Alex M made this sponge cake for his girlfriend Talia for her birthday, and we all got to eat it. Ain't that nice!

Ingredients:

175g soft butter
175g sugar
3 eggs
175g self raising flour
1tsp of baking powder
1tsp of vanilla extract

jam
whipped cream
icing sugar

steps:

1/ Preheat your oven to 180c and grease two 18cm cake tins. Line the tins.

2/ Cream the butter & sugar until they are light and fluffy and your arm is sore. Beat in the eggs one at a tim...
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Mmm. Nice sweet-savoury snack to take down to Party Central tonight to see the All Blacks beat Les Bleus! (Postscript: NZ 37: France 17 woo ha!) See the full post on Heidi Swanson's site, www.101cookbooks.com. She just uses walnuts but I used walnuts, almonds, hazels and brazils.

1 cup / 5 oz / 140 g brown sugar or natural cane sugar
2 teaspoons fine grain sea salt
1 teaspoon chopped rosemary leaves
1/4 cup / 1 oz / 30g sesame seeds
2 large egg whites
1 lb / ~4 cups shelled walnut halves
1/...

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Congratulations Alessandra and Arantxa on your beautiful new book, Party Food for Girls! I was most delighted to attend the launch on the top floor of Lopdell House in Titirangi on Thursday. What a sight to enter the room and see a central table laden with expertly baked and decorated treats as featured in the book.




There were also tray and trays of delicious and healthy savoury snacks doing the rounds - corn chips and salsa, rice balls with Japanese herbs, crostini with hummus, tomatoes and ...
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This is easy and guaranteed to impress everyone.

Preheat oven to 170 C. Into a blender goes:

¾ c sugar

2 eggs

1 c plain yoghurt

¾ c oil

zest of 2 or 3 lemons

2 c self-raising flour (or 1 c ground almonds, 1 c semolina, 1 Tbs baking powder)

 

Blend until mixed. Pour into greased baking tin and bake for 45-60 mins until cooked through.

While cake is cooling, make a syrup by heating up in a pan the juice of 2 lemons and ¼ c sugar. Poke some holes on top of the ca...

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200 g butter or Olivani
1/4 c caster sugar
1 tsp lemon zest
3 eggs
1 1/2 c self-raising flour
1/2 c flour
1 c buttermik
370g jar lemon curd (I used my homemade grapefruit curd)
icing sugar to dust

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Line 12 muffin tins with paper cases.
Cream butter, sugar and zest for 10-12 min until pale and creamy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Sift combined flour into a bowl. Add half flour and half buttermilk to egg mixture and stir until combined. Add remainin...
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