Posts tagged ‘chocolate’

May 13

Donna Hay's Molten Brownie Kit

When I made Donna Hay’s Chocolate Cupcake Mix, I promised you I’d eventually try out more of her dessert kits. For this post I chose the Molten Chocolate Chunk Brownie Kit. The picture of the brownies on the box looks to-die-for, which is why I chose these over the Chocolate Chip Cookie Kit (which I’m sure will be next).

Donna Hay’s chocolate cupcakes from the kit were pretty good, but I was disappointed in the frosting. There wasn’t enough of it, and it turned out much lighter in color than the frosting on the box, which was so dark it looked like fudge. Also, the wrappers kept peeling away from the cupcakes, which was quite annoying.

I wasn’t much happier with the brownies. All that is required to make the brownies is some butter and eggs, then you whisk it into the dry ingredients from the kit. After whisking, you mix the chocolate chunks in.

Apr 27

22 Comments

Chocolate Peanut Butter Macarons

I’m sorry, but yes, this is another post about macarons. And yes, I have made three batches of macarons in three weeks (links to these are at the bottom of this post). While this third batch wasn’t a huge improvement over my other batches – still had wrinkly tops and imperfect feet – it was definitely the yummiest batch.

They are two of my favorite flavors – chocolate and peanut butter. The macaron shells are made with half almonds and half peanuts and the recipe is from, who else, Tartelette. They are filled with salted peanut butter filling, which is a recipe from Canelle et Vanille, and a simple milk chocolate ganache. We’re talking Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup macarons here, and they are fabulous!

Apr 16

10 Comments

Mocha Cupcakes

I take my 4-year-old daughter to ballet classes on Tuesdays. She really enjoys it and has made a new friend in her class. It’s neat to see her perform some of the poses at home – one day she did a plie. Ballet term 2 is now starting after a 2-week long Easter holiday, and my daughter says she wants to continue with ballet.

Ballet class lasts only 30 minutes. Luckily, if I practically run, I can make it over to the nearby Westfield shopping center for a special treat for myself. I visit T2 Tea and sample all four of the teas they have on display that day and have a chat with the friendly ladies who work there. And then I do a fast-walk to get back to ballet to pick up my daughter.

As it turns out, my daughter also likes to sample the teas at T2 Tea, so before the holidays I started going to T2 before ballet class so she could try the teas too, and I sat in the lobby area of the ballet studio and read magazines while she was in her class. They only have a handful of magazines and always the same ones, but I did find an Australian Women’s Weekly magazine (from March 2009!) that I hadn’t seen before and flipped through the recipe section. I found some beautiful mocha cupcakes and read the recipe for them. I was immediately intrigued by it because it used real melted chocolate, almond meal and buttermilk.

Apr 6

6 Comments

Coffee And Nutella Macarons

I have always been intrigued, fascinated and mystified when it comes to French macarons. I believe I first saw them on Flickr, in an array of colors and flavors. I looked up how to make them myself and was quickly discouraged because they looked so tricky and I was sure I would fail with my own attempt and waste precious ingredients. So instead of making them, I made a Tumblr blog to keep track of my favorite macarons, which is sort of a sister-blog to my Tumblr cupcake blog.

Making my own macarons have always been on my to-do list anyhow, because I had never even eaten a macaron. I guess that’s what I get for living in Indiana. Soon after I moved back to Sydney with my family I visited a cupcake shop in Chatswood, Cupcakes On Pitt, and tried two of their macarons, a blueberry one and a chocolate one (my pictures here and here). They were chewier than I had imagined they would be, but they didn’t taste like anything special. I was quite disappointed. Later, however, a friend told me that Cupcakes On Pitt’s macarons were a very poor example as to how macarons should taste.

And still I hadn’t made my own macarons. I was just dying to, but was still too frightened. A couple of weeks ago, Samantha of Sweet Remedy mentioned on Twitter that she was scared of making macarons as well. I had earlier befriended Samantha when we were in a throwdown for October 2009′s Cupcake Hero competition. So I casually mentioned to her that I was scared as well, and from this we decided to have our own macaron challenge; we would make them “together”. Well, as “together” as we could anyway, with Samantha being on the other side of the world from me!

Mar 26

7 Comments

Faux Hot Cross Buns

The closest I’ve ever came to a hot cross bun while growing up was reciting the nursery rhyme, “Hot cross buns, hot cross buns, one a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns”. I never actually knew what a hot cross bun was. I grew up in a cornfield in Indiana, after all, so I didn’t know very much of the world!

Later on, I came to realize that a hot cross bun is a sweet, golden bun speckled with raisins and marked with a cross on top, and sold at Easter time. The cross is supposed to symbolize the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Or at least that’s what Wikipedia tells me about hot cross buns.

Whatever the original meaning of hot cross buns, it is obvious that they have evolved over the years. Hot cross buns can now be found studded with chocolate chips instead of dried fruits, and I recently even tasted a mocha-flavored hot cross bun.

Mar 12

8 Comments

Chocolate Chip Chai Cupcakes

Shortly before I left the US I got really interested in loose leaf teas. I had entered a Twitter contest that Rishi Tea was hosting and won a big tin of Earl Gray Lavender tea. It smelled and tasted fantastic and I often replaced my morning cup of coffee with this tea. I still had a bit over half of the tin left when I left the US, so I gave it to a tea-loving friend of mine, so I knew it would go to a good home.

I can’t get Rishi Tea in Australia though, so I needed a replacement. Luckily for me, there is an awesome tea shop at my local shopping center called T2 Tea, and right next door to the tea shop is the T2 Tea Teahouse which not only can make you a cup of any of their teas, but also sells a variety of delicious foods. You can get something savory made up for you, but hey, you know me, I’m more interested in the sweets and they have a tantalizing variety of those, including some beautiful cupcakes.

Well, unfortunately, on the day I went there, they didn’t have any of those cupcakes. I decided on a chocolate chai cake instead. Pictured above is said cake, a tall glass of iced chocolate tea, and a sample of gundpowder green tea. All were very delicious.

Mar 3

196 Comments

Cupcakes & A Giveaway!

The giveaway is now over and any comments left after 7PM on March 7, 2010 as recorded on the comment will not be counted. The winner will be chosen tomorrow so check back then to see if you have won!

The Sweetest Kitchen hasn’t always been The Sweetest Kitchen. I started out blogging about cupcakes in late May of 2008 at Blogspot; my blog was then called The Cupcake Review. As I started to expand and blog about more than cupcakes I knew that I needed to switch to my own domain. After much thought, I finally decided on the name The Sweetest Kitchen in late February of 2009, and launched the new domain on March 3. It’s now been one year and my blogging experience has been such fun. The Sweetest Kitchen has became more popular than I ever expected it to – I’ve almost reached 500,000 page views!

My most famous post, with at least 30,000 page views so far, was the zombie Halloween cupcake I made for Iron Cupcake: Earth and Cupcake Hero in October 2009. However, my personal favorite of anything I have ever baked since beginning this blog is the pumpkin dulce de leche cupcake. Everyone who has made these has raved about them, and I’m so happy about that!

Today I’ve made some cupcakes in celebration of The Sweetest Kitchen’s 1-year anniversary. They are actually very similar to the pumpkin dulce de leche cupcakes, but instead of the pumpkin cake, I used a chocolate cake and sprinkled the frosting with sea salt.

Feb 25

6 Comments

Half-Birthday Cupcakes

Babies are cute. I oughta know, I’ve had three of them. My latest installment was a baby boy, six months ago. His name is Miles. He’s been the sweetest, cutest and most patient of my three. He smiles and giggles at anything and sleeps mostly through the night. You couldn’t ask for much more out of a baby other than that he sleeps through the night, trust me. Sleep-deprivation is not fun.

I have breastfed my babies exclusively for the first six months of their lives (and weaned at 18 months), and on their six-month birthdays I have given them their first tastes of solid foods. Yesterday, the 24th, was Miles’ six-month birthday and we had a great day.

Feb 15

9 Comments

Donna Hay Chocolate Cupcake Kit

What’s your take on box cake mixes? It appears that you either love them or hate them. For those that hate them, the general idea is that box cake mixes are not made of anything natural and leave a chemical aftertaste. If you love them though, you probably love them because you believe it’s quick and easy, and maybe you love how light and airy they are.

My take? I wouldn’t pass up a slice of cake made from a box, but when it comes to making a cake, I’d rather do it from scratch. I also think that it doesn’t take much longer to make a cake from scratch than it does from a box, so if you’ve got the ingredients to make a cake from scratch, do it!

There’s something therapeutic and calming for me when making a cake from scratch (when my kids are not “helping” me, that is!) and I just can’t get that same feeling with a box cake mix. That said though, I do love box brownie mixes!

Anyway, last week I stopped in a relatively new shop called Thomas Dux, which sells a lot of organic and gourmet products. The main aisle I was interested in was the baking aisle, and there I found a range of Donna Hay box mixes – cupcakes, cookies and brownies. What intrigued me about these mixes is that instead of the usual oil, eggs and water that you’d find in an average box mix, the Donna Hay box mixes required butter, eggs and milk. I picked up the chocolate cupcake box!

Nov 17

18 Comments

Chocolate Sugar Cookies

Martha Stewart’s COOKIES book is simply amazing. I often look through the book just to look at the beautiful pictures. What I don’t like about the book is that most all of the recipes (and pictures) are already on Martha Stewart’s website. If I had known this before I bought the book, I probably would not have bought the book.

I presume this is the same with the CUPCAKES book, but I’m not sure; I haven’t yet purchased this book. I probably will eventually though!

But back to the COOKIES book, one of the pictures and recipes that I kept coming back to were the giant chocolate sugar cookies. I put off making them for so long because I thought sugar cookies were supposed to be soft; the chocolate sugar cookies were supposed to be a little more sandy in texture, I believe. I didn’t think I’d like that in a sugar cookie. Read more

Nov 11

12 Comments

Chocolate, PB, Toffee, Bacon Cupcakes

Wow, the title of this post is a mouthful! If you can think of an easier name for these cupcakes, just let me know! These cupcakes were created for November’s Cupcake Hero challenge ingredient, peanut butter. I’ve already entered one cupcake into the competition this month, but I just love peanut butter so there was no way I could only enter just one.

My second entry is a chocolate cupcake with chocolate chips and finely chopped crispy bacon baked inside. It is frosted with peanut butter frosting, sprinkled with finely chopped toffee and topped off with a square of crispy bacon.

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