Happy Halloween!

Mini-pumpkin cakes with pumpkin spice cream cheese frosting.

Peanut Brittle

A few years ago, a friend gave me an old-fashioned confectionery cook book for my birthday - Hope & Greenwood Life is Sweet. I remember flicking through the pages and salivating at all the yummy treats. In all honesty, I was a little afraid of trying these recipes…fear of failure! Sugar has never really been my friend, at first it seems to take forever to change colour then the next thing you know it’s turned from a nice golden colour straight to burnt and useless. A friend’s birthday was coming up and I thought it was about time to take up the challenge. I went and bought myself a sugar thermometer as recommended by Miss Hope and decided to make some “proper peanut brittle” it seemed easy enough. So there I was with my sugar thermometer waiting ever so patiently for the sugar to get to 149 degrees Celsius. Miss Hope said it would take 30 minutes probably more and not to turn up the heat as it would burn. Anyway, an hour later with the help of Mr Mi and a blister from sugar exploding on my finger we finally got to 149 degrees Celsius! The peanut brittle turned out pretty well for a first attempt and I do hope that my friend liked his edible present. Mi xo

Green Tea and White Chocolate Cookies

You may recall from a previous post that my Mum doesn't really have a sweet tooth and loves green tea hence the green tea cupcakes for her birthday. I've had recent success with making earl grey tea cookies and since my mum was visiting on the weekend I thought to myself why not try making green tea cookies. I used the same recipe for the earl grey tea cookies, using matcha instead of earl grey and a handful of white chocolate chips (about 50 g). I rolled the cookies dough into a log, wrapped in baking paper, placed in the fridge for about an hour, sliced and baked. Easy. If you enjoy green tea and want to try something a bit different this is the cookie for you. Enjoy! Mi xo

Peanut Butter and Jam Cupcakes

These little cakes came into being thanks to a mildy humorous story. I was walking back to work, munching on a sandwich and enjoying the sun rays, when I heard the raucous laughter of university students. They walked past and through the relaxing sounds of Neil Young coming out of my headphones, I overheard one of them say very proudly "I havn't had a peanut butter and jam sandwich in such a long time and now I have two!". There he was, marching proudly with not one but two of almost everyone's childhood favourite.

I'm not quite sure why I found this amusing but it made me smile so I thought I'd use it as inspiration for a cupcake recipe. To be honest, I'm always trying to turn almost every idea into a cupcake recipe. This one turned out pretty well I think. The recipe is as follows:

Little Lemon Puddings

It's been a little while between posts, I've been moving house and trying to cope with a new oven. After an initial baking disaster I managed to bake something without burning it! Turns out my oven is way too hot and I had to turn the temperature down by 40 degrees. My sister came over on the weekend to see our new place, so I decided to make one of her favourite desserts Bill Granger's little lemon puddings. These puddings are really quick and easy to whip up and perfect when you are in the mood for something sweet but light, however, be warned they rise beautifully in the oven but sink quickly when out of the oven. The photo below was taken while the the puddings were in the oven and as you can see the ones closest to the front have already started to sink.

Carrot Cake

Today is Father's Day! To celebrate this, my dad requested a carrot cake so a carrot cake is what I made...

Raspberry Friands

I've had a little bit of a baking drought lately, just been busy with life and haven't had the time to make anything. Last night, it was my turn to bring along some food to share with everyone at choir rehearsal with so little time to prepare I decided to make something that was easy to whip up yet delicious and satisfying. Raspberry friands are kind of my thing, I always make them and it seems to please everyone. I started off using the recipe from my favourite little 500 cupcakes recipe book, the only thing is it uses 6 egg whites which isn't a problem when Mr Mi feels like making ice cream which uses the 6 egg yolks but we don't always have time to whip up both! So I tried to source out another recipe that uses whole egg. I'm quite fond of this recipe, the egg yolks gives the friands extra richness. I had to use patty cases to line the tin, as my friands always got stuck. Try this recipe out, it's super-easy and tastes really good. Mi xo