Kiwi treats

Kiwi Family moved house a few weeks ago and when I went to visit I took a couple of treats with me to remind them of their many recent travels. The first was a reprise of a New Zealand biscuit I made for the first time when they were away - Afghans. This time I used a recipe a Kiwi friend recommended, from the charmingly-named website Ladies, a plate. They are darkly chocolatey biscuits which contain cornflakes - which the recipe description says was a way of using up last bits and pieces in the pantry. Well, I don't need to tell any readers who are still left after being so disgracefully neglected for the past few weeks, that this appealed to my 'eke eke' philosophy immediately. The biscuits had a rich chocolate topping as well which I found I had to thin a bit more to spread - but which was very popular with the Munchkin as well as his parents.


The second treat was particularly for Kiwi Bro, who had just started his new job the day I went to visit. I'd remembered that he said he liked millionaires shortbread, so I made a Kiwi favourite tray bake - Tan Slice. Tray bakes seem to be particularly popular in both Australia and New Zealand, often using coconut and condensed milk. I got this recipe from Kiwi blogger Tammy who has posted several enticing variants and favourites. She also has a chocolate version I'm keen to try - and her philosophy of a greater caramel to base ratio has surely got to win all tasters over. It turned out as I made the slice that it wasn't quite what I had assumed when thinking of something like our millionaire's shortbread. Instead it was slightly more like a cake mixture which formed the base and also the top layer. The base didn't need baking before adding the caramel either which surprised me, but makes it all even easier. I was expecting a good response just from the sheer level of sugary goodness in the slice, but it did even better. Kiwi Sis texted me after I'd left to say they were swooning over it, and they had to fend off their dinner guests with pointy sticks (actually I made up the pointy sticks but there was definitely some fending going on).


So thank you to Alexa and Tammy - definitely a pair of Kiwi keepers!


Afghan recipe here

Tan slice recipe here

Happy Raspbirthday!

Kate made me laugh with a comment on my last post - that she has to read my blog at lunchtime to avoid drooling on the keyboard :) Well, I hope this one has the same effect as it concerns the biscuits I made her for her birthday last week. This took place during my raspberry glut, but it also gave me the opportunity to try out a recipe for some really pretty little pink treats I'd cut out from an old copy of Prima magazine. They're little butter biscuits sandwiched together with a creamy, white chocolatey, raspberry filling. I didn't manage to get too good a photo of them but they did look very dainty tied up in a little bag. I halved the recipe but made the whole batch of filling, since that's where the raspberries came in. I used some of the rest to ice some chocolate cupcakes - also birthday presents for a certain little Birthday Buddy and his brother, Almost Birthday Buddy, whom I saw in Cambridge last weekend. They were much appreciated. And I had a lovely day with my old friends Tracy and Julie, too :)


Raspberry creams (from Prima magazine)
[full quantity - makes 16]

75g butter, softened
125g icing sugar
1 medium egg, beaten
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
200g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder

Filling:
125g raspberries
1 tsp sugar
5 Tbsp double cream. whipped
150g white chocolate, melted and cooled

1. Cream together butter and sugar till pale and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla, then mix in flour, baking powder and pinch salt until smooth. Between two pieces of clear film, roll out to £1 coin thick. Chill for 1 hour [I chilled it in a ball and rolled it out afterwards].

2. Preheat oven to Gas 4/180C. Line a baking sheet with baking parchment. Cut chilled dough into rounds with a 4cm cookie cutter and place on baking tray 5cm apart [cookies don't spread much]. Bake for 6-8 minutes, until very pale gold Cool on baking sheet for 5 mins, then transfer to rack to cool.

3. Blend berries and sugar, then sieve to remove seeds. Whip cream and raspberry juice into white chocolate. Chill for 1 hour. Sandwich cooled biscuits together with berry filling [the filling in the magazine picture was *much* pinker than mine - either use more berries or add a few drops of pink food colouring if you want it really pink]

Some favourite things

I have been shamed into getting back over here after Caroline pointed out that she had been seeing the same peach and basil muffins for a very long time! I didn't want to do another post until I could respond to an award Johanna gave me though, and that involved actually getting round to photographing some stuff, so that gave me the boost to use the nice spring light this morning and get myself in gear.

The award is a 'Ten favourite things' one, which is pretty much as it sounds. Since number 1 is baking, number 2 is crafting, and number 3 is the British countryside I thought I would illustrate my list with some of my recent projects and some snaps of our recent trip to the Highlands of Scotland. So, here goes:

1. Baking

The gift I made for the friends whose wedding we were going to in the Highlands: a set of table mats and coasters using some of the Liberty fabric I bought in Stratford. I know it's not exactly baking-related, but I'm it will help to show off some tasty baked goods.

2. Crafting

Some of my favourite things illustrated in embroidery (using a new book called Sublime Stitching). I know, I should have ironed it. Feminism is about choosing whether or not to do housework in my book.

3. Walking in the British countryside (current top three places: The Lakes, Dartmoor, the Highlands)

View from the top of Cairn Gorm (we got the furnicular railway; our friends did it properly and walked)

4. Should be top really: my house and all who live in it :)

Really easy knitted bag - just go round and round and round on circular needles. I need to practise my intarsia stitches, but it was my first time trying

5. My lovely friends - especially the ones I made in Cambridge and now in Leamington - plus Eco Sis and Kiwi Sis who don't get any choice in the matter.

Knitted mice, who have started a colony on the arm of the sofa

5. English tea shops - tea, scones, toasted tea cakes - who needs fancy cupcakes?

Beautiful spring day - and snow-capped mountains in the distance. Our friends couldn't have asked for a better day for their wedding

6. Second hand bookshops (best one ever: in Chatham, Kent - can't remember the name, unfortunately, but it even kept the Sci Fi-loving Scientist happy)

7. Markets - of any description.

We may have visited a whisky distillery the morning of the wedding...

8. Pick 'n mixes - I have no idea why since I can't eat most of the things in pick 'n mix sweets, but I especially love the ones with dried fruits and wasabi covered peas and things. I even got excited about a salad leaves one in an Aussie supermarket once.

Sock toy: yes, he used to be a sock, now he's too cute to give away (though the Munchkin has one of his own, made from a pair of socks that got left behind after Kiwi Family came to visit)

9. Curling up on the sofa with The Scientist and a smattering of cats to watch whatever dvd series we're currently hooked on.

Scottish castle

10. History - makes me who I am. Enough said.

Thank you, Johanna, for thinking of me for this meme, and sorry it took me so long!!

Stratford stash

For the last couple of years The Scientist and I have given each other a weekend away for our Christmas present. That is to say, we have gone away together and each paid for the other's half. Sending each other away for separate weekends probably wouldn't be so romantic. Anyway, it was The Scientist's turn to organise it this year, and he kept it a complete secret until Monday, when he found me faffing about with a theatre seating plan and wondering if I could take up a special offer for King Lear at Stratford for us. He grinned a big grin and revealed that that was my surprise - a weekend in Stratford with tickets to King Lear - and all the Shakespeare houses. The weekend away was lovely enough, but RSC tickets AND all that extra thoughtful planning as well? He's in credit with the brownie points for some time. (And in this house brownie points can be exchanged for actual brownies :) ).


We've just come back and we had a lovely time. The play was amazing - neither of us had seen Lear before, but we both loved it. The hotel was nice, the room luxurious, Stratford cold but pretty (and not too crowded), and the Shakespeare houses we visited beautiful and interesting. And particularly informative given that I'm writing a lecture on homes and families in the past which was a bonus for me and no doubt quite tedious for The Scientist - but he kindly acted interested.



One of the best things about the weekend was not being in any sort of a rush. We ended up doing quite a bit of unexpected whimsical shopping as a result, and this is the stash I came back with. Most of it was from Book Depot, and a kitchen/furniture shop the name of which I forget (too busy ogling haberdashery :) ). The bookshop produced two craft books, some felt and some little handy notepads, and the other the lush selection of fabrics and a needle for knitting in the round to make this bag pattern some day when I've finished my other projects. Yes that is Liberty fabric - on sale and gorgeous. The brighter one is to make some table mats and coasters for a friend's wedding present (the red and the bias binding are to finish them), and the other is to make into a bag. And the pinky one is maybe to make some PJs - or alternatively to make something cute for The Munchkinette. I was really tempted by some fine Liberty cord as well but managed to restrain myself. The noodles were from a health food shop - it's not a good trip if you don't come back with some new noodles. In this case black rice and wakame, and green tea. I feel slightly guilty from all the shopping, but some of it's for presents or present ideas, and I know that my sewing buddies will laugh and sympathise anyway! The Scientist had a good shopping trip too - several books and a good sit-down to read the sports section while I fussed over notions.

Warning: high sugar post ahead

'What do you mean, "warning"?', I imagine you asking. 'This blog has been full of nothing but sugar for months now'. Well this time I don't mean only that type of sugar. I made these double choc chip cookies this week to say thank you to some students for doing some research with me. But I deliberately made extras because I wanted a few to take to Eco Sis's yesterday. You see, after 5 years of Very Hard Work, Eco Sis has become a doctor. A genuine stethoscope-wearing, blood-drawing, diagnosing doctor (as opposed to my type, who swans around libraries and insists it's 'not my period' whenever I'm asked a question). She will hereafter be Dr Eco.

Scholarly cookies getting a bit of research in before goingg to meet their eater

And that's where the sugaryness comes in. Dr Eco: I am the proudest sister in the world. Not only have you worked incredibly hard for the last five years, but you've also been sunny and supportive at the same time; you've devoted huge amount of extra time to the things you think are important; and you've always made time for us to play board games, swap sewing tips, cook dinners, and go on outings. Plus you managed to travel around Europe, visit America several times, part-qualify as an American doctor as well - oh, and get married to the nicest Yank I know. Plus you are an excellent diagnostician who manages to cure at the same time. I have never been bothered by that collapsed lung or that rare psychosomatic disorder since you diagnosed me :) I've said it a million times over the last few years, but you and Kiwi Sis are my best friends and I'm going to miss you while you're away for the next few months.


I didn't say all that when I saw her yesterday, but I'd like to think that the cookies said a bit of it in chocolate form. They certainly said something good: both she and The Scientist have put them at the top of the double choc chip cookie tree immediately. And, as a little bonus (whisper it): they're dairy free. Not quite vegan as they still have eggs in them, but I subbed vegan marge for the butter and they were still delicious. Sorry I didn't make that entirely clear when I offered you one (three?), Scientist, but I thought you were probably pretending you hadn't seen the Pure spread box out on the worktop anyway :)

Medically-endorsed double chocolate chip cookies (adapted from my cookie calendar 2009)

1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
120g butter/marge/vegan marge
1/2 caster sugar
1/2 light brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
170g choc chips of your choice (or a mix of types)

Preheat the oven to 160C. Sift together the flour, cocoa, bicarb, baking powder and salt. Set aside. Beat the butter and sugar until smooth and creamy, and beat in the egg and vanilla. Add the flour mixture and mix until almost blended. Add the choc chips and mix.

Scoop the dough onto a baking sheet [the instructions said 5cm apart but I didn't find they spread too much]. Bake 12-14 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Made about 2 dozen

Crafty Christmas cont'd

I hope you all had a fun festive season. We did - lots of eating, relaxing and spending time together. I will miss The Scientist when he goes off to work tomorrow :(

We were given some lovely presents by friends and family. Here are a few more of the home-made items we gave in return:

Knitted hat and gloves for Eco Sis

Woolly bear, for Vet Grub

Ever-growing litter of pigs - so cute I keep making more, but I suspect they will be joining Kiwi Family's household at some stage

As you can see, knitting is the new patchwork in our house, much to Mausel's delight (it's a game, a game!). The bear and the pigs, as well as a whole lot of stripy mice I haven't photographed yet, are from this brilliant book. The patterns vary in difficulty but there's a glossary of knitting techniques, and most of the toys are made in only a few pieces. I'd definitely recommend it. I made an elephant too but he came out a bit droopy so I've unravelled him and am going to try again using smaller needles.

Christmas crafts

The festive season is a time when foody bloggers everywhere are cracking out the sugar, chocolate, cream and cranberries to combine in ingenious ways to express their love for friends and family. For me, this year's little home-made offerings have mainly involved wool and fabric rather than edibles. Here's a selection which speak for themselves:

Felt and button advent calendar, one made for the Munchkin and Munchkinette, and one for Science Nephew

Jewellery case made for a secret santa with my new crafting buddies- we each provided materials and selected a pack for each other to make something from

Leopard and Snow Leopard costumes for the Munchkin and Munchkinette (pictured). I want one too!

And lastly, one which I forgot to photograph, but which its new owner fortunately did - this little gift which went to the lovely Johanna for her daughter Sylvia. I was sad not to be able to fit in a trip to see them when they were in Scotland last month, but you can read all about their holidays at Johanna's blog.

There are more coming, but not yet delivered to their recipients! In the meantime, have a happy festive season everyone! xx

Taste and create double choc cookies

I signed up for Taste and Create again this month, and got partnered with Tania from Love Big, Bake Often. Tania is an ice-cream and baking-loving mum with two little 'monkeys' to cook for. At first I was worried about recreating her tasty treats as I don't have an ice cream maker, but then I started discovering the wealth of amazing cookies Tania has made. I had already started compiling a shortlist when she posted a new one - she called them Chocolate Toffee Rounds - basically double choc chip cookies, with added toffee bits. I don't think I need to sell them any further if I quote what Tania said about them: 'rich, chocolately cookie that is reminiscent of a brownie….with all the crispy, chewy edges a true brownie lover looks for!' Enough said. They jumped to the top of the list.


I was surprised at the small amount of butter and flour in the recipe, but it's made up for by lots and lots of dark chocolate. I wasn't quite sure about the toffee chips - I didn't know if they were actual toffee or toffee-flavoured choc chips. I couldn't find either anyway so I left them out, making my cookies a bit more of a traditional double choc chip. They were a cinch to make, and turned out exactly as Tania said - really chocolatey but brownily chewy at the same time. I made a half a batch, and am sending them home with Munchkin Granny, who has some rather special visitors arriving this evening...

Double choc chip cookies (previously known as chocolate toffee rounds) recipe here

And if you want to take part in Taste and Create, go here and sign up!

Disaster averted - and some swirly shortbread

Well, I spoke a bit too soon about my laptop being all better. Its new brain was perfectly functional, but its memory had sadly not made the transition with it, and for a few hairy days I seemed to be missing all my worldly documents (and blog photos, though I have to admit that the document situation was bit more hairy). And of course, like the lax idiot I always swore I would never be, I hadn't backed it all up for a few weeks longer than I'd thought. Sigh - won't be repeating that error (I hope). Anyway, Laptop (I feel it should have a name after all this but don't want to rush into anything hasty) has been back to the tecchie hospital for a few days, and has emerged triumphant with its memories restored, and I am one relieved blogger. So apologies for the lack of posting, and also for the lack of commenting on other people's blogs. I will be catching up soon, I hope.

All stacked and ready for rolling

Today's post is about some chocolate swirled shortbread I made for Christmas presents for some family friends. The recipe is from the Green and Black's chocolate book and I liked both the name ('Scrummy Chocolate Swirl Shortbread) and its description as 'clumsy and rustic'. Shortbread makes good presents as it's pretty robust, and it bypasses most allergies and dislikes. For these ones you split the mixture and chocolatify one half. Then you stack them, scatter chocolate over the top, and roll the whole lot up. The biscuits are cut from the big fat rolled up log and so they're nice and sturdy and eminently gift-packable. I presented them in stacks in little party bags tied with red ribbon and they looked very festive. I can't pretend that there isn't a lot of butter in these rustic eye-pleasers but for a treat they were very good. The recipe notes state that they were actually made originally for a vegan friend using vegan margarine so I will tag them as vegan as well.


Green and Black's Scrummy Chocolate Swirl Shortbread
Makes 14

Shortbread 1:
150g plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
50g caster sugar
125g unsalted butter or vegan margarine

Shortbread 2:
125g plain flour
25g cocoa powder
1/2 tsp salt
50g caster sugar
125g unsalted butter or vegan margarine
100g dark chocolate, minimum 60 per cent cocoa solids, or milk chocolate, preferably 34 per cent cocoa solids, chopped into pieces [I used all dark]

Preheat the oven to 150C/Gas 2/300 F

To make the first shortbread sift together the flour, salt and sugar. Rub in the butter until the mixture combines. Knead lightly, then place the dough in the fridge for 30 mins before rolling out.

Follow the same step for the second shortbread, but include the cocoa with the flour

Roll out both doughs on a lightly floured surface into equal-sized rectangles about 1cm thick. Place the plain shortbread on a sheet of greaseproof paper, place the chocolate shortbread on top of the plain one and then put the bigger pieces of chocolate onto the middle of the shortbread and scatter the smaller shards over the rest of the surface.

Carefully roll the shortbread like a Swiss roll, as tightly as possible, using the greaseproof paper to support it. Mine crumbled a bit but you can squidge it back together and it all just makes for more rusticity. Once rolled, pinch both ends together to prevent the chocolate from falling out, then using both hands, squeeze it until it is 22cm long.

Using a very sharp knife, slice the roll into 1cm slices. Lay well spaced on to a baking tray lined with baking parchment. Bake for 25 mins or until the plain shortbread has darkened slightly to a light golden colour. Cool on a wire rack.

A birthday quilt for MG

I've had an enforced rest from blogging for a week or so because my laptop became suddenly stricken with a nasty and debilitating sickness, and had to be rushed to the nice tech support people at the university for immediate attention. One brain transplant later (isn't modern medicine wonderful?) and a small amount of anxious waiting to find out what had happened to all my files, we are all now recovering, eating ice cream and happy to receive visitors.


Our first post back (my laptop has taken on some sort of collaborative role in this now after its hairy experience) is a quick one to say 'Happy birthday!' to Munchkin Granny. Her present has been an ongoing and - for the first time - collaborative quilt-making project between me and Eco Sis. We sewed half the smaller squares each using our own fabrics, and then swapped them about to make up the bigger squares. We unveiled it in its partially finished state at Christmas but then took it straight back again to sew the strips together, add the borders, wad, back and finish it. It's now, ahem, nearly finished, but I wanted MG to have a picture of it to open on her birthday when Eco Sis goes to visit her tonight. It's to go at the bottom of her bed to keep her feet toastie in the chilly winter nights! Happy birthday, MG!!

Festive ginger fudge

I love making sweets - it's baking plus science equals something that makes your teeth want to curl up (but in a nice way). I made some vanilla fudge for my students at the end of the semester and while good, it was very crunchy. I'd used a Nigella recipe featuring evaporated milk, which is the unsweetened version of condensed milk. Since then I've seen a lot of very enticing recipes for gooey soft fudge on other blogs, including Cupcake Project's fudge with balsamic, Rikki's ingenious cashew-nut fudge, and Heidi's Fantasy-ish Fudge which looks beautiful but contains an ingredient I'm pretty sure is native to the American market only (what is ricemallow cream anyway?). I consulted with my fudge-loving friend Sam (she of the biscuit-receiving RAF boyfriend) and she thought that condensed milk could be the way to a fudgier fudge. I bought some condensed milk to put her suggestion into action but hadn't quite got round to doing anything about it when our veg box turned up this week with a recipe for vanilla nut fudge using simply sugar, butter and milk. Everything else I've made according to the directions of the lovely people at Riverford has been a stunner so I set the condensed milk aside for another occasion (Johanna's grubs, perhaps?) and got stuck in.


I don't like nuts and I couldn't find my second choice of glace cherries (they turned up later, reclining behind a barricade of sugars), so at the last minute I grabbed some glace ginger, and partnered it with some ginger liqueur instead of vanilla essence. I'm happy to report that the fudge was delightfully gingery - not too strident but deliciously tangy. The fudge was definitely fudgier than my last attempt though still a little way from the gooeyness I was envisaging - more of a cruncher than a chewer. I was pleased enough with it to package it up for two particularly special friends though - one is yet to go off in the post so I won't spoil the surprise - and the other was hand-delivered to best-friend Tracy to share with her other half and my Birthday Buddy (Almost Birthday Buddy is probably a little young at 5 months - he can have his own next year). She liked it very much and it was lovely to catch up with her today :) It travelled well and I think it will make a good postable gift as well :)

Ginger fudge (adapted from a recipe leaflet from Riverford Organics)
400g sugar (I used golden caster sugar)
125ml milk
50g butter
100g glace ginger
1/2 tsp ginger liqueur

1. Mix the sugar, milk and butter in the pan and heat gently until the sugar melts.
2. Turn up the heat to a boil and keep boiling and stirring until a sugar thermometer gets to 115C
3. Take the pan off the heat and stir in the ginger and ginger liqueur. Leave to cool for 2 minutes
4 . Quickly stir the mixture until it goes thick and creamy. Pour into a greased baking tin.
5. As the fudge begins to set, score the surface into squares. When it has set, cut into squares and store in an airtight container.

Chocolate spice gingerbread - or, my ongoing obsession with the word treacle

I really seem to be unable to resist the idea of ginger and treacle in baked goods at the moment. I think I've said before that gingerbread didn't particularly play a part in our childhood traditions - we liked a bit of Jamaican ginger cake all right, but we didn't have it often. So I really can't explain where this yearning comes from - but if it gives me an excuse to say 'treacle' more often then I'm not going to try to fight it. This particular cake won me over by combining treacle and ginger with chocolate - and fairtrade Green and Black's chocolate at that. The recipe was from a Green and Black's book I bought second-hand after flicking through it in a shop and lusting after all the photos (it was the picture of the pear and chocolate spread which particularly won me over though I haven't made that yet). I came back to this recipe as I wanted to take a cake to the Ecos for dinner on Friday night (thank you for a lovely evening, and especially that amazing Moroccan soup, which, I have just realised, I dreamt about last night!). Eco Sis likes gingerbread too, and this one was advertised as being 'wonderfully moist'. The moistness must particularly come from adding chopped prunes, I think. I wonder if chestnut puree might have a similar effect though it might change the flavour of the cake. It also has buttermilk in it, and since I rarely buy buttermilk I used milk with added vinegar which seemed to work fine (please note that this is an accepted way to make buttermilk, Eco Sis - I didn't just randomly take liberties with your cake!).

Yummy cake; poor lighting :(

I will make this cake again. It contains fair trade orangey chocolate, it contains treacle and ginger, it contains prunes (which I love), it is dense and moist and dark brown in colour, it wrapped and travelled well, it got a rapturous response from Eco Sis: what's not to like? Interestingly, Eco Sis didn't pick up on the ginger immediately but it was because she was intrigued to guess what the moist little flecks she could see were (the prunes). Once I told her what it was she said she could definitely taste both ginger and chocolate. It was harder for me to assess fairly since I knew what was in it but I thought the combination of ginger and chocolate worked really well, especially with the added richness of the prunes.

Clearly not chocolate ginger cake, but so cute as to be almost edible, and sort of chocolatey coloured. She's wedged herself in a very small space between me and The Scientist on the sofa, and is lying on one of our legs each!

Although this wasn't previously a family favourite this cake went down so well with the Ecos that I am sending to Not Quite Nigella for her Ultimate Chocolate Cake Challenge.

Chocolate Spice Gingerbread (from the Green and Black's Chocolate Recipes cookbook)
125 g unsalted butter
50g Maya Gold or other good-quality dark orange chocolate, broken into pieces
50g dark chocolate, minimum 60% cocoa solids, broken into pieces
75g dark muscovado sugar
4 tbsp treacle
150ml buttermilk
125g ready-to-eat prunes
175g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 level tsp ground ginger
1 level tsp cinnamon
1 large egg, lightly beaten

Preheat the oven to 160C/325F/Gas 3. Line an 18cm square cake tin (I used a standard loaf pan) with greaseproof paper or baking parchment

Cut the butter into cubes and place in a heavy saucepan along with the chocolate, sugar, treacle and buttermilk. Heat gently until the ingredients have melted, then set aside to cool.

Snip the prunes into small pieces with the kitchen scissors. Sift the flour into a large bowl along with the bicarb of soda and spices. Pour the chocolate mixture into the bowl and beat thoroughly with a wooden spoon, then add the beaten egg and beat again. Fold in the prunes.

Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and level off the surface using a palette knife. Bake for about 50 mins. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin for about 10 mins. Turn out onto a wire rack and leave to cool completely. Wrap in greaseproof paper and store in an airtight container.

The cake will keep for a week in an airtight container. It is best eaten the day after it is made.

Little treats from Germany - blogging by mail

I almost ignored the doorbell when it rang at about 9 this morning. Mausel was comfy on my lap, I was in the middle of writing a sentence and our post doesn't arrive til much later. Fortunately I braved the possibility of a cold caller, as it was a postman with a little blogging by mail package from Germany! Yes, Stephanie from Dispensing Happiness has taken on the increasingly enormous task of inviting, collating and matching people for BBM, 10 items or fewer. It's such a lovely idea - blogging made real, and full of wee treats winging their way around the globe.

My little package came from Aniko at Paprika meets Kardamom - so called because of her part German, part-Hungarian roots. Her gifts were so thoughtful and personalised, and reflect her own culinary and cultural origins too. Here's what I got:

At the front there are two Christmas cookie cutters which will be perfect for the end of semester choc chip cookies :) I love making cut-out cookies and I've been contemplating some seasonal cutters for a while so I was very pleased with those. Next to them are some poppyseeds which feature highly in Hungarian baking (and lots of Eastern European Jewish dishes too). Aniko included a recipe for a poppy seed bread pudding which is a favourite in her family :) Above them is some 'Gute-Laune-Tee' or 'Good Mood Tea' with fennel, apple, anise, verbena, cinnamon and other spices. Can't wait to try that one to perk up a Monday morning! At the back are some gummy sweets - I might not know too much German but I can definitely understand 'ohne gelatine'!! To the side are Hungarian dried sour cherries - did Aniko know that I love dried fruit?! The sour cherries rang a bell about something Johanna blogged about a while back - and sure enough, she had been trying to make some fig and dried cherry slices but could only find really expensive sour cherries so she used apricots. My cherries are destined for that original recipe as it looks and sounds amazing! Next, some Hungarian paprika - another speciality and one that we're very fond of. The Scientist loves goulash, and Aniko has also sent a tasty-sounding recipe for pumpkin goulash which we're definitely going to try next week.

What an amazing little parcel - thank you so much Aniko! I had a hard time keeping my mind on my work for the rest of the morning while I turned over thoughts for what all these lovely ingredients could become. And that you Stephanie for all your hard work too!

Kvelling over marbled millionaire's shortbread

Kvelling is a Yiddish word meaning 'glowing with pride'. I was kvelling about my shortbread because, if I say so myself, it was darned pretty, and since it was a gift for Eco Sis, I was all the happier. I made this shortbread for Eco Sis because I went to stay with her so we could have a sisterly day out together on Monday; because she likes millionaire's shortbread; because I wanted to bake it; and because it reminded me of a little story about her childhood.


When we were young, Kiwi Sis and I had piano lessons or some such activity after school which took up a relatively short amount of time, and wasn't worth Munchkin Granny and the small Eco Sis going home. So they used to go to a cafe nearby wherever we were (Oadby, in Leicester where we lived at the time, so Munchkin Granny told me at the weekend when we were reminiscing about it) and have a drink and a cake. It was a fun cafe over a gift shop, and the most memorable thing about it was that it had stuffed heads mounted on the walls. But these were stuffed toy heads, and the owner could stand on the other side of the wall and put his hand in them to make them move and talk. It was great fun keeping an eye on them to see if they were going to wake up and entertain us. Anyway, Eco Sis had a favourite cake at this cafe which she called 'the cake with long legs'. It was a bar cake, and the long legs were the stripy decoration (I'm not sure if I ever saw these cakes, but I imagine a Mr Kipling-esque slice - though less squiggly than the ones in the link). That's how cute Eco Sis was when she was little.

When I was looking out for recipes to make her a millionaire's shortbread - which is, incidentally, shortbread topped with caramel topped with chocolate - I found a recipe on Cookie Baker Lynn's blog which had a marbled chocolate top instead of a plain one. It immediately struck me that if I marbled it correctly I could give it 'long legs'. Unfortunately I completely forgot about the long legs when I actually came to the marbling as I got so carried away with the delights of making pretty patterns. However, as our great-grandmother used to say, 'it's the thought that counts'.

Striped and ready to drizzle

I used the recipe for Roxanne's Millionaire's Shortbread from Nigella's How to be a Domestic Goddess, which has handily appeared on various blogs. I halved the recipe since Eco Bro was away and I didn't want to make Eco Sis practice her coma resuscitation skills on herself, but it must make a whole heap of shortbread in its original quantity, as you can see that it still filled a square brownie pan. Nigella's instructions are to make the caramel in the microwave but I did mine in a saucepan as I was worried about burning either it or myself, as our microwave is very high up! I wasn't really sure how long to simmer it for, and my caramel could have been a bit firmer, but the taste was still there. I followed Cookie Baker Lynn's instructions for marbling though, by melting dark and milk chocolate separately, and painting them in stripes over the cake. Then I melted some white chocolate and dabbled it over the top of that, before using a cake tester to make marbled patterns through all three chocolates. Then I sat with it on my knee all the way to Oxford in the car and prayed for The Scientist to drive gently! (He did)

Drizzled and ready to marble

While my millionaire's shortbread did not have long legs, it got a very favourable response from Eco Sis (and her housemates!). The shortbread layer was quite thick, and I would perhaps reduce the quantity even further another time so that the caramel shone through a little more. With that much goopy goodness though, I don't think anyone will be complaining too much, long legs or no :) (And our sisterly day out in the Cotswolds was lots of fun too - the rain stopped us doing our walk, but we found a sewing shop and did cross-stitch in a cafe instead!)

Roxanne's Millionaire's Shortbread recipe is posted in various places
Instructions for marbling, and an alternative recipe here

Irish chocolate cake

This is a cake I made for The Scientist to take on his last role-playing trip. I have been SO good about not baking except when there's a reason, and this time it was one of his friend's 30th birthdays so I went all out with sweetie decorations as well!

I fancied making a nice squishy chocolate cake and found a recipe with a twist in a little book of Irish baking I bought when we were on holiday. So what's Irish about it? Well, it has Irish liqueur in the creamy filling. Not very original you may think - well, ha ha, it has something even more Irish in it as well. You'll have to look at the ingredients to find out what, but the headnotes in the recipe says it makes it particularly moist, and the raw mixture, which was the only bit I tasted, was superlative.


I actually had a small disaster while baking the cake as I had forgotten that we were almost out of butter, so The Scientist had to go on an emergency mission to the local shop - and when he got back I discovered I only had one egg as well. Rather than send him out again I subbed some yogurt for the second egg. The gamers reported no yogurty weirdness, but then they didn't spot the surprise extra ingredient either so I doubt their gourmet discernment over appreciation of chocolatelyness. On the whole I think I prefer that (especially given my propensity to run out of ingredients and forget things....)


I had fun with this cake because of the frosting and filling. The Scientist was travelling by train which constrained how much decoration I could do, but I created a guard for the cake out of a larger tin which meant he didn't have to carry too much back with him either. The frosting was really velvety and creamy and set just enough to get it there in a reasonably neat state. I decorated it with kiddie sweets - I was going to do a '30' but The Scientist had a crisis of confidence at the last second that it really was a 30th birthday (it was, but it's probably nicer to distribute the sweets more evenly over the cake anyway). It got a good response from the gamers anyway, though as I say, they eat almost anything - and I have yet to quantify the 'almost'!

Irish chocolate cake from A Little Book of Irish Baking
Cake
175g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp salt
50g dark chocolate
110g butter
175g caster sugar
80g cooked mashed potato [there you go!]
2 eggs. beaten
4 tbsp milk

Filling
110g dark chocolate
125ml double cream
50g icing sugar
3 tbsp Irish cream liqueur

Preheat oven to Gas 5/190C/375F and grease and line two 20cm/8 inch cake tins

Soft flour and salt into a mixing bowl. Melt chocolate. In a separate bowl, cream butter and sugar together until fluffy, then beat in the chocolate and mashed potato. Gradually beat in the eggs, adding a little flour with each addition. Fold in the rest of the flour and stir in the milk. Divide the micture between cake tins and bake for 25-30 mins or until the top is firm but springy to the touch. Remove from the oven and after a few minutes, turn out onto a cooling rack.

While the cakes are cooling, make the filling. Melt the chocolate, stir in the other ingredients and mix well. Use the filling to sandwich the cakes together and coat the top and sides of the cake.

Break in baking transmission

I break off from my planned transmisison of bread baking posts to announce....the arrival of a mini Munchkinette!! Kiwi Sis popped into the hospital for a mere four-hour labour (note how only someone who has never given birth uses the word 'mere' anywhere near the word 'labour')!, and has been on the phone to Munchkin Gramps herself already, sounding very cheery. It's all quite surreal, and I can't quite believe that my little sister has a daughter. I'm off to buy something suitable to toast the new arrival, although of course it isn't really her birthday here yet as she was born in the early morning in NZ. Does that mean we can spend all of tomorrow toasting to her as well? Many many congrats Kiwi Sis, Bro and Munchkin!



For obvious reasons no photo of mum and baby themselves, but here are some pictures of the present which is awaiting Munchkinette's return from hospital.

A little give-away

I took another little craft project on holiday with me, apart from The Grub's quilt. Aren't they cute (if I say so myself)?! I can't take the creative credit - they're based on a template by Hannah Kaminsky of Bittersweet blog. I adapted what was a pear to become a strawberry as my apple was already filling the green slot, and was quite pleased with how his little fringe turned out. In fact, they've grown on me so much, sitting on the fridge for the last week, that I think I'm going to have to make another set to keep. Because these little buddies are off in the post to four people tomorrow - leave me a comment if you get one through your letterbox!

A cheesecake request

When your little sister asks for cheesecake, what can you do? Especially when said little sister has been working hard for exams and has finally finished. Reader, I made cheesecake. The reason we'd been talking about cheesecake is because we had invited the Ecos round for the weekend to celebrate the end of exams, and when writing it in my diary I'd noticed that it was also Shavuot, the Jewish festival which marks the giving of the five books of the Old Testament to the Jews. This was one of the culminating points of their wanderings after fleeing from slavery in Egypt, which is commemorated at Pesach. I wouldn't like to imply that Jewish festivals are all about food; but most Jewish festivals have traditional foods which accompany them, and since I like to cook and bake for my friends and family as a sign of my affection for them, I like to capitalise on these traditions. In this case, it's traditional to eat dairy foods like cheesecake and cheese blintzes, possibly to mark the fact that the Jews were only given their strict dietary rules on not mixing meat and milk in the Old Testament. At any rate, Eco Sis had immediately endorsed the need to share our feelings for each other by eating cheesecake, and most particularly chocolate cheesecake.


What I made in the end was chocolate-swirled mini cheesecakes, using this recipe from a blog called Fresh From the Oven. The original recipe didn't have a biscuity base but I did make one, using ginger biscuits and a bit of melted marge. The cheesecake mix is a fairly standard one, but you take out some of the topping and mix it with cocoa which is then swirled into the middle of the cake. Following another recipe on the same blog, I swirled raspberry jam into two of the mini cakes instead of the cocoa, as The Scientist wasn't entirely convinced about chocolate cheesecake (though guess which one he reached for first!). The jam was a bit hard to swirl and I think that warming it, or at least mixing it up well first might have helped. But the finished product was a nice little treat and got the Eco Sis stamp of approval. Personally I preferred the jam one as I don't like very cocoa-y things, but since the base is the same it's easy to mix and match what you swirl in. I think that the biscuit base is a nice addition and a contrast with the cool creamy cheesiness of the topping, but it would still be a nice dessert without.

We had a lovely weekend with the Ecos, and had our usual board game session with them - this time Settlers of Catan and Munchkin (a coincidental title, though of course it made us think of our Munchkin. In role playing a munchkin is someone who has all the doo-hickies you could possibly imagine, though the Kiwi Munchkin got his nickname because he's dinky, not because he has a sword of cuteness or a potion of enchantment or anything (as far as I know)). I have no strategic talent at all for games like this, but to my surprise I even managed to lead for a while in Settlers despite being in the kitchen starting dinner and only running back in to the sitting room when it was my turn or when someone wanted to do some trading. Eco Sis won both games. I'd like to claim we let her since she'd worked so hard for her exams, but the truth is that she got all the strategy genes in our family. That's my excuse anyway - I don't know what happened to The Scientist and Eco Bro (full of cheesecake, perhaps?)

The Ecos didn't come empty handed, by the by. In my first guest-baker spot on this blog, may I present Eco Sis's Blueberry Buckle; a delicious, moist and fruity cake, using a recipe she got from their American housemate.


I haven't got a copy of the recipe so can't reproduce it here, but the cake was lovely, and I love the word buckle because it's similar to truckle. Truckle is a good word because it makes me think of both truckle beds, which are little beds which slide under the big one during the day, like the one that Laura Ingalls Wilder and her sister Mary shared when they lived in the Little House in the Big Woods, and of cheese truckles which I don't particularly eat but which are pleasing to say. Eco Sis also brought home-made challah which looked amazing, but which I have put in the freezer to enjoy properly later as we were all stuffed from the other cooking this weekend!

Swirled mini cheesecakes (from Junior's Cheesecake Cookbook, via Fresh from the Oven blog)
[As usual, I halved the recipe and made 6 mini cheesecakes using a big muffin tin. Below is the full scale recipe]

Two 8-ounce packages Philadelphia Cream Cheese [reduced fat is fine] at room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch [the jam swirled version used 3tbsps, but I used the lesser quantity for a mixture which I divided between chocolate and jam versions with no ill effects]
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
2 extra large eggs [this is U.S. extra-large - UK large]
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
1.5 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder [for the jam version, omit this and allow about 1 tsp or a little less of jam per cheesecake]
Chocolate curl (optional, for decoration)

Preheat oven to 350F. Line 12 standard muffin cups with silicone, foil, parchment, or paper liners.

Put one package of cream cheese, 1/3 cup of sugar, and the cornstarch in a large bowl. Beat with an electric mixer on low until creamy, about 3 minutes, scraping down the bowl a few times. Blend in the remaining cream cheese and 1/3 cup sugar, then the vanilla. Blend in the eggs, one at a time, beating well after adding each one. Beat in the cream just until it's completely blended. Be careful not to be overmix.

Remove 3/4 cup of the batter and stir in the cocoa. Divide the white batter among the 12 muffin cups. Drop a heaping teaspoon of the chocolate batter in the center of each, pushing each down slightly. Using a small knife or skewer, cut through the batter until dark swirls appear. [for the jam version don't take any of the mixture out but divide it directly among the muffin cups. Then drop a tsp or so of jam into each one and swirl as above]

Place the muffin tin in a large shallow pan and add hot water until it comes about 1 inch up the sides of the tin. Bake the cakes until set and slightly puffy, about 30-45 minutes, depending on how hot your oven is. Remove the cakes from the water bath, transfer the tin to a wire rack, and let cool for 2 hours.*Transfer the cake to a container and chill for at least 4 hours.
*note: instruction from the book: After 2 hours of cooling, cover cake with plastic wrap (do not remove from the tin) and put in the freezer until cold, at least one day. [I didn't do this]

Grub-by quilt

We had a momentous meeting last night: with our best friends' new baby, The Grub! He was born two weeks ago but we went on holiday almost immediately afterwards, and yesterday was the first time we could get down to see them all. He does, of course, have a proper name, but his parents (whom I will call Vet Mum and Vet Dad) called him The Grub while he was gestating, and it seems to have stuck. He's a real cutie little bean and enjoys dancing with his dad already. The Scientist and Vet Dad have been best friends since they were about eight, and The Scientist was Vet Dad's best man, so it was a pretty big deal seeing them becoming parents. In fact, one of the first stories The Scientist told me on our first proper date was how Vet Dad had rung him one morning and woken him up to tell him that he'd proposed. And, in fact again, The Scientist had been with Vet Mum and Dad the evening before our first ever date, and told them all about this new girl he'd met. Awwww.



We went bearing gifts - pizza for dinner, a pretty photo frame for the Grubbery, a bottle of whiskey from the Bushmill's distillery to toast the new arrival, and of course, a patchwork quilt. I wanted to use an animal theme and found the most gorgeous pattern on an American website called From Me to You. They were really helpful and put the pattern in the post before they'd even charged me the money! I try not to have favourites among the quilts I make because I make each one with thoughts of the people they're going to be for - but this one was a bit special, not least because of who it was for. It was probably the most complicated one I've made for one thing, but I just loved the animals, too. The most time-consuming part was all the little 9-blocks in the top section's background, which are individually sewn. Fortunately for me, The Grub was a bit late, which meant that with some furious sewing on our holiday. I could have it done by the time we saw him.

Since we were taking dinner I thought I'd throw in some dessert, too, and whipped up some brownies. I tried a different recipe from usual, from Cookie Madness which caught my eye because it contained golden syrup which The Scientist loves. It also uses unsweetened chocolate which I'm not sure we really get here, but I happened to have a bit left from my trip to America last November. It's unfortunate that I won't be able to recreate them until I can persuade someone to bring me some more back as they were really good - a satisfying amount of goo in the middle squares but without veering on the undercooked, and they were also nice and firm. The instructions said to refrigerate them but they were still warm when we went to bed so I left them in a tin instead and they were fine.


Why is there a rabbit posing with the brownies? Well, he helped me make them, and that will be another story anon.