Chocolate Mousse

I first made this chocolate mousse recipe about 14 years ago and have been making it ever since.  I have been making it with milk chocolate all these years and I think it's about time I actually tried it with dark chocolate.  

Here's a picture of my milk chocolate version

Chocolate Mousse Recipe
Ingredients
300g Chocolate
3 eggs, separated
1 1/2 cups cream
25g caster sugar

Method

• Melt the chocolate, quickly mix in the egg yolk and cream until smooth.
• Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form, mix in the sugar until sugar has dissolved.
• Fold egg whites into the chocolate mixture, pour into bowls and set in fridge.

This recipe is very easy and quick to make and has only 4 ingredients. I have also made this in shot glasses topped with maltesers.

Caramel Slice

Today I made caramel slice to take on a picnic and thought I would share the recipe with you.

Ingredients

140g Self raising flour

250g Brown sugar

90g coconut

125g butter, melted

395g sweetened condensed milk

60g golden syrup

30g extra butter

200g chocolate, melted (I use cadbury milk chocolate)

Method

Combine the first 4 ingredients in a bowl, mix well and press into base of lined 18cm x 28cm lamington tin. Bake at 180 degrees for 10 minutes, until golden.

Combine condensed milk, golden syrup, and extra butter in a saucepan. Bring to the boil stirring, then reduce the heat and simmer 5 minutes stirring constantly until golden.

Spread caramel over cooked base, return to oven, bake further 10 minutes, cool. Spread melted chocolate over caramel filling and allow to set.

Enjoy!

Whoopie Pies!

Today I made Whoopie Pies for the first time. I've had a Whoopie Pie recipe book in my bookshelf for a while but not made any because I found it very hard to find Marshmallow Fluff for the icing. I finally found Marshmallow Fluff (now called Jet Puffed) at USA Foods.

I used 1/4 cup of batter (60g) per Whoopie and these made 4" Whoopies. They were massive and looked  great but with the super sweet icing in the middle they were actually too big for a single serve. Next time I will make them a little smaller. 

Here's the Recipe

Cakes

1 egg

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 cup (215g) sugar

2 cups (280g) unsifted plain flour

1/3 cup (30g) cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking soda (Bi-Carb Soda)

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup (185ml) milk

1 teaspoon vanila

Filling

1/2 cup (120g) butter

1 cup (125g) icing sugar

1 cup Marshmallow Fluff

1 teaspoon vanilla

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and line cookie sheets with baking paper.

In a large bowl, with a mixer at medium speed, beat together the egg and vegetable oil. Gradually beat in the sugar and continue beating until pale yellow in colour.

In another bowl, combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. In a measuring cup combine the milk and vanilla. Add flour and milk mixtures alternately to eggs and sugar, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients.

Drop the batter by tablespoons into the baking sheets. These will spread a lot so arrange only 6 per tray. Bake for 5 minutes or until the tops spring back when lightly touched with a finger. Cool on wire racks.

In a medium bowl, with a mixer at medium speed, beat together the butter, sugar, Marshmallow Floff and vanilla until light and fluffy.

When the cakes are completely cool, use the filling and two cakes to make sandwiches.

Yields: 15 whoopie Pies.

I wasn't sure how much batter to use per cake so I used another recipe as a guide and used 1/4 cup (60g).  I think this was too much and could only fit 4 cakes per tray which made 6 whoopie pies.

Lemon Meringue Cupcakes

I felt like baking today so I baked a quick batch of vanilla cupcakes.  I filled them with lemon curd and topped them with marshmallow frosting.  Yum!  Here's the result:

I wasn't very happy with the height of the marshmallow frosting so I will try another recipe next time.

First Birthday Cake

Christmas Cupcakes

Here's a pic of what kept me busy leading up to Christmas.  I ended up with over 100 orders of these cute Santa and Rudolph cupcakes (Planet Cake design).