Little Box Brownie

A Baking Blog from Melbourne, Australia

Recipe

For the love of Ice Cream

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Tia Maria Ice Cream

Ice cream would have to be in my top 10 favourite foods, I can’t resist an ice cream on a hot day, of which we have had plenty in the past few weeks. I love recipes that are also easy to make and this one is first class, the easiest ice cream ever! With only four ingredients. If you needed a quick dessert you could not freeze it and serve it as a mousse as the mixture is simply delicious on its own.

This recipe has a lug of Tia Maria in it, in which the alcohol is not cooked off, so be warned it is not child friendly. I had originally planned on a Baileys ice cream, however realised when I got home that my Baileys had vanished, so I used Tia Maria instead which I have to say tasted pretty good. Feel free to use which ever they both taste great or leave it out if you prefer no alcohol.
Oh I forgot to mention this is a no churn ice cream! So you don’t need an expensive ice cream machine, or to wait up half the night taking your mixture out of the freezer in order to whisk it, like I did with the last ice cream I featured. It comes out light and fluffy and best of all no ice crystals to ruin your mixture.

Tia Maria Ice Cream

600ml thickened cream
200ml condensed milk
1/4cup dutch cocoa powder
1/4cup tia maria

Put all the ingredients into a bowl and whisk until soft peaks form. Then spoon the mixture into a suitable container, that can withstand freezing.
Place in the freezer for 3 hours, or until set. 

I would like to say a huge thank you to each and everyone of you who has visited my blog in the last week, it has exploded. I have had many exciting firsts! I have had followers, I have had comments and I have had lots of visits from people near and far, who have never meet me. So a huge, huge thank you for visiting and your comments. I hope you all call back again.

A little Piece of Heaven

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This little cake is from christmas, I thought it was about time I got around to posting it. For Christmas one year my boyfriend brought me the box set of Nigella’s DVD’s. So as my fairly newish tradition I like to watch her DVD’s and flick through her cook books each Christmas, to gain inspiration for the christmas meal. This next recipe is adapted from her Guinness Chocolate Cake recipe that is in her Feast cookbook.

The cake is so beautiful and moist, and it lasts for ages. It has a fairly strong smell of Guinness, which to a none Guinness drinking person may be off putting, but take one bite and you’ll surly change your mind, well I certainly did.
Guinness Cake

Chocolate cake

Guinness Chocolate


1 1/2 cups Guinness
1/4 cup cocoa
200g butter
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 eggs 
3/4 cup buttermilk
3 cups flour
1 teaspoons baking soda


Pre heat the oven to 180°C

Place Guinness, cocoa, and butter into a saucepan and heat on a medium heat until the butter melts.
Place the sugar, eggs and buttermilk into a bowl and beat with and electric mixer until combined. Pour the guinness mix into the  buttermilk mixture and stir until incorporated. Sift in the flour and soda and whisk until combined. Then pour into a lined 20cm round cake tin and bake for 45 minutes or until cooked. 
Chocolate Ganache 

300g of dark chocolate 
1/2 cup of thick cream
25g butter

Place the ingredients into a bowl and place over a saucepan of water, or if you happen to have a double boiler use that, heat until the butter and chocolate melt. Let stand for 5 or 10 minutes.

To decorate cut the cake in half and fill with whipped cream and fruit of your choosing. Sandwich the cakes together then pour over the ganache  and top with more fruit.

Cake recipe adapted from Nigella

Chocolate and berry cake

Chocolate cake

Chocolate and fruit

Pomegranate Granita

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It got to a whooping 41°C here in Melbourne yesterday, when you walk out side from air conditioned comfort you feel like your skin is being roasted alive. The heat and the humidity are awful. 
If you come form a colder climate you have know idea of how hot it can get. When I first moved from New Zealand to Cairns in Queensland. I remember the feeling of walking out of the airport and the heat just hitting me. I remember thinking I felt like I was in an indoor pool when the air is thick and it feels like its a bit harder to breath than normal, you feel like you have to get out, but can’t. 
So to cool down you need lots of icy drinks, plenty of ice cream and a few of this next dish an Granita.

Pomegranate Granita
236ml of pomegranate juice (I used a bottle of Pom Wonderful)
1 cup of freshly squeezed orange juice

Place the juices into a flat tray about 20×30 cm. Then place in the frezzer. When completely frozen get two forks and scratch into the ice to form little shards of snow. Serve in a cup or bowl.

Lamb Massaman Curry

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I’m sitting here wine in one hand and my second helping of a Massaman curry in the other. I just had to get this recipe up here for you to try. It is… well, its brilliant (even if I do say so myself) Its one for the recipe cards 🙂

I first fell in love with Thai food about 12 years ago when I was a vegetarian (it lasted 5 years, pretty good effort I think). My friend, who still is a vegetarian, and I would go to this great Thai restaurant down the road Thai on High, at least once a week if not more. They served the best vego food.

On a recent visit back to Brisbane I of course had to go to this little restaurant for my favourite dishes. Sadly since moving to Melbourne I am yet to find a Thai restaurant that makes a decent pad see eww, so have had to find a new fav dish and that dish is of course a Massaman curry.

I thought I would give this little curry a whirl, as I had a leg of lamb sitting in the freezer screaming to be used, and some pineapple juice left over from cocktails. I however have to admit right here, that I cheated, Yes thats right I cheated, I brought the massaman paste and did not venture to make my own. The joys of living in a fast paced world.

Massaman curry

1 tablespoon of oil
1 brown onion
1 french shallot 
1 leg of lamb
2 teaspoons chinese five spice
massaman curry paste (I used a tin of maesir 114g)
2 cups of pineapple juice
1 tin 400ml of coconut cream
2 cups of chicken stock (its all I had)
4 medium potatoes
3 cardamon pods 
1 cup of peanuts

Place a cast iron pot, one that is big enough for a leg of lamb and one that can go into the oven on the stove top and heat the oil. Brown the onions and then cook the lamb on all sides until slightly browned. Place the spice, paste, pineapple juice, cream and stock into the pot and stir to combine. Peal and chop the potatoes and place them in as well. Put into the oven and cook for 3 hours. After 1.5 hours remove from the oven and turn the leg over and throw in the peanuts. 

Once cooked remove from the oven and skim off the excess oil, before serving on a bed of rice around a table of friends and family. Then sit back and watch them devour it. 



empty plate