Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting - Sweet Melissa Sundays

I love Carrot Cake, When you take a piece and hold it up to your nose, you close your eyes and smell sweet, cinnamon, creamy and comforting. You take a small bite, your mouth is filled with moist dense cake crumbs, you taste carrot and cinnamon, and the fluffy, creamy icing thats slightly tangy on your tongue. You open your eyes and see the next wonderful bite ready to be taken...

I really enjoyed this Sweet Melissa Sunday recipe, so much so that I made this at the start of the week, rather then waiting for the weekend. I made a couple of changes with the recipe, I halved the sugar in the cake, and used raw sugar. I also substituted half the flour with wholemeal. I found the cake delicious and the wholemeal flour gave the cake a lovely moist wholesome flavour.

Thank you to Julie at 'A Little Bit of Everything' for hosting this week, please visit Julie for the recipe and also the other SMS bakers to see how they got on.

Chocolate Pastry - Tart of Currants and Quatre epices Mousse - Sweet Melissa Sundays

A lovely chocolate piecrust to start the new year with. I thought a white chocolate mousse filling with quatre epices would go nicely with the chocolate pie crust.

SMS Chocolate Pastry

1 cup plus 2 tsp Flour
1/3 cup unsweetened Cocoa Powder
2 tb Sugar
1/2 tsp Salt
2 tb cold Unsalted Butter, cut into 1/4 inch pieces
1/4 cup Cold Solid Vegetable Shortening
3-4 tb Ice water

In a large bowl whisk together flour, cocoa sugar & salt. Toss the butter into the flour mixture. using a pastry blend, cut the butter into the flour until it is the size of large peas.

Pinch off small pices of the shortening into the flour mixture and toss to coat. Using the pastry blender, continue cutting the butter and the shortening into the flour mixutre, until they are the size of small peas.

Make a well in the center of the flour mixutre. Pour about half of the water into the well, and, with a fork, pull the flour into the well. Continue mixing until the dough just comes together. Add more water if needed.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface. Gather the dough into a ball. Flatten it into a round disk, wrap it in plastic and refrigerate for at least 1 hr before rolling it out.

Roll out the dough to fit into the 9-inch or 10inch pie plate. Pop into the freezer for at least an hour, or or until frozen.

Preheat oven to 180C, pop the pie straight into the oven from the freezer - this stops the pastry from shrinking. Bake for 15-20min.

Quatre Epices White chocolate mousse

1/2 Cup Currants, soaked in rum overnight.

Dash of Allspice, ground
Smidgen of Cinnamon, ground
Smidgen of Nutmeg, ground
Smidgen of Cloves, ground

100ml Milk
1tsp Gelatine
4tsp Water
220ml Single Cream
200g White chocolate

Mix gelatine with water and leave to dissolve. Heat milk gently, add the four spices, then stir in gelatine mix.

Break chocolate into small pieces in a heat proof bowl. Pour over hot milk mix, stir until blended. Cool to room temperature.

Whip cream until stiff peaks form. Fold into chocolate mix.

Spread currants into baked pie shell and pour mousse over the top. Chill to set.

Enjoy!

Crumble Photo's - Not quite Sweet Melissa Sundays

I didn't get to the Sweet Melissa Sunday's Apple Orchard Pecan Crumble this weekend,
but here are a couple of photos of a delicious Chocolate Banana Crumble from the photo shoot I was on this weekend at Mon Ami Cafe.

(Yes, we do get to taste these afterwards, and this was simply delicious!)

Caramalised Onion and Chedder Savoury Muffins - Sweet Melissa Sundays

I love savoury muffins, one of my favourite weekend cafe breakfasts is nothing more then a flat white coffee and a freshly baked savoury muffin! This weeks Sweet Melissa recipe was simply delicious, what a better pairing for savoury muffins then a gourmet twist on the old favourite combination of cheese and onion.

The caramalised onions are naturally sweet, but I added a spoonful of treacle to enhance the sweetness and also add a nice earthy flavour. Luckily I had some lovely purple sage growing in the garden I was able to add to the muffins.

I took these tasty treats with me to a friends birthday BBQ and they seemed to go down quickly.

Thanks to Hanaa from Hanaa's Kitchen for picking this weeks recipe, you can find the rest of the bakers at Sweet Melissa Sundays.

Orange Scented Scones - Sweet Melissa Sundays

Gosh I've been so busy with Pies lately that I've neglected my lovely Sweet Melissa Baking group!

Orange Scented Scones sounded like a lovely easy recipe that couldn't go terribly wrong. Now I did want little scones but the mix was a bit wet and these came out looking a bit more like cookies. I should have added more flour, but was sticking to the recipe (for once!)

If you would like the recipe please visit Robin of Lady Craddock's Bakery

These tasted ok with some lovely Seville Orange Marmalade and whipped chocolate cream, but when it comes to scones, I'll be sticking to Lemonade Scones - can't be beaten for simple, delicious, light, flaky scones.

Butterscotch Souffle Tart with Caramalised Cashews - Sweet Melissa Sundays

This weeks Sweet Melissa Sundays recipe was Butterscotch Cashew Bars. I thought this would translate well into a delicious light butterscotch tart with caramelised cashews.

1x Pie Shell (21cmx5cm), parbaked
1/2 Butterscotch Sauce Recipe Below (1Cup+extra for pie shell)
2Tbs Flour
3x Eggs, separated
pinch of tartar
120g Cashew Pieces
1Tbs Demarera Sugar

Pour enough butterscotch sauce to cover the base of the pie shell.
Add egg yolks and flour to the remaining butterscotch sauce, mix.
Whisk egg whites and tartar to stiff peaks.
Fold the egg whites into the butterscotch mix 1/3 at a time.
Tip butterscotch mix into the pie shell, bake at 180C for 35-40min, until centre is set.
Put cashew pieces into a dry non-stick pan and lightly toast.
When toasted sprinkle with demarera sugar and cook until sugar has melted and coated the cashews.
Spread onto a tray lined with baking paper, and separate into small pieces, cool.
When tart is removed from the oven, sprinkle over the caramelised cashews so they sink into the tart.


Butterscotch Sauce

450g Sugar
50g Liquid Glucose
150ml Water
100g Butter, cubed and chilled.
3x Eggs, lightly beaten with a splash of milk

Combine sugar, glucose and water in a small non-stick saucepan. Heat gently until everything has dissolved.
Increase the heat and bring to the boil.
Cook until the syrup turns a rich brown colour.
Whisk in the chilled butter, leave to cool for 5-10min.
Whisk in eggs, may need to gently heat the pan.
Pour into a sterilised jar to keep.

Chocolate Chip Cookies with Toasted Almonds - Sweet Melissa Sundays

As I have been away for the last two Sundays I have missed out on participating in Sweet Melissa Sunday's. These cookies sounded delicious, and although they are clearly not a pie they were cute enough to make it here. If you are after the recipe be sure to check out http://sweetmelissasundays.wordpress.com/ you can also find the other wonderful bakers there.

Sour Cherry Pie with Pistachio Crumb - Sweet Melissa Sundays

How wonderful that my first week taking part in Sweet Melissa Sundays was a pie recipe! Sour cherries are not very easy to get hold of in NZ at the best of times (unless you are lucky enough to have a tree) so I used some lovely Morello cherries for this pie, I also added some sliced fresh rhubarb as I thought it would be lovely with the other flavours in this pie, I only used half oat flour and half whole oats, as I prefer the texture of whole oats in crumble. Since I was taking it into work with me for Quiz and Pie Mondays I also pre-baked the pie shell and brushed it with melted dark chocolate to prevent the pastry getting soggy from the fruit filling.

I can't post the recipe for this one, but if you want to bake along then keep an eye out for 'The Sweet Melissa Baking Book - by Melissa Murphy'

This pie was lovely, and got some very nice comments from those who got a piece at quiz - there were an unusual number of work folks at the quiz so I may need to start baking larger pies...

The tartness of the Rhubarb went wonderfully with the sour cherries and the chocolate lining the shell complimented the fruit filling nicely. The whole oats I left in the crumble added a lovely crunchy texture to the soft filling, this is one I'll be making again.