Boy Iced Cake...

'Twas Australia Day and we didn't do much to celebrate it was WAY too hot here, in fact the hottest Australia Day in 20 years. Obviously, in those 20 years I've gotten old and soft as 20 years ago I lived in this very same area and didn't notice how hot it was!

R baked chocolate cupcakes in the morning and iced one for each of us then insisted that she could not possibly clean up or ice the other 8 or so cakes, so L did, this is one of his works of art.

Specs:
Canon EOS 400D
1/6s
f/1.8
50mm
ISO 400

Cookies...

"Dear Lord: The gods have been good to me. For the first time in my life, everything is absolutely perfect just the was it is. So here's the deal: You freeze everything the way it is, and I won't ask for anything more. If that is OK, please give me absolutely no sign. OK, deal. In gratitude, I present you this offering of cookies and milk. If you want me to eat them for you, give me no sign. Thy will be done." - Homer Simpson, The Simpsons.

I baked cookies this afternoon!

Hooray for yummy fresh cookies!

I know I said in my last post that I'm not a cook; strangely enough I look to be breaking all my own rules here. I just LOVE these cookies and every now and then I bake them, it just so happens that this time it was directly after I made pasta. Hold on to your seats though, the world might just stop in it's tracks, I actually made alterations to this recipe and didn't ruin it.

Remember though, how I said I need really clear instructions to be able to cook; I read somewhere earlier today to swap your trays of cookies top to bottom in the oven halfway through cooking to prevent them burning on the bottoms. Why didn't I think of that earlier?! Such a logical solution to the burnt cookie bottom problem, my brain obviously heard "cooking" and shut down.

Look at those nice edible cookie bottoms!

Here's the recipe for Choc Chip Rock Cakes.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups self raising flour
• 2/3 cups of castor sugar
• 125g (melted) butter
• 250gm choc bits
• 2 (beaten) eggs
• 1tspn vanilla essence
• 1tbspn milk

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180°.
2. Combine dry ingredients, making a well in the centre.
3. Add butter, eggs, milk and vanilla essence, stir gently.
4. Place heaped tbspn drops of mixture on greased (or papered) trays.
5. Bake for approximately 12 minutes. (Don't forget, swap the trays top to bottom after 6 minutes.)
6. Stand for 5 minutes, then place on a cooling rack.

Notes:

1. My eggs must've been bigger than "regular" so the mixture wasn't as dry as I thought it should be so I added some rolled oats, I made a double batch and probably added two cup of rolled oats.
2. I used brown sugar instead of castor sugar; I like the "caramelly" flavour that brown sugar gives to baked goods. I'm not sure what the "right" substitution would be but I just did a straight substitution.
3. I added cinnamon; I prefer the cookies cinnamon flavoured instead of plain vanilla, add 1tspn of cinnamon to the recipe above.
4. 250gm is a LOT of choc chips for this recipe. You could easily use half the amount and still have more choc chips than you'd get in store bought cookies!
5. You could easily substitute nuts for the choc chips if you're not a chocolate fan and still have a great tasting cookie.

Mmmm Cookies...

This list was inspired by yumminess!

Kindest Wishes, AJ

I'm not a Cook...

Cooking in general is not something I'm good at, cooking places me in stupid mode most of the time, unless I have very clear precise instructions I can burn anything!

There are however a few things I CAN cook; spaghetti bolognaise (don't we all learn that at high school?) lasagne, devilled sausages, beef stroganoff, apricot chicken, mashed potatoes, banana cake... that's about the extent of my kitchen repertoire. Truly; I have been known to burn water. :blush:

This evening, however, I made pasta. Real pasta; flour and eggs, mixed by hand, fed through the pasta machine pasta! Even more incredible than the fact that I got my kitchen act together enough to make something "new" was that it was edible. It is a given in this house that if I am attempting to cook something new there must be an alternative available (even if it is only beans and toast!)

There is one more stage of incredible; I made an alteration to the recipe, using wholemeal instead of plain flour. 'Twas an evening for miracles I tell you; not just because I made edible food from scratch but because it was in fact so edible that fussy husband and fussy daughter BOTH ate it and liked it. Of course D jnr liked it too; it was food, he was eating it raw as R and I were trying to get him to help turn the pasta machine handle!

Here's what I learnt about making pasta:

1. The recipe makes WAY too much pasta for 2 adults, 1 child and 1 babe. I know it can be refrigerated but flouring the finished product and putting it in an airtight container was not so effective, it has turned into a clump of pasta. I need to experiment further with pasta storage.
2. Every time you make pasta the flour quantity will be slightly different depending on the actual size of your eggs. We always buy free range eggs direct from the farm so they, especially, have quite a size variance in each pack.
3. Once you have the pasta the thickness you want it, it is much easier to cut if you have allowed it to air a little. I used cooling racks and lay the pasta sheets on them to air, those that aired slightly longer cut much more easily than those that didn't.
4. Flouring the aired pasta makes it one further degree easier to cut (ie run through the machine without it getting stuck and with the blades having cut right through.)

This list was inspired by the joy of home made!

Kindest Wishes, AJ

Gruesome Grub... #1

What's a Halloween Party without all kinds of Gruesome Grub (or food as you may know it)? All kinds of monster cupcakes, fingers, cauldron contents and bloody delights are a must. Here are some creepy cupcakes to get you started...

Brain Cupcakes

by Annabel Karmel

Original Recipe

Recipe (Australian weights and measures)

Cake Ingredients:

1 cup of self raising flour

125gms of butter

1/2 cup of castor sugar

2 large eggs

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Icing Ingredients:

450gms tub of vanilla frosting

red and black food colouring

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.
2. Put all cake ingredients in a bowl and beat together until the mixture is smooth and creamy.
3. Line a pan with cupcake cases and fill each halfway with mixture.
4. Bake in oven for 20 minutes until the muffins have risen and spring back into shape when pressed gently with a finger. Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack.
5. Add icing sugar to the vanilla frosting to make it stiff enough to pipe.
6. Colour the frosting with a small amount of black and then red food colouring to create a pinkish grey colour.
7. Pipe the frosting on top of the cupcakes in a brain pattern and using red food colouring and a toothpick draw on red veins.

Makes: 18 cupcakes approx.

Notes: I'm not sure as I copy this recipe that we can buy a 450gm tub of vanilla frosting in Australia, I will have a look and if not provide a recipe to make that quantity of frosting.

This list was inspired by
 H  A  L  L  O  W  E  E  N  ! 

Kindest Wishes,

AJ