Chocolate brownies

Method:

MELT
220g of the best dark cooking chocolate you can buy
150g unsalted butter

MIX
1 & ¼ cups caster sugar
3 eggs
2 tsp Vanilla extract
90g nuts (optional)
1 and ½ cups plain flour
Optional, sprinkle choc ‘Bits’ across the top of the mixture.

BAKE
Bake @ 150 degrees for approx 35-40 minutes. Don’t overcook!

I have not made this one yet but a friend of mine has. I can't wait to give it a try.

Hi all,

I have been away from the blog for a little while, sorry. Hope in my absence you have all created some wonderful cooking ideas and have them typed up and ready to email to me to be uploaded.

Felicity

Pumpkin Soup

Ingredients

500g butternut pumpkin
2 medium onions chopped
3 1/2 cups water
chicken stock
2 large carrots diced
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
2 cloves garlic (optional)

Method

1. Chop all vegetables
2. Place onions and garlic (optional) and with small amount of olive oil and cook until onion is soft
3. All other ingredients into pot
4. Boil then simmer until cooked (around 30-45 minutes)
5. Blend and serve

Variation

1. Bake pumpkin and carrots in oven before adding to pot. I baked pumpkin and carrot for around 45 minutes on a high heat before adding to the broth. Also, when you are adding it to the broth, take some of the liquid and put into baking tray to get all the cooked flavours.

This is a family favourite. It is really simple and yummy. You can add cream at the end, either sour cream or coconut cream. You can make a vegetarian alternative; add vegetable stock instead of chicken stock.

Felicity

Self-saucing chocolate pudding

Ingredients

1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 cup self-raising flour
2 tbs cocoa powder
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
60g butter, melted, cooled

Sauce

2/3 firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder sifted
1 1/4 cups boiling water

Method

1. Place brown sugar in a medium mixing bowl
2. Sift together the flour and cocoa powder over the brown sugar and stir to combine
3. Use a fork or hand whisk to whisk together the milk, egg and cooled (melted) butter into a bowl or jug until combined
4. Add to the dry ingredients and use a wooden spoon to beat until a smooth batter forms
5. Pour the chocolate batter into the greased 1 litre dish and use the back of a spoon to smooth the surface.
6. To make the sauce, combine the brown sugar and cocoa powder into a bowl and then sprinkle the mixture evenly over the batter in the dish.
7. Pour the boiling water over the batter in the dish and cook for about 20 minutes
8. To test if the pudding is cooked you can put a tester in the top (remember the bottom will be a sauce). The sides should be away from the edge but the cake will be dark and possibly look burnt from the chocolate on the top.

I took this out of a magazine years ago, I think it would have been 'Good Taste'. I have cooked this heaps of times because it is a quick recipe to cook in winter when friends are coming over for dinner. I have also cooked individual serves and served with ice cream.

Felicity

Chocolate double choc chip and peanut biscuits

Ingredients

200g chopped butter
3/4 cup caster sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs lightly beaten
2 cups SR flour

Just under 1/2 cup white choc bits

Just under 1/2 cup dark choc bits
Just under 1/2 cup roasted peanuts (not salted) see note below

Method

1. Beat butter, sugars and eggs with electric beaters
2. Stir in remaining ingredients
3. Roll into teaspoon sized balls
4. Cook in a moderate oven for 15 minutes
5. Take out of oven but leave on the tray for a little while before putting on wire rack to cool (biscuits come out of oven a little soft)

Note
I used raw peanuts and roasted them myself in the oven for about 10 minutes.

I have no ideas where I got this recipe, it is handwritten in my recipe book.

Felicity

Apple crumble with pecans

Ingredients

3/4 cup plain flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
75g unsalted butter
1/3 cup pecans, chopped
1/4 cup rolled oats

1 tsp ground cinnamon

400g tin of pie apples or apple slices (or experiment with different fruit)

Method

1. Mix plain flour and brown sugar, using your fingertips, rub in the butter until it looks like coarse breadcrumbs.
2. Add almonds, cinnamon and combine. Set aside.
3. Place the pie apple in greased dish.
4. Sprinkle crumble mixture over apples to cover and bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes or until crumble is golden.
5. Serve with ice cream or cream.

I found this recipe on Taste.com.au and changed it a little. They cooked apples (5 cooking apples) instead of tin fruit and I think there was a typo as it said 175g butter and 75g is more than enough. The pecans give this apple crumble a wonderful extra crunch.

I made this at home with Mum and Dad for lunch when they had a friend over and it was a huge hit. Super easy, super yummy.

Felicity

Super Yummy Lemon Teacake

Ingredients

Cake

250g Philadelphia cream cheese
1 1/4 cups of caster Sugar
2 teaspons vanilla
2 eggs
1 cup oil
2 cups self-raising flour
Grated rind of 2 lemons
Juice of 1 lemon

Icing
1 cup icing sugar
Juice of 1 lemon

Method

1. Grease a pan and pre-heat the oven to 180 c
2. Beat Philly, sugar and vanilla with an electric mixer until smooth. Gradually beat in the eggs and oil. Then stir in the flour, lemon rind and juice. Mix well.
3. Pour Mixture into the pan and bake for 45-55 minutes. Allow to cool for 5 minutes then turn cake out onto a wire rack
4. Combine lemon juice and icing sugar and drizzle over the cake. Serve.

Julie Murray-Lewis

Easy easy easy easy fruit crumble

Ingredients

Tin of fruit (tonight we used apple and raspberry)
1/2 packet butter cake mix
Approx 5 desert spoons butter
Handful of almonds (chopped)

Method

1. Divide the butter cake mix and put half into a bowl
2. Rub butter into butter cake mixture until you make a crumble
3. Put the tin of fruit into a greased pie dish (we used a round cake tin)
4. Mix crumble mixture and chopped almonds together
5. Put the crumble mixture over the fruit in the pie dish
6. Cook in a moderate oven for around 20 minutes or until the crumble is brown.

Tonight I made this while camping because we needed to warm up in the caravan while in Canberra. Mum and I were not sure if the crumble would work with the cake mixture but it tasted great and was really really easy to make.

Felicity and Pamela

Parmesan Cheese Sables - the yummiest savoury biscuits ever!

These are extremely easy to make, and well worth the effort. It takes no time to make a large batch and keep in the freezer until needed. They are perfect with pre-dinner drinks.

To make about 30-40, using a 5cm round cutter

Ingredients:

 

100g plain flour

Pinch each of salt, black pepper and cayenne

1/2 tsp dry mustard powder

90g unsalted butter

90g grated Parmesan or Gruyère

1 egg beaten to glaze
Small handful of poppy seeds or sesame seeds

Method:

1. Sift flour into a bowl or food processor and add the salt, pepper, cayenne and mustard powder.
2. Add the butter and rub in or blend until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
3. Add the cheese and mix the dough together until smooth. If should be soft and pliable.
4. Chill for 30 minutes, and then turn out onto a floured surface.
5. Pre-heat the oven to 190C. Gently roll out to a thickness of 1cm. Using a round or heart-shaped cutter, press out the shapes and brush with the egg glaze.
6. Sprinkle with poppy seeds or sesame seeds and place on a flat baking sheet. Bake for approx 12-15 minutes until the biscuits are golden brown, and cool on a wire rack.

Note: These can be kept for a week in an airtight container, or frozen for 1-2 months.

Alison Farr-Handley

Fudge Cake

Ingredients

60g low fat margarine
3/4 cup caster sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cups SR flour
2 tablespoons cocoa
1/2 cup low-fat milk
1/4 cup boiling water
1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

Chocolate Icing

1 cup icing mixture
1 tablespoon cocoa
1-2 tablespoons boiling water

Method

1. Preheat oven and grease 20cm deep round cake pan
2. Cream marg and caster sugar with electric mixer until smooth and light
3. Beat in egg into mixture
4. Sift flour and cocoa into creamed mixture alternating with milk, starting and ending with flour
5. Combine water and bicarbonate of soda and fold gently into mixture
6. Pour into prepared pan
7. Bake 35-40 minutes, until a skewer inserted comes out clean
8. Cool on wire rack
9. Make chocolate icing by combining all ingredients until smooth and spread over cooled cake.

I made this on the weekend for cousins and iced with the chocolate icing and cut strawberries. Everyone loved it and it was so easy to make. Although it is called a 'Fudge Cake' it is not too heavy and a nice cake to have seconds of!

Felicity

Honey ginger buttons

Ingredients

60g butter
1/2 cup golden syrup
1/4 cup honey
1 3/4 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2 teaspoons ground ginger
3 teaspoons milk

Icing
See below

Method

1. Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat, increase heat to medium-high.
2. Stir in golden syrup and honey. Bring to the boil. Remove from heat and allow to cool for 10 minutes.
3. Disolve bircarb in milk.
4. Sift flour and ginger together into butter mixture. Add milk mixture and stir until well combined.
5. Cover and set aside for 1 hour or until dough is firm.
6. Using a heaped teaspoon of mixture, roll into balls and place about 3cm apart on lined baking tray.
7. Bake for 5-10 minutes (180 deg C oven). Allow to cool on trays.
8. Make icing and spread on biscuits after biscuits are cool.

I made the icing as I normally do (not what was in the recipe). I use icing mixture, enough water (or butter) to make a paste then add colouring and/or essence. If the icing is not thick (does not stay on the spoon) add some more icing mixture. I made white icing and pink icing for these biscuits.

This recipe was from the Taste website, originally from Super Food Ideas magazine. I took these biscuits to rehearsals the other night and everybody loved them.

Shape biscuits

Ingredients

3/4 cup butter or margarine, melted
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
can add cocoa to chocolate biscuits

Method

1. Mix butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla thoroughly
2. Stir in flour, baking powder
3. Chill for at least 1 hour (this REALLY needs to be done). Make sure you cover with glad wrap or it will dry out. I usually put the mixture on glad wrap not in a bowl. 
4. Pre-heat oven to 180-200 deg C
5. Roll out dough on floured surface and cut shapes with cookie cutters
6. Bake for 6-10 minutes or until golden brown
7. Decorate biscuits with icing

This recipe was from a Spotlight book called 'The essential recipe guide - your favourites' and I use it all the time. If you don't leave the mixture in the fridge for 1 hour it is really hard to roll. When you take it out of the fridge it is a bit greasy.

Felicity Caterer