Easy like Sunday morning.

Maybe it's just me, but a warm, baked breakfast is pretty much the best thing ever.  I do love to head out to a sweet little cafe for weekend breakfast, but when you can have these lovelies baked and ready to eat in less time then it would take you to get ready and get in the car, why would you?  The gorgeously sweet cinnamon scrolls went down a treat with my morning English Breakfast and were a lovely treat for my beautiful family. Weekend perfection.

Sweetest Cinnamon Scrolls

Scroll Dough

2 cups plain flour, sifted

2 tsp caster sugar

2 tsp baking powder, sifted

1 1/4 cups thickened cream

Filling

30g unsalted butter, melted

 2 tbsp brown sugar

2 tsp ground cinnamon

Icing

1/2 cup icing sugar, sifted

1 tbsp milk

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees celsius.  To make the dough, combine all your dry ingredients before mixing in the cream.  Knead the dough until nice and smooth before rolling it out into a large rectangle (about 3-4 cm thick) on a floured bench or silicone mat.  Use a pastry brush to distribute the melted butter over the rectangle of dough.  Combine the brown sugar and cinnamon and then sprinkle evenly over the top of the melted butter.  Leave a 1 centimetre edge free of cinnamon sugar on the long edge of the rectangle.  Roll from the other long edge of the dough to make a log.  Cut the log into 8 scrolls and place, swirl up, on a lined baking tray.  Give each scroll a little 'squish' to flatten them slightly.  Bake for 20 minutes or until just beginning to brown.  While scrolls are beginning to cool, make your icing by combining the icing sugar and milk.  Drizzle around a tablespoon of icing as artistically as you like over the top of each scroll.  Don't wait for these to cool before you tuck in!

F. x

Ultimate Brownie Points

One of the 'joys' of this pregnancy has been an absolute inability to consume chocolate without being violently ill.  That is, until now.  Thirty-two weeks pregnant and I can now safely eat, and enjoy, chocolate.  I think this little bit of background must give you a slight insight into the pure elation that was exploding from my kitchen (and heart) as I created this recipe!

I often cook brownies (using a range of different recipes) and dislike the eggy taste that the majority of them have.  Last week, I was very generously given a vintage cookbook from the beautiful mother of a close friend who knew that I would truly appreciate it!  This cookbook contained a recipe for brownies that intrigued me - it contained no actual chocolate, just cocoa.  I doubted that it would be the brownie of my dreams but gave it a go anyway.  And do you know, it wasn't that bad. In fact, it was pretty darn good. 

So the recipe that I share with you contains the elements of this darling 'vintage' brownie with elements of other brownie recipes (read: chocolate!) that I love.  Given that my husband has just made himself sick, eating three: I'm thinking it's pretty good!

Ultimate Chocolate Fudge Brownies

300g good quality dark chocolate, chopped

150g unsalted butter, chopped

330g dark brown sugar

3 eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

110g plain flour, sifted

140g white chocolate melts, chopped in half

120g sour cream

110g walnuts, roughly chopped

1 tbsp cocoa powder, for dusting

Preheat your oven to 170 degrees celsius and line a 25cm x 25cm slice or cake tin.  Melt chocolate and butter, either in the microwave or over a low heat on the stove.  Once melted, incorporate the brown sugar and vanilla.  Transfer into a mixing bowl and allow to cool for 10 minutes.  Add the eggs, mixing well after each addition.  Then stir in plain flour before adding sour cream.  Fold the white chocolate and walnuts through the batter.  Pour into your lined tray and use a spatula to spread and level.  Bake for 50 minutes.

Chocolate heaven,

F. x

Lovely lunchbox treats

How has it come around so fast?  Yes, it's back to school time again!  This means that I'm back to super-sonic organisation levels.  I prepare all of our baked goodies for the week on a Sunday.  This can include mini savouries for snacks or lovely little baked treats for morning or afternoon tea.  What I love about preparing these things in my own kitchen is that I know each and every ingredient that goes into them and am guaranteed to be feeding my darling family food that is free of the nasties that exist in most store-bought lunchbox items.  Plus, let's face it, homemade ALWAYS tastes better.

These Blueberry and Coconut Muesli Bars are the perfect addition to my lunchbox repertoire.  They are enough to give you that afternoon sweet boost, without overdosing on sugar.  One small bar is enough to fill you up and get you through your afternoon slump (with a nice cup of tea, naturally).  Even better, they've received the approval of everyone in my house, this afternoon!  They were a sinch to make - all mixed together in a matter of minutes - and you can easily substitute in other dried fruits or flavours.

Blueberry and Coconut Muesli Bars

4 cups rolled oats

1/4 cup plain flour, sifted

1/2 cup shredded coconut

1/3 cup brown sugar

140g dried blueberries

1/2 cup coconut oil, melted

1/2 cup honey

2 tbsp golden syrup

1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 160 degrees celsius and line a large slice tray (mine was 30cm x 30cm).  

Add all dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl and stir.  Separately, combine all wet ingredients.  Incorporate combined wet ingredients with dry ingredients and mix well.  Put mixture into your slice tin and press down evenly. Place into your oven for 50 minutes or until golden brown and crisping at the edges.  Allow to cool completely in tin before removing and slicing into bars.  Makes around 30 small bars.

I think it's time to pop the kettle on,

F. x

It's a date, darling!

How fantastically wonderful are dates?  They are versatile and so incredibly good for you.  Not to mention, sweet and 'caramelly' and decadent.  Today's recipe is brand new and incorporates - you guessed it - dates!  This Caramel Date Loaf is based on a very old recipe from one of my favourite 'research' cookbooks.  (Yes, my cookbooks have categories!)  It's called "Jim Fobel's Old-Fashioned Baking Book: Recipes from an American Childhood" and is an insightful reference to how it should be done.  We take so many short-cuts and use so many convenience ingredients, these days.  I think it's wonderful, when you have the time, to immerse yourself in baking and do it the 'right' way.  So with Jim as my inspiration, I've tweaked his Date Loaf recipe (from the coffee cakes chapter of the book) and it's fantastic!  My Caramel Date Loaf is dense, but not dry...sweet but not sickenly so....perfect to share with friends, or to slice and freeze to have a little every day, all for yourself.

Caramel Date Loaf

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup fresh dates, chopped

1 cup boiling water

80g unsalted butter

1 1/2 cups plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 egg

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees celsius and line a loaf tin.  In a bowl, dissolve sugar in water before adding the dates and butter.  Leave to soak for around 15 minutes.  Sift in your flour and baking powder and mix.  Stir in the egg and vanilla.  Pour your batter into the lined tin and bake for 50 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.  Allow to cool in the tin before transferring to a cooling rack. 

Caramel Glaze

1/2 cup brown sugar

50g butter

2 tbsp milk

1/2 cup icing sugar, sifted

Place the brown sugar, butter and milk in a saucepan over a low heat.  Cook, stirring, for a few minutes until the sugar has dissolved.  Continue to stir and allow to thicken slightly.  Remove from the heat, sift over icing sugar and beat to ensure no lumps.  Drizzle over the loaf while the loaf is still warm.

F. x

Peachy keen.

There isn't a meal better than afternoon tea.  It's perfection.  Not a super heavy meal, usually of the sweet variety (my favourite), involving rather large amounts of chatter, and it's completely acceptable for it to go on for more than a few hours.  This week, I baked this fabulously light cake in the morning for an afternoon tea catch-up with friends.  It has a consistency much like a tea cake and the lemon comes through to save it from being overwhelmingly sweet.  

Lemony Peach Cake

175g unsalted butter, softened

165g caster sugar

3 tbsp lemon rind, finely grated

3 eggs

150g plain flour, sifted

1 tsp baking powder

70g natural yoghurt

2 peaches, sliced

Preheat your oven to 160 degrees celsius and line a 25cm round, springform tin in readiness.  Beat together the butter, sugar and lemon rind until light and creamy.  Gradually mix in the eggs, one at a time.  Add your flour, baking powder and yoghurt, stirring until just combined (much like you would do with muffins).  Pour your batter into the prepared tin and even out the top with a spatula.  You now have two options for adding the peaches.  My preferred choice is to neatly arranged them on top in a circular formation.  Otherwise, you could take a more rustic approach and plop the peaches into the batter.  Both work well.  Bake the cake for 50-55 minutes until a skewer comes out clean.  Allow to cool before dusting with icing sugar and serving with whipped, thickened cream.

Happy afternoon tea-ing!

F. x

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas

After the craziness of the end of the school year, it's been lovely to be back at home with my family.  This basically means loud chatting, baking, copious cups of tea, shopping trips and lunches out.  I always take advantage of staying at my mother's house because she has two ovens...yes, two.  It's absolute heaven.  This necessity arose when I was a teenager and poor Mum would always have to compete to use her own oven.  She'd be wanting to cook dinner but we'd have a batch of something-or-other baking that just couldn't wait.  So the solution to that problem has served me well and I can have TWO different things baking at TWO different temperatures.....it's the best.

I only ever make biscotti at Christmas time.  Not sure why, exactly but it just feels right.  Biscotti, or biscotto, means "twice-baked" and this scrumptious, crispy little biscuit holds its own against a strong cup of coffee and loud family chatter.  I love this particular recipe because it's not too sweet.  The sugar, chocolate and roasted almond crunch complement each other perfectly.

Chocolate and Almond Biscotti

270g plain flour, sifted

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

30g dark cocoa powder, sifted

165g caster sugar

3/4 cup blanched almonds

3 eggs

2 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat your oven to 160 degrees celsius and line a flat baking tray.  Mix together the flour, baking powder, cocoa, sugar and almonds.  Add the eggs and the vanilla and combine to form a dough.  Your dough consistency can range between smooth and sticky depending on the size of your eggs, but don't add any more flour.

Divide the dough in two and lightly knead each piece on a floured surface until smooth - this won't take long.  Shape the logs and flatten slightly.  Place on your pre-prepared tray and bake for 35 minutes.  Remove from the oven and cool completely.

Use a serrated knife to cut the log into 5mm slices.  Place back onto your baking tray and bake for a further 15 minutes until your biscotti are crisp.

Happy baking,

F. x

Ultimate problem solving.

Let me set the scene...
Every Sunday, I bake for the week ahead.  What I bake will change from week to week except that I always bake a batch of biscuits for lunches and a sweet treat.  Those who know me well, know that in my life, routine is key and I do not like to deviate from my routines unless absolutely necessary.

Today, I had quite a dilemma.  After all of the week's baking, I didn't have enough butter to whip up a batch of bikkies! So I thought and I thought and I searched and I searched (just in case there was some more butter hiding in the nooks of the fridge where butter tends to hide).  After my thinking and much searching I was left standing in the kitchen with a block of Philly cream cheese.....lightbulb!

Here is the recipe for my Chocolate Chip 'Lightbulb' Cookies.  Oh, they are amazing.  These will be becoming a regular part of my Sunday bake routine!

Chocolate Chip 'Lightbulb' Cookies

120g unsalted butter

75g cream cheese, softened

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup caster sugar

 2 tsp vanilla extract

1 egg

1 tsp baking soda

2 tsp cornflour

2 1/4 cups plain flour

200g chocolate chips

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees celsius.  Cream the butter, cream cheese, sugars and vanilla.  When we//-creamed, mix in the egg.  Sift in the baking soda and flours.  Mix well and then give the dough a quick knead until smooth.  Use a spatula to incorporate the chocolate chips.  Roll into tablespoon sized balls and push to flatten a little.  Bake for 10-12 minutes until cooked to your liking.

Wishing you many a successful Sunday bake!

F. x