Raspberry and White Chocolate Dessert Pizza

I think the pictures pretty much speak for themselves.
I didn't make the pizza, it was made by my neighbour for our Halloween party last night. She baked shortbread in a pizza dish and then topped it with white chocolate and homemade raspberry sauce.

Like a dessert pizza.

The raspberry sauce was meant to look bloody and give it a Halloween effect. But, really, all i could think about was 'Damn, that smells good. I love berries."

Let it be known from here on out that my ultimate dream is to own a berry farm and a cafe selling berry cakes and biscuits and waffles and crepes.

I shall be berry girl.

Anyway, i thought it would be a good opportunity to practice my photography. Although it was at night, so the lighting was pretty bad and my hands were kinda wobbly.

On the bright side, I can only get better.
Right?

Graveyard Tiramisu

i wish i had better pictures.
But you make do with what you've got.

The little pumpkins are made out of marzipan.
What a tiring two hours of kneading colouring evenly that was.
I think they came out adorable.
It should be Halloween all year round so i could have an excuse to make these to decorate little cakes all the time.

The gravestone were originally supposed to be Tim tams with 'RIP' etched out on them, but the Tim Tams in my pantry were gone. Must hire a Tim Tam Thief detective ASAP.

Say that three times, really fast.
Tim Tam Thief, Tim Tam Thief, Tim Tam Thief.

Instead, i used sponge fingers and used a toothpick and some nutella to write the 'RIP'(s)
i am a whizz at improvising, am i not?

The dirt is actually crushed oreos. Make sure that when you put them in the food processor that the cap is on tightly. Been there, done that. Not pretty. (but very tasty)

Tiramisu

Sponge fingers (makes 20):
3 large eggs
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup cake flour
(alternatively buy ready made sponge fingers)

1 1/2 cup espresso coffee, cooled
1/2 cup whipped cream
1/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups mascarpone cheese
2 tbsp coffee liquor
1 tbsp cocoa powder

For the sponge fingers, butter and sprinkle a baking sheet with sugar lined with greaseproof paper. Separate the egg whites from yolks and beat with half the sugar until peaks keep their shape, set aside. Beat egg yolks with the remanding sugar until pale in colour. Alternately, a third at a time, fold egg white and flour into the yolks. Do not over mix. Pipe batter onto prepared tray. Sprinkle with sugar and bake in a 190 degrees C oven for 10 minutes or until light brown.

To prepare the mascarpone mixture, first whip cream with sugar until soft peaks form. Add mascarpone to the whipped cream mixture and blend until well combined.

Add coffee liquor to the cooled espresso coffee.

Put a layer, about 6-7 sponge fingers, into a 10x20 cm glass dish. Pour about 1 tbsp of the coffee mixture onto each sponge finger. Cover with 1/3 mascarpone mixture. Repeat this until you form 3 layers ending with the mascarpone mixture on top. Cover with cling film and refrigerate at least 5 hours, or overnight. Dust with cocoa powder just before serving.

Brain Cupcakes

Happy Halloween!
My mom put me it charge of figuring out what to bake for our Halloween Party this year. I came across this super adorable (freaky?) Brain Cupcakes on Annie's Eats.

those cupcakes had strawberry jam in the middle. So it oozed out when you bit in it. Vampire-ish?

But I had no jam. Zilch, nada.
Okay, so maybe i did have Fig Jam, but it wasn't bloody looking.

So i had to improvise (again), and coloured the cupcake batter pink in some bits so it looked body-ish.

i am really no good at descriptions, am i?

Look at that. Mama is proud. I had my fingers crossed the whole time these babies were in the oven because i had a feeling i loaded too much batter in each cup and it was going to overflow (been there, done that).

But they were perfect. Perfect!

Next up, Brain-coloured butter cream icing.
I just put in a tad bit of red food colouring and got the brainiest brain colour ever.

Piping the brains is another story altogether. I am generally okay with piping. And when i say okay, i mean i do not squirt large, uneven amounts of icing onto the cupcake top while screaming and scraping cream off the piping bag.

For brains, you need to draw a circle around the cupcake, then two lines down the center--dividing the circle.

That part is pretty simple.

Then you need to take your piping bag and fill in your semi-circles with zig-zag, squiggly lines.
(This is where my mother got invited unknowingly into the kitchen, and a piping bag full of brain-coloured butter cream got shoved into her hands. While her teenage daughter ran screaming from the kitchen. I can't take it anymore!!!)

We went a step further, and released our inner mad-scientists.
We got really, really, really red icing and used a really, really, really small piping nozzle to pipe blood vessels (gasp!) in the brains.

Pretty freaky, huh?

It looks pretty on the inside, anyhow.
Even though i was aiming for gory.

Here is my cupcake recipe. It's the basic vanilla flavoured one.
If you want to get fancy with the colours like i did, simply divide the batter in half before baking, colour seperately, then scoop alternately into cupcake liners.

Basic Vanilla Cupcakes
225g unsalted butter, soft
225g sugar
225g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence

Cream butter and sugar together till pale yellow. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Combine all the dry ingredients and add it to the beaten butter mixture together with the vanilla essence.

Preheat oven to 175 degrees C and line a cupcake tray. Sppon batter into liners and bake in preheated oven for about 15 minutes. Cool for 5 minutes in tin before removing to place on a wire rack.

Buttercream
225g unsalted butter, soft
375g icing sugar
pinch of salt
1 tsp of flavouring (optional)
Dash of colouring (optional)

cream butter until it is soft and very pale in colour. while whisking, add the sifted icing sugar a spoonful at a time. Make sure the icing sugar is well combined. Lastly add flavouring and colouring (optional)