Little Ivy

Last week my colleague returned from maternity leave and I thought it was definitely time for a celebration. I wanted something easy to eat at work and so settled on cupcakes (no need for plates or spoons!).

I couldn’t find a recipe that I liked so I mixed and matched a little from the ever reliable Women’s Weekly Cookbook and from the back of the icing sugar packet!

The icing was sweet but I thought the cupcakes were pretty delicious!

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Christmas is coming way too fast don’t you think? I have this long list of things that I wanted to make before Christmas and while I am slowly working my way down the list, there still seems so many things to do… There are also quite a few I have done but haven’t got to blog about yet as its hard to find the time to sit down and type it all out. Yes, yes, First World Problems.

Anyway, back to the task at hand. Last week I made the fruit mince for my mince pies. Boy did it smell like Christmas as I lifted the lid to stir it everyday. I seriously could have just put my spoon in and eaten it all up.

This week, I made the pastry and my first batch of mince pies. They were absolutely delicious, even if the pastry was a little on the crumbly side. I still have at least half of the fruit mince left so I will be baking another batch this weekend, just in time for Christmas.

In terms of how it went, I think I worked the pastry a little bit too much and that it is why it was a bit crumbly. Actually this was the advice from my brother. He claims he knows it from all of his baking experience but we know the truth – he heard it on MasterChef! So this weekend I will try not to play around with it so much. I don’t think it affects the taste, just the portability.

Below is the ingredients for the pastry. The how to section includes the information on making the pies using your prepared fruit mince (with thanks to Margaret Fulton, The Age and Pete’s mum).

What you need… for 24 small tarts

• 160g softened butter
• 125g icing sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 250g plain flour
• 2 egg yolks
• a little milk for glazing tops of pies

The how to…

1) In a food processor, blend together the butter, sugar and essence.

2) Add in the flour and pulse until crumbly.

3) Pulse in the egg yolks.

4) Tip the mixture out onto your bench and knead (very briefly) until it forms a dough. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

5) Grease your patty tins (I used a muffin tin as I didn’t have a patty tin) and heat your oven to 180 degrees.

6) Quarter your pastry dough and roll it out until it is about 3 – 5mm thick. Cut out rounds in two sizes (a larger one for the base and a smaller one for the top).

7) Line the patty tin with the larger circles and then moisten the edges with a little milk.

8) Add a tablespoon of fruit mince to each circle. Place the smaller pastry circle on top and press down on the edges to seal. Make a small cross or slit in the top of each pie.

9) Brush the top of each mince pie with a little milk.

10) Place in the oven and bake for about 15 minutes, or until pale brown.

11) Dust with icing sugar and try your hardest not to eat the whole lot!

Pavlovas are on my Kitchen Goddess hit list. I love a great pav, but frankly, the thought of trying to make one scared me. I have never been any good at separating eggs. It goes with the habit of being a bit slap dash in the kitchen. I always end up with a bit of yolk in the bowl and the whole thing is ruined.

So, don’t judge, but I remembered that I went to a Tupperware party a few years ago and got an egg separator thingy-ma-bob. Bingo, perfectly separated eggs. Next time, I will try doing it the old fashioned way but the recipe was called the NEVER-FAIL pavlova and I really didn’t want to be the first to fail at the never-fail pav. In the end, my pavlova ended up a bit flat. I made it a bit too big I think, or maybe I didn’t quite beat the eggs for long enough. I did tip it over my head (literally) and came out squeaky clean but Mae was crying and I was in a hurry to get it into the oven so I stopped at that point.

The pavlova got the thumbs up at lunch on Sunday – that is right – it didn’t fail. It was crunchy on the outside and soft, marshmallowy and squishy on the inside – perfect – if a little flat!

Anyway, I feel invigorated in the kitchen and I am now not going to run a mile every time I see a recipe that says “separate your eggs”. As Jamie Oliver would say – Happy Days.

What you need…

• 3 egg whites
• 1.5 cups caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon white vinegar
• 1 teaspoon cornflour
• 2 tablespoons boiling water
• cream
• berries
• chocolate
• or your topping of choice!

The how to…

1) Heat the oven to 130 degrees and line a baking tray with baking paper.

2) Add the egg whites, sugar, vinegar and cornflour to a bowl. Make sure it is very clean or you will have issues!

3) Add the boiling water and then beat with electric beaters until very stiff. You should be able to tip the bowl over your head and the mixture shouldn’t move. You may want to start by tipping the bowl on the side before you get to this point or it might get very messy!

4) Pile the mixture onto your baking tray in a circle shape that is about 18 cm across then level out the top with a spatula.

5) Bake the pavlova for 15 minutes at 130 degrees. Then turn the temperature down to 100 degrees and back for a further 45 minutes.

6) Let your pavlova base cool completely then top with cream, berries, chocolate, passionfruit, banana or whatever takes your fancy.

7) Eat and enjoy the sweet, sweet goodness (with some ice cream and wine in our case)!

Adapted from: Sally Wise, Out of the Bottle

Oh my, how good are chocolate and coffee together… particularly in cake!

It was my sister-in-law’s birthday on Saturday so I mined her pinterest boards looking for something I could make her for lunch on Sunday. Once I saw the espresso cupcakes I couldn’t look any further, I just had to make them. The recipe she had posted had kahlua icing which I didn’t think was so appropriate for small children, so I googled away (recipe books… who needs them!) and finally found a Martha Stewart recipe that looked pretty good.

I have made cupcakes once before but they were a bit dry. These on the otherhand were nice and moist and the very buttery icing was indulgent but yummy. I only ended up using half the quantity of icing in the recipe so I have adapted it below. They were rich enough with that amount and certainly didn’t need any more.

I made these on Saturday and we ate half in front of the footy grand final, with the other half eaten at lunch on Sunday. The recipe ended up making 24 cupcakes and I think I could have put a little less batter in each cupcake pan and made more.

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Scones, jam and cream – yum. What a delicious afternoon treat.

This weekend was full of eating and drinking with friends and family. I love that type of weekend. And to top off our barbeque in the backyard with friends on Sunday, I made my first ever batch of scones. Yet again I am not convinced that they would win any CWA awards but they were pretty damn good for my first ever effort. I have since found out that I needed to squish them altogether on the baking tray to help them rise more evenly. I must remember that for next time. They also could have been a bit moister – if you have any ideas on how to make them a little more moist, please let me know.

I served the scones with my Mother-in-law’s fabulous homemade boysenberry jam. It has inspired me to make jam soon – although I might visit the in-laws and learn from a master!

Now, as I am a complete scone beginner I consulted my trusty Women’s Weekly Cookbook for the recipe. Here is how I went about it.

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