Speckled Easter Cake

Here’s an indulgent (both in terms of time and calories) type of cake that you can spend your easter long weekend making and eating. Its a four layered densely packed whopper that should be able to hold you over for at least four days!

Banana Cake

• 3 ripe bananas
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt or sour cream
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.  Prepare two round pans and set aside. Mash ripe bananas in a mixing bowl with a potato masher or fork and set aside. Sift together the dry ingredients and set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter with a paddle attachment until smooth. Add in the sugar, and mix until light and fluffy. With the mixer on low, add in the vanilla and eggs – one at a time. Stop the mixer.  Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl. With the mixer on low, add in half of the dry ingredients. Mix in the yogurt or sour cream. Add in the remaining dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Fold in the mashed bananas until combined. Pour batter into prepared pans and bake until golden – about 22-25 minutes for the recommended size. Cool on a wire rack. Invert the cakes out of the pans once they are cool enough to handle. Cool completely before slicing each cake in half horizontally to create four layers of cake.

Dark Chocolate Buttercream

• 3 egg whites
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cups unsalted butter, softened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 block of dark chocolate

Place egg whites and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer.  Whisk until combined. Fill a medium saucepan with a few inches of water and place over medium heat. Place the mixing bowl on top of the saucepan to cream a double-boiler. Heat, whisking occasionally, until the egg mixture is hot to the touch. Once hot, remove from heat and place bowl on mixer. Whisk on high until the bowl of the mixer becomes room temperature. With the mixer on medium-low, add in the vanilla, butter, and melted dark chocolate. Once added, mix on medium-high until smooth. Place buttercream between each layer of cake before frosting.

Green Frosting

• 1 cup of unsalted butter, softened
• 4 cups of icing sugar
• A dash of salt
• Green food colouring

To make frosting, in large bowl, beat softened butter and powdered sugar with electric mixer on low speed until incorporated; beat on high speed 3 minutes. Add vanilla and salt; beat 1 minute longer. Add green food color 1 drop at a time, beating until a light green colour is achieved.

Speckles

• 1 tablespoon of baking cocoa
• 4 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

To make speckles, stir the 2 ingredients together to create a paste, load it onto a dense paintbrush and flick at your cake.

Decorations

• Instant Noodles
• Mini Eggs

Break instant noodles into large chunks and assemble like a nest. Fill circle with mini eggs!

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Galentine’s Day

Happy Friday The Thirteenth! Ominous much? Also infamously known as Galentine’s Day – the neatest holiday invented by my favourite public sector gal Leslie Knope from Parks and Recreation. According to Leslie: “Oh it’s the best day of the year. Every February the 13th my lady friends and I leave our husbands and our boyfriends at home and we come and kick it, breakfast style. Ladies celebrating ladies. It’s like Lilith Fair minus the angst. Plus frittatas.” 

Due to some bad post scheduling on my part, it is yet again another illustration filled post so please excuse me! I am however super ecstatic to be featuring Yasmin from yours truly, Yasmin in today’s post. She is super talented and does amazing little drawings and typography so make sure you give her some love because it is Galentine’s Day after all! Personally, I think three things make a party: food, friends and some groovy tunes. Unfortunately, I can’t help you with the friends part but food and music? Yesiree!

Heart Beats Martini: /Alcoholic// Fill shaker with ice. Mix 1 part Vanilla Vodka and 3 parts Godiva White Chocolate liqueur. Add a couple drops of food coloring and shake. Assess coloring and add more food coloring if needed. Pour into martini glass decorated with a pink sugar rim. //Non-Alcoholic// Place sanding sugar in a shallow dish or plate. Slice six thin rounds from the middle of lime; set aside. Rub lime wedge around rims of six glasses; dip each rim in sugar to coat. Pour 1 teaspoon pomegranate syrup into bottom of each glass. Place grapefruit juice and 2 cups ice cubes in a blender. Process on high speed until ice is crushed. Pour frozen mixture into glasses, and stir to combine with syrup. Garnish with reserved lime rounds, and serve immediately.

Heart Pie Pops: Using a heart shape cookie cutter, cut out as many pastry pieces as your heart (haha) desires. Then add the apple pie filling into the centre which consists of: 1 medium tart green apple, peeled and grated, 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon, 1 tablespoon packed brown sugar, 1 tablespoon flour, 1/2 tablespoon lemon juice and 1 tablespoon cold butter, grated. Pop in some lolly sticks and bake until golden.

Pink Pasta & Red Pepperoni Hearts: This one is really very easy but fun to cook! To make your pasta pink, cook it like you usually do and then ‘dye’ it using either red food colouring or you can try boiled cranberry juice, red beet juice or pomegranate juice. To make the hearts just cut our your pepperoni pieces to heart shapes.

A Galentine’s Day Playlist: Run The World (Girls) – Beyonce // 22 – Taylor Swift // Girls Just Wanna Have Fun – Cyndi Lauper // Dancing Queen – ABBA // New Romantics – Taylor Swift // Wannabe – Spice Girls // BOSS – Fifth Harmony // Girls Chase Boys – Ingrid Michelson // Team – Lorde // Hit Me With Your Best Shot – Pat Benatar // Primadonna – Marina and the Diamonds // Milkshake – Kelis //  Do It Like a Dude – Jessie J //  Work – Iggy Azalea // Man! I Feel Like a Woman – Shania Twain //  Hollaback Girl – Gwen Stefani // Wings – Little Mix // How to Be A Heartbreaker – Marina and the Diamonds // Flawless – Beyoncé

With those final few words from Ms Knope, I bid you adieu!

PS: Happy Valentine’s Day for tomorrow as well!

My Day on a Plate // January

Smorgasbord can mean a wide range of something but it is more popularly known as a range of open sandwiches and delicacies served as hors d’oeuvres. In simplest terms; I like food. My blog is a representation of me. Food will now be a feature of StyleSmorgasbord. Capeesh? I’m going to try my best to do these every month and make them a reflection of the season I am in. So today’s four recipes are perfect for a hot summer day. These recipes will have a common denominator: they will be fresh, easy, healthy, tasty and very Instagrammable.

I also wanted to mention one of my favourite cookbooks that I’ve been pouring over lately. Clean Living by Luke & Scott is a paleo cookbook that has the most amazing dishes. I think the idea of paleo is so very interesting and although I don’t think I will ever go pure paleo I really like the message the boys talk about concerning how clean eating is sometimes seen as restrictive:

A Breakfast Beverage of Cucumber & Pear Green Juice // Serves ONE // This is a great post workout juice for those who need a quick hit before a hot long day ahead. I usually like to make my juices before I work out, pop them into the freezer for an hour and cool off after my workout with the chilled juice // Remove the skin of a pear, chop it into chunks and then throw it into a blender along with a handful of green leaves (any will do), a few slices of cucumber, several ice cubes and a tiny bit of water so your blender doesn’t break! //

A Light Lunch with Sweet Potato Fritters, Salmon & Avocado // Serves TWO to THREE // I originally saw this in a Paleo Diet Cookbook but it had way too many ingredients so this is my four ingredient adaptation that is a breeze to make with an arm workout thrown in for fun (from intense grating haha!) // Combine a 600g grated sweet potato with one egg yolk together and then shape the sweet potato mixture into a loose round and press into a large frying pan with oil. Cook for three minutes on each side until crispy. Serve fritters with smoked salmon and generous amounts of avocado! //

Beachside Dinner with a taste of Nha Trang // Rolled up food is right up my alleyway. I love sushi and tortillas and sausage rolls but most of all I love rice paper rolls. Served cold, they are the perfect kind of dinner to take on a picnic. // There are so many variations that instead of giving you a recipe, I’m just going to link you to some of my favourites (most of which are East meets West): Garlic Chicken / Chicken & Mango / Summer Fruit / Grilled Asparagus & Chilli Orange Quinoa / Shrimp & Avocado //

Decadent Dessert of Strawberry Greek Pie that isn’t that indulgent // I love baking but at the same time I hate it too so frozen treats like this are the perfect remedy! Although they’ll take a bit more work than a cold scoop of ice cream, your body will thank you later. // Crush a sleeve of digestive biscuits and add a little bit of milk to ‘wet’ the crumble. Then press the crust into a pan. Puree a punnet of strawberries and stir it into 600g of greek yoghurt and then pour it on top of your crust. Add some sliced strawberries on top and freeze for at least 5 hours. Take it out to sit for 20 minutes before serving //

That’s all for my day on a plate! Let me know if you try any recipes and if this is a series that can be picked up in the future!