Nutmeg Spice Cupcake with Rum Spiked Buttercream

This recipe originally started as a cake, and I made it as such - there is a photo below but its not very pretty as I was rushed. However my younger sister made a request to have these as cupcakes when she finished her exams so I converted the recipe into cupcakes. You can make either the cake or cupcake version with this same recipe. It will make a two-tiered cake or 18 cupcakes. Just remember to increase the cooking time for a further 15-20 minutes if making the cake version.

Banana Pecan Praline Cheesecake

I have never tried to make a cheesecake before but my wonderful boyfriend loves them and whilst visiting Mum's over Easter I thought it might be a perfect time to try one. I found this recipe in the April 2011 edition of Delicious magazine and have tweaked it slightly to suit my tastes (I am a bit of a caramel nut). The photo is also of the initial way I made the cheesecake, however I have changed the way I would assemble it for further attempts as per the recipe. If you dont like banana you can omit it from the recipe to make a Pecan Praline Cheesecake.

Note: This is a recipe you need to plan for, it is best started a day ahead.

Devil's Food Cake

I will be the first to admit that I am not a huge fan of chocolate cake. People either tend to make them too dry, or add so much chocolate to them that one bite fulfills your sugar quota for a month and puts you into a sugar coma. I have two very good chocolate cake recipe's for the inevitable request for one. This is a more sophisticated grown up cake, as I like to call it. Four layers of a delicate crumb cake layered with a beautifully rich, but not overly sweet, dark chocolate ganache. I highly recommend that if you are going to make this cake use the highest grade dark chocolate you can get your hands on for the ganache as possible. I tend to use a Lindt dark chocolate and I have found that you can now by it in the supermarket. I would make this cake if I was going over to a friends place, having an afternoon tea, etc. Due to the dark chocolate it is not really a kids cake, although my 3 year old niece did polish off her slice quiet fast.

Vanilla Bean Cupcakes with French Vanilla Frosting

Repeat after me: I MUST TRY THIS FROSTING!!! If you even like vanilla the tiniest bit you will love the French Vanilla Frosting I made to top these cupcakes. It has an amazing flavour, not very sweet but so creamy and moorish you will be licking the bowl clean - you have been warned. As to the cupcake, well a good vanilla cupcake should be the staple of every bakers repertoire, it is so versatile to dress up with a myriad of different frosting: chocolate, cream cheese, caramel, etc. But let me guess... you already have a vanilla cupcake recipe that you think is the best? We all have our favourites depending on our tastes, I like mine light and fluffy, moist but not dense. I also like the vanilla flavour to be the highpoint of the cupcake. This recipe will make 12-14 decent size cupcakes that will impress I promise. Just remember not to over beat when you are incorporating the flour. I also use vanilla bean paste to fleck the cupcake and icing and deepen the vanilla taste, if you cant find vanilla bean paste buy a vanilla bean, cut in half lengthwise and scrape the seeds from one side into the cupcake mixture, and the other half into the frosting mixture. Also add 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract to each mixture.

Strawberry Tart

This tart is simple to make and will definitely be a crowd please if your family/friends like strawberries - just like my little niece does. I made this last weekend as her extra special dessert the night before they went home as she had been such a sweetheart. I tweaked the original recipe a bit as I like to make sure the strawberry flavour really come through, one way to do this is to 'boil down' the strawberries, adding a bit of water and sugar if you wish. If you don't want to put the strawberry cream, coulis and strawberries in a pastry shell you could try layering the mixture in a dessert glass (wine or martini glasses for individual servings). If you decided to make the servings in glasses, try making a half batch of the pastry and crumbling it on top of the strawberry layers.

Sticky Date Pudding

My sister and 2 kiddo's are staying with me this weekend so of course I set out to impress with a dessert that not only looked good but tasted great... and didn't really take that much effort to make. Add that up with my sisters love of sticky date pudding and I knew exactly what to make. This recipe is really straight forward and can all be made in advance if needed, just remember whilst the pudding and sauce can be kept in the fridge its best to keep the praline in baking paper and then in an airtight container or wrapped tightly with glad wrap.

Chocolate Pecan Thumbprint Cookies

For those of me who know me I have a bit of a Nigella Lawson obsession... now don't worry its nothing that's going to have me wandering the streets of London trying to find her house, partially because I live in Australia and partially because that's just creepy. I mean that her cookbooks always inspire me to bake and cook new and tasty treats. When reading through one of her cookbooks she mentioned a late night Amazon.com habit that I completely relate too, and my credit card can attest too. Well, she referenced an author called 'Tish Boyle' whom I promptly went online and googled her (gotta love google) and then got the credit card out and bought 2 of her cook books:

The Good Cookie

The Cake Book

Both are predominately recipes with only a few photos at odd intervals, which personally I am not really fond of, I like to know what my cooking/baking should look like. Anyway, that being said I tried a few recipes from 'The Good Cookie' which turned out really yummy, then the book was put back on my bookshelf and forgotten about whilst I let everything else in life interfere with my love of baking. So tonight, I decided that I would celebrate my very first blog by making some cookies. After pouring through 'The Good Cookie' I settled on the Chocolate Pecan Thumbprint Cookies, mostly because I had all the ingredients on hand =) The cookies were all supposed to be rolled in egg white and then in crushed pecans... well after about 8 cookies all the pecans were stuck together and so I decided just to make them plain and drizzle chocolate over them instead. The cookies themselves were really dense and fudgy, I used regular cocoa instead of the dutched cocoa the recipe called for so they had a little bite to them. All in all 4 out of 5 stars.

P.S They were called Thumbprint Cookies as I was supposed to roll them in a ball and then put a 'thumbprint' depression in the center of the cookie, I decided to flatten them out instead.