Frosting - cream cheese and buttercream.

yumyum cakes!

Frosting is a little funny sometimes, it might work out perfectly one time, and another time it just ends up being a runny mess.  here are some pointers to help you get it right.  

At the bottom of the post, there are a bunch of pictures, including "successful" and "failure" frostings. 

First of all, the most important things - it seems like a stupidly long list, but really, once you've made it once successfully, you'll see it's actually not hard!

Lemon curd cupcakes

Mmmmm!!!  These cupcakes are amazing.  I am in total awe of the person who actually decided to put together this recipe, for they are just... wow.  


These cakes are for serious lemon lovers... they have the amazing combination of tart, sweet, creamy, textures, everything.  They are... just... wow.  so SO good! 

The curd is so deliciously lemony and creamy, the cake is soft, light, also lemony, and the frosting (which contains some of the lemon curd, as well as cream cheese and whipped cream) brings it all together to a lovely, lemony delight!  

Poor little cupcake, sitting on a plate, it was eaten only a few moments after this was taken

I really felt like trying something lemony, as we suddenly ended up with quite a few lemons from friends' and colleagues' trees, we were going over to my aunt's for tea to celebrate mother's day with Nanna, so thought it was the perfect opportunity to try something delicious and lemony!  These are a winner I think!! 

Chicken Broth - (Brodu tat-Tigieg)

"Brodu" is so much more than a simple chicken stock in Malta.  It's a hearty meal, with 2 courses,  a delicious brothy soup, and then the chicken itself, served with steamed/boiled vegetables, potatoes and crusty bread. 

When I used to make this soup in Melbourne with my best mate and her partner, we'd eat soup on one day, have chicken pie the next with the leftover chicken, and any leftover soup would be used as a broth to make risotto the day after.  This is a fantastic way of getting all you can out of one chicken.  And so tasty!

Just ready.

the tea party - post 2 - Gill's Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.

This cake recipe was given to my mum from Gill, an australian friend and ex colleague of hers.  When we were leaving australia in 1995, Gill made an incredible little book, full of delicious hand-me-down recipes, things she'd discovered, and little tidbits of australian memorabilia, including photos, and pressed eucalypt leaves.  It is a lovely book, full of love and written with true friendship in mind:)

Gills carrot cake recipe is delicious :D

As you can see, i don't always follow the "loaf" tin suggestion.  i've used round, i've made a giant double one, i've even made em as a sort of cupcake/muffin style and it's always pretty much worked out.  this is an almost failsafe cake recipe! :D

the tea party - post 1 - The lemon cupcake

My birthday is coming up, and to celebrate had a tea party at Sarah's house yesterday!

I was sick on Friday, so spent the day indoors, and the evening baking away :)

The menu (at least the part that i made) was:

Lemon cupcakes
Carrot cake
Scones
Mini Quiches

Sandwiches were lovingly made by becky, mc and alison :)  and deliciousness they were too!! :)

Ok so when looking for a lemon cupcake recipe, my demands were simple.  They must be LEMONY.  by lemony i mean lots of fresh lemon flavour bursting out of each cupcake.  2nd demand was nothing too complicated.  Apart from that, thanks to my mother's trusty Kenwood it was all good :)  Oh and they had to look like they would be soft and delicate :)

Oven Poached Dentici

Dentici is a fish I think my mum would like.  For some reason she's not into the fishier side of fish anymore... i guess tastes change..  So no lampuki for now (unless they're in pikkanti sauce or aljotta, and we dont' actually cook it when she's home hehehe).  I'm totally going back to my bugibba flat in a coming weekend if that means i get to eat lampuki hehehe :)

seasoned and ready to wrap and poach/bake

Aljotta (Maltese fish soup) made with lampuki aka mahimahi

This is a broth based soup, and has 2 distinct parts to making it.  The first is the stock, which is a very simple fish stock.  The second is where this actually gets its name from, which is the soup base consisting of lots of garlic (aglio!) onions, tomatoes and very importantly, marjoram.

Don't be fooled, all that delicious rice and bits of fish are in the bottom.  this is a delicious soup!! :)

Salad - Mustard/lemon/olive oil dressing

Apologies for not focussing on salad... i completely forgot to take a pic of it before it was served.. but essentially you won't be able to see the vinaigrette anyway :)

I adore simple salads. ON the other hand, I deplore ready made dressings. I have this thing for artificial flavours, I'd always much, MUCH rather have something made from scratch with ingredients that I recognise. All these thickeners and emulsifiers can't be good for us, and it just doesn't make sense when it's so blindingly easy to make a fresh one from scratch.

Grilled Pepper Chicken

This was adapted from a recipe for Pollo al Diavolo by Rick Stein - which means "Devilled Chicken"...

The recipe is originally from Puglia, a region in Italy famous for its olive oil, pretty much everything from there is soaked in the stuff. The original recipe called for 175mls of oil, but i highly reduced that amount (although i put a decent amount in anyway) and added extra lemon juice. I also didn't have dried crushed chilli flakes, so used powder (will def use heaps of chilli flakes next time though!), and I used boneless thighs rather than a whole spatchcocked chook.

Fettucini with Bottarga, artichoke hearts and grouper

I went to Rome at the start of June this year, and apart from friends and sightseeing, of course food was a huge part of it! :)

Went out one night to Via del Portico d'Ottavia, to a Kosher restaurant in the old Jewish Ghetto. Their speciality is fried things, and our starters were amazing!

Had zucchini flowers filled with fish, in batter, as well as other random and delicious fried veggies... nom!

My main course was fish (grouper) and zucchini flower pasta, however someone else had egg pasta with artichoke hearts and bottarga.. and it sounded amazing! Inspired by this, I thought i'd make egg pasta with grouper, bottarga and artichoke hearts (The artichoke hearts were lovingly collected by my parents when they were in season, then frozen in batches to make awesome pasta and risotto - respek!)

Found some nice fresh grouper steaks - 2 were plenty for a pasta dish for 4 - they are a little pricey and really you can use any nice white fish, but Grouper (or Cerna in Maltese) is awesome. so milky and delicious! :D

must say, it did look better before i stirred it in.  but the taste was sublime!

Spaghetti Vongole e Langoustini

On the way home from the beach the other day, we stopped at the fish shop. They had clams (Vongole) and I thought I'd love to try cooking them. I'd never cooked with them before, but spaghetti vongole is one of my favourite dishes, and i figured “how hard can it be”? The answer is “bloody easyl” by the way :D they also had langoustine (like baby lobsters), so we bought 2 per person, however as tasty as they were, I don't think they were needed. Next time I will either make a “frutto di mare” or just use some clams alone.

Pasta with Zucchini, Porcini and Shrimps

Pasta with Zucchini, Porcini mushrooms and shrimps.

This idea came to me when my dad and I were deciding what to have for dinner. Had Zucchini, plenty of them to use, and wanted to empty out the freezer also, and had Prawns. I'd also spied a jar of porcini mushrooms in the cupboard teeheehee... and so it was born!

Baba Ganoush

Mmmm love love eggplant, and love love tahini, so naturally was really happy to find Rick Stein's book contained a recipe for this, one of my favourite dips.

My adaptation involved a little more garlic, lemon and olive oil than the original recipe (anyone who knows me takes this for granted :P).

add some good extra virgin olive oil to garnish

When making it, it's important not to burn the eggplant as it will taste like smoke nor leave it too raw as it will be bland.