Dulce De Leche Cheesecake Blondies.

The baking bug struck me last night.

Lately, I've been making HEAPS of cupcakes for people, but nothing blog worthy as they're all similar to things I've posted before.

But last night, all I could think about was the leftover philidelphia cheese and dulce de leche I had sitting in my fridge. Just longing to be baked with. And then I thought about blondies. Buttery, brown sugary goodness. With cheesecake......and dulce de leche. PERFECT!!

Ooooh yum, can you see the swirlies of cheesecake and caramel?? Deeeelicious, although they did kind of turn out a bit more cakey rather than a brownie like texture. But that's ok with me, they still taste great!!

Adapted from "More from Magnolia" Blondies with Cream Cheese Swirl:

Cream Cheese Filling:
4 Ounces Cream Cheese
2 tbsp caster sugar
1 large egg yolk
1 tbsp all purpose flour

Blondies:
1 1/2 cups cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups firmly packed light brown sugar (I used half light half dark because that's what I had in the cupboard)
1/4 cup caster sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla
150g dulce de leche

Preheat oven to 350. Grease and lightly flour a 13x9 inch baking pan.
To make the cream cheese filling: in a medium size bowl, bet cream cheese & sugar until smooth. Add the egg yolk and flour and beat well. Set aside.
To make the blondies: In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugars until smooth. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat well. Add the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. Spread the batter evenly in the prepared pan.
Drop the cream cheese mixture and dulce de leche by teaspoonfuls over the batter. Swirl the cream cheese and dulce de leche into the batter. Bake for 35 minutes. Enjoy. 

Almost married cake!!

Last week, my old boss requested a cake for a very good friend that I used to work with. You might remember I made some cupcakes for my friends engagement. Well, that friend is getting married next weekend!! So my old work put on a lunch for her today, and asked me to make her an "almost married" cake. Check it out!!

It was a white chocolate mud cake with white chocolate ganache - and by all accounts everyone loved it!! I was so glad that my old boss asked me, because it made making this cake all that more special for my lovely friend!!

Congrats again Georgie - love you lots xx

30th b'day cake

Hi lovelies, just a quick one today!!

30th birthday cake I did this week:

Vanilla 3 and a chocolate 0. Pretty tasty!!

Fresh, homemade pasta!!

I <3 Pasta. I really do. I think I should have been Italian. Give me pasta and bread and I'm happy!!

Today, I decided I wanted pasta for dinner. But not just store bought pasta. Fresh, homemade pasta. I have had a pasta maker for god knows how long, and I've never used it. Tonight was the night to pick it up off it's shelf, dust it off and use that bad boy!!

The dough, after much kneading - my arms are so tired!! 

When I first started rolling it, it was all crumbly.....I think I didn't let it sit long enough. I'm pretty impatient. 

Fettucine!! 

Extra sharp parmesan cheese.....omnomnom

Served with garlic bread. My life is complete. 

So making this pasta was actually easier than I thought it would be. 

ingredients:

2 1/2 cups plain flour

pinch of salt

4 eggs

Sift your flour and salt on to a clean, dry surface. Make a well in the middle and crack in your eggs. This bit proved to be the most difficult for me, because apparently, my well wasn't big enough. And the eggs kinda leaked a bit. My hands came in handy (who would have though!!) for that bit. 

Slowly mix the flour in to the eggs with your fingertips (fingertips were used not so much, but rather my whole hands). Knead the dough for about 10 minutes......seriously tiring work people. Your end result should be smooth and elastic. 

Divide the dough in to 4 even parts and cover with a damp cloth (to stop it from drying out) and let it sit for about 20 minutes (this helps to make the pasta more pliable because it gives the gluten a chance to work its magic baby). 

Once it's sat for 20 minutes, take a portion and flatten it in to a rectangle and roll it through your pasta machine and cut in to fettucine. 

It's seriously that easy. Enjoy it with your favourite pasta sauce - a bit fave in my household is creamy, but healthy!! I know right, bit of a contradiction there - secret is carnation light milk. It's SO good, tastes like cream and has a trillion (not really, 95% or something like that) less fat than cream. 

A little lie.

Remember that time I told you that there was only one recipe you'd ever need for scones??

I lied.

Sorry. Sometimes it happens. Sometimes I proclaim something to be the best thing I've ever had/made/seen/eaten......and then something else comes along and blows it right out of the water. And to be honest, I've made these little delights before and just kind of forgot about the recipe.

Anyway, tonight I felt like scones. And I was actually just going to go buy some from woolworths (GASP!! I know right......I feel guilty, but I actually REALLY like the scones from woolworths.....and I feel really ashamed to admit that too). Well, woolworths didn't have scones. I actually really hate woolworths, they never have anything I need, and I kid you not the last FOUR times I have been to woolies to get cucumber, they haven't had any. And cucumber is not something unusual, so WHY DON'T THEY HAVE IT?! Sorry, getting a bit off track here.....but no cucumber makes me a bit angry!!

So I collected ingredients for the most simple scone recipe I could remember. It's so so so simple and it turns out the most fabulously light and fluffy scones. Read on, dear friend, for what I can promise IS the best scone recipe, EVAH!!

Ingredients:

3 cups self raising flour
Pinch of salt
1 cup sugar free lemonade (I like sugar free lemonade better than normal. Feel free to use normal)
1 cup thickened cream

Preheat oven to 200c.

Sift flour & salt in to bowl and make a well in the middle. Pour in lemonade and cream and fold in to flour until it just comes together. Don't over mix it, you want a few bits of flour still showing. Turn it out on to a generously floured surface and lightly pat together in to a circle.

Cut out as many scones as you can from your first batch, because they won't turn out as nicely from the second one. Place them on to a tray lined with baking paper and brush the tops lightly with milk (so that they brown nicely!!). Pop them in the oven and turn it down to 170 - 180c. Bake for 12 - 15 minutes or until lightly golden.

Look at how fluffy they are!! 

Seriously, they're delicious. Especially with peppermint tea and chantilly cream.

Cupcakes!!

Sorry I've been a bit quiet of late.

I've just been having a really hectic few weeks.

At the moment, my place of employment (Australian Youth Choir & Australian Youth Dance Theatre) are recruiting for children aged 7 years and up to join our Choir or Dance Theatre for 2011 (I hope you don't mind me doing a bit of spruiking here!!). We run a fabulous Choral & Dance education programme for kids where they come to us once a week at one of our many reharsal venues across Sydney or Newcastle and they practice lots of really fun songs, or dances, and they perform in 3 concerts a year at the Sydney Town Hall and it's REALLY fun. So if anyone happens to be reading this and has a child aged 7 or above that is interested in singing or dancing, give me a call on 9808 5563 and you could book a time for your child to come and audition!!

Anyway, the reason I have been so quiet is because of our recruiting!! What this involves is calling thousands of schools all across Sydney and Newcastle, booking times to go and visit them, and then visiting each classroom from years 2 - 6 and talking to the kids, singing a song with them, and hand out information. I don't normally visit schools, but lately I have been because we have SO many schools to visit and not enough audition staff to go out and make the visits. As a result, I've been busy and exhausted from repeating our speech/song routine up to 40 times in one day. As well as our concert that was on at Town Hall last weekend. As well as working late at the office.

Subsequently, I haven't had the time or energy to cook which makes me SAD!!

However, I have had HEAPS of cupcake orders as of late, so I've been busy baking lots of cupcakes, but nothing new for the blog for a while :(

Here's an order I did for today, 24 mini cupcakes. They're all vanilla cake, with chocolate, vanilla & strawberry icing. Sweet!!

And while I'm on the spruiking bandwagon, here's a sneaky little link to my facebook page :) 

A little bit naughty.

One of the girls I work with requested some cupcakes for a hens party this weekend.

Penis & boob cupcakes to be exact.

Sure, why not!!

Hehehehehe!! 

All packaged and ready to go. 

Fun to make and a little different to your regular cupcake order!!