A Few of My Favourite Things !

These eye-catching cupcakes were so popular last time I baked them that I decided to do them again for a 1st Birthday Party. Everyone wonders how you get the cake in the cones and the answer, of course, is that they are baked in there. Exactly the same as you would normally bake cupcakes but substitute cupcake cases for flat-bottomed cones. My dilemma came in the form of transportation. These cupcakes were top-heavy with the weight of the frosting so how could I ensure that they got to the party venue intact? Lightbulb moment! I remembered that we used to melt wax into birthday candle holders to make the little candles stay. Of course, I used something far more delicious than wax. I painted the bottom of the cones with melted chocolate and stuck them onto my cupcake tray and let the chocolate set overnight. Those cupcakes didn’t budge the next day when I was carrying them to the car but then I was beset by doubts about whether they would come off when the partygoers tried to remove them. I needn’t have worried after all. A few jiggles and the cupcakes were theirs for the tasting.

This post is very, and I mean VERY, late. This cake was baked 10 months ago for A’s birthday and since then we have celebrated Christmas, moved house, had our son’s 2nd birthday party, had a new baby and celebrated my birthday. I was reminded of this cake when someone from Green & Black’s contacted me this week with tickets to the upcoming Taste of Melbourne (more on this in the next post).

So on a Saturday night, after putting my son to bed, I finalised the preparations for the party. I had made mini burgers, and was serving them with peking duck rolls and assorted mini dim sum.

Guests started rolling in and food was rolling out. The doorbell rang and the singer that I had inadvertently stumbled upon when visiting the city library one afternoon came in to play a set for us.

Finally, the candles were lit and the cake was placed in front of the birthday boy. He chose this cake from my Alice Medrich bittersweet book after flicking through and looking at the pictures. I looked at the photo and thought ‘That looks easy enough’ and ended up having to purchase a $69 roll of plastic liner to make the the thin chocolate layer surrounding the cake as none of the stores sold smaller rolls.

We also had a smaller family celebration earlier in the evening but they didn’t want to stay for the main event. Here was the cake we had:

Strawberry Celebration Cake

Soaking Syrup
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
1/3 cup rum

Cream Filling:
2 cups mascarpone cheese
1 cup thickened cream
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract

Chocolate Genoise

100g Green & Black’s Dark (85%) organic chocolate, melted

2 punnets strawberries

1. Pour melted chocolate along a strip of plastic liner that fits exactly around the inside of the cake tin and spread with spatula. Lift strip and fit ito tin with chocolate facing the inside. Refrigerate until set.
2. Combine ingredients for soaking syrup in saucepan and simmer until sugar is dissolved. Cool then add rum.
3. Combine ingredients for cream filling in large bowl and whip until the mixture is almost holding stiff peaks.
4. Cut the Chocolate Genoise into 2 layers horizontally and fit bottom layer into chocolate-lined tin. Brush bottom layer with 3 tbs soaking syrup and spread half of the cream evenly over the cake layer. Arrange and press strawberries into the cream. Cover the strawberries with a litte more cream.
5. Moisten the top later of cake lightly with 2 tbs syrup and fit it, moist side down, into the tin Press into place and moisten top of cake with the rest of the syrup. cover with remaining cream and refrigerate for several hours or overnight.
6. Remove sides of springform tin very carefully and decorate top of the cake with cream, strawberries and chocolate fans. Carefully peel plastic strip off the cake and serve.

I’m heading to a surprise baby shower for a dear old friend this afternoon. I’ve just realised that I am without a car , it’s a windy Melbourne day and I have to carry a cake and present with me. Luckily, another dear friend has kindly agreed to pick me up on her way – whew, it really is blustery out there and I can just see a gust of wind snatching the cake box out of my hands and dumping it on the foot path.

We were told by J’s sisters to bring a dish so this is what I’m bringing:

It’s a four-layered cake (alternating hazelnut-buttermilk and strawberry-buttermilk) sandwiched with a Tokio jam and buttercream frosting as it holds better than whipped cream. I made two double batches of Nigella’s buttermilk cake, adding hazelnut meal to one double batch and strawberry puree to the other. The addition of hazelnuts has made the cake even better as it’s holding it’s moistness very well. I didn’t add enough strawberry though so the other batch is lacking in that soft pinkness that I was aiming for. I guess there’s enough pink in the frosting to make up for it. The baby blocks are sandwiched with Nutella. I’m not sure that it’s a very cohesive design but that may be because I made it up as I went along. I was going to make 3 baby blocks and have the last one sitting on atop the bottom two, but ran out of marzipan. Anyway, I wouldn’t have been able to close the cake box if I’d done that.

Off to join in those baby shower games…

This cake almost gave me a heart attack but it all turned out well in the end.

After taking it out of the oven and allowing it to cool in the tin for 5 minutes, I proceeded to lift the cake out of the tin, using the baking paper which I had layered underneath, and onto a wire tray. Next thing I know, one corner crumbled and fell off, with the rest of it threatening to do fall to pieces too.

Oh no! Did I not have enough eggs in the recipe?

I managed to get the rest of it onto the tray and left it overnight, praying that it would be okay to ice the next day.

First thing in the morning, I gingerly touched the cake to find that I had made a wise decision in leaving it alone. I would have had to cut the square cake into a rectangular form anyway so the missing corner gave me a good starting point. The cake was iced with whipped cream then decorated with desiccated coconut (dyed blue) and mango cubes to resemble a Swedish Flag cake.

As you can probably guess, it was for a birthday celebration and my friend, H, so loves sharing her Swedish heritage that it was the most appropriate cake I could think of making.

I must have been on a roll with coconut-mango that weekend because mum’s birthday cake ended up being a coconut, mango and passionfruit pavlova. I think I must be looking forward to the sunshine and blue skies!

Another clipped out recipe made! This one is from Gourmet Traveller September 2008, a dessert served at The Connaught. It’s a little more complicated than your average brownie but is also well worth the effort. It consists of three layers and is definitely not a one bowl kinda dessert.

The bottom layer is a moist chocolatey brownie studded with walnuts (macadamias if you follow The Connaught), the middle is caramelised banana slices and this is all topped with a dark (milk in the original) chocolate mousse. Here’s what it looks like:

I wanted to gift a few of these to a friend whose parents are visiting from Sweden but the brown paper casing had become saturated with oil from the butter. So, I picked up some cute fabric from Lincraft to wrap around the individual cases. One cake also went to a neighbor who is celebrating her birthday this week. That leaves two one for us!

Chocolate & Walnut Brownie

200g butter
100g dark chocolate
3 eggs
210 caster sugar
100g plain flour
100g walnuts, coarsely chopped

1. Melt butter & chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water, stirring occasionally until smooth.
2. Whisk eggs & caster sugar until thick & pale, fold through the chocolate mixture, then fold in flour and walnuts.
3. Spoon into individual paper cases & bake until just firm to touch (15-20 min). Cool completely

1 tbs finely grated ginger
2 bananas, sliced
100g brown sugar

1. Heat brown sugar in a large frying pan over medium-high heat until melted (2-3 min)
2. Add ginger, stir to combine, then add bananas in a single layer and cook, turning occasionally, until caramelised and tender.
3. Arrange on top of brownie, squashing to make a uniform layer & leave to cool.

2 eggs
55 g caster sugar
3/4 tsp gelatine, dissolved in small amount of very hot water
5g Pavlova Magic (or eggwhite powder)
300ml thick cream
200g dark chocolate, melted & cooled slightly

1. Whisk eggs & sugar in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water until thick * can hold a ribbon (10-12 min). Remove from heat.
2. Whisk in gelatine & Pavlova Magic powder.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk cream until soft peaks form. Add melted chocolate and fold to combine then fold in egg mixture.
4. Spoon mousse over caramelised banana and refrigerate until set (2-3 hr).

I love flicking through magazines and newspapers looking at recipes but I rarely clip them out because I know that I’m not likely to get around to trying it out. However, I love banana cake and when I saw Patrick Craig’s Caramelised Banana cake recipe in one of the Melbourne papers (I forget which), it sounded so good that I had to tear it out. This was in July last year and I have only just made it today, but I DID actually get around to making it – woohoo!

This isn’t your everyday banana cake as it does include the addition of pineapple pieces, as you would find in a Hummingbird Cake. However, I couldn’t find any cans of pineapple pieces in the pantry so I decided to swap it with lychee instead. Now, that probably sounds strange initially because I certainly haven’t ever seen a banana cake with lychee before but it actually works really well as the flavours are not too dissimilar.

So, onto the recipe itself:

1. Combine 2.5 cups plain flour, 1.5 cups caster sugar, 1/2 cup chopped walnuts, 2 tsp baking powder, 1.5 tsp baking soda, 2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp salt
2. In a separate bowl, lightly whisk 5 eggs and add 1.5 cups olive oil then add to dry mixture
3. In a hot pan (no butter, no oil), quickly caramelise 2.5 cups chopped banana pieces & 400g lychee pieces
4. Add fruit to cake mixture & pour into 22cm round cake tin (or a loaf tin & some muffin caese!)
5. Bake at 180C for 30 min or until cooked through (I had to bake for 50-60min).
6. Serve with whipped cream (or ice cream)

We prayed for a beautiful day for EJ’s birthday party, and lo and behold, it went from a week of high 20C’s to a sunshiny 24C with a cool breeze. Absolutely perfect for a little teddy bear picnic!

On his last overseas trip, A. had brought a bear cake tin home from William Sonoma so there was no question of what kind of cake I should bake, just how I would dress him. After receiving an inspiring idea from my websearch on how to decorate my cupcakes, I decided that the big bear would be dressed simply in a pair of blue speedos.

Balloons, sausages, tables, falafels, cupcakes, cake all made it to Speaker’s Corner at Birrarung Marr before 50 friends and 20 or so children gathered for the celebration. We ate, talked, laughed while the kiddies ran around and got grubby in the dirt. What a day! (and what a year it has been!)

You can’t see the wording, but ‘Speedo’ is written across the back of his swimmers.

The little girls at the party couldn’t decide which cupcake to pick! My niece ended up with one of the two green mermaids. I also laughed when a friend’s little boy told his daddy that there was a boy bear on his cupcake and one with boobs!

Look at what a gorgeous day we were blessed with. I love this shot of all the little girls running after and hassling the one boy.

Before EJ, I had no idea how daunting the task of motherhood is. I don’t know how I would have survived the first three months without the support of all those mums out there so this is a visual thank you.

These look really professional but are dead easy to make. Put together the cupcake batter of your choice, fill some flat-bottomed cones two-thirds of the way up and bake as usual. Whip up a buttercream frosting and decorate with colourful sprinkles, hundreds-and-thousands and cute animal or flower motifs.

Using Nigella’s recipe for a Strawberry Meringue Layer Cake, I made these baby cakes for A’s birthday. The base was far less sponge-like than I had imagined and more like a shortcake, with a biscuity bite.

There was way too much egg white for the amount of batter I had in the paper bases butI used it all anyway. The meringue top puffed up beautifully in the oven and would have looked a treat that way however I specifically wanted to layer King Island pure cream and strawberries on top of mine. So, off the foamy meringue heads went – a good decision too because the cake is sweet enough on its own (although I have noticed that I’m not as fond of sweet things as I used to be…). They looked great with sparklers although these left tiny little black sooty bits on the pure white cream

More strawberries later on, coutesy of Edible Blooms. These were really amazingly fragrant and sweet and juicy, everything a strawberry should be. Easy to make too, if you are so inclined. Just arm yourself with a few skewers and a head of lettuce!

The scene between A and myself as we are walking down Elizabeth Street towards Flinders Street Station:

A: “So how was your day?”
Me: “Busy. I’ve been working on the catering and merchandising for the office launch”
A: “I was going over the invitation list for the launch and wondered if we should send an invitation to S. & H. What do you think?”
Me: “That sounds like a good idea but I’m not sure…..BEARD PAPA!” (stopping dead in my tracks)

I didn’t quite scream those words out but I definitely said it loudly enough for A. to freeze in his tracks and wonder who was about to attack us.

Anyway, the news is that Beard Papa has opened it’s first Victoria store on Elizabeth Street, near the Flinder Street corner. It’s just a shop front actually so it’s more difficult to hear their “IRASHAIMASE!” greeting.

Get there and get one (or twelve)!