Vanilla Butter Cake

Ciao Ciao! This is a simple cake that causes for no fuss and annoyance. Basically the best thing you can have on a Friday night by yourself. Lathered in custard. Watching The Titanic. Yep dats what I did. (Cool girl)

Mid-way through writing this post I made breakfast because I was famished and I cooked 90 second oats. A few days ago our microwave busted into nothing so Dad went and bought this super strength microwave that heats you food in 1 second. Literally, I could cook popcorn in there for 1 second and it would work. Anyway, I just put my oats in and during the 80 second mark I peek through the micro only to find out that my entire meal had bubbled over into a hot mess.
So I am now eating HALF a bowl of oats and I am too angry to make anymore.

I've finished and I'm craving more. (Oats, not cake! Although I could do with some cake omnomnom). I finally understand what the word HANGRY means. (Hungry and angry at the same time). Hksjdhflkjsdhflkjsdf

Note: this cake is supposed to be a butter cake not a sponge cake so it should be moist. Just a warning so no one hates me after they've cooked the cake waiting for an airy sponge.
ALSO. I GOT INTO MONASH UNIVERSITY IN MELBOURNE. SO I AM MOVING TO MELBOURNE IN 2 WEEKS AND I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M DOING BUT YOLO. AND I WILL HAVE TO COOK IN MY 1x1 KITCHEN BUT I WILL BE COOKING AND IM SO EXCITED YEAH OKAY BYE XOXO

Vanilla Butter Cake
                      Recipe from The Australian Women's Weekly

 - 125g butter, chopped
- 3/4 cup (180ml) milk
- 3 eggs
- 2 tsp of Vanilla extract
- 1 cup of caster sugar
- 1 1/2 cups (225g) of self raising flour

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius/160 degrees fan forced. Grease deep 19cm square cake tin and line base with bakin paper. (As you can see I don't have one of these so I fished out a lovely flower one which I thought suited the dimensions required).
Combine butter and milk in a saucepan and stir until smooth.
Beat eggs and extract in a small bowl with electric mixer until thick and creamy; gradually add sugar and beat until dissolved between each addition.
Transfer mixture to large bowl, stir in sifted flour and butter mixture in two batches.
Pour into cake pan and bake for about 45 minutes. Stand cake in pan for 5 minutes; turn top-side down onto wire rack and let cook. If desired, dust cake with icing sugar.

Blueberry and Cream Cheese Turnovers

Oh gawd, it has been ages since I last updated! I totally forgot about posting these morsels but I was going through my pictures on my laptop and re-discovered them!

I made these in about Feburary when I really wanted to bake but I didn't want to bake anything big. I hope other people get that feeling because I feel like that 99% of the time! I always want to create or bake something but there are days where I can't bear the hassle of cleaning up afterwards. This recipe is one of those fabulous go-to ones where you hardly have to clean anything. It's more of a station workshop where you spread, fold and bake. So easy.

These turnovers are filled with cream cheese, icing sugar and frozen blueberries. They are basically cheesecakes in a flaky puff pastry pillow. So, these are perf for portable cheesecake biteables.

I also got quite bored placing the blueberries on the sheets of pastry so I decided to get a little adventurous and I popped into the pantry and picked up some strawberry jam. The strawberry jam turnovers were strawberry cheesecakes, and the blueberry turnovers were blueberry cheesecakes!
There are endless options you could do to fill these turnovers to suit your taste! I'm so excited to experiement again with them and try different and wacky flavours. The best thing is that they are so crazy easy to make and are so easy to transport!

4 ingredients! Just make sure you have cream cheese in the refridgerator and puff pastry in the freezer and you are good to go. Just find little combos around your kitchen and chuck them in the turnover!

Blueberry and Cream Cheese Turnovers 

- 125g cream cheese, softened 
- 2 1/2 tbs caster sugar
 - 1 (25 x 25cm) sheet Pampas ready-rolled frozen puff pastry, just thawed, quartered 
- 75g (1/2 cup) frozen blueberries
- 1 egg yolk

Preheat oven to 220°C. Line a baking tray with non-stick baking paper.

Combine: the cream cheese and 2 tablespoons of sugar in a small bowl.

Place the pastry on a clean work surface. Spread one-quarter of the cream cheese mixture over a pastry square, leaving a 1cm border. Sprinkle over one-quarter of the blueberries. Brush the edge with a little egg yolk and fold pastry over to form a triangle and enclose the filling. Use a fork to gently press the edges together. 

Place on the lined tray. Repeat with remaining pastry, cream cheese mixture and blueberries. Brush turnovers with egg yolk and sprinkle with remaining sugar. Bake in oven for 15 minutes or until golden brown and puffed. Serve.

Crunchy Cocoa Roasted Nuts

Oh, hi!
I made some nuts which you should put in your mouth...naughty!

This recipe calls for very simple ingredients that you are bound to have in the house. The products are individual crunchy roasted nuts enveloped in a thick chocolate meringue with a hit of pepper/chilli. So grrrrrrreat y'all.

I have deferred my first semester of university meaning I have 2.5 months off whut whuuuttt woooppwoooop. I feel SO relieved because I don't have to worry about assignments and all that shit (been there done that in year 12). But I can laze around on my fat ass like I have been doing for the past 6 months I actually need to get things done. But. I. Can't. Be. Bothered.

I've started up tutoring services and I've got a few students lined up which is quite exciting! But I'm still on the hunt for a job.

Crunchy Cocoa Roasted Nuts
- 3 cups of raw almonds (I used both almonds and walnuts)
- 6 Tb of unsalted butter
- 2 large egg whites
- 1 tsp of salt
-1 cup of caster sugar
- 3 Tb unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

Place a rack in the cdenter of the oven and preheat to 350 farenheit (or 175 degrees celcius).
Place almonds on a baking sheet and roast for 15 minutes in the oven. Remove from the oven and place in a medium bool to cool completely.

Place butter on a rimmed baking sheet and melt in an oven for 5-7 minutes. Remove from the oven and set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, add egg whites and 1/2 tsp of salt and beat until frothy. Gradually add sugar and increase the speed of the mixer. Beat until the egg whites hold almost stiff peaks.
Add the remaining 1/2 tsp of salt, the cocoa powder, and cayenna pepper and beat until well incorporated. Pour the egg mixture over the toasted nuts and toss together until nuts are covered. Spoon mixture into the melted butter. Spread around the mixture onto the tray and place in the oven.
Cook for 30-45 minutes, taking the nuts out and turning them every 10 minutes.

Fig, Ginger and Walnut "Almost" Linzer Torte

Aloha!!! It has been ages since I last posted..almost 4 months. How bizarre!?

I've been going through some stuff the past 4 months and as a result, my love for baking started to fizzle out and what used to excite me before just didn't interest me at all. But things are slightly starting to look up and it's kind of strange because all of a sudden its just all whooshed back at me and the past week all I have been thinking about is cakes, cookies, macaroons, trifles..ya know, the usual bakey stuff.

I stumbled across this recipe on Poires Au Chocolat where Emma made a seville marmalade version of this almost torte. (I was also desparate to back and we didn't have any eggs in the house so this recipe drew me in even more).

I also asked Mum to get me some marmalade.. which she didn't get and instead she brought home royal fig jam. But I think the flavours of ginger and fig work quite well so I decide to bung it in to my torte! I haven't even been able to try the torte seeing as I am allergic to literally every food on the planet. So I'm absolutely guessing when I say that I think the flavours work well. However, my family thinks they do which is good.

I had to use smaller tart tins which are literally the size of my thumb because I didn't have any 6-inch pans! And I really should have thought of that before I was halfway through making it (soo organised). But they turned out fabbo!

I'm hoping to get back into this blog more. I took the four months off because of on-going shitty phases in my life but I am back now and I really pray to god that things get better from here. We'll see.

Enjoy da torte yo.


Fig, Ginger and Walnut "Almost" Linzer Torte
(adapted from Alice Medrich's Sinfully Easy Delicious Desserts) from Poires Au Chocolat

50g whole almonds
65g plain flour (I used spelt flour)
75g light brown sugar
1 tsp ground ginger
big pinch of fine sea salt
75g unsalted butter
1 tsp milk
100g fig jam*
4 Tb of roughly chopped walnuts

Place the almonds, flour, sugar, ginger and salt into a food processor and blend until fine. Cube the butter then add it with the milk and blend until the dough just comes together. Wrap a 25g chunk of the dough in a bit of cling film. Lightly grease a 6" round cake or tart tin with a removable base (or in my case I used 10cm tart tins with a removable base), then scrape the rest of the dough into it. Use your fingers to press it out into an even layer with a little lip at the side. Place the little ball of dough and the tin into the fridge and chill for at least 30 minutes - meanwhile, preheat the oven to 170C/340F.

Spread the marmalade out in the middle of the tin, leaving a gap at the edge. Tear the extra bit of dough into small chunks and arrange on the top. Put into the oven and and bake for 30 minutes until the sides and splodges in the middle are deep golden-brown and the jam is bubbling. Sit on a wire rack. After five minutes, run a knife around the edge and remove the tin. Leave to cool fully. Keeps well for at least 4 days in a sealed tin.

(Makes one 6" torte, 6-8 slices)

* The jams and marmalades I make are generally soft-set. If yours isn't, a tiny bit of lemon juice or water should loosen it slightly. Lemon would also be a good idea if the jam is purely sweet (i.e. not a little bitter, like marmalade).

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