Chai Tea Cake with Spiced Maple Syrup Buttercream

I was feeling creative over the long weekend. I'm not entirely sure why :)
I wanted to make a delicious warming cake to cheer me up through the cold winter days. I think I did it!! This is completely my own recipe and this time I even wrote down measurements as I went. Yay for learning.

I love chai, I guess I technically cheated by using tea bags, but I was thinking about ease.... and that's what I had in my cupboard.

CHAI TEA CAKE (makes a lot! I made 15 muffins and a 6inch cake, plus 1 6x1 inch test cake)

Ingredients:

Cake

2 1/2 cups plain flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 cups caster sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

250g butter, softened

1 1/2 cups milk

1 vanilla bean, seeds only

4 eggs

1 teaspoon mixed spice

3 chai tea tea bags

Syrup

150g caster sugar

100g water

1/2 teaspoon mixed spice

2 chai tea tea bags

Ingredients

Before you start, place the milk and 3 tea bags in a pot and bring to an almost boil. Remove from heat and let infuse until cool.

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees Celsius

Butter and flour your cake tin or muffin tray.

Double sift your flour, baking powder and mixed spice then set aside

Chop up butter and place in a bowl. Beat until light and fluffy.

Add both the brown sugar and caster sugar a little at a time beating well between each addition.

Add eggs one at a time. Beating well between each addition

On the last egg addition, also add the vanilla bean seeds.

Beat well.

Add 1/3 of the flour mix.

Beat until well combined, remembering to scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Remove the tea bags from the milk.

Add half the milk. beat well.

Continue with another 1/3 of the flour mix, beat well

Then the other half of the milk, combine

Finishing with the last 1/3 of the flour mix.

Beat until combined

Pour mix into prepared tin and cook for about 1 1/2 hours. Check it after an hour, just in case.

Whilst the cake is in the oven, combine all the syrup ingredients (tip out the tea from the tea bag into the pot) in a pot, place on a medium heat and stir until dissolved and just starts to boil. Once sugar is all dissolved pour through a sieve to strain out the tea leaves and set aside to cool.

Once the cake has cooked, remove from the oven and straight away pour some syrup over the top. Leave for half an hour or until the tin is comfortable to touch, then turn out on to a wire rack and leave to cool completely.

SPICED MAPLE SYRUP BUTTERCREAM (makes enough to fill and cover 1 layer 6 inch cake)

Ingredients:

1 chai tea tea bag

75g water

175g egg whites

200g caster sugar

50g brown sugar

300g butter, cubed, softened

2 teaspoons meringue powder

1 tablespoon maple syrup

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

 Place the water and tea bag into a mug and let infuse for 10 minutes

In a bowl combine the egg whites and meringue powder until soft peaks form.
Place the caster & brown sugar into a pot, add the tea infused water and place on a medium heat. Stir gently until dissolved then turn the heat up to high and let boil until it reaches 120 degrees Celsius.
Remove from heat, start whisking your egg whites again and slowly pour the sugar syrup in. Once all the syrup is in turn the mixer up to high and beat until firm glossy peaks form and the bowl has cooled.
Turn mixer down to low and slowly beat in the butter a couple of cubes at a time until smooth and creamy.
Finally add the maple syrup and cinnamon, beat a little more.

You can either slice the cake in half and fill the middle then ice it, or just ice it.
I filled it and then piped roses onto my cake. My first attempt at roses on a cake lol

Quilted Heart Cookies

I wanted to make a simple cookie over the weekend. I thought hearts are gorgeous and simple. Cupookie posted at the beginning of June some beautiful monochromatic cookies that inspired me to try it out. Minus the lustre spray.... and the perfectly neat icing. But it had me thinking simple but stunning. Maybe not so simple. Each little diamond was piped one at a time and then left to dry then dusted in rainbow dust, then the other little diamonds were piped in. I enjoyed it, but I may have eaten a few too many cookies in the process of icing them :)

Macarons for an Engagement Party you say? On Saturday? Oh dear!

I'm still not sure how I ended up, on a Thursday night, making 90 macarons for a Friday pick up for an engagement party on Saturday.

I felt a little bad for the woman? She'd been quoted almost $500 for 120 macarons. I never realised just how lucrative the macaron business was. I totally need to jump on that bandwagon!

Anyway, so that is how I spent my Thursday night, cooking cooking cooking. The lady for whom the macarons were being made was just lovely. She was happy to have one flavour, and the colours were nice and easy. I even had a bit of fun with the pink ones, adding a bit of glitter to them :)

So she got salted caramel macarons in 3 flavours. All boxed up. Hope the engagement party goes well.

Lemon Raspberry Cheesecake

I like cheesecake :)
I was originally going to make a lemon and basil cheesecake, but think I might try that combination in a gelato first.

Raspberries and lemons are both pretty tart, but they seem to work well together. I will warn you though, this recipe makes quite a tart cheesecake. If you prefer a sweeter lemon flavour, I would add more icing sugar to the cream cheese, and more sugar to the lemon syrup.

Also another note. I would do a few things differently if I make this again. So bear this in mind if you decide to try this recipe. I would either - add gelatin to my raspberry syrup (about a teaspoon or 2) then let cool to a soft jelly, then pour over my base as the raspberry sauce just soaked through my base. OR add more butter to my base to make it bind together better and leave less gaps for the raspberry syrup to soak into. I also ended up tipping my extra lemon syrup into the cheesecake mix. I probably didn't have to. It was destined as a little jelly glaze over the top. I got excited about the flavours. Whoops.

LEMON RASPBERRY CHEESECAKE

Ingredients:

2 x blocks cream cheese, room temperature

300g double thickened cream

1/4 - 1/2 cup icing sugar

1 pk Lemon crisp biscuits

150g butter

Lemon syrup

7 lemons, juiced (you want the juice)

1/2 cup caster sugar

150g butter

Raspberry Syrup

250g frozen or fresh raspberries

150g caster sugar

40g water

Line a spring form tin with baking paper

Blend up the lemon crisp biscuits in a food processor until all crumbed. Melt 150g of butter and stir into the biscuit crumbs until well combined. Tip the biscuit mix into the prepared tin and smooth out to create a base and a bit of a side. Place into the fridge to chill.

Squeeze the juice out of the lemons. I got about a cup out of my 7 lemons.

Pour the juice and sugar (add more sugar if you want a sweeter flavour) into a pot, place on high heat and stir until all the sugar is dissolved and almost boiling. Tip a little bit of this mix into a mug if you want to make a glaze.

Add the butter and stir until it has melted in. Remove from heat and let sit until it is room temperature.

Put the sugar and water for the raspberry sauce into a pot, place on high heat and let boil until all the sugar has dissolved. Remove from heat and add the raspberries, stirring quickly to ensure that the sugar doesn't set. Let it come to room temperature then put into a blender and pass the sauce through a sieve to get rid of most of the raspberry seeds.

Place in the fridge to cool.

Once it has cooled pour into the base of the cheesecake. Put back in the fridge.

Place the cream cheese and icing sugar into a bowl and beat until smooth and creamy. Add the lemon syrup in whilst beating.

In a separate bowl whip up the double thick cream. be careful not to over whip as it will turn into butter very quickly.

Fold the cream into the cream cheese mix and the pour into over the base in the tin.

Put back in the fridge and let set for at least 2 hours. Once it has set, you can remove it from the tin. :)

Lemons!

For lemon juice

My lemon syrup with a little bit aside that was going to be a glaze

Stirring the raspberries into the sugar syrup

Into the base

The final product :)

Gluten Free Salted Caramel Cheesecake

As promised via my facebook page, I decided to make June my own Coeliac's awareness month. It seems more and more common that people have allergies or intolerances to certain foods which can make enjoying food a nightmare. It's good to see, though, that restaurants and cafes are becoming more aware and catering for different dietary requirements.

For my first weekend I decided to make a gluten free version of a cheesecake. Sounds simple, just change the biscuit base to a gluten free one, but where is the fun in that?! No where.

So the first idea I had was to make a choc caramel almond meal biscuit base. FAIL. Big, burnt, slab of a fail. I went with something that was easier for me. Meringue. Still gives that lovely crunch and provides texture, but is completely gluten free. Hooray!!!!

I didn't get pictures of the whole process, as most of it was done at night, and I just dont like night photos. I only have a point and shoot camera, and at night, you can really tell.

This recipe is one that you can make up ahead of time. Unfortunately being meringue, you'll need to wait until just before serving to assemble, but it is worth it :)

MERINGUE BASKET

Ingredients:
3 eggs, whites only

100g caster sugar

teaspoon cream of tartar

25g water

Preheat oven to 150 degrees

Trace some circles onto baking paper and then line a baking tray with it

Add the egg whites and cream of tartar to a bowl and whip until stiff peaks form.
Pour the sugar and water into a pot, place on high heat and let boil until it reaches 120 degrees.
Turn the electric mixer back low, and slowly pour the sugar syrup into the egg whites, whilst mixing.
Once all the sugar syrup is in, turn the mixer up to high and beat until the bowl is cool.

Set aside 1/4 cup of meringue.

Put meringue into a piping bag and pipe a disc in the circle on the baking paper, then piping along the edges of the circle building it up to form a nest/basket.

Continue with the rest of the circles.
Place in the oven for 1 hour until meringue is lightly brown (it compliments the caramel) and crisp.

Remove from oven leave to cool then store in an air tight container.

SALTED CARAMEL CHEESECAKE FILLING

Ingredients:

2 x 250g cream cheese blocks, room temperature

1/4 cup meringue set aside from the baskets

1/4 cup icing sugar (make sure this is pure icing sugar, or it could contain gluten)

150g cream

250g caster sugar

40g glucose

1 vanilla bean, seeds only

80g water

sea salt flakes

Place the cream and vanilla bean seeds into a small pot. Put on a medium heat and cook until almost boiling. Remove from heat.

Place the caster sugar water and glucose into another pot and place on medium heat. Stir until all the glucose and sugar have dissolved then turn up to high and let boil until it reaches a nice amber colour. The colour of the sugar syrup determines the bitterness of the caramel. If it gets too dark it will be too bitter.
Turn the heat down to low and slowly add the cream. It will bubble and release a lot of steam. Be careful not to burn yourself.

Stir until it feels smooth then pour into a heat proof bowl and let sit until it reaches room temp. Set a little aside to drizzle over the top

Once the caramel has reached room temp, place the 2 blocks of cream cheese into a bowl with the icing sugar and meringue and mix until smooth and slightly fluffy. Slowly pour the caramel in whilst mixing. Continue pouring the caramel in until you have a smooth thick mix. You dont want it to be flowing, but you should be able to run a spoon through it with not much resistance.

Stir in a couple of teaspoons of sea salt flakes and taste. The salt should not be over powering, but if you think you need more, add more.

ASSEMBLING

If you are going to assemble straight away, you wont need to bring anything up to room temperature. If you have made everything in advance, make sure the cheesecake filling is at room temperature, or just below, same with the left over caramel.

Attach a plain round nozzle to a piping bag and fill the piping bag with cheesecake filling. Pipe into the meringues and then smooth the top with a butter knife.
Add a drizzle of caramel and serve :)

My baskets, filled, still working on that perfect circle 

Mmmm Drizzle

All plated up :)

Closer

Closer again!

Winter Blues

I've been unmotivated. Combined with the minus degree mornings and being sick (both fluey & other) my motivation levels are almost rock bottom.
So you know what I do? I cook. I bake yummy things that make the house smell wonderful.
What I dont always do is get them up here in time. Before my recipe floats away from my mind and I struggle to recall what quantities went into what.
Bear with me, I'm about to post my cheesecake recipes, but because I am a freestyle cook, these are my own recipes and I definitely dont measure exactly how much I'm putting in.
So the following recipes I would much prefer them to be viewed as guidelines to how to make your own versions. Because that's what creating is all about. Making it your own :)