Tagged: sweet

Apr 28

little banana and cinnamon cakes

More banana I hear you say!! Sorry – but I go about 8 in my last fruit and veg box and needed to put them to good use.

 

Little Banana and Cinnamon Cakes

Makes 12

125g butter

1/2 cup logician low GI sugar or 1/2 castor sugar

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

1 1/2 cups mashed banana (about 4 bananas)

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1/2 cup milk

2 cups of self-raising flour (wholemeal)

 

Preheat oven to 180C (350F). Prepare a cupcake holders on a tray or grease a cupcake tray.

Cream butter and sugar using electric beaters, until light and creamy. Add the eggs gradually, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla essence and mashed banana, and beat until combined. Dissolve the bicarbonate of soda in the milk. Using a metal spoon, fold in the flour alternatively with the milk. Stir until all of the ingredients are combined. Spoon the mixture into the prepared cupcake pans filling them about 3/4 full. This will allow for the little cakes to rise.

Bake for around 25-30 minutes, test with a skewer to ensure that it is cooked all the way through. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack.

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Mar 28

Banana Nut Bread

Over ripe bananas mean one of two things…. bin or banana cake. As I hate wasting stuff, I decided that I would make some banana bread today. Not just any banana bread….. banana nut bread… and a low GI version to boot!

20120327-001351.jpg

 

Low GI Banana Nut Bread

1 and 1/2 cups of logicane Low GI sugar

1/2 cup butter

2 eggs, beaten

3 very ripe bananas, mashed

2 teaspoons baking powder

2/3 cup milk

1/2 cup walnuts, chopped

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 cups wholemeal plain flour.

 

Cream butter and sugar together. Add beaten eggs and mashed bananas, mix until combined.

Warm milk slightly in a separate dish and add baking soda, stand for a few minutes then add to the banana mix. Mix in the flour, vanilla and chopped nuts.

Pour into a baking loaf tin that is lined with baking paper.

Bake at 350F (180C) for 50 minutes. Cool on a rack before serving.

Most people who ate this had no idea I’d used wholemeal flour, so I guess the husky bits were not all that noticeable. To make any banana cake/bread you should use super ripe bananas. The skin should be black and the banana smell almost over bearing! This is how you get the best flavour. The walnuts give you a little bit of crunch along the way. I put a couple on top of the of the mixture before putting it into the oven, basically to make with the pretties.

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Feb 05

the camo cake

Camo Cake with Chocolate Butter Frosting
serves 12
Melted butter to grease
1/2 cups self-raising flour
1/2 cup plain flour
1 cups caster sugar
150g butter, cubed
2/3 cups of milk
3 eggs at room temperature
1  1/2 teaspoons vanilla essence
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
green food dye

150g of dark chocolate, melted
150g butter at room temperature, cubed
2 1/2 cups icing sugar, sifted

Preheat oven to 140°C  (280F). Position a rack on the second lowest shelf of the oven. Brush a round 25cm (base measurement) cake pan with the melted butter to lightly grease. Line base and sides with non-stick baking paper.

Place the self-raising flour, plain flour, sugar, butter, milk, eggs and vanilla essence in a large mixing bowl. Use an electric beater to beat on low-speed for 30 seconds or until just combined. Increase the speed to high and beat for 1-2 minutes or until the mixture is thick and all the butter is incorporated.

Split the mixture into 3 bowls evenly. In the first bowl shift the cocoa powder into the mixture and stir/beat until combined. This is your chocolate cake. Move onto the next bowl, add around 3-4 drops of green food dye, mix it in and see what your colour is like! For this bowl you are going for a lighter green colour. I recommend trying to get the light colour sorted first, if you accidentally slip and add too much green food colour, you can always use this as the darker coloured green! Once you have the light one sorted move onto the brighter green. For this one go with 6-8 drops of food colouring. Mix it in and compare to your light green colour. There should be a marked difference between the two. Don’t worry if it’s really bright – this will just make it more fun!

Ok now you are ready to start layering your cake. Grab your prepared cake pan and 3 teaspoons. Begin by spooning lumps of alternating coloured cake mix into the base of the cake pan. Continue to layer until all of the 3 mixtures have been used. With a clean teaspoon smooth out the top of the mixture, at this point you can swirl some of the colours together to integrate the top of the cake. Don’t mix too much – just enough to smooth the top of the mixture out.

Bake in preheated oven for around 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Remove from oven and set aside for 10 minutes. Turn onto a wire rack for 2 hours or until completely cool.

To complete your cake, you’ll need to ice it (well you don’t have to! It does seem like a shame to cover up that amazing looking top!), but if you want fatten up your cake eaters then I suggest a butter cream icing! In a bowl combine the butter and icing sugar, add in the melted chocolate and combine until smooth. This can at times take some balancing – if your icing is too thick and a tiny bit of milk. If it’s too thin add a little icing sugar until you get the mix right. Using a pallet knife smooth your icing on top of the cake. You can pick up little plastic army men to top your cake with as decoration and most of all enjoy!

 

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Dec 31

cookbook challenge 2011: 25th fortnight, cool

As I am way behind on my CBC, most of my recipes are currently syncing in with my Christmas food prep. So for cool I decided to tackle these cherry ripe balls as a sweet Christmas treat! I made them as little pressies for our work mates. To sex them up a bit I put them on bamboo sticks which I picked up at the Asian grocer. I have to say they looked pretty damn good. But I totally forgot to take a photo on them! So in place you have a shot of the recipe book. Aren’t you lucky!

 

Cherry Surprises, as seen in Sweet Treats by Frankie

makes 36

1/2 can of condensed milk

200g glace cherries

2 cups of desiccated coconut

a few drops of red food dye

200g of good quality dark chocolate

10g Copha

 

Line two baking trays with greaseproof paper and set aside. In a large bowl mix coconut, cherries, food colouring and condensed milk until well combined.

Roll into balls and place on  one prepared tray and refrigerate for about 30 minutes.

Boil a little water in a saucepan and attached a heatproof bowl firmly on top (the water should not touch the bowl). Over low heat melt the chocolate and copha together in the heatproof bowl.

Using a spoon, dip balls into chocolate mixture and place on your second prepared tray.

Let the chocolate set in the fridge for about 20 minutes.

 

As I mentioned above I stuck bamboo forks about 2 inches long into the balls before I dipped them in the chocolate. I also skipped the copha – it just seemed like a waste of time for 10g and would have only spoiled the chocolate flavour.

 

 

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Nov 20

flourless chocolate cake

This was my Sunday baking effort, a flourless chocolate and almond cake. While there is no particular reason for me making a flourless cake, there are added benefits of having a lighter more moist chocolate cake when taking the flourless route. I also really like the way they look so collapsed in photos. Although I kind of didn’t really pull that look off when baking this one.

Flourless Chocolate and Almond Cake

serves 12

200g Dark Chocolate, chopped
125g Unsalted Butter, chopped
225g Brown Sugar
100g Almond meal (can use hazelnut meal if you prefer)
100g Almonds, coarsely chopped (optional)
5 large Eggs, separated
1 pinch of Cream of Tartar
1 tablespoon of cocoa powder

 

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Line the base and sides of a 20cm round cake tin with non-stick baking paper.

Make a “double-boiler” to melt the chocolate and butter: Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil. Place the chopped chocolate and butter into a heat proof bowl and place the bowl over the hot saucepan to allow the ingredients to melt. Stir occasionally.

Once all is melted, stir in the brown sugar, almond meal and almonds until the mixture is smooth. Allow to cool slightly, then add the egg yolks gradually, stirring each time.

Meanwhile, place the five egg whites into a clean dry bowl with a pinch of cream of tartar. The egg whites will form the structure of the cake, so it’s important they’re well beaten. Using a hand whisk, electric beater or stand mixer, beat the eggs slowly at first until they are foamy and then gradually increase the speed every few minutes. (If you go straight to high-speed, you increase the chance of your cake collapsing). Continue beating until firm peaks form. Don’t worry if you over beat the eggs because you’ll beat some of the air out next.

Gently fold the egg whites into the chocolate mixture. The chocolate mix is quite heavy, so don’t worry if you need to stir quite a bit at this stage. Stop when the eggs are just incorporated with the chocolate.

Pour the cake batter into the tin and bake for 45-50 minutes until a firm crust forms on the top. A skewer test is not necessary. Leave the cake to cool completely in the tin before attempting to remove. Once cool, sift cocoa powder over the top.

The mixture tasted AMAZING! I pretty much cleaned up the spoon and bowl when it went into the oven. The mixture of  light and heavy made for a pretty seemed pretty foreign to me and my cake making efforts – it’s actually really different from the flourless orange cake that I make too. But all in all very tasty. I burnt the edges of the cake – which didn’t really help things, but I would certainly give this one another crack.

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Nov 05

cookbook challenge 2011: 21st fortnight, childhood

For this childhood recipe, I didn’t even need to hit the books. This one is imprinted in my brain. Although, if the truth be told, sometimes I still have to call up my Mum for the ingredient that I feel might be missing. Cornflake Cookies or Chockie Rocks as we called them, are one of my all-time faves. I like to make them as a ‘just because’ type of food, you know the kind—where you wake up on a Sunday morning, flick the oven on and start whipping something up. I also like to make them when we go camping too, as they are a great snack after a nice big hike. I can remember helping mum to make these when I was younger—although she would always put sultanas in them, which acted as a distraction to the chocolate chips that would be scattered amongst the biscuits. I always felt ripped off when I got a mouth full of sultana when I thought I had picked a cookie with load of chocolate in it. So when I started making them, I quickly ditched the sultanas to ensure that maximum chocolatey goodness could be enjoyed by all!

Chockie Rocks as seen on the side of corn flake boxes (with a few added bits)

makes around 40

250g butter

1 cup of castor sugar

2 free range eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 cups of sifted flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

2 cups corn flakes for biscuit mix

1 pkt dark chocolate chips

3 cups crushed, corn flakes for rolling

Preheat oven to 180C (350F).

Using an electric beater, cream the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Add in eggs (one at a time) and vanilla essence and combine until light and fluffy.

Sift in flour and baking powder, mix until combined.

With a large wooden spoon stir in 2 cups of corn flakes and the chocolate chips and combine as best you can.

Roll mixture out in your hands into small golf ball sized portions, roll in crushed corn flakes and place on a biscuit tray that has been covered with baking paper. Space them out evenly to allow enough room for spreadage. Bake in the oven for around 10 minutes or until golden brown.

Allow the biscuits to cool slightly before transferring them to an airing tray to cool. The biscuits will be soft and can break if you shift them too soon. Once cooled store in an air tight container ready for snacking.

The above recipe is exactly how I made it. However if you liked the idea of sultanas, you can chuck some of those in too—my mum would be proud.

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May 30

cookbook challenge 2011: 9th fortnight, crunchy

For as long as I can remember honey joys has been a party food. Sweet, crunchy and with the good ness of cornflakes and honey how can you possibly go wrong? When the theme for crunch came about it had to be this dish. Things have been in a bit of a rush for me lately so a quick simple recipe is just the ticket!

This recipe comes from the Frankie sweet treats cookbook. A gorgeous collection of those old fashioned favourite recipes beautifully photographed in vintage settings.

 

Honey Joys, as found in the Frankie Sweet Treats cookbook.

makes 16-18

 

100g Unsalted Butter

1/3 cup caster sugar

2 tablespoons honey

4 cups of corn flakes

 

Lightly grease the patty-cake cases. Preheat oven to 150C.

Pour cornflakes into a bowl. Set aside.

In a small saucepan melt butter, sugar and honey over medium heat until frothy. Pour over cornflakes and mix well.

Spoon into patty-cake cases and pop on to a tray. Bake for 10 minutes. Allow to cool on a cooling rack for 10 minutes.

 

I really don’t do anything to change this recipe up – its classic and doesn’t require any amendments. So what you see is what you get. I can tell you though that the bunting in the photography was a gift from our friends Ben and Nichole, which was used in their wedding. Super cute!!

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Feb 27

flourless orange cake

Flourless Orange Cake

Serves 12

cake

Melted butter, to grease

2 oranges

3 eggs

215g (1 cup) caster sugar

300g (3 cups) almond meal

1 tsp gluten-free baking powder

 

orange syrup

1 orange

155g (3/4 cup) caster sugar

 

Preheat oven to 170°C. Brush a round 22cm (base measurement) spring form pan with melted butter to lightly grease. Line base with non-stick baking paper.

Place the oranges in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring to the boil over medium heat. Cook for 15 minutes or until tender. Drain. Return to pan and cover with cold water. Bring to the boil and cook for 15 minutes (this will reduce the bitterness of the peel). Refresh under cold water. Drain. Coarsely chop oranges. Remove and discard any seeds.

Place the orange in the bowl of a food processor and process until smooth.

Use an electric beater to whisk the eggs and sugar in a bowl until thick and pale. Add the orange, almond meal and baking powder and gently fold until just combined. Pour into prepared pan.

Bake for 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Set aside for 15 minutes to cool.

Meanwhile, to make the orange syrup, use a zester to remove the rind from the orange. (Alternatively, use a vegetable peeler to peel the rind from orange. Use a small sharp knife to remove white pith. Cut rind into thin strips.) Juice orange.

Place rind in a saucepan of boiling water and cook for 5 minutes or until soft. Drain. Return to pan with orange juice and sugar. Place over low heat and cook, stirring, for 2-3 minutes or until the sugar dissolves and the syrup thickens.

Turn cake onto a serving plate. Use a skewer to gently prick the top. Spoon over syrup. Cut into wedges to serve.

 

I made this cake today for some mates that came around for lunch. Half of the them are gluten intolerant. Unfortunately they were also no good with eggs, so there was still a fair bit left over. Not to worry more for me. This recipe is pretty straight up and down, and super easy. I’d recommend making it in advance, as you have to watch the syrup while on the stove. Give it a crack you won’t be disappointed.

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