Lime and Buttermilk Cake

This cake was the find of 2008 for me. It was funny though, this recipe was lying around for several months waiting for me to just get on with making it! I didn't think the cake looked particularly interesting and I don't like limes so this cake was purely for my husband and children. Weeeell, guess who ate most of it? Haha yup, it was that good!! It's like a lemon delicious pudding but in cake form but using limes:) It's really soft and moist in the middle and I love it the best just after the icing sets. It's so nice when it's really fresh. I've tried this recipe using lemons instead of limes but it just didn't taste that good. Maybe limes and buttermilk were just meant for each other.

Lime and Buttermilk Cake

serves 8

250g butter, softened

2 limes, rind finely grated, juiced (should make 1 tablespoon)

1 cup caster sugar

3 eggs, separated

2 cups self-raising flour, sifted

210ml buttermilk

Lime icing

1 cup pure icing sugar, sifted

1 teaspoon milk

1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons lime juice

1. Preheat oven to 170°C. Grease and line a 20cm (base) round cake pan.

2. Using an electric mixer on high speed, cream butter, 1 tablespoon lime rind and sugar in a small bowl until light and fluffy. Add egg yolks, 1 at a time, mixing well after each addition.

3. Transfer to a large bowl. Stir in half the flour. Add half the buttermilk and 1 tablespoon lime juice. Stir to combine. Fold in remaining flour and buttermilk and 1 tablespoon lime juice. Using electric mixer, beat eggwhites in a clean bowl until soft peaks for. Fold into batter.

4. Spread batter into cake pan and smooth surface. Bake for 50 - 60 minutes or until skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes in pan. Turn onto a wire rack to cool completely.

5. Make lime icing: Combing icing sugar, milk and enough lime juice to form a thick icing.

6. Spread icing over top of cake. Allow to set before serving.

A Leader Is Born

This truly is a 'melting moment'. That hot fudge sauce melts the ice-cream like there's no tomorrow so I had to snap these pics fast so I'd have some ice-cream left to eat. I ended up sharing this with my husband because I made it too big, sometimes my eyes really are bigger than my belly. But what's it called?

Peanut butter brownie ice-cream stack with hot fudge sauce...now that's a mouth full.

Just as good by themselves.

Peanut Butter Brownies180g butter, chopped
150g dark eating chocolate, chopped
1 ¾ cups (385g) caster sugar
4 eggs, beaten lightly
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
¾ cup (110g) plain flour
2 tablespoons self-raising flour
1/3 cup (35g) cocoa powder
50g dark eating chocolate, chopped, extra
1/3 cup (95g) crunchy peanut butter (i used smooth)

1. Preheat oven to mederately slow. Grease 20 x 30cm lamington pan; line base and two opposite sides with baking paper.
2. Melt butter and chocolate in medium saucepan, stir over low heat, without boiling, until mixutre is smooth; cool until just warm.
3. Stir in sugar, egg and essence, then sifted flours, cocoa and extra chocolate.
4. Pour mixture into prepared pan. Drop small spoonfuls of peanut butter into the chocolate mixture and swirl through the chocolate with a knife.
5. Bake in moderately slow oven for about 50 minutes or until firm; cool in pan. Cut into 24 pieces for small brownie squares, I cut mine into bigger squares for stacking ( i can't remember how many squares it made).

Hot Fudge Sauce50g dark eating chocolate, chopped
½ cup (125ml) cream
2 tablespoons brown sugar
Combine chocolate, cream and sugar in a small saucepan. Stir over low heat until mixture is smooth; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, 2 minutes. Remove from heat.

Assembling
Place one brownie square on a plate. Scoop out some softened ice-cream (the amount is up to you) and spread it over the top of the brownie. Place another brownie on top. Now you can either add another layer of ice-cream and brownie or you can pour over the hot fudge sauce to finish.

Popcorn and Powder

Unplug Your Kids theme for last week was White. As this was my first time I was a little nervous, but we all had fun so we'll definitely keep it up.
White Chocolate Popcorn
We sang Popcorn Popping while the popcorn was popping.

Recipe: Just make some popcorn and add as much or as little melted white chocolate as you like. Leave it to set. I leave mine in the fridge which makes it go hard.

White HairPetal (not my daughters real name btw) had fun putting talcum powder in my hair. Funny really as i'd spent a lot of money and 2 hours at the hairdressers on the weekend to cover up my white/grey hair! She didn't really want to have her hair done. In the end I did it but it didn't turn out well since she has blondish coloured hair.
Petal got crazy toward the end but it was all good. We laughed a lot doing this.

Cheesecake Brownies

The Cheesecake Brownie was nice by itself but...

add Strawberry Sauce...extremely yummy!

The recipe I used was from The Australian Women's Weekly book Cupcakes, Cheesecakes, Cookies but, here is a similar Cheesecake Brownie recipe I found.

Strawberry Sauce: place 4-5 chopped medium strawberries in saucepan with 2-3 tsp caster sugar and 1 tsp water. Bring to boil then simmer until tender. Put a strainer over a bowl or cup and strain the stawberries through. Discard the strawberry pulp and cool the sauce. Pour over brownie. Makes enough sauce for 1-2 people.