Nutella and banana cupcakes

50g nutella
75 g butter
1 egg
1/2 C brown sugar
1/4 C milk
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 C flour
1 mashed banana

1. Preheat oven to 180C ,line a 12 hole muffin tin with paper cases.
2. Combine butter, sugar and egg. Add in mashed banana and nutella.
3. Stir in flour and baking powder
4. Mix milk and baking soda together and add it to the banana mixture
5. Pour into the paper cases and cook for around 25 minutes until cooked
6. Top with a blob of nutella or smear with some melted milk chocolate.

Chocolate hazelnut cups

Again sorry about the terrible photo!These chocolates are really easy to make, the only fiddly thing is peeling the foil off the chocolate cases but once you've done that its a piece of cake :)

Ingredients

100g dark chocolate, melted

1/3 C chocolate hazelnut spread (I used nutella :))

1/4 C hazelnut meal (or almond meal)

12 hazelnuts, toasted

1 Tbsp hazelnut meal (or almond meal)

Methods

1. Using small, clean brush paint chocolate thickly inside

2. Place cases on tray, refrigerate about 5 mins or until chocolate sets. Peel away cases.

3. Combine spread and hazelnut meal in a small bowl, spoon mixture into piping bag fitted with with 1.5cm fluted tube

4. Divide pieces of water and hazelnuts among cases.

5. Pipe chocolate mixture into cases. Sprinkle with a little extra hazelnut meal.

Mini berry, almond and chocolate cakes

I wanted to make something with white chocolate and raspberries today so I attempted to make some mini cakes. Suprisingly they tasted ok! I also apolagise at my non optimal photography but I will try and get some super good artistic tips from the talented gianna and make my photos better!

Ingredients

3/4 C brown sugar
2 eggs
125g butter, butter
1tsp vanilla
1/2 C ground almonds
1/2 C self raising flour
1/2 C flour
2/3 C berries (any kind will do, frozen or fresh!)
2/3 C chocolate buttons (I used a mix of white and dark chocolate)
1/4 C flaked almonds (optional)
1/4 C milk

1. Preheat oven to 170C and line a 12 pan muffin tin with cases
2. Mix butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla until combined.
3. Add ground almonds and flours to the wet mix
4. Stir in milk
5. Mix in berries, chocolate and almonds
6. Divide into into the 12 cases and bake for 25mins
7. Cool on a wire rack and place some more berries on top and dust with icing sugar

more cupcakes...

Mochaccino cupcakes

Mocha mudcake

165g butter, chopped

100g dark choclate, chopped coarsely

1 1/3 C caster sugar

2/3 C water

1/4 C coffee liqueur (I used baileys)

2 Tbsp instant coffee granules

1 C plain flour

2 Tbsp self raising flour

2 Tbsp cocoa

1 egg

Decorations

2/3 C cream, whipped with 1/2 tsp of vanilla essence

2 Tbsp chocolate sauce

1. Preheat oven to 170C and line a 12 hole muffin pan with paper cases

2. Combine butter, chocolate, sugar, water, liqueur and coffee in a saucepan and stir until smooth over a medium heat.

3. In a separte bowl mix flours and cocoa together, then add chocolate mixture. Whisk in egg.

4. Divide mixture among paper cases

5. Bake for 30 - 40 mins, then turn out to cool.

6. Once cool spread with a thick layer of cream. Then get a skewer and put drops of the chocolate sauce on the cream and swirl around till covering the cupcakes. If you cant be bothered doing all this swirling business then you can dust cakes with cocoa :)

This weekend I went to a dessert party with wine, lots and lots of wine. Anyway I tried baking a new chocolate mandarin cake for the party and thought it was rather tasty, moist and suprisingly not too rich!

Mandarin chocolate mudcake

250g good quality dark chocolate, chopped

250g butter, chopped into cubes

6 eggs, separated

1/2 C caster sugar

3 Tbsp plain flour

1/4 C ground almonds

1 tsp mandarin zest

1. Preheat the oven to 190C.

2. Place the chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and stir until just melted. Remove from heat.

3. Place the egg yolks and sugar in a bowl and mix until lightly combined. Gradually add the melted chocolate to the egg mixture, stirring constantly.

4. Fold through the flour, zest and ground almonds

5. Place the egg whites in a clean bowl and beat with an electric beater until stiff peaks form.

6. Fold half the egg whites through the chocolate mixture until just combined then fold through the other half.

7. Pour mixture into a 23cm greased springform tin and bake for 35minutes. The cake will still look very wet but dont cook it any longer.

8. Remove the cake from the oven and leave to cool completely in the tin. Remove when cool then dust with cocoa and serve with mandarin slices and natural yoghurt or whipped cream.

Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate...

Im not really a major sports fanatic but this saturday was a pretty exciting, even for me. So I had to do some baking (of the chocolate kind) to celebrate. Below is the easiest fastest brownie recipe I know, they are really gooey and delicous and if you want to be super naughty you can add as much chocolate as you like! They are also gluten free :)

Swedish chocolate brownie

100g butter, melted
1 1/2 C sugar

3/4 C ground almonds

1/4 C cocoa

1 tsp vanilla essence

3 eggs

5 lines milk or dark chocolate (around 125g), chopped.

To decorate 1/2 packet of flattened almonds (optional)

1. Mix the butter, sugar, ground almonds, cocoa, vanilla and eggs together in a large bowl

2. Fold the chopped chocolate into the mixture

3. Pour into a greased or lined baking tin and bake for 180C for 25 to 35 minutes, until the centre is still slightly gooey but the edges are set.

4. Top with flattened almonds or dust with icing sugar and serve.

Cupcakes!!

These cupcakes probably look better then they taste but they still taste pretty good, they take a while to decorate but I think thats the fun part!

Toffee apple cupcakes

Ingredients:

Maple pecan and apple cake

60g butter, softened

1 C self raising flour (or use standard flour with 2tsp of baking powder)

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 C brown sugar

1/4 C maple syrup

2 eggs

2/3 C pecans (or walnuts) chopped

1/2 C grated apple

Maple frosting

90g butter, softened
1 C icing sugar

2 tsp maple syrup

Toffee

1 C caster sugar

1/2 C water

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180C

2. Line 12 hole standard muffin pan with paper cases

3. Beat butter, flour, cinnamon, syrup, sugar, and eggs on a low speed until combined. Increase speed till mixture is paler in colour.

4. Stir in nuts and apple and divide between cases.

5. Bake for 25 minutes, then turn out to cool on a wire rack

6. To make frosting, put softened butter, maple syrup and icing sugar in a bowl. Beat until combined and spread cooled cupackes with icing.

7. To make toffee shards place water and sugar in a saucepan. Heat over a low heat until sugar is dissolved, then bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered until golden brown. Remove from heat.

8. To make shards drizzle toffe from the back of a wooden spoon onto a baking paper lined oven tray. Leave to cool at room temperature and when cool remove with a spatula and arrange on cupcakes in a tower-like shape :)

Turkish delight cupcakes

Ingredients:

White chocolate pistachio cake
60g white chocolate chopped
1/2 C water
1tsp vanilla essence
1/2 C pistachios, chopped finely
1/2 C white chocolate chunks
90g butter, softened
1 C firmly packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2/3 C self raising flour
2 Tbsp plain flour

Decoration
2/3 C chopped pistachios
250g white chocolate
400g turkish delight, chopped into small cubes

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180C
2. Line 12 hole muffin pan with paper cases
3. Combine 60g measure of white chocolate, water and essence in a saucepan and stir over a low heat until smooth
4. Beat butter, sugar and eggs with a beater until combined
5. Add flours, pistachios, white chocolate chunks and warm chocolate mixture. Mix until combined
6. Divide between cases and bake for 25 mins, then turn out to cool on a wire rack
7. To make decoration melt white chocolate and spread a thick layer over each of the cupcakes. While chocolate is still warm place cubes of turkish delight and pistachios in a pyramid shape on the top of the cupcake.


Enjoy!!

Hi

Hi peeps,
I'm Courtney, I'm 21 and I love to cook. I only discovered my love for cooking when I started flatting down in Dunedin. I started to bake as a way to procrastinate from studying for exams and it was very effective! I have been feeding my flatmates ever since. I've moved up to Wellington and am studying medicine but all i want to do is open a little beach front cafe one day :) I thought I'd start this blog to procrastinate a little more and also to hopefully share some scrumptious recipes that I've discovered...

Happy baking oxox