Chocolate Orange Shortbread with Candied Orange Peel

A delicious buttery biscuit, spiked with fragrant orange zest, generously dipped in dark chocolate. Perfect to give as a homemade gift!

There's something about baking and Christmas. I wish I could say it was because of the weather, that the snow and dropping mercury drives one in to the kitchen for baking and comfort by the oven but in Australia, this is quite the opposite. It's hotter the devil's bumhole after curry night. I can barely function in this heat. And yet when the tree goes up and the shop fronts put their little animatronic scenes up, I get the hankering for some bakering.

Mr. Cakes has always been a fan of choc orange. Not to say that he came out of the womb sucking on a Jaffa but for as long as I've known him, he's been a fan of this classic combination. It wasn't a flavour I've previously been inclined to choose. However, in the last few years, I've certainly come around. Maybe I'm a mature person now who likes to munch on a Terry's Chocolate Orange while I'm watching a bit of Miss Marple.

I have never had a Terry's Chocolate Orange and I have never seen Miss Marple. Both are awesome, I'm sure.

I have had chocolate orange shortbread with candied orange peel. These smell so good, you can out your Christmas candle back in the cabinet for the afternoon while these are baking. Ain't no party like an olfactory party cos an olfactory party is in your nose...and you know...what other party is in your nose? Cocaine.

These cookies have a wonderful orange flavour from both some orange zest and a few tablespoons of freshly squeezed juice. But because the juice does thin the batter out, the cookies do spread when baked. To counter this, make sure to refrigerate the cookies for 30 minutes.

I choose to make these in half moon shapes, like orange slices. I tried cutting them before they were put in to the oven, but I found I could get a crisper line on the sliced side if I carefully cut them with a very sharp knife the second they came out of the oven.

You may be tempted to skip making the candied orange peel and who am I to discourage cutting corners. But I must tell you, the candied orange peel not only look darling and take presentation of the cookies to the next level, but they taste divine. And if giving these as gifts, then I'm afraid the candied peel is really not optional. It just looks (and tastes) too good.

Chocolate Orange Shortbread with Candied Orange Peel

Prep time: 40 mins

Cooking time: 25 mins

Total time:  1 hr 5 mins

Servings: 24 cut-out biscuits

230g butter, softened

120g caster sugar

2T fresh orange juice

Zest of 2 oranges

260g plain flour

80g rice flour

375 dark chocolate

1.      Preheat oven to 150°C and line two cookie sheets with baking paper

2.      In a large bowl, beat the butter with a wooden spoon until soft then add the sugar and mix thoroughly.

3.      Add orange juice, orange zest then mix.

4.      Sift in both flours and mix to a smooth dough.

5.      Roll out dough to 1cm thickness and cut using a round cookie cutter.

6.      Place on the prepared cookie sheets, at least 2cm apart and place in the fridge to chill for at 30 minutes.

7.      Meanwhile, make the candied orange peel - see below for 

8.      Bake each tray on the middle shelf of the oven for 25 minutes, or until cookies are just cooked.

9.      When the cookies have come straight out of the oven, cut the circles, with a very sharp knife, to form half-moons.

10.  Allow to cool.

11.  Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl, in the microwave in 30 second intervals.

12.  Dip each cookie in the melted chocolate and top with a piece of candied orange peel while chocolate is wet and then place on a rack to allow to dry.

13.  Enjoy!

Candied Orange Peel

1/3 cup caster sugar

1/3 cup water

2 oranges

Extra caster sugar for coating peels (1/2 cup to a cup)

1.      Use a vegetable peeler to cut the peel off the oranges in long strips, then use a sharp knife to cut the peel into pieces 3 - 5 cm long.

2.      Combine the sugar and water in a small saucepan over medium heat and stir until the sugar dissolves.

3.      Add the orange peel and cook over a low-medium heat for 20 or so mins until the peel is tender and the syrup thickens.

4.      Transfer the peel and syrup to a small bowl and refrigerate until cool enough to handle.

5.      To sugar the candied orange peel, drain the syrup from the orange peel and toss the peel with the extra caster sugar in a small bowl, then place on a baking sheet lined with non-stick paper.

6.      Allow to stand until required.               

RSPCA Puppy Cakes

Make these delicious honey flavoured cupcake with a sweet peanut butter and cream cheese centre and toasted meringue topping to raise funds for the RSPCA and share them with your four legged friend!

Obviously don't top the human cupcakes with dog-chocolate and bone treats...unless you want to.

Now. I don't know if you know but I love dogs. I adore them. I'm obsessed with them. I have a folder on my phone full of photos I've met on the street. I have over 60 kilos of dog that lives inside my house, two dogs who literally are my children. My puppies are a 6 year old German Shepherd named Stompypants and a 5 year old yellow Labrador named Puca but her name really should be Cheekypants. And I'm working on getting a rescue pug who I plan on naming Sausage.

Two dignified ladies, ready for their picnic.

As you can see, when I am on the topic of dogs, I can talk forever and I do get sidetracked in lovely puppy kisses and wet noses and wagging tails. My puppies are so spoilt, treats, fresh food, water, daily walks...but not all dogs are so lucky. Some dogs, through no fault of their own, have no warm place to put their fluffy bum and no one to pet their pretty heads. Some dogs are born into puppy farms or on the street. Some puppies are mistreated or suddenly can't be looked after anymore.

Oh that looks good..

...can I have it?...

AWESOME!

But thank the canine stars that we have the RSPCA. The RSPCA do vital work. They house and feed and give life saving medical attention to literally tens of thousands of dogs across Australia each year. And their care and welfare doesn't just stop with woman's best friend! They care for cats, birds, horses, chickens, snakes, Guinea pigs, rats, mice, lizards...all of our furry, scaly, feathery friends. Haven personally volunteered at RSPCA, I can tell you the care they give to animals is outstanding and wonderful.

This care doesn't come cheap. RSPCA QLD needs $42 million a year to keep running. And 99% of their funding comes from donations from people like me and you! And here's where you get to make a real difference. August 15 is RSPCA Cupcake day. All you need to do is register, bake some delicious cupcakes, (like the ones I have made here!) and raise some much-needed funds for those saints at the RSPCA.

What could be more awesome than baking some delicious cupcakes and raising money for a important cause AND EATING THEM! Can you show me the downside? No! Cos there isn't one!

The fun thing about these cupcakes is that you can eat them...and your dog can eat them too! Bake these Honey and Peanut Butter cupcakes, then sit down and share one with your dog! How much fun is that? And then whip another bunch and sell them at your work or your school or invite some people over and have a fundraising puppy cupcake party!

Head on over to www.rspcacupcakeday.com.au and register. Print out some posters and get all your friends and family involved and raise as much money as you can for RSPCA! And enjoy these photos of the puppy picnic I put on for Stompypants and Puca. They were such ladies.

Honey and Peanut Butter Puppy Cakes
These cupcakes are safe for your dog to eat, but please be treat-wise. Dogs don't need sugar. For this reason, these cupcakes are smaller in size. Top with dog treats for the doggies and a rice marshmallow crispy for you!
Prep time: 60 mins

Cooking time: 15 mins

Total time:  75 mins

Servings: 24 small cupcakes

Honey Cupcakes

125g butter, softened 

125g caster sugar

3 tablespoons honey

2 whole eggs plus 3egg yolks (reserve the whites)

1 1/4 cups plain flour, sifted 

1 teaspoon baking powder 

1/2 cup lactose-free milk

Peanut Butter Filling

3 tablespoons sugar free peanut butter

3 tablespoons cream cheese, room temperature

2 tablespoons honey

Meringue Icing

3 egg whites

1/2 cup caster sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 160°C and line a 12-hole cupcake tin with smaller cupcake liners
2. Beat the sugar and butter together until lighter in colour
3. Add eggs and yolk one at a time, beating well after each addition.
4. Sift the flours into one bowl and add to the creamed mixture alternately with the milk, in three lots, starting and finishing with the flour
5. Fill each cupcake liner two-thirds full
6. Bake for 23 minutes.
7. Meanwhile, add the peanut butter, cream cheese and honey to a small bowl and stir thoroughly to make the peanut butter filling.
8. Allow to cool while you prepare the meringue. 

Meringue

1. Wipe a mixer bowl with a paper towel dampened with lemon juice.
2. Add egg whites to the bowl and whip until soft peaks form.
3. With the mixer running, gradually add the sugar mixture and beat until thick and glossy.

Assembly

1. Scoop out a small amount of the cupcakes with a teaspoon or a melon baller. Put the bit aside.
2. Fill cavity with a generous teaspoon of peanut butter filling.
3. Replace the cut-out cupcake piece.
4. Pipe or spoon on the meringue on each cupcake and pass a kitchen blowtorch over the meringue is toasted. Alternatively, place the cupcakes back into a 200°C oven until golden.

Mothers Day Pound Cake

Warm and comforting, this is a dense and moist cake that is easy to make and even easier to eat - whip one up to impress your mum with your baking skills or just make one to have with ice cream all for yourself!

Perhaps it is my Alabamian ancestry - my mother moved from Alabama to Australia when she was a teen - but every now and then, I get a hankering for some real down-home Southern cooking. Sometimes I'll need to brew up some iced tea (the stuff you get in the plastic bottles is NOT iced tea), other times the air will be aromatic with spices of proper buttermilk fried chicken but today, it was pound cake.

Traditionally, a pound cake was made with a pound each of four ingredients: Butter, sugar, flour and eggs in a ratio of 1:1:1:1. Four pounds of ingredients is 1.8 kilos...that's a big cake! And this version doesn't shy away from those epic proportions.

The eggs must be beaten well after each addition as there is no rising agents in the recipe. The air whipped in to the cake act as a natural leavening. So make sure the butter is whipped til the butter turns a lighter shade of yellow and each eggs is beaten in well before the next is added.

This cake is a dream to make, it's so easy! It's perfect for those of us who want to whip up a cake for their mum. This cake looks great with a generous sprinkle of icing sugar or a simple glaze. I actually can not tell you which version I like better, with icing sugar or glaze. I think the simplicity of the icing sugar is appealing and of course, so easy but I also like the look of glaze dripping through the channels created by a bundt tin. Either option MUST be served with ice cream though - not negotiable.

Oh and that's the other thing I love about this cake. Cracking out the old bundt tin! I love a cake that can be made ornate and decorated by the shape of the pan! My tin is pretty boring, I should upgrade it.

Not least influenced by the scene in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the bundt also allows for a little creativity with decorations. Some pretty flowers in the centre certainly adds to the prettiness that is Mothers Day.  

At any rate, this is the perfect mothers day cake. And as a bonus, if you have a standard sized cake, there is going to be a touch of batter left over which can be made in to cupcakes! A cake for mum and a treat for you too!

Mothers Day Pound Cake
Adapted from The Complete Southern Cookbook recipe

Prep time: 15 mins

Cooking time: 1 hr 30 mins

Total time:  1 hr 45 mins

Servings: 12 servings

Vanilla Pound Cake

450g butter, softened

3 cups caster sugar

6 eggs, free range

4 cups plain flour, sifted

3/4 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Lemon Glaze - Optional

1 1/2 cups sifted icing sugar

1 tablespoon milk

1 tablespoon melted butter

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1. Preheat oven to 150°C
2. Generously grease a bundt tin and dust with flour.
3. Place the butter in the bowl of a stand mixer and beat on medium speed for 5 minutes, or until butter has turned pale.
4. With the mixer on low speed, gradually add sugar.
5. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition with the mixer on medium speed.
6. Add the flour alternately with the milk, beginning and ending with the flour.
7. Add vanilla and mix until combined.
8. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin, until the mix reaches half an inch or so from the top.
9. Bake for 1 hour and 30 mins or until the cake is golden and a wooden skewer inserted in to the centre of the cake comes out clean.
10. Cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then turn on to a wire rack to cool.
11. Top with icing sugar or with lemon glaze.
12. To make glaze, place icing sugar, milk and butter in a bowl and whisk vigorously. Add lemon juice and whisk until combined. Drizzle over cooled cake as desired.
13. Serve with ice cream.

Chocolate Cheesecake Macarons

The classic French macaron. A meringue and almond biscuit with a crisp shell and chewy interior filled with tangy, chocolate cheesecake filling.

So pretty and fRANch. That's how I like to say French sometimes.

Look, I'm not saying I'm Fiona Cairns or Katherine Sabbath...the local bakery with buttercream cupcakes could probably teach me a thing or two. That being said, I do know my way around a KitchenAid and had success making éclairs which are considered challenging by some. But it was with more than a touch of trepidation that I approached the ultimate in temperamental baking - the French Macaron. If I'm totally honest, I have actually been avoiding making them for some time. They seem so hard, so easy to mess up. I've heard that the weather affects them, if it's too hot, too humid, you've got a failure on your hands.



Always amazes me how all these things can come together and make cakes, biscuits, pies...baking is magic.

Something grabbed me in the last few weeks. It was time. Like a bird that knows when to fly south for the winter, I felt it in my waters. It was time to make macarons! I spent days reading about them, trying to find the magic recipe, the magic list of tips and tricks that would make my macaron recipe fool proof.


This is the stiff peak we want. The peak will not fall in on itself. It stays straight and true. The type of meringue where you can hold the bowl upside down over your head and not end up wearing them.



I did discover that many find the "Italian" process easier than the traditional "French" method. The Italian method uses a sugar syrup in place of powdered icing sugar. It produces a more stable batter which is less likely to fail. And do you know what, I almost went that way. I did want to be less likely to fail.



This is the stage that you want but scarily, I forgot to put colour in! I had to give it few more turns, which I did super slowly, like that would trick the batter.



 But if I wasn't doing the classic macaron, it would forever be my white whale. You can neither win nor lose if you don't run the race. I had to do the classic French macaron. I had to know that I could do it! And if I couldn't, I would pull a Jerry - "I choose not to run!" and hide the fact that I couldn't from everyone. Really, would it change my life that much? It's just some bloody biscuits.



Hold the piping bag at 90 degrees to your tray and apply firm and even pressure, pulling the tip up to allow the batter to fill the circle on the template. Thanks to Mr Cakes for taking this photo! What a pro.

The perfect macaron should have a smooth, crisp shell with a slightly chewy, soft interior. The biscuit should have "feet", a ruffled area of a few millimetres where the batter has risen. And it should have a generous but neatly piped filling. This are the minimum standards of a macaron.

I was not happy with the colour of that food colouring. Baby poo brown.

Also, don't be like me, remember to take the template out from underneath the baking paper before you bake them.

Well, let me tell you, my life has changed. For the better. Because I nailed it.

I can not tell you how pleased I was at this stage. Like I discovered a cure for the common cold.

I made French macarons.

This looks like my favourite emoticon.

And now, my hair is shinier, my skin is glowing, I got a promotion at work, I no longer read celebrity trash websites and I don't have irrational, unexplainable mood swings. None of which is true. But! I can now tell you how I made macarons pretty darn well. And that's life change enough. And guys. If I can do it, you can too!

This looks slightly ominous. Like those macarons in the background might attack these foreground ones.

First tip. Egg whites. Some of the wonderful resources I read, of which there were countless, advised that the egg whites should be old, or aged. This is done by leaving the separated whites in a sealed container in the fridge for a few days. The aged whites are said to whip up better and hold more air. I did not do this. I am not the most patient of people and I wanted to make them today! What I did do and what forms my first tip, is let the eggs come to room temperature. A room temperature egg white beats better than a cold one and a stiff, "dry" meringue is needed. I guess if a room temp egg white whips better than a cold one, maybe an aged one does whip better than fresh...but regardless, I didn't bother. If your impatient like I so often am, submerge the eggs in warm water to bring them to room temperature quicker.

Macarons piled pretty and high.

The second tip I have gathered for you is to sift the icing sugar and the almond meal. Even the store bought almond meal with have some larger pieces in it and for the smoothest shells on your macarons. This will also make the batter lighter, ensuring you have a better chance of your cookies getting as nice foot on them.

That wooden spoon looks so pretty, with a bow in it's hair. Where you off to, Spoon?

Tip 3 might be the most ambiguous and also the most important of the tips. Do not over or under mix the batter. An under-mixed batter will crack and be lumpy. An over-mixed batter will spread when baked and not rise. The tricky thing though is that there is no exact number of turns of the spatula that I can tell you. The batter should have a "lava like" consistency. It should move slowly off your spatula when lifted. Turn the batter gently but firmly with spatula until the almond meal is thoroughly mixed, no more turns. If the batter becomes runny, you've gone too far!

Yum.

 Once you pipe your macarons on to the prepared tray - I used these stencils to ensure they were all the same size - make sure that you bang the tray, very firmly, on the kitchen bench 3 times. Obviously don't hit the tray down so hard that the batter comes flying off but you want to make sure that any air bubbles in the macarons move to the surface so the tops of the shells are smooth.

These macarons are carrying a wounded fellow solider back to the safety of the pile.

Finally, after they have been piped and banged (hmm) it is time for the final tip I have for you. Let the piped uncooked shells sit  on the bench to dry for 30 minutes. The macarons will develop a skin which will prevent the from spreading, which means the only way is up! Baby! For you and me now! And for the macarons.


Little do they know Mr Cakes is coming and safety in numbers will not protect you.

So that's it. That's all I have to tell you. Now it's a matter of getting in that kitchen and baking them frilly little biscuits like a freaking baking warrior! Get in there and bake, you glorious muthalicker!


YAY!


Chocolate Cheesecake Macarons
Use this template  to ensure your macarons are even and consistently sized. Lie the template under baking paper and pipe the batter on. Make sure the template is removed before baking.


Prep time: 20 mins

Cooking time: 15 mins

Total time:  35 mins

Servings: 24 sandwiched macarons

Macarons
3 large egg whites, free range, room temperature
Pinch of salt
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
50g caster sugar
200g icing sugar
1 cup/120g almond meal
Brown food colouring
Chocolate sprinkles

Chocolate Cheesecake Buttercream
150g milk chocolate
110g softened butter
110g cream cheese
2 cups icing sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Macarons

1. Preheat oven to 150°C
2. Using a template to ensure the macarons are evenly sized, line a two trays with baking paper.
3. Beat egg whites in the bowl of a mixer until egg whites are foamy.
4. Add pinch of salt and cream of tartar and continue to beat egg whites,
5. Slowly sprinkle in caster sugar and continue beating for around 8 minutes, until egg whites are stiff, peaks hold and do not collapse.
6. Add food colouring.
7. Sift almond meal and icing sugar in to a medium bowl.
8. Gently add sifted almond meal and icing sugar into the egg white mix.
9. With a flat spatula, gently and precisely fold the almond meal mix in to the egg whites. Batter should be thick and flow off the spatula - think 'molten lava'.
10. Pipe macarons using a large piping bag and open round tip.
11. Once they are all piped, sprinkle with chocolate sprinkles.
12. Allow piped macarons to sit uncovered on the bench for 30 minutes. A skin will form that feels tacky to the touch and does not leave a fingerprint.
13. Bake for 18 minutes. Bake one tray at a time, on the same shelf to ensure they are baked evenly.
14. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely,

Chocolate Cheesecake Buttercream

1. In a microwave safe bowl, melt chocolate in 30 seconds bursts until completely melted. Set aside to cool slightly.
2. In the bowl of a mixer, beat butter until creamy.
3. Add cream cheese, sugar and vanilla and beat until combined and mix is smooth and creamy.
4. Add melted chocolate and beat well.

To assemble

1. Once the biscuits are cooled, match each with another of the same size.
2. Using a round tip fitted on a piping bag, pipe a generous circle of buttercream on one biscuit then sandwich corresponding biscuit, pushing buttercream to edges.
3. Store in an airtight container.