As I have mentioned (in almost every post), I have a little boy. He's three and a half and in my eyes, one of the most beautiful things on earth - however, I might be bias. This could come as a surprise to some readers, however I have been accused of mothering him a little too much, possibly over protecting him. But I ask you, is it coddling to swoop in and SAVE him from harm's way? Even if that incident is tiny? Maybe... He is an only child, so of course he will always be my baby. I joke about how much I am going to be one of those annoying Mum's where no girl is ever good enough for her angle son - I'm hoping that's a joke, only time will tell.
Anyway, over the weekend my protection instincts went into over drive. He had a sleep over at Grandma and Popops and hit his head about 30 minutes before I picked him up. I won't go into detail about what happened, as this is a baking blog and my detailed description could gross some readers out, however I did take him to the emergency room and they glued his wound back together. Seeing my baby boy like that, even though he was exceptionally brave, made me feel all kinds of guilt and I just wanted to hold and cuddle him for the rest of the day. We decided to do some special baking, so Reuben picked a cake and some decorations and got to it. Of course he choose a chocolate mudcake! A rich, thick, chocolatey cake - but what's better to cure a sore head?
So this cake is for my little boy, who was the bravest little man yesterday and now possibly has a little scar on his forehead which resembles Harry Potter.
If you don't like rockie road I think you need to get off your computer, go find some good rockie road (not the crappy powdered chocolate with awful sugary "turkish delight" jelly and hard marshmallow), eat it and instantly change your mind. Trust me, your life will be better - your hair will smell sweet, your eyes will sparkle, your boss will tell you what an amazing job you're doing (possibly give you a raise), your boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse will for no reason start rubbing your shoulders, your children (or the neighbour's children) will go to bed early and sleep through the whole night without waking you up... see, better life.
So, with the amazing flavours of a good rockie road now causing you to salivate uncontrollably, I want you to further this intensity and start thinking of brownies. Gooey, rich, chocoloaty brownies. Now, call me crazy, but what if we combined these two amazing delights!!!!!!! If that was too much for you, I request that you take a moment before reading the below recipe, it will blow your socks off with deliciousness and divine taste sensations!
Something to look forward to when you eat these is how the marshmallow melts throughout the brownie when it is being cooked. If any marshmallow was lucky enough to be near the top, it partly explodes and creates a chewy, sweet sensation on top. The marshmallow throughout the brownie develops as little sweet sections of loveliness, mixed in with the crunch of the pecans and then the surprise of the dates. I don't think I need to encourage you any further, just make these for someone special (and that someone special can be YOU).
Some weekends I am so busy I barely have time to prepare dinner, other weekends I seem to spend all my time covered in flour and popping things in and out of the oven. This weekend was the latter.
Friday evening I made a light dinner of coconut prawns with a crunchy salad and afterwards felt like something sweet, so threw together a coconut cake. Then Saturday morning my breakfast plans changed at the last minute (by changed I mean I read the text message wrong and was a week early), so went home and made some lovely pumpkin, blue cheese and candied walnut muffins for my friend, who I was due to spend the rest of the day with. Saturday night I was treated to some outback delights with damper cooked camping-style over an outdoor fire. I've never been a camper but really enjoyed sitting in the backyard, drinking Shiraz and eating freshly cooked (occasionally burnt) damper covered in golden syrup. Sunday I had another friend come over. It was her birthday the weekend before so wanted to treat her with something tasty and made a Caramel Mudcake, the recipe I got from a cookbook I got "free" when donating $2 at the checkout of my supermarket.
Even though I seemed to have the oven running half the weekend, I feel really refreshed and happy with my baking efforts. I even squeezed in a trip to the supermarket where I stocked up on heaps of fruit and vegies for the week, and went to a local kite festival with my three year old boy. Now it's time to kick off another week at work... and maybe another week of baking!
I really like making cupcakes. You can create so many variations and they are super easy to eat, especially in a work environment. We had organised a little morning tea for the team at work today and so I decided to make some carrot cupcakes (same recipe as previous post, but in cupcake form) and well as another flavour to give a bit of flavour options. At the supermarket yesterday I was really excited to see blueberries on special for $3.50 a punnet. As they are usually up around $6 each, I jumped at the discounted price and bought some.
I don't often buy blueberries. I find that if they are not in season, even just by a few weeks, it is more common to get sour or tart berries. The perfect blueberry should be a little sweet, smooth and have a lovely burst of juice as you bit it between your teeth. This is also what I wanted from my cupcakes. Using my normal vanilla cupcake recipes and only adding blueberries and some lemon rind, these were delicious! As we're coming into Spring, definitely give these a go!
