Chocolate Turkey Profiteroles

About a year ago, I made some peacock profiteroles and there were many readers who suggested that I made a turkey version for Thanksgiving. Well – here they are. Turkey profiteroles!

Ingredients

80ml water
40g butter
30g flour
20g cocoa powder
2 eggs
50g dark chocolate, melted
50g white chocolate, melted
Red and orange gel food colouring (do not substitute with liquid)
Nutella, for filling
Template (create your own or feel free to modify my peacock template one to suit)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200 Celcius.

2. Place water and butter in a pot and bring to a simmer. Add flour and cocoa powder and cook while stirring until it forms a ball. Add the eggs one at a time and beat vigorously and mix until mixture is glossy and comes together.

3. Place dough in piping bag and pipe out small round circles onto baking paper. Bake for about 15-20 minutes or until dry. Leave to cool.

4. Fill profiteroles with Nutella using a piping bag.

5. Colour the white chocolate red and orange using gel food colouring.

6.Pipe melted chocolate onto wax paper following the prepared template. Sequence is displayed in the diagrams on the left. You can watch my chocolate bat tutorial for more information regarding piping chocolate and releasing the pieces from the paper.

7. Assemble by cutting small slits into the profiterole and gently easing the chocolate pieces into the slots.

That’s pretty much it! It’s actually not that difficult, just a little fiddly though due to the delicate nature of the chocolate pieces. Below is my sketch for the project. In regards to the styling – I didn’t do much. It isn’t autumn in Australia at the moment so autumn props such as acorns and pine cones etc are not available at the moment unfortunately.

That’s it for me this time – let me know what you think!

Chocolate Hedgehog Hedgehogs

In Australia, a hedgehog can mean the animal or the treat. Today, I decided to combine the two of them and make hedgehog hedgehogs!

Hedgehog Hedgehogs

Ingredients
250g plain biscuits, coarsely crushed
1/2 cup dessicated coconut
1/2 cup caster sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
100g dark chocolate
100g butter
1 tsbp golden syrup
1 egg

100g chocolate (for dipping)
100g chocolate chips (for decoration)
Black piping gel
Nuts

Method

1. Combine all the ingredients of the first list together.
2. Mold into egg shaped pieces and leave in refrigerator to set for an hour or two or until firm.
3. Dip pieces into dark chocolate and decorate with chocolate chips, black piping gel and nuts.

Below is my rough sketch – originally i was going to do a huge one made out of Hershey’s Kisses as well but decided against it due to the sheer amount of chocolate I would have to consume. Might be cool for one of you guys to make it instead though!

Camomile Honey Cupcakes

Honey and camomile – my new bedtime beverage before I drift off to sleep on my duck down pillows, which are incidentally my favourite kind of pillow, regardless of how unhygienic and allergy causing it supposedly is.

Here’s my sketch of my vision of what I think my cupcake should look like. Apologies for my drawing skills – drawing was never my strong suit.

Also, on a side note – I would like to tell you that all was not fine and dandy in the kitchen when I attempted this recipe. I photographed my egg disaster:

Tip of the day : Make sure all utensils are absolutely spotless before attempted to beat your egg whites, otherwise…. well – let this photo be a cautionary tale.

Onto the recipe!

Ingredients (Makes 6 cupcakes)

Cupcakes
1/2 cup self raising flour
1/3 cup caster sugar
1/4 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla
3 tabsp vegetable oil
1 teabag of camomile tea

Meringue
1 egg white
25g caster sugar
10g water

Decorations
Plastic ipettes (I got mine off eBay)
Honey
Fondant bumblebees (tutorial here)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 160 Celcius (fan forced). Mix all the cupcake ingredients together and beat with an electric mixer for about 5 minutes or until light. Pour into a piping bag and pipe into cupcake liners for the neatest result. Bake for 20 minutes or until cake springs back when lightly pressed.

2. Whip egg white into soft peak stage in an electric mixer. Meanwhile, heat sugar and water to 121 Celcius. Pour sugar mix into egg white while mixer is running at low speed and then turn up to high speed. Continue to whip for another 5 minutes or until cool.

3. To decorate, watch the video tutorial I made here.

If you wanted to know what my photography set up was, here it is! Just the usual settings – 60mm 2.8f shot with a Canon 7D and edited with Lightroom 4.

Cat Moon Gazing Pumpkin 2014

My favourite part of Halloween has most definitely got to be the pumpkin carving.

I did it together with a few friends and this was the pièce de résistance, carved by my extremely talented friend:

In case you were wondering, the moon was suspended using a length of flower wire and was curved to insert into the pumpkin and the moon at an angle rather than straight for retention purposes.

It was highly enjoyable – looking forward to next Halloween.

Halloween Chocolate Bats

I thought I’d do something simple and fun this Halloween. Say hello to my chocolate bats! The process is fairly straightforward – pretty much the same method as the chocolate butterflies that I have made in the past with a different template and some flower wire. Also, the eyes of the bats are drawn in with toothpicks dipped in edible gold dust and vodka. If you’re desperate for a template – any template – to get started now, below is a scanned sheet of my roughly sketched bats and tree stump. I will eventually attempt to make a proper template but for now this will just have to do, internet people! I also tried out a new chocolate cake recipe which was amazing. The cake turned out extremely moist and dense with no grief in regards to technique or complex ingredients. Recipe from here. In terms of photography, I set up a black board on the dining table as below and took the photograph with a 60mm f2.8 lens. I hope you guys enjoyed this little project – I had fun making it. It’s been a while since I did anything fancy.

Chicken Tagine with Dates

I had an abundance of dried dates leftover from baking some sticky date puddings. After an extensive amount of Pinterest-ing and Google-ing, I decided to give chicken tagine a go with a few modifications of my own based on what I had available in my pantry.

Yes, this blog tends to be leaning on the dessert side but I thought I’d branch out today.

I had this spice mix in the pantry but you can use any Moroccan spice mix you can get your hands on with this recipe.

Ingredients

3 tablespoons Moroccan spice mix
6 chicken drumsticks
3 tablespoons oil
1 tablespoon minced garlic
2 onions, diced
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
2 tablespoons sugar
Salt to taste
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can chickpeas
1/2 cup dried dates
1/4 cup walnuts
Coriander to garnish

Method

1. Heat oil in frying pan.
2. Coat drumsticks in spice mix and fry for 1-2 minutes each side. Remove from pan.
3. Saute onions and garlic in oil. Add in chicken stock, tomatoes and drumsticks and leave to simmer for 20 minutes, or until drumsticks are cooked through. Season with sugar and salt to taste.
4. Add in chickepeas and dried dates and continue to simmer for another 5 minutes.
5. Remove from heat. Serve with chopped walnuts and coriander.
6. Serve with couscous or rice.

I really enjoyed making this – as I mentioned before, I usually expend my energies on dessert items so this is very different for me. Hope to pursue more savoury cooking soon.

Cupcakes for Spring

Spring in Melbourne is unpredictable. One day it’s sunny and beautiful, the next it is cold and dreary again.

I was invited to a barbecue a week back and decided to bring some of these along. If these daisies look familiar, it’s because they were done exactly the same as the ones on my Daisy Bee Cupcakes.

These were orange almond cupcakes with cream cheese frosting by the way – simple and easy. Recipe from here.

Raspberry Jam Drops

I have an obsessive personality, and lately I have been micromanaging my apartment into the perfect blend of ‘accidental’ chic and purposeful perfection.

As a break from all of that, I decided to hop into the kitchen to make some jam drops.

First step is to gather up all the ingredients. Story about the butter – Simon Johnson left Echire butter that was 2 days before the expiry date on their shelves and we bought some unknowingly. As an apology they gave us a block of Lescure for free because there wasn’t any Echire left. Not complaining!

Vanilla from Heilala – supposedly award winning and whatnot. I haven’t tried out enough pastes to make a proper comment but seems good so far.

Also, in line with the chia craze, I got a bottle of raspberry jam with chia from Henry Jones & Co. Yes – I’m always searching for the new and novel. That makes this recipe vaguely healthy, no?

Ingredients (makes 15)

60g butter
40g icing sugar
80g self-raising flour
1 egg yolk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla paste
Raspberry jam

Method

1. Preheat oven to 160 Celcius (fan-forced).
2. Cream butter and sugar together.
3. Add egg yolk, flour and vanilla paste and combine.
4. Roll into small balls and press a circle into the center.
5. Spoon raspberry jam into the centers.
6. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden.

 

Photography

Lens: 60mm 2.8f
Processing: Lightroom 4
Props: Brown cardboard, wooden basket, baking paper and jam jar on a white stool

Candle Cupcake

Recently, a friend had a birthday and I baked a simple batch of chocolate cupcakes for her. Because it was such a plain project I thought I’d try to photograph it a little differently and decided to style it sitting on a SOMA cube motif. I like how the  shadows turned out.

There’s my set up – light coming from the right from my apartment window, black board at the back. Taken with a 60mm 2.8f lens.

 

Raspberry Friands

Hello, World!

Yes, I know that my supposed every Monday and Thursday posts have not been forthcoming for an entire four months. The truth is, life caught up with me and the other truth is that I was lazy. I didn’t want to face the mountain of dirty dishes that comes with baking and decorating, particularly with the more complex projects that I embark on.

Anyway, last night I decided to push myself and baked off a quick and easy batch of friands and they turned out great!

 

These took almost no time at all to make and best of all, very little dishes to wash up because there was no creaming or whisking or anything fancy involved. And berries makes everything look pretty.

 

Ingredients (makes 6)

1/4 cup butter, melted
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup almond meal
2 egg whites
1/3 cup self raising flour
1/4 cup raspberries

Method

1. Heat oven to 180 Celcius.
2. Pour all ingredients except the raspberries into a bowl and mix well together.
3. Spoon mixture into friand tins or cupcake ones if you don’t have them.
4. Press the raspberries into the top.
5. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden and springs back when pressed.