Work catering #9: Caramel slice & Banana Cake

One week seems to go by so fast! Before I know it I have to start looking for inspiration for my next bake! I do have a list of recipes that I have saved so that's always good to browse. (Also if you have any suggestions or have recipes that you have wanted to try out.. do let me know ^^).

On my new cake stand ^_^

I was thinking about classic cakes to bake and thought, I hadn't made a banana cake yet plus I'm still loving the ready made cream cheese frosting ;p

I also had my colleague's caramel slice recipe in my email and decided to give it a go! Maybe not the best time to try out a recipe.... but I think it turned out ok! Despite not having the right coconut, burning the caramel and using a cake tin that was too large! haha.. what could go wrong DID go wrong.. but in the end.. turned out ok =) Edible... 

Unfortunately I can't post this recipe because its a secret =p BUT.. There are other recipes out there which I will try and then I can share :)

Ready to serve!

Close up of caramel slice

Banana Cake
Recipe adapted from Glorious Treats

Ingredients
3/4 cup caster sugar (I used half and half brown sugar)
1/2 cup (115g) sour cream
2 eggs
3 tbs melted butter
2 mashed over ripe bananas (~3/4 cup)
1 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
250g ready made cream cheese frosting
100g walnut crumbs

1. Preheat oven to 180oC. Grease baking tin (I used 20cmx30cm and doubled this recipe)
2. Whisk together sugar, sour cream, eggs, butter, banana and vanilla until well combined.
3. Add flour, cinnamon, salt, baking soda and baking powder. Stir with whisk or spoon until well combined and smooth.
4. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for ~30 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.
5. Cool cake in tin before removing from tin. Spread frosting onto cooled cake and sprinkle walnut crumbs.

Banana cake with delicious cream cheese frosting

Squares of banana cake

MISSING PIECE :O haha

Ready for catering!

Close up of banana cake

My friend is speaking at the next lunch time seminar!! She's a CHOCOHOLIC so stay tuned for some chocolatey treats (hopefully!)

Work catering #8: Upside down and Swirly

Sorry for the delayed post!! I made these goodies last week =)

Needed a little more caramel topping and peaches

Was looking for inspiration for catering and saw that we had quite a few peaches from our peach tree at home. I also had a great upside down peach cake recipe from a magazine so decided to give it a go!

Also decided on some chocolatey biscuits and stumbled upon a recipe on the internet. Unfortunately... the cookies didn't turn out how they were supposed to (Shhhh =p) but everyone still enjoyed them! My mistake was that I used the wrong flour =____=" It's definitely a recipe I want to try out again!!! 

Upside Down Peach Cake

Recipe adapted from New Idea magazine

Ingredients

410g can sliced peaches in fruit juice (or use FRESH peaches! they're the best ^^)

125g unsalted butter, softened at room temp

1/2 cup caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

3  eggs

1 1/2 cups self-raising flour

1/2 cup milk

Caramel Topping

75g unsalted butter, melted

1/3 cup brown sugar

1. Grease and line cake tin (for a higher cake, use 20cm round cake tin... I used a 20cmx30cm rectangle baking pan).

2. Make caramel topping buy whisking butter and sugar in small bowl until well combined. Pour into prepared tin to cover base. Arrange drained peaches in a single layer.

3. Beat butter, sugar and vanilla in bowl using electric mixer until light and fluffy. 4. Beat in eggs, one at a time until just combined. Stir in flour and milk in two batches.

4. Spoon mixture into prepared pan. Bake at 180oC for around 40 minutes or until skewer inserted in centre comes out clean. 

5. Let cake cool in pan before inverting.

Peachy squares ^_^

CHOCOLATE SWIRL COOKIES

Recipe adapted from Appon's Thai Food

Ingredients

300g cake flour (this is not self-raising flour!!! It's plain flour with a bit of corn starch)

1 large egg

200g butter

150g caster sugar

16g cocoa powder

1/2 tbs water

1. Cube the butter and blend until soft. 

2. Add flour, sugar and egg and mix. Add the water a little at a time and mix to form solid dough. (Don't overmix the dough otherwise biscuits will turn out hard)

3. Split the mix into 2 equal portions. Add cocoa powder to one portion and mix until well incorporated.

4. Place plain dough onto sheet of baking paper. Place another sheet on top and roll out into a rectangle shape ~3mm thick. Do the same with chocolate dough.

5. Carefully lay the chocolate dough onto the plain dough and then roll dough up like a swiss roll. Peel the baking paper away as you roll.

6. Wrap rolled dough with baking paper and twist ends. Place in freezer for 1 hour to help the dough harden to make it easier to slice.

7. Cut biscuits into 1 cm cross-sections, place on lined baking trays and bake at 180oC for 12-15 minutes.

They should NOT look like this.... so big ><" and "cakey"..

HUGE cookies~~~

but glad they were all gobbled up :D

They should look like this...!~ so perfect!!

Work Catering #7: Cupcakes and cookies!

Back into the catering swing of things!! This week it was all about cupcakes and cookies =) I wanted to use the ready made Cream cheese frosting I had bought so I looked back at my previous recipes and found Red Velvet Cupcakes! I made mini cupcakes so I could cater for more people :p

before icing..... Just so you can see the red colour =)

Ready made cream cheese frosting!!

This stuff is the BEST! and actually cheaper and easier than making it myself... sometimes I do get lazy too ;)

My friend ripped out pages of a magazine filled with wonderful recipes for me! thanks!!! So found this simple recipe for cookies (basic dough only using 4 ingredients!!!). It makes a bunch of cookies (~50.. depending on how big or small you make them) and its so simple as well =)

Choc chip and Macadamia cookies
(Recipe adapted from New Idea magazine)

Ingredients
250g butter
200g sweetened condensed milk (1/2 x 395g can)
1/4 cup caster sugar
2 1/2 cups self-raising flour
250g dark chocolate chips
110g macadamia nut halves

1. Pre-heat oven to 170oC and line 3 baking trays with baking paper.
2. Beat butter, condensed milk and sugar in bowl until light and fluffy.
3. Stir in the flour, choc chips and nuts. (You can really add your own flavours! such as M&Ms, raisins, cranberries, walnuts....)
4. Roll teaspoons of dough into balls and place on lined baking tray. Press down with back of spoon or palm of hand to flatten cookie. (remember to leave a bit of space between each one!)
5. Bake for 10 minutes or until golden in colour.

cookies!!! :D

ready for catering~

mini mouthful

Work Catering #6: NEW YEAR 2013!

HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone :)

wow! it's already 2013! Time flies ey?

Holidays over... back to work! and back to catering =D

I had limited time for this bake so decided to stick with something I had already baked~ the Blueberry crumble slice! and then a No-bake recipe... RUMBALLS!!

Sorry there are not many photos because I kind of forgot to take them ><"

Rumballs (without the rum =p)

Ingredients
250g (1 packet) Marie biscuits
395g condensed milk
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups dessicated coconut 

1. Crush biscuits until fine.
2. Place biscuits, condensed milk, 1/2 cup coconut and cocoa powder in bowl. Mix until combined.
3. Roll into small balls. Coat with coconut. Refrigerate for 15-20 minutes.

box of rumballs! (without the rum XD)

And that's the way the Blueberry slice crumbles =p

It's sad... no more work catering for the rest of the year. Although there is one more seminar at work I will unfortunately be away (on holiday~~~). However that doesn't mean I'm not blogging or baking =p Actually I haven't been baking as much as I would like to recently.. busyyyyyy...=___= Well I did bake some macarons for an order.

Anyways decided to bake this BLUEBERRY CRUMBLE SLICE for fun :) and wanted to test this recipe out anyways ^^ The crumble wasn't as "crumbly" as I would have liked when I sprinkled it on top of the slice, but after it was baked it was nice and crispy ^^ It's also not too sweet ~

BLUEBERRY CRUMBLE SLICE
Recipe adapted from My Kitchen Snippets

Ingredients
6 tbs butter
2 eggs
1/2 cup caster sugar
2 tbs sour cream
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 cup plain flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 cups frozen blueberries (or if you have fresh even better!

Crumble topping
3 tbs butter, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup plain flour

1. Grease and line square baking tin (8" x 8"). Preheat oven to 180oC.
2. Place crumble ingredients in small bowl and mix until resembles course breadcrumbs.
3. In separate bowl, beat butter, sugar, vanilla and sour cream with electric beater until light and fluffy.
4. Add eggs one and at time, beating well after each addition. 
5. Sift in flour, salt and baking powder and mix until combined.
5. Spread batter evenly into baking pan. Cover the top of batter with blueberries (pressing berries slightly into the batter). Sprinkle the crumble topping over the blueberries.
6. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until golden brown. Allow to cool in pan before removing and slicing up.

Golden crumbly topping~~

This would taste AWESOME fresh from the oven with a scoop of vanilla icecream! <3

Slice =D =D

Taking on the ZUMBO!!!!

I'm not a firm believer in packet mixes... much rather do it from scratch.. however there are some exceptions =p So excited to see that Adriano Zumbo now has his own cake packet mix.. including his famous MACARONS!!! :D 

So what do you get in the box you ask?
1. Meringue mix (all you need to do as add water!!)
2. Almond mix (probably a mix of almond meal and icing sugar)
3. Passionfruit filling (it's like a GEL! so yum! I could eat this on its own!)
4. 2 pipings bags
5. Macaron stencil - to trace a perfect circle!

Contents of macaron mix

Piped macarons.. not as "round" as I would have liked...

*pop* macaron feet!

filling the macarons!!

Haha! just like the store bought!!! ^___^ 

So my verdict!!! Definitely worth it! The flavour was intense! As soon as I opened the packet mix I could smell passionfruit! The gel filling was awesome too!!! :D It took me a third of the time I would normally make macarons. The only downside would be that they were a little soft (but just for my liking...). I really want to try the salted caramel flavoured one now :D

NOW SELLING @ BakingTray $5 per box of 5. See "macaron menu" for ordering details.

Work catering week 5: Yo! have a Yoyo!

This week for work catering, I made Yoyos! a.k.a. Melting moments a.k.a Ladies kisses (in Italy =p). They are usually quite big when sold in cafes/bakeries but this time I made mini ones ^^ The two flavours I made were lemon and chocolate.

Yoyos
Recipe adapted from BlueBakeBlog

Ingredients
Biscuit
175g butter, softened at room temperature
1/4 cup icing sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1 1/2 cups plain flour 
1/4 cup custard powder
*1/4 cup cocoa powder (for chocolate yoyos)

Lemon buttercream
50g butter, softened at room temperature
1/2 cup icing sugar
zest of 1 lemon
juice of 1/2 lemon

Chocolate buttercream
50g butter, softened at room temperature
1/2 cup icing sugar
50g melted chocolate

1. Preheat oven to 180oC. Line 2 baking trays with baking paper.
2. Beat butter and icing sugar with electric beater until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and beat well. Sift flour and custard powder into mixture and mix well. (add in cocoa powder for chocolate yoyos)
3. Roll teaspoonfuls of mixture into balls. Place on tray and flatten with a fork. Bake for 15-20 minutes.
4. For buttercream, beat butter and sugar. Add lemon juice or melted chocolate and beat.
5. Sandwich two biscuits together with buttercream

plate of yoyos ^_^

close up of yoyos

I also made some Butterscotch brownies with a fun marbled topping :) 
You can find the recipe here.

chocolate swirly topping~~

cut up into squares

BITE sized

Close up of brownies

Hmmm.. almost running out of ideas >.< maybe I can recycle some =p