Orange and rhubarb melting moments from What can i bring? by Sophie Hansen

I'm a huge fan of Sophie Hansen and her latest book 'What can I Bring?' just adds to the collection. Her cooking is one that screams comfort with family and friends at first thought. Even with no where to go, and no one to ask 'what can I bring?' you will find yourself picking it up for inspiration and cooking from it on a regular basis. I have.

It's divided into seasons like her previous books are which I love even though in Sydney you can get pretty much anything, anytime of the year. There is something almost romantic sticking with the seasons. And speaking of seasons, how lovely is today's cooler change?? it's been so hot, I'm starting to wonder if we brought the FNQ climate with us. 

Sophie's books are where I turn to for a comfort cook and this one is the same. I have made two recipes from this book so far with plenty more tabbed. Orange and rhubarb melting moments which are such a special treat and the rice, potato and chorizo pilaf, not a mid week dinner but a goodie for the weekend when you have the time for something to cook away in the oven for a bit of time. I still have a log of the melting moments dough in my freezer waiting to be defrosted, shaped, baked and filled. Yum. The first batch i made, I used raspberry jam as I didn't have any rhubarb jam and it gave them a bit of a monte carlo biscuit feel. I will source the rhubarb jam for the log waiting in my freezer as I think it might make the filling not as sweet and a little more tart. The only 'change' (and very important one I think) I made was, I used icing mixture, not pure icing sugar. Always do and always will when a recipe calls for icing sugar. Life is too short and sifting those pesky lumps out of icing sugar isn't fun.

And although I had no where to go with these delicious morsels, I took them to work and they were demolished happily with only crumbs left on the plate. What more can you ask for?

They would make a great gift or addition to any afternoon tea. Or, simply because you want home made biscuits for yourself. 

Orange and rhubarb melting moments

Recipe by Sophie Hansen

Extract from 'What can I Bring?'

You can never ever go wrong with a good melting moment. They really do seem to delight everyone, especially with such a pretty pink filling. I like to cook mine a little longer than most recipes suggest so they don't go soggy or too soft. Either way, if you haven't made these before, or for a while, please give them a go. They're such a lovely thing to bring to a picnic, or anywhere. Once the filling is firm and set, they are pretty shelf-stable for a couple of days at least.

Prep time 20 minutes, plus chilling

Cook time 15 minutes

Makes approx. 24

1 cup (250g) unsalted butter, at room temperature

80g icing sugar

Zest of 1 orange

1tsp vanilla paste

1/3 cup (50g) custard powder

1 2/3 plain flour

a pinch of salt

Filling

100g butter, softened

2 cups (250g) icing sugar

3 Tbsp rhubarb or plum jam

1 Tbsp orange juice, plus extra if needed

Place the butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the pddle attachment and cream for a few minutes until pale and fluffy. Or you can use a large bowl and an electric mixer. Add the zest and vanilla and beat again. Fold in the custard powder, flour and salt. Turn the dough out onto your benchtop and divide in two, then form each half into a sausage shape. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 170C (325F) and line two making trays with baking paper.

Slice each sausage of sough into discs around 1 cm thick, and roll these into small balls. Place these on the baking trays, leaving a few centimetres between each to allow for spreading. Gently press down with the tines of a form to flatten a little.

Bake for 15 minutes, or until pale golden. Remove from the oven and leave to cool on a wire rack.

Meanwhile, clean the missing bowl ready to make the filling. Combine the butter and sugar in the bowl of your stand mixer, or using a bowl and an electric mixer, and beat for a few minutes until pale and creamy. Add the jam and the 1 tablespoon of orange juice and mix again until you have a thick paste. Add more orange juice if needed, a little at a time, until you have the right consistency.

Sandwich two biscuits together with a little of the filling and place in the fridge for the buttercream to set, then store in an airtight container for up to 2 days.

Travel advice-

if you're making these biscuits more than 3 days in advance, store them, unfilled, in an airtight container and then sandwich together on the day you plan to share them.

The only Coconut Cake with Coconut Buttercream Frosting recipe you'll ever need.

I have been obsessed with finding the perfect coconut cake recipe for over a year now. It all started when I went to a friends engagement party and they served one of the best coconut cakes I'd ever eaten and after admitting to the bride-to-be that I was on my third piece I've wanted to replicate it ever since. You'd think there are thousands of recipes for coconut cake out there online and in books but I found a lot of them are just a butter cake with some coconut sprinkled here and there or a plain butter cake with a teaspoon of extract added. That wouldn't do. I needed to find a recipe which would be the perfect coconut cake with an icing that had a hint of coconut but not too sweet and you could happily eat three pieces and still want more.

So a couple of weeks ago when a friend asked if I'd make her baby shower cake I thought it was the perfect opportunity to suggest maybe she would like a coconut cake, don't worry I did give more than one option :) Inside I jumped at the opportunity but I couldn't help the little negative-nancy inside me who was so worried I'd screw it up or worse, drop it at the last minute. Does anyone else have cake nightmares? or is it just me...

With a whole lot of googling and frantic cookbook flipping through books I trusted I found a recipe I was happy with for the cake and a recipe I was happy with for the icing and BOOM! The perfect combination for cake and icing!

It was moist (haha what a terrible word), had the perfect crumb and a great coconut flavour throughout the whole cake and then covered in dried coconut which looks like the cake was airbrushed with snow. It uses unsweetened coconut milk as the liquid and also unsweetened desiccated coconut that is soaked in boiling water to soften it so it didn't make the cake chewing that can sometimes happen when using dried coconut. The buttercream icing used coconut milk which evened out the sweetness from all the icing sugar and didn't overpower the flavour like some extracts can do.

The baby bunting cake topper was also homemade, my bestie and I had a craft afternoon the day before and made it using 'Honestly Yum' DIY blog post and it worked perfectly.

But most importantly the baby shower was lovely! We played a couple of guessing the bump and due date games, got to design a bib for the little mystery bub, drank a delicious champagne elderflower punch with fresh nectarine and cherries and ate sandwiches, cheese and cake. It was a perfect afternoon! The little one is due so so soon and I think we are all very excited to meet her/him when they arrive for the mum(& dad)-to-be as an early Christmas present.

Congrats TT and Dave! Can't wait to meet the little one :)

Coconut Cake with Coconut Buttercream Frosting

cake adapted from Jane Hornby's 'What to Bake and How to Bake it' cookbook
icing adapted from Jemma Wilson's (aka Cupcake Jemma) 'The Cupcake Book' cookbook

Coconut cake

50g unsweetened desiccated coconut
225g unsalted butter, softened
225g caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 eggs
300g plain flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
120ml full-fat coconut milk (from a can)

- Firstly, soak the desiccated coconut in boiling water for 15 minutes (or longer if you can) then pour into a sieve and press out the excess water.

- Next grease and line 2 x 8inch round cake tins with baking paper and preheat oven to 350F/180C.

- Using an electric mixer beat the butter and and caster sugar together until pale and creamy making sure you scrape the sides of the bowl down as you go. Beat in the eggs, one at a time until completely combined. If the mixture starts to look lumpy or split add 1 tablespoon of the flour and it should come back together.

- In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder and salt. Sift half into the butter and sugar mixture and fold it in using a spatular then fold in the coconut milk followed by the remaining sifted flour and the drained desiccated coconut.

- Divide the mixture into the two prepared cake tins and flattening and smoothing the tops.

- Bake for 25 minutes or until the cakes have risen, are firm and slightly shrunken back from the sides of the tin. Leave to cool in tins for 10 minutes then take cakes out of tins and cool on wire racks completely.


Coconut Buttercream:

300g unsalted butter, softened
675g icing mixture
5 tablespoons coconut milk (same as used for the cake, above)

- Beat butter until pale and creamy using an electric mixer. Add in one third of the icing mixture and beat on high until combined and then add the next third and do the same until all the icing mixture in mixed in thoroughly, scraping the sides and bottom of your bowl as you go.

- Add the coconut milk a table spoon at a time mixing really well after each addition. Once all the coconut milk has been incorporated beat on high for about 30 seconds to a minute.

- Use immediately or store in an airtight container in the fridge for 3-4 days then bring back to room temp and beat on high for 2min.

To assemble to cake:

- Make sure your cake is completely cooled and the icing is smooth and fluffy.

- Even out the two cake layers by thinly slicing the tops of them off using a serrated knife.

- Put a splodge of icing down on your serving plate and place a layer of cake down onto the splodge of icing. This icing is to hold the cake to the serving plate so it wont slide around so make sure your cake is also centred because you wont be able to move it around after this point.

- Next, spread about 1 cup of icing onto the centre of the cake evenly then place the other piece of cake, cut side down on top of the icing. Spread a thin layer of icing all over the cake - top and sides using a pallet knife and fill in any gaps you might have then place in the fridge for about 15-20 minutes. Once it comes out of the fridge, spread a thick layer of icing all over the cake as evenly as possible and place it back int he fridge for about 10 minutes - no longer!

- To get the coconut around the whole cake press very very lightly desiccated coconut to the sides of the cake with your hand making sure you have a large tray underneath to catch the excess and sprinkle the top generously. Be careful not to press hard as you'll put your finger through the cake. Place in the fridge until ready to serve then take out about 1 hour before serving.

Fairy Cakes (turned Spiderman) from How to be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson.

If you don't already know I have two nephews who are typical boy boys. Super hero's and guns and lego and cars. You name it and they love all that sort of stuff! The youngest turns 5 next week but had his birthday party on Saturday and if you follow me on instagram you would have already seen that the request this year was Spiderman cupcakes. Last year it was teenage mutant ninja turtles. Having already done it last year I thought I was completely prepared and knew exactly what I was doing and I wouldn't be under pressure at all. WRONG! I would make absolutely no money if I did this professionally and not just for family love. They took me 5 hours. By the end of them I didn't want to see another spiderweb on a red or blue cupcake for a very long time. It was a relief to deliver them to Wizzy World at 3:30pm and know that they will be demolished by tiny mouths any moment.

The recipe I used for the cupcakes is Fairy cakes from Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess (I doubles it in the photo above) and its super easy if you don't have a free-standing mixer and are sick of wiping the walls of butter and sugar from using a hand held mixer. You put all the ingredients in a food processor and wizz until they are combined. Add some milk to loosen the batter up a little and there you have it! Cupcakes that aren't only easy but taste awesome too.

I used the Buttercream icing recipe from Donna Hay Modern Classics 2 because Nigella uses packet royal icing to ice her's and I had strict instructions that these needed to look like spiderman.

I added cocoa to both the cake batter and buttercream to make a chocolate version. The vanilla are still best though :)

After they were cooled I iced the cupcakes, making them as round and even on top as possible with the buttercream then placed them in the freezer for 5 minute to make the icing set hard.

I then used Ready to Roll icing called Fondarific Buttercream Fondant I got from Cake Decorating Central. This is one of the easiest ready to roll icing I've used so if you're a first timer I high recommend this brand of icing. Use a little cornflour to stop it sticking to your bench and rolling pin then roll it out about 2mm thick. Using a round cutter about 7.5cm in diameter (or another size that fits the top of your cupcake depending on how big you made them) cut out circles then place them over the cupcakes and using your finger tips gentle fold them around the edges. I used black colour to paint on the webs and then white ready to roll icing cut out for the eyes.

**This is where I would cue a video if i was more organised and tech-savvy**

I'm sorry if that completely confused you. This is the clip I used for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cupcakes I made last year which might give you a better idea of how to roll and place the icing on the cupcakes.

These cupcakes are soooo good without the coloured icing. I personally peel the icing off when I get cake or cupcakes with the Ready to Roll stuff on there and just eat the buttercream and cake underneath. So if you want to give this a go without the spiderman look I've listed the recipes I used below.

Have a go and let me know what you think!

Fairy Cakes from Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess.

makes 12 fairy cakes

125g unsalted butter, softened

125g caster sugar

2 large eggs

125g self raising flour

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

2-3 tbsp milk

1x Buttercream icing (recipe below)

- Place all ingredients into a food processor except the milk and WIZZ it all together until everythign is combined really well.

- With the motor still running add the milk and then pulse until you get a smooth batter. 

- Divide the batter between 12 lined cupcake moulds. It looks like it wont make 12 but trust me it does. Each patty case only uses roughly a heaped tablespoon.

- Bake for 15-20 minutes until lightly golden on top and a skewer comes out clean from the middle.

- Allow to cool in the tin for about 10 minutes then take the cakes out onto a cooling rack.

- Ice cupcakes with Buttercream when cooled.

Note: If you wanted to make a chocolate version add 2 tbsp of sifted cocoa powder in with all the ingredients and an extra tbsp of milk.

Buttercream Icing from Donna Hay Classics 2.

250g unsalted butter
2 cups of icing mixture, sifted
1 tsp vanilla extract

- Whip butter and vanilla until pale and creamy using a hand held mixer or if you have guns beat until pale by hand.

- Add the icing mixture and whip until well combined and still light and creamy.

- Ice your cake or fairy cakes then refrigerate to set.

Note: If you wanted to make a chocolate version add 1 heaped tablespoon of sifted cocoa to the icing mixture.