Lara's chocolaty bites

Pasta for Pasta Machine

Borden

This is Oma's signature cake (well one of them) that Flash particularly likes and enjoys making. It's traditionally strawberry but other fruits will serve the turn, as you can see. 

Start with the pound-cake base (180g each of sugar, butter and flour and three eggs) and make the tart casing. Cool. No I mean let it cool, although getting that far is cool figuratively speaking as well. 

Make custard: can do it with the old tin of condensed milk, 1.5 cups of milk, 1 egg, 2 tbsp custard powder, vanilla essence, cook for 3 mins (stir) 2 mins (stir) and 1 min in the microwave. You won't need all that amount of custard so you'll have about half left over. What a tragedy, what will you do with that, I wonder? 

Make the fruit: your probably-tinned-fruit-of-choice thickened up with cornflour and sweetened to taste. Has to be pretty firm. 

Serve with whipped cream. 

There is one trick that's hard to achieve. Ideally you'll let this set for a few hours before devouring. Otherwise it's a bit runny. 

Ingredients: 

Flour, butter, sugar (180g), 3 eggs, tin of condensed sweetened milk, 1.5 cups sugar, another egg, vanilla essence, tinned or other fruit, sugar to taste, cornflour. 

Need a tart tin. 

Chinese New Year ideas

 

 

 

Mr B (Breakfast/Snack Banana Slice)

Make a sponge in a slice tin, with 250g made up of flour, raw oats, and desiccated coconut and baking powder. Three eggs, 150g melted butter, vanilla essence. Mix, into lined slice tin, bake at 170c. When done, make a syrup in the microwave from a good dollop of golden syrup and a slosh of orange flower water. Spoon on top of the slice. Cool, cut into two layers. Lightly spoon cream over the base and layer with banana slices, replace top, dust with icing sugar. Rather tasty.

Scones

3 cups flour, 100g butter, 1.25 cups milk (approx), baking powder.

Crumb butter into flour and then mix into dough with milk. Cut into rounds, bake at 200c. Serve!

Pina Colada Cake

This was meant to be Russian Cherry Cake but we had no cherries. So we went all Puerto Rican instead.

You'll make three or four sausages of pastry filled with pineapple, sugar and coconut mix, roll them up into snakes inside a springform pan, and bake 'em at 170. I found the bottom baked less than the top because of the squidginess factor so it might be a good idea to foil up the top and put it slightly towards the bottom of the oven for longer.

For the pastry there's 3.75 cups of flour, 120g butter (melted), two teaspoons of baking powder, a cup of yoghurt and 0.5 cups of sugar combined. Yep, a lot of flour. I found I had to add a bit of milk into this mix because it didn't hold together well enough. Roll up, make yer stuffed snakes, curl 'em up. Cut as per normal cake. Rather nice, actually.

OMG Slice (a.k.a. Diabetes Squares) - Chocolate and salted caramel

Made of almost nothing but sugar. Don't have a real recipe for this but something along the lines of:

Make a caramel in the microwave with equal amounts of golden syrup and white sugar, with a good knob of butter and a good teaspoon of salt. Needs to be enough to hold together enough chocolate rice crispies to coat the bottom of a slice-pan (lined). Spread, chill. Cook a tin of condensed milk with honey (good slug) and butter. See what I mean about the sugar? Until it sort of thickens or for about 5 minutes of bubbling. Spread on the earlier slice. I found it easier to cut this after a little freeze. Very sticky, very extreme and throat burney, cut into SMALL portions. Eat not over once a year.

Peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies

120g butter, melted
120g peanut butter (pref crunchy)
0.5 cups each of granulated and dark brown sugar
1 egg
1 cup plain flour, plus 1 good teaspoon baking powder
Good handful each of white choc chips, chopped peanuts

Cream all butters and sugars, add egg, mix in flour, then the chips and nuts. Roll into balls and bake at 180 spaced apart. Leave for a few moments to cool and crispen up. Pretty tasty.

Coconut Broth Meatballs

Chop onions finely, fry with garlic. To your meatball mix add breadcrumbs and milk, chili, and ginger, together with the fried onions. Roll them, and fry them off. Add a bit of chicken stock, then a heap of coconut milk. More fresh ginger, kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass, turmeric and chili. Bubble for about ten minutes. Was very nice served on top of rice.

Iced Lemon Cake

An old tea-time favourite. 

For the cake mix: 

125g butter

grated rind 1 lemon

2 eggs

2 tablespoons milk

200g self-raising flour 

50g cornflour

0.5 teaspoons baking powder

Tin: 20cm round. Grease and line. Oven to 190c. Beat butter, sugar, lemon rind, then eggs,and milk and then dry ingredients. Bake for 40-50 mins. Turn out. 

Syrup 

2tablespoons water 

2 tablespoons lemon juice 

50g caster sugar 

1 tablespoon arak, ouzo or cointreau 

Heat into a syrup, saturate cake with it. 

When done, drizzle over thick icing and sprinkle on some lemon peel for cuteness. Nice crumbly textured cake. 

Eggs Benedict

Not even a good pic, just reminder for the dish. Do we need a recipe? 

Roasted Pear Chutney

Very unique chutney, which, while stunningly high in cinnamon and cloves, is a resounding success. Will be making more. Increase all ingredients as per the ratio below. 

Ratio: 

For each two large pears, 

Spice mix: 

• half a teaspoon of cinnamon (yes)
• a little less of clove (ground)
• a tablespoon of caster sugar

First, peel the pears, halve them, core, coat in acidulated water and then... roll them in the spice and castor sugar mix. Lay them out flat side down onto baking trays and bake until they're soft. Cool.

Meanwhile, the rest of the chutney is: 

• a good bit of fresh grated ginger
• one smallish onion,
• 1/4 cup dark brown sugar (or golden syrup, or even maple syrup but that pushes the price up)
• 1 garlic clove
• a small handful of currants, cranberries or whatever dried fruit you feel like
• half cup of white vinegar
• optional chili flakes
• optional chopped mango
• optional fresh thyme.

Cook together all the other ingredients. Slice or dice the cooled pears as you see fit and want in your chutney. At the end, mix, and pour into sterilized jars. Have to say this is pretty damn good.

Pumpkin Pie

Currently trying out various permutations of this. Last one I found was a bit squidgy made with milk and with a thick filling - ended up cooking the crust too much. But the same filling in a shallower base was good. But then you get less filling. Perhaps the version with cream is better. Anyway have a play.

Sweet shortcrust over and blind bake a 23cm pie tin. For the filling:

500g cooked pumpkin puree
3 eggs
1.5 cups thickened cream (plus extra to serve)
185g brown sugar
Ground cloves, ginger, allspice, nutmeg and above all cinnamon

Pour into blind-baked shell, cook on 220 for 10 mins and then on 180 for an extra 30-40. Cool and serve with maple syrup and whipped cream. In case you were lacking calories.

Fantastic selection of nibble-croutons

Chicken meatballs with aioli, salad and giant croutons

I don't know much about this except what it is. Another Bunny Special. Looks tasty. Might try and re-create. I did find the video of Bunny finishing preparing it - about 45 seconds in, if that helps!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldbfd8qZWuM

Spiced grilled chicken and coleslaw healthy dinner

Not even going to put a recipe up here because it's obvious what's happened - just a reminder that it's a nice combo and a rather pretty way to serve it. 

Thanks for another delicious dinner, Bunny! x

Spiced Chocolate Cake

A REALLY DENSE delicious chocolate cake that will turn your insides into a high-class confectionery store.

(We did 1/2 of this and it still lasted days)

Melt 250g dark chocolate with 250g butter and 185ml water. Cool. Combine 125ml buttermilk, 2tbsp instant coffee, 2 tbsp oil and 4 eggs. Add in 2 cups flour (plus 2 tsp baking powder), 1/2 cup cocoa powder, 2.5 cups sugar, grated nutmeg (lots) and cinnamon. Mixy mixy. Add the melted chocolate and give a final flourish before baking at 160 for well over an hour.

When it's done, tip it upside down and drizzle over with brandy until it can take no more, then tip it right right way up and give it some more. Cool completely.

Make icing by melting 250g butter with another 250g chocolate, cooling, and slurping over the top.

Boy was this cake good. The pic is of the half-sizer.

Bread dumplings

Light n' fluffy they ain't, but they're pretty tasty with a stew or roast. German stuff.

Soak some chopped-up stale bread with just enough hot milk to get it malleable. Fry up some onions in butter, then blitz them with whatever variety of herb you like (parsley is a favourite). Mix everything together into a sticky dough, adding breadcrumbs or flour to firm up. Shape into hefty dumplings. Boil in salted water until they float.

Gyoza skin

Plain flour and a bit of salt. Add boiling water until you can just form a ball with much kneading. That's pretty much it. Roll out thin, cut out with cookie cutter.

Also much the same for Chinese dumplings (of the skin variety).

Cinnamon Teacake

This originally came in a cake tin but I baked it shallow in a swiss roll tin and cut up into thin half-biscuit half-cake slices. Went down well with a side of cream and served with hot chocolate.

Whisk 130g butter with 2 eggs, 1 cup sugar and plenty of vanilla essence. Stir in 2 cups of self-raising flour (or equivalent) and 2/3 cups of milk, half at a time. Bake at 180. Turn out upside down. Melt butter and brush over the top, sprinkle all over with cinnamon sugar. Cut up into squares.

Apparently they're 'all the taste of a doughnut, in the convenience of a square'.

Potato Parkers

Good for the day after Pasta Night when you have pasta dressing left over. For us it's both meat and veggie - bolognese and tofu-spinach-nut.

Sauce in ramekins at the bottom, parboiled, well-salted slices of potato on top, cheese sprinkled, and baked. Was incredibly well-received and much healthier than loads of sugar and carb.

I guess it's pretty much a dinner dish if larger. One child opined she could 'eat this for breakfast, lunch and dinner'.

Chocolate Swiss Log

Whisk 100g of caster sugar with three whole eggs, until it's all thick and creamy and leaves a trail. Stir in a mix of 75g plain flour and 25g cocoa powder and 15ml hot water, pour into a lined Swiss Roll tin and bake at 180 for about 8-9 minutes until it's pouffy and done. Tip out onto a sugar-sprinkled sheet of baking paper and roll it up while it's hot. Set aside to cool.

The mix I filled it was a cream-cheese and lemon zest, which worked very nicely. Covered it with a simple dark chocolate ganache and all good. Fed 8 as a very light but yummy dessert.

Souffles

Looking for a souffle that's interesting.

Classic French Vanilla didn't qualify as 'interesting' but as it's the basic recipe:
For 2 (or 4 small ones) - 15g butter and a tbsp of flour made into bechamel with 1/2 cup warmed milk and a good bit of vanilla essence. Stir in two egg yolks. Whip up the two egg whites into a light meringue with just 2 tbps sugar, fold a bit into the bechamel mix, fold again lightly, turn into greased and floured ramekins, bake at 180 for 9-10 minutes until risen and golden, dust with icing sugar and serve immediately.

Ho hum.

Will post more as I try them.

Peach Melba Meringue Roulade

Hadn't made this one in years but it was plenty delicious and immediately got voted into the 'keep' pile.

Prep swiss roll tray with baking paper, heat oven to 150c. Prep mix of 1sp each of cornflour, vanilla essence, and white wine vinegar. Make meringue with 4 egg whites and 225g caster sugar, adding the conrflour mix at the end. Spread the meringue over the tray and sprinkle over with flaked almonds. Bake for about 40-50 minutes.

Meanwhile prep the filling. 150g double cream, whipped till thick. Fold in 200g Greek style yogurt and a couple tbsp icing sugar. Prep chopped fruit like raspberries, peaches (hence the 'Melba' but you could use any soft fruit combo you fancied).

When the meringue is ready, lay a clean teatowel out and dust with icing sugar. Flop the meringue out face down onto it. Cover the top with the cream, then dot over with the fruit. Roll up tightly into a log.

You can serve this with something like a raspberry or passion-fruit coulis. I got excited on this occasion and forgot about it - it was just fine.

Cinnamon Doughnut Baby cakes

More like cupcakes, really. 250g flour, 1.5 tsp baking powder, 0.5 tsp salt, 0.5 tsp cinnamon, mix. Mix separately 80g melted butter, 175 caster sugar, 1 egg and 180 ml milk. Combine, Spoon into little patty pans and bake. When they come out lather them over the top with melted butter and sprinkle cinnamon sugar over the top. They actually do taste like doughnuts.

Salted caramel peanut oat cookies

BEWARE: These are affectionately known as 'Brick Biscuits'. Delicious, but do NOT expect light-n-fluffy. This is serious stuff. Proceed with caution.

The process is: make oatmeal biscuits with a dent in the middle, heap in toasted peanuts in caramel sauce, then top with chocolate.

Biscuits: Cream 210g softened butter, 1/2 cup sugar and 1/4 cup brown sugar. Add 1 egg, vanilla essence, and beat. Add 1 cup plain flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp salt and 2 1/2 (yes 2.5) cups of rolled oats. Combine. Roll into 16 balls and squish lightly onto baking trays, leaving expansion room. Bake for 10 minutes, then take out of the oven and make an indent in each biscuit centre, then return to oven for another 5-8 minutes. Allow to cool.

Meanwhile caramelize 1/2 cup sugar with a couple of tbsp water - microwave's fine. Add 50g butter and 1/4 cup cream, cook again until it goes good and caramelly. Dump in 1 cup of plain roasted peanuts. Spoon into the indents into the cookies.

You can drizzle melted chocolate on top but oponions are divided on this.

Blueberry pancakes

(These are actually with white and dark chocolate chips instead of blueberry)

250g flour with baking powder, 4 separated eggs, 200g milk, a bit of vanilla, 75g sugar, blueberries (200g? As you like them) and a good few scoops of greek yoghurt or similar.

Mix flour, egg yolks, sugar and milk, then whip the whites and fold in with blueberries. Fry pancakes in tablespoon-sized dollops. Ramsay suggests to serve them with fresh blueberries and yoghurt and honey. Kids liked them with maple syrup and/or nutella.

'Bed' rolls

a.k.a. Pizza Dough. For bread machine.
 1.25 cups water, glug of olive oil, 450g flour, 1 tsp salt, 2 tsp sugar, 2 tsp yeast. Into bread machine and roll into little balls and bake in the oven when finished. Lovely for breakfast or as tiny dinner rolls.

Veggie options for pasta night

• Veggie carbonara with cream, cheese, sweetcorn, mushrooms, tofu, beany stuff of your choice, nutmeg, etc. 

• Chinese noodle version with fine-chopped firm tofu with ketchap manis, fried onions garlic and ginger, five spice, soy sauce, sesame oil,  herbs of choice. 

Nut Roast

I guess you could do pretty much anything but here's one that went well.

Remains of 'veggie tofu burger' including tofu, pureed cannelini beans and corn kernels, kaffir lime leaves, ginger, garlic - plus fried onions and garlic, mushrooms, chopped nuts, an egg, herbs of choice, some seasoning and light paprika.

Into a ramekin (or whatever you're baking it in) and oven. Turn out. Serve as veggie option instead of roast.

Once again, the veggie option was more popular than the meat, and the pork was pretty tasty.

Mocha Cake

Easiest cake you'll ever find. Pretty much foolproof too.

100g golden syrup, 100g soft brown sugar, 100g butter -> Into a bowl and microwave until all melted. Or you can do it on a stovetop, there's no difference.

Add 140ml either strong coffee (for mocha) of milk (for plain chocolate) cake, then add 1 egg. Yep, just 1 egg.

Measure out 200g self-raising flour (or the equivalent), 25g cocoa and add it to the mix too.

Bake on lowish (160 or so) for a while - 45 minutes at least for a standard 8 inch cake. It's not a big cake but enough for an afterschool snack for five kids. Very moist, and dead easy.

Chelsea Buns

1 cup milk, 1 egg, 50g melted butter, 500g plain white flour, 1/2 tsp salt, 75g sugar, 2 tsp dried yeast.

Into the bread machine to do its thing and make the dough for you.

Now, usually chelsea buns are filled with dried fruit but our kids aren't that keen on that so I do lemon marmalade and chopped white chocolate instead. Roll out the dough into a rectangle, spread whatever filling you're making, roll up into very large sushi roll and cut cylinders to stack tree-ring wise in a baking tray. Allow to rise. Bake on high until they're lightly coloured.

As soon as they come out, lather them over in a mix of orange blossom water and sugar (you'll need to heat it to get the sugar to melt) so they're sticky and delicious. Turn the little suckers out and separate them while they're still warm.

I think I have yet to meet someone who didn't go crazy about these.

White bread (bread machine)

Mind you I'm sure you can bake it as a normal bread as well. In the meantime,

1/1/3 cups water, 500g (4.5 cups) flour, 1.5 tsp salt, 25g butter, 2 tsp dried yeast, 1 tbsp granulated sugar.

Into the machine. Bake.

Voila

Tofu veggie burgers

For the burger night veggie option. I much preferred these to the meat.

Blend firm tofu (a fair proportion), cannelini beans and corn kernels (more sparingly) with an egg until smooth. Add kaffir lime leaves, ginger, seasoning, and whatever else herby stuff you'd like, then add breadcrumbs to get just the right consistency for a burger. Cook as normal. Absolutely delicious.

About 200g tofu, 1 egg and a handful of the beans and corn made about four nice burgers.

I'll take a picture next time. These ones disappeared too fast.

Chocolate Berry Pastries

Apparently these are 'Breakfast Of The Year.' Easiest breakfast since sliced toast. 

Cut a sheet of frozen puff pastry into squares, put an appropriate amount of Nutella and berries in a corner, fold each into triangles, seal with a fork and bake on high. Dust with icing sugar and serve hot. 

Big discussion amongst the kids today as to how frequently they should be served for breakfast. Some thought they were so special they should be kept for once a month, others thought to hell with that let's have them at least once a week. So there you go. 

Chocolate caramel cups

As made for us by Ms Gamer.

Make the base with 60g melted butter, 2 tbsp caster sugar, 1/2 cup plain flour, 2 tbsp desiccated coconut. Press into the base of little patty cups and bake at 180 until they're a bit golden.

Microwave up a can of condensed milk with 40g butter and a couple of tbsp golden syrup. (Yeah, 'cause it wasn't sweet enough already.) Pour onto the semi-baked bases. Return to oven until they're sent and slightly coloured. Lace over with melted chocolate if you like.

Kangaroo Pies

Half a kilo of kangaroo mince, fried up with onions, finely diced carrots and thickened with a cornflour and wine mix at the end. Season with plenty of salt and pepper, loads of herbs of your choice and a touch of chili flakes. Allow to cool. 

For this amount of mince you'll need shortcrust from 300g flour. (150g butter or a touch less.) I put in a bunch of thyme leaves and pepper. Looked cool, tasted great. Ok the kids said it looked mouldy but that's kids for you. They liked the taste. 

Make pies in deep muffin pans. Bake on 180 for quite a while, until they're golden. Serve hot. 

Coconut Macaroons

Four egg whites, 1 2/3 cups sugar, 2 cups desiccated coconut, vanilla essence.

Whip up the whites, meringue them up with the sugar, then fold in the vanilla and coconut. Dollop onto greased paper and bake at 150 for quite a while. Maybe 35 minutes or more? Makes tasty chewy biscuits and they're jolly easy. Good afternoon snack.

Herby cheesey dumplings for stews

Cook these for 20 minutes on top of ready stews.

300g self-raising flour, 100g butter, 2/3 cups milk, pinch salt, cheese and herbs of choice. I like LOTS of fresh herbs, rough chopped. Rub flour and butter, mix into dough with milk, add cheese and herbs. Roll into balls. Can cook like little scones for other applications. Such as snarfing down with butter and ham for lunch. Kid favourite.

Peach and raspberry cheesecake

For the base: a 250g packet of Arnott's Granita biscuits and 100g butter, melted. Blend, mix, press into lined base of slice tin. Chill for 30 minutes.

For the cheesecake mix, first rough chop and microwave one peach. Chuck in blender with 2 x 250g packs cream cheese, 120g sour cream, two eggs, some vanilla, and 1/2 cup sugar. Pour onto chilled base.

Sprinkle 100g raspberries over the mix, then arrange thin slices of peach over the top to cover everything. Bake at 150 c for 45 minutes. Open oven door and let cheesecake sit there until it cools. Then chill for 2 hours. Yes, this is a bit of a marathon. Eventually, after that, they let you eat it. You deserve it by now, you're probably famished.

,,, Addendum....

OK So I made this once, and it was a great success and very tasty but for next time I want to try to following:

• Leave out the raspberries, they amount to nothing. If you want the flavour make a coulis for after. 
• Increase the peach puree by about three times in the mix, leave out some of the cheese and increase by one egg. Maybe add a tablespoon of cornstarch or so. Also add some lemon zest. 

Thai Fish in Bamboo Cups

For the paste:
Lemongrass, shallots, garlic, tumeric (fresh), dried chilies, galangal  .....  kaffir lime, toasted peanuts, coconut milk. ---> Blend into a paste.

Fry paste in oil, add sugar, soy sauce, salt, kaffir lime and coconut milk. Thicken with beaten eggs and add fish chunks. Into banana cup, into steamer for 10 mins. Serve with rice.