Good food and food company

I believe good food makes people happy. Good food and good company make for a fantastic night. And good food, good company and a great bottle/s of wine is always memorable. I started getting into baking when I wasn't the happiest in life, it acted as an escape for me and also gave me something to be passionate about and enjoy. Eating the food was also amazing, however did cause a fair bit of weight gain - so a lesson, moderation ;-).

I find my baking can make others happy. I am filled with pride when I present a layer cake to a friend or family member to celebrate their birthday. I love hearing the mmmmmmm from people when they take the first bite of a treat I've lovingly prepared. And I love when friends or family ask me to bake something for them, as it shows my passion has transferred to them and they want to share good food with their friends or family. (My photography is not great though, so I think that should be the next thing I work on...)

This recipe is for my uncle. He has shared many cakes and desserts with me and during the week asked if I could make something special for a lunch party he was throwing. Blueberries are just coming back into season here, so I decided on a blueberry sour cream cake with a white chocolate cream cheese icing. I was later told it was a hit!

Step into Spring cupcakes

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!

Sweet treat for breakfast

I've always been told that the most important meal for the day is breakfast, something to give you a good kick-start in the morning and get your body working. When I was a teenager and really conscience about my weight, I used to try and skip breakfast, but my Dad cottoned onto this pretty quick so would pretend to read the paper while I ate breakfast, but really he was watching me eat and making sure I was being healthy (couldn't get one past him).

Now I'm an adult, I'm still pretty irresponsible when it comes to breakfast. It's not a weight thing anymore, I just prefer to have a coffee in the morning, which generally gets me through to lunch time. Although, I do LOVE going out for breakfast - I'm a complicated person :-).

Anyway, last week I saw this amazing looking breakfast bake via Pinterest and I really wanted to make it for the girls (and the few boys) in my office. I bought all the ingredients over the weekend but until this morning, when my toddler dragged me out of bed at 5.25am with the line "Mummy, I need to do wee wee", I didn't really have the time to make it. So, with my early rise this morning, here is a mid-week sweet breakfast for my hard working teammates! Enjoy.

So Frenchy, so chic

Last night I had my brother and his girlfriend came over for dinner. I use them as an excuse to make something special and generally try something new. Last night, for no particular reason, I decided to go French. I think the direction actually came from the desire to have seafood. I'm not overly confident with cooking seafood as I haven't done it much before, but I found a recipe for a french style seafood soup and thought it looked pretty easy. So, for dinner I made Seafood Bouillabaisse w/ a Capsicum Rouille. The Bouillabaisse was eaten too fast to even get a picture, however I can describe it - a deliciously warming soup with lovely chunks of seafood, a small kick from the rouille and some crunch from the crusty bread (also perfect lapping up the remaining flavours).

Dessert was chocolate cake. This recipe is from a basic French cooking book I've had for year. It is so easy and has minimal ingredients. It's also gluten free, so I like to think that means it's a healthy cake. To make it even more healthy, I wanted to add blueberries, which I had bought yesterday morning from the markets. The cake is so fudgy and rich though, I didn't want to make it too complex by adding the berries to the actual cake, so instead made a creamy topping, which helped balance the richness of the chocolate.

Needless to say, dinner was a hit. Peter and Nadia brought two amazing bottles of wine and as always, we had a great catch-up. Thanks guys and hope you enjoy the left over cake I made you take home.

Leaving Australia tarts

I have been promising to bake some treats for my sister since her birthday last October. It was supposed to be her birthday present, however her party got cancelled due to rain and my baking was postponed. She is about to move to Canada for a few years with her boyfriend, so thought it was about time I did some baking for her.

She through a girls afternoon tea for her friends last weekend, which I provided some sweet little tarts for. I was at another party, but was told they were well received. So Margaret, glad you had a lovely afternoon tea and good luck in Canada - here's hoping I can come visit very soon and you have a fantastic (and safe - I'm still your older sister) time.

Starting the week off right

Before I properly planned my Christmas baking, I bought a few punnets of blueberries from the markets, thinking without a doubt I would use them. I didn't. So I froze them until I felt like baking with blueberries.

I'd also like to reveal my not-so-secret secret of loving something sweet during the week. Actual, any night will do. Often I'll finish dinner and that tingling will start on my tongue and a little voice will tell me to find something sweet (then a mean voice will try and stop me, but now it sounds like I'm a little crazy. I am). Last night I was rummaging through the fridge and found the frozen blueberries. I had seen a recipe in the recent Coles supermarket in-store magazine for a layered mango panna cotta and thought I could experiment using my frozen blueberries.

It's a crime to waste buttercream

I had no idea the effort that went into making a proper buttercream. First you have to make a french meringue using a sugar syrup then beating egg whites and cream of tartar for eternity. Then slowly pour in the syrup while it's still hot at the same time as avoiding being scalded. Once you have beaten for another eternity, you beat in the 650g of butter, cube by cube. Can you believe that much butter is involved, I had to triple check. But I can say it was worth it. What an amazing result. A perfectly smooth, glossy, pure white cream for my cake. It really was the "icing on top of the cake".