Birthday pavlova for Grandma Kiwicakes

If you asked Grandma Kiwicakes what her all time favourite dessert was she'd say pavlova. Remember last year, I made the mini pavs with pineapple flowers. This year I decided to make a large one, as I never like to make something exactly the same way (there's too many new things to be trying to do that!)

Ingredients

6 egg whites

2 cups caster sugar (I like Chelsea)

1 heaped tablespoon of cornflour

1 Tbsp of vinegar, I use white, but malt works well too.

Vanilla essence (or other flavour you may refer)

4 Tablespoons cold water

Preheat oven to 180C degrees. Place all ingredients in your stand cake mixer, turn on medium speed and leave to mix for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, the mixture should have lovely stiff peaks, if your turn the mixer whisk upside down, the peaks should hold in place.

When you place your pavlovas in the oven, be careful not to slam the door, immediately drop your temperature down to 120C degrees. Bake for 3 hours, then leave in oven switched off until cool)

I took some Fresh-As Freeze dried raspberries and smashed them up a little to sprinkle across the top of the whipped cream. I always have a selection of Fresh-as freeze dried fruit in my cupboard, as times it can be darn near impossible, or really expensive to find fresh berries for sale in the supermarkets. (certainly the freeze dried raspberries are cheaper than fresh ones and the taste and quality is amazing). I also added a little flaked chocolate.

Strawberry pink champagne cupcakes

These cupcakes came about when I was tasked with making something for a cake guild meeting about "flavour profiles". I knew in advance what our demonstrator was making for the evening, so I tried to make something a little different to her flavours. The recipe formed and grew in my head as I was making them, and had a minor adjustment part way through.

To my regular vanilla cupcakes, I added two tablespoons of freeze dried strawberry powder. I baked them in the usual way, but the resulting cake was a little too subtle in flavour. Here's where they took a turn for the better: I decided to add a Strawberry creme  to the centre of each cupcake using Gobake Easy Frost and freeze dried strawberry powder. It's super easy, the recipe for creme is right there on the packet. Any unused portion can be stored in the fridge or frozen to make ice-cream like this. I used a Wilton bismark tip to fill the centre of the cupcakes (using Wilton's method, which you can see here).

To my buttercream icing recipe I added a few drops of Americolor pink gel paste colour and some Lorann champagne oil flavouring. It was piped with a simple 1m swirl (these cupcakes were all about the flavour not the decoration). We had a lot of items to taste test during our guild evening. These were a hit on the night and I will definitely be making them again.

Rocky Road - with freeze dried strawberries & raspberries

This Rocky Road could not be simpler and it tastes better than any Rocky Road I've ever tried. In a bowl simply place one bag of mini marshmallows (if you buy the gluten free ones, this entire recipe will be gluten free). Add nuts of your choice, I used two handfuls of walnut pieces. I used half a bag of Freeze dried strawberry slices or raspberries per batch. My silicone baking pan is aprx 28x18cm but any size will do. Melt 500g of dark or milk chocolate over a double boiler and stir through your dry mixture.

Allow to cool at room temperature. I reserved some of the prettier slices of freeze dried strawberry for the top of my strawberry batch, I placed them on top before the chocolate set. For my raspberry batch (below), I used some of the crumbled pieces from the bottom of the packet, to sprinkle over the top.

For my strawberry batch I sprinkled over edible gold glitter.

All packaged up ready to give as gifts for Christmas, but they would make lovely gifts all year round.

Pineapple Bran Muffins - from Kiwicakes test kitchen

Warm up a cold day with these healthy yet flavoursome fruity muffins. They are quick to make and smell amazing!

Mix together with a spatula:

1 t baking soda dissolved in 1 & 1/2 C hot water 

1/4 C butter/margarine, melted

1 egg

1 C brown sugar

1 1/2 C flour and 1 t baking powder, sifted

1 C bran

1 pack Freeze Dried Pineapple Chunks (reserving 12 pieces for the top)

Spoon mixture into Muffin Tins and top with an extra piece of pineapple each. Cook on fanbake 150'C and test with a cake probe after 10 minutes. They cook to golden in 10-15 minutes depending on your oven. Transfer to a wire rack to cool and store in an airtight container. 

Adding margarine instead of butter can make this recipie dairy-free and lower-fat but personally I enjoy natural butter. 

I love these traditional muffins, but boosted with the intense pineapple chunks they are to die for, and you won't feel guilty about enjoying this yummy snack.