Baking Saturday!!!

Today my housemate Kaz and I decided to have an afternoon of baking. I had decided to do a recipe I found in Pohs Kitchen recipe book..for chewy Chocolate and Macadamia Cookies





Not too many ingredients so it's quite easy to put together.



First I creamed the brown sugar and the butter, then put the eggs in one by one.





Then I wizzed it up




Added the flour, salt and baking powder






Added the very roughly chopped chocolate and macadamia nuts






The mixture should make around 20 biscuits.





In the oven



Cooked biscuits! They're meant to bit chewy but if you over cook them the still just delicious but loose that chewy 'just cooked' texture



They are very moreish and id probably recommend doubling the recipe. I have also bought some dark chocolate and hazelnuts to try next time as a variation.


Kaz wanted to try making Red Velvet Cupcakes for the first time.



Neither of us had made them before... So we dove straight in!



This is the dry ingredients. We didn't actually get a picture of the wet ingredients!



But we mixed them together and added pink food dye..






We made mini cupcakes, very cute!









Philly Cheese icing... We were both unsure about it



Kaz icing one



All our little creations



Delicious!! They tasted amazing, the cake was very light and the icing was perfect!


RECIPIES

Pohs Chewy Choc Chip & Macadamia Cookies

Ingredients..
170g unsalted butter, softened
220g tightly packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon of natural vanilla extract
2 large free-range eggs
1 2/3 cup plain flour, sifted
1/2 teaspoon salt
200g of dark or milk chocolate, roughly chopped
1 cup macadamia nut or your choice of nut, roughly chopped

Method..
Heat the oven to 170C

With an electric mixer, cream the butter, sugar and vanilla until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs one by one, mixing throughly after each. Add the flour and baking powder and mix with a wooden spoon or spatula until incorporated. To in the chocolate and the macadamias and mix till evenly dispersed through the dough.

Line two baking trays with baking paper and dollop 1/4 cups of cookie dough spaced about 5cms apart. Bake in the middle shelf for 15 minutes or until the cookies are pale gold around the edges. Remove from the oven and allow to rest on the trays before transferring to a wire rack. Store in an airtight container if they last that long!!


Red Velvet Cupcakes

Ingredients..
2 cups of plain flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 1/2 cups caster sugar
1 cup of butter milk
200g unsalted butter, melted
2 eggs, lightly whisked
1 tbs white vinegar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1-2 tsp red food colouring

Icing
2 x 250g pkts cream cheese
2 cups pure icing sugar
120g butter
1 tsp vanilla essence

Method..
Preheat the oven to 170C line muffin pans with paper cases. Sift flour, cocoa powder and bicarbonate of soda into a bowl. Stir through the sugar. Whisk the buttermilk, butter, eggs, vinegar and vanilla in a large jug until combined. Stir through the food colouring.

Divide the mixture among the lined pans. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Use an electric beater to beat the cream cheese, icing sugar, butter and vanilla until smooth. Spread over cupcakes.