Rainbow Cake

Rainbow Cake! It's colourful, pretty, fun and looks so delicious but that's where it all stops. The renowned rainbow cake just didn't do it for me. Did it taste good? Yeh I guess as much as any vanilla cake would taste but it didn't have an enough punch in flavours that I would have liked. And yes it was just another 'vanilla cake' so what was I really expecting? It is taking me forever to find a delicious vanilla cake recipe and this was just another cross off of my list. Im actually super happy that it didn't work out because this gives me a chance to experiment further and jazz up the flavours and the way it looks. YAY! 

So here it is. My first attempt at a vanilla flavoured rainbow cake. 

Rainbow Cake

Serves 6-8

2 cups White Wings flour

2 cups CSR caster sugar

3/4 cup Custard powder

2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 cup Pura milk

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla essence

1 cup boiling water

Red, blue, green, orange, yellow and purple food colouring

Icing

1 block (250g) unsalted butter

250ml thick cream

2 tsp vanilla essence or 1 vanilla bean

Icing sugar

Preheat the oven to 150C fan forced.

Combine the flour, sugar, custard powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Mix through.

Mix in the milk, vegetable oil, eggs and vanilla essence. Pour in the boiling water slowly until mixed thoroughly. Mix on high for 1 min.

Divide into 6 bowls. Assign each colour to a bowl. Add the colour until its a bright and vibrant colour.

Bake separately in the same pan to get the same size for each layer for about 20-30 mins or until cooked through.

Mean while, whip the butter until light and fluffy, incorporate the cream slowly. Add the vanilla bean/essence. Add the icing sugar until you reach the consistency and sweetness that you desire.

Layer the cake and icing. Serve.

Super Moist Banana Bread

I love bananas! So when I have extra over ripe bananas lying around, I get cooking. Quick tip! When a bananas peel is almost black, don't be fooled! That's when the banana is at its best. Inside you'll find a delicious white flesh that is super sweet and perfect for cakes and bread.

My intention was to make a banana bread but it came out looking more like a cake. This is my first time making banana bread and I must say it tasted delicious. It had the right amount of banana and spice but I regret not adding any walnuts. 

The crumble on top worked so well with the banana bread as it gave it that extra sweetness. 

Make sure not to over cook the bread otherwise it'll become super dry and crumbly. If I had cooked it for any longer it would've lost its moistness and been very dry to eat.

Banana Bread

Serves 5-10

2 cups White Wings flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp mixed spice

1/2 cup soft butter

3/4 cup CSR brown sugar

2 eggs, lightly beaten

4-5 ripe bananas, mashed

2 tsp vanilla essence

Topping

1/4 cup White Wings flour

1/4 cup CSR brown sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp mixed spice

2 tbsp cold butter

Preheat the oven to 170C fan forced.

Combine flour, baking soda, salt and mixed spice in a bowl and mix well.

In another bowl cream the brown sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Stir in the egg, vanilla essence and bananas. 

Fold in the flour mixture into the banana mixture. Pour into a loaf or cake pan. 

For the topping, combine the flour, brown sugar, salt, mixed spice and rub in the butter. Sprinkle the topping mixture and bake for 20-30 mins or until baked through.

Asian Chicken Dumplings in a Delicious Broth

Dinner requires way too much thinking! Should I have something healthy? Something light? Soup? Sandwich? I like to first find some inspiration from different cultures, whether it be Chinese, Turkish or Indian. Yesterday was a Chinese inspired kind of dinner. I whipped up some amazing chicken wontons soaked in a deliciously, hot, aromatic broth. 

I used simple every day ingredients and blitzed the whole thing together with the chicken to create a fine mince. The smell that was coming from the blender was just amazing! The coriander and ginger just consumed my sense of smell. 

Using ready made wonton wrappers made the process so much easier. Of course you can make your own dough (recipe here) but if you want to speed up the time or your just feeling lazy these are the way to go.

Once the dumplings have all been made just pop them into a pot of boiling water and let them cook.

Pop them in cold water to stop the cooking process.

The broth had the most beautiful smell and tasted amazing. You can smell and taste everything individually. The sourness and floral aroma from the lime, the freshness from the spring onions and lemongrass, the sweetness from the brown sugar, the punch from the garlic, ginger and the spiciness from the sambal oelek. It was a bowl of pure bliss!

Chicken Dumplings Soup

Serves 5

Wonton wrappers or DIY dumpling dough

Filling

2 chicken breasts

2 spring onions

1/2 bunch coriander

One thumb size of ginger

2-3 garlic cloves

3-4 tbsp fish sauce

1-2 tbsp oyster sauce

Salt

Broth

3 cups chicken stock

3 cups water (can be substituted for chicken stock)

1 lemongrass

Thumb size ginger, sliced thinly or grated

2-3 garlic cloves, sliced thinly or crushed

2 spring onions

1-2 tbsp Sambal Oelek or chilli

1-2 lime

4-5 tbsp soy sauce

Veggies of your choice: Bok choy, etc.

Combine all the filling ingredients into a blender and blitz until its a fine mince. Test out the flavour by cooking a teaspoon of the mixture. Add more of each ingredient until its to your taste.

Start wrapping your dumplings. (This is how you do it)

Boil a pot of water. Once the water has boiled, pop in your dumplings and let it cook for 5 mins or until  cooked through. Once cooked pop into a bowl of cold water to stop the cooking process.

Meanwhile get your broth ready. Boil the chicken stock and water together. Chop the lemongrass and spring onions 1 cm thick and pop them into the pot. Add the ginger, garlic, soy sauce and sambal oelek. Add any veggie of your choice, I added baby bok choy and let it cook with the broth.

Once the broth is infused and enriched with all the flavours, take it off heat and add the lime according to taste.

In a bowl, place your cooked dumplings and soak them with the delicious broth. 

Ready to serve.

Wrapping Dumplings

So this is a quick 'How to' on wrapping or folding dumplings. They're so many ways to do it but I'll show you the super quick and easy way I do it.

 First step is to fill your dumplings with whatever filling you want. Don't overfill it or else it will explode!

 Next with a little water we slightly wet two corner sides to create the stickiness to keep the dough together. Do not soak it in water!

 Now we fold and glue together the sides so it looks like a triangle. Now you can leave them like this and just use it as is or fold them even further. Either way is just fine.

 To further fold, slightly wet one of the adjacent corners and just fold them over one another. 

 And then you get this perfect looking dumpling shape. Yay! You did it!

 Have fun with it and try out different dumpling shapes and maybe even come up with your own!