Easy baking sure to impress

I was given a new cookbook on Monday by a work friend who is moving to Melbourne. Lucky for me he deemed this particular book not worthy of taking with him. It's called cakes & slices from the Murdoch Books Test Kitchen. As I flipped through the pages, I had an urge to bake. I picked out two recipes to try first and then bought the ingredients on the way home. For the past few months, I've had oodles of caster sugar in my pantry. Unbeknownst to me, I used most of it up so only had enough sugar to make one of the slices I'd chosen from the book. Oh well, a treat for another day.

The recipe I choose was super easy and had minimal ingredients, so if you want a really rich, chocolately treat to impress someone, try this.

Mixing ideas to make pie

I remember going to school fetes as a child and always wanting to get either fairy floss or toffee apples. If I ever did get the fairy floss, it wasn't until I started eating it that I realised I didn't like it. If I ever got the toffee apple, I would lick all the toffee off and then have a soggy apple on a stick. Not amazing, should have had the caramel popcorn.

With this in mind, I thought I'd have a play with the ideas of toffee and apples (as I am no where near advanced enough to make fairy floss). I was given a Maggie Beer cookbook for Christmas (I LOVE Maggie!) and have been wanting to try her sour cream pastry. This little pie seemed like the perfect excuse. 

After making the pastry, I can tell you I love Maggie even more. It was a delicious buttery pastry which had the perfect crumble to it. And, best of all, it stayed crumbly even after having apples in it for a day.

Hot cross cookies

Have you made your way through a few bags of hot cross buns already and still wanting to pop down to the shop to buy more. Then just hold on a moment and check out these hot cross bun cookies. The buttery cookie goes so well with the crisp mixed spice royal icing, and a welcome change for your tastebuds who might want a slight change in textures after bun overload!

An Easter dessert

The one thing I can always rely on at Easter is Hot Cross Buns. They are everywhere and my family eats them as if they are going out of fashion. So, I thought I'd try using the humble Hot Cross Bun in a basic dessert, Bread and Butter Pudding. And as it is Easter, I added chocolate - Mmmmm.

Easter Egg Hunt cupcakes

HAPPY EASTER!

My friend emailed me the other day and said her boss had organsied an easter egg hunt around her office. There was a flurry of excitment as everyone was rummaging around looking for chocolate. I loved this thought and wanted to try and do something similar for my office. I came across this great picture on Pintrist and decided to try it myself with my favourite chocolate cupcake recipe. 

So, happy easter everyone. And more so, enjoy a much needed long weekend!

Something for the kids that Mummy will love

It's no secret I like to bake. It relaxes me, it gives me an avenue to show off, it confirms I am actually good at something. So, when I'm invited to someone's house, I generally like to bring something homemade. Whenever my friend Dani invites my son and I over for a play date, she specifically tells me not to bake - so of course, I always bake.

Luckily, whenever I bake for Dani, I don't feel like I need to bring something overly healthy, like oat bars or date slice. Not saying she injects her kids full of sugar or doesn't feed them properly, just that she's a pretty cool and level headed Mum.

I had some passionfruit in the fruit bowl so wanted to base my treats on that. I did a quick search of my "go to" recipe site and found these Vanilla Custard and Passionfruit Scrolls. I love custard and remember whenever we use to visit people as kids, my parents would buy a bun - my favourite was always the custard bun. So, these scrolls are an homage to my parent's "drop in" days as well as a delicious treat for kids and mummies! 

Show off cheesecake

There are some desserts that I know are going to make a good impression. I generally bust these out when I want to show off or when I can't think of anything new and I want to make something I know will be delicious.

My friend invited me to lunch today. The other people at the lunch included her parents who had just arrived from Ireland and some other friends who I have heard about heaps of times but think only meet once (and that was at a Halloween Party so everyone was in costume). I said I would bring dessert and I wanted something that would impress and knew that this cheesecake would definitely hit the mark. I also wanted to use the rest of the salted caramel sauce from Thursday night's Whoopie Pies. The result, a superbly creamy cheesecake with a salty/sweet cream topping.