I told Luke's teacher that I would make some cup cakes to send to his school on his birthday.
Just some simple ones as there's no baking competition in the local school and kids appreciate tasty cakes. I did scratch the bottom of the barrel trying to find out what I can make when I was told, please do not send anything with chocolate or nuts due to allergy concerns...
No chocolate, that's a bit harsh, considering, Luke doesn't like any other cakes apart from chocolate. Very occasionally, he'd take some vanilla cakes, but he's very very particular about fruits, dry or fresh in his cakes.
He doesn't like them and he prefers smooth texture.
But just butter cake, will that be a bit bland?
As long as there's no chunks of fruit. We settled down on:
Lemon Cup Cakes with Lemon Butter Icing
For 28 Cup Cakes
(including the students in his class, his teacher, the teaching aid and his speech therapist)
3 cups of Self Raising flour
1/2 tsp bicarb soda
200g salt reduced butter, room temperature
4 large eggs
1.5 cup sugar
1 cup milk
very fine zests of 2 lemon
Juice of 1.25 lemon
1/2 tsp vanilla essense
Lemon Butter Icing
50g butter
100g icing sugar
1.5 tsp yellow icing
Juice of 0.75 of lemon (juice of 2 lemons in total)
Pre-heat oven to 180C
Cream butter and sugar, till light and pale, add in eggs, one by one, I used bench top mixer on high.
Add in room temperature milk and vanilla and whisk till well mixed.
Sift flour and bi-carb soda in another clean bowl and add to the milk butter mixture. Fold in well and add lemon juice and zest.
Share the batter in the cups and bake for 15-18 minutes, until it's turning a bit light brown.
For the icing, it's simple, just heat up lemon juice and butter, mix well and add in food colouring and icing sugar, till it's thick and glossy. Apply to cooled cup cakes and add on a bit of sprinkles...
My mother in law's favourite flavour, lemon and coconut.
I made this cake to bring over to her home during our last visit.
It's a bit more moist than the normal chiffon cake because of the butter cream icing.
I didn't do it the same way how I do the normal butter cream, but this one is a bit more runny.
Lemon Chiffon Cake with Lemon Butter Sauce
For the Cake:
Zest of a small Lemon Myer
3 egg yolks
4 egg whites
100g SR flour
50g dessicated coconut
50ml canola oil
2 tbsp organic full cream yoghurt
150g castor sugar
For the icing:
80g butter
juce and zest of a small lemon
handful of dessicated coconut
100g sugar
Method
1. Beat room temperature egg whites till a bit ribbony and slowly add in 50g of sugar, whip until soft peaks.
2. Beat room temperature egg yolks with the rest of sugar, until pale and fluffy and slowly drip in the canola oil. It will be very creamy.
3. Sift in the flour to the yolk mixture and mix till smooth, then fold in the egg whites, half egg whites into the yolk mixture and mix well, and then spoon them back to the egg white bowl and mix well until really smooth, fold in the yoghurt and the lemon zest and dessicated coconut.
4. Put in a alliminum ring mould (I haven't got angel food cake mould, I would use one if I have one) and bake in preheated oven in 180C heat, for about 35-40 minutes.
5. Once cake is done, slowly using the knife to release the sides of the cake (I did oil the bottom as it's not the right tin) and let it cool on rack.
6. Make the lemon butter sauce. Put lemon juice in with the sugar in a small saucepan and bring it to boil, let it melt and wait until the soft boil stage - around 110C.
7. take the syrup off heat, stir in the butter, until it's a smooth butter sauce. Add in the rest of the zest and dessicated coconut...
8. Let sauce cool down a bit and spoon over the cake, let it drip with a more rustic look and make sure the sauce coat as much as you can - it makes the cake more moist than a normal chiffon cake.
MIL took it to her gathering with her friends and the cake got good review...
I have been wanting to make lemon curd for a while and this year, there's excuse. We have a lot of lemons on our Lemon Myer tree.
So this is the first lot of Lemon Curd I made, using the recipe from Delicious:
Zest and Juice of 2 large lemons (I used 3 as I was trying to use up the smaller ones first)
165G sugar
2 Egg yolks
2 large eggs
80g Butter
Whisk yolks, eggs and sugar in a small saucepan, until smooth and put on low heat, add in melted butter, juice and lemon zest, and keep stirring till it's thickened.
Put through sieve, to get rid of the zest and there, luxious lemon curd...
In a sterilised jar, it keeps for 2 weeks in the fridge, great for buttering breads, sandwich between cookes, and on tarts and as cake frosting...
It's fun to make a sweet bread sometimes, especially when we have extra dough left from making children's Pain Viennois.
Lemon Raisins Apricot Walnut Knot Bread
2/3 quantity of the Pain Viennois dough using bread flour only.
Fillings:
75g butter, softened
zest of 1 lemon
1 tsp cinnamon powder
1/2 tsp all spice powder
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup diced dry apricot
2/3 cup toasted and crushed walnut
1 tbsp cream sherry
Beat butter with sugar until smooth, mix in rest of the filling ingrediants and set aside while the dough was proofing.
Roll out the dough into a square and spread on the filling mixture.
Tie up into a knot and leave on the baking tray to proof.
Brush on egg wash
and bake....
The Biggest Morinng Tea today at work, for the Cancer Council. The social clubs at work have always been very good with all these charity events. It's for a great cause, and although I have been busy with my work and not able to attend, I decided I can donate some food to support.
It's hard to concerntrate cooking on Monday nights after work, kids school work, dinner and everything so I just decided to go for an easy choice of making some baked cheese cake slices. Then I realised, starting around 7am in the morning means I have to be able to pack and rush out of the door, and cheese cakes can't be sliced until the morning...
Change of game plan. I always have a lot of cup cake casing, for cup cakes, slices, tarts, because it's just easier to bring to work where there are not a lot of kitchen tools.
Baked Lemon Myer Cheese Cup Cakes
Makes 24 cup cakes
Zest and Juice from 1 Lemon Myer (can be any lemon, I've only got Lemon Myer in my back yard)
6 tablespoon sugar
500g cream cheese - just normal Philly Cheese
300ml thickened cream, 35%
4 large eggs
2/3 pack of Arnott's Marie biscuit
100g butter
Method:
Using the food processor to process the biscuits till fine with butter. Press in individual cup cake cases in the muffin pans, chill in fridge for 30 minutes.
In a small saucepan add lemon juice, and half of the sugar. Bring it to simmer on low heat to make syrup and stir in the rest of sugar to melt, set a side to let cool.
Use either the cleaned food processor or a bench top mixer to mix the cream cheese and cream, slowly add in cooled lemon syrup. Add lemon zest.
Add in eggs, one by one and make sure the batter is smooth. Pour in individual cup cake casings.
Bake in pre-heated 180C oven for 25 minutes.
Chill in fridge over night after cooled down.
I was told they were nice treats in the morning tea...
We've got some guests this week, and time for me to get baking again.
Apart from the baked cheese cake, the naughty snack, I had to bake some thing a bit healthier.
So here it is:
Lemon & Coconut Cake with Olive Oil and Fat Free Yoghurt
Ingredients:
200g Self Raising Flour
3 Large Eggs
100g white sugar + 30g for egg whites
80g Desicated Coconut
100ml Extra Virin Olive oil
1 Lemon, zest and juice
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
100g Fat free plain yoghurt
Icing sugar and some slivered almonds.
Method:
1. Seperate the eggs. Cream yolks and sugar, and until is pale and silky.
2. Add olive oil, whisk until it's silky.
3. Add lemon zest, vanilla extract and yoghurt, whisk well until mixture is silky.
4. Whisk egg whites till soft peak, gradually add sugar to form meringue.
5. Fold egg whites gradually with the egg yolk mixture, sift in flour, mix well till smooth and fold in coconut, add lemon juice, mix well.
6. Bake for 30-35 minutes in a pre-heated 190C oven (my oven is a big uneven and unpredictable, baked a bit over today!)
7. Dust with icing sugar and some lightly toasted slivered almonds.
Healthy cake for a some what guilt free treat!
This is a non baking cheese cake, simple and easy and everyone liked it at Monique's birthday party. I don't make a lot of chilled cheese cakes, but since it's already summer, a chilled cake seems to be more popular.
225g plain sweet biscuit
100g butter, melted
85g lemon flavoured jelly crystals
500g cream cheese
250ml thickened cream
zest of one lemon
Dessicated coconut - Plenty to sprinkle on top.
Grease and line a 3cm deep, 20cm x 30cm lamington pan.
Process biscuits in food processor until finely chopped, and then add butter and process till finely combined together, press firmly onto the base of the lamington pan and leave it in fridge to chill for 30 minutes.
Bring water to boil and add to jelly crystals, and then let it cool a bit.
Beat cream cheese, lemon zest and cream in till smooth, and gradually beat into lemon jelly mix.
Pour over the base in the lamington pan and chill in fridge for 4 hours or over night.
Sprinkle coconut over evenly before serving and cut in slices...
It's simple, and no heating up the kitchen in hot summer days... well, not a lot.
After the big afternoon tea at nephew's 21st birthday party, the family's pretty full, with all the sushi rolls, prawn dumplings, the magnificent chocolate cake with big chocolate curls, profiteroles, eclairs.....
So we had simple dinner today, meat balls in Napoli sauce, with home made gnocchi, gnocchi is pretty easy to make once you've made a few batches and the shop ones just don't taste as nice - so much softer with the home made gnocchi, and there's no reason for us to use shop ones any more.
But it's Saturday night and we do always have dessert when we have all the children.
So I made a simple lemon pudding with blood orange sauce, it's still the citrius season, lots of oranges and the lemon tree is producing well this year as well. We have lemon Myer at home which is quite juice, but not as good for zesting, still.
It's a very quick dessert - about 15 minutes for the preparation really and then the baking.
The cake itself can be used as a moist lemon butter cake, if dust with icing sugar only. It's not heavy and quite refreshing because of all the citrius used.
Saucy Lemon Pudding / Cake
• 150g Self Raising flour
• 125g butter
• 150g white sugar
• Juice of half a lemon and zest of 2 lemons
• 2 eggs
• 150ml plain yoghurt
• ½ Tsp
Sauce
• Juice of 1.5 lemons
• Juice of 1 blood orange (I just happenned to buy some blood oranges @ $1.99 a kilo, and they have nicer taste, normal oranges will do the job fine.)
• 250g white sugar
Method
Eggs and butter to room temperature.
Cream sugar and butter on low speed on bench top mixer.
Add eggs, one by one, increase speed to medium high.
Add lemon zest and juice, mix well, speed stays medium high.
Add yoghurt, mix well, stay the same speed.
Add flour, mix well.
Put batter in pre-greased 22cm round cake tin (I used silicon tin this time and there’s no need to grease the silicon cake tins).
Bake in preheated 185C oven for 35 minutes till ready.
Meanwhile, add lemon and blood orange juice to small sauce pan, add butter and bring it to boil, for 5-6 minutes.
Serve cake with syrup and cream as pudding.
One of our colleagues in the team will be going overseas for 6 weeks... A trip to Canada and the States, river cruise... Lucky him.
So we had a morning tea and we are bringing something to work. I made this because it's easier to cut into slices and bring just enough to the office, rather than the whole cake - cheese cakes are usually filling and we only have a small team, not even people to finish the whole cake. I used the lamington tray and that's just right for this recipe...
I normally make baked cheese cakes, not chilled, not sure why? I think I'm just used to the baked cheese cakes. I've made so many different cheese cakes in my baking life so I didn't use any recipes from the books, so it's just something I put up together, well, almost. I couldn't find the chocolate ripple biscuits I thought I had, so instead of the chocolate biscuit base I thought I'd use, I end up having to make a chocolate short crust pastry base, so I referred to my trust worthy Le Cordon Bleu pastry and tarts cook book, a simple book with all the pastries and basic techniques. A bit of alteration, of course.
Baked Lemon Coconut Cheesecake Slices with Chocolate Chips
Base:
200g Plain Flour
50g Icing sugar*
25g dark cocoa powder*
1 pinch of salt
1 egg
100g butter
Crumb cold butter into the mix of flour, cocoa, salt and icing sugar until it resembles bread crumbs, add in lightly whisked egg and form a rough dough.
Chill in fridge covered with glad wrap and set for half an hour to one hour.
Roll out into the rectangle shape of the lamington tray, in between baking paper (using enough to be able to fold over to cover) and blind bake with weights in 190C oven for 30 minutes(I use rice because I accidentally bought some very yukky rice, that will only be suitable for using as weights – bye bye Jasmine).
*Note, the original Le Cordon Bleu recipe specified white sugar with no specified amount, and cocoa powder was added by me to make sure it's a chocolate cookie base.
Fillings:
250g cream cheese
250g clotted cream
200g thick vanilla yoghurt
2 eggs
¾ cup shredded coconut
¼ cup dark chocolate chips.
1/3 cup fine almond meal
Zest of 1 lemon (I have lemon myer at home)
½ cup sugar
Beat cream cheese, clotted cream and thick vanilla yoghurt till creamy. Add in sugar and mix well. (use bench top mixer, it’s easier and I can still dance around getting rid of all the sugar I spilled on flour while it’s mixing everything quietly!)
Beat in the eggs, one at a time till creamy.
Add in coconut, and almond meal, mix well.
Zest the lemon (Thank God for the new Breville’s bench top mixer, I can zest the lemon whilst it’s mixing quietly, how wonderful…. It’s nice and smooth)
Finally, fold in the dark chocolate chips with spatular (hmm, it’s the time not to use the mixer, unless you don’t want chunky chocolate bits)
Bake in 190C oven for 40 minutes, cool (in the tray, don’t take out.. must always remind myself, I have had one cheese cake disaster during my baking life, forgot it was a cheese cake and stupid enough to do the skewer test, end up totally burning the whole thing, not any more. Cheese cakes, especially baked cheese cakes….. should be a walk in the park)
And chill in fridge for 4 hours or more before cutting into slices…
