This cheesecake is my most favourite type of dessert cake!  It is a very basic recipe that you can add all sorts of flavours to.  I made a blueberry syrup to go with the cake but you can top it with anything…..caramel, melted choc, lemon curd….!!!

What You Need:

Filling

• 250g cream cheese
• 1 x 400g tin condensed milk
• 1/3 cup lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Base

• packet of sweet biscuits, crushed ( Nice or Butternut Snap)
• 1/3 cup melted butter

What You Need To Do:

Crush biscuits into a fine crumb, mix with melted butter and press into base of springform tin. Refrigerate while making the filling.

Mix, with an electric beater, cream cheese, condensed milk and vanilla until very smooth.  It helps if the cream cheese is at room temperature.  Mix in the lemon juice and pour into the base.   Refrigerate until set, at least 3 hours.  Top with your favourite flavours, or serve, as is, with some delicious thick cream.

I thought I might cook something for the school disco the other night. It is a fundraiser for the school so I was happy to help! I have been very interested in the Cake Pops that Bakerella has been doing lately so I thought I might give them a try. They were perfect for the spooky theme and apparently they were a hit! So, thank you Bakerella for your wonderful inspiration!

What You Need:

Cooked cake

• Icing
• Chocolate to melt
• sticks
• assorted lollies for decorating

What You Need To Do:

This is such a fun thing to make. I haven’t listed any quantities because it’s all about the consistency of the mixture rather than the amount of each product! Basically you need to break up the cooled cake into fine crumbs and mix in some icing or you can buy the ready made tins of frosting. Mix it well until it is fudge like and roll into balls. Using the stick pierce a whole in the bottom of the ball ready to take the stick when you dip them. Place these into the freezer on a baking sheet until they are firm.

I made skulls, so I shaped them a little so when they were dipped in the chocolate you could see the indentations for the eyes and the cheeks. The werewolves were just rounded cylinders. You can make any shape you like!!

Melt the chocolate over a pan of boiling water. Dip the end of the stick into the chocolate and place it into the hole you made earlier. The choc helps it to stay in place. Now dip the whole cake ball into the melted chocolate. Tap it a few time to get rid of any drips. It helps to have a box or piece of styrofoam ready to stick the pops into so they can set.

Have your lolly decorations ready to stick on the setting chocolate. I waited until the white choc had set and then used a tube of black icing to draw on the skull features and then stuck the eyes into the icing. For the werewolves I dipped them, let them set and then brushed on some more choc on the front, waited for it to start setting and then used a skewer to mark the choc to look like the hair and then quickly stuck the eyes, nose and teeth on!! Fiddly, yes, but they turned out pretty good!

The kids absolutely loved them and they sold out at the disco!! The great thing about these is you can make any type you want for whatever occasion! Check out Bakerella for fabulous inspiration, they are sensational!!!

My kids have been asking me for ages to make this cake. They are young enough to think it is both weird and cool that carrots can be in cake! Oh to be young again with all the mystery of the world still to discover! And yes, obviously, we don’t get out much! I will say, the recipe I used ( was given to me by an old, dear friend I used to work with) makes for alot of cake so you could always make a half batch or as I did, make little cupcakes and freeze them and one large cake.

What You Need:

For the cake:

• 4 eggs
• 1 1/4 cups vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 cups caster sugar
• 2 1/2 cups self raising flour
• 2 teaspoons bi-carb soda
• 3 teaspoons cinnamon
• 3/4 cup walnut pieces
• 3 cups grated carrot
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

For the icing:

• 250g cream cheese
• 250g icing sugar
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1/4 cup walnut pieces

What You Need To Do:

Cake:
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees, and grease and line your prefered baking tins. The larger cake tin is a 25cm square number.

Get the kids lined up along the bench and hand out the vegetable peelers and put them to work, peeling the carrots. Grate them into a large bowl, or, if you have one of those fancy food processors that make life easy, you could use that.

While they are toiling away, you can sift the flour, sugar, bi-carb, cinnamon and salt into a very large bowl. Add the walnuts and give this a good mix.

Whisk the eggs lightly and add to the oil and vanilla. Pour this on top of the flour mix and add the grated carrot. See, I said you would need a very large bowl!

Mix it all up and pour the batter into your chosen tins.
Bake for about 30 minutes or until golden on top and a skewer comes out clean.

Icing:
Leave the cream cheese out overnight so it is nice and soft. All you have to do is whisk the cream cheese and the butter together until it is really smooth and then gradually add the icing sugar and lemon juice until you get your desired balance of sweet and sour. Spread the delicious creaminess over the top of the cooled cake, sprinkle with a few of the walnuts and you have made a decadent treat!

This is a very impressive looking cake for not much effort.  You can serve it with a cup of tea or go the whole hog and have it with icecream when it is warm out of the oven!  It’s one of those recipes you can make when you don’t have alot of ingredients in the cupboard.

What You Need:

• 185g butter
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup of self raising flour
• 2/3 cup of caster sugar
• 1/2 cup of plain flour
• 1/3 cup of milk
• 2 medium apples
• 2 teaspoons finely grated orange rind
• 1/3 cup marmalade warmed

What You Need To Do:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celcius and grease a 23cm round cake tin.  I used a springform tin just to make it a bit easier to get it out and lined the bottom with some baking paper.

First of all cream the butter and the sugar and when all light and fluffy, beat the eggs in, one at a time, until just combined.  Its a really quick and simple recipe,  all you have to do now is sift half of the flour and pour half of the milk into the butter mix and stir with a wooden spoon.  When it is smooth, add the remaining sifted flour and the rest of the milk and stir until that is smooth too.  Spread this mixture evenly into the prepared baking tin.

Now for the impressive part!  Peel, core and quarter the apples. You need make cuts into the rounded side of the apple, slicing about three quarters of the way through.  Now, before you give up (because that is way too hard when you are trying to quickly make a cake before the visitors arrive!) there is a easy trick to getting this right.

Grab a wooden skewer and pierce through the apple piece, about 3/4 of the way down the cut face, so you have the rounded side of the apple (that you will be cutting) facing up.  Then carefully slice through the apple so the knife hits on the skewer and doesn’t go all the way through to the bottom. If you make lots of these cuts close together you end up with a lovely decorative apple slice that will impress everybody with your expert knife skillz!!

Now, place these beautiful quarters, round side up, around the edge of the cake.  Cook for about 1 hour until cooked when tested with a skewer.  Stand the cake for about 5 minutes before turning onto a rack, right way up!

Brush the warm marmalade over the hot cake and let cool.  To serve, dust with some icing sugar and a big dollop of cream!

I love this for dessert, or afternoon tea or morning tea or… well, you get the idea!  You can serve it hot with yummy caramel sauce or cold with lashings of butter and a cuppa.

What You Need:

• 250g pitted dates
• 1 teaspoon bi-carb soda
• 1 1/2 cups boiling water
• 125g butter, softened
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 eggs
• 1 3/4 cups self raising flour

Caramel Sauce

• 1 cup brown sugar
• 300ml thickened cream
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 60 butter

What You Need To Do:

First of all, preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celcius and grease a 22cm base cake tin.  Roughly chop the dates, sampling many as you go!, and put them into a bowl with the bicarb and pour over the boiling water.  Let this stand for 20 minutes or so.

Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla, using an electric mixer, until pale and creamy.  This is the part that the kids always want to dip their fingers in even though you tell them that it is just butter!  Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.  In a larger bowl, sift the flour and fold in the dates and the butter mix.  Mix well so it is all combined.

Pour the mix into the cake tin and bake for about 30 to 40 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Making the caramel sauce is really easy!  Put all the ingredients into a saucepan over medium heat and cook until the sugar dissolves and then let it boil.  Reduce the heat to medium low and let simmer for a couple of minutes.  Do not be tempted to taste it at this stage, even though it looks delectable, – cos its really hot!!  Let it sit for 5 minutes and then serve it with the cake and some whipped cream or icecream!