Cook – Baking with Gab

Mini mushroom tarts and lady beetles

A lady beetle was the highlight of my morning.

I opened a bag of baby spinach to put in a breakfast smoothie and she was there. I stared at her for a second, because it’s not what you expect of baby spinach. When you buy unwashed greens you sometimes encounter slugs or a teensy snail, or something equally squeamish…but mainly they’ve just got a little soil clinging to a few leaves.

She was so still and curled up that I assumed she was dead. I contemplated how long this gorgeous little beetle had been alive before she landed on the wrong leaf and was packaged up, shipped and refrigerated. Continue reading “Mini mushroom tarts and lady beetles”

Chocolate berry tarts and sluggish weather

The weather in Sydney got a bit rubbish overnight. The Boy and I went to a Mexican themed birthday bash (check us out, we dressed up and everything!) and it started to rain as the night wore on, unfortunately. The company and food was good, despite the weather’s best efforts to dampen things.

Torrential rain is perfect indoor weather, which means I crave sweets. Comfort food.

If you’re anything like me, however, the wet weather also means that you’re lazy. I’m currently writing in my pyjamas and enjoying the sound of the rain. I had intended to go to the gym this morning, but as soon as I heard the rain I excused myself because rain. Continue reading “Chocolate berry tarts and sluggish weather”

Wormy jelly and healthy Halloween

What I love about Halloween is the opportunity that it presents for you to pair food in ways that you wouldn’t usually. Chocolate cupcakes and jelly eyeballs, cheesy pastry twists with capsicum fingernails, biscuits and dinosaurs… orange jelly and worms.

This isn’t the first time I’ve used these little squishy worms in preparation for Halloween – the ones I used in this recipe were left over from when I made worms in mud cupcakes. I figured rather than waste them, I should utilise them in some ghoulish way.

So Wormy Jelly was born! Continue reading “Wormy jelly and healthy Halloween”

Quick set Peanut Butter fudge

It wasn’t until last year that I came to realise how fantastic Peanut Butter was. I spent years hating the consistency of it, the way it stuck in my mouth even after I’d finished eating it. All those years, wasted!

I don’t know what made me change my mind, I can’t pinpoint it, I just know that I have seen the error of my ways, and plan to eat my weight in these Peanut Butter fudge squares to make up for years of lost Peanut Butter eating. Continue reading “Quick set Peanut Butter fudge”

Blood orange coconut velvet cake and dramatic fruit

I know, I know, the title hardly rolls off the tongue. But this cake has so much flavour going for it that I couldn’t come up with a simpler title – it is a blood orange coconut velvet cake! I’d been reading up about natural food colourings and I decided that I should put my glorious blood oranges to use. It was also a chance to use my coconut oil – I’ve officially jumped on the coconut products bandwagon!

I figured that I was changing a classic Red Velvet mixture by removing red food colouring, so I tweaked the recipe a little further by adding coconut! Continue reading “Blood orange coconut velvet cake and dramatic fruit”

Arancini bites and procrastibaking

The job applying is about to start. I’ve updated my Linkedin, my CV and I’ve had my hair done. I am interview ready…I just need to apply for jobs now! It is with great trepidation that I throw myself (yet again) into the world of job seeking. I would happily stay unemployed in order to bake all day and blog all night, but one needs to have some form of income! I want a job, I am excited about the prospect of a new job…I just don’t like this initial part where I have to put myself out there to be rejected or worse, ignored.

Enter: procrastibaking!

Continue reading “Arancini bites and procrastibaking”

Queen of Hearts Tart (White chocolate cheesecake)

I’ve got a friend’s birthday coming up soon and I’m trying to put together a few recipes to make her party special. It will be a high tea style thing because she’s not a big fan of birthdays. I can’t understand why she doesn’t love birthdays, but I’m loving the challenge of finding recipes that will impress her without seeming too celebratory.

I’m keeping plans a little bit secret, so I won’t blab too much. Keep an eye out for her birthday post later this week, I have a feeling that it’s going to be great!

Before you start the recipe, ensure you’ve got a syringe. Like the ones you give kids medicine with. It sounds odd, but it’s a really simple decorating tool.

I appropriated this recipe from one I found at Cooking Classy.

White chocolate cheesecake tart:

2 sheets shortcrust pastry
300g cream cheese
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1 egg white
1 tsp vanilla
1 ½ tsp lemon juice

Raspberry puree

1 1/2 cups frozen raspberries
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp cornflour
¼ cup cold water

Grease six tart tins. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Put your frozen raspberries in a small saucepan over a medium heat and sprinkle the sugar in. When the raspberries start to defrost, add the cornflour and water. Stir it often so that it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan and burn. When the raspberries have broken down fully, allow the mixture to come to a boil and thicken for about two minutes. Remove your puree from the heat and put it through a strainer to get rid of all the seeds.

It’s going to look a little bit like something from a bad horror film – all red and gloopy, but it’s delicious. Set your puree aside, you’ll need it in about ten minutes.

Cut your pastry into squares and fit them into your tart tins. You’ll need to do this in two batches, the recipe makes about 12. Pop them into the oven for 10 minutes so that the pastry cooks slightly – you may want to weight them down with baking weights to stop it from bubbling up.

While the tarts cook, beat the cream cheese and sugar together until fluffy in a large mixing bowl (this will take about one minute.) Mix in your egg and egg white, then the vanilla and lemon juice. Melt your white chocolate and stir the cream into the chocolate. When the chocolate and cream are completely combined, add them to the cream cheese mixture and mix thoroughly. It should be a similar consistency to whipped cream – don’t worry, it will cook into a more cheesecakey consistency.

Remove the tart cases from the oven and allow them to cool. Take them out of their cases and put your second batch of cases in to cook. When your second lot of tart dough has come out of the oven and cooled, prepare to put your cheesecake mixture in.

Spoon the mixture so that the tart cases are about ¾ full (the mixture will rise slightly as it cooks.) Get out your syringe and prepare to get crafty! Grab your bowl of raspberry puree and suck up as much as you can into the syringe. I’d advise you to keep the nozzle moving so you don’t suck up much air, because air bubbles are annoying. Ensure that the tops of your tarts are as smooth as possible and inject small circles of raspberry into them. Don’t crowd the circles because you’ll elongate them later to make the hearts. Once you’ve put circles in all of them, get a toothpick and run it through the centre of each circle in a continuous line. You may want to wipe the toothpick after each tart to make cleaner lines.

Don’t worry if they’re not completely neat, as long as you run your toothpick through the centre of each circle, they’ll look heart-like. Little tricks like using the syringe or a piping bag may seem fiddly, but get easier with practice, and give your baked goods a professional finish.

Bake tarts back in the oven for 15-20 mins. Take them out of the oven and allow them to cool completely before serving. They’ll set more as they cool, so don’t rush them by eating them warm!

Smarties cupcakes and nostalgia

This evening’s post was prompted by a request. And I’m so happy that I made them! I’m a solo worker; I choose my own recipes and prefer to make them in a kitchen with as few people around as possible. I love company, just not when I’m bustling about in my own world in the kitchen. My baking is for sharing, always, but the process is a personal one.

So when it was suggested that I make Smarties cupcakes I wondered whether I should acquiesce or not. I hadn’t had a Smarties cupcake since my childhood.

And therein lies their brilliance.

The colouring of Smarties may be less intense than it used to be, but their flavour is still the same. Complemented by a soft vanilla buttercream and chocolatey cupcake, these concoctions just work.

They taste of childhood and nostalgia. I half wished I’d made up lolly bags to go along with these cupcakes, it felt wrong to serve such festive cupcakes without a lolly bag for people to take home!

Some teddy bears joined me for the photo shoot because it had been a while since they’d been played with. They enjoyed the trip back to childhood and what appeared to be a child’s birthday party.

Cook them for their colour, their easy charm and the memories they’ll bring back for you.

Just make sure you buy extra Smarties.

Chocolate cupcakes

1 ½ cups self raising flour
½ cup cocoa
100g butter
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
½ cup milk
½ tsp vanilla

Vanilla butter cream

1 ½ cups icing sugar
100g butter
3 tpsb milk

Preheat your oven to 190°C. Grease your muffin tins, or use cardboard cupcake cases like me if you’re feeling lazy.

Cream your butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Add your eggs and vanilla, mixing them well.

Fold in the cocoa and half of the flour flour, adding your milk when it gets too hard to mix. Fold in the next half of the flour and make sure everything is combined.

Scrape the sides of the bowl down regularly so that the cocoa reaches every part of the mixture, nobody likes streaky cupcakes!

Fill your cupcake cases or muffin tins about 3/4 full and try some of the mixture, it’s delish!

Pop them on a baking tray (or not, if you’re using a muffin tin) and bake for 16 minutes or until you can insert a skewer into the cupcake and it comes out cleanly.

While the cupcakes cool, beat the butter until it’s pale and soft. Add the icing sugar and milk and mix until it is smooth. Wait until the cupcakes are completely cook to ice them, you don’t want the icing sliding off.

Toss a handful of Smarties over the cupcakes and feed the waiting children (or sentimental adults.) The Smarties packet had a chef on it – I appreciated the appropriateness of the character on the box!

These little gems are perfect for a child’s party – no child is going to turn down a smarties covered cupcake! Add some bunting for decoration if you’re feeling especially fun – mine was made by stringing coloured triangles in between a skewer cut into halves. A little bunting makes a big difference to presentation!

* I doubled this recipe to make a cake – results are here.

Yoghurt Berry cake and cooking credentials

You may be reading this blog wondering what credentials I have to be advising people about their cooking (valid question) – the answer is: none. I have no formal culinary qualifications, I just love it. I’m a strong believer in doing what you love – I love writing, pretty things and cooking, so writing a cooking blog seemed like a sensible choice.

When I say cooking, I mainly mean baking. I have a near insatiable sweet-tooth, so I gravitate towards cooking things which are sweet (and often visually pleasing!) I will try to blog about savoury dishes as well, but I can’t promise they’ll be exciting – nobody gets excited over spag bol!

Cooking (baking especially) should make you happy. If it doesn’t, you’re doing it wrong. There are always going to be times when you can’t fathom getting home from work/uni/whatever else you do to slave over an oven, but it doesn’t have to be this way.

Find recipes that excite you. Experiment. Make something up! You don’t have to be a professional to make something amazing.

Not everyone gets as excited about cooking as I do, but I like to think that they have it within them somewhere.

A friend of mine loves coming to my house because there are always left overs. She goes crazy over a simple chocolate slice or mashed potato, but refuses to believe that she can replicate them in her house. She can. I’m going to make her understand this even if it pains me! You can cook as well.

This recipe is super simple and works warm or cold. It’s great for entertaining – it’s quick to make and it makes people happy! It works with most fruits as well. If you don’t have fresh berries, use frozen ones. Nectarines cut into wedges look really effective if you use a lamington tin instead of round cake tin.

Super simple Berry Yoghurt Cake

125g butter
¾ cup caster sugar
2 eggs
1 cup plain flour
1 cup self-raising flour
3/4 cup vanilla yoghurt
1 cup blueberries
Icing sugar, to serve

Preheat oven to 180°C fan-forced. Grease a 23cm round cake tin.

Beat butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

Add eggs, beating to combine. Mix in your plain flour, then the yoghurt. If you only have greek yoghurt in the fridge (like I did), add a teaspoon of vanilla to the mixture as well. Add the self-raising flour and mix until combined. This is quite a thick mixture, don’t worry if it’s a little hard to mix. Spread mixture into your greased cake tin.

The cake tin I’m using has been well-loved. It has held many of my mother dearest’s crème caramels and cakes. As a result, it’s a little worn (that’s being polite) and has a tendency to cling onto cakes when you want to remove them. To combat this I simply trace the base of the tin onto baking paper, cut the round out and place it over the greased base. Problem solved.

Press a few berries gently into the mixture, but sprinkle most of them across the top of it and then pat them down gently with your hand. If your oven is prone to over-browning things, cover the cake with tin foil two thirds of the way through cooking.

Bake for 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Remove from oven and let it stand for ten minutes before serving. Sprinkle with icing sugar and add a dollop of cream or yoghurt to finish.

Don’t worry if you take this cake out a little too soon, my favourite part of any cake is the squidgy bit right in the centre where the heat hasn’t completely cooked the mixture. I’m a sucker for cake mixture, and the centre of this cake is glorious!

Your finished product should look even better than mine because I foolishly used 2 cups of plain flour instead of one plain and one self raising. It should look more like this (I instagrammed this cake when I made it about a month ago.) We all make mistakes!

ABC Pudding and breakfast

Pudding for breakfast? Don’t mind if I do! This delightful little pudding has the makings of a great dessert (rich egg custard and brioche), but also the potential to be great breakfast fare (brioche and apple). I’m having it as a rather indulgent brekkie this morning and I can highly recommend it. I baked it last night and left the flavours to infuse further in the fridge overnight. It is just as delicious and impressive when it was fresh out of the oven.

Adaptable AND scrumptious – what more could you ask of a recipe?

It also uses up the brioche made with this recipe, so what are you waiting for? Get baking!

ABC* pudding

*Apple, Brioche and Custard, if you were wondering

6 apples
130g butter
2 tsp vanilla
½ cup sugar
1 ½ cup cream
¾ cup milk
350g brioche
50g butter

Peel and core you apples, then dice them into 2cm cubes. Put 80g of the butter in a big saucepan over medium heat and add the diced apples. Stir until the butter has dissolved, then cover for ten minutes. Check on them every few minutes and give them a stir.

Combine the vanilla, sugar, cream and milk and set to one side. Take your apples off the heat and allow them to cool. Slice up your brioche and butter the pieces liberally. Cover the outside of a 23cm tin with foil to prevent leakage – if you skip this step the egg mixture will seep out and burn the bottom of your oven! Line the foiled tin with baking paper.

Cover the base of the tin with brioche pieces. You may need to cut them so that they fit better, don’t worry if it looks messy. Pour the apple pieces over the bread, spreading it as evenly as possible and top with more brioche pieces. You essentially have a really large apple sandwich. Spoon the egg mixture over the big sandwich, taking care not to pour it in between the baking paper and the tin. Set the tin to one for 30-45 minutes so the liquid can soak in. The longer you leave it, the softer the bread will be.

Once your mixture has soaked sufficiently, preheat the oven to 170°C and pop it in the oven for an hour. The pudding is finished when you press down on the brioche and liquid no longer rises to the top.

Serve with a sprinkling of icing sugar or a dollop of cream.