Monday, February 2, 2009

Chocolate Buzzy Bees


These little bees are actually a by-product of a birthday treat. Yesterday was my brother in law’s birthday, so I made him some chocolate shortbread (replacing 1/3c flour with 1/3 c cocoa) for his birthday. I had quite a bit of left over yellow royal icing and so thought about using it up on little bee shaped cookies to send to my niece and nephew with their Dad’s present. I think that they turned out quite cute.



I just cut the shortbread for Brent into simple circles and then did a yellow icing swirl on them. Quite simple but quite effective, I think. I quite like chocolate shortbread for its chocolatey crispness. Shortbread is definitely one of my favourite biscuits.

Last night for dinner we had bbqed pork sausages from Salumeria who do beautiful gourmet sausages. To go with them I made a potato salad (little jersey bennes with chopped red pepper, basil, capers, anchovies and egg with red wine vinegar and olive oil vinaigrette) and a baby spinach and broccoli salad with a simple vinaigrette using avocado oil. I havent used broccoli in a salad before and I really liked it – I don’t really like completely raw broccoli, so I blanched it and then refreshed it in cold water to keep the vibrant green. I also made a very simple tomato sauce from Dish magazine which went well with the sausages, by simmering a can of crushed tomatoes (I always buy Delmaine) with 2 cloves of chopped garlic, the zest and juice of half a lemon, half a teaspoon of ground coriander and 1/ tsp each of ground cloves and cinnamon, for about 20 minutes until thickened. This was so tasty! I have got leftovers which I am having for lunch today with some canned tuna.

5 comments:

lauren said...

The shortbread looks great. I bet it tasted great too! I also love shortbread. Have you tried the recipe from Ladies, a plate? I made it as a gift and everybody loved it! In fact, I love all the recipes in that book, thanks for recommending it (it took ages for me to order it in Australia but I'm so glad I did!)

Tammy said...

Hi Lauren

I am so pelased you love that book! I have made the shortbread from that book with the custard powder - I loved it (as I have loved every recipe in that book!). I also make the pikelets last week (just like my Nana used to make!) and will blog about those later in the week

lauren said...

Yes!! I made the custard ones too. I made the plum & blackcurrant jam over the weekend and it turned out really well. And if I can get out of work in time today I’m going to make “Miracles”!! Its such a great little book. Looking forward to hearing about the pikelets (I’m yet to make those!).

Snooky doodle said...

These must be delicious apart from being cute :)

Cakelaw said...

I love the bees - they are just gorgeous!!