Saturday 31 July 2010

White chocolate mud cake with Swiss meringue buttercream and rose petals!

In the spirit of baking and what I deemed 'practicing' for making the masterpiece for my daughter's up and coming posh poodle party, I thought I better start trying out cakes to decide what I wanted to use for the cake and perfect my techniques so I am not stressed out with baking disasters on the day!

I am going to be making the FiFi Poodle cake from the Australian Women's Weekly Kid's Party Cake Cookbook.  The recipe says to use two packets of buttercake mix but I was thinking of trying to make my own and make it a bit nicer than a packet cake! I decided that a white chocolate mud cake might be good for the base cake.

There is a great cooking blog that I found awhile ago and I have cooked a lot of different recipes off there and they always work and I find it very easy to follow and usually quick and easy to make.  So I headed over there to Exclusively Food and was pleased to see that they did have a recipe for a white chocolate cake. For the test cake I just made a 20cm springform pan size so used the directions from the pdf at the bottom of the recipe.

For the icing I wanted to try out the Martha Stewart Swiss Meringue Buttercream recipe and just made half the size that the recipe states.

I am an extremely impatient baker at times and everything also is on the run due to constant interruptions by my darling daughter, however I thought that this turned out quite well.  It wasn't quite cooked enough in the middle though when cut open but I was a bit worried about it getting overdone on the edges!  However despite that it tasted delicious!!!   And I really like the icing as well, not too sweet and nice and light.

Any other tried and true recipe suggestions out there for me to try for the cake base?

Swiss meringue buttercream with rose petals




Icing coloured with Wilton gel (pink)



Pariya rose petals

Tuesday 6 July 2010

I heart french toast cupcakes!

We have a new love in our house....French toast cupcakes! When I finally got my hands of a copy of "Eat me! The stupendous self-raising world of cupcakes and bakes according to Cookie Girl" at work, Mackenzie and I were looking through deciding what we should try to bake first.  

Somehow we managed to agree on one to try (yes how did this happen...a Virgo and a Saggitarius actually agreeing!) and French Toast cupcakes were it.  Now my daughter Mackenzie loves French toast and manages to wrangle one of her parents to make it for her for breakfast (ie. me or my husband) and has the particular knack of requesting it on days you are in a rush or walking out the door!! Somehow though the little chicken manages to get one of use to whip her up a batch, so it was only fitting that I give these cupcakes a try!!!

And can I say success...everyone has loved them.  I made the first batch when my mum was visiting and she did not need to be asked twice if she would like to try a second.  The second batch I made to take to my workplace and I modified the recipe to be gluten free.  The third batch I made for my husband who had missed the first two because he was away for work.  These are definitely a winner and will be going into my recipe file.  Now the next time I make them I must remember to try and take a photo!!

And as my daughter says..."they really really taste like french toast! I love them!"