Books and Bikkies

On Friday morning we took the kids to the book fair held annually at Northcote College. As always, there were more books we wanted than there was money to spend on them...especially for the girls, who are not so discerning in their choices. But we came away with a good selection, and on top of all the kids books (admittedly, quite a few of those were mine...), the girls each chose a cookbook while they were stuck waiting in the hall full of grown ups books.

So, the rest of Friday was spent reading...even at my dad's for dinner , James was unable to put down her Paul Jennings find, and I was stuck on Nancy Drew, unable to stop reading until Nancy had solved The Sign of the Twisted Candles. Sometimes I think I was supposed to stop growing somewhere around age 12. Maybe mentally, I did. I love young adult fiction. It's so easy and fun and full of possibility.

Anyway, on Saturday James was looking for something else to do, so she chose a recipe from her new book...based on the ingredients available in my cupboards. And thus we made 'Monte Creams'...otherwise known as 'Monte Carlos', I believe.

These consist of two coconutty biscuits sandwiched together with raspberry jam and a fluffy, cream-like icing sugar/butter/milk mix. Our first few biscuits were rather large, so it's kind of like eating 4 biscuits at once. They looked a bit like scones with jam and cream...scone sandwiches...which is not to say they looked bad; on the contrary...I know I seem to be easy to please when it comes to the visual side of baking...but these babies looked pretty sensational. James is turning out to be a talented baker ... and she looks pretty cute when she's tasting her bikkies, too!

 

Tomorrow is James' first day at her holiday drama class....I reckon she's going to fit in just fine!

xx

Harriet

Mish - Mash

Okay so clearly it's been a while since my last post. Not so much due to lack of baking...I've had issues uploading photos to my computer (seem to have run out of space..). Also unemployment is taking it's toll..it increases my appetite while sucking away my motivation. It's a bad, bad place. Fortunately the sunny days we've been having lately help to get me moving a bit.

Anyway, today I figured I'd just pop in some photos that have made it on to the computer, and give a sort of run down of what's been made in the past 14 or so days...

Brownies ( I forgot the chocolate chips though! Idiot)
Lemon Meringue Cupcakes (Yummo)
Ginger Crunch (my first ever attempt...tasty but definitely weird..thin...and not so crunchy)
A home made peanut butter cup type thing...little pastry shells with a mix of peanut butter, condensed milk, chocolate and icing sugar for a filling, topped with melted chocolate..yum yum)
Russian Fudge (had to make with raw sugar as I had no white, but it was a good experiment, still works and tastes pretty good..pretty sugary sweet)

I'm getting kind of bored with my baking..I need some new inspiration..to create something different. Looking forward to our first assignment as Russell and Cake... and because I love things in miniature, I think it's going to be fun to get creative with the menu for Viv's baby shower. Yay for babies.

Bowl of brownie

Cookies made by my Dad...using our grannie's recipe

Afternoon tea - minty hot chocolates and marshmallows

Making lemon meringue cupcakes...

...a model assistant!

There's a baby on the way....

My friend Viv is having a baby in September (due on my birthday no less!) and Harriet and I are charged with the responsibility of providing all the sweet treats for the occasion.  We have to get together and put our thinking caps on and come up with an awesome spread....

Not so much this...

As this, I think...

All rights reserved by HelenPalsson

Kate x

Images: one from here, two from here.

Workin' 9 til 5

Well actually more like 8 til 4.30, but same dif.

Tomorrow will be the last day of my first official week back at work full time and i am exhausted!! Who knew you office folk worked so hard??

I have been meaning to post about my activities over the weekend but every night i plonk myself down on the couch and am subsequently too lazy to move- slack!

But anyway, better late than never right?

For starters on Friday afternoon this

transformed into this:

and we went to ballet - the last class i'll be able to attend for a while (sob)

We tried to catch some Juno smiles on camera:

 Fat chance with the big sister around....  

On Saturday I went to the Langham with my friends for high tea, which was amazing and highly photo worthy (but of course i forgot my camera!!!) however this shot from the web gives you some idea...

It was so so good, i ate till i felt sick and then i ate some more. There were rum and raisin scones, dainty sandwiches, friands and fruit tarts - it was all exquisitely presented. My friend Liz works at the Langham and organised a great table and we got lots of special attention- fun, fun, fun!

On Sunday, the nerves kicked in and i was a bit anxty thinking about leaving my girls and heading off to work the next day, so.... I baked !!!

Chocolate chippies -a perfect comfort cookie. As is always the way with me and my sister, i had to get creative with the ingredients- drop a few here, add a few there, but the end result was pretty damn good if i do say so myself. So nice to eat on Monday when i was freaking out at my desk....

The rest of the weekend was spent dodging the disgusting weather, watching a lot of Lion King and Toy Story and getting the whole family ready for a full on working week.... by the end of it we were pooped.....

I can't believe that the weekend is about to roll around again already, sure am hoping i get a sleep in

Kate x

ps: Check out the Langham site, if you feel like heading out for a bit of High tea- i recommend it xx

Did I mention...I love pie?

It was Independence Day yesterday so I figured I should try something slightly United States themed...but because it's not exactly BBQ season here I opted for a combination of two other American favourites, and favourties of mine......Pumpkin Pie (mmmmmm...pie) and baked cheesecake.

I have a great recipe for a simple baked cheesecake that comes from Mollie Katzen's Moosewood Kitchen recipe book, and I've been using it ever since I turned vegetarian and suddenly found myself the owner of many a specialist cookbook! I do prefer a baked cheesecake to a gelatin-based, set in the fridge job...it's good to know there are no hooves in my meal, and it just tastes better.

As for Pumpkin Pie, this is something I first got into after reading Judy Blume's "Just as long as we're together", many many years ago. Something about Stephanie's comfort eating of copious amounts of pie obviously appealed to me and now I know why...because it tastes so good!Nothing cures the blues like a good slice of pie. It's one food i find it very hard to stop eating...along with chocolate...and lots of other wickedly unhealthy things..

The other part of this baking equation is a hangover from my childhood, and that is a fascination for things in miniature..such a great marketing ploy...anyway here it means i made individual Pumpkin Cheesecake Pies.

One thing that has always stumped me in American recipes is their use of graham crackers as a base...apparently we just have no equal to whatever a graham cracker may be. In the past I often used malt biscuits, but this time around I went with a more subtle, Kiwi style, Vanilla-Wine biscuit base.





As pictured, I used some muffin cases - designed to give your muffins that authentic cafe look - because they are available fairly cheaply from the supermarket, and its basically just pre-folded baking paper, which helped to keep the whole thing together and not sticking to the muffin tray.

So the biscuit and butter base went in first, followed by the pumpkin-cheesecake layer. I actually only had about half the correct amount of cream cheese (and it was solid as a rock thanks to my fridge, which thinks it's a freezer), but I simply reduced the eggs from 4 to 3, so it wouldn't be too custardy, and then chcuked in an unmeasured amount of of cooked, mashed pumpkin. Now, if i was being truly authentic and US citizen-like, I would probably have got my pumpkin from a can...but instead I just cooked and cooled it myself beforehand. It was about half a pumpkin. I have no idea of weights/measurements...i just chuck things in and if the consistency seems right, away we go.





This filling also contains sugar (i switched to brown because it seemed more suited to the pumpkin), and instead of the usual lemon juice for flavouring i used maple syrup. So this was poured on to the bases and baked for around 20 minutes until they were cute little orangey custard looking things.




Then I had to wait awhile for the pies to cool to room temperature - and for the frozen sour cream to defrost (thank you, mental fridge). Finally it was ready and the topping was whipped up...basically it's just sour cream and sugar, but I used the last (sob) of my vanilla sugar because it has a great flavour and also resulted in pretty little specks of brown vanilla bean in the topping. This is then baked again for about 8 minutes and then...there you have it...oh beautious pie...cheesecake...whatever you are...













Rory very patiently waited and assisted while I photographed the fisnished product....then she plunged in with great enthusiasm. As she told James later, they were very yummy..'and you can't even taste the pumpkin!'. What she means, of course, is that you can taste the pumpkin..but it tastes surprisingly good! Not at all like a vegetable!!

Not so nice Caramel Slice

 

My sister makes the best caramel slice in the world - it's a fact. I noticed this morning that i had an almost full tin of condensed milk in the fridge and decided that i would have a crack at making some too.... problem is, i couldn't find the recipe and i didn't want to bug Harriet, which seems to be all i ever do!

I was just about to give up on the idea of some caramelly goodness, when i noticed that the very tin in my hands hads a recipe for caramel slice on it- fate !

This recipe is different from Harriet's in that the base has brown sugar and no cocoa and the caramel is brought to the boil and cooked for a full five minutes before it is spread on the base. The base in this recipe is also par baked before the caramel layer is added. The topping is meant to be melted cooking chocolate, but i had none on hand so stuck with a chocolate glace' icing - the same as Harriet's slice.

Well i have just eaten some and while it's nice, i have to say it's not a patch on my sisters - this one is very sweet and there's not enough cocoa to cut through the richness of the caramel. I gave some to Mila and she seemed pretty impressed but all in all i think it could be improved on. 

While i'm talking up my sister's baking prowess, I should also mention that we went out for coffee last week at a cute bakery and she brought a caramel and nut tart to try and we both agreed it wasn't nearly as good as the ones she invented at our mum's last month - so i guess there's hope!

And for all of you wondering how it is i can eat caramel slice at all, given Juno's dairy status- well i've decided to wean her. a) because i have a job( woo hoo, holy shit) and b) because i stupidly ate eggs Benedict the other day and made her miserably, miserably sick presumably because of all the butter in the hollandaise. So an executive decision was made- special formula only for this kiddo, from this day forward. I'll think about offering some solids too in about a month.....

Coconut and clementines

Sunday was rather miserable and cold..one of those days where I can't really be bothered to venture outside. I had no children, no work...no nothing...what to do? Bake, of course.
I felt like making a cake, and it had to be one that didnt require cocoa or icing ...so i looked in my pantry and decided on a coconut cake, with some mandarin juice for a little extra kick.

After originally thinking John and Phil were growing grapefruit...then oranges... I have come to the conclusion it's some kind of mandarin...maybe tangerine, maybe clementine. They are larger than your average supermarket mandarin, a deeper orange, very very juicy....whatever they are, as Phil said , "it's edible citrus...that's all that matters". It makes great juice, and they're lovely to cook with.

So I took a coconut cupcake recipe, used normal milk instead of coconut milk, and squeezed a lot of juice in too, and poured it all into one big cake tin. It didn't rise so much but has a slightly crunchy top and a slightly sticky middle, and - being a yogurt fan- i thought it went perfect with the very creamy greek yogurt I happened to have in the fridge. Some prefer it topped with cookies and cream ice cream ....each to their own i guess! I think it would make a very dainty little afternoon tea cake...served on one of my grandmother's old plates alongside a cup of cocoa.
Sort of child-like sophistication. Happiness on a plate...so simple.











And I would just like to add..... CONGRATULATIONS to my clever big sister who has just got herself a new job...although it does mean she will have less time to blog, I presume. So you will perhaps be hearing more from me...but there are always weekends! And it means I will be spending more time with my nieces, so perhaps there will be some kid friendly recipes headed this way soon..