The Most Delightful Hazelnut Cake

A couple of weeks ago Luke & I baked a cake together and I promised I would post the recipe here. So today I spent the morning with my Mum baking this delicious cake, and now I'm delivering on my promise!

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Serves 8-10 ~ Preparation 20 mins ~ Cooking 45 mins 

For this cake you will need:

• 100g butter, chopped
• 175g dark chocolate, chopped
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 150g hazelnut meal
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder
• 4 eggs, separated

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C/160 FF. Grease a 20cm springform pan and line the base with non-stick baking paper.
2. Place the butter and chocolate into a large heatproof bowl. Stand bowl over pan of barely simmering water, and stir occasionally until melted. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla, sugar, hazelnut meal, sifted cocoa and egg yolks.
3. Using electric beaters, beat the egg whites in a clean bowl until soft peaks form. Mix 1/4 of egg whites into chocolate mixture to soften it. Use a large metal spoon to fold in remaining, and combine until there are no streaks of white, taking care not to lose volume. 
4. Spoon mixture into prepared tin, and bake for 45 mins. Cool in tin. Chill until firm. Run a knife around edge of cake, remove from tin.
5. Place cake onto serving plate and using chocolate frosting mixture (which is optional, but I would definitely recommend finishing your cake off with this!), ice cake. Serve slices of cake!

Chocolate Frosting:

To make chocolate frosting mixture, sift 1 cup of icing sugar mixture and 1 tbsp cocoa powder into a bowl. Add 30g soft butter and stir in 1 1/2 tbsp of boiling water, adding a tiny bit more if needed, beat until smooth. Spread onto cake!

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Enjoy! Let me know if you try this out.

A Quick Spring Picnic

Luke & I had such a perfect little day together on Monday. We were dressed, ready and out the door relatively early (for a day off) so we could have a little breakfast date at Lotus cafe. We've been meaning to cross that cafe off our list for some time, and now we can and know not to go back. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't what we were into. The food was lovely and super quick, so quick we received it within 5 minutes or ordering, but the coffee tasted a little stale as though the beans had been ground weeks before or something. After breakfast we went to some furniture stores in search of a decorative sitting chair. Our flat is really small, but we've come up with a way to change it up so we can fit a cute chair in. Our last stop was Freedom where we found the perfect lemongrass coloured chair. I never think to go into Freedom because it always looks a little too pretentious and expensive, but their current stock is just perfect. My sister is also in the process of redecorating so I'm hoping she'll go there to so the things I can't fit in my current flat, she might get for herself!

Once we found what we were looking for, we did a quick grocery shop, banked two months worth of coin collecting, did a quick tidy up and washed some clothes. Once all that was out of the way we packed some sandwiches + fruit, grabbed some coffees and went on a little picnic! We found the perfect little nook in the park to lay our picnic rug down and play cards on. The few times Luke & I have had days off together throughout the year, it's either rained or we've had to do other things and our picnics have been put on hold. So it was just the loveliest afternoon to be out in the park, laying down in the sun. 

When we came home we decided to do some baking together, and we made the most delightful hazelnut cake. I'm going to post the recipe soon, because it would be absolutely selfish of me not to! And we finished our day off with some lasagne Luke made while I finished up on an illustration. It was extra delicious because my boss picked me a huge bunch of home grown organic silver beet from her veggie patch! 

We Went Out For Cocktails Instead

1. Mexican Bean Pies I made for Luke 2. This weeks purchases 3. Milkshakes!

4. Stripy Nails 5. Vodka Quatro Cocktails 5. Out for Tapas & Cocktails

Next Sunday I'll be going away to Fiji for a family holiday, so throughout the week I've been getting a couple of things ready. Along side a ticket to Fiji for Christmas, Luke & my brother-in-law Allan, also got a huge money tin. Luke & I almost filled ours with spare coins over the past three months and we opened it this past Sunday so we could bank it in exchange for Fiji money. Afterwards I started to get really excited because next Sunday is starting to get really, really close! I also slightly started to freak out because I had planned to get a couple of new holiday pieces to take with me. So on Wednesday I made a quick trip to the shops to get some holiday pants and a new dress. Sometimes when I go shopping, half way through something just clicks and I suddenly get sick of it and need to go home. I didn't have a dress to come with me, so I stopped by Cotton On to pick up a dress that I already had in different material. When you find a dress you like, I find its best to get it in a few different types of material. I finished my afternoon off by exercising my awesome baking skills and made some mini Mexican bean pies for dinner.

Luke's day off this week was Thursday, and I had to work so we couldn't go to the plant nursery, or bake blueberry bread together like we planned. So we went out for cocktails and tapas instead. I think I have bad luck with dining out because something always usually happens, whether its being served a meal that is missing the key ingredient (i.e., pasta without pasta sauce. Seriously) or finding a rock in my lentil burger. However, Thursday evening almost was a perfect evening! I had the most amazing vodka quatro cocktail with lime, cranberry & passionfruit. The restaurant was right on the water, so it's tapas had a bit of a seafood theme to it which was great for Luke, but not so much for me. They did have three fantastic vegetarian friendly options - polenta fries & aioli, goats cheese & eggplant garlic bread, and broccoli & mushrooms in chilli sauce. 

It's been a pretty laid back and productive week so far. Luke & I broke our milkshake mixer out from its kitchen cupboard captivity and we've been making them all week! I also painted my nails with coral punch, metallic brown & smokey purple stripes. I've been heaps into painting my nails differently since I did painted my zig zag nails a couple of weeks ago. I've been looking for easy nail art tutorials and found so many interesting, creative ways to use your nail polish. Blogging still excites me everyday!

Earl Grey Cupcakes

Today I wanted to do something nice for Luke while he was at work, so while I was having a cup of tea and reading some blogs this morning, I decided to bake him something. After I saw Miss Kait Online's Earl Grey Cupcake recipe last week, I was pretty keen to try them. So that is what I made today! They sure don't look as lovely as the ones that she made, but they sure do taste lovely!