Just a reminder folks that RSPCA Cupcake Day is this coming Monday, 18th August. I’m running a little competition where the prize is an assortment of gorgeous cupcake liners courtesy of the wonderful folks at Cake Deco (photos of prizes up later tonight).
To enter, all you need to do is take a picture of your cupcakes being sold for the fundraiser, with a print out (colour or black and white) of the official RSPCA Cupcake Day poster somewhere in the photo. That’s it! Email the photo to me with your contact details by next Friday 22nd August and I will draw a name randomly out of a hat to win a few different packets of beautiful cupcake liners!
More details about Cupcake Day can be found on the official RSPCA Cupcake Day website, or you can email me with any questions that you have 
P.S. A reminder that this competition is only open to Australian residents, but anyone in Aus can enter - whether you’re a blogger or not And yes, I will be paying all postage on the packages!
I’m a bit of a hoarder.
You see, I loathe throwing out anything, and it takes enormous strength to force myself to do a monthly purge of my possessions. Nothing major, but those little scribbled notes, receipts, blog post ideas, rants, thoughts, empty make up containers - you know what I mean.
Unfortunately, I’m also a terrible hoarder when it comes to the fridges and freezers…which means that they also need a thorough inspection every month or so.
This time round, I discovered a bag of terribly frost-bitten blackberries stuck to the back of one of the freezers (ONE - we have THREE! One as part of the main fridge, a separate one, and a freezer drawer in our kimchi refrigerator!). I had no idea when I had actually acquired these mystery blackberries, but seeing as I’d discovered them in the middle of winter (when there is a severe lack of berries around), I decided that they needed to be used.
But how?
A quick search thanks to google resulted in more recipes for tarts, jellies and jams than I cared for, and the few that I randomly read didn’t do much to perk my interest. Whilst the jellies didn’t do anything for me, I wondered whether I could find a nice mousse recipe that would titillate the mental tastebuds and managed to find one that did not use raw egg yolks so decided to give it a go.
Well, the mousse tasted divine, but it was missing a little something. The smooth texture needed to be punctuated with a little crunch, and though the recipe originally had them served with tuiles, I didn’t feel like baking so needed a little something else.
I can’t say whether it was ‘divine inspiration’, or just sheer dumb luck, but deciding to follow the idea to make a crushed praline to sprinkle on top of the mousses proved to be the perfect touch. The sweetness of the praline countered the slight sour and tart notes of the berries, and the softness of the mousse was beautifully balanced by the crushed almond and toffee.
Not only that, but it made the dishes look quite spectacular!
So if you’re looking for a little berry inspiration, let me recommend this dish - just a little effort results in quite a gorgeous and tasty treat
Blackberry Mousse with Crushed Almond Praline
(Idea from BBC’s ‘Ready Steady Cook‘)
Blackberry Mousse Ingredients (recipe from Food & Wine)
1 teaspoon unflavored gelatin
3 tablespoons cold water
1 cup blackberries
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg white
3/4 cup heavy cream
1. Place 1 tbsp of water in a small bowl and sprinkle to gelatin over it and let it stand for about 5 minutes to ‘bloom’ (to swell up and soften).
2. In a blender, puree the blackberries with the remaining 2 tbsp of water and strain through a fine sieve into a small saucepan - you should have approximately 3/4 cup puree at this stage. Stir the sugar through, and slowly bring it to a boil. Boil for about 3-5 minutes or till slightly reduced, then stir in the softened gelatin till dissolved. Set aside to cool down.
3. In a medium bowl, use an electric mixer to beat the egg white till firm, then immediately fold into the cooled berry puree using a large silicone spatula till no white streaks remain. In a seperate bowl, beat the cream till softly whipped, then fold the cream into the berry mixture till smooth and streak-free.
4. Carefully spoon the mousse into glasses, then carefully but sharply tap the bottom of the glasses against the counter to flatten the top of the mousse. Refrigerate for about an hour to set and chill.
5. Remove from refrigerator 5 minutes before serving, and garnish with crushed praline, berries, chocolate shards or anything else you desire!
Almond Praline Ingredients
1 cup granulated white sugar
1/4 cup water
1 tbsp glucose/white corn syrup
2/3 - 1 cup blanched almonds
Combine sugar, water and glucose in a small saucepan and bring to a boil without stirring. Once it has started boiling, swirl the mixture in the pan occasionally till the sugar has completely dissolved. Once it begins to colour/turn amber, swirl the mixture so it colours evenly.
When the mixture has reached a lovely golden/light amber colour, turn off the heat and quickly stir in the almonds. Tip them onto an oiled baking tray (or a tray lined with non-stick baking paper), and push down into an even layer and allow to cool.
Once the almonds have cooled completely, break them into small shards, then blitz in a food processor till roughly ground (do not completely reduce it to powder). This can be stored in an airtight container in a cool, dark place for a week or two, and is great to sprinkle over almost any creamy dessert to provide textural contrast
Garnish these mousse glasses with anything you like. Crushed praline is great, but if you’d prefer tuiles, wafers or chocolate shards, there’s certainly nothing to stop you
Technorati Tags: blackberry, mousse, praline, dessert, recipe
There is something about the chocolate mousse that makes it irresistable.
Rich, fluffy clouds of chocolate which melt away on your tongue - it truly is one of the sexier desserts. However, the cold that is required to set most chocolate mousses means you have a muted chocolate flavour, unfortunate as chocolate really does taste best when around room temperature.
The solution seems simple enough at first - why not just serve the mousse at room temperature? Ahh, the fact that most chocolate mousses have raw/barely cooked yolks and require the temperamental stability of egg whites means that left to sit at room temperature will result in a soup rather than mousse.
Thankfully, the wonderful Ms. Alice Medrich has the solution here with a baked bittersweet mousse, a dessert that can be served cold or warm, to tantalize your tastebuds whichever your preference 
Baked Bittersweet Mousse
(from ‘Bittersweet‘ by Alice Medrich)
Ingredients (makes approx 4 cups/6 serves)
170g bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
1/4 cup milk (or water or coffee or 1/2 cup heavy cream)
1 1/2 tbsp brandy, rum, or liquor of choice *optional*
3 large eggs, at room temperature
3 tbsp caster sugar
Double cream, strawberries and pure icing sugar, to serve
1. Position rack in lower third of oven and preheat oven to 160 degrees C.
2. Place chocolate and milk in a heatproof bowl, then place over a pot of barely simmering water (make sure the bottom of the bowl doesn’t touch the water) and stir till the chocolate has almost completely melted, then remove the bowl and continue to stir till the liquid is completely smooth. If using a liquor, stir in at this stage.
3. In a seperate bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugar till well blended, then use an electric mixer to beat the eggs at high speed for 3-4 minutes or till the eggs have a texture like softly whipped cream and are light and very fluffy.
4. Fold 1/4 of the eggs into the chocolate, then half the remaining eggs till almost blended. Fold in the remaining eggs till evenly incorporated and smooth. Divide among ramekins, then place ramekins in a high-sided baking tray.
5. Boil a kettle of water then fill the baking tray till water comes halfway up the sides of the ramekins, then bake till the centre of the mousses reads 70 degrees C (or just bake for about 15-18 minutes till the tops feel barely set). Remove from the oven and allow ramekins to cool for at least 10 minutes, then garnish with a dollop of softly whipped cream, a strawberry and a light dusting of icing sugar.
Technorati Tags: chocolate mousse, Alice Medrich, dessert, sweets, recipe
P.S. The cupcake post is coming, but seeing as I have a new camera, I want to reshoot ALL the photos…so it might take awhile
Hey folks, sorry I haven’t been around much, am being kept busy with fondant.
Why?
Well, check back and you’ll find out…
You know a store is doing right when you find yourself happily returning there over many years and spending…actually, I don’t want to think about how much money I’ve spent at this particular store, but it is somewhat substantial.
I often get people enquiring about where I pick up some of my baking supplies - not that I’m a huge cake decorator, but the odd things (mostly cupcake papers) tend to get a bit of attention, so I’ve decided to give you the details of my absolute favourite baking supplies store - CakeDeco
Now, I’m not kidding when I say that this store stocks almost anything you could ever want or need as far as cake decorating and baking utensils/supplies are concerned - which is quite spectacular given the amount of space they actually have available. Lustre and petal powders, edible glitter, fondant, icing, liners, baking trays, cutters, veiners, baking and cake decorating books - it’s all here!
So, I decided to have a quick chat with the owner, a lovely fellow by the name of Phillip, about his fantastic store:
The wonderful Phillip, owner of CakeDeco
Q: So tell me a little bit about the store…
Phillip: We’ve been going for about 25 years, and we import a lot of products from America, the UK, South Africa - we stock mainly cake decorating products that you cannot get in other stores
Q: So did you have any experience with cakes…
Phillip: (laughs) No no, no baking background, I just fell into it! It was easy getting in, but I don’t know how to get out!
Q: So, have you noticed any trends in baking?
Phillip: Cupcakes! Cupcakes, cupcakes, cupcakes! The first was the Anna Von Marburg work which was quite big, the cakes were a different style…but now it’s definitely cupcakes… started from America, from that show on TV, and they all copied that and they’re still going!
Q: Now I know there are many different decorations and icings which can be used to decorate cupcakes…which would you say were the most popular?
Phillip: Buttercream’s definitely the most popular, they all love the buttercream. Ganache is fairly popular too, and so is the rolled fondant…
Q: And in terms of accessorizing cupcakes?
Phillip: Oh, all across the board! There are so many different items…actually, the glitter, the glitter is quite popular…
Q: So the glitter is the best seller?
Phillip: The glitter, the sprinkles and the cupcake papers.
Q: And just a final question, what advice would you give to someone starting out in cake decorating? What would you say is a must-have?
Phillip: The Home Guide to Cake Decorating, by Jane Price. We sell many different cake decorating books, and that’s the one that just keeps getting the best reviews!
Now, here’s the special cause…
As anyone who reads this blog may be aware, I am an absolute softie when it comes to animals, so when I found out about the RSPCA cupcake day, I leapt to the opportunity - the chance to raise money for a worthy cause AND feed my coworkers delicious baked goods, what better?
So the details are that you go to the RSPCA Cupcake Day website, register and they send you information. Then on Monday the 18th of August, sell your baked and decorated cupcakes to friends/coworkers and all proceeds are given to the RSPCA so they can continue their hard work. How wonderful is that?
Now, when I mentioned this to Phillip, and that I planned to partake in the event and that I wanted to feature it on the blog, he generously donated a variety of gorgeous cupcake liners to offer to my readers as prizes!
So, the competition is that you take part in the RSPCA cupcake day, take a picture of your friends/coworkers with cupcakes in hand and a Cupcake Day poster (black and white OK) somewhere in the photo, and then email me the following to CHIPMUNKZNEEZE [at] HOTMAIL [dot] COM no later than Friday 22nd August:
- Name
- Location
- What cupcakes you made
- Photo of friends/coworkers enjoying said cupcakes
I will be posting all participating entries sent to me, and drawing the winner out of a hat on Sunday 24th August. This competition is open to all Australian residents, so please take part and let’s help the RSPCA continue their marvellous work for all creatures great and small
And finally, for the special offer!
In an exclusive deal with my Kitchen Wench food blog, Phillip has generously offered to give all readers 10% off any purchase at his Cake Deco store - all you have to do is mention that you read about the store on my blog, and he’ll knock 10% off your total purchase! This is an ongoing offer with no expiry, so you have no excuse - you can now visit the Cake Deco store for everything you need to make your cupcakes look terrific!
Cake Deco
Shop 7, Port Phillip Arcade
232 Flinders St (opposite Flinders St Station)
Ph: 03 9654 5335
Opening Hours: Mon-Fri 9am-5.30pm, Sat 10am-2pm
Come back tomorrow for a few cupcake recipes and baking ideas to help set the mood
