Thursday, August 12, 2010

50th post with cake to celebrate!

I'm really quite proud to be on my 50th post! Wowee! And to celebrate here is a most fabulous cake that is quickly becoming my new favorite.
I made it yesterday for tea with my Lovely Auntie Kathleen and quilting mad cousin Cathy! I made two loaf shaped ones today for my stupendous Caitlin who is back from Belarus with her lovely boyfriend Luke, so I'm bringing that down to them tomorrow! Yay!

It's called a Hummingbird Cake; 'interesting', I hear you say. It is! It's in that Women's Weekly 100 Classic Cakes book I got a few weeks back.
Now, it really doesn't look very nice in the tin:

but that's mostly due to using oil rather than butter I think.

The icing you make for it is like the icing for a carrot cake, and so is DELISH. Icing is a problem for me... I think my teeth are starting to tell me to go easy...


It turned out very well, I must say! I was a bit cautious making it cos the ingredients seemed a bit strange to me- pineapple, banana, ginger, cinnamon, coconut (which I didn't have, so it's not in this version) etc! But it's soooo good. A tad crumbly, but fabulous.

nom nom nom...


Another perk of it is that you only need like 2 bowls to make it- so minimal clean up! I've made a few little changes that I did while making it.
Give it a go- it's incredibly yummy and we'll say sorta healthy with all the fruit in it;)

Hummingbird Cake
serves 12

450g can crushed pineapple in syrup
150g plain flour
75g self raising flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate soda
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
220g firmly packed brown sugar
40g desiccated coconut
1 cup mashed banana (about 2 large ones)
2 eggs, lightly beaten
180ml sunflower oil


cream cheese frosting
30g butter, softened
60g cream cheese, softened
1 tsp vanilla extract
240g icing sugar

(I also added about 2 tbsp of milk just to make it easier to spread)

- Preheat the oven to 180C fan assisted. Grease a deep 23cm square tin. Line the base.
- Cut up the pineapple rings and smush them for juice.
Or just make sure you save 60ml from the tin.
- Sift flours, soda, spices and sugar into a large bowl. Stir in the pineapple, reserved syrup, coconut, banana, egg and oil.
- Pour mixture into tin; bake for 40 minutes.
- Stand cake for 5 minutes in tin before turning, top-side up, onto wire rack to cool.
- While it's cooling, make the frosting: Beat the butter, cream cheese and vanilla in a small bowl until light and fluffy. Gradually add in the sifted icing sugar.
- Smear the cake with frosting and tuck in.

When Mom and I returned home from our tea date, we were excitedly brainstorming a few ideas for a crafts/ baking charity fundraiser... I'll keep you posted!
I'm tres excited to say the very least!

In other news- my darling Sarah Griffin (last seen here making Rainbow Cakes) has joined the blogging world ahead of her Masters adventure! Catch her here: Write the Title Last
Milk and Cookies Round Nine is also on tomorrow night! Goooooo to it!

I have a few more things to put up, but I am rather tired and have buses ahead of me tomorrow, so I'll post them after my exciting weekend!

Mwah!x

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Peanut Butter and Fudge Cookies. Nom.


The other day Siob came home from our cousin's and with her she had 3 boxes with fudge white chocolate and milk chocolate. Yum! These came in handy as I wanted to bake cookies and found a recipe for the above mentioned!

We always have peanut butter here in the house, and just so happened to have the fudge, so all systems were go!


They were quite yummy and not as heavy or sweet as you might expect. Mom was a bit wary when she heard what was in them, but she agreed that they're pretty good!
It's an American recipe, but the quantities aren't very big, so you should be okay! Let me know if you need a hand!

Peanut Butter and Fudge Cookies
makes about 16 nice size ones

4 tbsp butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter (smooth is best)
1/4 tsp vanilla essence
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
1 large egg
3/4 plain flour
a handful of diced fudge

Oven to 180C/ 350F

-Cream the butter and sugar.
-Add the peanut butter and vanilla. I recommend you have a sneaky taste right about now...
-Add the baking soda and salt, and then whip in the egg.
-Add the flour and then the fudge pieces.
-Drop the mixture onto a piece of baking parchment on a tray. They don't spread too much, so you should be able to fit at least 12 on a tray.
-Bake for 15 minutes and cool on a wire rack.

Enjoy!x