WIN a Kitchen Aid hand mixer & prize pack!

Be sure to visit Delicieux to enter, for a chance to win these awesome prizes below! All you need to do is enter via your email or Facebook and follow the prompts! Easy! 

Fingers crossed!

Chocolate Fun

Hope everyone had a great Easter weekend! 

We had a small gathering with friends and I made tiramisu! I just love the flavour of a hint of coffee- YUM! I've made it only a few times and love to make it. Did I mention that it's so easy to make?!

I don't know if you've tried piping chocolate, but it's a very easy way to give something a very professional look. All you need to do is melt chocolate over hot water on the stove. Choose a piping tip, (I just use a small round one for lines). Once it's melted and cooled for a bit just place it into your piping bag. 

Make sure you have lined a baking tray or clear surface with baking paper, this makes it easier for you peel the chocolate designs off after.

Now all you need to do is start piping! 

Feel free to experiment with difference shapes, I made some random shapes that turned out looking alright! Or you can always place a template underneath the baking paper to 'trace' over.

You can also use your leftover chocolate to spread on an empty space. This creates flat sheets which you can snap, to create a 'shard' effect or simply just shave it with a knife.

Easter tiramisu...

...or a fancy treat!

Hope this inspires you to try out some chocolate piping! 

And don't forget if you make a mistake just peel it off and melt it again... chocolate can be recyclable.

Have a great week, Saturday is not too far away! :)

Scarlett Fever

My all time favourite cake flavour would have to be Red Velvet! 

It tastes a bit like chocolate cake but a tad different and is usually topped with delicious cream cheese frosting! The rich red colouring was traditionally from beetroot, however red colouring is used more commonly nowadays instead.

Heres an easy & tasty Red Velvet recipe I found on Taste.com!

http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/26697/red+velvet+cupcakes

I first heard of Red Velvet whilst watching Cake Boss and was intrigued by it, it looked so delicious!

Most people make them as cupcakes or cakes... (I personally like them as cupcakes) But I have seen some people make cookies and macarons! 

Praying the weekend will come faster! Writing this post is making me crave for some right now!

Little Monster Cupcakes

Last week I had about 3 friends who celebrated their birthday so I thought I would bake them a little something! I decided to go with a Sesame Street theme, many ideas from searching cupcakes on Tumblr (the things you can find there!).

To make Cookie Monster, I used buttercream icing with blue colouring, in a piping bag with a small nozzle to get thin lines. For his eyes just a white chocolate button with some black marzipan or fondant. Don't forget you need a cookie!

For Elmo, it was pretty much the same thing except you are replacing the cookie with a single Oreo without icing. To make his nose, just use orange marzipan or fondant. I usually just have white marzipan and mix the colours myself by hand.

So that is all you need to make these cute little monsters! Oh and don't forget to make the peak of your cupcakes higher to give them more height. This also reduces the amount of icing you put on top.

Please comment! I'm getting a feeling no one is even looking at my blog LOL :)

Cute Fruit

Happy Monday! I hope getting up this morning was easier for yourself than my struggle...

Fruit tarts. What can I say, they are one of my favourite desserts of all time! I started making it last year and they turned out alright... However there is definitely room for improvement! The image above was taken at Christmas! 

My glaze-less fruit tart!

BUT I still haven't found a really good glaze recipe! I've tried ones using jam & gelatin but they don't seem to work that well for me. I prefer a glaze that hardens into jelly after applying.

So if anyone has a good recipe for a fruit tart glaze, I would love to hear back from you! The only glaze that I know of that hardens comes in a 15 kg bucket, which is really not an ideal size for me...

Check out taste.com.au for an easy & basic shortcrust pastry recipe

Fruit tarts may seem hard to make but with practice, are really easy to assemble and look as good as they taste! Why not give it a go? I would love to hear how you went.

Have a great week!

2 Broke Girl$

So you may or may have not seen the new hilarious comedy, 2 Broke Girl$ starring Kat Dennings (Max) & Beth Behrs (Caroline). If you haven't you should! 

It's about 2 girls with no money hoping to open up their own cupcake business, with the cash they earn at a sleezy diner. Max comes from a poor hard working family, where as Caroline is a rich girl turned poor after her trust fund is emptied. 

At the end of each episode they show the total amount of money they have in their bank account. (It decreases most of the time, quite like my own!) 

It is so funny and whenever I watch it, I think of the many times I am a stupid fool in the kitchen. The mess I am able to make, I have certainly turned into a master, just ask my mum... :)

One of my favourite episodes is when the girls go for cupcake decorating class with interesting teachers... 

Hope you watch it and become as addicted to it as I am! 

All right stop, collaborate, and listen

Well, I am a student still saving up for my very first Kitchen Aid! I spend my weekends baking instead of what I really should be doing- studying! Yes it is bad, but I get to that later. 

I love music, fashion and my dog, Moo. I have to admit that I am an old soul when it come to music! I LOVE MICHAEL JACKSON and classical musicals like Cats & The Phantom of the Opera. So I am used to getting eye rolls from friends whenever I ramble on or sing about it :) And I have a slight obsession with the Kardashians...

Oh and I should really exercise more from eating all these cupcakes... Red Velvet cupcakes I should add.

Follow me on twitter! @meagancarmen

Enjoy :)