Heart attacks in small bites.

SO im totally new to this and well jessie was pestering me to post, and well here it is! :)

Macaroons

3- egg whites

2-tablespoons caster sugar

red food coloring and essense of flavouring of your choice (i chose strawberry in this case)

200-gms icing sugar

about 120-gms almond meal (i say about as i dont quite use anywhere close to 120gms)

White Chocolate Ganache

100-gms white eating chocolate

2-tablespoons cream

disclaimer: i dont quite usually follow recipes exactly, baking for me has never been an exact science, so feel free to adjust as you like! i will post the exact instructions and comment on what i did differently :)

1 Beat egg whites in a small bowl until soft peaks form, add caster sugar and food colouring, and beat until the sugar dissolves. When i bake this, i usually add the colouring into the whites during the whisking stage, this is to more evenly spread the colouring through the mixture i find.

2 Transfer mixture to a large bowl and fold in sifted icing sugar and almond meal, in batches.

heres the tricky part for me, and its that i buy one of those small packs of almond meal, and sift that, the only issue with that is that i really only use the almond meal which is as fine as icing sugar, so when i bake macaroons, im pretty sure i only effectively use about 30-50gms of almond meal at all, which is probably why my macaroons come out quite airy.

3 Spoon mixture into large piping bag. Pipe unto tray, approximately 4cm rounds, about 2cms apart. Another bit i mix up around here, is that i pipe a much smaller sized macaroon, simply for the reason that they are so heavy during consumption! probably about the size of our old 50c coin. Also be sure to use double-sided baking paper.

4 Tap trays on bench top to help macaroons spread slightly, and dust with with sifted extra icing sugar; then stand for at least 15mins before putting into the oven. In my latest attempt at baking, i varied how long i left the macaroons to stand before putting them into the oven, and would stress that this is a very important stage of the macaroons, i may be wrong, correct me if someone knows this better, but i seem to find that the longer i left it out, the macaroons baked out with a better footing/base. so obviously not too long, but at least 15-20mins.

5 Preheat oven to about 130-150degrees celcius, on fan force. Not much to comment, but i used approximately 140degrees celcius.

6 Bake for approximately 20minutes, stand on trays for 5 minutes and transfer to a wire rack to cool. As soon as my macaroons were out of the oven, i basically just dragged the baking paper off the tray unto my dining table to cool. Also i found that if ur macaroons are sticking to the baking paper, and are not quite solid, you probably have undercooked them, (i may be wrong though)

7 Sandwich macaroons with ganache before serving.

To make ganache:

1 Stir Chocolate and cream in a small saucepan over low heat until smooth. Transfer mixture into a small bowl and refrigerate until mixture is spreadable. I cant stress enough that it has to be low heat, if you are not confident, id suggest using the process of double boiling to avoid over heating of the chocolate. maybe have a read on

http://candy.about.com/od/workingwithchocolate/a/meltchocolate.htm

DISCLAIMER: DEATH BY CHOCOLATE muffins

Y'all ready for this?

These are actually -- officially -- you heard it here first -- the most indulgent muffins that will ever touch your lips. I went for a 6km run after a few bites. Seriously. You have been warned. If you're a risk taker like me you'll make these with reckless abandon in the weekend ---

1 1/2 c self raising flour
1 c dark brown sugar
250 g dark chocolate, chopped
125 g butter
1/4 c cocoa
300ml sour cream (yes, sour cream, this is not a typo and trust me on this one -- delish)
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla essence
2 packets of Rolo's, or equivalent chocolate covered caramel sweets (I used Mars bars)
1/4 c sifted cocoa

1. Preheat oven to moderate, 180ºC. 
2. Line muffin pans with paper cases (I used metallic gold cases -- so pretty with the deep dark chocolate mixture...)
3. Sift flour into large bowl, and stir in sugar
4. Melt chocolate and butter. Stir in cocoa and cool for 5 minutes
5. Whisk sour cream, vanilla and eggs
6. Stir in chocolate and sour cream mixture is just combined
7. 1/2 fill each muffin case. Place two Rolos or a slice of Mars bar into the centre of each. Spoon the remaining mixture to 2/3 fill each hole. Bake for 15-20 minutes

Read more: http://www.food.com/recipe/triple-chocolate-muffins-64175#ixzz1WypPz5nn

coffee, 3x chocolate & hazelnut biscotti

Biscotti is a simple and versatile treat to make. This recipe is courtesy of the gorgeous Georgie B -- who whips up biscotti like a pro, and who is also a connoiseur of all things chocolate. Her family send biscotti up and down the country -- and I can understand why, it should keep for up to four weeks and is the perfect accompaniment to coffee.

The best thing about biscotti is that you can throw in whatever ingredients you have available and it's guaranteed to still taste delicious . . . ! I had hazelnuts and white , milk and dark chocolate in the pantry, but Georgie's a fan of chocolate and date or dried berries with almonds.

Here's how...

1 c plain flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 Tbsp instant coffee

1/2 c whole hazelnuts

1 c white/dark/milk chocolate chips/buttons

1 egg

1 egg white

1/3 c castor sugar

3 Tbsp castor sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

1. Preheat oven to 180C, line baking tray
2. Combine flour, baking powder, coffee, nuts, chocolate. Beat the whole egg and egg white with the first measure of sugar, second measure of sugar and essence until think and foamy. Mix through dry ingredients.
3. Roll into a 5cm diameter log (mixture can be quite sticky). Place on tray and bake for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Slice into thin slices with a serrated knife.
4. Return to tray. Bake at 150C for 15-20 minutes until slightly browned and crisp. Cool (I turned the oven off and left the biscotti to cool inside...) and then store in an airtight container.

Breakfast tart

This breakfast tart took next to no time to make! I actually make this tonight for tomorrow morning, but decided it looked too good to leave so I ended up eating most of it.

It's actually ridiculously simple, and I followed no particular recipe, just things I threw together.

I made the pastry by mixing some flour with some cold water (I didn't measure how much) until it formed a nice dough. Then I kneaded it a little and rolled it out and shaped it in muffin tins already greased with a little bit of baking spray.
I then put in some pumpkin (pre-steamed), some basil pesto, a couple of pieces of pineapple (tasted so refreshing in there), some bacon and cracked an egg on top! Sprinkle some cracked pepper and salt to taste and you're good to go. I baked these babies at ~210degC for about 15 minutes until the pastry looked done since all the other ingredients in there were precooked.

Breakfast tart ingredients

Flour (however much you think you need to form a dough)
Cold water (a few tbsps depending on how much flour)

Pumpkin (pre-steamed)
Basil pesto
Eggs (depending on how many pastry cups you have)
Bacon (pre-cooked)
Pineapple pieces (fresh pineapples are sweeter and juicier)

Profiteroles

Straight from the pages of the "things I never thought I could make but turn out to be incredibly easy" book come profiteroles!

above: pre-filling

below: yes, I realise they are in a pie dish

These ones have been stuffed with caramel ice-cream.

I have learnt two important lessons from my profiterole-making experiences that I feel I should share with you all:

number one: only put teaspoon-sized drops of profiterole mix onto your baking tray - any larger and you'll end up with profiteroles that are either brown or soggy;

number two: ice-cream (and whipped cream for that matter) melts, let your profiteroles cool before filling.

Recipe (makes 20+ profiteroles):

1 cup water
75g butter
150g flour
1 Tbsp white sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
3 large eggs

To make the profiteroles:

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Bring the butter and water to the boil in a saucepan. Add the flour all at once and beat until the mixture leaves the side of the pan (if all the water has evaporate and your flour is going to burn, then remove from heat immediately).

Remove from the heat and add the sugar and vanilla. Beat in the eggs, one at a time.
Place teaspoonfuls onto the oven trays. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until puffed and golden. Cool.

To assemble, cut profiteroles in half. Fill the profiterole halves as desired. Drizzle with chocolate sauce.

Mini lemon meringue tarts

I used a mini muffin tray to make the tartlets. The tartlets use a (reasonably easy) shortcrust pastry recipe supplied to me by Meili, and then I baked it and filled it with home-made lemon curd and put a dollop of meringue on top! Super cute. You can gobble it up in two bites!

These need to be eaten within 1-2 days otherwise they will get sort of soggy though.

If you have left-over lemon curd, spread it on a toasted bagel with cream cheese! Yum!

Hello saucyteaspoons

Lick.