Lyndey Milan's Baking Secrets

Episode 1 begins with muffins three ways. Different flavors, which are perfect for picnics & lunchboxes for you and the kids. With my savory spinach muffins with a walnut rosemary streusel, peach and raspberry swirl and corn & jalapeno, there’s a muffin for everyone’s taste buds!

This episode’s baking tip is on keeping your cake board clean while decorating. Ever ice a cake only to find that your board is absolutely covered with drips of icing and cake crumbs? Don’t worry – it happens to the best of us! My best tip to keep a much cleaner board is to line your cake board with strips of Glad baking paper before placing your cake down. After icing the cake, you simply pull the strips out from under the cake and voila! A clean, icing-free cake board ready for presentation.

Coconut Ice is such an Australian fete, fair and childhood birthday party staple so it’s no wonder my Mum’s coconut ice cake was so famous with her friends and also us kids. On this episode of Summer Baking Secrets, watch as I transform this family favorite into some dainty cupcakes that would just be perfect for your next fete, birthday or High Tea! They also cook much quicker and that’s the whole joy of Easy Summer Baking!

For the tinware collection, I’ve never quite understood why most baking tinware had to be such unattractive color – dull, grey and well, quite “tin” like, really. I really love the cream color that we ended up creating which I think adds a touch of vintage glamour to your home baking and cupboards! So elegant, stylish and affordable at the same time. All my tinware is super durable with a dual layer of non-stick coating which increases the durability and scratch resistance as well as oven safe to 270’C AND best of all for busy bakers and cooks – dishwasher safe! In fact every item in my entire baking range as well as my Lyndey Milan Brilliant Cut Knife is dishwasher safe, which helps make cleaning up after a big bake off at home a breeze.

I recently was on The Morning Show on Channel 7 with Kylie Gilles and Larry Emdur chatting about Summer Baking Secrets and wanted to make something fun with them, so I chose my Chocolate and Pretzel Marshmallow Slice, which I also call my “wicked” or “train wreck slice” because it is so random but seductive!

On this episode, I’ll be baking up a Paris Brest; an iconic choux pastry based dessert created in 1910 to commemorate the Paris-Brest-Paris bicycle race which started in 1891. Its circular shape is said to resemble the wheel of a bicycle! Traditionally, the filling is a praline flavored cream which can be a little tricky to make at home. So I’ve chosen to fill mine with a rosewater and berry cream base instead which is much easier to make, tastes fabulous and looks oh-so pretty. I am sometimes nicknamed the choux pastry queen as making choux pastry is one of my specialties, so I’ll be teaching you my tricks and tips in this week’s episode to get you baking crisp golden choux pastry puffs in no time. For my final touches on this dessert, I’m giving it a handful of (edible) “glitter” in the form of delicate, gossamer thin spun sugar and beautiful edible flowers. When making spun sugar at home, always make sure you have a bowl of cool water to dip your toffee making saucepan into to stop the cooking process quickly and avoid burnt toffee! But be prepared for gush of steam!