Chocolate and Vanilla Marble Cake

I'm digging into the un-posted archives today because I haven't done any baking all week.  I can't exactly say that I've been flat out busy, I am still unemployed, but things just seem to get in the way. The weekend has been busy -  football game, friends birthday celebrations, church, dinner, movies... but surely I could have baked something in amongst all that. Oh well, I'm sure I'll be back in the kitchen soon. Maybe I'll have to schedule it in! But this cake is good, simple to throw together and ends those chocolate v. vanilla debates. 

• I love using pumpkin in desserts. Try this Sour Cream Pumpkin Bundt Cake from Mommy? I'm Hungry
• This looks amazing. Almond Banana Cake with Salted Butter Caramel Icing at Savour Fare
• Mmmmm cookies. A Kiss and a Cupcake shares Cinnamon Cappucino Cookies
• You can never have too many banana bread recipes especially if they involve chocolate like this Double Chocolate Banana Bread at Dlyn
• And beautiful decadent Chocolate Raspberry Tarts at Delightful Desserts

Chocolate and Vanilla Marble Cake

Recipe from Taste.com.au

Ingredients

150g butter

1 cup caster sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 1/2 cups self-raising flour

1 cup milk

1 tablespoon cocoa powder

1 cup icing sugar

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

20g butter, chopped

2 tablespoons boiling water

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180C/350F. Grease a 22cm bundt pan (I used a round cake pan). Beat 150g butter  and caster sugar until pale and creamy. Beat in  eggs and vanilla.

2. Fold in  self-raising flour and milk. Divide mixture into 2 portions. Stir in 1 tablespoon cocoa to one portion. Alternatively spoon the mixtures into the pan.

3. Bake for 40-45 minutes. Set aside for 15 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool. 

4. Combine 1 cup icing sugar, cocoa powder, butter. Stir in boiling water. Pour over cake to serve.

Quick Mix Chocolate Muffins

Muffins are the best. They are like mini cakes and very easy to put together. Which was helpful the other night when I had to whip up two batches after a very busy day. Just throw all the ingredients in a bowl, mix until combined and into the muffin pan. Done. 

• I love peanut butter. Try out these Coconut Peanut Squares from Angie's Recipes
• Now here is Australia we don't really do the pb & j thing so its a new flavour to me. Might have to check out the Peanut Butter and Jam Bars at Our Best Bites
• One Perfect Bite has some great looking Key Lime and White Chocolate Cake Squares
• Who doesn't love brownies? Sugar Plum has Cinnamon-Hazelnut Brownies that look at amazing

Quick-mix Chocolate Muffins

Recipe from taste.com.au

Ingredients

Melted butter, for greasing

200mls milk

125g butter, cubed

100g good-quality dark chocolate, chopped

1/3 cup cocoa powder, sifted

3 eggs, at room temperature, lightly whisked

2 cups self-raising flour

1 cup, lightly packed brown sugar

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Brush a 12 medium muffin pans with the melted butter.

2. Place the milk, butter, chocolate and cocoa in a medium saucepan. Stir over medium heat for 5 minutes or until smooth.

3. Allow to cool for 5 minutes. Add the eggs and use a fork to mix well.

4. Sift the flour into a large mixing bowl and stir in the sugar. Add the cooled chocolate mixture and usa a large metal spoon to fold in until just combined. Do not overmix.

5. Spoon the mixture evenly into the greased muffin pans (I had leftover batter and made some mini muffins as well) and bake in preheated oven for 18-20 minutes or until just cooked when tested with a skewer. Stand in pans for 5 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack. 

Whipped Cream Cake

I hate winter. I really really do. Its cold and unpleasant. Now when I say cold, here in Sydney its been down to about 5C (that's about 40F) at its worst, which I guess for a lot of people isn't that bad, but its bad enough for me! And its not just the cold, I hate the rain and I hate that it gets dark so early.  And I also hate that it's flu season. Yes, I have a cold or the flu, who knows, all that matters is that I aint feeling all that great.  But this cake did make it a little better. The special thing about this cake is that it uses whipped cream instead of butter. It also uses brown sugar, giving it a really nice colour and flavour. The original recipe had a caramel frosting but I decided to use a fluffy frosting instead. I had some extra cake mixture so used it to make 6 cupcakes. I think next time I'll just make cupcakes. I filled them with cream and then topped them with a little frosting.

The unfrosted cupcakes

The unfrosted cake. I didn't get a photo of the completed cake because it was getting dark and then I had race out the door to get it to church on time. And it fell apart in the car, turns out my driving isn't very good for cakes.

• I don't know why but I love Rainbow Cakes. I will have to try this one from Megan's cookin for the next birthday
• Another great birthday cake would be this Chocolate Covered Coconut Cake from The Kitchen Sink Recipes
• A Little Owl in the Kitchen has some beautiful Tiramisu Tartlets. A friend of mine is obsessed with tiramisu so this is definitely one I'm going to have to try
• Grab Your Fork is a great Sydney based blog. This week sharing an Upside-down Pear and Macadamia Cake
• I love this idea. Chocolate-orange Mini Icebox cakes from One Ordinary Day

Whipped Cream Cake

Recipe from AWW Bake

Ingredients

600ml thickened cream

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/4 cups firmly packed brown sugar

2 cups self raising flour

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180C/350F. Grease deep 22cm-round cake pan; line base with baking paper.

2. Beat half of the cream in small bowl with electric mixer until soft peaks form.

3. Beat eggs and extract in another small bowl with electric mixer until thick and creamy; gradually add sugar, beating until dissolved between additions. Transfer mixture to large bowl. Fold in a quarter of the whipped cream, then sifted flour, then remaining whipped cream. Spread mixture into pan.

4. Bake cake about 50 minutes. Stand cake in pan 5 minutes; turn, top-side up, onto wire rack to cool.

5. Meanwhile, beat remaining cream in small bowl with electric mixer until firm peaks form.

6. Split cold cake in half; sandwich layers with cream. Spread with frosting.

Fluffy Frosting

Ingredients

1/2 cup caster sugar

1/4 cup water

1 egg white

Method

Stir sugar and water in small saucepan over heat, without boiling until sugar is dissolved. Boil, uncovered, without stirring about 5 minutes, or until syrup reaches 116C/240F on a candy thermometer. Syrup should be thick but not coloured. Remove from heat, allow bubbles to subside. Beat egg whites in small bowl with electric mixer until soft peaks form. While mixer is operating, add hot syrup in thin stream, beat on high speed about 10 minutes or until mixture is thick and cool.

Chocolate Swiss Roll

D: Hey Nat, thanks for bringing cake into the office, but I can't sit and chat. I'll just take a piece and head back to my desk.

Nat: Yeh thats cool.

D walks out of the kitchen

30 seconds later D walks back in

D: Oh wow, this cake is great!! Really, How did you do this?!

I love recipes that are simple but look complicated when presented. You get that 'wow' response when they are served up, with everyone asking how you did it. My response for this one was 'its easy, really not difficult at all'. Which is true.  Swiss rolls (or jam rolls) are one of those cakes that many people find daunting, but if you follow the instructions there really isn't much to it. So please, give it a try. And once you have mastered the basics there are so many more variations to try. Add some jam, flavour the cream, change the cake... combinations are endless.

Another great week in the blog world, I had trouble narrowing down my five favourite recipes but here they are:

These Chocolate Ice Cream Cupcakes from Playing House are not what you expect, I'm very interested to see how they turn out and experiment a little.


Savory Sweet Life shows us how to make Fortune Cookies, personal messages are a great idea.

To celebrate national donut day Cook and Eat shares some Chocolate Filled Donuts. I really really love donuts.

Until I read this post at Smells Like Home I had no idea what a Boston Cream Pie was, but now I can't wait to try it.

And I'm working up the courage to work with yeast, this Sundried Tomato and Garlic Bread at Monsoon Spice might be a great start.

Chocolate Swiss Roll

Recipe from Everyday Food Autumn 2009 (the Australian Women's Day food magazine)

Ingredients

3 eggs

1/2 cup caster sugar, plus 1/4 cup extra

1/2 cup self-raising flour

2 tablespoons cocoa

2 tablespoons hot water

300ml cream, whipped

Method

1. Preheat oven to moderate, 180C. Lightly grease a 26 x 32cm swiss roll pan. Line with baking paper.

2. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat eggs until frothy. Gradually add sugar, beating until thick and pale. Mixture should hold its shape.

3. Sift flour and cocoa together. Fold lightly into egg  mixture, followed by water.

4. Pour mixture into prepared pan. Bake for 12-15 minutes, until sponge springs back when lightly touched.

5. Line a clean towel with baking paper. Sprinkle with extra sugar. Turn out cake onto sugar and remove baking paper. Trim edges. Roll up from long end side, using the tea towel as a guide.

6. Cool completely on a wire rack. Unroll cake. Cover with half cream. Reroll without tea towel and transfer to a serving plate. Serve sliced  with remaining cream and raspberries.

Mini Caramel Mud Cakes

Bribery is an interesting thing. Well I like to call it incentive. I had been waiting for some photos from a friend and offered baked goods in return for getting them quickly. The fact that I would have baked anyway is not important, in the end all parties were happy. I got to back, got my photo and he got mud cake, win-win. Not sure why I chose this recipe, it just jumped of the page when I read it.  They were eaten very quickly. Again I missed out but by all accounts they are a winner. I'm sure with more time and some creativity they can be dressed up nicely, I just dusted them with icing sugar as I was racing out the door.

Mini Caramel Mud Cakes

This recipe is from AWW Kitchen

Ingredients

125g butter, coarsely chopped

100g white eating chocolate, coarsely chopped

2/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1/4 cup golden syrup

2/3 cup milk

1 cup plain flour

1/3 cup self-raising flour

1 egg

2 tablespoons icing sugar

Method
1. Preheat oven to 170C. Line 12-hole muffin pan with paper cases.

2. Stir butter, chocolate, sugar, syrup and milk in small saucepan over low heat, until smooth. Transfer mixture to medium bowl; cool 15 minutes.

3. Whisk sifted flours into chocolate mixture, then egg. Divide mixture among cases. 

4. Bake about 30 minutes. Turn cakes onto wire rack to cool.

5. Serve, dusted with sifted icing sugar.

Peanut Butter Crispy Bars

I live in a beautiful city. Yes, I wish I was already over in Missouri working my dream job, but if I can't be then I may as well make the most of where I live.  Yesterday I went hiking with a friend and some of the youth from church. It was just a short walk around Sydney Harbour National Park. It rained and was freezing cold but with views like this you get over it pretty quickly. 

When hiking you must have snacks and when I saw these Peanut Butter Crisp Bars on my Adopt-a-blogger's website I knew it was the recipe I had to try.  I did play with the recipe a little though, making the rice krispy layer more like my mars bar slice then the original.  But the peanut butter and dark chocolate layer on top was the perfect addition. They were eaten by all hikers very quickly, then finished off at church this morning by everyone else who was complaining about missing out!

Here are some more photos from my day. Enjoy!

Check out these recipes from the week.

• Cafe Nilson shares a friends recipe for Almond Butter Horn Cookies
• This Strawberry Cake with Egg White Base is a show piece. Recipe in english further down
• Lets go savoury (and healthy!) with Whole Wheat Pizza Muffins from Latest Addictions
• I have seen this Crepe Cake before and am waiting for the right occassion. Check out The Ceramic Canvas recipe
• Now this recipe intrigues me. Don't know if I'd ever eat it but maybe someone is brave enough to try Raspberry Chipotle Swirl Cupcakes from Evil Shenanigans

Peanut Butter Crispy Bars

Recipe from HoneyB

Ingredients

Rice Krispy Layer

1 3/4 cups rice krispies (rice bubbles)

60g butter

2 mars bars (milky way bars - the ones with caramel)

Peanut Butter Layer

1 cup peanut butter

140g milk chocolate, coarsely chopped

Chocolate Layer

80g dark chocolate

2 tablespoons butter

Method

1. Line or grease a 8 inch square cake pan.

2. Melt butter and mars bars in small saucepan to make rice krispy layer. When smooth move to a large bowl and stir in rice krispies.  Press the mixture into the base of pan and allow to cool while making the next layer.

3. In a heatproof bowl place the peanut butter and milk chocolate. Set the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and melt, stirring with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon until mixture is smooth. Remove the bowl from the pan in the pan and stir for about 30 seconds to cool slightly. Pour the mixture over the cooled crispy layer. Put the pan into the refrigerator for 1 hour, or until the layer hardens.

4. Make the Chocolate layer by melting dark chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl over simmering water. Spread evenly over cooled peanut butter layer. Place in refrigerator until set.

White Chocolate, Raspberry and Yoghurt Muffins

These are the other result of my baking frenzy on the weekend. I have made them before so knew they would be a winner. Again I missed out on my own baking and these ended up in the possession of friends (who are still arguing over them!).  Expect more raspberry recipes in the future too, because I now have a box of frozen berries to get through.

White Chocolate, Raspberry and Yoghurt Muffins

Unfortunately I don't know where I got this recipe, sorry 

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups self-raising flour

1/2 cup caster sugar

1 cup low-fat yoghurt

1 cup frozen raspberries

100g white chocolate, roughly chopped

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 eggs, lightly beaten

icing sugar, to dust

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Lightly grease a 12-hole muffin pan, or line with paper cases.

2. In a large bowl, combine flour and sugar. Add remaining ingredients. Mix batter until just combined. Divide the batter until just combined. Divide the batter among pan holes. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

3. Allow to cool in pan 5 minutes. Transfer to wire rack to cool completely. Dust with icing sugar to serve.

Thumbprint Cookies

I had my last day of work on Friday. I actually finished a few hours earlier then expected. So I baked cookies.  I hadn't been shopping in a while so chose these cookies completely based on the ingredients. In fact I had to substitute the freckles for plain old chocolate melts and threw on some sprinkles.  While they satisfied my baking needs, they did cause some fighting when people missed out! I had to promise to bake more cookies over the weekend to satisfy everyone. Just as well I was in the mood (even baked some muffins too!)

Check out these great recipes from the week

• I'm not really sure what a Whoopie Pie is but they have intrigued me for a while. Check out these Boston Cream Whoopie Pies at Bitter Sweet
• Cinnamon is one of my favourite flavours. A nice Cinnamon Sugar Scone is at Baked Perfection
• What's Cooking in the Orange Kitchen? has some Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies
• I love this idea. So simple but looks great. Check out the Quick and Easy Birthday Cake at Chef Paige
• I love pop-tarts. Australia doesn't have pop-tarts. Problem. Solution: Homemade Pop-tarts from The Curious Blogquat.

Thumbprint Cookies

Recipe from Taste.com.au 

Ingredients

180g unsalted butter, softened

1 cup caster sugar

1 egg

1/2 cup self-raising flour

1 1/2 cups plain flour

Chocolate melts

sprinkles

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Line a baking tray with baking paper.

2. Place the butter and sugar in a bowl and mix until pale and creamy. Add the egg and beat well.

3. Stir in the flours and mix to from a dough. Roll 1 tablespoon of the dough into a ball and flatten onto the baking tray. Press your thumb into the centre of the dough to make a hole. Repeat with the remaining dough.

4. Press the chocolate freckle into each hole and bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. 

5. Set aside on wire rack to cool. 

It's not about you, Its about the Dew... Cake (Mountain Dew Cake and Rainbow Cake)

Today has been a day. And I'm sharing two recipes to help document it.  Its been a big week actually.  Due to some not so great news I have had to postpone, maybe indefinitely, my move to the US.  But today was a much better day. After Church this morning we had a really nice lunch, and I made two cakes (with the help of some friends).  These are two recipes I have seen and been wanting to try for a while. Now they use a box cake mix. I know, I know not traditional, and I don't usually like cake mixes, but the modifications make them spectacular. Two great cakes, given to some good friends.  

The Mountain Dew Cake is the well known, cake mix plus a can of soda recipe. I'd been intrigued by it for a while and when I told a friend about it they thought about mountain dew straight away.  You see we have some friends who are obsessed with Mountain Dew and live by the motto 'its not about you... its about the Dew' So really there was no other alternative when it came to this cake. The taste wasn't as Dew-y as desired but I'm so pleased it turned out at all. The glaze was supposed to have dew in it too, but it was all gone by the time I went to make it (addicts!)

The Rainbow Cake was for another friend's birthday. When I first saw this recipe I had wanted to make it with a from scratch recipe but I thought I'd try it with a box mix first to see how it went.  It was great! I cannot wait to try it again with other colours, and cupcakes! Can you imagine!!  

So thank you to my amazing friends. I hope you enjoyed the cakes. 

And now... 

• The Cooking Photographer - WWII Caramel Refrigerator Cookies
• Ezra Pound Cake - Edna Lewis' Busy-Day Cake
• Good Things Catered - Chocolate Oreo Cake
• Sugar Plus - Best Chocolate Chip Cookies Ever
• Dunkin Cooking the Semi-homemade Way - Baklava

(Sorry for the lack of descriptions, its way past my bed time!)

Mountain Dew Cake - Buy a cake mix and instead of adding the wet ingredients just add a can of Mountain Dew (375mL).  Bake following packet directions.

Rainbow Cake - http://justaddeggs.blogspot.com/2009/03/taste-and-create-rainbow-cake.html 

Baked Lemon Cheesecake

I tried to be a daring baker, I wanted to be a daring baker but I'm just not organised enough. This is my cheesecake from last months challenge. I wasn't able to post it in time because I have been away for the last week and half for work.  And I can't tell you how it tasted.  I left it for my mum to pick up and enjoy but, well she didn't make it to my place for a week, where she was greeted by stinky cheesecake that couldn't be eaten. As for more daring bakers challenges seeing as I'm moving in two weeks (crazy!!) I think I might have to take a break from daring bakers.  But please check out all the other daring bakers cheesecakes

 Keeping with the blog event theme its a special Sunday Baking feature. Here are some of the best and most popular blog events out there.  

• Daring Bakers has got to be one of the biggest, with previous recipes including Cheesecake, Lasagne, Chocolate valentino and Tuilles.
• Tuesdays With Dorie is another big one.  Bake one recipe a week from Dorie Greenspan Baking from my Home to Yours.
• The Cake Slice Bakers are another group baking their way through a cookbook.  The current book is Sky High by Alisa Huntsman and Peter Wynne.
• You want pies with that? bakes a pie every month based on a theme, then vote for the best pies
• Bake your own bread is a new event this year where you do just that, bake your own bread! 

Of course another great event is the Adopt-a-blogger started at Dine and Dish. I mentioned last week that my adopted blogger is HoneyB.  If you haven't already check out the blog. I look forward to being part of this event in the next few (very busy!) months. 

I'm sure there are plenty more events out there, if you have any favourites let me know by leaving a comment.