Bake With Me: Carrot and Walnut (Mini) Cakes

Morning Beautifuls,

Baking recipes! Yay! This time I want to share with you a super delicious Carrot and Walnut cake – on in my case, mini cakes!

So without any rambling, lets get started!

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup oil
• 1 large egg
• 56g caster sugar
• 50g carrot (or 1 medium carrot)
• 75g self-raising flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon powder
• 18g walnuts (or just a nice handful) + a few to decorate with!

First step is to whisk oil, egg and sugar together. Once this mixture is smooth and thicker, add carrot and mix through. Add flour, powder, cinnamon powder and chopped walnuts and stir until just mixed. Add this simple mixture into your selected baking pan. I decided to make three cute small loaf tins but you can use a normal cake tin or even cupcake cases to make super awesome cupcakes! Bake in the oven (duh!) for 25-35mins on 180 degrees Celsius  or until an inserted skewer comes out clean! For me, the skewer method is always best just in case the oven is having a nap or something!

While they cool down, I love making the icing. For this, I add butter and sugar into a bowl and mix, adding more sugar than butter until a frosting is made. I would love to give you exact amounts (but I have no idea what they are!). Usually its one to three tablespoons of butter with about 1 cup of icing sugar (but start with 1/2 a cup!). It really depends how buttery or sugary you like your icing!

Spread your awesome icing on top of the cakes and sprinkle some chopped walnuts/add a whole walnut.

Then enjoy!

Keep smiling,

Kay Anne

Bake With Me: Apple Cinnamon French Toast

Morning Beautifuls,

French toast! French toast! French toast!

Boy, I love a good French toast!

Which is the recipe I wanted to share with you today. But this recipe isn’t just your regular egg-and-bread French toast – this is the super duper amazing Apple Cinnamon French Toast. Hands-down one of the best French toast recipes I have created!

What you need to create this heavenly delight:

The Apples:

• 2 medium apples, peeled and sliced
• 4 tablespoons of butter
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

The French Toast

• Bread – 3-4 slices
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Firstly, add all your Apple ingredients into a small saucepan and cook over a medium heat until butter has melted. Leave to simmer for 6-8 mins and then turn off heat. You can leave to apples on the stove to cook while you prepare the French toast.

French toast – beat eggs with milk, vanilla and cinnamon until the mixture is smooth. Dip both sides of the bread into the mixture and them cook toast in a large pan for 1-2 minutes on both sides.

Add all your delicious bits to a plate and, if desired, spindle with icing sugar.

Delicious!

This is an incredibly easy, warm breakfast, brunch and random snack idea, with those cinnamon apples perfect sweet to nibble on! I really love this breakfast idea!

Keep smiling,

Kay Anne.

Bake With Me: Donut Muffins

Morning Beautifuls,

Here’s to another strange but really delicious recipe!

Donut muffins! Because to day is Doughnut Day!!!! 🍩🍩

I saw pictures of these delicious looking treats floating around the Internet the other day and realised I was extremely desperate to have them in my life! Surprisingly, they are one of the most simple recipes to follow and taste like mini donuts. Yum, yum, yum.

What you need (for the cupcakes):

• 1 cup self-raising flour
• 1/2 cup caster sugar
• 1/4 cup melted butter
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 cup milk

The cupcakes are extremely simple to make (something I love)! Mix the melted butter and sugar together until combined. Stir in milk and baking powder. Then add flour and mix until just combined. Fill into mini muffin patty cases and bake for 15-20mins in 190degC oven. Simple!

What you need (for the delicious sugar coating):

• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 cup melted butter

Whilst they are cooking, in the last few minutes (or when you just get them out), you get to prepared the DELICIOUS sugar coating. Again, super simple – combine melted butter with sugar and cinnamon and mix well.

if you haven’t already, let the muffins sit for a few minutes. This allows them to cool slightly and makes them easier to remove from their cases, keeping their awesome round muffin shape. Once they are cool enough to hold their form but still slightly warm, take them out of their cases and roll them in the butter followed quickly by the cinnamon sugar. Pup them back in their cases and onto a plate!

Easy peasy!

Then enjoy them either warm or cold!

Keep smiling,

🍩 Kay Anne🍿 🍩

Bake With Me: Caramel Cupcakes

Morning Beautifuls,

I had a craving for cupcakes the other day – not sure where it came from, but all I really wanted was a cupcake. In particular, a vanilla cupcake with some sort of caramel icing.

Which every shop decided they would not have.

And yes, I was been picky.

So I decided to create my own cupcakes, going home and rifling through the cupboards to make this cupcake of my dreams.

Let me tell you, I think I found it!

Just between you and me, I may have eaten between six and eight of them over two days. They were just really good!

So good that I just had to share them with you! Honestly, these cupcakes were super easy to make, and surprisingly fast! The vanilla cupcake itself was the softest and smoothest cupcake in the world (and I may have eaten a few without icing as I iced some).

I did a lot of cupcake eating in those days, let me tell you that!

What you will need:

• 150g butter (at room temperature) or margarine (that doesn’t have to be at room temperature)
• 150g caster sugar
• 3 eggs
• 150g self-raising flour
• ½ tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp vanilla essence

In a mixing bowl, cream your butter/margarine and caster sugar until they turn light and fluffy. That seems to be your basic cupcake step, right? Once its fully mixed, add the three eggs, one at a time. I like to turn my kitchen aid/mix master down extremely low and add one eggs, turn it up to about medium until it is mixed in and then repeat with the remaining eggs. For me, this just seems to be the best way to mix the eggs and create a spongy, light cake (or cupcakes!). Next, add the rest of the ingredients (flour, baking powder and vanilla) and mix until the mixture turns a light, creamy colour. This can take between 3-4 mins!

Then comes the fun part! Pick your super awesome patty cases and spoon the mixture 2/3 of the way of the cases you picked! Pop them in a 180^oC oven for 18mins or until slightly browned and ‘bouncy’. Then, if you are impatient, you can munch on one while making the icing.

For the icing, I tweaked a butter cream recipe I used on a regular basis. In this recipe, you mix butter and icing sugar together, adding 10g more icing sugar than however much butter you use. Make sense? I honestly, just measure out some butter and then add however much icing sugar is needed for the icing to form a light, creamy, yummy texture. Then I spooned in two teaspoons of caramel sauce (which is one of the most easiest sauces to make from scratch) and mixed it well into the icing.

Using a star nozzle, pipe some icing onto your cooled cupcakes, then, using a small spoon, feel free to drizzle some more caramel sauce over the top. This adds to the flavour of the cupcakes and creates a more intense caramel taste!

The next step is to enjoy them (all!), or, if you are feeling really, really nice, share them with friends, family or work mates!

How to win friends and influence people – feed them cupcakes! These cupcakes have been the highlight of my week!

Keep smiling,

Kay Anne.

Bake With Me: Easter Chocolate Nests Cheesecake

Morning Beautifuls,

Happy Easter!

For those who don’t celebrate Easter (or their Easter is later) Happy long weekend break!

Easter is the perfect time to experiment with every chocolate recipe you have always wanted to try. For me, this was a chocolate cheesecake with nests on top. The whole thing ended up being a massive experiment – I wanted to create a base a bit like a biscuit without having to cook it, insides that tasted like a chocolate mousse and learn how to drizzle chocolate. All that added to the fun in the end!

Base Instructions:

For the base, I placed 50g butter, 1/4 cup cocoa powder, 1 cup hazelnut meal and 1 tsp vanilla essence into a food processor and whizzed it until a breadcrumb-like texture was formed. This step took about a minute – if that! I then pressed a bit of the mixture into a lined muffin tin about 1/2-1cm thick. You can add as little or as much as you want, depending on how thick you want your base. In the end, I made 14 bases. Pop them in the oven while you make the cheesecake filling

Cheesecake Filling Ingredients:

• 500g cream cheese
• 1/3 cup caster sugar
• 2 tsp gelatine dissolved with 1/4 cup boiling water (hint – for this step, measure out 1/4 cup tap water, sprinkle the gelatine on top and then boil, mixing until the gelatine is all dissolved and the water goes clear)
• 225g chocolate melts
• 1 1/4 cup cream, thick or light
• 2 egg whites

Cheesecake Filling Method:

First thing you need to do it whip your egg white until they form soft peaks. I put them on and started melting the chocolate as they take a while. Once your egg whites are whipped and chocolate melted, in another bowl beat cream cheese with sugar until smooth. Then quickly add the gelatine and chocolate, mixing. This step has to be done quite fast because as soon as the chocolate hits the cream cheese, it will start to set again! Although you can always say that it is chic-chip filling! Add the cream and mix it in. Once it is all mix, fold in 1/3 of the egg whites and fold until mix. Add another third, fold and then add the last bit, folding until just combined.

Now you get to pour the mixture onto of the base and pop them into the fridge for at least two hours! I recommend leaving them overnight.

Once they are set comes the fun part! Decoration!

To decorate, I grated two rows of Cadbury bar chocolate and melted a few chocolate drops. Sprinkle the grated chocolate on top, add two Mini Eggs on top and then pipe the melted chocolate on top in a ‘drizzle’ effect. My only tip here is to decorate all the cheesecakes before you melt the chocolate and start piping it. Oh, and use a disposable piping bag because the task of cleaning hardened chocolate out of a piping bag is a tedious task!

Presto! Amazing looking chocolate nest cheesecakes!

Your next step is now to enjoy them all!!!

Keep smiling,

🐥 Kay Anne 🐥

Bake With Me: Easy Dinner Meatballs

Morning Beautifuls,

I thought I might add a different spin on my Bake With Me series and do another dinner idea instead of sticking to my usual sweets and treats. This one is my new favourite dinner go-to as it is super easy and simple to do, making it perfect for those days where you want a home cooked meal without the hassle.

Yes, meatballs!

First things first – Ingredients. What you need:

• 500g minced meat
• 1 onion
• 1 carrot, grated
• 2 tablespoon chopped parsley
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/4 cup oil
• 60g butter/margarine

In a bowl, mix meat, onion, carrot, parsley and egg until well combined. Take tablespoons of the mixture and roll them into balls.

Heat the oil and butter in a pan until sizzling, add the meatballs and fry until golden brown and cooked soon. In order to create a consistent cook, make certain to keep flipping the meatballs to cook well.

Once they are cooked, take them out of the pan and place them on your plate! Super simple dinner!

I love having these meatballs with with some homemade potato and sweet potato pieces which I put in the oven just before I start making the meatballs. On 180 degrees Celsius, the potato and sweet potato cut into wedges cooks for about 20-25mins, perfect time to make and cook the meatballs!

Add a few vegetables and, if wanted, a drizzle of tomato sauce and you are good to go!

For a quick and easy dinner idea, this is perfect. I really like them – the taste boost of the parsley makes for something different from most of the other meatballs I have ever had. Which makes it that extra bit fancy.

Enjoy!

Keep smiling,

Kay Anne

Bake With Me: Apple Oat Biscuits

Morning Beautifuls,

Every once in a while I like to try something new for breakfast. I find it the one meal of the day I sometimes struggle to eat all the time, so try and jazz it up every once in a while to keep it interesting and make myself eat something.

My recent breakfast recipe has been these gorgeous Apple Out biscuits. These are a perfect breakfast biscuit, working amazingly well for days where you need to rush out of the house and have no time to throw a breakfast together. They also taste incredible with plain yoghurt!

To make them, you will need:

• 125g butter
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 cup plain flour
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 2 apples, one peeled and diced, the other sliced thinly with the skin left on.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Simple.

Beat sugar and butter until light and creamy. Once again, simple. Add the egg sand beat well again.  Then add the flour, oats and baking powder and fold through the mixture until just mixed. Stir through the diced apple and then roll tablespoons of mixture into balls and place them on a baking tray. Place a slice of apple on top of each biscuit and push it down slightly.

Stick it in the oven and bake it for 30-35mins! Then enjoy!

These are some of my favourite breakfast biscuits at the moment as they are like baked apple oatmeal. They are incredible with a dollop of yoghurt and taste great both warm and cold! Thumbs up for making breakfast fun!

Keep smiling,

Kay Anne

Bake With Me: Meat and Vegetable Triangles

Morning Beautifuls,

So I was sorting through my photos on my camera when I stumbled upon these pictures I took for a blog post I never wrote.

I didn’t have the heart to delete them, so I thought I would write it up now. Better late than never right? Plus it is a breather from the intense travel related blog posts I have recently being posting!

Which is why I bring you another Bake with Me! This time meat and vegetable triangles WHICH ARE INCREDIBLE AND I WOULD EAT THEM EVERY DAY if they were a tad easier and quicker to make. These are perfect for a nice lunch or dinner where you have  bit of time before to prep for them!

Ingredients:

• 4 sheets of puff pastry
• 500g mince beef meat
• 1 can corn kernels
• 1 carrot, diced
• 4 sliced of leek, cubed
• 3-4 potatoes, peeled and diced
• Handful of frozen peas
• Grated cheese (optional)
• Sesame seeds (optional)

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees celsius. Cook your meat in a large frypan.While the meat is cooking, boil the potato in a large pot. If cut into cubes, these two should both be cooked in the same amount of time. Its all about the timing!
2. Once your meat and potato are cooked, throw all your vegetables into it. I add potato, carrot, leek, corn and peas, however feel free to add whatever you would like. Other suggestions might be beans, spinach and mushroom but it all up to you!
   
3. Now comes for the fun and fiddly bit! Cut the puff pastry sheets in quarters so that squares are formed. Once the mixture is slightly cooled – ie. not straight off the stove – spoon mixture into one corner of the pastry. Fold in half and with a fork, or fingers, press the sides together. Stab the top with a fork and sprinkle with sesame seeds or grated cheese if desired.
   
4. Bake for 20-25mins or until pastry is puffy and golden brown.

Enjoy as is or with a sauce of your choice!

Nom nom nom! They are making me hungry!

Hope you enjoy this post and do give them a try 🙂

Keep smiling,

Kay Anne

Bake With Me: Mince Pies!

Morning Beautifuls,

What screams Christmas more than mince pies? (Hint: nothing).

As I’ve being trying out so many new recipes throughout this holiday season, I decided to have a try at making some Christmas mince pies. I don’t actually like the taste of mince pies, although all the rest of my family loves them. I do love the smell of them though. The cinnamon and mixed spices make the house smell incredible, especially as they are cooking!

So let us make the whole house smell of Christmas and get baking!

You will need:

• 750g mixed dried fruit
• 100g blanched/flaked almonds
• 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
• juice and rind of 1 small lemon
• juice and rind of 1 small orange
• 1 1/2 tsp mixed spice
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 100g butter, melted
• 1 cup brandy (or 1 cup water)
• 1 packet frozen shortcrust pastry
• Milk, to brush pastry

The first step is the longest step in the world. Just going to mention that. You need to chop all the fruit into small pieces and add the almonds, brown sugar, rind and juices, spices, butter and brandy to it, mixing well. Then you get to cover the bowl in cling wrap and refrigerate it for a while. This can be overnight or for a week (stirring at least once each day). I ended up leaving for a week (As I got super busy and forgot to make them earlier!). But whatever you choose!

Next comes the fun bit! Heat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius and start rolling out your pastry. I bought pre cut pastry, making it not necessary for me to do any rolling. Which was great, because I struggle to evenly roll pastry.

Using a fluted cutter, that is slightly bigger than your pie pan (or cupcake tin) circle, cut the bases of your mince pies. Press then into your pan and then fill the bases with the mixture. Once that is done, brush the pastry edges with a bit of milk. This creates a glue in order to hold the tops on.

For the lid: You can either use a smaller circle to create the lids for your mince pies or, as I decided to do, use cute star cutouts to have an awesome extra-Christmassy lid. Just make sure the stars are big enough to touch the sides of the pastry or they could fall off!

Bake it for 15-18mins until they are lightly browned, sprinkle with some icing sugar and enjoy!

I’ve been told that these mince pies taste amazing either by themselves or with a splash of custard (you could even try eggnog seeming it is Christmas!) and ended up being really easy (and fun!) to do. It does make A LOT so enjoy giving them away as Christmas gifts (Christmas cupcake boxes are awesome to store them and wrap your mince pies) or have heaps of fun munching on them all!!!

Keep smiling and enjoy all the Christmas goodies,

Kay Anne.

Cute Christmas DIY Ideas!

Morning Beautifuls,

Another Christmas filled present ideas for anyone out there who struggles finding Christmas presents for a handful (whether big or small) of people! I love the idea of giving homemade presents at Christmas as I feel it adds to the Christmas spirit, and, honestly, is just something I have grown up doing! So I thought I would share with you some of my favourite DIY projects that are simple, quick and incredible!

Lets get started!

1. Photo Coasters:
I found these glass coasters at Kmart for $6 and immediately thought of the endless possibilities they had as Christmas gifts! You would make festive coasters, using Christmassy pictures, add family or friend photos related to the person you are giving them to, or do what I did and add some cute quote photos into them! The sizing of the photos are given on the little card inside each coaster, making the printing and cropping of each picture super quick and extra easy!

2. Lip Balm:
Again another cute homemade gift idea. I don’t know how I stumbled upon this DIY lipgloss but after I tried it out, I was pleasantly surprised with the final result! All you need is some petroleum jelly, a coloured lipstick or eyeshadow, glitter – if you want!-, and some essence (I used vanilla!). Mix all your ingredients together, adding as much colour to the jelly until you find your perfect colour and then put them into cute pots (that you can buy at the Two Dollar Shop!). Think of all the colours you could make! The best thing is that they work like lip stains, adding a pop of colour to your lips with a nice moisturising feel!

3. Sharpie Decorated Mugs:
I saw this idea online and think it is the perfect christmas project. White mugs decorated with sharpies and then bake in a 180 degree Celcius oven for 30mins! Simple! And with all the coloured sharpies out there, imagine the fun you could have! My only slight warning is to make certain that the mugs are microwave/oven safe… I dare not think about what could happen if they aren’t!

4. Felt Hand Warmers:
I made a blog post on these and do think they would make an amazing stocking filler, especially for those countries that experience a bit of a chilly Christmas! I just think they are a super cute and fun gift idea.

5. Paper Bows:
These make incredible present decorations and could even work as hair clips, especially if you substitute the paper for a nice material! There is a template for bigger bows here but if you google ‘paper bow template’ millions of different sizes pop up that you could use! I made a box full of them last year and love using them for an extra decoration (and for some cute, easy hair clips!). You could even get more creative and make them out of felt, or spritz them up with a bit of glitter!

6. Homemade Nutella:
I haven’t tried this one yet but it looks easy and, I mean, who doesn’t like Nutella! Homemade though? Wow!! Check out the recipe click here!

7. Photo Calendar:
I make this one every year for my mum – so much that it has become a tradition in our family! Honestly, its quite simple – download the new years calendar template in Microsoft Word, adding family birthdays and special days (if desired) and then have fun picking 12 pictures to go with each month! The hardest thing is to print the whole thing, but after a bit of practice – be prepared to get at least one upside down – you will have your own personalised calendar. You can hole punch it and add cute ties to hold it together or go a bit more full out and get it bounded!

8. Material Roll Holders:
I have no idea what to call these but they are amazing! You can make them for anyone and heaps of different things! My mum has a cotton material one for all her knitting needles, my dad has a ‘jeans’ material one for some of his tools (like screwdrivers and other bits and bobs) and my latest ones I’ve made are face towels converted into travel holders for my toothbrush and other bits and bobs! They are so simple to do and only need to know how to do straight lines on a sewing machine (which is pretty easy if I say so myself!). Just cut the material you chose out to the length you need, fold it over and sew little pockets for your appliances. Add a tie to one side and its complete. Simple!

9. Glitter Snow Globes:
These are an incredible idea and I really wish I had one to show you! But I don’t. So, google them! For these, all you need it a glass container with a very good lid, some cute ornaments that you want in your snow globe, glue, glitter, water and glycerin. Glycerin changing the quickness the glitter (or ‘snow’) will fall, so you can leave it out or use corn syrup. Add depends on what you want! Now there are two different ways of putting these together – either you can glue your ornaments to the lid or the bottom of the container. Just glue the lid on very well or there could be a bit or a disaster!
Snow globes always make me feel Christmassy!!

10. DIY Bath Bombs:
These are the one of the easiest bath/beauty related things to make and can be so much fun! There are so many different recipes for DIY bath bombs on the internet and the amount of fun you can have with them is beyond explainable! Feel free to find your own recipe, but what I work with to make one to two bath bombs (or more depending how big you want them) usually follows this recipe: Mix 2 tablespoons baking soda with 1 tablespoon citric acid, 1 tablespoon cornstarch and 1 tablespoon epsom salts. Mix until not lumpy. While still mixing, add 1/4 teaspoon oil, 3/4 teaspoons essential oil of your own choice (or the scent that you would like your bath bomb to be) and one to two drops of food colouring. There should be a slight fizz from the citric acid but not too much or the bath bomb with be bombed out! The mixture should clump together (but still a little crumbly!) and turn the colour you dyed it. Then pack it into your mould and allow to dry for at least 5 hours before getting out of the mould and another 4 before adding them to the bath (or just leave them over night!). Cute, cute, cute!!

Extra Christmassy Gift Idea: Hot Chocolate Mix Ornaments!
I really wish (again) that I had another picture for this one because when I saw it online I just thought they were the cutest things in the world. I noticed a lot now that you can buy plastic/glass empty ornaments and fill them up so thought that this idea was to die for! It is a really cute, Christmassy way of displaying things on the Christmas tree and having a cute hot chocolate, with the different flavours perfect Christmas treats! Not sure what I am talking about? Take a look for yourself here!! Aren’t they cute?

Okay! I’m getting a bit too carried away with DIY Christmas suggestions! This is way too much fun for me and I think I might have to go run a bath with a new bath bomb to calm myself down!!

Keep smiling and stay Christmassy,

Kay Anne