Hot cross buns

2 teaspoons yeast

1 ¼ cup warmed milk

¼ cup caster sugar

4 cups plain flour

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon mixed spice

½ teaspoon ground ginger, nutmeg, cardamom (not essentials but just adds a bit more spice)

60 butter, melted

2 eggs

1 ½ cups dried fruit

In a bowl, whisk together the yeast, milk and sugar.

Cover and put in a warm, draught-free place for about 10 minutes until the yeast has frothed. If it hasn’t foamed at all, the yeast is dead and you’ll have to start again.

In a big bowl, mix together the flour and spices. Add in the yeast mixture, eggs and butter and combine well.

If it’s too sticky, you’ll need to add more flour as you go.

Turn the dough out onto a well-floured surface and knead well, until the dough is a nice smooth consistency.

Put into a lightly greased bowl and cover, place in a draught-free place for about 45 minutes.

Mix in the dried fruit – there is no simple way to do this, but just slowly knead it through in a few batches until it’s all combined in.

Lightly grease a baking tray, and line with baking paper.

Divide the mixture into about 18 pieces, rolling each into a ball. It might make slightly more or less depending on how big you want them.

Line the balls up in the baking tray, placing them next to each other but not mushing them together. When they cook, they’re going to rise but they don’t expand too much, and they will break away from each other easily when cooked.

If there is a big gap of unfilled space on the tray, sometimes I put some rolled up foil in next to the end row just to hold it in place, but this isn’t entirely necessary.

Leave the buns for about 10 minutes in the tray.

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Please note there are a lot of recipes for making the white crosses – I am terrible, or unlucky, at this part, I don’t know what I have been doing wrong. So far the best way seems to be combining ¼ cup self-raising flour with a couple of teaspoons of water to make a thick paste, and then piping the crosses onto the buns in the rows. 

Pipe the crosses onto the buns just before they go into the oven.

Cook the hot cross buns for about half an hour, or until golden brown. 

About five minutes before they’re due to come out of the oven, make a quick glaze.

I mix about 2 teaspoons of gelatine with 4 tablespoons of sugar and a few teaspoons of hot water, bring it to the boil.

You could also use an apricot jam, it is just as good as a glaze, it just depends on what you have available to use. You just want to brush it over the buns as soon as they come out of the oven.

Leave them to cool in the tray for about 10 minutes before popping them onto a wire rack.

Banana oat cupcakes

180g butter, softened

150g sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

¾ cup milk

2 ½ cups self-raising flour

1 teaspoon bi-carb

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon  

2 very ripe bananas, mashed

1 ½ cups oats or muesli

You could also add in dried fruit, desiccated coconut or even chocolate chips for a bit of a different flavou as well. Just pop them in at the end. 

This recipe makes about 25 medium to large sized cupcakes. 

Preheat oven to 190C. Place patty tins into muffin trays.

Beat together butter and sugar until it’s fluffy and slightly lighter in colour.

Add in the eggs one at a time, beating well between additions.

Mix the flour, bi-carb and cinnamon into one bowl, and beat this into the sugar-butter batter at intervals with the milk and vanilla.

Beat it all well. Remove beater.

Using a spoon, gently mix in the banana and oats until well combined.

Spoon the mixture into the cupcake tins.

Bake for about 15 minutes or until risen and browned on the top.

I decorated mine with a simple vanilla butter creamfrosting. They also just taste good on their own, kind of like a muffin.

Chocolate zucchini cupcakes

125g butter, softened

1 ½ cups sugar

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

¾ cup milk

2 ½ cups self raising flour

5 tablespoons cocoa powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon salt

2 cups grated zucchini

This made about 22 decent sized cupcakes. It could also make one big cake, just adjust the cooking time to about an hour and reduce the temperature to 180C.

Method:

Preheat oven to 190C.

Cream together butter and sugar in a large bowl.

Add eggs one at a time until well combined. Continue beating in vanilla.

Mix the flour, cocoa, cinnamon and salt in another bowl, and mix this into the butter-sugar bowl in three batches, alternating with the milk.

Using a large spoon, gently mix in the zucchini.

Spoon the mixture into the patty tins.

Cook for about 25 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the cupcakes comes out clean.

Decorations:

I made a simple butter cream icing with cocoa and choclettes, but you could also just sift some icing sugar on the top for a lighter dessert. 

Ginger pecan cake

This is one of the recipes I have stolen off my mum. She makes this one all the time, and it's one of the few cake recipes that she has made successfully several times (sorry mum!) 

You could also use walnuts or even almonds in this one, or a mix of nuts if you're not that keen on the pecans.

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups self raising flour

1 tsp bicarb soda

1 tblspn ground ginger

1 tspn mixed spice

100 unsalted butter, chopped

1 large apple, cored and diced

½ cup brown sugar

½ cup treacle/maple syrup

1 cup milk

1 egg

¾ cup pecan, chopped

Glaze:

¼ cup water

2 tblspns caster sugar

½ tspn powdered gelatine

Method:

Grease a 22cm round cake tin, line with baking paper

In a food processor, place flour, bicarb soda, ginger, mixed spice and butter. Process until it resembles a fine crumble. Stir in the apple.

Ina  saucepan, mix the sugar, treacle and milk. Stir over a medium heat until warm and mixed through, but don’t bring to the boil.

Mix in the flour mixture, followed by the egg and half of the nuts.

Pout it all into a prepared pan, then sprinkle with the remaining nuts.

Bake in a 180C oven for about 50 minutes to an hour, or until cooked when tested.

For the glaze, mix the ingredients in a small saucepan, mixing well until the gelatine is dissolved.

Brush over cake.Allow to cool to room temperature before serving.

The easiest chocolate cake

I'm not lying. This cake is easy. And it's pretty good. 

You can either make it as one bg cake, or as a batch of about 20 cupcakes. 

Ingredients: 

125g butter, softened

2 eggs

1 tspn vanilla extract/vanialla essence

1 1/4 cups sugar

1 1/2 cups self raising four

1/2 cup cocoa powder

2/3 cup milk

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. 

Grease and line one 22cm cake tin with baking paper, or about 20 patty tins.

Beat the first four ingredients in a bowl until well combined. Then add the last three. Mix to combine.

If cooking one cake, bake for about one hour. For cupcakes, about 20 minutes, but keep an eye on them. 

Basic icing: 

1 cup icing sugar

1 tbspn butter

2 tbspn milk

2 tbspn cocoa powder

Beat well in a bowl. 

Ganache icing

1/2 cup or 125ml cream

200g dark eating chocolate

Bring cream to the boil in a small saucepan. Remove from heat and stir in the chocolate until smooth. Stand for at least 10 minutes before smoothing over cake/s. If it's still too runny, pop it in the fridge for a little while but be careful as it gets very thick and hard quite quickly. 

Butter cream frosting (yes, frosting. I'm not American obviously, but this is definitely frosting)
185g butter, softened
2.5 cups icing sugar
2 teaspoons water or milk
any food colouring - add this at the end, not at the start

Beat it all together in a large bowl until it has lightened in colour slightly and is thick, but still spreadable. About two or three minutes. Add more icing sugar or liquid to adjust if necessary. 
Add 2-3 drops food colouring, mix and add more as desired.