Money Saving Meals

A Generous Helping

Friday, 05 August 2011

'Good food is an opportunity to help others smile and feel loved' writes Sister Germana in her classic: When Angels Cook. Up in Queensland this year, they have been showing just how true this is.

On 10 January 2011, when flash flooding hit the Lockyer Valley, Danielle Crismani aka Digella used her blog to rally a battalion of home cooks to provide Baked Relief to those in the hardest hit areas. This has to be the big food story of 2011. Danielle's teams of home cooks prepared and delivered food to SES volunteers, flood victims and anyone helping sand bag, rescue or clean up. They baked every sweet and savoury slice known to man and delivered their supplies plus bottled water with army-like precision all thanks to online co-ordination via blogging, Facebook and Twitter.

Now comes A Generous Helping   from Madonna King and Alison Alexander (ABC Books). This collection of 150 treasured recipes gathered post-floods from neighbours, family and friends in Queensland attempts to regain what so many lost – recipe books that had been passed down through the families. 'This cookbook is about more than 150 recipes,' says Madonna King 'It's about rebuilding what we had, sharing something from our homes and knowing we are doing that with big lashings of love.' The publisher is paying all royalties to the Premier's Disaster Relief appeal.

There are recipes for light meals and mains, side dishes, desserts and tea-time treats. But I think it's appropriate that the one we share with Money Saving Meals readers is Digella's Cupcakes.

Digella's Cupcakes

'These cupcakes have been adapted from a recipe by my idol, Nigella Lawson and are my favourite recipe of all time. 'These simple cupcakes scored me the name Digella from work colleagues. Since turning baker in 2006, these cupcakes have been provided in abundance at many events and, due to my passion, Baked Relief was born. Put simply, a cupcake is life changing.'

Cupcakes

1 cup (250g) unsalted butter
1 cup (250g) caster sugar
1¾ cups self-raising flour
4 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
5 tbsp milk

Butter cream icing

½ cup (125g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1¾ cups (200g) icing mixture, sifted
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tbsp milk

Preheat oven to 200ºC (400ºF). Line a 24-hole cupcake pan with paper cases.

Put all the cupcake ingredients except the milk in a food processor and blitz until smooth. Keep the processor running while you add the milk down the funnel.

Spoon the mixture evenly into the paper cases and bake in the oven for 15–20 minutes, taking care not to overcook – a little underdone makes for a nice moist cake. Remove cupcakes from oven and allow to cool on a wire rack.

For the icing, cream the butter until very pale – almost white– in colour, scraping down the sides of the bowl a couple of times. Add about half the sifted icing mixture and beat until combined. Add the vanilla, milk and remaining icing mixture.

Ice cooled cakes and decorate with a sweet little icing rose, some sprinkles or even a berry.