Garlic and artichoke conchiglie and a Menulog giveaway

ingredientsYou may or may not have put up with me whinging about my lack of oven recently. The oven seems to have miraculously fixed itself for the moment, but while it was out of action, I had to get creative with everything.

I love baking (stating the obvious slightly, I know) because my dinners tend to be baked, not just my desserts! Lasagnes, roasts…I even like to roast most of my vegies that I make into soups. So having no oven was a struggle. Continue reading “Garlic and artichoke conchiglie and a Menulog giveaway”

Simple butter cake, boyish birthdays and partying dinosaurs!

modelWho knew that dinosaurs liked to get festive? Or that they suited party hats so perfectly? After this weekend’s birthday party shoot, I want to top every cake henceforth with dinosaurs in festive hats.

My favourite was the Brontosaurus, who struck a mean pose.

I have wanted to do a themed birthday party for a long time now. When I was given some adorable cupcake wrappers by Illume Design, I knew what my theme would be – DINOSAURS!! The milo cupcake recipe accompanying this cake will be up later in the week. (Illume Design also supplied the gorgeous chevron party plates.)

wrapperI very rarely do manly posts. Without even thinking, I drift towards florals and polka dots and tea pots. Browsing through previous blog posts, one might suggest that I don’t actually own anything monochrome or beige.

I promise that I do! Continue reading “Simple butter cake, boyish birthdays and partying dinosaurs!”

Peanut butter cups and surprise outcomes


coloursI intended to make something using mint today. Our garden is overgrowing with gorgeous, fragrant mint, and I had every intention of making some choc-mint creation to take advantage of it.

But I didn’t.

I got distracted and I washed Norman (check him out, bathing and being regal post-bath!) and my mint remained untouched. Continue reading “Peanut butter cups and surprise outcomes”

Melting moments and surprises

I always thought that melting moments would be super tricky to make. It wasn’t until late last year that I came to realise just how easy they are. And I was pleasantly surprised! This recipe produces beautiful, soft little biscuits which (as the name suggests) melt away in your mouth.

Mid-way through making these alabaster beauties the front door-bell was rung quite fiercely. I broke away from rolling the dough IMG_4799and answered the door, doughy-handed. I’ll cut out the boring bits (like polite chatter with the mailman and the unwrapping) and tell you that in the big box that arrived with the mailman came my very own KitchenAid mixer. For whatever reason, the Boy took it upon himself to surprise me with it! I’m amazingly grateful… and super keen to use it!!

Norman partook in the celebrations by attempting to eat the little packaging puffs. Then he spat them out, then tried to eat them
again. He ended up in the box full of them and made himself quite comfy!

I won’t gush any further, but it will hopefully feature in upcoming blogs. It’s so beautiful I could die!

I’m hoping it will also improve the quality of my baking (especially meringues, which are the bane of my life!)

Biscuits:

plate

  • 250g butter, softened
  • 1 tsp vanilla essence
  • ½ cup icing sugar
  • 2 cups plain flour
  • 1/3 cup cornflour

Filling:

  • 60g butter, softened
  • 1 passionfruit
  • 1 – 1 ½ cups icing sugar

MixPreheat oven to 160°C and line a large tray with baking paper. If your baking paper is disobedient, dab a few spots of butter in the corners of the tray and use that to keep the baking paper down.

Cream butter, vanilla and icing sugar together until smooth and creamy – it should change in colour
slightly. Sift the flours into the butter mixture and mix until you get a soft dough. When you scoop a spoonful out of the mixture it should look like ice cream – solid, but soft at the same time.

Measure out heaped teaspoonfuls of mixture and roll them into small balls, lining them up on the baking paper as you go. Don’t worry if the balls aren’t perfect, they’ll smooth out even further when they’re in the oven. icecream

press 1When you have a tray full of soft doughy spheres, grab a fork and use it to lightly flatten them, pressing a pattern into them as you go. To avoid messing up the pattern or the smooth dough, pull the fork out towards you after you’ve pressed them down.
icingBake for 15 minutes and make the passionfruit filling while they’re in the oven. Beat the butter and icing sugar together, then mix in the passionfruit pulp. Take the biscuits out of the oven and transfer the biscuits to a wire rack to cool. Even if they don’t look done after 15 minutes, they are – you don’t want them to brown like you generally would a biscuit, these biccies are beautiful and pale. Once the biscuits are cool spread a teaspoon of passionfruit filling onto one biscuit and sandwich it with a second.

You can substitute the passionfruit for any other fruit of your choosing. Experiment – let me know what filling you use!

You should get about 28 individual biscuits, which will make 14 melting moments. You might want to double this recipe though, they don’t last long! passionfruit