BISCUITS

IS there anything more fun to do in the kitchen than baking biscuits?

 

They are simple to create, use eggs from my hens and emit such a lovely fragrance as you pull them from the oven!

This morning I had the old sunbeam mix-master working overtime as I made cakes, Anzac and butter biscuits before work for an afternoon tea for a friend.

Easy to bake but they make an impact as everyone love loves gifts from the heart.

SECONDHAND LOVE

AS an avid recycle fan, I love trawling op-shops, garage sales, roadside hard rubbish and online sale sites.

It's a great way to obtain marvellous items at little coats while being sustainable.

Usually I'm on the lookout for gardening items, books or cooking gear - yes, yes, seven Sunbeam mix masters is enough, I know.

But last week i manged to score the holy Grail of bargains - a Technika 900mmm working gas cook top, fan forced oven stove for a song.

A friend opened a new restaurant and decided to sell off through Surf Coast Secondhand their old cooking appliances.

It gets connected tomorrow morning at 7am - cannot wait to get baking!

RECYCLE MIXING

SEVEN Mix masters is the limit.

Really.

Yesterday a work colleague plonked a box down on my desk.

It contained a great old mix-master he'd found at an op-shop, still bearing the price tag for the princely sum of eight dollars.

Bargain!

This is the second mix-master someone from work has found for me. 

It's also the only one with a plastic bowl - so practical as it will bounce rather than shatter if I drop it.

Tonight I shall use to whip the butter and sugar for a chocolate cake - it's the perfect size for creaming these ingredients.

But cycling home last night with the booty in my backpack I have decided this is it - seven is enough for any keen cook.

COCONUT LIME CAKE

BAKING a new recipe which is vastly different from my usual cake repertoire is always fun.

 

I'm working my way through the wonderful Merle Parrish's new cookbook Merle's Country Show Baking: and Other Favourites and everything I have baked has looked just as the recipes did in the book - amazing!

 

I did substitute full cream coconut milk for low-fat as I bought the wrong can but it still rose and tasted good.

 

 

The cakes were for the opening of the new Bellbrae Fire Station and our

guests seemed to enjoy them at the morning tea which was nice.

 

 

DANISH HONEYCAKE

BAKING first thing in the morning is always fun.

 

While the rest of the world is snoozing and dawn is breaking, I love listening to the radio while beating fresh eggs from the chooks, triple-sifting flour and hunting out the vanilla-bean infused castor sugar.

 

This morning I tried out Danish honeycakes from Merle's Country Show Baking and Other Favourites by that CWA stalwart Merle Parish.

 

Now I never saw her on TV but as soon as I read about her cookbook, I was enchanted. True to form, it combines practical good sense baking tips with some really gorgeous recipes.

 

As you can see, the Danish Honeycake looks pretty close to Merles, which has made my day! In fact I baked two cakes - one for morning tea at work today and one for after fire brigade training tonight.

 

Tomorrow I'll be trying the pear and raspberry muffins! I'll keep you posted...

Independent cookie day

JULY 4 is when I traditionally think of my American friends.

Hello Pam and Larry!

So this morning before work I decided to make some chocolate chip cookies.

This is a recipe I found online and have modified a bit as it was a little more dough-y than the usual butter biscuits I make. But it was lots of fun and feedback from my newspaper colleagues (so far) has been positive.

Put on oven to 180 and grease 4 biscuit trays or line with baking paper and use the butter wrappers to grease the trays or paper.

Ingredients
300g softened butter

1 cup caster sugar

1 cup brown sugar

3 tsp vanilla extract

3 eggs

3 and 1/2 cups plain flour - sifted

1 cup dark chocolate bits

1 cup milk chocolate bits

 

Beat 150g softened butter, caster and brown sugars and vanilla extract for three minutes or the ingredients are mixed well and smooth.

Beat in eggs.

Add plain flour in two batches - your mixer might be getting a big bogged here (my old sunbeam certainly was, so i had to keep de-clogging the beaters.)

Stir in 1/2 cup dark choc bits and 1/2 cup milk choc bits until evenly distributed.

Don disposable gloves and spoon small balls of the mixture into balls and place on the lined trays and press slightly. Press one chocolate bit on top for decor.

Bake for 15-18 minutes or until light golden and cooked. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Store in an airtight container for up to 1 week - but i think they'll go pretty quickly! 

Recipe recycling

LAST night after a lovely day driving around Daylesford (great Sunday market and vintage train ride), visiting Trentham (darn it Du fermier was closed) and then wandering around Castlemaine for the festival, visiting the city at gallery, various weird and wonderful exhibitions and having a yummy lunch courtesy of the Dhaba food van (loved that Punjab curry), I sat in front of the fire tearing out recipes from a heap of food magazines.

Here's one I inend to bake tonight....

American style rhubarb and ginger pie

As a dedicated buyer of these glossy magazines which cost a mere 20 cents at the local op-shops - a leviathan saving on the $7 plus cover price - they offer great value for money. Once these magazines have been read through they are then passed on to other friends.

Often no recipes makes the cut but once one does, I go through it to make sure it's within the realms of my skills, budget and taste buds, then riiiiiippppp and paste, in it goes to my big cooking scarp book.

If the recipe is an absolute genius, then I pass it on to friends too.

This project started around 30 years ago and I'm still using recipes i culled from newspapers back in the day. Some recipes have never been tried and eventually are pasted over with something more suitable but the big majority have had their time in the sun.

There's something very satisfying about the serendipity of the recipes too.
Lat week a friend in my fire brigade swapped me some rhubarb for eggs and low and behold, while toasting my toes i came across half dozen recipes for rhubarb and ginger pies!

So after I finish planting out the seedlings, cleaning the chook house and run and re-planting the front nature strip garden now the new footpath has gone in (thanks to the workers who did their best and left most of the garden intact), I'll settle down and bake those pies.

Now autumn is firming in charge, they'll be the prefect way to finish off a day of pottering about in the garden.