Lindt Blueberry Chocolate Cheesecake

Blueberries are my FAVOURITE thing to eat so adding them to a cheesecake seemed like a perfectly delicious idea, and a tops way to spend a lazy Saturday arvo.

A certain little grommit had a wonderful time licking the bowls...

and I had a wonderful time burning it off at the gym the following day. Not.

The only catch to this recipe is, you need to buy the blueberry inflused chocolate for it to taste any good...it's only in selected supermarkets and extremely hard to find... so good luck!

Dave said it tasted better than my Black Forest Cake????? I DON'T THINK SO!

Mandarin and Walnut Tart with Chocolate Glaze

This was made for my Brother...

I think he is wonderful and deserves a million and forty chocolate tarts...

Even though he doesn't wear shoes and his jokes are lower class, I still think he's hilarious and classy in his own way. My family wouldn't be right without him.

so here's to you Brother Yun... <3

Cut up 6 mandarins and boil them for 1hr and 10mins. Before doing this include the juice of 4 mandarins and 2 cups of caster sugar. Once done tip out 1/2 a cup of the mandarin syrup and keep it for later. Also keep 1 1/2 tablespoon of syrup for later also.

You'll need to either buy pastry or make your own before hand. Roll the pastry out over the tart pan and shape to the pan. Freeze for 10mins, then bake for 25 mins on 200C. Set aside to cool.

Roast 2 & 1/2 cups of walnuts for 5 mins, then place in a blender and process until finely chopped. Place in a bowl with 1 tsp cinnamon and 4 chopped mandarin pieces (from step 1). Stir in 125g melted butter and the 1/2 cup syrup from step 1 also. Spoon mixture into shell and bake for 25 minutes.

Place 175g dark chocolate, 1/4 cup cream, 50g butter and 1 1/2 tblsp syrup (from step 1) into a heatproof bowl over boiling water and stir until smooth. Pour glaze over the top and set a room temperature.

And whola!

Bakewell Tart

I don't really have much to say about this...

Apart from the fact that it was an epic disaster.

Not only was the pastry the wrong type, but I wrote down the wrong amounts of butter and sugar resulting in an overflow situation in the brand new oven...now my apartment smells of smoke....I also managed to break my housemates KitchenAid Mixmaster in the process.

Yes I cried.

Satan is telling me to eat it all.

However I made it for my brother and his family.....so I better deliver the little devil in the morning.

The Recipe can be found here if you're game.

Banoffee Pie

Anybody who knows me will be aware of my terrible soft spot for pies and puddings - they are my Achilles heel. I also love the irresistible names such as plum duff, sticky richard, sussex pond and jam roly-poly! In my mind these names make them all the more fun to cook and eat.

I have no idea what Bonoffee means, but what I do know is that it's soft, sticky and very more-ish!

This is a Gary Mehigan recipe so considering his specialty is comfort food, there's no way I could go wrong!

Eggs Benedict with Bacon, Tomato and Hollandaise Sauce

I shouldn't be posting this on my blog, as I didn't cook it.
But I know Dave's not fully into sharing with the world what he cooks..
Lucky he's got me to do that for him!

This morning I packed my car, left Sydney and my darling boy and moved back to Newcastle.
Sydney turned out to be a rat race..and I am not a rat.

So for my final breakfast in Cremorne, Dave cooked me THIS....
It's simple, it's common...but when it's cooked with love it's a whole different story!

It was amazing to say the least, and here is the recipe.

..I love you darling xo

Warm Caramel Double-Cake

Being the middle of winter, bring on the warm cakes and sauce I say!

Gone are the days when cakes HAD to have icing. No one likes a dry cake with boring icing sugar and water smeared on the top..

I've ditched that tradition this winter, and gone for the home made chocolate, caramel, butterscotch..etc..sauces instead!

This caramel cake I made with sauce dripping over the edge was irresistable.

Having something like caramel sauce with your cakes means that even if it's dry and crusty, noone will notice!.... they'll be too busy pouring on more sauce and feeding their face..

...wasn't long until a little grommit found it!

Chocolate Fudge Mini-Puddings

My office recently had a dress-up day - the theme being bright colours!

Most of my clothes were packed and moved to Newcastle last weekend, so I had to think of another way to be colourful...
Knowing that everyone loves home cooked goodies and it was FREEZING, how could warm chocolate puddings not be a success.

There was a voting process to identify the colourful winner for the day...I was hoping these puddings would see me walking home with 1st prize! but no, that tactic didn't work.

It was fun, and humerous to see people walking around the office not knowing they had chocolate sauce on their face...

AND CHECK OUT THIS TOWER...
Cream, Strawberries and Chocolate Profiterols!

Helllloooo Jenny Craig...