Caramello Ice Cream Sauce

There's not a lot of cooking going on here at the moment, but last night I melted a block of Caramello chocolate with a little bit of cream, and poured it over some ice cream. Yum!

Pistachio Biscotti

I've always been impressed by people who can make their own almond bread or biscotti, and thought it would be really difficult to do. It's actually very easy, it just takes a little while because you cook them twice.

I followed a Bill Granger recipe, and supposedly they will last for a month in an airtight container - but I don't know how anyone ever manages to keep them that long. Oli helped me with the flour sieving and stirring.

First you beat eggs and caster sugar together for 3 mins with an electric hand-mixer, and sieve in flour. Mix in until almost combined, then stir in almonds and pistachios. Form into a dough with your hands, divide into two and on lightly floured board, make each half into a 15 to 20 cm loaf. Transfer to a baking sheet and flatten to 2 cm thick. Bake 20 cm until firm (see above) and cool completely.

When cool, cut into 7 mm-thick slices and bake at 120 C for 20 min, turning over once. Cool completely on wire rack.

Very easy to make, and the bit I thought would go wrong (cutting the loaves into slices) was no problem.

Ingredients:
150 g caster sugar
2 eggs
350 g plain flour
50 g shelled pistachios
50 g whole almonds

Two of the biscotti looked like little shocked faces - a bit like the biscuit version of the painting "The Scream"!

White Milk Loaf

Another 'Apples for Jam' recipe - a soft white loaf. Having bought some fresh yeast I wanted to try it out in a plain loaf to see if it tastes better than the bread made with instant yeast.

You start by mixing the yeast with honey and warm milk, then leave for 10 minutes. Stir in bread flour, a beaten egg, butter (and a I added a handful of unprocessed bran which is not in the recipe but I think it adds a bit of body to white bread). Knead for a few mins, in the bowl if it's sticky, then cover and leave to rise for one and a half to two hours. Punch down the dough, put on a baking sheet or in a loaf tin, cover and leave for 45 - 60 mins. Brush with flour and cook for around 25 mins on 190 C until loaf is hollow-sounding when knocked on base.

This is a lovely soft loaf, and the fresh yeast is so much better than the instant! The bread tastes more 'bready' and has a fuller flavour, and doesn't have the slightly vinegary tang that the instant yeast seems to give.

Ingredients:
250 ml milk, warmed so it's comfortable to your fingers
15 g fresh yeast, crumbled or 7 g active dry yeast
1 tsp honey
450 g bread flour (and a handful of bran if you like)
1 egg, lightly beaten
40 g butter, melted

Chocolate Loaf

Another recipe from 'Apples for Jam' - chocolate loaf is a bread, not a cake. It's made in the same way as an ordinary loaf of bread, but has cocoa powder added.

I managed to buy some fresh yeast recently, and this is the first time I've cooked with it since school cookery lessons! I wanted to see how it compares with the instant yeast, which is what I have been using.

For this bread, the yeast is crumbled into a large bowl, caster sugar and hand-hot milk are added, and this is left for 10 mins or so, until the yeast has frothed a little. Flour and cocoa powder (I sieved mine because it was a bit lumpy) and melted butter are mixed in to make a dough. Knead until smooth, then cover and leave in a warm place for one and a half to two hours until risen. Knock back, form into a loaf shape on a tray, or put in a buttered loaf tin, cover and leave for 30 mins to 1 hour then cook at 180 C for 25 mins or so until hollow when base us knocked.

Ingredients:
15 g fresh yeast
40 g caster sugar
310 ml milk
400 g bread flour with a pinch of salt
40 g cocoa powder
40 g butter, melted

This made a beautiful-looking chocolate-coloured loaf, with a distinctive cocoa flavour. It's not at all sweet, and almost bitter. The book suggests you eat it at breakfast time with butter or jam, and to warn people that it's not a cake so they're not expecting sweetness. I'll have some in the morning for breakfast and see what everyone else makes of it, as I'm the only one who's tried it so far!

PS It's not particularly popular around here! It really needs to be eaten with butter and a tart-tasting jam such as marmalade, which to me makes it taste wonderful. I'll be freezing the rest and eating it myself I think.

Cheese and Pineapple Hedgehog

I made this in October for a birthday party just for fun, as I remember when I was a child (in the '70s) there was always one of these at a party.

But if you want to see a much more spectacular Christmas version, visit Sally's blog here

Mincemeat Slices

This recipe is in in Delia Smith's Christmas, and is great if you want to make mince pies but can't quite bring yourself to make pastry.

You melt butter in a big pan, turn off heat, then stir in brown sugar. Mix in wholemeal flour and porridge oats, then firmly press half the mixture into a buttered pan. I used a square Pyrex dish and buttered and lined it with a strip of baking paper to make lifting the slice out easier. Smooth over a layer of fruit mince, then press over the other half of the oat/butter mixture. Cook in a 200 C oven for 20 mins or until the top is lightly browned. Cut into 12 pieces but don't remove them from the dish until they are cool.

Ingredients:
150 g butter
75 g soft brown sugar
225 g wholewheat flour
110 g porridge oats
225 g mincemeat

Baked Agnolotti and Vegetables

Time for a savoury dish after all those sweet things. This uses bought fresh pasta, and you can use whichever filled pasta you like. Today I used ricotta and spinach agnolotti which works really well.

Cook a finely chopped onion, and any other vegies you have hanging around, in a medium pan. Depending on what they are, and how long they will take to cook, you can finely chop them (zucchini, sweet potato, broccoli stalks, bok choy, red capsicum, mushrooms etc) and add them to the onion, or steam them first before adding them (green beans, broccoli, chopped carrot etc). Today I had some sweet potato and broccoli.

Stir in a jar of tomato passata, add salt, pepper, a little sugar and some herbs. Meanwhile cook the pasta and drain it, reserving a cupful of the cooking water in case it's needed to thin the sauce. Return the pasta to its pan, stir in the tomato/vegetable sauce. Tip into a baking dish and top with grated cheese. Cook in a medium hot oven for about 15 mins until cheese is golden.

Spice Men

They look like gingerbread men, but as there's no ginger in them I have to call them 'spice men'. I add cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves for flavour, and they taste like Dutch biscuits - the ones that often have flaked almonds embedded on one side. (spekulaas or something like that?)

I love to make these because you can make the dough in one saucepan, so not much cleaning up to do afterwards. You melt brown sugar, golden syrup, spices and a little water in a medium saucepan, bring it to the boil then turn off the heat. Add butter and some bicarb until melted and combined. Then stir in flour until you get a dough. Cover and cool the dough and then roll it out with more flour. Use cutters to make shapes. The dough is easy to use, so it's good for children to help with.

When it was Oli's birthday I made 40 or so little spice men (by doubling the recipe) to send to pre school with him so all the children and teachers could eat one after their lunch.

Ingredients:
75 g soft brown sugar
3 tbsp golden syrup
1 tbsp water
a sprinkling of spices - cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves - or ginger if you prefer
95 g butter, cut up
1/2 level tsp bicarb
225 g plain flour

Cook at 180 c for 8 - 12 mins depending on size and thickness, until slightly golden.

Jam Drops

These are really old-fashioned, un-fancy biscuits that I imagine people's grannies might make for them! They're the sort of biscuits that children really like. Crispy, light and sweet.

After beating together butter and sugar, you mix in an egg and some vanilla extract, then stir in flour. It makes a non-sticky dough that's easy to handle, so would be great for children to help with. Put 2 tsp blobs of dough spaced apart on a baking sheet, then make an indentation in the top of each biscuit and dab a little jam in.

Cook for about 12 min on 190 C then cool on tray.

Ingredients:
125 g butter
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/3 cups SR flour
jam (eg raspberry, apricot)

Lemon and Blueberry Yogurt Cake

I was at home with the children again today, so had plenty of time to cook. I made a Cottage Pie for dinner, and while it was cooking I made this cake to use up the rest of the Greek yogurt I had in the fridge.

I tore the recipe out of an Australian Women's Weekly magazine ages ago and haven't got around to trying it until now. The original recipe doesn't have blueberries, but I bought some a couple of days ago and thought they might go well in this cake.

It's one of those cakes where you beat everything together in a mixing bowl - then you pour it into a greased and floured bundt tin, and cook at 180 C for an hour.

Ingredients:
335 g SR flour
330 g caster sugar
3 eggs, beaten lightly
280 g Greek yogurt
180 ml veg oil
2 tsp finely grated lemon zest
80 ml lemon juice
punnet of blueberries (if using)

This is a really lovely cake! Very light and fluffy, not overly sweet, slight lemony tang, (I didn't have as much lemon juice as specified in the recipe so only added about 40 ml) - and the blueberries go really well. Will definitely be making this again, especially as it is so easy to do.

Smartie Cookies

I had all three boys at home with me today, we all have colds and felt pretty awful. If I had been on my own I probably would have spent the day in bed, but I couldn't do that today because the bed would have ended up covered in whingy children. So instead I decided to make some cookies.

I can't remember where I got this recipe, but the idea is that the cookies are soft rather than crunchy. They are simple to make, very sweet and chewy and very popular!

Ingredients:
100 g butter, soft
100 g soft brown sugar
1 tbsp golden syrup
150 g SR flour (plus a handful of quick-cook oats because I always do this!)
90 g Smarties

Beat together butter and sugar until creamy, then beat in syrup. Stir in half the flour and the oats, then stir in the Smarties to the remaining flour and stir that in too. Divide dough into 14 balls, place well apart on baking sheet, do not flatten. Cook 180 C for 12 mins until pale golden. Cool on tray, then on rack.

Apple and Orange Frozen Yogurt

The original name of this recipe was 'Apple and Rosemary Frozen Yogurt' from a book called 'Ice Cream!' - I wanted to try it because the ingredients and method appealed to me, but I just couldn't bring myself to put the rosemary sprigs in! So instead of rosemary I added a few strips of orange zest.

The first step is to bring to the boil in a saucepan: 200 ml water, 300 ml apple juice (I used good quality cloudy apple juice from the refrigerated section), 150 g caster sugar, and orange zest strips (or rosemary sprigs if you're braver than me) then simmer for 5 minutes. Cool completely then whisk in 200 g Greek yogurt.

I would say you should then refrigerate the mixture until chilled, before churning it in an ice cream maker, especially if you've got a freezy-bowl maker like I have - I was in a hurry to use the noisy machine before the children's bed time, so I didn't do any chilling and it took ages to freeze.

The result is a light, fruity frozen yogurt, very much like a sorbet. The apple is the stronger flavour with a slight hint of orange. This would be great to eat on a very hot day.