An Appreciation Of Bats

April 17th is Bat Appreciation Day. It is one of a number of days dedicated to highlighting the importance of bats in our ecosystem and to challenge the negative attitudes some have towards bats. There are other bat days during the year such as International Bat Night which takes place on the last weekend of August. Not surprisingly, October is Bat Appreciation Month and the last week of October is designated as Bat Appreciation Week!

Having a Bat Appreciation Day in April is great for those of us who live in the southern hemisphere and celebrate Halloween at the end of April. While Halloween bats are usually depicted as black, I’ve chosen to focus on a white bat called the Honduran white bat also called the Caribbean white tent-making bat.

image from wikipedia

Honduran white bat facts:
– They have bright white fur and look like little balls of fluff
– Their ears, nose and lips are bright yellow
– They build tents in leaves which they shape into upside down boats and roost in them
– The tents protect them from the weather, are climate controlled and offer some protection from predators
– They are frugivores (fruit eaters) that only eat figs and almost exclusively one species of fig

image from wikipedia

Not long after I fell in love with the Honduran white bat, Beserk, (my favourite Goth store) featured a Honduran white bat plush for sale. It was one of those synchronistic moments that really makes you think. Happily Figgy is now part of my family and is thoroughly enjoying her Figgy Upside Down Cupcakes. She thinks they look like her because they are cute, cuddly, and upside down!

Figgy Upside Down Cupcakes 

Ingredients
6 tablespoons coconut flakes
6 tablespoons fig jam
1/2 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of sea salt
60g unsalted butter, room temperature
1/4 cup caster sugar
1 egg, room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons milk

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 180°C / 350°F.
Line a muffin pan with 6 cupcake cases.
Place a tablespoon of coconut flakes followed by a tablespoon of jam in each paper case.
Carefully spread the jam so that it covers the coconut. 
Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt in a small bowl. Set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy and combined.
Whisk in the egg until combined.
Whisk in the vanilla until combined.
Fold in the flour mix until just combined.
Add the milk and stir until just combined.
Spoon the batter evenly between the cupcake cases.
Bake for 15 - 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.
Allow to cool for 5 minutes before removing the paper cases.
Place on a wire rack (jam side up!) to cool completely.

*some of the jam will stick to the bottom of the paper case. If you can’t bear to waste it you can just eat it with a spoon or lick it up like a fruit bat!

The Tin Woman

On April Fool’s Day ten years ago, I began my blogging journey, and what a journey it has been! The last ten years have been tumultuous both personally and globally. Trying to condense the myriad of emotions swirling through me as I reach this milestone has been difficult. At first I thought I would go through my blog year by year and pick out my favourites. But as I scanned through my blog, I just didn’t feel this was right. It was when I looked up what a tenth anniversary symbolised that a seed was sown.

The traditional tenth anniversary symbol is tin or aluminium. These metals symbolise strength and flexibility, great skills to have when trying to navigate ten years of anything! When I initially tried to link these metals to food and recipes, I couldn’t find anything worthy of a tenth anniversary. Then I thought of the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz. While I didn’t think I needed a new heart, I thought I could use the concept of an Oz-like personal journey to illustrate my ten year blog journey. I was surprised to find that, just like The Wizard of Oz, this journey would involve a witch and her broomstick!

Ever since I discovered a tradition in Norway that involves hiding brooms so witches can’t ride them on Christmas Eve, I’ve been wanting to make one of those cakes where you cut into it and there’s a surprise shape inside. My surprise cake was going to be a vanilla cake with hidden chocolate broomsticks inside! It didn’t go to plan. The broomstick cookie cutter I used was too thin, so instead of revealing perfectly formed and centred broomsticks, my surprise cake revealed snapped and broken broomsticks. I was so devastated I didn’t even photograph my disaster. But I did eat it as it was quite tasty 🙂

It was too late to make a Christmas Eve show stopper, but since I had bought a larger broomstick cutter, I wanted to test it out. So I came up with the bright idea of making a Halloween surprise cake with not one but two hidden shapes! Half the cake would have hidden broomsticks and the other would have coffins. I was so emboldened that I decided to complicate the already daunting task by adding a third shape. My dark chocolate coffins would contain a red heart. So with much trepidation, I set about making my second cake.

This one didn’t work either. The broomstick half looked good but this time the coffins were the problem. The coffins had floated to the top and you could see their shapes poking out. I wasn’t happy. The perfectionist in me demanded I do better. For my next attempt, I decided to just use coffins and bought a smaller cutter. I also increased the amount of vanilla batter, hoping the extra batter would hide the top and hold the coffins down so they would be perfectly centred. I also decided to cut some coffins out of the red cake and insert chocolate hearts into them for an extra colourful surprise. Then, like the tarot Fool, I set about making my third version of this increasingly traumatising cake. I had no idea where this journey would lead me.

This version was an improvement but still wasn’t perfect. You could still see the tops of the coffins but they were not as obvious as before. They also weren’t centred as they had frustratingly floated to the top again. For one mad moment I was thinking of going for a fourth try, but then I stopped and really looked at the cake. I liked it. In fact I loved it. I had made a difficult cake, added an extra shape inside the coffin, and produced something that was fun, eye-catching and delicious. I’m not a professional baker. I’m just a crazy recipe researcher who loves writing recipes. So why wasn’t I happier with the result? I’m a perfectionist, but it’s really not who or what I want to be. When I looked at that not so perfect cake, I decided to give myself a break. I added a sprinkling of icing sugar to cover the rising coffin top and pronounced it done. I took photos of my beautiful coffin cake and then happily ate a large slice. It was delicious. It’s not perfect, but it doesn’t have to be.

As I looked at that cake I relished the incredible journey it had taken me on. If ever a cake could symbolise my crazy need to link a recipe to something Pagan or Gothic or anything at all, it is this one. If ever a cake could symbolise my deep faith in myself, my anger when I fail and my obsession to be perfect, it is this one. If ever a cake could resurrect my punk ingrained attitude of “I don’t care what anybody else thinks, this is my cake and I love it”, it is this one. I had struggled so much to make this cake, but I had persevered, and I was so proud of it. I don’t have to be perfect and the things that I create don’t have to be perfect. As I looked at my creation I turned to my partner and said “that cake is me!” That’s when I realised my tenth anniversary Tin Woman journey had been completed. Like the Tin Man, I had found my heart and then placed it in a coffin in a cake. The true surprise in this hidden cake was that I didn’t even know I had lost my heart to begin with.

Like most journeys the end is actually the beginning. I’ve already started thinking of new surprise cakes to make filled with fun shapes and flavours. I myself am a recipe and I’m going to keep experimenting and growing until I run out of ingredients.

Deadly Surprise Cake

Red Cake
Ingredients
1/2 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon sea salt
60g unsalted butter, room temperature
1/4 cup caster sugar
1 egg, room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup milk
red food colouring 

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 180°C / 350°F.
Grease and flour a 24 x 13cm loaf pan.
Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Set aside.
Using a wooden spoon, cream the butter in a large mixing bowl until smooth and spreadable.
Add the sugar and continue creaming until combined.
Using a wire whisk, beat in the egg until combined.
Add the vanilla and beat until just combined.
Using a wooden spoon, fold in the flour mix until just combined.
Add the milk and stir until just combined.
Add enough food colouring to get your desired colour and stir until just combined.
Spoon the batter into pan.
Bake for 15 - 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.
Allow to cool for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
Using a 2 x 1.5cm heart cookie cutter, stamp out heart shapes and set aside.

Chocolate Cake
Ingredients
3/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 cup dark cocoa powder
120g unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 eggs, room temperature
1/2 cup milk

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 180°C / 350°F.
Grease and flour a 20 x 20cm square cake pan.
Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa into a bowl. Set aside.
Cream the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time and beat until combined.
Add the vanilla and beat until just combined.
Fold in the flour mix until just combined.
Add the milk and stir until just combined.
Spoon the batter into cake pan.
Bake for 30 - 40 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
Allow to cool for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
Using a 7 x 4.5cm coffin cookie cutter, stamp out coffin shapes.
Using the heart cookie cutter, stamp out heart shapes from the centre of the coffin.
Replace with red vanilla heart shapes and set aside.

Vanilla Cake
Ingredients
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
240g unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup caster sugar
4 eggs, room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup milk
extra icing sugar for sprinkling

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 180°C / 350°F.
Grease and flour a 24 x 13cm loaf pan.
Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Set aside.
Cream the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time and beat until combined.
Add the vanilla and beat until just combined.
Fold in the flour mix until just combined.
Add the milk and stir until just combined.
Pour 1/4 of the batter into the prepared cake pan.
Push the coffins into the batter (line them up sideways so they are all facing the same way)
Pour the remaining batter over the coffins making sure they are fully covered.
Bake for 60 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
Allow to cool for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
Place cake on serving plate.
Sprinkle with icing sugar.
Cut into slices to reveal the hidden surprise.

Another New Year

St Basil’s Day is celebrated on January 1st (some Eastern Orthodox churches), January 2nd (Western churches) or January 14th (the other Eastern Orthodox churches). As St Basil’s Day (also know as Vasilica), is my Name Day, it’s important for me to know which date to choose!

The difference between Western and Eastern Orthodox dates is confusing as there are moveable dates, such as Easter, and fixed dates such as Xmas, New Year, and many Saint Days. On top of that there are sometimes three calendars in play – the Gregorian calendar (the standard calendar used by western countries), the Julian calendar (used by many Orthodox churches) and the Revised Julian calendar (used by the other Orthodox churches).

The three calendars differ mainly by how leap years are counted. The Gregorian calendar has leap years every four years with some exceptions while the Julian calendar has leap years every four years with no exceptions. This means the Julian calendar is now about 14 days behind the Gregorian calendar. The Revised Julian calendar is an attempt to align the Julian calendar with the Gregorian calendar – at least for now.

The Macedonian Orthodox Church (the religion I was born into) is one of the ones that celebrates St Basil’s Day on January 14th. As January 14th is January 1st in the Julian calendar, there are times when I get to celebrate New Year’s Eve on Friday the 13th! This doesn’t happen very often, but I look forward to these times.

One of the Orthodox New Year traditions I get to enjoy on my Name Day is zelnik, a pastry with the addition of a lucky coin in it. Whoever gets the slice with the coin will have a lucky year. I remember as a child being so excited to check my piece of tasty pastry for the coin. I remember cherishing that coin the few times I found it!

In honour of Stara Nova Godina (Old New Year), I made a cheat’s zelnik with puff pastry based on a tarte soleil. Instead of the coin, I added basil leaves to one twist of the pastry in honour of St Basil and my Name Day.

Lucky Leek Zelnik With A Twist

Ingredients
olive oil for frying
unsalted butter for frying
2 cups roughly chopped and washed leeks*
1/4 cup ricotta cheese
70g feta cheese
salt to taste
2 sheets frozen ready rolled puff pastry** 
1 tablespoon roughly chopped basil leaves
1 egg, beaten

Instructions
Heat olive oil in a saucepan. 
Add leeks and cook without browning until they are soft. Set aside to cool.
Add the ricotta and crumble in the feta then mix until combined.
Taste for seasoning and add salt to taste.
Take pastry sheets out of the freezer and thaw according to the packet instructions.
Cut pastry into two 24cm rounds and place in the refrigerator.
Preheat oven to 200C / 400F.
Line a baking tray with baking paper.
Remove pastry from the refrigerator.
Place one round on the baking tray.
Spread the leek filling over the pastry base leaving a small border around the outer edge.
Top with the second pastry round.
Place a 4cm sized glass face down in the centre of the circle, being careful not to cut right through the pastry.
With a sharp knife, cut the pastry into four wedges, starting at the edge of the glass and working outward.
Cut each wedge in half making a total of eight wedges.
Remove the glass.
Pick one wedge, carefully lift the top layer of pastry, add the chopped basil, then re-cover with the pastry top and press edges together to seal in the filling.
Press the edges of the remaining wedges together to seal.
Gently twist each wedge, starting at the centre and working outward. You can twist one-to-two times, but be careful not to break them.
Brush pastry with beaten egg.
Bake for 25 - 35 minutes or until brown.
Allow to cool for 10 minutes. 
To serve:
Seat guests around the table.
Place the pastry on a round plate in the centre of the table.
Spin the plate and wait for it to stop.
Take the wedge closest to you.
If yours is the one with basil then you will have luck for the year!
If no-one gets the piece with the basil then the home that the pastry was cooked in gets the luck.

*Leeks need to be cleaned well so I give them a good wash to start with. Then I cut off the roots and the dark green top parts, slice them in half lengthways and wash them again. Then I roughly chop the leeks and wash them in a large bowl of water to make sure they are really clean. I then drain them ready to be cooked.

**My pastry sheets were 25cm x 25cm

Note:
I always check the bottom of my puff pastry tarts as sometimes the top is cooked but the bottom isn’t. If the bottom is not cooked (or you’d like to check) carefully flip it onto a plate and if needed, slide back onto the baking tray upside down to cook the bottom.

Happy Stara Nova Godina!

Witch Cake For Which Solstice?

The Summer Solstice is almost here and my mind turns to what recipe I’ll create to celebrate the longest day. I love honouring Midsummer. It’s a beautiful time of the year in Melbourne. It can be warm and muggy or cold and windy or both in the same day. You don’t know what you’ll get and that is part of the pleasure.

The Summer Solstice follows Beltane (and Halloween if you’re me) and is a sign that the really hot days of summer are on their way. Summer can be brutal in Australia as we prepare for floods, bushfires and almost unbearable heat. While we look forward to summer, we know it is our most dangerous time of the year. In many ways we mirror the coming winter darkness that is both honoured and feared in the northern hemisphere. It is no surprise that many Winter Solstice legends feature a cast of fearsome and scary characters.

When I think of the Summer Solstice I think of strawberries. Plump, ripe red berries with a delightful green stalk beautifully showcase Summer Solstice colours for me. They are also delicious. In Sweden they have a stunning strawberries and cream cake called Midsommartårta (Midsummer Cake). Inspired by the idea of a strawberries and cream cake, I decided to make a strawberries and cream sandwich!

I’ve always thought (and hoped) that the combination of fresh fruit, whipped cream and white bread would be a tasty combination. After a quick internet search I discovered Fruit Sando, a Japanese fresh fruit sandwich. These sandwiches feature delicately sliced fresh fruits which are decoratively placed in the whipped cream making them look like colourful works of art. They are definitely on my “to make soon” list!

I wanted my Summer Solstice fresh fruit sandwich to look like a cake so I layered circles of white bread with whipped cream and strawberries marinated in grenadine. I also made a “darker” Winter Solstice version by using fruit bread instead of white bread and marinated the strawberries in a “devilled” dressing of balsamic vinegar and black pepper. So whether you prefer your tasty treats served on the light or dark side, there is a sandwich cake for you.

Solstice Sandwich Cakes

for the marinated strawberries
125g punnet of strawberries hulled and roughly chopped
1/2 tablespoon grenadine syrup
1/2 tablespoon sweet balsamic vinegar
pinch of black pepper

for the whipped cream spread
120g cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup icing sugar, sifted
1 cup whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

for the sandwiches
3 slices of white bread
3 slices of fruit bread

Place half the strawberries in a bowl.
Add the grenadine syrup and gently stir until combined.
Place remaining strawberries in a separate bowl.
Add the balsamic vinegar and black pepper and gently stir until combined.
Leave to marinate for 30 minutes.

Using a wooden spoon, beat the cream cheese until spreadable.
Add the icing sugar and mix until combined.
In a separate bowl, whisk the cream until soft peaks form.
Whisk in the vanilla extract.
Add the cream cheese and whisk until stiff peaks form.
Put half the whipped cream mix into a piping bag.

for the Midsummer Cake
Cut a large circle out of each piece of the white bread (I use a cookie cutter)
Pipe a layer of whipped cream onto the bottom of the first slice. You should use approximately 1/5th of the cream.
Top with 1/3 of the grenadine strawberries.
Pipe on another layer of cream.
Add the second layer of bread and repeat the cream, strawberry and cream layers.
Add the final layer of bread.
Pipe on the remaining cream and top with a final layer of strawberries.

for the Midwinter Cake
Fill the piping bag with the remaining whipped cream and repeat the above process using the fruit bread and the balsamic vinegar strawberries.

Waiting For Imbolc

I seem to have spent most of Autumn and Winter waiting. Mostly I was waiting for a chest infection to run its course. It didn’t. A chest x-ray confirmed a lung infection which led to a five-day stay in hospital. I was in isolation, so I spent a lot of time waiting – waiting for tests, waiting for meals, and eagerly waiting for my partner’s daily visits. Now I’m waiting for Imbolc, the Sabbat that heralds the return of Spring.

One of my treats in hospital was relaxing in the afternoon with a cup of tea and a couple of cookies. So to celebrate Imbolc, I was hoping to make cookies. Unfortunately I can’t use my oven at the moment so I wondered if it was possible to pan-fry cookies. A quick internet search provided an answer which was a resounding Yes! Yes you can! 🙂

Pan-frying cookies is a bit fiddly. I ended up burning the bottom of the first batch I made. They are also difficult to flip as they break easily. I found sliding the whole cookie onto the spatula before flipping worked (most of the time). 🙂 The end result was satisfying, tasty and worth the extra effort. The recipe below is a basic sugar cookie so feel free to add your own tweaks! So far I’ve experimented with ground cinnamon and ground ginger.

Fried Cookies

Ingredients (makes 4 cookies)
60g (1/4 cup) unsalted butter
1/4 cup sugar (granulated)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup plain flour
salt for sprinkling (optional)

Instructions
Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl until light and fluffy.
Add the vanilla and mix until combined.
Add the flour and mix until roughly combined.
Using your hands, roll dough into 4 balls and place onto a cold, non-stick frying pan, leaving room for spreading.
Sprinkle with salt if desired.
Cover the frying pan with a lid or foil.
Place frying pan on very low heat.
Cook cookies for 15 minutes, then very carefully flip them over with a spatula.
Cook for a further 5 minutes.
Remove from heat, place on a cooling rack lined with baking paper and allow to cool.

Batty About Bats

April 17th is International Bat Appreciation Day. It is a day to celebrate how awesome bats are! It’s the first of three yearly “Bat” celebrations. The next in line is International Bat Night which takes place on the last weekend in August. Last but definitely not least is Bat Appreciation Week which takes place from 24th – 31st October – the week leading up to Halloween.

Bats are famous for hanging upside down, so to honour these spectacular flying mammals, I’ve made two mini apricot upside cakes. I’m sure fruit-eating bats will appreciate this tribute for International Bat Appreciation Day!

Mini Apricot Upside Down Cakes

Ingredients
1/2 teaspoon brown sugar
2 canned apricot halves, drained
1/2 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
60g (1/4 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg, room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons milk
Double cream for dolloping (optional)

Instructions
Preheat oven to 180°C / 350°F.
Line a Texas muffin pan with two jumbo sized cupcake cases.
Sprinkle a 1/4 teaspoon of brown sugar into each cupcake case.
Top with an apricot halve (cut side down) and set aside.
Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt in a small bowl. Set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy and combined.
Whisk in the egg until combined.
Whisk in the vanilla until combined.
Fold in the flour mix until just combined.
Add the milk and stir until just combined.
Pour the batter evenly over the apricots.
Bake for 15 – 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.
Allow to cool for 10 minutes before transferring upside down to a wire rack. Remove the paper cases.
Serve cakes warm or at room temperature with a dollop of cream if desired.

Puffin Going On Here!

While going through one of the supermarket magazines they give away at the checkout, I found a recipe for a baked delight, that is a cross between a pancake and a muffin, called a “puffin”. As you may know, I am crazy about puffin birds so I couldn’t wait to research a recipe named after these adorable birds.

Knowing that puffin birds are on the menu in some countries, I was very careful in how I went about researching this particular recipe. I made sure to add muffin, pancake and baked pancake to the search. I thought I had done a good job until I skimmed through a recipe with instructions saying to process one cup of puffins before adding them to the batter. Thankfully I remembered that puffins are also a brand of cereal. It was with great relief that I slowly reread the recipe and yes they were talking about adding puffin cereal to the pancake batter!

The recipe below should give you enough batter to make about sixteen 1-scoop puffins or about eight 2-scoop puffins. I chose a combination so I could compare them. The 1-scoop puffins were like puffed pancakes while the 2-scoop puffins were like mini-muffins. They were both delicious and I’d definitely make them again. 🙂

Berry Puffins

Ingredients
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons (30g) unsalted butter, melted
2/3 cup milk
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
fresh berries (I used a combination of raspberries and blackberries)
maple syrup for serving

Instructions
Preheat oven to 200C / 400F.
Generously grease a 12-hole muffin tin (or tins) with oil.
Mix together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar in a large bowl.
In a separate bowl or jug, whisk together the melted butter, milk, egg and vanilla extract until just combined.
Add to the dry ingredients and whisk until the batter is thick and smooth.
Using a mini ice-cream scoop (also called a cookie scoop) dollop one or two spoonfuls of batter into each hole.
Top each puffin with two or three berries.
Bake for 20 – 25 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.
Allow to cool slightly before removing from pan.
Eat warm with lots of maple syrup.
Refrigerate any leftover puffins and enjoy cold with a slather of butter if desired.

You Say Tahini I Say Zucchini

One of my partner’s favourite places for coffee is Patricia Coffee Brewers in Melbourne’s CBD. This quirky little shop is known for its awesome coffee but they also have the most tasty little treats. As I eagerly eyed their display case, greedily checking out the cookie selection, I chose what I thought were chocolate chip cookies. I checked to make sure I was right and was happy to hear that they were orange and chocolate chip cookies with a touch of tahini. I was so excited at the orange bit that I misheard tahini and thought she said zucchini. When I realised it was tahini I was still excited as I love tahini.

The cookies were delicious but I couldn’t get zucchini out of my head. I decided to experiment with a chocolate chip zucchini cookie but didn’t want to make a large batch just in case I didn’t like them. I’ve been meaning to try a small batch cookie recipe and this was the perfect time to do it. After finding a few recipes that didn’t have egg in them, I played around with the measurements to create a single batch cookie. The good thing about an eggless cookie recipe is that you can scale up to make as many cookies as you want!

The recipe below makes one cookie so you can make a few batches and try different flavour combinations. My first try is the recipe below, which gives a subtle taste of zucchini. I made a second cookie and doubled the zucchini but the extra zucchini added more moisture which made the cookie a bit cake-like in texture. It was still nice but I preferred the lovely balance of flavour and texture of the first one. Next I made a tasty chocolate chip and tahini cookie by substituting the zucchini with 1 teaspoon of tahini. Not only can you experiment with flavours but also cooking times as the longer you cook the cookie, the crisper it gets. My mind is bursting with all the different combinations I can try – especially with the holidays approaching!

Chocolate Chip and Zucchini Cookie

Ingredients
15g (1 tablespoon) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 tablespoon sugar (granulated)
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons plain flour
1 teaspoon grated zucchini (make sure you squeeze out any liquid)
8g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
salt for sprinkling (optional)

Instructions
Preheat oven to 180C / 350F.
Line a baking tray with baking paper.
Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl until light and fluffy.
Add the vanilla and mix until combined.
Stir in the zucchini.
Add the flour and mix until combined.
Fold in the chocolate.
Roll dough into a ball and place on prepared tray.
Press down slightly, but not too far as the dough will spread.
Sprinkle with salt if desired.
Bake for 15-25 minutes or until the edges are browned and cooked to your liking.
You can eat it warm or cold.

Some Assembly Required

National Cream Tea Day is a British food day that is celebrated on the last Friday in June. This year it was celebrated on June 24th. I didn’t get to celebrate on Friday, but any day is a great day to celebrate the delight that is a cream tea!

National Cream Tea Day was created by two companies, one that specialises in cream – Rodda’s Clotted Cream and one that specialise in jams and preserves – Wilkin and Sons Tiptree. National Cream Tea Day is a fun day that encourages people to get together over a cream tea and raise money for charities. Both companies donate cream and jam for events through their joint organisation, The Cream Tea Society.

Apart from cream and jam, a cream tea needs scones to dollop the cream and jam onto, and lots of tea to wash them down with. The scone recipe I’ve chosen is not a classic British recipe but one from an Ikea cookbook called Hey Flavours! Children’s First Cookbook. Luckily you won’t need an Allen key to assemble these scones! If you’d like to know more about cream teas, and what order you should put the cream and jam on your scone, you can go to my previous post, The Battle Of The Cream Tea.

Scones
I was drawn to these scones as they are made with yoghurt instead of milk, which sounds delicious! I’ve tested them thoroughly and they do also taste delicious.

Ingredients
1 + 1/2 cups plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
50g unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
3/4 cup yoghurt

for serving
jam
cream
tea

Instructions
Preheat oven to 200C / 400F.
Line a baking tray with baking paper.
Mix the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl.
Add the butter and, using your fingers, rub it into the flour.
Add the yoghurt and mix into a dough.
Place dough onto a floured surface and flatten until approximately 2cm thick.
Use a glass or cookie cutter to cut into round shapes.
Place onto prepared tray and sprinkle with a little flour.
Bake for 10 – 12 minutes.

Lammas And The Year Of The Water Tiger

February 1st is Lammas (or Lughnasadh) in the southern hemisphere and Imbolc in the northern hemisphere. This year these festivals coincide with Chinese New Year, also known as Lunar New Year or Spring Festival. As Chinese New Year begins on a New Moon, February 1st is shaping up to be a very powerful day.

Lammas is the halfway point between the Summer Solstice and the Autumn Equinox. It is the First Summer Harvest and, in Australia, the first Pagan festival for the year. Baking bread, crafting and enjoying the produce of the first harvests are traditional ways of celebrating this festival.

In the Chinese zodiac, every New Year is ruled by a different animal that rotates through a twelve year cycle. This year is the Year of the Tiger. The tiger is the king of all the beasts and is associated with strength, confidence and bravery. Like all the animals in the zodiac, the tiger not only rules a year, but also a month (February 4th to March 5th), day (Saturday), and hour (3am to 4.59am).

To celebrate both Lammas and the Year of Tiger, I wanted to make tiger bread. Tiger bread, also known as Dutch crunch, tijgerbrood or tijgerbol, is a Dutch bread with a mottled crust. The crust is made by coating half-proofed bread dough with a rice flour paste. The resulting crackle crust is supposed to resemble the patterns of a tiger. However, after a three year old girl wrote to Sainsbury’s saying the pattern looked more like a giraffe than a tiger, the supermarket chain changed the name to giraffe bread. You be the judge!

(Photo from Wikipedia)

January has been a very hectic, but fun, month so I didn’t have time to make tiger bread. So to celebrate both Lammas and the Year of Tiger, I made Tiger Stripe Cupcakes instead. There are lots of ways to decorate cupcakes to look like tigers, but I went for two-toned chocolate and orange cupcakes piped with black and orange coloured cream cheese frosting.

Tiger Stripe Cupcakes

Special Equipment (optional)*
Two piping bags

Ingredients
for the cupcakes
125g (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup caster (superfine) sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup milk
2 cups plain flour, sifted
3 teaspoons baking powder, sifted

for the chocolate cupcakes
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
black food colouring

for the orange cupcakes
1/2 teaspoon orange oil
orange food colouring

for the cream cheese frosting
125g (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature
125g (1/2 cup) cream cheese, softened
2 cups powdered (icing) sugar

for the black cream cheese frosting
black food colouring

for the orange cream cheese frosting
orange food colouring

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F.
Line a 12-hole muffin pan with 12 paper cases.
In a medium sized bowl, cream the butter and sugar with an electric mixer until creamy.
Add the eggs one at a time and beat until light and fluffy.
Add the milk and beat until combined.
Using a wooden spoon, fold in the flour and baking powder.
Divide the mixture into two half portions.
For the chocolate cupcakes, mix in the cocoa powder and enough black food colouring to achieve the desired black colour.
For the orange cupcakes, mix in the orange oil and enough orange food colouring to achieve the desired orange colour.
To create a stripe effect, dollop approximately half of the chocolate mix evenly into the bottom of the cupcake cases and wait until the mixture has spread to the sides of the cases.
Dollop approximately half of the orange mix evenly over the chocolate mix and wait until the mixture has spread to the sides.
Repeat with remaining chocolate mix and finish with the orange mix.
Bake for 10 – 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the centre of a cupcake comes out clean.
Allow to cool for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

While cupcakes are cooling, make the cream cheese frosting by creaming together the butter and cream cheese in a medium sized bowl with an electric mixer.
Gradually beat in the powdered sugar.
Beat until frosting reaches a piping consistency.
Divide the mixture into two half portions.
For the black frosting, mix in enough black food colouring to achieve the desired black colour.
For the orange frosting, mix in enough orange food colouring to achieve the desired orange colour.
Spoon black frosting in one piping bag and the orange in the other.
Pipe alternating black and orange stripes onto cupcakes.

*if you don’t have two piping bags just pipe one frosting first, leaving spaces to fill in with the other frosting and wash the bag between frostings. You can also leave the cakes unfrosted and serve a frosting on the side.

Happy Lunar New Year and Happy Lammas (or whatever Pagan Festival you are celebrating!) 🙂