Valentines Day // Mini Honey Yogurt Cakes

 

So, tomorrow is Valentines Day! I plan on painting my nails tonight with red glitter nail polish in celebration. Apart from that, I don't have too many exciting plans. I have pulled a mini lamb roast out of the freezer though & I think these mini honey yoghurt cakes will be a nice accompaniment for pudding.

 

I got the idea for these from my Mum - I went to visit my family in Dunedin last weekend & Mum had made this amazing lemon yoghurt cake for afternoon tea - it was so tasty!

 

I changed the lemon juice to honey, added some vanilla paste & baked these in baking paper lined ramekins. They came out as cute little moist cakes which I dressed up with rose syrup & chopped pistachios with some yoghurt on the side (middle eastern inspiration is my favourite!)

 

The recipe is so easy, so I hope you give these a go!

 

 

Mini Honey Yogurt Cakes

3/4 C White Sugar

1 Egg

1/2 C Oil (I used extra virgin olive oil but canola is good too)

1/4 t Salt

1/2 C Yoghurt (Greek or plain unsweetened)

1 1/2 T Liquid Honey

1/2 t Vanilla Paste (or 1 t vanilla)

1 C Self Raising Flour

 

Heat oven to 180 degrees celsius & grease & line the sides & bases of 6 small ramekins (or a cheesecake tray with removable bases)

Mix sugar, eggs, oil & salt with an electric beater or whisk until thick.

Mix in yoghurt, honey & vanilla paste.

Fold n flour until just mixed.

Scoop into tins (the mixture is quite runny - I used an ice cream scoop)

Bake for 10 minutes at 180 degrees, then drop the oven temperature to 150 degrees & continue cooking the cakes for approximately 15-20 minutes until a skewer inserted into the centre of a cake comes out clean.

Cool for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a cake rack to cool completely.

Serve with rose syrup poured over (or more honey) plain yoghurt & chopped pistachios.

 

Serves 6

 

**To make a lemon version, omit the honey & vanilla paste & add 1 1/2 T lemon juice & the grated rind of 1 lemon. Serve with yoghurt & blueberries.

 

These are so yummy & stay good for 2-3 days (if they last that long!) I really want to go out & find a cheesecake tray now so I can make a whole heap of them...

 

What do you have planned for Valentines Day?

 

Kc



Life as I Know it // Ch-ch-changes

 Roses at the Dunedin Botanical Gardens - Taken by Me

Woohoo this is it!! I've spent the last 3 or so hours fixing up my blog and this is the result! And THIS is my 100th post! All very exciting. And unplanned. But super exciting.

So for those of you who wanna know more about me - click on the Polaroid-style pictures over on the right. There you can find out all about me and why I started this blog, my outfits and style, my cake decorating, the dance reviews I do and why I love baking so much!

There is also a new little button down a bit further. Wanna be button friends? Let me know and I'll stick yours on my page!

Also to add to all this excitement, I now have 72 followers!! Who would have thought!! When I first started this blog I wasn't sure anyone would read it as it really is a mish-mash of all the different things I love. But I'm so happy all you guys stop by and read my posts and leave me nice comments! Thank you!

What do you think of the new layout? Do you like it? I'm no Graphic Designer but I'm pretty happy with what I've achieved with the limited knowledge I have!

All A-glow in Silver and Bronze

I was supposed to update yesterday, but after a long day at the show helping out and a dinner date with friends I was ready for a decent sleep!

The show went really well for the Sugarcraft Club, we had pretty good numbers through the doors and 20 new people interested in taking classes!! The woman who runs them is considering starting a new class just to keep up with the demand. Kids and adults loved decorating their own cupcake or biscuit and voting for their favourite piece at the show.

I arrived on Saturday morning to check out how my entries went in the competition. I knew my floral spray was slightly too large (I wanted to use all the flowers I had made!) and my wedding cake would have looked better with a larger board, and these were reflected in the judges comments. Overall she thought my flowers were "beautiful" and my Bride and Groom were gorgeous and had "character" I received a bronze award (73 points) for my floral spray, a bronze award (78 points - 2 off a silver!) for my wedding cake and a SILVER (81 points!!) for my pettinice entry. I had to be happy with that!!

Photos of all my entries are included over at Sequin Corner Cakes. A few other people from my class also entered, and almost all of them either received bronze or silver awards too. Our teacher was so happy with all of us!

I hope everyone has had a great weekend, I'm looking forward to a weeks worth of early nights!

Got my Red Shoes on Honey

Shoes - Made from coloured gumpaste, with plastic sparkley diamantes attached. Roses also made from gumpaste. This was my first attempt at a pair of shoes, not bad right? The best bit is, you can keep them as they are solid as a rock, they will be fine in a dry cardboard box for as long as you like.

I have more photos of the cakes I made on Sequin Corner Cakes.

 

These are by far one of the coolest things I have learnt to make so far. Next I'm making a clutch bag - gotta love edible fashion!! ;)

Becomes The Rose

All photos taken by me on a Nikon D3000

I dashed down to the Botanical Gardens which happen to be a 5 minute walk away from my house the other weekend. I wanted to take some photos of roses to gain some inspiration for my flowers to go on my wedding cake I am making for the up-coming competition.

With an overload of pink and yellow roses, I was most inspired by the purple section, as well as some soft pinks and creamy whites. I was quite pleased with the photos I got! And how awesome is the glass house at the gardens?? It had scaffolding around it for ages and I had been waiting for them to remove it so I could get a photo.

These gardens are the oldest in New Zealand, being established in 1863. Some of my favourite memories include feeding the ducks old bread there with my family when I was little!

Flowers for Me - Gumpaste of Course!

I made my first floral spray this weekend and here is how it turned out. I used the flowers I had made last year at class - my lavender roses, cream open roses, rose leaves and jasmine flowers and buds. I'm so happy with how it turned out!! Pop over to Sequin Corner Cakes to check out some more photos. There is also a link to the Sequin Corner Cakes facebook page - stop by, check out some cakes and 'Like' me!

Roses are...Purple?

Our first project for cake decorating classes - roses!! They were so much fun to make - I have made about 10 as we will be making a flower topper with them soon. These began as white and were then dusted with a lilac colour.

Next week we are making carnations so I will post some photo's of them soon.