Australia Day Bake~

I am so happy that Australia Day is a public holiday!! (and especially a University holiday!) So since I had a day off I thought I would bake a cake! I went with my dad to the markets in the morning and found some cheap strawberries and blueberries!!! Fresh summer fruits! yum! I saw this recipe from Happy Home Baker for Fruit Pastry Cake and I've always wanted to try it!

happy australia day!

I love this recipe because it's so simple and easy and you can use whatever fruits available!!

Fruit Pastry Cake

Ingredients
100g butter, softened
180g caster sugar
50g yoghurt
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla essence
210g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
500g fruits (I used strawberries, blueberries and peaches)

1. Preheat oven to 180oC and grease, line 9 inch round cake tin.
2. Cream butter, sugar and yoghurt with electric mixer till light and fluffy.
3. Add eggs gradually and bieat till incorporated in the batter. Add vanilla essence and mix to combine.
4. Sift over flour and baking poweder and mix till smooth using wooden spoon or spatula.
5. Pour batter into prepared pan and smoopth the top with a spatula.
6. Arrange fruits on top WITHOUT pressing down.
7. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until skewere comes out clean when inserted. Cover the top with foil in the last 15 minuts to prevent the top from burning.
8. Leave the cake to cool in pan and transfer to wire rack.

lots of fresh summer fruits! Yummy ^^

First bake of 2012

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY!!!! =D

Wow! its 2012~ Thank God for 2011! It was a pretty good year for me :) Thank God it went smoothly~~ hehe!

So... the last thing I baked was at the end of 2011.. I baked 2 big batches of macarons for friends from interstate and overseas :) Hope they liked them! I've been meaning to bake something for the new year but didn't seem to have the time... until today ^_^" Since tomorrow is Australia Day, I could bake something at night!

I'm calling this recipe Chuck-in Choc chip cookies! haha XD Because you randomly "chuck-in" any chocolate you can find. We chucked in chopped up hershey kisses and chocolate orange pieces. This recipe is great for any leftover chocolate that doesn't seem to taste that nice by itself because when in the cookie, it becomes all warm, melty and oozy! Mmm.. :P

The recipe is from HHB's "drop cookies" here!

Chuck-in Chocolate chip cookies

Ingredients
115g butter/margarine
115g caster sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla essence
175g plain flour, sifted
175g chopped up chocolate

1. Cream butter and sugar in a bowl till light and fluffy.
2. Add in egg and mix well. Add vanilla essence and mix.
3. Fold in flour until combined. Add chopped chocolate and mix well.
4. Place tablespoonfuls of cookie mix on baking tray (remember to allow room for cookies to spread!) and bake in preheated oven at 180oC for 12-15 minutes.

They expanded!!! :P

Mmm.. soft chocolately goodness!!

I actually found some other photos from a bake last year!!! I tried to make BBB's Colourful choc chip cookies on stick (without the stick because I couldn't find any ><").. I tried to make smiley faces but.. kinda failed =p I made them for my RE students :) using the same recipe as this but used MnM's!

MnM cookies =D

The fail smiley faces! they look kinda creepy xD