cheesey bacony corn muffins

I am bored out of my mind today and so far it's only lunch time! I like to bake when I am bored, (ok that's a lie.. I like to bake at 2am "just cos" also.. I just love baking :p ) and had limited ingredients today, so in place of milk, I used thickened cream. Turned out fine. You can use either.

2 cups self raising flour
1/2 a can of creamed corn (pick a good brand.. I've been using generic brand. I am sure there's nicer out there!)
2 eggs
1/2 cup roughly of milk OR thickened cream
1/2 cup grated tasty or "bitey" cheese, either is nice
Salt & pepper to taste
A few rashes of bacon diced, with rind and fat removed.

You can sift your flour if you want to be all fancypants, I won't think any less of you. I tend to not sift for most recipes and use the excuse "Did our great-grannies sift flour back in the day? I think not."
mix in the salt and pepper, crack the 2 eggs in and mix in the milk/cream and corn. If you think you need more milk/cream, add a wee bit more. Since I was running on limited supplies, I mixed a touch of water to the pot of cream and swished it about and poured it in.
Stir in the bacon and cheese, and spoon into a lightly greased 12-hole muffin pan.
Bake for oh.. I don't know.... 20 minutes I guess? 

And don't open the oven door half a dozen times to check on progress...

Chocolate mud cake

It was hubbys birthday yesterday, the big three-oh. I had originally planned to make him a kiddies style birthday cake decorated with fondant to a lion-face theme.. My how the time came around so quickly! I was totally not prepared at all, what with everything else going on! He loves mud cakes, wouldn't allow me to buy him a mudcake from the Cheesecake Shop, so I made one. From scratch. :)

This is a very simple recipe I got from one of my cookbooks -
(for this recipe it calls for dark chocolate, but I  used Cadbury Dairy Milk.)

1 cup unsalted butter
250g dark chocolate

150g self raising flour
150g plain flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder (something nice!)
2 1/4 cups caster sugar
4 eggs lightly beaten
2 tablespoons oil
1/2 cup milk
3/4 hot water

Preheat the oven to 160C, line a 9inch round cake tin with baking paper/oil etc.

Put the butter and chocolate in a pot on the stove with 3/4 cup HOT water and stir over a low heat until smooth, then remove from the heat.
Sift the flours and cocoa powder into a large mixing bowl, and stir in the sugar and make a well in the center. Combine the eggs, oil and milk then pour into the flour/sugar. Mix using a metal/wooden spoon by hand. Gradually mix in the butter mixture. Don't worry, it is meant to be a very wet/sloppy mixture, I freaked out too but it's all good!
Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for around 1 3/4 hours. I tested mine around the 1 hour mark, the top was still wet, so I gave it a further 10 minutes and it was perfect!

Leave it in the tin until it's completely cold then turn out and wrap firmly in plastic wrap, and leave over night in the fridge.

The recipe's icing calls for a chocolate ganache, which is just melted butter, cream and chocolate together, poured over the cake. I did something totally random and made a type of chocolate cream - thickened cream and butter heated together in a pot until just beginning to boil, then poured over a bowl of broken up chocolate, stir until smooth. HOWEVER, I stuffed up and used 600ml of cream, so I had to wait for it to chill before pouring it over the cake (otherwise it just runs right off!). Lets just say I learnt a thing or 2..
Anywho the end result is great.

I sat the cake on an upturned bowl, which was over a pizza tray to catch the drips. Don't worry, all that lovely chocolate cream was not wasted. Once I plated it, I scooped up the choccie cream into a bowl for a dessert :D