Christmas Fare: Deluxe Mince Pies

My Laura and Eloise love mince pies and to be honest I am not a fan.   I buy them and occasionally I am gifted them but I had never made them until this year.   We are in lockdown, and despite many attempts, couldnt seem to get any online.

So I took some inspiration from Mary Berry, ordered the ingedients online  and changed her recipe to suit something I might eat.

The results? Totally edible!  I have had two, one on Christmas Eve and one on Boxing Day. For me, that is a lot.  Even Hubby tried and liked.  My girls have declared no more bought ones... maybe they can make these next year!?

Ingedients

Pastry

230g plain flour 

100g cold butter

1 egg

Filling

1cup fruit mince

1/2 cup chopped dried apricots

1/4 cup chopped almonds

Top with

1 log richter chocolate covered mazipan

Method

Process flour and butter together until breadcrumb-like.  Add egg, and process until it comes together. 

Place in glad-wrap and into the fridge for an hour.

Preheat oven to 180 degrees c

Grease a 12 slot tart tray

Then roll out your dough onto floured surface about 3-5mm thick and cut out with cutter to fit your tart tray.

Prick your casings with a fork.

In a bowl, add your fruitmince, apricots and almonds together

It’s starting to be a bit more ‘deluxe’ from this moment!

Fill your casings, no need to blind bake (bonus, who has time for that at Christmas?)

Grab your marzipan... this is optional but soooooooo worth it.  I promise.

 

Slice it thinkly - about 2mm

Place onto your pies

Then pop a bit of pastry on top of the marzipan.  This is usually a star, but I had a heart cutter easily at hand...

No need to egg-wash or anything - aren’t they cute?

Pop intobthe oven for 12 minutes qnd bring them out to cool for 15 minutes before dusting with icing sugar

Sunday Baking Project: Fudgy Brownies for days or hoardes

 

Second weekend in a row I've made these brownies, first time around was for an unofficial (we're in Covid times people) end of season netball get together where I offered to bring dessert... and this weekend which was to make again for my colleagues at work after listening to the wistful sighs when I described my last weeks' antics.

They are really fudgy and moist,

And it's easy to do and takes very little time, and it makes at least 18 good-sized brownies, 30 smaller ones.   You can start and finish these in an hour.

I got the recipe from the lovely Kim at All Consuming's blog, which she got from Food52.   I tweaked a little between what both these to arrive at these and I think that's what great about this recipe.  You can tweak it easily.  I will add dark chocolate chips and frozen raspberries I think next time.  This time I added peanut butter protein powder and a tsp of baking powder -  the original recipe calls for no baking powder, espresso powder, nuts and icing. Tweak as you feel fit - up to you!

Ingredients:

• 225gr butter, at room temperature
• 3 packed cups of brown sugar
• 1 tb vanilla extract
• 8 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2/3 cup cocoa
• 1/2 cup peanut protein powder (Omit if you like)
• 250g milk chocolate chips

Method:

Preheat oven to 170degrees c

Spray a rectangle baking pan (Mine is 23x33cm or 9x13inches) and cover with baking paper and spray again.

Mix your butter with brown sugar until smooth and well combined (about 2-3 mins on low-ish speed)

Then add the vanilla and then the eggs one-by-one and mix well

In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients (flour, cocoa, baking powder and in this case the PB2 powder).

While mixing on lowest speed gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet.  Do not add chocolate chips yet.

Try not to eat too much of the mix... it's hard I know.

Pour and spread the mixture into your pan and sprinkle your choc chips on top.

Put into the oven and bake between 23 - 28 minutes.  You basically don't want it jiggly in the middle.

Leave to cool for 30mins to an hour before lifting out of the pan and then cut into squares, triangles, whatever you like :)

Oozy, fudgy goodness.

The birthday report: Eloise turns sixteen

Well it's been a while between birthday reports, but as I sit here in bed reminiscing not-so-fondly of the decent amount of pain I was in at this time sixteen years ago with no end in sight, I'm also reminding myself of all the twists and turns along the way to sixteen.

How you were such an easy baby.  You slept through at 9 weeks and I must have checked you at least a dozen times to see if you were still breathing and still OK... but you proved to me then and you still prove to me now that you don't need much pushing to get to where you need to be, you're very happy to move there at your own pace, which is usually in a hurry.

I'm thankful for your independent soul.  Your self-assured and wise way you navigate through tough situations.  Sure, you have mini-freak outs and you question yourself but overall you just know yourself.  You just don't understand what a gift that is.  There are adults I know that don't know themselves as much as you do at just sixteen.  It's pretty wondrous really.

You're also stubborn and will fight for the last word, talk over people to get your way and find it hard to say sorry sincerely - but at the same time you're incredibly generous, will put yourself out to help someone who needs it and reflect upon things with genuine regret and learn from your mistakes.  It's a mass of contradictions but it's you working life out.

I had a dream last week that you fell pregnant and I woke up in a genuine distressed panic and in the dream your Dad said 'but we love babies' and I was like 'Noooo.  No. No. No. No. NO.  She has PLANS.   She's going to travel, she wants to live a full life first, she's got things to DO.'

When I told you about this dream you giggled and then became concerned for my distress and came over and gave me a hug and a kiss and said 'Don't worry about it Marmite, I would never do that to you'.  To which I said 'Don't worry about me, don't do that to YOU'.

I guess that dream was a bit of my adjusting to you growing up and making your own choices and my dreams for you to have a full life like you want.

You have a good head on those shoulders, and I appreciate how open you are about your thoughts, feelings, what's going on in your life and your concerns.  To me this is a gift you give me.   I in return give you my implicit trust because I have no reason to not trust you until you breach that trust and so far so good :)

Anyhow, birthday parties still leave me exhausted and yours was tiring but I loved that we made some of your ol' favourites lolly bobble bliss bombs,  rocky road and a new favourite amongst your friends warm pizza dip.     Today for your actual birthday the repeated request of Victoria Sponge was adhered to and delivered :). I hope even when you're a grown up I can still make you some of your favourites...





But I'm not writing off the rest of your childhood and time at home just yet.  I'm savouring these last years with you with us and Covid-19 for all it's tragedy, has given us many gifts - more family time and I love that we're the 'fab-five' again rather than people who all live and eat together sometimes in between rushing off to this and that.   It's been wonderful.

Anyhow, I don't want to ramble on, but I wanted to mark this occasion with something that would at least mean something to me.  Happy birthday my 5ft 11 Amazonian baby.   I celebrate you today and always.

For posterity I also decided to add pics from your birthdays since 11... don't hate me..

11th - Dinner at Shangri-La Sydney

Last birthday in primary school - 12 - Victoria Sponge makes another appearance like it did at 8..

Happy birthday Teenager and first year of high school.  Yes, it's Victoria Sponge!

Fourteen, I couldn't get a pic of you with your cake without your phone in it, but it was a sponge cake with buttercream...!

15th birthday, Dark Chocolate cake with dark chocolate ganache..

Apple, Custard and Cinnamon Tea Cake

With kids going back to school next week, I'm feeling a bit anxious.  I think it's partly just part of releasing my precious frills to the risks, which hopefully are low.  Some of it is probably a bit of separation anxiety, I will just miss having several touch points with them a day and lastly I think it also means that the 'going back to norm' means it's getting more likely I'll have to wear work clothes and not slippers every day and I'll be braving commutes to and from work in a nearish future.   It's just change, and there's always adjustments..

So I'm getting in some home-baking whilst I can.  My work schedule is chaotic but I quickly whipped this up and put it in the oven in a small break between meetings and it does take 1.5 hours to cook so worked well into my schedule.

Smells amazing too whilst it's cooking - I mean seriously is there nothing better on a cold day at home than beautiful smells coming from your kitchen?

I adapted this recipe from taste.com.au  They use coconut and no cinnamon in theirs.  But you know me... cinnamon... mmmmmm......

You have some choices - stew your own apples or buy tinned apples (I keep them in the pantry to have with yoghurt) buy custard or make your own (I made mine in the thermomix in 8 mins) . swap out the apples for pears, peaches, apricots....  apricot and coconut would be delish....

Ingredients:
150g butter softened
2/3 cup caster sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups self raising flour
1 1/2 cups milk
1 cup custard
2 cups (400g) stewed apples
1 tsp ground cinnamon

Method
Preheat oven to 160 degrees c

Grease and line tray (I used a square tin) with baking paper

Cream your butter with sugar - if your butter isn't softened, grate it... (confuse your kids that you are making cake with cheese) .




and then add your eggs and vanilla.  Don't be concerned if it looks like this.



Remove from your mixer and spoon in 1 cup of flour and stir through.     Then add 3/4 cup milk and combine.



Do another cup of flour and the rest of the milk, then the last half cup of flour.  Your batter is ready.







































Spoon half your batter into the pan, spread into the corners.

Add half your apple and all your cinnamon, then half the custard.







































Add rest of your batter and then apple and custard on top, spread it to the corners.






































Pop into the oven for 90 minutes.

Remove - let cool..for about 15 minutes (or as long as you like it's nice warm or cold)





Lash it lovingly with custard or eat it on its' own!

Maurices fruit bread

Good ol Covid-19 and working from home has brought some unexpected and pleasant surprises.  In fact I'm probably one of the few who is actually quite happy with the situation of working from home and not going out too much.  I'm grateful for the dinners I get to spend at home with my frills and hubby, the ten-pace commute to my office and the fact that I can blog!

The other cool thing about it all is that I"m interacting with my colleagues in new and interesting ways.  I'm very lucky to work in an organisation that has a healthy and nurtured culture where caring for the employees is not just a catch-phrase - it is how it works.   As a leader in our business I'm fiercely protective of that... anyhoo we're pretty active on slack and we use Zoom like the rest of the world but we think nothing of people needing to 'duck out for a few hours to kid-wrangle' and at times we even get guest appearances by the kids too!   I love it.  We're all accepting we're human.

I started a cooking slack channel too and it's going gang-busters!  I love seeing what other people are cooking and with our diverse workforce there are some amazing curries, rice dishes and sweets... it's sometimes a bit distracting though if you're hungry...

This recipe is one such recipe - shared by my colleague Maurice - he shared a pic of his bread and I had to and I mean HAD TO have the recipe.. and he thankfully shared, and now I'm sharing it with you !

It takes some time but it's very little effort - no kneading and I popped it on in the morning and went about my day.   House smells amazing!

Ingredients:

3 cups plain flour

1 tsp salt

1.5 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp dry yeast

1.5 cups warm water

1/2 cup pumpkin seeds

1/2 cup sunflower seeds

cup chopped mixed dry fruit - I've used dates, raisins, cranberries and figs

Method:

Start with your flour and add salt and cinnamon.   In a separate bowl or jug add yeast to warm water.

Add sunflower and pumpkin seeds

Chop up your fruit.

Add fruit to the flour and mix well ensuring your fruit isn't stuck together.

Add your yeasty water.

Mix it together with a spoon or your hands.   Don't be too concerned if it's wet, it's meant to be.  Put in a warm place for 3 hours it will roughly double in size.   At the two hour mark, heat your oven to 230 degrees c and pop your dutch oven or heavy lidded oven proof pot into the oven with the lid on.

It will be a bit fluffy after the three hours.

Pour out onto floured surface and shape into a ball.  Do not knead.

Pop the dough onto some baking paper and place into the hot dutch oven, then return to the oven and drop the heat to 200degrees c and bake for 30 minutes with the lid on.

After that 30 minutes, take the lid off and bake for an additional 30 minutes.

Lastly, take the bread out of the dutch oven, put onto flat tray and back into the oven for a last 15 minutes then place on bench to cool.

Cheat’s no-fail waffle and pancake mix

Waffles are a bit of a treat around here - and whilst I'm happy if if I've got time to make them from scratch, I've got lazy and made this mix recipe a while back and I now keep it in a separate container and the kids can then make their own (they make too much mess the long way) and they can also use it for pancake short-cut.

Waffles are perfect every.single.time.

Ingredients for the make-ahead mix:

6 cups plain flour (1 actually do 3 cups wholemeal and 3 cups plain but up to you)

1 cup icing sugar

2 cups cornflour

6tb baking powder

2 tsp salt

1 vanilla pod

Store in an airtight container

To make up waffle mix (makes about 6 waffles)

2 1/3 cup mix

1 1/2 cups milk

2 eggs

1/4 oil

If you want to make up pancakes (the frills do this not me)

2 cups mix

1 1/2 cups milk

1 egg

Instructions:

Mix the ingredients together with a whisk, gently first then when it's mixed through then give it a good beat.

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The consistency should be like thick batter but it should still drip.  If it doesn't drip easily add some water and keep beating through.

Heat your waffle iron, if you don't have one, they are very inexpensive.  I bought this one years ago for I think about $25.   Kmart have them these days I believe..

Pour your batter into the centre of your iron, I do mine with a cup measure, it should start spreading but you can give it a little coax with the back of your measuring cup.

spread butter or spread but whatever you like on top - whilst I like real maple, these queen ones are popular at our house - much less sugar,  and come in regular, apple cinnamon maple and blueberry maple..