Anchor Cream – Mini Victoria Sponge Cakes

Happy New Year my Dearest Readers 🙂 Hope you’ve all had a wonderful Christmas and New Years! I plan of posting more frequently…clearly hasn’t worked! Again the same reasons (excuses!) being very busy at work and we also had friends coming over staying with us. Anyhow! my New Years resolution is to share more exciting events, reviews and recipes with you all!

That’s why I’m going to start 2016 with a Mini Victoria Sponge cake recipe 🙂 This recipe is inspired by the new range Anchor cream that KeepLeft PR sent me. I really like the bottle and screw top packaging, I feel like it keeps the cream fresher for longer. It’s also got those clever lines on the side, so you know exactly how much you’re pouring without having to use another measuring cup. Meaning one thing less to wash, now that’s always a bonus. The Anchor cream is now selling exclusively at Woolworths.

I found the Anchor cream very smooth and easy to whip. That’s why I decided to make something which uses the cream in its whipped formed and not cooked or incorporated with something else. Initially, I wanted to make scones, however, I have already shared that recipe before and I wanted something a little more cake like but still keeping it cute and dainty. Ta-da! Mini Victoria sponge cakes 😀

Hope you like this recipe! Please share and let me know if you’ve made them!

Recipe – Mini Victoria Sponge Cakes adapted from Mary Berry
Yield – 8-10 mini cakes

Ingredients
175g Unsalted butter, soften
175g Caster sugar
3 large eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
175g Self-raising flour

300ml Anchor Thickened Cream
Strawberry jam
Icing Sugar for dusting

Notes
– Feel free to use any type of jam or marmalade you would like
– You can also use this recipe to make a 20cm cake instead of mini cakes

Method
1) Preheat the oven to 190°C (170°C fan forced) or 376°C, lightly grease a shallow tray with butter and cover with baking paper to prevent sticking.
2) Using an electric mixer or by hand mix butter and caster sugar together until the mixture is very pale and light. Make sure to scrap the sides this will take approximately 5 minutes. Gradually add the beaten eggs, mixing well between each addition and again scrape the bowl. Add the Vanilla extra and mix to combine.
3) Sift the self raising flour into the mixing bowl and gently fold in until the mixture is glossy and smooth. Try not to over fold or mix.
4) Spread over prepared pan and bake for about 25-30 minutes. Until lightly golden brown, check whether it is cooked using a skewer if it comes out clean it is cooked. Leave it to cool in the tin for a couple of minutes before removing it from pan.
5) Poor Anchor Thickened cream into bowl and whip until soft peaks form.

6) Once sponge cake is cool enough, use a cookie cutter to cut into small disks.

7) To assemble use one cake as the base, place one tablespoon of whipped cream followed by strawberry jam another cake and dust with icing sugar.

Daisy@NeverTooSweet received the Anchor Thickened Cream as gift from Keep Left PR 

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Rosemary’s Curry Chicken – ASKO Cooktop

Today’s recipe is sponsored by ASKO cooktops as they believe “great meals start at the cooktop”, which I completely agree. I have always been a fan of gas cooktops as I like seeing the flame and being Chinese we always talk about the ‘breathe of wok’ or what we call ‘wok hei’. Eventually when we move out of our rental and purchase our own apartment, I would like an ASKO gas cook top as it has the wok burner on the left and will not get in the way of the other burners.

 I am so honoured to share with you today Rosemary’s curry chicken recipe, she is my friend Julie’s ex Mother-in-law and I honestly believe grandmother’s recipes are always the best. Rosemary originates from South Africa and she has been making this recipe for decades. It’s not quite as spicy as some Indian curries but has enough heat and the coconut cream gives so much fragrance.

Rosemary’s Curry Chicken

It can be serve it with rice or roti bread but remember to use up all that delicious curry sauce. Perfect dinner dish for your family on a cold wintery night 🙂 Mr Bao and I enjoyed it so much we wished there was more and we can’t wait to remake this! Thank you again Rosemary and Julie for sharing this recipe with me and my Readers!

Recipe – Rosemary’s Curry Chicken
Yield – Serves approximately 4 people

Ingredients
500g chicken thighs cut into chunks
3 tbs olive oil
1 onion chopped
4 cloves of garlic chopped
2 chillies chopped
3 spring onion chopped
1 tbs Curry power (Clive of India)
1 can Coconut Cream
3-4 medium size potatoes
1/2 tsp salt

Notes
– You can used a can of diced tomato instead of coconut cream if you prefer a red based curry
– You can substitute potatoes for another vegetables such as lima or broad beans

Method
1) Heat olive oil in large pan over medium heat, add onions and cook until translucent. Add garlic, chillies and spring onion and cook for a few minutes before moving ingredients to one side of the pan and let the oil move to the other side.
2) Add curry powder to oil and mix until it forms a paste, mix with other ingredients and cook for approximately 3 minutes until fragrant move to one side of the pan.

3) Turn heat to high and add chicken, cook and seal until lightly brown. Turn heat to low and mix all ingredients together.  Add one can of coconut cream and potatoes and cook with lid on for 30-45minutes until potatoes are cooked. Season with salt and serve with rice or roti bread.

 

This is a sponsored post by ASKO Australia. 

Afternoon Classic – Scones

 

I randomly made these scones a couple of weeks ago and couldn’t believe how many people liked the scones and asked if I could blog the recipe 🙂 Such nice encouragement so here is it everyone! It’s a recipe I’ve been using for a while now, I find this recipe to be one of the easiest to make and you will have most of the ingredients at home.

The only part I don’t like about making scones is rubbing the butter into the flour because I have long nails, and the mixture always get stuck. The dough can also be a little sticky when rolling and cutting it out, but trust me it’s worth it! Anyhow, please try and let me know how your scones turn out 😀

Recipe – Scones adapted from Taste.com
Yield – 12-14 scones depending on size

Ingredients
3 cups (450g) self-raising flour
1 tablespoon caster sugar
Pinch of salt
50g unsalted butter, chopped
1 1/4 cup (310ml) milk
Extra milk to glaze

To Serve
Raspberry jam
Whipped cream

Method
1) Preheat oven to 220°C (fan forced) and line tray with baking paper. Sift self raising flour, sugar and salt into a bowl. Add butter and use your fingertips to rub the butter into the flour until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Make a well in the centre of the mixture.
2) Pour milk into the well and use a butter knife in a cutting action to stir and combine until it is just combined and becomes a soft but sticky dough (Add more flour or milk if too dry or too wet).
3) Gently knead dough on floured surface using your fingers or a rolling pin pat the dough into a 2cm thick disc.
4) Using a scone cutter (5cm diameter round cutter) dipped into flour and cut into scones. Place scones onto tray making sure they stick together. To glaze gently brush scone with some milk.
5) Bake scones on the top shelf of the oven for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown and scones sound hollow when gently tapped. Place scones into a clean tea towel and serve warm with jam and cream.

 

 

Warm breakfast matcha waffle – Di Bella Coffee

Matcha Waffle

Happy Sunday my Dearest Readers 🙂 For those of us in Melbourne, I’m sure you can feel how cold it has been! But it’s not even June yet, I thought it was Autumn and we were going to ensure some nice chilly but still sunny days. And when it’s so cold, I have great difficulty waking up in the morning and that’s when coffee becomes my BFF (Best Friend Forever!).

Di Bella Coffee

Recently Di Bella Coffee sent me some coffee and asked if I would like to share a warm breakfast recipe that I enjoy on a cold winter morning. So I took this idea and started brain storming a lot of ideas, lets start with – bacon and eggs, porridge, pancakes or then a light bulb lit up WAFFLES! Especially since I’ve only used my waffle machine once oops 😛

I only then realised there are actually so many variations of waffles you can make. But for those who know me you know I will never pass the chance of making something green meaning Matcha (Japanese Green Tea). These matcha waffles were quite easy to make and the colour combinations were so pretty, green from the matcha, red from the raspberry and yellow from the honey.

 

 

The waffles are best served warm so I think it’s perfect for a cold morning when cereal and milk just wont do ~ And quickly about Di Bella Coffee they are used by many cafes Nationally around Australia such as all ‘In A Rush’ cafes or you can purchase online. I like how you are able to choose how fine the coffee beans are grounded for instance, I chose the ‘plunger’ type meaning I don’t need to ground it myself at home.

I am a matchaholic so I like a strong matcha flavour so I might add even more matcha next time I make these waffles, but I was really pleased with the texture soft, sponge and not dry 🙂 Hope you will like them too!

Recipe – Matcha Waffles adapted from Just Simple Eat
Yield – 5-7 waffles depending on Waffle Machine

Ingredients 
2 cups (300g) Plain flour
2 tablespoon (40g) matcha (Japanese Green Tea powder)
2 tablespoon (40g) caster sugar
1 tablespoon baking power
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cup (430ml) milk
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 table (60ml) Vegetable oil
Handful raspberries and honey to serve

Notes
– I used about 3 tablespoons of matcha because I like it strong, but it’s completely up to you 🙂
– I prefer to use full cream milk because I think it gives the waffles a more buttery flavour
– Feel free to use an electric waffle machine or one over the stove
– Refrigerating the mixture will make the mixture thicker and keep its shape when you cook it.

Method
1) Sift plain flour, matcha, baking power, sugar and salt into a large mixing bowl, ensure everything is combined well.
2) In another bowl whisk the wet ingredients – milk, eggs, vanilla extract and vegetable oil.
3) Poor wet mixture into mixing bowl with the dry ingredients and whisk vicariously until it’s smooth with no lumps.
4) Cover and refrigerate for 10mins or even longer night. Whisk mixture again before cooking waffle.
5) Heat electric waffle machine and follow instructions from waffle manufacturer.
6) Serve warm with fresh raspberries and honey.

Enjoy for breakfast!

This is a sponsored post by Di Bella Coffee, however, recipe and opinions are all honest. 

Pancakes on the weber – Barbeques Galore

Pancakes with grilled banana, vanilla ice-cream and salted caramel

 

 

My Dear Readers this is part two to my previous post about cooking on the weber and using a kettle 🙂 I kid you not it was not planned but Barbeques Galore contacted me just before Heatbeads® did, to help them create a recipe on the weber. First thing I think about making is of course dessert but haha once again I’m clueless at this barbecuing business…so again I consulted Annoying Uncle and other colleagues.

 

 

Clearly desserts weren’t their forte because these middle aged men kept steering the conversation back to roast pork, pulled pork and all other savoury things! Focus men! I need dessert recipes and ideas haha so I edited up coming up with the thought of making pancakes on the grill, topped with grilled banana, ice-cream and salted caramel! But how do you cook pancakes…. the liquid will all run through. Then Annoying Uncle said this recipe could work but I would need to get a hot plate. A what? I had no idea but apparently it’s a plate made out of cast iron that you place over the grill and it can be used like any fry pan I guess.

A funny side story, I didn’t have the weber or the chimney and all the equipment I needed back then…so Annoying Uncle had to lend me everything! Very grateful for his help and assistance 🙂 But you can purchase it all from Barbeques Galore So he explained to us how to use the chimney and light the firelighters and using an indirect method (BBQ Briquettes) on both sides of the weber and place the hotplate over it.

 

 

 

Will be sharing the recipe below, I’ll quickly run through the steps with you here first ~ basically once the plate is hot enough, you can poor the pancake mix and cook it as per usual. Just make sure you grease the hot plate very well as we found it to be a little difficult to flip the pancakes.

Left: Failed 😛
Right Looking good!

As you can see, it can be tricky pouring the mixture and flipping it so take your time, and even if it doesn’t look nice I promise it’ll still taste good!

Once the pancakes are done or you can cook them at the same time, cut some bananas up and put them on the grill for approximately 3 minutes each side.

 

That’s all the cooking required, now all you need to do is assembly it! We had 3 pancake then topped it with vanilla ice-cream, grilled bananas and most importantly salted caramel with gold flakes because it’s from Burch and Purchese.

I came up with this recipe because I wanted something that was easy and sort of fail proof for us newbies! Hopefully, I’ll get better at this and develop a more in-depth relationship with my weber and will share with you more savoury and dessert recipes 😀

Recipe – Pancakes on the weber with grilled bananas adapted from Nigella Lawson
Yield – 10-12 pancakes depending on size

Ingredients
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 pinch of salt
1 tablespoon white sugar
2 large eggs (beaten)
30g unsalted butter (melted and cooled)
300ml milk (regular)
225g plain flour
Extra butter for frying
1-2 Bananas
Vanilla ice-cream
Salted caramel sauce (homemade or store bought)

Notes
– You must have a hotplate to make this recipe
– Remember to use an indirect method to cook these pancakes in the weber
– Try to use bananas that are not too ripe as it will become very soft

Method
1) Heat the weber as per instructions, please refer to my previous post for more information about lighting the BBQ briquettes. Fill the baskets full of charcoal and use an indirect method where they are placed on both sides of the weber.
2) To make pancake mixture, place all dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt and sugar) into a large bowl and create a well in the middle and add the wet ingredients (beaten eggs, melted butter and milk). Mix it very well with a whisk or wooden spoon. You can then poor this into a jug to make it easier for pouring.
3) Place hot plate over the grill and wait for it to heat up, once hot grease well with butter and pour batter to make pancake.
4) Wait approximately 3 minutes when bubbles start to appear, it means it is cooked and you can flip them and cook the other side. Place on plate and continue cooking pancakes.

5) Cut bananas lengthways and put on grill directly and cook for 3 minutes each side.
6) To serve, place pancakes on plate, 1-2 scoops of vanilla ice-cream on top, grilled bananas on the side and finally pour salted caramel over!

And that’s it! Pretty easy and a great dessert to make using the weber 🙂 Actually you can even make this for breakfast! Please let me know if you try this recipe!

This is a sponsored post by Barbeques Galore, however, recipe and opinions are all honest.