i got myself a beautiful new book of cake recipes from an nyc bakery specialising in gluten-free and vegan baking. based in the lower east side, babycakes has been voted one of new york’s best cupcakes and has some pretty famous vegan and food-intolerant fans: zooey deschanel, natalie portman, pamela anderson, jason schwartzman…

once i get over the initial hurdle of sourcing some pretty far-out ingredients (what in the what is xanthan gum!?!), i’m pretty excited about trying out the corn bread, blueberry crumb cake and, of course, their famous frosting (which according to the book they sell unaccompanied inside tiny paper cups because customers love it so much – ew).

and i wonder if i’ll get better results if i do my hair real cute and bake to rock’n'roll tunes?

saturday was a boozy barbeque with the extended family at wategos beach, byron bay. by far the standout was my sister’s rendition of donna hay’s semifreddo, scooped into waffle cones and devoured under the hot afternoon sun.

ingredients
* 3 eggs
* 2 egg yolks, extra
* 1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped
* 1 cup (220g) caster sugar
* 1¾ cups (435ml) pouring cream
* choice of toppings: sis did one batch using 400g frozen raspberries, another with a large block of roughly chopped dark chocolate

method
1. place the eggs, egg yolks, vanilla and sugar in a large heatproof bowl. place over a saucepan of simmering water and whisk the mixture with a hand-held beater for 4−5 minutes or until heated, thick and pale.

2. remove from the heat and continue whisking until cool. whisk the cream until soft peaks form and gently fold into the egg mixture.

3. if using frozen raspberries, puree around 3/4 in a small food processor until smooth. take 2 cups of the custard cream mixture and fold through to combine.

4. stir through the raspberry puree mixture or 3/4 of the chopped chocolate (or both! imagine!) into the semifredoo mix and pour into a 3 litre-capacity dish.

5. sprinkle the unprocessed raspberries or the remaining chopped chocolate on top to decorate and freeze for 4-6 hours or until firm.