Friendship Brownie

With study for & sitting a Uni exam, I forgot what day of the week I was living in - it was about dinner time when I remembered it was Tuesday.....and I was scheduled to make a baking delivery the next day! So a quick look through the recipes I was given at my Hen's Party to find something quick & easy....and that I had the ingredients for! My good friend Fi's, Brownie recipe ticked all the boxes, so I quickly whipped a batch up.

             Friendship Brownie

           250g butter
           4 eggs
           1 Tbsp vanilla essence
           1 1/2C sugar
           8 Tbsp cocoa
           1 C flour
           2 tsp baking powder
           Choc chips
           Walnuts
           Icing sugar to serve

• Melt butter
• Add eggs, sugar & vanilla. Beat well.
• Add sifted flour, baking powder, cocoa. Mix well.
• Pour into a greased slice pan.
• Sprinkle with choc chips & chopped walnuts.
• Bake 180' for 35min.
• Sprinkle with icing sugar to serve.

Can't really go wrong with chocolate now can ya? 😜

Spring Blossom

There are lots of trees covered in blossom round my neighbourhood, so I decided to send some blossom inside on this cake. Some midweek sweetness for the local hospice - a Lemon Drizzle Cake tweaked slightly by giving it a Raspberry Butter Cream Frosting. I love the combo of lemon & raspberry flavours - do you?

Eastbourne Lemon Drizzle Cake

115gm unsalted butter, softened
115gm caster sugar
4 free-range eggs
180gm ground almonds
30gm poppy seeds
zest & juice of 2 lemons
125gm self-raising flour, sifted

Lemon Syrup
100gm caster sugar
90gm lemon juice

Lemon Icing
225gm icing sugar
zest & juice of 1 lemon

• Preheat the oven to 180'C. Grease & line the bottom and sides of a 20cm springform cake tin.
• Beat the butter with the caster sugar until light and creamy.
• Add the eggs one by one, beating each in well.
• Fold in the ground almonds, poppy seeds, lemon zest and juice, and the sifted flour.
• Bake for 40min or until lightly golden.
• Make the lemon syrup by heating the sugar and lemon juice in a pan until sugar has dissolved.
• While cake is still warm, make lots of little holes in the top and pour your syrup over.
• For the icing, sift icing sugar into a bowl, add lemon juice and zest, stirring until smooth.
• When the cake is cool, poor the icing on the middle and let it drizzle down the sides.

Option: Make your favourite buttercream recipe and add some raspberry flavouring or freeze dried raspberry powder, spread over the cooled cake.

I made the blossom flowers out of pre-coloured fondant icing, & because I didn't have any pink dusting powder, 

I mixed a little freeze dried raspberry powder with water to paint the centres of the flowers.

Baking Things Better

Things have been a bit stressful lately, so while considering what I could do to help myself I decided to join Good Bitches Bake. Good Bitches Bake take baking donations from people like me, and deliver it to people who could do with a little sweetness in their lives, like Hospice's and Womans Refuge's. Its a win-win situation - I get to bake, which helps me feel productive & creative, but someone else gets to eat it (so I don't have to try and fit in even MORE exercise!).

As mentioned in a really old post, for my Hen's Party my girlfriends gave me some of their favourite recipes. So I thought since I'm going to be baking more regularly, it'd be a cool thing to bake my way through the recipes they gave me - and even cooler for you 'cos I've decided I'll do what I originally said, and share them here in case you want to try them too.

This weekend's baking (my first bake for Good Bitches Bake) I made Belgium Bars (like a slice version of Belgium Biscuits) - spices, sweetness & raspberry...makes a pretty tasty combo!

Belgium Bars

200gms Sugar

200gms Butter

1 Egg

1tsp Cinnamon

1tsp Mixed Spice

4tsp Baking Powder

2cups of Flour

3-4Tbsp Raspberry Jam

Icing

250gms Butter

500gms Icing Sugar

2tsp Raspberry Flavoured Essence

Freeze Dried Raspberry Power/Jelly Crystals for Sprinkling

• Heat over to 160'C and line a 28xm x 18cm slice tin
• Cream Butter & Sugar together
• Beat in egg
• Sift dry ingredients then mix into creamed butter until well combined
• Spread half the mix out to cover the bottom of the tin (you may be able to roll it out first) and prick with a fork/skewer
• Cover with Jam, and then spread other half of dough to cover the jam
• Bake for 20-30 mins til starting to brown, then cool out of the tin on a cooling rack.
• To make the icing: whip softened butter til creamy, then add icing sugar in 3 or 4 additions beating between each til smooth. Add raspberry flavouring & mix. If icing is too stiff add a small amount of warm water.
• Once the slice is cool, ice with butter cream & sprinkle with raspberry powder. 

Options: I cut the slices first before icing so I could make the piped icing look neater - if piping icing on, you may want to smear a small amount of icing on the slice first (like a crumb coat) so the piped icing will tick.

If you want you can flavour the icing using freeze dried raspberry powder instead of flavouring - you'll need a Tbsp or 2 (but taste test to get the strength of flavour you want)

Enjoy!

And here they all are ready to go to their new home :)

Looking for Corporate Gift Ideas?

Does your business or workplace give out gifts to clients, staff members or anyone else? Choosing handmade and locally made products would be a great way of rewarding those people you want to give gifts to while showing your support to local businesses. Feel good gifts on all levels :)

Here are a couple of sweet design ideas that you could choose for this years Christmas season.

Hand Stamped Peg Magnets - these wooden clothes pegs can be stamped with words of your choice (up to 10characters will fit) and are then attached to strong magnets. They're great for keeping the fridge, magnetic noticeboard or other magnetic surfaces tidy and pretty all at the same time. You could get your companies name stamped on them, or words that say something about your product. Or pick one of my pre-designed options. You can choose how many pegs you want in a pack too. The ideas are endless. 

Or you could choose pegs that match your colour scheme, or a random assortment of coloured designs so everyone gets something different.

Bookmarks - Fabric covered buttons attached to a giant clip, these make great gifts. Choose a fabric that matches your colour scheme or an image that matches your organisations theme to personalise these gifts.

Security tags - These will funky up any workplace. Fabric covered buttons attached to reels, they have a slide clasp on the back for attaching to the waste band and a dome clip to attach your keys or swipe cards to the tag - the dome clip is on a retractable cord so you can pull your swipe card away from your waist when you need to use it (its about half a metre long).

Prices are negotiable depending on the quantity but all are under the $10 per item mark. Email sweetdesignsnz[@]gmail.com to enquire.

How to have your cake & eat it too!

Its nearly September! And September means Birthday Month! And that means I HAVE to eat cake right ;)

So this year I thought it'd be fun to share the baking love around a bit with a Baking Swap.

If you enjoy baking and eating baked goods, and live in NZ this is for you!

What will happen:
You register (details below) by Friday 5th September
I sort you in to swap groups & give you the addresses of up to 5 other people.
You bake (biscuits, cakes, fudges what ever you enjoy making)
Then you split your baked goods into 6 (you need to keep some for yourself!), package them up and post them to the 5 people you're swapping with.

Then sit back and wait for baking to arrive at your place, make a cuppa to enjoy with the baking, and consume! (or invite friends over to help you - share the baking love even further)

To register:
Email sweetdesignsnz@gmail.com with your name and address (make sure you put Baking Swap in the subject)

Please note - Baking needs to have been swapped by September 30th 2014.
You don't need to send a whole batch of baking to every person - that'd be a lot of baking! 

If you have any dietary requirements, you're not excluded! Join in too, make sure you let me know in the email what they are, and i'll try and match you all up :)

This is not a competition about who does the best/fanciest/prettiest baking - this is about sharing the enjoyment of giving and receiving home baked goodies. A little bit of love to get Spring started :)

AND as an added bonus, all people who participate in the Baking Swap will go in the draw to win a Sweet Designs Oven Mitt :) (may not be exactly as pictured due to the way the fabric repeats)

Have you a Spring in your Step?

I find Winter a bit tough and long to be honest. The lack of sunshine eats away at my mood and it becomes much harder work to be positive about things. So I really love it when we get a lovely sunny day - especially if I get to hang out on the boat with my husband :)

I also really like when signs of Spring start appearing. It might be a little on the early side for some of these flowers but I'm really excited to have been able to pick this bunch of flowers from my garden - really feels like spring is here! (I'm ignoring the fact that another Stormy Southerly is forecasted for tomorrow!) 

These flowers really smell like Spring too :) 

Are you a Winter fan? Or more into Summer like me?

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 :)