WWDH - Cinnamon sugar coated maple apple cakes

For Wednesday with Donna Hay this week, I made Cinnamon Sugar Coated Maple Apple Cakes from Donna’s Seasons recipe book. This book is one of her earlier books, and it is just so darn pretty - if you like cookbooks with beautiful pictures, definitely pick up a copy of this book.

These little cakes contain cinnamon, brown sugar, grated apple and maple syrup for flavour, as well as being dipped in cinnamon sugar fresh out of the oven. The cakes are made in mini bundt tins.

I made a half batch and got 12 mini bundts (1/2 cup size) plus 2 muffin sized cakes.

I had one of these fresh out of the oven - it was so good, and perfect for autumn.

To see some other Donna Hay dishes, visit Kayte and Margaret.

 

TWD - Asparagus-Lemon Quiche

 This week’s Tuesday with Dorie (Baking with Dorie) recipe is Asparagus-Lemon Quiche.

As the name suggests, the quiche is filled with chopped asparagus and chopped lemon (including the rind). The top is decorated with asparagus heads and sprinkled with parmesan.

The flavour combination is delicate and the quiche looks elegant. I served mine with salad:

This is such a gorgeous quiche, I would definitely make this again.

To see what everyone else made this week and their thoughts on it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

My Mother’s “Hotch Potch” - Beef Stew

 

It’s cold here and definitely a good time for stews and hearty meals. One of my favourite stews is my mother’s hotch potch, pictured.

There is no set recipe for this - it’s about using what you have. In rough terms, to a large casserole dish, I added 500g cubed chuck steak that had been tossed in a mixture of salt and plain flour (I did this in a freezer bag for easy clean up), 500g peeled and chopped potatoes, and whatever other veg you have to hand (I used carrots and beans, but mixed frozen veg works a treat). Take a generous heaped metal tablespoon (the big spoon not a baking measure) full of plain flour and mix it with just enough water to make a paste - put that in the casserole dish with the meat and veg, and shake in some Worcestershire sauce and tomato sauce to taste. Crumble in a beef stock cube, season with salt and pepper to taste, then add enough water to the pot to just cover the meat and veg.

Cook in a preheated 180 degree Celsius oven for around 2 hours, and that’s it.

The crucial step is using enough flour to make the sauce thicken, otherwise you end up with tasteless watery stew (which I have done a number of times). 

A perfect dish served with crusty bread to soak up all of that  yummy sauce.

WWDH - Balsamic Chicken Pot Roast

Today’s Wednesday with Donna Hay recipe is Balsamic Chicken Pot Roast from One Pan Perfect. 

This is a super easy dish - there is no pre-cooking involved, just prep your chicken and veg, plonk it into a large casserole dish and roast:
 

I served my pot roast with roasted pumpkin and broccoli.

To see some other Donna Hay dishes, visit Kayte and Margaret.

TWD - Macarons

This week’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe is macarons - yes, those mostly pastel hued domed almond meringue shells filled with anything from jam to buttercream to ganache.

I have made them before here, here and here, but I don’t think I have ever used the Italian meringue method before (involving adding a hot sugar syrup to the meringue while mixing).
 

These turned out ok - they could have bern a tad smoother but looked fine, and had feet. I flavoured a half batch with one and a half teaspoons of matcha, which aided by sone food colouring, made my macarons a pale pistachio green.

My filling was a milk chocolate ganache made from Dorie’s recipe.

These tasted good - a little less cardboard-like than some bought offerings, so nicer.

Macarons are not hard to make - they are just a little time consuming and fiddly.

To see what everyone else made this week, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

TWD - Mochaccino Muffins

This week’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe is Mochaccino Muffins. As the name suggests, they are flavoured with chocolate and coffee. Coffee powder, coffee extract, cocoa and chocolate chips make up the flavours.

They are really tasty - not too dense, nice and moist inside:
 

Best of all, the washing up is minimal, as these are made without the aid of a mechanical mixer:

To see what everyone else made this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

TWD - Chocolate Olive Cookies

 This week’s Tuesday With Dorie recipe is Chocolate Olive Cookies.  These biscuits are a chocolate sable flavoured with chopped olives.

It sounds totally weird, but these biscuits are really good. They melt in your mouth and have that sweet-salty thing going on.

To see what everyone else made this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.