Cupcakes Galore!

I admit it, I have a baking addiction.
Like, seriously. I can't stop. I have made four batches of cupcakes in the last week and luckily, living in a household of six (I'm home for the holidays - yay!), they get eated really quickly.

So I'm going to post so photos of my creations!

Chocolate Cake with Cream Cheese Buttercream

 I didn't realise at the time but the reason my buttercream split so badly was that the cream cheese I used was low fat (30% less) and the extra water in it separated out and wouldn't combine.

Chocolate Cake with Cream Cheese buttercream

Red Velvet Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream

Chocolate Cupcakes with a Chocolate ganache glaze

Chocolate Cupcakes with Piped Chocolate Ganache

Chocolate Cupcakes with Piped Chocolate ganache

Chocolate cupcakes with chocolate ganache and white chocolate buttercream topped with chocolate lattices

Soups and Cakes

Today was a busy day for baking and cooking, I made a 'Red velvet' chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting and two soups!

I made a basic chocolate cake, sliced it in half and while it was cooling, I made Italian meringue and cream cheese frosting. I used Whisk Kid's cream cheese frosting recipe and modified it to make Italian style buttercream as opposed to Swiss, which is a lot heavier and not so popular in my house, and slathered it on (smooth, fluffy deliciousness!) I then grated a piece of 70% Cocoa Lindt over the top.

Lets just say it went down rather well :p

(My iphone sort of killed the colours)

After dinner I decided to start on my soups, the first is a basic 'everything' soup so, onion, cabbage, carrot, parsnip, swede, celery, bacon bits and the leftover roast lamb, pumpkin, parsnip, potato and sweet potato from dinner as well as a litre and a half of chicken stock, large pinch of salt and lots of black pepper.

I am also making Ham stock for another soup. I got the massive stock pot and placed two massive ham hocks, 6 onions (in halves), 5 cloves of garlic, two huge pieces of celery, a carrot, a bayleaf and a sprinkling of black pepper corns and then overed it all with water. This is simmer gently for most of the night and I will strain and concentrate it tomorrow. :)

So much food! I am loving being back home!

Salmon and Eggs - A Match Made in Heaven?

Maybe?
Yes.
So, after my running around trying to find my best friend to go on our breakfast date, (we got the dates confused), I decided to spoil myself a little with some luxury food. And it is luxury, I had to go to three stores to get everything that I needed!
I picked up some smoked salmon from the Tassal deli (wonderful fish, easily the best salmon in the country), a bagel from the salamanca food store (bagels aren't easy to find in Tassie) and some spinach, dill and creme fraiche from Coles.

Yeah, I need a ladle to poach eggs. I kind of suck at it.

Wilted Spinach with a small knob of butter and a dash of lemon juice.

Plonked on some creme fraiche mixed with chopped dill

Draped the salmon on top. This is porn, seriously. 

Man, that was delicious!

Cloud Soufflés and Chocolate Disasters

Being alone in the house at lunchtime, I looked for things to make my lunch with. Nothing apart from eggs.
Soufflé it is then!
So I found a recipe that a friend had posted earlier in the year that I wanted to try; Cloud Soufflé.
 

Cloud Soufflé Recipe
Ingredients 

2 eggs, separated
Salt

2 chunks of butter
Grated cheddar

butter for my ramekins.
 

I had four eggs so I went to separate two of them. One of my usual methods is to carefully crack them into a glass and pick up the egg yolks with my fingers (I know, most of you are probably shaking your heads right now). These yolks obviously had the gift of precognition and broke as soon as the eggs cracked.

I set these two failed attempts aside and separated the last two eggs using the tilt method (tipping the yolk back and forth between egg shell halves until all of the white has fallen into the bowl. One of the yolks still broke but I was able to scoop it away before it did any lasting damage.
There were a few wisps of yolk in my whites but it whipped up fine.

Ok so I followed the recipe to a T except I used butter instead of cream as I didn't have any and omitted the pepper.

I'm a little sad to say that it wasn't quite as good as I expected but it certainly looked impressive.

The egg of top was a little rubbery rather than crisp as I expected, probably because it's pure protein rather than regular souffle which has flour in it (starches crisp up better).

The egg yolk was runny but some of it had fallen to the bottom and cooked, making the ramekin hard to clean and the cheese didn't melt.

But it's definitely a good way to get your toes wet in the sea of souffle making, it's a lot simpler and faster with much less mess. Just remember that it may not taste the same.

Now. My two broken eggs. What to do? Well, I've often been told that you can't whip whole eggs to peaks. I figured that I may as well try to see whether that is true.

After whipping for a good twenty minutes, this was the result:

Mostly whipped... Soft peaks formed :)

I poured it into the ramekin and put it in the oven for around 10 minutes, in hindsight, 5 probably would have been enough.

While it looked good, it was overcooked and was rubbery :/

But at least I sort of proved that you can whip whole eggs, I wouldn't go out of my way to but if accidents occur, you can do it :)

Mum's Chicken and Corn Soup

I made this soup this morning for my lunch at work :)

Photo courtesy of my Partner :)

This recipe is courtesy of my mother, for me this soup is the go-to for sick days, orthodontist days, lazy days, cold winter school lunches etc.

1L Chicken stock - Homemade is nicer but you can use a bought one. (To make your own, gently simmer chicken bones for 3-4hours and strain)

Bring the stock to a gentle boil and add 1 tsp minced garlic, 1/2 tsp grated ginger (or a few shakes of ginger powder), 2tsp sesame oil and 1-2 Tbs of oyster sauce.

IMPORTANT STEP (If you don't do this, all the egg will sink to the bottom): Get 1 heaped teaspoon (like, the spoon you use to stir your tea with, not a measuring spoon) of potato starch or 3 heaped teaspoons of corn flour and mix with enough water to dissolve it in a cup. Add to stock and stir until the soup thickens slightly, if you stop stirring too early, it may get lumpy, keep stirring and it should come right.

Crack 2-3 eggs into a bowl or cup and beat them with a fork for a few seconds, just enough to break the yolks and combine them a little.

Bring the soup up to a rolling boil and pour in eggs, stirring briskly (not too much or the egg will be too fine but enough that it doesn't form a huge clump).

Turn off heat and mix in 1 can of creamed corn (regular sized), careful not to splash the soup as the corn is quite thick. The soup should be the perfect temp for serving.

Makes around 1 medium pot full, it will keep in the fridge for 2-3 days.