Chocolate peanut butter cookie dough cupcakes with two-toned frosting and coconut truffles

Here are my recent bakes as promised! Both were made for fundraising bake sales.

 

Finally bought a cupcake carrier. It has two levels so technically can hold 24 but if the icing is much more than a cm or so high, the bottom layer doesn't fit. Perfect if you only have 12. The bottom level is actually a metal muffin tray - bonus!

 

These cupcakes took some time to make but were well worth it. Here are the super moist chocolate (vegan!) cupcakes.

The peanut butter cookie dough balls. I added a little water into the mix as I didn't want the balls to be too firm. (best bit - eating the cut out bits of cupcake with the leftover cookie dough... yummm)

The two-toned icing was super fun! I made the icing a little thick in the first batch so it didn't pipe very smoothly. Otherwise a very easy technique - just fill two piping bags and put them both in one bag fitted with a large tip.

They were based on Joy's recipe here. I will have to make these again with the marshmallow frosting.

My grandma's awesomely addictive coconut truffles (secret family recipe :P)

Random yum lunch - stuffed baked pumpkin (grits + broccoli + mushrooms + pumpkin + liquid smoke, worcestershire sauce, pepper).

Salad, salmon and sugar

Helloooo! Time for an update I think! Things have been fairly busy lately but still been eating lots of yummy food! Have been having some gorgeous hot weather the past few days so have been having a ball. Not so much baking, but plan to do some this week for a fundraising bake sale - so stay tuned!

No recipe for this delicious pumpkin salad unfortunately but it contains - roast pumpkin, cubed cream cheese (cooked in the oven until slightly browned), baby spinach, sundried tomatoes, risoni and the dressing consists of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper and a touch of sugar. Yum! Nuts would also be nice in this.

Salmon baked with a little olive oil, a sprig of thyme and some lime slices. 

 Mongolian Beef! Really love this recipe! The meat was a tad tough so may need to cook the beef separately and add it back in towards the end (and add the cornflour separately). Added broccoli and shitaake mushrooms and had it with brown rice. Mmmm.

Hot pot with friends at uni!!! My first experience of it. Really quite cool! We had dumplings, bok choy, beef, fish balls etc, udon noodles, rice noodles and all the sauces.

This was my attempt of the Mississippi Mud Pie for my brothers birthday. I failed to make the pudding set properly (I suspect I didn't boil it for long enough as it was really too runny after sitting in the fridge for half the day). Still good! Popped it in the freezer and have been enjoying it frozen!!

Random lunch - oat mountain bread wrap with lemon-pepper tinned salmon mixed with cottage cheese, grated carrot and iceberg lettuce.

Some Koko Black chocolates I was given for motivation during exams! So good. I didn't get a pic of the one in the little box but it was a salted caramel choc. The others included truffles, raspberry dark choc, strawberry filled, pistachio, 2x almond ones....

 Special K + Sultana Bran, soy milk, gold kiwi and luscious strawberries

Berry yoghurt, museli, Apple Jacks, fresh blueberries, strawberries, mango, gold kiwi.

Tried the new Vegemite chips! I know many people weren't big fans but I really like them!!!! Excuse the other grocery items :P

Cya people!!!

Banana-date muffins + more

I caught the midnight baking bug last night!!!! In dire need of a study break, I used the excuse of two overrripe bananas in the fruit bowl to make these yummies. 

Banana and date muffins

My version - makes 12 ordinary sized muffins and about 8 mini muffins

2C self raising flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/2 tsp all spice

1/2 tsp cinnamon

125g pitted dates, chopped (I only used about 100g - about 6 medjool dates because that's all I had)

1/2 C brown sugar

1/2 C water

1/2 C milk

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 C mashed banana (about two large)

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 160C (fan-forced) and grease muffin trays.

2. Sift flour, soda and spices into a large bowl. Stir in sugar and dates.

2. Mash bananas in a bowl, add eggs, water, milk and vanilla and combine.

3. Add wet mixture to dry and stir until well combined (but not over-mixed).

4. Spoon mixture into muffin tray, sprinkle tops with more brown sugar, demerara sugar and/or nuts/seeds and bake for 16-18 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

5. Let sit in tray for 5 minutes then cool on wire rack. Enjoy!

So these are pretty good! The texture is a little different to ordinary muffins probably due to the lack of oil or butter but still very moist and light. A nice study snack :) Would add some nuts (or even dark chocolate chunks.. mmm) next time.

Okay now for some other stuff I've eaten...
Seedy toasted Costco bagel with cottage cheese and smokey bbq sauce.

Spinach salad...

With carrot, mushrooms, beetroot, wholegrain mustard and kimchi hiding underneath.

 Butter flavour Quaker instant grits with some lemon-pepper salmon stirred in with broccoli and cracked pepper on top! Added some garlic-chilli sauce later too.

Fruit salad :)