Pancake Thursday!

Picture provided by taste.

I just adore pancakes on a sunday morning! Pancakes are so budget friendly and take only a couple minutes to whip up. I used to make mounds of them on a saturday morning after a big night when I would wake up to 5 - 8 men asleep on my loungeroom floor & really really hungry! So here is my fool proof recipe...

Ingredients

2 cups Plain flour (if you like thin pancakes) or Self raising flour (if you like fluffly pancakes)
1 ½ cups Milk
1 Egg
2 tbs White sugar
1 tsp Vanilla essence
30g Butter melted

Method

~Sift flour into a mixing bowl. Add milk, egg, suga, vanilla essence & melted butter and mix for a couple of minutes. Dont worry if there are still a few lumps here and there.
~Heat a non stick frypan on medium & melt a little more butter in it. Cook pancakes one at a time for a minute or two each side (depending on how big you are making them).
~Eat.

Its so simple, and I really dont know what people still buy the packet mix where you just add water when it only takes you a minute or two extra and costs you a fraction of the price!

My favourite Variations

~ Put some choclate chips into the batter and serve with ice cream for dessert.
~ Sandwich pancakes with a vanilla cheese cake mixture by mixing cream cheese with a few tbs sugar and a tbs vanilla extract.
~ Serve with mixed berries, whipped cream & maple syrup.
~ Serve with a bit of lemon juice on top & a sprinkle of caster sugar.

Now go forth and eat pancakes!

Love & kisses on both cheeks,
Sunny xxx

The Easiest Chocolate Mousse

I just adore this chocolate mousse and it usually takes me about 10 – 15 minutes to make and an hour in the fridge which is a dream come true when your already buzzing around cooking a million things for a dinner party!

Ingredients (serves 6)

125g good-quality dark chocolate, roughly chopped
125g good-quality milk chocolate, roughly chopped
3 eggs
1 ½ tbs caster sugar
1 tbs good-quality cocoa powder, sifted
300ml thickened cream, plus extra whipped cream to serve

Method

1. Place chocolate in a microwave safe bowl & cook in the microwave for 1 minute. Stir. If chocolate isn't fully melted yet, put it back in for another minute. Set aside to cool slightly.

2. Place eggs and sugar in a large bowl and beat with electric beaters for 5 minutes, or until mixture is pale, thick and doubled in volume. Fold in cooled chocolate and cocoa powder until combined.

3. In a separate bowl, whip cream until thickened (be careful not to over-beat but make sure if forms stiff peaks). Use a large metal spoon to carefully fold the cream into the chocolate mixture, trying to keep the mixture as light as possible. Spoon into 6 serving glasses and chill in fridge for at least 1 hour. When ready to serve remove from fridge and top with extra whipped cream and grated chocolate or some extra cocoa.

4. Eat it like its going out of fashion.... trust me, you'll love it.

Variations

~For a yummy nightcap add your favourite spirit. To keep it French, go for Cognac (or another quality brandy) or Grand Marnier, adding 1 tablespoon to the melting chocolate.

~For a flavour twist, add a tablespoon of vanilla extract to the chocolate as it melts.

~Chocolate and coffee make a great pairing, so if your feeling like a pick me up try adding two tablespoons of prepared strong black coffee to the chocolate when melting.

~For a cool treat, serve the mousse as a semifreddo - freeze for about 3 hours (but don't freeze solid). Its great for summer!

Enjoy my fellow chocolate lovers!

Love & kisses on both cheeks,

Sunny xxx

RSPCA Cupcake Day

This year was the first RSPCA Cupcake day. After my friends at work alerted me to that fact we got to planning! above is the top layer of our 'tea lady' trolley that we wheeled around most of the morning. We managed to raise almost $400.00!

Here is the trolley in all its glory. My boss made some vegetarian curry pizzas to sell (on cupcake day?) and they went suprisingly fast!!

Here are some of the chocolate crackles we made. We all went over to Suzie's house on the sunday before and had a massive bake off. It was soooo much fun!

Here are Suzie and Georie filling the chocolate moulds and to the left you can see the chocolate dipped butter biscuit half bones.... complicated i know.


And the cupcakes pre-icing. It was at this point we all got on our sugar high and didnt manage to take anymore photos :)

Tash's Baby Shower!

For Tash's Baby Shower I made her some vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream. It was a great shower and the food was incredible! A big welcome to baby Georgia who is the smallest and cutest thing i've seen in a while!

Pam's Birthday Cake #2

Here is cake number two. Its a Chocolate Mud Cake (my specialty) and its covered in vanilla buttercream.



For this cake Pam said she wanted the icing Lilac and i was free to use my imagination for the rest! It has white chocolate writing and decoration.



I used the extra baileys cream for the white swirls and covered them in silver cachous.
Pam was very happy with both her cakes and i hope she had a wonderful birthday!!!

Pam's Birthday Cake #1

Pam has asked me to do 2 cakes for her 35th birthday (for two parties the lucky thing!!) and i was so delighted! I'm really glad she likes my stuff! And i love the opportunity to unleash myself on a cupboard of ingredients :)



The flavour is Vanilla with a baileys cream in the middle all smothered in a vanilla buttercream.



Pam told me she liked the colours Mint, Fuchsia and Aqua so i worked off the colours in this cute ribbon i found.



The writing is done in white chocolate.
Once again sorry for the dodgy photos!

Leftovers for Briony's House Warming

After Pamela's order i had piles of cupcakes left and you can only force your family to eat a certain amount before it gets creepy!

Here are the cupcakes i made for Briony (who moved house on the weekend and we all know what that is like!) with leftovers from Pamela's order. They are Vanilla Butter Cake with a layer of chocolate icing and a swirl of vanilla icing. Topped off with the left over blue white chocolate stars.

Again, Sorry about the crap photography! only so much you can do with a container of cupcakes at 10pm on a Sunday night - That's a little late for cupcaking but its when the brilliant idea of giving them to Briony struck me!

Now if only all my leftovers were as pretty.....

Pamela's Order- Baby Shower for Tina & Vik

This is the triple decker milk and white chocolate layered mud cake I made for Pamela who hosted her friends joint baby showers.



Top Layer - Milk Chocolate Mud Cake
Middle Layer - White Chocolate Mud Cake
Bottom Layer - Milk Chocolate Mud Cake



The writing and hearts are piped in white chocolate and the icing is milk chocolate. Mmmm chocolate.



And these are the cupcakes... my pride and joy is forever cupcakes! These are Vanilla Butter Cake, made without eggs by request, and they were made in half sized cupcake tins (bigger than mini but smaller than regular size... confusing i know!).



The blue layer:



The pink layer:



A close up of the sugar paste bows...



Pink Cupcake Decorations: sugar paste birds, pink cachous, Pink sparkle sugar, white sprinkles and sugar paste bows. All on top of vanilla icing.



Blue Cupcake Decorations: White chocolate stars (coloured blue), Sugar paste birds, sugar paste bows, blue sparkle sugar and white sprinkles. All on top of vanilla icing.



These photo's aren't the best as my camera is out of action and these were taken on my mobile camera. I'll get better ones the moment mine is fixed :)