Apple Crumble Cake

While everyone in the blogging world is producing these fantastic photographs of autumn goodness, I thought I would get stuck in and bake up something  just as toasty before I skip October and move onto Christmas cooking already!

The warmest and most loveliest teatime treat just as autumn is kicking in. Not only is this an inviting slice of cake but it is compiled of extracts from the harvesting season. Apples.

It is always the smell of cooked apples and cinnamon that makes me feel so at home and comfortable. Whenever I smell this gorgeous scent, there is always the imagery of me snuggling up on the couch with my dressing gown and testing how hot the apple sauce is. Only thing is that in real life, I can only indulge in it whilst writing up another 10-page-essay for my history assignment. or blog post.

This autumn cake is such a perfect combo of both crumble and spongey cake. It is delicious served hot for pudding or teatime but it is as good eaten cold for breakfast. Not that you may have any left.......

This cake is amazing on its own but a drizzle of syrup and a dashing of warm custard completes it for me. And don't worry about health wise, it narrows down to simply oats and apples!

Everyone needs to have a bit of indulgence one time or another! Enjoy :)

Apple Crumble Cake
Ingredients:
Cake:
100g unsalted, softened butter
90g golden caster sugar
2 eggs
100g self-raising flour
1 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large baking apples

Crumble:
125g plain flour
60g soft brown sugar
50g softened, unsalted butter
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
50g rolled oats

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180C/160 fan/360F/Gas 4. Grease 22cm cake tin with butter and line with baking paper
2. To make the cake, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time whilst beating and then sift in flour, cinnamon and baking powder. Fold in gently and add vanilla extract.
3. Spoon into cake tin. Peel and core apples, cut into fine slices and arrange on top of cake mixture, leaving a gap between the apples and edge of tin.
4. To make the crumble, place all crumble ingredients except the oats into a food processor, process to achieve a rough crumb mixture. Transfer to a bowl and stir in oats.
5. Scatter onto sponge and bake for 30-35 minutes. After baking, stand for 5 minutes then remove tin and paper.
6. Place onto a serving dish with custard or a drizzle of honey or syrup!

Green tea cheesecakes - mini.

Another mini. Another indulging treat..or dessert...or delight. Let me introduce you to my all-time favourite green tea cheesecake. 

Not only does it use everyday ingredients you can find in your kitchen, they require so little skills and a bit of love. The recipe is obtained from raspberri cupcakes here. She does absolutely amazing-licious recipes on her blog where the unthinkable is created. How I wish I had imagination like her!

So I've followed her recipe but instead set them into mini ramekins to create these individual desserts, perfect for hosting a quick dinner party. To decorate these sweet treats, I've sprinkled on a generous amount of a bit of reserved cheesecake base topped it with some fresh berries and without thinking, dusted with icing sugar.

They are ever so creamy and I absolutely love the texture of it, especially with the contrasting burst of the berries!

Don't these just look so dainty?! I didn't mind eating another one for breakfast!

Mid-autumn Festival - 中秋節

It was mid-autumn festival last Sunday. Also known as mooncake festival for all those who adore mooncake.

It is a tradition followed by Chinese people where families would come together and have an a-maaazing meal. And I mean amazing. Maybe that is also why dinner wasn't cooked by me!

In fact, none of the food you see in the whole post was made by me! It was all thanks to my grandparents who are the best chefs in the family. To name a few there was lobster noodles, tofu, duck and chicken. 

To finish off, there was mooncake of course!

They are traditionally filled with a lotus bean paste but a talented friend of ours made some gorgeous mooncakes with a variety of fillings including coconut!

Happy mid-autumn festival.

Thank you, thank you and thank you.

Firstly for your time and effort
Secondly for your prayers
Thirdly for everything you've done to help us get closer to God.

During the weekend, I had busied myself; cooking up a storm in the kitchen to say thanks to my Sunday school teacher as she will be leaving my class and committing herself to other areas of work.

Contributing towards our thank-you-surprise-do for her, I planned to bake an orange flavoured sponge along with a refreshing buttercream. You like the bunting? I thought it added a nice bit of colour to it!

I believe the sponge was quite a success - soft and fluffy. You could even taste the zestiness from the orange! In the middle of the cake, I layered a thick dashing of orange buttercream and then crumbled on some roughly-bashed chocolate digestives. Gives more of a crunch in the buttery softness :P

I've got to say though, the bad side of this is that I didn't realise how small the cake was - not only was there the entire class but also other people who have come following the aroma of hot, sizzling KFC.

The top of the cake is colourfully sprinkled with a bit of dolly mixture and some bashed-up fizzies. And contrasting with this, I've got the elegance of some "lady finger" sponges wrapped around the edge.

And woah-ho-ho-ho....look at the rest of our food....KFC anyone?!

A piece of my heart.

Birthdays = cake. = inspiration.
Sister's birthday = cool cake = lots of inspiration + pinterest.
I had originally wanted to go with a nice sponge and pretty piped buttercream but insisted I stretched it to something people out of the pinterest world would not have seen.

So what you see in front of your eyes is still a birthday cake with buttercream smothered all over it and topped with strange fruit and dolly mix skewers.....and a few mugs and plates from eager cake-eaters.

 ......until you cut it open and reveal a heart in the centre.

Happy birthday to my dearest sister.

[stay tuned for some more pictures!]

Chocolate Whoopieeee Pies - mini.

Chocolatey, sugary and soft, these mini chocolate whoopie pies are like prized possessions.

So why mini you ask? - it creates an illusion that you're eating less but really you're snacking on a whole box of it when you watch tv. Fact. I don't seem to know how or why these are so extremely addicting...maybe it really is the chocolate..

I also love the fact that each little piece can be made the same size through using a melon baller. I think that's utter genius to be honest with you. Don't know how I thought that one out...........These mini pies are perfect as mini party bites when a party kicks out - uses one egg too!

The original recipe suggests a buttercream to sandwich the delights; but I've thought it out. If I was to snack on these all day, the amount of butter and fat consumed would be rocket high. But if I were to ice them with a refreshing lemon icing, I could eat them all day and not think about exercise but worry about decaying teeth. Anyhow, be proud cos I have managed to consider this in terms of health ;)

I find that the lemon icing also helps to add a bit of zing to the whoopie pies - don't be offended, but pure chocolate can sometimes be a tad too much on its own. I also find that these whoopie pies aren't as sweet as I would have thought them to be so this little drizzle is perrrrfect (or you can add more sugar!).

Mini Chocolate Whoopie Pies
Ingredients:
1 large egg
125g caster sugar
75g butter, melted
130g crème fraiche
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 - 2 tbsp milk
180g plain flour
70g cocoa powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate soda
lemon icing - use icing sugar and add lemon juice instead of water

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180C/160 fan/gas mark 4. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper
2. Whisk the egg and caster sugar together until thick and light in colour. Beat in the melted butter, crème fraiche, vanilla extract and milk.
3. Sift together the flour, cocoa powder and bicarbonate of soda. Beat into the egg mixture until smooth - it will make a very thick mixture but a pipable consistency. Add more milk if necessary.
4. Take a melon baller and scoop out small balls of the mixture onto the baking sheet, spaced well apart. Use a teaspoon to help you if needed.
5. Bake for 10-12 minutes until risen. Cool on the baking sheet for 1-2 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
6. Make the lemon icing by replacing the water with lemon juice. Spread onto the whoopie pies. At this point, you can choose whether to sandwich them with another choccie bite or to leave them pretty and iced!

Breakfast.

Breakfast. I guess it's easy to shove a slice of bread in a toaster and have a simple breakfast, and then starve to death 2 hours later....but I have recently come to realise how hard making a good breakfast really is. I know, it sounds stupid and all, but I find it reallyyyyy annoying cooking up a full English breakfast, especially when waking up at the last minute I can stay in bed for and rushing around the house looking for this and that. Hence, it has been on my to-do list for quite some time. It's easy for some people, let's say to actually bother busting out a frying pan and cracking an egg, and seasoning it, and mix it all up, and actually cooking it to make an omelette. AND there's also the extra washing up unlike the odd knife from buttering your toast. I can go all day long about this until my next breakfast to be honest with you.

So let's get into the main point...
On a very rare occasion, I got woken up by a streak of light yesterday from the early sun through a crack of a curtain. For some odd reason, I could not get back to sleep, even knowing it was 5:30 am. You read that right, 5:30 in the morning. As it happens to most (well me anyway), we see the sunset more than sunrise. I happen to sit on the window ledge this morning, staring at the unfamiliar face of a sunrise. Apart from how beautiful it looked, it somehow reminded me of the sun in telletubies o_O.

Anyhow, the whole house still being asleep and the sun already rising and shining, I had this brilliant idea of making a nice healthy breakfast with lots of bacon and a tablespoon of baked beans. Only to realise, we had run out of bacon from lunch and baked beans, well let's just say not enough was stocked up. I ended up making a traditional cheese on toast. And with that idea clicked in mind and hearing my early riser dad making his way down, I set to a rare making of a healthy breakfast. I managed to scavage some plump strawberries too; into our breakfast menu they go....

So here we have it, a table for two; munched up in the early hours of..7:30 am when I would usually still be snoring. It's progress I'd say......into...well, making breakfast.

And I felt it had went so well that I decided to make breakfast this morning. With bacon this time.