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.
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.
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.
“The Book Man”, as we like to call him, comes to our office every few weeks to drop off another container loaded with books, and sometimes other random items (such as a bath mat which looks like it is made out of two-minute noodles) that he has for sale. In most cases there are cook books and despite already having a collection of over 100-and-something, I tend to increase my collection and on this occasion there was a book by Anneka Manning called Mastering the Art of Baking.
Anneka’s book covers everything including cakes, muffins, breads, pastries and desserts with all of the recipes including a few step-by-step pictures in addition to the “basics” section at the beginning of the book.
I was in a biscuit mood on one particular weekend so for the first recipe to be made from this book, I decided on the Monte Cream Biscuits which are a homemade version of a popular store-bought variety.
As a kid growing up in Australia, there are few staple treats that appear at pretty much every school fete or birthday party you go to growing up. Fairy Bread, Coconut Ice, Frogs in a Pond, Honey Joys and the ever popular Chocolate Crackles.
Although a degree of adult supervision is required due to the hot melted Copha, chocolate crackles are usually one of the first things you learn how to make as they are really simple and can be decorated however you like with sprinkles of all shapes and sizes, mini choc chips or grated chocolate for example. For this batch I decided to mix things up a little and replace the desiccated coconut that is in the original recipe with something a little more exciting… popping candy!!!
Quite a while ago, 2nd July 2012 to be exact, a very cute post appeared in my feed reader for some cupcakes. The post was by Steph from Raspberri Cupcakes, who inspired the Fruit Tingle Macarons, for her Milk and Chocolate Chip Cookie Cupcakes.
I tend to decorate my cupcakes quite basic with my favourite rose swirl piping technique, but there are quite a few different cupcakes on my Pinterest board decorated with mini pancakes, various flowers, cream puffs and mini versions of baking equipment that I hope to try. These cupcakes are quite cute and really easy, plus you cannot beat this classic combination so I present these Milk and Cookies Cupcakes for your viewing pleasure.
