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.

Hello and Welcome

Hello to whomever is reading this... honestly I don't expect it to be anyone except maybe my Mum... if she can figure out how to look at a blog. Anyway, I am starting this to chronicle my attempts at increasing my baking skills. I am an engineer by trade but I love to cook and bake, more bake than cook of course since I have a wicked sweet tooth. I 'volunteered' to make cupcakes for my nieces birthday which is coming up in about 6 weeks, the theme of the party is 'Barbie' so I got all excited and started googling away only to find that there are some absolutely AMAZING bakers out there, many who keep a blog. So I thought why not! I am by no means a professional baker, I cannot use a piping bag to save myself and a lot of times whilst the end result is tasty, they look nothing like the picture. So my aim is to be able to teach myself the skills to eventually become someone whose tasty creations have people oohing and ahhing over them. Those triumphs and of course many many failures will be pictured in this blog, so if you are reading this - ENJOY =)