Category: Homemade Recipes

The chocolate, beer and yogurt cake with peanut butter frosting!

Otherwise known as Perfection.

Cause seriously, what is not perfect about a cake that combines the best of chocolate, beer, yogurt and wait for it, peanut butter in one whole package?

# – Perfection.

I adapted the recipe (originally called Chocolate Stout Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting) from Donna Hay’s 50th issue, where I replaced stout with lager, sour cream with yogurt and smooth peanut butter with chunky peanut butter.

I love this Donna Hay magazine! If you remembered, I also adapted a very successful chocolate buttermilk layer cake from it.

Anyway, this cake is fluffy and so moist (I suspect that’s the work of the yogurt) with a hint of beer and taste of the chocolate enhanced and heightened by the bitterness from the lager. With the very peanut-ty peanut butter frosting, each spoonful of cake is simply sublime…beautiful!

I particularly love eating it while watching an episode of Glee.

Everyone is bound to like either chocolate, beer, yogurt or peanut butter, so this cake is a sure-winner. If you know of anyone who doesn’t like either one of these…please let me know because I’d really love to shove a lightbulb down their throats because they need to lighten up!

Without further ado, lets see how perfection is attained…

For the cake:

  • 125 ml of beer
  • 115 grams of butter, chopped
  • 35 grams of cocoa powder, sifted
  • 1 egg
  • 80 grams of plain yogurt
  • 150 grams of flour, sifted
  • 3/4 teaspoon of bicarbonate soda, sifted
  • 180 grams of caster sugar

For the frosting:

  • 160 grams of icing sugar
  • 280 grams of chunky peanut butter
  • 80 grams of butter, softened
  • 80 ml of whipping cream

# – First, heat up a pot and pour the beer into it.

# – Then, throw in the butter and stir till butter has melted.

# – Next, sift the cocoa powder into the beer butter mixture.

# – Whisk till all’s combined. Remove from heat and set aside.

# – Now, in a bowl, break an egg into the yogurt. I can’t stop staring at this picture. Egg yolk gazing should be adopted as a therapeutic treatment.

# – Whisk till they are completely combined. Set aside.

# – Sift the flour and bicarbonate of soda into a mixing bowl. Add the caster sugar too.

# – Now, pour the eggy yogurt mixture into the flour mixture…

# – Followed by the beery chocolaty buttery mixture.

# – Whisk till everything is combined. Now, you’ve got your cake batter!

# – Donna Hay said pour into a loaf pan but because I’m such a rebel, I poured it into a round cake tin lined with parchment paper. Whatever works for you, I say. Stick it into a pre-heated oven at 160 degrees celcius for 1 hour 10 minutes or till cooked (stick a skewer into the cake and pull it out, if there’s no sticky bits means it’s done).

# – When the cake is done, turn it out to cool completely. I’m sorry I’ve got a cracked cake but I prefer to look at it as maximum frosting absorption!

# – Now, it’s time for my favourite part. Frosting!!! Dump the icing sugar, peanut butter and butter into a mixing bowl.

# – Beat till all are combined and creamy.

# – Then, pour in the whipping cream.

# – Beat again till it’s fluffy and creamy and yummy.

# – Set cake and frosting side by side like this. (Okay you don’t really have to do this exactly.)

# – Lay the frosting onto the cake and frost the heck out of it!

# – The chocolate, beer, yogurt and peanut butter cake A.K.A Perfection, DONE!

# – In the background is how the original cake is supposed to look like but I prefer mine obviously because I have more frosting, teeheehee.

I kept the cake in the fridge for about a week and it still tasted so delicious! As the BF said, “this is the kind of good that can’t be bought outside”. Make it happen!

Succulent beef burgers from scratch, woohoo!

I saw a handbag on an online shopping site. I wanted it so bad. It would cost me an arm and leg though….

So I made beef burgers to bribe the man. I got the handbag….with a dress to boot.

Ladies, these burgers work!

The ingredients:

  • 400g beef mince
  • 1 small red onion, peeled 
and finely chopped
  • 1 tablespoon of mustard powder
  • 1 tablespoon of ketchup
  • 1 teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce
  • Few dashes of Tabasco sauce
  • Sea salt & ground 
black pepper

# – Throw the finely chopped red onion and minced beef into a mixing bowl.

# – Add a tablespoon of ketchup.

# – Followed by a tablespoon of mustard powder. Of course, you can squeeze yours out from a plastic bottle if you want. Who can tell the difference?

# – Don’t forget a dash of Worcestershire sauce.

# – As well as a couple of dashes of Tabasco sauce for kicks.

# – Most importantly, season with some sea salt.

# – And also black pepper.

Now, go wash your hands properly because…

# – You have to stick them into the bowl to mix everything up till combined. Massaging minced meat is one of the most therapeutic things to do, trust me.

# – Remember, till they’re all combined into a lump of gorgeousness.

# – Now shape them into 4 burger patties. Stick them into the fridge for 30 minutes to firm them up. Not too long as you don’t want the patties to dry up!

# – Then, heat up a well greased griddle and then lay all four patties on it for about 3 minutes.

# – Flip them over to cook the other sides, also about 3 minutes. You can cook them longer if you prefer your beef well done.

# – Remove from heat and onto the homemade burger buns (might post the recipe for this). Feeling fancy? Put it on a lettuce and drizzle some mayo all over…

# – Not fancy enough? Stick a slice of fresh tomato on top.

# – And don’t forget fries. Fries, very, very critical, this one!

# – And then bite onto a deliciously juicy, flavourful homemade burger made with love (and /cough/ materialistic /cough/ intention).

And that, is how you make your man buy you an expensive bag. Willingly ;)

My favourite dessert in the world – the mango meringue mess

I love my desserts. I need dessert after every dinner. To me, a dinner without dessert is not a complete meal. I’m not particular about it with breakfast or lunch, but every dinner should end with something sweet, be it a fizzy drink, a fruit or pudding.

If I didn’t have dessert after dinner, I’d often end up having a massive, unhealthy supper. So I eat desserts to keep my body in reasonable condition. It is true!

Of all desserts, my favourite is the mango meringue mess. It’s essentially a mango version of Eton Mess, which is made with assortment of berries. I love it so much I could eat it every evening, if it weren’t for occasional concerns about the 35% fat content in whipped cream. And when that happens, I substitute cream with plain yogurt…and my life is beautiful again :D

For a 2 people serving, you need:

  • 2 mangoes, cubed and divided into 2 bowls
  • 100 ml of whipping cream, whipped till fluffy
  • About 6 fistfuls of crumbled meringues

Lets begin the journey to heaven…

# – Mangoes, meringues & cream – only 3 ingredients for the best dessert of your life!

# – Pour 100 ml of whipping cream and beat till double stiff and double in size.

# – Divide the cream equally into each bowl of cubed mangos. Check out my tutorial for easy and quick cubing of mangoes here.

# – Then, divide the crumbled meringues equally into each bowl. Learn how to bake meringues with no stress here.

# – Lastly, you mix them all up so that every spoon has a perfect balance of mangoes, cream and meringues.

Now, savour the bowl of heaven and after that, you bake more meringues, buy more mangoes and stock up on whipping cream! That’s how we roll it.

P/S: don’t forget to hide the scale!!!