The best frosting I’ve made so far.

I am not a big frosting or icing person. If you have read through this blog before, you’ll notice that most of my cakes go without it, because I think that it takes away from the flavour of the cake. Frostings are just too sweet for me, but when it comes to making sugar cookies for Christmas, I have to use it!

The trouble I’ve found is that most buttercream frostings I’ve made are too soft. I can never get them stiff enough without adding lots and lots of icing sugar, thus making them too sweet and inedible. Also, I like my white frosting to be white, not this off-white, buttery yellow colour that doesn’t take food colouring very well.

Happily, I came across a recipe in a gingerbread house kit that I bought. It’s terribly simple and super easy to make, and I will use it from now on whenever I need to make frosting.

The Recipe

1 egg white

A box of icing sugar

Method

1. Whip the egg white until soft peaks form.

2. Add icing sugar, a little bit at a time, until desired consistency is reached. The icing will harden when left to dry, and will also get shiny.

3. That’s it!

My Alterations

When I first used this recipe to make icing for our gingerbread house adventure, I made it very thick. Probably a bit too thick, because it started hardening while still inside the piping bags! Oops. I learned my lesson, though, because when I made it for my Christmas sugar cookies, I made it much softer and it was easier to spread. The icing still hardened as it dried, but it took a lot longer.

The Result

This icing is very easy to make and use. I added lots of different colours to it for my kids to decorate their cookies, and it worked very well. Even though the icing was watered down a bit because of the colouring, it still dried after a few hours so I could wrap them up.

The Verdict

This recipe will be a staple in my baking arsenal. It’s easy to remember, too, which is such a bonus. I like the sort of recipes where you can adjust them to your needs so easily.

The Rating

5/5, definitely. See how pretty my cookies looked?

Cookie-cutter Cookies: some Christmas baking!

I got this recipe from a friend; thanks, Cab!

The Recipe

1 cup softened butter

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

2 tsp baking powder

3 cups flour

Method

1. Preheat oven to 400F/200C.

2. Cream butter and sugar.

3. Beat in egg and vanilla.

4. Add baking powder and flour, one cup at a time. Mix well.

5. Do not chill. Roll out to 1/8″ thick and cut out.

6. Bake for 6-8 minutes, or until brown around the edges.

My Alterations

This was a new recipe for me, and since it was so simple anyway, I followed it pretty much exactly. The fact that I didn’t have to chill the dough made me very excited to try it!

Oh, one alteration I did make was to add some food colouring to the dough for my kids. I broke the dough into fourths, and coloured one part red and one part green. That changed the consistency of the dough a bit, but the kids enjoyed themselves. My daughter still has red food colouring on her hands, though, which looks a bit gruesome!

The Result

I love this recipe so much. It’s easy to throw together, and the dough rolls out beautifully. It isn’t sticky, which is a problem I have with other sugar cookie recipes, and I didn’t have to add any extra flour at all. I rolled the dough out on large chopping boards without having to add any extra flour to the board, either.

The cookies kept their shape when baking and weren’t brittle. My kids didn’t break any of them when decorating; a definite point in their favour! They have a great taste, as well.

The Verdict

I love this recipe! I don’t normally like baking cookies, because even though the end product is delicious, it takes a really long time to bake all the dough. This was so much fun, though! The dough was so easy to work with, and I think that made all the difference.

I baked and decorated several cookies to give as gifts to our family friends, and I’ve already received feedback about how good they taste. The cookies are soft, but not too chewy, and don’t just taste sugary. I can’t recommend this recipe enough!

The Rating

Definitely, definitely 5/5. I’m baking some more cookies right now, actually!

Day 16: Banana Cake

Recipe was emailed to me from Megan at My Baking Adventures. She has some great ideas and recipes over there; go check it out!

I love that this recipe doesn’t require eggs. Sometimes I run out of certain perishables, and if I’ve had the presence of mind to freeze my browning bananas, I could use a recipe like this to satisfy a sweet tooth or give to a friend or something. Easy.

The Recipe

2 c. all purpose flour
¾ cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
¼ cup chopped pecans
1 ¾ cups mashed bananas
¼ cup honey
¼ vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat a 6 cup bundt pan, 8” square cake pan,
or large loaf pan with cooking spray.

In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt
and pecans. In a medium bowl, combine bananas, honey and vegetable oil.
Blend banana mixture into flour mixture just until moistened.

Pour batter into pan of your choice and bake approximately 30- 35
minutes or until tester comes clean.

(I always used a square pan and that’s how long it took. But obviously,
if you use a different pan it may take longer.)

My Alterations

I was about 1/2 cup short of bananas. I had small ones that were turning brown, so I wanted to use them up anyway, even though the cake called for more. I also didn’t quite have enough honey, and no pecans. Walnuts, yes. Pecans, no.

The Results

I think it’s very difficult to mess up this recipe. Even though I ran low on a few ingredients, the cake rose beautifully and tasted great. I like bananas and nuts together in cakes or breads, so that’s always a good combination. It’s an easy recipe, too, so I’m happy with it.

The Verdict

Delicious! This is a great cake. I think the brown sugar gives it an amazing depth of flavour. Parts of the cake tasted slightly caramelized and the honey was a nice touch, too. It rose wonderfully, and it was a very dense bready cake.

I also like that the recipe makes a rather small cake. This was probably because I didn’t have to feel as bad when 3/4 of the cake disappeared in one evening….

The Rating

5/5

Definitely a keeper. Easy to make, even easier to eat!

Day 14: Coconut Cherry Cake

This recipe was suggested by a friend of mine; thanks, Clio! It is an extremely simple recipe with great results.

The Recipe

1 1/2 cups flour

3/4 cup sugar

1 cup coconut

1 cup milk

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

pinch salt

chopped cherries (about 100g, halved)

vanilla (1-2 tsp)

Mix dry ingredients together. Add milk and vanilla. Do not overmix. Bake in a greased and lined loaf tin for approsximately one hour at 180 degrees (one and a quarter hours at gas mark 4).

The cherries have an unfortunate tendency to sink to the bottom, so I mix half of them into the loaf mix and sprinkle the rest on top, ensuring an even spread throughout the loaf.

My Alterations

This is a simple recipe, so I stuck to it pretty much exactly. The only difference is the cherries; I bought a tin of cherries instead of buying fresh ones, because I didn’t know when I would get around to baking the cake.

The Results

This cake-slash-loaf turned out really good. I actually used greaseproof paper as stated in the recipe, and it made it very easy to turn the cake out of the pan.

The Verdict

This cake tasted amazing. The cherries and coconut compliment each other perfectly, and the dense chewy texture was perfect for its flavour. This cake disappeared VERY quickly, thanks to my husband….!

The Rating

5/5

This is such a delicious cake! Easy recipe, simple ingredients, tasty end result. Perfection!

Day 11: Chocolate Chip Muffins by Nigella

Recipe from Nigella’s website. My friend Anna made these recently, and I thought it was about time for more chocolate cakes around here. She’s a great baker, so I knew I could depend on her recommendation.

The Recipe

INGREDIENTS

250g plain flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

Half-teaspoon bicarbonate soda

2 tablespoons best quality cocoa

175g caster sugar

150g chocolate chips (plus more for sprinkling later)

250ml milk

90ml vegetable oil

1 large egg

1 teaspoon real vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 200C and fill a 12-bun muffin tray with paper cases.

Weigh out the dry ingredients into a large bowl. Pour all the liquid ingredients into a measuring jug.

Mix both together – it will be a runny batter – then spoon into waiting muffin cases.

Sprinkle more chocolate chips on top then cook for 20 minutes or until the muffins are risen and springy.

Makes 12

My Alterations

I used to run a chocolate fountain business, and still have some of the chocolate kicking around in my cupboards. I decided to use a combination of dark chocolate chips and white chocolate chips for the muffins. It turned them into triple chocolate muffins, I would say, and I think we all agree that triple chocolate anything is an improvement!

I doubled the recipe because I wanted to give some of these away to an overdue pregnant friend (comfort food), but unfortunately I ran out of muffin cases! I made 12 large muffins, 9 small fairy-cake sized muffins, and this muffin loaf:

The Results

The chocolate sprinkled on the top of the muffins before baking was a really nice touch. They gave the muffins a lot more interest and they all rose really well. They were just a little bit too greasy, and they didn’t come out of the paper muffin cases very well, but those are very minor complaints.

The recipe states that it yields 12 muffins, but when I doubled it, I ended up with 12 large muffins, 9 small muffins, and a large loaf. Be prepared for more than 12 muffins when baking with the original amounts.

The Verdict

These muffins are heavenly — much better than any store-bought muffins I have ever had. They are light and moist and chocolatey in the very best way. I gave as many of these away as possible, because I would have eaten them all myself in a matter of days.

My Rating

5/5

You can’t go wrong with triple chocolate muffins, and this recipe is very good. It’s also very easy and simple to follow, so that’s a bonus.