An oldy but a goody

Cheesecake. Everyone loves cheesecake (lactose intolerant people aside, so sorry). This is the most easy peasy lemon squeesy baked NY style cheescake ever - now for lovers of biscut crust this is not the recipe for you - however if you are Gluten Free then it surely is!
Found in Jo Segar's recipe book it has become a staple in my family, especially around christmas time - gosh its almost upon us!

250g Cream Cheese
250g Ricotta
250g Sour cream
1 Tbsp Lemon juice (or the juice of a whole lemon - really lifes too short to measure it!)
1/4 cup of cornflour
1 cup of caster sugar

Preheat oven 160C degrees
Grease and line a 20cm springform

Put all of the ingredients in a food whiz - blend until smooth and no cream cheese lumps!
Pour into springform

Bake at 160 for hour or until golden and set - can still have a jiggle
Leave to cool in tin on a wire rack.

Serve with whipped cream and strawberries. Enjoy!  Sorry no photos -it disappeared into the bellies of the postgrads before 10:30! Keep thinking foodies,

With happiness always, Fozzie!

Baking, baking, baking...

Hello fellow thinkers.
So there has been some radio silence, but fear not I have been baking. I have baked at least once a month - but I have also tempered this with a lot of research, writing, reading. So for now, I will give you a brief rundown on what those Postgrads have been sampling.

The beauty of a box cake!
Most recently, I went purple and really experimental - probably more mental than experience! I turned a betty crocker vanilla cake into a boysenberry vanilla loaf cake by adding a tin of boysenberries and a squeeze of lemon instead of the water/milk then baked it in a loaf tin till it came away at the sides. It made for a dense moist and very purple loaf-cake. Before that I found dump cake on Pinterest - many hours of my evenings has been spent on this addictive social medium. Which turned a betty crocker chocolate cake mix into a brownie/pudding cake with the addition of chocolate mousse, chocolate chips and milk.
And then there was my from scratch birthday cake which was a little cake, a little cheesecake and a whole lot of nummy. I promise I will put up the actual recipes laters - although the box cake ones are pretty self explanatory.

Till then keep thinking,
Fozzie

One more day...

So August has rolled around and I (and my twin brother) have these last few hours of being one year younger than ourselves tomorrow. Firstly Happy Birthday to my beloved brother Matthew, you may be on the other side of a very large island in warm beautiful weather, while we are in the middle of pea soup, but you are not far from my thoughts everyday! Love yous I do! And as I sit he eating a packet of Cheezels for afternoon tea inbetween transcribing for Kermie, I am planning what to bake when I get home for the morning tea celebrations tomorrow. There will be cake (maybe) there will be cream (for sure) but how it all turns out, well who knows!
Be sure to check back for the birthday bash!
Happy thinking,

Fozzie
P.S. no this is not the cake, yes I know it was Kermie's! Just tempting you all with deliciousness!

MathKiwi's Banana Bread

So last week or so, MathKiwi our postgrad rep for the floor came to work with beautful banana bread it was so popular that pictured is the last piece with associated crumbs!

MATHKIWI'S QUICK BANANA BREAD
Preheat oven to 150
Sift together:
1 3/4 flour (half of which can be wholemeal)
2 1/4 t baking powder
1/2 t salt

Cream:
1/2 cup of butter
2/3 cup of sugar
3/4 t of lemon rind

Beat in
2 eggs
1 1/4 cup of ripe banana pulp - MathKiwi states that they should be BLACK!

Add sifted ingredients in about 3 parts to the sugar mixture. Beat batter after each addition until smooth.
Fold in:
1/2 cup walnuts
1/4 cup of dried apricots
1/4 cup of wheat germ

Place batter in loaf tin. Bake for an hour or until done (assuming springs back and golden)

Cool before slicing and enjoy

NZ Boston Buns Gluten Free!!! (Photos)

Multi-tasking...coz thats just how I roll

Tonight I feel like a right little multitasker - mainly down to the fact that as I cooked dinner I was also creating one of the key ingredients in my next bit of baking at exactly the same time. What is this magic ingredient I hear you ask? Potatoes, glorious red skinned potatoes! Dinner consisted of pizza - a specialty of mine - pizza base with Edam cheese, mozzerella (I sub'd this for brie coz I had no moz), cherry toms, and basil pesto as a toppin and baked potato skins. Skins, nothing but! All crispy'd up and dipped into sour cream and chili sauce - so it was sarcastically healthy meal - it was a real treat.

The problem with skins is what to do with the flesh - if you really had to ask - mash!! The monsta mash! Urgh flashbacks to a terrible christmas panto held in the wop wops last year! The potatoes that I used were awesome they were so floury that they almost mashed themselves!!

Now I can see what you're thinking HOW Fozzie are you going to use mash potato in your baking? You might think - potato bread - NO! One thing you should know about me - I very rarely bake savoury stuff with the exception of my Mum's pesto tart and my version - pesto tartlets - there is a difference and Mum said she like my tartlets better - but I digress yet again.

No, the next bit of baking shall be a very New Zealand Boston Bun not to be confused with what we have in the supermarkets here in NZ they are actually according to the source - Sally Lunds because they only use flour. A true NZ Boston Bun uses - you guessed it POTATO! Now I preface this with NZ not US as I have an inkling that Boston Buns in the US are pastries that are filled with cream and custard topped with chocolate - The NZ Bun does not have any of this!
ALSO I have made these before - I had a time when thats all I made for half a year. They are good value for money because they make two cakes. And as NZ Boston Bun etiquette goes you make one for yourself (to give to others when visiting) and one to give away.

Anyway, I shall make, bake and post back laters. Happy thinking, Fozzie

Kermie's Cake: The finished product

So here it is folks....along with mess and the box. Kermie loves purple so hence the purple candles and for my first time using fudge pens its not too bad - well it's legible!!!
Happy baking people,
Fozzie

Kermie's Birthday Morning Tea

Well happy thinkers,
Today was Kermie's birthday and I baked - wondering if this counts as my months worth for July? Anyway I made the Betty Crocker cake and I put chocolate mousse instead of cream. I must say fudge pens are a revelation - I used a white one to write happy birthday obviously (photos will follow) I also made resses bars from http://bakerlady.wordpress.com/2012/01/16/reeses-peanut-butter-bars/ (I pinned it on pinterest). I did have to Kiwify it coz we don't have graham crackers and I added a little salt noting that my American friends always complained how we made everything too sweet. I will put up the kiwi version when I get home this evening. To say these were a hit is a tad of an understatement - Kermie was so sad when one of the other floor dwellers sneaked back for the very last one! LOL Anyway, all and all another baking success.

Happy Baking, Fozzie

Homemade Birthdays.

So, most of my fellow pgs have had a homemade birthday cake from me at least once - I say most because there has been a new influx since we moved (and I might of accidentally missed one persons, for which I am sorry!). They have ranged from Pebble decorated madness to gluten free, I even have taken up a tradition of baking my own birthday cake. This tradition was not appreciated when I had an allergic reaction to the pineapple in my magnificant Hummingbird cake I made a few years back. Off the point, so on Thursday its Kermie's birthday. Now, I can say that I am baking Kermie a cake because Kermie knows - even had input to what flavour - well it was always going to be chocolate but it needed a kick so its going to chocolate orange. When I say it needed a kick it really does, because this year -shock horror- I am making a cake out of the box - Betty Crocker style!

I have used Betty's batter before, in my one experiment with cake pops at my Master's Graduation party at the end of last year - they ended up being cake pops without the pop - so they went on the truffle tray!! Was truly a master of no trades that day!lol I actually like they way the Crocker Cakes turn out and the no fuss, very little muss that it produces.I HAVE NO SHAME!! I even converted my Mother - who would never have made anything from a packet unless it was Jelly! It seems in both our ever increasing age and ever decreasing time in the day has allowed us to adapt and still maintain a sense of pride about using a box of cake mix!

Stay tuned for an update - I will post the picture of how it turned out on Thursday!! lol
Happy baking, Fozzie

Planning for next month...already!

Well I can tell you the results of the poll over on PGLives was for something chocolatey, so for next month you can be guranteed that it will have chocolate in it - just not so sure what to make, so many recipe books with soo many recipes. As one of my besties keeps pointing out I have a lot of chocolate in my house that I have not eaten - she really can't see the point in having chocolate unless you are going to eat it! I did tell her that although it looked like Whittakers Dark Ghana Chocolate and indeed it is - it is not for ordinary consumption but rather has been ear marked for BAKING!! So what my lips loose is my baking's gain!!

In the mean time, happy baking, Fozzie.

Something to salivate over...

I thought I would post the picture of the curd tarts so you all could see how delicious they were!

Shopping List.

I am sooo very excited as tonight I am baking!!!! I have my shopping list of things I needed to add to what was already residing in my cluttered cupboards:

Lemons
Brandy
Currants
Caster Sugar
Butter
Eggs
Puff Pastry

Which coming to think of is the majority of stuff that is involved! LOL I will post the full recipe tonight with a nummy rating. Keep baking, Fozzie!

Baking where I have never baked before!

Welcome everybody!
This is just a small not so regular blog about  baking. I have assigned myself the task to bake something once a month that I have never baked before. I am a geek, I admit it! I begun this over on PGLives and will continue to update there as well as here, so don't panic! This blog is to let my not so academic ramblings about whatever (but mainly baking) out, as its always better out than in!
Thanks for stopping by, keep checking in for recipes and such,
Fozzie.