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 …
You might have many reasons for choosing a mocktail – driving, dehydrated, just feel like something lighter – and this festive season I decided to give making some a go. I’m new to mixing cocktails and mocktails so do not have my own recipes ready and waiting in my brain and selected two from the New York Times Cooking catalogue. I present you the vanilla and citrus Orchard Thief and a mocktail version of a Dark ‘n’ Stormy.
Trying these out was a lot of fun and has given me some ideas for future experiments. It’s nice to have something different to offer non-drinkers and gave me a chance to master the cocktail basic of making a simple sugar syrup. They were two quite different drinks – the Orchard Thief is sweet and light, served in an elegant flute with a delicious vanilla undercurrent. I was drawn to the Dark ‘n’ Stormy because of its name – sounds most mysterious and sultry! The original Dark ‘n’ Stormy is rum-based and so-named after a sailor thought the contents of their tumbler resembled a stormy sky. This mocktail version is a delight – a sugar syrup base infused with spices, dark cold tea for bitterness and topped up with ginger beer.
So please let me raise a glass to the New Year, I hope 2023 brings us all what we wish for. Happy holidays and good health to all 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.
Wheewwww so another nearly two months since my last post with some more drama in between. Two further hospital admissions, including one particularly gripping visit to the emergency room with nurses running, grabbing wheelchairs and shouting ‘code two, code two’ into the PA system, three …
WOAH. That was a month and a half. The first section was pretty damn fine. My husband and I treated ourselves to a week in Rarotonga to celebrate getting through some rather rubbish stuff over the last wee while, and gosh it was bliss. Rarotonga …
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 clings to the bitter end and another round of fertility drugs has me breaking out in shivers, aches and pimples. Despite the whole point of my little blog being cooking and sharing, it wasn’t until recently I realised that I might be excluding treasured friends and readers who can’t tuck into on gluten and diary with quite such gay abandon. I am sorry my lovely readers! And so today I am bring you my very own gluten-free chocolate brownie.
I have developed this over the past couple of years for my beloved little nephew who has suffered much unexplained ill-health, resulting in a spell as a tube-fed tot. Next time you spot a little one with a tube, give a smile to their parents – it’s damned hard work, tears and sadness. Happily our lovely little tyke is much better these days. He has a lot of gluten-free food, both for the sake of his little system and also because ground almond-based baking helps him to pack in much-needed calories.
Now, you will notice I call this gluten free, but not dairy-free. I have not experimented with replacing the butter with non-diary spread, but I reckon you could.
Give it a try – it really is pretty simple for a gluten-free bake and deliciously rich for pudding, warm with a little cream.
Ingredients:
250g chocolate- either all dark, or half dark and half milk
100g butter
2 C ground almonds
1/3 C brown sugar
1/8 t salt
3 eggs, beaten together
1 t vanilla essence
Method:
Set the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and grease a 20cm x 30cm baking tin. Set a pan of water to simmer on the stove.
Melt the chocolate and butter together in a large bowl over the simmering water. This is honestly my favourite bit, I love watching the butter and chocolate swirl and melt together.
Once melted and combined, take the bowl off the heat. Add the dry ingredients and stir until combined.
Add the eggs and vanilla, mix it all in and pour into the prepared tin.
Bake for 25 minutes or until just firm on top.
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 …