CAKE!

Been busy making cakes lately...

This was a chocolate mud with dark chocolate ganache.

This was a vanilla mud with milk chocolate ganache.

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.

A change in our eating....

A forced change in our eating habits has left me searching for lower fat, higher vegetable (or vegetarian) meals.

R and I really like the Pasta e Fagioli from the EDC. It is fairly healthy, the sauce is made with mostly canellini beans. And, it is vegetarian. However, it needs an accompanied by bread. My first at attempt at bread rolls was ok, but not awesome, so I had a go at something different - Portugese Rolls. Wow. They were easy, quick and best of all, so so yummy. The kids liked them, we loved them! I will definetly be doing these again!

I am doing a cake decorating course, so have needed to make some mud cakes in order to decorate! I have tried 2 different recipes now, both different in ingredients. One was eaten - it was very very yummy. The other is in the fridge waiting to be iced this week. Will post the better recipe once I am convinced which one works best.


We are headed camping at Easter, so no thermomix for a whole 4 days! I decided I wanted to try Chocolate Hot Cross Buns, so invited over our besties for morning tea today. Even though I was making dough rather early to allow for the double rise, it was so worth it. These were sensational, although I don't think all the kids were that keen.

A few new things...

Ok - I am going to stop apologising for the lack of posts! Life is busy, and even though the thermomix makes my kitchen time quicker, faster, easier, less messier, healthier, cheaper etc etc etc... I now spend my spare time surfing the web looking for new things to try in the thermomix. Here are a few of the things I have tried in the last couple of weeks!
(DISCLAIMER: I know I will never be a professional food photographer, so just roll with it, okay?)

• Poached eggs: so easy, put eggs in the varoma in a silicone mould, place 1L water in bowl, steam on Varoma temp for 13-14 minutes at sp 1. Place a teatowel over the eggs, under the varoma lid at 5 minutes to go to stop condensation dripping back on the eggs. This pic is R's birthday breakkie in bed. The roasted tomatoes were home grown in our garden!

• Choc chip and banana and maple syrup icecream

• Caramel Slice (made by R) from the Lunch Box and after school ideas recipe booklet. Easy and delicious!

• Little Party Savouries - a great quick dinner for the kids, keeps well for the next day.

• Caramelised onions (for pizza topping)
• 2 onions sliced into rings
• 20gms brown sugar
• 20gms balsamic vinegar
• 20ml olive oil
• Add all ingredients and:
• 90 deg, 20 minutes, speed 1 (MC Off)
• (then detangle from blades with spatula)
• Varoma temp, 15 min, speed 1

• Womens Weekly Basic Butter cake (double batch)

• 330gms raw sugar
• 250gms butter, cubed
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 eggs
• 450gms SR flour
• 250gms milk
• Place sugar in bowl, mill for 10 sec, sp 10.
• Add butter, chop for 40 sec, sp 7. 
• Insert butterfly and mix for 2 min sp 4, pausing a few times to scrape sides down.
• Add vanilla and mix for 1 min sp 4. Whilst mixing, add eggs in through the top.
• Remove butterfly, add milk and flour
• Mix for another 30 sec sp 5, scrape sides and repeat this step.
• Pour into cake tin or patty cases as required and bake in oven at 180 deg.
• (I made a round cake that took about 45 minutes to cook, and 18 cup cakes that took 12 minutes to cook)

• Raspberry and white chocolate muffins

• Nigella's Flourless Brownies - Gluten friendly! Whilst this recipe is not TMX converted, I didn't write down what I did, I just sort of 'winged' it. They were yummy!!!