Chocolate stripe cake - redux

It has been quite some time since my friends and I did the dizzy round of 21st birthday parties, and I hadn't expected to attend one again. However, life is often surprising, and one of the guys that I work with, Andrew, has kindly invited our entire team at work to attend his 21st birthday party in a couple of weeks time.

Although his party is not for a couple of weeks (after his exams for this year are a distant nightmare), it was Andrew's actual birthday on Thursday. What now seems like a lifetime ago, I made Zinnur's chocolate stripe cake for the king of striped shirts and chocolate, Tim. Andrew loved this cake and requested it for his birthday cake. How could I refuse? So I whipped out a sinful 400g of chocolate and an ocean of cream to dress up the surprisingly low fat base cakes (none of which contain an ounce of butter).

This time, I cooked the sponge rolls for a little too long, and consequently lost the edges to crispness. They also were not as easy to roll up as they should have been. The resulting cake was therefore a little smaller than last time, but we still had plenty of cake to go around.

I coloured some ready made fondant for the decorations. I could not find a ready made plastic key or a key-shaped cutter anywhere (have these gone out of vogue as tokens of turning 21??), so I washed up an ordinary house key and used it as a template to cut out the key. Finally, I pressed grated chocolate around the sides of the cake. It took almost as long to make the decorations as to make the whole cake (did I mention that I hate grating anything, including chocolate!?!).

I also finally took a picture of the inside of this cake (after 3 attempts) which is clear enough to show the chocolate stripe cake in all its glory. (Thanks to Simon for his assistance with the photography - I have learnt quite a lot about my camera that I didn't know before!) Now you know why this cake has the "wow" factor when people cut into it, not expecting to see the beautiful stripey pattern made in such a simple manner.

Happy 21st Andrew - I look forward to your party!

Spaghetti bolognese

In my never ending quest for hearty yet low fat lunches, I found a great recipe in the Australian Heart Foundation's The New Classic Cookbook (by Loukie Werle) for spaghetti bolognese, with the finished result shown in the photograph above.

To make the sauce, cook a chopped onion, a crushed garlic clove and a finely sliced stick of celery in a frypan with a little oil until soft. Add two tablespoons of tomato paste or tomato sauce (ketchup) and about 300g of mince, and cook until the mince browns. Next, add 2 x 400g tins of diced tomatoes, a cubed eggplant and basil and pepper to taste. Simmer the sauce on low heat for 15 minutes, then spoon over cooked dried spaghetti (roughly 400g).

This was really great for work lunches, doesn't take long to make, and only has about 6g of fat per serve.

Apples & Thyme - Rice pudding

African Vanielje and The Passionate Palate are hosting a blogging event called "Apples & Thyme". This event requires you to blog about time spent with your mother, grandmother or some other special person in the kitchen that influenced how you cook and eat. I thought this was a charming idea, and is a good way to honour the person who introduced me to a love of food and cooking - my mother.

Mum did all of the cooking when I lived at home, and in fact she would never let us cook. However, we were permitted to help her out, and as the only girl, it was considered my duty to do so when required.

Mum grew up on a farm, and due to some adverse events in her life, she learned to cook from a very early age. She relates being 8 years old and standing on a stool so that she could reach the stovetop. Mum rarely uses recipes (a skill which I envy!), hence our family usually ate one of the dishes in her repertoire.

The fare cooked by my Mum was usually simple but sustaining. Corned beef and mash, shepherds pie, rissoles, roasts, apple crumble, blancmange, soda pudding, jam drops, custard, russian caramels, rolled oat (Anzac) biscuits and "pusher" biscuits made regular appearances in our house.

One of the happiest times in my life was when I was a somewhat chubby but self-assured and confident 10 year old (where did that confidence go?). Every Sunday, my brother and I would go to Sunday school in the morning, and would come home at lunch time to a roast meal followed by dessert. (I asked to go to Sunday school so that I could see my best friend and act and sing!) The smells of cooking which filled the house were heavenly, and I eagerly awaited the time when lunch would be served.

My favourite Sunday dessert for many years was rice pudding. This might seem a bland and unappealing choice to some, but I absolutely adored its milky sweetness, and could easily eat the whole dish myself if I had been allowed. Even better, my brother did not like rice pudding - so leaving all the more for me!

Accordingly, in honour of my Mum and in memory of those happy Sundays so long ago, I have made rice pudding for this blog event. The recipe is as follows:

3/4 cup cooked medium grain (calrose) rice
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
enough milk to just cover the rice (skim milk is fine)

Place all ingredients into a medium sized saucepan, and stir over medium heat until it boils. Turn down the heat and simmer the rice until it thickens. Pour rice into a serving dish and sprinkle with nutmeg or cinnamon.

This is a warm, comforting treat which I have never made myself until this blogging event. I asked Mum for the recipe some time ago, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity to try it. Thanks Mum for making me feel so secure and happy during my childhood - I now remember those times with fondness each time that I make your recipes.

Also, thanks to African Vanielje and The Passionate Palate for creating and hosting the Apples & Thyme blogging event.

Postscript: The roundups for this event are here and here. Go read them - they are truly heartfelt and make beautiful reading.

"I See Red" chocolate beet cake

Chocolate beet cake
Originally uploaded by Cakelaw

It is my boss Dave's birthday this Saturday, so I brought his birthday cake into work on Friday. I made it on Wednesday night because I had the pleasure of attending the Crowded House concert on Thursday night, which meant no time for baking then.

Dave is always singing part of the chorus from the Split Enz song, I See Red. Accordingly, I thought that it would be kind of funky to make Dave a cake that incorporated the "I See Red" theme.

Obviously, the first thing that came to mind was a red velvet cake. However, the thought of pouring so much hyperactive red colouring into a cake did not appeal to me, so I looked for an alternative means of keeping with the red theme. My ultimate choice was a "sort of" lower fat chocolate beet cake, the recipe for which I found here. It promised to be like the Waldorf Astoria red velvet cake, only lower in fat.

Because of the mention of "red velvet" in the recipe title, I naturally expected the end result to be red. Wrong! It turned out a pretty normal looking chocolate cake. The evidence of the beets came out later in all the wrong places, as the reddish purple juice from the beets stained my cream cheese frosting with purplish red flecks. The photo of this cake was taken just after icing and before the beets had a chance to soak through. However, I guess it fitted in with the "I See Red" theme, even though it was not meant to happen.

Instead of the frosting called for by the recipe (what on earth is Cool Whip!?!), I made cream cheese frosting using 200g light cream cheese beaten with 80g of icing sugar and two teaspoons of lemon juice. It was very tasty!

The piece de resistance for this cake was, of course, the decoration. I made eyes out of fondant, with licorice eyebrows and red sugar for the "red" that the "eyes" could "see". The inspiration for the eyes was the Split Enz video clip for I Got You, which features close-ups of the eyes and eyebrows of the band members freaking out Neil Finn, but it looked pretty much like my boss's bushy black brows as well.

This cake did not taste that great to me, although it was perfectly OK. The real fun with this cake was the decorating, as the idea was my own creation. I don't count myself as very creative (I studied Science/Law - that's enough to beat the creativity out of anyone!), but I loved making this cake.

Pumpkin cranberry loaf

Pumpkin cranberry loaf II
Originally uploaded by Cakelaw

I had some cranberries left over from my white chocolate and cranberry cookies, so thought it was the perfect opportunity to make a recipe that I have had stashed away for a while - Nic's Pumpkin and Cranberry Loaf, the recipe for which is here.

I love anything sweet, so a cake which includes both pumpkin and cranberries really took my fancy - and of course, the fact that it is low fat is a bonus!

This cake is just gorgeous. Forget it if you don't like pumpkin or cranberries, because these flavours are both prominent in the finished cake. You don't need to spread this cake with anything before eating it - just slice off a generous piece and go for it. It really is devine, and the greedy devil in me could easily scoff the lot. Thanks for introducing me to this recipe Nic!

Baked chicken with olives and tomatoes

Chicken with olives and tomato
Originally uploaded by Cakelaw

I was looking for something simple and low fat to make for dinner when I came across a recipe for tomato and olive baked chicken in a little book called Racy Recipes, Memorable Meals published by the Hawthorn community to raise funds for the Railako Medical Clinic, East Timor.

This recipe is by a lady called Helen Slattery, and is as follows:

Preheat oven to 190 degrees Celsius. Place 2 chicken breasts and 3 diced potatoes in a baking dish which has been spayed lightly with oil. In a medium sized bowl, combine 1 clove of crushed garlic, 250g of halved cherry tomatoes, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, a teaspoon of dried oregano, a shake of black pepper and half a cup of olives. Pour this mixture over the chicken and potatoes, and bake for about 40 minutes or until the chicken and potatoes are cooked through.

Although this is really simple, it tastes very good, and is also perfect for me because it is designed to serve 2. Buon appetite!

AFAM October - Peach/Nectarine: Peachy keen muffins

Peach muffin
Originally uploaded by Cakelaw

A Fruit a Month is a blog even which focusses on food featuring a new fruit each month. This month, Mansi of Fun and Food is hosting A Fruit a Month, and the fruit in focus is peaches or nectarines.

My fruit of choice is the delightfully fuzzy peach. Unfortunately, peaches are not yet in season in Australia, so I have used canned peaches in juice and peach yoghurt (peach melba to be exact!).


I have chosen to make muffins which are "peachy keen" because not only are they light and delicious, they are also low in fat. There is no oil or butter in them, with the fat content coming from low fat yoghurt and a single egg.

The recipe is as follows:

1 1/2 cup plain flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
1 cup low fat peach yoghurt (I used Ski Delite Peach Melba)
1/3 cup apple puree (or in my case, apple and pear puree!)
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 teaspoon almond essence
1 1/2 cups canned peaches, drained and chopped

Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Spray a 12 hole muffin tin lightly with cooking spray or oil. Sift flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda into a bowl, and stir in the sugar.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the yoghurt, egg and essences. Pour into the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Fold in the peaches and spoon into the muffin tin.

Bake for 25 minutes or until cooked when a skewer is inserted. Remove from the oven and cool in the tin for 10 minutes before turning out to cool completely on a wire rack.

Thanks to Mansi for hosting AFAM, and I look forward to the roundup!

Postscript: You can find heaps of innovative peachy recipes in the roundup, which is here.