Banana Bread Lamingtons – Easy Holiday Dessert

Posted on December 24, 2015 by Better Baking Bible

These banana bread lamingtons are a delicious spin-off of the traditional vanilla squares rolled in chocolate and coconut. Real lamingtons are delicious, but being a big fan of banana bread, I would say this banana/choco/coconut combo tastes even better!

For the banana bread recipe, I used the original Starbucks recipe they use to make their banana bread that retails for $5 a slice! I made a few slight alterations, baked it in a rectangular cake sheet, cut into squares, dipped in chocolate, and finally rolled the banana bread suqares in coconut. Voila! An easy dessert to make that looks impressive, and tastes absolutely delicious!

Lamingtons are a traditional Australian dessert named after Lord Lamington, who served as Governor of Queensland from 1896 to 1901. Historians say that Lord Lamington actually did not like lamingtons and reffered to them as “those bloody poofy wooly biscuits”. Maybe he would have liked our version better!

*If you would like to share my recipe and photos please provide proper credit and a link back to this original post. Thanks!

Banana Bread Lamingtons – Easy Holiday Dessert

Banana bread lamingtons rolled in chocolate and coconut!

Ingredients:

For Banana Bread

2 cups white flour
1/2 cup of granulated sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 pinch of salt
½ cup vegetable oil
2 tbsp buttermilk
½ tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
3 ripe medium sized bananas

For Chocolate Frosting

150 g dark chocolate
150 g unsalted butter
100 g sugar
2/3 cup milk
200 g shredded, unsweetened coconut

Directions:

To Make Banana Bread

1. Preheat oven to 325F. Grease a rectangular sheet cake pan and dust with flour.
2. Combine dry ingredients: flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt. In a separate bowl, combine vegetable oil, buttermilk, vanilla extract, 1 egg and bananas. Make sure to mash the bananas well and not leave any chunks.
3. Pour batter into cake pan and bake for about 45 minutes depending on the size of your pan and the thickness of the batter. Keep checking with a toothpick until it comes out clean.
4. Remove from oven and allow to cool in pan for 10 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and cool for another 20 minutes. Again, transfer cake onto a cutting board and cut into approx. 2 inch x 2 inch sized squares. Place on a baking sheet and into the freezer overnight.

To Make Chocolate Frosting

Using a double boiler, melt chocolate and butter. Add sugar, mix until smooth and then add milk, stirring constantly.

To Assemble

Dip each banana bread cake square into chocolate; making sure each side is well coated. Then cover in coconut, allow to chill/rest in fridge for about an hour before serving.

The Best Chocolate Cake With Vanilla Cream + Ferrero Rocher Style Decorated!

Posted on December 23, 2015 by Better Baking Bible

Looking for a rich, delicious chocolate cake recipe? This is the absolute BEST recipe for chocolate cake I have ever made! I have tried and tested hundreds of recipes for chocolate cake and none of them come close to this one. I found the original recipe to this chocolate cake on My Baking Addiction. After a few alterations and swapping the chocolate cream for my staple secret vanilla cake filling, as well as decorating the cake with chocolate shavings + my home grown chopped walnuts, my holiday ferror rocher style cake was born!

*If you would like to share my recipe and photos please provide proper credit and a link back to this original post. Thanks!

The Best Chocolate Cake With Vanilla Cream + Ferrero Rocher Style Decorated!

For Cake:

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 ¾ cups unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsp baking soda
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp rum
pinch of salt
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup strong black coffee
½ cup vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
Chocolate shavings to decorate
Chopped walnuts to decorate

For Cream (NEW and Improved Recipe):

2 tbsp butter
3 tbsp flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup milk
1 egg or 2 egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla

To Make Cake:

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and flour two 9” round baking pans.
In a mixing bowl using an electric mixer, combine sugar, flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt until combined.
Add eggs, buttermilk, rum, coffee, oil, and vanilla. Beat on medium for 2 mins and then pour evenly into prepared pans.
Bake for 30-35 mins or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool for 10 mins, remove to wire rack and transfer to the freezer to cool completely.

To Make Cream:

Melt butter over direct heat, add flour and stir until frothy.
Remove from heat and add sugar and salt, then the milk a little at a time.
Blend thoroughly and cook over boiling water until thick. Use a double boiler to do this and stir constantly to avoid clumping. Beat egg or egg yolks in a separate bowl with rotary beater until foamy.
Slowly drizzle and pour the hot mixture over the egg, stirring with a rotary beater constantly. Pour the mixture back in the double boiler and cook again over boiling water with constant stirring, 3 or 4 minutes.
Cover and cool, stirring occasionally, when cool add the vanilla and then spread the cream onto the cake layers.

To Assemble:

***Make sure your cake layers are completely cooled or else the cream will just melt off and become sloppy!

Evenly spread vanilla cream on one cake layer and place the second layer on top. Frost the entire cake including the top and sides.
Sprinkle chopped walnuts on the sides of the cake and then sprinkle the chocolate shavings on top. Voila!

Christmas Dinner Prep – A Guide for a Fast and Easy Meal!

Posted on December 15, 2015 by Better Baking Bible

Christmas is just around the corner, and we can’t wait to get started with our Christmas dinner prep! Don’t sweat it, making a delicious dinner that not only tastes great, but also looks great, isn’t as hard as it may seem. If it’s your first year making dinner for the family, or if you are looking for ways to lessen the load, we’ve got all the tips and tricks to help you out on your way. We’ve partnered with Mayfair Granite this holiday season to bring to your this ingenious Christmas dinner guide that will make making dinner easy, peasy, and in a snap!

Traditional Christmas Biscuits: Sweet German Lebkuchen

Posted on December 14, 2015 by Better Baking Bible

Lebkuchen is a traditional sweet biscuit that comes from Nurembery, Germany since the late 1300s. This soft, cakey biscuit is spicy, easy-to-make and marks the beginning of Christmas in Germany. It is a delicious biscuit that tastes almost like gingerbread even though there is no ginger in it! These cookies are round, have a sweet, lightly nutty taste and they give off a spicy aroma like nutmeg and allspice.

You can enjoy these with a warm cup of tea or coffee, and they store really well so they are perfect to make ahead of time if you would like to get a kick start on your Christmas baking! Just keep them in a tin can or sealed container to maintain freshness and eat up whenever you like!

*If you would like to share my recipe and photos please provide proper credit and a link back to this original post. Thanks!

German Lebkuchen Christmas Biscuits

Sweet, soft, and cakey traditional German Christmas cookies.

Ingredients:

1 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup honey
1 cup light molasses
1 cup sour cream
1 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tbsp baking soda
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp cloves
1 tbsp cocoa powder
200g candied orange, lemon and citron peel, diced and mixed
100g slivered almonds
3 1/2 cups white flour
lemon juice for icing
powdered sugar for icing
* optional: dark chocolate for icing

Instructions:

In a saucepan over medium heat, warm brown sugar, honey molasses and butter. Mix together and set aside to cool.
In a mixing bowl, mix sour cream and baking soda and then add the cooled sugar, honey, molasses and butter mix.
Mix in ground cinnamon, cloves, cocoa powder, candied citrus peels, slivered almonds, and white flour. Keep mixing with your hands until you form a nice dough. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and allow it to rest overnight in the fridge.
The next day, preheat over to 350 F and roll out dough 1/4″ thick onto a lightly floured surface. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Use a round cookie cutter to cut out circles and place onto lined baking sheet. Bake for 15 minutes.
Remove from oven and allow to cool completely. In a small bow, mix together half lemon juice and half water with some icing sugar and mix until a pourable icing has formed. Dip the top of each cookie into the icing and set aside.

Notes

If you like, you can also dip the bottom part of the cookie in chocolate syrup. To do this, add half a bar of dark cooking chocolate in a small pot (about 100g of chocolate). Add a tbsp of oil and stir until all chocolate has melted. Dip the bottom parts into the melted chocolate and place on parchment paper and into freezer until cooled and chocolate has hardened.

Madarica Kolac – Croatian No-Bake Layer Cake Recipe

Posted on November 21, 2015 by Better Baking Bible

Loaded with chocolate, made in bite-sized pieces, and even better – no baking! If you love all of the above, you’re going to be drooling over “Madarica”, a traditional Croatian dessert that is simple to make, yet tastes VERY delicious. Plus, it looks super impressive which makes it the perfect dessert to prepare for a holiday coffee get-together or an after dinner dessert.

Madarica has thin layers of chocolate and store-bought crust which make this delicious cake a year-round favorite dessert! This cake is easy to make if you are in luck and can buy the store bought crust by Podravka like the one seen here. This cake is called no-bake because you can purchase the already made layers. If you can’t buy the crust anywhere, no worries – we have included the recipe below!

*If you would like to share my recipe and photos please provide proper credit and a link back to this original post. Thanks!

Madarica Cake Recipe

A traditional Croatian chocolate cake with thin layers of chocolate and crust.

Ingredients:

For Cake Crust

* If you can’t buy Podravka Madarica Cake Crust, then use this recipe

5 ½ cups all purpose flour
2 egg whites
180g sour cream
1 tsp baking powder
1 ¼ cup granulated sugar
¾ cup unsalted butter, softened

For Cake Filling

4 cups milk
5 tbsp all-purpose flour
5 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract or vanilla sugar
1.5 cups sugar
50g dark chocolate
¾ cup unsalted butter, softened
1 tbsp rum

For Cake Glaze

100g dark chocolate
3 tbsp vegetable oil
4 tbsp unsalted butter

Instructions:

To Make Cake Layers

In a mixing bowl using an electric mixer, beat together the butter, sugar, egg whites, and sour cream until light and fluffy. Gradually add in flour and baking powder and knead to form a dough.
Preheat oven to 356 F. Separate dough into 6 equal parts and roll out as thin as possible into rectangles on a piece of parchment paper. Transfer to a baking sheet and place another piece of parchment paper on top (to avoid burning the top) of each layer and bake each layer for 8 minutes. The layers must not turn golden, they must stay pale!

To Make Cake Filling

On medium heat, bring milk, sugar, and vanilla to a boil. Separate one part of the milk and whisk in cocoa and flour. Add the mixture into the boiling milk and add in the dark chocolate, always stirring until thickened. Remove from heat and stir in butter and rum. Cover with tin foil until cooled.

To Make Cake Glaze

In a pot over medium heat, melt chocolate with butter and oil and whisk together until combined.

To Assemble

Place the first cake layer onto a baking tray and evenly spread one part of filling. Cover with second layer and repeat until finished, making sure the last layer is a dough layer. Pour the hot glaze over the whole cake and transfer cake to fridge to chill overnight. The next day, cut cake into small rectangles and serve!

*If you would like to share my recipe and photos please provide proper credit and a link back to this original post. Thanks!

The Best Homemade Blueberry Cake Muffins

Posted on November 18, 2015 by Better Baking Bible

Soft, moist, delicious, and freshly homemade blueberry muffins make the perfect breakfast option, snack, or dessert! I like to call these cake muffins since they don’t really taste so much like a muffin, but have the light and soft consistency of a cake.

If you grow your own blueberries like I do, these muffins taste even better with freshly picked berries. Or you can make them with store-bought frozen blueberries, which work just as good. These muffins freeze quite well, so even if you can’t eat a whole batch, just throw them into the freezer in a sealed zip lock bag or airtight container and take them out the night before for a quick home-baked breakfast!

The Best Homemade Blueberry Cake Muffins

Yields 18

Soft and light blueberry muffins with a cake-like consistency… so addictive!

Ingredients:

½ cup unsalted butter, softened
½ cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp sea salt
2 cups all-purpose white flour
½ cup milk
2 ½ cups fresh or frozen blueberries

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 375F place muffin cups in muffin pan.
In a large mixing bowl using an electric mixer on medium, mix butter until creamy. Gradually add in sugar until light and fluffy.
Slowly add in eggs, beating after each addition until well combined. Then, beat in vanilla, baking powder, and salt.
Mix in half of flour, half of milk, and repeat. Fold in fresh or frozen blueberries.
Scoop muffin batter into muffin cups using a spoon. Bake for 20 minutes until golden.

Vanilla Custard Cream Cake – Croatian Kremsnita

Posted on November 14, 2015 by Better Baking Bible

A cremeschnitte (Croatian: kremšnita) or vanilla custard cream cake is not one of the best, but THE BEST dessert you will ever try. It has been my favorite cake since as far as I can remember, and brings back lots of childhood memories when I used to eat 7 slices as once! No fancy decorative multi-layered cake can top this simple, heavenly vanilla cream, almost no-bake wonder. It tastes DELICIOUS and can be very addicting! Almost as if you are eating cold vanilla pudding with a soft crust and dusted with sweet powdered sugar.

It’s simple to make and requires no special baking skills – practically anyone can make this dessert. To add some pizzaz to each slice, I like to sprinkle powdered sugar on the top, drizzle with some chocolate sauce and place a few strawberries on a plate for some color. What a way to stun your guests for the holidays without too much effort!

*If you would like to share my recipe and photos please provide proper credit and a link back to this original post. Thanks!

Vanilla Custard Cream Cake – Croatian Kremsnita

Vanilla custard filled cake with puff pastry sheets as the crust.

Ingredients:

4 cups whole milk milk
8 eggs
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 1/4cups white flour
2 tsp vanilla extract vanilla sugar
2 puff pastry sheets
3 cups heavy whipping cream
1.5 tbsp powdered sugar

Directions:

To Prepare Puff Pastry Sheets

Preheat oven to 350F and lightly flour a clean surface. Using a floured rolling pin, thinly roll out each puff pastry sheet.
Place each puff pastry sheet on a baking sheet and bake for ten minutes. Remove from oven and set aside to cool.

To Make Custard Cream

Separate the 8 eggs from their yolks. Using an electric mixer, mix the 8 egg yolks with 1 1/2 cups of sugar until light and fluffy. Slowly add in flour, vanilla extract, and 1 cup of milk until well combined.
Over medium heat, boil 3 cups of milk in a sauce pan. Fold in custard cream mix (from step 1) into boiling milk and slowly stir until thickened.
Using an electric mixer, mix the 8 egg whites until very stiff and combine with the thickened milk mixture. Place 1 pastry sheet into a pan and pour the custard over the pastry, chill in fridge for a few hours until cooled and stiff.
Beat 3 cups of heavy whipping cream with 1.5 tbsp of powdered sugar and pour over the chilled custard. Using a long, sharp and clean knife, cut the second pastry sheet into 20 squares. Place over the custard cake in place. Before serving, sprinkle each slice with powdered sugar.