Nutmeg Love Cake

225 g Butter

1 dessertspoon Molasses

2 cups Flour

1 ½ cups Raw Sugar

½ teaspoon Salt

1 teaspoon Nutmeg

1 cup Sour Cream

1 teaspoon Baking Soda

1 Egg

Melt butter and molasses.

Add to flour, sugar, salt and 

molasses, mix.

Press half into lined cake tin.

Add sour cream, baking soda and egg into remaining mixture, mix well.

Spread over base.

Cook for 40 mins at 180c.

Leave to cool in tin, enjoy

Orange and Poppy-seed Cake with Marscapone Icing and Orange Syrup (gluten-free)

200g unsalted butter, soft
1 cup caster sugar 
4 eggs
one orange, zest and juice
70g ground almonds
2 tablespoons poppy seeds
1½ cups gluten-free flour
2 teaspoons baking powder

Orange Syrup
¼ cup each: water, orange juice
½ cup sugar
zest of one orange, cut into fine strips

Filling
250g mascarpone
1¼ cups icing sugar
2 teaspoons orange syrup
Preheat the oven to 170ºC. Line a 20cm round baking pan with baking paper.
Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Add the zest and juice of the orange. (This mixture will curdle.)
Fold in the ground almonds, poppy seeds, flour and baking powder. Bake for 40-45 minutes, or until cooked. Leave the cake to cool in the pan.
While the cake is baking, prepare the syrup. Combine the water, orange juice, sugar and orange zest in a small saucepan. Simmer for about 10 minutes, or until the liquid becomes syrupy and the zest is soft.
To make the filling, place the mascarpone, icing sugar and syrup in a bowl and mix until combined.
To assemble the cake, cut it in half horizontally and spread half the filling over the base. Place the other half on top and spread the remainder of the filling over the top of the cake. Serve with the orange syrup.

TIP
This is a soft, spongy cake and is delicious with the filling. Organic gluten-free, all-purpose flour was used in this recipe.

Caramel and Cinnamon Brioche Scrolls

½ cup milk warmed slightly

2 tablespoons sugar

2 tsps instant yeast

3 egg yolks

250g flour  (high grade preferable)

¼ tsp salt

75g butter softened -  not melted

Filling

2 tablespoons of melted butter

½ cup brown sugar

2 tsps ground cinnamon

Step 1

Combine the milk and sugar in a small bowl.  Sprinkle on the yeast and stir to mix.  Leave to stand for a few minutes until the yeast is foamy, stir in the egg yolks. If it does not go foamy the yeast may be too old.

Step 2

Place the liquid ingredients in the large bowl of an electric mixer e.g. Kenwood, with dough hook, and then add flour and salt. I think you could probably bung it in a bread maker on dough cycle too but I have never tried this and I am not sure how you would add the butter – maybe all at the start.  

Turn the mixer on very slowly otherwise you will wear a face full of flour. Mix for 15 minutes, at this stage the dough should be starting to slap against the side of the mixer. Start incorporating the very soft butter small square at a time.  Scrape the sides of the mixer if needed.  Eventually (it does take a while and looks very weird at the start) the butter will incorporate right through (I know it seems a lot of butter – I never said these were healthy) and the dough will be smooth and shiny and come away from the sides of the bowl.

Step 3

Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl or leave in mixer bowl with a spray of oil added and some cling film on the top with a tea towel over that.  Let rise in a warm draught free spot for 2 hours or so.  Have patience it will start to rise eventually but not as much as normal bread due to all the butter and egg yolks.  

Step 4

Knock back the dough and knead briefly. Roll out on a lightly floured surface to a rectangle shape.  

20cm by 28cm.  Brush with melted butter and sprinkle the sugar cinnamon mixture on top. Again it seems a lot of sugar but it melts away. Leave the sugar slightly away from one edge and then roll it up like a sponge roll towards the end with no sugar.  Cut into 4cm pieces and place in lightly greased muffin tins, brush with left over butter.  Leave to rise again for about 20 minutes. They are meant to rise slightly at this point but they never seem to change much.  Then bake in preheated oven for 15- 20 minutes until light brown.

Hints

These may sound a bit fiddly but you can make the dough the night before and store it in the fridge after the first rising. This means on a Saturday or Sunday morning you can take out your chilled dough (which is now very easy to roll out) and brush with melted butter, sugar and cinnamon.   This way you can impress the family with some home cooked brioche for brunch in less than an hour.  Don’t forget to put them somewhere warm for 20 minutes to get them back to room temperature.

You can make larger ones in Texas muffin tins.

I think this recipe works out to seven brioches but you can adjust the sizes slightly to make more if you roll out a little thinner.

I double to recipe and store half in the fridge for the next day. You would need quite a large mixer for this. 
Cheers Paula

Wicked Chocolate Brownies

200g butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup cocoa
3 eggs
1/2 cup standard flour
150g roughly chopped white chocolate or dark chocolate chips or 3/4 cup roughly chopped walnuts
Icing sugar to dust


Using an electric mixer (unless you have arms of steal!) beat butter, sugar and cocoa for 4-5 minutes until creamy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in flour and chocolate or walnuts. Transfer mixture into a greased 20cm square baking tin. Bake at 150C for 1 hour or until the surface of the brownie appears cracked. The centre should appear almost uncooked. Cool in the tin. Cut into squares and dust with icing sugar just before serving. Yum Yum Yum.
Cheers Donna