I don’t know about you but all my original plans for Australia Day have gone out the window.  The weather is playing games, and camping on the beach no longer seems like a really good option.

Even with the lousy weather I am always up for an Australia Day BBQ with friends.  So the Australia Day celebration has now been relocated to a friend’s hinterland property just outside Coffs Harbour.

Given the weather I have also changed my mind on the menu for the day. I will keep the main event a secret until tomorrow but here is what I thought I would make for the kiddies.

Australia Day White Chocolate Cake Pop Ups! How cool are these!!! Kids can eat them, there is no mess, and they are really easy and fun to make.

You could use any cake recipe for this treat.  I like the white chocolate because it is a dense cake and holds together well while you cut it and put it into the cake pop holders.

Ingredients:

250gm butter

190gm white chocolate

2 cups caster sugar

1 cup milk

1 ½ cups plain flour

½ cup SR flour

1 t/s vanilla

2 eggs

Red colouring

Blue colouring

1 ½ tins Betty Croker Vanilla Frosting

Lollies to decorate

Method:

Cover a large baking tray with baking paper.

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees.

In a saucepan melt the butter, sugar and chocolate over a very low heat until just melted.

Remove from the heat and add flour and milk stir until combined and then add the eggs and vanilla.

Divide the mixture in half and separate into to bowls. Add blue colour to one and red to the other.  Pour the red mixture into one side of the baking pan and the blue into the other.

Bake for approximately 45 minutes, or until cooked.

Remove the cake from the pan and allow to cool.

Use the cyclinder of a cake pop up to cut circles from the mixture.

Press the cake into the cake pops. Layer the two colours of the cake with a heaped spoonful of frosting in between the colours. Add more frosting and lollies to the top to decorate.

These are so delicious! There is the perfect amount of frosting to cake. I kept mine in the freezer and the coolness of the treat was even better. Plus it travel better as a lunch box treat.

This recipe makes about 20 cake pops

On another note, have you ever been let down by a supplier?

The lollies that I have decorated the cake pops with were originally bought for Christmas. I had a story planned and I was also going to add the red and white ones to gifts I was making. The lollies were ordered and paid for the lollies at the beginning of December. After numerous emails they were finally I received on the 29^th December. Naturally at this time they were totally useless to me.  I now have three kilograms of jelly beans that I am eating my way through. NOT HAPPY!

The cake pop up cylinders are a similar story. This time the package arrived promptly but one item was missing. I have now been emailing backwards and forwards for over a week with the company not prepared to admit that a mistake may have been made. All this for a $4 item!  Seriously, would I lie about something so trivial. I just want to have the item I selected for a story.

Have you had a similar incident? Should I name the companies? I always like to write positive things so I won’t name names, but come on people, customer service please!

I was very excited to be told that Ferrero Rocher would be advertising on my site. You may have noticed that I love desserts! So in celebration I decided that I would bake a tribute to the great chocolate.

This is my first Ferrero Rocher inspired dessert, but you can rest assured I have a few more planned to follow.  Top of the list had to be a cupcake!

The cupcake itself is a moist brownie style cake which has Frangelico, honey and melted dark chocolate to give it the rich decedent flavours found in the Ferrero.  The frosting is a lush Nutella and dark chocolate butter cream icing, and the “piece de resistance”, naturally a Ferrero Rocher chocolate is perched, pride of place!

Ingredients:

250gm butter

150gm dark chocolate

¾ cup honey

1 cup sugar

1 cup condensed milk

1 cup Frangelico

1 ½ cups plain flour

¾ cup SR flour

¼ cup cocoa

2 eggs

Method:

Pre heat the oven to 150 degrees.

In a saucepan over a low heat, combine the butter, chocolate, honey, sugar, condensed milk and Frangelico until all the ingredients are melted.

Place the flours, and cocoa in a mixing bowl and pour the chocolate mixture into the flour.

Once flours and chocolate are combined add the two eggs and mix well.

Pour batter into prepared cupcake pan and bake.

Bake for 15-20 mins

Frosting

250gm butter

160 gm dark chocolate melted

1 cup Nutella

2 cups icing sugar

1/3 cup cream

In an electric mixer beat the butter, chocolate, Nutella and icing sugar until well combined and fluffy.

Add the cream to the mixture and beat again for about 3 mins.  The mixture should be fluffy and light and increased in volume.

Place mixture into a piping bag and ice the cooled cupcakes. Add a Ferrero Rocher to the top of the cupcakes. Refrigerate the cupcakes. Take the cupcakes out of the fridge prior to serving to bring up to room temperature.

If you are now craving the Ferrero, take a look at the new Ferrrero Boutique website.  Maybe do some Christmas shopping online by clicking in the lovely chocolate image to the right. I will be back tommorrow to tell you all about the launch.

Then I remember a beautiful cake my mother used to make when I was little. About two weeks ago I asked my mother if she remember the cake.  I didn’t know what it was called it just had a crunchy yummy topping and she used to make it a lot when I was about 4.  I explained she made it in the circular pan, and it had a buttery crumbly topping. She vaguely remembered, but couldn’t think what the cake was called, or where I could find the recipe.  After much googling I found the cake was called a Streusel Cake, and I do remember mum calling it that when I was a kid.  I have come up with this recipe from the internet. I don’t know if it will taste like mums cake but I will be turning her recipe books, files and folders upside down next time I am at her place.

Steusel Topping

Ingredients:

½ t/s cinnamon

¼ cup brown sugar

40gm cold butter

50gm coarsely chopped walnuts

In a food processor pulse butter cinnamon and sugar until it resembles bread crumbs.  Very briefly add walnuts. Refrigerate the crumble until it is needed for the cake topping.

Butter Cake

Ingredients:

120gm butter

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 t/s vanilla

2 cup flour

3 t/s baking powder

160 ml milk

Method:

Preheat oven to 160 degrees.

Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla in an electric mixer until pale and fluffy.  Add the egg and beat well. Sift the flour and baking powder. Alternate between adding flour and milk to the butter mix until both are added.

Pour into a greased spring form pan or muffin tins.

Evenly sprinkle the topping over the cake.

Bake for 30mins or until cooked.

I had forgotten how much I like raw cake batter.  I highly recommend cooking these cakes while the kids are at school so that you can lick the beaters. Yum, it is lucky I put the cakes in the oven first or I might have been tempted to continue …

While I was adding the Streusel topping I was starting to suspect I may have a problem.  The crumbs seemed too dry to make the buttery topping I remembered.  Nevertheless I added the topping and crossed my fingers. 

Watching the cakes cooking it was pretty obvious they were not going to become crunchy and lush like the ones I remembered from my childhood.  The aroma of the cakes baking was magic, but so far as the topic “Crunch” goes, as my teenaged son would say “Epic fail mum”.

I was less than pleased with the crumby topping and dumped them upside down on a teatowel. Thankfully the taste got a thumbs up from the hubby, so it hasn’t been a complete loss.  I have taken the flour component out of the Streusel topping (note pic) and the second time through the topping worked much better.

I will still be looking for my mother’s recipe.

These are my daughters favourite treats to make at the moment.  She has named them her “Sweetheart Cakes” and they have to be baked in the heart shape.

Ingredients:

120gm soft butter

1 t/s coconut essence

1 cup caster sugar

2 eggs

½ cup desiccated coconut

1 ½ cup SR Flour

1 cup sour cream

4 T/s Milk

Icing:

2 cups icing sugar

100gm desiccated coconut

2 egg whites

pink food colouring

Method:

Preheat oven to 160 degrees. Grease moulds.

Beat the butter, sugar essence and eggs together until light and fluffy.  Stir in the coconut, sifted flour, cream and milk.

Pour into prepared tins.  Bake for 20 mins.  Stand for 5 minutes before turning cakes out onto a wire rack.

Mix all the icing ingredients together and top the cooled cakes with the frosting. I have added strawberry jelly crystal to the top of the icing for a little more sparkle. You can never have too much pink, or too much sugar for a three year old little girl.