(More Than) Six Months of Everyday Bakes

It’s hard to believe that around a year ago I started working on an eBook, which actually ended up being my first ever self published cookbook Everyday Bakes. 

The idea, inspired by the amount of people getting into their kitchens during those early days of the pandemic in Australia, was to bring together a selection of easy and accessible recipes that could fit into your everyday life. 

Not the recipes you need days of planning to find all the ingredients and hours to actually bake it, but simple home baking that always tastes good and brings a little bit of your joy to your day. 

Many of the recipes came directly from or were inspired by recipes my Grandma made or had in her collection. I think we go back to these kinds of comforting traditional bakes for a reason. They are good, they are tasty and they are reliable. And in moments where we need comfort (enter global pandemic), these types of reliable familiar bakes can act like a comfort blanket and mindfulness exercise all in one. 

Everyday Bakes has been out in the world for over 6 months now, and I still get so excited when a new order comes through or someone sends me or tags me in a photo of something they’ve made from the book. It’s so lovely to see my book taking up space on your bookshelf and the recipes becoming part of your baking repertoire. Check out this Instagram Story highlight to see some BTS of the cookbook process, and what everyone has been baking since receiving their copies.

There are only a handful of copies left now, and if you would like to add it to your collection click the link below to grab one of the last ones. Don’t forget the ever handy Everyday Bakes tea towel too. As someone who spends a lot of time in the kitchen, I can say with a lot of certainty that a good tea towel will be used over and over during your baking adventures. And this one is quite large and washes up really well. It also features my Everyday Bakes motto - ‘bake share eat repeat’ - and an illustration and logo designed by the lovely Naomi Bulger.

You can see more photos of the cookbook and tea towel in the gallery below, as well as on the product listing for each item in my online store.

I’ve also included the first page of the book (click image to enlarge), the Introduction here as it explains how and why this cookbook came about and the types of recipes to expect in it.

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For a look at one of the recipes in Everyday Bakes, check out this recipe for my Grandma’s Gingernuts which feature in the book. 

And check out this Instagram Reel I made showing you how easy it is to make the Lemonade Scones from my cookbook!

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The Ultimate Vanilla Cake

While the word ‘vanilla’ can be used to mean kinda boring, but there is nothing boring about this cake! When I was tasked with the idea of creating the Ultimate Vanilla Cake, I knew I could create something delicious and moorish.

The key is to use good quality vanilla. The variety of vanilla out there is incredible, but getting paste, extract or beans that are good quality is essential for the flavour and end result of your bake.

The brief for this cake was also to tie in with Mother’s Day, and I couldn’t think of any better way to decorate this cake than covering it with beautiful edible flowers for the occasion. I was inspired by this image of a cute little cake decorated with edible flowers for this project, however you could also used dried edible flowers to decorate this cake.

This Ultimate Vanilla Cake was created for Grounded Pleasures, using their excellent vanilla extract and beans. The recipe can be found on their website via the link below.

Grounded Pleasures Ultimate Vanilla Cake

Recipe development projects like this one, are my favourite part of my job. Creating a recipe with businesses products means I get to think of new ideas, be creative and also try new things. I also get to eat the cake after, which is a pretty good job perk if you ask me!

If you have a product you’d love me to create some recipes with, just contact me and we can chat about what your business needs. Recipes for your website or blog are great ways to show your customers how to use your products, and the images are great for social media and other marketing content too!

Click here to find out a little bit more about working with me, and check out the links below to see more of my recipe development work.

Easter Chocolate Cupcakes for Grounded Pleasures

S’mores with Homemade Honey Graham Crackers for Grounded Pleasures

Mocha Sponge Cake for The Healthy Baker

Pistachio and Vanilla Shortbread for Cultivator Magazine

Product Photography for Little Big Dairy Co & Here

New Cookbooks on My Shelf

This year is shaping up to be a great one for cookbooks. 

There are many new releases for 2021 worth waiting for as I’ve mentioned a couple of months ago. Since I wrote that list a few cookbooks have been added to my collection, both new releases from that list and other new-ish titles, so I thought I’d give you the run down on them since its been an age since I last did an ‘Off the Shelf’ post on my blog. 

I also added a new cookbook ‘bookcase’ to my collection earlier in the year, as I had completely run out of space to store more cookbooks. I ended up buying a locker from Mustard, and left off the doors (see above image) so the shelves are exposed. It has turned out to be a great substitute for a proper bookcase, and I love the pink colour too. 

Anyway, back to what’s on those shelves: 

1. In Good Company by Sophie Hansen - this book arrived last week and it is as comforting and joyful as I had expected. I am looking forward to making the pistachio thumbprint cookies and the marinated olives, and as always I absolutely love Sophie’s warm and inviting photography throughout this book. 

2. Coming Together by Clementine Day - Clementine (aka. @somethingsiliketocook) created this self published book last year, and it chronicles some of the meals she made during Melbourne’s lockdowns. It is bright, inviting and the print quality is amazing. First on my list to make is the beetroot and goats cheese dip! I hesitated to add this to the list as the book is now sold out, but it might be worth checking the stockists listed on this page to see if they have any copies available. 

3. Summer Kitchens by Olia Hercules- I kept seeing people mention this book on Instagram last year, and finally saw it in a bookstore a couple of weeks ago. All about Ukrainian food and cooking, this book is unlike many others I own in terms of the kinds of recipes it contains. It is also beautifully photographed.

4. Jew-ish by Jake Cohen - I included this book on my initial 2021 cookbooks list, and it has recently been published. It is such a fun book, with so many great recipes, and so much information. We tried the Iraqi Roasted Salmon with Tomato and Lemon on Good Friday and it was a tasty meal that was fairly simple to make.

What new cookbooks have you added to your shelf recently?

Links to books on Booktopia removed 15/07/2024.

Cosy Bakes for Cooler Weather

Here in Sydney, we’re well into Winter now - and a COVID related lockdown - so here are a few cosy things to bake to enjoy the cooler weather, and take advantage of being at home.

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I for one am quite relieved the cooler weather has really begun, I hate the heat, but also find it much more comfortable to cook and bake in the cooler weather. There are many Autumn and Winter inspired things I want to bake, and below is a little list of the recipes I have been enjoying or hope too soon. 

This list is quite quince heavy, as to me, it isn’t Autumn without poaching a few quince! 

1. On the long weekend I used this recipe to poach 2kg of quince, and am hoping to make the quince cake (pictured above) from my free eBook Seasonal Cakes and Bakes ASAP (get your free copy by signing up to my mailing list today!).

2. I saw the talented Tilly of @tillys_table post the recipe for this Blackberry and Almond Afternoon Tea Cake on Instagram a week or so ago, as part her Plain-Cake Appreciation Society (a society I would definitely like a membership with!). I immediately saved Tilly’s post, and hope to make it soon. I also think you could use poached quince instead of blackberries, which I may do since I have so many now!

3. On another quince related note, I made my annual double batch of Sophie Hansen’s Quince Chutney, which I am obsessed with and can’t ever seem to make enough of. The recipe is also in her book ‘A Basket by the Door’ and goes excellently with the pork sausage rolls on the page before hand (p.142). 

4. Since there are still some lovely Australian plums in the shops at the moment, I made Leah Koenig’s Passover Cake which can be found in the Monday Morning Cooking Club’s book ‘Now for Something Sweet’. The recipe asks for pears and pecans, however I used plums and pistachios and it was delicious. And while I did use superfine matzo meal as the recipe says, you can substitute for plain flour and I am told it is an excellent cake made that way too. 

5. For more cosy baking ideas check out my Cosy Winter Bakes eBook - I am going to be revisiting some of the recipes now the weather has cooled down!

Simple Choc Orange Sheet Cake

Do you ever bake, just to use a particular ingredient up? Like if the ingredient goes to waste, you’ve failed some kind of kitchen based test?

Sometimes much of my baking is inspired by a tub of yoghurt nearing the end of its life, eggs that need to be used as I over estimated how much I would actually be able to bake or an in season fruit I can’t stand to waste since it’s at its best right now and it would just be rude for it to end up in the bin. 

This chocolate orange cake came about for just that kind of reason. I got a big delivery of citrus later last month, and while I was more interested in the yuzu and bergamots, it also came with some oranges and mandarins. I don’t eat either of these citrus as they make me quite unwell so I had to come up with an idea to use some of them - as even though I don’t eat them, I still don’t want them to go to waste. 

Since I also have a very large supply of cocoa for someone who can’t eat chocolate, I decided to make the ultimate cake that I would never be able to eat - a chocolate and orange cake*! I am told it tastes like Jaffa (a choc orange lolly/candy common in Australia and New Zealand), which is exactly what I was going for. It’s based on the Chocolate Sheet Cake from my cookbook Everyday Bakes, and the recipe is below if you feel like a choc orange inspired bake!

*no cake was harmed during the development of this recipe - it was largely gifted to a good friend who I am glad to say hasn’t got sick of me offloading baked goods onto her and her family. They also took some of the citrus I couldn’t eat, and I now feel like the kitchen test of not wasting food has been passed for another week. Phew!

Chocolate Orange Sheet Cake

Ingredients: 

125g unsalted butter, softened

165g caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

finely grated zest of one orange

2 eggs 

230g self raising flour

2 tbsp cocoa powder

135g Greek style yoghurt 

Ingredients for the Icing: 

170g icing mixture

1-2 tbsp fresh orange juice

Method: 

Pre-heat oven to 160 degrees Celsius, and grease and line a 30x20cm rectangular slice or lamington tin with baking paper. 

In a medium bowl whisk together the flour and cocoa powder, then set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter, sugar, vanilla and orange zest until light and fluffy.

Beat in the eggs one at a time, then add the flour and the yoghurt and slowly mix until combined.

Tip the mixture into the prepared tray and smooth the top.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the cake spring backs when touched lightly and a skewer comes out clean. The cake will be lightly golden when done. Allow the cake to cool on a wire rack.

To make the icing, mix 1 tbsp of the orange juice with the icing mixture in a medium bowl. Continue to add more orange juice, a little at a time until you have a smooth icing that you can spread over the cake - a slightly thinner consistency is good for this cake as there is more surface area to spread over, if the icing is too thick it might not cover the entire cake!

The big delivery of citrus I bought featuring blood limes, limes, bergamot, yuzu, lemons, mardarins, oranges, a buddhas hand and custard apple.

Rosé Poached Peaches

This recipe came about as Barossa Valley based Gomersal Wines kindly gifted me some of their products. They sent some Rosé, and since we often make poached pears in Moscato, I wondered if I could use this idea to poach another fruit in Rosé in the same manner. 

I can say with certainty that peaches (white or yellow) work very well poached in Rosé, and it is my new favourite Summer dessert.

You may be wondering why I am posting a distinctly Summer-y dessert during Winter, but I first made it during Summer with lovely in season white peaches. It was delicious, however there was no opportunity to take any photos. 

Gomersal kindly sent me another bottle so I could make it again, and I have been eagerly awaiting the out of season peaches from the USA so I could cook it again. 

Now finally the recipe is ready, and despite it being woefully out of season for those of us now in the depths of Winter I still wanted to share it.

If peaches aren’t in season where you are, instead of doing what I did and buying out of season peaches for $20/kg (!!!), you can use pears (ones that are just ripe, overripe pears won’t be too easy to peel!) instead and it will still be an equally delicious dessert. So really, this recipe will adapt to all times of year! 

Maybe I should have called the recipe Rosé Poached *Insert Your Seasonal Fruit Here*?!

Either way, it’s definitely a recipe worth giving a go. It’s certainly easy enough to make when you don’t have a lot of time, and since the peaches will last in the syrup for a few days you could definitely make this in advance. 

This recipe works best with slip stone peaches that are just ripe. Peaches that are beyond just ripe probably won’t peel or poach very neatly, and I can say from experience that cling peaches are quite difficult to eat even after poaching - unless you enjoy wrestling with a slippery peach in syrup trying to prize the flesh away from the stone!

Also, you will probably have some syrup left over after the peaches are finished. I would suggest if you want to save it, it would make a lovely addition to a Summer cocktail or drink. 

And while you can use vanilla bean paste if you don’t have any vanilla pods, if you do use a vanilla pod don’t throw it away after the peaches are done. Rinse it off and dry it, then add it to a jar of either pure vodka or rum to make your own vanilla extract. Each time you have used a vanilla pod add it to the jar, and in a few months you’ll have your own homemade vanilla extract!

Rosé Poached Peaches

Ingredients: 

750ml bottle Rosé

4-6* peaches (yellow or white), just ripe or slightly under ripe slip stone if possible 

165g caster sugar 

1 vanilla pod

1 tsp vanilla extract

Ice cream to serve

Method: 

In a large saucepan, add the Rosé, sugar and vanilla extract. Slice the vanilla pod down the middle and scrape the seeds from each side and add to the pot, along with the vanilla pod pieces. 

Place over medium heat. Allow to come to a gentle boil.

Whilst the Rosé mixture is heating, carefully peel the peaches. Once the Rosé mixture has heated up and the sugar has dissolved, gently add in the peaches (a slotted spoon is good for this). 

If the peaches aren’t covered enough by the Rosé syrup, add in a little water - they don’t need to be completely submerged but you will want to move them around as they are poaching so they cook evenly. 

Lower the heat to low/medium so the Rosé syrup is simmering and leave the peaches to poach for about 20-30 minutes (the timing will depend on how ripe your peaches are and their size). Place a scrunched up piece of baking paper over the top of the peaches so ensure they don’t discolour during cooking. 

The peaches will be ready once a knife can gently pierce through the flesh and the flesh is soft but not mushy. 

Serve immediately with some of the Rosé syrup and ice cream. 

Will keep for a few days in the fridge. 

* quantity of peaches will depend on how many people you wish to serve, and how many you can fit in your saucepan.

Thank you to Gomersal Wines for gifting me some of their wines so I could make this recipe.