chocolate, almond & pear puddings

Isn't it amazing the impact food styling and photography can have on the desire to try a certain recipe? The Indulgence Series from Murdoch Books does both of these things faultlessly. With each new release in this series, I become overwhelmed. Flicking from cover to cover results in sensory overload. I feel guilty picking just one recipe to be the first one I try, but it's never the last. These books are just perfection.

There are few things more comforting to me that eating a hot pudding on a Winter's night. I've been doing this a lot lately, it seems, despite it presently being only the eleventh day of the season. This recipe will bring you all a pudding should on a cold, lazy night. It's quick to mix, quick to bake, and uses ingredients I usually always have handy in my pantry. Would also go wonderfully with a chocolate fudge sauce...

Ingredients (makes 6 individual puddings)
Recipe from Indulgence Chocolate

1/3 cup golden syrup
8 tinned pear halves
60 gms plain flour
30 gms unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsps baking powder
1 tsp ground allspice
55 gms ground almonds
3 eggs, at room temperature
165 gms brown sugar
60 mls milk
1/3 cup golden syrup, extra, warmed slightly
double cream, to serve

Preheat oven to 180C/170C fan-forced. Grease eight holes of a non-stick giant muffin tin/s, and line the bases of each hole with a round of baking paper. Spoon the golden syrup among the holes to cover the bases. Place a pear half, cut side down, in each.

Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking powder and allspice into a medium sized bowl, then stir in the ground almonds.

Beat the eggs and the sugar with an electric mixer until pale and creamy. Slowly pour in the milk, then add the flour mixture, folding until just combined.

Spoon the pudding mixture over the pears. Bake for 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of each cake come out clean. Allow to cool in the tin for 3 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack. Immediately remove the baking paper and transfer the puddings to serving plates. Drizzle with extra golden syrup and serve with a dollop of double cream.

I've kept my leftover puddings in the fridge for a couple of days, and they're still great. I imagine they would also freeze okay, but I doubt it will ever have to come to that.

Recommended baking soundtrack - Wild Nothing - Gemini. 

orange blossom cakes (filled with white chocolate & coconut ganache)

My intentions of posting frequently have been grossly sabotaged by an illness I just can't shake. Quite early in the piece for excuses, isn't it?

My sister is attending a baby shower today and asked me to bake cakes. Without being in-your-face-feminine, I wanted something delicate, ladylike, and... special. Expectations, meet orange blossom.

I love floral food. It's always pretty, and despite becoming more common everyday, still slightly unusual enough to trick people into thinking you're really innovative. I chose white chocolate as a filling as it compliments orange blossom water so well, and the coconut was thrown in just for a bit of texture. You could decorate these cakes using a light and shiny glace´ icing and some sugar flowers, but I chose cream cheese frosting and a sprinkling of desiccated coconut.

The cupcake recipe (aside from the orange blossom water) is my absolute favourite vanilla cake recipe - courtesy of AWW. It's so simple because rater than creaming the butter and sugar, you throw all ingredients in the bowl from step one. How could this be easier?

Ingredients (makes 12)

For cakes
90 gms butter, softened
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 tsp orange blossom water
1 cup self raising flour
2 tbsps milk
2 eggs

For filling:
200 gms white chocolate, melted
1/4 cup desiccated coconut

For frosting:
340 gms cream cheese, softened
55 gms butter, softened
4 cups icing sugar, sifted
1/4 tsp coconut essence
small amount of food colouring (I used Wilton's creamy peach)
2 tbsps desiccated coconut

For cakes, preheat oven to 180C/160C fan-forced. Place 12 paper cases into a 12 capacity cupcake tin.

Place all ingredients in the bowl of an electric mixture, and beat until just combined. Increase speed, and beat until mixture is creamy and paler in colour.
Spoon mixture among cases. Bake for 20 minutes, until golden. Remove cakes from tin immediately, and allow to cool completely on wire rack.

To fill cakes, take a small sharp knife and - holding your knife at a 45 degree angle - slice a circle into the top of a cake. The circle should be about 5mm from the edge of the cake to make it easy to cover when decorating. By holding your knife at this angle, you are creating a cone-shaped hold in your cake, and the lid you've created should come easily. Set lid aside for later. Repeat with remaining cakes.

Stir coconut through white chocolate. Spoon ganache mixture evenly between cakes. Replace the lid on each cake. If necessary, trim the pointed end of the lids off to it sits flush when placed back onto the cake.

For frosting, beat cream cheese and butter together in an electric mixer until smooth. Add half of the icing sugar and desired amount of food colouring and again beat until smooth. Gradually add the remaining icing sugar until you get your desired consistency (I use the full amount).

Spoon cream cheese mixture into a large piping bag fitted with plain 1cm tube. Pipe onto cakes.
To finish, sprinkle with coconut.

Recommended baking soundtrack - Baptist Generals - No Silver/No Gold.