Miniature chocolate chip cupcakes

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups sifted self-raising flour 

3/4 cup caster sugar

1/2 cup cocoa powder, sifted 

3/4 cup dark or milk choc bits 

1 tablespoon cocoa powder, extra, to serve 3/4 cup milk

125g butter, melted, cooled

2 lightly beaten eggs

Instructions 

Preheat oven to 200°C.

Prepare an oven tray with tiny paper lined foil cups.

Combine flour and caster sugar in a bowl. Stir in cocoa powder and choc bits. Make a well in the centre. Add milk, butter and eggs to flour mixture. Using a metal spoon, stir gently to combine.

Spoon mixture into the paper cups, till 3/4 full. 

Bake for 5 to 10 minutes until risen and set. Cool.

The menu of the wedding

I am sure that I have forgotten something and was too busy cooking to photograph everything but I hope to get photos from friends which I will post up. Watch this space for the recipes! 

Apero

 Peking Duck Tartlets 

Vegetarian Samosas 

Smoked Chicken baby quiches 

Vegetarian Sushi 

Entree 

Wild Mushroom and Prosecco Feuillettes 

Buffet 

Pasta with Sugo 

Roast Lamb 

Roast Chicken 

Filipino Rice 

Spanish Ham 

Salami 

Mediterranean Couscous Salad 

Potato Salad 

Green Salad 

Tomato, Mozzarella & Basil Caponata 

Olives, Sundried Tomatoes, mushrooms 

Dessert

Wedding Cake (I didn't make this) 

Berry Fool 

Toblerone Chocolate Mousse (white and dark) 

Rich Chocolate Tarts with gold leaf 

Flourless Orange Cake 

Mango Coconut Cake 

Mini Lemon Meringue Tartlets 

Micro Choc-chip Chocolate Cupcakes 

Zabaglione Tartlets  

Coffee Shortbread Biscuits

Coconut Mango Cake

This cake is both delicious and pretty. The mango gives it the most glorious gold colour and the taste combination of coconut and mango is sensational. You can use either fresh mango puree, or tinned at a pinch. Ingredients 

330g caster sugar 

250g butter 

4 eggs 

160ml mango puree 

2 cups desiccated coconut 

375g self raising flour 

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees. 

Grease and line a cake tin (baker's grease will work really well too... hmmm must post the recipe for that!). 

Beat the sugar and butter in a mixing bowl until combined (not light and fluffy, just combined) then add the eggs one at a time - don't beat strongly, just to combine. 

Grab a wooden spoon and stir in the coconut and mango puree and then the flour. Spread into your prepared cake tin - the mixture is quite thick. 

Bake for about 1 and a half hours. Stand for a few minutes in the tin before turning out on to a wire rack; flip so it is top side up to cool. 

Icing: 1 and a half cups of icing sugar 1 egg white 2 tablespoons mango puree 3/4 cup desiccated coconut Beat the egg white till foamy... gradually beat in the icing sugar a tablespoon at a time. Stir in the puree and coconut, and then spread onto the cake.

Strawberry and Galingale cordial

So, what do you do when you have a spare punnet of strawberries? Make cordial of course! This cordial is super simple, smells exquisite while cooking and makes a delightful summer drink. 

The galingale adds just a little edge of spiciness without the bite of ginger: 

2 cups water 

2 cups caster sugar 

1 tablespoon lemon juice 

500g strawberries (washed hulled and halved) 

2 pieces of dried galingale 

Put the sugar, water, galingale and lemon juice in a saucepan . Cook, while stirring over a low heat, for 2 minutes or until the sugar has dissolved. Raise the heat and until the mixture thickens just a little (about 5 minutes). Reduce to medium-low. Add the strawberries. Simmer, stirring occasionally, for 20 minutes.

Remove from the heat and allow to cool. Strain through a fine sieve (I used a muslin cloth as well to remove the seeds) and pour into a bottle. Keep in the fridge.

To serve.... just add water!

Yoghurt Cake

This recipe is from a non-food blog: french word of the day. I subscribed to Kristin Espinasse's list a few years ago when I moved to Geneva. Back in 2007 she posted up a recipe for a yoghurt cake which sounded really fun to make, but somehow I never got around to making it. Not sure why, guess because whenever I had yoghurt in the house, I ate it instead of baking with it! After I had an operation two years ago, I have become oddly sensitive to yoghurt, to the point where I really can't eat it any more. Some friends of mine were emptying their fridge before they departed for a long trip and gave me some yoghurt. Rather than throw it out I thought to myself "ahah! I can finally make that recipe!". Here's hoping that I can eat cooked yoghurt. The funky thing about this recipe is its beautiful simplicity.

Ingredients: 

one small container of plain yoghurt (reserve the container for measuring the remaining ingredients)

flour

sugar

vegetable oil

two eggs 

2 teaspoons baking powder 

Instructions 

Fill/empty the yoghurt container... ...3 times with flour ...2 times with sugar ...1 time with vegetable oil.

First combine yoghurt, beaten eggs & sugar. Next, add flour and baking soda, stir. Add a pinch of salt... Pour in oil and mix well. 

Pour into a greased cake pan and bake for 45 minutes at 150°C (300°F). How easy is that?

Cinnamon & apple cookies

With the delicious combination of oats, brown sugar, apples and cinnamon, these biscuits are like an apple crumble in biscuit form. This recipe isn't mine, but is adjusted from the ever reliable Australian Women's Weekly. Remember if you are cooking from this blog, my recipes are metric! 

2 eggs 

1 1/2 cups brown sugar (275g) 

1 teaspoon vanilla essence 

1/2 cup mild vegetable oil 

2 tblspn golden syrup 

2 cups rolled oats 

1 1/2 cups chopped dried apples (135g) 

1 3/4 cup plain flour (150g) 

3/4 tsp baking powder 

1/2 tsp bi-carb soda 

1 tspn ground cinnamon 

Set your oven to preheat at 210 degrees. Beat the sugar and eggs with an electric mixer until the mix becomes light in colour. Stir in the vanilla essence, oil and golden syrup. Then stir in the oats, apple and sifted dry ingredients. 

Cover and refrigerate for an hour. 

Roll tablespoons of the mix into balls, and press down onto a silicone-paper lined baking tray. Bake for 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool on the tray.

Clementine Cookies

I had a fit of baking last night: we are doing some fundraising at work for the Australian bushfire appeals. I did a giant batch of anzac bikkies. I finished the anzacs at about 2am but by then the baking bug had bit me and I found myself searching through my cupboards for ingredients to make something, anything more! My eyes fell upon the net of clementines in the big fridge (ie, on the balcony, which during winter becomes my second fridge). Grand. I would make something from them. Grand. umm... what?? From this 2am dilemma sprang this invention: 

Clementine Cookies 

 2 dessert spoons of finely grated clementine rind 

2 egg yolks

125 g butter 

1 cup caster sugar 

2 tablespoons clementine juice 

2 and a half cups self raising flour 

Turn your oven onto moderate (approx 170 degrees C) to warm up. Beat the egg yolk, butter, rind and sugar until fluffy. Add the flour and then drizzle in the juice until it comes together into a dough. 

Knead gently on a lightly floured surface until the dough is smooth. Take dessertspoons of the mixture and roll into balls. Press onto baking trays that are either lightly greased or have silicon paper. 

Bake for 15 minutes until lightly browned and allow to cool on the tray. Once cool ice and decorate - make up an icing with clementine juice and icing sugar. 

This recipe makes about 60 biscuits.