Any one for a kiss!

I come across an old school friend of mine quite often these days and she works on the odd day down at the New World that I frequent often. Victoria is an avid follower of my blog and gave me a recipe to try quoting it off by heart last Monday in the wine isle.

Now I remember her facebook status a while back was that she has, after 20 years, perfected the kiss cake. A family recipe. That should have got me worried as how could it take 20 years of baking to perfect what seemed to be a very normal problem free recipe! It is Sunday morning as I write this and behind me in the oven are the kiss cakes. The timer has gone off and they look quite sweet but anemic. I got 25 of them from the mixture and one only needs to cook them for 8 minutes. Somehow I don't think they are the way they should be!!! I will find out tomorrow when Victoria does the taste test.

Yesterday (anticipating the kiss cakes might not be too good) I made a Ginger cake from the Avenues magazine that arrived in this weeks newspaper. It has the real authentic grated root ginger as well as the ginger powder so it really is a ginger cake! Took it around to friends last night to have while watching the All Blacks show Australia how to play rugby (score 49-28).

Served with a little vanilla ice cream on the side while sipping a bubbles, it was quite lovely.

Birthday Week

What a lovely week that was.

The inevitable happened and I turned another year older and with that came the celebrating. I was showered with beautiful gifts and many of them had a baking theme. I was given a great book called 'Cakes', a selection from the Australian Womans Weekly that have been triple tested for 'your success every time.' Along with a gorgeous bundt cake pan and 4 miniture bottles of Piper Heidseick complete with sipping straws! So this weekend I made a cake in the bundt pan from the new recipe book.......Passionfruit Buttermilk Cake.

As you can see from the photo above, it turned out superbly. The taste is exquisite, so light and soft to eat. The recipe required to add three eggs, yolks first, then fold in the whipped egg whites, thus resulting in a very light texture.

I found this cake to be delicious, especially when accompanied by a chilled glass of bubbles.

So if you are passing, make a point of popping in and having a taste.

(Better make is snappy as the Piper has been known to evaporate!)

A weekend in July

This weekend was to be Emma and Richard returning from their two weeks in Europe. And since I haven't seen them since 13 June, I was keen to bake for their homecoming. It was not to be as they were delayed in Singapore for 24 hours so arrival is now Monday morning 9.20am. (Fog descended on Christchurch at 8 am, closing the airport!!) As I write this, they are still not home! Due in soon though.

The cake of the week was made and has already been eaten as we just couldn't wait till they got here. ha ha

I made a Lemon Sour Cream Cake from the Waihi Cookbook. Lovely ingredients. Lemon meringue yogurt, sour cream (lite of course), a few eggs and lemons of course.

It was a very moist cake but lovely and light with a little yogurt on the side. Eaten after a beef casserole on mash with beans.

So, this morning I threw together some Tamarillo Friands from the same recipe book. If Emma doesn't hurry up and get here then they will be gone soon too.

Week or Cake 25......I'm back

Well here we are back in the land of the living and the freezing (it is July after all!) after three weeks riding through the French country side/hills and the Italian Dolomites, then walking by the five stunning villages of the Cinqueterre.

It is lovely to be home and slowly getting back in to a routine that is life. Ben was there to greet us at the airport, Emma is somewhere in Paris as we speak and Adam is speaking Spanish in Spain.

John went back to work on Friday in what seemed like a few hours after landing, Uni starts again on Monday for Ben and Gunna the dog has settled himself back in front of the fire. As for me, well I am baking a cake!

I opened a recipe book up on a random page and the cake staring at me is 'Ladysmith Cake'.

Ladysmith cake was named after the lifting of the seige of the town of Ladysmith during the Boer War. It is a vanilla butter cake in which half the mixture is flavoured with spice and put in the tin first, then a layer of jam, then the rest of the plain mixture and chopped walnuts on top.

It looks very delicious and will take it our friends Dave and Kerrys place tonight. Will be tested at half time of the All Blacks/South Africa game.

There will be plenty left though if you are passing, as it keeps beautifully for a few days in an airtight container!

Until next week......

The stand in Blogger...

In Cheryl’s absence, I have taken it upon myself in the name of continuity to submit a baking blurb. Emma her authorised offspring, did offer, but due to the fact that she “has a life’ has been unable to deliver….

My life’s baking work this week was a batch of plum and kiwifruit muffins. A strange mix? *Plums had been defrosted and were begging cooking and the kiwifruit was ripe as and ready to rhumba. *Last of the plums from the tree that had been unceremoniously removed from our neighbouring section this year.

The fruit was drained as previous batches that were too sloppy ended up soft after cooking too. The recipe was my stock standard fresh fruity muffins page 48 in my handwritten recipe book I have had for over 20 years.

As always I was in a rush to go somewhere so left the removal from the oven and muffin pans to the eldest offspring. Torn between her inexperience and my need to leave, I opted for the latter in an effort to enhance her cooking skills. It wouldn’t take much to beat mine and we returned later to some distorted, almost blackened remnants. They tasted okay but weren’t too pleasing to the eye.

I can vouch for the nutritional value but the eating pleasure was more on a, “Geez, isn’t there anything else to eat?” basis.

Come back Cheryl, I’m hungry!

Week Twenty Three.....Bill the Pom

Well yesterday was Bills birthday....for those of you who don't know, Bill is married to my sister Sharyn, (yes she's the older one!). He turned 50 so on Thursday night I went to bed armed with recipe books and proceeded to plan his cake. I came across an interesting chocolate cake with vodka infused cranberries and thought it sounded delicious and a little different. After noticing that the cranberries had to be soaked in the vodka over night, I leapt out of bed and rummaged through the liquor cabinet for some vodka....found some mango vodka (sounds gross ay!) and made the preparations for the making of this birthday treat. My Friday was shaping up to be extremely busy with ten million things to do for our impending trip away, so I laid everything out on the bench so that I had a head start in the morning.

As the cock crowed the next day, I was frantically melting chocolate and whipping up a treat.

It really did sound like a lovely cake, but I made the biggest mistake of all. I set the timer for 15 minutes too long and out came an extremely dry looking, slightly dark chocolate cake.

Feeling very annoyed with myself, I smothered it with chocolate icing and hoped for the best. Took it around to Bill last night, who had just a few of his nearest and dearest around to celebrate the big 5 0. I escaped long before the cake was cut and I am still awaiting the verdict on the taste.............

We head off tomorrow for a while so Mother Maderia is taking a break from making cakes and leaving it in the very capable hands of Emma. So she can write this blog for you all to follow over the next few weeks. Bye bye for now...take care...xxx

P.S Bill just called with his view on how the cake tasted. A tad dry when it is cut but after putting a piece in the microwave for a short moment, it was exquisite. How cool is that!

Week Twenty Two....Queens Birthday

Even though it is the Queens birthday this weekend, my cake (or cakes) have an Italian theme, which is great as we will be in that general vacinity next week!

Daughter Emma came home from work on Friday with two recipes given to her from a colleague so I thought I would make them both. The first one is titled 'Ciambella'. " A traditional cake baked in a ring tin, made by housewives throughout Italy for centuries, adding different ingredients depending on the desired flavour. In this version the combination of chocolate and orange is delicious." (so the article says)

The next recipe was called simply 'Mama Mia'. "Regular diners at Il Felice restaurant in ChCh will be mouthwateringly familiar with this trifle-style cake. Its been a hot favourite on the dessert menu for about 10 years."

What a wicked dessert! Very rich ingredients and I think it will go very well along side the Ciambella Cake.

We were invited to our very hospitable friends' place for the ChCh SBS marathon after match function yesterday, so I came armed with my two creations and later proceeded to dish out huge quantities on to plates for those who ran in the marathon. I felt they deserved the calories!

The Mama Mia didnt set too well and looked like a large dollop of whipped cream but the taste was something else. It had a rum, chocolate, cream cheese flavour with a hint of coffee.

Well done to those who ran in the Marathon and many thanks to Greg and Julie for such a lovely afternoon.

We take off for Europe on Sunday for three weeks, time for one more cake before we go. Have a great week.