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Funfetti Cupcakes

Nothing spells party time like sprinkles!! Little Dash turned two this weekend, so it was time for some serious baked goods!! Whilst it’s well known that the key to an excellent children’s party is ample amounts of wine for the adults, these funfetti cupcakes were a hit!! Thankfully there weren’t many of these left over after the party, or I most likely would have eaten all of them!!

I used this recipe from Crazy Crust….the cakes themselves were perfect….with the addition of buttermilk, they were seriously delicious!! They’re sugary….they’re buttery….they’re delicious!!

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
125 grams butter, melted
1 1/4 cups sugar
3 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup buttermilk (or combine 3/4 cup milk + 1 teaspoon white vinegar and let sit for 5 minutes)
1/2 cup Sprinkles

Frosting

250 grams butter
1/4 teaspoon salt
5 cups powdered sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1-2 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
Additional Sprinkles, for decorating

Method

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Line cupcake tins with liners (makes 15).
Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl.
Add melted butter to a large bowl and mix in sugar with a hand mixer for 30 seconds, until thick and yellow. Add eggs one at at time, beating after each addition. Beat in vanilla extract.
Add the flour mixture and buttermilk alternately, starting and ending with the flour. Don’t over mix! Stir in sprinkles. Divide batter among liners, filling 2/3 full (about 1/4 cup of batter per cupcake). Bake for 15-20 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. (Mine took less than 20, so check at 15!) Cool completely before frosting.
To make the frosting: Beat butter until creamy. Beat in salt and 1 cup of powdered sugar at a time until it’s all added. Beat in vanilla extract and 1 tablespoon of heavy whipping cream. Add more cream as needed for desired consistency.
Frost cupcakes by placing frosting in a pastry bag. I like the 1M tip, it gives pretty swirls. Add sprinkles for fun!
Note: you can make the frosting the day before, but let it come to room temperature before using.

Dash can’t stop saying “good birthday” and it’s too adorable!! I’m sure these delightful cakes had something to do with it!!

Simply Delicious Paleo Chocolate Chip Cookies

I’ve been attempting to clean up my diet lately, and this means cutting back on the delicious, butter and sugar filled baked goods I’ve been baking all too often lately!!

I’ve done several dairy free recipes in the past, and was loving coconut oil as an alternative to butter!! This recipe takes it a step further, and is gluten free, as well as dairy free!! It also uses Coconut Sugar instead of refined sugar.. Coconut Sugar has lower GI than regular sugar so is a (slightly) better alternative.

It uses a mix of almond meal and coconut flour in the place of regular sugar, which gives these a crumbly and slightly coconutty flavour.

These cookies are simply delicious!! Thick and crumbly, and full of chocolate goodness!! I used this recipe from Ambitious Kitchen.

Ingredients:

1 egg, slightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup coconut oil, melted and cooled
1/2 cup coconut sugar
1 cup almond meal
1/4 cup coconut flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 pack dark chocolate melts – you can use dairy free chocolate if you’re keeping the recipe dairy free Coles stock a brand called “Sweet William” who make baking chips.
Coarse sea salt, for sprinkling

Method:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
In a large bowl, add add in beaten egg, melted and cooled coconut oil, coconut sugar and vanilla extract. (Please make sure your coconut oil is cool!) Next add in almond flour, coconut flour and baking soda, mixing well to combine and form a dough. Fold in dark chocolate chunks. You may need to use your hands to moisten the dough so that it sticks together well.
Use a cookie scoop or large tablespoon to drop dough onto a baking tray lined with baking paper. Gently flatten the dough with your hand. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until edges are slightly golden brown. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and allow to cool on cookie sheet for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finishing cooling. Makes 12 cookies.

Easy to make, and easy to eat!!! Perfect for your gluten free and dairy free pals too!!! Do you have a favourite paleo recipe?

Boost your learning power with this simple tip!!

Learning a new skill is difficult for the best of us, particularly as we age *sighs*…..but there is a simple strategy you can try which can help you to learn more efficiently.

Simply by mixing up the way you learn with interleaving, you can experience large gains in your learning.

Interleaving means practising or learning different skills in quick succession. Often when learning, we traditionally focus on learning one task at a time. For example, if I was learning to play a new song on the guitar, I might spend an entire practice session on the one song only…. but if I was interleaving, I might practice multiple techniques in a practice sessions – for example, scales, fingerpicking, or even work on a few different songs in the same session.

A study by Rohrer et al., 2015, showed that children learning maths who used interleaving, performed 25% better than students learning one technique at a time (such as spending an entire lesson on fractions!), one day later. A month later the children were re-tested, and the interleavers performed 76% better than students practising one task at a time.

The implications of this are that whether you are learning a new skill, such as learning to play golf, or going back to university for further education, by shaking up how you practice and learn, you can learn much better.

You might feel stuck when learning a particular task or skill, but by moving on to a different task in the same session, it may actually help you to learn the first one!!

Do you interleave? What works best for you when learning a new skill?

Raspberry Coconut Cupcakes

So I’m raspberry baked good addict now!! For those of you that saw my raspberry tea cake recipe, I’ve shaken up my usual lemon and more lemon flavour pattern to introduce the humble raspberry, king of the berries!! To make these cupcakes even better, comes the addition of delicious coconut, resulting in a truly delectable morning tea treat!!

Even better? The recipe says “put all ingredients in a bowl and mix.” You can have a batch of these babies in the oven in five minutes. Yes, yes and yes. Too easy….too delicious!!!

I used this recipe from BBC Food network:

Ingredients

175g self-raising flour
140g caster sugar
50g desiccated coconut
140g butter, softened
½ tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
4 tbsp milk
140g raspberries, fresh or frozen

Method

Heat oven to 190C/170C fan/gas 5. Line a 12-hole muffin tin with deep paper cases or a 15-hole bun tin with cake cases. Tip all the cake ingredients except the raspberries into a bowl and beat for 1-2 mins until light and fluffy. Gently fold in the raspberries.
Divide the mixture between the cases and bake for 18-20 mins (add a couple of extra mins for deep cases), until golden brown and firm to the touch. Leave to cool

Are you a raspberry lover? Do you have any raspberry recipes you’d like to share?

Dairy Free Flourless Orange Cake

What better to do on a rainy day than to bake a delicious (dairy free) treat!!! I’m still on the dairy free bandwagon and am running out of ideas (that aren’t lemon themed!!!). It’s also gluten free, which is even better.

This was super easy to make – and the fun thing? You boil the oranges, then puree them whole, skin and all!!! Best thing – you can make this cake with just one bowl and there are only five ingredients.

Here is the recipe – taken from SBS Food Network.

Ingredients

2 oranges, washed
250 grams caster sugar
6 eggs
250 grams almond meal
1 teaspoon baking powder
icing sugar, to serve

Method

Bring a large pot of water to the boil. Wash the oranges and cook in the boiling water for 2 hours. Drain, allow to cool to room temperature. This step can be done ahead of time.
Preheat the oven to 160°C. Grease and line a 22 cm cake tin with baking paper (or grease with dairy free spread such as Nuttelex and coat with flour).
Beat the eggs and caster until well combined. Add in your oranges (cooked and whole!!). Use a barmix to pulverise the oranges into the mix (you will find they break down really easily once cooked).
Stir in the almond meal and baking powder. Pour the batter into the prepared tin. Bake for 1-1¼ hours, until the top is golden and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
Allow to cool in the tin. Dust with icing sugar