This book made its way into my suitcase and travelled all the way home with me from Virginia, USA. I paid $20US for it. It retails here in Australia from $30 to $50. For the best price in Australia check out Booko.
Peanut Butter Cupcakes with Chocolate Glaze
Yesterday was Father’s Day here in the land down under and my dad requested some “nice” cupcakes. I chose to bake peanut butter cupcakes from the Cupcakes! book I received for Christmas from my mother-in-law. I can’t tell you how these cupcakes taste – I’m recovering from the flu and my sense of taste is still AWOL. Hubby says they are “awesome” and Auntie says they are “divine” so it looks like a thumbs up on these cupcakes. I’m hoping I will be able to taste one soon!
A note about this cookbook – there are very few pictures in it! Seems odd for a cupcake cookbook not to be filled to the brim with cupcakey imagery.
Recipe Binder
Here’s my new toy, a binder to keep recipes in. It’s extra special cos it’s red to match my kitchen. Buy yours from kikki.K
My Recipes Organiser
A stylish and functional solution for a common problem – sorting and organising your recipes! Sort through your clippings and index those recipe books to be able to spend more time on cooking and less on searching for a recipe.
The My Recipe Organiser is a good weekend project, and an ideal gift for anyone who loves cooking. You’ll never loose a recipe again!
Divider tabs include:
1. Entree | Finger Food
2. Soup
3. Vegetarian
4. Fish
5. Chicken
6. Meat
7. Pasta
8. Desserts | Cakes
My Recipes Organiser | Features:
8 divider tabs for easy reference
4 plastic pockets
4D ring binder
Elastic band closure
Add Recipe Inserts for personalisation
Ideal with kikki.K Plastic Pocket Refills
295mm (L) x 61mm (W) x 315mm (H)
RRP: AUD $ 39.95
Next On The List
My co-worker Eve lent my this book from Baked in Brooklyn. Looking forward to trying a few recipes like pumpkin chocolate chip loaf.
These beauties are on their way to me from Recipe Journal
I use this recipe journal to write down all my favourite tried and true recipes. It also happens to have been designed by my good friend Tania.
Caramel Mud Cupcakes with White Chocolate
This time I used white flour instead of wholemeal for these caramel cupcakes. I served most of them with warm caramel sauce (3/4 cup brown sugar dissolved over low heat in 1 cup cream, simmered 8 minutes) and vanilla ice cream. This cupcake has melted white chocolate on top instead.
Low-fat Brownies
Low fat and brownies are words usually not used in the same sentence. But sometimes you need a treat that isn’t too naughty! I modified the chocolate brownie recipe from The Australian Women’s Weekly Low-Fat Food for Life. Instead of using low-fat dairy-free spread, I used regular salt-reduced butter. Overall, the brownies weren’t bad for a reduced-fat dessert. They lacked the true fudgey texture of a brownie but had a similar chocolate taste. The choc chips tended to settle at the bottom of the pan, so the bottom of the brownie was the most chocolatey part. I used a 20cm x 30cm baking tray; a smaller tray, as the recipe calls for, would result in thicker brownies.
Chocolate Brownie
Adapted from: The Australian Women’s Weekly Low-Fat Food for Life cookbook
2 eggs
1/3 cup (40g) firmly packed brown sugar
2 teaspoons instant coffee powder (I omitted this)
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 tablespoon water
1 tablespoon olive oil
40g low-fat dairy-free spread, melted (I used butter)
1/4 cup (40g) wholemeal self-raising flour (I used white SR flour)
1/4 cup (45g) dark-chocolate choc bits
Preheat oven to moderate. Grease and line a 19cm-square pan.
Using electric mixer, beat eggs and sugar until thick and creamy.
Blend coffee (if you are using it) and cocoa with the water and oil in a small bowl until smooth. Stir in melted spread or melted butter.
Fold cocoa mixture into egg mixture; fold in sifted flour and choc bits.
Pour into prepared pan.
Bake for approximately 25 minutes or until brownie is firm to touch. (Don’t overcook! You will lose any fudgeyness by baking the mixture too long. Twenty minutes in the oven was fine for my brownies.)
Stand 30 minutes, then serve. Makes 16.
If brownies are prepared according to the directions without my alterations the nutritional information according to the recipe book is:
Per brownie:
303KJ/73 cal
3.8g fat
0.6g sat fat
0.2g fibre
4.7g carbohydrates
Medium GI
“afternoon tea”
afternoon tea is a pretty and girly cookbook published by frankie magazine. Each recipe was submitted by a frankie staff member, with the aim that all the recipes be tried and true. Every contributor has also provided some insight into why they chose the particular recipe. It’s a cute cookbook, in a format similar to frankie magazine’s. I got it at a newsagent for $19.95. I’ll update once I test some of the recipes.
“Joy of Cooking”
I have two new cookbooks in my kitchen cupboard this month. My mother-in-law and father-in-law gave Joy of Cooking: 75th Anniversary Edition to my husband and me this Christmas.
From Wikipedia:
The Joy of Cooking is one of the United States’ most-published cookbooks, having been in print continuously since 1936 and with more than 18 million copies sold. It was privately published in 1931 by Irma S. Rombauer, a homemaker in St. Louis, Missouri, who was struggling emotionally and financially after her husband’s suicide the previous year. Rombauer had 3,000 copies printed by A.C. Clayton, a company which had printed labels for fancy St. Louis shoe companies and for Listerine, but never a book. In 1936, the Bobbs-Merrill Company, a commercial printing house, picked up the book.
In 2006, a 75th Anniversary edition was published, containing 4,500 recipes and returning Rombauer’s original voice to the book. The new version removes some of the professionalism of the 1997 edition and returns many simpler recipes and recipes assisted by ready-made products, such as cream of mushroom soup and store-bought wontons. The 2006 edition also reinstates the cocktail section and the frozen desserts section, restoring much of the information that was deleted in the 1996 edition.
The new version includes a new index called “Joy Classics” that contains 35 recipes from 1931-1975 and a new nutrition section.
I’ll add my thoughts as I work my way through the book.
