Bake Club - Young Coconut & Berry Slushies

I mentioned in my previous post about the challenges over on taste.com.au. The Bake Club challenge for this month is to make anything from the coconut desserts recipe collection. It is really hot and really dry here at the moment. Not as hot as it is in Melbourne though, where the Australian Open  tennis is on, I can't imagine how people are playing tennis in the heat down there. 

I decided it would be nice to make something that didn't involve turning the oven on. I remember looking the Young Coconut & Berry Slushies recipe several times in the issue of delicious magazine and since it is part of this collection I decided to give it a try. I am so glad that I did. It has just the right amount of tart and sweet. I didn't wait for it to be too slushie and I just ate it with a spoon. It was so lovely and cooling. I will definitely make it again. 

Delicious May 2013 - Raspberry, chocolate & almond tea cake

I had so much trouble deciding what to make from this issue. I kept see-sawing back and forth. Now it is almost the end of the month and I decided tonight that I just had to pick something and make it. 

So the recipes that I was see-sawing over. Valli's Coffee & walnut cake. It looks so good but I really didn't want to buy the Camp Chicory & Coffee essence to make it. I am sure that I could have used a shot or two of espresso but I wasn't sure how much or how strong, so I took the easy way out and moved on. 

Jill Dupleix's Bean thread noodles with tofu & eggplant looks fabulous. Just packed full of flavour and a great looking vegetarian dish. However, it would have involved buying at least half of the ingredients and I am trying to use up stuff in my cupboards, not add more to it and I just didn't have good substitutes. 

Katie Quinn's Harissa & capsicum chicken was the recipe that was winning the race right up until the end. I had planned to make it tonight and even took the chicken out of the freezer. Two things went wrong. The chicken wasn't fully thawed and secondly I was so late home from work tonight that I just wanted to eat then and there, so I had boiled eggs and toast instead. Hopefully I will get this made tomorrow night. 

In the end I decided to make Valli's Raspberry, chocolate & almond tea cake tonight. The photo looked good and it sounded really good with the added bonus that I didn't need to buy anything. I did make this gluten free. It worked okay but I think I should have cooked it for another 5 minutes it was still a little doughy in the middle. That was my fault though, the skewer didn't look quite clean but I didn't follow my instincts. It is nice but I am not sure I would make it again. Oh, and my photo isn't all that great, it just did not want to slice well, that might be because I wanted to try it so didn't wait for it to cool.

Raspberry, chocolate & almond cake

150g softened unsalted butter, chopped

2/3 cup (150g) caster sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla essence

50ml milk

1 cup (150g) gluten free flour
2 tsp baking powder

150g almond meal

¾ cup (135g) dark choc chips

150g raspberries

1/3 cup (25g) flaked almonds

Icing sugar, to dust

METHOD

Preheat oven to 170°C (fan-forced).  Grease 20cm round cake pan.

Cream butter and sugar until pale.  Add the eggs, one at a time and beat to incorporate.

Add the vanilla and milk and beat to combine.  

Fold in flour and almond meal and finally the raspberries and choc chips.

Spread mix in cake pan and bake for 50 - 55 minutes or until a skewer is inserted into the centre comes out clean.  Turn out after 10 minutes and cool completely.  Dust with icing sugar to serve. 

Baked Raspberry Meringue Cheesecake

A few weeks ago my friends and I decided that we needed to catch up more regularly. So it was decided that we would have a barbecue once a month rotating houses each month. It is kind of like a pot luck situation where each one brings something. I volunteered to make a dessert for a first gathering. 

I wanted to make something a bit different but something that would be family friendly and yummy. There were a couple of choices between different tart recipes that I have had bookmarked for a while. However, I had an idea for something brand new. It was kind of based around the lemon & coconut meringue cheesecake that I made last year. However I wanted to lighten it up a bit. So I decided to add in some strained vanilla yoghurt. I made both a large one (probably too large now I look at it) and a small one for blogging and taste testing purposes of course, lol. I am very pleased with how this has turned out. The raspberry flavour is just lovely and it is not too heavy. I made sure to go easy on the sugar as it could have easily been way too sweet. I hope that it is liked by all. 

Baked Raspberry Meringue Cheesecake 

Ingredients: 

•  1 packet granita biscuits
• 1 packet marie biscuits 
• 170 g butter, softened 
• 500 g cream cheese 
• 250 g strained vanilla yoghurt 
• 1 tsp vanilla paste 
• 2/3 c caster sugar 
• 5 eggs
• 4 egg yolks 
• 400 g raspberries (crushed and strained to remove seeds)

Meringue:

•  4 egg whites 
• ¼ tsp cream of tartar 
• 2/3 c caster sugar  

Method:

• Process biscuits until finely crushed. Add butter and mix well to combine. Press into tart tins and chill for at least 1 hour. 
• Place cream cheese & yoghurt in mixer bowl and beat until well combined. Add vanilla and sugar and beat to combine. Add eggs & yolks one at a time beating well after each addition. Add raspberry puree and mix well to combine. 
• Pour filling into tart tin bake at 160 C for 50 minutes, it should still have a slight wobble but not too much. Remove from oven and cool for about 20 minutes. 
• In a clean mixing bowl beat egg whites and cream of tartar to soft peaks. Slowly add caster sugar beating until it is stiff and glossy and the sugar is completely dissolved. 
• Spread meringue on top of cheesecake and then return to oven for a further 15 minutes or until nicely browned.
  

(From this I got 1 x 24 cm (5 cm deep) round tart tin and 1 x 10 cm (4 cm deep) round tart tin)

Raspberry Shortcake

The "pimping" of biscuits (or cookies depending on where you live) over on Taste forums has sprung up a competition over at the The Claytons Blog challenging us all to pimp a biscuit for the chance to win a very nifty looking "batter finger" spatula. I have already done the mint slice so I could have just left it at that but last weekend I had some friends coming around for an early lunch and I wanted something a bit different for dessert so I decided to pimp another biscuit.

I took myself over to the Arnott's website and had a look at their range, something that would be easy to "pimp" and something that would be tasty. I decided I wanted something that wasn't chocolate this time as most of the Arnott's chocolate range had been done by other Tasters. There are a few others that could be done but most would take more planning and time than I had available. I decided to go with the lovely Raspberry Shortcake.

By choosing the Raspberry Shortcake it also gave me a chance to use my Cookie cake pans from Williams Sonoma. I was lucky enough to be part of a group of lovely ladies that received a parcel, after it passed through a number of hands, containing a pair of these wonderful tins. An online store saying that they do not ship internationally will not stop a woman on mission. Not only did the pans arrive in perfect condition but I was updated about every step of their journey and pretty much knew where they were at any given point from the point of purchase until it was delivered into my hot little hands. My first attempt to bake in this adorable set of pans was not a rousing success. I have always resisted purchasing the Wilton Bake Easy or Cake Release products. I had long ago found a recipe for a home made version of the cake release which had always served me well in the past. Unfortunately it did not serve me well on this occasion. The cake had to come out of the pans in crumbs. It was the only way of getting it out. I was very disappointed with this but didn't let it stop me for long. I ordered a couple of cans of the Bake Easy, along with a variety of other stuff to make the postage worthwhile. It had arrived in time for me to use it here.

I was unsure of what recipe to use in the tin, wary of my first attempt when I used a sand cake recipe. I decided to go with a recipe that I knew EmmCee had used in hers for her Mega Lamington. So off I went armed with Nigella's Spruced up Vanilla Cake recipe, which has got to be one of the easiest and most tasty vanilla cakes ever.

225gms softened butter
300g caster sugar
6 eggs
350g self raising flour
250ml plain thick style greek yogurt
4 teaspoons vanilla extract

Method

Put all the ingredients into a food processor and blitz together for around 90 seconds or until combined

Pour evenly into 2 x 8" greased round cake tins.

Place in a preheated 160C fan forced oven for 45 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

Turn out after 5 minutes and let cool thoroughly.

You will end up with two cakes like this:

I spread the bottom cake with some lovely raspberry jam.

Then, using an 8 cm round pastry cutter, I cut out a hole in the cake for the top layer and placed it on top of the jam covered bottom.

Now, the filling in the actual biscuit it is just a jam-like filling that pushes its way up when the top biscuit is pressed onto the bottom. I was not going to put that much jam on the bottom layer, I also did not want to just fill the hole with huge quantities of jam as I didn't think that it would be very nice with all that jam. I had a box of frozen raspberries in the freezer so I thawed half of it and combined it with a couple of spoonfuls of raspberry jam to add a bit of sweetness. It probably would have been better if it was thickened or if I had added some gelatine or something so that it would have set but I decided not to worry about it and just piled it into the centre. It didn't taste exactly like a Raspberry Shortcake biscuit, personally I think that it was so much better with a drizzle of cream over the top even if the filling did flow out all over the cake plate as soon as it was cut.

January 2010

If I had actually paid better attention when I was going through the magazines I never would have made the Coconut cream tartlets from the January 2005 magazine as there were so many other great things to make for dessert in later magazines. I had not, of course, made a firm decision when I first went through choosing recipes that I would only make one dessert a month. It had crossed my mind but it wasn't until after I made those tartlets that I decided that I definitely had to put limits on the desserts.

Now all this lamenting about not doing a dessert this time around is for two reasons. Firstly just look at the picture of Valli Little's Mangomisu on the front cover of issue 89, how could any one not want to make that? The second reason is that what I ended up making was a bit of a disaster.... I actually made this on 26th January, Australia Day. It was a public holiday and I had the day off work so I decided it would be nice to make a little bit of an effort and make a special breakfast. The first recipe that I had marked as a possible to make in this issue was Jamie Oliver's Homemade Cinnamon & Lemon Crumpets with Raspberries and Honey. I love crumpets, they are wonderful for breakfast drizzled with honey or smeared with jam. This recipe had them topped with ricotta mixed with raspberries and honey...yum. I had attempted to make crumpets before using a Delia Smith recipe and it was a bit of a disaster. I had hoped that Jamie wouldn't let me down, unfortunately it was a disaster too.

I am not really sure what happened. I couldn't find my egg rings, I moved 7 months ago and there is still a bit of kitchen stuff in boxes but there is also a lot of stuff shoved in random places. I am sure they are around somewhere but they would not come out of hiding on Tuesday morning. The lack of the rings was the reason for for the dreadful shape of them. Although in reality that doesn't really worry me too much. The main problem was that they didn't cook properly. I am not sure if I made them too thick or if it was a problem with not having the correct temperature. Very few holes formed on top and they didn't cook through. I did eat two but they were a bit doughy and quite yeasty. Not very enjoyable at all. Since it was so disappointing I will not be typing out the long recipe. I will however give the ricotta topping as that was very nice. I used the rest of it on some toasted fruit loaf.

• 250 g fresh ricotta
• Zest 1 lemon
• 2 tbsp honey, plus extra to drizzle
• 3 large handfuls fresh raspberries (I used some frozen mixed berries)

Method:

• In a small bowl mix the ricotta, zest and honey.
  
• In another small bowl mash half the raspberries.
  
• Gently fold the mashed raspberries through the ricotta being careful not to over mix as you want a rippled effect.
  
• Sprinkle with the remain raspberries when serving.