a cake for violet

My favourite little lady was Christened on the weekend and it was the perfect excuse to have a lovely time baking a super special double chocolate cake with pink butter frosting - a pretty cake for a very pretty little girl!

Did you have a lovely weekend too? Hard to believe that it is Monday already, but we do have a busy week here this week - we have a new press arriving tomorrow (big squeal!!) lots of recent weddings to share with you and some gorgeous weddings suites due out this week which will be keeping us busy. We are also selling off some goods from the studio to make way for our new press - you can view our auctions here on ebay.

passionfruit & apple cake

We are in abundance of passionfruits around here. Our four vines have gone bananas over the past few months. After we have eaten our daily share, given away to any visitors and Ruby has stolen her daily two from the vine (no kidding, morning and afternoon without fail she steals one and chews them open for some passionfruit loving) we still have an abundance left over.

Lately I have been experimenting with different passionfruit flavoured cakes. After a failed pineapple and passionfruit upside down cake (a disaster) all shortcomings were forgotten with this delicious and super easy passionfruit and apple cake.

Ingredients:
125g butter
3/4 cup caster sugar
2 eggs
2 cups self raising flour
1/2 cup milk
pulp of 4 passionfruits
1 large granny smith apple peeled and sliced into thin slices

Icing:
1 tablespoon soft butter
1 1/2 cups icing sugar
Pulp of 2 passionfruits

Method:
Preheat oven to 180'C
Cream butter and sugar
Add eggs and mix
Add sifted flour and milk
Add passionfruit pulp and mix well
Pour half of mixture into prepared tin
Layer apple slices over cake mixture
Pour the rest of the cake mixture into Tin
Bake for 40 minutes - cake will look golden early so watch out not to undercook.
Once cooled drizzle with icing.

Delicious!

in the kitchen - banana & mars bar cake

My mum is an amazing baker - she makes and bakes and creates all sorts of yummy and amazing treats. So when she emails me through a recipe she has found - I know she is onto a good thing!

I've made this recipe twice now - and let me tell you its a real winner. The first bake was the cake as above and the second time was for birthday cupcakes with mars bar pieces hidden inside the cupcakes and a drizzle of chocolate on the top. Oh my. I promise, you wont be disappointed.

INGREDIENTS

150g butter

1/2 cup (100g) brown sugar

2 eggs

3 bananas, mashed

2 cups (300g) self-raising flour

3 x 60g Mars Bars, chopped - the more the better!

1/2 cup (125ml) milk

METHOD

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Line a 7 x 11 x 21cm loaf pan with non-stick baking paper. Beat butter and brown sugar until pale and creamy. Beat in eggs and mashed bananas.

2. Combine flour and Mars Bars. Fold into the butter mixture with milk. Spoon into pan. Bake for 50-55 minutes. Set aside to cool, then cut and enjoy!!

3. Once cold, Microwave for 15 seconds before eating for gooey yummy chocolatey goodness.

lemon & passionfruit cupcakes

Not being one to love easter eggs that much, this Easter I have chosen to bake sweet treaties for gifts instead. The cupcake of choice this year is lemon & passionfruit cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and home grown passionfruit. Delicious - Enjoy!

Cupcakes

Ingredients

90g softened butter

90g softened cream cheese

grated lemon rind + juice of 2 lemons

2/3 cup castor sugar

2 eggs

2/3 cup self-raising flour

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 160'C

2. Line a 12 cupcake pan, with cupcake papers.

3. Beat the butter, cheese, lemon rind, sugar and eggs until smooth and creamy.

4. Add sifted flour gradually to the cheese mixture and beat on a low speed, until just combined.

5. Divide the mixture evenly between the cake cases.

6. Bake for 25 minutes until firm to touch.

Frosting

Ingredients

125g softened cream cheese

1/8 cup butter

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 & 1/2 cups icing sugar mixture

¼ cup passionfruit pulp

Method:

1. Combine cream cheese, butter and vanilla in a small bowl.

2. Using an electric mixture beat until smooth. Add the icing sugar mixture and beat until smooth.

3. Reduce speed and add passionfruit.

4. Spread over cooled cupcakes.

For best results with frosting, place your mixing bowl and beaters in fridge for an hour before use. This will keep your frosting thick and stop it from melting. Also avoid using hot melted butter, and keep your cream cheese and passionfruit in fridge prior to use.

in the kitchen today

After my little adventure to Dayboro over the weekend, I have been inspired to get back into the kitchen after the abundance of granny baking which I encountered. Today I felt the urge and made some passionfruit cupcakes for my dear students.

Monday and Tuesday evenings see me heading into the city where I lecture about graphic design at Shillington College. I really admire my students, not only do most of them work full time jobs, have families and run their own businesses, but each Monday and Tuesday for the entire year they arrive ready and eager to learn. So tonight, sweet students, the sweetie treaties are on me.

finding time in the kitchen

Have I ever told you that I love bananas? Oh they are so good, but I must admit I am a terribly fussy banana eater. They must still have that tiny sliver of green left on them and still that tiny bit firm, which means there is about a 24 hour period when I bring them home from that shops that I consider them to be edible.

Now obviously this causes all sorts of dramas because although I do love them, really I don't love them enough to eat a whole bunch in 24 hours. So we end up with a whole heap of perfectly good bananas which I will refuse to eat as they have gone past that perfection point. Call me anal, I totally agree.

So we stash the bananas in the freezer and when my husband finds time he makes his oh so good banana bread which has the most deliciously crunchy brown sugar and almond topping. Mnn its delicious and just this once I can totally overlook that the bananas are all mashy!

55g (1/4 cup) firmly packed brown sugar
30g (1/4 cup) almonds, chopped
375ml sour cream
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
125g unsalted butter, melted
1 cup caster sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 3/4 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 ripe bananas, mashed

Preheat oven to 180C. Grease and line two 10 x 18cm loaf tins with baking paper. In a bowl, mix together the brown sugar and almonds and put aside.

In a large bowl, mix together the sour cream and bicarbonate of soda, set aside for 5 minutes then stir in the melted butter, sugar and eggs. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and cinnamon. Gradually fold in the sour cream mixture, followed by the bananas.

Pour the mixture equally into the prepared tins and sprinkle the brown sugar mixture on top.

Bake for 1-11/2 hours or until a skewer comes out clean. Set aside and cool in tins for about 20 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

We toast our bread on the sandwich press and then smother in butter beacuse its not unheathly enough already!!

Happy Weekend!

Wishing you all a most lovely weekend! Im going to attempt to make this lemon meringue pie to finish of a seafood bbq with friends this weekend. I might also head out and check out Designers Emporium Boutique Market this sunday here in Brisbane, and hopefully I might just have time to start restoring a vintage Singer sewing machine cabinet I have been meaning to do for ages.

May you have a most lovely weekend too.

xox

Image from Donna Hay.

time to bake

Have I ever mentioned how much I love chocolate cake? I simply adore it.

This past weekend saw our kitchen renovation finally completed - which means now its time to whip out the apron and start baking again!

Im loving the colours in this chocolate cupcake shot by Mae Gabriel , oh its making me hungry already!

Kitchen Progress

I do wonder if it is normal to spend so much money at Bunnings. We have just ordered our FlatPax kitchen cabinets and 2pac Heritage Gloss Cabinet doors. Just over $6000 later I wonder if most normal people walk out of bunnings with a receipt a mile long...


On the plus side our Miele appliances have arrived and we saved $1500 by buying the floor display stock - Quite a saving seeing as Miele doesn't do sales on their stock. It is all currently living in our living room - the oven box is being used as a clothes sorting table right next to the chandelier box which is the tv cabinet - so our living room is a mighty beautiful place at the moment!!!

Mirror Splashbacks

We are contemplating mirror splashbacks for our kitchen. Our kitchen isn't all that big and gets the least amount of light in our house. We are thinking mirrors to brighten it up and make it look bigger. Any thoughts?

We have never actually seen it done before except for a few pictures in magazines. I would love to hear peoples experience with using mirrors within the kitchen?

White Kitchens

We are just in the process of finally choosing our new kitchen! Very exciting as I am very over our three cupboards and no pantry!!

We don't have much of budget (8k including benchtops and appliances!) so are working our way through the flat pack options available.

I would love a kitchen like any of the above - especially those with full height glass cupboards! Now I just need to figure out how to push our 8 grand that far!!!

Chocolate, pistachio & orange cookies

I have always liked to bake.

As a kid my favourite thing to cook was chocolate chip cookies and I must admit, I really don't think I ever grew out of it! Today I decided to tweak the tried and tested recipe and added in some extra ingredients for a more grown up version - one orange and a bag of chopped pistachios later, i think I might be converted!

Chocolate, Orange & Pistachio Cookies
125g Butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
1 3/4 Self Raising flour
3/4 cup chopped chocolate
rind of one orange
1/2 cup chopped pistachios

Cream together butter, sugars, orange rind & vanilla
Add beaten egg gradually
Mix in sifted flour
Add chocolate & pistachios, mix well
Bake at 180' for 10 - 12 minutes.

Delicious!