Salted Caramel Choc Chip Cookies

by

If you are looking for a quick and easy recipe for cookies, to satisfy your 3:30itis cravings, you’ve got to try Lulu’s and Lailai’s Salted Caramel Choc Chip Cookie recipe.

Ingredients:

125g softened butter

1/2 cup of white sugar

1/2 cup of soft brown sugar

1 beaten egg

1 tsp salted caramel essence

1/4 tsp salt

1 3/4 cup of self raising flour

200g chocolate chips

Method:

1) Cream the sugars and butter in a large bowl with an electric mixer.

2) Add in the beaten egg, salted caramel essence and salt and beat till combined.

3) Add in the flour and mix till incorporated into the creamed mixture.

4) Using a wooden spoon, mix in the chocolate chips.

5) Roll a teaspoon full of mixture between your palms into a ball and place on a greased and lined baking sheet.

6) Bake in the oven at 180 degrees Celsius until golden brown.

7) Serve warm or cold with a glass of milk or with tea or coffee.

I hope you have enjoyed this post:) If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me on Facebook messenger, or by email : nazzybaker@gmail.com

Don’t forget to like and share this idea with anyone that you think would enjoy it!

xx NaZzYbAkEr xx

Advertisements

Date and Sour Cherry bread, topped with crushed honey almonds

by

The cravings for raisin toast on the Easter long weekend were real. With all the major shops closed, I decided to make my own fruit bread for breakfast with ingredients I had in my pantry. Who would have thought that sour cherries and dates would be a match made in heaven? Certainly not I! That is, until now… Try making this loaf yourself, and tell me what you think!

Nazzy Bakers Date and Sour Cherry Bread with crushed honey almonds:

Ingredients:

600g strong bread flour

350ml Luke warm water

2 tsp instant yeast

1 cup chopped dried sour cherries

1 cup chopped dried dates

Egg wash

Method:

1) Add flour to a large mixing bowl, and sprinkle over the yeast, and mix till the yeast is incorporated into the flour.

2) Add the water, and mix to form a dough.

3) To the dough, add the dried fruit and knead to combine.

4) Allow the dough to prove in a warm place, covered in cling film (plastic wrap).

5) When doubled in size (after an hour or so), knead the dough again and shape the dough as desired.

6) Allow the dough to prove again.

7) Brush the top of the loaf with egg wash, and then sprinkle over some honey almonds (optional).

8) Bake the bread in a preheated oven at 180 degrees Celsius until golden brown.

9) Serve warm or cold, with butter.

I hope you have enjoyed this post:) If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me on Facebook messenger, or by email : nazzybaker@gmail.com

Don’t forget to like and share this idea with anyone that you think would enjoy it!

xx NaZzYbAkEr xx

Nazzy Bakers White Chocolate Mango and Coconut Mud Cake

by

A few weeks ago, I was asked to create a show stopper cake for an event I was to attend.  I needed a cake recipe that would give me a WOW factor result. Of all my experimental cake flavors, one of the most loved has got to be my mango drizzle cupcakes. Coming close in second place is my white chocolate mud cake. I decided to combine these flavors, and add a bit of coconut, and came up with the following recipe.

I cannot begin to tell you how delicious this cake tasted. Its just something you will have to try making and tasting yourself 🙂

Nazzy Bakers White Chocolate, Mango and Coconut Mud Cake:

Ingredients:

Cake:

300g White Chocolate buttons

200g salted butter

1 cup of milk

¾ cup caster sugar

2 large eggs lightly beaten

2/3 cup self-raising flour

1 cup plain flour

½ cup of desiccated coconut / 1tsp coconut essence

Filling:

1 kg Frozen Mango cubes

½ cup sugar

½ cup water

Ganache:

675g white chocolate buttons

225g cream

 

Method:

  • Ganache: Heat the cream in the microwave for 1 minute, add the chocolate buttons and heat in short bursts until the chocolate and cream are well combined. Leave the ganache to cool.
  • Filling: Add Mango, sugar and water to a saucepan, and cook until the water evaporates. Blitz the mango mixture to a smooth thick mixture.
  • Cake: Pre-heat the oven to 150 degrees Celsius. Grease and line cake pan with cake release spray and baking paper. Place chocolate, butter, milk and sugar into a saucepan and stir on low heat continuously until well combined and smooth. Allow the mixture to cool. When cooled, add the coconut essence and eggs and stir until combined.  Sift the flours into a large bowl, and then add the chocolate mixture in, one cup at a time, mixing well between additions. Once all the ingredients are combined and mixed well, pour the batter into the prepared cake pan and bake until cooked.  Allow the cake to cool.
  • Assembly: Slice the cake in half, and pipe a border around the edge of the cake with ganache. Fill the center with the mango filling. Stack the next layer of cake on top. Cover the sides and top of the cake with a layer of ganache, and smooth it with a palette knife if you wish to cover the cake with fondant.

I hope you have enjoyed this post:) If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me on Facebook messenger, or by email : nazzybaker@gmail.com

Don’t forget to like and share this idea with anyone that you think would enjoy it!

xx NaZzYbAkEr xx

Nazzy Bakers honey and cinnamon almond Baklava

by

A long title for this version of a sweet that is believed to have originated in the Ottoman Empire.

A walk through Paddy’s markets in Sydney, saw me purchasing a variety of dried fruit, nuts and an array of trinkets that I thought would be a good idea at the time, until I came home and had nowhere to store them. The fruits and nuts on the other hand, well they have certainly come in handy in my experimental baking sessions. The nuts I chose for this recipe, were honey and cinnamon coated almonds.

I was also lucky enough to get my hands on some freshly farmed honey from my Mother in law (with her permission). These two beautiful fresh ingredients screamed Baklava to me, and I would suggest that the reason why would be that Ramadan is coming up in the next few months. I know tonnes of people that would enjoy a piece of Baklava and a cup of tea after a long day of fasting, and for my friends that don’t fast, well, you could enjoy them anytime you like.

So, without further ado, herewith my recipe:

Nazzy Bakers Honey and Cinnamon Almond Baklava:

Ingredients:

375g Fillo Pastry

500g crushed honey and cinnamon coated almonds

2 tblsp fresh lemon juice

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup of honey

3/4 cups water

2 tblsp Cinnamon powder

1 cup of softened butter

Method:

1) Prepare the syrup by boiling together the honey, sugar, water, lemon juice and cinnamon powder for approximately 8 minutes. Allow the syrup to cool off the heat while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

2) Grease and line a loaf tin, and layer the Fillo pastry, one sheet at a time into the tin, brushing each sheet well with butter before adding the next sheet. Once you have layered 8-10 sheets of pastry, add your crushed almonds, and continue to layer 5 sheets of pastry (brushing each sheet with butter before adding the next). Add another layer of the nuts, and continue to layer another 5 sheets of pastry, again brushing each sheet with butter. Repeat this process until your nuts are finished, but remember to leave about 10 sheets of pastry to brush with butter and create the flaky top layer of the Baklava.

* Fillo pastry dries out quickly. To prevent this, cover the pastry when not in use with a damp tea towel.

3) Brush the top layer with butter, and sprinkle over some cinnamon sugar. Cut the Baklava diamond shapes at this stage (before baking)

4) Bake in a pre-heated oven at 180 degrees Celsius until the pastry is golden brown and cooked.

5) Remove the tin from the oven and pour over the cooled syrup straight away so that the Baklava remains crisp and not soggy. (You May hear a slight sizzle – don’t be alarmed)

* I got a bit worried at this point, as the syrup was taking a while to penetrate the layers. This is normal!

6) Allow yourself to walk away, and let the magic happen for approximately 3 to 6 hours (depending on your level of patience). My breaking point was 3 hours the bare minimum!

7) Break apart the diamond shapes and plate up your gorgeous Baklava. Store any leftovers in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week! *You probably won’t need to*

Here it is:

I hope you have enjoyed this post:) If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me on Facebook messenger, or by email : nazzybaker@gmail.com

Don’t forget to like and share this idea with anyone that you think would enjoy it!

xx NaZzYbAkEr xx

Nian Gao – Chinese New Year Cake

by

Nian Gao is a Mandarin word that means higher year. It is a name given to a Chinese sweet made from glutinous rice flour.

While Nian Gao can be eaten all year round, it is most popular at Chinese New Year celebrations.

As part of my exploration into multicultural desserts, this year I decided to try making Nian Gao. I’ve never attempted making an Asian inspired dessert before, and to be honest the procrasti-baking was real! It took a while, but I braved up, and tried my luck…

The recipe I used was adapted from one I found at the following link, with a few twists of my own.

https://www.chowhound.com/recipes/baked-chinese-new-year-cake-28077

Nazzy Bakers Chinese New Year Cake : Nian Gao

Ingredients:

500g glutinous rice flour

4 large eggs beaten

1tsp coconut essence

2 1/2 cups caster sugar

3 cups milk

3 tblsp melted butter

1/2 cup toasted desiccated coconut

Method:

1) Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

2) Whisk together all the wet ingredients.

3) Then add the sugar and glutinous rice flour and whisk again well.

4) Pour the mixture into a greased and lined baking dish.

5) Bake the cake for 20-25 minutes, then sprinkle the toasted coconut on top, and bake again till cooked and browned on the top and sides.

6) Once cooked, allow the Nian Gao to cool, and then cut into squares and serve.

** I had some dried rose buds, which I crushed and sprinkled over for some colour

I hope you have enjoyed this post:) If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me on Facebook messenger, or by email : nazzybaker@gmail.com

Don’t forget to like and share this idea with anyone that you think would enjoy it!

xx NaZzYbAkEr xx

Tropical Australia Day Lamingtons

by

Hello everyone, and Happy new year!

I hope you have all had a wonderful holiday period. For those of you that may not have, I hope that the rest of 2018 will be kinder and bring you much joy and happiness.

To start of my blogs for the year, i bring you my version of the delicious lamington in time for Australia Day celebrations coming up in 2 weeks or so.

Baked in Sunny Queensland in my mothers kitchen, its not hard to see where the inspiration came from for this tropical recipe 🙂

Queensland screams Mangos and coconuts to me, especially around December in scorching temperatures! With these gorgeous fruits in abundance, i decided to make “Mango Lamingtons”.

Here’s how i made them:

Recipe:

Mango Sauce: 

1kg frozen mango cubes + 1/2 cup sugar (cook until sugar dissolves and the mixture is thick – then blitz and cool)

Sponge Cake sheet:

4 eggs

2/3 cup sugar

2 tblsp mango sauce or 1 tsp mango flavouring

1 cup of self raising flour

  1. Beat eggs till light and frothy
  2. Add sugar a little at a time till absorbed
  3. Beat in the Mango flavour
  4. Sift in the flour, and fold into the mixture with a spoon till combined
  5. pour into a lined baking sheet pan
  6. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 180 degrees Celsius until cooked

Icing:

3 cups icing sugar

1/2 cup warm milk

2tsp butter

  1. Combine all ingredients and mix till smooth.

Method:

I started with a simple vanilla sponge cake recipe, and replaced the vanilla extract with some homemade mango flavour. Once the cake was baked and cooled, i cut the sheet into cubes and then rolled the cake cubes into an icing mixture, and then into yellow and white desiccated coconut .

I hope you have enjoyed this post:) If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me on Facebook messenger, or by email : nazzybaker@gmail.com
Don’t forget to like and share this idea with anyone that you think would enjoy it!
xx NaZzYbAkEr xx

Nazzy Bakers edible Christmas Tree challenge

by

This cake idea came to me as I was preparing for a 12 hour road trip – impeccable timing as always! Procrasti-packing is what I like to call it 🙂

With little time, and the most basic of pantry baking staples, I set myself a challenge to bake this cake in as little time as possible, while ensuring that the house stayed clean and tidy. Wishful thinking right? 

Wrong! This cake took me 4.5 hours from start to finish and I had time to clean and tidy up between each stage! If you follow me on Instagram, my story showed the progress updates, and the Series of challenges I ran into along the way.

Here’s how I did it:

1) I started off with some caramel mud  cake batter (enough for four different sized tins – I used an 8″, 7″, 5″, and 2″).

* if you want a better shaped tree, use the following tins 8″,7″,6″,5″,4″,3″ and 2″.


2) While the cakes were in the oven baking, I worked some brown and black colouring into some fondant to make a marbled wooden floor cake board cover.

3) Once the cakes were cooked (45mins) I set them into a baking rack to cool

4) when cooled, I stacked the cakes and used a plastic dowel support to keep the cakes in shape and steady while I dirty iced the cakes with caramel flavoured buttercream 


5) After I dirty iced the cake, and chilled it in the fridge to firm up, I then coloured the caramel flavoured buttercream green using (forest green and mint green) and piped the icing onto the cake using a “grass tip” 

6) Once the cake was covered in green foliage, it was time for me to add some decorations and Christmas detail. For this, I used fondant, ribbon, edible glitter, and a star cupcake topper.


7) what’s a Christmas Tree without presents? – I literally scoured through a whole bag of happy meal toys from lulu and LaiLai’s room to find toys for the bottom of the tree.

I also found some foam cubes from a cake I had made earlier in the year and covered them with wrapping paper and ribbon.

I gave this cake to Lulu and LaiLai’s school for all the staff and students to share to celebrate the holiday season.

Best part of having an edible Christmas tree 🎄 is that there’s no worries about packing and storing it for next year 😜 

Here’s wishing you all a Very Merry Christmas! Stay safe and enjoy every minute ❤️


I hope you have enjoyed this post:) If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me on Facebook messenger, or by email : nazzybaker@gmail.com
Don’t forget to like and share this idea with anyone that you think would enjoy it!
xx NaZzYbAkEr xx