'Fried Chicken' Cookie Pop Cake

Before you say, "EW, what the eff?!" let me say this is NOT real fried chicken on top of a cake! I did not go there. It's actually cookie pops covered in cornflakes made to look just like fried chicken, with shortbread chips! But why? Last week was Karen's birthday. We love Karen. And Karen (and most us really) loves fried chicken. We were heading to Red Pepper in Strathfield for Korean fried chicken dinner, and I was tasked with bringing the birthday cake. I was struggling to think of a theme for the cake, and Suze mentioned that Karen just wanted fried chicken for dessert. Which got me thinking of this crazy idea. Imagine if I could make my cake look like fried chicken!

A quick google search showed me that I was not the first person to be crazy enough to think of this. There was this fantastic video tutorial from Haniela's for fried chicken cake pops and it was exactly what I needed. Her version is a little more complicated, as it's made with cake, and she even crafts the chicken 'bone' with white candy melts and mini marshmallows. I decided to save some time by making cookie pops instead of cake pops, saving me from baking and crumbling up a cake. Instead I used crushed white chocolate Tim Tam biscuits, mixed up with cream cheese, and milk chocolate finger biscuits as the 'bone' and covered the whole thing with cornflakes. The result was so darn realistic it was disturbing.

I seriously thought taking a photo of a cut up cookie pop would help prove that it wasn't fried chicken, but even the cookie pop mixture is the colour of chicken! I swear it's not really fried chicken. It's still mind boggling how realistic it looks, it's almost too realistic. It definitely managed to creep me out, and everyone who saw the cake did do a double take. But sometimes you just gotta have a little fun with your food and mess with people's heads.

The Tim Tam cookie pop mixture is very sweet and quite rich, so if you want to use the original cake pop mixture instead, the link is below. Though I'm not sure how many people out there are as random as me and want to make cakes that look like fried chicken. Maybe for the KFC-obsessed? It's not the first time I've done something like this. I'm weird, I know. The shortbread chips tasted great, I will totally make those again. Imagine them served with a raspberry compote 'ketchup'! My instructions below are a little sketchy, so feel free to ask any questions in the comments below if you need more details!

'Fried Chicken' Cookie Pop Cake

(adapted from Haniela's Fried Chicken Cake Pops)

For the 'fried chicken' cookie pops:

200g (7oz) white chocolate Tim Tams (or any other Tim Tam/Penguin/Cream-filled biscuit/cookie like Oreos)

80g (2.8oz) cream cheese, softened

1 packet Cadbury Fingers or any stick shaped biscuit (the original tutorial linked above uses similar sized pretzel sticks, if you can get them)

Icing: 125g (4.4oz) cream cheese + 30g (2 tbsp) butter, softened and 1 heaped tbsp brown sugar

Coating: 3 cups corn flakes + a pinch of ground cinnamon

1. Place Tim Tams and cream cheese in a food processor and blitz until it forms a smooth paste (you will need to stop and stir the mixture a few times while the bigger pieces break up). Scrape into a bowl and chill to allow mixture to harden slightly so it is easier to handle.
2. (I recommend wearing food prep gloves for this messy bit) Roll about 2 tbsp of mixture into a ball and push one of the stick-shaped biscuits into the ball. Pinch mixture to the stick into the shape of a drumstick. Also place a small ball of mixture on the opposite end of the stick biscuit. (See picture below) Place moulded mixture on a lined baking tray. Repeat with remaining mixture, I think manage to make about 10.
3. Chill tray for about 45 mins (or freeze to save time), until cookie pop mixture sets and is easy to pick up and handle. Prepare icing in the meantime.
4. Place cornflakes and cinnamon in a large bowl, use your fingers to break up the cornflakes into large crumbs and set aside.
5. Place icing ingredients (cream cheese, butter and brown sugar) in a mixing bowl and beat until smooth and and fluffy. 
6. Use a small spatula or knife to spread a thin layer of icing over the surface of each chilled cookie pop, then place the cookie pop in the cornflakes and roll, pressing cornflakes into the icing so that the surface of the cookie pop is covered. 
7. Return covered cookie pops to fridge to set (at least 1 hour) until ready to use.

For the shortbread crinkle cut 'chips:

Follow instructions for this shortbread dough, omitting ground and candied ginger. Roll dough between two baking sheets to about 0.5 cm thickness, then use a pizza dough cutter or a pastry crimper (if you want to get that crinkle cut look) to cut strips of dough to form the 'chips'. Make sure you cut them about half the thickness of the intended size, as they will expand slightly in the oven. Follow instructions in link to bake until edges turn golden brown.

For the cake (Milo cake with milo icing and condensed milk icing):

1. Follow the instructions for this Devil's Food Cake recipe, using three 15cm (6", this is what I used) or 18cm (7", will result in slightly thinner layers). round cake tins Optional variation: I replaced the 9 tbsp of cocoa powder with 2 tbsp cocoa powder and 7 tbsp milo powder (you could also use Ovaltine) to make it a Malted Devil's Food Cake.
2. Beat 200g (1 & 3/4 sticks) salted butter (softened) with 3 cups (375g) icing/powdered sugar, and half a cup of milo powder in a mixing bowl with an electric mixer on high until fluffy and spreadable. Use a serrated knife to level the tops of cakes. Place one layer of cake (upside-down) on cake plate and use an offset spatula to spread a thick layer of icing over the top of the cake. Repeat with remaining cakes and icing. 
3. Beat 300g (2 & 2/3 sticks) salted butter with 1 can (395g) condensed milk and 500g (4 cups) icing/powdered sugar until light and fluffy (you may need to adjust icing sugar amount until desired icing texture is achieved, you want it to be spreadable but stiff enough to hold its shape). Crumb coat cake with some of the icing and then chill for about half an hour. Use offset spatula to cover cake in another layer of icing and smooth (run spatula regularly under hot water to achieve a smoother result)
4. Top cake with shortbread chips and fried chicken cake pops and chill. Remove from fridge at least half an hour before serving to allow to come back to room temperature. Can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for several days.

Strawberry Jam & Brown Butter Melting Moments

I know, it's ANOTHER brown butter recipe. I'm sorry. I'm addicted! The call of that golden, nutty, delicious elixir cannot be denied. This time it's in biscuit form. I have a special place in my heart for melting moments (also known as yoyos).  They are one of the first things I ever learnt how to bake, and they never disappoint. Melt in your mouth shortbread biscuits sandwiched with a buttery icing? You can't go wrong.

These melting moments are made with loads of browned butter, and the icing is mixed with strawberry jam to make that lovely pink shade. If you have read my blog before, you know my fondness for using strawberry jam as an icing flavouring. It's a really quick and easy way to get a fantastic strawberry flavour into an icing with very little work.

It's like the most girly version of milk and cookies ever. Just in time for Mother's Day! These biscuits were extremely well received by my friends and family. I brought the whole batch to my brother's house expecting them to have a few so that I could take most of them to work the next day but we sat down with a pot of tea and destroyed about 15 of them in one go. So I'm warning you now, they are super, super moreish. One will not be enough!

Strawberry Jam & Brown Butter Melting Moments (Shortbread Biscuits)

(adapted from this Gourmet Traveller recipe, makes about 22-24 biscuits)

For the brown butter:

250g (about 2 sticks + 2 tbsp) butter for the biscuits (I used salted, add 1/2 tsp salt to flour mixture if using unsalted)

+ an additional 100g (7 tbsp) butter for the icing

Prepare the brown butter ahead of time as you will need to chill it, you can do the two amounts listed above in the same pan and separate them later, or brown each amount separately:

1. Place butter in a small saucepan on low-medium heat and stir until it melts completely.
2. Continue cooking, stirring frequently until the milk solids turn brown and the butter smells nutty, about 5 minutes longer (or as long as it takes to turn golden brown). Take care not to burn (it will continue to brown even after you remove it from the heat, so take it off early).
3. Scrape the melted butter and browned bits into small bowl and chill until solidified (about half an hour in the freezer, an hour or so in the fridge). When ready to make cake, remove from the fridge long enough that the butter is soft enough to be beaten with an electric mixer.

For the brown butter biscuits:

250g (weight before browning) brown butter, softened (prepared above)

80g (about 2/3 cup) icing (confectioner's) sugar, sifted

1 tsp pure vanilla extract/vanilla bean paste or scraped seeds from 1 vanilla bean pod

75 g (½ cup) cornflour/cornstarch

225 g (about 1½ cups) plain/all-purpose flour

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F) and line two baking trays with baking paper.
2. Place brown butter and sugar in a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer on high until light and fluffy.
3. Add vanilla and beat until just combined.
4. Sift flours over butter mixture and, using a wooden spoon, stir to form a soft dough.
5. Keeping your hands lightly floured, form level ½ tablespoons of mixture into balls, then place 5cm (2 inch) apart on baking paper-lined oven trays, flatten slightly to 3.5cm (1.5 inch) rounds, then, using a floured fork, press tines gently into dough rounds, to create grooves.
6. Bake 10-12 minutes or until lightly coloured. Allow biscuits to cool on trays for 5 minutes, before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

For the strawberry jam icing:

100g (weight before browning) brown butter, softened (prepared above)

275g (about 2 and 1/4 cups) icing (confectioner's sugar)

3 tbsp strawberry jam 

1. Place butter and icing sugar in a large mixing bowl and beat on low until just combined, then beat on high until smooth and fluffy.
2. Add strawberry jam and beat until combined. Icing should be soft enough to be spooned or piped, but stiff enough to hold its shape.
3. Spoon or pipe mixture between cooled biscuits. Serve immediately, or can be stored in the fridge in an airtight container for several days.

Lamington Biscuits

It's been tradition for me to make a little something to celebrate Australia day, which is coming up this weekend. Although I don't actually do much on the actual day, it's fun to bake something for it. Last year was the hugely successful Milo and Chocolate Crackle Cheesecake and this time it is lamington themed.

I love me some lamingtons. They are quintessentially Aussie and taste so good when done well. This year I tried something a little different, making a biscuit version of the lamington. I made small, round versions of ladyfinger biscuits, like the type you use in tiramisu. These soft, spongy biscuits were perfect for my lamington-biscuit hybrid. Dipped in the typical chocolate icing and coconut and sandwiched with jam and cream, you end up with super cute bite-sized biscuit versions of lamingtons.

Originally I had planned to use fresh cream to sandwich the biscuits together, but then I realised that I would have to eat them all on the same day. As tempting as that was, I decided to try a mock cream recipe instead, which is essentially a whipped buttercream. It's a little heavier than a fresh cream mixture, but it means that you can store it at room temperature and it will keep for several days. But you can always switch it back to fresh cream if you are serving it at a party or skip the cream altogether.

Anyway I hope everyone enjoys their Australia Day long weekend. Mine will be extremely busy, as all my weekends have been recently. I really, really need a very long holiday with white sandy beaches and many, many cocktails.

Lamington Biscuits with Raspberry Jam & 'Cream'

(makes about 12-15 sandwiched biscuits)

For the ladyfinger biscuits (adapted from Cordon Bleu At Home):

3 eggs, separated

6 tablespoons (75g) granulated/white/caster sugar

3/4 cup (95g) cake flour, sifted (or 3/4 cup all purpose flour + 2 tbsp cornflour/cornstarch)

6 tablespoons (50g) icing/confectioner's sugar

To dip: 2.5 cups (about 250g) icing/confectioner's sugar + 4 tbsp cocoa powder sifted together, 1/3 cup milk, 10g butter (about 1 tbsp), 100g dark/semi-sweet chocolate, 1 cup dessicated coconut

1. Preheat your oven to 180°C (350°F) degrees and line two baking trays with baking paper. 
2. Beat the egg whites using an electric mixer on high speed until stiff peaks form. 
3. Gradually add sugar and continue beating until the egg whites become stiff again, glossy and smooth.
4. In a small bowl, beat the egg yolks lightly with a fork and fold them into the meringue, using a wooden spoon or rubber spatula. 
5. Sift the flour over this mixture and fold gently until just mixed. It is important to fold very gently and not overdo the folding. Otherwise the batter will deflate and lose volume resulting in ladyfingers which are flat and not spongy.
6. Fit a pastry bag with a 1cm plain tip (you can also use a Ziploc bag with the tip cut off) and fill with the batter. Pipe 3cm circles, leaving at least 2cm space around each one.
   Sprinkle half the icing/confectioner's sugar over the piped batter and wait for 5 minutes. The sugar will pearl or look wet and glisten. Now sprinkle the remaining sugar. This helps to give the ladyfingers their characteristic crispness.
7. Very carefully, hold the baking paper in place in two corners with your thumbsand lift one side of the baking sheet and gently tap it on the work surface to remove excess sprinkled sugar.
8. Bake the biscuits for 5-6 minutes, then rotate the trays and bake for another 3 minutes or so until the puff up, turn lightly golden brown and are still soft.
9. Allow them to cool slightly on the sheets for about 5 minutes and then remove the biscuitsfrom the baking tray with a metal spatula while still hot, and cool completely on a wire rack.
10. Place all dipping ingredients except the coconut in a large heatproof bowl and whisk together over a pot of simmering water (or zap it in the microwave in 30 seconds bursts if you're lazy) until smooth. Place coconut in a separate bowl.
11. Dip rounded side of biscuit in the chocolate and allow the excess to drip off. Then dip into coconut to completely coat the chocolate. Return to the wire rack to dry. You can store dried biscuit in an airtight container until ready to fill, I made mine a day before filling.

For the mock cream filling:

(adapted from this recipe, can be substituted with fresh cream whipped with a bit of icing sugar or skipped entirely)

110g (about 1/2 cup) butter, softened

120g (about 3/4 cup) icing/confectioner's sugar, sifted

Boiling water, about 60ml (1/3 cup)

Cold water, about 40ml (about 2 tbsp)

1. In a medium bowl, dissolve icing sugar with 1 tbsp boiling water, so that it forms a paste.
2. Beat butter until soft and creamy, then add icing sugar, a little at a time and beat until white and creamy.
3. Add 1 tbsp of boiling water, beat again, then add 1 tbsp cold water.
4. Continue beating until smooth, then repeat with another 1 tbsp of boiling and cold water alternatively, until icing sugar has dissolved into mixture and it is light and fluffy. You may need to add more water if it is still too thick.

To assemble:

About 1/2 cup raspberry jam, strained to remove seeds

1. Use a spoon or knife to spread a thin, layer of jam on the bottom side of one biscuit.
2. Pipe or use a spoon to spread a dollop of mock cream (or real cream) on the bottom side of another biscuit and sandwich together with the jam side. This step can be skipped if you prefer only jam.
3. Repeat with the remaining biscuits. Can be stored in an air-tight container for several days if using mock cream, must be served immediately if using fresh cream.

Sarah's 1st Birthday Cake (and Owl Cupcakes)

It's been an incredibly busy week. Busy, but also fun and full of family and celebration so I'm definitely not complaining. Last Sunday was my gorgeous niece's first birthday and I was tasked with creating her very first birthday cake for the big party, along with a few other sweet treats. I ended up baking for pretty much two straight days before the party, so please excuse the slightly blurry photos as I took them in a rush when I finally finished all the baking.

As I mentioned on Instagram, my niece loves owls. Is terrified of teddy bears but the creepy plastic owl that sits on the balcony to scare away other birds is one of her favourite things. So I decided to make these chocolate Owl Cupcakes that I've seen numerous times on Pinterest; soft and fluffy chocolate buttermilk cupcakes dipped in chocolate ganache and decorated with Oreo cookies and M&Ms. They are so darn cute.

The cake. It was so, so hard to decide what cake to make her. We had so many ideas and kept changing our minds. At one point it was going to be a giraffe cake, then a 1 cake, then a 1 with a giraffe pattern, a sprinkle cake, a rainbow cake, an ombré cake and then finally we settled on a pink and yellow checkerboard cake to match the pink and yellow theme of the party. A towering  6-layer tall butter cake with lemon icing. I replaced some sugar in the 3 pink layers with  a pack of strawberry jello that I had leftover from the Christmas trifle, to help add a pink tint and a bit of strawberry flavour.

I took the pink and yellow theme one step further and decorated the outside of the cake with pink and yellow ombré icing. It's not perfect but I'm pretty satisfied with the final look, it's almost like the outside is painted with watercolours, don't you think?

As a compromise between the 1-shaped cake and a round cake, I created an edible sprinkle cake topper in the shape of a 1 by baking a giant sugar cookie which I dipped in royal icing and covered in rainbow sprinkles/100s and 1000s. The final decoration was the most adorable cake bunting that was sent to me by one of my amazing readers, Amy Deering who runs a bunting etsy store. She sent it to me ages ago and I hoped I would be able to save it for this occasion. It turned out to be just perfect for it since it matched the colour theme! Thanks Amy!

I used the leftover sugar cookie dough to make alphabet sugar cookies that spelt out Sarah and dipped them in pink and yellow royal icing. I was way too tired to pipe pretty icing decorations so they just got dunked in icing.

Along with the owl cupcakes I used some of the leftover cupcake batter to make some mini choc cupcakes, as well as leftover batter and icing from the birthday cake to make some pink and yellow cupcakes.  

Can you tell that my sis-in-law discovered the wonders of Pinterest while brainstorming decoration ideas for the party?

The owl cupcakes were a hit, of course. You should be able to find tutorials on google by searching for owl Oreo cupcakes, but I just made my favourite buttermilk chocolate cupcakes, then spread a thin layer of chocolate ganache over the top of each cupcake, split two Oreo cookies to make the eyes, used a sharp knife to cut some thin pieces of Oreo cookie for the eyebrows and finally brown M&Ms for the pupils and a yellow M&Ms for the beak.

The slightly darker pink layer in the middle of the cake was not on purpose. I managed to crack one of the three pink cakes I baked and so I had to make an extra one and dumped way too much food colouring in the batter. Oh wells. More importantly, it tasted delicious and the birthday girl had her first taste of cake and absolutely loved it. I'll include the full recipe of how I made this beast of a cake and will be very impressed if you give it a go!

6-Layer Pink & Yellow Checkerboard Cake with Ombré Icing

For THREE layers of cake (You will need two batches of everything to make the full-sized cake pictured):

355g (approx 2 & 1/2 cups) plain/all-purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
225ml (about 1 cup minus 1 tbsp) milk
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
350g (approx 1 & 3/4 cups) white sugar (I used caster/superfine) (Note: I replaced 85g of sugar with 1 packet of strawberry jelly crystals for the pink layers)
225g (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
4 medium eggs

Pink/Yellow food colouring

Make 3 pink layers of cake first using the measurements listed above; preheat oven to 180°C (350°F) and grease three 18cm (7 inch) round cake tins. (If you only have one you can bake each cake one after the other and this works fine). You can also use 20cm (8 inch) pans but the layers will be thinner, or use the special checkerboard cake tins that come with the circular dividers. Line the base of tins with baking paper and grease paper and dust tins with flour. Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl and set aside. Mix milk and vanilla together in a measuring jug.

Using an electric mixer on low speed, beat sugar and butter in a large bowl until blended. Increase speed to high and beat well until very pale and creamy, at least 5 minutes. Reduce speed to medium low, add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Alternately add flour mix and milk mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture (I did it by adding 1/4 of of the dry mixture followed by 1/3 of the wet mixture at a time). Add pink food colouring. Beat until smooth, occasionally scraping bowl with a spatula. Divide mixture evenly between the three prepared tins (I did this by weighing the batter, it ended up being about 470g per bowl for me). Bake until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean and the outside is turning golden, about 20-25 minutes. Take cake not to overbake or cake will be dry. Cool in tin for 15 minutes, then carefully turn out on to a wire rack to cool completely. Be very careful not to crack your cakes, as you will need to cut them into rings and any cracks will make it hard to construct your checkerboard cake.

Make 3 yellow layers by repeating the steps above, using another batch ingredients with the measurements listed above, replacing the pink food colouring with yellow. Wrap the 6 cooled cakes in clingfilm and chill overnight, or until very firm.

For the white chocolate ganache:

400g good quality white chocolate, finely chopped

400ml pure/heavy cream (can also used thickened, anything with min. 35% milk fat)

Prepare the white chocolate ganache, this will act as the 'cement' to hold your cake layers together. Place white chocolate in a medium heatproof mixing bowl and heat your cream in a medium saucepan to gradually bring it just to the boil. Remove from heat and pour hot cream over the chocolate, leave to sit for 5 minutes while the chocolate melts. Whisk gently until the mixture is smooth, then chill until it is just below room temperature, thick but still pourable. 

To assemble cake; remove cake layers from the fridge and use a long shape knife (preferably serrated) to carefully trim the tops of the cake to ensure they are level. Flip your cake layers upside down before assembling. If you are not using the special checkerboard cake pans you will have to cut concentric circles out of your cake layers as shown here and here. For an 18cm cake, I cut a 6cm diameter circle out of the centre of the cake using a 6cm scone/cookie cutter, then cut a 12cm diameter circle out of the centre of the remaining cake by tracing my knife around a plate of the same diameter, so you end up with one central circle and two outer 'rings'. (Obviously if your cake layers are a different size you will have to calculate the right diameter to cut your circles, mathematics is fun!) Swap the middle 'ring' of a pinkcake layer with the middle 'ring' from a yellow layer, and fit the cut pieces back together as shown in the bottom left photo above. Try your best to handle the cake pieces without cracking them, especially the outer 'rings'.

Place one of the prepared layers, I started with layer that had a yellow outer ring, and spread a thin layer of white chocolate ganache over the top, then place a layer with a pink outer ring over the top of it. Repeat with the remaining layers, so that the colours alternate. Chill in the fridge for at least an hour.

For the lemon icing:

800g (about 6 1/2 cups) icing (powdered) sugar, sifted (or blitzed in the food processor)

400g (about 3.5 sticks) butter (I use salted, add about 1 tsp of salt if you use unsalted)

3-4 tbsp lemon juice (or milk mixed with vanilla extract if you want vanilla icing), adjusted to taste/consistency

Prepare the icing; remove butter from fridge 30 mins before starting and chop into small cubes. In a large mixing bowl, beat butter on high with an electric mixer until smooth and fluffy. Reduce speed to medium-low and gradually add icing sugar until combined, then increase speed to high and beat until very pale and fluffy. Gradually add lemon juice to taste, you may need to add more icing sugar if your mixture is too runny, or more lemon juice or milk if you mixture is too stiff. The icing should be smooth and easily spreadable, but stiff enough to hold its shape.

Crumb coat the cake with a thin layer of icing and chill for about 15 minutes. Split the remaining icing into half and add pink food colouring to one bowl and yellow icing to the other. Cover the top third of the cake with pink icing and the bottom third with yellow icing and smooth out surface with an offset spatula. Carefully combine small amounts of yellow and pink icing to gradually blend the colours together in the middle third of the cake. I started from the bottom and gradually added more pink icing to the yellow icing as I applied it to the cake. For a smoother finish, run your offset spatula under hot water and dry with a paper towel regularly. 

To decorate:

You can decorate with candy, bunting or sprinkles. I used a half batch of this sugar cookie recipe, rolled it about 1 cm thick and traced out the shape of a giant 1 shape and cut it out with a sharp knife. I then made some royal icing and covered it in a thin layer of the icing, then dunked the whole cookie in a large bowl of rainbow sprinkles and left it to dry. 

Funfetti Skillet Cookie with White Chocolate Chips

Last week was a little bit cray-cray. I'm still recovering from it. I'm not usually someone who makes a big deal about my birthday but somehow I ended up with multiple birthday celebrations and multiple birthday cakes. I have the best friends and I'm incredibly lucky. And then on top of that I also happened to attend the awards ceremony for Cosmopolitan Australia's Fun Fearless Female Awards and somehow came away with the award for Blogger of the Year. What?!

In true Steph style, I had completely convinced myself that I had zero chance of winning. I never win anything. Not exaggerating. Okay, I might have won a speech night award at school once but that doesn't count. I had managed to pick up a cold the day before so I was on the cold and flu meds, and then started enjoying the Moscato a little too much (don't try this at home, kids) so was totally shocked when I had to go up and accept my award. Cosmo put on a great event and it was hugely humbling to be surrounded by all these amazing women, like sportswoman of the year Jacqui Freney and overall winner Turia Pitt. And then there's me, who plays around with butter and sugar on the weekends. Surreal. I was there because I have amazing readers who voted for me! So this post is for you guys, thank you for voting for me!

Now on to this skillet cookie. Last week I received some amazing cast iron skillets from the awesome Karen and I knew I needed to make a skillet cookie. For those unfamiliar with it, it's one giant biscuit/cookie baked in a pan, so it's crunchy on the edges and chewy in the middle. Heaven. And then Lisa made me this incredible funfetti fairy bread birthday cake and reminded me how much better life is when it's full of rainbow sprinkles. So I decided to combine these two awesome things and make myself a Funfetti Skillet Cookie.

It kind of looks like unicorn vomit. I don't mean to be gross but that's what my first thought was when I cut into this. The innards are probably not the prettiest, since the cookie dough is quite dark brown and so the sprinkles inside don't show up as much. But it looks pretty damn cute from the top, especially with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. And it tastes SO much better than it looks. Still warm from the oven, it has a crunchy, golden, buttery edge, with a soft and chewy middle. I don't know why it's taken me this long to make a skillet cookie, but this will definitely be the first of many.

There's also white chocolate chips inside the cookie, you'll find small pockets of melted white chocolate throughout it if you eat it warm. I know the sprinkles don't really add any flavour but I just love how fun and happy the cookie looks with all the bright colours. It was really tempted to lift the whole thing out of the skillet and take a bite out of it like it was one gigantic biscuit. I might still do it.

Funfetti Skillet-Baked Cookie with White Chocolate Chips

(adapted from Martha Stewart)

2 cups (about 260g) plain (all-purpose) flour

1 tsp baking (bi-carb) soda

1/2 tsp salt

170g (3/4 cup) butter, softened

3/4 cup packed light-brown sugar

1 large egg

2 tsp pure vanilla extract

1 cup rainbow sprinkles (I used half 100s and 1000s and half of the long skinny soft sprinkles)

1 cup (about 170g/6oz) white chocolate chips or chopped white chocolate 

To serve: Vanilla ice cream and extra rainbow sprinkles

Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F) and grease a 10-inch (25 cm) ovenproof skillet. (If you have a smaller skillet, you may end up with excess dough, which you can just bake on a sheet as regular sized cookies) Whisk flour, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl and set aside. Place butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl and beat on high with an electric mixer until mixture is light and fluffy, about 2 mins. Add egg and vanilla and beat until combined. With the mixer on low, add the flour and rainbow sprinkles and mix until just incorporated. Stir in white chocolate chips.

Transfer mixture to the skillet and press to flatten, so that the surface is even and covers the bottom of the pan. Bake until edges are brown and top is golden, about 40 to 45 minutes. If you find it is browning too quickly (mine started to due to the cast iron pan and the fan-forced oven) you can reduce the oven temperature slightly. Don't overbake; it will continue to cook a few minutes out of the oven. Transfer to a wire rack to cool, 15 to 20 minutes. Cut into wedges and serve warm with vanilla ice cream and extra sprinkles.

White Chocolate Shortbread with Raspberry Icing

I'm here! Forreals this time! Ahhh it's so nice to be back posting on my own blog again. As fun as it was to guest post it kinda feels strange, like I've living in someone else's house for three weeks. But now I'm back! With a recipe that's not anything mind-blowing, but it definitely delicious.

I made these white chocolate shortbread biscuits, sandwiched with raspberry icing after a mishap with a slightly fancier baking experiment. These cookies were the perfect thing to console myself with after my baking fail, they were super easy to whip up and I could eat them straight away with a cuppa. I've been drinking buckets of tea since this cold weather hit. Did I mention how much I love winter? I know, I'm a weirdo. I love snuggling up under the doona, I love winter clothes (jackets, scarves, tights) and I love baking in the middle of winter.

Isn't the bright pink hue of the raspberry icing just lovely? It's so colourful and packed full of flavour. The tartness of the raspberries is an obvious match for the sweet white chocolate chips that are mixed into the buttery shortbread biscuits. I tend to gravitate towards recipes that are straightforward and quick to make as I don't often have the patience to create a dessert with multiple elements.

You might think that the shortbread is sweet enough of its own and doesn't need to be sandwiched with extra icing, but I think it's much better off with the icing. As I mentioned, the sourness of the raspberries actually makes the biscuits seem less sweet. But I might not be the best judge of the level of sweetness, I obviously have a very big sweet tooth. Plus I've been denying myself all kinds of sweet treats for the last week as part of a health kick. It was so hard to stop myself from having more of these cute little cookies!

White Chocolate Shortbread with Raspberry Icing

(makes about 20 sandwiched biscuits, adapted from this Taste recipe)

250g (about 2 1/4 sticks) butter, softened

125g (about 1 cup) icing (confectioner's) sugar, sifted

1 tsp pure vanilla essence

300g (about 2 1/3 cups) plain/all-purpose flour

200g white chocolate, finely chopped

For the icing:

125g (about 1 stick) butter, softened

250g (about 2 cups) icing (confectioner's) sugar, sifted

125g (1 punnet) fresh or frozen raspberries, pureed and strained

For the biscuits;  line two baking trays with baking paper. Place butter, sugar and vanilla in a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer on high until very pale and creamy (at least 10 minutes). Stir in flour and white chocolate pieces with a spatula then turn out on to a clean, lightly floured surface and gently bring the dough together with lightly floured hands. Try not to overhandle the dough as it will make it tougher. Split the dough into quarters and roll into logs with a 3cm diameter. Wrap each log in cling film and refrigerate for at least half an hour, until firm. ( Alternatively, you can roll tablespoons of dough, press them onto your prepared tray and chill the trays but I like to save space in my fridge.) Preheat oven to 160°C (320° F) and remove dough from fridge. Slice 1cm thick pieces of dough from the logs and place on the prepared trays, leaving at least 1.5 cm space between each biscuit. Bake for about 15 mins (swapping trays halfway through baking) or until they just start to turn golden. Take care not to overbake as this will make them crunchier. Remove from the oven and cool on tray for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

For the icing; place butter in a mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer on high until smooth and fluffy. Gradually add icing sugar, beating until combined. Add raspberry puree gradually, until you achieve your desired consistency and flavour. You want your icing to be stiff enough to hold it's shape but soft enough to spoon or pipe. Sandwich icing between cooled biscuits. Serve immediately or store in an airtight container at room temperature for a few days.

Date & Strawberry Oatmeal Cookies

In case you can't already tell, I'm sticking to the really easy comfort-food recipes at the moment. I wanted something that I could whip up really quickly to have with a cup of tea while I whinged about how tired I was and how achey all my muscled are from packing and moving. These oatmeal cookies sandwiched with a date & strawberry filling were perfect.

I didn't realise until after I was done making these that they would be the last thing I would ever bake in my current kitchen. It's made me a little sad because this is the kitchen where I really learnt to bake, the kitchen where I started my baking blog. Oatmeal cookies are definitely not the prettiest of baked goods, but something about them is so happy and warm. It wasn't a bad way to say goodbye to my current oven.

The original recipe that I used for the cookies was a fantastic one from Joy of Baking, but it was a tad too much oats and not enough cookie for my liking so I have adjusted the quantities of the oats slightly in the recipe below. Feel free to use the original recipe though, it may be because the original recipe mixes fruits and nuts into the cookie dough as well. Vanilla beans and strawberry jam are mixed into a date puree to make the filling, which was quite sweet so I reduced the amount of sugar in the recipe. They look a bit like Kingston biscuits, so there was some initial confusion from the people tasting them when they realised it was fruit and not chocolate in the middle. It's not usually a good thing to give people fruit when they are expecting chocolate but these biscuits are pretty great so they'll just have to get over it.

It took me nearly three days to pack up all my props. I can't believe how much blogging-related crap I have accumulated over the last four years! A got all judgey and was like, "Do you really need that many cake stands?". The answer is OF COURSE. Have you seen how many cakes I bake?! Geez. The next post will be coming to you from my new place, it will definitely be interesting to find out how the oven over there performs, and to get used to photographing with different light. I really need a nap right now.

Date & Strawberry Oatmeal Cookies

(makes about 20 sandwiched cookies, adapted from Joy of Baking)

170 g (3/4 cup) butter, room temperature

3/4 cup (about 150 g) packed brown sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

3/4 cup (about 100g) plain/all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 1/2 cups (about 220g) old-fashioned rolled oats

For the date filling:

1 1/2 cups (about 200g) dried pitted dates

1/2 cup water

1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste or pure vanilla extract

1/3 cup strawberry jam

Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F) and line two cookie trays with baking paper. Cream butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer on high until light and fluffly. Add egg and vanilla extract and beat to combine. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, and ground cinnamon. Add the flour mixture and beat on low until incorporated. Stir in the oats until mixture is uniform. Roll about 1 tbsp worth of mixture in your hands and gently flatten into the prepared trays so they are about 1cm thick. Make sure to leave about 1.5 cm space around each cookie as they will spread slightly. Bake for about 10-12 minutes or until golden brown but still soft in the centre. Cool for 5 minutes on the tray then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

For the filling, place dates. vanilla bean paste and water in a small saucepan on low heat and stir occasionally, until the dates are soft and have absorbed most of the water (about 5-10 minutes). Cool to room temperature and puree in a food processor or blender with the strawberry jam. Sandwich biscuits with a small dollop of filling. Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days (I kept mine in the fridge to stop them from getting too soggy).