I don’t know about you but all my original plans for Australia Day have gone out the window.  The weather is playing games, and camping on the beach no longer seems like a really good option.

Even with the lousy weather I am always up for an Australia Day BBQ with friends.  So the Australia Day celebration has now been relocated to a friend’s hinterland property just outside Coffs Harbour.

Given the weather I have also changed my mind on the menu for the day. I will keep the main event a secret until tomorrow but here is what I thought I would make for the kiddies.

Australia Day White Chocolate Cake Pop Ups! How cool are these!!! Kids can eat them, there is no mess, and they are really easy and fun to make.

You could use any cake recipe for this treat.  I like the white chocolate because it is a dense cake and holds together well while you cut it and put it into the cake pop holders.

Ingredients:

250gm butter

190gm white chocolate

2 cups caster sugar

1 cup milk

1 ½ cups plain flour

½ cup SR flour

1 t/s vanilla

2 eggs

Red colouring

Blue colouring

1 ½ tins Betty Croker Vanilla Frosting

Lollies to decorate

Method:

Cover a large baking tray with baking paper.

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees.

In a saucepan melt the butter, sugar and chocolate over a very low heat until just melted.

Remove from the heat and add flour and milk stir until combined and then add the eggs and vanilla.

Divide the mixture in half and separate into to bowls. Add blue colour to one and red to the other.  Pour the red mixture into one side of the baking pan and the blue into the other.

Bake for approximately 45 minutes, or until cooked.

Remove the cake from the pan and allow to cool.

Use the cyclinder of a cake pop up to cut circles from the mixture.

Press the cake into the cake pops. Layer the two colours of the cake with a heaped spoonful of frosting in between the colours. Add more frosting and lollies to the top to decorate.

These are so delicious! There is the perfect amount of frosting to cake. I kept mine in the freezer and the coolness of the treat was even better. Plus it travel better as a lunch box treat.

This recipe makes about 20 cake pops

On another note, have you ever been let down by a supplier?

The lollies that I have decorated the cake pops with were originally bought for Christmas. I had a story planned and I was also going to add the red and white ones to gifts I was making. The lollies were ordered and paid for the lollies at the beginning of December. After numerous emails they were finally I received on the 29^th December. Naturally at this time they were totally useless to me.  I now have three kilograms of jelly beans that I am eating my way through. NOT HAPPY!

The cake pop up cylinders are a similar story. This time the package arrived promptly but one item was missing. I have now been emailing backwards and forwards for over a week with the company not prepared to admit that a mistake may have been made. All this for a $4 item!  Seriously, would I lie about something so trivial. I just want to have the item I selected for a story.

Have you had a similar incident? Should I name the companies? I always like to write positive things so I won’t name names, but come on people, customer service please!

Halloween is so much more fun as an adult! I am having such a great time planning our party and everyone’s costumes.

I am going to be a witch (in fish nets and heals of course).  My dear 6”6’ (skinny) husband is going as a Skelton, hehe, who says I don’t have a sense of humour. Little Miss A (4 yrs) will be my little witch apprentice.  She has a deep purple and black costume, with a broomstick, although she was a little disappointed when I told her the broom wouldn’t fly. Master 6 is going as the Grim Reaper... he isn’t quite sure what it means but he is happy because the Grim Reaper has a cool mask and a great “weapon”  “The soon to have L Plates son” is going as a Zombie, he has ensured a plentiful supply of blood and is looking forward to terrifying the neighbours trick or treating.

The party food needs to be ghastly too of course, but I am running out of time (as always) so I have taken a few short cuts.  These Black Cupcakes are made gross but tasty with the addition of black food colouring and liquorice essence. I have then added some Halloween lollies to the top as decoration. I think they are suitably scary!

Ingredients:

3 cups plain flour

6 t/s baking powder

½ cup melted butter

3/4 cup caster sugar

2 eggs

1 cup cream

1 tsp black colouring

2 tsp liquorice essence

Method:

Preheat oven to 160 degrees and line 2 baking trays with black Halloween paper.

In a mixer add all the dry ingredients and then the liquid ingredients.

Mix the batter together.

Bake for 10-12 mins or until an inserted skewer comes out clean.

Butter Cream Ingredients:

2 cups icing sugar

150gm butter softened

2 tsp liquorice essence

1 Tbs milk if required

1 tsp black colouring

Lollies to decorate

Method:

Beat butter in a mixer until soft and icing, colour and flavour. If the mixture is too thick to pipe add milk until the desired consistency is reached.

Decorate with ghoulish lollies.

Tell me readers, do you get into the Halloween spirit? What are your plans for this frightful evening?

If pink had a taste, it would be the flavour of this Raspberry Sherbet!

It’s sweet, fruity and tingly all at once, a completely girly delight.  Have I said enough to make you want to taste? I hope I have convinced you to try your hand at making this icy treat, as I am sure it will feature regularly in our household over summer.

I served the sherbet with extra raspberries and a dollop of cream which added an even creamier aspect to the dessert.

Ingredients:

 ¾ cup caster sugar

150ml water

500gm raspberries (fresh or frozen)

500ml Strawberry Fruche

Method:

Pre-chill a metal container in the freezer.

Place sugar and water in a saucepan and stir over the heat until the sugar has dissolved. Remove from the heat and cool in the fridge.

Using a sieve and a mixing bowl, push the raspberries through the sieve with the back of a dessert spoon to remove all the seeds.

Combine the cooled sugar syrup with the raspberry puree and the Fruche and mix with a stick blender until combined. Pour the mixture into the pre chilled metal container.

Place the metal container back into the freezer for two hours.

Use the stick blender once again to break up the forming sherbet. Return the sherbet to the freezer. This process must be completed three times at two hour intervals.  Allow the sherbet to fully set. Serve.

I want to know what you think of this recipe, so please let me know if you make. What other flavours of sherbet do you think would be tasty?

So this is a very short and sweet post from me today, hope you have a great day.

Sorry No Banana’s

Since the cyclones up north I see this sign out almost everyday at one of our backyard suppliers of local fruit and vegetable. Thankfully after a long drought we are starting to get some local banana’s through again. Ironically whilst there has been no local banana’s available for sale until recently, I have been given the odd bunch on occasion.

This was one of those happy occasions. A friend was flicking through my “Tastings of the Hastings” recipe book, and opened on the paged for grilled Banana Bread. He said “Miss Julie, Will you make that for me?” How could I refuse?  I love it when someone makes a baking suggestion!

I said “bring me the banana’s and it’s as good as done!”

I have made this Banana bread before and it was delicious. A few months ago I was on a quest to find the Gloria Jean’s recipe for banana bread.  When I couldn’t get hold of the recipe I started trialing recipes in a bid to reproduce the exact flavour of Gloria Jean’s variety. I have to say; when this bread is grilled it tastes almost exactly the same as the chain stores banana bread.

So without further ado, I give you, and almost replica of the Gloria Jean Banana Bread!

The recipe is compliments of chef Craig Freudenstein and the “Tastings of The Hastings” cookbook.

 Ingredients:

1 cup brown sugar

1 t/s vanilla extract

1 t/s bicarb soda

2 whole eggs

1 cup mashed banana (4 banana’s approx)

2 cups plain flour

1 t/s salt

Method:

Sift flour and bicarb into a bowl and add the sugar. Lightly beat eggs, banana and vanilla then add to the bowl of flour.

Mix gently until combined.

Pour the mix into a greased loaf tin and bake at 160 degrees for 40mins or until a skewer comes out clean.

To serve cut the bread into slices.  Heat a griddle or frying pan until hot. Lightly butter both sides of the bread. Place onto griddle and grill until each side is golden.

Serve with vanilla or maple syrup mascarpone and strawberries.

I made this recipe twice in two days and both times it was demolished within the hour. Lucky it is a quick loaf to make J

 *Notes: the bread appears pale on the first day but darkens the following day to a beautiful rich colour. It also darkens when toasted.

 I hope you enjoy!

I decided to make these stained glass biscuits so long ago that I can’t even remember where the inspiration came from.  It may have even been a Daring Baker challenge all the way back in the middle of last year. For one reason or another I just haven’t had a chance to actually bake them! I have bought the lollies for the centres half a dozen times but they have never made their way into the biscuits.

So when I finally did get a chance to bake these biscuits it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me when I ran out of time to take the final pictures. I actually had to run out of the house for a meeting with one tray of biscuits left to cook. I then had the children to collect from school on the way home from the meeting.

That evening, when I did finally make it back home with a car full of kids, they laid their hungry little eyes on the trays of biscuits and I had to say no when they asked for one. They were more than a little disappointed to be told they couldn’t have any!  I explained the usual “they haven’t been photographed yet”.  In true bloggers kid spirit they understood the logic and were resigned to a peanut butter sandwich.

Each day the kiddies asked the same question of me on their way to school, “Do you think you will have time to photograph the biscuits today mum?” Well I finally made time, I couldn’t take the sad faces any longer!  Also, I had noticed the pile of biscuits being slowly demolished so I thought I should act fast or I would need to bake them again.

The long awaited Stained glass biscuits!

Ingredients:

200g Butter, at room temperature
400gm Plain Flour
200gm Caster Sugar
1 Egg

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

1 Bag of colour hard boiled lollies

Method:

Line a biscuit slide with baking paper

Place butter and sugar in an electric mixer and beat until creamy.

Beat in the egg until combined scraping down the sides of the bowl.
Add the sifted flour and mix on low until a non sticky dough forms.
Knead into a ball and divide into 2 or 3 pieces.

Roll each ball between cling film to 5mm and refrigerate for 30 mins.
Once chilled, peel off the top layer of film and cut out shapes with a cookie cutter.

Stained Glass Filling:

Divide the bag of lollies into colours.

Remove the lollies wrappers and place each colour into a different zip lock bag.

Use a meat mallet to crush the lollies.

Sprinkle lolly crystals in the centre of the biscuits.

Bake 160 degree oven for 8-10 minutes. Leave on the biscuit slide until cooled.

I love opening my house and kitchen up to friends and family. It makes me happy that everyone knows where everything is kept and feels comfortable to “help themselves,” whether that means making a tea or coffee or finishing off a dish for the main meal, I hope everyone who comes into my house ends up feeling very at home in my kitchen.

A favourite movie of mine is Under the Tuscan Sun because it touches on the warmth that people bring to a house, and the love that it shared around a dining room table, even if all the people at that meal are a mish mash of people who have been rounded up from different corners of your life.

I feel very privileged to have this type of home and I would like to extend this feeling into the Gourmet Getaways website via a guest post. I am sure you will all remember our Chinese student Kristy’s guest post a month or so ago showing how to make Congee.  Her post started me thinking that I would like to do this more regularly.

Ellie is a regular at our house. She has a love of healthy wholesome food, I asked her if she would be interested in contributing to the website, and I would now like to share with you her first blogging experience.

Hello to all Julie’s followers my names Ellie and I'm currently in year 11. I've always loved food and going out to restaurants to try new and exciting healthy dishes. I guess I have my parents to thank for my love of healthy food. For the past 2 years I've started cooking and found out that I don't only love to eat healthy food I also enjoy cooking it!

About 3 years ago I stopped eating junk food altogether, and started questioning what harmful chemicals I was putting into my mouth and my body. It may sound like a dreadfully strict diet, but it has changed my life and the way I eat.  Since then I haven’t looked back, I never crave anything I used to eat because I love the foods I eat and cook now.

My new way of eating has meant I have learned to cook delicious savoury dishes from all different cultures. Now I can't stand eating the same thing all the time, I love experiencing new spices, textures, and smelling the aroma's that great food produces.

For my first spot on Gourmet Getaways I made Curried Vegetable Pies with Parsnip Mash. I made them for dinner last night and they were delicious.  I enjoyed the parsnip mash as it was slightly sweet and creamy YUM! I wanted to cook these because they were not the same ordinary style of pie, they had a delicious curry twist. They looked gorgeous dished up and most importantly they taste amazing.

Whether you’re a vegetarian or not give these pies a go. I made the short crust pastry from scratch using organic ingredients but frozen short crust is fine.

Curried vegetable pies with parsnip mash  

makes:6  prep: 15 mins ( + 30 mins resting time)

cooking: 25 minutes

Ingredients:

Pastry:

Organic Flour

Butter

Iced water

 Method:

Place flour and butter in a food processor and pulse until fine bread crumbs are formed. Allow the food processor to continue and add just enough iced water to allow the pastry to come together. Cover the pastry in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 mins.

Filling:

400g desiree potatoes, peeled, cut into 2cm pieces

400g parsnip, peeled, cut into 2cm pieces

1/4 cup milk

40g butter, chopped

pinch of salt

1 tbs peanut oil

2 medium brown onions, halved, cut into thin wedges

2 garlic gloves, crushed

400g butternut pumpkin, peeled, cut into 2cm pieces

1 swede, peeled, cut into 2cm pieces

1/3 cup rogan josh curry paste (patak's brand)

1/3 cup chicken stock or vegetable stock

1/3 cup coconut cream

250g pkt frozen spinach, thawed, excess spinach removed, or fresh

1/4 cup coarsely chopped fresh coriander 

Method:

I used a 12 whole muffin tin but you can use a 12.5cm-diameter round pastry cutter to cut 6 disks from the pastry. Line 6 round 9cm pie tins with pastry. Place on a baking tray in the fridge for 30 minutes to rest.

Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Place potato and parsnip into a steaming basket in a saucepan of simmering water for 10-12 minutes until tender. Transfer to a bowl. Add milk and butter and mash until smooth using a potato masher. Cover with foil and keep warm.

Bake pastry in oven, bake blind for 10-12 minutes or until golden.  Remove from oven Meanwhile heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and garlic and cook, stirring until onion softens( 2 minutes). Add pumpkin and Swede, stir to combine. Stir in curry paste and cook, stirring for 30 seconds until fragrant. Add stock and bring to the boil. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, for 12 minutes. Uncover and add coconut cream and spinach. simmer, stirring occasionally for 3 minutes or until hot. Remove from heat.

Remove pastry cases from tins. Place on a serving platter. Spoon vegie mixture among cases and top with parsnip mash. Sprinkle with coriander to serve and Enjoy!

Thanks for listening, I hope you enjoy the recipe.

Little Miss A turned four recently and at the suggestion of a friend we decided to have a “tea party” theme. It was a great opportunity for me to “tizzy” things up a little and go overboard on the “girly” stuff. After all, with three older brothers it has been a while since we’ve “done” pink!

I decided that I would only serve pink, red and white food to keep the tea party looking the part. That meant a table full of raspberry lollies, pink musk sticks, hand selected jelly beans, I am sure you know who ate the offending colours... me!

When it came to cooking for the party my mum made these gorgeous lolly cups

Lolly Cup Recipe

I set pink and red jelly in shot cups with spoons for easy serving, and I made my tried and true Greek Shortbread biscuits.

Greek Shortbread Recipe

Plus... I tried my hand at a Cake Pops.

I have to be honest; this is my second attempt at cake pops.  Last year for little A’s birthday I made a batch but I found them so fiddly I vowed never to repeat the exercise. Since then I have seen a lot of cute cake pops so I decided to give it another go and do things a little differently. They were definitely a lot easier using this method.

Ingredients:

1 Madera Cake

¼ cup condensed milk (you may need a little more)

1/4 cup cream cheese

lolly pop sticks

white chocolate

sprinkles

food colouring

Method:

Place the cake into a food processor and process with about ¼ cup of condensed milk and the cream cheese.

Allow the cake to come together into a “dough”, add a little more condensed milk if necessary.

Remove the “dough” and press onto a sheet of baking paper or between plastic wrap. Roll the dough out.

Cut shapes out of the dough and place onto a tray.

Gently press the lolly pop sticks into the shapes and put in the freezer overnight.

Warm the chocolate in a bowl and dip the cake pops into the chocolate to cover all sides. Allow the excess chocolate to fall back into the bowl. The chocolate can be tinted with food colouring. Immediately dip the cake pop into sprinkles or add lollies if required.

• note only take the cake pops out of the freezer as you are dipping in chocolate, they should be frozen when you work with them so that the chocolate sets quickly.

Place the cake pops in a container and refrigerate until required. Uses various cookie cutter shapes to make interesting cake pops. I made flowers and used Smarties as the centre.

For something a little different I melted dark chocolate to cover the star shaped Cake Pops.

I used a noodle box with a polystyrene filling to display make cake pops for the party.

Horror 1st batch of Hotdogs

Better 2nd batch of Hotdogs

Ok, it has taken me a little while to post my answer to the International Incident Party theme of Hotdog, mostly because I am so annoyed with myself for my efforts on the topic.

I make these cute little hotdog rolls every few weeks for the children and they always work well.  This time, when I want to feature and photograph the little buggers they come out looking irregular shaped and boxey!  Rest assured I will remake and rephotograph them, but in the meantime I am posting less than beautiful examples.

1st Batch Hotdogs 

I will firstly explain what went wrong, so that no readers make the same mistakes.

1. I had the house airconditioning on 17 degrees because I had been dying in the summer heat.  I didn’t think it would matter because the bread dough was made in the controlled enviroment of the breadmaker.
2. It did matter because I couldn’t get to the dough when it finished.  So after proofing beautifully it deflated horribly.  I persisted with the dough as it is usually very resilliant in the face of my haphazardness, but having the air conditioning on freezing I was struggling to get the “puff” I usually do.
3. To add insult to injury, on my tortured dough I added frozen frankfurts.  Straight from the freezer!
4. Next I rolled them up as usual... but, I squeezed the hotdogs into a pan that was too small to allow any growth of the little snacks.
5.  I covered the buns with a tea towel for the second proofing.  Obviously nothing was going to happen in the cold environment and packed into a little tray.  But with the ultimate optimism I had the oven on warming 50 degrees, and left the buns to proof.  It usually only takes ½ hour to get the nice puff. After about 1 ½ hours I decided that I didn’t have time to wait and baked them off.
6. The result was less than spectacular! Then, because the hotdogs had taken so long it was nearly dinner time and I had a starving family.  Everyone wanted one!  This meant the family was breathing down my neck trying to “sneak” a taste while I was taking the images of the finished product.  EPIC FAIL MUM!  Oh the life of a foodie!

2nd Batch Hotdogs

So even though they are the ugliest Hotdogs, I have ever made they were well received by the family. They smelled divine cooking, and there are now none left, so obviously they tasted pretty good too.

2nd Batch Hotdogs

Bread Ingredients:

510gm Flour

7gm yeast

6gm salt

6gm sugar

20gm oil

310gm warm water

Filling Ingredients:

12 little frankies

4Tbs tomato paste

1 cup grated cheese

¾ cup diced fried bacon

Mustard to taste

1 Tbs sesame seeds

 Method:

Prepare a baking tray with baking paper.

Place all the bread ingredients into a bread maker with the setting on dough.

Once dough is complete, place it on an oiled bench and with your hands, gently shape into a rectangle.

Spread the dough with tomato paste then add the cheese and bacon ensuring the ingredients are evenly distributed.

First batch of Hotdogs

Place the frankies on the dough and roll into little buns. Cut the buns away from the dough and continue until the dough is all rolled into hotdogs, and the hotdogs are all on the baking tray.

2nd Batch Hotdogs

Sprinkle the hotdogs with sesame seeds and cover with a clean tea towel to proof. If the house is cold place in a warm area , or use a warm (50 degrees) oven.

2nd Batch Hotdogs

Once proofed preheat oven to 180 degrees and cook for 15-20mins or until golden and hollow to the tap.

2nd Batch Hotdogs

So the second batch of hotdogs is now complete.  They still aren't the most beautiful things I have made but at least they don't look mangled anymore. The bread is light and fluffly as it should be and they have a level of respectablity about them.

I am on a bit of a roll with the “CSR Bake A Difference” fundraiser.  I have another suggestion, and this time it is a recipe that would be a great to do with the kids in the up coming school holidays. Now I realise that coconut ice is a little old fashion, but these are so easy, and I actually forgot how good coconut ice actually tastes!

These will make the cutest little gifts.  I will never give a box of chocolates again! These are so much prettier and personal.

Ingredients:

2 ½ cups CSR icing sugar

¼ t/s cream of tartar

1 egg white

¼ cup condensed milk

1 ¾ cup desiccated coconut

Method:

Brush a 26cm x 8cm tin with oil and line with baking paper.

Sift icing sugar into a bowl with cream of tartar.

Combine the condensed milk and egg white and mix well by hand.

Add the condensed milk mixture and coconut to the icing sugar and mix by hand until combined.

Press mixture into prepared tin and refrigerate for 1 hour prior to cutting into squares.

Presentation:

I used clear cellophane cut into squares, and a five metre roll of pink ribbon. The cones are made from vellum paper.

It was really easy to wrap the coconut ice up as “lollies” and I was really pleased with the result. The original thought was to present them in clear noodle boxes with a pink Christmas decoration attached but being Christmas everywhere was sold out of noodle boxes.

For more “Bake A Difference” information see my previous post or the “CSR Bake A Difference” website.  Jeroxie will be compiling a collection of the most mouthwatering treats in this fundraiser for all to enjoy.