TWD - Coconut Butter Thins

This week’s TWD recipe is coconut butter thins chosen by Jayne, The Barefoot Kitchen Witch. These cookies turned out totally different to what I expected. Dorie’s description is that they are thin, lacy biscuits – I was imagining tuile type biscuits. In fact, these were more like shortbread. This may have been because I didn’t roll them as thinly as Dorie suggested. I think I liked them better as more substantial shortbread type cookies.

These biscuits were deliciously crisp and were made using coconut, chopped macadamia nuts and a pinch of ground coriander, something I never would have thought to add, but it really made the difference – a pinch was all that was needed to give the biscuits a taste of something extra. The recipe called for shredded coconut, but I used dessicated , as shredded would have been too big to get neatly cut out dough I think. Dorie said not to be scared to use salted macadamia nuts, so I wasn’t. Macadamia nuts are my all time favourite nut, so it took great self control not to just eat all the nuts before they made the cookie dough.

And talking about the cookie dough – it was delicious raw! I love raw cookie dough better than the cooked thing, and shortbread style cookie doughs are my favourite. I did put the cookies in the freezer before baking to try and keep the edges firm, but as with Dorie’s pecan shortbread, the cookies did spread a little. Not unattractively so, but next time I will make smaller shaped cookies.

I loved these and will make them again. See what everyone else thought here.

Cookie Carnival - Carrot Cake Cookies

This month’s ccokie carnival recipe is for carrot cake cookies. These are almost like cookie shaped carrot cakes – they are not at all crisp like a typical NZ biscuit would be, but are totally cakey – a bit like the whoopee pies we made for a cookie carnival challenge last year. This wa a great pick for me as I've never made cookies like this before. My preference is for crisp style cookies, but there is something about these ones which makes you want to keep eating them.

The cookies were subtly cinnamon spiced and had as well as grated carrot, chopped walnuts and raisins. I didn’t have quite enough walnuts so I used a mixture of walnuts and hazelnuts and I don’t like raisins, so I left them out. The cookies were joined together with cream cheese filling made by simply beating together cream cheese and honey. I really liked this as with no icing sugar addition it meant that the cream cheese filling retained a tart flavour. I have sent these cookies onto the building site today – it will be interesting to see what the tradespeople think of them. Speaking of which, we now have a kitchen carcass which is pretty exciting. We move in in less than two weeks and more than likely wont have a bench top until mid to late April, but I can live with a piece of ply across the bench top for a few weeks!

You can check out the cookie carnival here.

Daring baker Challenged

As you can see from the photo above, I was challenged rather than being a challenger in the March Daring Bakers challenge. The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.

I have to be honest, I actually thought that this was more of a challenge for the new Daring Cooks monthly challenge as I think lasagne is more of a cook’s than a baker’s kind of thing. I really enjoy cooking as well as baking, but didn’t really feel like this challenge fitted within the parameters of the daring baker challenges. And that ‘s not just because my lasagne was a no show disaster!

I have never made fresh pasta before. Firstly, because I don’t have a pasta machine and secondly, we don’t eat pasta all that afternoon and I actually really love the dried Italian pastas that you can get without faffing around, making my own. I wondered how I would go making pasta from scratch and then rolling by hand. Not well! The pasta was meant to be spinach pasta. I had a really hard time getting my flour, eggs and spinach to turn into a nice smooth ball of pasta. I added another eggs and keep kneading, but to no avail. It had been a busy weekendand I had had enough, so I gave up in disgust and threw my ball of pasta dough in the bin. What a waste of 3 c flour, 3 eggs and spinach.



I still had beef mince out and had to make something for dinner from it. So, I made my old favourite, nana’s spaghetti and meatballs recipe. My husband and I both love this. It is very unconventional and has a realy sweet and sour type of flavour. Firstly you make your meatballs with your minced beef, abut 1 c rolled oats soaked in ¼ c milk, about ¼ c tomato sauce and salt and pepper. Nana would roll her meatballs in cornflour and then pan fry them. I tend to just put them on trays and fan bake or fan grill them for about 12 minutes.

I made the sauce separately – all you do is mix together a can of condensed tomato soup, a can full of water, 1 tbsp soy suace, ¼ sugar and 3 tbsp vinegar (I use white). Bring to the boil and then add a can of crushed pineapple. I don’t bother draining this. Keep simmering until thickened (you may need to add some corhflour to help the thickening process), serve over the meatballs and spaghetti.

I hope that the other daring bakers were better pasta makers than me. Check it out here.

You have to try this one

In the weekend I was looking for something different to bake and wanted to make something that would really appeal to my husband. Looking through my recipes I found this recipe for a toffee slice using chopped up jersey caramels.

Well, this slice sure is moreish! I am usually pretty good at not eating things once they are baked (I prefer the raw mixture) but this combination of almonds, jersey caramels and chocolate was just too good to resist! Ostensibly I made the slice for the tradesmen on our house, but I think my husband and I made a pretty good attempt at devouring most of it ourselves. I would say that I will definitely make this again, but it may be too dangerous to have in the house!!!

Last night we had chicken for dinner. I followed a recipe from Cuisine about 5 years ago for chicken thighs cooked with cumin, ginger, coriander, sliced onions, chicken stock, chick peas and dried apricots – kind of like a casserole. I browned the thighs first, then removed them, sweated the onions, added the spices, the reserved chicken and other ingredients and then simmered for about 30 minutes until cooked and thickened. We had this with bulghar wheat mixed with spinach and almonds and green beans. A very easy but tasty dinner. I really enjoyed the Moroccan flavours of the meal.

Chocolate Caramel Almond Slice (Julie Le Clerc recipe from NZ WW)

125g butter
¾ c brown sugar
¼ c sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
¾ c flour
¼ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp grated nutmeg
170g jersey caramels or soft toffee, chopped
¾ c blanched almonds, chopped
¾ c dark chocolate bits

· Cream butter and sugars, add egg and vanilla
· Stir in remaining ingredients
· Press into a 18 x 27cm slice tin (the mixture is quite wet) and bake at 170c for 25 minutes or until set
Once cold cut into pieces

TWD - Blueberry Crumb Cake

This week’s TWD recipe was blueberry crumb cake and was chosen by Sihan of Befuddlement. I was really looking forward to making this recipe as the photo in the book looks really appealing. Unfortunately, even though the cake was delicious, my photos don’t look all that appealing.

This is quite a simple everyday cake that contains a whole two cups of blueberries (I used frozen as we are just out of blueberry season here). It is topped with a crumble topping which is reminiscent of apple crumble topping – a mixture of sugar, butter and flour with some chopped walnuts thrown in for good measure. I wanted to save the walnuts that I had for another purpose, so I used almonds instead.

The cake was really easy to make and bake. I was a little concerned that the mix was too much for the specified 20cm square tin and that it would over flow onto the bottom of my oven, but it baked up perfectly. It did take a little longer than the recipe said, which was interesting as most of Dorie’s recipes for cakes take less time than specified. The only issue that I had with the cake was that my blueberries sunk to the bottom. This was a shame. I wonder if it is because I used frozen berries, or maybe I should have coated them in flour before adding them to the mixture. I actually think next time I make this I will actually just scatter the blueberries on top to let them sink into the mixture themselves.

I did love this cake though, my favourite part being the crumble topping. See if the other TWDers also loved it, by looking here.

Bournvita Biscuits

I remember making bournvita biscuits as a teenager. In fact I have quite a distinct memory of making a huge batch of these cookies to take back to my flat at university in my second year. Bournvita is a chocolate drink powder – like milo. I haven’t seen it for years and so havent made the biscuits for years either. But I was thinking about these a few weeks ago and yesterday I decided to make some for the trades people on the house.

I don’t really like milo – I am more of a hot chocolate girl, but my husband loves it and has a milo almost every night after dinner. But I do love these cookies. Seeing as I couldn’t seem to find bournvita in the supermarket, I used milo to make these as I figure the difference between milo and bournvita is possibly that one is a nestle product and one is a Cadbury product (although I could be wrong here as it is so long since I have had bournvita). The cookies are a variation on the kiwi chocolate chip cookie and you could add chocolate chips if you wanted. The raw cookie dough is delicious, but cooked they are the perfect thing to fill the tins with and are delicious with a glass of milk!

Bournvita Biscuits

250g butter
150g sugar
4 tbsp condensed milk
350g flour
2 tsp baking powder
4 tbsp milo or bournvita

· Cream butter and sugar, then beat in condensed milk
· Stir in dry ingredients
· Roll mixture into balls and place on baking tray. Flatten with a fork
· Bake at 170c for 12-15 minutes until firm and lightly golden

Wedding Cakes

We went to a wedding in the weekend. It was really lovely – there were only 10 guests and the bride and groom and it was held in a boutique hotel in Herne Bay. The food was stunning, the atmosphere gorgeous and the champagne, delicious. We went to the bride and grooms house the following afternoon and I took these little cupcakes. They are simply chocolate cake topped with a white glace icing and then decorated with the cashous - they are meant to look like a wedding ring and engagement ring entwined. They do if you kind of look from a distance and squint! They tasted good though, and it is the thought that counts.



We have another wedding to go to not this weekend but the next, so I think I will make some decorated biscuits to take to that. The week after next, the new kitchen should, all things going to plan, be installed in our new house. I am very excited about it and will post some photos once it takes a bit more shape. At the moment it is just empty spaces where the scullery is etc, so not much to look at. Not long to go now!