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.
Vanilla Sprinkle Cake (Gluten-Free)
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.
Hash Browns
The hubby and I do love something special on the weekends for breakfast with his preference being waffles, and mine pancakes. But one thing we do agree on is nothing can beat homemade hash browns. This wasn’t the first time we have had a go at hash browns ourselves, with our first incarnation being good, but not quite good enough.
Early last year a video popped up in my YouTube subscription from the wonderful Laura Vitale, who you may remember is the source of the soft pretzel recipe, for her homemade hash browns. We finally got around to making these during my epic weekend of baking apple cake, macarons and cupcakes and needless to say we were not disappointed!
Chocolate Cupcakes with Rose Buttercream
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!
Chocolate and Caramel Brownies
Last year, Adriano Zumbo had a television series about his work and in the third episode he headed back to the town where he grew up. In that episode, he visited the local school and made chocolate and caramel brownies with some of the students.
The recipe looked pretty darn tasty which was a good invitation to make it as far as I was concerned.
Southern Bombe
Another one of the cookbooks I purchased recently was SprinkleBakes by Heather Baird. I came across Heather’s blog when I was looking for red recipes to use up the extra food colouring purchased for My Best Friend’s Wedding Cake and I made the Red Spiral Biscuits, also featured in the book.
As I was flicking through the book when it arrived, one particular recipe stood out and I knew I had the perfect occasion to make it. The recipe was for a Southern Bombe and the occasion was yet another September birthday celebration for two of my beautiful friends.
Zucchini Slice
Although I have eaten Zucchini Slice many times, I have never actually made it which may be surprising given my vegetarianism. When a friend asked me to make it for a work lunch she was attending I didn’t have a recipe at hand so I scoured the interweb for inspiration.