Jo Bean and the Amazing Technicolour Heart Cake

Have you ever heard of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat? Probably not. Doesn't matter. Have you ever been obsessed with the idea of making a cake that looks like a rainbow explosion? It's been on my mind for a few days now, and today I finally remembered to buy more vanilla essence so I could finally make my dreams come true.

I baked it with the intention of trading it for some art at SUPER MARKET-- an art show where everything and anything is legal tender except dollars and cents. I heard someone was doing silhouette cut-outs, and I intended to offer my cake in exchange for my silhouette. But then I was overcome with a great fear of rejection and a great rolling, rumble in my stomach.

So...

Anyway, it's my vanilla cupcake recipe, halved. And lots of food colouring.

I used foil to divide the heart pan into three section to at least somewhat separate the 3 colours. It's a bit ghetto and didn't work particularly well. I'll use cardboard next time.

The batter took the food colouring very well. The red looked a bit pink, but das cool.

The batter's in the pan, looking like some sort of flag (maybe Primary Colourland's), and ready to go.

The frosting, the frosting, the frosting!

It looks like an artist's sink!

Why would I need two forks? S'not like I'm sharing...

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

I'm jealous of anyone that is eating one of these muffins when I'm not.

I know that Australians get pretty uneasy about pumpkin being used in sweet treats. You're all about roasting pumpkins or pureeing them into a soup. But I'm all about the pumpkin pie, pumpkin cake, pumpkin cookies, and best of all- pumpkin chocolate chip muffins.

I just realised what a cute word "pumpkin" is. It sounds like the name of a little creature. Maybe the adult of the species is called a "pump" and the babies are "pumpkins." I bet that if a pumpkin scurries across your path, it would mean good luck for infinity.

I got this recipe from JoyofBaking.com. I mostly stuck to it-- the only changes were margarine instead of butter, a little extra vanilla, dark chocolate instead of semisweet, and fresh pureed pumpkin instead of canned. These muffins are sweet, but very wholesome and aromatic (thanks to the nutmeg, cloves, ginger, and cinnamon). I used dark chocolate chips, and in my opinion that's the right thing to do. Milk chocolate would be tasty enough, but I think the richness of the dark offsets the pumpkin rather nicely.

Oh, and, the fee for reading this blog entry is one muffin. Pumpkin Chocolate Chip, please.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg (so you're supposed to get a packet of whole nutmeg pods and grate one... but if it's impossible or too much effort, just use the pre-ground stuff)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature (I used margarine)
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
3/4 cup pumpkin puree (I used the Kent variety and it was fantastic. Cut the rind off the pumpkin, steam it, then mash it. Alternatively, use canned pumpkin)
1 cup chocolate chips (do the right thing...)

1. Preheat oven to 350 F (180 C), grease 12 muffin cups and put them in muffin tray
2. In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, ground spices, and salt
3. In a separate bowl, cream butter and sugar (better to use an electric mixer, but I did it by hand)
4. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well
5. Beat in vanilla
6. Alternate adding 1/3 of the flour mixture and 1/3 of the pumpkin puree, mixing after each addition
7. Add chocolate chips
8. Distribute evenly in muffin tin, ready with greased muffin cups
9. Bake for 18-20 minutes

Derby Pie

My mom grew up in Kentucky, so we've always celebrated Derby Day. Here in Australia, though, there's not a Derby Party in sight. And until now, there wasn't a Derby Pie in sight.

This is the best pie.

Derby Pie
1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup flour
pinch of salt
3 tablespoons bourbon
1 cup semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips
1 cup chopped pecans
9-inch pie-shell (you can make your own pastry if you like, of course)

1. Preheat oven to 350 F (180 C)
2. Bake pie shell for 5 minutes, then remove from oven and set aside
3. Cream butter and sugar
4. Add eggs, salt, and flour
5. Add chips and pecans
6. Pour into shell
7. Bake 3o-35 minutes (or until toothpick comes out clean)

I whipped up some cream with a bit of castor sugar and WOWEE!

Don't tell anyone about this recipe, I don't want everyone to know about it.

Ice Cream Sandwiches

I made chocolate chip cookies again. But this time they were big and I put ice cream between them.

Sunday is my day off, so I put in the hard yards for 45 minutes then sat back like a king and savoured every bite. But it wasn't as civilized as I just made it sound. It was more like a frantic face-stuffing.

Ice Cream Sandwiches
Make these Chocolate Chip Cookies, but halve that recipe.
Chill the dough to make it nice and firm, if necessary.
Make four big cookies.
After they'd cooled, I used the lid of the ice cream container as a mould for the ice cream (the lid of So Good Soy ice cream is the perfect size).

Sandwich the ice cream between the cookies, roll the sides in sprinkles, nuts, or chocolate chips, and put them in the freezer for just a lil while.

Puppy Love

I had more chocolate tart today and I, uhhh, took more photos.
There's something very cute about white, red, and dark brown.

Chocolate Tart (with Chocolate Pastry)

Did I ever tell you that my Uncle Dave saw Bruce Willis at an amusement park once? I really like B-dubs.

I made something extremely chocolatey last night and fed it to my unsuspecting in-laws.

I rarely make tarts. I've been known to dabble in tarts of the lemon persuasion, but I seriously felt like some serious chocolate yesterday, so I found a recipe that struck my fancy and lost myself in a cloud of cocoa powder.

The recipe, which is from Taste.com, is a goodun! My pastry dough was a little too soft-- so I kneaded it on a heavily floured surface to firm it. If yours is not-quite-right, you can do that or perhaps just chill it for longer than 30 minutes.

Also, if I make it again, I might play around to make it a creamier chocolate rather than a richer chocolate. It was DEEVINE, but INTENSO. Or maybe instead of the chocolate pastry, do a regular shortcrust. Or maybe put some MINT in it! Oh boy.

Chocolate Tart with Chocolate Pastry
Chocolate Pastry:
125 g (just over 1/2 cup) chilled butter (I used margarine and it was fine-- or perhaps the marg is to blame for my pastry dough's softness)
1 cup flour
1/3 cup icing sugar
1/4 cup almond meal
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 egg yolk

Custard Filling:
4 egg yolks
1 tablespoon custard powder
2 tablespoons castor sugar
200g chopped dark chocolate
300ml cream (couldn't find soy cream substitute in time)
1 cup milk (I used soy)

1. Place butter, flour, icing sugar, almond meal, and cocoa powder in the blender and process until it's like breadcrumbs. Add egg yolk.
2. Knead on floured surface. Shape into a disc, cover in plastic wrap, chill for 30 minutes.

3. Preheat oven to 200C (390F).
4. Roll pastry to 4mm thick (or so) and line tart pan with it, trimming the top edges to make it beautiful. Chill 15 minutes.

5. Line pastry with baking paper and fill with dry rice or beans. Bake for 10 minutes.

6. Remove beans/rice, bake 5 minutes.
7. Reduce oven temperature to 160C (320F).
8. Combine yolks, custard powder, and castor sugar in a saucepan. Add chopped dark chocolate, cream, and milk, and place over low heat. Cook, whisking occasionally, for 5 minutes.

9. Pour chocolate custard mixture into pastry. Bake 20 minutes.

10. Chill before serving with cream and raspberries.

Cool Things

I baked Chocolate Chip Cookies today.

Yeah, I know, BOoooOOoooo, boring, been done, spice things up!

They're really good, though.

Here they are:

And, I would also like to show you my baking box. My mom has always had a baking box for as long as I can remember. It's more like a Baking Box than a baking box... it was the be-all and end-all of baking supplies, a bottomless box of tricks waiting to be wielded in the kitchen. It's just a shoebox, but I'm obsessed with it.

Lastly, I got a little book to write my recipes in. I'm consolidating all the recipes I've jotted down in various Official Recipe Notebooks.