Possibly the best slice in the World.

Do you have a favourite slice that you make? I discovered this one a few months ago and it's been a big favourite ever since. Not only is it extremely yummy, but it's flexible (you can include different things each time depending what you have in your cupboards) and it's super quick and easy to make (always a bonus in this house!) Want the recipe? Here it is:

Sweetened Condensed Milk Slice

1 packet (250g) super wine/digestive/plain/malt biscuits

110g butter, melted

1 1/2 cups chocolate pieces/chips or buttons

1 1/4 cups dried cranberries

1 1/4 cups walnuts

1 can sweetened condensed milk (approx 400g)

1. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees. Put your biscuits through a food processor until they resemble fine crumbs (or pop them in a bag and crush them with a rolling pin).
2. Pour your melted butter into the biscuit crumbs and give them another whizz in the food processor (or stir the butter through the crumbs in a bowl.)
3. Pour the butter/biscuit mix into a slice tin (around 30x25cm is a good size) and press them down with a spatula or the back of a spoon.
4. Pop your chocolate, cranberries and walnuts into the food processor (don't worry about cleaning it in between making the biscuit base and this part) and give them a whizz to break down the pieces (or do the bag and rolling pin thing again).
5. Sprinkle the chocolate mix over the top of the biscuit base evenly.
6. Drizzle the sweetened condensed milk all over the top of the fruit/nut/chocolate mix. Bake it for 25 minutes.
7. Leave it to cool then cut into slices.
8. Watch it disappear!

You can adjust this recipe using your own ingredients. Substitute dark chocolate for milk or white chocolate (the white would make it too sweet though I think!). Swap the cranberries out for any other dried fruit or even coconut and substitute the nuts out for any other nut you like or leave them out and add more fruit instead.

Pumpkin and Ginger

No, we haven't got new pets (although they would be GREAT names for two orange kittens).

I'm talking about the real pumpkin and ginger. The stuff that warms you up when you walk out the door and realise that it's minus-brrrrr out there and you really should have put another sweater on this morning. 

I really should have been cleaning out kitchen cupboards today,

but when I opened the cupboards, I discovered exactly the ingredients I needed to make some of Cathie's gorgeous gingerbread biscuits. If you haven't visited her M.E. (Melbourne Epicure) blog yet, you really should. She is the most amazing cook and photographer (and really quite lovely too). Pay her a visit, you won't regret it.

The cleaning had to wait.

How could I not reach for my pinny and start baking?

(I am after all, one of the worlds best procrastinators when it comes to cleaning jobs. Just ask my Mum)

The girls were very pleased to get flower biscuits for afternoon tea.

 I think I'll make these again for E's birthday party.

The oven was nice and hot after the biscuit baking and I had a pumpkin and amazingly, some cream, in the fridge so I decided to have a go at Hanna of  Craftykin's pumpkin pie too. 

Turns out the Mr is really quite fond of pumpkin pie.

One of his favourites apparently. Amazing the stuff you find out after several years of cooking for them isn't it? Needless to say, I've added Hanna's recipe to my own recipe book to repeat again whenever I feel like spoiling him.

And whilst we are on the subject of pumpkins and ginger, I have another recipe for you. This is one of mine and is just what you need for a scrummy, warming, weekend lunch or dinner.

Spicy Pumpkin and Ginger Soup

1 large pumpkin

1 large onion, chopped

olive oil

knob of butter

garlic

2tsp Thai green curry paste

about 4cm ginger, peeled & finely chopped.

1 tsp dried cumin

1tsp dried coriander

chicken or vegetable stock powder (I use Vegeta gourmet stock)

1 cup water

1 tin coconut milk

salt and pepper to taste

• 
  
  Chop up the pumpkin into segments and roast in the oven with the skin on for about 20-30mins. Allow to cool then remove the skin from the pumpkin and mash it in a bowl.
• 
  
  Put a splash of oil in a large pan and add the butter. Once it has melted, add your onion and fry until translucent. Add the garlic and curry paste and fry for about a minute until fragrant.
• 
  
  Add the cooked pumpkin, ginger, cumin, coriander and stock and stir to combine.
• 
  
  Bring to a simmer. Cook for about 15 mins.
• 
  
  Add the coconut milk and stir to combine. I usually use my whizzer to puree the soup and make it less chunky at this point. You could seive it or pop it in a food processor if you don't have one of those hand held whizzy things (but if you don't have one, you really need one. They are fantastic devices!) 
• 
  
  Simmer for a further 3 or 4 minutes and serve.

I'm off to stick another sweater on and see if there is any of that pumpkin pie left.

Ballet and Banana Cake

It's cold and windy and very damp outside today. Eloise and I went to her ballet lesson this morning.

My eyes were hurting with the pinkness of it all by the end of the lesson!

So cute though!

Doesn't it make you smile?

We went to the supermarket after ballet and found a whole pile of brown bananas on special. Perfect for banana muffins. I won't give you the recipe as I'm sure you already have a good banana cake recipe. If you do want it, do leave a comment and I'll happily post it.

 Whilst I was doing the baking, I remembered my Aunty Peggy's recipe book. She was the best baker and made the most amazing flapjacks. When she passed away, I asked if I could have her recipe book. I've been having a read through of her recipes today and had a good giggle at all the notes she left by the recipes.

"* GOOD But Messy"

" Jane's Recipe. Don't really understand her writing (like mine) so have to hope for the best."

There are little notes like this all the way through her recipe book. It's like she knew she was going to be passing it on to someone and every one of the little notes makes me smile. She was such a wonderful Aunty and it's so special to have this. There are many blank pages left in the book and I have started adding my own favourite recipes to it. I'll share a few of hers (as well as her comments) as I bake them. Do any of you have a family recipe book that is special to you?

Easy Peasy Bread Sticks

Guess what? I didn't get very far tidying my studio today. I remembered a recipe that I saw on the Make it Do blog the other day and had to give it a go. I made them for lunch today (a scrummy lunch is all part of a good pottering day as far as I'm concerned!). They are soooo good. You have to try them.

When I took the bread sticks out of the oven, I was so impressed I said "Wow, check out these puppies". Miss 6 was walking passed at the time looked at me with eyebrows raised. A few moments later, when Miss 3 joined her at the table and said "What are those?". Miss 6 proudly answered "They are puppies."

The recipe and instructions for the bread sticks (aka puppies if you are a child in my house) are here.

I've adjusted it slightly for Kiwi users. Recipes always seem to work differently in different countries.

Here's the sightly adjusted version of Calli's recipe. This one makes 18-20 bread sticks (I made mine more like baby baguettes than sticks):

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups warm water
1 Tbsp sugar
1 Tsp salt
1 Tbsp red cap yeast
4 cups plain flour
1/2 cup parmasan or tasty cheese, finely grated
1 tsp garlic seasoning (optional, or use seasoning of your choice)
1/4 cup melted butter

Equipment
2 greased baking sheets
measuring jug
measuring spoons
mixing bowl
fork
knife
cheese grater
pastry brush

• Preheat your oven to 200 degrees (fan forced)
• Put your water into your measuring jug and add sugar, salt and yeast. Put to one side for 10  mins until it is bubbly.
• Grate your cheese and put it to one side
• Put your flour, 3/4 of the cheese and your chosen seasoning into a large bowl and pour in the yeast. Use a fork to mix it together and then use your hands to knead it into a large ball.
• Tip the dough out onto a floured bench/board and pat it down. Using a knife, cut it into 18 skinny and even portions.
• Roll each portion of dough between your palms to make a snake. Pop it onto a greased baking sheet. Continue to do the same with all your dough. I got 9 bread sticks on each tray.
• Melt your butter and using a pastry brush coat the tops of all the bread sticks. Turn them all over and do the other sides. Carefully sprinkle the remaining parmasan over each bread stick.
• Put them into your oven for 12-15 mins.

We ate ours with homegrown/homemade leek and potato soup (Edmonds cook book) with a dollop of low fat ricotta cheese floating in the middle... yum!!!

Garden goodies

I am not a gardener. There. I've said it. It's hard to admit to it because so many people love to garden, particularly crafty people, but I don't.

I don't mind getting dirty and I really enjoy seeing things grow but what I can't stand is the weeds. No sooner have you done the work, you have to start all over again because nature has an annoying habit of taking over. I like things that stay as they are when you have worked hard to finish them. What I do like however, is cooking with beautiful fresh vegetables straight out of the garden and of course the wonderful flavours and smells that you get with freshly picked produce.

Luckily my other half is a very keen gardener (I've even caught him sneaking in to the garden to have a look at his veggies before he comes in to say hello to us) and most of the time I'm very happy to make something yummy from them (the exceptions are the feijoas which I whinge incessantly about for a month when they ripen and the silverbeet and spinach which are currently occupying the entire bottom drawer of our freezer).

My favourite time of year for veggies is of course Summer and this year Richard has planted the most incredibly sweet and beautiful little cherry tomatos. We had them tonight on pizza. They are a perfect summer dinner. Just throw them onto a ready made pizza base with lots of fresh basil and fetta and some crushed garlic. Add salt and pepper and put in the oven for about 12 minutes. Heaven!

I did help out in the garden over the weekend by trimming our flax which has gone a little crazy. I love the colour of this flax. It's a beautiful greeny black and attracts a multitude of native birds. I couldn't bear to throw out all the leaves and seed pods so some came inside with me. I tucked the ends of the leaves in to the top of the vase to create a rough woven effect. Who needs gerberas or roses?

Strawberry and cream cake

Its not often I get to hang out with my Mum in the kitchen but she is visiting from Australia at the moment and staying in this amazing cottage with its beautiful kitchen.

Mum loves to entertain and loves to try new ideas. She's a Food TV addict and was raving about the Strawberry and Cream Cake by James Martin before she came over and I was keen to see her in action making it. I've just been over to their rental cottage to have a Mum Master-Class in the and I thought I'd take a few photos and share it with you. So here goes:

First you need the ingredients listed in the link above. Take your cake ring and put it on the serving plate. This is one of those small ones for making an individual cake but you could use a large cake tin if you wanted to.

Use it to cut circles in your cake and put one in the bottom of the ring. Put sliced strawberries base down around the edge.

Pour your liqueur if wanted onto the sponge then put some cream, strawberries and more cream level with the tips of the strawberries that are round the edge.

Put another sponge ring on top.

Carefully lift the ring off with one hand while gently pushing the top sponge ring down. It should look like this. Your cream, sugar and custard mixture should be thick so it all holds together otherwise it will turn into a horrible gooey mess at this stage!

Get your icing sugar (doesn't this look pretty?)

and shake it all over your dessert.

Heat up a skewer on a gas ring and mark some lines in sugar with it (this step is optional but adds to the whole look. We didn't have a metal skewer so it didn't really work for us). I think we are using something out of the middle of one of those chinese paper lanterns. It was the closest thing I could find to a metal skewer!

Now comes the fun and very dangerous part. Grab a wooden spoon or a metal knife sharpener. Heat some sugar and water up until it caramelises then allow it to cool slightly.

Here's my Mum doing her thing.

When the caramel is cooled to dropping consistency, twirl it round your greased knife sharpener or wooden spoon handle. Allow it to cool a bit more so you don't burn your fingers and then very carefully take it off and put it to one side while you make some more.

Chop up another strawberry or use a small one with leaves on top and place it on top of your cake. Pop the twirly sugar on top as well and voila. Fab dessert to die for!

I think these twirly sugar things would look fab on special cupcakes too.

Have fun having a go!