Year of the Rooster cupcake

                                       year of the rooster cupcake

Join me on Facebook

After the Monkey and before the Dog, every twelve years comes the Rooster. 

Year of the Rooster .... 1933, 1945, 1957, 1969, 1981, 1993, 2005, 2017, and 2029.

I find the Chinese horoscope so confusing! It is the year of the rooster, the fire rooster or the female fire chicken. The chicken puzzles me, a chook is not a rooster. I decided to go with the Rooster like the ones you see as Chinese prints adorning restaurants and my Dad's nursing home was rather fond of them too. 

If your in Melbourne the Chinese New Year festival runs to the 12th of February at Crown Casino, lots of fun and celebratory goings on around town. 

Making a Rooster.... 

I made a simple shape from a 50% white modelling chocolate, 50% fondant. Toothpicks mark the leg holes.

I cut feather shapes from orange fondant for around the neck and marked a centre line. Marked the body with crescent shapes. 

Black fondant was rolled super thin (add some cmc if necessary) and cut into longer feather shapes. The shapes are then shredded along the edges. 

The pieces were attached to the body with a light touch of water. Here I am starting to attach the comb and playing with placement of tail feathers. 

Gold leaf was applied to cupcake with a brush small brush, lifting on small pieces and laying them on pre dampened surface. 

The finished dry rooster was shaded in petal lustre dusts, gold, red and blue. Attached to the cupcake with toothpick legs for easy removal. 

Happy Chinese, Lunar, Spring Festival time :) 

You might also like Chinese chicken wings 

Or back to year of the Dragon

Perfect Christmas Stollen - ABC

Carrots for the reindeer, a shot of rum and "Perfect Christmas" Stollen for Santa. 

Join me Facebook

Baking along with a talented group of bakers that are a part of ABC (Avid Baker's Challenge), this month 'Perfect Christmas' Stollen. 

This is gorgeous, the stollen that is... moist, light and aromatic, a far cry from the one you pop in your trolley at the supermarket each year.

Starting with making the "sweetener" a mixture of sugar, lemon and orange zest that along with homemade marzipan can be made many weeks ahead if desired. 

The marizpan is simply ground white almonds, sugar and lemon zest mixed with water.

Dried fruit is soaked, then drained. I used hot water with a splash of rum to soak mine.

The dough starts by making almost a sponge, an enriched starter of half the flour, yeast, egg yolk and warm milk. *Link to full recipe and the end of post.

After 30 minutes, the other half of the flour, salt, prepared sweetener and softened butter are added. The KitchenAid does it's thing now and kneads the dough for 5-7 minutes (or 10 to 15 by hand) until you have a soft and supple dough. 

The lovely Hanaâ from Hanaâ's Kitchen recommended the following you tube video on how to easily incorporate the fruit into your dough. The video is in Dutch, fast forward to the 1.15 point to watch the fruit being rolled in... and it works!!

Starting to fold and roll the fruit into the dough. 

Sprinkling the last of the fruit to be rolled into the dough. 

The the dough is rolled into a ball and allowed to rest, covered and in a warm spot for 20 minutes. 

After that the ball is shaped into a loaf and you guessed it, loosely covered, put in a warm spot and rests for 20 minutes.

Now you add some egg (and butter if you wish) to your marzipan, your marzipan is then rolled into a sausage shape.

Your loaf shape is now rolled and the sausage of marzipan lain down the center, fold, press to seal and bake.

Once out of the oven you can brush the baked stollen with melted butter and sift over some icing sugar. I used snow sugar which is great for when you are shipping sugared baked goods or just need the presentation sugar to last without having to go into sweet over kill sugaring the top again.

The Avid Bakers Group (ABC) is using the recipes from Weekend Bakery... here is the *link to the full stollen recipe.

Happy Baking :)

Want to know more about snow sugar and white sugars? I write about them here.

Or feeling more like gingerbread custard ice-cream?

Pumpkin buns with salted maple butter -ABC

pumpkin buns with salted maple butter

Join me on Facebook

I was invited this month to bake along with a talented group of bakers that are a part of ABC (Avid Baker's Challenge) and how could I resist when I saw it was pumpkin dinner rolls shaped as pumpkins!! 

almost as magical as turning a pumpkin into a carriage, these pumpkin buns today are adorable.

You could be thinking Halloween or Thanksgiving for these cuties but my first thought was "fairytales"...more than a little Bippity Boppity Boo.  Imagine these as part of a fairy tale wedding or a princess party for the little ones. 

The buns are a little sweet, but not too sweet to be considered savoury or sweeten them further by sprinkling with sugar before baking.

Ainse or aniseed flavours the buns or there is an option to use pumpkin pie spice with it's pronounced cinnamon overtone. 

grinding the aniseed

We don't have tinned pumpkin puree in Australia so I had to cook my pumpkin and puree, I used a traditional Queensland variety though I suspect butternut pumpkin (squash) would have sufficed. 

Then bread flour, instant yeast, salt, water, pumpkin puree, egg, honey and spice are combined with a little extra water added if needed... I didn't need any, wet pumpkin I guess.  Softened butter is now beaten in. *Full recipe link at end of page*

The resulting dough is soft, smooth and easy to work with... a tiny bit sticky but not in a troublesome way the dough goes away to rest and rise.

Shaped into 12 round rolls (you could bake them just like this if mini pumpkins aren't your thing), and eight cuts are made around the rolls not going all the way to the center. The centre you make a hole all the way through so there is place for your "stem" at the end. Off for another rise now. 

I didn't add the extra sugar topping, nor the egg wash, I prefer breads a little less sweet.  Pecan halves are cut length ways to create the stems and are inserted after baking.

Baking time is relatively short and then you have the most light, fluffy yet moist buns.  

I loved these buns, you don't pick up much in the way of pumpkin flavour but the aniseed lends a sweetish note reminiscent of childhood aniseed lollies more than the night you downed all those black Sambuca shots.

Salted maple butter: there is salted maple butter to serve with buns, ok a bit too delicious this mixture of salted butter and maple syrup. 

The full recipe from the ABC bake can be found on Weekend Bakery .com 

Happy Baking :) 

You might also be interested an original Brothers Grimm version of Cinderella and make yourself a "fondant toe" cupcake. 

Or how about four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie. 

Spider Egg Tins

                             chocolate "spider eggs" in tins

A quick and fun "craft" idea for Halloween but also great for any of your gothic themed dinners. Not in a gothic dinner party time of life? children will like designing labels and filling the tins.  

Give these chocolate filled spider tins out as favours, use them for place setting markers or passed around after dinner with coffee. 

You need small metal tins with lids (craft stores). 

A bag of rubber spiders or cockroaches if you want cockroach eggs instead (toy shops, craft shops etc). 

Crispearls are used extensively in patisserie and chocolate work to add "crunch". 

Small rounded candy or chocolates.  I used dark Callebaut crispearls, tiny, shiny pearls of dark chocolate with a crunchy toasted cereal centre but any small lolly or candy would do. Cocoa shelled popping candy would also work. 

Make labels for your tins in whatever program you have from Word to Photoshop. Using clipart from the internet or your files. Print your labels on sticker paper or on plain office paper.  If you used plain office paper cut out your labels and adhere to your tins with non toxic glue.  Oh, don't forget to personalise the labels, print friends names, greetings etc.

Use tissue paper in contrasting or matching colour to line the bottom of the tins, fill with chocolates/lollies of choice. Top with a single layer of tissue, put your spider on top of that and close the lid.  

Happy crafting :) 

Perfect Peach Galette Rose's Alpha Bakers

Splat 2 |splat| informal noun

  a sound of something soft and wet or heavy striking a surface: the 'perfect peach galette' from the 'The Baking Bible' made a huge splat as it hit the bench.

Join me Facebook

Splat!!!  So went the 'Perfect Peach Galette', with it's fresh peach topping and 'Perfect Flaky and Tender Cream Cheese Pie Crust'.

I had the storage container ready for when the galette was cooled and lifted up the cooling rack to feel the bottom of the galette. Why I lifted the rack so high and so quickly I don't know, but there was "height and momentum" involved now.

The galette flew off the cooling rack and hit the edge of the storage container on the way down.

It flipped.

It broke.

It went splat!!!!  

So I scraped up some filling and plonked it on a tiny piece of still intact pastry... ta-da... and that's today's photo.  

It all started well enough I guess, it's still winter here so purchased imported peaches, American peaches to be exact *mental note to go plant a tree for carbon neutral ness!   

The peaches were put into a pot of boiling water (off the stove top) for one minute. I did some extra peaches in case I needed them.  

nude peach

Skins slipped straight off once the peaches were placed in a colander and cold water was run over them.

Peaches were then sliced, popped in a large bowl with sugar, salt and lemon juice to macerate. See all that juice? It was time to drain the peach slices of that juice. I got two thirds of cup of juice. 

juice was put into microwave safe jug

Butter is added to the juice and the mixture is microwaved (option is there to do it on stove top), until the juice mixture has been reduced to about one third of a cup.

reduced juice mixture

Reduced juice mix is spreadable... oh my, this tastes absolutely like the "essence of summer" or more accurately the "essence of peaches". 

The peachy concentrate was added back to the peaches slices with cornflour, almond extract and gently tossed together. 

all mixed and ready to be put aside so I can start the pastry

Here comes bad idea two but it doesn't include a "splat!!", I thought since we did this exact same pastry a few weeks ago for 'ElderBlueberry Pie (with not blueberries)'....  I'd use the same photos/text. Yep, then I forgot to take the shaping part at the end but I can redeem myself with pie apple coming up in a few weeks... fresh photos and shaping for that post :) 

For now here is the repeat of making the 'Perfect Flaky and Tender Cream Cheese Pie Crust'...

Unsalted butter is cubed and then frozen. You can make by hand or with the food processor, I went with the latter.  The recipe is a rough puff pastry with a cream cheese/butter combo (rather than all butter or shortening/butter or lard/butter combination). 

Your frozen chilled flour, salt and baking powder mixture is removed from the freezer and process it briefly the with cream cheese.

The frozen butter then goes in for a whizz, cream and vinegar are added and the mix is processed until the butter is the size of small peas. 

It still looks like crumbs, with visible small bits of butter... you are only using the food processor to cut in the fats/liquid. Remove mixture from the food processor in it's crumb form and pressed together, before wrapping and chilling.

Time to roll... the mottled look showing the tiny pieces of cold butter. I rolled mine between two lightly floured pieces of plastic wrap. Envelope folded, rerolled, chilling happening too! 

Ok I was supposed to have used a pizza tray but mine has holes in bottom and I thought it wasn't going to suitable. Instead I put a round of rolled pastry on a silpat, put the prepared fruit filling on base and folded edges over leaving exposed fruit in the center. Sprinkled sugar on dampened edges and baked. 

No serving suggestions or opinions on end product today... but umm the pastry was nice, light and super flaky... I could tell from the distance the flakes travelled over the kitchen. Looking forward to the next bake where I won't be lifting any cooling racks!! 

Happy Baking :) 

How it works... now I've joined the fabulous existing alpha bakers, once a month I will post about what I have baked from Rose Levy Beranbaum's 'The Baking Bible'. This won't include the recipe due to copyright and publisher restrictions however, I will be posting how it went and photos of making/baking the gorgeous baked goods.

The Baking Bible available from Amazon and all discerning book retailers. 

You might also be interested in Salt and Pepper Squid recipe.

100 percent Whole Wheat Walnut Loaf Rose's Alpha Bakers

100% Whole Wheat Walnut Loaf 'The Baking Bible'

Join me on Facebook

Brrrr, baby it's cold outside! It's been hailing off and on all day and rumours of snow in a nearby suburb in the hills, I say "rumoured" because we do all get excited about even one flake of snow. 

Walnut bread toasted (grilled) aged cheddar cheese sandwiches and pumpkin soup with a hint of orange, the perfect starter to ward off winter chills. 

100% Whole Wheat (in Australia we say wholemeal) Walnut Bread is a fabulously flavoured versatile bread, lets get started.... 

I started by making the dough starter (sponge), wholemeal flour, water, honey and yeast are combined. To make a vegan bread swap the honey out for golden syrup.   

The mixture is whisked to incorporate air, it will resemble a thin batter. 

Time to make the dough now with more wholemeal flour, *gluten flour and instant yeast are sprinkled over the sponge starter forming a blanket of flour. 

An hour later and there is bubbles bubbling up through the flour. 

Ok better toast and break up the walnuts now, 166 grams to be exact are toasted in the oven and the then the skins are removed. 

Shhh, I cheated and used a photo of removing walnut skin from the Stilton Cheesecake story.

With the dough hook fitted on my mixer, dough is mixed and then rested for 20 minutes. Back to mixing now with the addition of walnut oil, salt and toasted walnut pieces before going off to rise.

The first rise. 

The second rise. 

After turning out the risen dough the dough is "dimpled" using your fingertips to get rid of air bubbles. The dough is shaped and put into prepared tin (I used four small tins instead of one large) and then off to rise for the last time before baking. 

Over half way through last rise, almost time to go into the pre heated oven. 

Baked, cooled and it's time to eat!!  

It's not the "prettiest" bread but boy served fresh with blue cheese and pear and it's a wonderful combination of flavours. Plus it's easy to slice thinly, like what I used in the aged cheddar cheese toasted sandwiches paired with the pumpkin soup today.

Oh, oh, oh mini loaves would make the best hostess gift, wrap the centre of the loaf with brown or baking paper, tie with kitchen string, throw in a chunk of blue or a bottle of red for a unique and welcome hostess gift.

This bread is also great for vegetarians/vegans, high in protein, low GI and perfect to serve with your favourite veggie stew.  

Also great "baker's treat"... toasted crusts of walnut loaf with French fine cut marmalade. 

Happy Baking :) 

*Gluten flour: we used gluten flour to promote rise and texture in today's bread. The gluten is in the whole wheat flour but the wheat germ is blocking the release so you use added gluten, a protein composite from wheat and related grains. This gives you not only extra "lift" in rising it also provides the characteristic "chew" we associate with bread. It's why you add various gums to gluten free bread trying to recreate the chew gluten provides.  Gluten flour is also used extensively in vegan and vegetarian cuisine to create seitan and in asian cooking for dishes such as like "mock duck". 

Would I bake again? Yes, loved it for "something different to serve" factor.. plus tasted great. 

Would I change anything?  I loved it as is, I would continue to bake smaller sized loaves. I'd like to try halving the walnut weight and adding either dried apricots or dried muscatel grapes for a fruit/nut loaf. 

 How it works... now I've joined the fabulous existing alpha bakers, once a month I will post about what I have baked from Rose Levy Beranbaum's 'The Baking Bible'. This won't include the recipe due to copyright and publisher restrictions however, I will be posting how it went and photos of making/baking the gorgeous baked goods.

The Baking Bible available from Amazon and all discerning book retailers. 

You might also be interested in Amore Frangelico Truffles, rich in mascarpone and chocolate!

French Orange Cream Tart Rose's Alpha Bakers

                                french orange cream tart 

Dad is running wild: always look forward to the 10pm phone call from the nursing home saying "your Dad is using his walker as a weapon". Dad's kept me busy this week with a trip to hospital plus two falls at the nursing home (he is fine... though I suspect his leaving a trail of staff and residents in his wake), soooo, I'm behind with my usual blog posts but I have finished my bake for Rose's Alpha Bakers. :) 

I'm sure many of you are familiar with (or have eaten 402 slices) of the classic French Tarte Au Citron (Lemon Tart)... today's tart is a lovely alternative to lemon tart using oranges. 

Started by making a template as per instructed by Rose to use as my pastry cutting guide. Hmm, The Simpson's ruler probably belies the sophistication of the tart... but I needed "inch" measurements. 

Thought I should make it food safe, so wrapped in foil. 

Pastry time started with processing the cold butter cubes with raw sugar until the sugar disappeared. 

Flour, cream and egg are added and you have a crumbly mix ready to be turned out and pressed together.

Pastry making always has a touch of alchemy to it, the crumbs from the food processor become "pate sucree pastry" with a few simple presses. 

Ready to roll, between two pieces of lightly floured plastic wrap.

Here comes the bit I have never done before, the pastry with the bottom layer of plastic wrap is draped over the back of a cake tin. 

Then your loose bottomed tart tin is fitted on top and the whole thing is flipped. 

I was wondering why I was doing this instead of chucking the pastry in the tin like I usually do (ok, not chucking, don't chuck... gently placing in the tin) but I "got it", the reason for doing it that is. What you end up with is a perfectly shaped pastry case, with flat bottom and neat corners.

Case is blind baked as per normal. 

The filling is a breeze to make and if you do get little air bubbles on top of your unbaked poured mix, use your gas torch to lightly go over the surface, it will pop all bubbles before it goes in the oven.   Ha, my filling is almost neon orange thanks to local free range eggs that had the brightest yolks I have ever seen!

After baking and chilling it's time to fire up the torch it's time to brûlée. A local cafe uses the term "burnished" when they are talking about their lemon tart "burnished lemon tart" and that's really what the finish is like on this tart. Only a few teaspoons of icing sugar is used/brûléed to become a whisper thin burnished sugar finish.

A small amount of icing sugar is applied and torched, after a brief chilling a second small amount is sifted over torched. I thought at first it the sugar wasn't going to caramelise, but it's just a matter of holding the torch a little closer and a little longer in one spot than you think.   

I choose not the neatest tart slice today, but rather a shot of where the icing sugar was a little thick... you can see on slicing the sugar lifting. You don't want the pretty, delicate appearance of the tart spoilt ... although I did crave the "burnt sugar" crust that the word brûlée evokes. 

The accidental misfire photograph of the tart shows the light shining through the pastry. Dang, this is the thinnest prettiest pastry case I have ever made!!! 

Would I bake again? Yes, I'm going to bake for Christmas this year I do love "Christmas/oranges". I'll skip the torching and go for snow sugar and red currants to decorate. 

Would I make any changes? perhaps check the bitterness or not of the zest before I used it. The recipe has a little lemon zest and I forgot how bitter my backyard lemons are! A little bit of bitter aftertaste in an otherwise perfect tart. 

How it works... now I've joined the fabulous existing alpha bakers, once a week I will post about what I have baked from Rose Levy Beranbaum's 'The Baking Bible'. This won't include the recipe due to copyright and publisher restrictions however, I will be posting how it went and photos of making/baking the gorgeous baked goods.

The Baking Bible

Happy Baking :)

You might also like Fruit Curd recipes 

 

Happy Halloween

               the continuing adventure of the Gingerbread man

Join me on Facebook 

The Gingerbread man is still on the run from his first blog appearance Christmas 2009.
Caught up with him in Egypt in 2010.

Lost him in 2011 but found him under attack by Zombies in 2012.

This year I thought I'd cut him a break and let him cut himself a costume to do some Trick and Treating. 

Happy Halloween :) 

You might like to do some "gingerboy eating" with this chocolate truffle ginger cupcake recipe

Catrin Day of the Dead Cupcake

catrin day of the dead cupcake

Join me on Facebook

Day of the Dead (Spanish: Día de los Muertos) is a Mexican holiday celebrated throughout Mexico and around the world in other cultures. The holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and family members who have died. November 2nd is the official date for Day of the Dead, it is celebrated between October 31st and November 2nd.

In 2013 Day of the Dead celebrations begin November 1st and finish November 2nd. 

I've made a Cartrin this year, because a lady needs a dance partner. 

Made in the same way as the Catrina skull last year, you start with a white egg shaped piece of fondant or modelling paste.

Roll small sausage shapes and add to the skull to build up features. Use your finger tips and modelling tools to blend and shape the skull. Use a toothpick to mark out cracks and scratches on the skull.

Start the body with a torso shaped piece of fondant or puffed rice treat. If using puffed rice treat, cover with a base layer of fondant first. Cut a vest and apply with damp brush, I had imprinted the rolled fondant so I dusted with green lustre dust at this stage to bring out the pattern and add depth of colour. Small balls of fondant were marked with a toothpick and attached as the buttons.

Make white collar for the shirt, attach. Proceed to make the jacket, again attaching with a brush barely dampened with water.

Bow tie is made with two rectangles, the larger one is pinched in the middle and shaped. The smaller one is wrapped around the center of the large one.

Make pocket handkerchiefs with small triangles, attach to jacket and then attach false pocket flap to the top.

For the hat I used puffed rice treat to reduce the weight, I know he is a skeleton and all but I didn't want to squoosh his head. Squeeze and shape the puffed rice treat into a top hat, cover with fondant. Make a band and brim with fondant.

For the buttonaire see Catrina Cupcake  

Leave the pieces to dry, supported where necessary to keep the shapes. Once dry use dusts to shade the piece and insert either a strand of dry spaghetti or a small wooden through the whole piece and attach to your cupcake.

Happy Baking :)  

Amazon has a range of day of the dead figures... click on the Senorita to visit Amazon :) 

You might also be interested in a recipe for quick and easy Chocolate Peanut Spiders for the kids and young at heart.

The Walking Gingerbread Men (Zombie Apocalypse Cupcake)

The Walking Gingerbread Men (Zombie Apocalypse Cupcake)

Join me on Facebook

Zombies, Zombies, Zombies; I've read 'World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War', I've run from the zombies with the 'Zombies, Run!' app and can't stop watching 'The Walking Dead' on cable (can you?).

And I'll tell you now... not since grade three when I was chosen last for the tunnel ball team have I been more disappointed to learn that everyone I know is not taking me with them if a zombie apocalypse strikes.... well, that's not including the few that said "you could be useful as bait". 

Darn that fibromyalgia, just because I can be a bit slow and limpy... I bet I speed up and eat (their) brains when I'm a ZOMBIE! 

Back to 'The Walking Dead' (not a neat segue, but I'm distressed!!), where there is so few humans left I'd be watching out for those gingerbread men this Christmas!!! 

Happy Halloween :) 

Oh, and if you want to make these toppers you will need, a gingerbread man mini cutter, some gingerbread coloured fondant or modelling chocolate, a black food marker, a little white fondant.... plus frosted or fondant covered cupcakes and I added a few fresh gingerbread "crumbs".