Cake (Fail) Wednesday

Nothing like the idea of a cosy winter afternoon whipping up a batch of warm, cinnamony scrolls to enjoy with a steaming cuppa. Nothing like the whiff of "burnt!" wafting through the kitchen to shatter your comforting Nigella-illusions.  They turned out more like rock cakes without so much cake in it *sad face* . But as consolation, the dough was delicious (use cinnamon and choc chips as the comments suggest) and I'm going to try again tomorrow, on a slightly lower heat. Or, I might just make the dough again and eat that.

Apple & Sultana Scrolls

(quite obviously, that is not my picture)

Ingredients

Melted butter, to grease
300g (2 cups) self-raising flour
100g (1/2 cup) caster sugar
1/4 tsp mixed spice (cinnamon!)
60g chilled butter, cubed
125ml (1/2 cup) milk
65g (1/3 cup) sultanas (or a handful of choc chips)
Plain flour, to dust
1 large (about 200g) granny smith apple, peeled, cored, coarsely grated

chocolate icing
45g (1/4 cup) icing sugar mixture
1 tbs cocoa powder
1 tbs milk

Method

Preheat oven to 200°C (nooo! don't! remember the oven gets over-excited and doesn't need to be so hot!). Brush a baking tray with melted butter to lightly grease.


Place flour, sugar and mixed spice in a large bowl. Use your fingers to rub in the butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Make a well in the centre and add the milk and sultanas. Use a round-bladed knife in a cutting motion to mix until evenly incorporated and the mixture just comes together. Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface and gently knead for 2 minutes or until smooth.


Use a lightly floured rolling pin to roll out dough into a 25 x 30cm rectangle. Sprinkle with apple. Starting from the long side, firmly roll dough into a log. Trim the ends (and eat them. Yummm). Cut crossways into twelve 2cm thick slices. Arrange scrolls cut-side up, side by side on prepared tray.


Bake in oven for 30 minutes or until golden and cooked through. Remove from oven and transfer to a wire rack. Set aside for 10 minutes to cool.


Meanwhile, to make the chocolate icing, combine the icing sugar and cocoa powder in a small bowl. Add the milk and stir until combined and smooth.


Drizzle scrolls with chocolate icing and serve immediately.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's results. If it's a fail, I'm sticking to failsafe apple muffins and nothing else.

Apple Muffin Awesomeness

And they're "reduced-fat"! If you remember the reduced-fat milk, that is. Anyway, we whipped these up the other day, and they were seriously delicious. So delicious, I haven't gotten around to posting the recipe on my baking blog yet. But here it is, just for you Frockers:

(from Taste)

Cooking Time

35 minutes

Makes
6

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
50g polyunsaturated margarine
1/2 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup reduced-fat milk
1 egg, lightly beaten
425g can pie apple, coarsely chopped
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
2 teaspoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons toasted oats (I didn't bother with these, didn't have any in the pantry and not going to buy a pack just for this! Economy, people...)
low-fat vanilla ice-cream


Method

Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease 6 x 3/4-cup capacity Texas muffin holes or 12 x 1/3-cup capacity holes.


Sift flour into a large bowl. Using your fingertips, rub in margarine until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in sugar. Combine milk, egg and 1 cup pie apple. Stir into flour mixture (don't overmix batter - it should still look lumpy).


Spoon mixture into pan. Finely chop remaining pie apple. Spoon over muffins. Combine nutmeg, sugar and oats. Spoon over muffins.

Bake muffins for 30 to 35 minutes for 3/4-cup capacity muffins or 20 to 25 minutes for 1/3-cup capacity muffins or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Serve muffins warm with ice-cream.

Light and fluffy and sweet and almost healthy. Much like a Jennifer Aniston movie.

What's In The Pantry?

Here's a website that may take over from Taste as my go-to when MIL asks for a quick Greek Salad for the weekend family BBQ and all I have in the cupboard is SFA. Supercook is the work of a genius - just enter the products you have in the pantry, it gives you some recipes, and you don't need to skulk round Coles in your Ugg Boots looking for the right kind of pitted olives. I found this site thanks to The Showpony, and thanks to The Showpony I've been sitting here for half an hour putting all sorts of ridiculous combinations into Supercook to see what would happen, or if it would self-implode if I put in "bananas, sweet chilli sauce and couscous". (It didn't, weirdly it just suggested "Namibian Black Eyed Peas". Yum). If you're thinking your New Year's Resolution is going to be a combination of organising your pantry/buying less, wasting less/spending more time on amusing websites, give Supercook a go. It's handsdown more interesting than simply reading about 4 Ingredients.

Weekend Baking: Berry & Apple Tray Bake

Mmm, trays. No, seriously, I tried this scrummy concotion last weekend and it's totally worth the calories. I don't quite get the point of a 'July Picnic' but I do get the point of a warm, filling dessert with lashings of custard or a fresh dollop of cream on a cold wintery evening. It takes a while to make, but if it's a rainy, grey old day, a good baking sesh is more productive than, say, buying shoes online. Ahem. Anyway, courtesy of that wikipedia of recipes, Taste, here is delicious magazine's Berry & Apple Tray Bake:

Ingredients (serves 6)
300ml thickened cream, plus extra to serve
175g unsalted butter, chopped
3 eggs
2 cups (300g) plain flour
1 cup (220g) caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, thinly sliced, tossed with 2 tbs lemon juice
300g frozen mixed berries, thawed
Icing sugar, to dust
Blackberry or strawberry jam, to serve

Method
Preheat oven to 180°C. Lightly grease and flour a 32 x 22cm baking dish. Bring cream and butter to just below boiling point in a pan over medium heat. Cool slightly.
Using electric beaters, beat eggs with sugar until thick and pale. Slowly beat in cream mixture. Sift in fl our, then fold to combine with a metal spoon. Stir in vanilla, apples and berries, then pour into pan. Bake for 40 minutes or until golden and a skewer inserted in centre comes out clean. Take to picnic in pan, then serve with icing sugar, jam and extra cream.

Your hips won't thank you, but your lips sure will. Delicious, indeed!

Taste - no need to be a Masterchef

I am far too cynical to enjoy most reality TV, but Masterchef holds a scintillating charm - you have to admire people that can take a zucchini and an anchovy and turn it into a 3-course gastronomical delight. The judges aren't ridiculously critical and watching people cook delicious concotions makes entertaining telly without the need to resort to stories about perverts with erections (yes I'm talkin' about you, All Saints**). My brother in law would've been a serious contender for MC but he lives in Canada - a few Christmases ago, he put together the tastiest lunch in our little Edinburgh flat (yeah, he gets around) which was no mean feat considering all we had in the cupboard was rice, tinned peaches and Strepsils. Anyway, whether you are into cooking or not, you've probably seen or visited Taste.com.au , an online recipe resource combining recipes from several good food publications (including my current economic-hardship/domestic goddess mag of choice, Super Food Ideas . It's less than $3 and just makes you want to buy a pretty apron and bake all weekend!).

So, thanks to my new arsenal of cookery instruction, the past few weeks have seen truckloads of gourmet dishes gracing our dinner table. Some, like the roasted lemon chicken (above)have been a massive hit; others, like tonight's Cous Cous Tabouli Salad, almost got me voted out. Actually the salad was tasty, I just mucked up the cous cous (yes it is possible!) and it ended up, erm, mushy. Ew.

When you're cooking for a fussy 28 year old and a 3 year old who's favourite foods are broccoli and peanut butter (not together, as far as I know), many of the recipes here are fantastic for finding healthy, fast, affordable meals that get vegies/protein/other healthy things into them and have little waste. The recipe below is another winner courtesy of Taste and you can make enough for leftovers the night after, which quite frankly is of high importance to most of us - as much as cooking and nutrition are important, who wants to do it at the end of every day?! Enjoy...!

Chicken & Cheese Pasta Bake

Ingredients (serves 4)
1 x Basic roast chicken ingredients (see related recipe)
400g dried tortiglioni or rigatoni pasta
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 small red onion, finely chopped
500g jar tomato pasta sauce
2 cups grated mozzarella cheese
100g baby spinach leaves

Method

Follow steps 1 to 3 of Basic roast chicken recipe. Remove skin and meat from chicken. Discard skin and bones. Roughly chop flesh.

Preheat oven to 180°C. Cook pasta in a large saucepan of boiling salted water, following packet directions, until just tender. Drain. Return to saucepan.

Meanwhile, heat oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat. Add garlic and onion. Cook, stirring often, for 3 minutes or until tender. Add onion mixture, pasta sauce, chicken, 3/4 cup cheese and spinach to hot pasta. Season with salt and pepper. Toss gently until well combined.

Spoon pasta mixture into a 7cm deep, 24cm x 19cm (base) baking dish. Top with remaining cheese. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until golden and heated through. Serve.

**Not to put you off your dinner or anything, but apparently the guy in All Saints with his willy stuck in a chair after a vigourous sans-human partner humping sesh, got out safely. Phew.