a little bit savoury | a whole lot sweet
When organising my best friend’s baby shower, I asked what sweet treats she would like me to make for the day. At the top of the list was macarons and despite my Popcorn and Malteser Macarons being M’s favourite, for her baby shower she asked if it was possible to make some that tasted like one of her favourite lollies.
It just so happened that they were my favourite lolly as well so I set about creating these Pineapple Lolly Macarons.
As I was catching up on my YouTube subscriptions, this little cake appeared in the list for one of my favourite channels, Cupcake Jemma. The hubby happened to be around at the time and watched it with me then requested I make it immediately. Unfortunately for him, there were no blueberries in the house, but the next day I headed to the shops to pick up some to make this ridiculously delicious Blueberry Crumble Cake.
On a somewhat recent shopping trip I came across some freeze-dried fruit powders from The Melbourne Food Depot at a local store. As I was checking out the different varieties, I spied the passionfruit powder and immediately picked it up as the hubby and I both looooooove passionfruit.
It did take me a little while to get around to using it, which is normally the case for anything, but as I was in the mood to make macarons for some folks we had coming around, and it also turned out to be October’s Daring Bakers challenge, I decided to grab the powder and an extra ingredient, to make Popping Passionfruit Macarons.
Usually when I have bananas that are reaching the end of their life I make banana bread or a banana cake but this time I wanted to do something different. I also was in the mood for making some scrolls and knowing that Sally from Sally’s Baking Addiction has some amazing scrolls (or rolls as they are sometimes called) on her website, a quick search resulted in a recipe which met my needs.
So for your viewing and eating pleasure, I present Banana Chocolate Chip Cinnamon Scrolls.
If you follow me on Facebook you will have seen a picture I posted of some delicious looking cupcakes that I made recently, not once, but twice. They were that good!
You know I have a love of all things “malt” so when these Malteser Cupcakes appeared in my YouTube feed it was only a matter of weeks before they were whipped up in my kitchen.
Yes, this is yet another post that has stemmed from a YouTube video so I wouldn’t be surprised if you thought I spent all day watching YouTube (if I am honest, some days I do). The creator of this one is Cupcake Jemma who is in the UK and has a gorgeous looking shop by the name of Crumbs & Doilies in London which is on my list should I ever be lucky enough to get over there.
When this months Daring Bakers Challenge was announced, I was pretty excited as lamingtons were on the menu. You have seen me make these delightful little morsels before when I made the standard lamington covered in coconut as well as the colourful sprinkletons.
This time, I decided to go with chocolate as the main, and only, flavour and whipped up these Triple Chocolate Lamingtons which I have dubbed Chocingtons.
A couple of years ago a tutorial from The Cake Blog appeared in my Pinterest feed for a DIY Rainbow Sprinkle Cake. Of course I pinned it straight away, but in true Cath fashion, it has taken a couple of years to actually have a go at it.
I did not make the cake in rainbow colours as Kate from The Greedy Baker did in the tutorial as I was going to have five macaron colours to match the cake (however in the end, I only ended up with two) but as there would be a few gluten intolerant folks consuming this cake I converted my favourite vanilla cake recipe into a gluten-free version so no one was left out.
Since we have had our Chromecast, I am even more addicted to YouTube videos than I was before. Queuing up and watching video after video is how I spend far too much time in my day (I just convince myself, and the hubby, that I am doing “research” for the blog).
Recently on the What to Watch page, a video appeared from Jamie Oliver’s Food Tube with Gennaro Contaldo which was perfectly timed given the current Daring Bakers Challenge. So using Gennaro’s version of the recipe from the video, I decided to make Tomato and Basil Focaccia.
I had grand illusions of another macaron tower recently with five brightly coloured, different flavour macarons to go with a sprinkle cake I was making. One would be the old favourite of Cherry Ripe Macarons, and the other four brand new ones I have had on my wish list to make.
Well for three of them I made the buttercream, but that was as far as I got, but one did end up with its shells and I am glad they did because I was very happy with how these Jaffa Macarons turned out.
Given there are two Popcorn and Malteser Macaron posts on this blog, you might assume that I am a fan of the malt flavour. Well that assumption is correct my friend. In fact, my go-to milkshake flavour is the combination of two of my favourite things, vanilla and malt.
So when the Vanilla Malted Milk Cake by Hungry Rabbit appeared on my Pinterest feed one day, it immediately went on my ever-growing list of things to make.
