Christmas cookies and holiday hearts

This christmas I decided to make edible gifts for my friends and family. Working a retail job around this time of year results in having very little time to try and actually shop for people in the hours you have free, whereas my kitchen is open all night. It worked out really well and was a surprisingly relaxing way to wind down after work!

I had a million ideas of what I wanted to make, and a few failed attempts along with my successes. I ended up gifting people rocky road, centered chocolates (peanut butter, caramel, crunchie, and almond), coconut bark, and christmas shortbread. My favourite out of the bunch was probably the caramel centered chocolate stars. I used a San Ignacio caramel spread I bought from Moore Wilsons in Wellington a while back as the filling of these

chocolates... just so gooey and delicious!

On my list of failures, sadly, was my favourite festive confectionary - candy canes. I tried both the "old fashioned" candy cane recipe (which involved beating butter, icing sugar, milk etc together into a dough, twisting into ropes and then leaving to 'dry' overnight), and the hot-sugar method (which involves boiling sugar to 300 degrees Fahrenheit and then trying to colour, flavour and mould the syrup without burning yourself before it

cooled too much and turned into a brittle, hard lump).

Sadly it was too humid for the "old fashioned" candy canes to dry out properly, resulting in a peppermint-y candy with the consistency of fondant icing, and although the sugar-syrup style worked reasonably well I always managed to screw it up when it came to adding colour and twisting together and was often left eating a sugary, multicoloured mess.

What I did make was extremely well received though, and I packaged up in these super cute noodle boxes! Red, white and green with cute ribbons. Baking success, next year I will have perfected the candy canes.

Got to run now, got given a million exciting baking-related presents for christmas and have homemade pizza and focaccia bread in the oven... yum!

x CB

The Candyman = BEST STORE EVER

If I ever move from Lush to a new retail job, it's going to have to be at The Candyman in Mt Eden. This store is what I imagine paradise would be like... FULL OF DELICIOUS TREATS!

It may be quite pricey, but you can buy everything here from English delights like sherbet lemons, acid bombs, and jelly tots to American treats including a huge range of Wonka goodies and pretty much anything Reece's you could dream of. They even have a candy floss machine, and a fridge full of hard-to-find sodas (Ben Shaws, get in my face!)

I'm yet to make a trip there where I spend less than $20, but oh my is it worth it. Here is a sample of some of the goodies acquired last time I made a trip... LOVE that there is a candy called "Sweet Tarts" (and oh hell were they delicious!)

Summer is for baking and bike rides

Wednesday was my day off, and to celebrate I decided to bake scones and ride my bike over to a friend's house for a picnic in the sunshine.

I usually SUCK at making scones. Supposedly they are the easiest thing ever, but I normally end up with rock cakes. Luckily this recipe called for 6 teaspoons of baking powder, and they ended up pretty fluffy.

They were really quite delicious, especially with the amazing "Lil' Miss Envy's Grandma was a Jammer" homemade jam I bought at Jukebox Jamboree this year, and even more so when I finally got them to the picnic and we whipped some cream to go with them!

The wonderful Edmond's failproof recipe, for those who struggle with scones as much as I usually do -

3 cups standard plain flour

6 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

75g butter

1 - 1 1/2 cups milk (+ extra for glazing)

Sift flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl.

Cut in butter until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.

Add milk, mixing quickly with a knife to form a soft dough. Knead a few times.

Press scone dough onto a baking tray dusted lightly with flour.

Cut into 12 even-sized pieces, place with 2cm between each. Brush tops with milk.

Bake at 220 degrees Celsius for 10 minutes or until golden brown

Posts with rocky road, other nom chocolate treats, cookies, and a (not-so-sweet, but still delicious) pasta night coming soon...

x

Delicious Wellington times.

I fail at updating. Oh life.

I have been working FIVE MILLION hours, and thus there has been very little sweet treatery. However, I did go to Wellington this weekend for roller derby (and eating) and there was an abundance of delicious food!

The most food-porn worthy was this amazing plate of waffles with berry compote, ricotta and maple syrup that Danger Spouse had when we went to Sweet Mother's Kitchen for breakfast on Monday morning. In a half-ditched attempt to be healthy I opted for eggs, 5 grain toast and hashbrowns instead but soon came to regret it when I spent much of the meal trying not to drool. Look at that presentation! GET IN MY MOUTH, DELICIOUSWAFFLES!

Other tasty things consumed over the weekend included white chocolate cashew blondies from Montery, ALL of the coffee, delicious pasta dinner, and THESE COOKIES! OM NOM NOM NOM NOM. They were just so edible with their biscuity base and chocolate tops and CUTE FREAKING PANDA FACES! Completely adorable. I ate them all.

For our derby final one of our fans made an incredible purple and green roller skate cake for Mascara Massacre. Then I got gifted a tin just like it, so now I can make my very own! I have the day off tomorrow, so maybe that will be a go, though I also have many candy-themed christmas gifts to get started... more photos to come!

x CB

Domesticity in its finest

Well my exams are finally over, so in the lead up to Christmas here is hoping I will be able to post more often. Today I had a day of baking, and my first attempt at making candy. The result? Lemon drops, honey snap cookies and maple fruit muffins! Sweet treats indeed.

Lemon drop candies

A while ago I bought an amazing book called A Field Guide to Candy by Anita Chu (say it out loud - I'm still trying to establish whether it is real, or an incredibly clever pen name). The stove elements at my old flat were terrible and my first attempts failed, but now I'm at home I can whip out my candy thermometer and make all sorts of delightful noms!

I think that these turned out quite well for a first attempt. Sadly I was missing citric acid, so I flavored them with lemon and orange extract instead. They are slightly on the chewy side, and very sweet, but delicious all the same. If I can get into the swing of this candy making thing I'll be set for christmas presents this year. Next up on my candy making missions: maple taffy and caramel apples!

Honey snap cookies

These cookies are made from a recipe out of the Edmond's cookbook. First honey, sugar and butter is melted together and then mixed with flour, a half teaspoon of cinnamon and a ton of baking powder and baked for about 10 minutes. Once baked and cooled you end up with these delicious, chewy yet crunchy cookies. Watch out though, because they double in size while baking so can spread into each other easily.

Maple fruit muffins

Traditionally I'm more of a cupcake

girl, but after all of my sugary escapades this morning I thought a healthier option could be a b

etter go. These are made from another Edmonds recipe, adapted a little by using raw sugar instead of white, a little maple syrup

and one half wholemeal flour. The fruits I used were sultanas, apples and dried apricots. I used half a teaspoon of homemade plum jam as fruity centers. These will make the perfect morning tea at work tomorrow :)

That's all from me today. It's my roller derby league's final this Saturday and we often make cupcakes to sell as snacks, so if I'm not too busy having game nerves there may be another post then!

x CB

What's this, a first post?

Cupcakes cupcakes cupcakes.

If I had to choose a single baked good to make for the rest of my life, cupcakes would be it. Not to say I don't love cakes, muffins, pastries, breads and other baked treats. Cupcakes are just so cute and versatile. There are an infinity of flavors, fillings, frostings. You can make them vegan, gluten free, low fat, or nice and simple (read: full of butter!) They can be bite sized or big, you can purchase a huge variety of sweet little cases for them, and speculation has it there are cupcakes for every occasion... funeral cupcakes, anyone?

This blog, with a bit of luck, will turn into a collection of my past and present baking adventures, cupcakes and otherwise, as well as other random confectionary and food related things I stumble upon.

To start off with, how about some Super Mario geekery?

Fondant is incredibly fun to play with, and I made these for my birthday this past year. The cupcakes themselves were just plain vanilla, but the colourful fondant characters definitely brightened them up a bit. Paired with a trip to the arcade these made for a lot of sugar fueled fun.