in chocolate, then flour
5. Pour into pan
6. Bake for 20-30mins (mine was 25mins)
7. Let sit in pan for five mins before putting on rack to cool. Leave the cutting until serving time.

*To melt chocolate:

In microwave: Heat chocolate on medium/50% in 1min bursts, stirring after each.  Mine took three goes and then it stirred smooth. Chocolate holds it heat, as do many glass microwave, so use stirring when melting chocolate to avoid burning.

On stovetop: put some water in a small/medium saucepan and find a glass bowl that will sit in it's rim, without touching the water.  Put the chocolate in the glass bowl and bring the water to the boil. Stir the chocolate with the water simmering/boiling beneath it until it's smooth.   
Do not get any water in your chocolate - it'll seize up and become useless (except for sulky-spoon-licking on the couch coz you ruined your chocolate).

D167: Serendipity

Hub doesn't understand why I like watching telly sometimes.

I can see his point: Ads are ridiculously annoying, inane and loud. But then, we have a mute button, and other channels to entertain us in the gaps.

Sometimes I can flick on the telly and find a show for what ails me, such as an Antiques Roadshow, or a celebrity I like on a talk show, or even an idiot of recent politics at whom I can rant and work out a few demons.  

Hub gets frustrated that we have so many good shows to watch on the computer - dozens, in fact - yet I'll watch a telly rerun of Friends instead of a Supernatural, Black Books, The West Wing*, or even Buffy.  

What's worse, sometimes I'll want to watch the movie that's on.  Insult to injury, not only may I have seen it before, but we'll already have it to watch ad free!  (If I haven't seen it before, Hub wishes I would get the movie and then watch it ad free, but what if it's not as good as I thought...?)

Poor guy. I'm all "I like that this movie is on now! And I don't have to start it or do anything!" And what good fortune, that amongst all the rubbish and Lethal Weapons, here is a movie I like, or even have affection for! Nope, it's a sign! I shall watch this and enjoy the Magic-Faraway-Tree-ness of the discovery.  Joy!

Serendipity adds a certain I don't know what to things. And that's how it happened with this recipe, which arrived with our fruit and veggies from Aussie Farmers Direct, just as I'd looked at the pumpkin in the freezer and wondered what I would do with it...

I made a double batch, with just under what I needed for the pumpkin, and I had Jap, not butternut. Anyhoo, the first batch are a bit solid in the middle, so shall stay home, but the second batch I left in for a few minutes longer so hopefully they'll be liked at our family gathering today.

I don't really like veggie-things-as-sweet-meals, which include pumpkin or sweet potato pie, but these are reeeeeeally nice!  They're a little bit dense, possibly over-mixed due to a big batch?  Not sure, but I'd do them again.

And! I know my numbers have jumped a bit: I've some backtracking to do. :)

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* I don't think I could watch a random West Wing episode.  I think I'd need to watch it from start to end all over again, for the third time!

D157: Chocolate Coffee Cream Fancy Stars

I was looking for a biscuit recipe and found this one, which would use two neglected things: these awesome star bikkie cutters my sister-in-law gave me ages ago, and my beloved coffee syrup.  

Usually, a few teaspoons of the coffee syrup would go nicely in a cold glass of milk mid-afternoon. However, while Bub is still no good with dairy this yummy stuff has been sitting, waiting, in the pantry.

The topping for these is yet to be done.  Shall look forward to seeing how the coffee cream icing turns out too, in case I can find another place for it in the future.