a little bit savoury | a whole lot sweet
I was in a biscuit making mood recently and although I initially thought of something chocolate, I recalled a cinnamon flavoured biscuit with a funny name and was pretty sure I saw a recipe on one of my favourite blogs.
So I headed over to Sally’s website, Sally’s Baking Addiction, and did a search for Snickerdoodles and a number of recipes appeared. The one I ended up choosing was the soft and thick snickerdoodles, because let’s face it, they look amazing (as does everything on Sally’s blog)!
For this month’s Daring Bakers Challenge, it was time for me to try something that I had been wanting to for a while now. Whoopie Pies are an American treat which you don’t see much of here in Australia, well at least in my part of the world and are a cross between a cookie and a cake with two of them being sandwiched together by some kind of sweet filling.
For my Whoopie Pies, I originally thought of red velvet given my obsession but as it was the silly festive season I decided to make some Christmas Candy Cane Whoopie Pies instead using a recipe from JoyofBaking.com.
When there is a birthday at the hubby’s work, one of the women in his office is the dedicated birthday cake maker.
For one of the recent birthdays, she was unavailable so I was asked to make the birthday cake for D. The cake chosen was one I haven’t made before, being a Hummingbird Cake with Cream Cheese Icing, but it was super simple and went down a treat with everyone, most importantly the birthday girl.
One of the most popular flavours around these days is salted caramel. I see it in tarts, biscuits, cupcakes and certainly macarons. So when B requested Salted Caramel Macarons for her part of the 30th birthday macaron tower, I was excited to give it a go.
There are numerous recipes out there for salted caramel macarons, and the one I used was from one of my 100+ cookbooks being Secrets of Macarons by José Maréchal. It is an awesome little book with lots of info on how to make these fiddly little things and I refer to it regularly.
One of my favourite flavour combinations in this world happens to be “cookies and cream”. Generally, if there is something cookies and cream flavoured I will try it at least once, whether it is chocolate (Hershey’s is my top pick), ice cream (Connoisseur is the ONLY brand as far as I am concerned) or as a cupcake.
Now I have tried a lot of cupcakes and am still yet to find my favourite so I thought it would be an opportune time to attempt my own Oreo cookies and cream cupcakes.
I use Swiss Meringue Buttercream (or SMB for short) a lot. You have heard me go on and on about it as my weapon icing of choice, so I thought it was about time it got a post of its own to share the variations and tricks I have learned along the way. You have seen me use it as the filling in my Purple Corset Cake and Bûche de Noël, and for piping beautiful decoration on a wedding cake, cupcakes and my very first ombre petal cake. There have certainly been a few disasters along the road, with a batch or two thrown away, but regardless it is wonderful to work with, and when it is done right it looks, and tastes, exquisite.
I am quite addicted to piping a rose pattern having honed my skills on a wedding cake, a cake for the local Inner Wheel group as well as on the top of cupcakes. So why not use the same technique for biscuits? The blog that inspired the rose pattern posted some Neapolitan Spritz Cookies earlier this year and I knew straight away that I had to make them. Although I didn’t package them quite the way Amanda at i am baker did (which is super cute), I did show them off on my new high tea stand so these Chocolate Rose Biscuits with Rose Water Buttercream could be part two of my high tea series.
Mars Bar Slice is probably not something that you usually see on a high tea menu, but when I recently purchased a new three tiered server I was in an extreme chocolate mood and given had a few Mars Bars on hand, I thought it was a good enough reason to make a childhood favourite.
My dad played golf a lot and when we would head out to the club to pick him up my brother and I would sometime be allowed to have a Mars Bar while we waited. I did get a bit over them for a while but when started making Mars Bar Slice I certainly started to appreciate them again.
Can you believe that on Wednesday it will be one year since I published the first post about My Best Friend’s Wedding Cake? It is just absolutely crazy.
So for my celebratory post on my first blogiversary (as those in the biz call it) I thought I would share the cupcakes that inspired the cake that inspired the blog. These red velvet cupcakes are always popular whenever I make them, so much so that I made over 300 of them one weekend for a bunch of my brother’s friends. I absolutely adore everything about them.
Hi. My name is Cath, and I am a cupcake-a-holic.
As you may have gathered, I love to cook, and especially bake. I do love all kinds of baking, but at the end of the day, as much as I love macarons, cakes, biscuits and brownies, my true love is cupcakes. They are cute little packages of delight, sure to bring a smile to anyone’s dial. For years and years and years and years they have been my go to treat and a few of the many varieties I have made are lemon and lime, red velvet (it started the whole red velvet craze in my world), chocolate, lemon meringue and the trusty old vanilla. I love cupcakes that much that I have cupcakes on my dressing gown, apron, two bags, a tea towel and a cupcake shaped plate. I am also going to be getting a vinyl sticker for a wall in my kitchen that reads “love and cupcakes are all you need” after seeing a print that Sally from Sally’s Baking Addiction received. So yes, a little obsessed over here.
So for my first foray back into the cupcake world after a long hiatus, I asked my friend C what her favourite chocolate bar was to inspire a cupcake for her birthday. Originally I was going to call these Turkish Delight cupcakes (as that was the answer to my question), and I guess I sort of can because the flavour is essentially there. But when you search for Turkish Delight cupcakes on the interweb, there usually is Turkish Delight in/on them. So I am going to go with the much longer name of Chocolate Cupcakes with Rose Buttercream. Phew!