Category Archives: cake

Cookie Monster Cake

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I cannot wait for the day when I have children to bake for.  There is something about children’s birthday cakes, in particular, which I find overwhelmingly exciting.

Don’t jump to conclusions.  I’m afraid the bulge at my belly is just the result of my cooking.  Once you get married, the whole world appears to be on baby-bump-watching-duty.  At ease, people!  Children are not in my immediate future.  But, that doesn’t mean that I can’t appreciate a good children’s birthday cake….

There is someone in our office who we’ve affectionately dubbed the Cookie Monster.  Whenever there are cookies, we can count on her to snaffle them up.  The irony, of course, is that she couldn’t be a more healthy and athletic person.  She earns each cookie devoured by excelling at nightly club sports.  I am in awe of her for this.  I don’t really earn my cookies.  Rather, I follow the mantra that if I’ve baked them, then they only contain calories for others and when I eat them, they are calorie-free.  That’s fair, right?

Naturally, when it was the Cookie Monster’s birthday, what else could I possibly make, if not a Cookie Monster Cake.

Cookie Monster Cake - www.heikeherrling.com

The best part about this cake, was that it was high impact, for little effort and time.  No baking – just assembling really.

In my humble opinion, it wouldn’t be a Cookie Monster Cake if it wasn’t a cake full of cookies.  So essentially, I made a Choc Ripple Cake (alternating between Chocolate Ripple Cookies, Chocolate Chip Cookies and whipped cream).  I covered the whole thing in blue tinted whipped cream.  I then cover this in a mixture of regular blue sprinkles and blue sparkly sprinkles.  The two types of sprinkles together really gave off the look of real fur.  The sparkly sprinkles looked a bit like cellophane confetti and it really gave depth to the fur.

I did all the assembly on a light blue deep plate dish I have – which made it sturdy and easier to transport.

To really make the character, I added a cookie munching mouth and wide eyes which scream *who? me?*.  The same look my colleague gives when she is busted with her hand in the cookie jar!

For the eyes, I melted white chocolate and dolloped it onto baking paper which had two circles drawn on the underside for a guide.  Once that was starting to set, I added two milk chocolate chips for pupils.

I left the whole thing in the fridge overnight and – voilà – out came the Cookie Monster Cake!

Cookie Monster Cake - www.heikeherrling.com

Great for giggles, but it tasted good!

Lemon curd and blueberry sanga – a take on the Victoria Sponge

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Once upon a time, I feared sponge cakes.  I had a few bad experiences with sponges of a temperamental nature.  They were teases really.  You know the kind.  The kind which get all worked up after you’ve fluffed their egg whites, aerated their flour and handled them with delicate fingers, before they deflate into a sunken frown.  Somehow, by looking at the recipe, I just knew that Victoria was going to be different.  Victoria was going to be no fuss. Victoria was going to be sweet and gentle, but confident in herself.  Victoria wasn’t going to collapse in fear of her début… she was going to shine.  And shine, she did.

Recipe from the trusty Australian Women’s Weekly’s Bake cookbook.  This recipe works best when all ingredients are at room temperature.

Ingredients
250g softened butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup (220g) caster sugar
4 eggs
1/3 cup (80ml) milk
2 cups (300g) self-raising flour (sifted)
1 punnet blueberries
lemon curd

Preheat the oven to 180°C (or 160° fan-forced).  Grease and line two deep 20cm round cake pans with baking paper.

Beat butter, vanilla and sugar in an electric mixer until light and fluffy.  Beat in eggs, one at a time before beating in milk.  My mixture curdled at this point because my milk was straight from the fridge.  But, once I started adding flour it was all fine again.

Stir sifted flour into mixture in two batches.  Don’t overwork the batter at this point.  But, thankfully, you also don’t need to be as gentle as some sponges require here either.

Divide the mixture evenly between the two pans.  I weigh what goes in each pan to make sure it turns out even, because I use to always think they were about the same and then end up with one skinny cake and one fatter cake, which took a different duration to cook.

Gently smooth out the cake batter.  I usually lightly oil the back of a spoon and use that to edge the batter about evenly until the batter is flat, or slightly raised around the edges (to accommodate the fact that the middle of the cake will rise).  This stops the batter sticking to the spoon and makes it easier to work with.

Bake for 30 minutes.

Turn sponges out, top side up, onto a baking paper lined cake rack.  Lining the rack helps to stop the sponge sticking, or getting cake rack lines on the cake.

Once completely cool, sandwich the cake bottoms together with curd and berries and dust the top with icing sugar.

If I had my time over, I would have spooned curd on both layers, so that they stuck better together.  My top cake sat on top of the blueberries and wasn’t firmly stuck to the bottom layer, making it difficult to cut and serve.  I think a bit more curd would had done the trick.

I’d recommend using a large serrated knife to cut this cake in a light sawing manner, as it helps to keep the layers together.  I cut the whole cake in half to begin with, as that made it easier to then cut neat and even slices.

 

Lemon Curd

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Spring is a time for foraging farmers’ markets, whipping up wonderful treats and prancing along to picnics in the sun.  But, with summer and swimwear on the horizon, it’s also the time to unshackle the kitchen from nasty ingredients such as… and I hate to say it… butter.

So, when the gals and I got together to forage the farmers’ market and whip up wonderful treats, ahead of prancing along to our picnic in the sun – we found a recipe for lemon curd that was butter-free!  A much lighter alternative than the usual recipe… but it tasted good! I assure you!  Trust me, don’t be alarmist, it has all the good stuff – lemon and sugar and eggs!

In truth, this butter-free recipe was the sacrificial lamb, to allow us to gorge on other nasty treats like heavenly, gooey and stinky cheese, fig and nut bread and Jamón Serrano.  I like to think of this lemon curd as the carbon offset you can buy nowadays when booking flights.  Just a little something to make yourself feel better about the unintended consequences of your indulgence.

We found this treat-of-a-recipe on Food.com and we send our thanks to the contributor, Mandy, for sharing this gem.

Ingredients
1 cup fresh lemon juice (the recipe suggests you could make it on lime juice, and we added some fresh orange juice with the lemon and it was delicious)
grated zest of the lemons, oranges, or limes you use (avoid the white part, which is bitter)
1 scant cup of sugar
3 farm fresh eggs at room temperature (the bright orange colour of our curd came from the vibrant egg yolks we used)
seeds from 2 vanilla pods, or equivalent in extract or paste
sterilised jars for storage

In a small saucepan, over a medium heat, dissolve sugar into juice and add zest.
Lightly beat the eggs in a bowl. Whisking constantly, slowly pour the slightly cooled lemon/sugar syrup into the egg. Beat for 2 minutes then slowly transfer back into the slightly cooled saucepan.

Heat slowly over a low heat, stirring constantly, until it just starts to bubble at the edges and begins to thicken.  Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.

Transfer to a container and store in the fridge.  Alternatively, if you’re looking to prolong the curd’s life, pour warm curd into warm sterilised jars and screw down the lid immediately, allowing it to cool sealed.

To sterilise jars, place clean jars and lids into an oven set between 90-120°C until hot.  Carefully remove from the oven and fill and seal whilst hot (or the same temperature as the curd).  I prefer jars with metal lids, that are plastic coated on the inside and have a visible dent on the top which, when sealed hot, sucks inwards and when opened pops out, as this popping is a surefire way to know the contents is fresh.

I’ve since used the remaining curd to fill a sponge cake with blueberries.  I’ll have to share that recipe with you soon because it was delicious, albeit, not summer swim-suit friendly (but, I guess you can’t have everything in life).

Check out these other interesting ways to use lemon curd:

Birthday cakes – Buttermilk Chocolate Cake

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This week, I had a little birthday and a lot of cake.  Somehow, I ended up with 5 birthday cakes.  I’ve never had 5 cakes to mark one birthday… and maybe it was a bit excessive… but it tasted good!

I must say that this extreme burst of sugar following my sugar free diet has not made me feel particularly well.  But, I’m sure I will be back to an equilibrium next week.  

I can admit to having made 2 of the 5 birthday cakes (yes, it has been described as pathetic), both of which were new recipes for me, and both of which were amazingly easy to make and delicious to eat.  Firstly, I made a Buttermilk Chocolate Cake to have on my actual birthday, and secondly I made an Almond and Honey Spiced Syrup Cake for a little dinner party we had to celebrate last night.  I’ll share those recipes with you shortly.  The other cakes, were made or bought by dear friends (who double as work colleagues).

I already knew that I worked with amazing people.  But still, I was totally blown away at how thoughtful and generous my colleagues were on my birthday.  One brought in the most delicious Almond, Chocolate and Cherry Tart.  Three of my favorite flavours of all time.  It was like a Frangipane Tart had been given German Steroids.  It was divine – and certainly something I’m going to try to recreate in the future.  I do believe it came from the fabulously renowned Silo Bakery here in Canberra.  Extremely luscious.  Another made an amazing Apple Cake.  Apples are so delicious at the moment, and this cake made great use of them.  I’m hoping to snaffle that recipe for future use because it was so light and flavourful!  And finally, my supervisor made me an epic Five Layered Rainbow Cake with a Maple Meringue Frosting.  Unfortunately, the photos from the morning tea didn’t work out so well, but this one gives you an idea of how deliciously fluorescent the rainbow cake was.  The Maple Meringue Frosting had a most hypnotic sheen about it too.

The sugar over load was definitely worth it.  I’ve never felt so spoilt for cake choice in my life!

I’ll share with you the recipe for the Buttermilk Chocolate Cake now, and post again soon with the Almond and Honey Spiced Syrup Cake, which was part of a middle-eastern themed dinner party.  I’ll share the full menu to recipes from that occasion soon!

This Buttermilk Chocolate Cake has the most delectable texture and taste.  It almost feels like you’re eating a mud cake cloud.  It’s not at all heavy like a mud cake, but it does have the rich, feel-good chocolate characteristics of a mud cake.

I had some issues with temperature and my ganache icing, which caused it to go a touch marbled looking.  I made this quite late at night and left the ganache on the bench to come to room temperature over night so I could beat it to a spreadable consistency in the morning.  But, it’s a Canberra winter, and when I woke on my birthday morning, my kitchen was about 2°C.  Needless to say, I had to remelt the ganache and let it cool again.  By which stage, I was running late for work and didn’t have time to beat it, which is why I went with the drippy look.  The ganache then cooled a little too quickly again, as I walked with my cake box in the 1°C weather to work.  So it didn’t look the best… but it tasted good!

I don’t blame the ganache recipe.  It’s not a volatile recipe.  I’m on the ganache’s side.  It’s perfectly reasonable to seize up which such dramatic temperature change.  I feel empathy for the ganache because I feel a bit marbled every morning when I get out of the warm bed and into the freezing world.

I found this cake recipe on The Paper Seed.  You’ll need two 9 inch, or 23 cm, cake tins for this recipe.  I think I actually used two 20 cm pans by accident, but I just left the tins in for longer (about 10-20 mins longer) and it wasn’t a worry.

You can either make this recipe to have 2 cakes on hand.  I’m certain they would freeze well (before icing), but haven’t tried that yet.  Or you can do what I did and layer chocolate ganache in between to make a giant cake!  It was so tall that I had to trim the tops off the cakes so that the tower would fit in my Tupperware for transport to work.

Ingredients
3 cups plain flour
2 1/2 cups caster sugar
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon baking soda (bicarb soda)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/3 cups canola oil (I used olive oil and it was fine)
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups freshly brewed, extra-strong coffee
1 vanilla bean’s worth of seeds

For the ganache
400g dark chocolate
250g unsalted butter
4 tablespoons icing sugar
1 vanilla bean’s worth of seeds

Preheat the oven to 160°C Fan Forced (approx 175°C if you’re not using a fan forced oven). Oil and line two 9 inch cake tins (or 8 inch if you prefer, as I did, which will make an even taller cake).

Place flour, sugar, baking soda, salt and cocoa powder in a large mixing bowl. Using an electric mixer, mix on low to combine. Keeping the mixer on low, add oil, buttermilk, then eggs one at a time.

Then, add the coffee in a thin stream, pouring it down the side of the bowl. Add vanilla and mix until batter is smooth.  It is a very runny batter – so don’t be put off by that.

Divide into pans and bake until a toothpick comes out with moist crumbs, about 30-35 minutes in a 9 inch pan, or 45-55 minutes in an 8 inch pan.  I opened the oven door a few times to check if they had set yet and it was a very resilient batter.  The cakes rose like troopers despite my constant checking to see if they were still wobbly.

Let cool in tins for at least 20 minutes before turning out onto a rack for final cooling.  I left these out overnight to cool as it was getting late and they didn’t dry out at all.

For the ganache, melt butter and chocolate together gently.  Add the vanilla and sifted icing sugar and stir until well combined.  Don’t let the mixture get too hot, it just needs to come together.  Once melted together, pull off the stove to come to room temperature.  By room temperature, I mean the type of temperature a room should be (i.e. not 2°C).  You’ll see it thicken and get to a stage when you can beat it with a wooden spoon so it becomes luscious and spreadable.

When the cakes are completely cool, trim if required to fit under your cake dome, or in your Tupperware, and then sandwich together with ganache in-between (whipped cream would also be lovely as an alternative).  Then with a palette knife spread the ganache all over the cake.  Or you can impatiently pour it on and let it drip down before it gets too stiff, like I did.

This recipe is so easy to put together and has so much wow factor, that I think it will become one of my regular go to recipes.

Pavlova

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A constant celebration dessert in our family (like many other Australian families) is the Pavlova.  There is just something about this dessert.  Perhaps it’s that it’s climate appropriate here and not too heavy after a BBQ on a warm night.

The warm nights have gone from Canberra.  But in a vain attempt to feel like it was the height of summer again, I whipped up some individual Pavs.

Sorry – I didn’t photograph any steps along the way because I didn’t think I’d post this recipe.  But then, when they were finished, they looked too pretty to leave off the blog!

Meringue, Stiff Egg Whites, Cream, Banana, Passionfruit, Passion Fruit, Blue

Recipe from Stephanie Alexander’s The Cook’s Companion.  I’ve made this recipe into 4 individual pavlovas (you could probably get 6 smaller ones out of this batch though).

Ingredients
4 egg whites, at room temperature
pinch of salt
250g caster sugar
2  teaspoons corn flour
1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
1 vanilla pod, seeds scrapped out
whipped cream (from 300mls thickened cream)
banana
passion fruit
chocolate shavings (optional)

Preheat oven to 160°C fan-forced and cut a piece of a baking paper to the size of your baking tray.  To make 4 even sized individual pavs, fold the paper in half one way, and then in half the other way – making 4 even squares.  Unfold.  In the middle of each of the squares, draw an equal sized circle (I used a beer stein to trace around).  Turn the paper upside down onto the tray (so the pen marks are on the bottom).

Meanwhile, use an electric mixer to whisk the egg whites with the salt until stiff peaks form.  Gradually rain in the sugar, a quarter at a time.  The mixture will become glossy and stiff.  You may need to stop the mixer every now and again to gently mix in any sugar that has stuck to the sides with a spatula.  Sprinkle over corn flour, vanilla seeds and vinegar.  Lightly fold this into the mixture so that it becomes evenly distributed.  (I used the lowest setting of my mixer for this).

Now fill a piping bag with the mixture.  I find piping the mixture the easiest way to keep it even.  Pipe around the circles from the outside inwards, and then keep piping layers like this on top (approximately 4 layers).

Then, gently use a spatula to even out the sides.  I drag the spatula from the bottom of the sides upwards all around each pav and then smooth the tops.

Put the pavlovas in the oven and immediately turn the temperature down to 110°C fan forced.  Bake the pavlovas for 30 minutes and then turn the oven down again to 100°C fan forced and bake for another 20-30 minutes.

If you’re making one large pavlova, you’ll need to leave it in at this point for 45 minutes.

Then, turn the oven off and leave the pavlovas in there to cool completely in the oven.  I often leave these in the oven over night (if I make the pavs the day before they are needed).  Don’t open the oven at any point during the process, or else you’ll get cracks in your pavs.

They store well in an airtight environment for 1-2 days.  Just before serving, top with my fail safe whipped cream, sliced banana, passion fruit and chocolate curls (if you like).

Dig in!

Meringue, Stiff Egg Whites, Cream, Banana, Passion Fruit, Passionfruit, Yellow