Recipe Twenty Six: The Perfect Pancake.

It has been a busy week.

I have made pencil rolls for back to school, attempted to keep the house cool, failed, attempted to cook as much as possible without using heat, pretty much failed & didn't take photos...

I did however spend many hours taking photos for my Mum's upcoming book (she needed someone who would take payment of love, good coffee & free copies of family portraits), she has three days to her deadline and the pressure is on. You can see her progress and a couple of my pictures here.

Pancakes played a big part in my childhood.

They were one of those foods that Mum was happy to let us take on alone.

The one downside to an 8 year old making pancakes however:

 THE MESS!!!

I cant ever remember cleaning it up though.

My Dad and I also had the 6 month long 'Battle of the Best Pancake'.

I still maintain I won.

Pancakes:

2 Cups of SR Flour

1/3 Cup of Caster Sugar

1/4 Teaspoon of Bicarbonate Soda

1 1/2 - 1 3/4 cups of Milk

1 egg

More butter for greasing the pan.

Put your dry ingredients in a bowl and whisk them together.

Make a well in the centre.

Put egg and 1 1/2 cups of milk in there.

Start whisking the milk & egg and gradually bring in the dry ingredients from the edges.

Once everything is combined & smooth stick your batter in the fridge for 20 Minutes.

Heat a pan to medium ONLY.

Take your batter out of the fridge and give it a quick stir, if it is too thick mix in the remaining milk.

Melt a little butter in the pan so it covers the bottom.

Even if you are using a non stick pan please still used the melted butter it will give your pancakes a crisp outer like nothing else.

Pour mix into pan.

 I used about 1/3 of a cup for a decent 15cm diameter pancake.

Either by tilting the pan or a spatula, spread your mix out a little.

Wait until quite a few bubbles are appearing on the top of the batter before you turn your pancake over.

Cook for about 1/2 the time on the other side or until golden brown.

Continue from 'melt a little butter' until you are out of mix.

If you are making a huge batch and want to keep them warm set your oven to low and put them on a lined baking sheet in there whilst you finish off your remaining cakes.

And serve how ever you like...

Maple Syrup?

Nutella and Strawberries?

Cinnamon & Brown Sugar Butter?

Lemon and Sugar?

xx

Recipe Thirteen: Peanut Butter Crackle.

This slice is how I get my brother to mow our lawns.

I was actually considering making him a gigantic slab of this for Christmas.

 The only problem with that is if I had to keep it in my house for any extended period of time it would be eaten. 

I don't mean a small square here and there.

I would seriously sit and eat until it's ALL gone.

Anyhow, enough about my extraordinarily lacking will power.

Peanut Butter Crackle

1/2 a cup if Caster Sugar

1/2 a cup of Golden Syrup

1/2 a cup of Smooth Peanut Butter
3 cups of Rice Bubbles

100gms of Dark Chocolate to decorate.

Line a slab pan (20cm x 30cm)  a 25cm diameter round pan.

Stir sugar and golden syrup in a small pan over low heat until sugar has dissolved.

Add peanut butter and stir until dissolved.

Put your rice bubbles in a large mixing bowl and pour in the peanut buttery syrup.

Mic until combined and press into your pan.

Melt your chocolate and put into a zip loc bag. Snip off one of the corners and pipe lines of chocolate all over the top! .................This is until you realise you forgot to pick up chocolate from the store and there is no way on God's green earth that you are going anywhere near the shopping mall that is open for 36hrs straight, 3 days before Christmas. I do love my run-on sentences.

Refrigerate for an hour, cut into squares wedges and serve.

xx 

Recipe Nine: Mum's Lemon Slice

(I know it says recipe nine...and I just posted recipe twelve...seems there was no ninth recipe...so here is it's replacement!)

The secret ingredient in many of my favourite recipes is the memories they conjure up with your first bite.

This one says Christmas lunch with my Nan and Pa.

It says new bikes and hot days.

It reminds me of the days when all five or six of us  played together in the back yard.

Mum's Lemon Slice:

1/2 a cup of sweetened condensed milk

100gm of Butter

200gms of Granita Biscuits

1 Cup of dessicated coconut.

The Rind of one lemon, finely grated.

Lemon Icing

2 cups of Icing Sugar

40gms of butter

The Juice of the rindless lemon!

Grease and line a slab pan (15 X 25cm)

Put your butter and condensed milk in a small pan and melt together.

Put the biscuits in your food processor and process until you have fine crumbs

Pour these crumbs into a bowl and add 2 teaspoons of lemon rind and the coconut.

Add the hot butter mixture and combine.

Press this mixture into the base of your pan.

Refrigerate for an hour.

Make your lemon icing:

Place icing sugar, butter and 2.5 tablespoons of lemon juice into a small bowl.

Beat until smooth with a wooden spoon.

Spread over base, sprinkle with toasted coconut if you like and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Call in everyone who is playing in the backyard and serve.

xx

Recipe Eleven: Christmas Town

This post is part of the "Sweet Adventures Blog Hop' Festive Favourites.

Last year I was inspired to make Martha Stewart's "Gingerbread Town Square Cake".

That said when you look closely at the recipe and realise you're going to need three days, over 20 eggs and almost a kilo of butter it was easy to get disheartened about the whole thing. 

This year I decided to make the cake with the same basic premise, flavours and visual outcome minus the heart clogging, wallet emptying and time erasing process.

So here goes:

Gingerbread Facades:

2 1/4 cups of self raising flour

1 1/2 teaspoons of ginger

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

3/4 teaspoon of cloves

1/2 a teaspoon of nutmeg

95gm of butter

1/2 a cup of firmly packed brown sugar

1/4 cup of treacle

1 lightly beaten egg.

Process the flour, spices and butter until they look like breadcrumbs

Add the sugar, treacle and enough egg to bring the mix together

Turn onto a floured surface and knead until smooth.

Shape into a disk and refrigerate for 1hr. Pre-heat oven to 180C

Roll dough out between 2 sheets of baking paper until 3mm thick.

Cut out facade shapes (I found mine here)

Bake until just firm (8-10minutes)

Leave to cool completely & then ice with Royal icing.

Walnut Meringue Layers:

2 1/2 cups of walnuts lightly toasted.

1 1/2 cups of Pure icing suagr

1 cup of caster sugar

6 large egg whites.

Process your walnuts until fine.

Add icing sugar and 3/4 of a cup of your caster sugar.

Process to combine.

Whip your egg whites until soft peaks form.

Add remaining caster sugar one tablespoon at a time until dissolved.

Continue to beat until stiff glossy peaks form.

Fold walnut mix into the egg meringue.

Draw 3 18cm diameter circles on baking paper, turn the paper over and pipe out circles using the walnut meringue.

Bake for 2hrs, then stand in the oven with the door ajar for another hour.

Gingerbread Butter Cream

250gms of butter

3 cups of pure icing sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons of Ginger

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

1/2 a teaspoon of Nutmeg

Milk to texture.

Whip the butter until pale, gradually add icing sugar.

If your mix becomes to stiff add a splash of milk to bring it back to the right consistency.

Beat in spices.

Whip 250mls of Cream.

Assembly:

The layers are assembled like this:

Meringue, buttercream, meringue, buttercream, meringue.

Then using remaining butter cream, frost the edges as best you can and stick on your facades.

Put your whipped cream on the top of the cake and spread.

Sprinkle the cream with cinnamon and you're done!

MERRY CHRISTMAS

xx

Head over to 84th&3rd to join the hop!

Recipe Ten: Banana Bread

Me:

I want to post banana bread.

Sister:

That sounds good, everyone likes that.

Me:

It's just that...well...mashed banana in pictures...it looks like vomit...

Sister:

Maybe just don't point it out?

What you will need:

125gm of Butter

1.5 cups of Caster Sugar

3 large, over-ripe Bananas, mashed

2 Eggs

1 teaspoon of Vanilla

1/2 a cup of Sour Cream

1.5 cups of Self Raising Flour

1/2 a teaspoon of Bicarbonate Soda

2 Tablespoons of Demerara Sugar

Preheat the oven and grease and line a small-medium load tin.

Place butter, caster sugar, banana, egg & vanilla in the processor, process for 2 minutes or until well combined.

Add sour cream and process until combined.

Add flour & bi-carb and process again until just combined.

Pour the mix into the prepared pan and shake to settle.

Sprinkle with demerara sugar.

Bake for one hour.

Cool in the pan for 10 minutes and turn out.

And...Banana Bread!

xx

Recipe Seven: Party Meringues

When you are going to an event with a significant guest list under 10years (eg. The family Christmas get together)

things like Vietnamese cold rolls or Oysters never go down as well as when you take something made from sugar and food colouring...

Party Meringues

4 eggs whites, at room temperature

3/4 of a cup of caster sugar

2 teaspoons of cornflour

1 teaspoon of white vinegar

Food colouring

Sprinkles.

STEP ONE:

Preheat your oven to 100C

You want to whip your egg whites in a steel bowl until soft peaks form.

Next up you want to gradually add your sugar, making sure it has dissolved between each addition.

STEP TWO

Continue to beat until the meringue is thick and glossy and leaves big thick ribbons when you lift the beaters out of the mix. Whisk in the cornflour and vinegar.

STEP THREE:

Add pink food colouring to half of your mix.

You can then pipe out the meringues in beautiful little swirls or go for a more lazy rustic option by just spooning the same size heap fulls onto your baking sheet.

Add sprinkles.

Table spoon sized heaps with need 2hrs in your preheated oven and it's a good idea to switch your trays half way through.

When the meringues are ready they will sound hollow when you tap them.

Once out of the oven and cooled transfer them somewhere air tight until you are ready to bring them out. 

If they come in contact with any moisture you'll end up with a sticky, chewy mess

xx