Pavlova Perfection

Pavlova is a tradition in New Zealand. There are ongoing debates between New Zealanders and the Australians as to which nation created this very sweet dessert. The Australians claim it as their own, saying it was created for Anna Pavlova, the famous ballerina who visited their country.

Regardless, it is a favourite dessert with Antipodeans. It is very easy to make, and you can decorate it as you please with any fresh fruit your family adores.

If you haven’t tried it, pavlova is like a meringue, but it has a gooey chewy centre. It is not solid throughout like a meringue.

The photo above is the pavlova we created for my daughter’s 13th birthday party. She added extra decorations to make the pavlova more festive for her friends. Of course, you can do the same.

Pavlova
4 egg whites (at room temperature)
225g caster sugar
3 teaspoons cornflour
3 teaspoons white or malt vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Filling
300ml whipping cream
Fresh fruit (raspberries, strawberries etc)

Preheat oven to 150° C/Gas 2. Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites until very stiff. Slowly add the sugar, a little at a time while beating until fully mixed in. Slow the beater and add the cornflour, vanilla essence and vinegar.

Draw a 20cm circle on baking paper. Turn the paper upside down and place on the baking tray. The circle should still be visible. Pile the egg mixture onto the circle. With a knife or spatula, spread the mixture to within 2cm of the edge and level the mixture to suit yourself. In our family we like the pavlova to look a bit like a mountain with craters and crevasses, rather than cake shaped. Place into the oven and bake for 45 mins, then turn the over off and leave to cool in the oven. Carefully place the pavlova onto a serving plate, removing the baking paper. Decorate with whipped cream and the fresh fruit of your choosing.

Once ready, sit down and devour with your family and friends. You will experience a real sugar blast as a result, so perhaps games with your family are next on the list, in order to work off the calories and sugar rush. Enjoy!!

Other Delicious Delights

Classic Carrot Cake
Bonanza Banana Cake
Rocky Road Cookies for Summertime Fun
Death by Chocolate Cake

Death by Chocolate Cake

Who doesn’t like a chocolatey Chocolate Cake. If you make this recipe with Chocolate Ganache, your family with love you for it… and the cake will be gone in seconds. So, take time out of your schedule and have fun in the kitchen making Death by Chocolate Cake.

What you need for the cake

175 grams softened butter
270 grams sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 eggs
270 grams plain flour
70 grams cocoa
2 teaspoons baking powder
250 ml warm milk

What you need for the icing – there are two options

Chocolate Icing
200 grams softened butter
550 grams icing sugar
4 tablespoons sifted cocoa
3-4 tablespoons of very hot water

Chocolate Ganache (this is my favourite)
450 grams good quality dark chocolate
300 grams cream
50 grams butter

How to make
Cream the butter and sugar together until a pale cream colour. Add vanilla extract and mix. Add the eggs one at a time, and beat well between each addition of egg.

In a separate bowl, sift the flour, cocoa and baking power together. Then carefully stir/fold into the mixture, being careful not to over stir or you will end up with a heavy cake with no air in it. Add the warm milk and mix until mixed together. Do not over mix.

Pour into a 22cm round tin which has been greased with butter and lined with baking parchment. Bake in a preheated oven at 180°C (350°F) for approx 30-40 mins or until a skewer is pulled out of the cake clean. Remove from the oven, and leave in the tin for about 5 mins before turning out onto a cooling tray. Leave until completely cold, then ice with chocolate icing or ganache.

Chocolate Icing
To make the icing, beat the butter, cocoa and icing sugar until very smooth and pale. Add hot water to achieve the icing thickness that you would like. Ice the cake. Decorate with chocolate decorations of your choice.

Chocolate Ganache – my favourite
This ganache will make for a very chocolatey taste as it is made with chocolate rather than icing sugar and cocoa. Heat the cream in a pot until very hot but NOT boiling. Take off heat. Add the chocolate. Mix thoroughly. Add the butter while mixing. The chocolate ganache will look radiant and shiny. Leave to cool a little as it will solidify to enable you to ice the cake. Decorate with chocolate decorations of your choice.
Other options: To make the cake a total ‘Death by Chocolate Cake’ experience, you can cut the cake in half through the middle and ice the middle with chocolate ganache or cream. Then sandwich together. Divine!! You can also serve this cake with strawberries which are fabulous with chocolate ganache.

Now, who doesn’t like Chocolate Cake? Gather up all your friends and family, and have a party, finishing off with this wonderful cake!

Other Delicious Delights

Classic Carrot Cake
Bonanza Banana Cake
Rocky Road Cookies for Summertime Fun
Pavlova Perfection

Bonanza Banana Cake

I have to confess to loathing bananas, but to loving Banana Cake that is covered in Lemon Icing. This is a wonderful banana-ery Banana Cake, which kids – big and small – will love. So, take time out of your schedule and head to the kitchen and bake. You won’t regret it.

What you need for the cake

125 grams softened butter
90 grams sugar
2 eggs
3-4 over ripe mashed bananas
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoon hot milk
270 grams plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder

What you need for the icing

200 grams softened butter
500 grams icing sugar
1-2 tablespoons of very hot water
Grated lemon rind from 1 med/large lemon
Lemon juice to taste (about 2 tablespoons)

How to make

Cream butter and sugar together until a pale cream colour. Add eggs one at a time and beat into the butter and sugar until well mixed together. Add the mashed bananas and mix very well. Stir the bicarbonate of soda into the hot milk until frothy, then stir into the banana mixture. In another bowl, sift the flour and baking powder.

Add to the banana mixture, then carefully stir/fold into the mixture, being careful not to over stir or you will end up with a heavy cake with no air in it.

Pour into a ring shaped baking tin or 20cm round tin which has been greased with butter and lined with baking parchment paper.

Bake in a preheated oven at 180°C (350°F) for approx 50 mins or until a skewer is pulled out of the cake clean. Remove from the oven, and leave in the tin for about 5 mins before turning out onto a cooling tray. Leave until completely cold, then ice with lemon icing.

To make the icing, beat the butter and icing sugar until very smooth and pale, add the lemon rind, then the lemon juice to taste. If the icing is too thick for your liking, add a little hot water to soften (just a little at a time though).

Kids love this cake, so get them around the table with a glass of water each, and a large wedge of cake. Enjoy!

Other Delicious Delights

Death by Chocolate Cake
Classic Carrot Cake
Rocky Road Cookies for Summertime Fun
Pavlova Perfection

Classic Carrot Cake

For me, baking is a great way to take time out from the office. It’s “me time”! Plus I get great joy from seeing friends and family eat my cakes, and at times, faster than the speed of light. So, take time out from your schedule, head to the kitchen and bake this classic Carrot Cake this weekend. It tastes fab-u-lous!

What you need for the cake
125 grams self raising wholemeal flour
270 grams plain flour
360 grams castor sugar
1 level teaspoon salt
1.5 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
250 grams undrained crushed pineapple (from a tin)
400 grams grated carrot
4 eggs
375 ml vegetable, sunflower, rapeseed oil (note: do not use Olive Oil)

What you need for the cream cheese icing
160 grams cream cheese
2 tablespoons soft butter
250 grams icing sugar

How to make

Sift flours and place into a large mixing bowl. Add sugar, salt, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon. Mix all together. Add pineapple, carrot, eggs, oil and vanilla. Beat with a large spoon until well combined.

Spoon the mixture into a greased 24cm (approx) baking tin that has been lined with baking parchment. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 180°C (350°F) for approx one hour or until a skewer is pulled out of the cake clean. Remove from the oven, and leave in tin for about 5 mins, before turning out onto a cooling tray. Leave until completely cold then ice with fabulous cream cheese icing. To make the icing, add all the ingredients together and beat until smooth.

Now make a cup of tea or coffee and eat this fabulously moist carrot cake and enjoy!!

Other Delicious Delights

Death by Chocolate Cake
Bonanza Banana Cake
Rocky Road Cookies for Summertime Fun
Pavlova Perfection

Rocky Road Cookies for Summertime Fun

I am a lover of baking… I prefer to bake it than eat it, which is a good thing. However, as our daughter gets older, I am attempting to pass on to her a love of baking. Mostly she declines to bake, saying: “You can do it, Mummy”. Grrr…. but she has loved making this Rocky Road Cookies recipe over and over again for her friends to enjoy.

This recipe takes not baking at all. It will take about 20 mins to make, then about 2 hours for the mixture to cool down and set before it is ready to be demolished by hungry children ─ big and small.

What you need:

300g good quality chocolate
125g butter
3 tablespoons golden syrup
200g digestive biscuits (partly crushed – not so they look like breadcrumbs… they need to be chunky to make the ‘rocky’ part of Rocky Road
500g of any of the following in whatever quantities you like: chopped dried apricots, raisins, sultanas, chopped marsh mellows, chopped dates (optional), chopped figs (optional), nuts (optional).

Line a 23cm square baking tin with sandwich paper so that the paper goes up both sides of the tin.

Heat a pot of water on the hob and place a heatproof bowl on top. Add chocolate, butter and golden syrup. Gently melt the ingredients, and then turn off the element.

Meanwhile in a second and larger bowl, add the crushed digestive biscuits, chopped dried fruit, nuts, and chopped marsh mellows. Mix together.

When melted, add the chocolate mixture to the second bowl and stir until thoroughly mixed. Pour into the baking tin and even out the edges until the mixture is fully spread across the tin. Refrigerate until set. Remove from tin and serve.

I find the Rocky Road is most tasty when served at room temperature, so take it out of the refrigerator about half an hour before you want to serve it to let the chocolate warm up a little. Yum, yum, super yum! Enjoy!!

Other Delicious Delights

Death by Chocolate Cake
Bonanza Banana Cake
Classic Carrot Cake
Pavlova Perfection

Seductive Scottish Shortbread

I have loved Scottish Shortbread all of my life. My mother and maternal grandparents are Scottish, so I guess that accounts for it. While living in New Zealand, I regularly made Scottish Shortbread with the New Zealand and Australian recipes I found. However, upon arriving in the UK, I tasted ‘real’ Scottish Shortbread, and it tasted different to my trusty old recipes. So… I began the quest to create a more authentic recipe. I think I have nailed it. These shortbread were made for Robbie Burns night last week, and they went down a treat in my household. I hope you make them and enjoy them. They are very seductive… you will be returning for more very quickly.

Ingredients

250g softened butter (salted)
100g caster sugar
250g standard while flour
75g rice flour
50g cornflour

Method

In a mixer (or by hand, but it will take a while) cream the butter and sugar and until pale. Meanwhile accurately measure the flours and sift together 3 times. When the butter/sugar mixture is ready, add the flour mixture. By hand or mixing spoon, combine the all the ingredients until just combined. DO NOT over mix as you want the mixture to be a little crumbly.

When mixed, you have various choices as to what to do next, depending on how you like the final shortbread to look.

1. You could chill the mixture until ready to be lightly rolled out and then cut into the shortbread shapes you like, place on a baking paper lined tray then bake.

2. You could place the mixture onto a sponge roll tin that has been lined with baking paper, press the mixture over the tray, chill and then bake.

3. You could chill the mixture until ready to be lightly rolled out and then roll into a round circle and mark out the petticoat triangle shapes and edges.

4. Do as I do… go rustic. Place the mixture onto a big piece of Glad WrapXXX, lightly kneed it into a long sausage shape by hand and by using the Glad Wrap to wrap around the ‘sausage’. Chill until cold – about 30 mins.

Which ever method you chose, when ready, bake in a moderate over 180 degrees celscious XX gasmark, for 20-30 mins, until a light golden colour. When ready, remove from the oven. Cool on the baking paper for a few mins, then transfer to a baking XX until cold.

Now make yourself a cup of tea, coffee, hot chocolate, hot toddy or whisky and devour!