Seasonal Recipes
Citrus Melting Moments
These citrus melting moments are cheering in the extreme. Just the thing with a cup of tea ...
Cinnamon Buns
Warm from the oven, these sweet buns really are a delight. They're also very simple to make ...
Pistachio Cake with Rhubarb Buttercream
This cake combines quite a few of my favourite things – pistachios, rhubarb, and a hint of rose – and is also in my favourite colour-way, green and pink. Because who doesn’t feel cheerful in the face of pink icing?
Rhubarb & Raspberry Trifle
I have one final sweet offering for you before I sign off for Christmas and a few weeks of eating too much and doing too little - a rather impressive Rhubarb & Raspberry Trifle (if I do say so myself).
Meringues with Roasted Strawberries & Rosewater Cream
These meringues are exactly what I want to be eating at the moment. The weather has finally warmed up here and I feel like clouds of whipped cream, syrupy strawberries and crisp meringue.
Fruit Mince & Frangipane Pies
Fruit mince pies are one of the items on my mandatory Christmas cook-list (along with gingerbread and meringues) - my mum always makes them in the days leading up to Christmas and it is a tradition I have adopted also.
Passionfruit Butter Cake
The Plain-Cake Appreciation Society {edition 30} - a Passionfruit Cake and playing favourites.
Pistachio & Rose Cake
The Plain-Cake Appreciation Society {edition 22}, Pistachio and Rose Cake.
Sour Cherry & Shiraz Brownies
Years ago, when I ran a cake stall at the Bondi Farmers' Market, double chocolate brownies were my best seller. I would make trays and trays of them on Friday night and inevitably wish I had made one more tray when they sold out early the next morning.
Double Chocolate Loaf Cake
Welcome to this week's meeting of 'The Plain-Cake Appreciation Society'. It seems only fitting that this week I give you a chocolate offering - the proximity to Easter and the weather positively demand it - and who am I to stand in the way of chocolate cake?
Apricot & Sultana Hot Cross Buns
It's a slippery-slope that first hot cross bun of the season. A steep descent towards carbohydrate-induced haze, but one I happily slide (earlier, and earlier) each year.
Browned-Butter Cake with Cumquat Glaze
Introducing 'The Plain-Cake Appreciation Society' - a club for connoisseurs of uncomplicated bakes, simple cakes the general appreciation of pausing daily for tea and cake. Sound good?
Semolina & Lime Drizzle Cake
Our lime and lemon trees are laden with fruit at the moment. This is making me feel quite smug - as I can duck out to the courtyard and pluck a few juicy limes or lemons whenever the fancy strikes. O is making the most of it, managing to consume her own weight in fresh lemonade most days, and Kip is not adverse to eating them straight from the tree...
Mandarin & Earl Grey Madeleines with Raspberry Glaze
In an inverse relationship to their size, small cakes hold a big place in my heart. For me, there is just something immensely likeable about them. Maybe it has something to do with nostalgia and the fact that they so easily transport you back to childhood - when the ultimate treat was a cupcake with pink icing, or better yet, a butterfly cake - or maybe it is that being small in size you feel less guilty about eating them and can therefore eat them without constraint...
A Second Easter & Red Egg Bread
I love the distraction of a celebration, and in the current circumstances that’s even more welcome - so whilst most people are still recovering from the sugar-high and excitement that is Easter, we are gearing up for another Easter celebration tomorrow (involving red boiled eggs and bread, not chocolate, thankfully).
Chocolate Pots & Soggy Roses
Chocolate pots and soggy roses... If this doesn't sound like the ultimate Valentine's Day to you, then I'm not sure we can be friends. Ha! Don't get me wrong, I'm as much a fan of the 'grand gesture as the next person, but sometimes it's the little things that mean the most, isn't it? Like cheat's-chocolate-mousse and soggy garden roses.
Plum Streusel Cake
'And every creek a banker ran,
And dams filled overtop;
"We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,
"If this rain doesn't stop."'
As I sat with the rain drumming on the roof, gutters over-flowing and big fat drops splattering the windows, this John O'Brien poem kept running loops in my head.
And dams filled overtop;
"We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,
"If this rain doesn't stop."'
As I sat with the rain drumming on the roof, gutters over-flowing and big fat drops splattering the windows, this John O'Brien poem kept running loops in my head.
Chocolate, Orange & Ginger Ice Cream Sandwiches
I've never really been a fan of the ice cream sandwich. Too much fanfare and cross-pollination for my liking. The promise is big, ...