Sunday, March 28, 2010

Weekend Wind Down

One of my favourite weekend activities is to bake something. There's nothing quite like curling up on a Sunday afternoon to watch a movie, read a book or just have some friends over and enjoy the fresh baked smell of a cake, some muffins or cookies - not to mention actually eating them.

I have decided to share my weekly baking adventures...let me know what you think.

Double Chocolate Cookies












I made these as a quick greeting gift for someone - and I really mean quick. 10 minutes to prepare, 8 minutes to cook, 5 minutes to cool and you're basically done.

Ingredients:
250g of good dark chocolate in pieces
250g of unsalted butter cubed
3/4 cup of brown sugar
1 egg
1 1/4 cups of plain flour
1 tsp of baking powder

Preheat the oven to 180*C.
Melt the chocolate and butter over a double boiler (or if you're in a hurry like me, just pop it in the microwave and check the mixture after two intervals of 40 seconds).
In a separate bowl, box the egg and the brown sugar until well combined. Add the chocolate mixture and mix well.
In another bowl, combine the flour and baking powder then add to the chocolate/egg/sugar bowl.
Once everything is well combined, put in the fridge to chill for ideally 20 minutes (or 5 minutes in the freezer if you're impatient like me).
Prepare two baking sheets with grease-proof paper and using a teaspoon, roll small balls of the dough 5 cm apart from eachother.
Cook for 7-10 minutes depending on how strong your oven is.
Once the cookies have cooked and cooled (and they will not be very firm straight out of the oven - they need to cool for a good 5 minutes), dip half of each cookie in the chocolate of your choice and let set.

A fool-proof way to impress.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Up Up Down Under

Most of you would not know that over the past year I have decided to pursue two of my favourite things:
The first is to spend even more hours on the phone with my mother, and the second is to work in design - interior design, that is. 

Since joining my mother's side - we have worked on projects all around the world, from Morocco to Bahrain, and Russia to just down the road here in Sydney.
Here is a look at our first cover story here in Australia which came out in January of this year which features a beautiful home we decorated in London. (INSITE - SUMMER 09/10)





Tuesday, March 16, 2010

It's Been A While...

...But for real - we're back.

We've been busy for the past few months and have some exciting things in store.