A new level of sickly decadence ... Tim Tam Cake!

Credit where credit is due.  I did not invent the tim tam cake; you can find the recipe here.

I did invent a crafty short-cut.  No-name brand cake mix, for sale at my local small supermarket for 71 cents a packet.  Super easy to prepare.

I also took the blog author's advice and crushed up a pack of tim tams, scattering them over the filling rather than lining the middle with whole tim tams.  Much easier to cut up the cake that way!

Be warned.  It's disgustingly tasty.

Salted chocolate caramel slice

I've been meaning to experiment with an old fashioned caramel slice recipe, here's my twist on the Aussie classic.

Base:


-  220g plain flour
-  165g chopped butter
-  80g caster sugar

Caramel filling:


-  1 tin condensed milk
-  120g butter
-  2 tbs golden syrup

Topping:


-  200g dark chocolate
-  100g milk chocolatee

Pre heat oven to 190C and line the base of a slice pan with baking paper (no grease).  Put the base ingredients into a food processor and pulse until it resembles breadcrumbs, press firmly into the bottom of the pan and bake for about 15 minutes.  Cool.

Put the caramel filling ingredients into a pan and melt, bring to a low simmer for a few minutes.  Be careful as you don't want it to burn - it can catch easily on the bottom of the pan.  Pour over the base.  Cool and refrigerate for an hour or two.

Melt chocolates together.  I just break it up and put it in a bowl in the microwave on low heat for 5 minutes.  Check it every minute and stir so it doesn't burn.  Pour over the caramel and spread with a spatula.  At this point I sprinkled over some pink Murray River sea salt.

Cool and refrigerate for 30 mins, then cut with a hot knife.  The salt really brings out the flavour of both the caramel and the chocolate.  I think salt is something our grandmothers secretly knew added to the flavour of sweet food, hence the use of salted butter and adding a pinch of salt to most old fashioned baking recipes.

Chocolate feijoa cake

I had about 8 remaining feijoas after my friand experiment, so did I went where any self respecting foodie with a curiousity about obscure ingredients goes: Google.

I went out on a limb and tried "chocolate+feijoa"and found a blog with a section dedicated to feijoas.  The chocolate feijoa cake took my fancy.  I didn't quite have the required 1.5 cups of chopped feijoas, but substituted with about half a cup of milk to give it some more moisture.

It sunk a little in the middle, but who cares?  The top was lovely and crunchy, and the centre seems very moist.  I can't comment on the flavour yet; I'll let you know after I slice it up tomorrow at work.

Comfort Food + Chocolate Raspberry Mousse

Friend and colleague L recently emerged from major surgery, now to be faced with weeks of bed rest and boredom.  I can offer little more than some comfort food, which hopefully helps to alleviate the pain a tiny bit.

Some good "healing" foods for L (my opinion only!):

• Chorizo and chickpea stew:  includes cinnamon, and I also included fresh ginger and garlic for their healing properties.  Chickpeas for protein and all-round goodness, chorizo because L loves it.
• Steamed white rice:  seems to be a cure-all in asian cultures, is reasonably easy to digest and what isn't comforting about a steaming bowl of rice?
• Roast apricot chicken:  made with my mother in law's homemade apricot jam, from apricots grown on the family orchard by my father in law.  I roasted chicken thighs (bone in) in a casserole dish - spread with a jar of apricot jam, and a cup of chicken stock, salt and pepper for about an hour (first 40mins foil on, remaining 20mins foil off).  
• Lup cheong sausages: aside from the fact that L loves them; they are handy to have in the cupboard, have a long shelf life, and can be chopped and added to almost anything (or eaten shamelessly on their own).
• Chicken and pistachio korma, made from scratch: for Christmas, L gave me a book of recipes from last year's Australian Materchef contestant, Poh.  In it, there's a very simple recipe for chicken korma - I challenge anyone to get it wrong!  The only change I made was to up the spice levels.  Chilli also has healing properties, does it not?  Also contains lots of ginger and garlic.
• The grand finale:  Chocolate Raspberry Mousse, my own recipe, whipped out at random for moments when true comfort is needed (or when I need to use up some leftover cream).  Use the "three bowl" method:  Bowl 1: beat 450ml cream until thick.  Bowl 2: beat three eggs and 1/4 cup caster sugar for a few minutes until thick and very pale.  Bowl 3: place a heatproof bowl over a small pan of simmering water and melt 300g of chocolate (I prefer dark but you can use any sort). Once the chocolate has cooled (transfer chocolate to a cool bowl to speed up the process), stir into the egg mix until completely combined.  Spoon in about 2/3 of the whipped cream, and use a big metal spoon to fold in gently.  Once combined, refrigerate for about two hours or until set; spoon over the remaining cream and sprinkle over raspberries (or any other fruit or berry).  Warning: comforting in small doses only!

Soft chocolate and apricot biscuits

I love the food blog world.  Thousands of people, from all over the world, all baking and blogging in delicious harmony.

On a rare day of "nothing", after having dusted (yes! dusted!) our many bookshelves, I spent an hour or two trawling the many interesting food blogs I've accumulated in my favourites list over the last 9 or so months.  I came across a simple recipe for soft chocolate cinnamon and apricot biscuits and decided to give it a go.

The recipe can be found here, in the "I Bake For You :-)" blog.  I had to improvise a little (no SR flour = added extra baking powder; ganache = used 80g dark choc melted with a splash of cream in the microwave), but they still turned out very well.  You could add extra apricots for a more rustic texture, or slightly more sugar or milk chocolate instead of dark for a sweeter biscuit.

These ones were light and fluffy, 'cakey', and not too sweet.

A weekend of family and baking

I had one of those weekends where I just couldn't stop baking.  Maybe it's because I'd been away from home all week and needed to re-connect with my kitchen.  Or perhaps it's because we had people coming to stay and I just love looking after houseguests.

Pear and cinnamon cake - courtesy of a Weight Watchers recipe.  Trust me - it tasted every bit as delicious as it looks!

My sister has a cupcake fetish and I just love making them too - seeing as she was one of the guests staying over I figured it was a nice excuse to bake some.  My latest creation: mocha "bunny" cakes.  I used a cheap packet mix (buttercake) and added espresso, also adding coffee to the buttercream.  The ears are simply marshmallows cut in half.  The flavours worked really well; the cake wasn't sweet at all - almost bitter with the espresso - the buttercream is super sweet but also balanced out by the coffee.  Sis took most of them home; my brother and his girlfriend (who also stayed) took the remaining two. 

The morning after the night before.  With two guests left (my brother and his girlfriend), I thought it was a perfect occasion to cook up some fluffy pancakes from my "Cookery the Australian Way" book - still my favourite, and first ever, cookbook. 

I had some smoked salmon in the fridge (not unusual!) and felt like someting savoury, so topped my pancake with salmon, light sour cream, dill and lots of cracked pepper.  So simple but delicious.

My brother's girlfriend, A, made the suggestion to have chocolate pancakes.  I happened to have some dark chocolate in the cupboard - which was roughly chopped and mixed into some of the batter - the chocolate melted as the pancakes cooked and oozed out when they were cut into.  I didn't try any myself but everyone assured me they were tasty.  How could you go wrong with melted chocolate, really?