Dotty Chocolate Smarties Cookies

I've been eating a lot of junk food recently. Smarties are my current favourite.

The switch from "healthy greens with every meal" to "Pocky sticks and coffee for breakfast" wasn't intentional. I believe it to be a symptom of the overall unstructured nature of my life recently. Without the structure of university lectures, hospital rounds, and group study sessions, my research year has quickly degenerated into a seemingly endless and timeless continuum of number-crunching, data-manipulating, and journal article-perusing. Most of the time I walk around in a semi-asleep state. It doesn't help that I only interact with other human beings (who are not family) maybe once or twice a week. That's the thing - I miss people. I miss social interactions. I miss the hustle and bustle of the hospital environment, the beeping of machines, the charts, talking with patients, listening to hearts and lungs...all those things about my clinical placement which overwhelmed me last year, I miss with an almost painful intensity now.

Not that I dislike research. A few days ago I realised that I had recoded the variables in my dataset with the wrong values, and that was why the results weren't making any sense. I corrected the values, and suddenly, there were trends and correlations and associations. Not just any associations, but significant ones. As in, 'p < 0.05' significance. I got a massive high out of the findings. If research was all about ground-breaking discoveries, then I may very well consider it as a long-term career. However, the reality is that most of it is number-crunching, data-manipulating, and journal article-perusing. But when you do make that discovery, it's all the more rewarding.

Anyway, the fact that I don't have to see my peers on a regular basis has meant that I've kinda...let myself go. Not in the sense of gaining huge amounts of weight. Just...very out of shape. Compared to last year, where I was eating a lot of protein and fibre and exercising almost every day, my current lifestyle is ridiculously unhealthy. I feel breathless walking uphill to the shops, where as last year I could have sprinted the entire distance and not broken a sweat. I can't even run 2km anymore, let alone the 14km that I did for City2Surf last year.

Moreover, I've found myself getting quite moody around noon, and quite predictably so. I suspect it has a lot to do with crashing from the refined sugar highs induced by my junk food breakfasts. My cognition has also suffered a lot. I had such brain fog one day that I couldn't remember how I got from one place to the other. It felt like I'd suddenly materialised at the shopping center, and I had very little recollection of the actual trip. What mode of transport had I taken? How long did my journey take? It was a very disturbing sensation indeed.

Therefore, I've made a pledge to myself to go back to eating proper, wholesome foods from now on. These cookies are my way of using up the last of my Smarties stash, while also acting as a remind that there is nothing inherently wrong with refined carbohydrates and these so-called "empty" calories. I admit it - while I was actively trying to lose weight, and for the first few months of maintenance, I was very neurotic about food. I could eat this, but not that. Some foods were "bad" and should never be consumed. Protein bars were okay, but chocolate bars were not (even though the former was probably just as lacking in real nutrition). I didn't allow myself to have any junk food, and as a result of that I went nutso and ate EVERYTHING once I couldn't stand my restrictive, "healthy" diet anymore.

Since then, I've learnt moderation, and that junk food doesn't make you gain weight as long as you don't overeat in calories. It's how it makes you feel that should make you think twice about consuming it in excess. I want a good-looking, healthy body, but a healthy mind also. I don't want to have a depressive slump every afternoon. I don't want my brain to be so fogged over by high blood sugar levels that I can't interpret lab results, or fall asleep over my textbook. The point is, by all means eat junk food, but don't use it as a replacement for real nutrition. It's common sense to most people probably, but it's taken my own experiences to make me actually believe it.

Healthy or no, these cookies are delicious, and oh-so-adorable. I love multi-coloured dots, whether it be in fashion or food. They are super-easy to make. Just combine the ingredients for the cookie dough, pop it in the fridge to firm up a little (so that the cookie doesn't spread too much while baking), shape it into small discs, then press on the smarties. They take around 8-10 minutes to bake. The texture is a little harder than cakey, but not quite crunchy, I suspect that if you bake it for an extra minute, you'll end up with a crisp, chocolatey cookie.

Dotty Chocolate Smarties Cookies
Makes 32 palm-sized cookies

Ingredients

200g unsalted butter, softened
300g white granulated sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
350g plain flour, sifted
50g cocoa powder, sifted
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
Smarties to decorate (enough for 5 per cookie)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 175 degrees Celsius (350 degrees Fahrenheit). Place baking rack at the bottom 1/3 of the oven.

2. In a dry bowl, stir together the sifted flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

3. In another bowl, cream together the butter and sugar with an electric or hand mixer until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla extract, and continue to mix until fully incorporated.

4. Add the dry ingredients to the creamed butter mixture, and mix at low speed until just combined. Do not overmix or your cookies will be tough. If necessary, use hands or a wooden spoon to finish mixing together the dough.

5. Wrap the dough in cling wrap, and chill in fridge for 30 minutes.

6. Line a baking tray with non-stick baking paper. Grab a ball of dough slightly smaller than the size of a golf ball. Roll it into smooth ball, then flatten into a disc. Place onto baking paper, and press 5 Smarties on top of each disc.

7. Bake in oven for 8-10 minutes. Remove from oven, and allow to cool slightly and harden before transferring onto a wire rack to cool completely. But, by all means, eat them while they're still warm and soft! :D

'Festive' Cranberry-Pistachio Shortbread Rounds

We were gifted with a huge bag of craisins (i.e. dried cranberries) a while ago. My mind immediately started racing with possibilities for its use: cranberry and white chocolate chunk cookies, plumped up with rum for a fruit cake, and...well, the cranberry and pistachio combo is always a good one! Particularly during the festive season. I mean, just looking at these red and green-studded shortbread rounds conjures up images of Christmas-time.

The most fiddly part in the recipe is making sure the dough doesn't break apart when you slice through the pistachios. Once the dough is made, it is rolled up into logs, wrapped in cling film, and chilled in the fridge for an hour or so, until hard. It is then sliced into discs approximately 1cm thick, arranged onto a baking tray, and stashed into the freezer for a final firming-up. The reason why it is so important to have the dough frozen solid before baking is because of the high butter content of these cookies. If you try baking these right after making up the dough, the cookies will spread and you'll end up with palm-sized mounds, instead of nice shortbread rounds.

I think these would look lovely packaged in clear cellophane bags tied up with a golden ribbon, to be given as party favours or used as table settings. I simply cannot get over how pretty the colours are!

Recipe for Cranberry-Pistachio Shortbread Rounds

Makes 22 cookies, approximately 5cm in diameter

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup (or 175g) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup white granulated sugar
1/2 cup shelled pistachios
1/2 cup dried cranberries

1. Make the dough by stirring together all the ingredients, until a soft dough forms.

2. Divide the dough in two portions. Roll each portion into a log, and wrap each log with cling film.

3. Place the logs into the fridge and chill for an hour, or until solid.

4. Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius (or 350 degrees Fahrenheit). Don't put the baking rack too close to the top, because your cookies will burn!

5. Take logs out of the fridge, and slice into round 1 cm thick. Put the dough rounds on a lined baking tray, and stash that away in the freezer for around 15 minutes, or until the dough is frozen solid.

6. When ready to bake, take the tray out of the freezer and put into oven immediately. Bake for 13-15 minutes. Don't wait for the cookies to brown, otherwise the colours won't be as pretty.

7. When done baking, take tray out of the oven. Allow cookies to cool on tray for 5 minutes, before transferring cookies onto a cooling rack. Let cookies cool completely before packing it away in an airtight container (that's if you don't eat them straight away!). Cookies will keep in an airtight container in a cool part of the house for around 5 days.

Best Banana Bread recipe!

I love banana bread. Always have, always will! And no matter how many times the health-conscious out there remind me that its sugar and fat content qualify it more as "cake" than any recognisable form of bread, I still prefer to call it by its alliterative moniker.

The humble banana bread has seen me through some stressful times indeed: a particularly taxing day at school (i.e. PD/H/PE classes!) would be incomplete without a trip to the canteen for a thick slice of warm, toasted banana bread. And because calories simply didn't matter when you're a grubby teenager like I was, I would ask for it to be spread with margarine. The margarine (far inferior to butter, but that was what was available) would melt and seep into the airy pores of the fragrant banana bread, and I would savour it bit by bit from the greasy paper bag, breaking pieces off with my fingers.

I unashamedly consider myself to be an expert on banana bread, having eaten and indeed baked so many different versions. I've encountered some truly disgusting permutations (apple sauce! oatmeal! flaxseed!) to an absolute gem like this recipe. I can say with confidence that this is the best banana bread I have ever tasted. No, really, I've made this recipe three times now, and each time it has gone like a flash! And, despite my best of intentions, this banana bread has been the reason why I keep falling off my 'diet'. One taste of it and I'm a goner. I won't scare you with how much of the most recent loaf I ate by myself, but suffice it to say that the only reason I'm holding off on the next loaf is because I'm, er, running out of pants that fit ;D

I should mention that I used coconut oil and macadamia oil to bake this loaf of banana bread. However, I have also made it using only coconut oil. And they've all turned out great. The subtle scent of coconut was present only in the loaf made with purely coconut oil. What I'm saying is that please don't go out of your way to purchase coconut oil especially for this recipe. Any oil will do, and you may even experiment with stronger flavoured oils like hazelnut or olive oil. Do let me know how they turn out :) It's the proportions of ingredients in this recipe that matter.


Best Banana Bread recipe


Adapted from Served with love

Makes one 22cm x 12cm loaf

Ingredients

2 cups mashed bananas (use overripe ones)
1 1/2 cups granulated white sugar
2 large eggs
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 cup of oil (I used 1/4 cup coconut oil and 1/4 cup macadamia oil)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (I used vanilla bean paste)
3 cups cake flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius or 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line the loaf tin with greaseproof paper or aluminium foil.

2. Mix together cake flour, ground cinnamon, baking powder, and salt.

3. Beat together the eggs and sugar until fluffy and a pale yellow in colour. Whisk in the mashed bananas. Sprinkle the baking soda over this mixture and whisk it in.

4. Drizzle in the oil and mix it well into the batter. Whisk in the vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste. Fold in the flour mixture in three additions.

5. Pour batter into the lined loaf tin and bake for around 1 hour and 45 minutes, checking with a skewer for doneness around 1.5 hours into baking, and every 10 minutes thereafter (since baking times vary with ovens). If you find that the top of the loaf is browning very quickly, you may have to cover it with a piece of foil an hour into baking to stop the top from burning. The banana bread is done baking when a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean (no wet batter).

6. Remove from oven and cool slightly in tin before cooling completely on a baking rack. For best results, wrap with cling wrap once completely cooled, and let it sit for two days before serving in order to allow flavours to fully develop.

Random Round-up! Part 3

Here's another one of those "closet clean out" posts; just a little something to entertain everyone until I come up with a proper post :D

1) High tea at Tea Parlour, Redfern.

An awesome-looking spread, yes? And not your usual "High Tea" fare either. We visited this quaint little hole-in-the-wall 'parlour' for a friend's 21st. All the goodies you see above are baked by the owner herself, onsite; a feat I am most impressed by. The scones featured in the middle are THE BEST that I've ever tasted. Yes, even better than The Tea Room's down at the QVB! I love this sort of baking: unapologetically unpretentious, and clearly made with real butter xD Everything I had on the day (and I tried everything!) was so good that I couldn't help but eat, eat, eat the whole time I was there. The pecan pie! The cheesecake! The apple crumble tart! *salivates*

2) Durian ice cream from Breadtop.

I know my recommending ice cream from a chain bakery may raise some eyebrows, but this was actually really, really nice! The durian flavour was unmistakable, and did not taste at all artificial. The texture was smooth, but with that "chewiness" which I associate with added thickeners in ice cream. Maybe not everyone's cup of tea, but I quite liked it.

3) Various small cakes and slices from George's Hot Bread Shop, Hurstville.

Situated right near the ticket barriers at Hurstville Railway Station, this little bread shop appears unassuming from a distance, and I for one often passed it by with nary a second look. Had I ventured closer though, I would have discovered much sooner its amazing display of cakes and slices. We're talking real old-school, Australian baking; they even have chocolate crackles! On this occasion, I purchased one of their  sizeable Anzac biscuits (only 90 cents!), which was delicious and one of the best I've tasted, and the three cakes shown above: Black Forest cake (left), vanilla custard slice (right) and baked cheesecake (bottom). All three were bona fide fresh and scrumptious. My favourite was the vanilla slice: cold, sweet eggy custard, contrasted with the crisp, multi-layered pastry which shattered when I sliced into it. Mmm. And you know what? It's all so affordable. Where else can you get a ginormous slice of cake in the $3 range these days?

3) The 'Multi' at Noggi, Strathfield.

To celebrate a recent piece of happy news, I took my siblings out for frozen yoghurt at Noggi. And since we were all fro-yo aficionados and possess iron dispositions impervious to the wintry climate, I went ahead and ordered a 'Multi', the second largest size on offer. I don't think there were quite enough of us to tackle the 'Groupi' xD We got all four flavours (original, pomegranate, biscotti and green tea) and five toppings (gummi bears, Tim Tam, mochi, fresh strawberries, and Crunchie chocolate bar).

4) 'Fine apple tart' and the panna cotta lamington from Flour and Stone Bakery, Woolloomooloo.

After hearing rave reviews all around about these two items from Flour and Stone Bakery, I went and purchased said items the first opportunity I got, and could barely stop myself from tucking into them on the train trip home. The apple tart was visually stunning, but was a bit too tart for my liking, and perhaps would have tasted better warmed up. The panna cotta lamington was an indisputable winner. Incredibly moist, yet not soggy from being drenched in panna cotta mixture - a true wonder. This was one HUGE lamington, yet I managed to finish half of it in one go, and would have eaten the other half as well if I hadn't been sharing with my sister :D

5) The 'I need to unwind with sugar after a long, long week' fridge clean out.

I credit myself on being able to assemble a sugar feast on the slightest whim. It's most likely to do with the fact that my fridge is always stocked with leftover bits of cake, dessert liquers, and embarrasingly, heavy cream. Or in this case, 'lite' heavy cream. No, I'm not at all fat-phobic, it was simply because the lite version was on discount, lol. This concoction of cream, milk and Baileys, along with a slice of homemade caramel cake and the last of my precious Nigella Lawson brownies, sent me into a pleasant, dreamless slumber, and I awoke the next morning cheerful, well-rested, and 10kg heavier. Ahem.

Here's Part 1 and Part 2 of my 'Random Round-up!' series.


Tea Parlour
569 Elizabeth Street
Redfern, NSW 2016

Breadtop, Hurstville

Shop 2, 227-231 Forest Road
Hurstville, NSW 2220

George's Hot Bread Shop

Hurstville Railway Station (Hurstville Central shopping centre)

Noggi

2/2 Albert Road
Strathfield, NSW 2135

Flour and Stone Bakery

53 Riley Street
Woolloomooloo, NSW 2011

Sour Cream Lemon Pound Cake

All the bakers out there - have you ever made something that looked fine and smelt fine, but disappointed in the taste department? I had one such experience with a caramel cake. The darn thing looked perfect, all nicely risen and golden on top, and had that titillating and irresistible smell of caramelised sugar and butter. It held such promise...I took a bite, and disappointment set in as the cake was so depressingly bland. It tasted nothing of caramel. Indeed, it didn't even taste sweet, an impossible situation given how much sugar (and vanilla sugar at that!) I had invested in the thing. And even though I knew from that first bite that it was a total flop, I kept going back for more, hoping that the taste would improve on standing. All those wasted calories...which could have been spent on this Sour Cream Lemon Pound Cake instead.

I had a good feeling about this cake as soon as it came out of the oven. The intoxicating scent of lemons  permeated the whole kitchen, and even though it was the dead of winter and near midnight, I felt like I was swathed in a comforting blanket of warmth and sunlight...*ahem*, yeah creative writing and figurative expression have never been my forte; why don't I simply let the pictures do the talking?

I have made many-a-pound cakes before, and I've had consistently better results with a combination of cream cheese and butter, instead of a "pure butter" pound cake. Problem is, cream cheese is so expensive. And it seems such a waste to use it in anything except a cheesecake, where it can truly shine. And this is where sour cream comes in, because it produces a result indistinguishable from that made with cream cheese - for less than half the price! A quick search on the interweb found a pound cake recipe involving sour cream, courtesy of Cooking with Tanya and Epicurious.

The recipe makes a lot of batter, which is why you should use the 16-cup tube pan that both recipes recommend. I went with a loaf pan, and had about 2 cups of batter left over. One cup I put into a smaller pan and baked for 45 minutes, and the other I microwaved for 3 minutes. The microwaved version was...interesting. Good to eat straight away, but became very dry almost immediately afterwards.

The baked version, on the other hand, is very moist, and will probably stay moist and improve in flavour over the next few days. Simply wrap it with a few layers of cling wrap, and leave it at room temperature for 1 or 2 days before eating. The fragrance from the lemon juice and peel is very pronounced, and goes perfectly with the tang from the sour cream. Serve as is or toasted, with a tall glass of cold milk on the side.

Sour Cream Lemon Pound Cake
Recipe adapted from Epicurious and Cooking with Tanya

Makes 1 10-inch cake (in a bundt pan or chiffon/angel cake pan)

Ingredients
3 cups cake flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
250g unsalted butter, softened
3 cups white granulated sugar
6 eggs, room temperature
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
Finely grated peel from one large lemon
300ml sour cream

Method
1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius (325 degrees Fahrenheit).

2. In a bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Grease and dust the pan with flour.

3. In a separate bowl, beat the butter with an electric beater until creamy. Gradually add the sugar, and continue to beat for 2 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time. Beat until incorporated.

4. Stir in the lemon juice and grated peel.

5. Fold in the dry ingredients from step 2.

6. Mix in the sour cream.

7. Transfer the batter into the greased and floured pan. Alternatively, you could simply line the pan with foil.

8. Bake for 1 hour and 45 minutes, or until a skewer inserted near the center comes out clean. You may have to cover the top of the cake with a piece of foil an hour into baking to stop the top from burning. Remove from oven, and allow to cool in pan for 15 minutes before turning onto a cooling rack. Let it cool completely before serving. I recommend wrapping it in cling wrap (once it's completely cool!) and letting it stand at room temperature for 1 or 2 days before eating it, to allow the flavours to develop.

Margaret Fulton's Apple Crumble Muffins

Guess who is now officially on holidays! That's right, yesterday was the last day of uni for this semester. You'd think I'd be out there partying like an animal and getting inebriated, but the embarrassing truth is that my idea of the perfect end-of-semester celebration is watching random Youtube videos in my "slob" clothes while mindlessly chowing down on Lindt Excellence 85% dark chocolate. And reading cookbooks! I am currently making my way through one of Margaret Fulton's, and indeed, this was where I got the recipe for these awesome Apple Crumble Muffins from.

The recipe looked so promising that I simply could not wait till the holidays started to try it out. Which was how I ended up lugging more than a dozen muffins to share amongst my colleagues in the middle of the week. From the way they rapidly disappeared, I'm confident to pronounce these a success. The sour cream (which the recipe calls for in lieu of milk) and the ample amount of apple chunks in the batter made these muffins extremely moist. The crumble on top was crunchy like a cookie, and deliciously buttery.

There are so many recipes in Margaret Fulton Baking that I want to try over these holidays, including the sour cream chocolate cake, and the Bienenstich (German bee sting) cake. I went on a cookbook shopping binge a few weeks ago, and came home with an impressive array of texts:

Whee, fun times ahead!

The apple crumble muffins are extremely easy to make; no need to get out the electric beaters or mixers. In fact, you don't even need to leave the butter out to soften in advance. The beauty of making muffins is that you can pretty much dump all the ingredients in one bowl (although some texts recommend mixing the dry ones together first, the wet ones in another bowl, and then combining the two). The butter can be melted in the microwave, and then stirred in. The most time-consuming part was chopping the apple into chunks, but even that didn't take very long. The crumble requires that you work fast in order not to melt the butter with your hot little hands while you rub it into the dry ingredients (ala. making a shortcrust pastry dough).

The muffins before baking, with the crumble mixture sprinkled on top.

The muffins can be eaten hot, straight out of the oven (or with a few minutes to cool out of consideration for your tongue), with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side. Unsurprisingly, it tastes like an apple crumble xD However, I would recommend you to allow them to cool, and then store them in an airtight container at room temperature for a day in order to allow the flavours to develop. And then if you want to have it hot, just zap it in the microwave for 20 seconds. Instant pudding!

The muffins, fresh out of the oven.

Apple Crumble Muffins

Makes 12 muffins

Ingredients

For the muffin batter:

1 1/4 cups (185g) plain flour

1/2 cup (110g) white granulated sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs

1 cup sour cream

60g butter, melted

2 large Granny Smith apples, roughly chopped to 1cm chunks

For the crumble topping:

3 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons plain flour

2 tablespoons cold butter, diced

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Method

1. Preheat oven to 190 degrees Celsius (375 degrees Fahrenheit). Line muffin tin with grease-proof cupcake liners.

2. Into a large bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon, allspice and salt.

3. In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, sour cream,  and melted butter until blended. Stir in the apple chunks.

4. Pour the wet mixture into the dry ingredients and fold until combined, but do not over-mix. Fill the lined muffin tin.

5. To make the topping, put all the ingredients into a bowl and rub in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle the crumble mixture over the muffin batter, dividing the crumble mixture evenly between the 12 muffins.

6. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until browned. Cool on wire racks, or eat it warm with ice cream!

Super Moist Carrot Cake

Could it be that "retro" is making a comeback in the baking world? Maybe it's the influence of a recent delightful visit to The Tea Parlour for a friend's 21st (review soon to follow, hopefully!), but lately, I've been craving simple tea cakes, scones, and slices - basically, the stuff you find in a Australian Women's Weekly cookbook. And so it was in the spirit of "everything old is new again" that I made this delicious and super moist carrot cake.

The carrot cake and I go waaay back. In fact, it was the first cake that I baked from scratch, as the final assessment for a Design and Technology course in Year 8. I remember that class very clearly. In the weeks leading up to it, we'd been put through the paces in basic cookery with various old-school Aussie favourites: chocolate chip cookies, butterfly cakes, etc. For our assessment, we were given an hour and a half to complete a recipe of our choice, working in groups of threes. Come to think of it, it was kinda like a Masterchef team challenge!

Anyway, the carrot cake turned out fantastically, and the cream cheese frosting left so deep an impression on my naive palate that it remains my favourite type of frosting to this day. My fellow team members and I proudly presented a generous slice of cake to the lovely ladies down at reception. The rest we split between the three of us. As I recall, it was a GINORMOUS cake that we made, and my share lasted for days.

And so I have very fond memories of the carrot cake. This particular one wasn't frosted due to time constraints, but I imagine that the maple cream cheese frosting I made for my browned butter apple pound cake a while back would have been perfect for this. The recipe I used for this carrot cake utilised ghee instead of the usual vegetable oil. I do believe that either choice would be fine in the cake. I would describe the texture of this cake as extremely moist; almost pudding like. I was worried that it would be too sweet when I tasted the batter (raw eggs don't scare me! xD), but the baked cake was not very sweet at all. Which means that you can pile on the cream cheese frosting extra thick!

Recipe for a Super Moist Carrot Cake

Adapted from Guilty Kitchen

Recipe yields one 22cm x 12cm loaf AND 7 cupcakes, OR one 9-inch two-layer cake

Ingredients

2 cups cake flour
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated white sugar
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp powdered ginger
1 tsp salt
4 eggs
1 cup ghee, melted
1/3 cup buttermilk (or 1/3 cup whole milk + 1 tsp apple cider vinegar)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
2 1/2 cups finely grated carrot (I used five carrots)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 175 degrees Celsius (or 350 degrees Fahrenheit). Grease and flour a 22cm x 12cm loaf tin, or line it with aluminium foil. You can reserve leftover batter for another thinner loaf, or make cupcakes out of it.

2. In a bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Stir in the brown sugar, white sugar, ground cinnamon, ground nutmeg, powdered ginger and salt. Use the back of the spoon to break up any lumps formed by the brown sugar.

3. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs into the melted ghee, one by one. Whisk in the buttermilk, vanilla extract and vanilla bean paste. Stir in the grated carrots.

4. Combine the dry and wet ingredients, and mix until incorporated and smooth. Be careful not to overmix.

5. Pour the batter into the loaf tin, filling it 3/4 full.

6. Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour, or until skewer inserted into centre of the loaf comes out clean. If the top of your cake gets too brown, cover the cake loosely with a piece of foil for the final 10 minutes of baking.

7. Once done baking, remove from oven and allow cake to cool in tin for 10 minutes. Remove from tin, and let cake finish cooling off on a cooling rack.

To make cupcakes:


1. Preheat oven to 175 degrees Celsius (or 350 degrees Fahrenheit).

2. Line muffin tray with cupcake liners.

3. Fill liners 3/4 full with batter.

4. Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes.

5. Allow cupcakes to cool in tray for 10 minutes, before attempting to move them onto cooling racks.

Baked cinnamon sugar doughnuts

Hello again! It's been a while, hasn't it? It's the same deal as before: my studies have picked up pace, leaving little to no time for leisure. Which simply means that I make time for it anyway, at the expense of not immersing myself completely in the academia. It does bring up feelings of guilt, but I think I'm getting by well enough, and anyway, it takes only a baked cinnamon sugar doughnut or two to make the uneasiness go away.

Gosh, it almost sounds like a case of substance abuse. Well, you know what they say about sugar addiction - it's a real phenomenon! Don't be fooled by the fact that these are "baked"; just because there wasn't any deep-frying involved does not make these a health food xD No, these are simply doughnut-shaped mini cakes, dusted all over with a layer of crunchy, cinnamon sugar. Sounds good, right?

These cuties measure around 2 inches in diameter each, meaning that even if you were to scoff three or four at once *raises hand in shame*, you'd only look like a mini 'nutter instead of a regular-sized one. Hoho, you like or doughnut like my joke? Okay, okay, I'll stop. You'll need a special baking tin for these; I purchased mine from Victoria's Basement. The tin's not much good for anything else, but I reckon if you rock up to a party with two dozens of these, you'll earn yourself a hole heap of praise so it's worth it. 'Hole', geddit? Doh!

Recipe for Baked Cinnamon Sugar Doughnuts

Makes 22-24 mini doughnuts


Ingredients

For the batter:
1 1/4 cups cake flour (regular plain flour is okay)
1/2 cup granulated white sugar
1 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 large egg
1 1/2 tablespoon melted butter

For the cinnamon sugar coating:
Around 3/4 cup granulated white sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 220 degrees Celsius (or 425 degrees Fahrenheit).
2. Grease your specialty mini doughnut pan with oil or butter.
3. Sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, nutmeg and salt.
4. In a separate bowl, combine melted butter, buttermilk and eggs, and beat well.
5. Combine dry and wet ingredients, and mix gently until just incorporated. Do not over-mix.
6. Fill each doughnut mold only half full.
7. Bake for 4-6 minutes, or until doughnut is springy to the touch.
8. Trying not to burn your fingers, pry doughnuts out of the molds while they are still relatively hot, and roll them around in the cinnamon sugar coating mixture. The coating will only stick while doughnuts are hot. If you find that it's not sticking, brush some melted butter onto the surface of the doughnut before dredging it in the sugar.

Gelato Messina, Darlinghurst

OH YESSS - I have finally made the trip to Gelato Messina in Darlinghurst!

I have literally spent weeks fantasising about this visit. It got so out of hand that I travelled by light-rail to its other store at The Star, in Pyrmont (not realising at the time that the Darlinghurst store was actually closer) two weeks ago, just to take the edge off my cravings. I had a scoop of the delicious 'Apple Pie' gelato, and that in combination with three macarons from Adriano Zumbo a few stores down sent me straight into a sugar coma. Not an entirely unpleasant way to round off the working week.

However, my brief encounter with the "best gelato in Australia" at The Star only intensified my desire to visit the flagship store. It was mostly borne out of a sense of curiosity over the 'Creative Department (Laboratorio and Patisserie)' which recently opened next to its main store at the Darlinghurst location. From what I'd seen on other people's blogs, as well as on Messina's own website, the Laboratorio sells an amazing array of gelato-based cakes, in single-serves or as big cakes which will feed 14-16 people.

One of the big cakes: 'Dr Evil's Magic Mushroom'

My jaw dropped when I saw the 'Dr Evil's Magic Mushroom'. Or rather, a whole troop of them (yes, "troop" is the collective noun for mushrooms!). Fingers-crossed that Messina keeps making them until the end of this year, because I cannot think of a cake I want more for my birthday!

Some more large cakes

All of the large cakes looked fantastic.

And still some more.

As did the small cakes.

The small mushroom cakes are called 'Mini Me', lol xD 

It was very cool (pun intended!) that some of the small cakes were being made on counters right next to the entrance to the lab. My friend P., who'd met up with me for an ice cream date, and I watched the making of the 'Samurai' for a while, before proceeding to the main store for some gelato! 

The 'Samurai', which to me looks like an 

upside-down Magnum that's been attacked by Gloomy Bear 

 We did originally have plan to sample at least one of the small cakes, and P. in particular was looking forward to trying the 'Darlo Bar', which is an ice cream sandwich consisting of peanut butter gelato and spiced gingerbread, amongst other things. However, I really wanted to try some of the gelato flavours which were on the 'Specials' board that day. P. was nice enough to split a 'Misto' with me - a sampler or tasting plate of 5 gelato flavours, if you will.

As you can probably imagine, we had a very hard time picking only 5 flavours. Everything sounded so good!

But choose we did...there was the '1985', which was from the 'Specials' board. It's a coconut gelato, with huge shards of chocolate and cherry jam stirred in. It does look like a lot of jam, but it wasn't overly sweet. I really liked this one! The gelato tasted strongly of coconut, and I think I could taste bits of desiccated coconut in there.

The '1985'

The 'Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich', also from the 'Specials' board, had real bits of bread in it! Well, "vanilla soaked brioche', to be specific :D The gelato was peanut butter flavoured, and the raspberry jam was swirled in. I love my peanut butter, so I loved this flavour. An even stronger peanut butter flavour would have been even better.

'Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich' - can you see the bread?

The 'Boss's Wife', consisting of "coffee and hazelnut gelato with hazelnut and white chocolate praline", was my favourite. There's no mistaking that this gelato had COFFEE in it - I got a caffeine kick out of it, and I usually take my coffee strong and black. I admit to being guilty of deliberately finding the pieces of praline, and eating them while my friend P. was preoccupied with the other flavours.

'Boss's Wife' - I hope the actual allusion is a lot more innocent than it sounds ;D

Talking about my friend P.; her favourite flavour was the 'Saffron with Pistachio & Orange Cake', which was also the last 'Specials' flavour that we ordered. No surprise there, as she's a major fan of the pistachio and orange cake that Black Star Pastry in Newtown does. I was happy to let her have her way with it since I was busy prying the praline pieces out of the coffee gelato anyway.

'Saffron with Pistachio & Orange Cake'

And last but not least - the 'Poached Figs in Marsala' was loaded with dried figs, and my friend and I both enjoyed it.

'Poached Figs in Marsala'

The scoops weren't huge, but we had plans to have dinner after our gelato date so we agreed to leave the cakes to another day. And with flavours being changed on a weekly basis, there's no doubt that I will be back for many more visits in the future!

Gelato Messina - Darlinghurst Store/The Creative Department (Laboratorio & Patisserie)

241-243 Victoria Street,

Darlinghurst NSW 2010

Phone: (02) 8354 1223

Website: http://www.gelatomessina.com/