It's time to get my Nigella on!

I know most of the bloggers I know are going to be celebrating Thanksgiving today, and down here in Australia I am also having a celebration tonight... not so much Thanksgiving as my mother-in-law's birthday! And while she's elected to make dinner herself, it has fallen to me to make her birthday cake. She requested chocolate cupcakes,  and while I have a couple of favourite cupcake recipes, none of them are specifically chocolate. So I went hunting, and came up with:

http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/chocolate-guinness-cake-3086

Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Guinness Cake! (except in cupcake form, obviously) Hopefully they will turn out just as delightfully in cupcake form as I'm planning to use the leftovers tomorrow night at the "Mummy Cocktail Night" that I am hosting! 'll post pictures later, but now it's time to put on my apron and channel my inner Nigella!

Weekday Baking: Gingernut Banoffee Tarts

It was my "turn" to have the girls over for Tuesday craft and Phillipa always puts on delightful nibblies so I had to make something a bit more exciting than a packet of biscuits... What could be easier and be way more impressive than the amount of effort? These delightful Gingernut Banoffee Tarts, of course!

Take 1 packet of Arnott's Gingernut biscuits (or Butternut Snap, or any other biscuit that takes your fancy) and lay out into a patty pan (I had to do mine in 2 batches because my patty pan tin only has 12 spaces). Place into a hot oven for 2-4 minutes. Yes, that's right - ONLY 2-4 minutes. Remove from the oven and carefully press down into patty pan so that they become cute little curved tart shells. Allow to cool for a minute, then remove from patty pan. 

Fill with Nestle Top 'n' Fill Caramel (or chocolate ganache topped with strawberry is FABULOUS too.. you could even make your own caramel if you're inclined) and then when ready to serve, top with whipped cream (canned is ok!) and a slice of banana. And there you have it!

I forgot to take a photo of them when they were ready to serve until there were only 4 left! They were really yummy and popular with both the girls and the assorted small children!

Weekend Baking: Raisin bread & Choc chip bannocks

We ran out of bread yesterday, so instead of heading to the supermarket I whipped out my breadmaker and made a loaf of wholemeal bread (admittedly it was a packet mix - oh the shame!)..

Fresh out of the breadmaker!

But inspired by the aroma and joy of eating freshly baked bread, this morning I decided to make some raisin bread. I used the recipe from my breadmaker's recipe book, which I have made before. Sadly my pantry is in desperate need of re-stocking, so instead of putting in a combination of raisins, currants and sultanas I had to settle for just raisins. 

Clearly, it was a success as my husband dived right into it while it was still toasty warm. (I snapped a pic while he was buttering up - but I had to promise not to get him in the photo!)

I suggested to the kids (while the breadmaker was working its magic) that we should make some bannocks, but now that I was out of raisins, currants and sultanas (tomorrow must be grocery re-stock day!) AND maple syrup I had to improvise. What could I put in them instead of dried fruit that would be delightful without maple syrup? Chocolate chips, naturally! I also substituted vanilla extract for the cinnamon because I thought it would compliment the chocolate.

Look at that oaty, chocolatey goodness!

This isn't the best photo, but I didn't get a chance to take any more -
the kids ate them as fast as I could cook them!

Chocolate chip bannocks, huge success. The choc chips were all warm and melty in your mouth, and they were perfect on their own - no maple syrup, no butter, nothing else required! Bean declared them the 'best ever', which is high praise from my picky eater! I guess nothing can beat chocolate.

Weekend Baking: Pecan Pie

Every week I look forward to reading Lisa & Sarah's "Weekend Baking" posts on their blog A Spoonful of Sugar. Most of the time my baking is done through the week, so I've never felt that I qualified to participate in their weekend baking party... but yesterday (Sunday) I made Pecan Pie!

Last Christmas I made some Caramel Pecan Tarts from a recipe in Better Homes & Gardens' Christmas booklet. They were lovely, but a bit more effort (and fattening - white chocolate in the pastry!) than I was planning to put in.. so I hunted for the recipe that one of my aunts passed on to me recently and made that instead. I used a pre-made sweet flan/pie shell to save time (I was also making muesli bars and hot chocolate for the kids). 

There was slightly more filling than the pie shell could handle, so I cut some (also frozen - how lazy am I?) shortcrust pastry to fit a couple of smaller tartlet molds. I tried to be thrifty and not waste pastry by putting lids on the tartlets. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!! Pecan pies are clearly open topped for a good reason.. they rise so much during baking (which sinks back down when cooling) that if you put a lid on them they just bubble over. And make a mess everywhere. Next time I will just use the extra pastry to make some jam tarts for the kids instead!

Meanwhile, the pecan pie was absolutely smashing topped with a scoop of caramel toffee crunch icecream. And perfectly timed as a dessert for an impromptu BBQ dinner with friends.