A belated update... The Afghan biscuits! Deliciously Ugly

A few weeks ago, I’d like to think it was less than that but it wasn’t, I made Afghan biscuits. And then never did the subsequent blog update. Yes that’s right. I decided I needed to be more consistent with the blog, and so I decided to bake. Marty suggested Afghans, I made Afghans, and a month later you have the information. Whoops!

Now I didn’t know about Afghan biscuits until I moved to New Zealand. And not many Australians seem to know them either. The recipe is not wildly available on .au websites, but thank heavens for Edmonds Cookbook! I did a little Googling so that I could impart some pearls of wisdom into the origins of the odd name and the best I could come up with was that it was unclear and unknown. I think if the Australians had invented them we would have had a name with some curious etymology!  Needless to say they are a delicious chocolate biscuit that is low in sugar and isn’t made with any dairy. Their sweetness comes from the addition of chocolate icing or melted chocolate. They are light, with a melt-in-your mouth texture and have cornflakes through them that add body and a little bit of crunch. They are not by any stretch of the imagination pretty, but they are completely addictive and delicious.

In fact, the first time I really got into eating them was when I moved from hospitality into retail and the cafeteria at work sold them. After 4 weeks of eating one per shift, my uniform started to get very firm and I understood the need for moderation. I had to go cold turkey and only sporadically eat these delicious mounds of ugliness. Needless to say, having a box of them at home was a true test of willpower and after one lapse of concentration; I decided I’d have to make them again when I wasn’t going to be around. I inhaled about 4 in one sitting – but in my defence they were quite small. The Edmonds Cookbook recipe says you make approximately 30, but at ‘normal’ size biscuits I only got 20 out. I also did half the batch with traditional chocolate icing – yummo! And the other half with melted chocolate as requested by the Afghan man. I enjoyed the sweetness of the chocolate icing much more than just the melted chocolate. I used good quality Dutch cocoa so the biscuits were a bit bitterer than just using supermarket grade stuff, but Marty likes his choccie bitter and dark so I see why he preferred the melted chocolate.

Regardless, they were a hit and I’ll make them again. I’ve accomplished Anzacs and Afghans this year so now I’m on the hunt for a traditional South African biccie. Ideas? Rusks maybe?

Here’s the recipe – enjoy making them, they are so easy!

What you’ll need:

200g butter – softened

½ Cup sugar

1 ¼ cup flour

¼ cup flour

2 cups Cornflakes

 

Chocolate icing to top

Walnuts to decorate

Makes approx. 20 normal size biscuits

 

What to do:

 

1.       Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy

2.       Sift dry ingredients and mix in.

3.       Fold in cornflakes

4.       Spoon out mixture onto baking trays. Shape and make bake at 180deg for about 10-15 minutes.

5.       Once cooled completely, ice them and eat them!

 

Enjoy them.

 

Ciao

xoxo

My new favourite thing to make...Biscotti

I have started to write my posts in Word first, and then copy and save them to the computer as more than one has fallen victim to a dodgy work internet connection. And I’m pretty sure I’m not allowed to a)shout and swear as loudly as I’d like and b) throw the stupid computer against a wall. According to Marty I’m never allowed to do b) so I throw the stapler instead. Coincidently, I broke the stapler during one of these tantrums and it didn’t staple properly for ages – it’s to be expected, but on a subsequent tirade I fixed it again by throwing it even harder on the floor and it all bounced back into place. This does not work for everything, but remotes and staplers appear to respond well. I can also check my word count on Word, which is more based on curiosity and some future references than anything else. I digress. I’m going to tell you about my biscotti making experience. A highly enjoyable experience to say the least and I think I’ll repeat it soon to see if I can get it right twice. That is the thing about baking, getting it right every time, or as in the case of my famous brownies, getting it better every time!

So, I found numerous recipes and then found one on www.taste.com.au that was only 4 steps and had great reviews. It was to accompany a very chocolaty dessert so I needed something that wasn’t too sweet or overpowering, and maybe had a slightly tart fruit. And didn’t have pistachios. EVERY biscotti has pistachios (because they look cool with the green – says Marty!)And pistachios are ridiculously expensive shelled and time-consuming not. If you’ll remember the M’Hanncha from a Christmas post I sat and shelled all the pistachios then. Not again. It was fine as I was sitting outside drinking champagne, but I certainly had better things to do this time. I thought, 4 steps, easy-peasy, I was warned of the time-consuming nature of making biscotti but set to work anyway. It is time-consuming, but not in any way different to making biscuits or baking a cake. When you bake a cake you mix the ingredients, bake the cake, let it cool, ice it, decorate it and then eat it. This is a whole day affair. Biscuits need to be made in batches unless you have a commercial kitchen or oven. And biscotti needs to be baked a second time.

We were having the dinner party in the evening, and had been so thoroughly organised, that while Marty enjoyed rewatching the All Blacks rugby game and then watching another game – Wallabies maybe? – I could get stuck into the kitchen quietly and on my own. I did seek his professional opinion through some of the process, probably only because he was there, but now having made it myself I feel equipped to repeat the process and know what to look for. I have become accustomed to attempting challenging recipes set out by Gordon (Ramsay) and Jamie (Oliver) and both offer advice as to how things should look, feel, smell, etc when they are at different stages. That’s the one thing this recipe lacked, but maybe I can impart some of that knowledge. Ready for the recipe?

What you’ll need:

2 cups plain flour, sifted

1 ½ tsps Baking powder

½ cup dried cranberries

2/3 cup raw almonds, I chopped mine a little

½ cup caster sugar

3 eggs, lightly beaten with a fork

What to do:

1.       Preheat the oven to 160deg.

2.       Place 2 cups sifted plain flour in a large bowl with 1 ½ teaspoons of baking powder (I sifted it all together), ½ cup dried cranberries, 2/3 cup raw almonds and ½ cup castor sugar. Combine and create a well in the middle. This will make it much easier to mix.

3.       Add the 3 eggs and mix until well combined. It will be a dough, but not too dry. Mine was on the stickier side as it had been dry and I’d added another egg – Thanks Marty! I did need to add more flour as well. I also added 2 tsps of cinnamon to the dry ingredients and a little more cranberries.

4.       Transfer the dough to an even work surface, lightly dusted with flour and knead with your hands until smooth. This did not take long. I had mixed everything quite well and didn’t want to over-knead it.  Shape into a log and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Press along top of log to flatten slightly. Because of my extra egg my loaf spread as little. In the future I may half the mixture and make 2 smaller logs and they did spread during cooking. This made for lovely long pieces on biscotti, but they could have been smaller.

5.       Bake for 30 minutes, remove from oven and cool.

6.       Cut log into 1cm-thick slices, place on baking tray and cook for another 12-15 minutes until hard.

Yes, the recipe I’ve given you is longer than 4 steps, but that’s because I’ve broken up a couple of the steps. And I’m going to change step 6 completely!

I do not like my biscotti thick and unmanageable. Left to Marty they would have been 1mm thick, but I think mine were between 3-5mm thick. Perfect in my opinion. Not too thin to break apart when used with the dessert and not to thick that you couldn’t bite through them.

I did them in batches as the slices need to be lain flat on the baking tray. I put them in for about 10minutes then turned the pieces over for another 3minutes. My oven has a hot spot in the back left hand corner so the tray generally needs to be rotated anyway. I think they were perfectly cooked!

 

Once cooled they were ready to serve. I loved them and quite enjoyed these biscotti.  Commercial biscotti I often find over-sweet and this had a nice tang to it. My boss – not a biscotti lover- actually rang me after I’d given her some to let me know it was the best she’d ever had and I should think about giving up my day job – to baking. Since I manage her store, I’m not sure if she was aware of the implications, but suffice to say I’d love to spend my day baking goods and selling them! So if you have a restaurant /café that want some biscotti I’ll make you a free trial and you can buy it from me if you love it!

 

I thoroughly enjoyed my biscotti-making experience, and I’d definitely do it again. I’d like to experiment with other flavours and ingredients and see if there are any other recipes out there. If anyone has a suggestion for me I’d love to hear from you.

 

Ciao

xoxo

ANZAC biscuits...an appropriate baking experience.

Tomorrow is ANZAC day in Australia and New Zealand, so a more appropriate biscuit couldn't have been made. Having not grown up on these biscuits, they were a welcome and tasty discovery - along with Afghan biscuits, but that's a whole other set of ingredients ;)

I actually made the first batch of ANZAC biscuits a couple of weeks ago, I think I may have mentioned that over Easter. They didn't last longer than a day, BUT they were a deviation on the recipe. In my excitement I had forgotten a key ingredient - dessicated coconut - so I quickly sourced a recipe without coconut and kinda blended them. Home-baking at it's finest. The results were different. They tasted like a home-baked biscuit, and were actually quite nice and thin and chewy they way I like them, but they were something I had to get used to. This was the excuse I used to try at least 8 of them from the batch. In retrospect to these, I'd use a little more flour, and a little less butter as they spread quite a lot.

Here's the recipe I adapted:

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
3/4 cup brown sugar
125g of butter
2 tbs golden syrup
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 160degC. Line 2 baking trays with non-stick baking paper. Sift the flour into a large bowl. Stir in the oats and brown sugar.

2. Put the butter, golden syrup and tbs of water in a small saucepan (in the 2nd recipe I did this in the microwave). Stir over a medium heat until melted. Stir in the bicarb.

3. Pour the butter mixture into the flour mixture and stir until combined.

4. Roll level tablespoons of mixture into balls. Place on the trays, about 5cm apart.

5. Press with a fork to flatten slightly. Bake for 10 minutes or until golden brown. These were better cooked a little longer.

6. Set aside on the trays for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack so it cools completely.

So, yesterday. Yesterday was a grotty, wet day and it felt like baking was needed. There is something very homely about the rain pouring outside, biscuit mixture being mixed and the smell that wafts through the house as those babies cook to golden perfection in the oven. In fact, even as I'm sitting here reliving it in my mind for you, I wish I was at home in my kitchen whipping up biscuits and slow-cooked casserole, because the temperatures have plummeted and the heavens continue to open. Hopefully tomorrow will be much of the same and I can enjoy it cooking something delicious!

I had restocked the baking shelf after using up all the flour in last week's banana bread, and yes I had purchased the dessicated coconut to give the ANZAC biccies another go. The recipe that I'd originally got was off www.taste.com.au and had exceptional reviews, so I wanted to give it a try.

This is the original recipe, unmodified and it was a success! I think I'd use a little more butter the next time I make it because the mixture was a little dry, but not unworkable.

Ingredients:

1 cup (150g) plain flour
1 cup (90g) rolled oats
1 cup (85g) desiccated coconut
3/4 cup (155g) brown sugar
125g butter
2 TBS golden syrup
1 tsp bicarb of soda

(use either cup measures or weights with dry ingredients)

Method:
(as above)

1. Preheat oven to 160C. Line 2 baking trays with non-stick baking paper. Sifter flour into large bowl. Stir in the oats, coconut and brown sugar.
2. Put the butter, golden syrup and 2 TBS water into a microwave proof bowl. Heat till melted (about 1min on a 1100W microwave). Stir till combined and melted. Stir in bicarb.
3. Pour the butter mixture into the flour mixture and combine.
4. Roll level tablespoons of mixture into balls. Place on tray about 5cm apart and press with a fork to flatten slightly.
5. Cook for 10 mins or until golden brown (in my oven that was bang on 11mins :))
6. Set aside on the trays for 5 minutes, then transfer onto a wire rack so it cools completely.

Enjoy!! This one is definitely going into the recipe journal. And with thousands of little scraps of paper being jammed into the recipe journal, maybe writing them out will be a fun job to do on ANZAC Day.

After putting these into the oven yesterday, and making a cup of Chai and Vanilla tea, I decided that we've done enough baking for a little while and it's time to get the chef to pull something out of the hat. Any suggestions let me know, but I think some savoury culinary beauties must be on the cards for the upcoming posts, don't you?

There is nothing that can quite compare to the smell of fresh biscuits baking, but slow-cooked lamb shanks or a beautiful, made-from-scratch tagine maybe able to put in some competition!

I'll keep you posted!

xoxo

The Quiche Pastry debate...Part 2

I've actually been knocked down this week with a stomach bug. It took everything out of me, and by Monday I still wasn't eating much. But, chef extraordinaire was out at a meeting and some dinner needed to be made. I had to attempt to eat it, considering I hadn't had anything solid since a sandwich at lunch time - it's done wonders for my diet (there is a hint of sarcasm there as I'd rather not have had the bug!) Cue some comfort food and the perfect opportunity to road-test the next pastry recipe.

As I've said time and again, the love of a quiche has got to be in it's ease. The filling and pastry had to be easy again this time because I wasn't feeling up to the challenge.

Here's the recipe:

1/2 cup oil
2 TBSP milk
1 1/4 - 1 1/2 cups of flour
pinch of salt

Beat it all together. Sift your flour, add the pinch of salt, pop the oil and milk in a well in the flour and beat with electric beaters and it makes an easy, crumbly base.

This time I chopped up heaps of broccoli and a little ham (leave out for the veggies and this is an easy meal for many!) I had in the fridge. I'd also bought a little bag of pinenuts and slivered almonds and threw that across the broccoli. Egg mix and in the oven. Now I overcooked this one a little. That could explain why the base was extra crumbly and a little drier than I liked. Marty also reckons that because I used oil instead of butter that would also add to the dryness. Next time, I'll pay more attention to the quiche in the oven and less attention to the TV and we'll see if it helps.

So, how did this rate:

Ease - 9/10
Flavour - 6/10
Overall - 7/10

A definite second choice. I did love the filling though and it's leftovers for dinner tonight, so maybe when my appetite has returned I'll enjoy it even more.

Let me know your ratings and which was better. Part 3 will be along in the next few weeks, don't want to be over-quiched!

xoxo

The Quiche pastry debate...Part 1

There's nothing quite like a good quiche in the realm of comfort food is there? It's excellent and generally easy for dinner, lunch or for a group. You can make it for dinner and have it for leftovers - if it makes it that long, and the reverse is true, I often use up bits and pieces in the fridge to make up an eclectic type of quiche. There are definitely some ingredients I prefer over others, but generally I don't think you need to over think a quiche filling. What IS key to me is the right base.

There is a base I have or at least I remember growing up on. I think I've phoned my mom dozens of times to get the recipe because I keep writing it on a scrap of paper and throwing it away. I have an online food blog and a hard copy recipe journal, you'd think I'd store it somewhere. Anyway, on the last phone call she gave me 3 different recipes and I have stored these this time. But I couldn't remember which one it was I wanted. I think it is this one I'm going to tell you about today, and this is the one I made on the Roasted Figs evening.

Here's the recipe:
1 cup flour
115g butter
2 tsp sugar (omit for savoury dish)

You can melt the butter in the dish you're going to use, and add the flour to create the crumbly pastry. Add a pinch of salt. I actually like to add a little paprika to the mix too. Just for something different.
I tend to make the pastry in a separate bowl, but it's not necessary at all. The filling for this quiche was a classic favourite for me. Asparagus, bacon and onion.The bacon was cooked to crispy and the onions almost caramelised. I used 5 eggs in the filling, but I have used 6 eggs in the past - with milk - for a deep, dense quiche. I don't mind using that many eggs because for 2 of us a quiche often does 2 dinners and a lunch.

How did it rate?

Ease - 10/10
Flavour - 7/10
Overall - 8/10

I'd definitely use this again.

Part 2 coming soon!

xoxo

Cinnamon shortbreads and Roasted Figs... Delicious Autumn fare.

Here's another 2 things I've never done before. Made shortbreads and roasted figs. In fact, I've never cooked with figs before ever. How did this come about then you ask, figs were on special in the supermarket. I bought some thinking I'd find something to make, and on the day of the Spiced breakfast bread, I made these for a delicious dessert. Dinner that night is a whole other matter. It will become part of a 3-part saga in the hopes I try and test the best pastry for quiche.

The shortbread recipe was surprisingly easy and they were delicious. Another of Gordon Ramsay's but a different book completely - Chef for All Seasons. Marty thought they were perfectly cooked, but I could have had them cooked a little longer so that they were a little drier and crispier. This recipe is also designed to be kept in a tube-shape in the freezer so you can have shortbreads whenever you like, and that's what we did. We only needed a couple each for the recipe, and I have frozen the rest. I cut off a couple the other night and baked them a little longer and they were incredible.

Now when it comes to shortbreads, I may not be a connoisseur, but I have grown up on the best shortbreads I think there are - in my opinion. Christmas-time was the time that my gran, and too my mother and aunt would slave over the oven to make homemade mince-pies, Christmas cake and shortbreads. And those shortbreads were melt-in-your-mouth. Hopefully one day that recipe will be passed on to me so that my kids can enjoy them as much as we all did - unless my mother wants to make them and send them down from Queensland. An arrangement I am more than happy with. Could it be that we only had them once a year that made these shortbreads so irresistible or are they just that good? Nothing store-bought has ever compared and I can safely say that as nice as my shortbreads were, they were a distance second to the ones I love with all my heart! It's probably a very good thing for the waistline that we only have them once a year.

The figs were interesting, and tasty, but following the recipe I would have added more liquid, be it butter or whatever was appropriate, to make more syrup so I could have cooked them longer and they would have got softer. I will also listen to Gordon when he says use a pan that's big enough, the pot I used was too little and was a little bit awkward to work with. Nevertheless this was interesting and when figs are roaming about again I will put in a brave second attempt, potentially enlisting the chef's help with the figs.

Stay tuned for the delicious risotto we had on Saturday, and the quiche pastry debate is set to begin.

xoxo

Spiced Breakfast bread - an update and the recipe!

Well that took longer than expected. Here's a link to the recipe for this bread:

https://plus.google.com/107346167256278601901/posts/DhUBqH8EkzQ#107346167256278601901/posts/DhUBqH8EkzQ

And here's the recipe:

Spiced Breakfast Bread - From Gordon Ramsay’s “Gordon Ramsay Makes it Easy”

Ingredients (Makes 10-12 slices)

• Butter to grease
• 3 free-range eggs
• 50g light brown sugar
• 250g thin honey
• 125ml milk
• 125g plain flour
• 125g buckwheat flour
• 1 tsp five-spice powder
• 1 tbsp ground mixed spice
• 2tbsp baking powder
• Finely grated zest of 2 oranges

Steps

Heat the oven to 320f/160c, and lightly butter a 25x10cm (9x5 inch) loaf tin.

Whisk the eggs and sugar together in a large bowl over a pan of hot water on the stove, using an electric whisk, until the mixture is pale and thickened (enough to leave a ribbon when the beaters are lifted). Remove the pan from the heat, but leave the bowl set over it.

Warm the honey and milk together in a small pan and gradually beat into the egg mixture until evenly mixed.

Sift the flour, spices and baking powder together into a large mixing bowl and carefully fold in the egg mixture, followed by the orange zest.

Spoon the mixture into the loaf tin and bake for 35-40 minutes until well risen, firm to the touch and golden brown on top. Leave in the tin for 5 minutes then turn out and cool on a wire rack.

Author’s Note

Serve warm, cut into slices. Best eaten on the day it is made, though any leftovers can be frozen. Delicious with a compote of cherries.

Ciao xx

Spiced Breakfast Bread...experiment

Well, I have been industrious in the kitchen - at times, and industrious at work, but writing...hmmmm. I suppose I could say the computer deleted my post, but that's as likely as the dog eating my homework! No, I have just been procrastinating, and what makes it worse is that the finer details of my 'industriousness' are slowly fading. Could this be old-age?!?

The sooner I share with you the better! One Monday I decided to stop mucking about and get into the kitchen. I had actually been missing just getting in there, donning my red apron and mixing up something different. I decided to start with something I had never made before, with some methods I have never used before. Recipe to follow in the next post!

This is a Spiced Breakfast Bread recipe from Gordon Ramsay's Gordon makes it easy.. book. It is very clearly set out, and seemed relatively simple to make, but when the moment of truth arrived, the result wasn't as desired as I would hope.

Don't get me wrong, it was edible and I have certainly managed to eat it, but it was not soft and delectable as I had hoped. I will say that I made one change to the recipe, which I hadn't thought a problem, maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, if any one's a breadmaker some guidance would be appreciated. The recipe called for 125g of plain flour (check) and 125g buckwheat flour (couldn't find) so I substituted it for plain flour. Could this have been the mistake? I followed the method of cooking to a tee, and when it came to checking the bread the clean knife I had used to test it came out clean. So I pulled the loaf out and left it to cool for 5 minutes in the loaf tin as instructed. When I can to remove it, it had sunk in the middle, and it seemed uncooked through the centre. Now, I've made 100 banana breads before with no hassle and never had a cake sink in the middle so I'm not sure whether it was the ingredient switch or a case of over- or underbeating in the recipe. If anyone has an answer, it would be appreciated as I'd really like to do this again, but I'm not in the mood for multiple flops! It's not good for my ego ;)

I ended up toasting a piece very generously and drowning it in butter, and then freezing the rest. The flavour was delicious. A really wintery, gingerbready smell and flavour enveloped the house for the afternoon and I was quite ready for a fire crackling in a fire place and a cup of mulled wine, but I can't keep baking a bread just for the smell of it!

I will post the recipe in a following post, and hopefully someone else will take a crack at it and pass on their comments. If yours is superb, pass on your hints and tips, or if any of you seasoned bakers can help let me know because...I want to get it RIGHT!!

See you soon,
xoxo

Some Sexy Buns on a Monday night

As promised! Some long overdue photos! I have so much to update you all on, Venetian steaks, fabulous salsas and guacamole and an impressive dessert. Plus a guest appearance from Gordon's trifle!

Be back soon! xx 

The Monday in question was a scorcher! With Marty determined to make these Swedish buns - they looked amazing on the Jamie does..Sweden episode of the series, I decided I would preserve lemons. No that's not a funny way of saying 'I'll believe it when I see it'. In the Moroccan chapter there was recipe for Preserved Lemons and so I picked up some lemons on special with all intentions of doing it while Marty had a few beers in the sun with the boys!

The lemons didn't make it into the jar until a week later and I'll post some pics of the process soon. I've got a month to find out whether that was a success or not! I followed Marty's adaptation of the original recipe and if it turns out good, bad or otherwise I'm going to make it the Jamie-way as well! Just waiting on another lemon special!

I digress. So super hot day, it was decided the barbeque needed to be lit and some friends popped over for butterflied lamb, new potatoes with loads of parsley (out of the garden!) and butter and a fresh garden salad. Before dinner he'd made the dough up so it could prove and double in size, and once it had cooled down outside he set to making these tasty morsels up.

It has got to be one of the messiest recipes to make, BUT they were worth it. These were the kind of buns I"ve only ever seen in a bakery and would never have imagined they'd be possible at home! Quite simply follow the recipe and instructions completely and you'll end up with Sexy Swedish Buns that look just like they're supposed to!

Heres the recipe http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/bread-recipes/sexy-swedish-buns tell us how you went! I enjoyed mine warm and actually had some ice-cream with it, and the next day I warmed up the leftover half and popped a little butter on it.

Pictures to follow! I still need to put them on the computer :)