Stickydate Biscuits

What can I say. My mum's favourite dessert in biscuit form. I was wary, but these taste absolutely AWESOME!!.

Original recipe came from:

http://www.grouprecipes.com/90262/sticky-date-cookies.html

I made some changes after the first batch as I felt they weren't really stickydate biscuits without butterscotch.

Stickydate Biscuits

makes approx. 50

125 grams butter

1 1/2 cups chopped dates

1/2 cup butterscotch schnapps

1 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 cup wholemeal self-raising flour

1 1/2 cup wholemeal plain flour

1 bag jersey caramels, each quartered.

night before - chop dates, pour over schnapps and let 'marinate'.

Preheat oven to 150 degrees celcius, fan-forced.

In a saucepan on low heat, melt butter. Add sugar and date/schnapps mixture. Bring to the boil and then remove from heat. Add remaining ingredients and mix until combined. Let cool for around 10 minutes so the mixture hardens a little. Place teaspoon sized amounts on a baking tray. Flatten and squish a quarter of a jersey caramel into each.

Bake at 150 degrees for 15 minutes. Then turn up heat to 200 degrees for five minutes (so jersey caramel melts ontop).

I found that if you bake at 200 degrees from the start, the biscuits are not hard enough to deal with the melted caramel and you end up with a pile of melted caramel next to your biscuit. If this happens, while caramel is still warm, place it back ontop of your biscuit. It will harden ontop.

Enjoy :)

Potato gnocchi

This recipe came from:

http://dondonf.multiply.com/recipes



I have never made gnocchi before, I think I did okay though. Not quite as light and fluffy as Babcia used to make (my Dad's mum), but my mum seemed to approve.



Potato gnocchi

350g floury potatoes (I used some that were called ruby?)

1/4 cup grated parmesan

1/3 cup plain flour

1 egg yolk



Add potatoes to boiling water, whole. Cook until they are soft when a skewer pokes through. Allow to cool slightly then peel. Push through a potato ricer into a bowl. Add other ingredients, mix until starting to combine. Tip dough out onto a lightly floured board and knead until it creates a smooth dough (around one minute). Take small amounts of dough, roll into a thin sausage and, using a sharp knife, cut into small pieces (approx 2cm long).

In a saucepan, bring some salted water to the boil. Add gnocchi in small batches - it is cooked when it rises to the surface.



Add your choice of sauce and eat :)

Ricotta and spinach gnocchi

This recipe I adapted from:

http://racheleats.wordpress.com/2010/02/05/spinach-and-ricotta-gnocchi/



Note: if you are not really a fan of spinach (like my big sis) then these probably aren't for you. If you LOVE spinach (like my mum) then these are awesome.



Ricotta and spinach gnocchi

250g spinach (I used the frozen box coles brand)

75g low-fat ricotta

1 egg yolk

50g grated parmesan

nutmeg

25g plain flour + extra for your hands



Defrost spinach and squeeze out as much water as possible (I put it in a microfibre cloth and just squeezed it out over the sink). In a bowl, mix ricotta, parmesan, nutmeg and spinach until just combined (make sure ricotta is spread throughout and not in lumps). Add flour and egg yolk, mix until just combined. Flour your hands. Take small amount out of bowl at a time, roll into little rectangles (about 2cm long) and put on lightly floured board.

In a large saucepan, boil some salted water. Add gnocchi - it is cooked when it rises to the surface.

Homemade pasta sauce

My first ever go at making pasta sauce from scratch. Loved it. Tasted AMAZING!!

Ingredients
4 large tomatoes, quartered
1 large zucchini, diced
1 large carrot, diced
1 large onion, in rings
1/2 can cannelini beans, rinsed
4-5 bay leaves
olive oil
Basil (I used the pureed creative garden stuff)
Pepper

Place tomatoes, zucchini, carrot and onion in an oven tray. Coat in olive oil (as much/little as you like). Add bay leaves. Roast in oven until cooked through. Puree all but from the tray but the onions. Puree cannelini beans, add to other. Cut onion into small pieces, add to other vegies. Add as much basil/pepper as you like.
I left mine in the fridge overnight and reheated it the following day - tasted very nice!!
Hope you enjoy :)

Aussie tiramisu

As usual, I was on foodgawker and saw an amazing looking recipe:
http://almostbourdain.blogspot.com/search/label/Australian


So, I changed it a little, and thus dessert for Leah P's dinner party was created.

Tiramisu (four people)
6 lamington fingers (the small ones you buy in a packet of 18 at Woolies)
4 Anzac biscuits, smashed
2 tablespoons baileys
2 tablespoons kahlua
1 egg
40g caster sugar
100g marscapone
1/4 cup cream (its all I had left...)
1/2 cup vanilla yoghurt

Using an electric beater, whisk egg and caster sugar until light and thick (it goes a very pale yellow, almost triples in size) - you are creating a zabaligione. Place marscapone, cream and yoghurt in a bowl, mix together with a spatula. Add 2 tablespoons egg mixture, mix in. Fold in remaining egg mixture.

Put kahlua and baileys in a cup, mix together.

Slice lamington fingers in half lengthways, then in half again (to create squares). Place two of these in the bottom of each glass. Spoon over some of the alcohol. Spoon over some of the egg mixture. Sprinkle some Anzac crumbs. Continue layering until glasses filled.

Place in refrigerator to chill.

Neopolitan melting moments

I saw these on foodgawker and just HAD to make them

http://raspberricupcakes.blogspot.com/2010/06/neopolitan-melting-moments.html

Here are mine:

Result? Mum even liked the chocolate layers!! I will be making these again. They did melt in my mouth.

Biscuits

125g butter

40g icing sugar

35g cornflour

110g self-raising flour

vanilla essence

1 tablespoon cocoa

1 tablespoon jam (strawberry would be good - I used 'black forest' as I didn't have strawberry)

red food colouring

Preheat oven to 160 degrees celcius (fan forced). Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add flours and mix until combined (I found it easier to use clean hands). Separate dough into three bowls. Add vanilla essence to one, jam and red food colouring to one and cocoa to the other. You may need to add some extra flour to the one with jam. Combine ingredients.

Take small amounts of dough, roll into a ball. Place onto lined baking trays. Squish down with a fork (makes the pretty lines). Bake for 10 minutes (may need longer if you make bigger biscuits). Cool on baking racks.

Filling

icing sugar

water

nutella

jam

vanilla essence

Mix icing sugar with vanilla essence and a little water until combined and thick. Use to join together strawberry and chocolate biscuits.

Add nutella to icing mixture (add more icing sugar and water as necessary). Use to join together strawberry and vanilla biscuits.

In a new bowl, add icing sugar and jam (you may not need water for this one). Use to join together vanilla and chocolate biscuits.

Leave for icing to harden.

Minted pea pesto pasta

So, im currently going through a stage where my body isnt really enjoying dairy or pasta (sad face!). However, thanks to the trusty women's weekly (after work healthy, page 48) I found a pasta recipe that I changed a bit so I could enjoy it. Plus side - the first time I made it, mum actually commented that she wanted more vegies in it!! (Awesome, anything with lots of vegies gets extra ticks from me!)

Minted pea pesto

2 cups frozen peas

1 tablespoon mint paste (I used the gourmet garden one you get near the lettuce, I worked out it was cheaper than getting a bunch of mint and wasting most of it)

30 grams shaved parmesan

30 grams pine nuts

Put all in a blender (I had a stick wizz) and go for gold. Most pesto recipes have oil - I found that it didnt really need it, but if you like the shiny pesto, the original recipe said to add 2 tablespoons olive oil as well.

250 grams pasta (cooked)

Add pesto to cooked pasta. Add a pile of vegies (I had roasted pumpkin and beetroot, mushrooms, beans, cabbage, spring onions) and some meat (kangaroo sausages were on sale at coles this week - yay for 66% off stickers!!).

With the extra meat + vegies, this served 6.

Awesome.

Pinwheel biscuits

By far my FAVOURITE biscuits I have ever baked. I have made them with a variety of fillings, nutella + almond meal works very well, adding cocoa to the biscuit dough is also nice.

(recipe from AWW cook - page 521)

Biscuit dough

1 1/4 cups self raising flour
100g butter, chopped
1/4 cup caster sugar
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon milk (may need more or less)


In a bowl, using an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add flour and mix until crumbly (like bread crumbs). Add egg yolk, mix until combined. Add milk - enough to make it form a ball. Then take dough onto floured board and knead until it all comes together. Refrigerate 1 hour. Take out of fridge, roll into a rectangle. Spread filling onto it (all of the rectangle). Roll up on the long side, refrigerate for 30 minutes (makes it sooo much easier to slice). Preheat oven to 160 degrees celcius (fan forced). Slice roll into 1cm pieces. Lay on lined baking tray, leaving room for spreading. Bake 20 minutes, transfer to wire racks to cool.


Fillings

jam

nutella

peanut butter

cinnamon sugar (spread a little milk onto dough rectangle first, so it sticks) - 1 tablespoon brown sugar, 2 teaspoons cinnamon.

Mangoes and cream croquembouche cupcakes

Mel's 26th birthday. I had NO idea what to bake. It had to be awesome, but silly me forgot to ask her what she wanted....PLUS no proper chocolate, mum only eats white.

Solution?

Mangoes and cream croquembouche cupcakes.

Cupcake = patty cake recipe + 1 can of sliced mangoes, pureed and added in.

Profiteroles

50 grams water
65 grams milk
pinch caster sugar
pinch salt
5o grams butter
65 grams self raising flour
2 eggs

Preheat oven 200 degrees celcius (fan forced). In a saucepan on low heat, combine butter, water, milk, sugar and salt and bring to the boil. Remove from heat, using a wooden spoon, mix in flour. Return to heat, mix for a further 2 minutes until mixture comes together and leaves the side of the pan (to cook out the flour). Remove from heat, allow to cool for 5 minutes. Add one egg, mix until combined. Add remaining egg, mix until glossy and thick. Spoon into a piping bag with a small nozzle (I used a flower tip). Pipe onto lined baking tray into small circles (leave some room for spreading). Bake for 15 minutes. Using a cake tester, pierce a small hole in each one, return to oven for 5 minutes to try inside out (turn oven off though).

Mango and white chocolate ganache filling

1/2 cup thickened cream
1/2 cup melted white chocolate
1/2 can mango slices, pureed

Add melted white chocolate to cream, using electric beater, mix until slightly thickened. Add mango puree, mix until combined. Spoon into piping bag with smallest nozzle. Push tip into hole in profiteroles and fill.

Once all the profiteroles are filled, melt more white chocolate. Spread white chocolate onto the top of the cupcakes. Dip profiteroles into melted chocolate and stack onto cupcake. Let cool at room temperature until hard.

They are soooooooo good!!

Choc-chip cookie dough cupcakes

Make half of the patty cake recipe (rainbow icecupcreamcakes). Add 1/2 cup chocolate chips, I used dark. Cook as per previous post.

(I made mini cupcakes)

Eggless cookie dough

1/2 cup wholemeal plain flour

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon sweetened condensed milk

chocolate chips

In a bowl, rub butter into flour. Add brown sugar, salt and condensed milk. Mix until combined. You may need to add some more condensed milk if it is not coming together. Put half aside for frosting. Add chocolate chips to remaining half.

Cut the top off cupcakes, spoon on some chocolate-chip cookie dough, replace lid.

Frosting

50 grams butter

1/2 cup icing sugar

remaining cookie dough

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add cookie dough and cream until fluffy once more. Pipe onto cupcakes.

EAT!

Marshmallow Museli

I wanted to make something that was somewhat healthy but Freya, my niece, would eat. Result: homemade LCM bars, but with extra cereal.

Marshmallow Museli

1/2 cup rice bubbles

1/2 cup oats (toasted)

1/2 cup dessicated coconut (toasted)

2 weetbix, crushed

1/4 cup chopped nuts (I used pecans)

handful sunflower seeds

1/2 - 3/4 cup marshmallows

1 1/2 tablespoons peanut butter

Toast oats and coconut in oven. In bowl, put in all dry ingredients, including toasted ones, and mix. On medium heat, melt marshmallows and peanut butter. Add to dry ingredients, mixing fast as it dries quite quickly (If there is not enough 'wet', melt some more marshmallows). Spread out in a pan, I used a baking paper lined slice tray. Leave out on bench to set.

Pacman Biscuits

After spending a bit of time on google this week, I subconciously needed to do something pacman related. I also wanted to make more biscuits, but some ones with some different flavours. Homemade honey jumbles (from women's weekly - best of baking) came to the rescue.

Recipe

60g butter

1/4 cup brown sugar (recipe says 1/2 cup, but I used less as I knew the icing would be sweet)

3/4 cup golden syrup

1 egg

2 1/2 cups wholemeal flour

1/2 cup wholemeal self-raising flour

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

2 teaspoons ground ginger

1 teaspoon mixed spice

oven = 140 degrees fan forced

Combine butter, sugar and golden syrup in saucepan over low heat until sugar dissolves. Add everything else to saucepan, mix until combined. Knead dough onto floured surface until it is not sticky (note - this takes a fair while). Put in small freezer bag, refrigerate for 30 minutes. Get dough back out, roll and cut into rectangles (left over dough, I rolled into little balls, smooshed them on the baking tray = circles). Put in oven. 15 minutes

(If you want crunchy biscuits, set your oven at 180).

Take out of oven, let cool on wire rack.

Icing = icing sugar + water (failsafe recipe)

Put over biscuits and decorate (I used mini licorice allsorts cut into small pieces).

enjoy :)

Frozen rockets

Mum found these rocket ship ice-block holders at school, I obviously had to purchase them (I had seen them at Chalet at Gardo, but they were $25 there, these were only $10). What to put in them? Im not a fan of juice, so frozen juice rockets were not going to happen. So, out came the trusty women's weekly cookbooks - this recipe for frozen yoghurt pops comes from 'Super Diet', it makes eight, each is around 65 calories.

Recipe

2 tablespoons water

1 teaspoon powdered gelatine

1 1/2 cups frozen mixed berries, thawed
2 cups low-fat vanilla yoghurt (I used nestle diet because thats the one mum liked. Yoplait Forme is also pretty similar in calorie content).

Place water in small bowl (I used a coffee mug), add gelatine and mix well. Puree berries until smooth (you can strain it here to remove the seeds, I like crunchy so I didn't bother). Add berries and gelatine to yoghurt. Mix until combined. Pour into moulds. Freeze until solid.

If you have trouble getting them out of the moulds, run them under some cold water which will help release them.

(makes 8 at 64 calories each).

Cinnamon bun biscuits

Education psychology essay due next week = baking. I needed something healthy and yet different. I still have a number of anzac cupcakes, so I thought biscuits were needed.

I saw these on foodgawker:

http://http//www.ezrapoundcake.com/archives/4205

but had no cream, so decided to change them up a bit and make them healthier.

Biscuit

2 1/2 cups wholemeal self raising flour

1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 cups light evaporated milk + 1 tablespoon extra

Place dry ingredients in bowl. Slowly add milk, mixing until it forms a dough (you may need less or more milk). Turn dough onto lightly floured surface and roll out into a rectangle, about 1 cm thick. Brush the dough surface with the extra milk.

Cinnamon sugar filling

1 tablespoon brown sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon nutmeg

Sprinkle over dough. Roll dough up lengthways (using the long side) and slice into 1 cm thick round. Place onto cooking tray close together (do not leave a very big gap between each round, maybe 1 cm? Next time I am going to place them directly next to each other and see how it goes). Bake at 200 degrees for around 10 minutes. They will be crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside.

Yummy :)

Drawtism icecupcreamcakes

My work held a fundraiser for autism awareness month - "drawtism: a night of pictionary". I, of course, was in charge of cupcakes - but how to present them? Using the autism awareness logo as inspiration, a rainbow ribbon, I came up with these.

How did I do it?

My trusty pattycake recipe

4 oz butter
1/2 cup caster sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups self raising flour

1/2 cup skim milk

pinch salt

1/2 teaspoon vanilla bean paste

Flat bottomed icecream cones

In a saucepan on low heat, melt the butter and sugar. Allow to cool slightly, beat in eggs. Add remaining ingredients and mix until combined.

Divide mixture into six bowls and add food colouring to each (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple).

Stand up icecream cones in a muffin tray, one per hole.

Fill icecream cones with one teaspoon of each colour (ROYGBP).

Bake at 200 degrees for approximately 15 minutes. They may take longer - keep checking.

I iced these with a simple mixture of icing sugar and water and then dipped them in sprinkles.

:)

Anzac cupcakes

Well, last week I had a craving for anzac cookies. I felt slightly sacrilegious making them in May, however surely they couldnt be bad if they were in cupcake form?

Absolutely delicious!

Cupcakes

60 grams butter

150 grams golden syrup

3 eggs

60 grams wholemeal self raising flour

80 grams rolled oats

80 grams desiccated coconut

40 grams icing sugar

Melt butter and golden syrup over low heat. Allow to cool slightly, add in eggs and beat until mixed. Add in remaining ingredients, mix until combined. Fill cupcake cases (I made mini cupcakes).

Crumble topping

1 cup rolled oats

1 tablespoon butter
1/2 cup wholemeal flour

1 tablespoon golden syrup

In a small bowl, rub the butter into the flour. Add the oats and golden syrup. Mix. Put a small amount ontop of each cupcake.

Put into oven 180 degrees celcius (fan forced) for 20 minutes (check after 15). I made mini cupcakes, they took approx. 12 minutes.

Golden syrup drizzle

2 tablespoons golden syrup

2 teaspoons hot water

Mix together in a mug, pour over cupcakes once cooled :)

My first blog

Well, here it is. I have finally hit my level of procrastination where I create a cooking blog to display my culinary creations. I hope at least one recipe makes you smile as much as I do when I make them. Maybe you will even manage a childish grin when you finally have a batch of scones that rise!

Angie