Monte Carlo is more than a place

Another post of something that links to my childhood food memories. It's a similar story to my Kingston Biscuits post, the Arnott's Monte Carlos were always popular among my family. I was also excited to see them in my lunch box at school, especially if they got a little soft, as the jam in the centre would be a tacky and I could chew it for longer. I also loved opening the two biscuits up and trying to get equal cream on both sides to eat individually.

But why make Monte Carlo biscuits now, you ask. Well, all week my morning coffee shop have had the nicest looking biscuits on display. They were thick and crumbly with either a buttercream or cream cheese centre. The girl who works there said they were going to have Monte Carlos tomorrow and that set my brain on the path of how I would make Monte Carlos. So, last night with no "treats" for my sons lunchbox in the cupboard, I decided to make some Monte Carlos. Enjoy.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Tonight I am going to watch Christmas movies! I have waited long enough, but tonight is definitely the night for me to bust out my favourite Christmas DVD and snuggle up on the couch with some wine. I'll get the toddler off to sleep and then it's all about me ;-). I can say that now, it's only just past 9am. Give me the full day at work as well as an evening of an over tired toddler and my story might change, but right now I'll revel in the thoughts of cheesy Christmas and some alcoholic grapes in liquid form.

To further accentuate the Christmas cheer, I have made some Christmas cookies for the office. A crisp sugar cookie with a subtle mint flavour. ENJOY!

Happy RSPCA cupcake day

Today is RSPCA Cupcake Day. I never had a dog growing up, and even now I don't have any pets (a toddler is enough work), but I was still excited about baking today. Yes, it's raising money for a charity, so yay to yes, but I'm more excited about being able to show off my cupcakes to the team at work and seeing what everyone else has made. 

I saw a post on raspberri cupcakes blog a while ago and really wanted to give it a go. I thought a work bake-off was the perfect occasion! I was a little concerned though that one batch of cupcakes wouldn't be enough, so I got up at 5am this morning and made a batch of double chocolate cupcakes with a sour cream ganach. The smell of chocolate that early in the morning was a bit overwhelming, also proabably aided in the tantrum my toddler through as I tried to get us out of the door in time. Oh well, it was all worth it as we rasied over $250. Happy cupcake day everyone!

Here's to the Mummy to be!

My dear friend Lisa is about to have a baby. A few months ago in a flurry of excitement, another friend from work and I decided we NEEDED to throw her a baby shower (as she was avoiding having one at all). How could she miss having a heap of people around telling her awful birth stories, or playing games that would make a non-pregnant person churn, or stressing over whether people will turn up... doesn't sound all that awesome now I think about it, although it was!

We were a little slack in organising, however pulled it all at the last minute. We had many grand plans with the styling and decorating, but in the end decided simple was best. I also had a disaster day in the kitchen. The food I have baked perfectly a thousand times before stuffed up and the food I usually have trouble with was amazing. I even made two batches of sugar cookies, both for some reason came out of the oven crystalised (any tips onto why would be great). I ended up making two batches of cupcakes (not all successful), caramel tarts, custard tarts, sandwiches, avocado and tomato bites, and roast pumpkin and onion jam tarts.

Lisa was a beautiful Mummy-to-be and we had a wonderful morning. I can't wait to meet the little man! Counting down the weeks.

Peanut Crunch biscuits

June seems to be the month for birthday's at work. We even have two on the same day (I happen to be one of those two people). So that means lots of cake! We set up a cake roster so no one would have to bake on their own birthday, however now that I share a birthday with my boss, that little plan doesn't quite work. Oh well, good thing I like to bake.

For my bosses birthday I made some vanilla cupcakes with a choc-raspberry buttercream icing. I have made cupcakes a few times on this blog, so I won't post the recipe. However, I will post the recipe for the delicious little biscuits I also baked to accompany the cupcakes. The thing you need to know about the people in my office is that they like sweets and they don't like waiting until the afternoon for the birthday celebrations. For my bosses birthday, I made some Peanut Crunch Biscuits to help get the team through the day. They were buttery, peanuty and crumbly, which pretty much means perfect :-). Try them and you'll see.

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!

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. 

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! 

Nut-thing's the matter with cookies

I have seen a few Nutella recipes on blogs of late, so I thought I'd attempt a few of my own. I need to wait for my banana's to ripen before my next recipe, however, here are some delicious Nutella Cookies I made to use as lunchbox treats for the week.

 

Baked gifts come from the heart

There are some foods you can't go without at Christmas. You have to overdose on ham (breakfast, lunch and dinner), you must eat Christmas pudding smothered in thick custard (YUMMMM) and you have to indulge in practically everything presented to you. As you might be able to tell, Christmas is all about the food for me. However, I also love finding great gifts for people and watching them open them. So, why not combine these two joys? To continue with my baked gifts, this post features what I made for my son's teachers.

An angel for the top of the Christmas tree

I love Christmas. I love singing Christmas carols (to myself as I am incredible tone deaf!), I love Christmas food, I love buying presents for people and I love the festive feeling that is in the air. 

Growing up, Christmas was always a big affair full of tradition. We always put the Christmas tree up on the 1st December with carols playing in the background and my sister breaking at least one ornament (age did not stop this tradition). My Mum sat back and watched until it was time to put the angel on the top of the tree - that was her job. I have so many wonderful memories of those years that I want to incorporate some of them into my own family so my son can enjoy them he grows up. My family always used a fake tree, however my husband's family used a live tree. More often than not it would be a massive branch that they found somewhere in a park (or one year, just on the side of the road). My husband has always said he wanted us to have a real tree, so this year, we do. It's not huge, but something that can grow and take on a shape of it's own.

The Christmas baking starts with something simple

I've been doing a bit of research into delicious baked items that I can give as Christmas gifts. Last year was the first year I did this and had a great response. Those people I always find it hard to buy for, I found easy to bake for. So this year I'm extending the baking gifts list. As Christmas in Brisbane is always sweltering (and generally rains for those interested), I don't want to bake anything to heavy. For my 92 year old Grandma I'm planning on baking an assortment of cookies. So today I started testing some recipes. I need to work on my royal icing, but the cookie and icing taste nice. If you feel like some easy recipes to try, have a go at this one. ENJOY!

Some impromptu baking

This morning I was running around the house, trying to get my son ready for day care and myself ready for work. I was half way through making his lunch when I realised I had no afternoon tea for him. I grabbed an armful of ingredients from the cupboard and whipped up some chocolate cookies. I didn't have enough chocolate for the cookies, so I used some left over freddos from our trick-or-treating stock, so these biscuits are a mix of dark and milk chocolate. I am yet to actual taste them, as was in such a hurry that I forgot to pack myself a biscuit, but I am looking forward to crunching on one (some) tonight. Fresh from the oven, they looked the perfect combination of chewy and crunchy.

ENJOY

A moment to melt

Take a moment and treat yourself to these delicious buttery biscuits. I don't bake biscuits often, but these delightful treats are just that, delightful. I made the below batch for my  husband's family recently when they all popped over for a Sunday afternoon cuppa - the biscuits didn't last long.

What I love about these biscuits is that they just melt in your mouth - I guess whoever named them melting moments was pretty spot on. I've made these before using custard powder (I think they're also referred to as Yo-Yo Biscuits), but as I LOVE custard, I got a tad disappointed that I couldn't taste custard in the biscuits. The below recipe works just as well and avoids any unneeded custard disappointment.