One of the best things about Australia is the lamington. It's one of my all time favourite desserts, ever since I was a kid. Because it's so easy to find and relatively cheap, I've actually never made lamingtons before. According to SBS food, recently it was national lamington day. They put together a lamington recipe collection that has a slight twist on the ol' fav. One in particular caught my fancy - the Chocolate and Raspberry lamington. Mmm sounded delicious! It really wasn't such a stretch as lamingtons sometimes comes with jam and cream. This recipe just used raspberry jam and chocolate sponge (instead of regular vanilla). 

One evening when I was home alone, I made this recipe. Well... I started making it. I did it in stages. 1) Bake the sponge 2) whipped the cream and stir in the jam 3) prepared the ganache 4) construct the lamingtons. Verdict? Yes they were delicious and ridiculously big as I sandwiched together two pieces of sponge. The cake was pretty dense so eating it was a staged process too. 

This is my first attempt at making lamingtons

I chose not to blog it though as I think I could make it better. "How so?" I hear you ask. Well this is why I'm blogging this particular recipe. This is my take on the Chocolate Raspberry Lamington - I made it into a swiss roll. I decided to change the sponge cake recipe and used the "Chocolate Roulade with Coffee Cream" recipe from Australia's Sweet Baking Favourites (ISBN: 9780646580050) (Published by Nestle and Pacific Magazines). This cake is definitely for the sweet tooth folks out there. Enjoy!

Ingredients
Sponge
6 egg whites
1/2 cup (110g) caster sugar (I reduced to about 90g)
1/4 cup (25g) cocoa powder
2 Tblspn plain flour
2 Tblspn boiling water

Chocolate ganache
200g good quality dark chocolate, chopped
300ml thickened cream
Filling and construction
100 ml thickened cream 
1/4 cup (85g) raspberry jam (1 reduced to about 70g)
1/2 to 1 cup shredded coconut

Method
Sponge
1. Reheat oven to 170C. Grease a swiss roll pan or shallow baking tray (~35 x 25 cm). Line pan with baking paper.

2. Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites until they form soft peaks. Gradually add sugar, beating well after each addition to ensure the sugar dissolves. Sift cocoa and flour over egg mixture then pour in hot water. Fold gently. 

3. Spread mixture into prepared pan evenly. Try get this as levelled as possible. Bake for about 15 minutes or until cooked through and springy to touch.

4. Meanwhile, lay a clean tea towel on the table and cut a sheet of baking paper the same size as your baking pan, and lay the paper over the towel. When cake is cooked, remove from oven and turn the hot sponge onto the paper and peel away the lining paper. This maybe tricky, I used a chopping board to help me flip out the sponge. Working quickly and using the tea towel as a guide, roll the sponge into a swiss roll and allow to cool on a cooling rack.

Filling
5. Place cream in a medium bowl and whip til soft to medium peaks form. Stir in raspberry jam. 

6. When cake is cooled, gently unroll it and spread the cream evenly along the inner side of the roll. Gently re-roll the cake, this time using the baking paper as a guide. Place on serving dish, cover and place in fridge for about 15 to 30 minutes.

Ganache
Construction
8. Remove roll from fridge and pour ganache over roll to cover. Sprinkle with shredded coconut. Keep in fridge until ready to serve. Serve with fresh fruits.

With my nephews still experiencing allergies to dairy and eggs, I'm always on the hunt for vegan desserts. My regular email newsletter from the Serious Eats inspired this latest post. Their Chocoholic: Vegan Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies was the basis of this creation. These cookies are a little chewy and a little crispy. Best of both worlds. I used 50/50 dark vegan chocolate and white chocolate. I used coconut oil to give that extra coconutty flavour but you can use vegetable oil instead.

Thanks to my friend, for use of her brand spanking new kitchen. I think we christened that kitchen good!

Ingredients
1/2 cup lightly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup coconut oil (you can also use vegetable oil)
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon treacle (you can also use golden syrup)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon water
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup plain flour
1 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup desiccated coconut
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
100g dairy and egg free chocolate chips or chocolate chopped up (I prefer to use Sweet William Chocolate)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Line cookie tray with baking paper.

2. In large bowl, whisk together brown sugar, oil, honey, treacle, salt, water, and vanilla until combined. Stir in desiccated coconut, flour, oats, baking soda, and chocolate until combined.

3. Scoop onto baking sheet, spacing evenly apart and gently press to about 1.5cm thick. Bake until lightly golden and just set, about 10 to 12 minutes. It will look a little soft when they first come out of the oven. Cool on pan for about 10 minutes and it will harden up. Then transfer to cooling rack to finish cooling. Store in airtight container.

Yesterday, Summer officially started in Sydney. Not just the 40*C heat wave, but the festivities and eating way too much! 

Happy birthday Winky Poo! :)

December party no. #1 - my nephew's 10th birthday 
Nathan has always loved LEGO. At a very young age, he was completing LEGO sets way beyond his years. A couple of years ago, I even lugged 2 kg worth of LEGO back from my trip to the US just for him. (Apparently they didn't have this model back in Sydney, as it's for 16 years+!) So I thought this LEGO cake was a fitting theme for him. But the challenge lied with his dairy and egg allergies. Like I've said before, you can't not eat cake for your birthday! So I present to you a completely dairy and egg free chocolate LEGO cake. 

This cake definitely had its challenges but all in all, I think it turned out well. Complements from fussy family members means it's a winner. I based this on a previous cake and modified it slightly and doubled the mixture. The frosting I worked off the principles of a butter frosting and added vanilla and lemon essence to mask the margarine taste. The design and method of constructing this cake I followed this picture from flickr and this video from Betty Crocker.

Ingredients
Cake
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1/4 tspn bicarb soda
6 tspn baking powder
1 cup caster sugar
1/8 tpsn salt
3/4 cup cocoa
1 1/2 cups almond meal
1 1/4 cups desiccated coconut
2 tspn vanilla essence
1 tspn pandan essence (optional)
2 1/4 cups almond milk (or water)

Frosting
275g dairy free margarine (I used a canola spread)
170 to 200g icing sugar mixture - depending how sweet you want it (or icing sugar)
2 tspns vanilla essence
2 tspns lemon essence
Food colouring (use red pillar box for the red brick)
~extra icing sugar mixture to dissolve food colouring

Topping
10 marshmallows 
Black writing icing gel

Method
Cake
1. Preheat oven to 180C and grease and line base and sides of a 9 inch square cake pan with baking paper. 

2. In a large bowl sift together, flour, bicarb soda, baking powder, sugar, salt and cocoa. Add almond meal and coconut.

3. Make a well in the middle of the flour mixture, and add vanilla, pandan and almond milk. Using a whisk, slowly mix to incorporate. If the mixture looks a little dry, add a dash of almond milk or water.

4. Pour mixture into prepared pan and bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes or until cake is cooked (prick with toothpick comes out clean). 

5. Sit in tin for 5 to 10 minutes then turn the cake out on to a wire rack to cool completely before frosting.

Frosting
1. Using a cake mixer, beat together margarine, sifted icing sugar mixture, vanilla and lemon essence until well incorporated. Taste as you go for the appropriate level of sweetness. Bare in mind you'll be adding a few more teaspoons of icing sugar at a later stage to dissolve the food colouring.

2. Separate mixture into 3 small to medium bowls, 1 for each colour. 

3. For each colour, in a separate small bowl add a fair few drops food colouring to about 1 tablespoon of icing sugar mixture. Stir to form a paste. Add paste to 1 of margarine frosting bowls and mix to combine. Repeat until you get the desired colour. 
Tip: Becuase the LEGO blocks are very vibrantly coloured, so don't be shy on the colouring - otherwise you'll doing this process for ages! You'll probably use about 10 to 20 ml of food colouring.

4. Repeat step #3 for the other two colours. For the green, I added some pandan essence which helped but needed the food colouring to get the vibrancy. I also added a teaspoon of cocoa powder to the red mixture to get that deeper colour. 

Building the cake
For a more detailed 'how it' check out the Betty Crocker video.

1. Cut the cake into 3 rectangles. 
Tip: You can put the off cuts together to make another 'brick'.

2. Crumb coat each rectangle with respective colour. This means very lightly coating the cake with frosting then refrigerating for about 30 minutes. This seals in the crumbs before the main frosting layer. 

3. Place the first rectangle onto the serving plate/board and using a butter knife (or offset spatula), spread frosting to coat the side and top of the brick. Coat 4 marshmallows with the same colour frosting and place on top the cake. Smooth out any untidy sides.

4. Place second rectangle next to the first with an offset. Frost and top with another 4 coated marshmallows. Smooth out any untidy sides.

5. Place the third rectangle on-top of the first two rectangles to form a bridge. (refer to my crude picture below). Frost and top with 2 marshmallows.  Using the black writing icing gel, write your message (or birthday person's name) on the top brick and number on top of the two marshmallows.



6. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Enjoy!

After reading Much a Munch’s recent blog post – I got inspired. I've never cooked with Pandan flavouring before, but love the unique fragrance.

This weekend I went past the Asian grocery store and combed the isles looking for some sort of Pandan flavouring. I found Pandan extract. A little vial size container, only 90 cents (AUD). The liquid is thick, dark green and smells fantastic! Hey it’s only 90 c  why not! After buying it, I did a bit more research on how to use it. Some people get the leaves and boil it down. Others have Pandan syrup. I combined a few different recipes, but mainly based on this one.

The cupcakes turned out moist and tasty, in good cupcake fashion. The cakes themselves were brilliant green! As my boss described it – green tree frog, green. I garnished with desiccated coconut coloured with green food colouring.


Ingredients
Cupcakes
2 cups plain flour (minus 4 tblspn)
3 tspn Pandan extract
2 tspn baking powder
1/8 tspn baking soda
140g butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 large egg yolk
1 tspn vanilla extract
1/2 tspn coconut essence
3/4 cup milk

Frosting
115g butter, softened
1/2 cup icing sugar mixture
1 1/2 tblspn condensed milk
1/2 tspn coconut essence
1/2 tspn vanilla essence
Juice of half a lime
Handful of desiccated coconut, mixed with a few drops of green food colouring

Method
Cupcakes
1. Preheat the oven to 175C degrees.  Line 15 to 18 muffin cups with liners. 

2. Sift together flour, baking powder and baking soda in a medium bowl. Set aside.

3. With a mixer, beat the butter and sugar until soft and creamy.  Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition.  Then beat in the vanilla & Pandan.

4. With the mixer on low, add the dry ingredients alternately with the milk, beginning and ending with the dry mixture.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl as necessary.  Mix until just combined.

5. Spoon batter evenly into prepared muffin cups, filling until about 2/3 full.  Bake for about 15 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the cupcakes becomes clean.  Remove from the oven and let cool for 10 minutes.  Remove cupcakes from pan and let cool completely before frosting.




Frosting
1. Beat together butter and icing sugar. Add condensed milk, essences and juice. Taste to ensure the right sweetness and flavour and adjust accordingly.

2. Frost cupcakes when cooled and garnish.

Cupcake day again! For those who aren't aware of what cupcake day is, it's a fundraiser for the RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals). For me its another excuse to bake. Here are a couple of snaps I took of the different cupcakes on sale.



My parents had a surplus of limes from the garden's tree. Which made picking what flavour easy! Key Lime! Most Key lime recipes call for "key limes". A breed of limes commercially grown in the Florida Keys. I just used ordinary limes. What makes this "key lime" though, is the combination with sweetened condense milk and coconut that is signature to "Key Lime Pie". I adapted this recipe from a recipe I found from the Food Network.

The frosting I adapted from my trusted ol' white chocolate cream cheese frosting. Recipe here.

Ingredients
For the cupcakes
175g butter, room temperature
3/4 cups caster sugar
zest of 2 limes
2 eggs at room temperature
3 tbpsn lime juice
1 1/2 tspns pure vanilla extract
1/2 tspn coconut essence
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon bicarb soda
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 1/3 cups shredded coconut (can reduce or add, depending on batter's moisture level)
3 tbpsn sweetened condense milk

For frosting
250g cream cheese, room temperature
125g butter, room temperature
100g white chocolate
1 tspn vanilla extract
Juice from 1 lime, (less or more depending how lime-y you want it to be)
2 cups icing sugar, sifted (less or more depending how sweet you want it to be)

For garnish
3 tspn shredded coconut (heaped)
1/2 tpsn green food colouring (yellow and blue)

Method
For cupcakes
1. Preheat oven to 160C.
2. In a large bowl and mixer, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Gradually add eggs, 1 at a time. Scrape down bowl after each addition. Add vanilla, coconut essence and lime zest and juice. Mix well.
3. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, bicarb soda.
4. Alternating mix until just combined: a third of the flour mixture to the butter mixture, then half the buttermilk, then another third of the flour mixture, then the rest of the buttermilk, then finish off with the remaining third of the flour mixture.
5. Fold in condense milk and shredded coconut.
6. Line a muffin pan with patty pan (paper lining). Fill each cavity almost to the top with batter. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until the tops begin to brown and a toothpick comes out clean.
7. Remove cupcakes from oven, sit for about 5 minutes in the pan then remove from pan and allow to cool completely on wire rack.

Garnish
1. Place coconut in a cup, add colouring and mix with a teaspoon until consistent colour.

For frosting
1. Melt white chocolate and allow to cool. Read my chocolate melting tips.
2. Using a mixer beat together cream cheese and butter. Add vanilla, white chocolate and lime juice. Mix well. Mix in icing sugar in batches. Taste as you go to ensure you got the right sweetness.
3. Frosting cupcakes and garnish with coloured coconut.

After creating two batches of custard tarts for the family, I had heaps of egg whites left overs. Which can only mean one thing, friands! These little morsels are just so tasty!

I first learnt about friands while working my way through university in a cafe. These little cakes were really popular but I never had one. I thought, why wouldn’t you just get a muffin, its 3 times bigger and probably cheaper. Then I had one one-day. Oh its so worth it. They’re dense, moist and really tasty. I then found a recipe in a magazine and gave it a go. I’ve never looked back. 

These are really easy to make and you can go wild with all sorts of flavours.
This time around I made 3 different versions: fresh strawberries and passion fruit, strawberry ripe and raspberry and white chocolate. All yummy and distinctly different. I’ve also changed the traditional recipe by substituting half the portion of almond meal/flour with hazelnut meal and cut down the sugar.

Ingredients
6 egg whites
185g butter, melted
1/2 cup almond meal
1/2 cup hazelnut meal
1 cup icing sugar mixture
1/2 cup flour

Variations
Strawberry ripe – 100g chopped strawberries, 100g chopped dark chocolate, 1/2 cup desiccated coconut
Raspberry and white chocolate – 100g frozen raspberries, 100g white chocolate chopped
Strawberry and passion fruit – 100g chopped strawberries, 1/3 cup passion fruit pulp
NB: Obviously if you want more or less flavouring you can add or subtract the quantities

Method
1. Preheat over to moderately hot (190-200C). Grease 12 x 1/3 cup (125ml) capacity friand or muffin pan.
2. Place eggs whites in medium bowl, whisk lightly with fork until combined.
3. Add remaining ingredients to bowl. Including flavour variations. Stir until just combined. Be sure not to over mix.
4. Divide mixture among prepared pans.
5. Bake in preheated oven for about 20 to 25 minutes. Stand in pan for 5 minutes before turning them out on a wire rack. Serve dusted with extra sifted icing sugar.

My dear friend Anna, gave me her mum's recipe for Coconut Loaf. Its been in her family for many years. Its very easy and simple! 1 bowl - no fuss. I added my own spin to this recipe - channelling the Cherry Ripe flavour.

Ingredients
1& 1/2 cups plain flour (sifted)
3 tsp baking powder
1 cup dessicated coconut
3/4 cup caster sugar
pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 cup water
(optional) mixed frozen berries

Method
Preheat oven (190C) and grease and line base of a loaf tin.

In a mixing bowl, sift flour and baking powder, mix in coconut, sugar and salt. Pour in water and vanilla and mix to combine. [Add berries if you want it mixed through the mixture]

Pour mixture into greased and lined loaf pan, (add berries if you want berries to be just on top - they don't sink into the mixture in the oven) and bake for 45 minutes. 

When cooked, take out of oven onto wire rack, allow to cool for 5 to 10 minutes before turning cake out of tin to cool completely.

I served this with a chocolate ganache (which makes it not so dairy free). [Mix heated cream with chopped chocolate. Ratio depends on consistency you want but about 1 to 1].