Something sweet to end the week

Whoopie pie, Moon Pie, little cakes with a cream filling... whatever they're called, they are cakey and delicious.

I have been wanting to try Whoopie Pies again for a while, after my last attempt resulted in flat pancake like things.

I also thought it was about time I baked for my work mates again, as the past few weeks have been exceptionally stressful and hard. I asked one of the girls what flavour she felt like and she immediately yelled back at me "SALTED CARAMEL". The challenge was set. I started looking through my favourite blogs for salted caramel posts and found a recipe for Chocolate Whoopie Pies with Salted Caramel Buttercream. YUM.

More bananas (and Nutella)

Continuing on with today's banana theme, I have made some banana cupcakes with Nutella frosting (guess that also means I'm continuing the Nutella recipes). We've been taking advantage of the cheap bananas recently, but they start going brown before we get the chance to use them all, so have been freezing them. The freezer was getting a little full, so thought it was about time I baked something with bananas. 

Normally I double this cupcake recipe to make sure there's enough, but this banana version of my usual cupcakes turned out to be a bit bigger, so I made way too many. I'm trying to loose weight at the moment, so thought I'd get other people to eat these instead of me. I've frozen a few for my toddler's lunches this week, I also made an early morning call on my brother and his girlfriend, and finally took some to today's play date. They were pretty delicious, but if I kept them at home I'm sure I'd find a way to ration that because they have bananas and Nutella that it would be ok to eat them for breakfast... you see why I had to unload them :-).

 

Saturday morning banana pancakes

I have seen people eat pancakes in so many ways and with so many flavour combinations. I remember when I was in Canada visiting my friend, her boyfriend at the time covered his pancakes with a thick layer of icing sugar and then drenched it with maple syrup. My teeth hurt just watching him. And years ago there was this great place in West End (Brisbane) which served "Canadian" pancakes, which were large, fluffy pancakes with crispy bacon, caramelized bananas and maple syrup. They were so hard to resists.

In my ripe old age of 27 though, I've grown out of having sweets for breakfast. I crave savoury (or just coffee most mornings). My toddler however loves anything sweet at any time. This morning I thought I'd surprise him with some banana pancakes. They had a lovely banana flavour and were light and golden. I suggest you pop on the kettle and whip yourself up a batch tomorrow morning!

Pumpkin Swirl Bread for Baby Munks

A few weeks ago I made some bread and it was so delicious that it was all gone before I could take a photo and post onto this blog. I did get a chance to share a few slices with some of the girls at work, but most of them missed out. So, yesterday my very good work mate mentioned that normal, boring toast was making her preggo belly gag but she was craving my sweet pumpkin bread (she didn't use the word craving, but it works better in this instance). So with another evening free and some left over pumpkin puree in the freezer, I thought Baby Munks should get her* bread. 

*The sex of Baby Munks has not yet been determined, but I'm guessing it's a girl. 

 

No bake baking

I saw a recipe online about a month ago and have been waiting for my chance to make it. My baking motivation has been a little low over the past month, but last weekend my brother and his lovely girlfriend came over for dinner so I dusted off my mixing beaters and got back into the kitchen.  

This recipe comes from My Baking Addiction. The first thing that caught my attention was the use of Nutella. I've seen so many Nutella recipes lately, but this one was too hard to pass. Also, it was a cheesecake - no challenge.

So here it is. I recommend you try it. It was silky smooth and beautifully rich. I could only manage to eat half of mine, an absolute shocker for me, but it was amazing. 

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.

A birthday cake for Zenna

As I have mentioned a few times in this blog, I have a little boy, Reuben. He's two and a half and I love him to bits (although he can throw a mean tantrum that really tests my unconditional love at times). Reuben's best friend is a lovely little girl named Zenna. They are so adorable playing together and it's so much fun watching them interact (not so much fun watching them fight, but you take the good with the bad). While they are young, I love that Reuben has a girl for his best friend. I get to play little girl games and on occasions get to shop for gorgeous little girl things. I might change my tune in 15 years when they start wanting to play by themselves with the door shut, but that's a blog post for another day.

Last weekend was Zenna's third birthday party. When baking for family, I don't get to do anything too pretty and generally avoid pink. So when I was told Zenna was having a party, I muscled my way in and offered to do some baking. Luckily, we're friends with Zenna's parents and they were more than happy for the help. So, I baked :-). Zenna's Mum, Natika, has a fantastic eye for style and has a great business called Indi Lola Designs. ILDs did all the styling in the below pictures, and you can buy similar items for yourself.

ENJOY!