Easy Chocolate Cake

This morning I did the City 2 Surf, 12km walk, and although it was only a walk, it was tiring! Anyway, I felt like making a chocolate cake today, so I flipped through my massive cookbook, and found an easy-looking chocolate cake. This recipe is super easy, and has ingredients that you don't need to go out and buy. The only problem is that it is in the oven for 1 hour! Oh well. This is from the cookbook I got for xmas, and it is the 'Country Women's Association Classics' cookbook. It is Kim's chocolate cake.

Ingredients:
- 2 cups of self-raising flour
- 2 tablespoons of cocoa
- 1 1/2 cups of sugar
- 1 1/2 cups milk
- 2 eggs
- 2 tablespoons of butter, melted

How To Make It:
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Grease and line a 23cm round cake tin.
2. Sift the flour and cocoa into a bowl (preferably a large one as this recipe makes quite a large mix)
3. Add the sugar, milk and eggs.
4. Beat with an electric mixer for 2 minutes
5. Add in the melted butter, and beat for a further 2 minutes.
6. Pour into prepared tin and bake for about 1 hour (although it took my cake about 1hr and 10 mins)

This recipe didn't include instructions for an icing, so this is what I did. It isn't accurate at all, and you have to make it by taste and texture, but it's something.

Ingredients:
- Icing sugar
- Cocoa powder
- Soft butter (not melted)
- Milk

How To Make It:
1. Put about 3 tablespoons of icing sugar into a medium bowl
2. Add in a tablespoon or two of cocoa powder.
3. Add in about 2 tablespoons of butter, and if needed, a splash of milk
4. Squish the butter into the icing, and keep adding either milk or icing sugar if the mix is not the texture you want.
5. In the end, the mixture should stay in the bowl if you tip it upside down, and make sure you put the icing onto a cool cake, otherwise it will melt.

Crepes for Dinner!?!?!?!?!

It's a bit random, but I decided to make crepes for dinner. My mum sometimes did this for me and my brother when we were little and on special occasions, like birthdays and on Pancake Tuesday. But I had a sudden onset of cravings for crepes. So I begged mum to make them, but she said to make them yourself, so I did. This recipe is titled pancakes, but are more of a crepe consistency. They are from my mum's cookbook; ' Stephanie Alexander, The Cook's Companion'.
In our family (there are 4 of us), we have 3 or 4 big crepes each, so my mum usually doubles the recipe as it does not make nearly enough. I will put the original recipe on here, and if you make them and want quite a few, just double all the quantities.

Ingredients:
- 250g of plain flour
- 60g of butter
- a pinch of salt
- 1 1/2 cups of milk
- 3 eggs

How To Make Them:
1. Put flour into a large bowl, and make a well
2. Heat butter, milk and salt in a saucepan over medium-high heat until butter has fully melted
3. Break eggs into the well, and stir into the flour (it's going to get really thick and sticky, but when you add the milk it gets better)
4. Gradually add the warm milk mixture and whisk until smooth (you can use an actual whisk if you want a really good workout, but I just used an electric mixture to make sure there are no lumps)
5. The mixture should be like thin cream, and if it's not, then add more milk ( it doesn't have to be warm)
6. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours before cooking.
Cooking
7. Heat a frying pan on medium heat (preferably a non-stick frying pan, and use one that is the size that you want your pancakes to be)
8. For the first pancake, and after you've cooked a few, grease the frying pan with butter, oil, etc.
9. Lift the pan away from heat, and ladle in the pancake mixture, tilting the pan to spread it evenly and then put it back on the heat
10. After about a minute, lift the outer edge of the pancake, to see if it's cooked ('cooked' is when the underside starts to brown)
11. If it's not cooked, then set back down, but if it's cooked, slide a spatula underneath and flip the pancake over onto it's other side (flipping is hard, but it gets easier with practice!)
12. Cook for a little bit less time on that side, until the base is also browning, and then serve
13. Enjoy!

I like my pancakes with lemon juice and butter, or Nutella, or maple syrup. You can also have savoury ones like smoked salmon, cream cheese and spring onions (that's what my mum usually has), but really you can put on whatever you want! These are pretty easy to make and turn out really well!

ANZAC Biscuits :)

So, as usual I am cooking on a Sunday arvo. Today I decided to make ANZAC biscuits. I used a recipe from one of my mum's cookbooks, called 'Lady Flo Bjelke-Petersen's Classic Country Collection'. It's a really old but well-used book in our house. The recipe is the ANZAC biscuits.
Here's  how I made them...

Ingredients:
- 125g butter
- 1 desert spoon of golden syrup
- 1 heaped teaspoon of baking soda
- 1 1/2 cups of rolled oats
- 1 cup of self-raising flour
- 1 cup of sugar
- 1 cup of desiccated coconut
- Pinch of salt
- 1 egg
- 1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional, I chose not to add these)


How To Make It:
1. Preheat oven to about 180 degrees Celsius (fan-forced)
2. Line a baking tray with baking paper, or grease it
3. Put butter, golden syrup and baking soda into a small saucepan, and, over medium-high heat, stir until butter has melted. Set aside
4. In a large bowl, mix oats, self-raising flour, sugar, coconut, nuts, and salt.
5. Add in the melted ingredients to the dry ones, and mix well until fully combined
6. Mix in unbeaten egg
7. Knead mixture for about 5 minutes (make sure your hands are clean!)
8. Roll into small balls, and evenly space the balls apart on the tray (these really spread so be careful!)
9. Put into the oven and bake for about 15 minutes, or until the cookies are golden-brown and not super-squishy.

 Of course little chicken nugget helped me.....

Fresh out of the oven!

YUM!!!!!

Smoothie!

This morning I got back from a friend's house, and wanted to use the mason jar that I was given, so I decided to make a smoothie. My mum usually makes these on the summer holidays for my family, so it's not quite the same, but oh well. We also usually make these with banana but we don't have any of them right now, so...

Ingredients:

- Milk

- Orange Juice

- Yoghurt (preferably vanilla as it makes the smoothie sweeter, but plain is fine)

- Honey

- Strawberries

- Banana

- Tall jug & stick mixer

         or

- Processor

How To Make It:

1. Cut up strawberries and banana and place in a jug or processor

2. Blend together fruit until it is mostly mashed up

3. Add the milk according to how many you are making for. Add a splash of orange juice, a few dollops of yoghurt, and a good spoonful of honey

4. Blend altogether until smooth and creamy

5. Pour into cups, (or mason jars) and enjoy!

Starting Off...

Hi, I'm Sarah.

I've just started this blog, and on it I want to write about exciting stuff that's happening to me, but also mainly for baking. I love baking and try to  do it every Sunday. On here I will write the recipe, where it is from, how it went, all the other small details, and of course pictures.

:)