To warm up my fuzzy Monday morning brain I thought I might post a little on my lovely weekend. It started with a Saturday swim at the beach. First beach swim for the summer (i know soo slack) it was divine! I finished it off with some knitting.

We came home to start our baking and cooking fun. I made some more banana cupcakes, this time with chocolate icing and cinnamon. Using my icing funnel bday gift!

On Sunday we headed out with baked goods to a friend farewell pool party, where I was far too busy splashing around in a swimming pool to take photos. So I will leave you with a photo of my earlier-in-the-week attempt at making the kiwi classic pavlova. It was quite delish! Inspired by Jess over at spinning a yarn blog. It was messy and falling to bits, apparently that’s how they should be. I glued it together with vanilla cream…

I also made more cookies in the week (to use up chocolate chips) using this recipe, its fab i recommend! I sent most of them away to Kylie’s work so I wouldn’t eat them all. So addicted to baking right now.

Have a great week!

Kitchen overhead lighting at its best!

Well this evenings baking exploits were semi-successful. Yes we have an edible yummy cookie, but could it be better? I started out using this recipe from allrecipes. But due to lack of soft brown sugar I tried some Golden Syrup (goey sugar) and I don’t like separating eggs due to wastage, in went the TWO eggs, instead of just the yolk of the second. They are goey and crispy, but slightly flat. There is an underlying taste of WAY too much golden syrup and caramelised sugar which might be because I had to cook them rather alot for them to set. One concludes that I needed to add more flour to compensate for the extra egg and use less golden syrup or just make sure brown sugar was in the pantry before cooking!

Whilst I’m gassing about food and cooking here is a site I found in my recipe surfing travels. I think I’m in love with… pretty much everything about it. The food, the photos, the writing is funny chatty tone. Take a geezer at the aptly named “Smitten Kitchen“.

Can anyone tell that I have eaten too much cookie dough and cookies? Feeling very “chipper”. Time for some camomile tea me thinks.

Warning: Looks can be deceiving, this baby is rich and delish!

Its time to share the yummy choccy cake that has been in my family for quite awhile. I think mum tasted it in a restaurant and asked the chef politely for the recipe (..mum is this right?) Anyways, it doesn’t matter how we got it, its now a tradition. Infact, I now associate it with good food and family, so much that even a superior chocolate cake, to me, cannot compare! Do not think this is not a REALLY good chocolate cake though. Because its quite divinely yummy, rich, gooey and quite agreeable. I tend to have to practice it in the same oven a couple of times before it is right. It requires, just the right amount of cooking for the best texture. But even not quite right texture is very very yum yum.

Runny Chocolate Cake (as dubbed by my family)

• 7 oz good quality dark chocolate
• 7 oz of butter
• 4 eggs
• 7oz sugar
• 1tsp vanilla essence
• 1 cup of flour (or ground almonds)
• 1 tsp of baking powder
• 1 packet of Slivered Almonds (we have little packs here) or any sort of nut that will go with chocolate cake

-Melt the butter and chocolate together on a low heat.
-Mix sugar and eggs together until they make a pale yellow colour.
-While sugar and egg mixture still beating, pour in the melted chocolate and butter mixture.
-Add vanilla essense.
-Stop using mixing machine and manually stir in: Flour, baking powder and almonds.
-Pour mixture into a removable base cake tin (medium size)
-Bake at 200 degrees Celsius for 15 mins (give or take 5 mins depending on oven)
-refrigerate to set before serving. (or not, depends if you want it to oooze over peoples plates)

Serve with fruity icecream or yogurt.

This is the best banana cake I have ever tasted! It is more-ish, delicious moist and o so eatable… you will find yourself allowing bunches of bananas go over ripe just so you can make it. Make sure you make it for lots of people, or one end up eating most of it in one sitting, by yourself and biking madly to burn it all off later… nom nom nom… Thanks to my flatmate Katrin for this recipe!

Banana Cake

3 Mature Bananas
175g sugar
175g Butter
1/2 Tblsp cinnamon
2 tbsp Vanilla Sugar (or vanilla essence and sugar should be fine)
4 Eggs
150g Flour
50g Cornflour
1 tbsp Baking powder

Mix together and bake in an oven at 160 degrees for 40 – 55 mins (depends on oven)
Melt chocolate and pour all over!

Since I have been working hard the last few days I have neglected my daily design dose of favorite design blogs. This morning I gave myself until 12pm to get clued up on whats happening in blog land. Thanks to design*sponge (again) i have found a new blog to add to my list of daily inspiration. Its called “La Tartine Gourmande” It is maintained by an amazing woman by the name of Béa. The blog is full of good food, amazing photos and well… luscious-ness.

I made these scrummy cupcakes awhile back. Thought I might share the recipe. I made them in different sizes, some muffin, some cupcake. But next time i’d keep them all cupcake size. They are sweet lemony morsels that way. A massive muffin takes a while to get through!

Last weekend I went into photo and video with Kylie to buy him a new lens. He got one, then the salesman showed me a few lenses I would have fun with on my camera. OOoo and am I. (Lets just say spare cash from selling car is bad… it stayed in savings account for about aaaaa… 2 weeks)

The play starts with photographing our preserves making epic/s. LOTS of apples. I also found a cool tutorial on photographing food from photojojo, nice and easy to read full of easily implementable suggestions…. fun! I kinda enjoy the light and coziness of photos that are yellowed by interior lights tho, helps one remember that they were up til’ 11pm, jarring those apples…

(kylies photo)

The recipe found for the cinnamon looking preserve (can you say Apple turnover, apple pastry aaand apple… yum yum) the original is here, but for your pleasure its also here: (with changes) we doubled the recipe to fill 3x 500ml Jars.

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Dutch Apple Preserves

1 kg Granny Smith or cooking Apples (that’s 1kg after peeling & coring!)
1 cup sultanas
3 cups water
Juice of 1 lemon
2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1 cup light brown sugar

To prepare:

1. Pour water and lemon juice into a large pot.

2. Wash then peel and core apples, then slice them into small pieces. Cast the apple into the pot as you go.

3. Add the sultanas and bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce to a good simmer.

4. Add remaining ingredients and continue to simmer with the lid of the pot off.

5. Simmer for at least half an hour. Stir regularly!

6. Wash 3 500ml preserving jars, place on oven tray and bake in oven at 120 – 140 degrees Celcius for 20 minutes. Whilst they are baking (to sterilise them) wash and dry the screw bands and set aside. Wash and prepare lids according to manufacturers directions.

7. When all is ready. Quickly ladle preserves into clean jars. Wipe jar rims and threads with dry clothe.

8. Cover with two-piece lids. Allow to cool completely before checking seals. Label and date.

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Stay tuned because its autumn (my favorite season) I am all amped to take lots of pretty piccies!

A “thrifted” or “score from trademe” teaset that makes me grin with much satisfaction, yummy cupcakes and a gathering of lovely ladies that has left me so inspired that I’m not going to bed because that it would mean the night would be over. That or I ate too many cakes and drank lots of tea and there is no-one here to make me go to bed.

Yesterday my man and I went on the hunt for gingerbread man cookie cutters. Needless to say two malls later and some nervous twitching (malls and I do not go together) we found some and finished the trial batch. We kinda fought over who iced

I was introduced to the Artichoke by a past boy friends mother. We sat around a huge wooden table with fresh vege and meat pilled into the middle. One of the white ceramic bowls was filled with some big flower looking things. No-one was surprised by this (it looked a little odd to me) but everyone grabbed one and started peeling off the petals one by one, sucking them, scraping them with their teeth then discarding the rest. I was shown how to do this and dutifully gave it a go. I didn’t really have an opinion at first, it was all rather tasteless, but as I went on I became a pleasantly engaged in the taste. It was fresh, more-ish, and quite pleasant, especially when I got to the heart. When I moved into the house I am in now, the previous tenants had planted artichoke plants. Yay!

The only way I ever knew how to cook them was chucking the whole flower plus some stalk, in a pot of boiling water with some extra virgin olive oil, rosemary, sage, thyme and a clove of garlic. Boy are they YUM. We had some tonight my “house mate” and I. She was very impressed, quite skeptical at first, but towards the end when she bit into the heart.. she said “mmmmm… thankyou.” All sounds very carnivorous (heart), but there you go.

But thats not the only way to cook or eat artichoke. Since I have some in the garden I must begin experimenting! I have found a link on how to prepare them at Becks and Posh with some LOVELY photos (by Sam Breach..thankyou!), next I will find some recipes.