-Sticky Pear Ginger Cake

I seem to be making a great deal of sweet things at the moment...This is very good. I have baked it a couple of times now and it seems to be pretty fail-safe. Any cake preceded by the words sticky, pear and ginger would just have to be a winner.
The recipe comes from Nat's Thermomixen in the Kitchen. I reduced the sugar content, added wholemeal flour and a little more pear, used rice and maple syrup instead of golden syrup and replaced some of the butter with coconut oil.
I also put the pears in at the second stage so my non-fruit eating son wouldn't come across anything too chunky and suspiciously fruit-like in his fruit cake...I admit, it would have been nicer just stirred through at the end, but he loved it. Sucker.

140g rice syrup/maple syrup mix
75g dark brown sugar
125g butter/coconut oil
250g self raising flour (I used half white and half wholemeal)
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1Tbsp ground ginger
310mL milk
1 egg
3 medium pears, peeled, cored, diced

-Cook syrup, sugar and butter/oil 90 deg, 5 mins, speed 2.
-Add dry ingredients, milk and egg and mix on speed 4 for 4-5 secs - be careful not to over mix.
-Add pear (if you want chunks) and mix reverse speed 2 for 3 secs.
-Grease and line a square cake tin, pour in the mix and bake for 55-60mins at 180 deg. Cool in the tin 10 mins, then on a rack until cold.

Icing Ideas

With all the birthday cakes that have been made here recently, I thought I would devote a post to purely icing ideas. Here are some of the ones I have tried recently and a couple of others which sound yummy!

Icing used was the Creamy Vanilla Frosting

Cashew Nut Cream

1 cup of raw cashew nuts 

1/2 cup of water
little vanilla

Add all ingredients to TMX bowl
2 mins  Sp 9 (or until smoothish)

Berry Cashew Cream

1/4 cup raspberries (thawed, but any berry would work)

1/2 cup cashews (If you have time soak for an hour first and then rinse before using)
2 tsp vanilla extract

2 tbsp coconut milk

2 tbsp maple syrup

 Add all ingredients to TMX bowl
2 mins / Sp 9  (or until smoothish)

Creamy Vanilla Frosting 

From Steph Berg’s Blog http://www.stephberg.com/?p=2888

35g Plain Flour

200g whole milk

150g sugar

200g unsalted butter

35g natural vanilla extract

Place flour and milk into TMX bowl and blend

5 secs / Sp 6

Cook for 15min / 80deg / Speed 4

Pour into a bowl, cover with plastic wrap, pushing plastic down onto surface of mixture.

Cool completely

In clean TMX bowl add sugar and pulverise

15 secs / Sp 9

Add butter and chop
5-10 secs / Sp 7

Insert Butterfly and aerate butter and sugar

1-2 mins / Sp 3 with MC off to allow air in bowl

Scrape down sides of bowl when necessary.

Add Vanilla and beat

6 secs / Sp 4

Add cooked milk mixture and continue to beat
2-3 minutes /Sp 3 until very smooth and white.

Cover and refrigerate for 15 minutes (No longer and no less). Use immediately

Tip: As Mim discovered...make sure the milk mixture is completely cool before adding to the butter mixture.

Coco Cheese Icing
Recipe stolen from Karen....this one is so yummy and particularly good if you need white icing.

250g cream cheese
120g chilled coconut cream (not light)
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 tsp lime zest
1 tsp vanilla essence or paste

Add all ingredients to TMX bowl and mix to combine

Approx 30sec / Sp 6

Chocolate Ganache

As per the Everyday Cookbook (not so healthy but very yummy!)

100g Dark chocolate, broken into pieces

80g Cream

Place chocolate in TMX bowl and grate

30sec / Sp 8

Add Cream and cook

2 mins / 50degreesC / Sp 5

Chocolate Icing

This came from "The Healthy Chef" website

1/4 cup honey

2 ripe avocadoes
1 teaspoon vanilla extract or 1/2 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
1/4 cup good quality dark cocoa powder

Add honey first then add all other ingredients and blend

30 sec / Sp 6 until smooth and creamy
Spoon into a bowl and allow to set in the fridge.

Tip: The addition of banana or a little water makes for a lighter mousse.

Quirky Cooking's Gooey Chocolate Icing 

Grind cashews for 10 secs / Sp 9, until fine

100g raw cashews

Add remaining ingredients and mix at speed 6 for 30 seconds, scrape down, add a little more water if needed, and mix another 30 seconds until smooth:

- 3 fresh pitted dates

- 20g raw cacao powder

- 1 tsp vanilla extract

- 20g pure maple syrup

- 20g filtered water

Natural Food Colouring
If you are looking for Natural Food Colouring, I ordered them from Allergy Train - http://www.allergytrain.com.au/Store/tabid/62/CategoryID/9/List/1/Level/1/catpageindex/3/Default.aspx

Orange Pepita Cupcakes

This recipe is based on the one found on the Mixing it Up HK website (Thanks for the link Mim), which was a Citrus Poppyseed Muffin. I was lacking a couple of ingredients so here is my version, which I have also reduced the amount of sugar in (but definitely try out the original as well)

1 whole apple 
1 whole orange
2 large eggs
30g coconut oil, melted if solid 
50g natural yoghurt
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarb
120g white spelt flour
120g wholemeal bakers flour
70g rapadura
Handful of pepitas

1. Preheat oven to 170°C and grease 12 cake cake/muffin tin

2. Remove core and quarter one apple. Add to the TMX bowl and chop
10 secs/Speed 4. Scrape down the sides.

3. Add 20g water and cook 8 mins/100°C/Speed 1. MC lid off 

4. Cut a whole (incl skin) orange into quarters. Remove white pith and any obvious pips. Add to the TMX bowl and blend Speed 7/10 secs

5. Add the eggs, coconut oil and natural yoghurt and Mix Speed 8/10 seconds until well combined. 

6. Add baking powder, bicarb, flours, rapadura and pumpkin seeds and mix 8 secs/Rev/Speed 4 until mixture just comes together. Do not over-mix.

7. Spoon mixture into prepared cake tin and place in preheated oven to bake for about 12-15 mins  

8. Once cooled a little, I topped each cake with a dollop of natural yoghurt

Black bean brownies

This recipe is converted from the Healthy Hybrid.  Similar concept to the magic bean chocolate cake which uses red kidney beans in place of flour.  I have yet to try it but thought I'd post anyway

Ingredients

2 cup cooked black beans, drained of all liquid - could use a can.
2/3 cup rapadura sugar or sweetner of choice
1/3 cup raw cacao powder, cocoa, or carob powder
2 tbsp coconut oil, or butter
3 eggs,
1 1/2 tbsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp sea salt
walnuts (optional)

Do

1.  Preheat oven to 180 degrees and prepare a rectangular slice pan/ dish (grease or line with baking paper) 

2.  Blend ingredients other than walnuts together with 20 seconds sp 5 or until well blended
3.  Pour into greased 8"x8" pan. top with walnuts for decoration if you'd like

4.   Bake in the oven maybe 15 minutes. When the top starts to crack, they're golden and cooked.

Healthy Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cashew Nut Cream

I thought I would try out a new recipe for Fathers Day, although seeing as they came out a little bit red/pinkish it maybe good for Mothers Day!! This recipe has been adapted from the one found on "The Healthy Chef" website. It makes 12 smallish cupcakes, which didn't last long in our household. The last ones were eaten (without icing) after dinner with Quirky Jo's Cashew honey vanilla bean custard http://quirkycooking.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/cashew-honey-vanilla-bean-custard.html Yum!

2 large raw beetroot
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract or paste
1 tsp ground cinnamon
Pinch of sea salt
150g almonds
¼ cup cocoa powder or raw cacao powder
3 tbsp macadamia oil
60ml honey
½ cup raisins
1 tsp baking powder

1. Preheat oven 160 C (fan forced) 

2. Add almonds to TMX bowl and grind
Sp 9 / 2 mins. Set aside

3. Add Beetroot with skin into TMX bowl and grate
Sp 6 / 3 secs (until grated)

4. Add eggs, vanilla, cinnamon, ground almonds, cocoa, honey, oil and baking powder and mix
Sp 6 / 10 sec

5. Add raisins and mix
Sp 3 / 3 sec

6. Spoon into paper lined cupcake tins

7. Bake for 40 minutes or until cooked through

Cashew Nut Cream Icing1 cup of raw cashew nuts 

1/2 cup of water
little vanilla

1. Add all ingredients to TMX bowl
Sp 9 / 2 mins (or until smoothish)

Cake a Day.....

After a week living it up in Cairns, we all needed to break our taste buds addiction to sugar etc but still needed some yummy morning teas to get us through a week of renovations on our sun room. So just for a bit of fun, here are the morning teas I made (all Quirky Jo recipes) and any variations.

Monday
Pancakes with Banana and Rainforest honey (from Cairns)
http://quirkycooking.blogspot.com.au/2009/02/blender-batter-brown-rice-waffles.html

I made these just with Buckwheat and sliced up bananas which I put in each pancakes whilst it was cooking

Tuesday
Blender Batter Berry Cake
http://quirkycooking.blogspot.com.au/2009/07/blender-batter-berry-cake-gf-df.html

Halved the sugar in these

Wednesday
Carrot Cake
http://quirkycooking.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/one-bowl-thermomix-carrot-cake-gluten.html

Halved the honey and added some pumpkin seeds as well

Thursday
Flourless Pecan Cake
http://quirkycooking.blogspot.com.au/2009/08/flourless-pecan-cake-gf-df_16.html

I didn't have enough pecans so used some walnuts instead. Also I couldn't face not using all the thick coconut cream in the tin so I added a bit extra. The cake was a little softer but so so yummy. The girls were at Pre-School but Guy and I nearly ate the whole cake. (mainly Guy actually it was a favourite of the week)

Friday
Sultana Spice Bread
http://quirkycooking.blogspot.com.au/2011/09/grain-free-sultana-spice-bread.html

Again I didn't have any pecan nuts so instead I made the 120g up with Brazil nuts, cashew nuts and pumpkin seeds. I have made this one before with Pecans and it still came out very similar with the different nuts. I didn't add the honey which is optional in the recipe.


My freezer is now full with the leftover cakes cut up in slices. YA!