Mowielicious

Vanilla & Ginger Pavlova + A Chocolate Giveaway

 

I remember my first visit to Australia. I was staying with my best friend, and we were invited to dinner at her parents house. When dinner was over, her mother brought out dessert - and I remember thinking it was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen on a plate. Light, airy, like a cloud floating in front of me - I'd never heard of pavlova before that, mainly because it's not really big in Europe, and I just couldn't wait to try making it myself. Little did I know how easy it was!

 

Now, before I go on, I have to say I know it's Australia Day today. And I also know that pavlova is officially claimed by New Zealand as one of *their* desserts. It's just coincidence that I happened to have made some for today. To really celebrate Australia Day, you'll need my Lamington's recipe, which you can find HERE. Happy Australia Day!

I have to say, these pavlovas were really inspired by Kerrin from MyKugelhopf when she posted about her Ottolenghi Meringue obsession a few days ago. And I must admit, I'd been an Ottolenghi virgin up until yesterday. I met up with my gorgeous Tea Ladies, Davina from The Sugar Bar and Su-yin from Bread et Butter, for a fabulous day out at Ottolenghi. I couldn't fault anything we ate - flavours and textures were as close to perfect as you can imagine, and don't even get me started on the desserts... banana toffee brownies, polenta lemon cakes, and windows piled high with their gorgeous signature meringues. It was all very inspiring!

And now, for a little giveaway: Holly of ChocoHolly is giving away a selection of her lovely organic chocolates: 4 organic taster bars, 2 organic chocolate fish and 1 organic white chocolate heart lolly. To enter, all you have to do is leave a comment at the bottom of this post and I will choose the 3 lucky winners using Random.org, and you'll receive the chocolates shortly after - perfect for Valentine's Day. Open to everyone, everywhere. Closes on Monday 1st February.

A big THANK YOU to everyone for your comments and lovely book recommendations on last week's Muffcakes post. I've got a lovely long book wish list now!

One last thing: my 'About' page is finally up, so if you're interested in finding out a little bit more about me and my blog, it's all on there.

 

 

 

Orange, Passion Fruit & Poppyseed Muffcakes

Ever had a muffcake?

I remember B left a comment way back when on my Coconut & Cinnamon Celebration Muffins, saying 'seeing as they're half muffin, half cupcake, shouldn't they be called muffcakes?'. And I totally loved it, thought it was the cutest name. More recently, the hilarious and adorable Catty from thecattylife.com, made some muffcakes too, and her video had me rolling on the floor with laughter at her hesitation before she said the word 'muffcake' for the first time. 

I think it's totally adorable, so, dear readers, my question is: what's in a word? And what do you think of 'muffcakes'? Well, actually, before you decide, maybe you should try this recipe first.

After last week's nearly monochrome lamingtons, plus now that we're in the depth of winter proper, I decided I really needed some colour in my life and on this blog, so I got myself some gorgeous orange and red ranunculi and befriended yet another lovely flower lady in the process at this rate I'm hoping to get free flowers for life!. It's really the little, simple things in life that make me happy, like flowers, cake, sunshine or a really good book.

Speaking of which, I've just finished reading Dan Brown's latest 'The Lost Symbol' and I loved it. Obviously it was nothing too deep, just a very good page-turner, which is what Dan Brown is good at really. What are you reading, dear readers? Anything interesting or fun? What was the last great book you read? Please do share as I'm always on the lookout for great books.

I'd been craving orange and poppyseed muffins for some time now, but only had an orange and poppyseed cake recipe. I didn't see why it shouldn't just as easily work as muffins, with the addition of some passion fruit I had lying around, and thus these muffcakes were born.

 

Lamingtons

I'm sitting here at my desk staring out of my window at the blanket of snow covering everything and my mind just wandered back to this time last year, when I was sunning myself silly in Sydney, Australia. I was also stuffing my face full of Lamingtons.

 

If you've never had Lamingtons before, you're in for a treat. These beauties are the simplest things to make, and are just pure comfort food, right up there with blueberry muffins and brownies. Tested on real Australians, this recipe turns out to be a definite winner.

Lamingtons are made from sponge cake, dunked in chocolate sauce, then tossed through dessicated coconut. The flavour and texture combinations are simply lovely. I remember the first Lamington I had, I just kept thinking: 'Wow! Nom. Nom. What. Nom. Is. Nom. Nom. This?'

For an extra decadent Lamington, cut in half and add a layer (or two, or three) of crème pâtissière.

No Australians were harmed during the making of these Lamingtons.