Chocolate and Raspberry Muffin Recipe - Bourke Street Bakery Book

Admittedly, most of the time I suck at baking. But when I suck at something, I'm always determined to better myself. That is where the Bourke Street Bakery book comes in. All the times I've been to Sydney, I'd never heard of BSB until the book was released and all of my Sydney based 'tweeps' were raving about the book. So, I made my way down to the books shop and checked out the book. Turns out it's the exact Baking cook book I've been looking for, for years!
The book is loaded with great recipes on how to make PROPER bread from scratch, with detailed instructions on how to make your own white and rye starters. This is artisan baking at it's best. So many times I've tried to make bread and it has never ever, not once, turned out well. I've never been happy with a single loaf. So, at the moment I'm day 4 (out of 4 weeks) of making my own bread starter. But that's another post for later.
Along with all the amazing breads in this book, there are also lots of great pastries and cakes to make. Since I had a kilo of delicious Yarra Valley Raspberries in my Freezer, I thought it would be great to try out this recipe. Who doesn't like Raspberries and Chocolate! The recipe is really easy and the only tip you need is to just be careful not to overmix the batter. Overmixing can make the finished product toughen up and become chewy. Not what you want.
These muffins turned out perfectly. So, it looks like I'm on the way to being a star baker!!

Dark Chocolate and Raspberry Muffins
Makes 12

• 400g (2 2/3 cups) plain flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 300g caster sugar
• 310g unsalted butter
• 480ml buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 eggs
• 225g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
• 225g raspberries, fresh or frozen
• 55g raw sugar
• Icing sugar, for dusting


1. Preheat the oven to 190°C (375°F). Lightly grease a 12-hole muffin tin and line with paper cases.
2. Sift the flour and baking paper into a bowl and add the sugar, mixing well to combine.
3. Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat, then remove from the heat and stir in the buttermilk. Using a whisk stir in the eggs to combine. Pour over the dry ingredients and whisk to combine. Use a large spoon to gently fold through the chocolate and raspberries.
4. Spoon the mixture into the prepared muffin tins. Sprinkle the tops with raw sugar. Reduce the oven temperature to 180°C (350°F) and bake for 20-25 minutes. It may be necessary to drop the temperature about 10 minutes before the end of baking time if the muffins are starting to brown on top.
5. To test if the muffins are done, push the top gently to feel that it is firm. Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tins for 10 minutes before eating. Dust with icing sugar to serve.

Butternut Pumpkin Cupcakes

Butternut Pumpkin cupcakes may sound a little strange, but think of the other vegetables you use in cakes - Beetroot, Carrots, Zucchini, so why not Butternut Pumpkin? In fact, this recipe is very similar to a Carrot Cake recipe.

These cup cakes are so simple to make- basically you just whiz everything up in a food processor and you're ready to bake.

I have to say, these cupcakes are probably the best cakes I have ever made! I really fell in love with the sweet pumpkin cake and the zesty, sour cream icing. Give them a try!

Ingredients:

For the muffins

• 400g butternut pumpkin, skin on, deseeded and roughly chopped
• 350g light soft brown sugar
• 4 large free-range or organic eggs
• Sea salt
• 300g plain flour, unsifted
• 2 heaped teaspoons of baking powder
• A handful of walnuts
• 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
• 175ml of extra virgin olive oil

For the frosted cream topping

• Zest of 1 Orange
• Zest of 1 lemon and juice of ½ a lemon
• 140ml of soured cream
• 2 heaped tablespoons of icing sugar, sifted
• 1 vanilla pod, split lengthways and seeds scraped out
• Optional: lavender flowers or rose petals

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4. Line your muffin tins with paper cases.

2. Whiz the Pumpkin in a food processor until finely chopped. Add the sugar, and crack in the eggs. Add a pinch of salt, the flour, baking powder, walnuts, cinnamon and olive oil and whiz together until well beaten. You may need to pause the machine at some point to scrape the mix down the sides with a rubber spatula. Try not to overdo it with the mixing - you want to just combine everything and no more.

3. Fill the paper cases with the cake mixture. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes. Check to see whether they are cooked properly by sticking a wooden skewer or a knife right into one of the cakes - if it comes out clean, they’re done. If it's a bit sticky, pop them back into the oven for a little longer. Remove from the oven and leave the cakes to cool on a wire rack.

4. As soon as the muffins are in the oven, make your runny frosted topping. Place most of the Orange zest, all the lemon zest and the lemon juice in a bowl. Add the soured cream, icing sugar and vanilla seeds and mix well. Taste and have a think about it - adjust the amount of lemon juice or icing sugar to balance the sweet and sour. Put into the fridge until your cakes have cooled down, then spoon the topping on to the cakes. Serve on a lovely plate, with the rest of the Orange zest sprinkled over. For an interesting flavour and look, a few dried lavender flowers or rose petals are fantastic.

Tray baked Meringue with Pears, Cream, Toasted Hazelnuts and Chocolate

This is from Jamie Oliver's latest book, Jamie at Home. I'm not going to write much here, I think the pictures pretty much speak for themselves. Let me tell you though, this Chocolate and Pear Syrup is the best stuff ever! Look at the oozing chocolate sauce - yum!
You could probably feed about 8 people with this Meringue. For a family of four, you could probably halve the recipe, you might need to adjust the cooking times though.

4 large free-range or organic egg whites
1 1/4 cups raw sugar
Pinch sea salt
100 grams hazelnuts, skins removed
2 400g cans halved pears, in syrup
2 pieces stem ginger, thinly sliced, optional
200g dark chocolate (minimum 70 percent cocoa solids)
400ml double cream
50g icing sugar, sifted
1 vanilla bean, halved and seeds scraped out
1 orange, zested



Preheat your oven to 150c and line a baking sheet with a sheet of waxed paper.
Put your egg whites into a squeaky clean bowl, making sure there are absolutely no little pieces of egg shell or egg yolk in them. Whisk on medium until the whites form firm peaks. With your mixer still running, gradually add the sugar and the pinch of salt. Turn the mixer up to the highest setting and whisk for about 7 or 8 minutes, until the meringue mixture is white and glossy. To test whether it's done you can pinch some between your fingers - if it feels completely smooth it's ready; if it's slightly granular it needs a little more whisking.

Dot each corner of the waxed paper with a blob of meringue, then turn it over and stick it to the baking sheet. Spoon the meringue out onto the paper. Using the back of a spoon, shape and swirl it into a rectangle. Place in the preheated oven and bake for 1 hour or until crisp on the outside and a little soft and sticky inside. At the same time, bake the hazelnuts on a separate sheet in the oven for 1 hour or until golden brown.

Drain the cans of pears, reserving the syrup from 1 can. Cut each pear half into 3 slices. Pour the pear syrup into a saucepan with the ginger, if using, and warm gently over a medium heat until it starts to simmer. Take off the heat and snap the chocolate into the saucepan, stirring with a spoon until it's all melted.

Take the meringue and hazelnuts out of the oven and leave to cool. Place the meringue on a nice rustic board or platter. Whip the cream with the sifted icing sugar and the vanilla seeds until it forms smooth, soft peaks. Smash the toasted hazelnuts (in a kitchen towel) and sprinkle half of them over the top of the meringue. Spoon half the whipped cream over the top and drizzle with some of the chocolate sauce (if the sauce has firmed up, melt it slightly by holding the saucepan over a large pan of boiling water). Divide most of the pear pieces evenly over the top. Pile over the rest of the whipped cream and pears. Drizzle with some more chocolate sauce, then sprinkle over the remaining toasted hazelnuts with some grated orange zest. Serve straightaway. If you're making this in advance, get everything ready and assemble at the last minute.

Lamingtons

To be honest, I never in my life thought I would make a Lamington from scratch. And here we are today and I have made my first batch and it probably won't be my last.
It's a bit of mucking around, dipping your little sponge cakes into the melted chocolate icing, but the finished product it's worth the effort. Your friends will be impressed to boot!

Ingredients:

Sponge Cake:
6 eggs
150 g (51/2 oz/2/3 cup) caster (superfine) sugar
200 g (7 oz/12/3 cups) self-raising flour
30 g (1 oz) unsalted butter, melted

Chocolate Icing:
500 g (1 lb 2 oz/4 cups) icing (confectioners') sugar
200 g (7 oz) dark chocolate, chopped
15 g (1/2 oz) unsalted butter
125 ml (4 fl oz/1/2 cup) milk
375 g (13 oz/4 cups) desiccated coconut

Method:
Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F/Gas 4). Lightly grease and line the base of an 18 x 28 cm
(7 x 11 inch) tin with baking paper.

To make the cake, beat the eggs for about 5 minutes with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Gradually add the sugar and continue beating until the mixture is thick and the sugar has dissolved. Sift in the flour and fold in lightly. Add the butter and 3 tablespoons of hot water and stir gently to combine. Pour into the tin and bake for 30 minutes, or until golden. Cool on a wire rack.

To make the chocolate icing, put the sugar, dark chocolate, butter and milk in a heatproof bowl and place over a saucepan of simmering water. Stir constantly until melted and mixed together.

Cut the sponge into 16 squares. Put the coconut in a bowl. Dip each sponge square into the chocolate icing and then in the coconut. Leave on a wire rack to dry completely before serving. Makes 16

Happy Birthday..... Me! Nigella's Custard Birthday Sponge

Well, this is my first post in quite a while... I've managed to go AWOL from my Blogs for about a month now...sorry guys! I blame Facebook! Ugh!
Anyway... Last week was my 29th birthday....yep... only one more to go, before the big 3 - 0!
Apparently at my work, they have a tradition of making your own birthday cake! That sucks if you ask me. What makes you feel more special on your birthday than someone having gone to the effort of making you a nice birthday cake? Oh well, so I decided to make my first Nigella Lawson cake. What other Celebrity Chef would you look to for a Birthday Cake?
This recipe was surprisingly easy and absolutely delicious. Everyone at work loved it and there were mentions that they wished it was my birthday everyday!

Ingredients:

For the cake

* 200 g plain flour
* 3 tbsp custard powder
* 2 tsp baking powder
* ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
* 4 eggs
* 225 g soft butter
* 200 g caster sugar
* 2 tbsp milk

For the buttercream filling

* 125 g icing sugar
* 4 tsp custard powder
* 75 g soft unsalted butter
* 1½ tsp boiling water

For the chocolate icing

* 60 ml water
* 2 tbsp golden syrup
* 125 g caster sugar
* 175 g dark chocolate
* Hundreds and thousands

Method
For the cake

1. Make sure everything you need is at room temperature before you start. Preheat the oven to 180C, 350F, Gas 4, butter and line two 20cm sandwich tins.
2. Put all the cake ingredients, apart from the milk, into a food processor. Process to a smooth batter, and then add the milk 1 tbsp at a time to make a soft dropping consistency. Divide between the two cake tins and bake for 20 minutes. The cakes will have risen and feel spookily puffy; this is because of the cornflour in the custard powder.
3. Let the tins sit on a cooling rack for 5 minutes and then turn them out on to the rack, peeling away the paper.

For the buttercream filling

1. Process the icing sugar and custard powder to get rid of any lumps, and then add the butter, processing again to make the buttercream come together. Feed the boiling water down the funnel with the motor running to make the filling easier to spread. Then sandwich the cooled sponges together with the custardy buttercream.

For the chocolate icing

1. Combine the water, syrup and sugar in a saucepan, stirring to dissolve over a low heat. Let it come to the boil and then take it of the heat.
2. Break up the chocolate into small pieces and then add to the pan, swirling it around to cover in the hot liquid. Leave to melt for a few minutes, and then whisk the icing to make it smooth and shiny. Pour over the buttercream filled cake, letting it drip down the sides, and then sprinkle generously with the hundreds and thousands before the icing sets.
3. Prong with candles, light them and sing.

Campion and Curtis' Tiramisu Cake

I'm not a huge fan of baking, simply because I'm not that great at it, which is why you rarely see any baked goodies on my blog. I usually try and get away with making sweets that stay well away from the oven and never need to rise! I'm hoping to one day get better at baking, but until then, I'm going to stick with goodies like this Tiramisu Cake, out of Campion and Curtis' book, 'Food with Friends.'

This is seriously one of these easiest cakes you could make. It's cheap to make, takes no time at all and best of all, requires no baking! I saw that Vicious Ange also had a go at this cake ,so I thought I'd steal the recipe off her for you enjoy, thanks Ange!

Tiramisu Cake

200g dark chocolate chopped into chunks (Lindt 70% works well)

3 medium eggs, seperated

60 ml (1/4 cup) marsala

250 g mascarpone

150 g Italian sponge fingers

100 ml strong coffee

cocoa powder

cream to serve

22cm springform cake tin

Put chocolate in a heatproof bowl & set over saucepan of simmering water until melted. Beat egg yolks with marsala until pale & creamy.

Add mascarpone to beaten yolks & beat until smooth.

Add melted chocolate to mix & stir until well combined. Whip egg whites until stiff, fold into the mix.

Line springform tin with greaseproof paper. Lay half the spnge fingers in the bottom of the cake tin & drizzle with half the coffee. Pour the mascarpone mix into cake tin.

Top with remaining biscuits & drizzle with remaining coffe. Cover with glad wrap & refrigerate for 3-4 hours or overnight until set.To serve, remove cake carefully, dust with cocoa powder & serve with cream.

Jamie Oliver's Chocolate Fridge Cake with Pecan and Meringues

While having a look at Jamie's website today, I came across this recipe for a Chocolate Fridge Cake. The colours of the cake in the photo looked simply fantastic, so I thought I would make the cake to share with my mates at work tomorrow. Considering how hit and miss I am when making cakes in the oven, I thought maybe I'd be better at making a cake in the fridge - the complete opposite of baking!

So I headed to Safeway on my way home tonight and picked up the ingredients. By the time I had everything in my basket, it came to a total of $23! This was one expensive cake!

Here is the ingredients and method from Jamie's website:

• 200g digestive biscuits
• 110g whole pecans, roughly chopped
• 110g pistachio nuts, peeled
• 10 glace cherries
• 2 ready-made meringue nests
• 150g unsalted butter
• 1 tablespoon golden syrup
• 200g dark chocolate

Break the biscuits into small pieces directly into a large bowl.

Add the pecans, pistachio nuts and cherries and mix together.


Put the rest of the ingredients into a separate, heatproof bowl and put on a low heat over a pan of simmering water until the butter and chocolate have melted.


Combine the biscuit mix with the chocolate mixture. Line a plastic container with clingfilm, leaving plenty of extra film at the edges to help turn the cake out later.


Tip the everything into the container, place in the fridge to firm up then turn out, dust with icing sugar and cut into chunky slices.

When turned out and sliced, this cake looks awesome. With the green of the pistachios, the red of the cherries, the white of the meringues make this cake a great christmas treat. My cake though, seems very crumbly, maybe I used too many dry biscuits or not enough chocolate. When I slice it, it literally falls apart. As far as taste though, it tastes like a very expensive chocolate crackle! It's very, very rich and just tastes like nuts and biscuits that have been coated in chocolate. If I was going to make it again, I would use more chocolate or less dry biscuits, but I'm not sure if I would make it again- for the cost of it, I wouldn't say it's worth it. Oh well, if the worst comes to worst, I can do what one should do with all desserts that go wrong; crumble it up and have it with ice cream!