My Easter 2011 in Pictures

Good Friday at Mother in laws

Thomas finding Easter egg up a tree

Deanna searching for Easter eggs

Corn fritters with sweet chilli sauce

Thai corn soup 

Baked salmon with lemon pepper

Strawberry milk jelly

Easter Sunday at home

Easter egg hunting at home

Easter Sunday breakfast

Full English Breakfast for 4

Easter Sunday at mum and dad's

BBQ!  lamb, pork and sausages.  YUM!

Dessert.  pandan cupcakes, coconut macaroons and my Chocolate angel food cake

With the cousins after another Easter egg hunt

 Easter Monday at Hilda's Home

Beautiful lunch. From left: Warm prawn and fennel salad with mandarin, caramelised onion and mushroom tart,  lamb chops and a chicken, egg and avocado  sandwich

Hilda also made mini carrot cupcakes

What did you eat during Easter?

Bon Appetite,

Cherrie

Easter Bread and Butter Pudding

I love mid week desserts.  Especially ones that are quick and easy to make.  I particularly like the ones that only requires a quick assembly before easily placing in the oven.   I can sit back, make a cup of tea or coffee and just wait for the pudding to be baked.

My family loves bread and butter pudding.  It's especially special when I use Hot cross buns.  We had a packet in the freezer (when I over eagerly bought too many packets and couldn't consume prior to the use by date) and it would be a shame not to use it in this pudding.   This recipe is inspired by Nigella Lawson's recipe but as usual, I tweaked it a bit to make it my own.  In the recipe, the buns (or bread) is smothered with lots of butter and jam.  I used strawberry jam but you can use any flavour of jam, maramalde or conserve.  It gives it an extra umph to the dish so it's not all one flavour as you eat your way through.    

The pudding is best served straight of the oven with custard but can easily be eaten with cream or ice cream or if you're so inclined, eat it by itself.

1 packet of hot cross buns

butter

strawberry jam

4 egg yolks

1 egg

3 tbs caster sugar

500ml thickened cream

200ml full fat cream

2 tbs demerara sugar

1.  Preheat oven to 180degC

2.  Slice the hot cross buns in half

3.  Spread the buns with butter and strawberry jam

4.  Place in an ovenproof dish, spreading out evenly

5.  Make the custard by placing the egg, egg yolks, cream, milk and sugar in a small bowl and mix to combine

6.  Pour the custard over the bread and let sit for 10 minutes for the custard to seep into the bread

7.  Sprinkle the demerara sugar on top

8.  Bake in the oven for about 40-45 minutes

9.  Serve warm with custard.

Happy Easter!

Bon Appetite,
Cherrie

Easter Chocolate and Dulce de leche Cake Pops. An International Incident Party.

I've been looking forward to this month's International Incident Party.  As always, it's hosted by the lovely Penny from the Jeroxie blog.  This month's theme is Cake pops.  Some might say that they are the new cupcakes.  They're cute, they're cool and they're fun and easy to make.  I've made cake balls before but have never made pops. Bakerella is known worldwide for this little ball of sweetness. You can see her demonstrate on how to make them here.  

There may be many steps to create these little cakes but it is actually quite easy to make.  I wanted to make Easter Cake pops and I got my daughter to help decorate them.  It's a great kitchen project for children.  They can get really creative.  

You don't have to freshly bake a cake just to make cake pops (though you can, of course) but you can use left over cake trimmings.  Just freeze any left over cake (no icing) in the freezer.  It can keep for a few months.  When needed just defrost in the fridge.

I had left over devil's food cake from when I made my Christmas cake balls. Instead of using the usual cheese cream frosting, I used a can of dulce de leche.  I make these from cans of condense milk.  You can get recipe here.  The dulce de leche makes it luscious and sweet, just the way Hubby and my children like it.  You don't have to make balls, you can make any shape you like.  I experimented and made little bunnies too.

To make cake pops:

Crumble the cake until until it resembles bread crumbs.  Add about a third of a can of dulce de leche and mix thoroughly until the mixture is moist enough to make balls.  Don't add too much dulce de leche or the mixture becomes too sticky and hard to shape.

Take a heaped tablespoon of the mixture and roll in the palm of your hands.  Shape the balls into eggs and place on baking paper on a tray.  Place in the refrigerator for about an hour to harden a little.

Melt chocolate in a bowl over barely simmering water until shiny and smooth.  Take a lollipop stick and dip about 1cm of it into the chocolate.  Insert the stick about half way into the cake pop. Let it set for a minute.

Dip the cake pop into the chocolate and cover the whole cake.  Don't move it around too much as you might lose some crumbs into the chocolate or the cake might come off the stick.  You can decorate straight away with sprinkles or any lollies or you can let the chocolate harden and then decorate with liquid gel pens.

Deanna had fun decorating them

Dry the cake pops by sticking them into styrofoam.  Or you can do what I did and stuck it in a box that I made little holes in.  

Deanna and I enjoyed decorating these.  We spent the whole afternoon do this so it gave a great opportunity to have mummy-daughter time.  When you make this, make them with children.  If you don't have any, borrow someone else's.

You can check out everyone else wonderful creation :

Easter Creme Egg Cupcakes

Easter is coming up.  Every year I tell myself, I'm going to bake this and cook that. Every year, I have the same excuse on why I didn't. I ran out of time.  I made an effort this year.  I wanted to make something that resembled the Chocolate Creme Eggs you can buy at the supermarket.  I think you all know which one I'm talking about.  I'm not a big fan of those as it is way too sweet for me.  Hubby loves them though, so I was inspired to replicate it whilst giving it my own twist.

My version is a double chocolate mud cupcake filled with whipped cream and kalamansi curd.  I had left over kalamansi curd in the fridge but you can make lemon or orange curd.  You can make everything from scratch or you can buy good cupcakes and decorate them yourself.  If you want, you can also use lemon curd from a jar to make these beauties for a quick treat for your Easter table.

I am quite happy at the way these Easter sweet treats turned out that I have entered them in a competition run by Ellie over at the Kitchen Wench blog.

Double chocolate mud cupcake:
60g dark chocolate, chopped coarsely
160ml water
90g soften butter
220g brown sugar
2 eggs
100g self raising flour, sifted
2 tbs cocoa powder, sifted
40g almond meal

To decorate:
100ml cream, whipped to soft peaks
1/4 quantity of kalamansi curd (get the recipe here)

1.  Preheat oven to 170degC (150degC fanforced).  Line a 12 hole muffin pan with paper cases
2.  Combine the chocolate and water in a small saucepan.  Stir over low heat until smooth
3.  Beat butter, sugar and eggs until light and fluffy
4.  Stir in sifted flour and cocoa, almond meal and warm chocolate mixture.  Divide evenly among cases.
5.  Bake large cakes about 35 minutes or smaller ones about 25 minutes.
6.  Let cool on a wire rack
7.  To decorate, using a knife, mark a circle at the top of each cupcake.  Using a teaspoon, scoop out the cake within the circle.  Make sure you take out any cake crumbs.
8.  Dollop some of the whipped cream into the hole
9.  Drop a small portion of the kalamansi curd in the middle and smooth it out.

Happy Easter.

Bon Appetite,

Cherrie 

Happy Easter 2010!

This year, Easter was quite a hectic long weekend.  I had so many plans of baking and cooking up a storm but unfortunately, time got the better of me and didn't end up doing anything I had planned.

Good Friday was spent at my Mother-in-laws for lunch.  Gourmet fish and chips was on the menu.  It was light and delicious.

The children had their annual Easter Egg Hunt in my Mother-in-law's backyard

Thomas found one though he is still too young for chocolate

Deanna managed to find a basket full.

It has lately been tradition to spend the evening of Good Friday at the Botanical Gardens with my family.  However, my brother, @MrEd2U and family spent the long weekend at Rosebud.  So we took my parents out to Williamstown for a walk and dinner.

Deanna on her scooter

Thomas loved being on the swing

We had dinner at Williamstown Mussels.  My brother raves about this place  so we wanted to try it out for ourselves.  When we got there, there was only one person in front of us and we were told the wait will be 15 minutes.  I thought the wait wasn't too bad.  After ordering, the queue became a lot longer.  In fact, it was out the door.  I bet the wait would have been at least 30 minutes at that point.  My verdict?  We enjoyed the fisherman's basket and Hubby enjoyed his "Porky Burger"  The fish was fresh and the batter was light and crispy.

Easter Sunday was spent at Fawkner Park in South Yarra, celebrating our Nando's store's 3rd Birthday.  We also celebrated a great year in 2009 where our store is ranked 3rd in Victoria.  The staff that attended were treated to tasty make-your-own sandwiches and a Black Forest Birthday Cake.  Entertainment came in the form of one of the staff playing his guitar and another staff singing, making words up as he went along.  It was quite entertaining.

After lunch, we played a game of soccer.  We were so tired after that so we decided to just take it easy  the rest of the afternoon.  

On Easter Monday, we took the children to the Royal Botanical Gardens Melbourne where Guilfoyle's Volcano was opened  to the public.  It was originally built in 1876 and stored water for use in the Botanical Gardens but has been closed for  60 years.

As you can see, the long weekend was full of activity.  I vow to bake and cook up the storm that I wanted to, next year... hopefully.

Chickie Eggs inspried by JustJennRecipes.com

Bon Appetite,

Cherrie