Apple and raisin bars

These are quite tasty bars, but they're too a bit too rich for snacking that doesn't follow mountain climbing.


Oat and raisin Bars
Makes 16 bars
Modified from Everyday Food via shutterbean


170 g unsalted butter, melted, plus more for pan
3/4 cup packed light-brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup plain flour
2 cups rolled oats
3/4 cup raisins
1 green apple, grated


Preheat oven to 180°C, then line a 20cm square baking tin with baking paper.


In a large bowl, whisk together butter, sugars, egg, salt, and cinnamon until smooth. Add flour, oats, and raisins; fold in just until combined. Spread batter in prepared pan, and bake until a toothpick inserted in center comes out with moist crumbs attached, 25 to 30 minutes.


Leave to cool completely in pan then cut in to bars.

Historic cake

I must have last eaten this cake in the early 1990s; it's still great. My mum always made it as a loaf, but it actually holds together as a square.

Apple and Pecan Nut Cake
Makes 1 20 cm square cake

2 cooking apples

½ cup of sugar

1 ½ cups plain wholemeal flour

1 level tsp bicarb of soda

2 tsps cinnamon

2 Tsps allspice

1 cup roughly chopped pecan nuts

1 egg

125g butter, melted

Peel, core cut apples in chunks, and mix with sugar. Set aside. Shift flour, bicarb, spices and mix in chopped pecan nuts, beat egg into cooled butter. Add apples, lightly mix in flour- nut mixture and spoon into a greased 20 cm square tin. Bake at 180°C for 45-55 mins.

Birthday Feasts

Walnut and honey tart from Skye Gyngell's A Year in My Kitchen. Made with fresh local walnuts, cracked on the day of baking. Fantastic!

Lemon self-saucing pudding (aka lemon delicious) from olive magazine April 2008.

The dragon cake! This was a spectacle was made form a base of chocolate Mayan bundt cake, glommed together with a chocolate hazelnut spread and covered with black chocolate buttercream icing. The lolly banana spines were the most fun to make.

May leftovers

Other recipes from the internet that I used this month:

*In the spirit of trying new things, I made a bitter gourd curry (kayippakka vartharacha curry). Despite its name, I was a bit surprised by the intense bitterness, it's definitely not one for the unadventurous. 

*A Mark Bittman Spanish influenced chickpea and chorizo dish. I made it mid-week and had no fresh spinach, so I grilled some large chunks of tomato and chucked them in before the whole dish is covered in breadcrumbs and grilled. It was really quite good.

*When Aldi had cheap bundt pans I bought one and made this orange bundt twice; it's a great cake for a crowd.

Pumpkin Loaf

Pumpkin loaves amongst the mess of a Sunday cookathon

Sweet and lightly spiced, this loaf is a great way to use up left over pumpkin.

Pumpkin and Ginger Loaf
Adapted from Martha Stewart
Makes 2 loaves

450 g pumpkin
2 cm piece of ginger
170 g  unsalted butter, melted
315 g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp salt
225 g white sugar
200 g brown sugar
3 large eggs

Peel and de-seed the pumpkin and cut it in to large chunks. Crush the ginger and add it and the pumpkin to a pot of water. Simmer until the pumpkin is soft then remove the ginger and drain well. Puree with a food mill or food processor.

Preheat oven to 190°C. Line 2 loaf pans with baking paper; set aside. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, ginger, and salt. In a medium bowl, whisk together sugars, pumpkin puree, melted butter, and eggs; add flour mixture, and stir until just combined.

Divide batter between prepared pans. Bake until a toothpick inserted in centre of loaves comes out clean, about 60 minutes. Let cool 10 minutes; invert pans and transfer loaves to a wire rack to cool completely.

February Leftovers

I cooked a few internet recipes this month:

*I made the Alice Mendrich cocoa brownies that seem to be doing the blog rounds this month. The recipe is great because it uses ingredients that you're bound to have in the house and produces a rich, fudgy browine. Expect to cook them for 30-45 minutes in a conventional oven.

*I made a celebratory flan to accompany a pseudo-Mex meal using a Diana Kennedy recipe, as I hadn't made a flan before I found the instructions from the Science of Cooking really helpful. Slightly panicked when the water bath almost dried out, I learned that this would just cause a bubbly flan, it will still be quite delicious.

*Similarly, then I bought a heap of tomatoes these instructions for freezing them came in handy.

*I also made cornbread and tuna melts that I mentioned in earlier posts and some internet regulars - black beans and Korean tofu.

November Leftovers

In November I used these recipes from the internet

*Simmered black beans, a recipe that I have at least six times since it was published in March, I really should have memorised it by now.
*I recently bought some vanilla beans from Spice West on ebay, which seems to be the cheapest way to get them. I used some beans to make vanilla extract using this method, but used half the alcohol and twice the beans. It smells fantastic after four weeks, I probably won't wait eight weeks to use it.
*I finally got around to trying Peter Reinhart's Napoletana pizza dough recipe. The pizza bases made with this recipe were awesome and the long cold fermentation makes a lot of sense during the warmer months.
*I wanted to add something a but different to the lunchbox fruit loaf rotation, coconut-pineapple loaf cake from Martha Stewart looked good. I made mine with yoghurt and a 400g tin of crushed pineapple, it's very nice, but the crumbly texture lends itself more to a cake than a loaf.

Christmas Cake

The first time I made a Christmas cake I made Alison Holst's Pineapple Christmas cake, that was 2006. I wrote the the Archivists mum asking for recipes and she sent me scans of three recipes from her collection. It turned out great and lasted beautifully until well after New Year, so I made it again in 2007 and somehow botched the timing and it was raw in the middle. I tried a different cake from Martha Stewart in 2008 and I would recommend the recipe, but I want a cake to call my own.

This year I cobbled together a recipe based on Alison's. I used a fruit mix similar to the Bourke Street Bakery's* Christmas cake recipe (raisins, dates and figs) and plan to feed the cake with dark rum just like the 2008 Martha Stewart cake, since I don't really like brandy and I have most of a bottle of rum.

I washed 500 grams of raisins, 400g quartered figs, 200g  chopped dates and 200g of sultanas, drained them, splashed them with rum and left them in the fridge to macerate for a week. Where the Hoslt recipe lists optional extras I tossed in 200g of glacé ginger. A 440 gram tin of Golden Circle crush pineapple is sufficient for the cake, squeeze out most of the juice. Blanched almonds on top, fed rum weekly, it should delicious in eight weeks time.

*The Bourke Street Bakery cookbook is lovely to look at, the recipes have very clear and precise instructions and the photos are great. Unless you're cooking for a crowd it may not be very practical as most of the recipes make large quantities (three loaves for breads, at least 12 serves for most sweet pastries). I am plotting an event so I can make some tarts to test it out properly.

Too Many Bananas

With all the apples, mandarins, and left over birthday cake, the bananas didn't get much attention this week. I can't really claim that this banana is healthy in any way, but it is delicious. I use freshly ground and brewed Jinedabah espresso for this cake, which tastes much better than a coffee substitute.

Banana Cake
Adapted from Ladies A Plate by Alexa Johnson

115 g unsalted butter softened
150 g white sugar
2 large ripe bananas
1 egg
1 tsp strong espresso coffee
180 g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarb
1/4 cup milk

120g icing sugar
30 g unsalted butter, softened
1 tbsp strong espresso coffee

Preheat a conventional oven to 180°C, grease and/or line a 18 cm square baking tin. Cream the butter and sugar, mash the bananas into the mixture with a fork then add the egg and coffee and mix.

Mix the flour, baking powder and bicarb and mix it into the wet ingredients alternating with the milk. Bake for about 40-45 minutes, then remove from the oven and turn the cake onto a rack to cool.

When the cake is cold make the icing. Mix the icing sugar into the butter then add the coffee. Use the back of a spatula to break up any lumps of butter and add a small amount of boiling water if required to make the icing spreadable. Spread the icing over the cake with a palette knife, then store it in an airtight container.

Pie Crust

Remains of the cherry and pear pie

Each year, around Thanksgiving, food forums and blogs are suddenly aflutter with panic over pie crust; it's really not that hard especially if you use a food processor. The food processor evenly distributes tiny butter pieces throughout the pastry better than I can do by hand. After letting the dough rest in the fridge, roll your crusts out quickly and ideally, do it in a cool kitchen. This will give you an effortless flaky crust.

Pink Lady apples make a delicious pie this time of year, I made one this week. Jarred Morello cherries also make a decent pie if you can't be bothered faffing around with apples.


Aunt Peacie's Double Pie Crust
Makes a double crust for a 25cm (10 inch) pie
Adapted from Shelia Ferguson's Soul Food for a small food processor

250 g plain flour
1 tsp of salt
160 g unsalted butter, cubed
Iced water

Put 125 g of flour, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 80 grams of the butter in the bowl of a food processor. Blend until the mixture resembles coarse sand, then add iced water little by little until the crumbs form a large ball and the blade won't rotate any more. Turn the dough out onto cling film and form into a disc, refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before rolling out to make crust. Repeat with the remaining ingredients.

Choc Chip Cookies

Several of my favorite baking recipes have come from the wrapper of the featured ingredient. This choc chip cookie recipe was featured on the packet of Nestlé milk chocolate chips sometime in 2004 and I have been using it ever since, making a few tweaks of my own. The addition of peanut butter and oats to the mixture gives the biscuits a most moorish yielding crumb.

At some point I want to try the apparently super-awesome Jaques Torres choc chip recipe, but my recipe takes a fraction of the time, has no hard-to-find ingredients and is more satisfying than any cookie you'll get from a supermarket or cafe, so it will do for now.

Choc Chip Cookies
Makes about 3 dozen
Adapted from a Nestlé packet

125 g unsalted butter
60 g smooth peanut butter
200 g brown sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
85 g self-raising flour
85 g cup plain flour
50g of rolled oats, pulsed in a food processor to make a coarse meal
185 g chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 180 °C. Combine butter and peanut butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring frequently for 3- 4 minutes until the butter has melted and the mixture is well combined. Transfer to a large bowl and let cool for 5 minutes.

Add the sugar and egg, mix well. Add sifted flours, oats and chocolate chips and mix well to combine. Roll tablespoons of mixture into balls, place onto a lined tray and flatten slightly. Bake for 15 - 20 minutes – less in a fan forced oven - until golden and firm to touch. Stand for 5 minutes on the tray before transferring to a wire rack to cool.

This recipe can be doubled and the dough can be well-wrapped and frozen for up to six weeks.

Best Banana Bread

This recipe comes from C. Thiel of North Albury, New South Wales. I clipped it from a New Idea or a Women's Weekly in the 90s; it's one of the three banana bread recipes I use, each has different textural properties. This loaf is full of bits of fruit and nuts and is a little bit spicy and not too sweet; the dried fruits and nuts can easily modified to use up bits and pieces from the pantry. If it doesn't all get eaten during the week leftovers can be frozen.

Best Banana Bread
Adapted from a recipe by C. Thiel

140 g of raw sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
125 g mashed banana
1/2 tsp mixed spice or a combination of cinnamon, nutmeg and all spice
120 g chopped walnuts
2 tbsp shredded coconut
3/4 cup sultanas or raisins
190 g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp of milk

Grease a 15 x 25 cm loaf pan then line with baking paper. Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Mash the banana in a large bowl, add the sugar, egg, spices, nuts, coconut and sultanas and mix to incorporate. Add the dry ingredients and milk in two stages.

Spread the mixture evenly into the prepared pan, bake for 45 minutes or until cooked when tested. Let the loaf stand for five minutes in the tin, then turn on to a wire rack to cool.

For the Zucchini Sceptic

I couldn't resist a big bag of late-summer zucchini from the market this morning. With a weekly lunch box gap to fill, I went back to my feed reader for inspiration. I've further modified a recipe for zucchini loaf that started in this months delicious magazine and made it to me via the Canberra Cook. I further reduced the sugar as she suggested, used a walnut and canola oil mixture and added some drak chocolate and it came out with moorish loaf with a hint of sweetness that even swayed the zucchini sceptic in the house.

Zucchini Loaf
Serves 10-12
Adapted from the Canberra Cook and delicious magazine March 2009

400 g self-raising flour
200 ml vegetable/nut oil
1 heaped tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp allspice
115 g white sugar
115 g brown sugar
3 eggs, beaten
2 tsp vanilla extract
500 g zucchini, grated
90 g walnuts
40 g dark chocolate, chopped


Preheat oven to 150°C; line a large bread tin (mine is 29 x 10 x 13 cm) with baking paper.

In a large bowl, mix all the ingredients except the flour and oil. Add the oil and mix well, then fold in the flour gently.

Pour into the loaf tin, and bake for 90 minutes, or until a testing skewer comes out clean. Cool in the pan for about 15 minutes, then turn out onto a rack.

One From Nigel and One From Gordon

Foccacia topped with a paste of sun- dried tomaotes, garlic and oregano; Persian-style Onion Soup and Rocket salad

It's a cool evening, a storm has just passed over leaving the ground barely damp. I'm finishing off last weeks vegetables, cooking a pot of potatoes to make home fries for breakfast tomorrow and a big pot of lamb bones, carrots and aromatics are simmering into lovely stock for a soup next week. Dinner tonight is foccacia, a rocket salad and a bowl of warmly spiced onion soup from Gordon Ramsay recipe. The Accountant bought a Ramsay cookbook last year, the only recipes that interested me were the soups, I've got to say that he does make a fine soup.

Foccacia
Serves at least 6
Adapted from Nigel Salter via Blake at the Paupered Chef

450g bread flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp fast-acting yeast
400ml warm water
cornmeal
3 tbsp olive oil

Put the flour and salt and yeast into a large bowl, mix well then pour in the water to make a sticky dough. Mix well with a wooden spoon then knead in the bowl using a silicone pastry scraper to fold the mixture and make a smooth dough, this takes about 5 minutes. Alternatively use a stand mixer. Foccacia is a particularly wet dough and you don't want to be adding a lot of flour to make it possible to knead by hand. Once the dough has been kneaded, cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a damp clean tea towel and leave it until it has doubled in size, which may take up to 1 hour.

Prepare a baking tin (30 x 20 cm rectangle; 30 cm diameter circle) by coating with olive oil and applying a thin layer of cornmeal. Preheat the oven to 220°C.

Remove the dough from its bowl, then push it into the baking tin. Trying to cover the base of the tin. Cover with plastic wrap then let the dough rise for another 30 minutes.

Create a seasoning mixture from garlic, fresh herbs, salt, with olives, sun-dried tomatoes or caramelised onions. You will need about 3 tablespoons of a seasoning mix to cover the loaf of focaccia. When the dough has risen for the second time push several holes deep into the dough with your index finger, then spread the seasoning mixture over the dough.

Bake for 35-40 minutes until the top is golden. Drizzle with the remaining olive oil and let the loaf rest for 5 minutes, then remove from the tin and serve while warm.

Persian-style Onion Soup
Serves 4
Adapted from Healthy Appetite by Gordon Ramsay

3 tbsp olive oil
800 g onions, peeled and thinly sliced
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds
2 tsp fresh mint or 1/2 tsp dried
2 tbsp plain flour
1 L vegetable or chicken stock
1 cinnamon stick
Juice of 1 lemon or some preserved lemon
1 tsp raw sugar
A few flat-leaf parsley sprigs, chopped

Place a heavy-based pan over a medium heat. Add the olive oil, the onions and 1/2 tsp salt. Cover and sweat for 12-15 min until the onions are soft, lifting the lid and stirring occasionally. Remove the lid and increase the heat slightly. Add the spices and mint, then stir in the flour. Cook, stirring frequently, for 3-4 min.

Gradually pour in the stock, whisking as you do so to prevent any lumps forming. When it has all been added, drop in the cinnamon stick and simmer over a low heat, for 30-40 min.

Stir in the lemon juice and sugar, if using preserved lemon dice the peel of half a lemon and add to the soup with the sugar, then taste and adjust the seasoning. Discard the cinnamon stick and serve with parsley.

Lunchbox Muffins

My criteria for a good lunchbox muffin are (1) the muffins aren't too sweet, (2) they contain a good portion of fibre, (3) they include ingredients that I normally have in the pantry. Muffins made with vegetables and wholegrains meet all my requirements, I've modified this carrot and coconut recipe to my preferences and I have a pumpkin one that I'm still working on for next time. I use my Benriner to finely shred the carrot for this recipe, the resulting grated carrot is consistently whispy and is easily distributed though the muffins.

Carrot and Coconut Muffins
Make 12 muffins
Adapted from Comfort: Real Simple Food by Michele Cranston, Mikkel Vang, and Christine Rudolph

280 g wholemeal plain flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
150g sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
200 ml vegetable oil (canola, sunflower, grapeseed)
200 g grated carrot
100 g shredded coconut

Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease or place paper muffin cups into a 12-hole muffin tray.

Put the flour, baking powder, sugar and cinnamon in a large bowl and mix. Add the eggs, zest and lemon juice and oil and stir until smooth. Then mix in the carrot and coconut through.

Spoon mixture into muffin tray and Bake for 25-30 minutes, until muffins have risen and are golden brown. Allow to sit for 5 minutes after removing from the oven before turning the muffins out onto a cooling rack. Pack the muffins into a storage container when they are completely cold.

A Summer Christmas Fruitcake

I found this recipe sometime shortly after Christmas 2007; the mixture of tropical fruits and whole nuts caught my eye. The cake is really simple, and unlike many "grape based" fruitcakes doesn't require you to soak the fruit in alcohol for hours or days in advance - but you do still need to be sufficiently organised to bake the cake a month before Christmas. For all the rum this cake is doused in, the rum flavour isn't overpowering, it's really quite delicious.

Summer Fruitcake
Makes 1 20 cm cake
Adapted from Under the High Chair; originally from Martha Stewart's Backhouse Family Fruitcake

170 g softened unsalted butter, plus more for pan
110 g cup raisins
130 g dried pineapple, chopped into1 cm inch pieces
160 g dried apricots, chopped
200 g dates, pitted and chopped
120 g dried paw paw
140 g whole blanched almonds
265 g whole Brazil nuts
210 g plain flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
240 g light-brown sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp ground ginger
½ tsp allspice
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 tbsp dark rum, plus more for dousing

Heat a conventional oven to 150°C. Brush a circular 20 cm cake pan with softened butter; line the bottom and sides of the pan with baking parchment.

Combine fruits and nuts in a bowl and set aside. Sift the flours, baking powder, and salt. In a second bowl cream butter and sugar until fluffy, then add eggs, one at a time, mixing well between each addition. Add vanilla and rum. In two additions, add dry ingredients to the butter mixture. Fold in the fruit and nuts. Transfer the batter into pan. Bake until golden and set, about two and a half hours. Cover with foil if it colours too much.

Cool on wire rack. Remove from pan; discard parchment. Wrap in a clean linen tea towel. Brush all over with a quarter of a cup of dark rum. Store in a cool, dry place; douse with 3 tablespoons of rum weekly for at least 1 month before serving.

Third Time Lucky Tea Cake

Tea cake II, with apples

I first made this tea cake on Sunday for a work do the Archivist was having on Monday, choosing apple tea cake to use up some small Fuji apples. I woke up at 6 am to bake this cake again for a friend from works' birthday morning tea - but thanks to a delivery mess-up I couldn't attend to try it, so I made it again this afternoon to have with friends tonight! The third time I made the cake I had finished all the apples and had to make it with Packham pears - yum.

I grabbed a recipe from the internet Sunday night, using the internet recipes has bitten me on the arse on several occasions, the tea cake recipe that I used for the base of my recipe is from the head chef at Fifteen in Melbourne - Tobbie Puttock. -I seriously doubt that the recipe was tested as written since the cooking time is completely wrong (fan-forced vs. conventional electric can't explain the 30 extra minutes it takes to bake this cake - not that the recipe specifies an oven type anyway!) and the batter over-leavened so the fruit disappeared beneath the surface of the baked cake. I've had three attempts to perfect my version, and my changes produce a lovely cake with golden caramelised fruit.

Tea Cake
Makes 8-10 serves
Based on Tobie Puttock's apple and cinnamon tea cake

95 g softened unsalted butter

125 g cup white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
175 g cups self raising flour
150 ml milk
2-3 small apples or pears
3 tsp cinnamon sugar or 2 tsp sugar and 1 tsp of ground cinnamon
30 g unsalted butter

Preheat oven to 200°C; grease and line a 20cm (8 inch) round baking tin with baking paper. Cream the softened butter and sugar in a large bowl, add the vanilla and the egg. Alternately add the flour and milk to the mix and beat until smooth. Spread the thick mix to evenly cover the base of the pan.

Peel, quarter, and core the apples and then slice the quarters into thin wedges and place over lapping slices in a wheel pattern on the top of the cake, sprinkle the cinnamon sugar over the apples. If using pears leave the peel on, but otherwise the preparation is the same.

Place into the middle of the oven and bake for 55-60 minutes (check the cake 10 minutes sooner for a fan-forced oven). Check to see if the cake is cooked by inserting a skewer, if it's cooked it should come out clean. Remove the cake from the oven and let cool in the baking tin for a further 10 minutes, melt the remaining 30 grams of butter and brush over the top of the cake. Then turn the cake out of the pan to cool apple side up. This cake is nice warm, and is best eaten on the day of baking.