Honeycomb-Hokey Pokey - Crunchy Bar

A New Zealand Classic, especially delicious if you top it with chocolate in the end. I made this for a friend, who's son is extremely allergic to milk. He loved it!

Ingredients

2 cups ( 440g) sugar, 2/3 cup honey, 120g butter, 1 tablespoon bicarbonate of soda ( baking soda/Natron), 600g dark chocolate, melted

Instructions

Place the sugar, honey and butter in a large saucepan over medium heat and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Place a candy or sugar thermometer in the saucepan and simmer for 7-8 minutes or until the mix reaches 150°C. Take off the heat and remove the thermometer. Add the bicarbonate of soda and stir untilthe mixture is golden and foamy. Pour the mix into a lightly greased 28x38cm baking tin. Set aside for 30min or until hard. Spread with chocolate and set aside for another 1 hour or until chocolate is set. Remove the honeycomb from the tin and break into pieces to serve.

Cantucci - Italian Biscuits

If we go to Italy I can not resist these biscuits. They are delicious to coffee and sweet wine.

Ingredients:

250g whole almonds, 175g sugar, 3eggs, 1 tablespoon grated lemon rind, 

about 2 tbls lemonjuice, 450g flour, 4teaspoons baking powder

Instructions:

Beat eggs and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the lemonjuice and rind. Mix flour with baking powder and mix bit by bit under the egg-sugar mix.

Mix in the whole almonds. The dough will be quite firm. On a floured surface, make 5cm thick rolls. Bake these rolls at 175°C for 35-40min.

Take the rolls out of the oven, cool for a bit. Love the oven on.

Cut the rolls in 1cm thick slices, lay them out on baking tray. Bake them again for 15 min until golden brown.

For coconutlovers the absolute bliss, moist, yummy coconut cupcakes.

Ingredients:

Toasted Coconut: 1 cup (3 ounces) shredded coconut (sweetened or unsweetened)
Coconut Cupcakes:1 1/2 cup all purpose flour,1 tsp baking powder,1/4 tsp salt, 12 tbsp butter, at room temp, 1 cup sugar, 3 large eggs, lightly beaten, at room temp, 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut milk
1 tsp coconut rum (Malibu brand works well), 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract, 1 cup shredded coconut (sweetened or unsweetened)
Coconut Pastry Cream Filling: 3/4 cup whole milk ,3/4 cup unsweetened coconut milk
1/2 vanilla bean,4 large egg yolks ,1/3 cup sugar, 3 tablespoons cornstarch
2 teaspoons coconut rum (Malibu brand works well)
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract 

 Instructions: 

To toast the coconut: Preheat oven to 150°C. Spread the coconut evenly onto a baking sheet and toast until lightly golden brown, stirring once, about 8 minutes. Turn off the oven and let the coconut sit in the oven until very dry and crunchy, about 10 minutes longer. Let coconut cool before using to decorate the frosted cupcakes.

To make the cupcakes: Preheat oven to 170°C. Line 16-18 standard muffin cups with paper cupcake liners. Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. Cream butter and sugar together at medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3-4 minutes.
About a tablespoon at a time, add the eggs. (If mixture appears curdled, stop adding the eggs, increase speed to high, and beat until mixture is smooth and shiny. Return to medium speed and continue adding the eggs.) Continue beating until mixture is ivory colored. the entire process of adding and beating the eggs should take 3-4 minutes.
Reduce speed to low. In 3 additions, add the flour mixture alternating with 2 additions of the coconut milk. Add the rum and vanilla and beat until smooth. Remove bowl from mixer and fold in the shredded coconut.
Spoon batter into the prepared muffin pan, filling each cup about two-thirds full. Bake at 170°C until the tops spring back when lightly pressed and a cake tester comes out clean, about 20 minutes.
Allow cupcakes to cool in pan for 10 minutes. Remove cupcakes from pan and cool completely on wire rack.

To make the pastry cream filling: Combine the whole milk, coconut milk and vanilla bean and scraped vanilla seeds in a medium nonreactive saucepan and bring to a simmer over low heat.
Whisk together the yolks, sugar and cornstarch in a large bowl. Remove vanilla bean from warm milk. Slowly whisk the warm milk into the egg mixture then return the mixture to the pot over medium heat and bring to a boil, whisking constantly, until thickened. Scrape the mixture into a clean bowl and whisk in the rum and vanilla extract. In order to avoid a skin forming on the pastry cream, cover with plastic wrap pressed directly onto the surface of the pastry cream. Refrigerate until cold, at least 2 hours.

To make the frosting: In the bowl combine the cream cheese, butter, coconut pastry cream, vanilla extract on low speed. Add 2 cups of the icing sugar and mix until just smooth (don't whip). You may or may not need the remaining 1 cup icing sugar depending on how stiff or sweet you want your frosting.

To fill and frost: With a paring knife inserted at an angle, gently cut out a cone shaped hole from the cupcake. Spoon about 2 teaspoons coconut pastry cream into the center of the cupcake. Slice off some of the bottom of the cone and replace the top of the cupcake. Alternatively, using a pastry bag, insert the tip into the top of your cupcake and pipe the pastry cream into the center.
Frost your filled cupcakes with the cream cheese frosting. Make sure to cover the cut marks with the frostin. Sprinkle frosting with toasted coconut. Store cupcakes in the refrigerator.

Mars Bar Cheesecake

Yumm, Yumm, Yumm if you like Mars Bars.....

I

Ingredients

1/4cup of water, 3 teaspoons of gelatine, 500g softened cream cheese (Philadelphia), 1/2 cup of sugar, 3 Mars Bars, chopped finely, 1 tablespoons of vanilla sugar, 250g chocolate biscuits, 125g melted butter, 1 tablespoon brown sugar, 20g butter extra, 300ml thickenend cream, 60g finely chopped chocolate

Instructions

Crush biscuits until fine breadcrumbs, add butter and vanilla sugar until just combined. Press mixture evenly into a (with paper prepared) base and up 1/2 the side of a spring form tin. Place on a tray and refrigirate until firm ( about 30 min). Meanwhile to make the butterscotch sauce, combine brown sugar, extra butter and 2 tablespoons of cream in a small saucepan and stir over small heat (no boiling) until sugar disolves.

To make the chocolate sauce, combine chocolate and another 2 tablespoons of cream in another small saucepan. Stir until chocolate melts. Sprinkle gelatine over hot water, stir until the gelatine disolves. Cool for several minutes.

Beat creamcheese and sugar in a bowl. Stir in gelatine mix into creamcheese mix. Add sliced Mars Bars. Fold in rest of cream.

Pour half of the cream cheese mix into crumb crust, drizzle chocolate and butterscotch sauce over cream cheese mix, Pull a skewer backwards and forwards to make a rippled effect. Repeat with remaining creamcheese mix and sauces. Cover cake, refrigirate several hours or overnight until set. 

You can garnish with extra Mars Bars, for effect.

Dampfnudeln

Not a typical 'cake' recipe today, but an alltime family classic and favorite. It is a kind of dumpling cooked in caramel sauce, served with vanilla sauce. It is a bit tricky to make but well worth the effort.

The doggy friends of my sister are looking forward to their dog camp, as I will come for one night and make a HUGE batch of them. :)

Ingredients:

For the dough: 250g flour, pinch of salt, 2 tablespoons of sugar, 40g butter, 15g fresh yeast or one packet of dry yeast, 100ml of milk, 1egg

For the caramel-sauce: For each batch about 2 tablespoons butter, 2 tablespoons sugar and 200ml milk.

Instructions:

Make a dough of all the ingredients, stand to rise at a warm place for 1 hour. 

Form balls about fist size on a floured board. 

Use a heavy pan where you have a fitting lid to it. In the pan, melt butter and sugar until disolved and just turning brown. Place about 5 dough-balls into the pan ( or as much as loosly fit), pour on top the milk, immediately close pan with lid and reduce heat to low. With the heat you have to figure it out a bit yourself. It could be that the batch turns out too white if heat is too low, but if it is slightly too high, they burn easily. LEAVE THE LID ON FOR 20 MINUTES, NO LIFTING, NO PEEPING!!!.

This is essential. Otherwise you have some chewy yuckball in caramelsauce.

After 20 minutes, remove dampfnudeln from pan, serve with vanilla sauce, cook the next batch

Eastercake - Osterkuchen

This Easter, for the first time I got served this beautiful tarte-like cake. For some reason I have never had this traditional cake before so, as here in Switzerland it is still Easter, I will post it.

Ingredients

Pastry: 250g flour, 125g butter, 1egg, 500ml milk, pinch of salt

Filling:  3 egg yolks, 150g sugar, 100ml cream, 100g quark, 50g raisins, 100g ground almonds, grated rind of 2 lemons, 100g short grain rice precooked in milk, 3 eggwhites, 3 tablespoons rasberry jam

Decoration: almond slices and icing sugar

 Instructions

For the base, mix flour, butter, milk, egg and salt to a firm dough, leave in fridge for 1 hour. 

For the filling, beat egg yolks and sugar until light and fluffy. Mix quark with the cream and combine with the sugar-egg mix. Fold in almonds, raisins, lemon and pre-cooked rice. At last, beat egg whites until they form a peak. Fold carefully into the rice-quark mix.
 Preheat oven to 190°C. Roll out base dough into a buttered pie tin. Use a fork  to lightly punch some holes into the base. Layer with rasberry jam, top with the quark-rice mix and bake for about 25 min.
When cooled , sprinkel with almonds and icing sugar

Beautiful Strawberry Heart Shortcake

A friend of mine is getting married, the team at work are preparing the nibbles for the event. Decided it hast to be something hearty.., beautiful.. So am pre testing for the big day. Myrtha, nooooo peeeeeeeeping, hahahhahaha

 Ingredients:

500g fresh strawberries, 1 3/4 cups flour, 3 tbsp sugar (1 tbsp for the shortcake, 2 for the strawberry topping), 1/2 tsp salt, 6 tbsp cold butter, 3/4 cup cream

 Instructions:

Rinse the berries, reserving 8-10 small to medium ones with pointy tips. These will be your hearts. Preheat oven to 230°C.

Slice remaining strawberries into quarters and toss with 2 tbsp sugar to coat. Set aside.

  Pour flour into measuring cup, then level off with a knife. 

I’ll repeat it again just in case you missed it the first time: do not level off by shaking or tapping the measuring cup. You’ll get dry nasty muffins, and nobody wants that.

Sift the  flour with baking powder, add salt and sugar. Cut up the butter, which should have been in your fridge all this time, a little bit to get the blending going. Dump into the flour, then use a pastry blender or two knives to blend together. You’re done when there are no remaining chunks of butter in there. Add in the cream, then mix until all ingredients are moistened.

Let that sit a bit while you create your strawberry hearts. Pull off stems, carve out the pit with a paring knife, then slice in half. Shape each half into a heart by carving a V at the notch (where the stem used to be).

Since the berries will be pushed into the dough, the edges don’t need to make a perfect heart, but the V at the top is pivotal.

Scoop two heaving tablespoons of batter into each spot of your muffin pan, then press one of the strawberry hearts into each.

Bake for 12 minutes. Remove from oven, let cool a minute or two in the pan, then transfer to wire rack to cool. Serve to your dearest love with sugared strawberries and whipped cream.

Lemon Cheese Pie

Lemon is one of my favorite baking ingredient. This cheese pie can also be served as a slice.It can be served either warm with ice-cream or it makes a delicious cold desert.  It is deliciously moist, zesty and keeps well.

Ingredients

Pastry: 125g butter, 1 cup flour, 1/2 cup icing sugar

Filling: Juice and zest of 4 large juicy lemons ( approximately 150ml), 2 cups sugar, 2 tablespoons flour, 

4 eggs, icing sugar to decorate.

Instructions

To make the pastry, whiz butter, flour and icing sugar in a food processor until it clings together in a ball. Press into a greased pie dish and bake by 180°C for 10-15 minutes until dryish looking. To make the filling, mix lemon zest and juice, sugar, flour and eggs together and pour into the hot, pastry crust. Return to oven for 25-30 minutes until filling has cooked. Sprinkle with icing sugar as soon as you remove pie from the oven and re-sprinkle prior to serving.

Cherry Streusel

Those people who know me, have noticed that I LOVE cherries.. Unfortunately we only had them on Christmas Day in New Zealand as a special treat. Here in Switzerland cherries are in blossom.. so good times are comming :)

 Ingredients

2 eggs, 2 egg whites, 125g butter, 4tblspoons suger white or brown, 100g ground almonds, 

250g flour,  3Tbls baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt

Topping

1.5 kg cherries (today I use pittet, bottled ones)

200g flour, 125 sugar, 125 butter, 1/2 teaspoon  cinnamon

(I love the streusel,  so I double the topping recipe)

Instructions

First seperate the eggs, whisk egg whites to stiff peaks, chill in fridge. Mix egg yolks, sugar, and butter to a fluffy mix. Add the flour, baking powder, salt and almonds. In the end gently fold in stiff egg whites. Preheat oven to 200°C.

Prepare a baking tray with baking paper. Pour mix into prepared tin.

In a separate bowl mix the streusel (200g flour, 125g sugar, 125g butter, cinnamon).

Sprinkle cherries over dough in baking tin. Top with the streusel. 

Bake at 200°C for 25 to 30min

Rainbow Lemon Cake

Zoe loves this cake.. it is sooo beautiful and it reminds her of Libby, who's birthday it is today...

Ingredients:

2 cups flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 cup butter, 2 cups sugar, 3eggs,  zest of 2 lemons, 

1 cup sour cream, 6 different food colourings ( in Switzerland/Germany you get it in Chinese shops or Drogerie)

Instructions:

Into a bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt; set aside.

In a mixing bowl with hand-held electric mixer, cream 1 cup butter and sugar; beat until mixture is very light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Beat in eggs, one at a time, beating well after each egg  Blend in lemon zest. Add flour mixture to the creamed mixture alternately with sour cream, adding each in 3 additions.

Divide dough into 6 bowls. Preheat oven to 170°C

Drop in one colour after a time into the with paper preapared  baking tin.  

Bake for 50 minutes, let cool 10min in pan. 

You can frost this cake with lemon cheesecake frosting (same frosting like here)

Kiddies Playdough - Knete

Sorry, but I promised Daniela this recipe, so to all New Zealanders, who make this since flippen generations and to all followers who actually don't have toddlers or are interested in playing with playdough :), I need to put this in today. For my darling Maja.. she is such a cute button.... <3

You will need:

1 cup plain (all-purpose) flour, ½ cup salt, 2 tablespoons cream of tartar(Weinsäure)

2 tablespoons vegetable oil, 1 cup water with food coloring added

1 teaspoon vanilla essence (optional but it makes the playdough smell nice!)

Put all the ingredients into a large saucepan, and stir over a medium heat until the dough forms into a ball. Allow to cool, and then knead until smooth. 

Store in an airtight container (a Ziploc bag with the air pressed out is good).

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cheesecake Bars!

A fun recipe which lets kiddies' eyes sparkle......

Ingredients

Crust:1 & 1/2 c. butter biscuits crumbs, 5 TBSP butter, melted, 2/3 c. mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

Cookie Dough: 5 TBPS butter, room temp. 1/3 c. packed light brown sugar, 3 TBSP sugar

1/4 tsp coarse salt, 1 tsp. vanilla extract, 3/4 c. flour, 1 c. chocolate chips

Cheesecake Filling: 10 oz. cream cheese, room temp. 1/4 c. sugar, 1 egg, 1 tsp vanilla extract

Topping: 1/3 c. chocolate chips, 1 tsp shortening (biskin)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 170°C.

For the crust:

Grease a 8x8 pan with butter, line pan with parchment paper and butter the paper, leaving enough to extend over the sides.

Crush butter biscuits into crumbs to make 1 & 1/2 cups. Add to butter and stir until crumbs are moistened. Stir in chocolate chips.Press crust mixture into bottom of pan. Bake for 6 minutes. Set pan on wire rack to cool.

For cookie dough:
Using mixer and the paddle attachment, mix butter, brown sugar, sugar, salt, and vanilla extract at medium speed until smooth. Adjust mixer speed to low and add flour. Mix just until incorporated. Stir in chocolate chips. Set aside.

For cheesecake:

Using mixer, beat cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Add egg and vanilla extract, beating just until blended.

Pour batter into cooled, baked crust. Drop cookie dough by teaspoonfuls over the top of the filling.

Bake about 30 minutes, or until set. Transfer to wire rack to cool completely. Place in the refrigerator to chill several hours.

For the topping:
Combine the chocolate chips and shortening and melt in the microwave at 30 second intervals at 50% power. Stir after each interval; repeat until melted.

Drizzle over the bars before serving.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmhhhhhhhhh

Silky Chocolate Tarte

A real treat if you are a chocolate lover ( I am one...) , actually this tarte is very quick to be made so try it out.

Ingredients

For the Chocolate Pastry: 100g butter, softened, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 egg yolk, 1 cup plain flour, 2 tabelespoons cocoa powder

Filling:100g butter, 150g dark chocolate, 1 small egg, 1 egg yolk, 2 tablespoons sugar

Instructions

To make the pastry: gently cream butter, sugar and egg yolk together. Mix in flour and cocoa to form a firm dough. Wrap in plastic wrap and refidgirate for 30 min. Roll out dough to 3 mm thick and use to line a buttered tart tin. Chill for 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 200°C, line the pastry shell with baking paper and fill with baking beans or rice. Bake blind for 15 minutes, remove beans or rice and return pastry back to oven to dry out for 3-4 min. Reduce oven temp to 160°C.

To make the filling, melt butter and chocolate together carefully in microwave until smooth. Whisk egg, yolk and sugar together until thick and pale. Fold egg mixture into melted chocolate until evenly coloured. Pour filling into pastry shell and bake for 15 minutes to set. Remove and leave to set to room temperature before slicing.

Decorate if you want to... ;)

Donauwelle - Donauwave

Making this cake is good fun. It is a classic cake we take to summer picknics or to a party where a cake is needed. For a party, double the recipe, and make big slabs of it on a big 

 baking tray

 

 Ingredients:

250g flour, 165g butter, 165 suger, 1 cup yoghurt, 2pkt vanilla pudding powder or 100g custard powder, 1pkt vanilla sugar or 1 tablespoon vanilla essence, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 4 eggs,  400g cherries,  20g cocoa powder, 500ml milk, 2 tablespoons of extra sugar, 250g butter, 250g dark chocolate.

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 175°C

Mix flour, soft butter, eggs, sugar, yoghurt, half of the vanilla pudding or custard, vanilla essence and baking powder to a creamy dough. Prepare baking tin with paper. Spread 2/3 of the dough onto baking tin. Mix the other 1/3 with the cocoa powder. Carefully spread on top of  the white dough. Spread the cherries on top ( I love cherries, so I top it with HEAPS!!!). Bake for 30 min by 175°C

Make a vanilla custard with the powder and 500ml milk and 2 tablespoons of extra sugar 

( in a little side dish mix custard powder, 3 tablespoons of the milk and sugar, heat rest of the  milk to boiling point, add the custard mix, stir till creamy) let cool down.

When butter and custard have about the same temperature, mix together till creamy.

Top the baked cake with custard mix, cool in fridge for minimum an hour. 

Top cake with melted chocolate, cool.

To cut the cake, use a hot knife.

Snickerdoodles

This easy peasy recipe is just delicious. They are simple to make, keep very well ( not in our household....). Try them and let me know how you went. You can decorate them with dipping them into chocolate if you feel like it.

Ingredients 

1/2 cup butter, softened, 1/2 cup shortening (biskin), 1 1/2 cups white sugar, 2 eggs, 2 teaspoons vanilla extract, 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, 2 teaspoons cream of tartar, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 2 tablespoons white sugar, 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Instructions 

Preheat oven to 200 degrees C. Cream together butter, shortening, 1 1/2 cups sugar, the eggs and the vanilla. Blend in the flour, cream of tartar, soda and salt. Shape dough by rounded spoonfuls into balls. Mix the 2 tablespoons sugar and the cinnamon. Roll balls of dough in mixture. Place 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets. Bake 8 to 10 minutes, or until set but not too hard. Remove immediately from baking sheets.

Nut-Corners

This recipe is just a delicious treat you can bring to any party. You can serve them in any size and make them in big slabs, so that gives you the possibility to make huge batches of them. 

Ingredients:

Base: 300g flour, 150g butter, 100g sugar, 1 Tbsp vanilla essence or 1pkt vanilla sugar, 1teaspoon bakingpowder, 2 eggs

Topping: 200g butter, 200g sugar, 200g almonds ground, 200g hazelnuts ground, 2pkt vanilla-sugar or 2 tablespoons vanilla essence, 6 tablespoons apricot-jam, water, chocolate melted

Instructions:

Mix the flour, butter, sugar, vanilla, bakingpowder and eggs to a dough and leave in fridge for about 30 minutes.

For the topping, melt butter in a saucepan, add sugar, almonds, hazelnuts, vanilla  and 4 tablespoons of water. Let simmer for a couple of minutes.

Preheat the oven to 175 °C. Prepare bakingtray with baking paper, roll out the dough from the fridge to a thin base. Top with a thin layer of apricot jam.

In the end, spread the base with the nut mixture and bake for 35 min.

Cut into triangles when nearly cool. Melt the chocolate carefully, dip the cold triangles into chocolate or paint the rims of the trianlges with chocolate.

Hedgehog slice

This yummy, yummy chocolate slice I first eat in Colenso Cafe . I didn't put the Colenso Cafe recipe in, as I know how upsetting it is, if somebody spills the beans about your baking secrets :). But this is a quite similar and just as yummy recipe.You can vary it as much as you want, put nuts in, coconut, raisins..... I will give you the basics.

Ingredients:

1 packet of butter (wine) biscuits, crushed

2 tablespoons of sugar
2 tablespoons of good cocoa
2 tablespoons of dessicated coconut
120g butter
1 large egg, beaten
150g good dark chocolate
60g butter

(I use dark toblerone as my chocolate)
Instructions:
- Melt butter with sugar, cocoa and coconut, stirring.
- When mixture is melted and smooth, remove from heat and cool a bit 

(otherwise you will end up with chocolate scrambled eggs!)
- add egg, stir in
- Add crushed biscuits, mix thoroughly (I find I don't use quite all the biscuits)
- Press firmly into a greased sandwich tin (or 20 x 20cm square tin)
- Melt chocolate with butter, and spread evenly on top
- Put in the fridge, and after about 10 minutes sprinkle a little extra coconut on top.
- Leave for a couple of hours, then cut into pieces.

Becky's Ginger Choc Cookies

If you love crystalized ginger, these cookies are an absolute must to try. These biscuits where the absolute seller in Tarte Cafe in the time when Becky worked there. All the surfers used to rock in and hang out on the bar to chat to this gorgeous, wonderful girl and munch her biscuits. Thanks Becky for a great recipe and good times! ;)

 

 Ingredients:

125g butter, 1 3/4 cup flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1/2 cup suger, 1/2 cup brown suger, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence or 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar, 1 egg, 1/2 cup chocolate chips, 1/2 cup chopped crystalised ginger

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 180°C, Mix all ingredients to a soft dough, make golf-ball sized dough-balls, flatten slightly with a fork, bake for 15 minutes. Cool on rack

Gluten Free Turkish Orange Cake

This recipe is perfect for people with an allergie to wheat. It is a moist almond-orange cake which tastes delicious with yoghurt and keeps really well. 

 Ingredients:

2 large unpeeled oranges, 6 eggs, 250g sugar, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 300g ground almonds, juice of 1/2 lemon 

Glaze: Juice of 2 Oranges, 100g sugar

Instructions: 

Preheat oven to 175°C. Prepare a 22cm baking tin with baking paper.

Wash oranged and cover in a pan with water. Simmer for 2 hours. Let them cool on rack. Cut the oranges into quarters, remove pips but leave peel. Put the whole oranges into a blender blend until pulp.

Beat the eggs with the sugar until fluffy. Add orange pulp, baking powder, almonds and lemon juice. Pour the mix into prepared baking tin, bake for 60min. When still warm stab lots of little holes with a fork into top of the cake, pour the glaze over top. 

Glaze:

 Place the sugar and the juice into a small pan. Simmer until

Lemon Meringue Pie

I had not known this cake before I came to New Zealand. It is a classic, the recipe from the bible of NZ classic cooking, the 'Edmonds Cookbook'. I got my first copy from Wendy for my birthday. Meanwhile mine looks quite used and crusty, but it is a sign of how much I use it I guess.

Ingredients

Base: 200 sweet short crust pastry

Filling: 1/2 cup cornflour (Maizena), 1 cup sugar, 2 teaspoons grated lemon rind, 1/2 cup lemon juice, 3/4cup water, 3 eggs separated, 1 tablespoon butter

Topping: 1/4 cup sugar, 1/4 teaspoon vanilla essence or 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar

Instructions:

Roll out pastry on a floured surface to a 6mm thickness. Use to line a 20cm tarte ring. Trim off any excess pastry. Bake blind ( Put baking paper on top of the dough, fill with dry beans or rice) at 190°C for 20 minutes. Remove baking blind material. Return pastry shell to oven for 1 minute to dry out pastry base. While pastry base is cooking make the filling. Pour the filling into cooked pastry base. Spoon meringue topping over lemon filling. Return to oven and bake at 190°C for 10 minutes or until golden.
Filling:
Blend cornflour, sugar, lemon rind and juice together until smooth. Add water. Cook over medium heat until mixture boils and thickens, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Stir in yolks and butter.
Topping:
Beat egg whites until stiff. Beat in sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, until very thick and glossy. Stir in vanilla.

Apricot balls

So, today it will not be a cake recipe, but a truffle kinda recipe. To be honest I alterated this recipe from a slice to a truffle recipe. In Hahei we have created a book club and once a month the girls meet to 'discuss books'. We chat, drink wine, eat beautiful homemade goodies and if there is time in the end, we quickly exchange books :). My lovely friend Liz brought these apricot balls to a book club night and I loved them from the start. It pays to make big batches of them, they keep well, and go fast

 Ingredients:

 125g butter, 1/2 tin sweet condensed milk, 1 pkt (200g)butter or wine biscuits, 90g brown sugar, 

125 g coconut

Instructions:

Place butter biscuits into a plastic bag which you can close. Use a rolling pin to beat the biscuits to a loose crumble ( not too fine).

Melt butter, sugar, condensed milk. Add the biscuit pieces and roll into balls. Roll these balls in coconut and place onto baking paper and let set in fridge.

Bread & Butter Pudding Cake with chocolate sauce

This is the perfect recipe to be constructive with your leftover sunday bread, muffins or any sweet bread. A lot of cafés throughout NZ use this to recycle their non-sold muffins from the day before. The bread or muffins are not allowed to be dead-dry, maby a day old is fine. It makes a delicious moist cake, you can vary what you want to add as an extra.

 

Ingredients

Left-over muffins, Sunday-Zopf, any sweetbread, thinly sliced(about thumbthick), 180g unsalted butter, softened, 350g good-quality dark chocolate, chopped, 10 eggs, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 700ml cream, 200ml full-cream milk, icing sugar, to dust, warm chocolate sauce, to serve. In the instructions, I will call the muffins/zopf/sweetbread just simply 'bread'.

 Instructions

Prepare a 25cm round spring-form baking tin with baking paper at the bottom and a paper collar round the sides of the baking tin.

Spread the bread slices with 150g of butter. Alternate layers of bread with 200g of the chocolate into prepared baking. Whisk together the eggs, sugar, vanilla, 600ml of cream and the milk in a bowl until combined. Strain through a sieve over the bread and chocolate and set aside for 1 hour to allow the liquid to be absorbed. 

Preheat oven to 150°C.

Place cake pan on a flat baking tray and bake for 1 1/4 hours until cooked through. Set aside to cool.

 To make the chocolate sauce, place the remaining butter, chocolate and cream in a bowl over a saucepan of gently simmering water until butter and chocolate have melted, then stir gently to combine.Remove collar from cake pan, dust cake with icing sugar and serve with the chocolate sauce.

Andy's Fruit Tart

Andy has not got a sweet tooth, and cakes is not his thing. But he loves fruit-tarts. And he makes amazing ones too. Every summer, this is on the menu, when friends come for a dinner or bbq, we serve this for dessert. He varies the recipes to suit people with allergies and no one so far has not loved them. For a quick tart you can use ready-rolled-out sweet shortcrust pastry as a base.

Ingredients:
for sweet short crust pastry:  1 1/2 cups (250g) plain flour, 125g butter, chilled, chopped,1/3 cup caster sugar 1 egg yolk, 1 tablespoon chilled water
for the tart - topping : 250g ground almonds, 2 tablespoons sugar,  approx. 1-1.5kg plums ( you can use cherries, rhubarb, apple or any fruit you like), 1/4l milk, 1 egg, 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Instrucitions:
Preheat oven to 180°C.
Short crust pastry: Combine flour, butter and sugar in a food processor. Process until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add yolk and chilled water. Process until dough just comes together. Turn pastry onto a lightly floured surface. Knead until just smooth. Shape into a disc. Wrap in baking paper and refrigerate for
30 minutes. Place into a well greased or prepared tart tin (prepared with baking paper). Make sure the sides of the tin are covered as well.
Spread ground almonds onto base, place fruit on top, sprinkle with 2 tablespoons sugar. Bake for about 15 minutes.
Meanwhile make a mix out of 1/4l milk, cinnamon, egg. After 15 minutes baking time, pour the milk mix over the fruit and bake for another 35-40 min.
Serve with yoghurt or ice cream.

Best muffins EVER!!

Apple-cinnamon muffins

The best recipes are hand-me-down ones, they have been aprooved from soo many mouths, changed until perfection. I inhereted this recipe from Karen, who used to make batches and batches of them at their accomodation for morning breakfast and me batches and batches for Tarte Cafe. It absolutely is our favorite muffin recipe. A keeper!

 

Ingredients:

250gms (1cup) butter melted, 1 cup plain yoghurt, 1 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon baking soda/natron

2 eggs, 4 cups of flour, 1 handfull of bran (optional), 2 teaspoons baking powder, milk,

1 cup stewed apple

2 cups chopped apple, 2 tablespoons sugar, ground cinnamon

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 180°C, grease muffin tray.

Mix melted butter, yoghurt and sugar in a bowl, sprinkle 1 teaspoon baking soda on top. Add the eggs. Add flour, bran (optional), baking powder, enough milk to make a soft dough. Add 1 cup of stewed apple for a wet mix. This is the basic recipe.

Everything you add from now on is for flavor. There are endless possibilities of flavors. Favorites at 

Tarte Cafe were: rasberry & white chocolate, banana & chocolate chip,

plum & cream cheese, blueberry, and apple/cinnamon. Create your own yummy mix.

We contiune with the apple/cinnamon one. 

Add the chopped apples into the dough mix, spoon into muffin tray ( I use the big ones) , mix sugar and cinnamon and spinkle each muffin top with this mix.

Bake at 180°C for 20 minutes.

Russischer Zupfkuchen/Russian Cheesecake

Today we are making a family all time favorite. I started making this cake when I still had Tarte Cafe in New Zealand and it already then was a favorite. At the moment we make this cake for any occasion, as it is easy to make, it keeps long and is very delicious. The kids take big batches of it to school camp and comming back, everybody wanted the recipe.Ingredients:

200g flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 100g sugar, pinch of salt, 1 pkt of vanilla-sugar or 1 tablespoons vanilla-essence, 2 tablespoons cocoa, 1 egg, 1 tablespoon of lemonjuice, 100g butter,
4 eggyolks, 4 eggwhites, 250g butter, 250g sugar,
2 pkt of vanilla-sugar or 2 tablespoons vanilla-essence, 1 pkt vanilla custard powder
or g of vanilla custard powder, 5oog cream cheese or quark

Instructions:
Mix the flour, baking powder, sugar and vanilla-sugar or essence. Add lemon juice, cocoa, salt, 1egg and 100g butter. Kned into a ball of dough, wrap in gladwrap and store in fridge for at least 35 min. Preheat oven to 180°C.
Seperate the eggs, beat egg whites until they form a peak. In a seperate bowl, mix 250g butter, 250sugar, 2pkts vanilla sugar or 2 tbsp vanilla essence until light and fluffy. Add the 4 eggyolks and the vanilla custard powder. Add the beaten eggwhites and mix carefully. In the end, add the creamcheese/quark and blend to an even mix.
Take chocolate dough mix out of fridge, place baking paper into the bottom of a 24cm cake tin. Spread 3/4 of the dough onto bottom and sides of the tin, creating an even rim.
Fill cheesecake mix into prepared cake tin, spread evenly. Pinch off small pieces of the rest of the chocolate dough and spread them onto the cheesecake mix. You can also use a cookie cutter with a fun shape or cut out letters to make a name.
Bake at 180°C for 60 minutes in the middle of the stove. Cool in tin.
Refridgirate for minimum an hour. Enjoy

Wendy's carrot cake

My very good friend Wendy makes the best NZ carrot cake. It is absolutely delicious. The last time she made it for me was on my birthday, the girls surprised me with a party at Hot Water Beach Hot Pools, so we took the cake, dug a whole and soaked in the rain, munching this beautiful cake...

Ingredients:
1 cup oil, 2 cups sugar, 4 eggs, 3,5 cups grated carrots, 1 cup mashed bananas,
half cup raisins, 1tablespoons vanilla essence or 1 pkt vanilla sugar,
3 cups flour, 1 teaspoon baking soda/natron, 1 teaspoon baking powder,
1teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon cocoa (this is optional)
Frosting:
120g cream cheese/philadelphia frischkäse, 1/4cup butter, softened, 1 cup icing sugar,
2 tablespoons lemon juice, 2 - 1/4 cups icing sugar

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 180°C. Grate carrots into a bowl, add oil, sugar, 4eggs, bananas and raisins. Mix well. Stir in flour, vanilla essence or vanilla sugar, baking soda, baking powder and cinnamon. If chosen, add cocoa. Make a smooth mix.
Prepare 20cm baking tin with baking paper at the bottom.
Pour mix into prepared baking tin.
Bake for 1hour, then let cool on rack.

For the frosting:
Beat cream cheese and butter until combined. Beat in powdered suger and lemon juice.
Beat in 2-1/4 cups more of the powdered sugar till frosting is spreading consistency. Spread over the complete cake, sides included.

3 minute cake

This is our first cake and I have decided to make it a super-easy one. This is the perfect cake for students, need-a chocolate-fix-at-2am-cake or just a quick dessert cake on the go. It is easy, fast and yummy. Best to eat with hot chocolate sauce or ice cream. So here we will explain this one step by step.

Ingredients:

4 Tablespoons cake flour
4 Tablespoons sugar (I use brown sugar)
2 Tablespoons cocoa
1 Egg
3 Tablespoons milk
3 Tablespoons oil
1 Mug
I add 2 Tablespoons of yoghurt to the mix)

Instructions:mix flour, cocoa and sugar

Spoon in one egg

Pour in milk, oil (and yoghurt), mix well

Put in microwave for 3 minutes on maximum power (1000watt)

Wait until it stops rising and sets in the mug

Tip onto a plate, eat with hot chocolate sauce or ice-cream.Yummmmmmyy!!