Blueberry Muffins

BLUEBERRY MUFFINS

The muffin mania continues! And these are delicious. Blueberry muffins are just something that works. End story. Okay I better write more. Blueberry muffins were the first type of muffin I ever had, I'm pretty sure most people are the same. Those slightly tart berries work so beautifully in cake goodness. I had actually bought a punnet of fresh blueberries and was going to use them for a tart but ran out of time and didn't want them to go to waste. Then I wanted to make something quick for rehearsal, and here we are! Now of course you can use the frozen ones, I usually do. I love to keep big packs of frozen fruit in the freezer to use whenever I like. Whether it's for baking or for dessert with yoghurt.

These are great for when you have friends due soon and nothing to serve them. They are that quick to make. Parents these are also a great for lunchboxes or when kids have some unexpected guests.

That's it for muffins for a little while, got some yummy things coming in the next few blogs. Hope you enjoy them!

 INGREDIENTS:

1 1/2 cups Self Raising Flour, sifted
1/2 cup Brown Sugar
3/4 cup Blueberries, frozen or fresh
1 Egg, lightly beaten
3/4 cup Milk
90grams Unsalted Butter, melted

DIRECTIONS:

1 - Preheat oven to 200°c and spray a 12 cup muffin tin with canola spray.

2 - Mix flour, sugar and blueberries in a bowl.

3 - In a separate bowl, lightly whisk egg, milk and butter together.

4 - Pour the liquid ingredients into the flour and stir with a spoon until just combined. Don't over mix.

5 - Spoon mixture into the prepared muffin pan.

6 - Bake for 15 minutes or until cooked.

7 - Serve and enjoy

xx

Choc Chip Muffins

CHOC CHIP MUFFINS

I've been busier than a hooker in fleet week, or for the kids reading, Santa in December. Which means I have been missing creating new, wonderful baked goods. So when I have to make items, I have been going old school and making some of my favourites. And what could be more of a favourite than choc chip muffins? And these are pretty damn tasty, if I do say so myself.

Made these for my cast. They pretty much expect baked goods when they come for rehearsal now, they will sadly be disappointed tonight. Instead of baking, tonight I'm writing about it. But below is a photo of my two ladies enjoying their muffins. I know I share a lot of muffin recipes, but  wow they are so easy to make, and so delicious to eat!

Please never make packet mix muffins again, these are simple and you NEED them in your life.

INGREDIENTS:

2 1/2 cups Self Raising Flour
3/4 cups Caster Sugar
1 cup Dark Choc Bits
2 tablespoons Margarine, melted
1 1/4 cups Milk
1 Egg, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

DIRECTIONS:

1 - Preheat oven to 180°c

2 - Use canola spray to line 12 cup muffin tin.

3 - Sift flour into bowl and stir in sugar and choc bits.

4 - Stir in the combined remaining ingredients, mix well.

5 - Spoon mixture evenly into the muffin pan.

6 - Bake for 15 - 20 minutes, or until they spring back.

7 - Enjoy!

Catch you during the week with another tasty muffin recipe.

Wayne
xx

Cinnamon Cake with Vanilla Buttercream Icing

CINNAMON CAKE WITH VANILLA BUTTERCREAM ICING

I have been a busy boy. Hence the slackness of putting up recipes and also doing more baking. I have SOOO many recipes I want to try but have little time to do it with work and rehearsals. So sometimes you need to take time out to do things that make you happy. My friend Cas has been going through some hard times and I hadn't caught up with my other friend Hannah for ages. I decided it was time to have them over, and of course bake something nice. I had rehearsals first, and my actors always enjoy some baked goodness as well. So made this very tasty cinnamon cake. The cast liked it (photo of Tom in the background of one of the photos) and my friends liked it too. In fact Hannah said it was one of her favourites of mine, so that's always a good thing! Photo below of the spread my friends and I had. It was an awesome night all round with laughs, bubbly and great company.

Cinnamon has become my buzz flavour right now and am loving cooking with it. It has that whole spice/sweet thing going on that is perfect when preparing treats for adults. Give this one a go, it will be perfect with tea. Even though I loved having it with champagne. With Christmas coming I plan on doing A LOT of baking. Love to know what you think I should cook.

INGREDIENTS:

175g Unsalted Butter, softened
1 3/4 cups Caster Sugar
1 tablespoon Orange Rind, finely grated
3 Eggs
1 3/4 cups Plain Flour, sifted
3/4 cups Self Raising Flour, sifted
1/4 teapsoon Bicarbonate of Soda, sifted
2 teaspoons Ground Cinnamon
3/4 cup Milk

Vanilla Cream Frosting:

250grams Unsalted Butter, softened
3 cups Icing Sugar, sifted
2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract

Cake Topping:

Cinnamon Sugar

DIRECTIONS:

1 - Preheat oven to 180°c and grease a cake pan. Square good, I used a round springform tin. Line tin with baking paper.

2 - Use an electric mixer to beat butter, sugar and orange rind until light and fluffy.

3 - Add eggs one at a time, beating until just combined.

4 - Stir in flours, bicarb, cinnamon and milk.

5 - Spread into prepared pan and bake for 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

6 - Stand in pan for 10 minutes and then cool completely on a wire rack.

7 - To make frosting, use an electric mixer to beat butter until light and fluffy.

8 - Beat in icing sugar and vanilla until combined.

9 - Using a serrated knife, cut the cake in half.

10 - Spread the frosting on top of the bottom of the cake and then place the other half on top. Ice top of the ice and then sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.

11 - Enjoy with friends.

Wayne
xx

Rolo Brownie Cake

ROLO BROWNIE CAKE

I just had a massive weekend of birthday celebrations. It seems like a ridiculous amount of us were born in July, me included. Lately as a present to my friends I've been making them birthday cakes. I had two good friends with birthdays last week, so made two lovely cakes (will share the other on the weekend). This cake, the Rolo Brownie Cake, was one I've wanted to make for a while. It's from my favourite blog, Raspberri Cupcakes, and her stuff is always nice - albeit very fattening. Trust me, this is the kind of cake that is divine to eat, but you can't have a lot.

I made it for my friend Jen, a very talented actress and make up artist. She is one of the nicest people I have met since moving to Melbourne. I have directed her twice and have loved getting to know her. I felt very honoured, and very excited to share a small dinner for her special day.

This cake was wonderful to make, I had a lot of fun doing it. The only difficulty I had was with the actual Rolos themselves. I couldn't find the tubes of Rolos, just the block. I rang Nestle, and they told me they didn't makes the tubes anymore. Dumb. Apparently you can get them in import stores still - but I'd left it too late. So I had to do things a little differently. The other different thing to do here is to make your own caramel sauce with a can of condensed milk. This was great and it turned out perfectly.

So have a go at this fun cake, but make sure you share it or you may just explode!

Original recipe from: http://www.raspberricupcakes.com/2012/04/rolo-chocolate-brownie-cake.html

INGREDIENTS:

For the Cake:
400g Salted Butter
200g Dark Chocolate, coarsely chopped
4 Large Eggs
200g Caster Sugar
200g Plain Flour
1 block of Rolo Chocolate
1 can of Condensed Milk

For the Icing:
400g Milk Chocolate, coarsely chopped
300ml Thickened Cream
1 block of Rolo Chocolate

DIRECTIONS:

1 - First you need to make the caramel sauce for the filling. Take the unopened can of condensed milk and remove the label completely. Place in a medium saucepan and fill with water until it is half to 3/4s of the way up to the side of the can. Cover with lid and boil over a medium heat for two hours. Check regularly and top up with water if it falls below half. WARNING - if the water runs out the can will explode. Please don't let that happen (I'll feel really bad). Let it cool, and then put in fridge until you need it. (Will look like pic above)

2 - Preheat oven to 150°c and grease and line 2 springform tins (if like me you only have one, you'll have to take turns cooking them).

3 - Melt butter and chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Stir occasionally until smooth.

4 - Whisk eggs and caster sugar in an electric mixer until thick and pale (about 3-5 minutes), fold through chocolate mixture and then fold in flour until just combined.

5 - Pour half the batter in the two pans. Smooth the top and then spread half of the Rolo block to the top of each cake mix.

6 - Bake for 25-30 mins, until cake is firm to touch.

7 - Cool completely in pan before carefully transferring to serving dish. As it's a brownie cake it will crumble easily.

8 - Open caramel tin and add some salt. Use beater to smooth the caramel and mix salt. Then spread completely over the top of one of the cake pieces. Put in fridge for at least half an hour, to make sure it sets.

9 - Carefully sandwich the second cake on top.

10 - To prepare the ganache, place cream in a small saucepan over a medium heat and bring just to boil.

11 - Remove from heat and pour over chopped chocolate (in a heatproof bowl). Leave for 5 minutes and then whisk mixture together. Chill in fridge, stirring every few minutes until it gets thicker.

12 - Spread the ganache liberally over the cake and the side. Break up rolo block and place on top. Refridgerate to set.

13 - Serve and enjoy.

On the weekend, the Coke Chocolate Cake will be put on the blog.

Wayne
xx

Bakes from my birthday - a love letter to Raspberri Cupcakes

BAKES FROM MY BIRTHDAY - A LOVE LETTER TO RASPBERRI CUPCAKES

So it was my birthday recently, 38. Yes, I'm getting old. I had a few friends round to help celebrate which was wonderful. As a former Sydney boy who's only been in Melbourne 2.5 years, I feel very blessed to have made such great friends. Especially generous ones, the presents were incredible - including a brilliant new coffee machine that I'd marry if I could. And it was very lucky my Mother was able to make the trip down. She has not been very well at all. Loved having Mum here and was extra happy I was able to share with her my newish baking skills and how they've evolved.

Now baking is a really Melbourne thing for me, I have a bigger kitchen than I did in Sydney. (Any Sydney friends will know how small my Newtown box was). Part of my evolution as a baker has been about getting baking crushes on other bakers through their blogs. My favourite is definitely Steph from Raspberri Cupcakes. Her bakes are divine and I have been making her stuff for a while. A few I often get requests for are the Spiced Blondies with Chai Infused Ganache, the Cherry Shortbread Bites and the Malted and Salted Choc-Chip Cookies. I knew I wanted to make some of her bakes for my birthday, so I did. I'll share with you what they are. Now her recipes are so good I never need to change ingredients. I don't want to steal from her, so instead I'll post links to the recipes. Plus please check out all her recipes and amazing pics. She is a Baking God and you will be salivating. Friends, I will take requests if you want me to bake more of her stuff.

Now the first one was the birthday cake. My good friend Hannah said I shouldn't make my own cake, but I really wanted to. Mostly to make this great cake. Steph's original recipe was a purple ombre cake, but I decided to make a rainbow cake instead. Gay much? The recipe was the same, all I changed were the colours and I made 4 layers like she suggested in the recipe. Now the sprinkles task was difficult, especially when I only had a few minutes till people started arriving, but it was worth it. It looked amazing.

Here's the recipe link:

http://www.raspberricupcakes.com/2011/11/purple-ombre-sprinkle-cake.html

Next up are the Neopolitan Melting Moments, or Yo-Yo's as they are called here in Melbourne. I had been wanting to make these for a while. I love how the melting moments, melt in your mouth. Hence the name. And the different flavours in these just sounded wonderful, and they were. Yes, they took a while to make, but were worth it. Out of all my birthday baked goods, these were the ones I was keenest to try. I changed nothing, the recipe was spot on.

Here's the link:
http://www.raspberricupcakes.com/2010/06/neopolitan-melting-moments.html

Finally there was the lemon meringue cheesecake. I made this for my boyfriend's birthday this year. It's the trend to make a cheesecake for him for his birthday, he loves them. Last year was the apple pie cheesecake, this year was the lemon meringue one. Mum loved the sound of it and asked me to make it for her when she was down. Of course I couldn't say no to my favourite person, and happily made it again. Plus, it's bloody tasty. The combination of lemon meringue and the cheesecake is a perfect match. I highly recommend this for your next dinner party. Again, I changed nothing from the original Raspberri Cupcakes recipe.

Here's the link:
http://www.raspberricupcakes.com/2009/05/lemon-meringue-cheesecake.html

The party was a success, as were the baked goods. There were a few other things I made I may share soon too. But I really want to write this blog to say thanks to Steph at Raspberri Cupcakes for inspiring me and pushing my baking to new heights. I look forward to seeing more of your amazing creations.

Back on Monday with the red velvet cheesecake my friends have been asking me to share.

Wayne

xx

Butterscotch Self-Saucing Pudding

BUTTERSCOTCH SELF-SAUCING PUDDING

Yes, I have been incredibly slack on my fairly new baking blog! My excuse is not even that good, or original. I've been busy, plus it was my birthday. I get a pardon for that, right? So in the next few days I will upload a number of recipes, including my stunning rainbow sprinkles layer birthday cake (!) and the red velvet cheesecake. But first, a nice and easy one that is a simple dessert for these cold winter nights. Melbourne has been freezing, and I have to admit - I like that! I've made a chocolate self-saucing pudding before, but never a butterscotch one. This was pretty tasty, and with the classic pairing of vanilla icecream, it was pretty sublime. The surprise of a self-saucing pudding is also pretty good, and impressive for guests. Writing about that, just made me hungry!! May make it again tonight.

INGREDIENTS:

Pudding:

3/4 cup of self-raising flour (sifted)

2/3 cup of sugar

1/2 cup of milk

60 grams of butter (melted)

Syrup:

1 &1/2 cups of water

1 tablespoon of golden syrup

1 tablespoon of unsalted butter

1 - Pre-heat oven to 180°c. Grease ovenproof dish or individual ramekins as I did.

2 - Combine pudding ingredients together in a bowl and mix well with a wooden spoon.

3 - Spoon the batter into the dish/dishes.

4 - Place the syrup ingredients into a small saucepan and heat until melts and ingredients combine. Be careful not to heat it too much as you don't want it to boil.

5 - Pour syrup slowly into the dish/dishes. To ensure you don't separate pudding it is best to pour the syrup over the back of a soon as shown in the picture above.

6 - Bake for 45 minutes, or until the top has browned.

7 - Let them cool for a few minutes before serving.

Thanks guys and catch you again tomorrow!!