Chocolate Porridge Cake

I was reading $120 Food Challenge the other day when this caught my eye – Chocolate Porridge Cake. As a very recent convert to porridge I thought it sounded intriguing so I gave it a go, and boy am I glad I did. It turned out to be a dense, moist cake but with the lightest flavour. I’m guessing it’s the oats that make a small piece so filling. The recipe said to add your favourite chocolate  icing, which was a bit of a problem as I’ve only made icing once before, for the Chocolate Gingerbread Cake so I rang mum. Mum gave me a rough guide to icing and …

Sticky Chocolate Gingerbread Cake

It was Rob’s birthday this week and tradition demands a cake. The morning of his birthday I was flicking through The Age and found a recipe for Karen Martini’s Sticky Chocolate Gingerbread Cake. It looked suitably birthdayish and all I had to do was pick up some fresh ginger so away I went. The result was pretty damn good, even if I do say so myself. Lots of spices with fresh ginger and ginger juice combined with a hint of lemon in the decadent icing made for a grown up chocolate cake, but one that a couple of the kids actually liked too. It’s very much a special occasion cake …

Back With Berry and Oat Muffins

I haven’t baked in ages, mainly because it’s not been great to have sweet things laying around while we try and get fit and keep weight down. Today, however, work was getting on top of me and the urge to do some baking to cheer me up became too strong. I went back to what kicked off my baking late last year – quick, easy and healthy bran and oat muffins from The Healthy Food Guide. Simply combine one and a half cups of self raising flour, sifted, one cup of rolled oats and half a cup of firmly packed brown sugar. Stir in a third of a cup of …