Wednesday 28 March 2012

Fudge for Molly!

Easy Chocolate Fudge

Ingredients
75g butter
500g milk chocolate
400g condensed milk
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

1.grease a tray 20cm/8inch square tin

2. break chocolate into pieces into heavy based saucepan with butter and condensed milk.

3. gently heat stirring constantly until melted and combined.DO NOT BOIL! remove from heat whisking in vanilla continue whisking for a couple of minutes until it thickens slightly.

4 pour into tray making sure to level top and put into fridge for a minimum of 1 hour. Once firm remove from tray and cut!

Sorry it took so long little Sis! xox

Gingery Goodness!

With a craving for a sweet yummy treat I attempted to make a Delicious ginger pudding the other night. This was a fantastic success with the help of my little girl we created a amazing pudding dough, which she began to enjoy just as it was. So quickly I whisked it away into the oven to cook.

Inspired by Donna Hay's

75g butter
2/3 cup golden syrup
2 eggs
1 1/3 cup plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 cup finely chopped glacé ginger

Variation (as I didn't have all ingredients this is what I used)

75g butter
2/3 cup golden syrup
1/3 cup wild flower Tasmanian honey
1 1/3 S.R flour
2 1/2 teaspoons of ginger powder (this could of been more best to taste dough to see if its to your liking)

Method
1. Pre heat oven 180ºC grease pudding tin

2. Using electric mixer combined butter syrup and honey till light and well combined. approx 5 minutes ( or in my case just mix well by hand.) adding eggs one at a time.

3. Combined wet and dry ingredients and spoon evenly into tin. Place Pudding tin in a deep tray and pour into the deep tray enough water to come up half way up the side of tin.

4. Cook for 30mins should spring back when gentle touch the top. serve with Ice cream and maple syrup.

Strawberry, white chocolate, coconut and almond cake!!

Hosting a dinner tomorrow night with some beautiful family members as I have the mains and entrees covered I was stumped on what to create for sweets. As I am a huge fan of almond meal I thought well there's a start. Armed with some over ripe strawberries, some cadbury white chocolate buds and my trusty almond meal I began my creation.

Ingredients


125g chopped strawberries
185g melted butter
6 egg whites
100g almond meal
1/2 cup plain flour
1/2 cup coconut fine
1 1/2 cups of icing sugar mixture
125g melted white chocolate

Method


1. Pre heat oven 180ºC, lightly grease oven dish in my case I used a medium sized quiche dish

2. Mix all dry ingredients in bowl then combined this with the wet ingredients.

3.Pour into dish spreading evenly. Bake for 25-35 minutes or until golden brown checking after 25 minutes. After removing from oven stand for 5 minutes and remove from dish onto wire rack.

4.Serve warm with cram or by itself accompanied with a nice cup of tea.

enjoy & good luck



Thursday 8 March 2012

Smoothies not just for the healthy adult!

Sipping back on a raspberry, wild flower honey and vanilla ice cream smoothie with my toddler. Since around 14 months she has loved Smoothies and at times has been my only way to get her eat fruit. Her favourite being banana, blueberries and honey. Living in Tasmania really makes you appreciate fresh produce and quality food.


There is always a beginning

From a young age like most I showed a fasination with food, preparation and cooking of it. It began with simple creations such as pancakes, mince pies and the basic cheese on toast sort of thing! As I grew my interest in reading cook books and watching cooking show became a defining part of my home life! My insperations came from Nigella Lawson and her decadent desserts and flavousome meals, The CWA cook books were among my favourite to read with the simple but delicious recipes. But biggest insperations of all were my Mother & Grandmother both of whom involved me from an early age in cooking. With my mother I remember making mince pies at christmas and  pancakes on the weekend and trying to guess what shape they formed in fry pan. With my Grandmother I remember making rock cakes and  sponge cakes. Both of these memories are from around seven to eight years old.

Though over the years I have had some fantastic out comes  in the kitchen I have also had some horrible experiences. Having such a love for cooking I choose to follow that path with my working career studing at a cooking school and completing a traineeship in hospitality. While completing my traineeship I foun, though I have keen intrests in the kitchen I also have a skill for injury and accidents causing many cuts, burns, spills, breakages and the  shame of setting two kitchens on fire. You may gasp and think heck never hire this one but luckly with age I have gained some  in understanding that I take my time to ensure these events that seem to follow me don't happen anymore.

Even though I have taken a few steps away from the cooking career I still take great pride in cooking for family and friends such specialty dishes include lasanger, lamb and vegetable stew, poached chicken curry(thanks to my Mum), risotto, chocolate self saucing pudding, tea cakes, smoothies and many more. These are beautiful dishes but for  a while now I have wanted to step outside my comfort zone and start experementing with flavours, different meats, different methods of cooking. So I invite you to join me in my journey to create some masterpieces and with out a doubt some horrors!

BON APPETIT