Salted Caramel and Vanilla Baked Cheesecake

While shopping in the supermarket last week this cheesecake caught my eye on the front page of this months Donna hay magazine. I am not a huge fan of cheesecake but this picture looked irresistible so i went ahead and brought all the ingredients there and then, along with the magazine and set off home to make it. This recipe had quite a few processes in it so i decided to make it over two days giving me plenty of time for the cheesecake to set. All my family loved cheesecake so needless to say it was a big hit. I love the hot caramel sauce and the fact that it looked just like the picture. This would make a great dinner party dessert as it is easy to prepare the day before and it looked really impressive. You can find the recipe in this months Donna Hay Magazine or here at her website http://www.donnahay.com.au/recipes/salted-caramel-and-vanilla-baked-cheesecake.

Apple Pie

Who doesn't love hot apple pie served with vanilla ice cream on a cold winters night? This is the easiest dessert to make, taught to me by my mum. All you need to do is line your pie dish with sweet, shortcrust pastry. Peel and slice 6 apples. Layer the apples and after each layer sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of brown sugar ,1 tablespoon of cubed butter and 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon. You should have around three layer by the time you reach the top of the dish. To finish off the pie i used a lattice technique with can be demonstrated here. Alternative you can roll a sheet of sweet shortcrust pastry over the top and trim the edges. The pie takes 50 minutes to cook in an oven set to 180 degrees C. This pie smells amazing and to me sums up everything good about winter.

Homemade Honeycomb dipped in chocolate

I have never had much practice with confectionery, always being put off by the high temperatures and sticky mess you are left with at the end but today feeling rather optimistic i searched and found this recipe for honeycomb. Always being a fan of the cadbury crunchy bar i couldn't resits turning this recipe into an old favourite by dipping the honeycomb pieces into milk chocolate to finish. I wont lie, this was not an easy task and it took me two attempts to get it right but the end was defiantly worth it.
My tips for working with sugar is to never take your eyes off the stove and stir consistently. To clean up place your utensils back into the empty pot, fill with water and return to the stove to boil. The heat will remove all the sticky sugar and leave your utensils clean at the end.

Pumpkin Pie

I have never thought of pumpkin as a sweet ingredient until now.... Today i came across this Donna hay recipe for a sweet pumpkin pie. I have been baking with so much chocolate lately i thought pumpkin would be a nice change.
The smell when they came out of the oven was amazing and the taste defiantly did not disappoint! This is the perfect winter dessert served warm with whipped cream and a sprinkle of cinnamon.

Homemade Oreo Cookies

One of the best things my boyfriend has passed on to me is that every cookie, doughnut or sweet treat tastes better served with a glass of cold milk . At the start i thought it was a childish thing and felt silly but after you have had an Oreo dunked into a cold glass of milk you will never look back.  i love this recipe, its easy and they taste amazing, maybe even better then the real thing. The only change i made was with the filling by leaving out the shortening. I also made half the batch with peppermint filling by adding a teaspoon of peppermint essence and green food colouring.

S'mores Cupcakes

I have been very lucky the last two summers to work at the most wonderful summer camp where every Monday night we would have a camp fire and all the kid would get to make s'mores. For those of you who have never heard of a s'more before it consists of toasted campfire marshmallows and chocolate, sandwiched between two ghram crackers. The hot marshmallows melt the chocolate making it the most delicious, sticky treat. Needless to say when i found this recipe I was very excited and had to try it straight away. The recipe takes a bit of work having to make the three different elements being the cupcakes, marshmallow and chocolate ganache but they are most defiantly worth it!

Indulgent Chocolate Cake

This is my all time favourite chocolate cake recipe and it has a rather unusual ingredient that makes it taste amazing......Beetroot. When i first tried this recipe i was a little skeptical of how beetroot would work in a cake but the end result was soooo tasty. I have tried this recipe with both canned and fresh beetroot and found the fresh beetroot had a better end result in both flavour and texture but if you cant get your hands on fresh beetroot the canned will work fine. The addition of beetroot makes this cake really moist, rich, and dense, everything I love in a perfect chocolate cake.



serve warm with cream for dessert

This recipe can be found under the dessert recipes tab above.