Tag: Baking

Crunchy Oatilicious Cookies!

If you are looking for a new cookie recipe, look no further. This is an oldie but a goodie, packed with flavour, and perfect with a coffee.

Similar to an New Zealand favourite, the ANZAC, this cookie is a little chewy which I really enjoy.

Ingredients:

  • 150g butter
  • 2 tbsp golden syrup
  • 3/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup shredded coconut
  • 2 cups rolled oats
  • 1/2 cup flour

Melt the butter, golden syrup and brown sugar in a pot – large enough to mix all of the ingredients.

Mix in coconut, oats and flour until combined. Using a measuring spoon, roll tablespoons into balls. Place on a baking paper line tray; allow some room for spreading. Flatten with the back of a spoon.

Bake for 10 minutes at 180°c, o until lightly browned.

Cool on a cooling rack.

Makes 26IMG_0188

If you like cookies, why don’t you check out some of my other home-made cookie recipes which I’m 100% positive the family will enjoy too!

Happy baking xx

lessonstodateLeave a comment

Sunday Bake – Blueberry Muffins

Yesterday the ‘chief tester’ and I went to the French markets in Parnell, Auckland – La Cigale.  I love strolling around this market and tasting different foods, and chatting to the growers and budding entrepeneurs.. You can do your weekly vegetable shopping, pick-up some amazing cheeses and wines, have a tasty brunch or just a great coffee!

One of the stalls I stopped by was all the way from Rotorua – Mamaku Blue. Last year my husband and I had spent the weekend in Rotorua and had stopped for a fresh Blueberry ice-cream there.

I bought a large tub of fresh juicy blueberries – there is something about buying direct from the grower that makes fruit & vegetables so much better isn’t there?  I had them on my cereal for  breakfast with some plain yoghurt this morning and they were delicious. I also made a batch of muffins with some of them. Tonight they may find their way into a fresh fruit salad with a dollop of vanilla ice-cream!

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups flourimg_0165
  • 4 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 cup caster sugar or 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
  • 100 grams butter
  • 1 cup milk
  • 1 egg
  • 1-1 1/2 cups blueberries – use frozen if you don’t have fresh

Put the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl.

In another bowl warm the butter until melted, then add the milk and egg (and unsweetened applesauce if using)- beat to mix well.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix together without over doing it!

Fold the fresh berries into the mix gently so the berries hold their shape.

Scoop 1/4 cup of the mixture and spoon into your muffin pan that is neither paper lined or well coated with a cooking non-stick spray. Sprinkle each muffin with
Cinnamon Sugar – just a little 🙂

Bake in a hot oven – 220°c for 12-15 minutes. (The muffins will spring back when pressed).

*if you used frozen berries the bake will take about 5 minutes longer

Makes 12 muffins

Cinnamon Sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar, and white sugar, and 1 tablespoon of cinnamon. Shake together in a screw-topped jar – sprinkle over your muffins before baking.
img_0164

I have to tell you a funny story about the first time I made Blueberry Muffins for my husband – I had packed a couple of freshly baked muffins in a lunch box for him as he headed off to the office.

Sometime later that day I received a text message from him that left me puzzled. It read ‘husband poisoned by new wife – mouldy muffins for lunch!’ – I wondered what he was talking about?

It wasn’t until we were home in the evening that I questioned his message – he had split open a Blueberry muffin and it looked mouldy to him so he did not eat it. Silly man I said ‘the Blueberries had ‘oozed’ juice and the muffin mix was slightly bluey-green!!

We have laughed about this more than once – and I smiled about that occasion as I was folding the Blueberries into the muffin mix today!

Happy ‘mouldy’ baking xx

lessonstodateLeave a comment

Banana Yoghurt Cake – a family favourite!

I spotted a couple of banana’s in the fruit bowl that needed some magic to bring them back to life – closer inspection told me that there was nothing left for these brown-skinned beauties but to sacrifice themselves for a tasty cake! 

One of my favourite recipes for a banana cake uses yoghurt instead of milk, and although the recipe says unsweetened yoghurt I use whatever I have in the refrigerator (including fruit varieties). 

This is a very easy recipe to put together and that also makes it a favourite of mine – when you are busy with a family and a job outside of the home, time is a precious commodity so having a selection of ‘go-to’ quick & easy recipes is key to your baking.

 Of course if you have been following my blog you will know that flavour is one of my other important criteria’s when I am in the kitchen and this banana yoghurt cake won’t let you down in the taste department! 

Ingredients:

  • 150g soft butter
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup mashed banana
  • 1 tsp grand lemon rind
  • 1/4 cup unsweetened yoghurt
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp baking soda

Yoghurt Icing

  • 2 cups icing sugar
  • 3 -4 tbsp unsweetened yoghurt
  • 1 tsp grated lemon rind

Place first 6 ingredients in your mixer bowl. Mix on a low speed until combined. Sift in the dry ingredients and beat on a low speed to combine all of the ingredients. Increase the speed to medium and beat for 2 -3 minutes.

Pour into a baking paper-lined 18cm cake tin.

Bake at 180c for 50-60 minutes or until your cake skewer pulls out clean. I like to leave the cake in the tin for about 10 minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack. Ice with yoghurt icing.

Yoghurt Icing

Sift icing sugar into a bowl. Stir in yoghurt and lemon rind to form a smooth icing.

Now because there are no children at our place, I iced the cake and sprinkled chopped walnuts on the top. Making this child friendly is really easy with 100’s and 1000’s sprinkled on top or chocolate icing and grated chocolate!


Happy baking xx

lessonstodate5 Comments

Home-made Ginger Cookies

Baking a batch or two of cookies was something our mothers and grandmothers thought nothing of. They didn’t mind creaming the butter and sugar by hand, or for the lucky ones, in the mixer. Today we avoid such recipes if we can.

(Up until last year I didn’t own a cake mixer and my ‘tools of trade’ were a glass bowl and a wooden spoon by mum made me on her wood-turning lathe! )

This recipe is made in a pot – it will take longer to cool the mix than it will to make them! Best  news is that you will just have a pot and a wooden spoon to wash up afterwards 🙂

My best tip for making your cookies this method is to make sure the butter & sugar mix is cool enough not to cook the eggs!

Preheat the oven to 180°c – and prepare two baking trays by lining them with baking paper.

Ingredients:

  • 175 g butter
  • 1/4 cup golden syrup
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 2 1/4 cups flour
  •  2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp ground ginger
  • 1 tsp mixed spice
  • Extra sugar

Melt butter and golden syrup in a large pot. Remove from the heat. Stir in the sugar.

Add the egg and beat well with a wooden spoon. Sift the dry ingredients into the pot and mix everything together well.

Roll tablespoons of the mixture into balls, and then roll in the extra sugar.

Place on a prepared baking tray and flatten gently with a fork.

Bake at 180°c for 12 minutes or until golden.

Ginger cookies (1).png
Home-made ginger cookies – perfect for dunking in your coffee!

(If you have crystallised ginger in your pantry try chopping 50 g finely and adding to the mix – for those ginger lovers out there this will be a lovely treat!)

Happy baking xx

lessonstodate1 Comment

Fruit & Nut Slice

Mix in a pot in under 15 minutes – you can be cleaned up with a cup of tea brewed by the time it is baked and on the kitchen bench! My fruit & nut slice is crunchy, chewy and delicious – if you are looking for a new slice recipe to try, give this one a try.

Ingredients

  • 125g butter
  • 1 tablespoon golden syrup
  • 1 1/4 cups flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 cup coconut
  • 1 cup chopped walnuts
  • 1 cup raisins
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 egg, lightly  beaten
  • Icing sugar

Melt the butter and golden syrup in a big pot. Remove from the heat.

Sift the flour and baking powder into the pot – stir in the lightly beaten egg, coconut, walnuts, raisins and sugar. Mix all of the ingredients until combined.

Press the mix into a paper lined 20 x 30cm sponge roll baking tin,

Bake at 180°c for 20 minutes or until golden brown.

When cold, dust with sifted icing sugar and cut into squares.

Happy baking xx

Fruit slice

lessonstodate2 Comments
Powered by WordPress.com.
%d bloggers like this: