Photo Fest: Up Close and Personal with Tisa
Posted: January 17, 2012 Filed under: Cupcakes and Creations, Life in Chile | Tags: cafe, Cafe Tisa, Photos, reveal 8 Comments »Ok, I know it’s been months since I posted the last development photos, but these ones are the real deal! We are all done, dusted, finished and ready to open our doors! Unfortunately we still have a few bureaucratic hoops to jump through, but that can’t stop me from virtually welcoming you to Cafe Tisa! Enjoy!
Upside Down Apple Walnut Muffins
Posted: December 20, 2011 Filed under: Cupcakes and Creations | Tags: apple, Baking and Confections, Cooking, Muffin, upside down, walnut 1 Comment »
The above title is exactly what I typed in to google to try to find a recipe for these. Guess what I found?
Zilch. Zip. Zero.
I was shocked and awed!! There were many variations of the upside down cake/muffin. Pineapple seems to be a popular choice, and I actually found several recipes that had this muffin in a different order – walnut cake with apple topping. Somehow, it just didn’t appeal.
I was looking for something soft, tender and juicy for the cake, with a sweet and crunchy upside-down topping. In the end, I had to wing it.
For a first try they didn’t turn out too badly, but I learnt some lessons:
1. I think that they would look better in a bigger muffin pan. The bottoms of mind aren’t big enough to show off their walnuty goodness.
2. I need to further research how to obtain the perfect sugar butter mixture to hold the nuts in place . I’m looking for something that ends up nice and shiny, even better if it crystallizes into a sheet!
3. Next time I might try chopping the nuts up a bit. I thought they would be more impressive left whole, but I might get a more even covering using smaller pieces.
Apart from these learning curves, they turned out ok! I found that they went perfectly with a hot cup of tea at about 5 o clock!
Have any of you had experience baking upside-down cakes or muffins? What happened?
Gooey Sticky Chocolate Mud Cupcakes
Posted: December 17, 2011 Filed under: Cupcakes and Creations | Tags: Baking and Confections, Cake, Chocolate, chocolate ganache, chocolate mud, Cooking, Cupcake 1 Comment »
The cafe is almost finished!!! It’s so exciting, and the guys who have been working on it for us have been doing such a good job, that last weekend I decided to whip up a bunch of these for them. This recipe is actually for a cake, but I changed it to cupcakes so that they would be a bit easier to eat. Sadly, I arrived too late… they had already finished for the day! Luckily for those who actually did end up eating them!
This mix is unbelievably rich, dense and moist. Top that with a smidge of chocolate ganache, and this a chocolate explosion!
Unfortunately, not all went so smoothly with the transformation from cake to cupcake. Because it truly is so moist, it becomes a bit delicate to handle. I filled the muffin tins to the top so they ended up with a nice top on them. Sadly, this was the downfall for some of them:
However, I baked about 5 in slightly bigger molds (it was a really big mix!) and their tops stayed nice and flat, even though they rose higher than the edges. I think that the flat top works better for this particular cupcake.
In any case, whatever shape they were in, the taste sensation remains! Just make sure you save this one for a special occasion!
From an old magazine clipping in my mum’s wonderful collection of recipes:
Sweet Treats From Down Under: Yo-Yos
Posted: November 25, 2011 Filed under: Cupcakes and Creations | Tags: baking, cookies, edmonds, Kiwi, NZ, sweets, Yo-yo 4 Comments »
I’m going to make a sweeping statement, backed up by no evidence at all, and say that yo-yos have got to be the favourite for most Kiwis. My evidence is that when I told mum that I was making them the other day, the response was “oooohhhhh….. yuuuuummmmmmm!!!!” Now, considering mum isn’t really that into sweets, yo-yos must be pretty awesome. It must be something to do with the way the biscuit crumbles, yet at the same time melts in your mouth… and then of course there is the creamy, vanilla, custard filling.. need I say more?
Obviously, like most Kiwi favourites, the best recipe is found in the Edmonds cookbook:
I absolutely love mine… the great mix of having all of those old recipes that go back generations, plus my yearning for anything that tweaks at my kiwi nostalgia means that I am constantly drawn to this book; usually with delicious results!
Custard powder is one of those omnipresent ingredients in NZ which we take for granted, yet barely exists here! I usually stock up on a few boxes each trip home, although I have found a couple of random little sachets of what I believe is the same thing… still, there’s nothing like Edmonds!
Anyway, fill your cookie jar up with these bad boys, and I guarantee they will be gone before you know it!
What are your favourite sweet treats from home?
Cafe Tisa Coming To Life
Posted: November 22, 2011 Filed under: Cupcakes and Creations, Life in Chile | Tags: Business, cafe, Construction and Maintenance, Tisa 1 Comment »It’s been a few weeks since I posted the first pictures showing the preliminary stages of how our cafe is transforming, so this post will show a bit of a time lapse, with the last photos being taken today!
The view from the front door.
From the back of the building… our two new doors!
The freshly tiled bathrooms..
Now.. these next ones were taken this afternoon:
OK! Thats all until we finish!! I will leave all future pics for the final unveiling which will hopefully be happening in about 3 weeks time! Wish us luck!
Keep it Kiwi – Cafe Tisa challenges the future Chef’s and Baker’s of NZ
Posted: October 26, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: All Black, baking, celebration, Challenge, Cooking, Kiwi, New Zealand 21 Comments »Back in NZ, I have a wonderful friend who dedicates her life to educating the future. As a teacher, it is her job to find stimulating ways to provide a well rounded education for our kiwi kids. When she came to me with the idea of challenging her students with a recipe for their technology unit, I was immediately in!
The challenge for me was to think of a way to make this fun, exciting and accessible to her students. While a Daring Kitchen type challenge may be fun, accessibility would certainly be an issue. So how to make it relevant? Halloween is too close, and christmas too far… but then the answer fell like a miracle kick from Piri..
Following the incredible success of our All Black heroes, their challenge is to create a dish fit for a celebration!
Image via Wikipedia
So what are the criteria?
- The dish ABsolutely must be, or have an ingredient which is emblematically kiwi: Think kiwi fruit, kumara, pavlova; let your minds run wild! As long as you can explain why it is kiwi, you can use it.
- The dish must be fit for a celebration. Something you can bring to a party, or give as a gift.
- Give yourselves a pseudonym. This is an interactive challenge. That means that the students can comment on the blog, I can talk about their progress and at the end, parts of their reflections and photos will be shared. Due to privacy issues we don’t want to use real names, so be creative! It might be the name you wish you’d been called when you were born, a superhero name, the name of your cat… whatever! Just have fun with it!
So what do you say cook’s and baker’s? Are you in?
Sweet Hearts
Posted: October 24, 2011 Filed under: Cupcakes and Creations | Tags: Baking and Confections, cafe, Cake, Cheesecake, Cream cheese, treat, valentines 2 Comments »
With the countdown to opening time coming closer and closer, I’ve been trying to make sure that my menu is 100% ready and foolproof… I want anyone to be able to follow the recipes! Most of the things that I intend on having on sale in the cafe are things that I’m already pretty confident with, but there are a few things that I have heard time and time again that I absolutely must have that I’m not so sure of – and one of those things was cheesecake.
Although I’ve always liked cheesecake, it’s not something that I’ve ever made a lot of. I think part of it is the fact that I don’t often have occasion to do so. And having a whole cheesecake to get through in the fridge with the two of us isn’t such a good idea! In any case, this one will be cut up and delivered around after we have done the official taste test!
One of the main reasons I need to try out these recipes is to work out how they go with the ingredients I have here, the size of the tins and the heat that I will need to use to cook. I found out with this recipe that I didn’t have enough biscuit base to use all of the filling, so I was left with a fair amount of filling which I couldn’t bear to throw away! I didn’t have any base left either, so I decided to fill these cute little heart shaped, silicon cupcake holders that I hadn’t used yet. It was a bit tricky getting them in and out of the oven due to the floppiness of the cases, but as long as they were treated delicately they turned out perfectly!
I topped them with the caramel sauce I made for the main cheesecake, and little heart strawberries (yay berries!). I think they’re perfect for a little valentines treat, or just to say I think you’re awesome any time of the year!
Early Berry Bonanza
Posted: October 19, 2011 Filed under: Cupcakes and Creations, Life in Chile | Tags: baking, Berries, Cooking, Frambuesa, Raspberry 3 Comments »Summer is definitely in the air. The last couple of weeks definitely could have fooled me – I even had to put the feather duvet back on our bed! But today I am back in shorts, and summer is definitely in the air.
My favourite part of summer is the absolute abundance of fresh, colourful berries. Every summer, I am spoilt with as many blueberries as I can possibly eat and fit in the fridge! Needless to say there are a lot of blueberry muffins/tarts/crumbles etc going on here during November and December! But there are also many varieties of wonderful berries to be had at a fraction of what I’m used to paying back in NZ! Even so, I think we can all agree that the best ones are the ones you grow yourself – so last week we stopped at a roadside vivero and bought a cute little raspberry bush! The lady told us that it wouldn’t bear fruit until next year, but as of today a little cluster of flowers have sprouted out so we may be in luck!
Anyway, whether they grow into berries or not, it set me off onto a mad raspberry cooking spree, where among others a raspberry coffee cake, raspberry-apple crumble and white chocolate and raspberry muffins came tumbling out of the kitchen! Unfortunately I had to use frozen berries as we haven’t quite entered the season – but it’s just to get me in practice!
One of our wedding presents was this really cute cupcake decorating set, I decided to make a surprise for Titi with them:
Basically, I can’t wait for the street stalls to be overflowing with berry bounty! But in the meantime, help me satiate my berry appetite.. what are your favourite summer berry recipes?
Cafe Tisa Grows Some Roots
Posted: October 17, 2011 Filed under: Life in Chile, Uncategorized | Tags: Bathroom, cafe, Cafe Renovation, Construction and Maintenance, kitchen, Tisa 1 Comment »So, I know I’ve once again partaken in a short, bloggy absence – but it must have been much longer than I thought! Upon deciding that it was high time I reentered the blogosphere I was greeted with a whole host of changes to the layout of wordpress! It seems that once I get used to these changes they will be wonderful, alas for the time being I am muddling my way through, so please excuse any oddities (excellent scapegoat for now!).
Although it’s no reason not to be posting, we have been very busy here with Cafe Tisa – in fact as we speak it is becoming a physical place as well as existing in cyber space! Just over a week ago, we finally started on the construction of what will become Cafe Tisa over the next couple of months. So far, we have the outlines of the kitchen and bathrooms, and the majority of the electrical work done. I’ve been very snap happy in recording all of these happy memories, so I can share them with you all here! Unfortunately I wasn’t forward thinking enough to take a proper photo of the “before” stage, so we will have to rely on a couple that Titi took with his phone:
This is from the front of the cafe, looking to the back. The only construction that was there was a bit of a bathroom and shower area (this place used to be a small gym). We have knocked all of that over except for two small bathrooms in the corner.
This is the inside of the construction you could see in the last photo.
This is what it looked like from the front as they started to create the walls of the kitchen and bathrooms.
Inside what will be the kitchen.
Giant hole in the kitchen…looking for the existing drains.
It ended up being a tunnel.
So we are definitely moving! The estimated opening is December 2011… I will continue to keep you posted!
Mandarin Mint Morning Glory
Posted: September 13, 2011 Filed under: Cupcakes and Creations | Tags: Beverages, fresh juice, freshly squeezed, fruit juice, mandarin, mint 1 Comment »
Mandarins seem to be everywhere at the moment, and even though I love the sweet tang to snack on, I didn’t seem to be making much head way through the huge bag I bought last week.
It had been sitting in the back of my mind for the last couple of days that I should try to find some form of baking to use them up, but for the life of me I couldn’t think of anything!
This morning I opened the fridge, and while there wasn’t a lot staring back at me, there were the mandarins – along side a package of fresh mint that was in equal danger of going to waste. They looked great together!
I don’t think that oranges are in danger of being replaced by these bright beauties. Generally it would’t be the most cost effective juice to make, but while they’re in season simply begging to be bought, I say indulge and try this great morning lift!
Make sure you give the mint a good grind in a mortar and pestle first!
Mix the crushed mint with crushed ice in a glass, and pour over your freshly squeezed mandarin juice!
With a start like this to the day, it’s hard not to feel like spring is in the air!
