These delicious blondies taste like a cross between choc chip cookies and cake. Be careful not to over cook them as they’re definitely best when fudgy.
Ingredients (Makes about 25 blondies) 180g unsalted butter, melted
1 ½ cups lightly packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 ½ cups plain flour
Sea salt flakes
½ cup white chocolate melts
½ cup white chocolate chips
½ cup milk chocolate chips (optional)
Method Preheat the oven to 190°C (or 170 fan-forced). Line a 20cm square baking tin with baking paper.
Mix the melted butter and brown sugar together in a large bowl. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, and then the vanilla extract.
Gently stir in the flour and a pinch of sea salt. Carefully fold in the chocolate, making sure it is evenly dispersed.
Spoon the mixture into the prepared baking tin and smooth the top with a spatula. Sprinkle a couple of pinches of salt over the top and then bake for 20-30 minutes, or until the outside is cooked and the middle has a slight wobble.
Remove from the oven, sprinkle once more with a pinch or two of salt, and allow to cool for 30 minutes in the tin. Gently remove the blondie from the tin by the baking paper and leave to cool for a further 5-10 minutes on a cooling rack.
Once cool, cut into squares. Enjoy!
Adapted from Callum Hann’s ‘Salted Dirty Blondies’ in I’d Eat That, 2014.
This was the main component of the dessert I made for Mother’s Day (in addition to the raspberry sorbet) and it was a winner with everyone. It’s not difficult to make (but looks it) and is the perfect conclusion to any meal.
Ingredients (serves 10) 4 egg yolks
2 eggs
¼ cup caster sugar
⅓ cup thickened cream
300g dark chocolate, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Happy Mother’s Day to all the Mums out there! Tonight, I have the honour of preparing the Mother’s Day dessert for a dinner party with my extended family. After much thought, I have decided to make a rich chocolate tart to serve with raspberry sorbet.
This raspberry sorbet recipe is one of the first I ever used when cooking by myself. In the school holidays, my sister and I would each cook one thing out of the Australian Women’s Weekly cookbooks we purchased in 2007. Mine would be from “Good Food: Desserts” (surprise, surprise) and Laura’s from “Potatoes”. As you can tell, it certainly wasn’t the most nutritious meal! But it was a lot of fun and helped Laura and I get into cooking.
I still love this sorbet – it’s perfectly tangy but sweet with a strong raspberry flavour. It’s also great as it doesn’t require an ice-cream machine. Hopefully it’s as useful for you as it has been for me
Ingredients (serves 8-10 on the side or 6-8 as the whole dessert) 1 ½ cups water
1 cup caster sugar
900g frozen raspberries
1 ½ tablespoons lemon juice
3 egg whites
Method Stir the water & sugar in a small saucepan over a medium heat, without boiling, until the sugar dissolves. Bring to the boil. Reduce the heat & simmer, uncovered, without stirring for 5 minutes.
Blend the raspberries, lemon juice & sugar syrup in a blender until smooth.
Push mixture through a fine sieve into a 20cm x 30cm lamington pan (or 2 smaller pans) lined with clingfilm. Discard seeds. Cover with foil; freeze until firm.
Coarsely chop the frozen berry mixture and add it to the blender with the egg whites. Blend until smoother and paler in colour. Return mixture to the pan, cover & freeze until firm.
Serve & enjoy!
Recipe adapted from the Australian Women’s Weekly ‘Good Food: Desserts’
Happy Pi Day everyone! And what an exciting one it is (3.14.15).
This pie is perfectly seasonal – being both a pie (for Pi day) and a fabulous shade of green which is appropriate for St. Patrick’s Day next week 🙂
It’s also very easy to make and a delicious way to take advantage of the abundance of limes we are lucky to have at this time of the year.
Method Preheat oven to 170°C. In a shallow 20-23cm pie dish, press combined biscuit crumbs, sugar & butter into the base and up this sides, making a small rim.
In a medium bowl, whisk condensed milk with lime juice, zest and egg yolks until the mixture thickens. Add 1-2 drops of green food colouring.
In a small bowl with electric mixer on full power, beat egg whites to stiff peaks. Gently fold into lime mixture.
Pour lime filling into the biscuit crust and smooth the top.
Bake the pie for 15-20 mins or until lime filling is just firm.
Cool pie in this dish and then refrigerate until chilled, approximately 3 hours.
Whip cream in a small bowl until stiff peaks form. Pipe a border of cream around the edge of the pie and top with h lime wedges if desired. Enjoy!
Adapted from Mary Berry’s ‘Key lime Pie’ in Step By Step Desserts and Confections.
St. Patrick’s Day is almost upon us and so I am all about the green in my baking at the moment! This fudge is super quick and easy – taking only a few minutes cooking time from start to finish. I love this fudge as it isn’t too sweet (the major issue I have with most fudge), and I’m a sucker for the mint/choc combination.
Feel free to omit the chocolate drizzle on top if you wish, and if you prefer a marbled finish you can make the 2 fudge layers at the same time, and swirl them together in the tray instead of layering them.
Ingredients 1 ½ cups dark chocolate melts
400ml can sweetened condensed milk
1 ½ cups white chocolate melts
Green food colouring
Peppermint essence
Approx. ½ cup dark chocolate melts (melted) to drizzle on top
Method Line a rectangular baking tray with baking paper (a small tray will give you fewer pieces of thick fudge, larger will give you more pieces of thinner fudge – it’s up to you!).
In a small saucepan over a low heat, melt the dark chocolate melts with half of the condensed milk, stirring occasionally.
Spread evenly into the pan and chill in the fridge.
While the chocolate layer is chilling, melt the white chocolate and remaining condensed milk on the stovetop on a low heat.
Add peppermint extract to taste (I used 1 teaspoon) and a drop or two of green food colouring.
Spread evenly over chilled chocolate layer.
Put in the fridge to set.
After approximately 10 minutes in the fridge, melt the remaining dark chocolate melts and drizzle over the fudge.
Leave in the fridge until set and then cut into small squares. Enjoy!
Note: can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a fortnight.
Adapted from ‘Choc Mint Fudge’ on Grab Your Spork.com.
I haven’t made a giant cupcake for about 18 months but I’m so glad I found my giant cupcake cases again because they’re so much fun to make (and eat!) They’re also really easily adaptable as you can make them any flavour you like and decorate them in a million different ways. This time I’ve used buttercream roses but you could ice it as simply (or complexly) as you like – there’s a link to my fondant ‘soft serve’ icing instructions at the bottom of the page.
Cupcake Case 375g white chocolate melts or Wilton candy melts
Buttercream icing 250g butter, softened
800g icing sugar
1 ½ tablespoons vanilla extract
4 tablespoons of milk
Food colouring
Method Spray silicone giant cupcake pan liberally with canola oil and preheat oven to 160°C fan-forced.
Cream together butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add in vanilla and then eggs, one at a time, ensuring that each egg is fully incorporated before adding the next. Add in half of the flour followed by two tablespoons of the milk, and then add remaining flour and milk. Mix until just combined.
Fill the giant cupcake pans, starting with the cupcake top. Fill until approximately 2cm shy of the top of the pan. Then fill the bottom pan with the remaining batter.
Bake in the oven for between 40-70 minutes, checking regularly. Note: the cupcake top will bake faster than the bottom so take it out before the bottom is done. The cake is ready when a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.
Leave cakes in their pans for at least 20 minutes before gently peeling the silicone off and allowing the cakes to cool completely on a cooling rack.
Image credit: The Pink Whisk
While the cakes are cooling, wash and dry the bottom cupcake pan ready to make the cupcake case. Melt half the chocolate/candy melts and pour into the bottom cupcake pan. Spread evenly up the sides using a pastry brush. Refrigerate for 20 minutes and then repeat with the remaining melts. Refrigerate for 30 minutes and then gently peel off the silicone mould.
Image credit: She Who BakesImage credit: She Who BakesImage credit: She Who Bakes
Using a serrated bread knife, trim around bottom cake so all crunchy edges are removed. Level top (of base) and then cut base in half. Cut off bottom layer off top piece. Level base (of top).
Make buttercream by beating all ingredients but the food colouring until light and fluffy. Set half aside for the crumb coat, and then add the food colouring to the remaining buttercream.
Put a 1cm thick coating of the uncoloured buttercream between 2 bottom layers of cake and then between the base and top (ensure level – cut if necessary). Then put a thin layer of buttercream on the inside of the chocolate case and gently ease cake into it. Cover top of cake liberally with buttercream to form a protective barrier against crumbs.
Put the coloured buttercream into a piping bag fitted with a Wilton 2D nozzle (to make roses) or equivalent, and pipe icing in a rose swirl pattern, starting from the bottom of the cake and working your way up.
Decorate with icing flowers, sprinkles, silver cachous, glitter… basically whatever you like!
This ice cream is easy, light and utterly delicious. It is quite sweet, more like a Vietnamese iced coffee than a traditional coffee, but works beautifully with the tartness of raspberries. I’ve chosen to serve mine in individual glasses here, but it works well as one large ice cream cut into slabs too – I’ve included the instructions for both.
Start this recipe at least 7 hours ahead of serving.
Ingredients (serves 6) 2 tablespoons instant coffee (I use decaf) ⅓ cup boiling water 2 tablespoons Tia Maria (or equivalent coffee liqueur) 400g can skim condensed milk 550ml cream ¼ cup milk 1 x 300g packet sponge finger biscuits Raspberries & dark chocolate curls or chocolate covered coffee beans (to decorate)
Method Combine coffee, water & Tia Maria and set aside until cool.
Combine condensed milk and cream in a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer until thickened. Beat in half of the coffee mixture.
To make 6 individual servings, prepare 6 medium sized glasses. Split the cream mixture equally into 3 bowls. Divide the first bowl’s worth of cream mixture evenly between the glasses.
Combine remaining coffee mixture with milk. Cut 6 sponge finger biscuits into halves and dip into this coffee mixture until evenly coated. Fit two half biscuits in a single layer into each glass. Cut approximately 2-3 additional biscuits into 5 small pieces and dip into the coffee mixture. Use to fill the gaps so you have a fairly full layer of biscuits.
Evenly divide the second bowl of cream mixture between the glasses. Repeat the previous sponge finger process.
Finally, top each glass with an even share of the remaining cream mixture. Freeze until set.
Serve with raspberries and chocolate curls.
To make one large ice cream, line a 20cm square cake pan with aluminium foil. Spoon half of the cream mixture into the tray.
Combine remaining coffee mixture with milk. Dip 12 sponge finger biscuits into this coffee mixture until evenly coated. Place in a single layer on top of the ice-cream mixture in the tray (you may need to cut some sponge fingers to make it fit).
Top the sponge finger biscuits with the remaining cream mixture and freeze until set.
To serve, cut into rectangular slices and serve with raspberries and chocolate covered coffee beans.
Happy Christmas Eve everyone! Today I’m sharing with you an incredibly easy yet delicious cheat’s version of the classic French Christmas dessert – Bûche de Noël.
For a traditional pudding-hater like myself, Christmas dessert has never brought much joy. Sure, you can smother your piece of pudding in custard (which I do) and that helps a bit, but somehow the fruity-boozy flavour that I hate so much still overpowers it. Anyway, fortunately I’m not the only pudding-hater in my family and so last year Mum made this Bûche de Noël (chocolate yule log) in addition to the pudding for dessert. This yule log is sweet (but not overly so) and very light – perfect for a hot summer’s day. It proved so popular last year that we’ll be making it again this year 🙂
Ingredients (Serves up to 12) 1x 250g packet Arnott’s chocolate ripple biscuits (or equivalent)
600ml thickened cream
1 tspn caster sugar
1 tspn vanilla essence
20g cocoa powder
Grated chocolate, to decorate
Spearmint leave lollies, to decorate
Raspberries, to decorate
Method Using an electric mix, mix cream, sugar and vanilla together until stiff.
Fold in the cocoa until combined.
Spread a small amount of the cream along a long, rectangular serving plate to make a base. Spread 1 biscuit with 1 ½ teaspoons of cream and then top with another biscuit. Top with another 1 ½ teaspoons of cream and then place biscuits on their side onto the cream base on the serving platter.
Repeat until all biscuits have been used, to form a log.
Spread remaining cream over entire log, reserving a small amount for the branch.
Cover loosely with foil and refrigerate for at least 6 hours to set.
Just before serving, cut cake diagonally about a quarter of the way in and use that piece as a branch off the main log.
Patch it up with the remaining cream so it looks attached.
Use a fork to make some lines along the branch to look natural and then sprinkle with grated chocolate.
Decorate with some raspberries and spearmint leaves and serve. Enjoy!
Adapted from Arnott’s ‘Bake and Create’ Recipe booklet.
Wow! Only a week and a day until Christmas 🙂 It’s warming up around here which means that having the oven on and heating the house isn’t ideal and so I’ve had a couple of organised baking spells to try and minimise the amount of oven time.
I made these cupcakes yesterday for an afternoon tea with friends and they’re easy and delicious (and still soft & moist today).
For decorations, go as crazily festive as you like. There are plenty of cute Christmas sugar icing decorations that are cheap and readily available, you could make up a range of different coloured icings and pipe a wreath on them or something along those lines (if you can be bothered), or do as I did, and cut out some holly out of ready-made fondant icing.
Of course, these cupcakes aren’t reserved just for Christmas time, they would work equally well as birthday cupcakes with piped icing and candles!
Ingredients (Makes 24) Cupcakes
150g softened butter
⅔ cup caster sugar
2 tspns vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 ⅓ cups self raising flour, sifted
4 tblspns cocoa, sifted
½ cup buttermilk
1 ½ tblspns of good quality red food colouring (I use Wilton’s, you may need to adjust the amount depending on the brand you use)
To Decorate Ready made white fondant icing
Red food colouring
Green food colouring
Holly leaf cutter (or stencil)
Sharp Knife
Method Preheat oven to 160°C fan-forced. Place butter, caster sugar and vanilla into a large bowl and beat with electric mixer until pale and creamy. Add the eggs, beating until well combined. Add the flour, cocoa, buttermilk and food colouring and beat on a low speed until just combined.
Divide mixture into cupcake tins lined with (green) patty pans. Bake for 15-20 minutes (depending on your oven) or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the largest cupcake comes out clean. Allow to cool completely on a wire rack.
While the cupcakes are cooking and cooling, divide half of the fondant icing into 2 and colour one lot vibrant red, and the other a deep (holly-ish) green. Roll out the green fondant with a rolling pin and cut out 48 holly leaves. Then, using a sharp non-serated knife, mark out a leaf pattern by running the knife through the centre so that it leaves an incision but does not cut through. Then cut diagonal incisions from the centre out so that it looks like the veins of a leaf (see picture below).
Pull small pieces of the red fondant off and roll into 48 small balls to make the holly berries.
Once the cupcakes are almost completely cool, start making the cream cheese icing. Place the cream cheese and butter into a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer for 8-10 minutes. Add the icing sugar and vanilla and beat for a further 5 minutes or until completely smooth. Add the milk and beat until just combined.
Ice each cupcake with a generous amount of icing and top with 2 leaves and 2 berries. Enjoy!
Recipe adapted from Donna Hay’s recipe ‘red velvet cupcakes with sugared cranberries’.
Only 12 days until Christmas!! I LOVE Christmas time (and I mean LOVE) and have been madly baking and decorating along to Christmas tunes ready for the big day. I have also been joined by a little puppy, Bailey, who has made baking more of a challenge but has by no means curbed my enthusiasm for it.
These adorable reindeer tartlets are delicious and so easy to make – a perfect recipe to involve the kids in and to take to the multitude of Christmas functions where you need to ‘bring a plate’. If you don’t want all the reindeer to be Rudolphs, feel free to swap the jaffas for brown m&ms 🙂
Ingredients (makes 20) 1 packet Butternut Snap Biscuits (or equivalent)
65g butter, chopped
⅓ cup cream
200g dark chocolate melts
Approximately 10 white marshmallows, halved
20 jaffas or equivalent red lollies
20 white mini marshmallows, halved
Chocolate writing icing (or black icing pen, or additional melted chocolate applied with a toothpick)
1 packet of pretzels
Method Preheat oven to 160°C fan-forced. Place 1 biscuit per hole in a 12-hole, round-based tartlet tin. Bake for 2-3 minutes or until soft. Remove from oven. Carefully press softened biscuits into tin to mould into a cup shape (use a spoon to make it easier if you like). Allow to cool slightly before transferring to a plate and repeating with remaining biscuits.
Heat butter, cream and chocolate in a saucepan over very low heat. Stir constantly for approximately 5 minutes or until melted and smooth. Pour into a clean, dry bowl and refrigerate for 20 minutes or until cool but not set.
Fill biscuit cases with 1 heaped teaspoon of chocolate mixture. Refrigerate until set.
While the ganache is setting, carefully cut pretzels in half and trim so it looks like a lower case ‘f’ for the antlers (I seem to break as many as I successfully cut so that’s why I recommend allowing a full packet!!)
Gently press 1 marshmallow half, sticky side up into each tartlet.
Attach 1 jaffa to each marshmallow.
Attach 2 mini marshmallow halves above nose, cut-side up, to form eyes. Use an icing pen/or a spot of chocolate ganache applied with a toothpick to create the pupils.
Place 2 pretzel pieces above eyes. Press to secure. Serve & enjoy!
Recipe adapted from Arnott’s ‘Chocolate Butternut Snap Tartlets’ recipe.
Bakerholics Anonymous 
