Work catering #46: Citrus week~

Winter has arrived!!! Time to stock up on vitamin C~ haha so decided to use citrus in my bakes this week! I've used orange and lemon as I have an abundant supply at home (we have a lemon tree ^^). Disclaimer: the vitamin C levels in these bakes are probably not enough to protect you from the flu or colds =p and the sugar probably outweighs the health benefits.. but HEY! they are tasty ^___^

Orange Zested Cranberry White Chocolate Bliss Bars
(I just realised I named all my photos wrong =_=")
Recipe adapted from Mels Kitchen Café

Ingredients

Blondies
113g butter
1 1/3 cups brown sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1 tsp freshly grated orange zest
2 cups plain flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 cup dried cranberries, coarsely chopped
113g white chocolate

Frosting and topping
250g cream cheese, softened at room temperature
3/4 cup soft icing sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla essence
2 tsp freshly grated orange zest
113g white chocolate, melted
1/2 cup dried cranberries, coarsely chopped

1. Preheat oven to 180oC. Grease and line rectangular (20x30cm) baking pan.
2. Melt butter in microwave. Stir in brown sugar until well combined. Whisk in eggs one at a time until combined. Stir in vanilla essence and orange zest.
3. Stir in the flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon until well combined. Fold in the cranberries and white chocolate.
4. Spread batter evenly in prepared pan. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. (Be care not to overbake... I think I may have). Allow to cool completely in pan.
5. For frosting, beat cream cheese and icing sugar together using electric mixer until light and fluffy. Mix in vanilla and half the white chocolate.
6. Spread frosting on cooled bars. Sprinkle with cranberries and orange zest then drizzle with remaining white chocolate over the top. Refrigerate until chocolate is set.

having fun drizzling the white choc

new style of cut! the triangle!

should be "zested orange" T_T

Lovely colours... of autumn! hehe

Lemon Lemonies

Recipe adapted from Bakerella

Ingredients
1 cup plain flour
1 cup caster sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tbs lemon zest
3/4 cup (170g) butter, melted and cooled
2 eggs
3 tbs lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla

Icing
1 1/2 cups soft icing sugar
2 tbs lemon juice
1 tsp lemon zest

1. Preheat oven to 180oC. Grease and line 23x23cm square pan.
2. Mix flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and zest together with whisk.
3. Add melted butter, lemon juice, eggs and vanilla and stir until completely combined.
4. Pour into prepared pan and bake for 20-25 minutes or until skewer inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool.
5. For lemon icing, sift icing sugar in medium bowl. Add lemon juice and zest and mix. Add enough water until you reach smooth consistency. Pour over lemonies and let rest until icing sets. Place in the fridge to speed things up.
6. Cut into small bite size pieces and enjoy~

I like the light and crumbly texture~

bite size lemonies!

with zesty icing!!

So hope you are all well and staying away from catching colds! I still have so many recipes to blog about!!!

This post is linked to the event Little Thumbs Up (June 2014 Event: Butter) organised by Zoe (Bake for Happy Kids) and Mui Mui (My Little Favourite DIY) and hosted by Jozelyn Ng (Spice Up My Kitchen)

Work catering #19: Cookie Fix

The theme for this week's catering was COOKIES! I made Cookies and Cream slice and White Chocolate and Cranberry Cookies. 



Delicious white choc and cranberry cookies ^^

I used the same dough recipe as the Green Tea and White chocolate cookies but left out the green tea and added 1/2 cup cranberries. You can find the recipe here. I love the flavour and texture of these cookies because they taste a bit like short bread. The dough is really simple to make and the great thing is you leave it overnight in the fridge and the next day all you have to do is SLICE and BAKE! One thing I learnt from my previous batch is to roll the dough out into a thinner tube so you can slice more cookies :) This time I made around 40-50 as compared to 30 something last time.

Tray of cookies!

The chunks of white choc and cranberries! YUM!

You can also customise the flavour! Any flavour combination suggestions? :D

Baking with weetbix ~

I think I have been in a loaf/bread phase because apart from macarons, that's what I have been baking ^_^ They are very simple to make because there is no "creaming" method involved. Just throw all ingredients in a bowl.. mix mix mix.. pop it into the oven and hope it turns out alright =p

Looks so healthy right?

I guess you are thinking HUH!? You can bake with Weetbix!?? well apparently you can ^^" I found this recipe on the side of a weetbix box. Actually it was a Coles brand whole wheat biscuit cereal. My mum who usually eats Weetbix for breakfast said that the Coles brand tasted different so I thought.. hm.. maybe if no one is going to eat it I can use it to BAKE ^__^

So here is the recipe! The original recipe was for banana and date loaf but i didn't have any dates so substituted with cranberries =) I think any dried fruit would be good :)

Banana and cranberry loaf

Ingredients
5 whole wheat biscuits, crushed
1 1/2 cups self-raising flour, sifted
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3/4 cup dried cranberries
2 ripe bananas, mashed + 1/2 banana sliced for decoration
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup milk
1 large egg lightly beaten

1. Preheat oven to 180oC. Grease and line loaf tin.
2. Combine wheat biscuits, flour, sugar, cranberries, banana and cinnamon in large bowl. Mix in milk and egg until well combined.
3. Spoon into lined loaf tin and decorate sliced banana on top. Sprinkle a few crushed wheat biscuits on top and bake for 45-50 minutes or until skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Decorated with bananas ^^

sliced up and ready to eat =D

Surprisingly a tasty loaf and healthy too! You wouldn't even realise there were weetbix in there! (my colleagues couldn't either ^^)