Sweeter Perspectives

Two birthdays in one weekend can be quite a hassle or a blessing. Both actually. But it just depends on you really. So I took the opportunity to make these two days really memorable and I just wanted to share with you the sweeter perspective of each moment.

Hopefully I can get those sweet recipes to share with you soon, but for now I really must be going.

And here are the recipes:

Choc Cupcakes With Hazelnut Frosting

Makes 5-6

Ingredients:

45 grams unsalted butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 egg

20 grams ground almond

1/2 cup self raising flour

1 teaspoon cocoa powder

30 grams chocolate

Optional: hazelnut chocolate piece

Hazelnut Cream icing (makes a generous amount of icing for 24 cupcakes)

225 grams unsalted butter, softened
370 grams of Nutella
pinch of salt
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
40 grams confectioner's sugar, sifted
6-8 tablespoons milk

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 180 C.
2. Cream butter and sugar together. Slowly add the egg, almond meal, flour, and cocoa powder while mixing.
3. Melt the chocolate and add into the mixture.
4. Divide the mix between the muffin lined tin 3/4 full. Bake 20 minutes. Allow to cool.
5. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and Nutella until well combined, thick and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Slowly add in confectioner’s sugar, and continue mixing until well blended.
6. Add salt, vanilla, and 3 tablespoons of heavy cream or milk. Blend on low speed until moistened. Add an additional 3-5 tablespoons of heavy cream or milk until you reach the desired consistency. Beat at high speed until frosting is smooth and fluffy, about 3 minutes.

No-Bake Mixed Berry Lemon Cheesecake

Recipe adapted from My Baking Addiction

Ingredients:

2/3 cup sugar

zest of 2 lemons

1 (250 grams) package cream cheese, softened

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 cup whipped cream

1 cup fresh or frozen mixed berries

1 packet of oreos

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, mix together the sugar and lemon zest until the sugar becomes moist and fragrant. Add cream cheese and beat with an electric mixer until smooth. Add lemon juice and vanilla mixing to combine. Using a rubber spatula, fold in the whipped topping until well blended, then fold in the raspberries.
2. Place an oreo at the base of each serving dish and evenly pipe or spoon the filling into the individual serving dishes. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours before serving. If desired, garnish with more berries (or even jelly as I have done).

Baking Under the Rainbow

I wanted to go for a walk early in the morning but then it started raining. It's not like I have time to go for a walk every morning, but I do love time to myself to just walk around the neighbourhood saying 'good morning' to passerbyers and just looking at the sky and nature. This is the distance I managed to walk-just out my front door to the drive thru and then the drizzling rain began. And at that moment I capture this:

A full arch rainbow and it's 'shadow' in the sky. So I went back into the house and decided to bake. It's just a typical Anzac biscuit recipe from a children's book and I'm sure there's many more Anzac biscuit recipes out there! I just felt like adding dark chocolate chips. So I did!

 Because my colleague gave me a whole stack of child care textbooks (yes, I'm studying to be a primary school teacher remember...), I decided to show my appreciation with these choc chip Anzac biscuits, a recipe from one of the textbooks.

It didn't take too long to wrap, but define 'too long'? When it comes to baking, nothing is ever 'too long' in fact, baking is therapeutic to me as it calms me down and extends my patience. My next assignment was to bake some typical Melting Moments for my cousin and sous chef upon her birthday request or wish, whatever you want to call it.

Somehow the rainbow on a rainy day made my day.

A More-ish Day

If I were to give you more, I could share more with you about the things I do in my kitchen like...

 crushing cookies,

 eating breaking up chocolate,

 melting butter,

 taking photos of my reflection in the chocolate,

 looking at the sky out of my kitchen,

 appreciating the purple flowers in front of the kitchen,

 admiring the beauty of these red flowers in the garden,

playing with cutting marshmallows,

toasting marshmallows, 

 drooling over arranging the s'mores brownie bars,

and that's a lot more than I should share. Have a nice day!
Of course there's always a recipe to follow:


S'mores Brownie Bars
Makes 16 
adapted from Alice Medrich


Ingredients:

For the Crust...
6 tablespoons (80 grams) unsalted butter; melted 
2 tablespoons sugar (I omitted this)

1.5 cups graham cracker crumbs (I used Arnott's Milk Coffee biscuits)

For the Brownie Layer...
4 ounces (113 grams) unsweetened chocolate (I used 85% Lindt's Dark Chocolate)
1 1/4 cups sugar (I used 3/4 cup)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup all-purpose flour

8 (113 grams) tablespoons unsalted butter 

For the Topping...20 large marshmallows; cut in half



Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 (180 C) degrees. Line an 8-inch-square (20cmx20cm) metal baking pan with foil and spray lightly with nonstick cooking spray.

2. Combine the graham cracker crumbs, 6 tablespoons of melted butter in a bowl and mix until the crumbs are moistened. Press the crumbs evenly into the bottom of the pan and bake at 350 degrees for 7 minutes. Allow crust to cool on wire rack.

3. Turn the oven temperature up to 400 (200 C) degrees and prepare the brownie layer.

4. In top of a double boiler set over barely simmering water, or on low power in a microwave, melt butter and chocolate together. Stir often, and remove from heat when a few lumps remain. Stir until smooth.

5. Stir in sugar, vanilla and salt. Stir in eggs one at a time, followed by flour. Stir until very smooth, about 1 minute, until mixture pulls away from sides of bowl. Scrape batter into prepared pan and bake for 18 minutes.

6. Let cool completely, then lift out using the foil and place brownies onto a broiler safe pan. Move your oven rack about 6 inches from your broiler and preheat your broiler to low.

7. Layer marshmallows (sticky side down) across the top and toast under the broiler until golden, (watch this like you have never watched anything before - it can burn QUICK), about 2 minutes. Cool and cut into 16 (two inch) squares.

Omu Omu Rice

So other than baking, sometimes we do try to "cook" occasionally. Cooking is not my forte but this is one dish that is simple, delicious and loved by my family.

 "O-mu" in Japanese basically means omelette and rice. Most of the time the dish consists of fried egg and fried rice with assorted meats and vegetables, decorated with tomato sauce or just salt and pepper.

 Easy to personalise and serve in a short time frame.

Fruit delight

You see, my mom bought these yellow kiwis which look really funky and taste like sweet melons. 

So here's to the celebration of beautiful fruits this season (except for the berries...I'm not sure what season they come out in).