Meringue Cupcakes

Recipe from CupcakesImages by Yasmin

I love meringue. It is beautiful on lemon meringue pie, so it is just as beautiful as an icing for cupcakes. To make this cupcake look even more sweet and appetising it is dusted with jelly crystals. De-lic-ious! This was served for afternoon tea with Citrus Slice, posted previously. Great for a hot summers day.

Ingredients:
For cupcake:

• 1 1/3 cups plain flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup milk

Meringue Topping:

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 large egg whites
• jelly crystals, to decorate (any colour)

Method:
Line cupcake tins with patty pans.

For cupcakes, combine the flour, baking powder and salt into a small bowl. In a medium sized bowl, beat the butter, sugar and vanilla until creamy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating until just blended after each addition. With mixer on slow speed, add the mixed dry ingredients and milk. Spoon the batter into the prepared patty pans, filling each 3/4 full. Bake for 10-20 minutes, until golden brown and firm to touch. Transfer to wire rack once cool.

For Meringue, beat at high speed the egg whites until soft peaks form when beaters are removed. While the motor is running slowly pour the sugar into the egg whites. Beat until meringue is thick and forms soft peaks.

Spoon meringue on top of the cupcakes. Using the spoon create small peaks on the cupcakes. Dust with jelly crystals. Store in refrigerator in sealed container.

Orange Creme Caramel

Recipe from Women's Weekly Barbecue Cookbook

Images by Amanda and Yasmin

This is a yummy dessert with an interesting texture. It is not as hard as a cheesecake but not as soft as custard. This dessert has double points for me because it is a citrus flavoured dish; however, it looses points because it is a very subtle flavour of citrus orange - and I love a strong citrus flavour. However, if you have a pallet similar to my sisters, you will love the infusion of orange you taste with each bite. It seems as though you might taste the orange but then as you grasp for the flavour it slips out of reach until another bite is taken. I served this dessert on Boxing Day and everybody loved it.

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 lemon juice
• 1/2 cup water
• 4 eggs
• 1/3 cup sugar, extra
• 300ml jar thickened cream
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 2 tsp grated orange rind

Method:

Combine sugar, lemon juice and water in pan, stir over low heat without boiling until sugar is dissolved. Bring to the boil, do not stir. Boil rapidly, uncovered, until syrup turns golden brown, about 5 minutes. Pour the syrup into an 18cm round cake tin.

Lightly beat eggs and extra sugar together. Heat cream, milk and orange rind until hot, whisk into egg mixture. Strain mixture into tin, place in baking dish with hot water to come halfway up side of tin. Bake in moderately slow oven 45-50 minutes or until set. Remove from water, cool, refrigerate overnight. Turn onto serving dish, decorate with cream and orange segments if desired. Serves 6.

Marshmallow Puddings

Recipe from 'Woman's Weekly Chrsitmas Entertaining'
Images by Yasmin

I know that I said I would never post chocolate recipes, but it is christmas and I thought why not post a chocolate recipe to get familar with the jolly season. This recipe is a modern day twist to the classical mini puddings. Instead of having some pudding smothered in chocolate, it is a marshmallow in the centre. It is very clever, and I'm sure it tastes nice. My sister made these for some family friends for christmas. Seasons Greetings!

Ingredients:

• 12 large Marshmallows
• 1 1/2 cups (225g) milk chocolate melts, melted
• 1/4 cup (35g) white chocolate melts, melted
• coloured cachous or chopped cherries, to decorate

Method:
Line a large baking tray with baking paper. For each pudding, insert a toothprick in the top of a marshmallow. Place the marshmallow in milk chocolate. Using a teaspoon, coat the marshmallow in chocolate, leaving a small gap around the toothpick. Using a fork, lift the marshmallow from the chocolate, letting excess drip into bowl. Place on the prepared tray. Allow to set.

Remove toothpicks from marshmallows. Using a teaspoon, drizzle a little white chocolate over each marshmallow. Sprinkle with cachous or cherries. Allow to set.

Place each pudding in a small coloured patty pan (optional).

Blood Orange Cheesecake

Recipe and Images by Yasmin

I had some left over cream cheese in the fridge today and I thought it would be a nice idea to make some cheesecakes for dessert. As I raided out fruit bowl for something to add flavour to the cheesecake mixture I saw and orange. I thought that was perfect to go in my cheesecake but when I cut it in half to juice it I saw that it was actually a Blood Orange. I still used it and the end result was delicious! I would recommend this recipe to anyone - it is one of my best!

Ingredients:

• 225g Cream Cheese, softened
• 2/3 cup caster sugar
• 1/2 blood orange, juiced
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten (room temperature)
• 1 tsp. vanilla essence
• tart cases (can be bought at local supermarket)
• Fresh fruit, to decorate (optional)

Method:
Preheat your oven to 180C. Beat the cream cheese with the sugar. With the mixer running, slowly add the eggs, blood orange juice and vanilla. Arrange tart cases on a tray. Fill 3/4 (1-2 tblsps) of cases with the mixture. Bake for 15 minutes and leave to cool. When completely cooled (or after refridgeration), decorate with fruit (optional). Serve for afternoon or morning tea or dessert with a bowl of mixed fruit.

How to make a Dolly Vardon

Recipe and Images by Yasmin

These are the two cakes I made for Cultural Festival, one of which one 3rd Place! This type of cake is called a Dolly Vardon. The skirt or base of the cake is actual cake, while the top is the torso of a Barbie doll or a Kelly (Barbie) doll. For these two cakes I used Kelly dolls for the ease of fitting it in the cake. If you use a Barbie doll you must remove the legs and just leave the torso to fit into the cake. Below are some simple instructions on how to make your own dolly vardon cake. Have fun!

How to make Ariel:

Step 1: Bake a cake in a deep bowl. It will take longer to cook because the cake is more dense and the bowl is acrillic not tin. It is always a good idea to slightly overcook the cake (until it is 'dry' in taste) to make it sturdier for the ease of cutting and icing.

Step 2: Cover some carboard, a bread board, a cake board etc. with aluminium foil and seel on the underside with sticky tape. This becomes the 'stand' or 'presentation board' for Ariel.

Step 3: When completely cool cut a small hole slightly off centre (to allow for the piping of the tail).

Step 4: Place the Kelly Doll into the hole and then ice the cake (which will become a rock for Ariel to sit on) with chocolate butter icing.

Step 5: Smooth the icing over so the rock is completely covered.

Step 6: Colour some of the butter icing green and place it into a zip lock bag with the end snipped (the hole must be very small) or in a piping bag with a small nozzle. Start to pipe the tail; small piping for the tail and larger piping when it connects with the torso of the Kelly Doll. When you reach the part of the tail which the fins start, outline the fins and then proceed to fill them with long strokes of piped icing rather than small blobs.

By now the butter icing will have softened greatly so put the left over icing and cake into the fridge for 5 minutes to set before moving on with the other steps. Because this cake takes a few hours to complete to perfection, the cake and icing will need to be placed in the fridge a few times to set.

Step 7: Begin to decorate the board and rock with different coloured icing. I made some smaller rocks amongst the big rock Ariel is sitting on. On these I made Sebastian the Crab and also different types of seeweed. Also decorate Ariel's rock with seeweed and maybe some shells, as well as piping a purple bra on Ariel. Then place it in the fridge again.

Step 8: Make some blue butter icing and place it in a zip lock bag with a fairly small hole in one corner, or a piping bag with a small nozzle. This will become the sea surrounding the rocks which are breaching the water.

Begin by piping dots around the rocks and then place icing randomly on the board. Using a fork, spread the icing (without damaging the piping) around the board until it is mostly covered by blue.

Be creative and don't make the fork imprints occur in straight line, make them randomly curve like waves.

Step 9: Place the finished product back in the fridge to set.

Now that you know the fine details of making a Dolly Vardon you can use the ideas in these steps to make another Dolly Vardon of another character such as Snow White.

 When transporting the cakes it is easiest to put them in a box if you have a few and put that box in the boot of the car, or if there is another person in the car, let them hold it on their lap.

Cultural Festival Cakes

Hello everyone!

It is this time of year again where having fun and enjoying everyone's talents has arrived... it was Cultural Festival on Thursday 15th!!!! Last year I posted some egg decorating skills and creations of mine, and on the Designer Cakes for Parties and Competitions page majority of the cakes are from last year's Cultural Festival. This year the theme of the event was 'Disney: Dare to Dream' and every cake suited this theme, as a result there are many Mickey Mouse faced cakes. I am proud to say that my Ariel Cake won third place! I am very pleased. Also the eggs that my friend and I created, the Royal Wedding Balcony Scene, won second place! In the pavement art section, I won first place for my Eeyore chalk drawing! On Cultural the various activities and competitions gain points that contribute towards your House score as well as your individual scoreboard. At the end of the day, the points are tallied and an overall individual winner for the Junior section and Senior section are announced and then the winning house is announced. Last year I was awarded third place in the Senior section, but this year I am the Cultural Festival Champion!!! I received first place for the Senior section!!!! Early next term there is a school Awards Night where various trophies, medals and ribbons are awarded to students for various reasons, such as academic excellence, dux of a subject, AND Cultural Festival Champion!!! This means I will receive a trophie and certificate as I walk onto the school stage!!! I am so excited and cannot wait!

In this post I will show you all of the competetors in the cake and egg decorating competition. On the next post I will provide step by step instructions to help you make your own award winning cake! Look out for next years last post about Cultural Festival, hopefully it will be another winning year!!! Enjoy baking all of those cakes and be creative as possible. I find it easy to just google a cake design and take ideas from various cakes to create your own masterpiece! Look at what others have done and just give it a go!

Happy Holidays!!!

Cheers,
Yasmin

Cultural Festival 2011:

Cake Decorating Entries:

(1st Place)

(2nd Place)

(3rd Place, Ariel by Yasmin)

(Snow White by Yasmin)

Some of the Egg Decorating Entries:

(2nd Place, Royal Wedding Blacony Scene by Yasmin and Zoe)

 (Harry Pottegg by Yasmin)

Pavement Art:

 (1st Place Senior Devision, Eeyore by Yasmin)

(1st Place Junior Devision)