Vanilla Porter Gingerbread

Baking with beer is awesome! You get to make something tasty and drink while you do it. This is a great recipe, easy to make and makes a delicious gingerbread that is light and full of flavour.
I am partial to a good vanilla porter and it adds a richness to this gingerbread recipe, although I'm sure any dark beer would work just as well.

This recipe has been modified from the Beau's Vanilla Porter Gingerbread.

1 1/2 cup flour
1 1/2 Tbsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 Tbsp baking soda
pinch salt
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup (or 120g) butter, melted
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup mashed banana
1 large egg
1/2 cup vanilla porter

Preheat the oven to 180 C, grease or line a loaf tin.
Sift together the dry ingredients. In a saucepan melt the butter with the maple syrup. Remove from the heat and add the banana, egg and vanilla porter.
Fold the wet mix into the dry ingredients.
Pour into the prepared tin and place into the oven.
Bake for 40 mins, or until a skewer into the centre come out clean.

Remove from the oven and allow to rest for 10 mins before turning the loaf out onto a cake rack.

Lolly Cake

A little while ago I had a craving for Lolly cake and without having access to all the required ingredients meant I had to wait. Luckily my call for fruit puffs was answered and after a long trip from NZ to Canada the lollies arrived! (Thanks Z!) 

One bag of fruit puffs already transformed. 

I immediately started making the long awaited Lolly cake. It's so easy to make with no cooking required, the hardest part is not eating all the lollies before its done and leaving it to set. It's as good as I remember and reminds me of New Zealand. 

Lolly Cake

120 g butter

250 g malt biscuits - crushed

1/2 tin (200 g) sweetened condensed milk

1 packet (190 g) fruit puffs 

Desiccated coconut 

Warm the butter and condensed milk together until the butter has melted.

Cut lollies in half, add into crushed biscuits.

Add the melted butter mixture into the biscuits and mix until well combined. 

Roll into a log shape. Roll in coconut.

Chill in the fridge for at least 4 hrs. 

When set cut into slices and serve. 

Chocolate Toffee Cupcakes

I've been off enjoying the summer months, hence it's been a while since I had time for baking. I decided that my next post needed to include chocolate and caramel so I modified a very reliable chocolate cake recipe to include toffee pieces and make them into cupcakes.

The toffee pieces melt within the cupcake so the crunch of the toffee is lost, however topping the cupcakes with more toffee soon fixes that problem. And what better way to fix any chocolate craving than to top the cupcakes with ganache oh and why not add a little Baileys!


Chocolate Toffee Cupcakes

1 cup flour
1/3 cup cocoa
1/2 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla ess
1/2 cup strong coffee
1/2 cup toffee bits

Ganache
1 cup chocolate
4 Tbsp Baileys
2 Tbsp butter

Preheat oven to 180C and line a muffin tin. In a mixing bowl add flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Melt the butter. Mix in the sugar and beat in the eggs gradually. Add in the vanilla and coffee and beat until creamy and light. Fold the butter mixture into the dry ingredients. Add the toffee pieces and pour the mixture into the muffin tin. Bake for 25 mins. Allow the cupcakes to cool completely before icing.

Ganache
Melt the chocolate, Baileys and butter until smooth, allow to cool to room temperature before icing the cupcakes. Top the iced cupcakes with toffee bits.

Lolly-scramble Cupcakes

I think that I have been doing a pretty good job with posting to the blog lately. I don't know how long it will continue but I'm hoping that I can keep it up. I decided that for my next post I would try out something a bit different. I have been wanting to make Lolly cake for a while now, but I'm yet to find a substitute for fruit puffs that I'm happy with, so until Siwan very kindly sends me some and they make the long journey from NZ to Canada, I will have to try something a bit different.

Much desired Lolly Cake!

This recipe includes lollies and cake, and for now it will do. I hadn't tried out this recipe before and it turned out very well. It comes from "A Treasury of New Zealand Baking" a compilation of recipes from New Zealand food writers and chefs. I changed a few things about this recipe from the original based on the flavour of jam that I had available and used sour cream instead of natural yoghurt.

Lolly-scramble cupcakes

These cupcakes are a great combination of flavours with the chocolate and berry flavours in the cake, complemented by the lime icing and burst of sweetness from the lollies on top. The choice of lollies for decoration is entirely up to your own preference.

Lolly-scramble Cupcakes

Cupcakes

100 g brown sugar

¼ cup canola oil

¼ cup natural yoghurt or sour cream

2 eggs

¼ cup raspberry jam (any berry jam will work)

130 g self-raising flour

4 tsp cocoa powder

2-3 Tbsp milk

Preheat the oven to 190 C. Line a muffin pan with cases.

Beat the sugar, oil, yoghurt, eggs and jam together until thick and creamy. Combine the flour and cocoa and fold into the sugar mixture, then add milk.

Spoon the mixture into paper cases until two-thirds full.

Bake for 12 – 14 mins until the cakes are springy to the touch. Allow to cool completely before icing the cakes.

Icing

250 g icing sugar

4 Tbsp lime juice

lollies

To make the icing, add the juice to the icing sugar and combine until smooth, add a little warm water if required. Ice the cupcakes, leaving each one to dry slightly before sticking the lollies on. 

Chocolate Chip Cookies

This is another favourite recipe of mine. There is nothing better than eating a cookie still warm from the oven. The recipe came from somewhere within my mum's recipe collection so I'm not sure of it's origin. I do know that it has been around for a while because I remember these from my childhood. I like to keep the rolled out dough in the freezer so at a moments notice I can have them baking in the oven without over indulging and eating an entire batch in one day.

More recently I have experimented a little with it, mainly through the addition of oreo cookies and butterscotch chips. Oreo chocolate chips have cropped up on various food blogs and the idea is to cover an oreo in chocolate chip cookie dough baking the oreo inside. It's a cookie within a cookie! I have also been using a mixture of different chocolate and butterscotch chips and as always adding slightly more than suggested (without overloading the dough with chocolate!)

Chocolate Chip Cookies

125 g butter

½ cup brown sugar

½ cup white sugar

½ tsp vanilla

1 egg

1 ¾ cup self raising flour

1 tsp cocoa

½ tsp salt

100 g chocolate chips (Dark, Milk or White Chocolate)

Cream butter, sugars and vanilla. Add egg and beat well. Mix in sifted flour, salt and cocoa. Add chocolate chips and mix until the dough comes together.

Roll 1 Tbsp of dough into balls and lightly press with a floured fork. (If freezing, place rolled out cookies into the freezer.)

Bake at 190°C for 12-15 min.

To make Oreo Chocolate Chip Cookies: 

Shape the dough around an Oreo cookie and place on a greased tray. Chill for 30 mins in fridge.

Bake at 190°C for 12-15 min.

Cookie-ception

Belgium Biscuits

I am finally getting around to posting again! It’s been a lot harder than first thought. Having free time to bake I had grand intentions of spending more time posting my creations. So I have decided that a good way to get back into blogging is to write a post about my favourite recipe!

Belgium biscuits, derived from Empire biscuits, are a delicious combination of sugar and spice. I can remember taking these biscuits to school in my lunch box and was possibly one of the first things I learnt to cook. They may also be the culprits behind the scar on my left hand after touching the hot tray straight out of the oven! (Mum did tell me not to touch the tray.) I could go on and on about how awesome they are but suffice to say I love them.

Since I left New Zealand 5 months ago I have been thinking about all the kiwi treats that I would make on a regular basis and which I can make now in Canada. Unfortunately things like Lolly cake are almost impossible, (I’m working on it.) Lucky for me I can still make Belgium biscuits, and I’m probably still not going to share any!

This recipe comes from the Edmonds Cookery Book. Considered to be essential for every kiwi kitchen. My copy didn’t make it across the world with me, however all my favourite recipes from it did!

Belgium Biscuits

125 g butter

75 g brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp mixed spice

1 tsp ground ginger

1 egg

225 g flour

1 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 180 C. Cream butter, sugar and spices until smooth and lighted in colour. Add egg while beating. Mix in flour and baking powder until dough comes together. Roll out on a floured board and cut into rounds. Place on baking tray and bake for 15-17 min until slightly brown. Cool the biscuits completely before sandwiching together with raspberry jam. Top the biscuits with icing.

Lemon Delish

Again I have been slack with the posts, so I’m putting up one of my favourites – Lemon Delish. There is something comforting about the warm sweetness with the tang of citrus that is … well as the name suggests, Delish.  

Lemon Delish – serves 6

25 g butter, softened

3/4 cup sugar

2 tbsp self-raising flour

juice and rind of 2 lemons

1 cup milk

2 eggs separated

Cream the butter and sugar.

Add the flour, lemon juice and rind, milk and beaten egg yolks. Mix well.

Beat the egg whites until stiff. Fold into the lemon mixture and pour into a well greased pie dish or ramekins. 

Place in a roasting dish and fill the dish with water ¾ of the way up the side of the ramekins. 

Bake for 1 hour for a large dish, 35 mins for ramekins, or until the tops are golden brown and the puddings are set.