Gingerbread houses

I remember a few years a go, I tried to put together one of those three dimensional gingerbread houses.  I didn't make the gingerbread myself, but instead bought a kit from Ikea (of all places).   I don't know why, but I stupidly picked the most hottest and clammiest day over the Christmas break to try and stick it all together.  I very quickly discovered that royal icing is rather like me in the humidity - overly temperamental and a hag to work with.  Needless to say, the two hours of effort I put into trying to recreate the magical image on the box resulted in a failure of colossal proportions, a Tupperware container full of gingerbread shards and me vowing never, ever to make another one, ever.

Fast forward five years and can you guess what I'm making?  Cameron likes to gift his classmates something every year and we were looking through my cutters and these were about as Christmas-ish as it got (besides stars, but they are ho-hum because I make them ALL the time, apparently).  So gingerbread houses were the go.  But this time, without those two extra pesky dimensions.



Anyway, check these over and spot the mistakes.  As you can see, my mad (sad) piping technique needs some work, and I'm quite sure some of Cameron's friends will be scratching their heads and thinking, what the heck are THESE supposed to be??  Cameron took great care and skill in placing on the coloured bobbles and pretty silver things, but that's where the care and skill ended, I'm afraid. 

 I think, as a cookie decorator, I make a pretty good dressmaker, or anything else for that matter. 

Zombie cookies

Halloween is fun, and a great excuse to make cookies.  I love cooking stuff with a theme, but when I saw the price tag on a bag of four plastic cutters, which very vaguely looked like a witch, a ghost, a cat and an I-don't-know-what-that-is,  I just about screamed.  Oh, okay, no I didn't - I mean swore.  Screaming just sounds more Halloween-ish.

But I did end up buying some mint lollies and licorice straps, and gave some boring round-shaped gingerbread cookies a makeover instead.  Here is the recipe and how-to. If you have a favourite gingerbread or shortbread recipe, you could use that instead and just use the decorating face making tips.  These go together really quick.

What you need

125g butter, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar (firmly packed)
1 egg yolk
2 1/2 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 or 3 teaspoons of ground ginger (or none, if ginger isn't your thing)
3 tablespoons golden syrup
1/2 cup of water (you may not need all of it)
Jam
Small white mints for eyeballs (I used Jila mints)
Licorice (I used a 2 pack of 1 meter Fyna Licorice rolls, though only a tiny bit - I have about 1.95 metres left! )
Food writer (I used an Americolor Gourmet Writer) or black writing icing

To make cookies -

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius.  Grease and line two baking sheets with baking paper.

Sift the flour, baking soda and ground ginger into a bowl and set aside.

Using a stand mixer, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.  Add the egg yolk, and beat well.  Gradually add the sifted dry ingredients and the golden syrup and continue to mix.  With the mixer running, gradually add the water a bit at a time, until you reach a cookie-dough-like consistency, as below.

Scoop mixture out of bowl (you should easily be able to able to press it into a big ball) and place on a roughly square sheet of baking paper.  Place another square sheet of baking paper on top of the dough, so it's sandwiched between the paper, and using a rolling pin, flatten  to a thickness of about 5mm.  (I find it easier to roll between two sheets of paper - it saves having to use flour to keep the dough from sticking to the rolling pin and the bench.  Using too much flour will make the cookie dough elasticky and affect the taste.  That's my experience, anyway).

Cut 24 rounds of approximately a six centimetre diameter, using a small glass or cup (I actually used the plastic lid from my cooking spray), and pop twelve on each cookie sheet.  You may have dough enough dough left over to make more.  

Now you need to find something you can use to indent the eye sockets.  They have to be a little bit wider than the sweets you have chosen to use as eyeballs.  The end of a marker, a piece of dowel, a small plastic bottle cap, etc.  (Whatever you use, make sure you wash it and dry it so you are not inadvertently poisoning yourself with germs or something toxic.  That's not a good trick, even if it is Halloween.)  I had a hunt through my useful box and found a wooden bead which I pressed into the cookies to make the eye sockets.

Then scoop a small amount of the jam (about an eighth of a teaspoon) into each socket to make the eye-goo.  If you get a little bit on other parts of the cookie, don't worry.  A zombie wouldn't care, so why should you?

Snip small pieces of licorice into strips, and press into the cookies to make mouths.

Pop your zombie heads into the oven for ten minutes, on the middle shelf.  That means you'll have to bake them one tray at a time.

Once out of the oven, press the eyeballs on gently.  I used these Jila mints for mine.  They are white on one side and blue on the other.  I pressed the blue side onto the sockets so all the eyeballs are white.

 As far as squoosh factor goes, a bit of jammy eye-goo squeezing out from behind the eyeballs is a good thing, but don't press them on so hard that you lose the eyeball altogether through the bottom of the cookie.  Leave them to cool on the tray for at least ten minutes so they have time to firm up.

Then using your food writer or black icing, detail the eyeballs with some wonky black pupils.  Lift them off the baking sheets with the help of a spatula or egg slice, and place them onto a wire rack to cool completely.  Store in an airtight container before using them to gross out  visitors or packing them up for the kids at school.

 

What a bunch of good-looking cookies.

Not all of them were blessed with cranky faces.  We managed to make a few smiley ones.  Because I'm sure some zombie cookies are happy with their lot in (the after-) life...

 

...even after having been stuck in the eye with a licorice stick.

These were a bit of trial run for the kids in Cameron's class.  He'll take some in his lunch tomorrow.  It's another week until Halloween, and I can see myself making another batch next week for Friday, unless I'm told not to.  They're not too over the top for nine and ten year olds, are they? You just never know these days.  I think they are sort of cute, actually, eye-goo and all.  I'm guessing that I'll sleep just fine with these sitting in my pantry tonight.  Well, I think I will.

Anyway, just in case, Happy Halloween for next Friday!  I'm sorry to say, that if you're local and you were planning to knock on my door for treats, you're all out of luck because I will be working - boooooooo (that's a sad boooo, not a scary one).  Have fun!

PS.  As the saying goes with regards to zombie cookies - eat them, before they eat you. I'm sure you've heard that one before, but I really wanted to use it.  Sorry.

Cameron baked today....

I usually bake something on Sundays for him to take to school - muffins, biscuits, something like that, but I'm in a bit of a dark mood with my kitchen today.  It is playing up like a hormonal witch (which is usually my specialty).  In the past twenty four hours, I have burnt myself on the stove-top, an oven rack AND the toaster, I slammed my finger in a cupboard door, and then my jumper got caught in the runner of my new bin drawer and ripped a large and mostly unrepairable hole in my sleeve.  If it had been my old kitchen, I would have kicked it over.  But I just spent a load of money on getting it restored, so I refrained from going full-metal-jacket on it and just swore at it instead.  Dumb kitchen.

Or maybe it's just me playing up like a hormonal witch, and I am being super clumsy.  In fact, this is probably more likely the case, but I am not prepared to admit it (or to be told such a thing by anybody within swiping distance).

But whatever the reason and whoever or whatever is at fault, I decided I am not cooking in it today.  It would more than likely do me right in.  So I sent Cameron in to do my dirty work and make his own school snacks.  I gave him this recipe because it is the easiest thing ever, it doesn't require to much concentration and it is a trade-able commodity at school, he tells me. 

Chocolate Coconut Slice

1 cup plain flour
1 tablespoon cocoa
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup coconut

185g (6oz) butter, melted
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

For the icing:
I cup icing sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
30g butter (1oz) butter, melted
1 tablespoon hot water
Sprinkles (optional)

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius.  Grease and line an 11 inch x 7 inch pan.

Sift flour and cocoa into a mixing bowl, add sugar and coconut and stir until all dry ingredients are combined.  Add melted butter and vanilla, mix well.  Press into pan and bake for 20 minutes.  Leave to cool in pan.  When cold, ice with chocolate icing (make the icing by sifting the icing sugar and cocoa into a bowl, add melted butter and hot water and mix until glossy).  Scatter with sprinkles, if desired.  Pop in the fridge for an hour or so.  Cut into bars or squares when the icing has set.

  

Too easy.   Cameron was able to get it to slab stage and smothered in icing and sprinkles.  It sat in the fridge for a few hours before I summoned up the courage to cut it up with a big knife.  But, I'm happy to report that I neither dropped the lot on the floor or stabbed myself in the hand.  It looks like things are on the up.   Take that, kitchen.

The sorry cake.

I made my friend Cheryl this "I missed your birthday!" cake which I will deliver to her in the morning.  It was her birthday earlier in the month and I totally forgot.  I feel bad, because she never forgets mine (but that probably has something to do with the fact that her husband's is on the same day).  Anyway, it will be nice to catch up all the same, even if it is purely because I am grovelling for her forgiveness.  And her cat has had kittens, so it will be extra fun.

Hugs and kisses.

In my last post I undoubtedly gave the impression I was some sort of anti-Valentinist.   Yes,  well it's probably true.  However, I am not a total misery guts - any holiday or special-occasion-type-day is a good reason to make thematic cookies to surprise the kids with.   I made some for Cameron's lunch box - they are kind of tiny, but I will bag them up nice and he'll think they're pretty special.  Because he is my appreciative child (most of the time).  

And when I say I made 'some', I mean I made about four thousand.  I think I need less dough or bigger cutters.  Luckily, hugs and kisses are good for any day. 

I love it when you go to the coffee shop, and they give you a little cookie with your coffee.  Whether it be a tiny little shortbread, one of those imported miniature biscotti things you could break your teeth on, or even just an Arnott's Tiny Teddy, I see it as a sort of little 'thank you.  Thank you for buying our coffee and sitting in our coffee shop.  Come back soon!' sentiment.  I am not usually a sentimental kind of person, especially when it comes to commercially-made foodstuffs, but I appreciate little gestures like that.  So much so, I like to try and imitate those same feelings at home.

Cameron and I made some shortbread mixture in the food processor (I just chuck it all in and blitz!), I rolled it out flat, and then my boy-slave set to work cutting teeny clouds.  After much cutting, re-rolling and more cutting, we must have had about one hundred and fifty tiny little shapes ready for the oven, and a great big mess of flour all over the bench tops and floor.

I gave some of them happy thank you faces with the help of a clean worn out Kilometrico ball-point pen.  Some cookies are just more thankful than others.

As there were so many, and I only had two baking sheets, I had a bit of a tag team going between the oven, the cooling rack, the sink and the next batch of cookies, but it certainly gave me enough time to clean up the horrible mess we made.

I have learned, however, that when you have all the cookies, and they have not been doled out singly to you by a coffee shop proprietor, you tend to eat more than one.  The kids and their Dad are inclined to grab a handful, amidst my screams of  "No!! Pigs!", so I'm not really feeling the lovely sentimentality I experience when we have coffee out.  But that's okay, I will make them again, because they are super cute.

Have a happy day, Cookie!

There is something really nostalgic about those old, simple recipes which just consist of throwing everything into a bowl, mixing it together, pressing into a pan and popping it in the oven.  Recipes with no fancy cooking methods, or far-fetched ingredients you have to go to a special shop for.  This recipe comes from my late Nanna, who wrote it down in a very lady-like hand on a piece of paper that must be close to forty years old now.  I love old handwritten recipes.

This yummy slice is so easy you could probably make it the first time with your eyes closed.  We made it today, and it is the perfect complement to the grey cloudy skies and brisk wind outside - the kitchen is toasty warm from the oven and the house smells like a bakery. 

125g butter

1 cup of brown sugar

1 egg

1 level tsp salt

1 cup chopped dates

1 cup self raising flour

Melt the butter, mix in the sugar and salt.  Add the egg and dates and mix to combine.  Then add the self raising flour and again mix to combine.  Spread mixture into a greased and lined 11x 7 inch pan, and bake for 15-20 minutes at 180 degrees celsius.  If you find the top is browning to quickly, cover with foil (my oven is bad for this).  The slice puffs up while cooking, but will deflate (that is not the proper cooking term, I know, but that is the best way I know to describe what happens) on cooling.  When cool, cut into squares.  

I have also made this as a dessert by cooking in a small cake tin for about ten minutes longer, and serving wedges of it hot out of the oven with ice cream and butterscotch sauce.  Don't eat it too close to bed-time though, because all that sugar will make you super-hyper and unable to sleep.

Oooh, and my Nan noted that you could also add half a teaspoon of cinnamon, if you like things spicy.

Cameron's in the kitchen.

Once a week, after homework, Cameron and I do some easy cooking, just for something different.   He enjoys making treats for himself and his sister, and something that can occasionally be packed in his lunch box for school that he can show off.  I expect he does that, because I remember I used to do that when I was at school.  Behold! - my homemade treat.

Most mums probably know this recipe already; these are cheap and dead easy, you can make them on a whim and throw them in the freezer ahead of time, pulling them out when little unexpected visitors drop by, or for impromptu school parties.  If you process the biscuits into crumbs for the kids beforehand, they can basically be left to make these themselves (save for opening the can of milk -  gosh, I hate those tin-can lids).

Chocolate Coconut Truffles

250g plain sweet biscuits (we use Arnott's Milk Arrowroot)
1/2 cup desiccated coconut
2 tablespoons cocoa
340g tin condensed milk
about 1/2 - 3/4 cup of desiccated coconut, extra.  Put this measure onto a flat plate.

Pulverise the biscuits into fine crumbs in a food processor (I do this earlier in the day - Sophie's usually falling off to sleep when Cameron's in the kitchen).  Pop them into a mixing bowl with the first measure of coconut and the cocoa.  Mix to combine.

Pour the entire can of condensed milk into the dry mixture and stir it in thoroughly.  You may need to use your hands to push and combine everything together.  When you can mould it into a big ball shape and it all sticks together nicely, your on the money.

Roll the mixture into balls of about one inch.  Drop the balls onto the flat plate of coconut and roll them about until covered.  Refrigerate to set.

Another added bonus with these is that they only take about fifteen to twenty minutes to make, which includes cleaning up time.  Yahoo!  And very popular with little sisters, too.  So much so, they may try to fit two or three into their mouth at one time when you are not looking. 

Holidays are over *sad*

His cheese bun may think it's something to smile about, but I miss Cameron terribly when he's at school :( 

It's a good day for chocolate cake.

Because it's cold.  The rich, chocolate-y warmth that fills the house when this cake is baking in the oven is reason enough alone to make it, but of course, eating a nice gooey slab of it (especially with a big dollop of creme fraiche and zingy, fresh strawberries) is a super good reason, too.

This has become our favourite chocolate cake.  It's flour-less and (in our house, at least) we make it without sugar.  You'll find the original recipe by Melissa here.  (It says it's a brownie recipe, but it is just as good in cake form!)  To make a sugar-free version, we instead use four 45 gram bars of 'Well, Naturally' sugar-free dark chocolate and replace the cup of sugar with three quarters of a cup of xylitol.  (For the uninitiated, xylitol is natural sweetener made of birch bark and corn cobs.  There is no bitter after-taste and it actually helps to prevent tooth decay.  It's magic stuff!)

Carnival cake

Carnival cake has all the best things piled into one heap and provides some cheap thrills.  True, it isn't quality food, but you can throw it together quickly, put whatever you want into it, pop it in the freezer and you're set.  Or better still, get the kids to do it all. 

Whenever you're at the supermarket, keep an eye out for cakes that have been marked down for quick sale, take them home and pop them in your freezer.  Pick up your favourite chocolate bars or cookies when they're on special and squirrel them away.  When the mood takes you, buy some ice-cream (we buy the sort that's divided into three flavours in the tub, so we can have differently coloured ice-cream layers) and stack away!

The one above was made in an 8 x 8 inch cake pan, but you can use any size or shape pan depending on how much cake and icecream you want to get rid of.   Spritz your pan with cooking spray and line it criss-crossedly with two or three layers of plastic wrap (you'll need to leave quite a bit of overhang to enclose your cake with once it's all together).  Then the fun starts!

The cake above starts out with sponge-cake on the bottom, followed by a layer of softened chocolate and vanilla ice-cream topped with chocolate cream biscuits.  (After the first layer of ice-cream, I like to wrap the cake up and put it in the freezer for half an hour to harden it up a bit.)   Next are rounds of chocolate swiss roll, top by some strawberry ripple ice-cream and then topped with slices of jam rollettes.  Wrap it all up in the plastic that you've left overhanging the edges of your pan, and leave it for a couple of hours to harden.   Once sliced, all those yummy layers look really pretty!

This is a really easy dessert to make for childrens' birthdays and lazy summer barbecue parties, and something the kids can have fun planning and putting together.  And when you're in one of those moods and you can't decide whether it's cake, cookies or ice-cream that will make things all better, this cake covers every option.  It's like a super-cake.  And, with so many possibilities, no two will ever be alike.  I'm liking the idea of Bounty bars and maraschino cherries for my next, after I've ploughed my way through the rest of this one.  Because an eight by eight inch slab of this cake takes some eating.  And so, therefore, like a carnival ride, make sure you share the experience amongst your friends and family, so you can all have fun feeling a bit peaky together.

Batten down the hatches....

...a major storm is crossing the coast at the moment, one that we've been warned about since mid yesterday.  This one has come hot on the heels of damaging winds and storms we were subjected to on Sunday, which left tens of thousands of homes without power for a considerable time.  We were lucky enough to have ours restored after 21 hours.  But many are still without power and will have to withstand this awfulness in the dark.  Cameron's teacher has sent him home with a letter, informing us of a likely school closure due to the severity of the forecast storm, and possible damage it may cause.  It is all a little bit scary.

As I type, the wind is howling past my window, and causing things to clank and shudder and bend and creak.   But we've been told the real fun will start at about ten o'clock and endure for several hours.  We have our emergency kit, and really-important-phone-numbers at the ready and we are prepared for what will probably be a sleepless night of peeking out the window, watching debris flying down the road, and consoling freaked-out children.   The joy of winter!

As we may well lose our power again tonight, I thought it might be a good idea to fill our tummies with something warm and comforting.  Paul and I are somewhat carbohydrate-conscious during the week, saving the starchy stuff, for the weekend.  But I thought what the heck!  Potatoes and dumplings tonight!   

 

With all those carbs loose in my system, I am ready for anything!   But hopefully, not something like running around the neighbourhood picking up pieces of my house.

Ooooo, it's starting to get really wild now.  Good luck and best wishes to everyone.  All that's left to do now is to sit and wait.  And knit!

What Autumn tastes like

I've made this more times than I can count in the past few weeks.  Well, not quite, but rather alot. When you're frying bacon, toasting pine nuts and roasting sweet potatoes all at the same time, your house smells insane.  Add baby spinach and a home-made garlic and basil mayonnaise, some crusty oven-warm bread and a glass of red, and it is dangerously close to perfect.  It all tastes even better when the air is getting crispy outside, and you're closed up in your cosy little home wearing a pair of striped woolly bed socks, listening to Laura Fygi's Rendez-vous, all while having nowhere else to go.  Heaven.

Autumn, you took forever to arrive and you're leaving in three days.  Don't go!  If you never went away, it's true that I would be the happiest girl on Earth. 

Cameron's cupcake factory (and some sneaky business...)

It's school holidays, and as I'm sure a lot of bored kids do, Cameron requested to be let loose in the kitchen.  I said yes, provided that we share the spoils among our friends and family.  There is still LOADS of chocolate in the fridge (and the cupboard) from Easter, and feeding the kids baked goods loaded with more sugar will do little to help my current frazzled mental state.  Although, the real culprit behind my exhaustion is the one year old.  She is an unstoppable ratbag (albeit a very cute one, lucky for her!).

So, yesterday we visited the supermarket.  Cameron chose a banana cake mix (which would not have been my first choice, but it was his project) baked into baby cakes, swirled with green vanilla butter-cream and topped off with a Malteaser.   He practiced his swirls on a plate before icing his cakes.  But he got the hang of it pretty quickly and I have to say I am pretty impressed with his piping skills!  Champion!  And, my gosh, we ended up making nearly fifty!  It really was a production line-type scene in my poor little kitchen. 

 

I've been bringing home plastic inserts from work which are the *perfect* size for popping baby cakes into.  Of course, we wash them first.

 

We wrapped them up in cellophane (the Malteaser helped to stop the wrapping smearing Cameron's lovely swirls) and topped each pack with a home-made label.  He was so impressed with his efforts, he suggested we head straight over to the shopping centre and sell them to the Woolies bakery.  Oh, the innocence!

 

But instead, once Paul was home and Sophie was in bed, we jumped in the car and dropped them at a couple of friends' houses, texting them once we were down the road, with cryptic messages leading them to where we left them at their front doorsteps.  Well, no, not really.  We just messaged them to check outside their door, because we left them cake.  It is raining after all.  We'd rather they be found quickly than become a six pack of soggy green goop.  And besides which, there is a slug epidemic around here - ewwwww!  A cute little packet of cakes would just lose all their charm if they were found covered in big fat slugs!  Ughhhh!!! 

And there was even enough left over for me to take over to my friend Sarah's house when I went to visit this morning - bonus!

So, good sneaky work!!

Hmmmm, I wonder when he will strike next?

No-bake orange slice.

Last night, we had a lovely barbecue dinner at the home of some dear friends.  The food is always awesome there, and we are always told not to bring a thing.  But I hate turning up with nothing, and usually make something to have with coffee.  I know my friend likes lemon bars, and was all set to make some, until I notice my lack of lemons.  Only one, and I needed two.  Boo!

However, I did have two oranges, so I changed up my recipe for no-bake lemon bars into orange ones.  (And when I say my recipe, I mean the one written on the back of a Repco Auto Service receipt that is tucked into my cookbook and which was probably copied from an old Woman's Weekly while waiting at the doctor's surgery.)  Here's the recipe, if you would like to give it a go.

1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk
125g butter
1 250g packet of Scotch Finger biscuits, finely crushed
1 cup dessicated coconut
Zest of one orange
Juice of one orange

And for the orange icing:
1 3/4 cup icing sugar
Juice of one orange
15g of soft butter

Grease and line an 11 x 7 inch pan and set aside.  In a mixing bowl, place crushed biscuits, coconut and orange zest and mix together well.  Place condensed milk and butter into a saucepan and stir over a low heat until butter has melted and mixture is combined.  Remove from heat, add orange juice to milk mixture and stir to combine.  Pour milk mixture over dry ingredients and mix together until combined.  Press into the greased pan and refrigerate until firm.

To make the orange icing, mix together sifted icing sugar, orange juice and butter in a bowl until smooth.  Spread over the chilled slice.  (The original recipe calls for extra coconut to sprinkle over the top if you so desire.  I was in a twinkly mood, so I scattered silver cachous on mine.)  Again, return to the fridge until icing has set and then cut into squares. Yum!

We are presently in the middle of another heatwave, and these kind of no-bake recipes make me very happy!

And look who else is happy!  Someone dodged a bullet...

...but only until tomorrow, because I'm going to squeeze his insides out all over a lovely salmon fillet.

Oh.  Sorry.

Cooking a swirly cake - by Cameron.

Hi, this is Cameron!  Today we made a cake.  It was a vanilla cake with pink swirly cakes inside.

First we made a cake mix, and put a small bit in the bottom of a loaf pan.  Then we put mini swiss rolls along the centre of the pan and then put the rest of the cake mix on top and cooked it.  We made some light pink icing to put on top.  I shook sprinkles on it, too.

When we cut the cake, there were pink swirly circles inside.

My Nanna had some.  It was delicious!