Ch-ch-ch-chia!

Everytime I use chia seeds I think of the chia pet ad at the beginning of Wayne's World. Ch-ch-ch-chia! Just me?

I made these yummy pink grapefruit and organic yoghurt cups for dessert last night.

And I sprinkled crunchola and chia seeds over the top for extra texture.

Since I've been sprinkling chia seeds on everything recently - this caught my eye in Bunnings a few weeks ago.

Don't you love the tagline - Kids love them!

It's done pretty well in the veggie patch so far - it's popped out these blue flower heads which google tells me will then form into seed heads - for my first chia seed harvest!

Ch-ch-ch-chia!

Macaroon Syrup Cake with Candied Orange Slices

One of my colleagues had a birthday this week - so I put my hand up to make a cake for our office morning tea.

I put my own spin on a family favourite - my Mum's Macaroon Syrup cake. I'm not sure where she originally got the recipe from but she's been making it for years and it always turns out fantastically.

I followed her "cake" recipe component below

Cake Ingredients

125g butter

1 cup caster sugar

4 eggs

2 cups coconut

1 cup self raising flour

Grease ring pan or line base and sides with baking paper.

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy

Beat in eggs one by one very well

Stir in coconut and sifted flour

Spread mixture in pan

Bake in 160C oven for about 45 mins

Now my Mum always uses tinned mandarin segments to decorate the top of the cake and utilises the "juice" to make the syrup, but I tweaked it a little and made candied orange slices and syrup instead.

Syrup Ingredients
2 oranges
1 cup caster sugar
3 cups water
1 lemon

Slice oranges into 5mm slices (I left the rind on)
Add 1 1/2 cups of water and 1/2 cup caster sugar to pan and heat until water boils and sugar dissolves
Add orange slices to pan, bring to boil and then turn down to simmer until the liquid reduces (approx 15 mins)
Remove slices from pan and place on sheet of baking paper
Add remaining 1 1/2 cups water and 1/2 cup caster sugar to pan with two lemon wedges and simmer for 10 minutes

At this point remove the cake from the oven (do not remove from the tin), and pour the hot syrup over the hot cake. (Every time I do this I always think I have too much liquid and I'm going to drown the cake - but trust me, it soaks it up like a sponge.)

(Yes I made a mini cake in a ramekin for Mr Tchotchke)

Let the cake cool before you remove it from the tin. Arrange the candied orange slices around the top of the cake.

Yum - it's a relatively cheap and easy cake to make and always seems to impress people with how moist and delicious it is. If only our citrus trees started producing I'd be making it more often!

Slow Cooker Poached Pears

I had a moment of brilliance at the West End markets on the weekend.

I was at the nice apple man's stand (deemed so because my friend had a not so nice shopping experience with another apple man) gazing at the mountains of pears - and it struck me - could I poach a pear in our slow cooker?

As is turns out - yes I could!

Maple Walnut Oatmeal Cookies

It's cookie weather. I can't think of anything better than curling up on the couch in front of a rerun of Grand Designs with a mug of milky tea and a warm cookie.

So when I needed to bring something along to two outings this weekend - I thought I'd whip up a batch.

The last thing I felt like doing on a Saturday afternoon was venturing out to the supermarket, so I surveyed the contents of the pantry and matched them up with this Martha Stewart recipe for Maple Walnut Oatmeal Cookies.

This are Martha's cookies

Martha's recipe claims it makes only 12 cookies, and I wanted to make sure I wasn't turning up with a skimpy looking plate, so I decided to double her quantities.

I think Martha must make her cookies the size of car tyres - because doubling the recipe almost overflowed my mixing bowl and I soon had a small army of cookies lined up on my benchtop.

When I converted her oven temperature of 300 degrees Fahrenheit to 150 degrees Celsius I was worried that it was too low - but I should have trusted Martha because they came out of the oven looking gorgeous.

And here they are on my pretty tiered platter. I was really chuffed with them - they were lovely and crunchy on the outside - and the buttery maple mix reminded me of primary school birthday parties at the Pancake Manor.

Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Two gorgeous friends of mine just got engaged - so we caught up for dinner to celebrate and I decided to make a cake for the occasion.

Inspired by this recipe over at The Cake Mistress I decided to bake a Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting. Here's what the final result looked like.

But of course it started out with carrots and walnuts. It was my first attempt at a carrot cake and I was slightly surprised at how much carrot went into it (4 big carrots!).

Not exactly the prettiest "before" photo..

But hey it turned out of the ring pan in one piece which is always a win.

To be honest I struggled with the frosting again (what is it with me and frosting?) it was a weird consistency - it seemed to be slightly separated with the icing sugar particles almost suspended in the icing? I think next time I'll try it with Philadelphia cream cheese instead of the Dairy Farmers Cottage Cheese I used.

But despite my complaints on the frosting - it was happily gobbled up! Congratulations again M & T!!

Good Friday Lunch

All the classics of a great Good Friday lunch with the family.

Delicious seafood lunch (entree was my favourite - spaghetti with anchovies - but I gutsed it all down before I thought to take a photo)

Amazing desserts..

And a game of cards...

The Teepee Cake Challenge: COMPLETED

So - last week I posted here about the impending Teepee cake challenge - and it all came to fruition this weekend.

I was concerned that it was my first time making a cake in a Dolly Varden tin so I made the cake the evening before hand so I'd have ample time to rectify any cake disasters.

Out came the KitchenAid to beat the orange and poppyseed batter into submission.

And I was somewhat concerned that I still didn't have enough - it barely filled the cake tin to the halfway mark.

But it rose incredibly in the oven - and thankfully didn't deflate into itself like I'd read about.

The next morning I whipped up a batch of Buttercream Icing using this recipe. (hmm I may sound casual now but I was fretting by that point - icing is not my friend - especially after the icing on my last Martha Stewart Lemon Cake didn't do so well in the heat.) 

On my first attempt at the icing it was so soft - almost the texture of raw cake batter - so I popped the bowl in the fridge to chill and hopefully firm up. But on my return the icing had stiffened up to a hard ice-cream like consistency which gave me a good fright - but after another go in the KitchenAid it was good to go.

I covered a chopping board in green wrapping paper and used grissini bread sticks for the wooden posts.

You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find cowboys and indians figurines. I couldn't find them anywhere on the weekend and was kicking myself for not being more organised and ordering some online. Mr Tchotchke saved the day and found a pack of farmyard figurines that did the job just fine.

The crowd of kids at the party swarmed around it as if that miniature horse was real.

I think it was a hit.

The Teepee Cake Challenge

It's my darling goddaughter's first birthday party on Sunday - and I've put my hand up to make her a birthday cake.

And since it's a Cowboys and Indians party - I'll be making a Teepee cake!

So of course I've borrowed my mum's well thumbed copy of the Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake Book.

Because from years of flicking through the pages and ogling all the elaborate designs - I knew that I'd find a Teepee cake amongst the bunnies and princesses.

Aw just as cute as I remembered.

A bit of further Google research has brought up these ones too..

This one is from That's My Cake.

And this one is from a book called 50 Easy Party Cakes by Debbie Brown.

So I've certainly got my work cut out for me... I'm not sure if I'm going to tackle the firm fondant icing - but I'm worried that regular icing will look dodgy if its a hot day... I'll let you know how I go!

Jocelyn's Provisions & Magnolia Interiors

We made a delicious pit stop on Saturday morning.

Jocelyn's is possibly the prettiest bakery in Brisbane - and their cakes and savoury treats are amazing.

For birthday parties at my office we always order their Sour Chocolate Roulade - it's definitely a crowd pleaser.

But I have to say I'm pretty partial to their Orange and Almond or Carrot Cakes.

Whilst Mr Tchotchke was tucking into his mid morning snack (a very fancy sausage roll) - I snuck into Magnolia Interiors in their new premises across the way.

They've got so much more room to work with in their new store and some really gorgeous displays. Mr Tchotchke commented that even though he believes we're already severely "over-cushioned," he wouldn't mind adding the above octopus cushion to our collection.

St Patrick's Day Clover Cookies

Happy St Patrick's Day! As my first St Patrick's as a good Irish wife I figured I'd better get involved.

Luckily I could rely on Martha, her website had a plethora of Irish inspired recipes ripe for the picking. Although I was tempted by giving Soda Bread a shot (I tried it in Ireland made by a proper Irish wife - amazing) I settled on these cute Clover Cookies

It was fun turning the icing sugar green - it looked like something out of Wicked.

They all looked cute as a button going into the oven..

Except I didn't realise it was one of those cookies recipes that triples in size and they grow into huge mutant blobs. They tasted pretty good though.

Martha - you won this one.

Sticky Date Puddings with Balsamic Caramel Sauce

My go-to easy peasy dessert is Sticky Date Pudding - so when I was up for making dessert for 17 people at a BBQ on the weekend - I knew what I'd be baking.

I have to give full credit to my auntie for this one - she made these one Christmas and I was hooked - I had to have the recipe. So I give you...

Zia Lia's Sticky Date Puddings with Balsamic Caramel Sauce

Puddings

185g dates, pitted

1 teaspoon bicarb soda

60g unsalted butter at room temperature

185g caster sugar

2 large eggs

185g self raising flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Balsamic Caramel Sauce

75 g soft brown sugar

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

4 tablespoons cream

2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar

Puddings

Combine dates in a pan with 300ml water, bring to a boil. Remove from hear, stir in bi carb soda and set aside.

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one by one, beating well each time. Fold in flour with a large metal spoon, stir in date mixture and vanilla, and pour into large muffin tins.

Bake in a 160C oven for 25 mins, or until cooked when tested with a skewer.

Sauce

Combine sugar and butter in a pan and stir over low heat until melted. Add cream and vinegar, bring to boil, remove from heat and serve warm.

This version of the recipe usually makes 12 muffins, but I doubled it to feed the masses.

If you've made extra - they freeze really well and are handy to have around when you need an emergency dessert. And let's face it - who hasn't had an emergency dessert situation?