Ain't Muffin But a Bake Thang

Its..so..hot.

2011-01-16T14:24:00.005+11:00

Hello hello,

It's a repulsively hot Sunday afternoon here in Sydney and boy am I feeling the heat.

Since I'm staying in today, I thought I'd get into the whole baking and blogging thing again, as my last post was more about paper crafting and my holiday break. And, yes I am as surprised as you may be to see that it has been indeed, one week since my last post. Ha.

So here it is, yet another loaf. But in my defense, I had some overripe bananas and frozen blueberries left over from the previous pie disaster- so why not? Plus its easy peasy to make, and takes about 20 minutes to put together.

Voila! Breakfast for the next week

How cute is the doily? I got it from IKEA a couple of weeks ago, I love that place!

x A

2011-01-10T21:55:00.010+11:00

Happy New Year and hope you all had a great Xmas.

For me, and most likely the rest of you as well, Xmas was again celebrated with family and food babies and NYE + NY in the company of awesome company and lots of food again- can't compain! In previous years, I never really got into the notion of celebrating NYE but as I have adopted the 'eh' notion late last year I accepted an invitation to attend a friend's family dinner ( which was way awesome) and danced in the new year at a house in Redfern. All in all, good times were had and I'm grateful for the company I keep these days.

As per usual, I haven't really felt like blogging but I'll sum up everything I've been up to in the last weeks in a photo roll. Note that majority of them are Instagram- its been an app that I've been obsessed with lately. The pictures end up looking pretty sweet!

View from the apartment on NYE

A couple of visits to the beach. Here I am embracing nature- which is only a recent development

Arrested Development- First night of Sydney Festival. The streets of were alive that night.

Eating pop corn. Don't really know why that's relevant but I like the picture

Okay, so I know I usually post about all the baked goods that I've made recently, but today's featured post relates to........

POM POMS!

After browsing some wedding blogs ( 3 of my friends got engaged recently- congrats to C+M, N+K and F+A woohoo!) I kept coming across these cute paper flowers, which could be stuck together to make pom poms.

So thats what I did.

They are fairly easy to make, and I found it quite therapeutic to do so. All you need is crepe paper, scissors and string. Um and probably a tutorial.

Till next time!

x A

Hey baby, I think I wanna marry you

2010-11-29T20:38:00.008+11:00

Hello,

I'm listening to the Glee cover of 'Marry You' by Bruno Mars- as I have at least twice every day since I watched the episode. I think that must be one of my favourite episodes up to date. The covers are so fun and catchy. As I was telling Sammy who recently got engaged- it's too bad I can't sing or dance otherwise she'd be having a Glee wedding. Come to think about it, it's probably a good thing for her. ha

But anyway, yes this week I decided to bake double choc and walnut cookies. Also, yes that is a cat plate and it's weirdly awesome.

Over and out.

x A

Chocolate Dipped Shortbread

2010-11-16T16:54:00.005+11:00

Hi!

Now that I've got a bit of time on my hands, I thought I'd get baking again. This afternoon I decided to make jam drops, but in in the middle of cutting out holes in the center of the dough I decided that I really wanted to have something with chocolate in it ( plus the dough was really soft by this point, making it impossible not to fall apart!)

Solution= melt chocolate and DUNK.

They turned out pretty nicely, although I may have over did it with the vanilla essence. They are very vanilla-ery but still nice and crumbly when you bite into them.

You might have noticed, or will come to notice that the quality of these photos will have decreased in quality- as it will be indeed be myself from now on taking these pictures. So please bear with me people, hopefully I will get better at it!

I'll also leave you my favourite song from the musical Wicked. Kiss me goodbye, I'm defying gravity. muah muah muah

x A

She Lives ! (and bakes)

2010-11-08T20:46:00.005+11:00

Holy Cow. My last post was on the 16th of September. The 16th ??

Oh well, no time like the present hey? Tonight's post features the most scrumptious mutation of 3 things yummy. Here's the equation:

muffin + cinnamon doughnut + jam = CINNAMON MUFFIN DOUGHNUT!!

I haven't been in a baking mood for a really long time ( about 3 months to be precise) , but accidentally stumbled upon this cooking blog called Noble Pig.

It featured this recipe and I knew I had to try it. And... success!

There's raspberry jam in the centre, and I made sure the batter mixture and topping was overloaded with heaps of cinnamon. Ooh there's also nutmeg in the mix too. I'd highly recommend giving the recipe a go, its really simple and soooooooooo tasty!

Not sure when I'll post next. The way I see it is , I like to bake because it's fun to not because I feel obligated to which is how i started to feel with this my baking project. It sort of felt like a chore, so now I bake purely for enjoyment.

Till the next time we meet, could be next week or next year. Who knows?

x A

p.s Who is going to see Oprah at the Opera House? And if you are, can I come?

Black Bottom Cupcakes - Definitely Top 5.

2010-09-16T20:31:00.005+10:00

Good evening readers,

Tonight's post features one of my favourite baked creations ever attempted- the black bottom cupcake. The first time I'd ever eaten this was at Moose cafe in Newtown a few years back and it was so good. The chocolate sponge part of the cake was dense and not too sweet at all, and I remembered the top bit tasting more vanilla than the cheesecake topping I used with these.

The recipe was another Hummingbird Bakery one, which again did not fail to impress and induce food comas in my co-workers and I. I remember having one straight out of the oven when it was warm and the chocolate chips still melted, and it was pure indulgence. My eyes rolled back slightly. That good.

Honourable mentions go out to designers Jesse and Ian ( otherwise affectionately known as 'Jessoir' and 'Iballs' in the office) who kindly helped me out on adding some creative fairy dust to the pictures. Bakethang's resident photographer bailed this week to galavant somewhere in sunny paradise and went snorkeling with tropical fish or something. Whateverrrrr. Anyway, I'm pretty impressed with how the pictures turned out as they were taken on Iball's iphone 4. So crisp!

Other rather exciting news of late is one of my best friend's recent engagement!! I am so so so so so very happy for her and her man. Can't wait for the wedding ( and the hen's ), and wish them both nothing but the best.

Oh, and my Topshop purchase arrived on Monday! It doesn't really top my first bit of exciting news, but it is very pretty. The kind of pretty that is more suitable to a garden party or an engagement perhaps? But when am I going to go to a garden party? Sheesh. Thankfully, the recent news of the engagement came to light. Therefore, I believe this is destiny. I was mean't to buy this dress- not on a whim, but because I was mean't to wear it to Sammy's engagement.

I'll end this post with a song that I've been currently listening to on repeat. It's kind of cheesy, but very sweet at the same time.

PEACE!

Just had to do it...

2010-09-09T20:12:00.003+10:00

M&M cookies + wasabi pea + banana = flash backs to hospitality classes in highschool. Damn. I wish I had some spaghetti for the hair.

It's only 8pm and I feel like I haven't slept in a week. I had healthy dose of zumba-ring last night, with a friend who has never been to a class before and it was so fun. You know when you've had a good work out when you've got back sweat patches. Kinda gross, but in a satisfying 'heck yeah now that's a work out. Yeahh boiii!"

But in other news, I made my first Topshop online purchase the other night. Talk about an impulse buy, but after missing out in Beijing ( or was it Shanghai?) earlier this year I wasn't going to regret not buying this time. (Backstory: I ummed and ahhed over a Kate Moss for Topshop dress and didn't buy it, and never saw it ever again. Sadface)

I don't have any green dresses/clothing so this would be a first. I really love the cut though. What do you think?

Oh crap. They updated their site?

Oh well.

x A

Cinnabons and the Jelly Slice that never was...

2010-08-29T12:29:00.004+10:00

Hey all,

So here we are again on a sunny Sunday, a week and a bit since my last post. Last week I wrote that I was planning on baking something spectacular. Well it did happen, but it wasn't spectacular. It was, actually a little bit shit.

I will call this the tale of the Dale Fail. See I asked my colleague Dale what he would suggest that I bake for the next week, and he suggested I make a jelly slice which is something his mum makes really well and its "reeaalllly good" apparently. So I took up his challenge and it ended up tasting so revolting I threw it out before saving a slice for him to sample.

I don't know if it was the recipe I found from the internet, but the middle layer which consisted of condensed milk + gelatin + lemon juice was the worst bit of the slice. It tasted really odd. Odd in a sense that it wasn't very disgusting but it didn't taste very pleasant either. Anyway, after sampling it he said it was fine and blamed me for using chocolate digestive biscuits in the base.

Needless to say, I won't be attempting this one in the near future?

Moving onto my more successful baking stories, the next week I made Cinnabons (alternatively known as Cinnamon Scrolls). On a trip to the states a few years back, I tried one of these delectable baked goodies. They're served warm with the icing practically dripping when you bite into them. Sooooo good.

Then I was reminded of my love for them when Jenny made them a few months ago. It was decided then and there that I had to try these out for myself, and they were the bomb!!! Usually I avoid baking things that require kneading because I'm not really good at getting the dough to form to the right consistency, but this time it was actually pretty easy. Fail proof!

I got the recipe from Jenny's Blog which was super easy to follow. Once they were baked, all I needed to do was add the cream cheese icing ( which I used from Hummingbird). Tip: to make the icing runny, I added milk to the icing.

There you have it, I'm not sure what I'll bake this week... inspiration usually comes to me when I read about something or see it on TV. Yep I'm a total sucker for advertising.

Watch this space!

x A

Happy Cupcake Day!

2010-08-16T21:26:00.011+10:00

It's Cupcake Day today apparently, and I've got nothin' for you . Muahahaa

Well, not tonight anyway. I'm baking tomorrow night, and trust me It's going to be goooood.

So going off the above, you may have guessed already but I won't be writing about baking tonight. I am happily sitting on my bed, listening to love song dedications with a bath towel on my head. How awesome are hot showers in winter? Bloody good I say!

But what's even better are these fabric wall decals by Mae.

Aren't they great? Super cute and girly, and there's a Veruca Salt person in my head right now screaming "I want these now!!" and stamping her feet (or that would just be me). I first saw them on after a brunch date in Summer Hill at a quirky little kid's store called 'My Messy Room'. I'd been there before, and always like going in to look at all the things I'm going to buy for my future children. Yes, they will have awesome rooms with Mae wall decals. I will also have them for my room too- would that be weird? Anyway, I don't care. Veruca Salt really wants them.

One other thing that has caught my eye was this book in Pentimento.

It's a little book of quotes and pep- talks based on certain situations or unfortunate events that a person may experience in life. In my case, the ones that really stood out to me were ones like:

"You can't live your life for somebody else"

"The flames that burn the brightest are often burn out"

"You're not bossy , you're assertive.

and...

"Their judgement says more about them than it does about you"

Can you tell I bought this book? I bought two as gifts for friends, and I had to come back the week after to get a copy for myself. I have found the greatest generic gift that anyone would be happy with!

Oh yeah, I finally got my hands on some bts stills of the shoot I was on a few weeks back. Yep, I got to sit in a shiny black ferrari. Yeah boii!

Touch ups before my opportunity to shine! My moment lasted 15 minutes.

Photos by Damo.

Hey Ma, I'm sitting in a Ferrari and i might be on TV!

Anyway g'night! Watch this space for the baking stuff...

x A

Maple & Pecan Muffin Plus One Seagull.

2010-08-12T21:09:00.003+10:00

Happy Wednesday!

**EDIT. It's actually Thursday. Sheesh.

Tonight's post features Hummingbird Bakery's Maple and Pecan Muffin, which may not look too impressive but is actually a silent killer. The thing I like about this recipe is that the muffins aren't too sweet, which makes it easier to wolf down. Hmm.. now I'm not sure if that is a good thing.

But anyway, they turned out great and ended up being most of the office's second breakfast that day!

I haven't got much to report this week at all, except for that fact that I've been listening to Love Song dedications with Richard Mercer alot ( right now its 'Have you ever?' by Brandy) , watching heaps of tv and really getting into Mao's Last Dancer. Has anyone read that one? Personally, its a real page- turner and I can't wait to hire the movie when I'm done reading it.

Basically, I haven't really been motivated to do anything but be a couch potato. I figure its because it's winter and I'm sort of hibernating. It's the kind of hibernating where you don't get fired from work for sleeping when you should be at work , you're just being super lax and being in bed by 9pm but not really sleeping. Just reading and watching episode after episode of Modern Family, Glee and How I Met Your Mother.

Yep that's it for tonight. I'll leave you with some clips that was sent to me, and had us all at work laughing and wishing we were this clever. Note: you will need to watch these in order (Homeboy!)

x A

2010-07-26T21:17:00.005+10:00

Date: August 1st, 2010

Time: 4:53PM

Mood: Extremely guilty for neglecting my blogging duties.

Dear Readers,

Apologies again for my lack of blogging lately- 3 weeks to be exact. I haven't really got an excuse for not blogging, but I can say that I haven't been slack with my baking at all. Oh by the way, yes I am alive ( I have again survived serial killer motel). I've just come back from a lovely yum cha/rose & lychee ice cream/shopping day with Jess so I'm feeling nice and relaxed. Time to put my blogging pants on.

So the past few weeks have been epic. I know I like to exaggerate 'sometimes' , but on looking back I don't know how I'm still standing... or talking for that matter. First up was a 3 day shoot that took me back to my favourite vacation spot of all time- Mt Kuring-gai, where I got to spend two nights at Serial Killer Motel. Actually, I must say this time wasn't too bad. I didn't have a tv remote, but there was a switch next to my bed that turned the tv off from there. Not that I actually turned the tv off the whole two nights, but I liked to have the option.

Oh and the best thing about the 12-13 hour days, was getting to sit in a black ferrari!!! Can't guarantee that it will happen again in this lifetime, so I took the opportunity.

I don't have pics of these yet, but wil try to get some up here if I can. On another note, I also managed to sample every type of chocolate in the snack tub, every type of muffin.... pasta... every type of everything really. Not good.

Ok so next up was my bloody awesome trip in Melbourne with Christine, also known as the '4 day shopping and eating bender in Melbourne'. Truly.

We arrived on Saturday morning and hit the ground running with breakfast at Madame Sou Sou's on Brunswick St, Fitzroy. This was the second time I've been there, and it was just as good as the first time. I had the croissant with smoked salmon , and it was sooo very good. The pastry was light and a little crispy- not oily at all. We met up with Trong and and Lisa for abit of introductory shopping and the next 3 days were history.

In a nutshell, our tour of Melbourne went like this:

Cafes/Restaurants stand outs:

De Graves St Expresso. Best french toast ever, only strawberry leaves were left on the plate- that goes for both of us. Also, great coffee!
Japanese bar & grill. Wagyu beef, mushrooms and eggplant on the grill. Heaaaaaven. Forgot what it was called, but its near Chinatown
Parisienne Bakery and Boulangerie in Essenden. Devine! I had the smoked salmon baguette and escargot. The interior was very chic- all white, with flowers and a little Eiffle Tower statue.
Maze- Gordan Ramsay's fine dining resturant. You know those moments when you experience something truly amazing and your eyes kind of roll back into your head. Yes, this happened many many times during the 7 course degustation dinner. (Especially with the pork belly course and lamington dessert). I've eaten at the the one in Tokyo too, and it was just as good
7 Seeds. Seriously one of the nicest coffee joints I've been to. Its on a very industrial kind of street, but once inside the first thing you see is a bike hanging off the wall. You venture inside and its a big open space, with tables and chairs on the side. It looks like a warehouse space actually- kind of like Deus ex machina in camperdown.

Other than that, there have been a few birthdays on, eating out.. OH! and I got to see Ne-Yo at the Winterbeatz concert last friday with Sammy. It.was.amazing. He sang all my favourite songs ie: sexy love, because of you, mad, single, nobody,knock you down- basically all the ones that induced school girl squealing.

But enough of that, here are some bits and pieces from the last few weeks:

Breakfast at The Parisienne Bakery and Boulangerie. Hot chocolate, escargot, salmon baguette, mixed berry brioche and almond croissant. I think my heart stopped that day, but it was so good at the time!

Caramel Mudcake with white chocolate ganache. This was incredibly yummy, and looks even better next to Cake Monster by Brecon. I also got this recipe from Women's Weekly.

Chocolate Crackle with Peppermint icing. Not quite sure why I made this one, but it sure brought back memories of primary school! Recipe was from the Kellogs website.

Happy Birthday Si!
This is a cheesecake brownie topped with Raspberry cream.This one was from Hummingbird Bakery.

Ummm I think that just about covers it! Hope you enjoyed the bake explosion that was my blog post for this week. Its kind of hard to amalgamate the last three weeks of my life + bake thangs in one go, so hope this one made some sense.

But back on track for now. Scouts honour!

x A

p.s I forgot to mention that I saw Mary Poppins in Melbourne and it was fantastic, you should all see it when it gets here!

Strawberry Cheesecake Cupcakes & The Cat's Meow.

2010-07-06T19:45:00.004+10:00

Hi you guys!

Well here is my weekly contribution to my little baking project : Strawberry cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. They are pretty badass if I must say so myself. The great thing about these ones are that they've got strawberry pieces at the bottom, and topped with crushed biscuits for an added crunch. Soooo good.

But first things first- Eclipse. So to follow through with our tradition of seeing the Twilight movies at Gold Class cinemas, myself, sister, Christine and Jenny made our way to Maquarie Centre last Sunday.

Personally, I thought it was quite enjoyable and its production value was waaaaaaaay better than New Moon (you know, when Edward's face pops up next to Bella's head and tells her not to do dangerous things. How cheesy was that?!). It was engaging from the very beginning where Riley gets attacked by the vampires, to Jacob with his shirt off, Jacob being a human/wolf heater in a sleeping bag with his shirt off, Jacob lying in his bed with half his body in a cast with his shirt off... did I mention the fact that Jacob had his shirt off?

As you may have guessed I am Team Jacob all the way! Yeah, yeah, lame I know. Whatever, I don't care! Try and make me not post pictures of Jacob... which is what I'm going to do rigggghhhhhtttttttt here:

Hmm.. I didn't know that I was going to write just about Jacob's abs. Maybe it says something about the film? That Kristen Stewart and Robert Patterson aren't that worth mentioning?That they're really good at lacking charisma and personality? Just my opinion anyway. Bringgggg on Breaking Dawn and Jacob and his abs. ha ha..

So you may have thought that my waffling on about Taylor Lautner was in reference to tonight's title 'The Cat's Meow'. If you thought that, you were so wrong. Check this out.

Holy holy moley. Last Saturday I decided to have a nice stroll around Newtown, particularly down south end of King St as I never really get the chance to make my way round those parts. On my way past the markets, I decided to drop by Black Star Pastry (on Australia St) which I'd heard only good things about. Sitting there on its lonesome was the very last strawberry and watermelon cake which I had to have. Get in my belly!!

It truly was The Cat's Meow. Sigh. If you're every around Newtown, you need to stop here and try this. mmm mmmm... strawberry and watermelon layer cake... mmm. Ok enough of that.

This is what I made this week:

Strawberry cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. There are strawberry pieces in the cake, and the frosting is topped with crushed biscuits- hows that for the ultimate icing?

Look, I have the same hair as my Japanese doll. Waaaaaay cool.

So going by my blog posts, I've officially kept up my little project for 11 weeks now ( well actually 13, but let's not remind ourselves about my 2 week long hiatus shall we?). This is most awesome news. I must admit that when I created this blog out of pure boredom , I didn't think it would go further than a couple of weeks. And 11 weeks of yummy baked goods later, and with readers from outside of Sydney Australia ( Hellooo Inter-state and International friends!) it's still here! Yay.

But... not to rain on my own parade, I'm not sure if I can write next week. Things are getting mighty busy for Bake Thang! I've got a 3 day shoot which will take me back to serial killer motel for TWO WHOLE NIGHTS , back for a day then off to Melbourne with Christine for a couple of days. Sweet! ( not about the motel bit).

Until then,

x A.

I'm Not Dead.

2010-06-29T19:50:00.004+10:00

Hey readers!

Yes I am indeed back from my completely unplanned blogging hiatus. It must be the cold. You know how bears hibernate in winter? It's been so so so chilly round these parts that I've been in my own kind of blogging hibernation. Well, that and a few shoots for work and a few nights out. I've been run off my feet!

But not to worry, I haven't completely neglected my baking mission. Over the last two weeks I baked a raspberry and coconut slice (I deviated from Hummingbird and used a Women's Weekly recipe) and Hummingbird apple and nut loaf.

Before I get into the nitty gritty, here are some bits and pieces that document the past two weeks:

This is Echo On the Marina Cafe in Roseville. I had a shoot there last week, and whilst the weather was dreadful, the location itself made it worthwhile being there. It's kind of tucked away by the water, and reminds me of Bewowra Waters Inn. Myself and the crew were treated to great coffees and delicious breakfasts. I went for the french toast with maple syrup, bacon and poached pear.

My ninja piggy! Awesome Frankie went out and started up my baking fundraiser at work. While she really didn't have to, it was a lovely thought. Thanks Frankie xx. Ninja piggy sits on my desk.

M.N.O.P. Acronym parties are great. This particular night stood for 'Massive Night Of Party'. It was indeed.

Pancakes. The easiest, tastiest shot to get down. Basically frangelico with a wedge of lemon dipped in sugar. A staple for any acronym party. Photo by Sam T.

So thats my week in review. Back to the baking stuff.

For my birthday this year, my friend Fonda very kindly sent me a Women's Weekly baking book. She couldn't have been more on the money with this book. I LOVE WOMEN'S WEEKLY!! The recipes are fool-proof and I never have any dramas with baking from them. So I decided to try out the raspberry and coconut slice.

Thanks Fonda, they turned out great. A very big hit with the work crew!

A week later, I had a flick through the Hummingbird cookbook and this description caught my eye: "This cake is very popular in Winter months...." Winter months? say no more, cause it is freeee-zing! Nutty apple loaf it was.

Interesting ingredient: strawberry jam? I've never used jam in a loaf recipe before, and was pleasantly suprised. Not too sweet despite the chocolate pieces.

That's all for now. My fingers are so cold and they need to be directed to other things- like pressing buttons on the tv remote. I promise to never neglect my blog for this long again, but then again... the next few weeks are quickly filling up. Check back to hear what I have to say about Eclipse and Jacob's abs.

Oh, you should also check out Christine's blog. She recently made a giant Penfolds wine bottle cake which turned out pretty amazing.

Peace!

x A

hello

2010-06-14T19:13:00.005+10:00

Dear all, tonight's post won't be about baking because I did not bake at all on Sunday. Why? Well a number of reasons, which I will indulge you in as I've indulged in over-eating at today's shoot. Basically, it will take me a while to explain but you will forgive me and understand completely why it did not come about.

Reason One.

On Saturday I experienced fear on a whole new level. For my birthday this year, my old work crew got my a voucher for a flying trapeze lesson at circus arts school. Did I ever mention that I'M TERRIFIED OF HEIGHTS?!?! Well I am. So when my friend Axx texted me with questions such as " are you afraid of heights?" answer: yes. "Do you get motion sickness?" answer: yes. I should've had an inkling of a feeling right?

And so low and behold the I received the ultimate gift that would test my inner strength and ability to not absolutely crap my pants. I took Christine with me, who definitely alot more excited than I was and left for Sydney Olympic Park. All I can say is, lucky my tights were black.

See the size of that ladder? I climbed that. ME! 5 TIMES! We were taught to swing our legs up and hang upside down, hang upside down then back flip off, hang upside down and get caught by another acrobat. So okay, of all the above all I could do was hang upside down and that was once. We got this on video, but I'm not sure if I want to share my flying trapeze failure with the inter web just yet. But all in all, it was definitely an experience I can say "been there, done that, bought the t-shirt". It was an awesome gift because It's something that I would have never done for myself, and I am glad I did it ( despite the bruises). The staff were very kind and especially supportive when I got to the top as they received comments such as " I think I'm going to vomit", "Don't let me gooooooooooooo" and such whining. So thanks Maple!

So my first reason for not baking on Sunday: the next morning I woke up and was unable to move my body. I probably used every single muscle in my upper body to be able to hang upside down, just that one time. So sore arms= couldn't mix dough or knead dough. ( Did I mention that I had bruises all across my rib cage? At least the harness did its job- safety first right?)

Reason two.

Yep. Got Foxtel IQ with new channels- MTV, C.I, Discovery Travel and Living. I love watching TV and could not wait to get through hours of trashy reality television, living vicariously through tattoo shows and true crime shows that remind me not to listen to my ipod when I'm walking home alone at night. TV saves lives!! So far, I've been a little bit addicted to Jerseylicious. It is amazing, and so bad I can't look away.

I think the reason why Jerseylicious is so appealing is because it takes me to an alternate universe where people are this fake-tanned and its socially accepted? I don't doubt for a second that girl's like this exist- in regards to how catty they could be, but its amusing to know that some women clearly haven't left the high-school mentality behind. Plus, if you keep watching you'll see that the hairstyles of the guys in the show really do exist too! Watch it and see for yourself, its awesome.

So there's two perfectly legitimate reasons. I was broken from an epic trapeze lesson, and was a tad caught up in the land of television. But never fear, I plan baking something nice to farewell ( for now) Frankie this friday!

Peace.

x A

You Want Wintry Comfort Food?

2010-06-08T19:18:00.016+10:00

I'll give ya comfort food.

Yep, thats another Hummingbird Bakery success story right there. Carrot cake with cinnamon and walnut, topped with cream cheesey goodness. Yummo! I think this one is my favourite so far.

But before I start salivating again, lets talk puppies . This week I had the best shoot day ever. Anyone who knows me well would know that there are three things that can make me feel utterly joyous without difficulty:

good food
good shopping
PUPPIES!!

So needless to say I thoroughly enjoyed getting to cuddle these little rascals for a day- all in the name of work. I love work!

As for the second highlight of my week, I had a friend's birthday dinner at Rock Pool Bar & Grill on Hunter St in the city. Oh.my.gosh. It was totally worth the $140. The birthday girl booked a private room which was a great idea- very intimate ( and they even dimmed the lights ooooh).

I ended up getting the Cape Grim fillet, as well as trying a few different sides : potato puree, hand cut fat chips, sauteed mixed mushrooms, mac and cheese ( yes this was available at Neil Perry's restaurant) onion rings, but the best side was the charcoal oven roast pumpkin and sweet potato with garlic yoghurt and burnt butter. And to top it off, I had the vanilla panacotta with rose granita.So so very good. Would definitely recommend eating here, and our waitress was so helpful. 9/10.

So yep, those were the best parts of my week. Oh, I also got my arse whooped again at Zumba but I think that it's a good thing right? No pain, no gain baby!

But anyway, on to the serious stuff- carrot cake. I must admit when it was in dough-ey form in my mixing bowl I was starting to doubt Hummingbird's recipe as it didn't look very nice at all. More like baby poop. But I was so wrong and you can see for yourself:

As I mentioned before, this has got to best my favourite recipe to date. The cake was super moist, and had abit of extra crunch with the walnuts. And as I'm a huge fan of cinnamon ( ie, I would tip half the shaker of cinnamon in if i could), it smelt sooooo good everytime I lifted the cake stands cover. salivatingggggg.

On another note: since I figure that no one actually reads the recipe, I won't bother typing it out. That said, if you do want the recipe, let me know and I'll be more than happy to share!

I guess thats all for now, it's Tuesday night and The Real Housewives of Atlanta is on.

x A

p.s- apologies for the wonky picture placement, am still figuring out the quirks of blogspot.

Thursday Night

2010-06-03T21:25:00.004+10:00

This rainy wintry night entails:

loving Fleetwood Mac.lying in bed underneath layers of blankets. reading a book that makes me feel slightly better.Glee in the background on the TV. wondering what to bake next...

x A

The White Rabbit Seems to Like it

2010-05-31T19:44:00.010+10:00

Hi all!

So it's time for the Monday blog and boy do I have lots to tell you. This week has been a little bit epic ( how's that for an oxymoron?). It involved a whole lotta' baking, work and sangria.

Work this week has been abit of a whirlwind, with a loooooooong looooooong shoot that consisted of paint, spaceman suits, tired legs and a creepy motel. I've never stayed in a motel before, and it did not surpass my expectations of it being a playground for serial killers. Seriously. Think: deranged axeman on the rampage in a ghost town out in the middle of the sticks. Now with that in mind, the reality was : all of the above PLUS no tv remote, no complimentary toothpaste ( lucky I brought my own) and dark red wall paint and carpet... blood perhaps?

Anyhoo, I'M ALIVE!! I woke up bright and early for what seemed to be the longest day on earth, but results were good so everyone left happy and exhausted.

The sangria part of my weekend comes into play in celebrating Kat's 24th at Casa Asturina Spanish restaurant on Liverpool st. Yum. 5 glasses later and I was happier than the birthday girl!

The awesome birthday cake we got from Coles. Classy!

Happy birthday Kat!

But anyway, back to business. This week I had to whip something up a little earlier than usual, as I was occupied with paella and catching up with friends on sunday. So this is what I prepared earlier (always wanted to say that!)

Peanut butter and choc chunk cookies, ala Hummingbird Bakery. They were amazing. So very easy to make and very very tasty. So this is how its done:

Ingredients

25og unsalted butter
200g caster sugar
200g light brown sugar
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract ( by half, you mean 2 tablespoons right?)
240g crunchy peanut butter
340g plain flour
2 1/2 teaspoons bicarbonate soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
75g dark chocolate, chopped

Method

Preheat oven to 170 degrees
Cream butter and sugars until mixture is light and fluffy
Beat in vanilla extract and peanut butter
Add flour, bi carb and salt and mix well.
Stir chocolate until evenly dispersed
Roll dough into little balls and place onto tray- make sure they're well apart otherwise they'll stick together/
Bake for 10 minutes and enjoy!

Production pictures by my friend Brecon

Anyway, the time is 8:25pm and I must get ready for bed. I've got to wake up at 4am tomorrow and get to play with puppies tomorrow for work. Such is the life of a production assistant hey?

x A

Blondie Is The New Black

2010-05-24T19:30:00.003+10:00

Or should i say, 'Blondie Is The New Brownie'. ha ha ha.

Hi.

So this week I decided to try out the Blondie recipe from Hummingbird Bakery's vault of goodies. What is a blondie you might ask? Well they are pretty much opposite to the traditional brownie- having white chocolate as the main ingredient as opposed to brown chocolate. easy!

I must confess though, that I was feeling super lazy on sunday and could not be arsed to take production photos. Look okay, I had a super tiring girly sleep over on saturday night, and it was cold and rainy on sunday. And plus, I was counting on my work friend to take nice pictures of it the next day. What I didn't count on was him forgetting his camera today!!! ( Good one.) So pictures will have to wait until tomorrow.

So to start off my weekend, I had brunch at Luxe Bakery Cafe on Missenden Rd in Newtown where we were greeted by this little rascal.

It was so so so cute and playful, with it's little polka dot vest get up!

Saturday night was girly sleep over night described in word association format:

disappearing lanes, lasagna, Argentinian red wine, white wine x 2, laughing at birthday photos, falling asleep during Van Wilder, Almond Magnums at midnight, learning new strategies to being awesome at Connect Four, being a bed bully, having awesome company.

As for Sunday, it was wet, cold and miserable. Thus, pretty uneventful apart from the actual baking bit. Apologies once more for the lack of visual representation, but I can assure that it was well received by the official taste-testers in my office, as well as my sister's fiance who scoffed 3 slices fresh out of the oven. Hummingbird Bakery's original recipe contains pecans , which I didn't have, so I substituted with milk chocolate chips. I'm pretty sure there are no complaints about that though! This is how I secured my employment for another week ( other than working very hard of course):

Ingredients:

150 g white chocolate
125g unsalted butter
150g caster sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract (make that 2 tablespoons for me)
200g plain flour
a pinch of salt
However much you want in choc chips ( for me, maybe about a cup and a half)

Method:

Preheat oven to 170 degrees
Melt chocolate and butter in a bowl over saucepan of simmering water (don't let the bottom of the bowl touch the water)
Remove from heat and add sugar and stir. Add eggs and vanilla extract and stir quickly to that the eggs don't scramble
Add flour, salt and chocolate chips until well combined
Pour mixture into a greased tray and bake for 30-40 minutes. The top should be golden brown colour.
Remove to cool and tuck in with vanilla ice cream!

Recipe 3 of 60 is now complete. I must say, this one was super easy and quick to bake and definitely a nice change to the ole brownie.

Until then,

x A

I think I have broken my body.

2010-05-19T23:09:00.001+10:00

My legs hurt. My bum hurts. My back hurts.My necks hurts. My stomach hurts. All because I did one zumba class for an hour and that was yesterday.. For anyone who doesn't know, its kind of a mix between latin dance and an aerobics/cardio work out. So intense, but actually alot of fun if you can look past looking like an idiot doing it. I believe I looked like I was some sort of mix between the robot and waaacking, when really I was trying to samba... or was it salsa?

But anyway, I managed to get on with my day and got to reward myself for spending time at the gym last night with a nice dinner followed by Max Brenner. I think chocolate and strawberries is probably one of the best ways to end a hard day at work and an epic zumba class at the gym ( even if it was over 24 hours ago).

I'll leave you tonight with a motivational message from one of my favourite movies of all time: Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Thanks Kuno!

Sincerely,

x A

Chocolate Cheesecake Coma and the weekend that was.

2010-05-17T19:06:00.000+10:00

Hi.

To start off this week's bake story, I'll share the weekend that was.

Our friends Marc and Jenny just had a baby about a week ago, and we went to visit the bub who they named Jasper. All I can say is that I never thought watching a sleeping baby could be so captivating. He is so awfully cute. I must have stood over his cot staring at him with a stupid wide smile on my face for ages, but I didn't care. I guess babies can make people stupidly happy! It left me wondering what my babies would look like some day and if I'd go broke with all the cute baby clothes that's available now days. But anyway, we all left totally in love with Jasper as I'm sure anyone would be if they saw him.

SATURDAY:

My friend Ni and I went to check this out and walked out with nothing. Noooooothingggg. Oh well!

SUNDAY:

Woke up on Sunday morning with a mission. A mission to bake a chocolate cheescake. But first, needed sustenance in the form of a yummy hot chocolate. The cafe/bakery where these can be found is called Le Pain Quotidien in Surry Hills, Cnr of Fitzroy and Bourk St (right next door to Somedays, how convenient). It has a nice relaxed atmosphere, kind of rustic in the way its quite an open space with large wooden tables and chairs in the centre. I felt like I was having my ham and cheese croissant in a fancy barn.

In the evening, I got to feast again at Christine and Matt's engageme...oops I mean't to say 'birthday party' where there is always an awesome spread. This year they had catering so I got to stuff myself silly with jellyfish salad, fried rice, seafood, hot pot and most importantly- Matt's mum's trifle. It is what rainbows would taste like I think. A wonderful conglomeration of jelly, custard, cake, fruit and cream- if happiness was tangible, it would be this trifle. Since Christine loves to bake, she got about 6 cookbooks which isn't all bad- two of them from me included:

and

But anyway, back to the Chocolate Cheesecake.

Today I induced my fellow workmates into a cheesy, sugary, buttery and chocolatey coma. Recipe # 2 that was tried and tested from the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook was quite successful, which I was very happy with as it was the first cheesecake I'd ever made. The recipe is as follows:

Ingredients

* 900g cream cheese
* 190g caster sugar
* 4 eggs
* 200g dark chocolate
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Base

* 200g dark chocolate
* 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
* 150g melted butter
* 200g digestive biscuits

Method

1.Pre-heat oven to 150 degrees

2. Make the base first. Process the digestive biscuits with cocoa powder in a processor
until finely ground

3.Pour melted butter as the processor is running

I am very aware that it looks abit like poo, but it definitely doesn't taste like crap.

4.Remove and press into base of tin and refrigerate.

5.To make the filling, combine the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla extract and beat until the mixture is smooth and creamy. I was abit cheeky and added about 2 tablespoons of vanilla.

6. Add eggs one at a time and beat until well combined.

7.Melt chocolate in a bowl over a simmering saucepan. Make sure the bottom of the bowl does not touch the water. This should melt in a few minutes.

8.Wait for the chocolate to cool before adding spoonfuls of cream cheese mixture to the chocolate and stir. I was impatient and added the cream cheese to the chocolate whilst it was still hot which made the chocolate go really hard and rubbery. Luckily, I knew I was going to stuff up and had extra chocolate at hand. The second time worked a treat though.

9.Pour mixture into the tin and place the tin into another tray with water. It should come up about 2/3 up the sides. Bake for 4-45 minutes. Also, the tin should be greased and lined.

10. Once baked, the cake should still be wobbly in the middle. If not, you have probably over-cooked it. Ba bowww. try again.

Yep so thats one more down: 58 to go.

Yours truly,

x A

11.05.10 Tumblr re-post

2010-05-16T17:52:00.000+10:00

Recipe #1 of challenge :success!

ch-ch-check it out!

Didn’t I say that I would tackle the Hummingbird Bakery Blueberry cake if it’s the last thing I do? Well, it was the last thing I did last night as I didn’t finish up until 10:30pm. Now that’s dedication for you.

So after I failed miserably with my blueberry abomination, I was only left feeling more determined to get the job done and right the next time. Following the recipe correctly this time, they ended up tasting quite yummy with the cream cheese frosting on top.

Here is Hummimgbird Bakery recipe for Blueberry Cake (which- I adapted to muffins)

Ingredients:

* 350g unsalted butter
* 350g caster sugar
* 6 eggs ( confession: I only had 4 eggs left over from the other night’s cake fail)
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 450g plain flour
* 2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons baking powder
* 280ml sour cream (note the cake will fail without this, refer to last post)
* 250g blueberries + extra to decorate
* 2 quantities cream cheese frosting
* icing sugar to decorate ( but you could do without, as the icing dissolves into the frosting anyway and just makes it sweeter)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 170C or 325F
2. Beat sugar and butter with electric mixer until light and fluffy.
3. Add eggs, one at a time to fluffy mixture. Be sure to scrape down the sides regularly.
4. Beat in vanilla extract, flour and baking powder until well mixed.
5. Mix in sour cream (note: this cake will fail without it, refer to last post)
6. Ensure that all ingredients are thoroughly combined in this last part. (My poor little sunbeam hand held beater was struggling at this part. I want a KitchenAid!)
7. Stir in blueberries- you will probably end up squishing some but as long as majority are intact its cool.
8. Pour batter into a greased tin, or patty cases into a muffin tray .Cakes will bake for aprox 40 mins, whereas my muffins were done after 30 minutes.
9. Remove cakes from the oven and leave to cool, and get ready to make the best cream cheese frosting. ever.

Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients

* 300g icing sugar sifted (I was feeling lazy at this point and couldn’t be bothered to sift, so my frosting had lumpy bits in it. Listen to the people at Hummingbird Bakery- they know their shit)
* 50g unsalted butter
* 125g cream cheese, cold

Method

1. Beat icing sugar and butter together until combined.
2. Add cream cheese and beat until mixture is light and fluffy.
3. Do not overbeat otherwise frosting will become runny (Guilty! must.read.recipes.properly)

See what I mean by the squished berries? Do not try to resist too much, berries will be squished!

My advice for ensuring that the cakes are cooked? Poke the middle with a skewer. If it comes out clean its allll goooooood. But you also don’t want them to be over-cooked either, so keep track of the time ok?

Runny frosting

My verdict: preeetttyyy delicious. More advice you say? Don’t eat after 10pm- these babies are loaded with sugar and will keep you hyperactive for hours!

So thats it, one recipe down: 59 to go.

x A

p.s has anyone tried out the new flying fox at Sydney Park? I really want to give it a go.

09.05.2010 Happy Mother's Day! (oh and Happy Birthday to me as well)

2010-05-16T17:21:00.000+10:00

Hellooo.

So this is my first post. It also happens to be my birthday today, and what better to celebrate my own birthday, than to test my first recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook- which ended in failing. Epically.

But before I start with the baking stuff, I would like to share with you how great my birthday has been as I’ve managed to successfully drag it out for the last two weeks! It has been deemed: ‘Birthday Eating Festival’.

It started off last week with a lovely dinner with my M.C gang ( will explain title later ) and new friends at Masuya Japanese restaurant in the city, where we feasted until our bellies were content and our thirsts well-quenched with blueberry and apple cocktails. We then kicked off to Red Room for a night of old-school rnb and hip hop which was definitely a nice change of scenery. Best song of the night: ‘Mysterious Girl’ by Peter Andre. Not really rnb but it definitely made the 90’s cut. Awesome start to Birthday Festival.

Masuya salmon and sushi platter

Enjoying the sounds of Peter Andre in my Alice + Olivia birthday frock

And to finally bring the 2 day birthday festivities to an end, I had lunch at possibly one of the nicest Italian joints I’ve ever eaten at- Ventuno at Walsh Bay. We started with the Dopo Lavoro antipasti platter which consisted of an array of salt and pepper calamari, meatballs, rissoto balls and bruschetta. I was quite satisfied to have that on its own, but had to force myself to save room for the Golosa pizza. I’m pretty sure this is one of the best pizzas I’ve ever eaten. For toppings, it had mixed ham, porcini mushroom and truffle oil which I think made the pizza so great.

5 hours later… dinner at Wagaya Japanese restaurant in Haymarket( yes Japanese seems to be very popular at the moment). Company consisted of old work friends, cousin and friends. The good thing about this place is that the service is really really quick- after 10-15 minutes of ordering from the touch screen the waiters are already at your table with the food.

We ate multiples of grilled salon, grilled eel, agedashi tofu, seaweed salad ( yuuuuuuuum) and a topped it off with a giant fruit tart and cupcakes my cousin Christine baked. She’s really into decorating and making things look nice ( unlike my own baked goods- they end up looking really ugly most of the time but still taste good) and she made them look like little ice cream sundaes. Needless to say, they were the talk of the night and everybody left happy!

http://christinescakeandclothes.blogspot.com/

So that was birthday festival in a nutshell. Now for the baking disaster that happened today….

Well I was reminded by my love for blueberries when I recently watched an episode of Everyday Italian. Giada made almond and blueberry biscuits and they looked so good, so I knew I had to bake something with blueberries in them. Flashforward to a few weeks later, I bought the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook and saw the recipe for Blueberry Cake.

About an hour and half ago I thought I’d try it out, which BOMBED. What was supposed to be a beautiful golden brown cake , ended up a big gooey mess. As I was getting ready to make the frosting I noticed that the sour cream was still on my kitchen bench. Eeep. By then the batter was already in the tin and in the oven. Crap crap crap. I thought I’d leave it and see what It would look like by the end of 40 minutes, but when I poked the cake, it was super gooey and looked a bit like moisturiser. Not good.

But fear not, will tackle it again tomorrow and get it right- if it’s the last thing i do.

x A