Category Archives: Gifts

Home-made Easter Eggs

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Easter is turning into my second Christmas with all sorts of things to try in the kitchen. Hot cross buns, Easter Biscuits (keep an eye out, I’ll post them), and today, Easter Eggs!

I tried these last year and fell in love with them! You need a bit of time to make them, and they do create a few dishes, but they’re actually really easy and very fun. And I imagine they’re super cool to make with kids.

The recipe below is for either strawberry or peppermint eggs, they’re my favourite so far, but you could experiment with flavours. I’ve been thinking about trying orange, caramel, mocha… or rum. Maybe not one for the kids.

Marshmallow is easy and very cheap to make at home; it’s one of those things you wouldn’t think to make yourself, but once you start you may never stop. So you just whip them up, shape into eggs, let them set and roll them in chocolate. I came across the method of shaping them by making your own egg ‘mould’ out of flour in a magazine last year, and it works really well for these.  Have fun!

Home Made Easter Eggs

Stuff you’ll need:

  • a couple of deep baking dishes or trays (you don’t need to bake anything in them, they just need to be 4-5cm deep and fit in your fridge).
  • a small egg (I used a small-ish size 6)
  • quite a lot of flour – probably a whole packet (1.5kg). You don’t actually use any flour, just borrow it – you can tip the lot back into the packet when you’re done.
  • an electric beater. My trusty kenwood did the trick, or the hand held electric kind would probably be ok, but I wouldn’t recommend mixing by hand.

Ingredients:
¼ cup cold water
1 Tbsp gelatin
1 cup sugar
another ½ cup cold water
small squeeze lemon juice
½ tsp strawberry or peppermint essence
few drops pink or green food colouring
packet dark chocolate buttons (I like Nestlé)
1 tsp flavourless oil (rice bran, canola etc)

1. Time to make marshmallow. Put the first measure of cold water in a small ramekin or bowl. Sprinkle the gelatin over the top and put it to one side to let the gelatin swell. Put the sugar and second measure water in a medium saucepan, and stir over low heat until the sugar dissolves. Tip the gelatin mixture in and stir til that dissolves too. Increase the heat and get it boiling. Boil steadily for 5 minutes. Keep an eye on it as it has a tendency to rise up quickly. After 5 minutes, take off the heat and set it aside to cool.

2. While the gelatin’s boiling, fill the baking dish with flour. Take your size 6 egg and press it gently into the flour so you leave an egg-shaped impression. This is the mould you set the marshmallow in. I just press the egg in about a third of the way down – this means you end up with finished eggs about the size of bought marshmallow eggs. Your mould should look like this:

3. Back to the marshmallow. You only need to cool the gelatin for 3 or 4 minutes, then carefully pour it into the bowl of your mixer, and get it moving. Mix on high speed for a few minutes (5 or 6 I think), until it looks like pavlova mixture – thick, creamy, but still runny enough to pick up and dollop with a spoon. Kind of like this:

Add the small squeeze of lemon (or white vinegar would probably do the trick), essence and food colouring and beat again til it’s mixed through.

4. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into each egg hollow. When the tray’s full, pop it in the fridge. I leave mine to set for about half an hour, but longer would be fine too if you want to pop away and do something else.

5. Once you’re ready to coat the eggs in chocolate, gently melt the chocolate in a clean, dry bowl, and stir the oil through. Get a piece of baking paper ready on the bench. Gently pick each egg up – you’ll find you can easily handle it with your fingertips on the flour-y side of the egg. Gently brush off the excess flour, and roll the marshmallow in the chocolate to coat it. Use whatever works for you, I’ve settled on using two teaspoons. Leave your easter eggs on the baking paper to set (or put them in the fridge on a warm day), then try to make them last!

This is also my entry for Sweet NZ, a monthly food blogging event started by Alessandra Zecchini and hosted this month by Emma at My Darling Lemon Thyme.

Have a lovely weekend everyone!

Lolly Cake

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The forecasts were wrong! We had a beautiful day yesterday, and we’re not far into today, but it looks fine too! First load of washing is on so I’m keeping the faith it will be able to dry outside. Um, sorry, that is so boring. I take unnatural pleasure in being able to dry washing on the line. Sun and wind-dried clothes make my day. That’s the sad sort of creature I am.

Anyway. We went to a barbecue last week with loads of kids. I wanted to take some baking. But leafing through my book, most of my recipes are aimed at adults. I know kids eat most things, but this barbecue was such a kiwi summer type affair, I wanted to add a classic. Lolly Cake. I’m not sure that I’ve made this or even eaten it since I was a little girl.

I hesitate to even call this a recipe – I think it falls into the category of assembly instructions. There’s not hot stove or oven, or even sharp knives (cut the lollies with scissors), and it’s very easy to get right – so a great project to involve kids in.

I was a little short on fruit puffs, so added in a few dates. They were a little out of place but, hey, it’s just lolly cake. And I remembered after I made it that I had meant to put jubes in. I tried a rocky road recently with wine gums in it, and I loved the chewy. Note to self for next time. I guess what I’m trying to say is, you can put anything you like in here. Go for it.

Lolly Cake

125g butter, melted
1/2 can condensed milk (about 200g)
1 tsp vanilla
1 packet malt biscuits, crushed (about 250g I think)
150-200g fruit puff lollies (the hard marshmallow-y ones)
coconut, for rolling

Melt the butter, and mix in the condensed milk. If they’re not mixing easily, zap them in the microwave for 15 seconds or so (you shouldn’t need to at this time of year). Stir in the vanilla, crushed biscuits and lollies and mix it all up together.

Now comes the sticky bit. Roll the biscuits into a log. I find it easier to make 3 or 4 logs, and I make them fairly small (probably 4-5cm in diameter). There is nothing vaguely redeeming about that ingredient list, so stick to small pieces of lolly cake (plus, wee pieces suit wee fingers).

Roll the logs in coconut, making sure you cover all sides. Wrap the logs in cling film and leave in the fridge to chill. You’ll need to chill them for at least a few hours, overnight is best. Then just cut the logs into slices and voila. The kids (and actually, the grown-ups) at the barbecue will love you for it.

Christmas Fruit Mince Pies

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Judging from the comments on my Christmas Cake posts (I and II), not everyone enjoys dried fruit! So maybe fruit mince pies don’t hold a universal following.

For those who are fans, here’s my recipe for these little pies. I keep them in the freezer and just defrost them when we want to have them with a cup of tea. If you do have the time to make them from scratch, they make beautiful gifts. Last year I gave someone a dozen; he later told me he ran a blind tasting with his family, pitting home made pies against shop bought – home made won hands down.

You can ‘lid’ these pies any way you want to. I like little stars (I’ve also tried other shapes like hearts; nothing seems to work quite as well as stars), others like to do lattice tops, or others still like a full round lid, maybe with a glacé cherry on top. Let yourself be consumed by this ancient question and choose a favourite.

I used to make these mince pies with my mum when I was a teenager. This is our family fruit mince recipe. It doesn’t use suet, so you don’t have to cook it – just whiz it in the food processor and you’re done. We’ve always used the Neenish Tart pastry recipe from the Edmonds book. It suits fruit mince really well; it’s nice and sweet – but doesn’t crumble when you bite into it, spilling fruit mince all down your front. Handy.

If you can be bothered, doubling the pastry recipe is a great idea. I doubled it, and made as many fruit mince pies as I had mince to fill, then just baked the other cases empty. You can freeze the cases, and use them later for lemon tarts (fill with lemon curd, top with a fresh raspberry), caramel tarts (fill with caramel, ice with chocolate icing), or last year I made Neenish Tarts (following the Edmonds recipe). If you’ve got the cases in your freezer you can assemble a batch of filled tarts in 10 minutes. Handy.

Fruit Mince

I can’t recall how much this recipe makes; I think 2-3 cups. Certainly enough for 2-3 dozen mince pies.

1 lemon, rind and juice
1 orange, rind
1 cup brown sugar
2 apples, cored and cut into large pieces (leave unpeeled)
2 cups sultanas
2 cups mixed fruit (use chopped dried fruit of your choice, or cake fruit mix)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp finely grated nutmeg (fresh is best, if you have it)
½ tsp ground cloves
1 tsp salt
¼ cup rum, brandy or whiskey – or use orange juice if you prefer

Place the orange and lemon rind in the processor with the brown sugar, and whiz until finely chopped and mixed. Add the apple, lemon juice, and half of the sultanas and mixed fruit. Whiz until the apple is finely chopped, then add the remaining sultanas and fruit, spices, salt and rum/brandy/whiskey/orange juice, and whiz again, just until everything is combined.

You can use this straight away for mince pies (see below), or refrigerate or freeze for later use. There are other uses for Christmas fruit mince – you can bake filo pastry parcels filled with fruit mince for dessert, there are a few recipes for Christmas fruit mince muffins, or you could make festive cinnamon buns or a wreath of bread with fruit mince spread through the dough.

Pastry Cases
from the Edmonds Cookery Book‘s Neenish Tarts recipe

I doubled this recipe, and had enough for 4 dozen standard sized tart cases (half of those filled and topped with stars, half empty, lid-less and destined for the freezer), plus a dozen mini fruit mince pies (also topped with stars). The mini size is nice, and a shade more elegant for guests.

125g butter, softened
½ cup sugar
1 egg
2 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
pinch salt

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (I run the cake mixer for about 5 minutes). Add egg and beat well. Sift flour, baking powder and salt, and mix into the butter mixture, stirring well. Turn the mixture out onto a lightly floured board and knead well. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill for at least 15 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180°. Lightly grease a muffin tin – standard or mini size. Roll the pastry out to 2-3mm thick. Cut out rounds with the appropriate sized cutter, and gently line the muffin holes with pastry rounds. Prick the bases once or twice with a fork.  If you’re baking empty shells for future life as a Neenish tart, pop them in the oven for about 12 minutes, until cooked and light golden.

If you’re making fruit mince pies, fill the uncooked, pricked bases with fruit mince. Cut out small stars from the pastry and use them to top the mince pies – or cut out rounds to make lids, or strips to make lattice tops; whatever floats your boat. Filled mince pies will take 20-25 minutes to bake, also at 180°.

UPDATE: This is also my entry for December’s Sweet NZ, hosted this month by Bron Marshall. The event was started up by Alessandra Zecchini (details available here).

Favourite Shortbread

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OK, today I’m going to keep it short and sweet. Oh God. This is a post about shortbread. I told myself to avoid using puns on my blog at all costs. Groan.

This is our family shortbread recipe. It has never failed me. It’s buttery and has the best texture ever. We also have a variation featuring custard powder – that’s yummy too. I think the trick to lovely shortbread is to bake it really slowly and to keep a close eye on it near the end of cooking time. There’s a short window between beautiful pale perfectly cooked shortbread and golden brown crispy meh.

Shortbread makes a gorgeous gift, specially at Christmas time. People always say they love shortbread but haven’t had it for ages when I give them a batch. I always think my favourite homemade biscuit might be shortbread. Then I remember all my other ‘favourites’. Afghans. Belgian Biscuits. Chocolate Chippies. Gingernuts. Melting Moments. Lebkuchen. Anzac Biscuits. I won’t try to fight it. I can’t choose. They’re all winners on the day.

We used to have lots of biscuits at home growing up – more than cakes or sweets. I keep meaning to revive some of the forgotten ones, like rice crispies, sultana biscuits and coconut clusters (did anyone else have those?). What are your favourites?

Shortbread

8 oz butter, softened
4 oz icing sugar
12 oz flour
2 Tbsp cornflour

Preheat the oven to 150°(c) and line 1-2 baking trays with baking paper.

Lots of people use food processors for mixing shortbread; I use my Kenwood cake mixer. Sift the dry ingredients and place in the mixing bowl with the butter. Mix well – it might look a bit crumbly but leave the beater running a minute, it will be fine.  You can also mix by hand.

Tip the mixture out onto the bench and knead it a little; it should come together nicely. I roll my dough into two long square logs, 4cmx4cm, and cut into 5-7mm thick slices with a sharp knife. Shortbread pieces with cut edges (rather than the ends of the logs) are always the best, so I shave the ends off as thinly as possible. Someone usually eats those mixture scraps before they get to the oven. But when I bake any kind of biscuits, I make a tiny deformed one with whatever scraps of dough are left, and then I’m allowed to eat that one warm out of the oven. Silly rule I know, but sometimes it’s the little things that keep you going.

Set the little 4x4cm squares onto the baking trays (they don’t spread so don’t worry about leaving acres of space in between). I prick my slices twice with a fork diagonally (see picture) but each family has their own quirks, so don’t mess with how your grandma makes it!

Bake the shortbread for about 30 minutes, one tray at a time if you can. Start checking after 25 minutes. The shortbread shouldn’t change colour, they’ll just be changing from creamy to very pale golden when they’re done. The bottoms are usually a little more golden, that’s a good way to check.

Cool on a rack and store in a tin or container. Shortbread keeps really well and is probably the best freezer of all the biscuits I know. Voila! In case you’re wondering, the swan below serves no useful, meaningful or symbolic purpose. I just kind of like it.

Father’s Day Special

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Tomorrow is Father’s Day. We don’t really do big gifts on father’s and mother’s days in our family; I usually do a wee jar of jam or lemon curd for Mum in May, but Father’s Day always foxes me. I usually end up with a card and a box of Nestlé scorched almonds for Dad. And I’m always determined to find something better the next year.

Dad’s in fact away on holiday this year, so I’ll send him this belatedly, but I wanted to do something different! So I decided on scorched almonds again… but home made scorched almonds!

I saw these in a NZ House & Garden magazine a few months ago, and gave them a whirl. They were really easy (if a bit time consuming) and look très impressive. These are two qualities I like finding together. And they make a nice handmade option for Dads.


Home Made Scorched Almonds, from NZ House & Garden Magazine

200g dark chocolate buttons or melts (I used Nestlé, would NOT recommend getting a budget brand here)
¼ cup cream
1 teaspoon brandy or rum
whole roasted almonds (either plain or salted are good; if you buy a 150g bag you’ll have plenty)
About 250g chocolate buttons or melts for coating the almonds – dark, milk or white, you choose.

Melt the first measure of dark chocolate and cream together in a saucepan over a gentle heat, stirring until smooth and glossy. Stir in the brandy or rum* and leave to cool and thicken – about two hours in the fridge.  If you’re in a hurry, pour the mix into a new, shallow bowl (which won’t be hot like the saucepan) which might speed things up. You want it stiff enough to handle and mould around the almond – should look like this:

So to ‘fill’ the almonds, get a blob of about a teaspoonful sitting on the edge of a teaspoon, and press the almond into the middle (like the photo below). Roll to enclose the almond, or mould it around with your fingers, and roll it a little to make it egg-y shaped and smooth. Use the first four or five almonds to get the hang of this! It will help if you keep your hands cold; I rinsed my hands under cold water after every second or third almond, and patted  them quickly with a tea towel – but didn’t get them bone dry. That seemed to work! Then chill the filled almonds for another 2-3 hours or overnight. Again, if you can’t be bothered waiting that long I guess you could try freezing them.

Melt the last measure of chocolate. For coating things in chocolate, I always find it easiest to fill a big heatproof bowl with very hot water, and then place another clean, DRY bowl to sit in the mouth of the jug. You don’t want the base of the bowl to touch the water, so rummage around in your cupboard and find a pair that works well. Then put the chocolate in the dry bowl on top, and let the steam from the bain-marie that you have built melt the chocolate. This means that the chocolate will stay melty while you’re using it, instead of starting to set again.

Dip the chocolate almond eggs into the melted chocolate and place on baking paper to set. I have a little swizzly spoon for coating things in chocolate, it was maybe $2 and well worth it. And it makes a nice swirly pattern!

I used dark chocolate to coat half my almonds, and dipped the other half in white chocolate. But the dark filled almonds still showed through and I thought it looked a bit naff. So I used the leftover dark chocolate to improve them:

This mixture made about 50-60 almonds, but I think House & Garden used more filling and made bigger (but fewer) almonds, so just shape them as you like. I’ve got them in the freezer and just pull a few out at a time and I imagine they’ll keep for at least a couple of weeks.

In terms of personalising further, trying salted chocolate on these would be interesting. I used unsalted almonds but maybe using salted ones would have a similar effect!

*I think the rum is there for texture rather than taste; but if you wanted to use liqueur to flavour them, I’m sure it would work. If it was something like Bailey’s I’d reduce the amount of cream accordingly.

Happy Father’s Day!

Lemon & Ginger drink syrup

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A few weeks ago I went to a class at Wellington’s Handmade 2011 on preserving. Anna Kelly taught a great class in making jam, infused olive oil and this delicious drink syrup. It is really easy and takes hardly any time at all. A pretty bottle of this syrup would make such a great gift! And between you and me, a hot drink made with this syrup and a wee dash of whiskey is perfect on winter evenings.

Anna Kelly’s Lemon & Ginger Elixir

3 large lemons, juice and grated rind
25g fresh ginger, grated. You don’t even have to peel it!
750g white sugar
1/2 Tbsp citric acid
2 cups boiling water

Place all ingredients into a large heatproof bowl. Stir until the sugar dissolves, then cover and leave overnight. Strain the syrup through a sieve lined with cheesecloth. Pour into sterilised bottles or jars and seal.

Make a hot or cold drink with one part syrup to four parts water. I haven’t tried it but it would probably also be delicious poured lightly over muffins when they’ve just come out of the oven, to make a crunchy topping. Or in cocktails with mint and gin. Any other ideas?