Lemon Cheesecake – Take 1

May 1, 2013 Reply
Lemon Cheese Cake - Featured

I was flicking through taste.com.au and came across a lemon cheesecake recipe. Now cheesecakes are always popular and lemon, I love lemon anything so I thought I’d give it a go. As you can see it worked out okay. I know to make the crumbs for the sides and base a lot finer next time though. The sides need to be a bit thicker too but it tastes great, There was a serving suggestion of cream on the side; trust me, you don’t need it. Next time I may do 50/50 lime. I also need to work on making the sides more presentable. I’m happy for a first try, second

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Honey Chocolate Cake

March 17, 2013 1 Comment
Featured Chocolate Cake

Tonight we have the Queen Of Cakes over for dinner so it’s a bit scary but I’ve tried to impress with a pretty yummy looking cake. This is Margaret Fulton’s Honey Chocolate Cake – but what the title doesn’t tell you is that there’s a good whack of booze in there thanks to some dry sherry and rum. It’s my first ‘slice in half and fill with cream’ cake and Mel provided me hints and tips on the consistency of the cream and sawing the cake in half evenly. I’m pretty happy with my first effort at this sort of cake. Update Man, that sherry is strong. I’d probably lessen the amount

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Cinnamon Crinkles

March 17, 2013 Reply
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I cooked these these this morning as a warm up for a serious cake baking attempt and they were well worth it. Light, crisp and just the right hint of cinnamon as you finish. Only problem with these type of biscuits is stopping at the one. Ingredients 125g butter, softened 165g caster sugar, plus 2 tablespoons extra 1 egg 200g self raising flour 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon Method 1) Preheat the oven to 180 2) Cream the butter with the 165g of sugar. When it’s light and fluffy beat in the egg. 3) Add the sifted flour to the butter 4) Make marble sized balls of the mixture and roll

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Chocolate Fudge Cake

March 11, 2013 Reply
Chocolate Fudge

The other day Phee asked if I’d bake a cake for her birthday. Gulp. That’s pressure. I hunted through Margaret Fulton and found many cakes I wanted to make – most of them ginger – but when I saw the chocolate fudge cake I knew I’d found the one. I haven’t made many cakes so it was a bit daunting. I’d always thought chocolate cakes would be more difficult and this one wasn’t a cake as such, it was more about the fudge center. It also involved beating eggs and folding them in without collapsing them – scary stuff for a beginner. I made the cake and was a bit scared.

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Fast Ed’s Coconut Bread

March 9, 2013 Reply
Coconut Bread

Last night I caught Fast Ed (really?) making his coconut bread on Better Homes and Gardens. You can see the video here, and is it just me or did they speed it up a bit? It’s a simple as you can get. Heat the oven to 180 degrees, butter and line a loaf tin. Whisk together 1.5 cups of coconut milk (that’s close enough to a 400ml can), 2 large eggs and 75ml of vegetable oil. Combine 1 cup of castor sugar, 2 cups of shredded coconut and 2.5 cups of self raising flour. Add this to the milk mix and beat well until it’s all combined. Lick the beaters.

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Ginger Biscuits

March 1, 2013 1 Comment
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My nana loved ginger, she’d always have a box of the candied version to have a nibble from. While I  couldn’t come at that I did love ginger nut biscuits – as a kid I could literally eat a packet. One of Rae’s requests the other other day was for something ginger so I decided on Margaret Fulton’s ginger biscuits – perhaps the simplest biscuit I have made but my god, they are good. This is the third batch (thanks to a request from Ren) and they won’t probably won’t last the evening.   There was an error in the recipe. It said to pre-heat the oven to 180 before

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Luscious Lemon Slice

February 27, 2013 Reply
Tarts On A Plate

Rae sent me this link to a magnificent looking lemon slice. http://www.insanitytheory.net/kitchenwench/luscious-lemon-slices/ As soon as I opened up the page I knew I had to make it – I’m an absolute fool for anything that is lemon flavoured, and a lemon slice like this one is right up there. It was comparatively easy to make, nothing to technical to deal with but I was perplexed when it came out – the base was on the top and I thought it was a complete failure. It took me a little while to realise I needed to turn it over on to the cooling rack. Forgive me, I am new at this.

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Strawberry and Yoghurt Cake

February 16, 2013 Reply
Strawberry and Yoghurt Cake Feature

I’ve been reading the Age’s Good Weekend for decades now and always skipped right past the recipes, I mean, only clever and insanely talented people could ever cook/bake them. Mere mortals need not apply. This morning I paused on Neil Perry’s Strawberry and Yoghurt cake. It looked delicious and when I looked it seemed almost too simple to be true. No eggs and polenta made it different to anything else I have baked so after grabbing some polenta from Coles I set to work. I took my time, didn’t stress and it worked! Two hours in the oven is a long time to wait to see how everything turned out

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Coconut and Raspberry Jam Slice

February 10, 2013 1 Comment
Raspberry Jam and Coconut Slice - 1

With the Queen of Cakes coming for dinner I decided to risk it and contribute a dessert of my own. Rae had gone through Margert’s book and selected a few recipes for me to try and after a quick look in the pantry to see what I could bake with what we already had the winner was Raspberry Jam and Coconut slice. I was pressed for time and it showed a little in the presentation of the finished product but they taste amazing. Considering I’ve all but given up sweet things the sugar hit from two of these had me buzzing but considering it’s the next morning now and they’ve

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Peanut Butter Cheesecake

February 5, 2013 2 Comments
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Margaret Fulton strikes again. I didn’t plan it but I’ve made two peanut butter sweets in a row. In her recipe Margaret says she adapted an American recipe for peanut butter cheesecake to Australian tastes – I assume it’s a little less ‘heavy’ and lighter on the peanuts. This recipe called for Wheaton Chocolate biscuits but the local Coles didn’t have any so I opted for Chocolate Ripple instead – not sure but I think they may be heavier than Wheaton’s. I also had to adapt as I didn’t have a small enough flan tin so, to avoid spreading the crust too thin, I used a baking tin instead. It

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