TWD - Apricot and Pistachio-Olive Oil Cake

This week’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe is Apricot and Pistachio-Olive Oil Cake. This cake mixes chopped dried apricots and pistachios through a cake batter flavoured with black tea, orange zest and olive oil.

The cake is cut in half and filled with apricot jam, and topped with more apricot jam and chopped pistachios.

 This cake is delicious served with Greek yoghurt.

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

TWD - Maybe This, Maybe That Ham and Cheese Loaf

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie (Dorie’s Anytime Cakes) recipe is Maybe This, Maybe That Ham and Cheese Loaf.

This savoury cake contains ham, three cheeses (mozarella, parmesan and in my case, Gouda), roasted capsicum, thyme and chives.

It is rather tasty. I much preferred it cold to warm.

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

TWD - Meringue Snackers

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is Meringue Snackers. These are big meringues - pretty self-explanatory.

I piped my meringue into nest shapes instead of making big balls, coloured them pink (which is only really visible on the inside) and flavoured them with Queen Flamingo flavouring (rose-like). 

I then filled my baked nests with white chocolate ganache (more transportable than whipped cream), and decorated them with mini chocolate eggs and wine gums. They tasted good to me!

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

No-bake Mango Cheesecake

Tonight’s dessert is a delicious no-bake mango cheesecake. We originally got this recipe from the label of a Nestle condensed milk tin, and have been making it for decades. It is a no- bake cheesecake, which is simple to make and creamy to eat.

To make this cheesecake, you will need:

1/2 of a 250g packet Arnotts Chocolate Ripple Biscuits

50g melted butter

500g cream cheese

395g can condensed milk

425g can mango slices in syrup, drained

Juice of 1 lemon

2 tablespoons gelatine

Hot water

 Line the base and sides of a 9” springform pan with baking paper. Leave the cream cheese out of the fridge to soften. 

Crush the biscuits until fine either in a food processor or using the end of a rolling pin.

Melt the butter, then pour it over the biscuit crumbs and mix well. Press the biscuit crumb mixture over the base of the springform pan and refrigerate while you make the filling. 

Cut the cream cheese into small cubes. Put the cubed cream cheese into a bowl and, using a hand mixer or stand mixer, mix the cream cheese until smooth. 

Pour the condensed milk into the cream cheese and mix until well combined. Puree the mango slices in a blender or food processor, and mix the puree through the cream cheese mixture. Mix the gelatine with just enough hot water to liquify it, then mix it and the lemon juice through the cream cheese mixture. 

Pour the cream cheese mixture over the chilled biscuit base, then return the cheesecake to the fridge to set (4 hours or overnight).

Unclip the springform tin and slice the cheesecake to serve. You can serve the cheesecake with cream or icecream, and you can decorate it with extra fruit.

TWD - Brioche Sticky Buns

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie (Baking with Dorie) recipe is Brioche Sticky Buns.

It starts with making a half recipe of Dorie’s brioche dough. It is then proofed, chilled, rolled, filled, put into a caramel sauce and baked.

And this is the end result:

It is definitely a labour of love requiring a fair amount of time, but the end result is delicious:

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

TWD - Banana Cappuccino Cake

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie (Dorie’s Everyday Cakes) recipe is Banana Cappuccino Cake. Dorie created those cake as a riff on banana bread, combining the flavours of things that grow together -  bananas, coffee and coconut.

When I read the recipe, my initial thoughts were that these ingredients are pretty wild together. Bananas and coconut I could understand, but with coffee? 

My fears were unfounded - this is a beautiful cake. Bananas and coffee is not something I’d be drawn to normally, but it just works in this cake.

To flavour the cream cheese icing, I used coffee essence, as I only had instant coffee rather than espresso powder, and I knew it would not dissolve.

This cake is delicious - if you are not a fan of banana cakes, the other flavours in this one really balance out the banana flavour.

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

TWD - Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies

 This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies. For me, they were not classic as they contain walnuts as well as chocolate, but you know, tomayto, tomarto.

These cookies didn’t turn out great for me. I made them at my mother’s house using spreadable butter out of a tub (which is all I had), which may have contributed to them spreading like mad in the oven and coming out as flat as pancakes. The round cookies in the photo were cut out of the joined up blobby mess on the baking trays. 

My cookies also did not crisp up - they were quite soft.

Onwards and upwards I say!

To see what everyone else made this week and whether they had better luck than me, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

TWD - Clam Chowder Pie

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie (Baking with Dorie) recipe is Clam Chowder Pie. Dorie describes this dish as clam chowder soup in pie form.

The recipe contains canned clams, an ingredient that is not readily available in Australia, and oysterette crackers,  which are not a thing here at all. I subbed in frozen cooked clams from an Asian supermarket and Ritz crackers.

I only made a half recipe of pie, which was still sufficient to fill a 9” enamel pie tin.

 Unfortunately this pie was not my thing. I didn’t enjoy the strong sea taste of the clams, and I didn’t love the combination of flavours, including celery, capsicum, worcestershire sauce, tabasco sauce, Old Bay seasoning (also not an Aussie thing - I used paprika) and bacon.

It is definitely an interesting idea to create a pie based on a soup, but this one was just not for me.

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

TWD - Mix-It-Up Citrus Loaf Cake

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie (Dorie’s Anytime Cakes) recipe is Mix-It-Up Citrus Loaf Cake. It is do called because you can use any combination of citrus fruits that takes your fancy.

I used grapefruit and orange, as that is what I had to hand. Both juice and zest are used in this cake. The cake contains olive oil as the fat component, but you can also use a mix of oil and butter. 

The cake can be optionally glazed with marmalade, which I of course did - I love a sticky, shiny cake.

 This cake may not be a looker, but I absolutely loved it. The outside is crisp and caramelised, the inside is soft and moist and citrussy - count me in. Definitely a make again cake.

To see all the other citrus cakes made by this group, visit the LYL section of the TWD website. 

Red Velvet Roll-Out Sugar Cookies

 Recently, I decided to make red velvet roll out sugar cookies to decorate for Valentine’s Day - you know, red for hearts.

A quick online search led me to this recipe for the cookie dough.

The cookies baked up with a nice flat surface and held their shape well with no spreading.

I then decorated the cookies with ready to roll fondant, using a number of different techniques to add the finishing touches:  

These used a cookie stamp highlighted with cachous:

I cut out different colours of fondant and added details with a knife and sprinkles for the icecream cones.

I think they turned out great! And it’s so much easier than decorating with royal icing.

TWD - Trufflish Nuggets

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is Trufflish Nuggets. 

These are gluten free cookies made with a host of store cupboard ingredients, including coconut, cocoa, almonds and chocolate, bound together with egg whites before baking.

They are perfectly fine cookies; not exciting, but a good way to use up odds and sods.

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

TWD - World Peace Cookies 2.0

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie (Baking with Dorie)  recipe is World Peace Cookies 2.0. I have made Dorie’s original World Peace Cookies before - see here and here and here. This version takes that original chocolate sable slice and bake cookie recipe and adds freeze dried raspberries and cayenne pepper. I didn’t add cocoa nibs as I didn’t have any.

I loved the cayenne pepper add-in - initially you don’t taste it, but it gives the cookies a little kick at the end - absolutely superb.

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

ANZAC Biscuits

 On the weekend, I had a yen to make a perennial favourite, ANZAC biscuits. I made this batch from my favourite recipe, sent to me by my mother out of the Australian Woman’s Day from a few years back. They are so good.

You can try the recipe yourself if you like- here it is: 

TWD - Pears, Nuts and Rye, Oh My

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie (Dorie’s Anytime Cakes) recipe is Pear, Nuts and Rye, Oh My. This cake, as the name suggests, contains pears, hazelnuts (both as meal and chopped) and rye flour.

This comforting cake also contains brown sugar and spelt flour, giving it an earthy flavour. The top of the cake is also drizzled with honey before baking.

After the cake cools, you can sprinkle it with icing sugar to make it look pretty.

As suggested by Dorie, I served this cake with Greek yoghurt and honey - delicious.

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

TWD - Whole Wheat and Flax Daily Bread

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie (Baking with Dorie) recipe is Whole Wheat and Flax Daily Bread.

As the name suggests, this bread includes whole wheat flour and flax seeds in the ingredients. Powdered milk is an unusual inclusion in the ingredients, but which seems to make Dorie’s bread recipes so good.

This bread is best eaten fresh on the day it’s made - I enjoyed the crust piece slathered with Bonn Maman chocolate orange spread. After that, I recommend toasting this bread.

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

Peach cream cheese almond loaf

I recently baked this Peach Cream Cheese Almond Loaf cake. It is a nutty sponge with a cream cheese filling and a peach topping.

The recipe comes from the January 2026 edition of the Australian Womens Weekly.

Here is the recipe:

 

Panettone bread and butter pudding

If you have leftover panettone, a great way to use it up is to make a bread and butter pudding. This is my mum’s version.

3 eggs

3 large tbspns sugar

2 cups milk

panettone

spreadable butter

desiccated coconut 

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Warm the milk on the stove (don’t boil). In the meantime, whisk the eggs and sugar together in a bowl. Once the milk is warm, gradually add the eggs/sugar mixture, stirring all the while. Continue to stir the mixture over the heat until it thickens and coats the back of a spoon. Pour the custard into an ovenproof dish that has been sprayed with cooking oil.

Cut thin slices of panettone and spread with butter. Cut into quarters and place on top of the custard. Sprinkle the top with coconut.

Place the pudding into a water bath in the oven and bake for 50-60 minutes or until a thin knife inserted in the middle comes out clean. Allow to cool to room temperature.

Serve as is or with a scoop of icecream.