Chocolate Raspberry Buttercake

As the affection for cooking continues, me and Cheesy tried making a chocolate raspberry buttercake and scones on Friday for cell. It turned out pretty well, considering I had just randomly pulled out the recipe from a Woman’s Day magazine I had a long long time ago. It was such a random thing, they used the cake I made for my birthday 1 month ago, breaking into song when I was standing there. Probably one of my more memorable birthdays

Here’s the recipe we used:

Preparation: 15 minutes
Cooking: 50 minutes

Cake:
125 gm butter, at room temperature, chopped
3/4 cup caster sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 cups self-raising flour
1/4 cup cocoa
3/4 cup milk
1 1/2 cups frozen raspberries, plus extra to decorate

Chocolate butter cream:
125 gm butter, at room temperature, chopped
3/4 cup icing sugar mixture
2 tbsp cocoa
2 tbsp milk

1. Preheat oven to moderate, 180 degrees Celcius. Lightly grease a 22cm round cake pan and line the base with baking paper.
2. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until pale and creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla.
3. Sift flour and cocoa together. Lightly fold into creamed mixture, alternately with milk, beginning and ending with flour. Fold in raspberries.
4. Spoon mixture into prepared pan, smoothing top. Bake for 45-50 minutes, until cooked when tested with a skewer. Cool in pan for 5 minutes, before turning onto wire rack to cool completely.
5. Chocolate butter cream: Beat butter in bowl until pale. Add icing sugar mixture, cocoa and milk. Beat until combined. Spread over top and sides of cake. Decorate with extra raspberries.

I put some blueberries and chocolate shavings on top just to make it look pretty. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of when it was ready and I only have a picture of the cake itself.

Admittedly the cake looks very plain but I tell you the end results were amazing. Cheh, self praise really is no praise LOL But trust me, this is probably one of the more simple but tasty desserts to make

Beef and Potato Pie

I picked this out of the STM Magazine on July 30, 2006 (Does do good to reference where you got this from :P) which in turn was taken out from the donna hay magazine which is also available online here. I’ve tried this before with varying success rate and well, I plan to cook this for our Christmas dinner this year. Since I’m feeling rather blah at the moment, I thought I ‘d get this stored in her for future references

Beef and Potato Pie
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 3 hours

Ingredients:
1 kg beef, diced
plain (all-purpose) flour for dusting
3 tablespoons vegetable oil (I use olive oil since I have no other oil)
1 brown onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
250g button mushrooms, quartered
2 bay leaves
3 tablespoons seeded mustard
3 cups beef stock
sea salt and cracked black pepper
600g desiree (waxy) potatoes, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon olive oil

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2. Dust beef in the flour. Heat large heavy-based saucepan over high heat. Add half the oul and cook the beef in batches for 4-5 minutes or until browned. Set aside.
3. Add the remaining oil, onion and garlic to the saucepan and cook for 2-3 minutes or until onion is softened.
4. Return the beef to the pan. Add the mushrooms, bay leaves, mustard, stock, salt and pepper and bring to the boil.
5. Reduce the heat to low, cover with a tight-fitting lid and simmer for 30 minutes.
6. Remove lid and simmer for a further 30 minutes or until beef is tender
7. Place the potato slices and olive oil in a bowl and toss to coat.
8. Place the beef mixture in a 4-cup capacity oven proof dish, layer with the potato and cook for 45 minutes or until the potatoes are golden. Serves 4

Usually I get the beef diced up already from the supermarket but if you want to get special cuts and do it, well thats fine as well. I’m just a lazy bum.