Category Archives: cakes & baking

Cakes, biscuits, breads, baking…

Jan 7

BBC – Food – Recipes : Chocolate peanut butter cheesecake

BBC – Food – Recipes : Chocolate peanut butter cheesecake:

I feel a bit apologetic for the overindulgent vulgarity that is this cheesecake here. But, really, why should I be sorry? You won’t be once you’ve eaten it; though perhaps I should warn that it’s not for the faint-hearted. Unashamed indulgence, wallowingly so, is what this recipe is all about.

Birthday cheesecake! And… it looked exactly like it does in the picture on the BBC website. It was lovely, and it never got gooey like Nigella warns it might, even when it was room temperature.

I have never made a cheesecake in the food processor before, but now I am a complete convert. Oh my goodness, it was so easy! And really delish too!

Feb 5

Cookie Monster!

I’ve bought a copy of ‘The $21 Challenge‘ and one of the recipes in the book is the 120 cookies for $4 recipe.

I’ve been testing it a bit, playing around with the basic idea and seeing what works and what doesn’t. I haven’t had any misses yet, but have had a lot of fun with the dough.This dough can be frozen and then cooked with minimal thawing. I freeze it in logs, and use a sharp knife when the dough can be cut. My freezer is a bit enthusiastic, and tends to run at -21 degrees C. 

This batch is 108 cookies, roughly in thirds with Oat and Maple Syrup, Date and Walnuts, and Chocolate Chip.

It works really well for a recipe with kids. Because there’s so much of it, I find I am less worried if the kids try to eat their own body weight in cookie dough. (They like to try.) And it’s a fantastic recipe to use with kids.

500gs Margarine (one tub)
One tin of sweetened condensed milk (440g)
1/2 – 1 cup of sugar (I go with the half)
5 cups of self raising flour

Cream margarine and sugar, add sweetened condensed milk, and then add flour. Add extras as you wish, bake for 8 – 12 minutes until cooked.

This dough is also great in the cookie gun. If you don’t have one of these and you make a lot of cookies, then you should buy one. This cookie dough, and the custard powder cookie dough through the cookie gun makes the best cookies to go with a good cup of tea.

This recipe gets the thumbs up, and has become a regular in our household. When we run out of food, we always have flour, sweetened condensed milk, sugar and margarine just in case. You can make this recipe with butter if prefered, the only difference will be the biscuits will no longer come in at under $4!

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Sarah

Sep 22

Five Minute Artisan Bread – Recipe Three

Bread!

I have been working on my soups this year, and I have learnt a lot. I like to make the bread to go with soups too, and enjoy a lovely chewy artisan style by preference with soup. I find that sandwich bread tends towards mush, whereas artisan soup adds texture and flavour of it’s own to an otherwise mushy (or pureed) dish.

I really like this dough for the simple reason that I can pull off as much or as little as I need, and let it rise and cook. There’s not much wastage, and if I felt enthused I could make buns or sticks or anything. One day I could even make bowls out of bread for a good solid stoo.

I’m afraid this is the last post on *this* batch of dough. I did not finish the dough, there’s still a good chunk left to use, but this is now past the 2 week limit. My diet has changed somewhat, and there’s a lot less wheat at present! But when I start wheat again, I’ll cover some of the other recipes.

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Sarah P

Sep 2

Five Minute Artisan Bread – Recipe One

Five Minute Artisan bread after a few days and one recipe.

This is a basic flat bread. I pulled off tiny balls of dough, literally about 2 tablespoons full, dumped lots of flour on top and rolled them as flat as possible before frying in a non-stick frying pan with a tiny bit of oil.

It was just a snack, so we ate them with jam on top, and they were lovely.

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Sarah P

Aug 20

Birthday Cake!

The Big V turned four a couple of weeks ago! I can't believe it! Four! Years! Old!

When he was born, he was so tiny. His eyes were so huge! And black. I remember when he was just a few hours old, lying in bed between us and looking up at us with these huge obsidian eyes. I think I lost myself in those depths, and I'm glad I never found my way out!

So, birthdays. Cake: yes. Party pies: yes. Cocktail franks: yes. Lolly bags: yes. And OH MY GOSH the balloons. I have renamed myself Killer of Balloons after today where I popped about twenty sad, sick little balloons. Chesh made this cake, I'm pleased to say! I'm not the only talented cook in the house!

We've been sick on and off for about 8 weeks before the renewal (a month ago) and now I have been sick on and off for the last month as well. I have been diagnosed as having a gallstone, and so my energy levels have been very low. We bought pretty much everything for the birthday party, and the lovely Linstar was an absolute champion and made a rather awesome brownie stack and cob loaf and all sorts of extra yummies.

Unfortunately, my gallstone decided that the party was a great time to attack me again, and I spent most of it stoned. And while this may sound like a great party for some, I really like my life and would rather not be stoned while it happens thanks. Time and place and all that guff. Having said that, oh thank goodness for painkillers!
:-)

Now we're all on Baby-Watch, waiting waiting waiting. My sickness and gallstone meant i couldn't be onsite for Sarah X's new addition to the family, but we can all hurry up and wait for a baby no matter what side of the continent we're on. My goodness life has been exciting this year!

I have been spending a lot of time reading the Simple Savings website again, and I have been working on a recipe I found there. When I'm happy with it, I'll be posting some pics and some ideas!

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Sarah P

Aug 13

Baking and Bread

It's been a baking kind of week around here. At the beginning of the week, I heard about Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day, and was so excited to try it out! So, I have been making bread all week, and while in the groove of things I have been baking other stuff too.

Tonight we had Mexican for dinner. I used some home made baked beans, added heaps of cumin, served with a home made salsa and fresh tomato, lettuce and cheese, on what is basically a frybread made using the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day recipe. Now I am thinking I want to get my hands onto the actual book!

I love ciabatta style chewy loaves, and this loaf fits that bill quite nicely. It's a bit dense, but since I'm just using black and gold white flour, I'm not surprised. It's crusty and yummy, just how I like it. I have been eyeing off recipes in Jamie's Italy, which has heaps of old ciabatta bread ideas.

This summer is going to be a Summer of Salads. I have been experimenting already. Expect a post a week as we explore all sorts of exciting salads.

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Sarah P