Tiramisu cupcake

Dear all,

Last week I showed you the Yeti cakes, this week I want to show you the other birthday cupcakes: tiramisu cupcakes with mascarpone topping. First off I chose some cute birthday theme cupcake papers, super cute! Next up was whipping up the egg whites and the egg yolks (with coffee en a generous dash of coffee liqueur) and then mixing them together to bake cupcakes that filled my room with the lovely smell of coffee and chocolate (I added chocolate chips to the mix as well).



Next up I made a lush mascarpone topping. Mixing the mascarpone with some coffee liqueur gave it an awesome flavour. But before I dolloped it on I poked some holes in the cupcakes and drizzled some more coffee liqueur on, infusing them with it so to speak. Oof!



To decorate I made some chocolate curls (with a block of dark chocolate and a potato peeler!) and I added some little gold sugar balls. I can't say anything but they looked gorgeous!



And here is a closeup of the final product. Mmm my mouth starts watering just remembering those cupcakes. Sorry to all of you out there who did not get the chance to have any!! But the birthday boy sure was happy with his alcoholic cupcakes!



Hope you all had a good christmas!

xoxo Jennifer

Yeti cake

Dear all,

Recently 2 friends of mine celebrated their birthdays. One of them is called Jettie, which is pronounced the same as Yeti, the abominable snowman. This was a running joke for a while right after we first met, and now, some 5 years later I wanted to make a tribute to that, so I made Yeti cakes for her!

My yeti cupcake recipe is from a book that actually got me into cupcake making 2 years ago. They are little vanilla cupcakes with marshmallow mixed in, with a lovely and sticky white marshmallow (home made!) topping. Also check out the supercute cupcake papers I used~!



Without going into too much detail, I can tell you I transformed these golden brown sticky cakes into winter wonderland big foot cupcakes by making my own marshmallow like icing. This required dissolving some sugar and honey in egg whites over a low heat, adding a bit of vanilla essence and then beating the hell (excuse my french) out of it until it formed a thick sticky consistency. I then added a whole lot of grated coconut to give it some texture.



For the final touch I sprinkled on some more grated coconut (it also kept the marshmallow from gooying all over the place I think). Then I finished them off with some silver sugar balls and white snowflake like candy to make them pretty.



Happy Birthday Jettie!

Next week, her boyfriend's counterpart Tiramisu cupcakes. YUM!

Oh, and MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!

xoxo Jennifer

Double chocolate chip cookies

Dear all,

The bring-chocolate-cookies-to-work tradition actually didn't start with chocolate pretzels: for the first day I wanted to do something familiar. So I made the same chocolate chip cookies as I made in August. This time however I made two batches: 1 original, and one double chocolate!

For the double choc version I added cocoa powder and a little extra egg as the extra cocoa powder would make them dryer. Also, rather than dark chocolate, I added white chocolate, and instead of walnuts I added hazelnuts.




That was one excellent combo, if I may say so myself!! Of course I didn't bring along the slightly burnt one, that one may have disappeared into my own tummy (minus the burnt bits ;) ).

Another success I say! xoxo Jennifer

Chocolate Macaroons

Dear all,

Another week, another chocolate biscuit. This week I present to you: chocolate macaroons!! Another slightly problematic recipe, mostly due to the lack of availability of the ingredients.

First of all I didn't have any blanched almonds, so I got regular unsalted almonds. I wizzed these up in my blender to get a granular substance. Next I whipped up some egg whites until I got soft peaks and folded in some sugar, vanilla and almond essence, the ground almonds and some melted dark chocolate. I mixed this all together and refrigerated it for about 15-20 minutes.



Next up I dolloped the mixture on a baking tray with grease proof paper over it - approximately walnut sized portions. I sifted over some icing sugar and popped them in the oven.



As you can see my macaroons went a little flat. Normally they would not flatten out so much - not sure what happened here! But they still tasted really good (you might notice the missing macaroon on the baking tray, it was consumed almost straight out of the oven, yum!).



So there they are, chocolate macaroons! I think they my colleagues appreciated them, which in the end was my goal!

xoxo Jennifer

Cherry Clafoutis

Dear all,

As a Foodie I also have to watch what I eat, and so I have started this semi-diet. Don't worry, I won't stop baking!

Anyway, I had a look at some of the recipes that came with the diet magazines, and some of the deserts they showcase look pretty good! One of the ones I tried was the cherry clafoutis, which looked a little something like this!

A Cherry Clafoutis is a desert where cherries are covered by a thin pancake-like batter and baked in a hot oven until the batter has set with nicely browned and slightly puffed edges. My version used light fromage frais, which made it a lot less pancake-y. It was more like baked cheesecake if you ask me. This is what it looked like before going in the oven:



And here it is baked and all! Due to a lack of fresh cherries I used tinned ones, something I wouldn't use if I made it again. It tasted a little too much like diet-desert for my liking, though it certainly didn't taste bad!



xoxo Jennifer

Chocolate Pretzels

Dear all,

It's been too long! I had a blog post lined up for last Wednesday, but due to starting a new job I didn't even get round to posting it. Anyway, from now on you will probably get a series of chocolate cookies/biscuits - a new routine as part of my new job. For my first day I was asked to bring chocolate cookies; and so I did! The next week I did the same (different cookies) and now this week I decided to make chocolate pretzels for work (it always has to be chocolate as per popular demand).

For the chocolate pretzels I first made the cookie dough, and then refrigerated it for an hour (according to the recipe). I assume this is to make the dough firmer and easier to handle after. My dough didn't really firm up so I had a little trouble with rolling it out. With a bit of extra flour I made it work though. Here it goes!

First I separated the dough into smaller, even portions and then rolled them into little balls. After refrigerating them a bit more I then rolled out each little ball into a 20-25cm strip.



Next I folded the end bits inwards, twisted them together, and folded them further up to form the pretzel shape. To finish them off I dabbed on a little bit of egg white and sprinkled them with caster sugar (sugar crystals would have been better, but I didn't have any of those!).



And this is the end result! A crunchy, yummy chocolate pretzel!!



Unfortunately about half broke in the process of getting them off the baking tray and onto the cooling rack. Next time I won't roll them out so thin I think. But they sure taste good anyway!!

xoxo Jennifer