Nina’s Low Fat Apple and Cinnamon Loaf Cake.

As promised, here it is - my recently refined recipe for Low Fat Apple and Cinnamon Cake. I tested this recipe again on the weekend with a few minor adjustments, and used my family as guinea pigs. Dads reaction, after two pieces was ‘I really like it. I mean, I really like it’. Oh, good so you do actually like it, not just saying that you like it. Funny, funny man. But yes, he did really enjoy it. And with the minor adjustments made to the first attempt recipe, I now bake this in a loaf tin. It has a very moist consistency (think banana bread) and is perfect toasted with butter.

Ingredients
2 apples (Granny Smith) peeled and grated
½ Cup of all purpose flour
½ Cup of whole wheat flour
1 cup quick oats
2/3 cup brown sugar
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon bicarb soda
Pinch of salt
1 ½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ fat free milk
1 cup plain, fat free yoghurt
2 tablespoons apple sauce
2 egg whites

1. Pre heat oven to 180c. Line a loaf tin with baking paper.
2. Sift flour, baking powder, bicarb soda and cinnamon into large mixing bowl. Add brown sugar, salt and oats, mix.

3. In a separate bowl whisk together yoghurt, apple sauce, milk and egg whites.

4. Gently mix wet and dry ingredients until just combined. Do not over mix.
5. Stir in apple.
6. Bake for approximately 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Nina's apple and cinnamon cake

Today is my boyfriend’s mother’s birthday. A happy birthday to Nina! When I presented her with this birthday present cake she said ‘Wow! I’ve never had a cake with my name on it before!’ I didn’t tell her that the name took me the most amount of effort with this cake, but clearly worth it. I’ve never been able to pipe, I’m all about the fondant when it comes to cake decorating (I know I’ve said it before, but it’s just like play-doh! Seriously.) Last week I had my first cake decorating lesson where we watched our teacher make the perfect royal icing and she also demonstrated a few basic piping techniques. Seems I came away from that lesson with more than I realised. I was determined to get Nina’s name right, and after a few practices on some baking paper I went for it! Three attempts later and plenty of paper towel to wipe away the mistakes I ended up with that fantastic reaction from my mother-in-law!

The cake is a low fat apple and cinnamon cake, recipe developed especially for Nina. For a low fat cake it was very tasty! And very, very moist! I think I may have put in too much apple sauce, but after a few adjustments and another test run this weekend I feel that the recipe will be blog ready.

An artistic Mud Cake!

I’m very excited because tomorrow I start my cake decorating course at Bankstown Community College! I’m going back to the basics to refine my artistic technique. Speaking of artists, last week was my beautiful Aunty Vickii’s 60th birthday and she is a very talented painter (feel free to applaud that magnificent segway- Anna Coren would be impressed).


She also happens to be obsessed with mice (Aunty Vickii, not Anna Coren). Not live mice though. The cute plastic/porcelain/material (etc) type. She has cabinets upon cabinets full of figurines. So, mice had to be incorporated into the design somewhere.
I steered clear of the cliché cheese wheel with mice running over it, and opted for a paint pallet adorned with mice. Cute!


Packet butter cake (tip: If using packet cake I always use Greens brand, it has the best flavour) topped with white chocolate ganache and chocolate marshmallow fondant!

I find some of the best recipes from the many food blogs I read daily, so I’ve decided to add to the phenomenon that is food blogs by including recipes in my blog posts.

In weeks past I headed over to my Grandparents house for Sunday afternoon tea. Sunday is my baking day. While others are worshiping in church, I am praying to the cooking gods that my latest recipe or cake design will work! So obviously for afternoon tea I came with a cake! Mud cake! My boyfriend loves mud cake. Sadly, he did not get to taste this one (much to his disgust).
After researching a few recipes on the net, and some from my trusty cake books, I came up with a recipe I liked (and included the ingredients, or lack thereof, that were currently in my cupboard).

And here it is...

Chocolate Mud Cake

· 1 ½ plain flour
· ½ cup self raising flour (most recipes called for 1 cup of each, I however only had ½ of self raising left! Lucky it was very good quality, but I would advise using 1 cup of each).
· 250 g dark chocolate
· 60 g coco powder
· ½ teaspoon bicarb soda
· 4 eggs
· 625 g sugar
· 250 g butter (always unsalted!)
· ½ cup milk
· 2 tablespoons of oil
· 2 tablespoons instant coffee (optional)

Ganache
· 250g of high quality chocolate
· 1/3 cup thickened cream

1. Preheat oven 160 C and line your baking pan (I used a deep 30cm round tin)
2. Sift flours, bicard and coco into bowl, add sugar. Mix together.
3. Combined butter and chocolate in a saucepan with ¾ cup of water, plus coffee. Stir over low heat until combined/melted.
4. Make a well in the centre of flour mix and gently stir in chocolate mixture.
5. Whisk milk, oil and eggs and add to mixture. Stir until smooth.
6. Bake for 1 hr 30 mins (depending on oven).
To make the ganache
1. Roughly chop chocolate
2. Add chocolate and cream to saucepan, stir over low heat until melted and combined
3. Set aside to cool until it is a spreadable consistency.

And there you have it! Lovely rich, moist mud cake and not that sponge-like cake that you often get from chain cake stores. And the worlds simplest ganache! If you’re short of time you can whack the saucepan full of chocolaty goodness into the fridge, alternately this recipe works well if you want to pour the ganache over the cake when almost cooled, for a gorgeous silky, shinny texture.

Let me know what you think of this recipe, or if you have any requests for upcoming recipe posts! I’m thinking something with coke and bourbon for my Daddy’s birthday.

Baz’s big birthday billiard balls

Just like mumma always said, don’t play with your food - you definitely shouldn’t play with these billiard balls.

Baz’s big birthday billiard balls. Barry, my boyfriends father, is very very amazing at pool – I suck. I always get my butt kicked. I did NOT get my butt kicked with these, though. Quite the opposite, I got cuddles and love. :)

Vanilla cupcake with a vanilla bean butter frosting. I wasn’t too keen on this recipe. The cupcakes were very heavy, not light and airy as I think cupcakes should be. But there were no complaints (my boyfriend even admitted to eating a few for breakfast the next day..)

Itchy baking fingers..

Gahhh! I haven't baked in a few weeks and I'm feeling a little anxious.. Lack of baking equipment at my current location is proving difficult. Walking past the baking isle in the supper market today nearly killed me! But tomorrow I'm hitting up the local shopping centre and going to town on some cheap baking tins - relief is coming! 

Recently, my good ol' Grandpa turned the ripe old age of 82! Grandpa Charlie is a racing fanatic! That's probably an understatement. They call him 'the burglar' at the race meets - cause he takes all their money - or so he tells us. 

Without even having to ask, my Dad knew I would be making a 'horse' cake of some description. Trusty google showed me a few different options, but I decided to attempt my first ever marzipan cake topper! Fun times. Seriously, its like play-doh for adults. Except it tastes better - mind you, I really liked the taste of play-doh as a kid, salty as it was. (*face turning red, clearing throat*) ok, so back to the cake.

I made a yummy lemon and sour cream cake! It was soooo good! It had a mosit, mud cake consistenly, yet was light and citritusy. And the sour cream balenced it all out perfectly. 

As usual with my cakes, it is covered with fondant. I employed a new technique to colour the cake - sponging! Really easy (as my life motto states) - get some food colouring, dilute with a little clear alcohol, grab a paper towel, roll into a ball and sponge onto cake! Simple.

Along with the fondant are chocolate decorations - fence palings to be exact - to make the cake look more like a horse farm. 

And needless to say, my Grandpa was blown away. He still has the marzipan horse sitting in the living room! :)

Greetings from foreign locations..

Ok not really foreign. Some might think the shire is a country in itself (*cough* my boyfriend *cough cough*) But it aint that far from my current standing location. House sitting for my future sister-in -law in Miranda means baking in foreign surroundings. (note to self: cake tins will make great xmas presents for SIL). The good news is that for the next three weeks I’m located within walking distance to my ‘local’ cake decorating supplies store! Hurrah!

Anyway, continuing on with caking adventures. Make way for HAMBURGER CUPCAKES. This could be the most confusing eating experience of your life.. well apparently it was for a few of my friends, “I’m confused? Do I want cake or cheeseburger?”. Ha!

 

I like easy projects and again, this is super dooper easy. Yellow cupcakes cut in half to make the bun. Chocolate cupcake for the beef patty (though I have recently seen them make with brownies.. mmm yum), and coloured butter cream for the lettuce, tomato and mustard! (second tip: you can also use shredded coconut coloured green with liquid food colouring for lettuce).

Aside from cupcakes, I am a huge fan of fun t-shirts. Namely, threadless t-shirts (thanks Lauren for the introduction to the wonderful world of threadless! May be the greatest gift you've ever given me). They are the coolest shirts out, average Joes like you an me submit designs, members vote on the designs and if they are good enough, they get printed! You can check em out here..

Ok so what does this have to do with cake, I hear you ask. The time has comes for the second ever threadcakes competition!! Pick your fav threadless shirt, make it into a cake, and enter to win amazing prizes! My only problem is picking which shirts to use as inspiration! (let me know if you have any requests!). For further inspiration, check out the threadcakes site here and stay tuned for cool, threadless inspired cakes!

Bunny bunny bunny!

These are so frickin’ cute I just can’t stand it! And super doper easy to make.

With family coming over for Easter I wanted to do something special to celebrate. You probably know by now that I’m hoping to one day become the human equivalent of Google, so as usual I turned to the trusty search engine yet again to get some creative inspiration.

I found more than inspiration, I found a full tutorial! Natalia of ‘Nati’s cooking adventures’ blog made 63 of these little cuties for charity last year. You can find her tutorial here.. http://natiscakes.blogspot.com/2008/03/easter-cupcakes.html

Along with the cute bunnies I also made a bunch of bee cupcakes too from a recipe I found in a kids party cake book. The cupcakes are a mix of vanilla and chocolate with buttercream and the body of the bee is a chocolate royal biscuit with white chocolate wings! Choc biscuit and cupcake together? Sooooo yummy!