A few new favourites to add to my recommend list of recipes:

Sweet and Sour Chicken - freezes well, easy and quick to make, can  pack full of hidden veges. Yummy taste!

Quirky Jo's 'fried' rice - mine looked exactly like Jo's picture. This was so quick and easy to make - 25 minutes from start to finish. Best of all my non-vegetable loving kids loved it - Miss 5 year old ate broccoli, leek, carrot, peas and corn, vegetables she has never willingly (or knowingly) eaten in her whole life! We just had bacon - no other meat - with it, so it was a really cheap meal too. We will try it next time without the coconut milk and just use stock, R thought the coconut flavour was a little too overwhelming.

Baked Doughnuts.

Quick, easy, and best of all YUM

Magic Bean Chocolate Cake (GF)

I have made this twice in the last fortnight - once as muffins and once as a birthday cake (see pics)

No-one could believe it had a can of red kidney beans in it! It was moist and rich and so easy to make (like everything else in my thermomix!)

Thermomix Macarons!

My latest fun with thermie has been making macarons. I have never even attempted to make something like this before, but I really do love to eat them!  Mara's Macaron Recipe is so easy to follow.

Here are some pictures:

First attempt

Not too bad!

 Dark Chocolate Ganache and White Chocolate and Raspberry Ganache

2nd attempt

3rd attempt - Chocolate with chocolate ganache (definitely not as good as first attempt!)

Some more pics...

Cupcakes!!!

 Too Easy Raspberry Cheesecake

Birthday Cupcakes!

Chocolate mud cake

I mentioned I'd been doing a cake decorating course, so I wanted to post the converted Chocolate mud cake recipe I used to make the cakes. It is VERY rich, but delicious, and moist,  perfect for a special occasion.

Makes one 9" round cake or one 8" square cake

220g butter
220g dark chocolate, broken into pieces
10-20g coffee granules
125g self raising flour
125g plain flour
50g unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarb soda
480g caster sugar
4 eggs
30g vegetable oil
95g buttermilk
160ml boiling water

Grease the tin and line the base and sides with a collar that extends 2cm above the top of the tin. (The cake will rise above the top of the tin whilst cooking.)

Dissolve coffee in boiling water.

Add the butter, chocoalte, coffee and water and cook 50deg, 5 min, sp 1

Add all other ingredients and mix on interval speed until combined (at least 3 mins)

Pour the mixture into tin and set aside while heating oven to 160 deg.

When oven is ready, bake cake for 1 hour 40 or until a skewer poked in comes out clean, although it may be still a little sticky.

Leave the cake in the tin until cold (this may be overnight). DO not be tempted to remove from tin until cold. It will collapse! (TRUST ME!) The top will sink a little.

Keeps in fridge for 3 weeks, or freeze for up to 2 months.

I also made the ganache filling in the thermomix. Fairly straight forward, 2 parts dark chocolate: 1 part cream, place chocolate in bowl and turbo a few times, add cream, cook for 5 or so minutes at 50deg, spd 3.

Here are some pics from my cake course.