Devil's Food Cake

In most of the books about depression that I've come across, one of the key things to do in order to beat depression is regular exercise.

Ahhh... fuck.

At the beginning of the year, weighing 89.7kg (198lbs) and at a UK size 16-18 for clothes, I was at the heaviest and largest I have ever been in my life. I've managed to lose 2kg (5lbs) in about 5 weeks from just avoiding comfort eating. Not a big loss, but it's a start.

You see, I've always been a fatty. Even when I was at my smallest, a UK size 10-12 and wearing small to medium clothes, weighing 152lbs, I was still a fatty. My butt was too big and my stomach was just... anyway. I don't know if it's a distorted view of myself when I looked in the mirror, but all I saw were the bulges.

Anyway, with the realization that I've gained nearly a whole third of my original body weight, I decided that something had to be done. However, I refuse to give up baking, as it's my current form of therapy. There's just something about the systematic way of doing things, and watching your creation form into something visually, olfactorily and gustatorily pleasing that I find soothing.

So, I need to find the will-power to put my running shoes on and get out there again. I also need to get some discipline to curb the sweet-toothed monster within. Does anyone know where I can easily buy will-power and discipline? I think they forgot to give me even just a shred or sprinkling of either when I was being created.

I thought today's recipe title is so apt for my rant above.

For the cake, you'll be needing:
 180g butter
 1 3/4 cups caster sugar
 3 eggs
 1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
 1/2 cup plain flour
 1/2 tsp baking soda
 2/3 cup cocoa
 3 tsp dry instant coffee
 1/2 tsp red food colouring
 1/2 cup water
 1/2 cup milk

Line 2 round cake pans with baking paper. Preheat oven to 175C.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add your eggs in one at a time, making sure it's well blended before adding in the next egg.

In a separate bowl, sift flours, cocoa, baking soda.

In another separate bowl, mix together coffee powder, food colouring, water and milk.

I was having a duh! moment and thought I had a big enough bowl.

Anyway, in two batches, fold in dry ingredients and coloured coffee mixture into your butter mixture. Keep folding until there are no more lumps left. If you see some left no matter how many times you've folded, don't sweat. Because I did, and it didn't matter in the end anyway.

Transfer your cake batter on to the 2 pre-prepared baking pans. Bake for 30 minutes or until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean.

For the dark chocolate icing, you'll need:
60g dark chocolate
60g unsalted butter

While the cakes are baking in the oven, place a heat-proof bowl in a pot of boiling water, and melt the unsalted butter and dark chocolate. Once it's all melted, take it off the heat and kept stirring.

Note: to be honest, I wasn't a big fan of the taste. The dark chocolate I got was too bitter and strong. So, I mixed in cream and icing sugar, a little at a time, until I got the taste I wanted. 

Let the chocolate icing cool, but make sure to come back to it from time to time and stir. Don't worry, the mixture will eventually thicken to a spreadable consistency.

Once the cakes are baked and have cooled down, whip some cream in the electric mixer, and spread it on to the top of one of the cakes.

Sandwich the cream with the second cake layer. When your chocolate icing is thick enough, spread it on with a spatula.

She's a bit crumbly, but moist. The cream and icing may look thin but they're just right to compliment the cake.

Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

No, your eyes were not deceiving you. It's a cookie in a cookie. A friend from high school shared this recipe with me. She found it on Picky Palate. They don't take too long to make, and are pretty easy to bake as well.

I heard back from a job I've applied for, and found out they've scheduled me in for an interview on Thursday, so now I'm nervous as hell. I felt really stressed, so I thought I'd empty out my mind by keeping it busy. So I cranked up Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief on audio and started up the electric mixer.

The recipe says it makes 2 dozen large cookies, but I normally only end up with 14. My ice cream scooper must be too big. *shrug* This one takes about 1 hour and 30 minutes from prep to finish.

The recipe didn't specify which chocolate chips to use, but I normally use dark chocolate. If you choose to use milk chocolate, I'd recommend using less sugar, otherwise you can't really taste the chocolate flavour.

I must say, scooping up cookie dough and sandwiching the Oreos between them was fun. Reminded me a little of making mudpies.

They're truly huge. I kept mine slightly round and didn't flatten them as much. I think these were about 2 inches wide and thick.

The recipe says to bake them for about 9-13 minutes, but I guess since mine were really thick, they were only slightly golden after 15 minutes.

YUM. Hopefully I'll end up in a cookie coma and forget about how nervous I am.

Sponge Cake

When I'm depressed, I am my worst enemy. No matter how much I want to get better, I can easily defeat myself if I choose not to do anything. Taking the first step is not what I find most difficult. It's the on-going battle that leaves me so tired. 

It's been 8 years since I was first diagnosed with clinical depression, and I'm currently on the worst and longest episode I've ever experienced. Even though today was a really bad day, I still went into the kitchen and got on with it. The worst thing that a depressed person could do is do absolutely nothing.

So, I got the stuff I needed for a sponge cake (which is also known as the Victoria cake, named after by Queen Victoria, who liked having it with her afternoon tea):

 250g butter

 1 cup caster sugar

 1 tsp vanilla extract

 4 eggs (at room temperature)

 2 cups self-raising flour, sifted

 jam for filling

 icing sugar for dusting

I preheated the oven to 175C. I then got two round 20cm cake pans, lined it with baking paper, then sprayed it with cooking spray.

I combined the butter, sugar and vanilla with an electric mixer on medium speed. Once it was light and fluffy, I started adding the eggs in one at a time.

This time, I actually remembered to check first if the egg was fresh. I cracked it open into a separate bowl before adding it in to the butter mixture. I once made the mistake of cracking an egg open straight into a mixture, and well... rotten egg and all ended up in the rubbish bin.

Anyway, when I had added in all the eggs, I started to panic mildly when my butter mixture turned into an unpleasantly lumpy consistency. However, I soldiered on and transferred everything into a larger bowl.

After adding in the flour in two batches, I had a doughy consistency, much to my relief. I then proceeded to transfer the mixture as equally as possible between the two baking pans.

I had another bout of panic because the mixture was so sticky, it wasn't sitting quite right in my pans, no matter how I tried to spread them out. However, not to worry, spread them out as best you can, because it'll spread out further once in the oven.

I popped those babies into the oven for 20 minutes, and took them out once the knife I slid in came out clean.

I lifted the cakes out from the pans and put them on wire racks to cool.

Once cool enough to touch, I turned one of the cakes over on to a plate, took off the baking paper and spread raspberry jam on top. You can use whichever jam you prefer, or cream filling, or both.

I decided to go with raspberry jam only. I then turned the other cake over on top, and sprinkled it with icing sugar on top. Too bad I couldn't find any paper doilies to make a pattern above.

Ta-da. It's nice, light, airy and not too dry. The sweetness was just right too. But I'm more of a moist cake fan, and the amount of butter put me off a little, so I don't think I'm going to be making this one too often.

As for my mood, it's no better than when I started. But the sense of accomplishment is so much better than  simply choosing to do nothing.

Lemon Meringue Pie

I looooooove lemon meringue pies. If I go to a cafe and it's on the menu, no matter how tempting the other desserts sound, I always go for the lemon meringue pie. I love how the tartness of lemons and sweetness of meringues combines with the crumbly, buttery base.


In fact, I would have baked this first if I hadn't left my trusty recipe box back in Auckland. However, my mother handed me some baking books to get me through until I receive my copy of Saved by Cake (23 days until the release date!). I perused through The Australian Women's Weekly Sweet Old-Fashioned Favourites and pretty much jumped out of my chair and went straight into the kitchen as soon as I found the recipe for lemon meringue pie.


For this one, you'll have to set aside a good chunk of your afternoon, as there's lots of waiting time in between. But I guess if you're a bit pressed for time, you can spread it out over two days.


Anyway, here's what you'll need for the base:
 1 1/2 cups plain flour
 3 tsp icing sugar
 140g butter
 1 egg yolk, lightly beaten
 2 tbsp water

There were no instructions for preheating the oven, but I did it anyway, at 175C. 

I've never made my own pastry base before, so I was a bit excited. I used to just buy the ready made pastry sheets from the supermarket and use those. Anyway, if you decide to make your own, instructions are to sift the flour and icing sugar into a bowl, and rub in the butter.

Rub in butter? I've never heard of that before. So my rubbing in ended up  more like 'smushing' the butter in. Then I added in the egg yolk and the water, as per instructions, to make the ingredients combine better.

Then I kneaded the dough in flour and rolled it into a ball, then covered it up in gladwrap and chucked it into the fridge for 30 minutes.

After half an hour, I rolled it out in flour, just to the rough size that I needed to line my baking tin. I felt so professional, using a rolling pin!

Well, I didn't really have a pie dish to work with, or a flan tin as specified in the instructions, so I just used a regular rectangle baking tin. It only said to grease the tin, but I always use baking paper when I bake. It's easier to lift goodies out of the tin and to clean afterwards. Anyway, instructions are to blind bake for 10 minutes, then a further 10 minutes without the additional paper and beans (or whatever you choose to blind bake with - I used macaroni shells).

Well, she's not pretty, but she smells good. Note to self: purchase pie tin asap.


While the pastry was cooling, I started on the filling, which needed:


 1/2 cup cornflour
 1 cup caster sugar
 1/2 cup lemon juice
 1 1/4 cups water
 2 tsp grated lemon rind
 3 egg yolks
 60g unsalted butter

Instructions were to combine cornflour and sugar in a pan, then gradually stir in lemon juice and water, and keep stirring until smooth. Then I placed the pan on the stove over medium heat and kept stirring until the mixture became thick and started boiling. Once it was thick, I put the heat down low and let it simmer for 30 seconds while continuously stirring. The instructions then said to remove from heat, then quickly stir in the rind, yolks and butter, and to keep stirring until butter is melted. Cover, and cool to room temperature.


I couldn't resist tasting it while it was still hot though. Mmm... so yummy. :) As for the meringue, well, I didn't do it until about an hour after, since I was waiting for the filling to cool.


For the meringue, you need:


 3 egg whites
 1/2 cup caster sugar

Instructions were to beat the egg whites with electric mixer until soft peaks form and to gradually add the sugar in.

You have no idea how excited I was to put it all together.

The filling was so thick and gooey, it was quite easy to spread across the pastry base.

Then the meringue... and once I covered the filling with the meringue, off the whole thing went to the oven for 5 minutes.

Just until it was lightly toasted. Mmm mmm mmm...

The effort put in was so worth it. And the taste?

It's like sunshine in a slice. Best lemon meringue recipe I've ever come across. Definitely a keeper!