bannana and walnut cupcakes with cream cheese frosting

I've been a little bit lazy with posting things, but here i am back again (if anyone is out there!)

So.. My boyfriend LOVES bananas. When i told him that this would be my opening sentence for the latest blog post... his response was' uh... is there another way you can phrase that?'' haha
I tried my best to think of anoher way, but failed. Anyways, so my boyfreind loves bananas and he can eat as many as three a day. I am not that big a fan, so to me, that is strange. It was our one year and 6 months anniversary just last week and so i decided to incorporate his love of bananas into a little gift of banana and walnut cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. Its quite easy to make and it is pretty delicious if i say so myself!

Ingredients for Banana Walnut cupcakes

100 grams butter (room temperature)
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup of plain flour
1/2 cup of self raising flour
1/4 cup sour cream
2 large OR 3 small bananas (ripe and mashed up)
2 tablespoons of milk
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 teaspoon bicarbonate soda
pinch of salt
1 cup crushed walnuts (or more if you want)

• Preheat oven to 160 degrees celcius (fan forced) or 180 normal.

• Use an electric mixer to mix up the butter and brown sugar first. Mix them well until a soft brown paste.

• add in the eggs and mix well

• sift in the two different types of flour and the bi carbonate soda. slowly fold the flour into the mixture until smooth. Add in the milk. If the consistency of your mixture is a little thick, add in a little more milk. Add in the vanilla essence

• mix in the mashed bananas, sour cream and walnuts well. Add a pinch of salt. The consistency of your mixture should be thick and 'dollop-able'.

• Divide into your cupcake patties or tin!

• Bake for 30 - 40 mins, depending on how good your oven is. You can check by taking a knife and try pushing the cake down. If it springs back, it will be done. Also, putt a knife through the mixture. If it comes out clean should be ready.

Ingredients for cream cheese frosting
120grams cream cheese
30 grams butter
2 cups icing sugar
few drops of lemon juice.

• Mix the cream cheese and butter together with an electric mixer. add in icing sugar and lemon.
• Put in the fridge to set and spread on the cupcakes when they are cool!

Sydney - an abundance of food

I went to sydney this weekend.. and boy were there so many places to eat at. I had made a list of the places i wanted to go but unfortunately i didn't have time to go to them all.

I did however make a trip down to the Bourke Street Bakery to taste the Ginger Creme Brulee tarts that i had attempted to make...I admit, we had to walk quite a long way to get there and we weren't exactly sure where it was but it was worth it! As you can see from the picture below, the tarts look nothing like the ones i made. *sigh* The ones that i bought from the bakery were heavenly. The custard was thick and not too sweet, the pastry was thin, delicate yet still crunchy and crumbly and the burnt sugar was crisp and thin. YUM!! I still have the tart base i made from last time... I wonder if it is still good to use, because I DEFINITELY need to attempt these tarts again as last time I didnt do it enough justice!

I also went to the Lindt Chocolate Cafe and saw their macaroons. More things i need to work on!!! How do they get them all so perfect?!?!?! tell me!!!!!!!

Ginger Creme Brulee Tart

This is a ginger creme brulee tart. I have never been so patient with my baking in my life... and let me tell you... this tart takes A LOT of patience. I got this recipe from the blog Almost Bourdain, and modified it here and there. I just had a look at the pics from that blog... and wow does my tart look different to hers. *sigh* one day.....

Tarts are another one of my obsessions. They are so damn hard to get perfect and I am a little proud of this little baby! It may have taken up to 3 days to assemble the whole tart but the satisfaction i got from putting the finishing touches on it was worth it!

It was not easy, let me tell you that much. I ran into quite a number of problems. So on the first night, I started off by infusing my custard mix with the chai herbs and ginger. Mind you, being as inpatient as i am, i decided to start this at 11pm at night, the same night i found the recipe. So once I had made that up, and popped it into the fridge, I started working on my tart base. I was uber excited as this would be the first time that I would be using my PROCESSOR! Unfortunately, I did not read the instructions, and forced the top compartment on, which caused it to become stuck. After around 30 minutes of trying to get it apart, I finally removed it... At this point, there was a lot of swearing and frustration going on.

My second problem was on the second day when i started to actually make up the custard. After 1 hour of stiring the custard over a low heat,,,, i began to get a little annoyed at the fact that nothing was happenign and my custard was not thickening. Once i reread the recipe, i found out that i had used the wrong type of cream. In which I had to add a lot of corn flour to my mixture which solved the problem. PHEW

My third problem was that my tart bases were shrinking significantly and i had no idea why. But hey, i was going for the 'rustic' home made look... i guess.

Anyways, so conclusion is, this was a hell of a hard thing to make, and althought it isnt perfect, i am quite proud of it! Will add the recipe tomorrow!

Patience is the Key

I have learnt one crucial thing when it comes to baking. Patience is the key to success. Unfortunately for me, this is not something that i possess. When people describe me, i think the word furthest from their mind would be patient. Many of my baking failures are from my impatient nature. Just yesterday, I could not wait for some butter to come to 'room temperature' so i decided to nuke it a little in the microwave... big mistake. I don't know what happened, but whatever it was, it was not good. The tart mixture that i made, became a sloppy mess. Somehow the oil from the butter had seperated itself, and the mixture looked like scrambled eggs. So not only did I waste 100g's of almond meal (expensive stuff!), i had oily mess everywhere.

I am the type of person who will bake their cake, and put icing on it straight away because i am not patient enough to wait for the cake to loose all its heap. This results in the icing being put onto the hot cake, and melting and sliding off. This sort of thing happens on a regular basis for me... as below. pretty isnt it... NOT.


So yesterday when I was chucking away the burnt oily remains of my tart, and dying a little bit inside whilst looking at the unrecognizable remains, i came to the conclusion that patience is the key to success. Now it may not come to me as second nature, but it is something that i will DEFINITELY have to work hard on if i want to get something at least a little presentable. And that is my lesson of the day!

Easy Chicken Roast

I have a love and hate relationship with winter. Winter makes me fat because I like to eat meals that make me warm.... namely, hot, greasy, oily foods so I am always happy to find any recipes that are delicious, warm and healthy!

So a few days ago at work, I was off with my friend to buy some lunch (because I never have the time, or rather, time management to make my own lunch) when one of the managers took pity upon me and shared one of his easy and yummy recipes with me. I think his exact words were 'oh you poor thing, going out to buy lunch AGAIN? '

I know that this blog is mainly for sweets and deserts, but this recipe is definitely a keeper so I just had to share! This is the recipe that was given to me by my lovely manager, Mr F. It is simple, easy to make, and warm and hearty for the cold winter nights! Enjoy!

Ingredients

5 x cuts of chicken (chicken breast on the bone and drumstick preferred)
5 x garlic cloves - roughly chopped
1 x whole onion (roughly chopped)
1 x bunch of basil leaves
2 x punnets of cherry tomatoes, cut in halves
2 x baby potato's cut into quarters
1 x large mushroom, chopped
olive oil
salt and pepper

Method

Turn the oven on to 180 degrees Celsius. Now get a deep oven pan, and dollop about 1 or 2 table spoons of olive oil. Dont be shy ;)

Next, scatter the garlic, cherry tomatos, potatos, mushrooms and basil leaves in. Sprinkle a good amount of salt and pepper. Set aside

Heat up a saucepan with some olive oil. Brown your chicken pieces on each side. Once they are nice and brown, pop them on top of the the vegetables you are about to roast. Give it all a good mix with some tongs and pop them in the oven!

Keep them in the oven for about 30 -60mins (depending on how hungry you are). The juice from the tomato's should mix in with the olive oil and create a lovely little sauce!

Now excuse me while I run downstairs to check on my tart shells!

Macaroons - Sucre Method

I have been obsessed with macaroons since two years ago. This obsession came from when my best friend/sister and i decided to make these macaroons for our bfs. I personally had never heard of what macaroons were, but Amanda assured me that they were the best things ever. So we found a recipe together online and attempted to make them. Not too surprisingly , they were a MASSIVE fail, these flat, sugary lumps. I wish i had taken a photo of these things because they were just pink pieces of poo really.

Ever since that day, I have been obsessed with making the PERFECT macaroon and have made 3 or 4 batches since then. Most of which were fails. One time, i got adventurous and spent a lot of money on some green tea powder to make some green tea macaroons.. but that did not work well at all.

I have to confess, i had never really tasted a proper macaroons until a few months back and i wasn't too impressed at the taste but i am still obsessed with making the perfect macaroon. Especially with their recent popularity due to master chef.

Now I recently found out that there are two ways to make Macaroons - the french way and the italian way. I have always tried the french way which is the easier in terms of steps.. but a lot harder to get the right result. The sucre method (italian) has a lot more steps, but have been known to be easier to get a better result.

I had never tried the sucre method and i decided today was the day i would. I mentioned in a previous post, i have been itching to make these ginger creme brulee tarts, which call for like a million egg yolks which leaves me with a lot of egg whites. What better way to make use of these then make macaroons! These turned out quite alright, but still need some working on in terms of presentation! Now i warn you... these get messy, so when attempting these... be prepared for some mess.


RECIPE - Macaroons - sucre method

Ingredients for macaroon shell:

160g of Almond Meal

140g of Icing sugar

6 egg whites (120g to be exact)

185g of caster sugar

50ml water

food colouring of choice.

• Sift the almond meal and icing sugar first. You can use a processor to do this (YAY from now on i can use my new processor), or a sieve. OR if you are really equipment poor like me, you can be creative. I used this colander (i thinks thats what you call it) and a rice spoon to push the almond and icing sugar through.

• Next, get three egg whites (60g) and put them in a bowl and start whipping. Best to use a electric mixer for this but if you are up to it or don't have an electric mixer, just a hand held whisk is fine but be prepared to have sore wrists the next morning. Once your egg whites are looking frothy, and have peaks (ie stays up for a while and forms little peaks when you lift the whisk out of your hand) slowly start adding in 35g of caster sugar. Mix for approx 4 mins or until the mixture is white and have more prominent peaks.

• Next, place 150g of caster sugar into a saucepan and add the water. Now heat this up to 245 degree fahrenheit. For those of you (including me) who have no idea how to achieve this, just heat up the sugar until its starts boiling and gets to the malleable stage. now get a cold bowl of water, and put some of the sugar and water mixture in the bowl. If you can pick up what you just put in the water and it is malleable it is ready.

• Once your sugar and water is at malleable stage, slowly pour it into your egg white and sugar mixture. Continue beating until it is all mixed in and the mixture is glossy and shiny. Now put this aside for a while.

• Now get your almond and icing sugar mixture and mix it with the remaining 3 egg whites(60g). Mix them all together well and include your food colouring. Remember that the mixture lightens a lot once everything is put together so make the colour a bit darker than you want it. This should form a sticky dough.

• Gently fold in your egg white mixture to your dough like almond mixture. Try to combine them with as less strokes as possible. This should now form a smooth mixture that is ready to be put into some piping bags.
  

• Start piping the mixture onto baking tray on top of some baking paper. The macaroons, if made right, do not expand too much, so you do not have to leave too much space between each one when piping. Lets say approximately 3cms to be safe. Let the macaroons rest for 5-10 minutes before putting them in the oven. As you can see.. my piping techniques are far from professional. Bake these for 20 minutes at 150 degrees Celsius (fan forced)
  

• Once your macaroons are out of the oven, they should have feet! ie, the little extra spongey area that you can see from the picture below. Carefully take them off the baking tray and let them cool down.

Ingredients for Dark Chocolate ganache filling.
100g Dark chocolate
30ml thickened cream

• This is the easy bit! Just get a bowl and combine both, and put the bowl onto of a pot with simmering water. Make sure that the bottom of the bowl does not touch the water.

• Once this is made, pipe on the ganache between two macaroons and your good to go!
  

My First Food Processor - thanks to my b

I have been meaning to get myself a food processor for yonks now. I always thought that it would make my life that much easier... well baking wise. My lovely bf surprised me with my first ever food processor! I used it tonight actually.... and it didnt go all too smoothly, mainly because i thought i was too good to read the instructions... but more on that later!

My First Blow Torch!

Today I went out and bought myself a blow torch with some gas (no idea how to work it) and some mini tart tins. Can't wait to start making things with it! I recently found on 'Almost Bourdain' this WONDERFUL ginger creme brulee tart recipe which I have been ITCHING to make! I will have the post up soon!

Pictures Of Some Creations

I love baking. Over the past few years, I have baked and made mountains of sweets, much to the love and hate of my friends and family. Of course my friends love the sweets, but some find my sweets to be the demise of their latest diet.

My brother loves my baking, however my parents are not always very supporting, saying that I make everything sticky around the kitchen but the smell of the warm tarts, cakes and biscuits always have a way of letting me get away with baking one more time.

I just wanted to post some pictures of what I have made over the years, and hopefully next time i can start documenting the process as well as the end product! As i have said in my first post, my presentation is not always up to par, so hopefully you will see my progress as i blog!



So these are my vanilla cupcakes with dark chocolate frosting... yet to master the technique of neat frosting!


So these are my french macaroons... they are SOOOO hard to make!!!! must work on these in the future also!


So this is a baked New York Cheesecake which I made for my boyfriends birthday a few years back. My first attempt at one to be exact. Turned out okay though I am not a big fan of cheesecakes!



I am a little proud of this one, it is a baked oreo cheesecake!
These were hand made chocolates made for me and my bf's one year anniversary. Very happy with how these turned out!
This is a orange and poppyseed cupcake with candied orange on top


This is a banana and walnut cake with cream cheese frosting. This is one of the few cakes that i did have a few mouthfuls of and surprisingly loved.Chocolate mudcake with chocolate ganache.. Totally indulging.


Strawberry chocolate tart. I have a bit of an obsession with tarts. I will not rest until i make a perfect tart. This one was a bit of a fail, it did not set properly and i didnt have enough strawberries to even cover the tart :(Berry and rhubarb crumble tart.. yummm

My First Post :)

Ok. So ever since my boyfriend got me the Woman’s Weekly cookies, cheesecakes and cupcakes book, the inner baker in me has emerged.

I cant get enough of baking - when i have the time and money for ingredients that is. Being the poor uni student, money is a little… scarce?

Anyways, after randomly finding the Tartelette blog which led to other brilliant patisserie blogs, i have decided to start my own. I wont lie, i have tried making blogs before, which dont always work out, hopefully my passion for patisserie will allow this blog a longer life time.

It is a dream of mine to maybe one day travel the world, and learn patisserie and then come back to my hometown and set up my own french style patisserie with gorgeous tarts, mouth-watering macaroons, and delicate mini cakes and sweets. I am told that my baking endeavors almost always do work out well, taste wise.. however, i am yet to master the look of my creations and i find that people are unwilling to taste my baked goods if they do not look up to par… in which case, i have to just shove it in their mouths.. Presentation definitely needs some working on.

A little secret about me is that i almost NEVER taste what i make. Crazy yes... instead I select a few people to taste my creations and if the majority love it then i assume it is good. I have no idea why I have no desire to taste the things i make since i am happy to wolf down anything else that is out there, but this is something that i also have to work on to improve.

I have decided to post up pictures of all my baking successes… and failures along with the recipes i have followed!

Enjoy!