Spiced Strawberry Creme Brulee

I'm going to be honest; this was not the recipe I originally set out to make. I was going to make some coconut macaroon tart shells and fill them with jam and cream. And it was meant to be a nice simple recipe that you could easily make more Christmassy. Because it's coming to that time of the year, my favourite time of the year, when I can finally whip out all my Christmas baking ideas. The coconut macaroon tart shells used up a few egg whites, so I thought I'd be practical and use the leftover egg yolks to make a spiced custard to fill the shells, along with some strawberry jam. It was all going smoothly, the shells were baking in the oven, the custard mixture was coming together and the jam was slightly warmed, ready to be spooned into the bottom of the shells.

And then it all went bad. The shells refused to budge out of the tart tins no matter how hard I tried, and they fell apart. Clumps of coconut were thrown against the wall in frustration. I panicked and made up a whole new batch of coconut macaroon mixture and decided to turn it into a slice, so I pressed a thin layer of it into a tray and started baking that. Then I panicked more and decided against it and pull it out of the oven and tried to make individual cookies with it but it was already too far baked and I had to throw that away too. Balls. I really didn't want to waste the custard mixture that I had already made, it was so delicious and would be perfect for the holiday season. So in my last ditch effort at saving SOMETHING, I made these; Spiced Strawberry Crème Brûlée. The custard is flavoured with golden syrup, cinnamon, ginger and all other kinds of spices, and at the bottom sits a layer of strawberry jam and a little bit of brandy. And of course that thin, glossy layer of caramelised sugar on top that makes the perfect, satisfying crack as your spoon breaks through it. It wasn't too shabby considering the crazy, messy path I took to end up there.

Of course, in my panicked state I didn't have a lot of patience so I probably underbaked these crème brûlées a little. Or a lot. And I barely chilled them, so the ones you see in the pictures are no where near as set as they should be. But they tasted oh so delightful, and all those beautiful spices made the mixture extra delicious (though the spices do make the custard look a little ugly and brown). Digging a little deeper gets you that hit of strawberry jam goodness, which would taste just as great if you substituted it with cherry jam, or marinated some freshly chopped strawberry pieces in some sugar and brandy overnight. The possibilities are endless.

So no coconut macaroon tarts, but I still somehow managed to pull off a simple recipe that feels like a good way to transition into holiday baking. Hopefully my next attempt at something will be slightly less disastrous, I still have a lot of cleaning up to do in the kitchen thanks to this debacle :( In the meantime, feel free to check out my Christmas baking ideas from previous years, which you can find in the 'Holidays' section of my Recipes Index. I'd definitely like to see a few more Gingerbread Igloos this year.

Spiced Strawberry Crème Brûlée
(adapted from this rhubarb and vanilla creme brulee recipe, makes approx 6)
430ml (about 1 1/2 cups) whipping cream (35% fat pouring cream)
1 vanilla bean, split lengthways (can be replaced with 1 tsp pure vanilla extract)
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp all spice
1/4 tsp ground ginger
6 egg yolks
75g (1/4 cup) golden syrup (replace with 75g sugar if unavailable)
About 2/3 cup strawberry jam mixed with 1 tbsp brandy (optional) - alternatively chop up 1 punnet strawberries and marinate overnight in 2 tbsp sugar + 1 tbsp brandy (optional)
Caster sugar for burning

Preheat oven to 150°C (300°F). Place cream in a small saucepan, scrape the seeds of the vanilla bean into the cream and add the bean, cinnamon, ginger and all spice. Bring to the boil over high heat. As soon as it boils, remove from the heat and set aside for about 10 minutes.

Place egg yolks in stainless steel bowl and use a whisk to combine. Add golden syrup and whisk for about 30 seconds, or until the syrup has combined and the mixture is pale. Pour the slightly cooled cream through a fine sieve, discarding the vanilla bean, then pour the cream into the egg yolk mixture, stirring well to combine.

Spoon about 1 tbsp of the strawberry jam & brandy mixture into the bottom of 6 1/2 cup ramekins and then add the warm custard mixture over the top until full. Place ramekins in a deep baking tray and pour in enough water to come halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Bake in oven for about 45 minutes, or until just set. Remove from the oven and cool, then chill in the fridge for at least 4 hours. Spoon about 2 tsp of caster sugar over each ramekin and caramelise the sugar with a kitchen blowtorch, or with your grill. Serve immediately.

Chocolate Cereal Milk Mousse & Coco Pops

This post is coming to you a lot later than it should be. The main reason is because I am a lazy fatty who spent the entire weekend indulging on carbs. Deeeelicious. But I really did try to make up for it by whipping up this easy dessert on Monday. And then the sun disappeared. I'm not exaggerating, anyone who has been in Sydney will understand what I mean, it has been dark and grey with nowhere near enough natural light to take photos. And so my poor blog sat there neglected for a couple of days while I stared despondently out the window at the pouring rain. So much for a quick, easy blog post for this week! But I finally decided to give it a go after work yesterday, the light was pretty iffy so apologies if it looks a bit strange.

After the crazy, over-the-topness of a 5-layer ombre effect birthday sprinkle cake in my last post, I thought it might be a good idea to take a breather and do something a little less complicated. It was also stinking hot for a lot of last week, so the last thing that I felt like doing was turning on the oven. While searching through recipes on the internet I came across the one for Momofuku's strawberry pannacotta with cereal milk mousse and cornflake crumble. While I never got fully swept up by the hype that was their crack pie, I've always been very intrigued by the idea of cereal milk. I think it's such a fabulous idea, which would invoke so many childhood memories. So I decided to finally give it a go, but with a little bit of a twist - instead of using cornflakes I would use one of the cereals I grew up with; Coco Pops, to make a chocolate cereal milk mousse that I would top off with even more cocoa pops. So it would be as the slogan goes, 'just like a chocolate milkshake, only crunchy'!

It's funny the things you find out while coming up with recipe ideas. I had no idea that not everyone knew about the whole chocolate milkshake only crunchy thing. I grew up hearing it! I didn't know that in the US they don't call them cocoa pops, they call them cocoa krispies. Which I guess makes more sense since they're cocoa flavoured rice krispies...But then in Australia we call them rice bubbles not rice krispies, argh! And they don't have them in Canada. This made me sad. Though apparently they sell something similar so I guess that's okay. Either way, I wanted to use this cocoa flavoured cereal to make a light, chocolatey dessert with a crunchy layer on top. I was a little worried the cocoa coating on the cereal would just make the mousse have a weird fake chocolate powdery texture, which it sort of seemed like it was going to halfway through making it. But after mixing in the cream it turned into this beautiful, light, completely uniquely flavoured mousse.

Take note, this is NOT a chocolate mousse. Do not make this recipe if you want a chocolate mousse. It tastes just like a bowl of cocoa pops with milk. I put a thin layer of chocolate ganache on the top of each mousse, to keep the cocoa pops on top separate so they wouldn't go soggy too quickly and it also makes up for the lack of any real chocolate in the mousse. It worked like a charm. But I did find that the cereal milk mousse was a little too firm for my liking, since the original recipe is meant to be set on top of a pannacotta. I've adjusted the amount of gelatin in the recipe so hopefully it will be a little lighter and softer. Anyway, it's a fast, fun and light dessert and if you like cocoa pops as much as I do, you should definitely make it.

Chocolate Cereal Milk Mousse & Cocoa Pops
(adapted from Momofuku's cereal milk mousse recipe, serves 4)
For the cereal-milk mousse:
3 cups cocoa pops (AKA cocoa krispies)
2 cups whole milk
1 1/4 tsp powdered gelatine
Pinch of salt
2 tbsp caster sugar
1 cup heavy cream (I used 35% fat pouring/pure cream)

For the topping:
100ml (a bit less than 1/2 cup) heavy cream (I used 35% fat pouring/pure cream)
100g dark chocolate. chopped into small pieces
Extra cocoa pops to top off

Preheat the oven to 135°C (275°F). On a lined baking tray, toast the cereal for 5 minutes. Set aside to cool. In a sealable container, combine the toasted cereal and milk. Let steep for 20 minutes, then strain into a measuring cup; the mixture should yield about 1 cup of 'cereal milk'.

Place 1/2 cup cereal milk in a medium bowl. Sprinkle powdered gelatin on top. In a small saucepan, scald 1/2 cup cereal milk with the salt and sugar. Whisk hot milk into the cool milk until the gelatine is dissolved. Chill until almost set (I basically chilled mine and checked on it every 5 minutes until it was thick and almost going lumpy, at which point I whisked it until smooth and proceeded).

Whip the cream to stiff peaks and fold it into the almost-set gelatine mixture. Pour mixture into 4 serving glasses. Chill in the fridge while preparing the topping. Put chopped chocolate in a medium heatproof bowl. Place 100ml cream in a small saucepan on medium-low heat and just bring to the boil. Pour hot cream over the chocolate and leave to sit for a minute to allow chocolate to melt. Use a whisk to mix, ensuring that it is smooth and all the chocolate has melted (if it hasn't, place the bowl over a pan of simmering water and stir until smooth).

Leave to cool for about 5 minutes (ensure that the mixture is still pourable, otherwise you will have to reheat). Carefully pour a thin layer of the chocolate mixture over the top of each mousse glass. Sprinkle a layer of cocoa pops over the top. Chill until set, at least one hour. Best served on the same day to ensure cereal layer is still crunchy.

Edit: Oops I just realised I spent the whole post misspelling it Cocoa Pops when it's actually Coco Pops...but I can't be bothered fixing it all through the post, sorry!

Purple Ombre Sprinkles Cake

Tomorrow is my birthday, and though I've reached the stage where birthdays don't excite me anymore I thought I would do a fun cake for this week since I didn't have anything else planned. I wanted to do a crazy cake that was 100% just for me, just all the things I loved and have wanted to put into a birthday cake. And that means sprinkles and lots and lots of purple. Enter Steph's crazy purple ombré sprinkles cake with salted buttercream. I've always been in complete awe of all the amazing colourful layered cakes I see on different blogs, especially the gorgeous ones that have the ombré effect. I never though I'd be able to pull off one, it seemed like something that required patience and to be neat and meticulous and I can't do any of that very well. But since this cake was entirely for me, the only person I would be disappointing is myself if I failed so I went for it.

I've had a really bad week. Really bad. At first the thought of baking while in the middle of this horrible week seemed like a terrible idea but then I remembered that baking is my happy place, my therapy. So I pottered around the kitchen and lost myself in this recipe and it really did make me feel better. I used the most reliable yellow cake recipe I knew of, from my Le Cordon Bleu cooking book. It's deliciously buttery, the batter is stable enough to deal with a lot of mixing and the texture and moisture of the cake works well for layered cakes. It's one of the first cakes I ever made while learning to bake. The original cake is for a 3 layered cake, but I split up the mixture into five layers so I could get a good range of purple shading. I only have one 20cm cake tin which meant I had to bake 5 cakes, one after the other, cleaning, regreasing and lining each tin in between. It took a while and took my mind off my crappy week. And it also reminded me once again that I need to buy more cake tins.

I used Wilton colouring gel and it worked absolute wonders. I usually find it's way too hard to to get the perfect shade of purple when using red and blue colouring so I saved myself the trouble and got some violet colouring. I am absolutely in love with the effect of the shading, and surprised that I managed to get the gradient of shading right. I did a little happy dance when I cut into the cake for the first time. And I also chortled smugly at the recent memory of someone who worked at a professional bakery telling me that to get this kind of shading between each layer would require someone to make 60 cake layers before they got it right. Haha whatevs.

I decided to use the leftover blackcurrant jam from my Ribena Cupcakes from last week. I love jam in cakes so much, it keeps them moist and gives it a nice burst of flavour. And it worked great since it was purple too. I used my favourite icing, the simple salted butter icing that I can't stop using recently. I originally was planning to do a crazy bright purple icing but decided to keep it simple and white, to give you the surprise of the bright colour when you cut into the cake. It works so well, as learnt from the epic Whisk Kid rainbow cake that is burned into my memory as the best cake ever. Originally I wanted to cover the entire cake in chocolate freckles because I recently rediscovered my love for them. But when I started to cover the cake in the freckles I realised the cake looked pretty damn ugly, like it was covered in festering warts. Lovely, I know. So I went into full panic mode and ripped off all the freckles and started slapping rainbow sprinkles all over the cake to cover up the mess I'd made. Sprinkles EVERYWHERE. I even found a sprinkle in my belly button when getting changed later. It was a mess, but my cake ended up looking like one giant freckle and that is kinda awesome. It reminded me of this amazing cake from Sprinkle Bakes. And check out the stunning Vanilla Malt Sprinkle Bark Cake Lisa made me! Sprinkles make everything better.

Purple Ombré Sprinkles Birthday Cake
(makes one round 18cm 5-layer cake, yellow cake recipe adapted from Le Cordon Bleu Complete Cooking Step-by-Step)
Note: Sorry US readers, I didn't have time to measure the ingredients in cups so I could convert the measurements for you, you'll have to convert it yourself or use some kitchen scales for this one! Thanks to Reanna for posting the US conversions for the recipe in the comments below, you can see them here.

For the cake:
355g plain flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
225ml milk
2 tsp vanilla extract (I used 1 tsp extract and 1 tsp vanilla bean paste)
400g caster sugar
225g unsalted butter, softened
4 medium eggs
Purple food colour (I used Wilton violet gel colouring)
Jam to spread between layers, I used blackcurrant jam but you could use grape or strawberry, or double the amount of icing and use that

For the icing:
500g icing sugar sifted (easiest way to sift is by pulsing in a food processor)
275g salted butter (about 2.5 sticks)
Extra table salt to taste
Optional: sprinkles to decorate

Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F) and grease whatever 18cm round cake tins you have (I only had one so I had to bake each cake one after the other). If you only have 20cm cake tins I'd recommend splitting the batter into only 4 layers instead of 5. 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 for 2 mins or until pale and creamy. 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). Beat until smooth, occasionaly scraping bowl with a spatula. Divide mixture evenly into 5 medium bowls (I did this by measure the batter, it ended up being about 300g per bowl for me). Leave one bowl of batter white, then very gradually add colouring to each bowl and gently fold it into the mixture, adding slightly more colouring as you do each bowl so that the 5 bowls give you a even gradient of colour.

Pour batter into prepared tins and bake each layer for about 15-20 minutes or until a skewer into the centre comes out clean and the outside is golden. Cool in tin for 5 mins and then turn out onto wire racks to cool completely. 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 pale and fluffy. While still mixing, gradually add any extra table salt to taste if needed.

Prepare cake for icing, you may need to trim the tops a bit to make sure they are level. Layer cakes with jam (or more icing). Crumb coat the cake with some of the prepared icing and chill for 15 mins. Cover the cake with more icing, smoothing out with a spatula (I use an offset spatula that I keep clean and warm by running under hot water to get it smoother). If decorating with sprinkles, it can get pretty messy so place your cake in a large container that will catch any of the sprinkles that will run off the cake as you try to stick them on the sides of the cake. Serve cake at room temperature, store cake in the fridge in an airtight container.

Ribena Cupcakes

If this entire blog wasn't already enough of a testament to my extreme sweet tooth, I'll share another bit of information. Throughout most of primary and high school my Mum could not get me to drink plain water, no matter how hard she tried. I would only drink Ribena, I loved the stuff. For those of you not familiar with Ribena, it's a super sweet blackcurrant cordial and I used to drink buckets of it. I'm not quite sure why I stopped drinking it as much, but I think it was replaced with an addiction to apple juice boxes when I moved to Sydney. And then I remember there was all this scandal because some school students found out that ribena had something like NO vitamin C in it, but I just shrugged it off since that was never the reason I drank the stuff.

So I decided to test out a new cupcake flavour as a tribute to this super sweet drink; Ribena Cupcakes. I was a little worried since I figured the cordial was probably not strong enough in flavour to make my cake batter and icing taste distinctly of blackcurrant. But then I happened across blackcurrant jam in the supermarket (I can't believe I've never bought it before, maybe because the jar looked so similar to the blackberry jam that I passed it by) and the jam tastes exactly like a super concentrated ribena. It worked like a charm, these cupcakes taste just like ribena. And to top it all off, a blackcurrant pastille on top. Does anyone love blackcurrant pastilles as much as me? I usually force myself to avoid them because if I buy them I will eat the entire pack in one sitting and end up with a black tongue, purple lips and a crazy sugar high.

I used my foolproof cupcake recipe as the base of the cake batter, replacing the liquid with ribena and reducing the amount of sugar. That's why it's my foolproof cupcake recipe, it seems to handle whatever kind of crazy adaptations I make to it. The cake itself doesn't have a super strong flavour of blackcurrant, just a pretty purple hue. But I filled the centres with a big dollop of blackcurrant jam to make up for it. I was playing around with the idea of doing a Swiss meringue buttercream for the icing, but I realise that these days I still prefer eating a regular butter icing. And this one tastes pretty awesome. In the same way that my strawberry jam buttercream is so full of flavour, this blackcurrant icing really packs a delicious punch.

There's so much about these cupcakes that are very me. Look how purple they are! When I got the idea for these cupcakes in the middle of last week, I couldn't resist ordering these adorable papers from emerald + ella and they arrived in time for my weekend baking :) And they really do taste like ribena, even though the thing making them taste like ribena isn't the ribena haha. I'd consider it my early birthday present to myself, but my birthday isn't for another week so I still have time to make myself a crazy birthday cake if I want to...I'm not sure if I can be bothered...We'll see!

Ribena (Blackcurrant) Cupcakes
(makes 12-14 cupcakes, adapted from my foolproof cupcake recipe)
1/3 cup ribena cordial (not mixed with extra water)
2 eggs
125g unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup caster sugar
225g self-raising flour
1 jar blackcurrant jam (1 tsp jam per cupcake)

For the icing:
Note: if you are looking for a slightly lighter topping, you could either do a simple icing sugar and ribena glaze, or a Swiss Meringue Buttercream with ribena added
210g butter (about 1 3/4 sticks), chopped into small cubes
375g (about 3 cups) sifted icing sugar
2 tbsp ribena cordial
3 tbsp blackcurrant jam
Optional: Blackcurrant pastilles to decorate

Preheat oven to 190°C (375°F) (if fan-forced use 180°C (350°F)) and line a cupcake tray with paper cases. There are two options for preparation, either work just as well as the other. Combine all cake ingredients in a food processor and blend for 2 minutes. If you have extra time and are worried about over-mixing the flour like me, blend the ribena, butter, sugar and eggs together first for one minute, then add the flour and blend for another minute. If you don't have a food processor, cream butter and sugar together using an electric beater until light and smooth. Add eggs one at a time and beat in well. Add the ribena and flour and quickly mix until combined, avoid overbeating the flour.

Pour cake mixture in paper cases, filling them about 3/4 full. It's usually easiest to use a table spoon to scoop the batter and then drop it into your paper cases. Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes or until golden and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool in tin for 5 minutes and then carefully remove and cool cakes on wire rack completely.

Prepare the icing; remove butter from fridge 30 mins before starting. Beat chopped butter in a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer on high until smooth and fluffy. With the mixer on low, gradually add sifted icing sugar until combined, then beat on high until smooth and fluffy. Add ribena and jam gradually, you may need to add extra icin sugar to ensure your icing is the right consistency. It should be smooth but not runny. Use a small knife to cut a circle of cake out of the middle of the cupcakes. Fill the centre with a teaspoon of jam (you may need to use a small spoon to dig out more cake so there is enough space) and replace the cut out cake tops. Pipe icing over the top of the filled cupcakes. Decorate with blackcurrant pastilles on top and serve immediately. Can be stored in an airtight container for several days, serve at room temperature.

Strawberry Milk Macarons with Cookie Dough Buttercream

It's interesting how much of an influence my childhood has had on my favourite flavours. I grew up eating light sponges and regular yellow birthday cakes and I've never had the least bit of interest in dense mud cakes. I had a mug of hot milo before bed on most evenings, and that obsession has never gone away. Grape flavoured bubble tape and Grape Fanta has ensured my attachment to fake grape flavoured treats. And the strip of strawberry in a tub of neapolitan ice cream has locked in my intense love for all things strawberry milk flavoured. It may be artificial tasting to some people and it does tend to make me feel a little ill because I always have too much, but strawberry ice cream, strawberry flavoured milk and (I'm a little ashamed to admit it) Macca's strawberry thickshakes are my weakness. I can never resist it but I always regret it later.

Suze was telling me about the strawberry milk macarons from Cafe Cre Asion that sounded amazing and I really wanted to try. With the combination of my strawberry flavoured milk weakness and Suze's encouraging "Dooooo it"'s, I had to test it out for myself. I decided to combine it with another idea that I had for a cookie dough buttercream. It seemed kind of appropriate, I've mentioned on this blog before that I have a serious weakness for choc chip cookies. They are the one thing besides scones that I will whip up randomly just so I can be a total pig, and I can never stop at one. So this macaron flavour was full of all the things I was addicted to.

I thought about flavouring the macaron shells with Strawberry Nesquik to give it the strawberry milk flavour, and some quick searching on the internet proved to me that it should work well (see What The Fruitcake?!). I also found a cookie dough buttercream from Annie Eats which looked amazing and I had to try. Oh my god. THIS BUTTERCREAM IS ON ANOTHER LEVEL. It is so good. I insist that you try it immediately, put it on a cupcake or just sit there are eat it straight out of the mixing bowl with a wooden spoon like I did. And it has the added bonus of not having any raw egg in it. It really tastes just like cookie dough, I also used slightly salted butter to give it a little extra kick and mixed in small dark chocolate chip bits in the hope that it would help offset the super sweetness from the strawberry nesquik in the macaron shells.

I was actually surprised by how intense the flavour of strawberry came through in the macarons. It was almost too strong, it kind of overpowered the flavour of the cookie dough buttercream. I'm glad that I made sure to fill the macarons with a very thick layer of buttercream, it really needed it and it tasted so good. I've also adjusted the amount of strawberry nesquik in the macarons because I think I used a little too much in my original recipe. I'd even consider adding even more salt to the buttercream, because it still seemed a tad too sweet for my liking. But you really can taste that strawberry milk flavour in these macarons. It might not be everyone's favourite flavour, but it's one of mine and I can't say no to it.

Strawberry Milk Macarons with Cookie Dough Buttercream
(buttercream recipe adapted from Annie Eats)
100g aged egg whites (you can use fresh eggs too, just make sure they are room temperature. I always use fresh these days, and zap it in the microwave on defrost for 10 seconds)
110g almond meal, at room temperature and well sifted
150g icing sugar
50g Strawberry Nesquik
50g caster sugar
Optional: 1 tsp powdered egg whites (available from The Essential Ingredient), helps to stabilise egg whites but is not necessary

For the buttercream:
115g (1 stick) butter, at room temperature (I used slightly salted butter)
1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 cup sifted icing sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp milk
1/2 pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup mini dark chocolate chips (or very finely chopped dark chocolate, I pulsed mine through the food processor to break it up)

Prepare the macarons; Line two baking sheets with baking paper. Place icing sugar and strawberry nesquik in food processor and pulse for a minute to remove any lumps. Stir in almond meal and pulse for about 30 seconds to combine. Place in a large mixing bowl and set aside. Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites and egg white powder in a medium mixing bowl until the egg white powder dissolves and it reaches soft peaks. With the mixer on high speed, gradually add sugar (and then add food colouring) and beat until it reaches stiff peaks.

Add meringue and to your dry mixture and mix, quickly at first to break down the bubbles in the egg white (you really want to beat all the large bubbles out of the mixture, be rough!), then mix carefully as the dry mixture becomes incorporated and it starts to become shiny again. Take care not to overmix, the mixture should flow like lava and a streak of mixture spread over the surface of the rest of the mixture should disappear after about 30 seconds. Place in a piping bag and pipe rounds of about 3.5cm diameter on baking sheets. Tap baking sheets carefully and firmly on the benchtop a couple times to remove any large bubbles.

Leave to dry for about half an hour to an hour, so that when you press the surface of one gently it does not break. This will help prevent any cracking and help the feet to form on the macs. Preheat your oven to 140-150°C (285-300°F), depending on your oven. Place on top of an overturned roasting tray or another baking sheet if your sheets are not professional grade, for better heat distribution. Bake for 15-20 minutes, depending on the size of your shells. Carefully test if the base of the shell is ready by gently lifting one and if it's still soft and sticking to the baking paper, then it needs to bake for a few minutes longer. Remove from the oven and cool on the tray for a few minutes, then gently remove from the sheet and place on a wire rack to cool completely.

Prepare the icing, beat together the butter and brown sugar a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer on high until creamy. With the mixer on low, gradually add sifted icing sugar, then increase speed and beat until combined. Beat in the flour and salt on low until just combined. With the mixer still on low, beat in the milk and vanilla extract until smooth and well blended. Fold in mini chocolate chips until evenly distributed. Sandwich macaron shells with a generous amount of buttercream, I used about a tablespoon or so for each. Refrigerate overnight in an airtight container to allow the flavour to mature. Serve at room temperature.

Orange Cake with Fruit Tingles Icing

Updated note: For those of you who saw my Fizzy Candy Cake printed in Woman's World Magazine, you might notice that they changed my recipe to use Pop Rocks in the icing. If they had asked my opinion I wouldn't have recommended that, as it is meant to be a fizzy sherbert icing, not a popping candy icing. The recipe below includes suggestions for more suitable candies that are similar to Fruit Tingles, like Bottle Caps, SweeTarts or Smarties.
My fiancé A loves any food that is super sour. He sucks on lemons. This must be part of the whole opposite attracts thing, since I'm about as happy to suck on lemons as he is to eat a scone. He's very picky about his sweets, but one of his favourite lollies are Fruit Tingles. I'm not sure if anyone outside of Australia has had these, but they are these tart, pastel-coloured tablet candies, which have fizzy sherbet powder in them, hence the tingly part of Fruit Tingles. These are one of the many sweets that we have to bring along with us on any car or plane trip, in fact I recently pulled out one of my hand-luggage bags and found a fruit tingle rolling around the bottom of the bag. Also A insists that only the multi-coloured fruit tingle in the pack (there's usually only one in each pack) is THE fruit tingle, and none of the other colours should be called fruit tingles. But whatever, I crushed up all the different colours to make this Fruit Tingles Icing, isn't it pretty??? It is. It's pretty, and very tingly. That might sound a bit wrong but it tastes so right heehee...

I've been having a bit of a drought in baking inspiration recently. I'd been sort of toying with the idea of doing an orange sherbet cake but I couldn't quite figure out how to make it my own. Then Regex Man suggested that I make something with Fruit Tingles, remembering the Fruit Tingles Milkshake he once had Bells Milk Bar. It had to be done! I immediately decided to do a layered orange cake with a butter icing that had crushed up fruit tingles mixed into it. A bit of research also happened to find me these amazing fruit tingle macarons on Flickr which I think is just as awesome an idea. But I really wanted to slather an entire cake with loads of this fruit tingle icing. Don't worry if you can't get Fruit Tingles where you live, any fizzy hard candies will do. Suze tells me that the US equivalent is Bottle Caps or Smarties (not the chocolate covered candy with the same name) or SweeTarts, but since I haven't had these myself I can't say for sure that they're the same or similar enough. (Or Barratt's Refreshers for those in the UK?)

Since I know that icing a layered cake is always going to be messy and will take me ages to get it nice and neat, I was glad to have a super easy cake recipe that I could whip up in a few minutes. Stephanie Alexander's orange tea cake has got to be one of the easiest, yummiest cake recipes I've ever used. It's the same recipe that I ended up adapting to use for my foolproof cupcake recipe. You literally throw the ingredients into the food processor, whizz it up and bake it. I adapted it in this recipe so it could be baked as three separate cake layers, but you could always bake it in one deep cake tin and slice it up. I also reduced the amount of sugar since it was going to be covered in heaps of icing. I used salted butter in the icing which stops it from being so sweet that it makes your teeth hurt. But I wouldn't make this cake if you're scared of sugar or butter. There's a LOT of sugar and butter in the icing. Though if you're really scared of butter and/or sugar you probably shouldn't be reading my blog most of the time.

The icing is most definitely the star of this cake. I've been making a lot of awesome simple butter icing recipes recently, they're the ones that I love to eat on cakes and they're the easiest to get right. The little nubbins of Fruit Tingle bits give this icing that beautiful speckled pastel coloured look, and add the sour fizzy sherbet flavour that A is so fond of. It goes really well with the orange cake, and you could easily adapt this recipe into a cupcake recipe too. I am pretty sure this recipe would be a winner at a birthday party, especially if the kids (or adults) love Fruit Tingles as much as A does.

In other random news, I was lucky enough to be asked by SBS Food to be one of their Featured Foodies on their website this month. They've done great features on some of my favourite food bloggers in the past and you can see mine here.

And OH MY GOD there's even a (very old) photo of me. But at least I'm not posing with Tupperware boobies or anything, which has happened on another blog before and shall not be mentioned again. Anyway go check it out!

Fruit Tingles Cake (Orange Cake with Fizzy Sherbet Icing)
(makes one 3-layered 20cm round cake, cake recipe adapted from Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion)
For the cake:
1 1/2 large oranges
3 eggs
165g (about 1.5 sticks) unsalted butter
3/4 cup caster sugar (superfine white sugar)
300g (approx 2 cups) self-raising flour

For the icing:
350g butter (I like to use salted butter for this)
750g (about 6 cups) icing sugar, sifted
4 rolls (about 140g) Fruit tingles, or any other fizzy tablet candies like Bottle Caps or Smarties (not the chocolate covered candy with the same name), SweeTarts or Barratt's Refreshers, plus an extra roll to decorate on top if you wish

Preheat oven to 190°C (375°F) (if fan-forced use 180°C (350°F)) and grease, line the base and dust with flour three 20cm round baking tins. If you're like me and only own one tin, you can re-use the tin and bake three cakes, one after the other. Zest and juice orange (I ended up with about 1/2 cup of juice). Combine all cake ingredients in a food processor and blend for 2 minutes. If you have extra time and are worried about over-mixing the flour like me, blend the orange juice and zest, butter, sugar and eggs together first for one minute, then add the flour and blend for another minute. If you don't have a food processor, cream butter and sugar together using an electric beater until light and smooth. Add eggs at a time and beat in well. Add the juice, zest and flour and quickly mix until combined, avoid overbeating the flour. Split the batter into three equal portions (I used a scale to measure it exactly), and pour into prepared tin(s) and smooth with a spatula. Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes or until golden and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool in tin for 5 minutes and then carefully remove and cool cake on wire rack completely. (Cakes can be made a day ahead and wrapped in cling film in the fridge overnight before icing)

When all 3 cakes are completely cool, start preparing the icing by removing the salted butter from the fridge 30 mins before starting. Place butter in a large mixing bowl and beat until smooth and fluffy with an electric mixer on high. Gradually add icing sugar with the mixer on medium, then when it is combined beat on high until light and fluffy. You may need to adjust the amount of icing sugar to obtain the right consistency of icing, you want it to be smooth but not holding its shape, not runny. Crush fruit tingles in a food processor or by smashing it up in a zip lock bag and beat crushed lollies into the icing until even. Sandwich the three cakes with an even layer of icing between them, crumb coat cake and then chill for about half an hour, then cover then cover the entire cake in another layer of icing, smoothing out with a spatula or palette knife. Top cake with extra fruit tingles and chill for about 20 mins to set the icing. Serve at room temperature, can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for several days.

Mango Milkshake with Coconut Sorbet & Sago

Of all the things I like to whinge about in the sticky, humid hotter months in Sydney, one thing that I absolutely love is the massive amounts of mangoes available. Mangoes are one of my absolute favourite fruits, and I'm really glad to see them showing up in the markets more and more as the weather warms up. I felt like doing a mango shake with a twist, by adding some easy homemade coconut sorbet and sago pearls. It's actually more of a thickshake, because I prefer my milkshakes to be thick, rich and creamy. And it's the perfect way to celebrate the arrival of the warmer weather with something fresh and easy.

I've always loved sago pearls since I was little; my Mum would always make bubur cha cha (is that how you spell it? I'm never sure.), a sweet dessert soup with sago pearls, taro and sweet potato pieces and flavoured with pandan and palm sugar. We called the sago pearls 'frog eggs', because of their look and texture and while that might sound gross to some people, I've always been fascinated with them. And then on a recent visit to Universal restaurant I was totally blown away by the desserts, one of which included a gorgeous tapioca pearl cream. I ate it with child-like glee and I was immediately inspired to start using either tapioca or sago pearls in desserts as soon as possible.

Lisa managed to pick me up some beautifully ripe mangoes from Harris Farm Markets, and also these amazingly addictive roasted coconut chips. I knew I had to use them together for this dessert. I blended up the mango with evaporated milk (inspired by the mango, sago & pomelo dessert you usually have at yum cha), and coconut sorbet. I was tempted to just use store-bought sorbet, but ended up adapting Lisa's easy recipe for homemade coconut sorbet. It's so easy and takes about 5 minutes of preparation, so it's definitely worth the extra effort.

I just love the addition of sago pearls to this drink. It's definitely something that you need to drink through a straw, so that you get the little pops of bubbles, like a mini bubble tea. The drink is quite rich and thick, so you don't need too much to be satisfied. Although you could always adjust the amount of each ingredients to make it less rich and thick if you like. The roasted coconut chips that I crumbled up and sprinkled on top was the perfect topping, but regular toasted coconut flakes would work just as well. I think this shake, served in small portions in little milk bottles with paper straws would be so cute to serve to guests.

Mango Shake with Coconut Sorbet & Sago Pearls
(makes enough to serve 4-5 people)
2 medium mangoes, peeled and stone removed (about 300-400g)
1 cup evaporated milk (I used light, can also be substituted with regular milk)
Coconut sorbet (store-bought, or see below for easy homemade recipe)
30g (about 1/8 cup) small sago pearls (you can substitute with tapioca pearls but you will have to adjust the cooking method to suit the tapioca)
Optional: Toasted coconut flakes or roasted coconut chips to top off, and extra cubes of mango

For the coconut sorbet (adapted from spicyicecream):
1 x 400g coconut cream
1/3 cup water
3 tbsp caster sugar

If you're making your own coconut sorbet, prepare it the day before; Place sugar and water in a small saucepan on medium heat and stir until the sugar dissolves completely. Remove from the heat and cool for 5 mins. Whisk in the coconut cream until smooth. Chill mixture for at least an hour, then churn in an ice-cream maker according the manufacturer's instructions (or freeze until frozen, stirring mixture every 30 minutes).

Prepare the sago pearls; fill a small saucepan 3/4 full with water and bring to the boil. Add sago pearls and boil until the pearls just turn completely transparent (about 10-15 mins). Make sure not to over cook the pearls or they will turn to mush. As soon as they are just cooked, drain in a sieve and run under cold water. Puree mango flesh in a blender or food processor until smooth. In a blender or milkshake maker, place puree, evaporated milk and about 4-5 scoops of coconut sorbet and pulse until smooth. You may need to adjust the amount of milk and sorbet to taste, depending on how thick you want it. Gradually add and stir in the sago pearls, depending on how much you want. I used about 2 tbsp per person. Top off with another scoop of coconut sorbet, toasted coconut and mango pieces. Serve immediately in glasses with straws.