Country Rain

On a wet rainy day here in The Barossa, the smell of woodsmoke pervades the air and adds a misty mystery to the atmosphere. Its at times like this that my minds turns to two things....the library, and baking.

As my lovely big 900 mm stove is now absent its oven, due to catastrophic gas connector death, and whilst I await my NEW cooker...one day....soon...(maybe) I have had to come up with new ways to get my fix. The microwave has been used to make some seriously yummy sponges, mud muffin/cupcakes and even lamingtons but they lack that baked taste. My new stove can't come soon enough! But I'm pretty happy with my fiddled recipes.

Plain Vanilla Sponge style cake

1½ cups SR flour
3 tblsp caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 tblsp softened butter (I use vegan shortening)
²/³ cup milk ( I use lactose free)
2 large eggs
Add combined wet ingredients to sifted dry ingredients, and mix well until smooth and creamy. Add to microwave safe cake pan/ cupcake pan and cook, on high, for 5 mins.
Easy. :)
* For mud cake I add ¼ cup of cacao powder or cocoa powder, and chocolate hazelnut spread to your preferred amount before baking. After baking and turning out the cake, I spread a ganache over the warm cake.
Ganache:
1 tblsp Coconut oil, 300 g dark chocolate, 1 cup thick coconut cream melted to a thick pouring consistency.

Baking by microwave takes far less time than I'm used to, so after making lamingtons and two types of chocolate truffles, I still had lots of time in my day, so off to the library I went!
I now have lots of inspiring books to immerse myself in if it rains again tomorrow! Which is great because, if I keep cooking sweet things, I will become unable to fit in my car!