Chocolate Chip Cookies

This morning I woke up to the loud claps of thunder ringing around the lake followed by and endless amount of rain. So I decided to spend my afternoon attempting to make homemade hot cross buns...lets just say they ended up like beautiful little mounds of glazed, uncooked, dough balls. NOT the puffy, chewy and cinnamony ones that you buy in every bakery and grocery store at the moment. So they ended up being binned. Might try making some more tomorrow (Easter Sunday).

So by the end of the night, I realised that I needed to lift my spirits a bit and made my fool-proof recipe of chocolate chip cookies. I left the dough in the fridge to rest overnight and set about reading The Fault in Our Stars (I ended up in tears and had to put it down for the night, too many emotions for little me).

So when I woke up in the morning, I popped them in the oven and when they were finished, I went for a sail on the boat with my brother, Oscar. They turned out just the way they always do, soft and chewy, warm and gooey. The epitome of the classic American chocolate chip cookie.

Cheese and herb scones my Nana made

Easter Cupcakes

My school tutor group (a group of mixed year levels that gets together a few times a week) decided to have a shared morning tea on the last day of term one today. I am tutor group leader, so I decided to make Easter cupcakes. I will bring a few of the leftovers down to my nana and pop this weekend too :)

I woke up at 3am yesterday morning and decided that I would be a bit ambitious and make two different types of cupcakes to bring. After contemplating and having an internal debate about what flavours to make, I decided (with the help of my wonderful Mom) to make chocolate cupcakes with salted caramel filling and salted caramel Swiss meringue buttercream and coconut cupcakes with lemon curd filling and lemon Swiss meringue buttercream. Wow that’s a mouthful to say!

To top the cupcakes I decided to make fondant bunny and egg cut-outs that I hand painted with gel food colouring. 

Coconut Cake with Lemon Curd Filling and Lemon Swiss Meringue Buttercream Topped with Toasted Coconut

Chocolate Cake with Salted Caramel Filling

Salted Caramel Filling

Vanilla Bean Cupcakes with Raspberry Swiss Meringue Buttercream

This week two of my friends at school have their 17^th birthdays, so in order to celebrate, I decided to bake them some cupcakes. After getting inspired by flavour combinations on Pinterest (my secret obsession), I decided I would make my signature vanilla bean cake, filled with homemade vanilla bean pastry cream and topped with raspberry Swiss meringue buttercream.

So I started by making the pastry cream and considering it was my first attempt, I was thrilled with the way it turned out! Nice and thick, just like it should be with heaps of vanilla beans and no lumps.

Then I made the raspberry coulis that I would then add to the buttercream. Since I live in NZ and raspberries are now out of season, I had to settle for frozen berries but it turned out just as I wanted as well. So far so good!

After completing my favourite vanilla bean cake recipe and baking the cupcakes, it was on to the frosting…the traditional Swiss meringue buttercream. This requires whipping egg whites and adding a sugar syrup followed by adding butter piece by piece…quite the gruelling process, but completely worth it!

Now the cupcakes were ready to assemble, filling piping bags and decorating them with hand-piped chocolate ganache hearts.

Hope the girls like the final result! J

Caramelitas

Today while doing my daily Pinterest check, I came across a recipe for caramelitas. What is a caramelita? I soon found out it is an oaty slice with chocolate chips and caramel laced through them. I HAD to make them!  The recipe called for chewy caramels that are typically found in the candy section of the grocery store, but while looking today I realised that they don't sell them here in NZ! So I had to settle for some other caramels filled with chocolate and some caramel chips.

After making and baking the caramelitas, I let them cool for about 30 minutes, got sick of waiting and decided to cut them up...BIGGEST MISTAKE. The baking paper that I used ended up completely sticking to the bottom and sides of the slice, so I had a complete meltdown and pretty much gave up.

After letting it cool properly, I finally was able to cut it and take a few photos. Overall, I was happy with how they turned out and will definitely be making them again.

Recipe:

• 32 chewy caramels 
• ½ cup heavy cream
• ¾ cup butter, melted
• ¾ cup brown sugar
• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 3 oz dark chocolate chips
• 3 oz milk chocolate chips

Combine caramels and cream in a small saucepan until smooth, set aside. In a separate bowl, combine melted butter, brown sugar, flour, oats and baking soda. Press ½ of the oat mixture onto the bottom of an 8x8" pan lined with NONSTICK baking paper. Bake at 350 degrees (180 celsius) 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and sprinkle over the chocolate chips and caramel mixture. Crumble remaining oat mix over the caramel and chocolate chips and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool completely before slicing. :)