Category: Sweet things

Chocolate and raspberry macaroon tarts

It is only recently that I have become confident enough to make my own pastry, rather than using premade bought pastry, and I am really looking forward to going to a pastry making class with Sarah Brigden soon to learn some more techniques, tips and tricks. For a lot of people though, the thought of making pastry from scratch is quite stressful. And I think cooking should be enjoyable, not stressful.

These tarts are a great alternative to a pastry dessert. Instead of a pastry base, they have a macaroon tart base, made from egg whites, coconut and sugar.

The end result is a beautiful macaroon tart base, which is crisp on the outside and chewy in the centre with a rich and creamy chocolate filling. The tartness of the raspberries cuts through the chocolate filling, making it fresher and lighter. I think this is a great alternative to a pastry dessert and a great dinner party dessert as it can be made ahead for stress free entertaining.

raspberry macaroon tarts

Click here for the recipe

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Raspberry crumble slice

The older I get, the faster time seems to move. Weeks, months and years are just flying by and there never seems to be enough time to do all the things I want to do.

I suddenly woke up this morning and remembered I needed to make something to take with me to a picnic this afternoon. That didn’t leave enough time to make my usual cupcakes, which need to be started the day before. So I decided to make this raspberry crumble slice. It is a great last minute recipe, as it uses ingredients that I usually have on hand in the house and doesn’t take too long to throw together. The rich, nutty, buttery shortbread base and crumble provide a great contrast to the fresh, tart raspberries and it is one of my favourite quick treats.Raspberry crumble slice
Click here for the recipe

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Lime and Raspberry Friands

The other day I was in the mood for baking something new, but not too complex. So I decided to make some friands. I pulled out my baking cookbooks to browse a few recipes for ideas (and method), and to my surprise there wasn’t a friand recipe in any of them.

So I jumped onto the internet and went straight to taste.com.au. A quick search later I had seven recipes to look through. I decided to try the lemon friand recipe (given my love for all baked things with citrus in them).

In writing this now, I stopped for a moment to think about why I keep buying cookbooks when there are so many recipes on the internet these days. I suppose the simple answer is I like looking through cookbooks, getting inspiration, new ideas and learning new things. I can find recipes, flavour combinations or cooking techniques I didn’t know existed. Whereas with the internet, I usually already know what I’m looking for, and am looking for different ideas and ways of doing things before I go off and try my own thing.

Okay, cookbook collection justified, back to the friands.

I decided I wanted to add some raspberries to my friands, so off I went to the shops to stock up on almond meal, frozen raspberries and some fresh lemons. I got everything else, but my local big chain supermarket didn’t have any lemons! They did however have limes so I decided to give the recipe a go with limes instead of lemons. I like using limes in my baking, as I think they have a more complex, sweeter citrus taste rather than the straight, strong tartness of lemons (which I also love) and I will often use both lemon and lime together when a recipe only calls for one or the other.

The friands themselves were quite simple to make and turned out well. Although I think I overfilled them so they were a bit bigger than they should be, and also meant I couldn’t serve them the right way with the pattern on top. I liked the combination of lime and raspberry, resulting in a fresh, sweet tartness that balanced well with the sweet and textured friand mix. I’m certainly going to make them again.

Lime and raspberry friands Click here for the recipe

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Nutella cookies

For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved to read. I think I’ve been a bookworm for as long as I’ve been able to read, and there are photos of me, only a few years old, reading to my brother when he was a baby. And others of me at only nine months old reading a book. Okay, at that point I was probably only looking at the pictures, but still, I liked my books. And I remember as a child, sneakily trying to get away with reading a book under my covers with a torch (I think that was probably about as rebellious as I ever got, trying to read after it was lights out time). And although I’ve previously stated that I read cookbooks like novels, I do like reading novels and my “go to” genre would have to be sci fi/fantasy.

A few months ago, a friend of mine recommended the A Modern Witch series by Debora Geary. It didn’t take me long to be hooked on Debora’s books and I very quickly worked my way through the whole series (that has been published to date that is).  If you like a bit of magic in your books, I would certainly recommend this series.

You may be wondering what this has to do with a cooking blog and nutella cookies. But there is actually a connection. It is almost impossible to read Debora’s books with out getting hungry and/or having the urge to start baking. Food plays quite a large role in these books. Cookies most of all with nutella cookies and snickerdoodles featuring the most prominently. This made me curious to try to bake these cookies, as I had never tried either. And as a recipe for nutella cookies had already been posted on Debora’s website, they seemed like the best place to start. I have also tried to make the snickerdoodles, but I wasn’t that happy with the recipe I used, so I am going to do a bit more research on those and will post a recipe when I am happy with the results. If you have a recipe you recommend, please let me know.

Now I don’t actually like nutella, so judging the success of the cookies was a bit difficult for me. However the cookies were very popular at work, and I got a few requests for the recipe.  I liked the texture, but because I don’t like nutella, the flavour wasn’t really for me. Jerome, who likes nutella, liked them but suggested that they would be better without the extra nutella on top, as he preferred just the cookie itself. Just remember, the most important thing with cookies/biscuits is that they  keep cooking after they come out of the oven, so if you wait until they are completely finished, they will then overcook. I found the recommended bake time worked well for these cookies.

Nutella cookies

Click here for the recipe

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Coconut pie with an easy berry sauce

Given the latest season of My Kitchen Rules starts tonight in Australia, it seems like a good time to share one of my standby dessert recipes that was inspired by  the show. This, for me, is another great recipe for entertaining. Most of it can be made ahead, and even easier you just throw all the ingredients together in the food processor. The most effort you have to make is toasting the coconut. What could be easier? The original recipe was served with mangos, but I like to serve (and eat) this with a quick and easy berry sauce made from frozen mixed berries which I always have in my freezer.

This dessert is more of a slice than a pie, and is quite moist and dense. Any leftovers are great the next day as a treat with a cup of tea.  The recipe is best made at least a few hours before you want to serve it to allow time to chill.

It has been a few seasons since any of the dishes on My Kitchen Rules have become a favourite of mine, but maybe this year will provide me with some more inspiration. I have to admit though that I always record MKR, rather than watch it as it airs, so I can fast forward when the added ‘drama’ (it is reality TV after all) becomes too much.

coconut pie

Click here for the recipe

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Cherry Jam with Lemonade Scones

It was quite hot here in Perth over Christmas. I had to go back to work two days after Christmas, and it was a very warm 41C that day. On top of that the air conditioner at work wasn’t working, resulting in a very unpleasant day. After a very warm day at work, of course it made perfect sense to me to come home and make Cherry Jam. In my defence, I did have what I think is a valid reason for putting myself through a session in front of the stove top in that heat.

On Christmas day my parents gave me a 2kg box of cherries (thanks Mum and Dad). Now I love cherries, but there is no way I can get through 2kg and I really didn’t want to waste them. So, I decided to try making a batch of cherry jam. I’ve never made jam before, though I’ve made lemon butter quite a bit. I found a recipe on-line, bought a cherry pitter and some jam sugar and I was ready to go as I’d already been saving jam jars for a while. I then decided that I needed to make something for the jam to go with, so I made a batch of Lemonade Scones that I had recently learnt from Sarah at babyCakes. I had all the ingredients already at home, although my lemonade was a bit flat which I think resulted in less of a rise than usual. But they still tasted great.

I have to say in the end the heat got to me a bit. The jam probably needed another 5 minutes on the stove to make it thicker, but I stopped as soon as I had any kind of set as it was getting very warm by then. I was still very happy with the result. It tastes great on scones. I’ve even spooned it on top of yoghurt for a quick and simple after dinner snack.

Jam and scones

Click here for the recipes

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