Caramel Fudge
1 tin (395g) of sweetened condensed milk
75g of caster sugar
150g of brown sugar
2 tablespoons of golden sugar
2 tablespoons of glucose syrup
80g of butter, cubed

1- Grease and line (bottom and sides) a 20cm square or a 25 x 8cm rectangle cake tin.
2- Place all the ingredients in a medium heavy-based saucepan and heat over low heat, stirring until the sugar has dissolved (5 to 10 minutes) - Do Not Boil. Keep Stirring. It Burns Easily.
3- Increase the heat to medium and bring to the boil, stirring constantly. Cook (Keep Stirring) for about 8 to 10 minutes or until it thickens. Do Not Stop Stirring. Take off the heat.
4 - You can pour the mixture into a small bowl or you can just do this in the saucepan (just will take a little longer if you leave it in the saucepan). Beat with an electric mixer for about 3 minutes or until it has cooled slightly and is thick (Do Not Be Tempted To Taste It - you will burn your tongue). Pour the fudge into the prepared pan, smooth the top with a spatula. Leave for 30 minutes then cover with plastic wrap and pop in the refrigerator for a few hours.

Warning - Do Not be tempted to taste at anytime during the cooking process - you will burn your tongue (I know), actually you shouldn't touch it at all - just wait until it has cooled down.

Store fudge in an airtight container in the fridge for 2 weeks.

Let the fun begin

Add flavours to the fudge like - mint, Kahlua, coffee, vanilla. Mix in the flavour in the beginning of the process with everything else.
Add nuts to the fudge - pecan, macadamia, cashew. Mix through the fudge just before pouring into tin or sprinkle on top as soon as you pour it into the tin.
Dip fudge in chocolate.
Cover shortbread in fudge.
Cut the set fudge into shapes using little cookie cutters.
Make fudge pops - cut fudge into a shape and push a stick into the piece of fudge, the dip in chocolate.

Or just eat the fudge just right out of the tin !

Red Velvet Cupcakes

Red Velvet Cupcakes

This recipe is from the lovely Leony from Ma'cake who has kindly said that I could share this recipe, you should visit her she has some lovely recipes and does absolutely beautiful work. Here is the link to her recipe or you can just read it here.
http://blog.macake.com.au/2010/06/red-velvet-cupcake-recipe/#1#1

I must say these were delicious, it is the first time I have actually tasted red velvet - I know it's strange, so I will just leave it there, so that being the case I honestly can't compare, but everyone who tasted these loved them. I would say that it isn't absolutely necessary to have both the cream cheese filling and the white chocolate butter cream, although it is rather yummy with both and well when I indulge I go all the way.

So here it is

Red Velvet Cupcakes (makes about 30)

Ingredients

3 ¼ cups of plain flour, sifted

150 gr unsalted butter, room temperature

2 cups castor sugar

3 large eggs, room temperature

2 1/2 Tbsp red food coloring
3 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups full cream milk
1 1/2 tsp plain yoghurt
1 1/2 tsp baking soda

Directions

Preheat oven to 175°C and prepare cupcake trays.

Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar on medium speed until very light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. In a small bowl, whisk the red food colouring, cocoa, and vanilla together. Add to the batter and beat well.

Red Batter

Stir the salt into the milk. Add milk to the batter in three parts alternating with the flour. With each addition, beat until the ingredients are incorporated, but do not over beat. Stir the yoghurt and baking soda together and add to the batter and mix well. Using a rubber spatula, scrape down the batter in the bowl, making sure the ingredients are well blended and the batter is smooth.

Divide the batter among the prepared pans. Arrange the oven racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven and bake the cupcakes, switching positions of the pans halfway through baking, until a tester comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Cool the cupcakes in the pan for about 10 minutes, then remove from the pan and cool completely on a rack before icing.

Naked Red Velvet cupcakes

Cream Cheese Filling

Ingredients

300g cream cheese at room temperature (spreadable cream cheese or mascarpone are both fine) I used cream cheese
75 gr unsalted butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups icing sugar, sifted

Directions

With an electric mixer, blend together cream cheese and butter until smooth. Add icing sugar and vanilla extract. Mix on high and beat until light and fluffy. Make a 1cm diameter hole in the middle of the cupcake about 3/4 depth and fill using a piping bag. I used an apple corer to make the holes.



Filled with cream cheese filling

Filled with cream cheese filling and dusted with icing sugar

 

 

White Chocolate Butter cream

Ingredients

80ml cream.

150g white chocolate
200g unsalted butter, softened
80g icing sugar sifted

Directions

Bring some water (about 2cm depth) to boil in a small saucepan. Remove from heat. Place a stainless steel bowl over the pan ensuring it does not touch the water. Add the cream and chocolate, stir until melted and smooth. Set aside to cool a little.

Beat the butter until light and creamy then slowly beat in icing sugar until thick and white. Beat in the cool chocolate mixture.

Pipe the icing onto the cupcake using a star nozzle by holding the nozzle vertically approximately 1cm from the cupcake, starting in the middle then working around the outside before returning to the middle to create the peak. Of course you can pipe any way you like or just dollop a spoonful of icing onto these. Enjoy xx 

Red velvet cupcake, cream cheese filling all topped off with a light white chocolate butter cream



Rose pops

This is not my original idea - I have seeing it done before while looking around on google, not entirely sure who to give the credit to, however I did see roses and then had a play with ways of making these and want to share what I came up with to create these sweet edible roses. I had planned on making these again and having some better photos for this blog post but got rather busy, and well valentines day in around the corner so I made an executive decision to do the post with my first attempt ones rather than wait.
Basically if you have made fondant or gum paste roses this is very much the same thing except that you have cake/cookie pop mixture in the middle.
As with most things there are many ways to create a similar thing - a long way and a short way, well which ever way you go with these they do take time, but are definitely worth the effort.
I did the long version - Made my own modeling chocolate, and made chocolate mud cake and ganache to make the cake balls.

What you need -
Cake pop/ball mix (cake crumbs mixed with icing of some sort OR cookie crumbs mixed with cream cheese OR fudge)
Chocolate or candy melts in a colour of your choice (I went with red candy melts)
Modeling chocolate OR fondant (I made my own Red modeling chocolate and used green fondant for the calyx - got a bit lazy)
Sticks (I use the white 'paper' cookie sticks - that's what I call them)
Rose petal cutter
Calyx cutter
Rolling pin

Shape the cake pop mixture into tear drop shapes, dip the end of the stick into melted chocolate and insert into the fatter end of the teardrop cake ball. Chill these in the fridge.

Once these are chilled coat/dip into chocolate. Allow chocolate to set.

Make the rose petals -
Roll the fondant or modeling chocolate out thin and cut out petals, thin out the edges of the petals.
Wrap a petal around the cake pop forming a point at the top, wrap the next petal overlapping, add 3 more petals over lapping each one to form a rose bud. Add 5 more petals to finish the full rose.

Finish the roses off by cutting a calyx from the green fondant and slide it up the stick and onto the base of the rose, using a little bit of water to attach it.

Done ! I appologise in advance for the lack of certain details in this post - I just wanted to get it out before Valentines day and well being 3am it's either do it like this or wait for a few weeks when/if I quieten down.


Bunch of Rose Pops



Inside Rose bud