Subaru Cake

Just thought I would post a couple of piccys of my latest cake:

Must-have Monday - Star Wars Flexible Spatula Set

Ok... I don't know if this is a must-have item for me, but I know my husband would love it. It's a spatula set that features Darth Vader and an Imperial Stormtrooper.

If you feel the need to buy one, you can order them from here

Penguin Waffles

Our family doesn't have breakfast together very often, so I decided to make a treat for Sunday morning breakfast - Penguin Waffles. A couple of years ago we got given this cute little waffle maker.

And below is the finished product... cute little penguins with golden syrup on their tummies :)

Low Cost - Herbed Wedges

Last night a couple of friends and I went to a low cost cooking evening held by one of the local churches. We got given a neat wee cook book with hints and tips, as well as some scrummy ideas for low cost meals. We were just having an easy tea tonight (grilled sausages), and I thought I might take some of last nights inspiration and jazz it up with some herb wedges.

Here's the instructions:

Cut potatoes into wedges - leave the skin on

Parboil for 5-10 mins

Dry them off and put them in a roasting dish

Sprinkle with a bit of oil and some herbs and/or spices

Bake for 20 mins at 200 degrees

For our wedges I used all dried herbs - marjoram, basil, red bell pepper, rosemary, oregano, parsley and thyme. They turned out better than I expected, and were devoured quickly by the whole family.

Retro Baking - Tan/Caramel Slice

How yummy does this look?

Often I have half a can of condensed left over and it goes off in the fridge because I don't know what to do with it. Well, how about using it to make one of these yummy slices? I remember my Mum making this one often, and now I know why - It's really simple.

I used this recipe. My problem now is that I have half a can of condensed milk... should I make another tan slice? oh yes :)

Wednesday Website - Butter Converter

Found this handy little butter converter. Often I find recipes that sound a bit like "6 tablespoons of butter" or "half a stick of butter". In the past I've hated packing butter into measuring cups or measuring spoons and I would much prefer to just have a metric butter weight to use.

Click here to use the butter converter.

Retro Baking - Hedgehog Biscuits

This is the first biscuit in my "Retro Baking" series. What I mean by this is I'm going to from time to time bake one of those classic home baking recipes which in many cases have sadly been replaced by fancier recipes. This is the type of baking I can imagine my Nana serving from one of her royal coronation souvenir tins :)

If you remember any recipes from your past, please remind me of them so I can try and find a recipe for it, or if you have the recipe - great - email it to me and I'll give it a try!

Hedgehog Biscuits

115g butter (4 oz back in the day!)

3/4 cup sugar

1 egg

Vanilla

1 cup self raising flour

1 cup sultanas

Cornflakes

Cream together butter and sugar.

Add Vanilla and egg, beat again.

Add flour and sultanas. Mix.

Roll teaspoonfuls of mixture in cornflakes and place on baking tray.

Bake for about 10 mins at 180 degrees.

Mine aren't the prettiest... I probably put them a bit close to each other on the tray, but I kind of like the way they turned out anyway. Here is the end result:

Random Cutter - Part Two!

In my previous post I had you all guessing what the cutter was. I'm still not really sure what it is, but I decided that for today I will make it a hermit crab. A hermit crab looks a little bit like this:

So here is my random cookie cutter version of a hermit crab:

Random Cutter - Help!

I was having a look through my cookie cutters yesterday and I came across this:

I am curious about it because I can't for the life of me figure out what it is supposed to be! Any suggestions would be gratefully received (because the closest I can come up with is that it's Alf's profile - but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be an 80's alien cutter!)

Ok I have flipped it around the other way. Does this help?

I'm starting to think... hermit crab?

Apple + Sultana Mini-Muffins

Apple + Sultana Mini-Muffins

I've been thinking a lot lately about man-lunches. I know a lot of men (my husband included) who buy lunch each day, and well... that's just plain expensive. So I'm making it my task to think of accompaniments for Greg's peanut butter sammies. He said he'd quite like some mini muffins. So today Emmy and I cooked up a batch of these cuties.

I used a recipe for a generic muffin, and added some stewed apples, sultanas, and a smattering of golden syrup. The recipe can be found here.

I gave one to Matty to test and he gobbled it down... and then gobbled a second one as well.

Stained Glass Window Biscuits

Stained Glass Window Biscuits

I saw this recipe a few years back and thought that I may have to try it one day. Yesterday I came across a version of the recipe here and it reminded me that I need to try it. I read the comments under the recipe and thought that I could probably make it better, so I edited the recipe and came up with this:

110g sugar

20g golden syrup

125g butter

Vanilla

1 egg

250g plain flour

Hard boiled lollies

Cream butter, sugar, and golden syrup. Add the egg and beat. Toss in the flour and mix with a wooden spoon. Roll out to about 5mm thick. Cut out desired shape, and then using a cutter slightly bigger than the lolly cut out a hole in the middle. Bake in the oven for about 5 mins at 180 degrees. Take out and place a lolly in each hole. Bake for about another 5 mins until golden brown and lolly has melted.

The lollies I used weren't the greatest as they all had a white stripe on them which looked a bit weird once they had melted. These are the kinds of biscuits that kids love...well it is a biscuit with a lolly in the center after all. Adults are probably more wary of their dentistry.

Dinner Rolls

In my quest to become a little more self-sufficient I'm trying my hand at 'basic' products that I would normally just buy from the shop. Hence the reason that I brought a pack of yeast sachets (which also featured in my pizza dough experiment a few posts ago). Having had success with that I thought I might try my hand at dinner rolls. I quite like having a roll for tea sometimes, but I've always found them to be a bit over priced in the shop. Anyways... here's my first attempt:

I used the recipe and tutorial found on this page. Mine didn't come out as fluffy looking as his did. Maybe I didn't knead it for long enough (it's hard when you have a little girl trying to "bake" a cake next to you). Or perhaps I overcooked it a little in the final stage. But they were edible. In fact Emmy ate 3 in one sitting so they must have been ok!