Double Chocolate Cat Cake

Winter is really dragging isn’t it? I’m not sure I can even deal with jumpers, boots and knits any more.

Blood Oranges are coming.

The season is pretty much upon us.

Advertisement

Fancy Chocolate Crackles

Sometimes you listen to a doctor, and totally take on board what they have to say. But also, what they have to say is pretty shithouse, so you kinda ignore them. This isn’t one of those times.

Strawberry Milkshake Cake

I have been meaning to make this cake for SUCH a long time – I love making things that aren’t cake into cake, and I really like strawberry milkshake. Like really. Winner.

Banana Split Layer Cake

When I was little (like 4ft?) my family and I would go to this seafood restaurant for special occasions… I LOVED going there; it meant I could go crazy on the chip butties (chips in buttered bread – try it) and in fact just crazy on bread. Gosh I love bread. But on super-duper special occasions I could also go crazy on my very own banana split. Banana and ice cream is up there in terms of perfection.

Cranberry and Dark Chocolate Wholewheat Cookies

My life is a constant struggle between my love of food, and my wish to be skinny. Let’s just avoid the whole female body image shabang (that I talk about here) and take note that these cookies have wholewheat flour, dark chocolate AND fruit in them. If that’s not a health food then I don’t even know. On that note we are also definitely avoiding new years resolutions to be skinny, eat well, go to the gym 8 times a week and generally look like Miranda Kerr.

Scottish Shortbread

I really like books, I love books in fact. My uncle used to complain that I always had my head in books; it made me feel like Matilda. This recipe comes from one of my favourite books; my mums handwritten journal of recipes, it’s lost it’s covers but when I was younger I would flip through it. Mostly with disgust, as there were a lot of fish recipes in there and beyond tuna I did not care for fish at all as a child.

Strawberry and Champagne Financiers

Strawberries and champagne scream early British summer to me. Wimbledon, the early sun, 99’s, the softest grass you ever did lay your head upon and bright, long days filled with the scent of ripe strawberries are constantly in my dreams; not that I like Wimbledon. Things just always seemed a tad more civilised whilst it was on. The grunting annoys me.

Dark Dark Chocolate Puddings

Dress-up is my national past-time, I love dressing up. As soon as October hits my browser becomes filled with tabs dedicated to costume ideas for one of my favourite holidays. Halloween! ( wait, I think I just said I was a country)

Right now I am revelling in the spooky, I motherflippin’ love Halloween, I love scary books; Salem’s Lot is not easy bed time reading btw, I love dressing up, I can do a fantabulous smokey eye, I own a lot of black and did I mention I love Halloween?

Blood Orange and Almond Upside Down Cake

My favourite thing to do in the warmer months is eat breakfast outside, and I know right now you are thinking “Why are you telling me this?” or “How did I get here?”, but it makes a difference!
It makes eating an event, and less of a rush to getting out of the door. Hanging with the birds and rays of sun on the back of my neck is what blue skies are all about. Plus you get all of the scents of summer; hazy breezes, floral scents and my fruit is always somewhat amplified by the warmth.Eating with your nose is important, it aids with the getting-full-feeling, makes you more aware of what you are eating and it makes you happy. Some of my best memories are those of eating fruits in summer (If I could marry fruit I really would, for real). Holidays in Cyprus eating the best fresh cherries, seeing how far we could spit the pits, fresh strawberries from my grandparents back-garden (my love of strawberries is well documented on my recipes page) and my gorgeous friend Abby’s blood orange tree at her parents house (with the cutest dog ever; love you Snowy!). That last memory holds so true in my head whenever I eat Blood oranges (pretty much constantly for the three or four weeks they in season). This cake is warmth, remnants of winter and spring all in one.

Blood Orange and Almond Upside-Down Cake
Adapted from Joy the Baker

Makes one 9 inch cake
For the Topping:
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
3 blood oranges thinly sliced
For the Cake:
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
130gr Plain Flour
30gr Almond Meal
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground ginger
2/3 cup plain yoghurt

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.

Place butter in the cake pan and place in the oven.  When butter is melted, remove pan from the oven.  Tilt the pan around and around, coating the sides of the pan with butter.  Once sides are coated, sprinkle the sugar over the melted butter and lay the oranges flat in the still warm pan.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment, cream butter and brown sugar on medium speed.  Cream until slightly pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes.  Stop mixer, scrape down the bowl with a spatula, and add egg, vanilla extract and ginger.  Beat for 1 minute.

Turn the mixer off, scrape the bowl, and add the dry ingredients.  Beat on low speed while adding the yoghurt.  Beat until the batter just comes together.  Batter will be pretty thick.  Remove the bowl from the mixer and finish incorporating ingredients with a spatula.

Spoon batter over the oranges and spread evenly with a spatula.  Bake for about 35 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Let cake rest for 10 minutes before running a knife around the edge of the cake and inverting the cake onto a cake plate.

Lavender and Lemon Cookie Pop

Spring holds so much hope and anticipation; growing up in the UK it always felt like the start of the year, and that feeling has transferred here, despite the fact that it is September. It holds anticipation for ice-cream eating, long walks with my puppy and road trips to Middleton, my favourite beach spot in SA.

South Australia has really brought it for the first few days a spring, if it was a football team people would be saying “This is our year”. Except Spring can’t really fail at being Spring so, yeah.

This cookie is anticipation in a cookie, the Lemon and Lavender are the perfect spring flavour combination. Refreshing like lemonade, and the lavender is in no way overwhelming, but the key is to only use a small amount otherwise things get soapy. And from experience I can tell you that soap is both a taste that is overwhelming, and exceedingly hard to remove from your mouth.The lemon cheese drizzle makes the cookie taste like delicious cheesecake. Its optional but do it, it’s amazing.

Lemon and Lavender Cookie

Ingredients
230gr plain flour
1/2 teaspoon of bicarb soda
85g caster sugar
45gr dark brown sugar
125gr melted butter
1/4 teaspoon of vanilla paste
1 egg
Rind of 1 lemon
1 teaspoon lavender

Method
Sift flour, soda and sugars into a large bowl; dark brown sugar generally has big pieces in it, sift well then add the larger pieces in too. Stir in the butter, vanilla and egg, the lemon and lavender.On a sheet of baking paper, roll the dough into a log shape. Tie the ends and if necessary wrap in glad wrap. Freeze the dough for at least 2 hours. At this point the mixture will last months.

Slice the frozen mixture and insert lollipop sticks. Bake at 200C for ten minutes.

Lemon Cheese Drizzle – adapted from Rah Cha Chow

Ingredients
70gr cream cheese
3 tablespoons lemon juice
184 gr powdered sugar

Method
Combine ingredients in bowl. Spoon a small tablespoon of mixture on to the cooled cookies and spread evenly over the top. Allow to dry.

Smartie Pant Pops

When I was little I lived all over the UK, from Inverness to outer London. I never lived near my grandparents though, so whenever we went to visit them it was a week in kid heaven: dinner at restaurants, sips of wine and lovely baked goods! My favourite childhood treat however had to be by far the most ordinary thing, cookies on a stick. Like a cookie lollipop. The cookie pop reminds me of holidays with my granny, walking to the park (all the way down the longest road ever), warm toast and sitting in her big leather chair.

Last week I received an email from uni about free market they are holding. For some reason my mind immediately went to cookies and cookie pops. What student wouldn’t love a cookie pop?
My ideas for flavours are:
– Smartie Pant Pops (this post – smarties obviously!)
– Salted Pistachio with burnt white chocolate drizzle-pops (Needs a name!)
– Maple glazed bacon and coffee – Morning Pig Pops
– Lavender and honey pops (also needs a name)

Leave your ideas for names below, the best names win a mixed box of 8! (only Australia sorry, the cookies would not last an international post)

These cookies are just a basic brown sugar cookie recipe with as much Smarties as you see fit, I’ve got a 180 g packet in the dough, then I add three extra Smarties midway through backings for a good pop of colour.

Ingredients
345g all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
225g butter
170g  sugar
200g brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 eggs
180g Smarties plus more for topping

Recipe

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.
Set the butter aside to soften at least half an hour before starting.
In a large bowl, mix flour, soda and salt with a wire whisk and set aside.
Add the softened butter and both sugars to a mixer and cream until light and fluffy. To this mixture add the eggs and vanilla and mix until thoroughly combined.
Add flour in two additions, scraping down the sides in between. Mix until thoroughly combined.
Stir the Smarties into the mixture and set onto parchment paper to shape into a log.

Cover the cookie log entirely and wrap in glad wrap.  Put this delicious log into the freezer and leave for at least an hour.
Slice and roll into balls, I made my cookies about 20g each however I think 30g would be better. Bake for about 10 minutes. You want them to be just browned on the edges; they will continue to bake after you remove them from the heat.

Makes 5 dozen cookies.