Recipe Successes & Disasters Video

Recipe Successes & Disasters Video

Caramel Mud Cake

Caramel Mud Cake

I decided to finally step away from chocolate and do an all time favourite of mine. My love for Caramel Mud Cake started from Michael's Patisserie. I had never bought a cake from a store beside Coles because I was so used to my Mum or me making everything from scratch. I was under the impression that homemade cakes were always better until... I found the caramel Mud Cake from Michael’s. Since then I've always thought of making my own and seeing if I could beat the infamous store bought cake.

Today is the day! Wish me luck!

(Little bit fancy!)

Ingredients

Cooking oil spray, for greasing

250g butter, chopped

2 cups brown sugar

1 cup milk

200g white cooking chocolate, chopped

1 ½ cups plain flour

½ cup self-raising flour

1 tsp vanilla extract

3 eggs, lightly beaten

BUTTERCREAM ICING

¼ cup caster sugar

2 Tbsp water

¼ cup pure cream, warmed

2 tsp vanilla extract

200g unsalted butter, chopped, at room temperature

2 cups icing sugar mixture

Method

1. Preheat oven to 150C. Grease a 20 x 7 cm round cake tin with cooking oil spray and line with baking paper, allowing a 2cm overhang. 
2. Put butter, sugar and milk in a medium saucepan over a medium heat and cook until butter has melted, stirring occasionally. Add chocolate and whisk until smooth. Do not boil. There will still be a few small specks of chocolate in the mixture. Transfer to a large bowl and set aside for 15 minutes to cool to room temperature.
3. Sift flours over cooled mixture and stir to combine. Add vanilla extract and egg and whisk until smooth.
4. Pour mixture into prepared tin and bake for 1 hour. Loosely cover with foil and bake for 1 hour. Loosely cover with foil and bake for a further 55 - 60 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Set aside in a tin to cool to room temperature. Using a serrated knife, trim off the top cap of the cake, still leaving a slight dome.
5. To make buttercream icing, put caster sugar and water in a small saucepan over a medium heat and bring to the boil. Cook, without stirring, for 6 minutes or until caramel turns light amber. Remove pan from heat. Add cream and vanilla extract and stir to combine. Set aside for 20 minutes to cool.
6. Put butter in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until light and fluffy. Add icing sugar and beat for 2 minutes. Add caramel and beat for a further 2 minutes.
7. Transfer cake to a serving plate. Spread buttercream icing over top and side of cake in a thick layer to coat.

Recipe and image from: Better Homes and Gardens August Magazine, Page 36-37.

Review

This cake was MODERATELY HARD. There are lots of elements to the cake and it requires some pre learned cooking skills (such as when caramel is form from melting sugar). Overall the cake was delicious! My Mum loved it the most and she hardly likes caramel or mud cake. I definitely want to make it again because I feel like I made some mistakes within the recipe which then changed the final taste. I don’t think it beat the Michael’s Patisserie version but I’m willing to keep trying!

Recipe Amendments/ Recommendations

My amendments and recommendations are as follows:

• In a fan forced preheated oven, watch the cake carefully because it cooks a lot faster than the recipe states.

• There is a lot of icing so get creative with decorating

• Do not store in the fridge as the cake dries out.

An overall success!

- Adelaide 

(The final product - with a little extra decoration!)

Beef Tacos

Thought of having something tasty during my study break for this long day of studying. Having a nice taco kit in the pantry helped me decide what to make for lunch this long day. Tacos are one of my favourite foods but quite messy as well.

Recipe and image taken from- http://www.oldelpaso.co.uk/recipes/crunchy-beef-tacos/878bc334-c79c-49c1-bf3e-8e660c1a7263/

Ingredients

1 x Old El Paso Original Stand ‘n’ Stuff Taco Kit
500g minced beef
125g grated cheese
2 x tomatoes
1 x lettuce
Oil

Kit contains: 10 x Old El Paso Crunchy Flat Bottom Taco Shells, 1 x Old El Paso Original Taco Spice Mix, 1 x Old El Paso Taco Salsa

Method

1. Add a splash of oil and heat a pan. Brown the mince before draining off the excess liquid.

2. Sprinkle in the Old El Paso Original Spice Mix for Tacos and add 100ml water.

3. Give it a good stir and when it starts to bubble, reduce the heat and simmer uncovered for 10 minutes. Stir occasionally until reduced to a lovely rich, tasty filling. 

4. Pre-heat oven to 180°C (160°C for fan assisted ovens), gas mark 4.

5. Place the Flat Bottom Taco Shells open end down on a baking sheet or some foil and heat for 2-3 minutes. Microwaves can vary but it’ll take about a minute for 6 and less for fewer

Review and amendments

Overall, beef tacos never fail to satisfy my taste buds. They are filling and depending on what toppings you add it can be a healthy meal as well. I did modify it quite a bit as I used different tacos, which weren’t the flat bottom ones. They still have the same taste but it is messier as you cannot sit it down.

I did add 1 small chopped onion to the frypan and cooked them until they turned transparent before I added the minced beef. The beef thickens quite quick once the spice mix and water is added so be prepared to turn it off once it does.

One thing that always seems to happen is while heating up the taco shells they burn really fast. So I advise to keep an eye out and only leave it for a minute. Remember you are not cooking the taco shells but merely warming them up so they are nice and crunch for serving.

Overall, I rate this recipe a 9/10.

-Lisa Alhage

Shrimp and Snow Pea Stir Fry

Ingredients:

1/2 cup chicken stock

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 teaspoon Sriracha sauce (more if you like things spicy!)

1/4-1/2 teaspoon ground ginger (I'm not crazy about the flavor of ginger, so I used close to 1/4 teaspoon. If you like it, though, by all means use more. You really can't mess this up)

1 teaspoon corn starch

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

4 cloves garlic, chopped

1/2 pound snow peas

1 kg medium shrimp, shelled and deveined with the tails removed

Chopped scallions

Steamed rice for serving

Method:

For the stir fry portion of the meal, I started by heating some oil over medium-high heat until it was shimmering. then I added some chopped garlic and cooked for about 2 minutes.

When the garlic started to smell amazing, I added the snow peas and cooked for about 2 minutes more, until they were bright green and a little flimsy, but not too soft I think real recipe writers call this "crisp-tender." 

As this was happening I combined a mixture of soy sauce, Sriracha, ground ginger, chicken stock, and corn starch in a small bowl and set aside. Then I added 1 pound of peeled shrimp to the hot skillet.

I let the shrimp cook for about 4 minutes, until they were starting to turn pink but were not cooked all the way through, then I added some chopped scallions and the soy sauce mixture.

I cooked this until the sauce had thickened and the shrimp were cooked through.

I served the shrimp and snow peas on top rice, with a little bit of scallions on top.

Review:

The Thai hot chili sauce is a revelation. I can't believe it has taken me this long to try it. If you like spicy food, you must have this condiment in your arsenal. I put it on leftover steamed rice the next day for lunch and was floored.


Cook rice according to package instructions. I do this by bringing 2 cups of liquid (in this case, chicken stock) to a boil, then adding 1 cup of rice and stirring once. Then I place a tightly fitting lid on top, reduce the heat to almost nothing, meaning I look at the little light that tells me a heating element is on, and I turn it as low as it can go without that light going out, and cook until the rice has absorbed all of the liquid, usually about 20 minutes.

Recipe Amendments/Recommendations:

Aside from my new found Sriracha love, what I really loved about this recipe is that it comes together in the time it takes to steam a cup of rice, which for me is about 20 minutes. Even better than that, it doesn't taste like it. It tastes like you must have spent a great deal of time and energy creating something so delicious, when really the most time consuming and energy requiring thing I had to do was peel a pound of shrimp. It's literally throw in ingredients, stir, throw again, stir again, serve on rice.

One-bowl Chocolate Cake

One-bowl Chocolate Cake

The greatest accompaniment to good food is great people to share it with!

Once a week my closest group of friends catch up to make sure we remain sane during the crazy uni semester. The night is usually filled with junk food and gossip, but this week I decided to mix it up a little and make a one-bowl wonder. 

It looks incredible and hopefully all the critics will think it tastes just as great. I’m a sucker for desserts with chocolate and whipped cream and this recipe adds a little something extra special, honeycomb!  

Wish me luck!

(Hopefully it looks as yummy as this!)

Ingredients

125g Butter, chopped

1 cup Brown sugar

2 tsp Vanilla extract

1 cup Water

3 Eggs

1 cup Self-raising flour

½ cup Plain flour

½ cup Cocoa powder

½ tsp Bicarb soda

200ml Thickened cream

200g Dark Chocolate, chopped

400ml Thickened cream

1 cup Malted honeycomb, roughly chopped

Method

1.  Preheat oven to 160C. Grease a 20cm cake tin and line with baking paper. Put 125g chopped butter, 1 cup brown sugar, 2 tsp vanilla extract and 1 cup water in a microwave bowl. Cook on high/100% for 3 mins, stirring every minute, or until smooth. Cool for 10 mins. 
2. Add 3 eggs to butter mixture and whisk. Sift 1 cup self-raising flour, ½ cup plain flour, ½ cup cocoa powder and ½ tsp bicarb over mixture. Stir. Pour into prepared tin. Bake for 50 mins, or until cooked when tested with a skewer.
3. Put 200ml thickened cream in a microwave jug. Heat on high/100% for 40-50 seconds or until hot. Stir in 200g chopped dark chocolate until smooth. Whisk 400ml thickened cream until firm peaks form. Fold in 1 cup roughly chopped chocolate-coated malted honeycomb. Cut cake in half horizontally. Put base on a cake stand. Spread over cream. Sandwich with cake top. Pour over chocolate sauce. Serve.

Recipe and image from: Better Homes and Gardens September 2013 Magazine, Page 12. 

Review

This recipe was definitely EASY and best part of all there is only a handful of things to wash up afterwards! Everyone loved the cakes simplicity and my best friend (who is also lactose intolerant) said “this is the best cake I've ever had.” That’s a pretty big compliment from Katherine because she’s not the biggest cake fan. I really enjoyed the cake and the whipped cream in-between kept the cake light and the honeycomb added that surprise crunch. Out of all the desserts I've made this one definitely tastes the best! However it didn't end up looking too delicious...

Recipe Amendments/ Recommendations  

The only amendments/recommendations I have are:

• If the oven is too hot or has been preheated for a long time the cakes centre will rise more than the rest of the cake. (This is what happened to my cake and a high temperature is the only reason I can come up with as to why.)

• The chocolate sauce sets really quickly so get it on the cake as soon as it has been made.

• Do not crush the honeycomb too much. That way there are still large chunks in the cream.

Whilst this recipe was a delicious success it was a disaster when it came to presentation!

- Adelaide

(Not as pretty but definitely delicious!)

Vegetarian Chinese dumplings

Ingredients

Some dumpling wraps
3 eggs
A bunch of chives
Soy sauce
Cooking wine
Salt

Method:

1. Chop the chives into small pieces
2. Crack the eggs into a bowl, add a teaspoon of soy sauce and a teaspoon of cooking wine, use a spoon to whisk until well combined.
3. Add some olive oil into a hot pan and pour in the egg mixture, make it to the scrambled eggs, make the egg pieces as small as possible.
4. Mix the chives and eggs together, spread some salt and mix them well.
5. Put the egg and chives mixture in the middle of the dumpling wrap, wet the edge of the wrap and fold them as the picture shows.
6. Once you make enough of one serving, fry those dumplings in the hot pan with olive oil for one minute, then set the heat on medium, and add a small cup of water, cover the lid and leave them for 5 minutes until the water dries out. Then it is ready to serve.

Review

The dumplings are very easy to make, and it tastes really good when you eat them fresh, and you can dip them with your favorite sauce or just eat them with original flavor, I usually dip them into Granny sauce ( a type of Chinese chilli sauce) because I love chilli. Make sure when you add the water it covers the bottom part of all dumplings, the wrap of my dumpling tastes a bit dry because I didn't put enough water.

Dumpling is my favorite Chinese food, and you can basically use any ingredients you want, when we make Chinese dumplings we usually mix pork mince and grounded ginger, shallots and any type of veges of your choice.

Grilled prawn with variety of flavors

After a long day of study I went for dinner with a friend, we felt like having a chat and rewarding ourselves with some nice food for accomplishing our tasks, he insisted going to a Japanese restaurant and the time we spent together was great, but at the end my heart just went broken after seeing my empty wallet, ‘cuz I’m not a sushi person and sometimes I did feel overpaying in some Japanese restaurant. However, there was one particular dish that I really liked for its taste—in the middle of a fancy small plate there stood a BBQ prawn, that was a damn pricy prawn. So inspired by this dish I decided to make a whole plate of prawn by myself at home.

 

Here is my recipe:

500g green prawn
1. Teriyaki source
2. Parsley flakes & garlic cloves, chopped into mince
3. Cayenne pepper
Method:
1. Cut the prawn from middle and devein the prawn, leaving the tail intact.
2. Dip the prawn with any source or ingredients you want, here I make grilled prawn with the ingredients mentioned above:

• Soak prawns into teriyaki source
• Spread Cayenne pepper on top of prawns
• Stuff the prawns with finely chopped garlic cloves and parsley flakes
• leave some prawns for original taste

3. Put the prawns on the grill on high until well cooked.

I would give this dish a score 7 out of 10 mainly because it's fresh and value for money, and it does not taste bad. once again I made a mistake that appear often in my home-cooking dishes-- the appearance, I admit there is a long way to go.

Easy Marbled Choc-chip Slice

This week has definitely been a tough one, so the only thing that could truly make it better is chocolate! This recipe just looked fun and delicious and what could be a better combination than a cookie slice topped with chocolate perfection. As you can tell I’m a little excited by this dessert, hopefully it’ll turn out great. 

Wish me luck! 

(Hopefully they turn out like this!)

Ingredients 

485g Betty Crocker Milk Chocolate Chunk Cookie mixture
1/3 cup Crushed Nuts
80g Butter, softened
1 Egg, lightly beaten
180g White Chocolate, chopped
200g Milk Chocolate, chopped

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C or 160ºC fan. Line a 28cm x 18cm slice tin with non-stick baking paper, extending over the two long sides.
2. Empty contents of cookie mixture packet into a bowl and add nuts. Add butter and egg. Mix with a wooden spoon, and then your hands, to combine evenly. Press into tin, using the back of a spoon to smooth the surface. Bake for 20 mins or until golden brown. Cool in the tin.
3. Place chocolate in separate bowls and microwave, one at a time, for 2 mins, or until soft. Stir until smooth. Drop spoonfuls of chocolates onto the slice, and use a skewer to create a marbled effect. Place in the fridge for 20 mins, or until set.
4. Stand slice at room temperature for chocolate to soften slightly. Lift from the tin and cut into squares to serve.

Recipe and image taken from: http://recipes.coles.com.au/recipes/1318/easy-marbled-choc-chip-slice/

Review

This recipe couldn't have been EASIER if it tried! When I first looked at the recipe I thought the base was going to be made from scratch but instead this recipe cuts all corners. The slice is absolutely heavenly and the best part is making your own marble design on top! Not only were they a hit with my family but also with my friends, making them the perfect (and easiest) party favor.

Recipe Amendments/Recommendations

The only amendments/recommendations I would make to the recipe are:

• If you want more of a white chocolate marble effect on top, buy an extra slab of white chocolate and melt half of it
• If you don’t like a dominate nutty taste, put less crushed nuts in the slice 
• Fan forced ovens which have been preheated will cook the slice in about 15 minutes so keep an eye on the slice so it doesn't burn; and finally
• Make 2 RECIPES because they are honestly amazing!

Another recipe success!

- Adelaide

(Not too shabby!)

 

Spicy wedges and Greek salad

Image and recipe taken from- http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/13937/spicy+potato+wedges+with+sour+cream

Today I felt like something nice a spicy and decided to make these wonderful spicy wedges and Greek salad to go with them. I found these recipes on taste.com which I found to be extremely easy and delicious.

Wedges recipe

Ingredients

• 1/2 tbs ground cumin
• 1/2 tbs ground coriander
• 1/2 tbs paprika
• 1/4 tsp chilli powder
• 1/8 cup light olive oil
• 500g medium potatoes, scrubbed
• Sea salt
• 1 shallot, finely chopped
• 1/2 tbs chopped coriander
• Sour cream and sweet chilli sauce, to serve

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200°C. Line base of a large baking dish with non-stick baking paper. Combine spices in a large bowl. Add oil and mix well.
2. Cut each potato into 6 wedges, add to bowl and toss to coat with spices.
3. Arrange potato wedges in a single layer in a large baking dish. Sprinkle generously with sea salt. Bake for 45 minutes until tender and crisp. Transfer to a large serving bowl.

4. Top with combined shallots and coriander and serve with sour cream and sweet chilli sauce.

Greek salad

Ingredients

• 3 firm ripe tomatoes, coarsely chopped
• 1/2 Lebanese cucumbers, coarsely chopped
• 1/2 red onion, sliced into rings
• 1/2 red capsicum, halved, deseeded, coarsely chopped
• 100g marinated Greek olives
• 110g marinated feta, coarsely chopped
• 1/2 tsp dried Greek oregano
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 70ml (1/2 cup) olive oil
• 30ml (1/4 cup) white vinegar

Method

1. Combine tomato, cucumber, onion, capsicum, olives and feta in a salad bowl. Sprinkle with oregano and salt.
2. Whisk together the oil and vinegar in a jug. Drizzle the salad with dressing and toss to combine. Serve immediately.

Review and amendments

I love my chilli, but it can be too chilli for those who are not a fan. You can cut down on the chilli powder or just eliminate it all together to make it less spicy.

One other tip would be to mix the sour cream and sweet chilli sauce together to create a nice dip that is not too chilli for the taste buds.

For the recipes I halved the servings too make it more suitable to the amount of people that will eat this meal. I didn’t have red onion so I just used normal white onion. I also added extra olives and feta cheese because they are my favourite ingredients in Greek salad.

This was a nice and fast recipe to prepare and cook. I shared it with my siblings and they liked them too.

Overall I rate this meal: 8/10

By Lisa Alhage
Enjoy.....

This is how mine turned out.

http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/13937/spicy+potato+wedges+with+sour+cream

http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/1944/greek+salad

Fried Rice

 

 

 

Ingredients

• 4 cups cooked white rice
• 1 carrots
• 1 medium yellow onion
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 tsp. fresh ginger
• 1 cup bean sprouts
• 3 eggs
• 1 pinch black pepper
• 1 tsp. salt
• 3 tbsp. soy sauce
• 2 tbsp. vegetable oil
• 2 tbsp. sesame oil
• Green onion for garnish
• 1/2 lb. cooked chicken

 

 

Methods:

Prepare the vegetables. First, wash 2 cups of carrots, 1 medium onion, 1 clove of garlic, one ginger root, and 1 cup of bean sprouts. Then, dice the carrots and onions, and mince just 1 tsp. of fresh ginger. Set these ingredients aside.


Cook the vegetables in the pan for 3 minutes. Place the carrots, onion, garlic, bean sprouts, and ginger into the pan. Throw in 1 tsp. of salt and a pinch of black pepper. The vegetables should sweat a bit, but they shouldn't turn brown.

Throw 1/2 lb. of cooked chicken into the pan. You can use chicken that you've cooked for another meal the day before, or buy or make cooked chicken especially for the fried rice. Just dice the chicken into thin strips and place it in the pan.

Put up to 2 tbsp. of sesame oil into the frying pan. You can gradually add the oil when it becomes necessary -- you don't have to throw it in at once.

Add three eggs to the pan. Crack the eggs into a bowl and whisk them together. Then, pour the eggs into the pan.

Toss the cooked rice into the pan. Fry the rice and the other ingredients together for 2-3 minutes, just enough time to heat up the rice and mix the ingredients. Keep stirring as you fry the rice. Add 3 tbsp. of soy sauce to the mixture and fry the ingredients together for another 30 seconds. Then, remove the pan from the heat.

 

 

Serve. Place the rice in a dish and garnish it with a few sprigs of green onion. Enjoy this dish as a main course.

Review:

I loved this dish! It was easy to make and tasted great. I loved that the onions were in every bite and were sweet tasting but crunchy. It was a great way to get rid of leftovers and smelled awesome.

I loved the flavor of the yellow onions with the rice and eggs. I did not add the soy sauce to give a chance to flavor the taste separately. Individuals added the sauce and some chill relish later.
I probably like more soy sauce than many people, but it's a matter of personal taste.Though it could have tasted a little bit more like Asian Cuisine, it was still awesome.

In order to get rich taste, to add a little flavor like cooked rice in chicken broth and added an extra egg.