Strawberry, Apple and Vanilla Jam

It's school holidays yay! and I've had a list (mentally) for ages of what I wanted to do over these holidays (actually last holidays but they were filled with fixing the floors so all my plans went out the window) so Today I crossed one off the list and that was to make Jam. My friend Kirra made this Jam last year and said it was easy and I should give it a go. It was in Frankie magazine september last year. 

this is what you will need

Ingredients

500g strawberries

200g peeled and grated green apples (final weight not whole apple weight)

2 lemons juiced, seeds saved separately 

500g caster sugar

1 vanilla pod

Equipment

a 5L stainless steel saucepan with lid

wooden spoon

sugar thermometer (i didn't use this)

several glass jars with screw on lids

small piece of muslin

length of string

clean tea towel

tongs

jam funnel (i didn't use this)

1. wash, hull and cut strawberries in half (i cut them a bit smaller than this)

2. prepare apples, peel and grate, add them to the saucepan at a low heat for 10-15 minutes to soften

3. toss in the strawberries and sugar, mix thoroughly so everything has an even coat, you just want to warm the fruit at this stage.

4.add juiced lemon to the mix and muslin bag with vanilla and lemon seeds (i didn't add the seeds as i read on mamatribe that the seeds made the jam more lemony and i didn't want that)

5. raise the temperature to a boil, this is when you use the sugar thermometer (which i didn't have) you are meant to let it get to 105 degrees, you MUST keep stirring the jam at this stage, i kept covering it for a bit then stirred for a bit etc and you can kinda tell when it turns to jam.

6. prepare your jars, there is lots of different ways to do this i used this method

7. remove the muslin bag, and fill the jars. This recipe only made 2 Jars of jam. 

8. Label and eat. I used the jam stickers from that issue of Frankie magazine. The jam is rather delicious! 

Eating Like a caveman

It's 3 weeks till our engagement party! Although I have found a dress that fits i'm a tad (ok more than a tad) out of shape at the moment. Since christmas i've let's just say let myself go! I've been eating way too much cake (birthday didn't help) and not exercising enough. Over the last few weeks Jessica and I have started going to the gym together which is fantastic as we motivate each other to go and know we'll let each other down if we don't go. So this week Toby and I have decided to get our eating habits in order. We decided to have a cake free march (with the exception of our engagement party) and start a Paleo diet, which basically means eating like cavemen. So its a high protein, minimal carbs diet, eating only foods our hunter and gatherer ancestors did. I did it for a few weeks before Christmas and easily lost 4kg so I want to do it again to loose the extra christmas kilo's I have put on. I just wanted to post it on here so that I feel more committed to do it! So my friends if you see me reaching out for a piece of cake i give you permission to slap my hand and say NO!

so less of this 

and more of this

Cooking with Jamie (again)

Back here I made roasted chicken with butternut squash which was delicious, so i decided to make another alternative this time roasted chicken wrapped in pancetta with leeks and thyme. Im not sure which one i liked best but this was suer tasty as well. 

Ingredients per chicken breast:

a large leek

a small knob of butter

fresh thyme

olive oil

a pinch of salt

a small swig of white wine

6 to 7 slices of pancetta (i used 3)

method:

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees

trim and wash leek slice into 0.5cm slices, add these to a bowl with a few sprigs of fresh thyme, a good glug of olive oil the small knob of butter, pinch of sea salt, and freshly ground black pepper and a small swig of white wine and toss together. Place your leek and flavouring on a tray lined with foil. 

Wrap the chicken with pancetta place in the middle of mixture.

 Try to bend the sides of the foil over to cover the leek to prevent the leek from burning. 

drizzle with olive oil and place a couple of sprigs of thyme on top. 

Cook in the middle of your oven for 25-35 minutes 

(my new fan forced oven took around 30 minutes sorry to anyone I led a bumsteer with time on the last chicken recipe my oven was really Crap!)

Enjoy!

Baking With Millie

I finished up work for the year at the School I have been working at and I'm off to a new school next year. I wanted to make my faculty a little Christmas gift and thought Shortbread would make a nice gift. I love shortbread. I used to make shortbread all the time but haven't made it for a few years. I found this recipe in my mums better homes and gardens magazine and when I brought the western star butter it's actually printed on the butter wrapper. I was looking after Millie and Blair on Thursday night so it was a great activity to keep them occupied. (Blair just played with patty tins while Millie and I cooked)

Ingredients

250g Western Star butter

2/3 cup pure icing sugar

2 cups of plain flour

1 cup rice flour

1 tsp caster sugar, for sprinkling

Method

1. Process all ingredients (except caster sugar) in a food processor (I used my mix master as I don't have a food processor and it worked well)

2. press mixture together until it forms a dough

3. on a lightly floured board roll out dough until 5mm thick

4. using a cookie cutter (i chose stars and xmas trees) cut shapes from dough and transfer to a lightly greased and lined tray sprinkle with caster sugar bake at 160 degrees Celsius for 1/2 an hour (i finally have a new oven and it's fan forced it only took 18 minutes for mine to be cooked) you want them to be dry firm but still pale. Dust with extra icing sugar and serve.

I gifted them in a cello bag with some nice ribbon (forgot to photograph this) I think the faculty liked them! I'm going to miss them next year.

Cooking with Jamie

I thought I would share a super easy but extra tasty dinner with you this week. I've cooked it twice now and both times it's been a success. Over the holidays I decided it was time to start cooking from my ever growing cookbook collection, as most things I cook are from magazines (or packets...eeek) It is from Jamie Oliver's book "Cook With Jamie" and it is:

Roasted Chicken breast with creamy butternut Squash (pumpkin in Australia) and chilli's

Ingredients per chicken breast:

 half a fresh red chilli de-seeded and sliced

leaves of a few sprigs of Oregano

salt

pepper

a quarter of butternut pumpkin thinly sliced

a small amount of double cream 

nutmeg

method:

toss together red chilli and oregano over chicken breast

place chicken breast in an over proof container on foil

place pumpkin around the edge of the chicken 

carefully pour double cream on pumpkin without getting the chicken

sprinkle with nutmeg, salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil

Jamie says to cook on 200 degrees Celsius for 25-35 minutes but my oven is old and takes at least 50. Maybe fan-forced would be quicker

Enjoy it really is tasty and Easy!

Flourless Chocolate Cake

Over the school holiday I did a little baking. A teacher I worked with a few years ago made this cake and gave me the recipe and I've been meaning to make it since so being the holidays I thought it was the perfect opportunity to do so. 

Ingredients:

400g melted, but not hot butter

250g (1 1/4 cups) caster sugar

8 eggs, separated

400g dark chocolate (60-70 percent cocoa), melted (I used qadbury old gold, it was the cheapest)

250g almond meal

you'll also need a 26cm springform cake tine (I used a 20cm one but didn't put in all the cake mix)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Whip the butter and sugar together until creamy looking, then beat in the egg yolks and whip well. Beat in the melted chocolate, then fold in the almond meal.

Beat the egg whites until they get peaks that are fairly firm but not completely stiff. A good indicator is that the whites wont slide easily from the bowl when it's tilted. Fold them into the chocolate mix gently, using a quarter of the whites first to lighten the batter, then folding in the remainder until combined evenly.

scrape the mixture into the cake tin and bake in the middle of the oven for about 40-50 minutes (my oven is old and crappy so I baked it for an hour) Testing with a skewer to see if it is cooked. The skewer wont come out completely clean, but the mixture that sticks to it wont be runny either.

It's a fudgy cake, and undercooking isn't the worst thing.

 My cake didn't stay the same as in the picture above it sunk majorly in the middle but that was the best bit it was ultra moist and delicious.

Flourless Orange cake

Earlier in the week when I wasn't feeling the best I decided to bake. Since our orange tree is full of the most delicious fruit at the moment I decided to bake a flourless orange cake. I'd never baked one before so googled it and cooked the first one that came up. I have often cooked recipes off taste. This recipe was pretty straight forward and easy just a little time consuming getting the oranges soft enough but definitely worth it. Toby even said that it was the best cake I ever made! 


Ingredients

• Melted butter, to grease
• 2 oranges
• 3 eggs
• 215g (1 cup) caster sugar
• 300g (3 cups) almond meal
• 1 tsp gluten-free baking powder

• Orange Syrup

• 1 orange
• 155g (3/4 cup) caster sugar
• 
  

You can find the recipe here

Cake Pops

So I have been quite slack on the blogging front over the holidays because my poor old laptop died last Monday! I did mention that I made cake pops for Blair's first birthday and was going to show how last week, but I didn't so I'm sorry! I made them again on Saturday for my friend Casey's 30th 

 

Step 1 (left to right) I use woolworths mud cakes mainly to save time, but any plain cake would do, any flavour, here I have used caramel, I remove the icing and cut the cake into quarters and rub the cake together so it crumbles, I then add three heaped tablespoons of cream cheese frosting and mix together. To make the frosting I use 1 tub of philadelphia cream cheese, 1/2 cup of butter, 2 cups of sifted icing sugar and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract. 

Step 2 after combining the cake and the cream cheese frosting (ONLY ADD AROUND 3 TABLESPOONS maybe a little more depending on how moist the cake is) roll the cake mix into small balls, approx the diameter of a 20 cent coin, making around 24 balls. Place the balls into the freezer for 15 minutes. This part of the step isn't on most recipes I have looked at but I find it a lot easier if you melt a small amount of coloured candy and insert the cake pop sticks and then refrigerate for a further hour to fully set.

Step 3 Once set, melt the remaining candy and dip cake pop in to fully cover the cake batter 

Step 4 be careful if they get to heavy they will fall off

Step 5 sprinkle with decorative sprinkles I've used dusting sugar here

Step 6 place in a foam block to dry

Casey's Sweet's table

You can see I made yellow vanilla pop's bottom left, chocolate purple coated pop's in the middle and the orange caramel pop's top right. The sprinkles, pop sticks and coloured candy coating was all purchased online from cakes around town. They were a hit!

Mama's Cupcakes!

Toby's Mama used to make the most delicious butterfly cakes for Toby, they were his favourite sweet! Luckily she left us the recipe. I have only made her butterfly cakes once (they weren't quite as nice but still good) but I use the cake mix all the time to make normal cupcakes with butter icing. Yesterday for Dad's birthday I decided to make him Cupcakes in his favourite football team's colours.

So Im going to share the recipe:

1 lb Self Raising Flour

1 Cup of sugar

1/2 lb butter

1 Cup of milk

4 Eggs

     1 tsp of Vanilla

The secret is to cream the butter and sugar before adding the rest of the ingredients.

It will make approx 24 cupcakes, I cook them on 180 degrees celsius for around 25 minutes but my oven is old and not all that great so adjust the time to suit your oven.

To make the icing I just mix a whole lot of butter with icing sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla, oh so unhealthy but oh so fantastic, and dye it to suit your colour theme. The white numbers and stars on dad's cupcakes is "white Icing" Just from the supermarket rolled out and cut out with a cookie cutter, this can also be dyed to suit your theme. I also use lettered stamps to personalise the cakes, and plenty of sprinkles.

Give them a go

I hope you enjoy them as much as we do!

xoxo

Clinker Slice

On the weekend I made a clinker slice for the first time! it was delicious everyone enjoyed it

 so I thought I'd share the recipe on here! 

The ingredients include:

280g clinckers crushed
250g Malt'o'milk biscuits crushed
1/2 tin of condensed milk (I used half a little tin)
125g butter
and 250g chocolate

You need to slowly melt the condensed milk and butter together then pour it over and mix into the crushed ingredients and let it set (very important!) then pour melted chocolate over the top
I will be making it more often as it was so easy!