I saw a recipe that had coca cola slice with marshmallows and I was intrigued.  Coca cola?  In a cake?  I have seen a ham roast, pork ribs, hell I'd even seen coca cola polish silverware but never in a cake!

It felt strange to make I'll admit and when the little cupcakes came out of the oven I couldn't resist but try one (warm) they were chocolately and spongey and almost mousse-like.  Deliciously cute I'd say - Ugly (to look at) but interesting.

For the frosting I tried to replicate the Coca-Cola colours - my piping bag exploded all over my kitchen.  With my two four year olds scrambling for the fall out!  So I managed to get a few looking OK, and rest looking like a train-smash and let's just say two very sugared up frills!  Lots and lots of water was consumed afterwards (and Mummy had some diet coke to recover!)

Aaaah another day in the frilly kitchen!   A yummy result in any case - I've sent them off to work with hubby - the boys don't care if they're pretty or not!

Ingredients:
240gr plain flour
180gr white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
100gram mini marshmallows
220g butter
2 tb cocoa powder or powdered cooking chocolate
1/2 cup coca cola (I used diet coke - ha!)

To ice
200g butter, softened
1/2 cup milk
400g icing mixture

Method:
In a saucepan mix the coca cola, cocoa powder and butter over a simmering heat.  Dissolve butter and then take off the heat and set aside to cool.


When the chocolate and coke mix is cool, preheat oven to 180 degrees c

In a mixing bowl, add the flour, sugar, vanilla and eggs, beat until smooth and light.


Add the chocolate cola mixture and then the marshmallows

Pour into small cupcake papers (I have used Robert Gordon mini upright ones - if using regular papers place them in a muffin tray) and place in oven for 15-20 minutes.  Allow to cool.

Then repeat with butter creaming process and adding the remaining icing mixture and 2 tb of cocoa.

In your piping bag or ziplock bag, layer your icing on to close to the nozzle/corner. Cut corner off ziplock bag or attach nozzle and ice like you like!

Aye.  May the luck of the irish be with you today!

Here's a great little recipe that's an all-in-one.  Meat AND vegetables.  Of course being irish there are potatoes! Rustic and warm, this is a great one for a cool day at home, the smell of it cooking is homely and inviting.  Added to that, it is yummy and economical !

Ingredients:
6 meaty lamb forequarter chops, fat rind removed
2 large carrots, chopped
5 medium potatoes, peeled, and thickly sliced
1 leek, thickly slicked
1/8th savoy cabbaged, sliced (roughly 150g)
4 rashers bacon
2 tb beef stock powder
2 tb plain flour
200ml water
200ml Guinness

Method:
Trim fat rind off forequarter chops, and prepare other ingredients - i.e. chopping/peeling/slicing


In your slowcooker, lay two rashers of bacon on the bottom then arrange half of the potatoes, leeks, carrots and cabbage on top.  

Remember how last week I told you about my friend who with waist-length hair shaved it for a cure?  I'm pleased to announce that Dianne raised 3,175 for the Leukaemia Foundation ! Go Di!

Now here she is sporting her new 'do'


This was before:

To see pics of the 'chop'n'shave' click here - you can still donate if you wish too!

Now this one is the bread you make if you've never made bread before.  It is dead easy.  You can make, your kids could make it, your dog could make it - ok, maybe not your dog.  But seriously it is super easy, cheap and quick to make.

No waiting for dough to prove as there is no yeast
No kneading
No fancy machinery required, in fact no machinery at all.

With St. Patricks' day tomorrow this is a great bread to dip into soup or maybe even tomorrow's recipe... *wink*  or just with some butter and a good ol' guinness.  It's crunchy on the outside, soft and a little (but not too) dense.  "Grand" as the irish say.

I have sourced this recipe from the Irish baking goddess Rachel Allen - who else could give us such a foolproof recipe!?

Ingredients:
450 grams plain flour
1 cup buttermilk*
1 tsp caster sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

*if no buttermilk on hand, 5ml of white vinegar in the bottom of a 1 cup measure, fill with regular milk and wait 5 minutes until it curdles

Method:
Preheat oven to 230 degrees c

Sift flour, salt and bicarbonate of soda into a large bowl.  Add caster sugar and stir to combine and make a well in the centre.

Add half the butter milk and with a clawing motion with your hands, combine buttermilk and dry ingredients until combined, gradually add milk as required until you come to a dough like consistency.  it should not be sticky - do not knead either - this will make the bread too dense.

Place in oven for 15 minutes then turn the temperature down to 200 degrees for a futher 25 minutes, then turn the loaf over for a futher 5 minutes.  Leave to cool on a wire rack, cut and serve hot or cold.

These weekends go so fast don't they?
I plum ran out of time to cook this weekend - this is the benefit of cooking and stashing!  (i.e. making freezer meals!).  We had family in town and a wedding - I'm a bit frazzled!

Here's a pic of my lovely little frills - amazing they are smiling because just before this in an overtired altercation they were behaving like wolves! You'd never know it!


Yesterday was a bit of a recovery day - some  recipe hunting as I have three new cookbooks, so stay tuned!  I have also picked up through ReUseIt - extra pieces to our every day setting (Maxwell Williams classic white) for nothing!  It's a great resource to get and give things away!

How was your weekend?
Psst:  Head over to Not Quite Nigella today - my little frills feature!

1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
4 eggs, separated
1 tb orange rind
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 cups plain flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp bicarb soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup sour cream

Icing
2 cups icing mixture
1/8 cup orange juice
grated/curled orange rind to decorate if desired.
Method:
Preheat oven to 160 degrees C fan forced.

Finely grate rind from orange, set aside.  Juice orange, set aside separately.

Back in the day where a takeaway or dining in a restaurant was at least a weekly ritual, hubby and I used to frequent a few Thai takeaway places.  However our order never changed.    Pad Thai for hubby, Gai Yang and rice for me.

Whilst I miss eating out (hey, who wouldn't?) I do baulk when I do mental additions of how much we used to spend eating out... let's not go there.

Anyhow, this recipe, I was thrilled to discover, I do not need to seek out a Thai takeaway when I have a hankering - I can make this!  The kids eat it and ask for seconds!  Hubby even likes it!

Best thing is, there is truly minimal effort.  Makes me wonder why I paid $15 a serving when I can now make it for our family of five for the same price.

Ingredients:
1 kilo chicken breasts/thighs, de-boned cut into 4cm squarish-chunks
2 tb peppercorns
2 cloves garlic
2 stalks coriander, chopped
2 tb fish sauce
1 cup coconut milk

Method:
To prepare
In a mortar and pestle crush the garlic and peppercorns until they make a paste (about 1 minute)
Add the coriander and continue to pound until a greenish paste.

Add the paste, coconut milk in a airtight container and stir until well combined.

Add chicken to mixture, seal the container and shake vigourously to ensure chicken is coated

Leave in a refrigerator for 1-2 hours.

To cook: (at which time I'm cooking my rice)
Preheat griddle/frypan or BBQ and cover wth oil (I used macadamia)

Lay down marinaded chicken and cook for 4 minutes or until golden brown on each side.

Set to rest whilst you plate up rice (I also added snow peas/mange tout dressed with sesame oil) and serve.

I'm an icecream freak.  In fact I never really loved icecream until a flatmate I had, Jodie, would buy it regularly and as we watched Melrose place (ahem!) she would always sit down with me and a bowl of icecream.  It became our ritual.

Nowadays I still eat icecream, I make icecream - I LOVE icecream.  But I realise I'm pretty boring about icecream.  That all changed this week when I made this.  Mmmm mmmm mmmmm!  Perfect on vanilla icecream.  Hubby wants to try it with coffee/mocha icecream...

It takes no time to make, and I bagged mine up to give away - I think.  It might not make it.  I might need to make some more!

Ingredients:
2 cups mixed nuts of your choice (I used peanuts, walnuts, macadamia nuts and pecans)
3 cups white sugar
3/4 cup water

Method
Preheat oven to 200 degrees c

Place nuts on baking tray and pop into the oven and lightly roast (about 5 minutes)

Take nuts out, and on another baking tray, grease liberally with butter.


When  sugar boiled stir occasionally - and continue to boil until it turns a light brown colour (like toffee, derrr.. about 10 minutes)  Remove from heat and toss in your nuts into the toffee, then quickly transfer the mixture to your greased tray and leave for 5 minutes.

Bananas are cheap at the moment thank goodness, as I was getting a bit tired of paying $4.00 a kilo!  We go through tons of bananas in our house, not a one goes to waste.  If it looks like they are getting a little ripe, I put them peeled in a ziplock bag into the freezer and then blend up with skim milk for a cold and not-so-guilty treat.

However in my excitement of their price (99c a kilo!) I couldn't help myself but buy a good few kilos.  I decided for Eloise's first playdate with a friend from school would be a perfect opportunity to use some, I like to make treats for the kids but I don't think giving out chocolate cupcakes to 3 four year olds and one five year old is such a wise idea..do you?

The cupcakes are like real cakes, not like muffins as many banana cakes scaled down to make cupcakes resemble.  Good news is just one fork to mix! They really take no time to prepare and pay off deliciously - not to mention the lovely waft of banana goodness through the house when you bake them.

Thanks to Martha Stewart for the cake recipe, and the frosting recipe is a modified version of one of Marthas' too.

Ingredients (makes 16 cupcakes)
1 1/2 cups plain flour
3/4 cup white sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarb soda
1/4 tsp salt
125grams butter, melted
2 eggs
4x medium bananas, mashed (enough for 1 1/2 cups' worth)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Method:
Preheat oven to 180 degrees (fan forced, 190 non-fan forced)
Melt your butter and mash your bananas

In a medium sized mixing bowl, add flour, sugar, baking powder, bicarb soda and salt and with a fork, mixt together until all combined, create a well in the centre. 

Add the melted butter, eggs, banana and vanilla essence

Stir through with fork until well combined.

Fill muffin pans with your cupcake papers, then spoon in the mixture until it reaches approx the half full.

Place in oven for 12-18 minutes until golden brown on top.  Leave to cool.


Frosting:
125 grams butter, at room temperature
1 tb honey
1 1/4 cup pure icing sugar

With electric mixer, mix all ingredients together for about 5 mniutes, should become silky and pale.  Fill a piping bag (I've used Wilton 1M tip) or a ziplock bag with a corner cut off, or if you wish ice freehand with a knife!


Suitable for freezing