White Chocolate and Coconut Cupcakes with Chocolate Icing

I really love the recipe base for White Chocolate Cupcakes, it is just so versatile. Today I decided to add some coconut to the cupcakes and make White Chocolate and Coconut Cupcakes with Chocolate Icing.

I used my usual recipe http://www.aww.com.au/food/recipes/2010/8/white-chocolate-mud-cake/ and made the cake into cupcakes. I then added 1 cup of desiccated coconut. The cupcakes are baked for 25-30 minutes at 150 degrees Celsius. 

For the icing, I used 125grams of butter, 2 cups of icing sugar, 1/4 cup of cocoa powder and 2 tablespoons of milk. 

The result, lots of lovely White Chocolate and Coconut Cupcakes with Chocolate Icing.

 

Give this recipe a go, it is easy!

 

 

Cinnamon French Toast Stacks

If I could have it my way, I would eat breakfast foods such as bacon and eggs, French toast and pancakes for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Unfortunately for me, this does not make a suitable healthy diet, and I should be watching my weight. Today I thought I would break the healthy diet rule and eat French toast for my late afternoon snack.

I ended up Googling a few recipes online and the one that caught my eye was Donna Hay’s recipe for Cinnamon French Toast. The recipe looked fairly simple and for that reason I was won over.

For the Cinnamon French Toast, I decided to change the recipe slightly and use standard bread because I did not have any baguettes at home. I also decided not to add the lemon rind because I am not a huge fan of lemon rind.

To make the recipe even more evil, I thought that I would add some fresh cream and maple syrup on top of the Cinnamon French Toast. I also added some banana so I could pretend it was some what healthy.

The Cinnamon French Toast ended up looking good, was so easy to make and it tasted amazing too.

What I loved most about this recipe, was the cinnamon, it just made the French toast taste amazing.

Guess what I am having for breakfast tomorrow? 😉

Donna Hay’s Cinnamon French Toast Recipe :

https://www.donnahay.com.au/recipes/breakfastandbrunch/sweet-somethings/cinnamon-french-toast

Hot Chocolate from Paper Plane Café

I love a good hot chocolate, in fact I am obsessed about it. Every time I visit a café, I always have to try their hot chocolate. In my opinion there are only a few places that make a really good hot chocolate. Sometimes I feel like Sydney is so focussed on making great coffee and other beverages like hot chocolate get forgotten.

Recently on a visit to Parramatta, I discovered a café called Paper Plane Café and I fell in love with their delicious hot chocolate. I was pleasantly surprised to find a good hot chocolate at this café.

The hot chocolate at Paper Plane Café was absolutely divine. The hot chocolate is so creamy and chocolatey and it does not taste overly sweet or sickly. I love how the hot chocolate has a thick layer of milk froth on the top and is generously sprinkled with Lindt chocolate flakes. The hot chocolate also comes with three marshmallows on the side. Definitely hot chocolate perfection!

Not only do Paper Plane Café make a great hot chocolate, they also have good service and make delicious food too, I definitely recommend you make a visit.

Paper Plane Café is located at:

5/2 Horwood Place, Parramatta NSW 2150

Kez’s Taking Cafe Home Salted Caramel Peanut and Pretzel Milk Choc Coated Cookie Slices

The other item that I bought from the Kez’s Taking Cafe Home range was their Salted Caramel Peanut and Pretzel Milk Choc Coated Cookie Slices. Out of the whole range, I was excited to try this one the most.

Kez’s Taking Cafe Home Salted Caramel Peanut and Pretzel Milk Choc Coated Cookie Slices come in 6 x 25grams packets, which is convenient for when you are on the go.

Unfortunately, I found Kez’s Taking Cafe Home Salted Caramel Peanut and Pretzel Milk Choc Coated Cookie Slices tasted too peanutty and sweet for me. I probably would have preferred if the cookie slice had not so many ingredients in the slice.

I cannot say that I will be buying this product from Kez’s Taking Cafe Home range again, it was probably so far my least favourite product from the range.

Stockists:

Kez’s Taking Cafe Home Salted Caramel Peanut and Pretzel Milk Choc Coated Cookie Slices are available from most supermarkets.

Website: http://www.kezs.com.au/products-kez’s-taking-cafe-home-.asp

 

Kez’s Taking Cafe Home Mini Mixed Moments

During a visit to my local Woolworths Supermarket, I managed to find some other products that I wanted to try from the Kez’s Taking Cafe Home range. I chose to buy the mini mixed moments, because they are one of my favourite biscuits to eat.

I really love eating melting moment biscuits, but I cannot eat many of them because they are not the healthiest biscuit. Having these biscuits in a mini size, just makes me feel less guilty.

Kez’s Taking Cafe Home Mini Mixed Moments come with three flavours, Red Velvet, Passionfruit and Chocolate. The mini mixed moments were all very delicious to eat, but my favourite one was definitely the Red Velvet flavour.

Unlike other mini melting moments that I have eaten, these mini melting moments are more dense like a regular sized melting moment. I had so much trouble just eating one.

I will be buying Kez’s Taking Cafe Home Mini Mixed Moments again soon, they are definitely on my list of new favourite biscuits to eat.

Stockists:

Kez’s Taking Cafe Home Mini Mixed Moments are available from most supermarkets.

Website: http://www.kezs.com.au/products-kez’s-taking-cafe-home-.asp

Caramel Crumble Slice

After making my shortbread crumble, I went looking for other recipes that I could make using crumble. I found a easy to make recipe for Caramel Crumble Slice on Taste.com.au website.

I am a lazy baker and I love easy recipes, so the Caramel Crumble Slice was a perfect recipe for me because it did not require much work.

The result was a tin of deliciously decadent Caramel Crumble Slice.

Next time I may cook the slice for 35 minutes rather than 30 minutes and add more crumble on top.

The Caramel Crumble Recipe can be located on taste.com.au website:

http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/37039/caramel+crumble+slice

Shortbread Crumble

I love shortbread biscuits, it is one of my favourite things to eat. Recently I was inspired by Gelato Messina’s Twixed gelato to make shortbread crumble so I can add it to ice cream.

Shortbread Crumble Recipe

Adapated from recipe found on taste.com.au

200g salted butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup of caster sugar

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

2 1/2 cups of plain flour

1 teaspoon of baking powder

Method

Preheat oven to 150 degrees Celsius and line two tins with baking paper.

Mix the together the butter, sugar and vanilla until pale and fluffy. Stir in the plain flour and baking powder to form a soft, crumbly dough. Press half of the mixture each in the two tins. (not too thick)

Bake until it is golden brown.

Use a wooden spoon to crush the biscuit base into a crumble. I prefer mine to be slightly chunky.

Sprinkle onto your ice cream and add caramel or chocolate sauce.

The Shortbread Crumble tasted divine and I actually got a tad carried away and may have eaten more than half the crumble before taking the photo. (opps)

Chocolate Mint Cupcakes with Mint Chocolate Chip Icing

I have been meaning to experiment with my bottle of peppermint essence for a while now, but I just was not sure what I would use it for. I then thought I would try to make Chocolate Mint Cupcakes with Chocolate Chip Mint Icing.

I was not sure how much peppermint essence to use for the cupcakes because peppermint essence can be quite over powering if you use too much, so I sought advice from my baking friends on Twitter.

According to my taste testers, the Chocolate Mint Cupcakes with Chocolate Chip Mint Icing ended turning out really well, the peppermint flavouring was not over powering. The Chocolate Mint Cupcakes with Chocolate Chip Mint Icing were delicious.

The icing is actually a light green colour, but it was hard to pick up the colour with my camera.

I only wish I could find my Wilton 1M piping tip, because I do not like how the Wilton 199 piping tip pipes.

Chocolate Mint Cupcakes with Chocolate Chip Mint Icing

250 grams of butter

1 block of dark cooking chocolate

2 cups of brown sugar

1 and 1/3 cup of milk

1 teaspoon of peppermint essence

1 and 1/2 cups of plain flour

1/4 cup of self raising flour

1/4 cup of cocoa powder

2 eggs

Icing

125 grams of room temperature butter

2 drops of green food colouring

1/4 teaspoon of peppermint essence

chocolate chips for decoration

2 cups of icing sugar

2 tablespoons of milk

 

Method

1) Preheat oven to 170 degrees C/150 degrees C fan-forced. Place cupcake cases into cupcake tin.

2) Combine butter, chocolate, milk, sugar and peppermint essence in medium saucepan, stir over low heat until mixture is smooth.

3) Cool mixture until barely warm, whisk in sifted dry ingredients and eggs.

4) Pour mixture evenly into paper cases and fill to about three-quarters full; bake about 25-30 minutes. Remove from oven and stand 10-15 minutes on a wire rack to cool.

5) For the icing, mix butter, milk, peppermint essence, 2 drops of green food colouring and icing sugar with a mixer. Place mixture into a piping bag. Once the cupcakes have cooled down, pipe the icing onto the cupcakes. Scatter chocolate chips on the top of the icing.

Coconut Rough Cupcakes

As you all know, coconut, chocolate and cupcakes are three of my favourite things to eat. Just the other day I thought it would be a great idea to combine these things and make Coconut Rough Cupcakes.

The Coconut Rough Cupcakes are basically a chocolate mud cupcake with toasted coconut. The cupcake will then be iced with chocolate icing and decorated with a piece of Nestle Golden Rough chocolate.

 

I was quite impressed with the Coconut Rough Cupcakes, they tasted so delicious and coconutty. The chocolate mud part of the cupcake was so moist and rich.

Unfortunately I could not find my Wilton 1M piping tip, so I could not pipe the icing onto the cupcakes as I had hoped for. In the end, I had to resort to using a Wilton 22 piping tip.

 

Coconut Rough Cupcake Recipe

250 grams of butter

1 block of dark cooking chocolate

2 cups of brown sugar

1 and 1/3 cup of coconut milk

1 teaspoon of vanilla essence

1 and 1/2 cups of plain flour

1/4 cup of self raising flour

3/4-1 cup of toasted coconut (depending on how coconutty you want the cupcakes to be)

1/4 cup of cocoa powder

2 eggs

A few packets of Nestle Golden Rough chocolates

Icing

125 grams of room temperature butter

1/4 cup of cocoa powder

2 cups of icing sugar

2 tablespoons of milk or coconut milk

 

Method

1) Preheat oven to 170 degrees C/150 degrees C fan-forced. Place cupcake cases into cupcake tin.

2) Combine butter, chocolate, coconut milk, sugar and extract in medium saucepan, stir over low heat until mixture is smooth.

3) Cool mixture until barely warm, whisk in sifted dry ingredients and eggs.

4) Pour mixture evenly into paper cases and fill to about three-quarters full; bake about 25-30 minutes. Remove from oven and stand 10-15 minutes on a wire rack to cool.

5) For the icing, mix butter, milk, cocoa powder and icing sugar with a mixer. Place mixture into a piping bag. Once the cupcakes have cooled down, pipe the icing onto the cupcakes. Place a 1/4 of the Golden Rough chocolate on the top of the icing.

 

If you are a  huge fan of coconut like I am, give this recipe a go.

 

 

 

Fare Gourmet’s Triple Chocolate Brownie

Back in the days when I used to live near the city, I used to visit Eveleigh Markets every Saturday and it was a tradition that I would buy one Fare Gourmet Chocolate Brownie. I used to love their brownies so much and always used to share them with my mother in law.

Since moving away from the city, I had not been able to get my Fare Gourmet brownie fix and I have not been able to find a brownie that tasted as good.

Then one day whilst I was visiting my local markets, I discovered that Fare Gourmet had a stall selling their brownies. I was so happy and delighted. I ended up buying the usual Triple Chocolate Brownie.

Fare Gournmet’s Triple Chocolate Brownie tasted as good as I had remembered, actually I think it tasted better. The Triple Chocolate Brownie tasted so decadent and rich like chocolate fudge, that I ended up eating a quarter of the Triple Chocolate Brownie. The Triple Chocolate Brownie was definitely a chocaholics dream.

I cannot wait until the markets are on next month, because I will be definitely stocking up on more of Fare Gourmet’s chocolate brownies.

Fare Gourmet’s chocolate brownies are still the best chocolate brownies that I have ever eaten!

Fare Gourmet’s Website:

http://www.faregourmet.com/