Marvellous Melting Moments

So I am sitting at the Dunedin airport as I write this. I am on my way home after my third year of university study. Flip, what happened to all that time? I remember thinking in first year that I had tonnes of time until I have to enter the real world, now one measly year separates me from the world of polyester suit pants (dear lord I hope not) and limited holiday time. I should spend these holidays wisely. I have a list of things I want to do and people to visit. I guess in three months time I will tell you if I got up and did them.

My good friends Gil and Brad are also leaving Dunedin today. They are driving however. So to prepare them for the 10 hour drive to Picton I made up some sweet little noms for them to munch on along the way.

There is a bakery in Auckland that Instagrams pictures of all their beautiful baked goods. Some of those little treats included some gorgeous looking pink and yellow melting moments. I was inspired! I love melting moments but if they were coloured it would make them infinitely better!

Melting moments are so great. They are a lovely butter delicate short bread like biscuit with soft and luscious buttercream icing in between.

The Edmonds Cookbook is the reliable source for such creations. This mixture is a funny one though, it is quite sticky. It contains a lot of butter but not that much in the sugar, flour or corn flour department so it is quite unnerving when you are rolling out balls of what looks like half finished cookie dough.

Also, I feel like melting moments should be of either a mini mini size of a good handful. Average size is so mainstream haha.

Melting moments

Adapted from the Edmonds Cookery Book

Makes 12

200g softened butter

75g icing sugar

125g cornflour

125g flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees bake.

Cream together the butter and the icing sugar. Once that has become a light fluffy mix, add in the vanilla, baking powder, flour and corn flour.

If you want to make two different colours, split the mix in half after all the other ingredients have been combined. If you just want to make them one colour then add in the colour in the butter and sugar mix.

Roll into small balls, try dusting your hands with flour to stop the mix from sticking. Place the ball on a tray lined with baking paper. Use a floured fork to lightly press them down.

Bake for 15-20 minutes. The amount of time depends on how big you make them. You want to make sure they don’t brown around the edges but also if they aren’t cooked through enough they just crumble in your hands. The ones here I baked for 20 minutes and they were about a 5cm diameter.

Leave for the biscuits to cool before filling with a normal buttercream icing (30g butter creamed with 2ish cups of icing sugar, a splash of milk and some vanilla essence). Sandwich the biscuits together and enjoy!

Have fun making these! You wont regret it!

Sophie x

ANZAC Biscuits

Good ANZAC day morning to you,

On this day of remembrance where we have all been up since 5am at dawn services, by the time 10am comes around we are all quite keen for a nice big cup of tea and an ANZAC bickie.

Now these biscuits were sent to soldiers on the front line by the women back home during World War 1. They were sent because due to the high sugar content acting as a preservative. However they contain a high amount of butter which went rancid by the time they got to their men. So yes they were safe to eat but not so tasty after a couple of months of postage. However there is no chance of even seeing how long these ones will last in the pantry for as I know for a fact that Alix and Lucy shall gobble them up before they even have time to make a cup of tea to go with them.

Now my Mum says I am the better biscuit maker between her and I. I however disagree, ANZAC biscuits are the one biscuit that seems to fall apart on me. Mum's are far better, they are big, fat and chewy. Maybe perhaps because I eat half the mixture before it can even make it to a ball on the baking tray. Anyway I use the Edmonds Cookbook recipe but use 120g of butter rather than 100g. It makes them more moist and less likely to fall apart.

Edmonds Cookery Book ANZAC biscuits (modified slightly)

Makes 12

120g butter
1 tablespoon golden syrup
125g flour
150g sugar
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup desiccated or threaded coconut (threaded looks a bit fancier for those looking to impress)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
2 tablespoons boiling water


Method:

Preheat the oven to bake at 180 degrees.

In a saucepan, melt together the butter and golden syrup.

Sieve your flour, mix together with your sugar, coconut and oats.

In a small bowl (a mug or a small measuring cup will do) mix together your baking soda and just boiled water. Quickly add this to the hot butter and golden syrup mixture in the saucepan, stirring as you add. It will foam up.

Once the butter has foamed up all it can, pour this into the dry ingredients. Stir to combine with a spoon.

Roll ping pong ball sized balls of mixture and place onto a baking tray lined with baking paper. Flatten the balls gently with a fork.

Bake at 180 degrees for 15 minutes or until golden brown. You may find the back row brown faster than the front row due to your oven. If this is the case just turn your tray around halfway though.

Leave to cool once out of the oven so that they firm up.

Make yourself a cup of tea an enjoy!

Have a good day!

Afghans

Good afternoon to you all!

I am having a bit of a nana revival here. First sultana cake and date loaves, now afghans? Almost borderline retro, or should I dare say hipster baking! I am pretty sure baking is too mainstream for hipsters, especially measuring ingredients. Sounds way to restrictive for their way of life. Although it's the sort of thing hipsters take over exposed instagram photos of when chilling at known hipster food outlet locations. Ok to be honest I myself take lots of food photos using instagram (along with stalking photos of certain TVD actors . . . ). Anyway I think the message here is that sometimes the best things are the tried and true recipes without all the fandangled swirly twirly sprinkly bits. I dunno, what do you think? At least you can eat these without feeling guilty that you are destroying a work of art.

The other day we ran out of cereal. As in the only cereal we had left was Coco Pops and Weetbix (both I do not classify as suitable breakfast foods, too sugary and too mushy - bleeeeh). As it was only Thursday (our shopping day here is Sunday) I only had a few dollars to tide us over for the next few days. Turns out cornflakes were on special (score!!) at $1.69 (double score!!).  Then I thought what else can I do with cornflakes other than eat them with milk?  . . . Oh I wonder.

(Too right you are a box full of golden crispy corn flakes!)

Oh and guess what:

This must mean they are healthy!! Haha justification to eat five afghans in one go! Hmm whilst eating my cereal this morning I noticed that it also contained in one serving 50% of your RDI of folate. Why do they not put this on the packet? Is this so annoying uneducated anti folate buffs arn't put off? It's important to have. I don't want any accidental children of mine to have spina bifida (Mum don't you worry! haha). Hmm why isn't there calcium fortified into it? Special K is pumping with it (which is why if I am feeling rich I buy it). Milk is expensive for poor students to buy (except in our house of three girls where we have gone through 6L this week . . .) so we need to get it from other sources (please no one suggest eating a tin of salmon with bones). Anyway where was I? . . .


In African countries (where the majority of people are illiterate) they put pictures of the package contents on the box to avoid confusion. There was a hilarious case of an American baby food producer that put a picture of a white baby on the front of their tins. Delish! Why is there a rooster on the pack? So there is a rooster in the box? Do roosters eat corn? Why Kellogs why? Roosters crowing in the morning? Morning = breakfast time? Roosters are found on farms, they want to bring that country lifestyle to the inner city breakfast table? Is there some historical thing going on?


At least its not a kangaroo . . 


I hate you food science!. Why do you do this to me? Actually I love it. You guys are missing out :)


Hmm where did the name for this biscuit come from anyway? This is all Wikipedia had to say about the baked morsel in question: 


An Afghan biscuit is a traditional New Zealand biscuit made from cocoa powder, butter, flour and cornflakes, topped with chocolate icing and a walnut. The origin of the recipe and the derivation of the name are unknown, but the recipe has appeared in many editions of the influential New Zealand Edmonds Cookery Book. 

Yes I did just copy that all off the Wiki page. Is this a uni assignment? No. But if you want to see for yourself, here is the link :) 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_biscuit 

I have this sneaking suspicion that it is another New Zealand vs Australia type recipe. Like the pav and that a New Zealander beat the Aussie to writing the wiki page. 


Hmm I think I might go ask my Food and Culture lecturer from last year . . .

Anyway back to it

Using of course the trusty Edmonds Cookbook (It seems to be the bible for all these nana type cakes) the recipe I used was the first listed in their biscuit section.

You will need:

200g softened butter
75g sugar
175g flour
25g cocoa powder
50g (Although I am sure I used 70g+) corn flakes

Chocolate icing (lots of it - afghans are not a very sweet biscuit so you need the icing to balance it out)


Method:

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees. Cream together the butter and sugar until white and fluffy. Sieve in the flour and cocoa and then mix in well. Pour in the cornflakes and stir in with a spoon (the beater just crushes the flakes of corny goodness). Once well combined, spoon and roll into balls and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Press the balls down with a floured fork then pop them into the oven for 15-17 minutes. Once done, take out of the own the leave to cool. Once cool slather them in icing in whichever fashion you prefer.

And here is the method in pictures (as usual)

 Cream together your butter and sugar

 Sieve in the flour and cocoa. Beat until combined.

Add your golden flakes of corn

Mix in with a spoon (or spatula)

Roll into balls and flatten with a floured fork

Set the timer . . .

And bam! 15-17 minutes later these delicious creations come out.

Once they are cool, mix up your icing.

(It's St Patrick's day by the way. Chris is pointing out all the green ones we could extract to make our afghans more festive)

Now ice them and decorate :) Pop walnuts on the top if you wish :)

Hmm the person who invented afghans obviously didn't know about water activity and the migration of moisture from a high moisture area to a low one in mixed medium food products, ie the water in the butter into the cornflakes making them soft and soggy.

Although a few hours later these are still good :D

And once again I have added an obscene number of biscuit photos . . .

Ok time to eat more . . .

See you next week!

Sultana Cake

Hey everyone!

Sorry about the delay in postings. I moved back down to Dunedin and got very very distracted by Vampire Diaries (*coughstefancough*). When Miss Lucy, my flatmate moved in she brought with her some of her Nana's amazing sultana cake. Oh it was so good. I am pretty sure I ate the majority of it. It was topped with slivered almonds. Yes I know sultana cake isn't a flash work of art with twirls and swirls of delicately placed icing magic but it is an old classic and classics, although sometimes boring should be respected. Anyway I decided to try to make some myself as I was bored and not wanting to do an assignment due in two days. I figured the Edmonds Cookbook would be a good place to find a sultana cake recipe. Old ladies like that book. So I used Lucy's new edition to make the cake featured today. It wasn't until I opened by 1980 edition that I found the recipe was slightly different in a few departments. Old ladies love the older editions. Next time i'll make that version and see how the two compare. The cake is still cooking as I write this and the hallway is filled with the most delicious smell ever.

So what you will need:

2 cups sultanas
250g butter, chopped into cubes
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1/2 teaspoon almond essence
3 cups standard plain flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

Put the sultanas in a sauce pan. Cover with cold water and bring to the boil and then simmer for 15 minutes. Drain the sultanas well and then add the butter. In a bowl beat the eggs and sugar for 3 minutes. Once butter is fully melted, add sultana mixture and essence to the egg and sugar bowl. Mix well. Sift in the flour and baking powder and mix until combined. Spoon mixture into a 23cm lined cake tin. Bake at 160 degrees for 1 to 1 1/4 hours or until cake springs back when lightly touched. Leave for ten minutes before turning out onto a wire rack. Then of course how long you wait until you gobble it up is up to you :)

 The original recipe in the new book

New recipe in older book. How does this work?

Anyway here is the cake in pictures:

 So boil your sultanas and preheat the oven to 160 degrees C

Beat your eggs and sugar together

Weigh out your butter

 Drain your sultanas and add the butter

 Line a cake tin (or in my case two as they were both tiny 20cm ones)

 Pour the sultana and butter mix into the egg and sugar mix and mix well

 Add sifted flour and baking powder

 Mix mix mix

 Taste test . . .

 Pour the mix into the tin(s) evenly and pop in the oven for 1 hour (if a big cake - keep an eye on them for 40 minutes if it is a smaller one)

Clean everything up . . .

Bam! and they are done

Wait 10 minutes before turning out onto a cake rack or tea towel

and serve! Nom nom, btw this cake has the tastiest (and richest) batter ever. Do try it.

Now time to make a cup of tea and have another piece of cake!

Bye!