Peanut Butter Chocolate Brownies

 
One of things I love about baking so much is sharing what I make with my family and friends, it makes me feel great to have others tasting and testing my treats and really there is no way I could eat everything that comes out of my kitchen.

But sometimes I get put on the spot, you know everyone thinks I'll have something fabulous to bring along for dessert.

Anyway I woke up Friday morning a little late and turned the computer on. I haven't been on the computer much over the last week or so, kinda a blogging and baking holiday.

So I find an email about the party we were going to that night, oh right could I bring dessert........Eeeeek!

Now the host had sent the request 2 days before, but now here I was the morning of the party with nothing made.

In the end I used this old recipe I have had for ever, in fact I mentioned it in my first ever post when
I showed off some Martha Stewart Peanut Butter Filled Chocolate Cupcakes that were really delicious, but a bit fiddly to make.

This recipe is not fiddly at all, in fact I spent more time deciding what I was going to make in the end than actually making the dessert.

I served this with store bought ice-cream we picked up on the way and some homemade chocolate sauce I had left over.


Voila instant fast dessert for a crowd,  hope you enjoy this one as much as we do.

 recipe after jump

Hey look what I found at Woolies Lip and Heart sprinkles

Look what I found just before Christmas in the baking aisle of Woolies.

Heart and lip sprinkles.

'Cause when you live in Australia and love Bakerella and other US sites it can sometimes be heartbreaking (is that word to strong to use for baking?) when you can't find some of the sweets and treats they use for decorating.

It's a four pack of 'Fantasy Fairy' sprinkles with hearts, lips, pink sugar and pink and white sprinkles.

A couple of other places I use is USA foods based in Melbourne Australia who have Candy Corn, Corn Syrup, Peanut Butter baking chips, Criso, Marshmallow Fluff..........and a stack of other items.

Or if your close to Brisbane Chocolate Boulavard in the Myer Center have a smaller range of US (and UK) sweets and some baking goods.

plus those confectionery stalls in the middle of all the Westfields and other major shopping centers have some of the US candy as well.

Hope you all had lovely holidays, Ill be back baking soon.

White Christmas wonderland party

 

 
Wow - look at this party my Sister in law Terri and some of her work colleagues popped together at thier workplace.

The theme was white forest and white feast and the table was a collaboration of some of her work mates treats and items I baked all pulled together with some spectacular styling.
Some of the items on the table will look a bit familiar. Yup that's my white stand from Sharnel Dollar designs at the back with the White Christmas on top, also from Sharnel Dollar are the 2 Rosie jars in large and small filled with Marshmallow and white Ferro Rocher.

The little 'otto' jars with milk bottles are from The Brown Button Trading Co and the 'crystal' type jar filled with nougat is from Target and I got the cute little wooden white Christmas Tree from Big W.

The little footed white stand was a gift from my Aunty last Christmas.

White Feast Menu
Vanilla cupcakes with vanilla Italian Meringue Buttercream topped with white sugar flowers
White snowflake sugar cookies (click here for recipe and instructions)
Macadamia Shortbread
French Macarons filled with Salted Caramel and white chocolate ganache
Tim Tam snowflake pops
Sugar snowflakes to pop ontop of white Tim Tams.
Melting moments, white Christmas and assorted lollies/ sweets/ candy were provided by the work team.

Oh and before you ask I can't tell you the name of the workplace or they'll be inundated with resumes :)

 Photo's, decorations and styling by someone else.

White Christmas snowflake decorated sugar cookies

This weekend I'm all about white while I make some treats for my friends winter wonderland table.

Have just finished up these white snowflake sugar cookies decorated with marshmallow fondant and royal icing.

White stand from Sharnel Dollar Designs Pom Poms from Ah-Tissue

White, although elegant can be a little boring so I tried to add some texture, I also included some silver accents as the table will also incorporate silver, but these cookies would look elegant without the addition as well.

See the 3 different cookies above you can add as much or as little decoration as you like or a mixture is nice as well.


Snowflake Winter Wonderland cookies

Make up batch of sugar cookie dough (recipe below) and cut out snowflake cookies, I bought my cutter from Little Betsy Baker.

Bake as per instructions until golden and allow to cool completely.

Roll out fondant (mine is a mixture of 2 thirds marshmallow fondant and one third white ready roll fondant but you can use what you like) on a surface dusted with cornflour or icing sugar and using the same snowflake cookie cutter cut out the snowflake shape. Make sure the cookie cutter is clean and dry before you start cutting.

Using a clean brush that is only used for food purposes brush a tiny amount of water onto the cookie and then adhere the fondant gently rolling on with a small rolling pin. #

Using a clean foodsafe stamp press into the middle of each cookie to make a pretty indentation.

Mix up a little royal icing, I just used the powdered ready mix packet stuff for this and I added a little white white Wilton food colour. Pop it into a bag or disposable glad zip lock with a #2 tip and dot little decorations around the cookie. If you don't have a tip you could cut a really really tiny hole at the corner of the zip lock bag.



Add edible silver balls or other decorations as you like.


#Fondant dries out pretty quickly so I work with a little fondant at a time covering one cookie. The remaining fondant I leave wrapped in a little cling wrap/ glad wrap until I need it.

Sugar Cookie Recipe

114 grams unsalted butter (1 stick or 4 ounces) softened to room temperature
2/3 cup caster sugar
1 extra large egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups plus 1 Tablespoon plain flour sifted
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Using a mixer cream butter and sugar.

Add egg and vanilla and mix well. Add the dry ingredients to butter mixture and mix until dough comes together.

Wrap in plastic wrap and chill in fridge for 30 mins.

Roll out dough to approx 7mm thick, cut out cookie shapes and chill for another 30 mins on trays. Bake at oven preheated to 180 C (350 f) for 10 to 15 mins depending on cookie size.

Have yourself a Merry Aussie Christmas

Catherine G, Chris E and Megan S this prawn cake pop is for you (please don't anyone report me to Cake wrecks this pop is a joke).

When I asked on my facebook page what kind of treats you wanted for Christmas there was a varied response.

But a couple of you suggested some Australian Christmas treats, you know seeings as it's summer here and  we don't have any snowflakes, furry hats and snowmen in December.

I thought about it for a while, I searched for what a true Aussie Christmas is and what I found is that we are a country with many different traditions and cultures.......no surprises there.

I live in Brisbane Queensland and about a half hour drive to the beautiful Gold Coast. Growing up Christmas celebrations meant prawns (shrimp), pavlova, mango, beaches and a bit of cricket. It's Christmas to me but just doesn't lend itself to a bunch of pretty Christmas treats.

So I thought about what Christmas really means to me:

• Family
• Joy
• Love
• Sharing

and you know what no matter how diverse our country is or what culture we come from I think these values can work for everyone, and not just in Australia.

I was going to make a bunch of sugar cookies with the words stamped onto them but I just didn't get time and all that would fit on the cake pops was Joy.

Fittingly that was also what I felt when I bit into this pop.
There are some basic instructions after the jump

Peppermint Marshmallow Christmas Tree Hi Hat cupcakes

I made these late at night with sore feet from a day of shopping and no will to decorate. I think you can tell.

But see what I did here, I used some free editing and pretty props to redirect your attention so you can't see what a bad job I did.

I've talked about it before I call it the pusscat dolls effect, and it works a treat until you look closely. 


Oh alright I know I didn't really trick most of you and they weren't really that bad but the dipped ones were a bit messy as I used some green wilton melts and didn't really thin the chocolate out enough.

Yup not taking my own advice, but I was really really tired. Please do what I say not what I do.

Oh and loooove these teensy weensy little edible stars I picked up at Little Betsy Baker. 

The marshmallow topping seemed to be a hit in my family, my daughter actually rolled her eyes saying yum as she licked it from her fingers.

If you don't love peppermint you can omit it and I think this topping would also make great 'snowball' cupcakes without the green colour.

Pussycat dolls redirection props

Pom pom from Ah-Tissue

Cupcake Wrapper co Christmas wrapper from Details Details

Single Cupcake Stand from Mon Tresor

 Recipe after jump

Tim Tam rush pops

If you follow me on facebook you've probably already seen this photo, but what you might not have seen is that this is not just a normal everyday white Tim Tam truffle cookie pop, it's a Tim Tam Rush pop.

Or maybe when you were growing up they were called a Tim Tam Slam.

Or maybe you think I'm a little weird and you don't know what I'm talking about.

It's when you get a tim tam and slurp your coffee up through it and pop the whole lot in your mouth. I was never a huge fan back in the day but when I was growing up they only had original tim tams. Maybe if they had white tim tams I might have been a convert.

Although I'm not so sure, never was a big fan of soggy. But with these pops you get the yummy coffee/tim tam flavour and none of the unpleasant sogginess. Really the best of both worlds don't you think.

Waiting to be made into pops, the coffee ones at the front and plain old white tim tam at the back

I am a convert now and once you try them you might be too.  Recipe after jump.