Well Lookey Here...

So, I bet you see this picture and you think...Good God, she's taken a photo of an elephant turd.

WRONG!

What this is is the marvellous result of your mother being an obsessive compulsive grocery shopper!

You see, my mother, like a lot of other mother's it seems, has a disorder. It seems, even when we are in abundance of food and all things that can be ingested, she goes to the grocery store in a huff claiming that "Oh there's nothing for me to cook! Oh there's nothing for the boys to eat! Oh I've run out of dried chickpeas I have to go buy more strawberry jam!"

You catch my drift?

Hence why we have nearly double of everything. Two peanut butter containers. Two packets of chicken crimpy shapes. Two packets of pizza shapes. Two bottles of honey. Two bottles of soy sauce. Two bottles of sweet chilli sauce. Four packets of dried chickpeas...(?)

Back to the elephant turd. Look! Nuts! -->

I was rummaging through my pantry as I had the day off uni and found a sudden urgency to let my tastebuds be encapsulated by a dried fruit flavour. Needless to say, my mother's mental illness proved surprisingly helpful when I discovered a 1kg bag of almonds and around six packets of dried apricots. (Sweet Jesus.)

So I thought about it a bit and came up with a little recipe for Apricot Loaf. Kinda like Date Loaf...with APRICOTS!

Here's the recipe.

Ella's Apricot Loaf

125g butter

1/4 cup full cream milk

1 1/2 cups of plain flour

3/4 cup sugar (NOT BROWN)

Couple of tablespoons of honey

Half a cup of almonds (Cut up into itty bitty nutty bitties)

Cup of dried apricots (roughly chopped into pieces)

Dash of cinnamon

Dash of Chinese Five Spice

Dash of Nutmeg

1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder.

2 eggs

Alright now the recipe could NOT be more simple.

Melt your butter and milk over a low heat in a saucepan.

 Add the eggs to this mixture and give it a whisk.

Add all of your ingredients, both wet and dry into a big mixing bowl and stir with a wooden spoon until just combined.

Chuck it in any pan you want, it's better to have a loaf shaped pan as this sort of thing you slice up and have with a bit of butter and jam. Cook for an hour and fifteen or until your skewer test gives you a nice clean skewer.

Then eat warm with butter, honey or jam. (Or all three)

Probably the Best Two Moments of Cookie Jar Career to Date...

I thought I'd show you the result before I gave the recipe, just to show you how well this little baking adventure turned out. :) I've never been one for attempting to veil my vanity.

Sue me.

As anyone who bakes should know, it is probably one of the better human emotions that is suddenly awakened when what we bake/cook is met with huge amounts of praise and enthusiasm from the consumer.  

In my case, the consumer was my boyfriends sister, one of the people I am forever trying to impress with my culinary skills.

She approached me to make some cupcakes for a party she was going to. She had loved a batch of passionfruit cupcakes that I had made forever and a day ago and wanted these to be little replicas to impress her friends. In other words they had to be lick-my-lips-alicious.

Needless to say, I accepted. I was too keen to impress and though there was an insurmountable amount of pressure, I felt that this, this was my time to shine.  

We decided on vanilla cupcakes; simple and a classic. They were to be topped with a vanilla buttercream and a chocolate buttercream. Seriously, she couldn't of asked for a more simple batch. If I screwed it up then I could be classed as retarded.

The baking process went well, the cupcakes went in the oven and came out perfectly, evenly brown. They smelt just like the cookies from Subway actually.

My boyfriend ate all of the leftover mixture in the bowl as well, another good sign.

However, disaster was to strike. Due to Brisbane's ridiculously humid climate the buttercream we made would not hold its shape and proceeded to melt and ooze and pus all over the place. I felt the need to cry.

But I was too eager to fix this dilemma and thus the creative cooking demon within me was spawned and an idea of sheer genius dawned upon me. (I love how spawned and dawned rhyme...)

So with a quick few little niggles and adjustments, the result was BUTTERFLY CUPCAKES. :)

And here...is the recipe.

These went down an absolute treat at the party and I'm told everyone thought they were from Shingle Inn. Jackpot!

Strawberries and Cream Butterfly Cupcakes

ingredients...

for the cupcakes...

225 grams unsalted butter

225 grams caster sugar

225 grams self raising flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

4 eggs

1 teaspoon of vanilla essence 

 for the filling...

as much thickened cream as you so desire

2 teaspoons of vanilla essence

3 tablespoons of caster sugar

strawberries, cut into slices.

icing sugar for dusting

method...

 Preheat your oven to 175 degrees celsius.

Place 18 baking paper cases in muffin tins.

Combine all dry cupcake ingredients in a bowl, stir so everything is evenly distributed.

Cream the butter and the sugar together then gradually add in beaten eggs and vanilla one at a time.

When this wet mix is nice and creamy stir together both the wet and dry with a wooden spoon. Don't overmix.

Spoon the batter into your little case dudes.

Bake for 20 minutes or until they're lovely and golden brown. They'll smell fantastic.

Let them cool for five minutes when they're done, then remove the cupcakes from the tin and cool them further on a wire rack.

Now for the filling.

Prepare by putting all filling ingredients in a large stainless steel bowl.

Grab a whisk (or electric beater, I prefer man power though, yields better consistency.)

and whisk until the cream has been whipped into thickened submission.

When the cupcakes are cooled, cut a small oval little hole into the top of your cupcake. KEEP THE LITTLE THING YOU CUT OUT!!!!!

Spoon the cream into the little holes then cut the oval shaped thing you cut out of the cupcake in half. Place this in the cream to make it look like little butterfly wings. (See the picture if you don't understand...)

Do the same with your slices of strawberries, next to the cupcake wings and dust the bunch with icing sugar.

Perfect.

Yum Yum in Ma Tum

Sooooooo I was suffering from a case of insomnia and decided that deliriously baking would entertain me and hopefully soothe my savage non-sleeping beast.

I needed something satisfying; what was I to bake?

It was all too tempting to cook something that smelt and tasted warm, homey and simply fufilling so I decided on banana muffins.

But! I had a dilemma!

No recipes I had found previously had proved effective in delivering an epic banana muffin. Nothing is more disappointing than a failed muffin.

They so easily let you down when they're dodgy; isn't that feeling of dry muffin sticking to the roof of your mouth enough to make you gag? I believe there is a phobia of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth. "Arachibutyrophobia".

I hereby rename it to "Arachimuffinophobia" (Arachi - sounds like an important prefix...)

So I sourced a recipe for apple and cinnamon muffins that had proved me well in the past and adapted it to make my own brand spanking new recipe for banana and coconut muffins. Thar she blows.

Banana and Coconut Muffins

Ingredients

3 cups self raising flour

1 cup plain flour

1 cup sugar

Cinnamon

2 and a half mushy, ripe-ripe-ripe bananas (If you want to plan for the perfect banana muffin, put your bananas in the fridge for a couple of days to make them go all mushy and awesome.)

2 cups milk

1 1/2 cup dessicated coconut

2 eggs

1 cup vegetable oil

1 half cup apple and guava juice (or the juice of your choice)

Vanilla Essence

Flaked Almonds (for topping)

Method

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees celsius.

Combine your dry ingredients together then gradually add all of your wet ingredients to the massive dry mix. Don't overmix so you get this mixture that's so smooth it looks like a massive banana diarrohea; lumps are okay in this muffin recipe. :)

Grease your muffin tins with lots of butter or non-stick cooking spray and divide the mix evenly. Sprinkle your flaked almonds on top of each one. 

Bake them for 30 minutes or until the skewer test shows they're cooked the whole way through!

Eat them warm with a bit of butter melted into them. Nothing is better.