Ingredients Method About this recipe Struggling to come up with vegan and gluten free baking ideas? Then let cashew butter be your friend. My lovely Fix and Fogg jar of cashew butter was a gift and gosh I love it. It’s creamy and rich and …
Ingredients: Method: We’re really in Autumn here now and I’m enjoying the mellow days and slight cooling in the air. I enjoy Autumnal eating – warming soups and stews, sauces and pickles made from the last of the summer tomatoes, feijoas. I was lucky to …
Ingredients
Method
About this recipe…
I’ve been playing around with this recipe since Christmas. I treated myself to a jar of Roses strawberry conserve to go with festive croissants and needed something to do with the leftovers that wasn’t simply jam on toast. Nothing wrong with jam on toast of course, but this Roses stuff is a truly lip smacking strawberry jam and needs a fitting treatment.
The new Whittakers Blondie chocolate popping up on the shop shelves sparked my blondies idea (although I use just plain old white chocolate for this one; the Whittakers Blondie Chocolate deserves to be eaten alone in its own right). Blondies are mysterious – nobody seems to know exactly where they came from, potentially the socialite Bertha Palmer, perhaps even the original Brownie – but we know for sure they are American, and probably invented when molasses was more available than chocolate.
I’ve found this recipe knocks up a tasty little set of treats that have been reviewed as ‘really delicious’ (my nephew, age 9) – they are lovely warm but also set well into bars that are very moreish when cold. The strawberry jam can be subbed for something a bit shaper like plum or raspberry to tone down the sweetness. Hope you enjoy x
I think we all need a little sweetness at the moment. Summer holidays, and the little dash of optimism and refreshment they deliver, feel like a long time ago indeed. Luckily, I have this spiced plum shortcake recipe stored up from my own summer holiday, …
Happy New Year! I was lucky to have a pretty decent 2021, and I know I am in the minority here. It was a shocker for many of my favourite people. Wherever January 2022 finds you (ideally somewhere relaxing and on holiday with many tasty …
Sometimes, despite the best of intentions, fruit can go a little south in the fruit bowl. Things in general feel like they have gone a little south lately. This time a year ago our current COVID circumstances would have been unimaginable to pretty much all of us, bar epidemiologists and fans of apocalyptic fiction (like my husband).
I think we could all do with a little comfort baking at the moment. The apple pictured above is in these days and times cause for joy. It provides an excuse – no, it necessitates even – sweet, carb-y treats and ample butter. Of course my reaction to past-it apples is usually stewed apple for healthy porridge, but in the middle of a pandemic? Baking is the only solution.
Along with the comfort baking, I’m feeling very lucky in our little bubble. My rescue cats are in heaven, as depicted. And I’m feeling doubly lucky after the outpouring of love in response to my last post. I wish a heartfelt thanks to each and every one of you. You are all a part of my support bubble, which is particularly important when our COVID-restricted physical bubbles are much smaller.
I hope you have an apple or two languishing in your fruit bowl for these scones. Enjoy and take care.
Spiced apple scones – makes 12
Ingredients::
3 cups of plain flour
6 teaspoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg
1 tablespoon of brown sugar
3 apples, peeled and grated
5 tablespoons of butter
3/4 cup of milk plus a little extra for brushing
Method
Combine the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar in a large bowl. Add the grated apple and stir to combine. Rub in the butter with your hands until the mixture looks crumbly.
Make a well in the centre and add the milk. Stir to combine and gather the dough together with your hands, kneading a few times until all is combined. Add a little more milk if the mixture seems dry – it can depend on the juiciness of the apples.
Sprinkle flour on a baking tray. Tip the mixture onto the tray and divide into 12 rectangular portions. Brush the tops with the extra milk.
Bake for 12 minutes or until the tops of the scones are golden brown.
I truly love posting about dessert. I am a huge fan of baking – we have a rich and rightly-celebrated baking culture in our little country and I am happy to leap in, butter, cream and all. It feels particularly necessary right now, as Winter …
Happy 2017 everyone! I think we can all agree that the year we have just ushered out was rather bruising, whether you’re talking politically, artistically, or for many of us, personally. So, what we really need to ring in the New Year is not cucumber sticks, …
If you fancy a sugar hangover, look no further. This fudge is mouth-suckingly sweet and all the better for it. A firm Kiwi favourite, it is dense and rich, comprised largely of sugar, sweetened condensed milk and golden syrup.
I can’t get to the bottom of its name. In my travels through the internet, I was delighted to find Nigella acknowledges we call Russian Fudge in our little country, although she calls her version Vanilla Fudge.
This lovely Polish-authored food blog includes a recipe for Polish krówki, which translates as ‘little cows’ (how I love that!). Krówki is a sweet fudge very similar to our Russian fudge, and apparently Russia have a version too. New Zealand has a strong Polish connection, most famously through our post-World War II Polish refugee children. Could this explain it?
I won’t keep you all waiting while I trawl through the history of New Zealand confectionary in hope of an answer. Here is my preferred recipe for Russian fudge. The best tip I can give you is beat the fudge for as long as it takes in the final stage – it really is important for making it set.
Ingredients:
Method:
Place everything except for the vanilla essence into a pot and bring to the boil, stirring constantly. Once it is boiling, keep stirring and let it boil for about 20 minutes, until a blob of fudge dropped in cold water can be formed into a squishy little ball.
Take off the heat, add the vanilla essence, and beat the fudge until it starts to thicken (I’m always into doing things by hand but I can really recommend an electric beater for this bit if you have one!)
Spread into a baking tin and leave to set for at least two hours.
I’m finding myself with a lot of tinned goods recently, not unlike many people in our little shaky isles in the wake of our 7.8 earthquake. It pays to be prepared. I’ve heard the comment more than once that tinned pears are the least exciting …