salted caramel and chocolate tarts, and strawberry and ganache tarts

When I made my mint and white chocolate mousse tart, I had way more chocolate crust than I needed, and I also happened to have a jar of salted caramel I’d made recently, and some strawberries. Naturally, the only thing to do was to make chocolate and strawberry ganache tarts, inspired by this tart from cupcakes and cashmere, and salted caramel and chocolate ganache tarts, which coincidentally were made on Masterchef later that night, does that make me a Masterchef? I hope so.

 

I made these tarts in miniature, because little food is cute, and I brought a couple to school the next day, much to my friends delight. I have since been asked to make one for a girl at school who said she’d pay for one, I’m not entirely sure what to do with this situation because I’d feel a bit stingy to make someone pay for one small tart, but if I bake her something, everyone else will want food too. Teenagers *sigh*.

 

choux puffs and a croquembouche

Choux pastry was my nemesis for a year or so. I’d made it twice, both times failing miserably, as all I seemed to be able to produce was sad, flat lumps of not-quite-pastry. I’m not sure how I managed to screw it up so badly, considering the first time I used the choux pastry recipe from the Sprinklebakes cookbook it was a raging success, can Heather Baird do no wrong?

I made choux puffs a few weeks ago without a hiccup, until I tried to make pastry cream and it was so delicious but also very runny. I then made a croquembouche.

 

my favourite cupcake recipe

I made these cupcakes for my friend Tash’s birthday, which was the same day as my year 12 formal. I did feel a bit ridiculous; carrying cupcakes around while wearing the nicest dress I own, but everyone should get food on their birthday. In the end, I forgot to hand them out at formal, so during the after party I sat on a couch with a drink bottle and a packet of chips (yes, I am very fun at parties) and offered them to slightly confused, tired and inebriated people. I made chocolate cupcakes filled with salted caramel, with half of them decorated with chocolate frosting and caramel drizzle, and the other half with caramel frosting and a dusting of cocoa powder. I didn’t write down the frosting recipe as I tend to haphazardly throw ingredients into the Kitchen Aid until the frosting is the right consistency, so you're on your own with that one.

This is my go-to cupcake recipe; it makes exactly 12 perfectly sized cupcakes, and can be adapted to any flavour. I’m not sure where this recipe came from, I found it a few years ago in my mums folder of cake recipes. I have since memorised it, and it’s so easy and that it’s the recipe I give to anybody who wants to make cupcakes; particularly people like my friend Harriet who manage to completely destroy cake mixes.

chocolate truffles

I wonder if you have heard of Crossfit. If this cult-like gym has taken over your life or the life of your loved ones. If these people leave the house for hours at a time, climbing into $70 shorts from Lulu Lemon, chanting ‘we don’t use machines, we become them’, jogging out the door to join their fellow crossfitters, glassy eyed as they perform pull ups, clean and jerks.

 

Perhaps it is not quite as dramatic as all that, however my sister has, in less than a year, become a paleo-eating, state-competing, die-hard cross fitter. Her boyfriend Hayden is to blame for this transformation, from Emily being a normal young lady to becoming a 152 centimetre (yes, she’s very short,) lump of muscle with shins covered in scabs from box jumps and snatches. Again, perhaps I am exaggerating, but the most upsetting change my sister has made is that now she eats the paleo diet- in summary, no grains, no dairy and no sugar. NO SUGAR. Oh how sad my life has become, I can now only force feed cupcakes to my parents! They don’t appreciate the depth of flavour of salted caramel, nor the appropriate texture of whipped chocolate ganache!  

 

kahlua and chocolate mousse

The first time I made chocolate mousse was when my sister had her wisdom teeth out, and for a week, she couldn’t eat anything solid. I would get up every morning and puree fruit for her breakfast, and I made a simple chocolate mousse for her desserts. I am a damn good little sister.

I made this chocolate and Kahlua mousse for my 18^th birthday dinner, where I also served baked churros. This recipe is from this book, it worked perfectly and was a very easy recipe, although I did change it slightly by replacing some of the Kahlua with water, as I didn’t want it to taste too alcohol-y. I served the mousse topped with some slightly sweetened whipped cream piped with a closed star tip, which is my favourite type of piping nozzle; I also dusted the mousse cups with cocoa.

mint and white chocolate mousse tart

This was the first tart I have ever made, and I was so pleased with the results. My mum was having friends over for dinner and cooking a recipe from the cookbook ‘Jerusalem’. Inspired by the Arabic theme of the meal, I decided to use mint, which is a popular flavour in Middle Eastern sweets. Although that’s about where the Arabic inspiration ends.
 

raspberry and dark chocolate macarons

Macarons are without a doubt one of the most fun, whimsical and pretty things that anyone can bake, they can be any colour, any flavour (as Adriano Zumbo is well aware of, vegemite flavoured!? I’m not that Australian,) and are incredibly impressive when tucked into a nice box or stacked on a cake stand.

 

Before I received this book for Christmas this year, my macaron adventures had been a bit wishy washy, sometimes I’d sit outside the oven bouncing and clapping my hands as I saw the feet forming, and other times I’d pull them from the oven only to see flat, cracked blobs of disappointment.

I made these raspberry and dark chocolate macarons for my sister’s boyfriend’s sister, whom I had never met, because they’re her favourite. I was particularly pleased with how these turned out, and the combination of a raspberry reduction and rich chocolate ganache was perfectly sandwiched between the pastel pink shells. I then used some pink, red and blue food colourings and vodka to paint hearts onto the macaron shells.

baked churros

I am a proud visitor of the yearly National Folk Festival in Canberra, where my family and I have spent every Easter for over a decade. The music is awesome and perfectly folky and each year we return home with a couple of new CDs. The highlight of the festival used to be the daily churros I would have, dipped in rich Italian hot chocolate. Until the churro stalls stopped coming.

 

I have always been a lover of all things doughnutty, however I can’t stand frying, I’ve fried churros a few times before and always end up with a few minor burns, dough all over my hands and a plate of tasty yet too-greasy churros. When I came across this baked version in my frequent trawling of the Sprinklebakes blog, I knew I had hit the Spanish jackpot, particularly since I was planning a Mexican themed 18^th birthday dinner (churros are Spanish, close enough?). My friends devoured them, perhaps because I am unusually pushy when trying to get people to eat my food and I peer pressured them into it, but the general consensus was that they were delicious.