When Liz made my rainbow yay cake for my birthday this year, I knew that I had to try to equal the awesomeness.

So Liz (and Jarod, too) came over for a pig-out birthday for Liz tonight (HAPPYBIRTHDAYLIZZOMG!) and I made a cat cake:

Mmm, chocolate cake, chocolate fudge icing! While not the most fabulous effort, it’s my first non-fail baking effort in, well, MONTHS.

I was going to make this a proper food blogger-style post, but I couldn’t even get the ingredients shot right. Turns out I didn’t need milk for the recipe. I also forgot to include the cocoa powder. Good job, Rah!

Whoops.

Then I choose a too-small “medium saucepan” to melt the wet ingredients together and the mixture bubbled over and onto the already-ruined stovetop.

But regardless of my attempts at failure, the cake cooked evenly and decently enough for me to hack the slab into a kitteh shape.

Protip: something like mudcake would make for a neater shape, but I wasn’t in the mood for something overly rich (and we were having hot chocolate with dessert).

The icing was mostly made on the stovetop too.

I used the “Family Chocolate Cake” recipe from the big red Australian Women’s Weekly COOK book. You can probably get the recipe from the AWW web site. They’re a litigious mob, so I’m scared to include the recipe here.

I used yellow jubes for the eyes, with cuts in the middle to make a spot for the licorice eyeballs to rest. I used trimmed licorice straps for the whiskers, which ended up being too soft and droopy for the job.

The cake was nommy! Jarod and Liz lugged the rest of the cat cake home, leaving us with the cut-offs, which’ll last us a couple of weeks at least :)

Happy birthday, Liz!

I feel like I’m indebted to so many people in my life.

Been given so much this year, through all the mess that 2010 tried to throw at me. And slowly, I’m trying to give back, especially to friends who are really doing it tough at the moment.

Sometimes the best I can do is send some emails, which kinda sucks cause I’d do more if I could.

But sometimes, I’m not too far away. And I can attempt to give back when my friends need it.

Let’s just ignore all the calories involved, okay? :))

I’ve had a can of condensed milk in my cupboard for about 2 years, waiting to make this particular Lemon Meringue Pie recipe.

But I think it had gone off by the time I got around to making it on the weekend, so I had to go out and buy another can of condensed milk.

This is my Aunty Carmella’s recipe, and I think I have to make this a few more times to break the 30-minute limit. I took about 50 minutes to get this baby in the oven…

Aunty Carmella’s 30-minute Lemon Meringue Pie (serves 8)

1. In a medium bowl, combine 180g plain crushed biscuits (I used Arnott’s Milk Coffee) and 90g melted unsalted butter
2. Press into 23cm pie dish and chill
3. In another medium bowl, add 410g can skim condensed milk, ½ cup fresh lemon juice, rind of one lemon and 3 lightly-beaten egg yolks (save the whites!). Beat until combined
4. Spoon evenly into the chilled crumb crust and set aside
5. Beat the egg whites until stiff, gradually adding ½ cup castor sugar
6. Spoon or pipe the meringue on top of the filling
7. Bake in a moderate (180°c/350°f) oven for 15 minutes or until golden

postscript: my (lovely, new Maxwell and Williams) pie dish is actually 28cm, so I plan to increase the crust and meringue to suit. And maybe more lemon so I have enough to lick from the bowl when I should be washing up.

Mmm, crummy buttery goodness!

See, if I’d made a bigger batch for my bigger dish, then the crumbs would have gone all the way up the sides

Lemons smell SO DIVINE when grated, don’t you agree?

Waiting patiently for the meringue to be made

My Kenwood Chef makes the best meringue. I honestly weep with happiness every time. Please don’t laugh at me!

Remember when I tried to use malted milk to make a choc cheesecake? But it tasted all gross?

I found the stuff I should have used, near the honey and whatnot in the supermarket. Try not to notice the price:

While this is technically not a baked treat, it’s the latest in a recent trend of failed desserts by yours truly.

Malted Milkshake Cheesecake – from the AWW Cheesecake book

INGREDIENTS

200g chocolate mud cake
90g Maltesers, crushed
1/3 cup (80ml) chocolate liqueur

Filling
3 teaspoons gelatine
¼ cup (60ml) water
500g cream cheese, softened
½ cup (110g) caster sugar
½ cup (60g) powdered malt
1 cup (250ml) thickened cream
2 eggs, separated
100g dark eating chocolate, melted

Topping
55g Maltesers

METHOD

Cut mud cake into 1cm cubes; divide among eight 1 cup (250ml) glasses. Top with crushed Maltesers and liqueur.

Make filling by sprinkling gelatine over the water in small heatproof jug; stand jug in small saucepan of simmering water. Stir until gelatine dissolves. Cool 5 minutes.

Beat cheese, sugar and malt in medium bowl with electric mixer until smooth; beat in cream and egg yolks. Stir in gelatine mixture and then chocolate.

Beat egg whites in small bowl with electric mixer until firm peaks form; fold into chocolate mixture.

Divide filling among glasses, refrigerate overnight.

Serve cheesecake topped with whole Maltesers.

Now, the end product turned out pretty nice-looking, but to be honest, it tasted pretty bad. The only upside was that the mud cake tasted nice… and I’d bought the damn thing from Woollies!

I substituted the chocolate liqueur for chocolate milkshake sauce, but that’s right down the bottom and not in the cheesecake-y section, so therefore not the problem.

The only thing we can come up with is the fact that I used malted milk flavouring from the Quik/Milo/Sustagen section of the supermarket. Maybe that was the wrong thing to use?? Or perhaps because I bought organic dark chocolate because it was on special and therefore cheaper?

Lesson: never deviate from the recipe on the first attempt!

I need your help – where did I go wrong?