Category Archives: Sweets

Time for a Little Something presents Sweet New Zealand

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Time for a Little Something is hosting Sweet New Zealand this month, so get your entries ready! Alessandra Zecchini started this monthly event in 2011. Sweet New Zealand is about New Zealand food bloggers getting to know each other, finding new blogs, and of course, sharing sweet recipes!

If you’d like to enter, follow the details below. I’ll do a round-up of all entries at the end of May. Looking forward to seeing everyone’s creations!

Sweet New Zealand

1 This blogging event is open to all bloggers living in New Zealand and Kiwis living and/or blogging overseas. This is not a competition and there are no prizes or winners: it is just a way for Kiwi bloggers to connect and share recipes.

2 You can take part with anything sweet: cakes, fruit salads, biscuits, slices, desserts, ice creams, drinks…You can write a new recipe or send the link for an old recipe, up to you. Multiple entries are also accepted and welcomed.

3 Make sure your entry contains the phrase Sweet New Zealand, the banner (choose your own size, just right click on the badge above and download the image to your computer), a link to the host (my homepage, Time for a Little Something), and to this post (so please update your old posts, if necessary).
4 Send your entry to timeforalittlesomething@hotmail.co.nz by 31 May and please include:
• Your Name
• Your Blog Name and URL
• Your Post URL (and name of the recipe if it isn’t in the post title)
• A photo (not too large)
I look forward to hearing from y’all!

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!

Waitangi at Waitangi

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Well, not quite Waitangi Day at Waitangi. But we were there over the long weekend.

It seemed a long way to go for such a short visit, but we were catching up with some very dear friends who were only around for a short while, so we gate-crashed their holiday. They didn’t seem to mind too much.

We stayed in a camping ground. The cheat’s way, though, in a little cabin that was like a caravan cemented into the ground. Those that know me will be surprised to read that it totally got me enthused about embarking on a real camping trip. I got up early and went for a walk and couldn’t help but think the hardy folk eating beautiful breakfasts on little fold out tables had the right idea about holidays.

I think I could only handle a couple of days, but the fella and I think we’ll give it a whirl sometime. And when we do, I think Paihia would be a great spot for it.

We had a good look around the town. I loved the little stone church with its beautiful timber features inside.

(Of course I obeyed the sign protecting the floorboards).

I also came across Get Fudged, a cafe/bakery/fudge and lolly shop in the main town (I think you can also visit their factory in Kerikeri.

We picked up some salted licorice, lemon toffees, and we put together a little box of fudge pieces, so we could try as many flavours as possible… I think my favourite was rum & raisin. But maple walnut and russian caramel came close.

There’s only one meal appropriate for a day at the beach in the Bay of Islands during a long weekend.

And how about this cute book sale?

Following fish and chips for lunch, I nearly bought this…

We had a lovely weekend, and I’m looking forward to visiting again. Maybe in a tent. Maybe.

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!