Choc Hazelnut Cupcakes with Nutella Frosting

Anyone who knows me knows that I really love to bake cupcakes, in fact I enjoy baking them more than I enjoy eating them! I love to bake them for special occasions or just to test out a recipe and then hand them out to friends who are lucky enough to come over when I've been baking!
These cakes contain no flour (perfect for people are are wheat-intolerant) so the result is a very dense, moist and fudgy cake- teamed with a creamy nutella icing I have to say these cakes were a big success...
For the best results make sure you fill all your cases to the same level, I find that leaving just over 1cm free at the top of the case means the cakes rise just enough without overflowing.



RECIPE

Ingredients

1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/4 hot water
100g dark eating chocolate, melted (Cadbury 70% cocoa is best!)
100g butter, melted
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3/4 cup hazelnut meal
3 eggs, separated

Frosting
1 heaped tbsp nutella
4 tbs whipped cream

Method
1. Preheat oven to 180/160 fan forced. Line a muffin pan with cupcake cases.
2. Blend the cocoa and hot water together until smooth. Mix in the chocolate, butter, sugar, hazelnut meal and egg yolks.
3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites with an electric mixer until soft peaks form. Then, very gently fold the whites into the chocolate mixture in two batches until combined.
4. Spoon the mixture evenly into the cases (I found that this recipe made 14 cakes) and bake for 25-30 mins. Çool on a wire rack.
5. Meanwhile, to make the frosting simply stir the nutella into the whipped cream.
6. Allow the cakes to cool completely before icing with generous lashings of the frosting!

Cranberry, Walnut & Persian Fetta Salad

In the past week, I have made this salad several times after receiving it from a family friend, its super easy. I think it appealed to me because she mentioned that it was a 'Michelle Bridges' recipe so that means it must be good for me! Plus, I generally try to watch what I eat and its always good to have yummy but healthy recipes on hand. The original recipe uses a sliced pear, however I didn't have any at home so I used some celery instead- plus I think the cranberries give enough sweetness to the salad. To make this salad into a meal add some sliced smoked chicken breast, about 100g per person is a good amount.
If you are a bit of a health freak, heres some food for thought...walnuts have about 4 x the amount of calories as chicken breast! They are very good for you though, just be careful not to eat too many if your trying to watch your waistline!

RECIPE

Ingredients (Serves 2)
100g baby spinach (or whatever salad greens you have in the fridge)
2 tbsp dried cranberries (I use the ones called 'craisins')
2 tbsp walnuts, roughly chopped
50g persian fetta (I use the Lemnos brand in a gold tin)
2 sticks of celery, sliced
juice of 1 lime
2 tsp olive oil (I like to use the oil from the persian fetta)

Method
Wash and drain your spinach and place into a mixing bowl. Add the walnuts, celery, cranberries and crumble in the persian fetta. Grind over LOTS of black pepper, squeeze in the lime juice and add the oil. Mix it all together and enjoy!

Homemade pizzas

A week or so ago I had my girlfriends over for an easy dinner before heading to the movies. I decided to make pizzas because I had plenty of time to make the dough and think of some yummy toppings! we had lots of different flavours including pumpkin/pancetta/olive, zuchinni/salami/tomato/fetta/, pesto/garlic prawn, and a cheesy/garlic one. they were all super yummy and we all enjoyed them- there wasnt much leftovers so thats always a good sign! i would have to give them a 9/10- not sure how I would feel about going back to takeaway pizzas now, nothing beats the homemade version. They are so much healthier and really do taste 100% better!

Cupcake practicing 2...

more fun in the kitchen today! half the cakes are vanilla and the other half are choc mud. I ate a chocolate mud one and they were delicious- super moist but not too rich. Still learning how to use the piping bag so its quite rustic but at least i'm improving!

Cupcake practicing...

In a few weeks a friend and I are making a birthday cake for a 3rd birthday, and we are doing cupcakes. I want to get some practice in because its really hard to get them just right! Today I found lots of problems along the way...they rose way too much (I wanted a flat top) so I chopped off the tops so I could ice them the way I wanted. The icing wasnt that good either, I tried piping it but it was just way too moist. Definitely need some further practice to get them just right! Will do some investigating of different recipes and I think il get my hands on a better cookbook, the one im using at the moment is really really vague!

'Cheats ministrone'

This soup is another donna hay recipe from her latest magazine- the third time iv cooked from it this week! Its just an easy throw together soup, hence the 'cheat' in its name. I also made my own pesto for the top using basil, pine nuts, garlic and parmasan which was really yummy and went really nicely with the tomato flavour of the soup. I topped it off with some extra parmasan, and served it with some toasted ciabatta bread- a true winter warmer :)

Pasta with caramalised onion, pancetta and olives

I dont eat much pasta, in fact I think it would have been at least a few months since I last had it. After flicking through the latest donna hay magazine I saw this recipe and instantly wanted to try it out. For the recipe you needed to caramalise onions in brown sugar and red wine vinegar, and they tasted amazing. I had never done this before, it was so quick and easy and was the highlight of the dish. This pasta was different to most pastas i usually eat that are tomato or cream based, and I really enjoyed the lightness of it and all the different flavours. I also made some garlic and chive butter for the bread- which is something I make quite a bit when im not being too health conscious! A very carb-loaded dinner, but also a very yummy dinner that I would definitely make again! 7/10 :)