I have been feeling a little world weary lately, so I decided to bake some cookies, despite the heat, to cheer me up. A little while back, I had seen some White Chocolate and Ginger Cookies on Patty's blog, Patty's Food, and printed off the recipe. I have also had the pleasure of meeting Patty, and I shared a lovely lunch with her when I was in San Francisco last year.
How could you go wrong with white chocolate and crystallised ginger in a cookie? They sounded fab. Also, they are low cal - making them a guilt free treat in my book.
I whipped up these cookies fairly quickly, and was surprised that I actually got 24 cookies, as the recipe states. Normally, I get more or less cookies than the recipe states, so these impressed me from the start.
Now, if you are hunkering for a massive cookie to sink your teeth into, these are not it. Only one teaspoon of cookie dough goes into each cookie, so these cookies are more of a bite sized delicacy than a man sized munchie. However, doesn't that actually mean you can eat more of them??
I really liked these cookies, and their Weight-Watchers friendly nature is a bonus for someone like me who expands on the sight of food. Thanks for sharing this treat with us Patty!
Chaya is this week's Wednesday with Donna Hay host, and she chose Donna's Soy-Simmered Chicken from Modern Classics Book I. You can also find the recipe here.
This dish was simple but delicious - the sauce gave a slightly sweet flavour to the chicken. I served my chicken with stir-fried veges.
I really enjoyed this dish - it is quick to prepare, tasty and nutritious.
To see what Chaya, Kayte and Margaret thought of this dish, visit their websites.
Sarah from All Our Fingers in the Pie was our February 2013 Daring Bakers’ host and she challenges us to use our creativity in making our own Crisp Flatbreads and Crackers!
I can't honestly say that I was too creative, because I used the recipe provided by Sarah for Raincoast Crisps. However, they sounded pretty good, with their nuts, fruit and seeds (and mysterious name!), so I thought I would give those a burl. The recipe will be on Sarah's website. However, I did use my creativity in the substitutions that I made. Instead of using pecans, I used brazil nuts, and instead of flax seed, I used LSA.
These crisps tasted pretty good. Not all of them were as crispy as they should have been (most likely because of my knife skills, the oven or a combination of both), but they were good. I think Raincrisp Crisps would be perfect with soft cheeses like camembert or brie, but I did not have any in the house at the time of photographing, so you will just have to imagine that.
To see what crackers and/or flatbreads the other Daring Bakers made, visit the slide show on 27 February at The Daring Kitchen. Thanks to our host, Sarah, for this month's challenge.
On Saturday night in Melbourne, the first Australian White Night Festival was held. The White Night Festival was an all-night arts festival, in the style of similar festivals held around the world and originating in Russia. My firends V & C invited me to accompany them to the White Night Festival/ The thing that initially astonished me was the number of people clogging areas that are normally main roads in the CBD. As an example, here is a shot of Swanston Street with some of the 300,000 strong crowd:
It was rather surreal wandering the streets that are normally out of bounds to pedestrians, with such enormous crowds.
We didn't linger on the bands. Rather, we went down to watch the light show on the Yarra River from Birrarung Mar, which was not dissimilar to (but not as grand as) the light show at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. A number of CBD buildings were also lit up including Flinders Street Station with Harry Potter-like lightening bolts on the dome:
and a row of buildings on Flinders Street, including The Forum theatre:
While I enjoyed the lights, I was left a little puzzled by the White Night festival. There seemed to be an awful lot of people moving very fast in all directions, but I am not sure what we were all hurrying to see. However, the festival was lauded a success, and plans are afoot to repeat the festival next year.
Moving on to the cake, The Age Sunday Life Magazine featured Neil Perry's Strawberry and Yoghurt Cake a few weekends back, and I tore it out as a "must bake". The cake contains polenta for texture and colour, chopped strawberries, and the smooth moistness of yoghurt. I substituted the yoghurt for cream, and it didn't seem to matter. The cake still looked wonderful and tasted delicious:
You can find the recipe online here.
Provided that you are not adverse to polenta or strawberries, I believe that you will enjoy this cake, and urge you to give it a go - hopefully your weather will be kinder for baking than it is here at present.
It has been another scorcher in Melbourne today - even though I am a Queensland girl, I am feeling the heat. Of course, I chose today to book into a cupcake decorating class!! Luckily, the classroom was airconditioned, so the class offered a short reprieve from the relentless heat that we have been experiencing.
Once again, the class was at CW Cakes in Malvern, and the teacher was once again the cheerful Ella. I did not learn any new techniques in this class, but it was a good way to consolidate my existing knowledge and make some cute cupcakes.The base cupcakes were pink and white swirl butter cakes, and the flat fondant iced cakes were prepped with a coating of buttercream.
First up was a buttercream swirl topped by a fondant butterfly made using stamper cutters, dried in a folded position over a styrofoam block so that it "flies":
Next, there is a lovely bow made using a silicone mould (tips - use half as much fondant as you think you'll need to press into the mould, roll a sauasage to fill the top of the bow and work it with your fingers to fill the rest, and don't allow any fondant to overhang the edge of the mould shape), sitting prettily atop a fondant disc patterned using an impression mat:
Here is a bird made using a silicone mould, sitting in a stencilled (using royal icing) and be-glittered cage:
The next cupcake is a garden of roses and green cachous nestled in a buttercream swirl:
We made another stencilled cupcake, this time feauturing a cupcake:
And finally, there is my favourite, the pink gerbera on a black background with balck cachous for the centre glued on with sugar glue:
It was a lot of fun doing this class, although I think that to keep learning, I will have to move on from the cupcake classes.
Hope you are having a great weekend!
This Friday, Dorie has us cheating on winter with Cheating on Winter Pea Soup - but it ain't winter here, so I couldn't demonstrate my infidelity to the seasons. The day that I made this soup (well, the Thursday night before reveal) was 32 degrees (86F) outside.
I was a little reticent about this one - as you know, I am not a soup fan. But again, this soup surprised me, and I quite liked it. I made a half recipe using half frozen and half canned peas (because that is what I had about the house). I had no issues with blending the soup because I just blitzed it in my little-used blender - I had more technical issues with the blender's safety lock than with the soup.
It isn't easy being green, especially this olive hue, but don't be fooled - this plain Jane soup is quite delicious.
I also finally got around to making the herb-speckled spaetzle from early January:
I enjoyed this dish but without a spaetzle maker, it is a real pain to make - I thought my left arm was going to fall off as I pressed the dough tediously through a colander-spoon with my bare hand (which worked better than using a spoon). I served my spaetzle with beef stroganoff and green beans:
This was a pretty awesome meal.
To see what the Doristas thought about this week's soup, visit the LYL section of the website.
This week's Wednesday with Donna Hay recipe is Food Processor Banana Cake, chosen by Margaret from p160 of Off The Shelf. You can also find the recipe online here.
To make this cake is a breeze - you bung everything in the food processor, wazz it up, pour it into a bundt tin, bake and and voila - you have cake in under an hour. I used up some aged bananas that I had stashed in the freezer, and though they looked gross when thawed, they were perfect in this cake.
If you need a snack for a child's lunch box, I think this cake would be perfect - it is not too bad nutritionally while still maintaining the treat factor.
To see what Margaret, Kayte and Chaya thought of this cake, visit their websites.
