Strawberry and Coconut Tarts and One Year Blog-iversary!

It is hard to believe that I have been blogging for one whole year already! I feel like I have learned so much in this year, about baking, blogging and about myself. Sugabuttacream has been a great way to express my creativeness and practice photography and writing (God knows I need it!). I have made things I never thought I would bother to attempt and learned some great skills and techniques along the way. Gosh its definitely about 'the journey' isn't it.

Admittedly this anniversary snuck up on me and I would have liked to have done something a bit more amazing and celebratory-like for this post. But shortcrust pastry tarts are something I have been meaning to make since I bought my food processor so it seemed as good a time as any to try it out now.  This is such a simple pastry recipe and can be used for any sort of sweet tart. These are my twist on the classic strawberry jam and coconut slice and taste just as delicious!

Strawberry and Coconut Tarts

Recipe adapted from Taste.com and Generations of Bush Cooking

What you will need

For the pastry

250g plain flour

125g chilled butter, cubed

1/3 cup caster sugar

1 egg yolk

1tbsp cold water

For the filling

1/2 cup strawberry jam

For the topping

1 egg

1/6 cup sugar

1 cup shredded coconut

What you will need to do

I plan to refer back to this recipe for future shortcrust needs so I have added some visuals for the steps. 

Place flour, sugar and butter into food processor bowl. 

Process until resembles fine crumbs.

Add egg yolk and water.

Process until comes together and forms a ball.

Turn out onto floured surface and kneed lightly until smooth.

Shape into a round disc and place in the fridge to rest for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180*C. Remove pastry from fridge and place on floured surface.

Roll pastry out to about 5mm thick.

Using a round cutter, cut out as many rounds as you can. Take the remaining off cuts and roll out again and cut out more rounds. You should be able to get about 8-10 rounds.

Place the rounds into silicone cupcake trays and gently push down to line the bottom and sides.

Using a fork, poke some holes in the bottom of the tarts.

Bake for 10 -15 minutes or until slightly golden. Leave to cool slightly in tray then gently remove and place on cooling rack.

For the filling, place about 2 teaspoons of jam into each tart to almost fill them. 

For the topping, beat the egg and sugar together until light and fluffy. Stir in the coconut until completely combined. Divide the topping evenly between the tarts, spoon onto the tops. Place in the oven for 5-10 minutes until toppings start to brown. For extra crisp top, use a blowtorch to scorch the tops.

Lemon Cream Biscuits and Relay For Life

So I made these a while ago and just haven't gotten around to posting them. They were super yummy if you like lemony things. But more importantly I wanted to let people who read this know that I am participating in Relay For Life this year and am currently fundraising! Here is a link to my fundraising page if any one wanted to donate. It is a really good cause and the relay itself should be a whole lot of fun. I will probably make some tasty treats to keep us going through the night! Any contributions would be greatly appreciated but if you can't donate, even a tweet or post on your twitter or Facebook to this page and link would be super appreciated :) Thanks!

Lemon Cream Biscuits

Recipe adapted from Taste.com

What you will need

250g butter, room temp
1/3 cup icing sugar, sifted
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 3/4 cups plain flour
50g cornflour

60g butter, room temp
2/3 cup icing sugar, sifter
1 tbsp lemon juice

2 tbsp lemon juice
extra icing sugar, sifted

What you will need to do

Preheat oven to 160*C and line a baking tray with baking paper. Beat the butter, icing sugar and vanilla until pale and creamy. Sift the flour and cornflour into the butter mix and beat until just combined. Roll spoonfuls of mixture into balls and place on baking tray leaving a few centimetres between each. Flatten slightly with a fork then bake for 15 minutes or until cooked (they should only slightly brown on the bottom). Let cool on trays then transfer to a wire rack.

To make the filling, cream the butter, icing sugar and lemon juice until smooth and creamy. Pipe or spread filling on half of the biscuits then sandwich together with remaining biscuits.

To make the lemon glaze, mix a little icing sugar into the lemon juice until a smooth but runny consistency is reached. Brush glaze over the tops of the biscuits with a pastry brush. Place in fridge to set.

Hazelnut Cheesecake

Wow it has been too long since I last posted! I have been ridiculously busy of late, mostly because last week was my BIRTHDAY!! I had a bit of a shindig with most of my family and D's family making the trip up north and some friends partied with us too. I made. so. much. food. I had been baking a freezing things in the week leading up to my party and the sad thing is that I didn't get to take photos before the night :(.

Because I was making a birthday cake for the party I decided to make just a small one for my actual birth day. I was already planning on making mini hazelnut cheesecakes for the party so I just decided to make a medium cheesecake for my birthday at the same time. It was quite delicious! Ferrero Rocher anyone?

Hazelnut Cheesecake

Recipe adapted from Australian Good Taste Magazine April 2013

What you will need

250g Nice biscuits
150g hazelnuts, roasted and skins removed
100g unsalted butter, melted
500g cream cheese
300ml sour cream
100g caster sugar
3 eggs
320g nutella
Pinch of salt
Ferrero Rochers to decorate

What you will need to do

Process the biscuits and hazelnuts until finely crushed. Add melted butter and process until combined. You can make one large cheesecake in a 23cm spring form tin or about 18 mini cheesecakes and 1 medium 4 inch cheesecake. If using tins, line the bottom with baking paper and spray the sides with canola spray. If making minis, you can line muffin tins with cupcake papers, or if you have silicone cupcake trays just leave as is. Press the biscuit mix into the bottoms of your tins/ trays. Press in firmly and put in the fridge to chill.

Preheat the oven to 160*C. Process the cream cheese, sour cream and sugar in the food processor until smooth. Add the eggs one at a time and process until well combined. Take out the bases and pour the cream cheese mixture into each tin/ tray evenly. Heat the nutella in the microwave for 20 seconds then spoon a bit over each cheesecake. Take a knife and swirl the nutella through the cheesecake slightly. Bake for approximately 20 minutes. Cooking time will vary on the size of the cheesecakes, one big cheesecake may take an hour, the smaller ones will only take about 20 minutes. Keep an eye on them and they will be done when the middle is still slightly jiggly.

Once cooled, remove from tin/tray and decorate with Ferrero Rochers.

Chocolate Brownies - My New Favourite!

I hadn't cooked with chocolate for a while and I was having withdrawals. I wanted to make something to take to a friends place for a BBQ and thought brownies would be perfect. But I decided to try a new recipe (risky I know) because there was still this certain brownie texture that had alluded me up until now. That dense and almost chewy texture as apposed to super moist cake-like texture. I had a good feeling about this new recipe.

In the past I had always tried to use brownie recipes that use cocoa powder instead of chocolate for convenience reasons but this time I went for the real thing. These brownies are amazing! They are exactly that texture I have been searching for and the nuts just really add to the experience. Topped with chocolate ganache they are to die for and extremely morish. Another great thing is you make it in one saucepan so its not too messy!

It is safe to say that when I open my own bakery, these babies will DEFINITELY be on the menu! I found the recipe floating around on Pinterest and it is a David Lebovitz recipe. I am really starting to like this guys recipes... a lot!

Chocolate Brownies

Adapted from Leite's Culinaria

What you will need

85g butter
225g dark chocolate
3/4 cup sugar
1tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped

1/2 cup pecans, chopped

200g dark chocolate

100ml cream

What you will need to do

Preheat oven to 175*C and line a square baking tin with baking paper.
In a small saucepan melt the butter and chocolate over low heat. Stir until melted. Take off the heat and add the sugar and vanilla, stir until combined. Beat in eggs one at a time. Add the flour and mix rigorously for a whole minute until it becomes smooth and glossy and pulls away from the side of the pan a bit. Apparently this step is crucial to getting the right texture at the end. Stir in the chopped nuts and pour batter into prepared tin. Bake for 30 minutes or until the centre feels almost set. You do not want to over cook them. Take out of oven and cool in the tin.

To make the ganache. Place the cream and chocolate in a small saucepan and melt over low heat, stirring constantly. Once melted, pour over the top of the brownies still in the tin and leave to set. I put mine in the fridge to set quicker :D.