The Cupcake Bakery

Whizzing back to my den after a quick shoe-shopping trip in the CBD with Kaz, I was very pleasantly surprised to see The Cupcake Bakery veritably leap into my path on my way into Town Hall Station. I had heard of this establishment, but thought the only CBD location was at The Ivy and had no idea one was to be found in the bowels of the QVB/Galleries/Town Hall station rabbit warren. I had also twice spotted girls clutching The Cupcake Bakery bags on the train in the past week. My interested had been piqued. This was destiny. I had no choice but to step up to the counter.

I of course simply could not go past the red velvet cupcake, I was keen to try someone else’s red velvet so I could get some kind of comparison to my own (as that is the only other time I’ve ever tried it). I was momentarily tempted by a lemon meringue cupcake, but the red velvet won out. As for Red, his flavour preferences are simple: chilli or coffee. I spotted a chocolate chilli cupcake – topical as he had attempted to make his own at home during the week using a White Wings mix with chilli flakes added – ack! But then saw a much more enticing looking tiramisu. The tiramisu was in the ‘deluxe’ section, costing $4.50 but my Red Velvet was a standard flavour costing $3.50. Other flavours included vanilla, vanilla-choc, vanilla–strawberry, choc-choc, choc-peppermint, banana and carrot. Deluxe included strawberry swirl cheesecake, hummingbird, custard tumble and lemon meringue. I noticed they have a coffee and cupcake special for $5, and they sell maxi-cupcakes for $55 (standard) and $75 (deluxe). These are made using the Wilton 3D cupcake pan by the way – try Peters of Kensington for $39 each if you want to make your own.

The subjects, looking nervous no?

So the tiramisu was packed in a mini-cake box (a-ha, so that’s where the extra $1 goes) and mine into a paper bag. After a suitable grace period post-dinner I could wait no longer, so out came the red velvet cupcake primed for consumption.

The cupcakes were very nice, moist and tasty. The red velvet was taste-wise somewhat reminiscent of my own attempt; chocolatey without being chocolate – in fact it smelt more of chocolate than it tasted. Texture wise it was different from mine, so I suspect this was butter based whereas mine was shortening based. Overall, I preferred mine (all modesty aside of course), but this was nice and my only real gripe would be they are a bit light on the icing – which incidentally was cream cheese.

Hmm Red Velvet cake.

The tiramisu was also nice. We cut it in half and it would seem they cut into the top, insert some coffee concoction and pop the 'plug' back in. The description on the web states it’s a coffee flavoured cake with marscapone icing and dusted with chocolate. I would say its a vanilla cake with a coffee 'injection', coffee flavoured marscapone icing dusted with chocolate. Yummy all the same, but what is with these cupcake shops and not making the cake as advertised?

You can see what I mean about the coffee filling here, and also the coffee cream icing

Size wise they are slightly smaller than Sparkles and if you are an icing fan then Sparkles has almost as much icing as cupcake, but the quality of the actual cake at The Cupcake Bakery is two thumbs up from me. I'll be back!

The Cupcake Bakery
Shop 2-4
Lower Ground 2
QVB, Sydney

Also at 320B George St and 428 Oxford Street Paddington.

http://www.thecupcakebakery.com.au/

Mudgee Magic - Part the Second

OK, so upon driving back into town we went firstly to Mudgee Gourmet. This is a little shop now located in the glorious old Mudgee Railway Station building. It stocks a range of locally made jams, jellies, chutneys, sauces, oils and....well, you get the idea. I was keen to visit here to get another jar of The Grape Alternative's Traminer and Mint Jelly (I had purchased some on a previous Mudgee trip). This time I also grabbed a Shiraz and Lemon Thyme Jelly also ($13 per jar). These jellies are delicious and would be just as much at home on a cheese platter as accompanying your next roast dinner. There is also a wonderful local art and craft co-op at the railway station too - I have added to my cobalt blue pottery collection on both visits here :).

And finally we tracked down the Mudgee Brewing Company, as I understand it it's a relatively new enterprise housed in a lovely old building on the main street (Church Street). Whilst none of us are beer drinkers, Kaz had to purchase some of the beers for a work colleague and also grabbed a six pack of Porter for her dark-beer-loving husband, so the rest of us thought it might be a good place to get the 'other halves' a token present for keeping the home fires burning while we galavanted around wineries for a weekend. I ummed and ahhhed about getting some for Red, finally getting him a 6 pack with 3 Spring Ale (a wheat beer I believe) and 3 Pale Ales. At $20 for a six pack I thought this was pretty good value for a boutique brewery. Red has tried one of each and given the Pale Ale the two thumbs up.

Then it was back to our cottage and a night of tragic 80's DVDs. I had briefly mentioned the Lindt Bunny earlier, a 1kg monstrosity that Doodah brought with her. While our minds were boggling at how we would consume such a beast (but boy, were we willing to give it a try) I hit on the idea of melting it down. Huzzah! And then Kaz had the brilliant idea of making hot chocolates with the melted bunny. Double huzzah!! So a night of pure liquid Lindt indulgence followed.

The next morning after packing ourselves back into the Tarago, we had two more stops to make on our way out of town.

Firstly we wanted to visit the High Valley Wine and Cheese Company. We all love our cheese and were very much looking forward to a bit of tasting and maybe some purchases. But (and you knew this was coming) we happened to time our arrival just as a minibus full of,er, older Australians pulled up. By the time we got inside they had crowded out the wine tasting counter and also the cheese tasting counter. When any of us tried to squeeze past we were met with tsks and mumblings about being pushy and rude. Perhaps if they stepped right up to the counter instead of standing right in the middle of the only thoroughfare we wouldn't have had to be so pushy and rude (not that we were). Anyway, I digress. Some of us did make it to the front of the wine counter only to be soundly ignored. Kaz made it to the front of the cheese tasting counter (she's wiley that one) only to be looked square in the eye and then soundly ignored.

Having worked in tourism marketing all of my career, I simply cannot understand places like this; why do they not set themselves up for groups better? I have had this experience at more than one cellar door - for some reason if you happen to arrive at the same time as a large group you get ignored. Its disappointing as our money is valid currency too. In this case I know ALL of us would have been keen to buy some cheese, instead we bought nothing and left disgruntled and disappointed. I surely hope that bus load made up for our lost sales.

Luckily we left on a high after a visit to Clearview Estate, our interest piqued by the promise of their sparkling shiraz (a favourite amongst our group) and also a liquer shiraz. Only a couple of us tasted, but we were quite impressed with the sparkling shiraz (yes Mum, there's a bottle put away for Christmas) and I also bought a bottle of their rose, a more typical and refreshing example of a rose compared to the different but still yummy Pieter van Gent.'s

And with that we were off and over the mountains and back to Sydney, husbands and children. Mudgee is a great place for a long weekend away, with lots of wineries and 'foodie' oriented places to visit - they also have quite a few markets at differing times of the month so check dates etc if you are planning a visit . It was relatively quiet at this time of year, but I liked it that way. Mudgee holds a wine festival every year in September which would be worth checking out.

Mudgee Magic - Part the First

Two weekends ago I had the privilege of going on a Girl's Weekend Away with my closest girlfriends Kaz, LouLou, M1, Ali and Doodah, all of whom are also part of my beloved circle of guinea pigs (ie those who are un/lucky enough for me to try my experimental cooking out on). Our chosen destination was Mudgee, selected for its proximity to Sydney, because the travelling route is via the Blue Mountains and because of its growing reputation as a food and wine destination.

We hired a Tarago (very sexy I know) so we could all travel together and as LouLou is preggers with #2, we'd be able to conduct a self-drive winery tour over the weekend.

We departed Sydney by 11am and arrived at our lunch pit stop, Leura, around 12.30pm greeted by beautifully crisp mountain air (ie it was freezing). A brief amble up the road and we made our way into Leura Gourmet for lunch. This place is great, it has a large deli counter with all sorts of goodies such as cheeses, meats and salads for takeaway purchase, plus a large range of local produce as well - the rocky road and nougat caught our attention. Lunch was delicious and hearty. I had the lasagne, which had a very rich-looking and tasty pomodoro sauce. LouLou had the eggplant parmigiana which also featured the tomato sauce, Kaz let me try her corn fritters, very tasty and served with a yoghurt sauce and salad, M1 and Ali could be heard groaning their way through their steak sandwiches and Doodah was more than happy with her pumpkin soup. Meals average the $17-20 mark - a tad more than you'd expect to pay in your average Sydney cafe, but this is the Mountains, the food was obvoiously made in-house and the servings were generous. The amazing view from the back of the cafe through the floor to ceiling window is worth the few extra dollars alone. The only thing that really let this place down was the indifference of the wait staff. Perfectly efficient, but purely perfunctionary. After coffees and hot chocolate (I selflessly tried the chili and cinnamon hot chocolate - gives a nice bit of heat on the back of your tongue and I loved the cinnamon flavour in with the hot choc) we hit the streets for a bit of a browse. After an obligatory purchase from the lolly shop, and grabbing a cherry crumble from Bakehouse on Wentworth for later, it was back in the Tarago and off to Mudgee.

Our accommodation for the weekend was Protea Farm, specifically the Grevillea Cottage. We were all more than happy with this choice - open plan living area with kitchen/living room/dining table, three queen sized bedrooms (beds very comfortable incidentally) and two bathrooms. A lovely woodfire to keep us all warm (and for toasting marshmallows), pay tv and a DVD player. All the comforts of home really.

Saturday dawned and over breakfast we marked out our plan of attack. It went something like this:

The Olive Nest: one of a few olive and oil producers in the Mudgee region. They produce extra virgin olive oil and lime, lemon and garlic infused varieties. You can also get jars of olives, dressings and tapenades. I picked up a bottle of the lemon infused oil ($35 for 500ml) and black olive tapenade ($13 from memory) which I prefer over green as I love the saltiness however their green tapenade is one of the nicest I've tasted. You can also taste 1838 wines here.

Pieter van Gent: Entering through big wooden double doors you walk on a dirt floor past massive casks to get to the tasting counter. The girls behind the desk were just lovely and the wines were quite impressive, particularly the 'sticky' and dessert styles. PvG are probably best known for their Mudgee White Port, which a few of us bought to take home. I also bought a couple of bottles of their gorgeous 'Flowers of Florence' rose, quite unlike any other I've had with a surprising butterscotch-like taste. Yum!

Frog Rock: You've probably heard of this winery as it is available through bottle shops in 'the big smoke'. A nice cellar door with some food tastings as well as wine.

Blue Wren: This was our lunch stop, a large space housed in a big blue shed kept nice and warm with wood fires. The meals were priced in the $18-$25 range, food was hearty and servings were generous. We all shared some tasty garlic bread and then I opted for the pork and sage sausages with a potato, fennel and parsley salad and caramelised onion. The sausages were on the smaller side, but were tasty and accompanied by a generous amount of the salad which was just creamy enough and although I am not a huge fennel fan it provded a nice crunchy contrast against the soft potatoes and sausage. It was definitely a comforting and filling meal. The other popular dish at our table was a lemon roasted chicken which came with a chickpea salad. The chicken was served with the wing bone in, which sparked some lively table discussion about whether it should have been called a breast of chicken or a supreme of chicken. We washed all this down with a bottle of Blue Wren's Semillion Sauvignon Blanc which was one of the nicer whites we tried on the day.

After lunch time was ticking away and as the cellar doors and shops close at 4pm we had two stops to squeeze in before heading back to our cottage and a night of DVDs and consuming an alarmingly large Lindt bunny...

But I'll continue that in a separate post before this becomes War and Peace....

Comfort Food

Winter. This season was just made for cooking don't you think? The oven warms the house, the food is rich and filling, red wine, casseroles, pot pies, hot puddings...

Two of my favourite guinea pigs were over for dinner on Saturday night, the guest of honour being Miss J's godmummy whose birthday it had been a couple of days before. I decided I wanted to do comfort food - a casserole and a pudding. I confessed to Kaz that it had been a long time since I had last made a casserole (erm, around 12 years at a guess) as the last time hadn't been all I hoped for. My memories are hazy, but I recall that although it wasn't a complete disaster, it was not not the melt-in-your mouth, full-o-flavour experience you expect nay, CRAVE from a hearty casserole.

In anticipation of this momentous occasion, I had an emergency trip to Kmart the Thursday night prior. I had been tipped off they had a range of good quality cast iron/enamelled cookware at reasonable prices. I have a great collection of Corningware, as all brides should, but you can't use that on the stove top and I wanted this to be a one pot dish. So, I dashed in en route home and when I found the appropriate aisle was confronted with a selection of RED. Bah!!!!! Again with the red! But something compelled me to turn around and lo! there was a lovely oval dish on a gorgeous shade of cobalt blue for only $56. Bargain. Even more of a bargain when I got to the checkout and it scanned at $39. You gotta love Kmart.

So I was all set for Saturday night comfort food. I had sought out some suitable casserole contenders, but eventually settled on this. The main reason was I also hadn't ever cooked with leeks before. I know, I know - at my age that is a travesty but one shortly to be recitfied. I did tweak it a bit, as is my wont. As is all cooks wonts really.

Chicken Leek and Mushroom Casserole

Ingredients:
8 chicken thigh pieces
1 tbs olive oil
250g rindless bacon rashers, coarsely chopped
2 leeks, pale section only, washed, ends trimmed, cut into thick slices
400g button mushrooms, halved
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tbs plain flour
250ml (1 cup) salt-reduced chicken stock
250ml (1 cup) white wine
6 sprigs fresh thyme
125ml (1/2 cup) thickened cream
Zest of 1 lemon

Method:
Preheat oven to 180°C. Heat a 3L (12-cup) capacity flameproof, ovenproof casserole dish over medium-high heat.

Add half the chicken and cook for 3-4 minutes each side or until golden. Transfer to a plate. Repeat with the remaining chicken, reheating the dish between batches. Use paper towels to wipe the dish to remove excess fat.

Add the bacon, leek, mushroom and garlic and cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until golden brown. Add the flour and cook, stirring, for 1 minute or until well combined. Add the stock, wine, lemon zest and thyme, and bring to the boil.

Return the chicken to the dish. Cover and bake in oven for 1 hour or until the juices run clear when the chicken is pierced with a skewer.

Use tongs to transfer the chicken to a plate/s. Put dish with leek mixture back on the stove. Add the cream and bring to the boil over medium-high heat. Cook for 5 minutes or until sauce thickens slightly.

Pour leek mixture over chicken to serve. I served with evil mashed potatoes and green beans.

I had always though casseroles to be very complex and time consuming. Not sure where I got that idea from - I was so wrong!

And so to dessert. I have been wanting to make a self-saucing pudding for aaaaaages. Given Kaz's husband Chocolate Crackle (long story) is not a chocolate fan (ironic, huh) I thought I'd avoid the obvious and go for a caramel flavour. The following recipe is kind of a melange of a few, so I can't really credit anyone but me!!

Caramel Self-Saucing Pudding

Ingredients:
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 1/4 cups self-raising flour
100g butter, melted
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
5 tbs golden syrup
1 tbs cornflour
1 1/2 cups boiling water

Method:
Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease a 1.5 litre ovenproof dish.

Combine 1/4 cup of the brown sugar and all of the flour in a bowl. Add the melted butter, egg, milk and 3 tbs of the golden syrup and stir until combined. Spoon into greased dish.

Combine the remaining 1/2 cup of brown sugar and cornflour. Sprinkle over the pudding mixture. (Note: if you are having a dinner party you could do up to this stage beforehand and finish off with the next step while you eat your mains)

Combine boiling water with the remaining 2 tbs of golden syrup. Pour over the top of the pudding mixture and bake for 40-45 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. I served with double cream but runny cream would be yummo also.

As this is really so easy to make I have no choice but to expand my self-saucing repertoire forthwith. And I might add while I am fixated on self-saucing, my Mother is currently obsessed with steamed puddings. In particular, a rhubarb steamed pudding Fast Eddie made on Better Homes and Gardens a few weeks back. Her first attempt I wasn't privvy to, but apparently resulted in quite tasty, but very hard 'steamed rock cakes'. Part of me indulged in a little schadenfreude at this, given her usual lack of modesty when it comes to her cooking accomplishments, but I love rhubarb and I love puddings so I am hoping she succeeds next time.

Up next: I know, I lied and this wasn't the Lemon Meringue Cake recipe so I am doing that next. Promise. It's worth the wait though....

Things I covet:

Anything with cupcakes on it - exhibit a, exhibit b and exhibit c.

Cobalt blue kitchen stuff - like all of this.

Babushka dolls - like this, oh and this and what about these?

Oh and feijoas. The Aussies haven't cottoned onto them yet so you never see them and when you do they are at extortionate prices. But Mum and I have a plan......

ifqaduc6jn

Sparkle Cupcakery, Surry Hills

I work in Surry Hills, which seems to be a bit of an eating hotspot these days, and was excited to learn that a cupcake bakery had opened up not far from my office. I say not far, but anyone who has ever had to make the hike from Elizabeth Street up Foveaux Street to Crown knows that The Hill of Death lies between you and your desired destination. However, I wasn't letting that get between me and (hopefully) a good cupcake.

Before departure, I had a peruse of their website http://www.sparklecupcakery.com.au/ - pretty snazzy, with a run down of flavours and what day of the week they were available. I mentally made my selection and off I went.

After oxygen therapy upon conquering THoD, I spotted my prey and in I went to be greeted very chirpily by the young man behind the counter. The shop is exactly as you see on the website, I say this as I thought there’d be more to it in the flesh but no, not a huge amount of space. Given this is the 'trendy' part of Surry Hills, I wasn't surprised that there were lots of 'ladies who lunch' types in here, especially as you can sip a champers with your cupcakes.

So I perused the window display and made my selection - a lavender and honey and a coconut ice. They were placed into a stylish paper bag and whilst he was doing this I spotted a printout email on the counter from a corporate customer expressing their unhappiness. I noted this for two reasons. 1) I was about to fork over $9 for two cupcakes, so I was hoping this person had unfounded complaints and 2) I organise all our work functions, so always like to know who is worth their salt especially local suppliers. So regardless of whether or not you know who your customer is, its not a good idea to leave such notes out in plain view.

So, to the point of my visit. The cupcakes look nice, a big mound of frosting with a dot on top, it seems they (the dots) are colour coded according to flavour.

Lavender and honey – listed as a ‘soft-scented lavender cake with creamy honey frosting.’ As soon as I opened the bag I could smell the lavender. Maybe even a little too powerfully. The cupcake itself was a little on the dry side. The frosting is nice, but I am not detecting much honey. So, I take a mouthful of icing on its own. Hmmm, very fragrant but not really honey, more a lavender taste. So I take a mouthful of just cake – no real lavender flavour at all., In fact, while I do not have the resources to break down components, I strongly suspect it’s a vanilla cupcake with lavender icing, not a lavender cupcake with honey icing as the website states. A tad disappointing.

So, onto the coconut. Coconut ice – ‘tropical shredded coconut cake topped with coconut ice.’ So, this is meant to be a coconut cupcake with coconut icing. Check on the icing, but the cake is not coconut and this is obvious - there are no shreds evident in the cake at all and it simply doesn't taste of coconut. And unlike almost every coconut cake I've had in the past, this cupcake is very dry and crumbly, and is very difficult to eat.

For me, $4.50 for a cupcake is getting up there and possibly amongst the pricier cupcake offerings in Sydney. The cake itself seems more miss than hit. They are generous with the frosting and have some really interesting flavours on offer – it would be great though, if the finished product tasted of what was actaully described on the menu.

Sparkle Cupcakery
132 Foveaux Street
Surry HIlls
02 9361 0690
http://www.sparklecupcakery.com.au/

PS pics are coming as soon as I can get them off my phone.

Chai Latte Butter Cake

I have been doing lots of reading and what I find fascinating is the more reading you do about baking the more you realise it is absolutely all about science. And once you get your head around the basic principles you can cut loose and experiment more.

I had a girly get-together on the horizon and I decided I wanted to make a cake for grown-ups, a spice cake. I searched, but couldn't find a recipe that I liked and so decided to make a variant of the yummy butter cake I'd made for Miss J's birthday. One of my beloved 'guinea pigs', LouLou, had given me some lovely teas for my birthday, so I thought I'd use the choc chip chai one to spice things up. Some recipes I've seen use a powdered version of a chai mix, but I decided to err on the side of caution and instead infuse the tea in the milk used in the recipe - I thought that was kind of smart!

Knowing how much batter this makes, I made a half quantity and used a 20cm square tin. I layered this cake with some of the butter cream. Oh, and you can adjust the amount of chai you use to your own taste - mine was about medium spice level I think.

So, just in case you missed it... here goes with variant included:

Chai Butter Cake

Ingredients:
1 cup of butter (room temperature)
2 cups of sugar
4 eggs (room temperature)
3 cups of sifted self-raising flour
1 cup of whole milk infused with around 1 tablespoon chai
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Method:
Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Grease and flour 3 x 20cm/8 inch cake tins, or whatever you choose to use.

Using a mixer, cream butter until fluffy. Add sugar and continue to cream for about 7 minutes. Add eggs one at a time. Beat well after each egg is added.

Alternate adding flour and milk beginning and ending with flour. Add vanilla to mix until just mixed.

Pour batter in to tin/s. and then carefully drop the tin/s onto counter several times to ensure release of any air bubbles. This will help you have a more level cake (nice tip!).Bake for 25 - 30 minutes (depending on your oven) until done. Cool in pans for 5 - 10 minutes. Remove and immediately wrap each layer in plastic wrap to seal in moisture. Cool completely on wire racks. Once cooled, you are ready to ice /assemble your cake.

I debated about what flavour icing to use.. I think if I'd had cinnamon at the time that might have won, but in the end I decided on a coffee butter cream which is where the latte part comes in. Ultimately the coffee actually did work well with the chai spices and I would use this with it again.

Next up... (be still my heart) Lemon Meringue Cake