2nd bake for 2023 🙂 I have made this before from a cookbook I bought in Portugal many years ago. As I’m having fun with baking this year, and that means, baking recipes from my cookbooks, I thought what better way to spend a new years day than making flaky Read more…
That’s right you heard it here first, but what a great combination. Dried fruit in you lamb, chilli and coriander pie. Not only that, it was full of butternut pumpkin and ginger!! Yum! I really want to get into cooking like this on a regular basis, where you finely chop and then fry off a mixture of aromatics and spices (in this case), onion, chopped ginger, garlic, chilli and ground coriander to flavour your dish. At my cooking class in Bali, all the recipes were based around this style of cooking. I loved it. https://thebakersdozenbakeoff.com/2018/10/11/paon-bali-cooking-class-ubud/
Then to this aromatic spice mixture I added the diced lamb and browned this off. Then I added the vegetable stock and brought this to the boil before transferring to the oven for 30 minutes. After that it was time to
(more…)
This was not a hard bake. With only 5 bakes to go, it feels like the end of a marathon and everything is a bit of an effort. I’m trying to grind on and get a second wind because I do still have some quite complicated bakes to do!!! Ahhhhhh. So this was a pleasant treat, a wee treacle tart with just a few ingredients. It’s actually one of those tarts you could whip up at the last minute if you needed a dessert because there are very few ingredients. The filling is just grated apple, lemon zest and juice, homemade breadcrumbs(!!) and golden syrup. It makes a nice textured, a little bit zingy filling and you know it’s good for you because its got apple.
To make the pastry, I added
(more…)You would think that a berry pie would entail some apples somewhere, Apple and blueberry, Apple and blackberry, but no, this pie is ALL BERRY and delicious to boot, all 750grams of them, blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, and raspberries. Now that’s a lot of antioxidants right there.
We know antioxidants are good for us but why? Because they fight free radicals. These chemicals cause oxidation that damages cells and their genetic material. Your body makes free radicals as it processes food, sunlight, and toxins. Antioxidants either stop free radicals before they form or break them down so they’re harmless. This pie then, has got to be good for you. And a great time of year for Berry pie!!! 🙂
The pastry of this pie was different too. It was made with flour, butter, sugar and egg yolk and cream cheese. This gave it a crisp texture when cooked as well as a luscious texture that rolled out easily.
(more…)
I make my own Christmas mince tarts each year, because homemade ones are so much better!!! I have found the best sweet shortcrust pastry recipe in the world!!!! It’s from Annabel Langbein’s Simple Pleasures and it’s divine. https://www.annabel-langbein.com/recipes/festive-fruit-mince-tart/409/ I am giving you the recipe here now…so go to it, make your Read more…
Delicious and creamy custard
Yum!!! Sweet treat
It’s coming up to that dreaded Christmas time, when we have to think about doing all those extra chores, buying presents, making Christmas cake (oh, tick,) Christmas mince pies and of course going to all those Christmas parties and lunches. It can be quite stressful all this extra multitasking on top of our busy lives. I’m taking the approach to try and do a little bit at time, tick off those present buying obligations while I’m already out doing something else, make the most of the sales. It does take the pressure off. It seems to be my philosophy in life actually, drip feed things to make them happen. It’s how I aspire to write a novel too, 750 words a day, that’s 2500/week, 10,000/month and a novel in a year! It’s amazing what you can achieve by drip feeding, anything, tidying the cupboards, reading, any thing you think you don’t have time for, you can do if you do a little bit a day. Well this bake didn’t go exactly like that. It sat on the bench unbaked for about 5 days, (while I drip-fed other things!) and by the time I went to bake, I had run out of eggs, usual story. But I did it finally last night around dinner time which might not have been a sensible time to bake but it seems to be the story lately. I prepared the pâte brisée, (which is just a fancy word for pastry) in a way I had never seen before, by (more…)
With the whole family coming for dinner, I figured it was a good time to dip into the sweet pastry section, which scares me and always takes a long time, but I was struck by this tart. Rhubarb is not something I am familiar with, though I feel I should be. I have only cooked it once in my life. I set about making the pastry, with ground almonds and rosemary – interesting ingredients. As I was whizzing the ingredients to bind them together, my nephew arrived, so I had to contend with his chatter as I baked. But it was funny, he was so helpful, offering to take photos, fascinated by baking and talking about the time he made meringues and macaroons. 
He’s 9 years old. I offered him my meringue recipe from this book, The 32nd Bake: Snowball Meringues, the one with the cream and grated white chocolate!!!! Mmmmmm. It’s surprising and so great to hear kids taking an interest in baking. I love it.
I went to Scarecrow the other day, an amazing cafe on 33 Victoria St East just below Albert Park. They have divine cakes and slices including a Rhubarb & Fangipane Tart as well as an amazing selection of beautiful products to buy, from Fine & Dandy Green Tea with Rose Petals, to Orange & Ylangylang Swirl Blue Earth Soap. Check it out. 🙂 http://www.scarecrow.co.nz Onto the bake, I put the pastry in the fridge to chill, then made the rhubarb puree by (more…)
It’s my daughter’s last day of school and she needed a shared lunch. You know what it’s like, they fill up on sweets and unhealthy snacks. Some kind Mum makes her daughter take grapes and you are grateful (no pun intended) while the rest of the kids take cake and chips. Now that’s not really lunch is it!? Today I made these little Pizza snacks for her to take, whipped them up in the morning. They took 20 minutes because (more…)
I have never made a Bakewell Tart, but according to the recipe book it is a classic. And it wasn’t actually that hard, but it turned out delicious. I used bought puff pastry to line a buttered flan tin, pricked the base and let it chill for half an hour. Then (more…)
So I made Paul’s signature bake, Mini Sausage Plaits. Well, I have to say, I do love black pudding and the resulting parcels were filled with delicious ingredients, pork sausage, black pudding, mushroom paste and caramelized onions. YUM. All this inside a flaky pastry plait. (more…)