Wednesday, July 18, 2012

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




Sunday, July 8, 2012

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!


Tuesday, July 3, 2012

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!