Matt & Winnie's wedding dessert table

A month ago my brother Matt married Winnie in a stunning evening ceremony at my parent's place in Tamahere. It was an awesome night, fantastic party and very very cool to see these two get married, and to have Winnie as a part of our family (officially). Matt and Winnie asked me to make Cupcakes instead of a wedding cake for them, and these are some of the photos of the journey to the table.

The stats: 247 cupcakes, 13 hours start to finish on the day, plus 4 hours prep the day before (measuring ingredients). 2 trials of red velvet, 7 trials of Tiramisu.

I made Red Velvet cupcakes - Matt & Winnie's request, and Tiramisu cupcakes, as this is one of their favourite desserts. My talented sister Lauren made some completely addictive milk chocolate and white chocolate fudge, and we topped the table off with some fresh green grapes.

Mum and I decorated the dessert table, and Lester & I designed the cupcake toppers (with Jimmy's artwork) - the bridesmaids and Winnie faithfully cut these out the day before - nice work girls!

All in all, a great success, and a real honour for me to bake for those I love on their special day. I'll post the tiramisu recipe soon.

Congrats, Matt and Winnie!

Oven on, ingredients ready

a sea of red velvet

lucky mum and I have a lot of Sistema = 247 cupcakes, ready to travel

Lyn came and helped with the icing - thankyou SO much Lyn!

Tiramisu production line. In love with my cupcake corer!

Debbie: official re-corer. Lyn: Mascapone master. Gem: Kahlua syrup injector

Lauren's amazing fudge

The happy couple

Lime & White Chocolate Biscuits

Our holidays usually revolve around great food and beautiful restaurants, and our trip last Winter to the Hawke's Bay was no exception. My favourite restaurant was the stunning Pipi Cafe, in Havelock North. Simple, delicious italian-inspired food with a good Pinot Noir was thouroughly enjoyed, at a bright pink candle-lit table. I was so enamored I bought the owner, Alexandra Tylee's, cookbook of the same name, which she signed for me as we paid the bill.

I very quickly decided that Lime & White Chocolate biscuits would be the first thing to be made, but it has been no mean feat trying to find the required Lime oil. A few weeks ago I finally found some in Cambridge at Dante's Fine Foods, and also picked up some Equagold White Chocolate bits. If you are in Cambridge, Dante's is worth a look - the owner Vicki is super lovely and very knowledgeable, and their Tea Total selection is pretty impressive too.

So, back to the biscuits. Easy to make, easy to ice, and they taste and look delicious. Lime & white chocolate is an amaaaaazing combination. If you see this book around, don't hesitate -  it's a beautiful read and full of comforting flavours.

Lime & White Chocolate Biscuits - from Pipi, The Cookbook, by Alexandra Tylee

For the Biscuits (makes approx. 20)

125g butter, softened
1/4 cup caster sugar
3 tablespoons condensed milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla paste or extract
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup white chocolate, cut into chunks ( I used Equagold White Choco-lettes)
1/4 tsp Lime Oil (or more, to taste) - available from Sabato or Dante's

For the icing:

125g (half a block) of white chocolate
knob of butter
zest of 1 lime (optional)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees. Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.

For the biscuits, cream the butter, sugar, condensed milk and vanilla together until thick and creamy. Beat in the lime oil. Mix the flour and baking powder together, then fold into the butter mixture.

Roll the mixture into balls and put them on the tray. Squash them with a fork, but don't make them too flat.

Bake for about 15 minutes, or until just lightly golden.

For the icing, break up the chocolate and melt in short bursts in the microwave, or in a bowl over a pot of simmering water. Add, the butter, mix together until all melted and smooth, and spoon into a small ziplock or plastic bag. Snip off the corner, and pipe lines freely across the biscuits. Using a microplane, finely zest a lime over the top of the un-set icing, and place biscuits in the fridge for a short while to set the icing.

Cranberry, Ginger & Pistachio Christmas Truffles

Christmas baking is the highlight of December for me - apart from Christmas day itself - and I look forward to trying new recipes and playing around with Christmas flavours in treats to give to family and friends. I also (somewhat stupidly) started catering our work Christmas customer night a few years back, so I have a pretty decent collection of nibbles to call on this time of year.

Truffles are up there in my book - small and sweet - enough of an indulgence without inducing a compulsory 5 km run, but all of the flavour and cuteness. This recipe I found in a House & Garden mag when I stayed at a good friend's place, and I have very liberally switched it up to make it more Christmas-sy.

Four batches in and these have been a hit so far, so I highly recommend you find the time in the next 12 days to whip them up as gifts or just a nice treat on Christmas day.

Cranberry, Ginger & Pistachio Christmas Truffles 

Makes about 40

250g (1 packet) wine biscuits
12 dried apricots, diced
8 pieces crystallised ginger, diced
1/3 cup dried cranberries, diced
70g pistachios, chopped
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp mixed spice
100g butter, melted
1/2 can sweetened condensed milk

For decoration:
1 bag white choc melts
chopped pistachios
chopped cranberries
silver balls

Crush biscuits to coarse crumbs in a food processor. Add all remaining ingredients, and blitz until mixture  is even and comes together.

Using dampened hands, roll into small walnut-sized balls, place on a tray and chill in freezer for at least 30 minutes. You can leave in the freezer for longer if needed, and ice them from frozen when you are ready.

Melt chocolate in microwave in short bursts on medium, stirring regularly. Dip each truffle ball into the chocolate, place on baking paper or a silicone sheet, and sprinkle chopped cranberries, pistachios and silver balls over the top before the chocolate sets.

Store in an air-tight container for a few days, or keep in the freezer for longer.

The dipping is much easier to do if you keep the balls frozen - don't let them get too warm - and use a dipping coil.

I make two batches at a time - one after the other in the processor, then roll the whole lot into balls and dip. Trust me - you are going to want to stock up on the ingredients for these!

Treats for our customers - truffles, smoked salmon & creme fraiche blini, brownie bites with fresh raspberry buttercream, mini red velvet cupcakes and strawberry & lemon marscapone tartlets

After Dinner Mint Cupcakes

The rich and fresh combination of Chocolate and Mint seemed the perfect way to ease myself into Christmas baking, so last week I made these delicious cupcakes for the birthday shout for one of my staff, Stacey.

I have had these in my head to make for a long time, and have subconsciously collected various amounts of mint colour wrappers and baubles for such an occasion as this. I love love love chocolate and mint - I always pick the mint chocolates first out of a chocolate box, and cherished my supplies of York peppermint patties every time Matt came home from the USA. While musing on these treats, I thought isn't it interesting how the best flavour combinations are also so visually appealing -  these mint green and chocolate brown cupcakes create a beautiful contrast.

It just so happens they taste as good as they look - rich, tender chocolate cupcakes with an minty surprise in the middle, with fresh choc-mint icing. Perfect after dinner, or before....up to you :)

After Dinner Mint Cupcakes

Makes approx. 16 cupcakes

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups plain flour
3/4 cup dutch-processed cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt
115g unsalted butter, softened
1 cup caster sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup sour cream or greek yoghurt

1 bag of Cadbury After Dinner Mints

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Line a muffin pan with paper liners; set aside (I chose half chocolate brown paper liners, half mint green foil liners)

In a medium bowl, sift together flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt; set aside.

In a large bowl, or the bowl of a standing mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then add vanilla.. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating until just combined. 

Sprinkle 1/3 of the flour mixture into the mixing bowl and mix until just combined. Add half of the sour cream or yoghurt, mixing until just combined. Repeat, alternating the remaining flour and yoghurt until just mixed together.

Place 1 1/2 tablespoons of batter into each prepared muffin cup. Lay an after dinner mint in each cup and press down gently. Place another 1 1/2 tablespoons of batter on top of each patty, you want them to be about 3/4 full. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes, until the tops of the cupcakes spring back lightly when touched.

Transfer to a wire cooling rack and allow to cool completely before frosting.

Mint Buttercream and Choc/Mint Buttercream frosting

Ingredients

200g unsalted butter, at room temperature

450g icing sugar, sifted

1 teaspoon vanilla extract or paste

2 tablespoons milk

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon peppermint extract

Food coloring

Dutch-processed cocoa

To make the frosting: In a large bowl, or the bowl of a standing mixer, beat the butter for about 30 seconds. Beat in the sugar and salt until combined. Add 1 tablespoon milk and whisk on high for 3 to 4 minutes, until light and fluffy. If the frosting is too thick, add more milk, 1/2 teaspoon at a time, until desired consistency is reached. Remember you want it to be relatively thick so it will hold when you pipe it. Whisk in the peppermint extract - you may want to start with half a teaspoon, and add more to taste, depending on how 'minty' you want your icing to be.

Divide the frosting into 2 parts, leave one part in the mixer bowl and put the rest into another small bowl.

To make the mint green icing, add a TINY amount of Wilton Aqua gel food colouring, or a drop of green and blue normal colouring. Remember you can always add more colour but you can't take it out! Mix well together until uniform in colour.

To make the choc mint icing, add about 3 tablespoons of dutch-processed cocoa, and beat again until fully mixed. Add more or less cocoa depending on how dark you want your icing.

To decorate these cupcakes, I piped on the frosting with a Wilton 1A open circular tip, icing the mint liner cupcakes with the choc-mint icing, and the brown liner cupcakes with the mint green icing. Sprinkle aqua baubles on the choc iced ones, and I used Valhrona Crispy Chocolate pearls on the mint ones (These are so yummy!)

Cut your remaining after dinner mints in half, and press a half into the top of each cupcake.

Voila! 

Crunchy Lemon & Poppyseed Muffins

I find you can't go past good ol' Alison Holst for a completely delicious, and reliable, muffin recipe. I like a bit of Kiwi representation too, and I read her autobiography with great interest and a lot of salivation. You can't get much more nostalgic than Alison's Lemon muffins - I dig the 90's vibe and memories of coming home after school to Mum's baking.

Mum has always made Alison's Crunchy Lemon Muffins, which are very good in themselves, but I can't go past the extra crunch of the poppyseed version. Fresh, light, zingy, crunchy, sweet - perfect afternoon tea.

These were made for some of the local Waipa Networks linesmen - they kindly lent us an electrical reel which is masquerading as a Christmas tree table in the Pharmacy right now. I did a rather large amount of baking for them, so hopefully they will remember that when I call in the next favour :)

Crunchy Lemon & Poppyseed Muffins

Adapted from Alison Holst's 100 Favourite Muffins & Slices

2 cups self-raising flour
1 cup sugar (normal, non-caster is fine here as you are not creaming with butter)
1/2 cup poppyseeds (Fruit monster has a great range of nuts, seeds and spices - way cheaper than buying heaps of the little boxes)
finely grated rind of 2 lemons (Have you brought a microplane yet?)

100g butter
2 large eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup yoghurt (another Vicki Waterhouse trick - yoghurt in anything makes it so much more tender)

Juice of 2 lemons
1/2 cup sugar

Heat oven to 190 degrees fanbake (or 200 normal).

Sift flour into a large bowl, add poppyseeds and sugar, and whisk to combine. Add grated lemon rind.

Microwave butter until just melted, add the eggs, milk and yoghurt and beat with a fork until well mixed.

Pour the liquids into the dry flour mix, and fold together with a fork until the flour is dampened - small bits of flour is ok, you do not want to beat until smooth or over-mix muffin batter.

Spoon mixture into 12 regular muffin pans which have been lightly sprayed with oil.

Bake 10-15 minutes until golden brown, smelling delicious and the centres spring back when pressed.

While they cook, mix together the lemon juice and half cup of sugar - don't dissolve though, as you want the crunchy sugar crystals to remain.

Cool the muffins in the pan for 3-4 minutes, then removed and brush entire surfaces with the lemon sugar glaze.

These are nice and quick to make, so I can whip these up before work pretty easily. They tend to make husbands quite happy too :)

Black white and yellow 

Ready to go in the oven

My kitchen helpers - the cutest cup measure set ever!

Middle Eastern Salad

Me and Lester are trying to cut back on carbs at dinner time (baking is *kinda* excluded from this rule), so you will probably see quite a few salad recipes on this blog. This is a fave of ours, mainly thanks to the Dukkah encrusted chicken and the sweet salty Haloumi. This also makes good use of Pomegranate Molasses and Tahini, two essential Middle Eastern ingredients that I'm always looking for new recipes for.

This may look quite complicated, but it's all pretty simple really - you can take out some ingredients and steps if you need this in a hurry. I never cut corners if it's going to make it taste better, but that's me...and this salad tastes amazing.

Middle Eastern Salad

For the Salad (Serves 2)

2 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into bit sized pieces (lamb would be great here)

Dukkah (I use Alexandra's Bazaar brand, they have a few different varieties)

Lettuce/mesculun

Watercress

Fresh mint

Half a block of Haloumi, cut into slices

1 piece Rye Mountain bread, torn into strips

Salt

Pepper

EVOO (I used Al Brown's Lemon & Fennel infused oil)

1/4 Telegraph Cucumber, peeled and cut into small chunks

1 Capsicum, cut into strips

Cranberries

Microgreens (optional - radish, sorrel, pea shoots)

Baby or normal carrots (2 normal or 4 baby)

Ground Cumin

Honey

Dressing

2 teaspoons Tahini (Sesame seed paste)

3 Tablespoons Greek Yoghurt

1 clove garlic, crushed or microplaned

1 tablespoon Pomegranate Molasses

Juice of 1/2 a lemon

Rind of 1/2 a lemon

Salt and Pepper

1 Tablespoon EVOO

1 Tablespoon water

Preheat your oven to fan bake, 180 degrees.

Drizzle the chicken with olive oil, season with salt and pepper and add about 3 tablespoons of Dukkah and mix well to coat the chicken. Place chicken pieces on a baking paper lined tray and fan-bake until cooked and golden.

Cut the baby carrots into quarters lengthwise, drizzle with EVOO, a little bit of honey, a dusting of ground Cumin, Salt and Pepper, and add to chicken tray about half way through.

Drizzle Mountain Bread strips with EVOO, season, and add to chicken tray when chicken and carrots are almost cooked.

For the dressing, mix together all ingredients in a small bowl until smooth. Season to taste.

When your chicken is cooked and starting to colour, your carrots are tender-crisp and the mountain bread golden, remove from oven and let cool a little.

Fry the haloumi in a medium pan with EVOO until golden on both sides.

Assemble your salad with the lettuce, mint, capsicum, cucumber, and cranberries, adding the hot ingredients last and drizzling the dressing generously over. Top with microgreens, then lasty the hot Haloumi straight from the pan (give it a quick squeeze with a lemon first, it really makes the Haloumi sing)

Chicken, Mountain Bread and Yellow Carrots roasting up nicely

mmmm....can't beat Haloumi

Roasted Rhubarb & Apple Compote

I am a complete porridge addict. I think I have had porridge for breakfast, almost without fail, since about April. I loathe the day it is too hot to have porridge (and then I plan on swapping to Bircher, when I master a recipe for that). So it stands to reason I like to mix it up and have delicious toppings on my porridge each day, my favourite of which is Roasted Rhubarb & Apple Compote. Equally delicious served with your favourite Muesli, it is divine straight from the oven with a dollop of greek yoghurt.

I make this at least once a week, and it might do me 4-5 breakfasts. It's pretty easy to whip up when you have the oven on for something else. I have a very big oven, so I am often looking for another reason to turn it on - I think this comes from my Seymour/Nana/WW2 heritage....I'm blaming my mother anyway (but I think it's a good trait to have!)

It keeps well in the fridge, and is actually pretty good cold too. It's a nice way to use up some not-so-fresh apples that didn't pass Lester's "Fresh Apple Flick' test too :) I find the rhubarb texture is much nicer roasted in the oven than cooked on the stovetop into a mush too.

Roasted Rhubarb & Apple Compote

5-10 sticks of Rhubarb (quantities are not so important here, add a bit more sugar if use a lot of Rhubarb)
4-5 apples
1/2 cup brown sugar
2-3 teaspoons cinnamon
Rind and Juice of 1-2 oranges
4 Tablespoons Hakanoa Ginger Syrup (or water). Hakanoa is available at Red Kitchen, Vetro, Farro etc type stores and tastes like liquid gingerbread...mmmm.
Optional - vanilla extract - I don't bother as I always put vanilla in my actual porridge mix.
Optional - raisins or sultanas (credit to mum for this wee addition)

Cut the rhubarb into 1-inch lengths - you want it to stay in pieces, not disintegrate into mush. Core and ut the apples into thickish slices - I leave the skin on as it helps it keep it's shape.
Put into a roasting dish - I use a rectangular glass one - and cover with the brown sugar, cinnamon, orange rind and juice, and the ginger syrup. Mix around to cover the fruit evenly.

Roast in an 180 degree oven for about 30 minutes, stirring once to coat the fruit in the cooking juices. The fruit will colour up a bit, and the juices will thicken up and make a nice syrupy sauce.

The best part - you need to do a little quality control. Have a nice little bowlful hot from the oven with greek yoghurt and slivered almonds. Delicious.

 I make my porridge with a ratio of 2/5ths wholegrain/jumbo oats, 2/5ths rolled oats, 1/5th white quinoa. Soak overnight with water, then cook with about 1/2 cup milk per cup of oat mix until quinoa is no longer opaque. Stir in vanilla extract and about 3 tablespoons LSA mix at the end. So yummy and good for you too - this is low GI and high protein. I make up a cup of oat mix at a time, and that is enough for 4 servings - I just microwave to reheat.

The best way to start your day - trust me - I wake up in the morning and can't wait to tuck into this!