Cheese and Bacon Rolls

My children love cheese and bacon rolls, which can be bought at any bread shop around Sydney (and probably all over the place, although not much comes up if you do a search, so maybe not - can you get them or something similar where you live?).

They're a good snack while you're out and about, and they're also good for lunchboxes.

I've been planning to try and make them for ages, and recently my friend Carol gave me a cheese and bacon roll recipe that she uses to make them for her children.

First make some bread dough and leave it to rise. (See this bread recipe if you need it to get to this stage.)

Push out the air from the risen dough, then divide it into several pieces - I made 12. Roll them into oval shapes, put them on baking sheets and cover them.

Leave them for half an hour or so to puff up slightly. (Ideally put them all straight onto baking sheets so you don't have to disturb them again. I usually do, but on this occasion my second baking sheet was already in use!)

Brush the tops of the breads with beaten egg, then sprinkle over diced bacon...

...and grated cheese.

Cook at 200 C for around 15 minutes until the bread is golden.

Best eaten still warm from the oven, but also pretty good the next day.

They freeze well, so you can make them, freeze them, and put them still frozen into lunch boxes, where they should defrost in time for morning tea or lunch.

Easy Bread Rolls

These are so easy that every time I hear someone say they can't make bread, I feel like bringing them into my kitchen and showing them how to make these rolls.

They are just basic rolls that I often make for lunch time sandwiches or to go with a meal. Sometimes I give my children a blob of dough each and they make their own bread roll to go with their dinner.

Put bread flour, yeast, salt and sugar in a large bowl. I also add a couple of tablespoons of oat or wheat bran to add bulk to the rolls and make them slightly more filling, but you don't have to do this.

Stir up the dry ingredients, then add 300 ml warm water (it should feel comfortably warm to your fingers) and 3 tsp of olive oil.

Stir it around with a spoon until most of the flour has been moistened, then put your hand in and finish bringing the dough together. It may need a few more drops of water to get the last bit of flour, but add gradually so it doesn't become too sticky.

Knead the dough for a few minutes until it's smooth and springy. I do this in the bowl (I have a 3L bowl so there's quite a lot of room) but if it's easier, get it out and knead it on a work surface.

Leave it to stand - in the bowl with a plate or plastic wrap over the top - in a warmish place for one or two hours. (Usually one and a half hours is fine.)

I left this dough standing for 2 hours as I was a bit busy - it doesn't always puff up this much. Push the air out and remove the dough from the bowl.

Divide into portions, give each one a quick knead around in your hands, then form into whatever shape you like.

Dust with some flour, then leave in a warm place for about half an hour, while you warm up the oven to 200 C.

Cook for 15 minutes until the tops are slightly golden and the bottoms of the rolls sound hollow when knocked with your knuckles.

My children made a roll each with the above dough. I sometimes make a whole loaf (on the tray, not with a loaf tin) but more often I halve the dough and make two 'batard' style loaves (see below).

Ingredients:
500 g bread flour
2 tsp instant yeast
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
(2 tbsp oat bran or wheat bran if you like)
300 ml warm water
3 tsp olive oil

Two unglamorous (but very useful) long loaves - great for slicing and sharing out at dinner time.

Big Jelly

This isn't a recipe, but it's something I make for family get-togethers.

I use a 3 litre Pyrex bowl, and buy six packets of jelly. I've found that lime and raspberry are the favourite flavours, so I always use two each of those, and add one or two other brightly-coloured flavours (here I used lemon/lime and orange).

I start the jelly at least one day before it's needed, by making up a double amount of one flavour (a total of 1 litre) and leave to set in the fridge. I prop a folded-up teatowel under one side to tilt it as this makes it look a little more interesting from the outside (mainly for me - I'm sure no-one else really notices!) - but for the last layer I allow it to sit flat so the top is even.


Every few hours, after each layer has set, I add the next layer until all the jelly is used.

A half-demolished Easter Sunday Big Jelly.

Hot Cross Muffins

I have made some hot cross buns this Easter, but I decided to blog about these Hot Cross Muffins instead. I found the recipe in Delicious magazine, and decided to make them for dessert today.

I was a bit short of dried fruit, so only used a tiny amount compared with the recipe - but I was quite happy with the amount I used, and would use this amount again.

First put dried fruit in a bowl with hot water and leave to stand for 10 minutes or so.

Put flour, bicarb, cinnamon, mixed spice and sugar in a large bowl. In another bowl or jug whisk together buttermilk, oil and eggs.

Add wet ingredients to dry, and stir in gently. Add (well-drained) soaked fruit and stir to combine.

Eeek! At this point I realized I had forgotten the sugar, so I stirred it in at the last minute. Whoops - luckily it didn't affect the muffins.

Put the mixture into muffin tins or cases. The recipe states that it makes 12 muffins - I made 6 large muffins and 12 small.

Cook at 200 C for 20 minutes or so, until golden on top.

Cool muffins on racks. The 'Delicious' recipe made the muffins look shiny like real hot cross buns, but I decided my children are sticky enough already, and I gave this step a miss.

For the crosses, add a drop of lemon juice to some icing sugar, then enough water to make a smooth paste. 'Draw' on icing crosses with a teaspoon.

I really liked these muffins - the cranberries give a nice tang, and they do taste a little like untoasted hot cross buns.

Ingredients:
30 g dried cranberries
60 g currants
375 g (2 1/2 cups) self raising flour
1/2 tsp bicarb
1 tsp mixed spice
165 ml (2/3 cup) oil (I used olive oil)
250 ml (1 cup) buttermilk
2 eggs

The original recipe is here

Caramel Crown Cake

This weekend I took up the Claytons Bloggers' challenge to 'Pimp that Biscuit' - and I decided to make a big Caramel Crown.

The Caramel Crown is one of my favourite bought biscuits. It has a crunchy base topped with a layer of caramel, and the whole thing is coated in milk chocolate. Mmmmm......

After much close inspection of the Caramel Crown - slicing, dissecting, tasting etc - it was decided that the base was a quite plain and not particularly sweet biscuit - so I decided to use packaged biscuits and crush them up.

I chose a reasonably plain type of biscuit - kind of like an oaty digestive - and crushed two packs of them finely. Then I melted 200 g butter and stirred it in.

I lined a 22 cm springform pan with baking paper, and then formed the cake base by pressing in the crumb and butter mixture, and moulding it into a shallow bowl shape.

The original biscuit has tiny bumps around the biscuit edge, but after a few unsuccessful attempts at copying this effect, I decided that particular feature wasn't very important (except that it's probably the reason the word 'crown' is in the biscuit's name. Never mind).

I cooked it for 15 minutes on 180 C and let it cool completely before removing it from the tin and putting it on the serving plate.

The Caramel Crown has a layer of caramel (as you would expect) and as I have very little experience at making that type of thing, I decided to cheat and use caramel topping from a tin.

To be more authentic, it would need a smooth, home-made caramel, like the caramel you find in Twix and Mars bars.

Annoyingly, for some reason I stopped taking step-by-step photos at this point, but after I filled the biscuit case with the caramel, I then melted a 200 g bar of cooking chocolate, let it cool for a while, and poured it over the caramel part of the cake. Then I melted another bar of chocolate, and when that had cooled and thickened a bit, I used it to pour and spread over the edges and sides.

Quite a lot of chocolate pooled around the biscuit base, but that was fine because I had put strips of baking paper under the sides that I could remove afterwards.

I put the cake in the fridge to set the chocolate, and when it was starting to firm up, I drew a few lines in the top in an attempt to copy the ridges on the top of the original Caramel Crowns.

Then when the chocolate was completely set, I trimmed around the pooled chocolate at the base with a sharp knife, in order to remove the baking paper strips.

I had timed my Caramel Crown Cake-making so that it could be my Number One Son's (15th) birthday cake but didn't want to stick candles in my creation. So I stuck them in two obliging Caramel Crowns instead.

After the singing and blowing out of the candles, the cake was whipped back into the kitchen and cut with a sharp knife to reveal the interior, which looked pretty much like the original. It tasted similar but not identical, was very sweet and very popular.

Ingredients:
400 g plain oatmeal biscuits
200 g unsalted butter
1 tin of top and fill caramel
400 g (approx) milk cooking chocolate (good quality)

Oaty Cranberry and Milo Cookies

I made these cookies for my children's lunchboxes - they are a variation of the Oaty Muesli Bars but with Milo to give it a slight chocolatey/malty taste, and some dried cranberries for some tangy sweetness.

(I imagine instead of the Milo, cocoa powder would work well too - although I would probably increase the amount of sugar to 100 g. I will try this variation next time.)

Cream together the soft butter and brown sugar, then add an egg.

Beat in the egg (add a tablespoon of the flour first as it makes the mixture smoother)...

...then fold in the rest of the flour, and then the Milo.

Stir in the cranberries...

...and then the oats, until the mixture is well combined.

Put on a baking sheet and heat the oven to 180 C. I made round cookies and some longer muesli bar shaped cookies which are good for school recess/morning tea.

Cook for 15 minutes. They will still be quite soft when they come out of the oven, but will firm up as they cool.

The cooked cookies! They keep their shape well because they are crammed full of oats.

Ingredients:
50 g butter, softened
80 g light brown sugar
1 egg
50 g flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
4 tbsp Milo
175 g rolled oats
50 g dried cranberries

Refrigerator Naan

I often make naan for my children to take to school. Recently I've been making my naan dough the evening before and leaving it in the fridge overnight, and then I just cook it in the pan in the morning. Ta-dah! Fresh naan for the lunch boxes.

This is a small amount of dough that makes 6-8 little naans.

I've started using some wholemeal flour in my naan to make it a bit more substantial. Put flours, yeast, salt and a little sugar in a large bowl. In a jug mix together warm water, yogurt and oil.

My kitchen clock showing the time I was making the dough - nearly 11 pm. Yes I suppose I am a bit mad.

Stir the wet ingredients into the dry with a spoon, then when it's looking shaggy start mixing by hand. It helps if you rub a little oil onto your hands to stop it sticking too much.

Bring it all together into a ball, adding a couple more drops of water if necessary, and knead for a few minutes (I do this in the bowl).

Cover the bowl and put it in the fridge overnight.

In the morning, get the dough out and remove it from the bowl.

Break it into the number of pieces you need, roll each piece into a ball, then roll them flat with an oiled rolling pin.

Heat a heavy-based pan to a medium heat and then lay some of the dough ovals in (don't add any oil to the pan).

Cook for a few minutes until golden underneath, then turn over. Turn the heat down if they are browning too quickly, or they will burn before they are cooked through.

Cook the other side for a few minutes, then cool on a wire rack.

Ingredients:
150 g plain white flour or bread flour
100 g wholemeal flour
1 level tsp instant yeast
1/2 tsp fine salt
1/2 tsp sugar
150 ml warm water
1 tbsp plain yogurt
1 tsp vegetable oil (I use olive oil)

My original naan recipe is here

Blueberry Buttermilk Muffins (again!)

This time I used brown sugar instead of white sugar in this recipe and they are pretty good! Lovely crunchy top and fluffy interior.

So if you've got some blueberries and buttermilk hanging around, these (here and here) are good muffin recipes, and this blueberry buttermilk cake is worth making too.