Turning 7

I can't even believe it but my big boy turned 7 yesterday. 7! We couldn't be prouder of this kind, curious, funny boy with the infectious laugh and big heart. Love him to bits!

No birthday party this year (we've decided to alternate birthday parties for the boys and he had one last year which I talked about here), instead he took some cupcakes to share with his classmates and we had family over for birthday cake and pizza - his choice.

Being a wholefood and low sugar family birthdays always pose a dilemma for me. While we don't want to take an 'anything goes' approach, we also don't want to restrict treats when to me, having something once a year on your birthday is the very definition of a treat.

So while these recipes definitely contain more sugar than is normal for us, they are also free from artificial additives and full of less-refined ingredients such as spelt flour, raw cacao, coconut sugar and grass-fed butter. And I'm totally ok with that.

Mr 7 was very clear that he wanted mini chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing for school, and chocolate number 7 cake with vanilla icing and sprinkles for home.

Mini Chocolate Cupcakes

125g melted butter
100g coconut sugar
2 eggs
1 ts vanilla extract
170 g white spelt flour
2 1/2 ts baking powder
40g raw cacao
2/3 cup coconut milk

Preheat oven to 150 degrees fan-forced / 170 degrees Celsius. Line 2 mini cupcake pans with 36 paper cupcake liners and set aside.

Place all ingredients into a large bowl, in the order listed, and mix with electric beaters for about 1 minute until smooth and well combined.

If you have a thermomix, place all ingredients into the mixing bowl and mix for 30 secs / SP 4, scraping down the sides as needed.

Spoon heaped teaspoons of mixture into the prepared tins, filling each just over half full.

Bake for 9-10 minutes or until the top springs back when pressed lightly. Do not overcook!

Makes 36

Chocolate Icing

90g softened butter
1/3 cup raw cacao
1 1/2 cups powdered coconut sugar (grind coconut sugar in thermomix or high powered blender until as fine as icing sugar and measure after grinding)
1 ts vanilla extract
1 tbs coconut milk

Hoppers 00s & 000s to decorate

Grind the coconut sugar first and then measure out 1 1/2 cups, reserving any extra for another time. Add the remaining ingredients and beat until smooth and fluffy.

Pour 00s & 000s into a small bowl.

Spread icing on the top of each cupcake then dip lightly into the sprinkles to decorate.

I'm told the cupcakes went down very well at school!

Next was his birthday cake for home. Now I've tried many recipes over the years and I knew that not all of them would work for a shaped cake like this one. I need something that wouldn't fall apart when it was sliced. Rather than reinvent the wheel I decided to tweak a few recipes I've made before and come up with my own.

Wholefood Chocolate Sheet Cake

400g white spelt flour
100g raw cacao powder
2 tbs baking powder
250g unsalted butter, softened
1/4 ts fine sea salt
3 eggs, lightly beaten
500g rice malt syrup
250ml water
1 ts vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius / 150 degrees fan-forced. Grease a 23 x 33cm tin and line the base and sides with baking paper.

Place all ingredients into a large bowl and using electric beaters, beat together at low speed until combined, then on high speed for 2 minutes until smooth and glossy.

Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for approx 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean and the top springs back when lightly pressed.

Cool in the tin for 5 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Vanilla Icing

125g unsalted butter, softened
1 cup organic icing sugar*
1/2 cup powdered coconut sugar (see chocolate icing above)
1 ts vanilla extract
1-2 tbs coconut milk

Combine all ingredients in thermomix or large bowl with electric beaters and beat until smooth and pale.

*I have experimented using all coconut sugar for the icing before and while the flavour was amazing it was quite caramel in colour which was not the look I wanted here. Next year I will be pushing harder for a chocolate icing so I can use all coconut sugar and some avocado as well.

I used a template to cut out the number 7 shape and did a crumb coat and second coat of icing before decorating with Hopper's 00s and 000s which are free from artificial additives.

So that's it. Our sweet but additive free birthday cakes for our sweet Mr 7.

How do you handle birthday parties at your place? Do you have certain foods that you just won't serve or does anything go?

Apple Pie Cookies (SRC)

What a month it's been! We moved into our new house exactly 2 weeks ago and while we still have a few boxes around, it's feeling more and more like home. I love our new oven and induction cooktop but as we don't have an induction suitable frypan it has made cooking dinner a little challenging.

But today of course is all about the Secret Recipe Club, a dedicated band of bloggers who are assigned a blog each month to secretly peruse and cook from, with everyone posting their recipes on the same day. Today is reveal day for group D.

This month I was assigned The Spiffy Cookie by Erin. In a funny coincidence she had my blog just last month! Erin has a PhD in microbiology (just like my husband), loves the combination of peanut butter and chocolate and her favourite meal is dessert.  I know I say it every time but I was really spoilt for choice when it came to recipes.

Erin recently did a round-up of her top 10 peanut butter and chocolate recipes which included a Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cake that had me drooling over the computer!

Her Steel Cut Oatmeal with Bananas and Cobbler Topping looks like just the thing to pimp up our regular porridge and her Spiced Pear Smoothie sounds delicious. To round out breakfast how about baked eggs with a crispy hash brown crust?

We had most of a box of apples to use up though so I started searching for apple recipes and came up with some beauties like Homemade Apple Jelly, Apple Walnut Pancakes and just last week this Apple Pecan Praline Bread. One that really jumped out at me though were these Apple Pie Cookies which were just so cute! All the best bits of apple pie but in cookie form which I knew my kids would love. Genius right?!

I played around with a few ingredients to suit our dietary requirements but I think these are pretty close to the original and they were AMAZING. Apple pie is one of my favourite things but I don't tend to make it very often. These little cookies had all the same flavours and were exactly like mini apple pies. The recipe made 24 and they were gone in a day. As you can tell it was very hard to stop at just one!

Apple Pie Cookies
Adapted from Dorothy Kern's Dessert Mashups via The Spiffy Cookie

Base:
100 g butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup ground almonds
1 cup spelt flour
1 egg
2 tbs coconut sugar
1 ts vanilla extract

Filling:
5 granny smith apples (peeled, cored and finely diced)
1/3 cup water
1 ts cinnamon
1/4 ts ground cloves
1 tbs coconut sugar
1 tbs spelt flour

In a large bowl cream together the butter and coconut sugar, then add the egg and vanilla and mix well. Fold through the flour and almond meal until incorporated into a thick dough. Spoon the mixture onto plastic wrap, wrap well and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile prepare the apples. Peel, core and finely dice the apples. Place in a medium pan with 1/3 cup water and the spices and cook over low-medium heat until just tender. Drain and place into a heat proof bowl. Sprinkle over the coconut sugar and flour and mix well.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius / 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease 2 x 12 hole mini muffin pans.

Place a tablespoon of dough into each muffin hole and press over the base and sides creating an indent for the filling. Spoon a teaspoon of apple filling into each cookie.

Bake for approximately 10 minutes or until golden brown. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before turning out and dusting with icing sugar. Delicious warm from the oven.

Makes 24 cookies

Thanks for a great month Erin! :)

An InLinkz Link-up

BWJ - Upside Down Mini Apple Cakes

So yesterday I went to the supermarket specifically to get rhubarb. I came home with bread, lemons, broccoli and a bag of spinach ... and no rhubarb. I really hope other people do things like that! There was no way I was going back there with 2 ratty kids so I made do with what I had, and that meant apples.

I made 12 little cakes using a large hole muffin tray. I put a little blob of butter in the base of each and topped it with a slice of gala apple then spooned the batter on top.

I ate 1 (ok, 2!) warm from the oven and they were absolutely divine. The creme fraiche (or greek yoghurt in my case) made for a lovely moist and slightly tangy cake which paired beautifully with the sweet apple. They may have made out of a mistake but they were a definite winner!

To see the real recipe for Fresh Rhubarb Upside Down Baby Cakes make sure you visit out host Erin of When in Doubt.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Allspice Crumb Muffins

Last week's pudding was a nice change but for this week I was happy to get back into baking. Kayte of Grandma's Kitchen Table chose Allspice Crumb Muffins, yet another recipe I really liked the look of. (Wondering what will be left for my pick in oh, 50 weeks time!)

I much prefer muffins to cupcakes because you can whip them up in a matter of minutes and they don't need any accompaniments, other than maybe a smear of butter when they are still warm from the oven.

These muffins with their crunchy streusel topping didn't need anything else at all. Dorie said they taste better the next day but I loved them fresh. The next day they had dried out a little bit.

I made half the recipe and got 16 mini muffins.


The taste test ...

Allspice is so underrated. Every time I use I wonder why I don't use it more often! Same with star anise. These tasted like Christmas to me, warm, buttery and lightly spiced. I'm sure I'll be making these again.

Thanks for a great pick Kayte! You can find the recipe on her blog.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Brownie Buttons

How is it that some things just taste so much better in miniature form? This week Jayma of Two Scientists Experimenting in the Kitchen selected Brownie Buttons, and what fabulous little bites of deliciousness they are!

I've had my issues with brownies over the years and quite honestly they would be the last thing I would choose to make and eat. It's not that I dislike them exactly - they just don't excite me. Unlike Megan for example! When Dorie's book arrived, I wondered why there were so many brownie recipes taking up space.

However, I have finally seen the light! These cute as a button brownies were rich, fudgy and subtly flavoured by orange zest. I had zero issues with them. They even came out of the pan perfectly. The only problem was they disappeared too quickly so I need to make some more!

Because I only have 1 mini muffin pan I made just 12 brownies and baked them for 14 minutes.

The taste test ...

YUM!

Thanks Jayma, I will definitely be making these again.