Tag Archives: Baking

Making…

Bunting on Monday…

Bunting
Project overseen and fabrics chosen by Niamh, purchased in the recent GJ’s fabric sale – to which every craft blogger in the north seems to have been!

Cracked my first Nicole Mallalieu pattern on Tuesday…

Purse01a

Purse01b
Are you sick of this fabric yet? Not I! This is Nikki’s 90mm coin purse pattern, and not terribly tricky… though I must admit it’s not quite finished – I haven’t tackled the crimping/squishing of the metal frame yet, as there’s nothing resembling a cork coaster in the house. Think I’ll be making more of these 🙂

Revisiting “Smartie Cookies” on Wednesday…
SmartieCookies

I had some helpful comments back on this post after we used M&Ms on the last batch of these. This time we used Smarties. Hardly any of these cracked, which is good, but some of the (all-natural, as Marita pointed out) colours were altered in cooking – the green ones turned yellow, the blues went quite pale, and some of the others were dulled as well. They look like they’re out of a 70’s cookbook! Oh well. Tasty nonetheless. I think our playgroupers appreciated them.

Here’s One I Prepared Earlier

This post, that is. Since I’m away for the weekend (sort of), this post comes to you courtesy of yesterday 🙂

Since I blogged about making friands, lots of people are stumbling across my blog while out Googling for friand recipes. So especially for you friand fiends (okay, and for me), I’ve been hunting down some more recipes. Here’s a few you may like to try:

Raspberry surprise and Green tea Chocolate surprise friands
Orange and poppyseed friands
Fruity friands (for Em, who asked about a gluten free recipe)
Chocolate and Raspberry friands.

Interestingly, when I went seeking friand recipes, I noticed that they seem to be a bit of an Australian obsession. Even, I would say, a Melbourne obsession. Do you think this is related to this city’s ongoing love affair with good food, and of café food in particular?

I bought myself a new friand pan recently. Here’s the recipe I’ll be breaking it in with:

Chocolate and Pecan Friands
190 g (6½ oz) unsalted butter
100 g (3½ oz) ground almonds
6 egg whites
75 g (3 oz) plain flour
3 tablespoons chopped peans
3 tablespoons chocolate chips
115 g (4 oz) caster sugar
icing sugar for dusting

Preheat the oven to 175°C (350°F/ Gas mark 4). Lightly grease 12 small friand tins. Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium-high heat for 3-4 minutes until very hot. Remove from heat, cool for five minutes. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add lightly beaten egg whites and stir until just combined. Stir in melted butter. Pour mixture evenly into prepared pans so they are two thirds full. Bake 20-25 minutes or until golden and firm to touch. Remove tins from the oven and cool for 5 minutes. Turn friands out onto a rack and cool completely. Serve dusted with icing sugar. Store in an airtight container for up to 2 days.

(from 500 cupcakes & muffins, Connolly, F. New Burlington Books. © Quintet Publishing Limited. Directions modified for clarity)

Now go forth and bake!

Bake Away the ezBoard Blues

This post is dedicated to all the ezBoard readers who are feeling out of touch. I thought of you today as I baked biscuits with my son (that would be ‘cookies’ to most of you!) I thought of you because:

a) when I opened the drawer where my baking paper is kept, I saw all the bits and pieces sitting neatly in zip-lock baggies, and
b) when I reached for the dessicated coconut, it was nicely labelled with a black-on-clear PTouch label.

Both of these organizational wonders are a direct result of me hanging out in the stitching boards… so thankyou… I think 😕 Anyway, the ANZAC biscuits came out great, so if you’re looking for something to do while your favourite board is still chewing up and spitting out your posts, may I suggest:

  • Ingredients
    • 1 cup plain flour
    • 1 cup rolled oats
    • 3/4 cup desiccated coconut
    • 1 cup brown sugar
    • 125g butter
    • 2 tbsp golden syrup
    • 1 tsp baking soda
    • 3 tbsp boiling water
  • Method
    • Combine sifted flour, oats, coconut and sugar in a bowl. Melt butter and Golden Syrup in a saucepan over low heat. Dissolve baking soda in boiling water, then add to the butter and Golden Syrup. Stir this into oats mixture mix well. Spoon tablespoons of mix onto a tray lined with baking paper. Leave plenty of space to allow for spreading. Bake at 150C for 12-15 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack. Enjoy!

Not as good as Tim Tams, I grant you, but fabulous anyway. Still in search of something to do? Go check out Browse Happy. Then go stitch :giggle: