Recently I made a Passionfruit cake for my mother-in-laws birthday. I really like the flavour of passionfruit but I'm really not that keen on the pips!!!! I was super happy to find this recipe that gives an easy way of removing the pips.

I was a bit pushed for time so I wanted a simple way to decorate the cake (and I've made quite a few cakes for my in laws now its hard to keep coming up with new ideas!) This time I was inspired by Bluebell's use of real flowers. So simple & sweet, don't you think?

Passionfruit Cake

Ingredients

•       ½ cup passionfruit pulp 

•       ½ tsp vanilla essence 

•       1 tsp baking soda 

•       1 ½ cups flour 

•       2 tbsp golden syrup 

•       1 tsp baking powder 

•       125g butter 

•       ½ cup sugar 

•       1 cup milk 

•       1 egg

Icing

•       1 tsp melted butter

•       1 cup icing sugar

•       2 passionfruit (strain pulp)

Method

Place the pulp and milk in saucepan. Heat to lukewarm, then add the baking soda. 

Cream the butter and sugar then add golden syrup and egg. Mix well and then add the vanilla. Strain the pulp through a sieve into the creamed mixture. Add the sifted flour and baking powder. Place tin and bake at 180 degrees C for 40 minutes.

Here's a printable version of this recipe :)

Cake for One.

Recently I've been trying to reduce my sugar in take....I have good days and not so good days! I'd quite like to adjust my taste buds to not 'need' dessert every night but I'm not there yet. In the mean time I mix it up a bit, sometimes having real (sugary) desserts, chocolate etc and sometimes I make Paleo style (sugar & carb free) desserts or baking.

Recently in a novel (a trashy chic lit book called Smitten if you must know - I don't really recommend it, but I'm still getting the hang of finding good e-books to get out from the library so my reading list is a bit hit and miss quality wise at the moment!) I came across a recipe for a Sugar/Carb free Mug cake - you know, 1 serving of cake cooked in a mug in the microwave. I've tried it a couple of times now and I do quite like it - its not that sweet, so if you're really after a sweet fix I'd suggest adding more sweetener. I've also been serving it with "The Collective Dairy's" Blood Orange Yoghurt, as I didn't have any cream, but I think cream would go better (would give it more decadence).

Give it a go and let me know what you think!

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Sugar Free Mug Cake

Ingredients:
2 Tbsp Almond Flour
2 tsp Xylitol (or more depending on how sweet you'd like it)
1 Tbsp (heaped) Cocoa Powder
1 egg
1 Tbsp Butter/Coconut Oil
1.5 Tbsp Milk or Cream
Splash of Vanilla Essence
1 Coffee Mug

Mix all dry ingredients in the mug, add egg and blend thoroughly. Add milk, oil (I melted mine first so it mixed smoothly) & vanilla. Mix well.
Place in 1000 watt microwave for 90 sec) 
Do not cover mug. Cake will rise.
Let cool and place on a plate. Serve with a little whipped cream on top.

Enjoy!

Valentines Day...

Are you into Valentines Day or are you someone who doesn't care for it? 

I understand peoples comments about it being over commercialised, and that we should celebrate/show our love every day rather than on one particular day. I agree. However, the thing I wonder is - Do you actually take the opportunity every day to let those who you love know it? Do you celebrate it on other days? Too often it seems that days pass by, things get taken for granted or we assume people know they're important to us. To me Valentines Day isn't just about telling our partner/lover that we love them, its a chance to appreciate our friends too. And if we do take the opportunities during the year to make sure they know they're loved, then there's no harm in telling them again is there ;)

And yes, like most holidays & celebrations Valentines Day is over commercialised. Its up to us as consumers to decide how much we buy into it tho. No one ways we have to go spending lots of money, falling for all the marketing ploys, or putting pressure on ourselves to live up to some perceived expectations. We can make our own cards, or write sweet notes, take the time to have a heartfelt conversation. We can make gifts, do some baking, run errands or buy something thoughtful that doesn't cost the earth....(and if we're going to buy something what better than shopping local and handmade....Felt is a great way of supporting NZ artists).

I love snail mail, so for some of my friends (especially out of town ones) I like to pop something in the post for them, and this year I baked some heart cookies to give to my husband and also to some friends :)

The cookies are Chocolate Cinnamon from this recipe.

Are you doing anything for Valentines Day this year?

Cake Days

Recently some friends and family had cake days (ie birthdays) so I made them some cake.

The first one was a Blueberry Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting - the photo doesn't do it justice, but the inside was a great blue colour with the berries making balls of dark blue thru out. Its a very large cake - I made it in one 28cm tin and cut it in half rather than the 2 smaller tins as suggested.

The next cake was designed to use Rhubarb and Lemons as I have lots of these in the garden. I'd seen a recipe for a Rhubarb Meringue Cake but didn't really want to use 8 eggs (I don't have lots of these in my garden :P ) So I made this Lemon Yoghurt Cake and then filled and iced it using the Rhubarb Cream from the Rhubarb Meringue Cake recipe. It was a great combo!

Following the Chevron

I've had plans for aaaaaaaaaaaages to add some colour to the decor of our lounge. We have a very neutral lounge from furniture and wall colour so I wanted to brighten things up a bit. As a wedding gift we received a stunning photograph on canvas, which has pride of place over our couch so I decided to take a colour from the photo to add to the room.

I have a habit of getting bored with things, so decided I'd just add some coloured cushion covers at this stage and see how they go - its much easier to get new cushion covers if I want a new colour than other  things!

So today I finally set aside some time to sew for me (Sweet Designs sewing takes priority most of the time!) and I whipped up a couple of cushion covers. I love the lift they've given the room.

Happy Birthday to a Dear Friend

Last weekend my dear friend, came to visit. After years of not getting to celebrate our birthdays together (mine is the day after hers) we now seem to be starting a bit of a tradition of spending the weekend closest to our birthdays together. This year we moved it forward a week so we could go to the NZ Chocolate Festival.

We had a great weekend drinking coffee, chatting, eating chocolate, chatting, watching Julie & Julia (foodie chic flick, perfect!), chatting, more coffee & cake.

Because it was a birthday celebration we needed cake (well to be honest we'd have had cake anyway, its a given when we spend time together). I remembered in my recipe collection that I had a Chocolate Guinness Cake recipe..... there might possible have been some Irish pubs involved in our younger days, and you know how much we like chocolate, so this seemed like the perfect cake to make. It's a Nigella recipe originally, took me a while to realise that part of the reason it has a cream cheese icing is that once iced it looks like a pint of guinness!

Nigella Chocolate Guinness Cake

Ingredients
250ml guinness
250gm butter
75gm cocoa
400gm castor sugar
1x small pottle sour cream
2 eggs
1Tbsp vanilla essence
275gm plain flour
2 1/2tsp baking soda

Icing
300gm cream cheese
150gm icing sugar
125ml cream

Pre-heat oven to 180'C + grease 23cm cake tin.
In a large saucepan, put guinness & butter to melt. Stir (whisk) in cocoa & sugar.
In a separate bowl, beat sour cream, eggs, & vanilla. Then pour into guinness mix.
Whisk in flour & baking soda.
Bake 45-60mings. Cool in tin.

To ice: Whip cream cheese & sifted icing sugar together. Add cream & beat again. Ice cake so it looks like a frothy top of the famous pint!

I'd love to know if you make this recipe and what you think about it :)

Recipes for Life

As you probably know I got married a while ago (6 months on Monday to be precise ;) ), for my Hen's Party, my lovely bridesmaids organised a recipe collection. All my female friends gave me their favorite recipes written on some pretty cards they'd been given earlier. 

I'm going to start working my way thru these recipes, so when I do I thought I'd share them with you here.

To start with I was given the recipe for a Happy Marriage.



Happy Marriage

*Recommended to make often*

- Unlimited Fun
- Equal quantity of love
- Good measure of communication
- Sprinkle of Independence
- "Spice" of your choice...for "spicing it up a bit...

Mix all ingredients together and Voila...... Enjoy!