Recipe Thirty Four: Viennese Orange Kisses

It has been the best long weekend.

Miss MT came to stay.

We played with the dog, braided our hair, sewed a Totoro, played some more with the dog, watched movies, hung out in the hammock, wiggled our toes in the grass, went bowling...

and we also made Viennese Orange Kisses.

Viennese Orange Kisses

• 220 g butter
• ½ cup icing sugar
• The finely grated rind of one large orange
• 1 tablespoon cornflour
• 1 cup plain flour
• ½ cup self raising flour
• icing sugar , extra

Orange Cream

• 60 g butter
• 1 cup icing sugar
• 2 tablespoons orange juice from your now rind-less orange,
• orange food coloring

Preheat oven to 180C

Cream butter, sifted icing sugar and rind till fluffy, Add cornflour and beat in well. Add sifted flours 1/2 at a time beating well between each addition.

Place dough in the fridge for 5 minutes.

Roll the dough between two sheets of baking paper until 4mm thick and then return to the fridge for another five minutes.

Cut heart shapes and remove excess dough. Bake for 8 minutes.

Make your orange cream by beating the butter until pale, add the icing sugar, juice from your orange and food colour and beat until combined

Sandwich cookies together in pairs with orange cream filling, dust with icing sugar.

*I wasn't able to get my hands on Mum's cookbook so I used the same recipe from HERE.

xx

Recipe Thirty Three: Pear, Almond and Coconut Crumble.

It's no secret I am far from a fan of summer.

I could give you a list of reasons as long as my arm but instead I'll keep it short & give you the most relevant:

Winter food is better.

When Tuesday arrived with some ever so slightly wintery conditions I was pretty thrilled and immediately grabbed my umbrella and headed out. On my travels I picked up some typically 'wintery foods' namely: casserole beef and pears.

On the flip side my body also noticed the suddenly cooler, wetter temperatures and immediately gave me a slighty fever, aching bones and terrible asthma. Go figure.

Anyhow, I made a stew (more about that tomorrow) and finished it off with this amazing Pear, Almond and Coconut crumble. A perfect way to greet grey whether and an oncoming flu!

Pear, Almond and Coconut Crumble

4 ripe pears, cored and sliced.
1 tablespoon of caster sugar.

1/2 cup of rolled oats
1/4 cup of shredded coconut
1/4 cup of flaked almonds
1/4 cup of brown sugar
3 tablespoons of plain flour
1 tablespoon of cinnamon
1 tablespoon of demerara sugar
60gms of butter, slightly softened.


Pre-heat your oven to 180C
Place your pears in the bottom of an oven proof dish. Sprinkle with the caster sugar.
In a large bowl combine all other ingredients but butter.
Now rub in your butter. The best way I can describe this action is that you push the mixture between the pad of your thumb & along the pads of your other fingers.
Once your mixture is full of small clumps pile it onto of your pears and bake for 20 minutes.
Serve with custard or ice-cream.

xx

Leap Day Food Resolutions

I have been cooking, I promise.
It's just I have been doing something I should be avoiding. I've been being just a little lazy but that laziness means I'm not expanding my recipe knowledge or file.

I've been sucked in by recipe bases. I know they have their place eg. Monday night or when you're not writing a blog about expanding your recipe knowledge...

But I have been using them all week.

I look at the ingredients and I think: 'I just paid $2.50 for a few tablespoons of corn flour & spice mix.'

So this brings me to my first food resolution:

No.1 No more recipe bases, well not for a while.

No. 2
Stop neglecting the blog.

Number three comes about because I believe I am following number two. I don't want to post 4 sweet things in a row or a week of just cookies. However in my heart I am a baker and therefore:

No. 3
I will bake as much as I feel like.

The pictures on this post are of a stir fry I cooked last night. I don't really think stir fry counts as a recipe if you are using a jar sauce and what ever veggies are on their way out in the bottom of your crisper...

I'm hoping to have a beef stew and pear crumble recipe up in the next two days.

xx