Dessert Day - the "that's not what we planned on making" edition

So a few days before Christmas, Deidre sent me a text message that included a picture of a recipe she thought we should make for Dessert Day - a red velvet cake star in the middle of a white chocolate cheesecake. We established that we should Dessert Day on the 30th of December, and then the festive season took over and we promptly forgot all about our plans until the night of the 29th of December. Obviously, this led to us vaguely wandering around my local supermarket on Monday morning searching for ingredients for the aforementioned fancy cake, and largely unable to find them (for example, vegetarian gelatine).

So we ultimately abandoned that plan and turned instead to something we've been meaning to make for ages and have never quite gotten around to - Tim Tam cake. We used this recipe with a few alterations:

1. Beat the eggs, then gradually add in the sugar.
2. If you are using a Kitchenaid to beat the eggs, transfer them into a different bowl before adding the dry ingredients, otherwise you'll end up with clumps of flour everywhere thanks to the weird bottom of the Kitchenaid bowl.
3. Make two separate lots of cake batter. We had to throw out the second cake and start from scratch because a) it ended up smaller than the first one, b) it had a giant clump of unmixed flour in it, and c) sitting around while the first one baked didn't do the batter any favours, and it was basically a really sad puddle of grossness. So we started over, and the second (third?!) cake was a dramatic improvement on either of its predecessors.

We also left out the Tim Tams because GLUTEN (and gluten free ones are a) kind of gross, and b) not available at my supermarket), and I'm not convinced that we missed out. Oh, and we added raspberry extract to the frosting for the middle, and it was quite possibly the best decision I've ever made. It was so delicious that it was a struggle to get the frosting into the cake!

Oh, and you could probably cut back the ganache recipe by at least a quarter, because there was way too much. Anyway, enough of my wibbling, let's get to the pictures, which is what you really care about, right?

Sad looking bottom layer of cake

Delicious frosting of epic proportions

Sad cake is less sad once frosting is involved

Second cake added and smothered in ganache

Now with added bite so that it really looks like a Tim Tam

Om nom nom nom nom

We also made lemon sorbet from the Commonsense Cookery Book, a stalwart of Australian kitchens. The recipe is as follows:

4 cups water
2 cups caster sugar
1 cup lemon juice
2 tablespoons lemon zest

Bring water and sugar to the boil, stirring to dissolve sugar, and boil for five minutes. Cool syrup, then add lemon juice and rind. Pour into refrigerated trays, freeze until syrup becomes mushy. Beat well and freeze again until solid.

Now we, obviously, did the first two steps and then used the ice cream maker to speed things along. Still, when we came to dish it up and take photos, it was baaaaaaaaaasically in a state not much more solid than a Slurpee, and plopped into the parfait glass in a very splashy way. Still, it was delicious. Although I would recommend not using a Microplane to zest the lemons, as it led to little strings of lemon zest all the way through...

Unlike the cake, the sorbet did not photograph particularly well:

Still, it was delicious, and that's what really matters!

What should we make at our next Dessert Day?

K xx

Giveaway winners!

Okay, I know I said I was going to post this on Sunday. But I ended up having friends come over for dinner, so I was too busy cooking a three course extravaganza (technically more like four courses, because I made two lots of dessert in case one was a disaster!) to be able to draw the winners.

Anyway, I figured it was too hard to do a random number generator draw, considering there were two different things on offer, so I just wrote everyone's names on bits of paper, screwed them up and put them in a measuring cup (come on, this is me we're talking about. And the prize involves baked goods. What else would you expect me to draw a giveaway out of?!):

Without further ado, the winner of the Tim Tams is (insert drumroll).................

Bi from Bianca and the B-Sides!

And the winner of the chocolatey goodness made by yours truly is........

Lozzz123 from Science, Spouses and Silliness!

Congratulations, ladies!! Send me an email at melbourneonmymind[at]gmail[dot]com and I'll get your goodies made and posted soon! :)

Thanks to everyone for entering - I'll probably do another chocolatey giveaway in the future, so try your luck again then :)

K xx

200 = Giveaway!

Holy crap, y'all. It seems like only yesterday that I was thrown in the deep end of curating exhibits on colonial history, and now the gallery is open to the public!! :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D I couldn't bring myself to go up there today in case the general public were breaking things or - worse still - not reading the text I spent over a year researching and writing...

Anyway, on the off chance that anyone is interested, here's what I wore last night:

Please excuse the state of my apartment. I took this when I got home after opening last night, and it was after midnight. Also, I had every intention of wearing stockings. I forked out $20 on ladder-proof stockings, and then managed to put a hole in them when I put them on. I have a gift, really I do. And to the right, you can see my clothes rack, just for Bi who presented me with this award last week:

Thanks Bi!! :)

(Course, you can also see my actual rack in that photo, but in a classy way, yaknow? Only not, now that I've pointed it out *sigh*)

Anywhatthehellwasmypoint, something else that feels like it was only yesterday? Coming home from the movies and deciding that what I desperately needed to do was start a blog. And here we are, 200 posts later! So to reward you all for reading my often nonsensical wibble, I have something special planned. Well, two rather special somethings, really, based on geographical location.

1. For my readers in Australia and New Zealand: the chance to win a batch of baked goods made by yours truly! This way, you can enjoy nommy treats without having to make them yourself. Laziness FTW!! As not everything can stand up to being posted, you can choose from the following:

Triple chocolate brownies

White chocolate and nut blondies

Double chocolate chip cookies

Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

Raspberry and white chocolate brownies

Basically, if you don't like chocolate, you're shit out of luck here!

2. For my readers elsewhere in the world: the chance to win these -

Two packets of double coat Tim Tams. Because I think they're infinitely superior to the original ones.

Just ask Lauren about how awesome Tim Tams are. Or, you could watch this, which is apparently what introduced Lauren to Tim Tams in the first place:

So yeah, Tim Tams are pretty amazing. (And for the record, it's not that I love you less. It's just that the week it takes to post things from Australia to the US or the UK or pretty much anywhere other than New Zealand would result in the above baked goods being kind of grody by the time they arrive!!)

Anyway, here's the rules:
1. All you have to do is leave me a comment! You don't have to follow me or anything, but if you like what you see and you want to, that'd be nice :)
2. No anonymous entries accepted.
3. If you're in Australia/New Zealand, let me know what type of baked goods you want in your comment.
4. You have to be willing to give me your address, otherwise there's kind of no point in this!

Entries will close on Saturday 11th June at 9pm Australian Eastern Standard Time (12pm Greenwich Mean Time, 7am EST). I'll randomly select the winners on Sunday, so check back to see if you've won. I'll post out the goodies after Queen's Birthday!

Thanks for sticking with me through 200 posts, y'all. It means more than you know...

With love and hugs,
K xx