STARTING WITH A CLEAN PALATE




We are expecting our first born baby who hasn't yet
revealed if it prefers blue or pink.

My wife has a pregnancy app on her phone which after entering a few
things to determine the age of the baby, sends her a weekly update on
the development of the baby during that week. Flippin' amazing! 

So this morning I got the weekly update and even though the baby is just
10cm tall at this stage, it is already developing taste buds! How crazy is that? 

It took me about 26 years before I realised just how much I love
food and for my 'Taste buds' to develop! 

May our baby's taste buds develop a lot quicker than mine!

Looking forward to baking many birthday cakes and
coming up with smiley face meals.





Chocolate Blondies & white chocolate and berry splinters


This recipe scores highly on the results to kitchen time ratio!
Blondies are just the hot white chocolate cousins of normal chocolate brownies.

Firstly the white chocolate and berry splinters:

200g  good quality white chocolate (get it from a baking supply store)
50g unsalted cashew nuts (chopped)
50g dried berries

- Fill a pot with boiling water (halfway), put a large enough bowl over the top of pot and add the chocolate to the bowl
- Keep stirring the chocolate while it melts until you have smooth runny chocolate
- Pour this onto a sheet of baking paper 
- Distribute it evenly over the paper so that you have a layer of chocolate roughly 5mm thick
- Sprinkle the nuts and berries evenly over the chocolate and leave it to set

While the chocolate is setting, get going with the Blondies:
115g        butter
400g        light brown sugar
1.5 cups cake flour
1ml          salt
2.5ml       baking powder
100g        good quality white chocolate (roughly chopped)
100g        macadamia nuts (chopped)
2              eggs
5ml          vanilla essence
9 tsp        strawberry jam
icing sugar to decorate

- Pre-heat the oven to 160 degrees C
- Line a baking pan with baking paper and make sure the sides are also lined to the top
- Melt the butter and sugar in a pot over medium heat, the sugar doesn't need to completely dissolve
- In the mean time, sift the flour, salt and baking powder together
- Add the sugar mixture to the dried ingredients and mix well
- Next add the nuts, chocolate, eggs and vanilla and fold the whole lot into mixture
- This is supposed to be quite a dry mixture (don't expect a runny pancake batter) but I added a squirt of cream just to get the mixture to stick
- Spoon the mixture into the lined pan and add a drop of strawberry jam every couple of centimeters
- Let it bake for 55 minutes
- Once it has cooled off slightly remove it from the pan and cut it into squares
- Sift icing sugar over each piece and enjoy!

 Serve with fresh cherries dipped in the remaining melted white chocolate...

*The pretty pics were taken by my wife!