Malteser Cake

This time last week Butter Hearts Sugar turned 3! While I've had a lot on my plate at the moment and my posting has been sporadic at best, I'm not one to miss a Birthday or a Birthday Cake!

What better way to celebrate than with this Malteser cake, which just happens to be the richest cake I think I've ever made. I noticed the cake on the front cover of Good Taste magazine and the picture was enough to have me leaving the shop with the magazine and a couple of bags of Maltesers.

The recipe described the cake as amazeballs and I whole-heartedly agree, as well as adopting the word amazeballs as one of my favourite words.

The shinning coat of Maltesers on the outside of the cake is enticing enough, but the malt buttercream filling is where its really at.

In fact if I made this cake again I'd probably skip the outer layer of ganache and fill and cover the cake with the buttercream. I'll leave you with just one one word of advice, have a cold glass of milk handy, this cake is decadent!

You can find the recipe here if you'd like to give it a shot.

Vintage Floral Raspberry and Coconut Cake

This was a special cake for a special person, one of the people I love most in the world, my beautiful Grandmother! It was my Grandma's 85th birthday and I wanted to make her a cake that was as pretty inside as it was out.

My Grandma loves going out for coffee and cake, any outing we have ever gone on has been punctuated with a 'cappuccino break'. When I was little it was always exciting getting treated to an iced chocolate and something yummy. Grandma especially likes carrot cake and raspberry muffins, as the last cake I made her was carrot I decided to go with raspberry for this one.

This raspberry coconut cake is a new favourite of mine, I'm a little obsessed with coconut at the moment.  I blame the coconut bread from the coffee shop near work, It might be overpriced but the yummy toasted coconut flavour always brightens my day. 

The coconut in this cake made it yummy and moist and the raspberries dotted throughout are not only pretty but add lovely bursts of flavour. Coconut and raspberry are meant to be together and along with the white chocolate they make this a cake difficult to pass up.

For the Raspberry and Coconut Cake Printable Recipe

220 grams butter (softened)

1 3/4 cups caster sugar

1 teaspoon coconut extract

3 eggs

1 1/3 cup desiccated coconut

360 grams self raising flour

360 mls buttermilk

200 grams frozen or fresh raspberries ( if frozen, do not thaw)

To make the cake- Preheat oven to 180 degrees c. and grease two 8 inch round cake pans. Line the base and sides of the the cake pan with baking paper allowing about about an inch extra out the top of the pan.

In a medium bowl sift the flour and add the coconut, stir to combine.

Add the butter, sugar and coconut extract to a second mixer bowl and beat until light and fluffy.

 Add one egg at a time beating well after each addition. 

Fold in a quarter of the flour coconut mix at a time, alternately with the buttermilk.

Fold through the raspberries. (keeping the raspberries frozen stops them breaking up in the mix)

Divide the cake mixture between the 2 prepared pans and smooth over the tops.

Bake the cakes for about 1 hour, or until a skewer poked into the middle of the cake comes out clean. 

Allow the cakes to cool in the tins for around 10 minutes before turning them out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

For the White Chocolate Ganache

720 grams white chocolate (4 blocks)

220 mls cream

To make the Ganache- finely chop the chocolate and place in a large heat proof bowl.

Pour the cream into a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Pour the boiling cream over the chocolate. 

Stir the ganache mixture with a hand whisk until smooth. Allow to cool and set for a few hours before spreading onto cake. (I find if I make my ganache before work, its the perfect consistency when I get home in the afternoon.)

Sandwich the two cakes with a layer of ganache. Spread the remaining ganache over the top and sides of the cake. Allow the ganache to set. Decorate as you like or just cut a slice and enjoy.

Easy Leftover Easter Cookies

I really dropped the ball with my Easter posts, only managing to share one single recipe. I had great intentions, I even had lots of fun shopping for new pretty props, bought some yummy ingredients and made a whole list of things to try but just ran out of time. In fact this recipe was meant to be a last minute post before Easter, but I couldn't even manage that. So now lets just pretend it was always meant to be a 'what to do with all that Easter chocolate' post.   

But first a little explanation on why I've been so slack lately. The last month was an exceptionally busy month for birthdays! All my spare baking time was spent on birthday cakes for family and friends, which I promise to share shortly. Last week was even busier and more exciting again as I got to make my second wedding cake and a hundred matching cupcakes, I'm just dying to post about them. 

Boyfriend and I have also decided to take a step toward being actual adults and are looking to buy our first house. Honestly the house hunting and and the buying process has been a been a little overwhelming, there is just so much competition. Every Saturday for the last couple of months has been given up to to countless house inspections, let alone all the time spent searching online, researching areas, values and all the other little things. Its starting to make my brain a little numb, and I often day dream that someone will just come and give me the prefect little house. I'm sure we will find the perfect place with time, I just need to be patient.

Back to these cookies! This easy recipe takes no time at all and make a nice soft almost cakey cookie.I chose to use mini candy coated eggs because I had a whole lot of them and liked the pretty pastel colours, but feel free to use whatever you like.

For the Cookies (makes 24)
125 grams butter (softened)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup brown sugar (firmly packed)
1/3 cup caster sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
300 grams candy covered chocolate mini eggs

To make the cookies- Preheat oven to 180 degrees c. and line a baking tray with baking paper.

Beat the butter, vanilla and sugars with an electric mixer until light and fluffy.

Add the egg and beat until well combined.

Mix in the flour and baking soda until the cookie dough comes together.

Stir through the candy coated eggs.

Roll the cookie dough into tablespoon size balls and place on the tray. Leave a 2 inch space between the cookies to allow for spreading.

Bake the cookies for about 15 minutes or until lightly golden.

Allow the baked cookies to cool on trays.

Ahoy It's A Boy Baby Shower

Back in January I put together this last minute sweets set up for my brother and his fiance's baby shower bbq. Its seems fitting that I share it today as they finally welcomed a beautiful baby boy, earlier tonight.

I'm pretty darn excited about being an aunty! I'm already coming up with first birthday cake ideas. I now have a little niece and baby nephew to spoil rotten.

The 'ahoy! its a boy' theme came about because I really wanted to make sailor onesie cookies, the anchor cookies and other details were just made to match. The baby shower/bbq just happened to be on the hottest most humid day of Summer, so although the cake melted a little it turned out okay considering. 

Rainbow Bunny Bait Rocky Road

I'm so excited its almost Easter, I love Easter! It's the prettiest of all the holidays.

Its a great excuse to go crazy with pastel colours, not that I need one, because we all know Easter bunnies love pastels.

Not only is this pastel rocky road pretty, its yummy too! I'm snacking on some as I write this. White chocolate is always a winner for me and the wafers add a nice crunch. There's the only one thing I'd change next time I make it, I'd swap the jelly beans for something softer. The jelly beans look cute but get a little to hard in the fridge.

While this rocky road great for attracting Easter bunnies, it also makes a perfect Easter gift being so quick and easy to make! The cute packaging options are endless, in a pretty basket, box or bag, the person receiving this is sure to smile.

For the Rocky Road printable recipe
360 grams white chocolate
190 grams jelly beans
150 grams mini rainbow marshmallows
125 grams vanilla and strawberry wafer biscuits
1/4 cup shredded coconut
rainbow confetti sprinkles

To make the rocky road- Line a flat 20 x 30cm container or tray with baking paper.

Slice the wafers into quarters.

Mix the wafers, jelly beans, marshmallows and coconut in a large bowl.

Break the white chocolate into a microwave safe bowl. Microwave the chocolate 20 seconds at a time until it is smooth and melted. Take care not to burn the chocolate.

Add the melted chocolate to the bowl with the other ingredients and mix until everything is well coated.

Pour the mixture into the prepared container and flatten out as much as possible with a spatula. Sprinkle over with the confetti sprinkles. Cover the container with a lid or cling wrap and place in the fridge until the chocolate hardens.

Once the rocky road has set remove it from the container/ tray and place on a cutting board. Cut into easter shapes using some sturdy cookie cutters. If you dont have cutters slicing the rocky road into squares looks just as cute. I found that it was easier to cut the rocky road after it was out of the fridge for a few minutes.

Keep the cut rocky road in the fridge until ready to eat. Enjoy!

Pastel Peppa Pig Cake

This Peppa Pig is one popular girl!

This is another quick share of a cake I made a few weeks ago, funny thing is I'm working on another Peppa cake right now.

Happy 3rd Birthday Lilija, I hope your special day was extra lovely!

Airplane Cake

This has to be one of the more different cakes I've been asked to make, but I think that's what made it so enjoyable. A friends Mum was turning 50 and she has a bit of an infatuation with airplanes, so a plane cake it was. The birthday girl likes planes so much that she has the dinner set used by Qantas in their first and business class. I thought it was very cute story, so with that in mind based the cake on a Qantas airplane.

For the inside of the cake I used one of my favourite flavours, a lemon and lime white chocolate mudcake filling and frosted with white chocolate ganache. The outside of the cake and the decorations are all fondant. I was a little worried that the wings wouldn't stand up to the rainy weather so made them out of cake board covered with fondant.