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Lemon and lime no bake cheesecake

Lemon and Lime No bake cheesecake - the perfect make-ahead dessert that won't clog up precious oven space when preparing for a busy dinner party!
Lemon and Lime No bake cheesecake - the perfect make-ahead dessert that won't clog up precious oven space when preparing for a busy dinner party!
Lemon and Lime No bake cheesecake - the perfect make-ahead dessert that won't clog up precious oven space when preparing for a busy dinner party!
Lemon and Lime No bake cheesecake - the perfect make-ahead dessert that won't clog up precious oven space when preparing for a busy dinner party!
Lemon and Lime No bake cheesecake - the perfect make-ahead dessert that won't clog up precious oven space when preparing for a busy dinner party!

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Lemon and Lime No bake cheesecake - the perfect make-ahead dessert that won't clog up precious oven space when preparing for a busy dinner party!
Lemon and Lime No bake cheesecake - the perfect make-ahead dessert that won't clog up precious oven space when preparing for a busy dinner party!

One thing I am not unsure about however, is citrus cheesecake. "No bake" cheesecake is very much the standard in New Zealand, unlike the states (Or in NYC at least) where cheesecake generally tends to be baked. Both are delicious, but I just can't go past the simplicity and ease of a no bake cheesecake. You can adapt it almost any which way, it doesn't require a water bath or worrying about it cracking, it comes together incredibly quickly, and is super easy to make ahead. I am a huge fan of making dessert ahead of time if we are going somewhere or having people over, and cheesecake is perfect for this - you can make it the morning of, or the evening before. 

The base to filling ratio for this is a little on the heavy side as far as the base is concerned, so if you are a thin base person, feel free to dial it back. If you don't have easy access to limes (I know they are hideously expensive in NZ), then just double the lemon quantities and leave out the lime all together. Make sure that you use full fat cream cheese to help with the stability. I used graham crackers for my base, but you can use any sweet biscuit which processes to fine crumbs. I find it easiest to make this in a spring form tin that is lightly greased, which helps hugely with serving - you can just unclip the sides and lift off the outer of the tin, and serve it straight off the bottom of the tin.

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Answers to your baking questions

Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:

I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!

Earl Grey Shortbread

It is unlikely that there is a recipe that is closer to my heart than the original of this recipe. It is my Grandmother's shortbread recipe, and for me, embodies everything that is the holidays. My Grandparents used to live right on the beach, and we used to go and stay with them for six weeks every summer. I am the second youngest of 18 grandchildren, and my Grandma was most definitely the head of the family. I have so many incredible memories filled with noisy family gatherings, lots of laughs, and loads of food. Coming from a big family who always had communal meals most definitely cemented in me that food was made for sharing with those who you love, and is something that will be with me for the rest of my life. 

My Grandma was the biggest advocate of showing love through food. She was not only an incredible cook, but you could tell that what made her happiest was providing food to those she loved. And her shortbread. My goodness, it really was something else. There was always a big jar of it in her pantry, and it seemed that it was always full. It used to come out every time a cup of tea was had (which in my family is fairly often). It was an absolute favourite with all members of the family. An even bigger treat was being allowed to help her make it. I got some of my love of baking from her, with many many happy hours spent standing on a chair pulled up to the bench, eating as much of the mixture as I could while helping mix the bowl. 

I now have my Grandma's recipe book, and it is easily one of my most treasured possessions. Most of the recipes are hand written in her loopy writing, and there is something about the way that the method is written out that means that when I read it back to myself, I can hear her saying it. 

This shortbread recipe actually came from my Great Great Grandmother. I have tweaked it slightly with the addition of Earl Grey, which adds a delicate floral flavour without being too overpowering. The earl grey flavour comes from very finely ground tea leaves, accented with a little bergamot extract (which is totally optional, I am a die hard earl grey fan so love having a strong flavour in there). I initially tried infusing the butter with tea, which produced a crazy green butter, but also shortbread with a weirdly wet exterior, which I think was due to the tea absorbing the water in the butter, which changed the consistency of the butter, resulting in a strange shortbread. Ground tea and bergamot extract yielded a much nicer finish.

For regular shortbread which is just as amazing as it's earl grey counterpart, omit the ground tea and bergamot extract.

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Answers to your baking questions

Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:

I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!

Peppermint bark brownie cake

Its finally almost Christmas! So exciting! This will be our first one in the city, which is kind of weird seeing it is my third and Richard's fifth one in America! We always end up either spending it at home in New Zealand, meeting our family somewhere that's warmer than NYC, or going to Canada to spend it with our Canadian family when the trip to NZ is too long. I am so excited to finally be starting our own wee Christmas traditions. We are getting a tree this week, then spending the actual day with a bunch of friends who also aren't spending it with family. I can't wait. 

And what better way to highlight peppermint and chocolate than with more peppermint and chocolate? I paired the bark with a super rich brownie cake, layered with Italian buttercream and crushed bark, and finished with bark shards on the top! This would be perfect to take to a holiday party or to serve on Christmas day. The richness of the brownie means that you only need to have a little bit, making this perfect to feed a crowd! (or you know, just eat by yourself!)

I went with a petal technique with the buttercream on the outside of the cake. This is simple and effective, and only requires a piping bag and a small offset spatula (or you can use the back of a spoon or a knife). You could also just give the cake a smooth layer of buttercream and it would look just as effective! 

I used Italian buttercream in the recipe as I wanted something that I could make super red to reflect the red and white in the bark. I have found that the best way to make buttercream really vibrant colours is to add the food colouring to the sugar syrup that you use in the recipe. That way it is all nicely dissolved, and you don't have to worry about it not incorporating (buttercream has so much fat in it from the butter that sometimes it makes it tricky to totally mix the colouring in without it having a 'grainy' look to it). The way that I did it meant that I needed to make two separate batches of buttercream. If that isn't for you then you can just double the recipe of the white buttercream and divide and colour it after you have mixed it.

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Answers to your baking questions

Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:

I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!

Flourless Chocolate Cake

Damnnnnn things have been so so busy! We have been crazy busy over at the stuido - a couple of huge projects coming up coupled with general christmas rush means that we have been pulling some intense hours. All we have to do is make it through until Christmas, then January is always nice and quiet so we can have a little break, then in February we are going to New Zealand!

We have been having some fairly epic 3pm slumps in the studio, so I have made sure that there is always some sort of treat around for everyone to have a nibble on when they have a wee break from cloud land. This cake is the perfect cure for the 3pm slump - it is a straight hit of dark chocolate, mellowed out by a little butter, and held up by whipped eggs. I halved the original recipe to give a smaller, higher cake, which I think works well in comparison to the majority of flourless chocolate cakes which are fairly flat. The simplicity of this is what makes it amazing - it is literally just chocolate, butter, eggs and sugar, which really allows the ingredients to shine. 

The final product of this depends entirely on your chocolate quality. I use a Callebaut 70% chocolate which is Belgian - I would recommend something that has at least 70% cocoa solids. The cake has a solid half a pound of chocolate in it, and it really stands out, so you need to make sure you use something which tastes good alone as well as in baking. 

If you do choose to double this, pop it in an 8 inch pan - it should end up a similar height! I halved the original recipe because I feel as if there are far too many massive cake recipes out there - this would be perfect for having a few people over for dinner, or taking around to a friends house, or just having for a 3pm studio slump pick-me-up! It serves about 6.

I have adapted this recipe from the Mast Brothers book - weird controversy aside, their book has some bomb recipes in it for all sorts of chocolate situations, both sweet and savoury! I love it. They have a beautiful space in Williamsburg where they make (I went and watched them grinding the beans) their chocolate from scratch.

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I would LOVE for you to leave me a review and star rating below to let me know how you liked it! Also, please make sure to tag me on Instagram!

Answers to your baking questions

Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:

I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!

Apple pie cake

Milk bar's Apple Pie Cake has layers of apple cake, liquid cheesecake, pie crumbs, and cooked apple. This milk bar cake is the perfect dessert for apple lovers.

Milk Bar Apple Pie Cake

My lovely friend Lisa was staying with me this week! I originally met her in a facebook group I was a part of, where we bonded over our love of all things sweet, and just food in general. We then somehow managed to become part of the best girlboss gang ever, the Sugar Hoes, comprised of both of us, and our friend Bets, who runs a badass cake shop and sweet cafe in Auckland! (They have some of our clouds there, making it the coolest cafe in NZ)

Lisa is an incredible pastry chef, and it also happened to be her birthday while she was staying! So of course, cake was a must. I must admit that I secretly felt a huge amount of pressure making a pastry chef a birthday cake, but at the end of the day I ended up roping her into helping me so everyone won! 

I recently (I am aware that I am a good four years late to the party) got the Milk bar cook book, and after a failed attempt at getting peaches from the farmers market for a cake for Lisa, we ended up with a bag of apples, and this book open on the table. I had been wanting to try making something from the book for a while, but was low key intimidated by the aspect of acetate within the cake rings to help hold everything together, so figured there was no better time than when I had a trained eye helping me! 

Components of Apple Pie Cake

The Apple pie cake has what feels like a zillion components to it - A brown butter cake which is cooked in a sheet pan, a cider soak to help keep the cake moist, liquid cheesecake (barely cooked cheesecake mixture), pie crumbs, then an apple pie filling. You then rinse and repeat this three times until you have a super complex looking wee stack, then top it off with some buttercream which has blitzed pie crumbs in it! What a mouthful (quite literally). 

The resulting cake however, is nothing short of amazing. Everything ties together perfectly, and we ended up making six miniature 3 inch cakes rather than one six inch like the recipe, and OH MY they are too cute!! I used six three inch cake rings which we lined with strips of acetate. You layer all of the things in the lined rings, then pop them in the freezer for about 12 hours, peel off the acetate, and you have the prettiest layer cake ever! I love that you can see all of the individual components up the side! 

Milk Bar Apple Cake

I pretty much followed the recipe from the book, except I skipped the apple cider soak, and in it's place used reduced cooking liquid from the apple pie filling component, thinned out with a little apple cider. I would also highly recommend making the pie crumb with brown butter - it gives it an amazing nutty taste which ties in well with the cake flavour. 

Because this recipe is very component heavy, and there is also a freezing time in there (which helps to make the acetate removal nice and tidy), this is definitely something you are going to want to make the day before, and assemble the evening before you need it, so that it has time to freeze. I ended up doubling the recipe in the book to give me six teeny baby cakes, so this recipe will make two six inch cakes, or six three inch cakes. I would definitely halve it (the original recipe) if you are making just the one six inch cake - these are super sweet, and I still have three in my freezer I am slowly giving to people!

With that being said, it doesn't actually take much longer to make double the recipe, and this keeps well in the freezer, so you can definitely have some now and save some for another time! I had a fair bit of cake scraps leftover, but they are sitting in my fridge next to the leftover buttercream, ready to be made into cake pops! 

One more thing - this is the sort of recipe where if you don't use a kitchen scale, now is the time to start. I am a huge fan of working in grams (Partially/extremely biased as I grew up using them and my brain is having a hard time changing over), because they give you a level of accuracy that you can't get with cups - everyone scoops a different sized cup of flour so grams help keep it all consistent.

Happy happy birthday week Lisa! Thanks for coming and hanging out with me in NYC! xx

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Answers to your baking questions

Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:

I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!

Recipe for Milk Bar Apple Pie Cake

Lemon Soda

Homemade Lemon Soda is super easy to make and has only four ingredients. Easy lemon soda is super refreshing.

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Homemade Lemon Soda

I catered the first day of school for Richard's old masters programme a month or so ago, and needed to make a non alcoholic drink that was cheap and easy, and that people could put together themselves. I wasn't too sure as to what to use, then when I was making this cake for one of our episodes of distant kitchens, I popped a little bit of the orange thyme syrup into my soda water and suddenly realised that it worked perfectly.

(I am in no way trying to claim ownership for inventing simple syrup here!) Half pissed off at myself that I hadn't thought of infused simple syrup and soda earlier and half stoked that I had found a drink I could use for the event, I played around with a couple of combinations and ended up serving a couple - a rosemary syrup, an orange thyme syrup, and this here Lemon and basil combination. They were a giant hit - I served the syrup in pour bottles alongside a big drink container of soda, and guests were able to mix up their own drinks.

Lemon and Basil Soda

There is something about herbs in drinks - I love it! The taste of the herbs gussies up boring soda water, and also offsets the sugar of the simple syrup. The possibility of flavour combinations is literally endless - simple syrup is a 1:1 sugar to water ratio. If you are infusing with a herb then add that, and if you are flavouring with a juice, sub out some of the water for the juice, and there you go! 

How to store Lemon Soda

The syrup, due to the high sugar content, keeps really well in the fridge, so is great to have on hand for adding to drinks or cocktails. You only use a tablespoon or so at a time when serving, so a little goes a fairly long way. I am yet to add alcohol, but I honestly can't see that going badly.

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Answers to your baking questions

Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:

I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!

Recipe for Lemon Soda

Blueberry Streusel muffins

These easy blueberry muffins with a streusel topping can be made with fresh or frozen blueberries. This is the perfect homemade blueberry muffin!

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Blueberry Streusel Muffins

Far out this year has gone so, so fast! All of a sudden its September. Pretty sure last time I checked it was like, March or something? Goodness. However September does mean that the end to this gross humid summer weather is in sight. Just don't mention that I was complaining about the heat when its February and i'm freezing my ass off.

However we go to Canada on Monday morning, which I am SO excited about. We have family there who live on a lake on Vancouver island, which is amazing enough, but theres also going to be a wedding! Which I am making the cake for... a little bit nervous but I managed to make a monster for our wedding and have had a lot of cake practice since then so it should be fine! I hope. 

These blueberry muffins are a giant hit in our house. They are a take on the blueberry muffins that Mum makes. Mum is an incredible cook. I am so lucky to have grown up in a household with amazing parents where it was standard practice to make everything from scratch. 

Somehow she manages to whip them up in about 30 seconds flat, and before I know it they are in the oven and cooking. And they always taste amazing. I will never get over how she manages to just produce food out of nowhere whenever anyone even mentions coming for a visit. Its incredible. Her scones are another thing that just materialize out of nowhere, but i'll save that recipe for another day. The recipe comes from the great baking goddess herself, Alison Holst. I think the book it comes from is called "marvelous muffins" or something along those lines. She has written a zillion books on everything from bread to baking to mince, and she's like the grandmother of NZ cooking. Amazing. 

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Muffins with Streusel Topping

I have added a streusel topping to these, because streusel makes everything better. The recipe here makes a generous amount, so feel free to dial it back if you don't want a huge amount on your muffins, or leave it out completely. Either way these come together super quickly, theres no waiting for butter to soften, so you can pop them in the oven and have muffins in about 20 minutes! What a giant win. 

A small tip with muffins - make sure that when you are incorporating the wet ingredients to the dry, you want to mix them to the point where they are just combined, and there are no more dry bits. Any more and they won't turn out as lovely and fluffy and light. 

I used these cute wee Muffin moulds to make these. If you make them in a tin make sure that you give the cups a really good grease or spray with baking spray to ensure easy lifting. Sometimes I like to pop a strip of baking paper in the hole so that I can grab it from either side once the muffins are cooked and remove them easily. Or you can also use paper muffin cases in the holes, which make clean up significantly easier, seeing as washing muffin tins sucks!

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Answers to your baking questions

Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:

I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!

Recipe for Blueberry Streusel Muffins

Galaxy cupcakes

Easy Vanilla Bean Cupcakes topped with Galaxy Style American Buttercream frosting. These are the perfect space themed cupcakes!

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Space Themed Cupcakes

I made these space themed cupcakes for a friend's studio opening and they were a giant hit. I've been asked a few times for the recipe so thought I might as well pop it up here! I had seen something similar on the internet a while back and decided to give it a try! They would be amazing for a children's birthday party, or anything space themed. You can also use the same technique with different colours for a non 'galaxy' look - I have done it with pastels before and it looks amazing! 

How to make Black Buttercream

The first time that we made space themed cupcakes, Richard was given the job of colouring the icing. I didn't realise that he had gone hard on the black food colouring until everyone who ate a cupcake ended up with black teeth. Thankfully nobody minded. However I have tweaked the recipe slightly, using black cocoa powder in the black part of the icing rather than food colouring. If you can't get your hands on black cocoa powder (its just super dutched cocoa, the stuff that they use to make oreos!), you can use black food colouring, just be aware that it takes a LOT to achieve a true 'black'. 

Vanilla Cupcakes with American Buttercream

I went with a vanilla cupcake and an american buttercream. Normally I would use a swiss meringue buttercream for cupcakes, but I find that it never holds really vibrant colours as well as american, and for this I wanted them bright and strong. I made two batches of buttercream - one with the black cocoa, and one plain batch, which I divided into three and coloured with two shades of blue, and purple. 

Once they were piped, I covered them in flecks of white food colouring to represent "stars" - I just used my finger dipped in the colouring and flicked it on with my finger. I then sprinkled on a small amount of food safe glitter to give it a little sparkle. Make sure that you do this process somewhere that is fairly easy to clean up - the white tends to go everywhere, and the glitter is even worse. I generally turn a bowl upside down in the sink, then sit the whole cooling rack on top of it so that afterwards everything can be washed away. 

I used a vanilla cupcake recipe, but these really can be made with whatever you like. I also chose to make mini cupcakes, but feel free to make these whatever size you would like!

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Answers to your baking questions

Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:

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Recipe for Galaxy Cupcakes

No churn Hokey Pokey Ice Cream

Homemade hokey pokey ice cream is super easy to make. Made with an easy no churn ice cream base and honeycomb chunks.

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Homemade Hokey Pokey Ice Cream

Do you ever find that there are things that you didn't know that you missed until you had to go without them? For us, that was hokey pokey ice cream. Its a classic New Zealand ice cream flavour, and I am yet to see something like it. It is chunks of honeycomb (which we call hokey pokey) in vanilla ice cream, and it is the BEST. Truth be told i'm not a huge ice cream eater, but you really can't beat hokey pokey ice cream on apple crumble. 

It took us a good two years for me to realise that I could probably just make my own. And turns out its not that difficult at all. Plus you get to eat all the extra hokey pokey, which is one of the few situations where the intense risk of cavities is greatly outweighed by how good it is. 

Easy No Churn Ice Cream

Can we also please just take a moment to appreciate no churn ice cream. SO easy. For some reason I have always been low key frightened of making my own ice cream (I honestly have no idea why, ice cream gives me a little bit of a sore tummy so maybe i'm just scared of ice cream in general?) so this is a great first step. Or perhaps it is a gateway drug to just making every sort of ice cream ever. We shall see. 

I used golden syrup in the hokey pokey, because that is what I grew up using. I had to end up ordering it online, as I was unable to find it in shops here. Golden syrup is made from concentrated cane sugar juice. I am unsure if you can interchange it with corn syrup, but if anyone has tried I would love to hear your experience! Either way, its amazing made with the golden syrup, and totally worth having to ship it in. 

Tips for Hokey Pokey Ice Cream

Make sure that you have everything ready before you make the hokey pokey - a lined tray or tin to pour it on, and pre-measured baking soda. As soon as you add the baking soda to the hot sugar mixture it froths like crazy and you need both your hands to stir it as quickly as possible. Try to incorporate the baking soda but don't stir it too much or the mixture will deflate. 

Once you add the hokey pokey bits to the ice cream, don't be surprised if you go to eat some and they look kind of dissolved - this is meant to happen, and the dissolved bits are the best bits!!

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Answers to your baking questions

Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:

I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!

Recipe for Hokey Pokey Ice Cream

Skillet Chocolate Chip Cookie

Homemade Skillet Chocolate Chip Cookie is super easy to make and can be made as one large skillet cookie or as mini skillet cookies.

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A sign of an epic cookie recipe is that it is super versatile. In this case, if it is just as good in a skillet (I may even prefer the skillet version a little more) as it is in regular cookie, form, you have hit the jackpot.

The recipe makes enough to fill three 6.5 inch skillets, about nine mini skillets (I will be very impressed if you own that many), or you could definitely put the entire thing into a larger skillet (a 10 inch or similar would work perfectly), just be sure to adjust the baking time - I would estimate about 25-30 Minutes.

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Answers to your baking questions

Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:

I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!

Cherry Galettes

Homemade cherry galettes have an easy homemade pie crust and are filled with a fresh cherry pie filling

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Mini Cherry Galettes

I've never really been a home made fruit pie girl until recently. And I don't know why. Its not that I didn't like them, maybe I just didn't appreciate them enough. I can happily say that I am now a changed lady! Nine times out of ten there is a block of dough in my freezer, and because I tend to go nuts at the greenmarket every time I go and buy EVERY sort of fruit ever, pies have become a semi regular thing in our house. 

Even easier than pies, but still great for using up dough, is wee galettes! You literally just throw whatever fruit you would like in them, fold them up and bake them until they are golden brown and delicious! We have had a couple of types this week, but the cherry ones were our fave so far! I can imagine that there will be many more to come this summer. They are super easy to take places as they are less awkward to transport than a pie, and can definitely be made ahead and either warmed up, or eaten cold. 

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Super Easy Pie Crust

The pastry I use is one that is adapted from four and twenty blackbirds pie book, AKA the best book about pies I have ever read. Its amazing, super versatile, and is great if you want to make a lattice or braid, as the dough is really easy to work with. They use a little apple cider vinegar in their crust, which gives it the most lovely tenderness and flavour. You can totally use any fruit here, and fill them a little more/less than I have. I sweetened each one individually as I went so that I wasn't left with a bowl of fruity sugar syrup (all the best bits) and all the nice flavour and juice ended up in the galettes. 

The pastry is best made a day ahead but if you are in a pinch you can rest it in the fridge for two hours or so. I like making a big batch and wrapping it up into portions and freezing it so its always on hand ready to go for when I overcommit to fruit! 

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Tips for Cherry Galette

Make sure you keep everything super cold! If the pastry gets too soft, just throw it back in the fridge to warm up. I normally work on two at a time, and keep the unrolled pastry and finished unbaked galettes in the fridge to prevent everything getting too sticky. I also like to rest the galettes in the fridge for 10 minutes or so before baking them to help them hold their shape.

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Answers to your baking questions

Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:

I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!

Recipe for Mini Cherry Galettes

Doughnut sprinkle cake

This super cute chocolate layer cake is covered with a vanilla bean swiss meringue buttercream, and finished with homemade royal icing doughnut sprinkles.

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Doughnut Sprinkle Cake

First of all, is it Donut, or is it Doughnut? I had a cheeky google, and it got my brain confused.

I hid inside all weekend because it was CRAZY hot. Apparently NYC is under some sort of 'heat dome'? Whatever that is, it sucks. Our neighbours a few apartments down from us have a pool, and I spent most of the weekend thinking up ways to introduce myself in a non-creepy way, and somehow come up with some sort of baking trade in return for the use of their pool. So far I am coming up with nothing, apart from perhaps flying Richards drone over there with a note... but even then that seems a little creepy. I guess we shall have to live with intense pool FOMO for the next little while. 

Here is a cake, with little wee doughnuts on it! A while ago we spent a Saturday night in (who am I kidding, we spend most Saturday nights in) making sprinkles! I was inspired by sweet ambs, who is the queen of royal icing. Turns out I do not have quite the same skills to create teeny little fiddly versions of food, but I CAN pipe circles, pipe more circles on top, and sprinkle them with hundreds and thousands! And so doughnut sprinkles were born!  

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Easy Chocolate Layer Cake

I used a super light chocolate cake here, but feel free to use anything that you like! Or not even use the sprinkles on a cake. I just think that they look extra cute this way. I went with homemade swiss meringue buttercream, but like I said before, go nuts with whatever suits you! I prefer a non crusting buttercream here over something like american, as it seems to hold the sprinkles on much more securely. 

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How to make Royal Icing Sprinkles

The recipe for the royal icing makes enough for a LOT of sprinkles. We ended up with about 250 little doughnuts. They are pretty quick to do once you get going, and once they are dry they keep in an airtight container for a very long time, so I prefer to make a lot all at once, and have enough for multiple cakes. I used meringue powder in the recipe as it is super easy, but any royal icing recipe should work here, provided it is nice and thick. It should come off the mixer the consistency of cream cheese, and you can then water it down to piping consistency from there. 

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The best food coloring for Royal Icing

Gel food colouring will also be your friend here as it is more intense and will not water down your icing too much. I used disposable piping bags, fitted with a round piping tip in a number of different sizes. For the doughnuts themselves I used a wilton #5, and then for the glazes I used whatever slightly smaller sized tips I had on hand. It doesn't matter what size you use as the icing is viscous enough that it shouldn't run everywhere, but anything between a #2 and a #5 should work well. That being said, if you don't have a small round tip, you can carefully chop the tip off an icing bag and get the same effect. 

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Tips and Tricks for homemade sprinkles

The sprinkles do take some time to dry out before you use them, so allow either a couple of hours or overnight for this. Drying time may vary depending on your humidity. 

I made a wee template on the computer to put underneath the parchment paper to use as a guide. You can either freehand it, or if you would like to use mine, you can download it here! 

Have fun! I would love to see the results if you give this one a try!

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Answers to your baking questions

Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:

I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!

Recipe for Doughnut Sprinkle Cake

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Banana cake with chocolate buttercream

This easy homemade banana cake with chocolate icing is a birthday party classic. The banana layer cake is quick and easy to make and pairs perfectly with the chocolate american buttercream.

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Banana Cake with Chocolate Buttercream

I feel as if this cake is a childhood memory for most kids that grew up in New Zealand. Homemade Banana cake, covered in what we affectionately refer to as "shitty chocolate icing". You know the stuff - icing sugar, cocoa, a little bit of butter, and then a little bit of boiling water which inevitably turns into adding too much, having to add more icing sugar, overshooting that, adding more water, etc etc. The best. We often had this as our birthday cakes when we were kids, but would have 'plain' icing instead that we were allowed to colour ourselves - I have very strong memories of managing to get half a bottle of yellow food colouring into a bowl of icing and having THE most bright yellow cake ever. It was awesome. 

Turns out Rich has even more ties to homemade banana cake than I do - he went to boarding school and quite often his mum would make him a banana cake with  chocolate icing to have in his 'tuck box'. Lucky for him, I tend to be useless at remembering to use bananas up before they go brown, so banana cake/bread/shortbread happens extremely frequently in our house. 

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The Best Banana Layer Cake

Rich also happens to not be a huge fan of buttercream. I have learnt to turn my back while he scrapes most of it off a cupcake into the bin. For this reason, (because he is the primary banana related baked goods consumer in our house), the ratio of this cake is mainly cake:not much buttercream. It is essentially two banana cakes, glued together with a teeny bit of buttercream. I like to run a line of piped buttercream between the two layers to tidy things up, then load up the top with icing sugar, pop on some rosemary, and we are away laughing. He requests it for his birthday every year, which makes life significantly easier on my part! 

The cake itself is super simple. It is a great go-to. (as are most recipes from the Edmonds cookbook). If my bananas are super ripe, and I would like minimal dishes, I throw them in the stand mixer with the creamed butter/sugar mixture rather than mashing them by hand. If they aren't crazy ripe, mashing them by hand helps. 

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Easy Chocolate Buttercream

The buttercream is a slightly more fancy variation of "Shitty chocolate buttercream".  I like using butter straight out of the fridge and 'softening' it using the mixer, as opposed to softening it before you use it. It gives you a slightly colder finished product that is easier to handle. However I haven't tried this without a stand mixer, so if you are using an electric beater, it may be easier to have the butter already soft. The recipe here will leave you with some buttercream left over, which I figure is probably helpful as most people like a slightly higher ratio of buttercream to cake than this, so feel free to spread it on the top/sides. If you make this into a four layer cake (and slice the cakes into two), doubling the buttercream recipe would be beneficial.

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This is a fairly large recipe, so if you only have a couple of bananas, or are looking for something smaller, halving it will work beautifully. 

Ps how great is the crown cake stand?!? My Mum got it for me the last time I was home, from a teeny pottery shop near Nelson (my hometown). Its a one of a kind, and is inspired by Max's crown from "Where the wild things are". It also turns up the other way and can be used as a bowl! I LOVE it! Thanks Mama Bear! xx

For more banana recipes, check out:

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Answers to your baking questions

Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:

I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!

Recipe for Banana Cake with Chocolate Buttercream

American Flag Cake

This Vanilla American Flag Cake is the perfect celebration cake. Made from a Vanilla Layer Cake and Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream, this American Flag Cake is cute and easy to make.

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American Flag Cake

Happy 4th of July weekend! To celebrate, Amy from Aheirloom (aka amazing cake stands) and I have teamed up to bring you something special, this American Flag Cake! Every time I go to visit Amy I am blown away by the new incredible things that they are working on. I used their 12" maple wedding cake stand for this cake. 

This is a great cake to take to parties, or any 4th of July celebrations that you may be attending. While it looks super complicated, the thing that I love about the 'petal' buttercream method is that it only involves a piping bag, some tips and an offset spatula. It is much less fiddly than it seems! I have used Swiss meringue buttercream (based on the Bravetart recipe) because I like how smooth it is. However, feel free to use your favourite style of buttercream here

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How to Pipe Swiss Meringue Buttercream

I used an 845 ateco closed star tip (Slightly larger than a Wilton 2d) for the "stars" section of the cake. Then I used an 805 ateco round tip for the 'stripes' section. I used 3 large disposable piping bags, with a coupler on one of the bags so that I could switch from the round to the star tips easily for the white color of buttercream. You could easily use whatever tips you have on hand, and play around with the sizes! 

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The Perfect Vanilla Layer Cake

The Cake is an adaptation of of my favourite vanilla cake from the Ovenly cook book.  I have made it countless times so far and it turns out great every time. (It was even the bottom tier in our monster wedding cake). I have tried creating my own version of a vanilla cake a couple of times now, but nothing tops this one. That being said, any flavour cake will work perfectly inside this. You just want to make sure that you have two 8 inch cakes that are at least two inches tall each. This recipe can also be easily scaled if you are wanting something slightly smaller. I am sure that this style of cake would work amazingly with a 6 inch cake too! The Cake takes a while to cool so ensure that you plan ahead! 

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I would LOVE for you to leave me a review and star rating below to let me know how you liked it! Also, please make sure to tag me on Instagram!

Answers to your baking questions

Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:

I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!

American Flag Cake Recipe

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Banana Shortbread

This Banana Shortbread recipe is super easy to make. It has a brown butter shortbread base, and the dough is made with roasted banana. It is finished with a simple brown butter icing glaze

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Easy Banana Shortbread Recipe

Our holiday has nearly finished! Tomorrow we fly back to New York. I'm a little bummed its over, but I can't wait to get back! I've missed making food, and I have so many exciting collabs coming up that I can't wait to share!

This is a recipe that I came up with a couple of months ago. It took a whole load of tweaking until I was finally happy with it, but I can happily say that it tastes awesome (well, I think so anyway!).

Brown Butter would have to be one of my favourite things. I love how applicable it is to so many dishes, and how it adds an extra level of complexity to the flavour profile. I add it to almost everything I can, and this was no exception. The nuttiness in the brown butter pairs beautifully with the caramelised banana, and the whole thing is topped off with a brown butter based glaze.

How to make Banana Shortbread

I adapted my Great Grandmothers shortbread recipe to accommodate the banana and brown butter. It still loosely follows the 3:2:1 butter:sugar:flour ratio of traditional shortbread, but because of the banana it is slightly softer and less dry. Ideally it should be left in the oven to dry out for an hour or two to help it go a little more crunchy.

I like to use an oblong tart tin with a removable bottom that is approx 13 ¾"  4 ¼". This makes removing the shortbread before you glaze it really easy. If you don't have one of these, you can use a cake tin, just make sure that you line it well so that you are able to use the paper to remove the shortbread from the tin.

Feel free to decorate this any way you please! My absolute favourite way is with dried edible flowers, but it would look great plain, or with some simple sprinkles or dusted with icing sugar. Go nuts! (Or Bananas. Really I mean, go bananas)

❤️ Made this recipe and love it? ❤️

I would LOVE for you to leave me a review and star rating below to let me know how you liked it! Also, please make sure to tag me on Instagram!

Answers to your baking questions

Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:

I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!

Recipe For Banana Shortbread

Afghan Biscuits (Chocolate Cornflake Cookies)

These Afghan Biscuits are a New Zealand classic. Afghan Biscuits are a chocolate cornflake cookie, topped with a simple chocolate icing and a walnut. This Afghan Biscuit recipe is super easy to make and a crowd favourite, and also happen to be an egg free cookie recipe!

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Hi hi! I am just popping in to share this recipe for Afghans with you! This one holds a special place in my heart - it was one of the very first recipes that I published on this wee baking blog, and it was also the recipe that I used to make as a kid when I was learning to bake.

Afghan biscuits are a New Zealand classic - they are something people make all the time at home, but also something you'll find in a bakery. It is a simple chocolate cornflake cookie, topped with a classic chocolate icing (if you know about my shitty chocolate icing aka brownie frosting this is the same one!)

If you're after a quick, easy and delicious cookie that also happens to be egg free if that's something that you need, I got you covered! This recipe feels a bit weird when you are making it because it doesn't have eggs or any leavening but I promise it is correct.

creamed butter and sugar mixture
Creamed butter and sugar
add dry ingredients
Add in dry
add cornflakes
Cornflakes in
Finished dough
Dough in under 5 min!

Why are they called Afghans?

Look, the name is horrendous. I've searched and searched the internet and can't come up with a conclusive answer, but I cannot find any reliable sources that point to why Afghan biscuits have their name. However, I'm almost certain it doesn't come from a good place. Just acknowledging this - if you would like to call them chocolate cornflake cookies then go for it!

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Roll into balls then flatten
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They spread a wee bit!

How to finish an Afghan biscuit - chocolate or icing?!

This is divisive in New Zealand - some people put melted chocolate on their biscuits rather than icing. In my opinion this is not correct (except for the fully coated supermarket ones), and an Afghan biscuit has to be finished with chocolate frosting. If you have been here for any stretch of time you know the chokehold that my brownie frosting recipe has on my husband, so we of course use that. Make it as thick or as thin as you like depending on preference.

Afghans are always finished with a walnut half, but Adventure dad would like me to tell you he also sometimes swaps out the walnut for some sprinkles.

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Icing on top
finish with a walnut
Finish with a walnut!

❤️ Made this recipe and love it? ❤️

I would LOVE for you to leave me a review and star rating below to let me know how you liked it! Also, please make sure to tag me on Instagram!

Answers to your baking questions

Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:

I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!

Black Bean Brownie

This easy Black Bean Brownie is dairy free and vegan and filled with dark chocolate chunks. It is easy to make and will become your new favourite treat!

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Easy Gluten Free Vegan Brownie

This brownie is full of surprises. It is dense and chocolatey without being too gooey, its not over sweet, and the ribbons of dark chocolate through it tie everything together beautifully. The surprises come in the form of the ingredients. Not only does it happen to be vegan and gluten free, but it uses black beans as a base. If you would like to keep it refined sugar free, skip the chocolate and up the cocoa content. I was as sceptical as anyone when I came across a similar recipe, but was pleasantly surprised. The beans in it give it a lovely dense texture, and make it a teensy bit more guilt free (who are we kidding here, nobody makes brownies with this in mind). I love it with some greek yoghurt, or it is also amazing with some whipped coconut cream. 

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Notes for Vegan Black Bean Brownies

A few wee notes:

  • This makes a fairly small amount of brownie - I often double it, and bake it in a 9" tin for about 25-30 minutes.

  • It will look kind of under cooked when it is done - you want it to be just set! It will firm up nicely in the fridge.

  • You can also make this in 4" cake pans - it makes about 4 layers.

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For more Dairy Free Recipes, check out:

❤️ Made this recipe and love it? ❤️

I would LOVE for you to leave me a review and star rating below to let me know how you liked it! Also, please make sure to tag me on Instagram!

Answers to your baking questions

Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:

I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!

Recipe for Black Bean Brownie

I made a cute wee video of this which you can find on my instagram!

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