Charlotte's Light Scone Recipe

Ingredients:
350g self raising flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
85g butter - cubed
3 tbsp caster sugar
175ml milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
squeeze lemon juice
beaten egg - to glaze


Method:
Preheat oven to 220C.
In a bowl mix flour, salt and baking powder.
Rub in butter until mixture resembles fine crumbs.
Stir in sugar.
Place milk in a jug and microwave for 30 seconds
Place baking sheet in the oven to heat up.
Make a well in the dry ingredients, add liquid and combine with a knife.
Sprinkle the bench with flour. Turn dough out onto bench and fold 2 - 3 times.
Shape into a 4cm deep circle on the baking sheet and cut into wedges.
Glaze with egg wash then bake for 10min.

Guava Jelly

Trying this at the moment...


Ingredients:
Guava
Sugar
Lemon juice


Method:
Put guava in a saucepan and just cover with water.
Bring to the boil and simmer until fruit is soft.
Strain through a muslin cloth for at least 24 hours.
For every 1 cup of guava juice add 1 cup of sugar and 1 tbsp lemon juice.
Boil vigorously until jelly meets the setting test (put a small amount onto a cold plate and when it cools it makes ripples when you push the jelly from the side).
Watch carefully - this stage only takes about 10mins. 
Let it stand for about 10mins. 
Pour into hot jars and seal.

Charlotte's Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
3 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp hot water
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups chocolate chips
1 cup chopped walnuts


Method:
Preheat oven to 175C.
Cream butter and sugar.
Add in eggs one at a time.
Stir in vanilla.
Dissolve baking soda in water, add in salt and stir into flour with chocolate chips and walnuts.
Place spoonfuls on a baking sheet and bake 10mins

Cardamom Coffee Icecream

Been meaning to make this....


Ingredients:
6 green cardomom pods
375ml milk
250ml double cream
1 tablespoon instant coffee
115g caster sugar
5 egg yolks


Method:
Crush cardomom pods, place into saucepan with milk, cream and coffee.
Heat gently until boiling point, remove and leave to infuse for 20min.
Beat sugar and egg yolks until pale and light.
Stir in the cream, strain into a saucepan.
Heat gently, stirring constantly over a low heat for 8-10min until the mixture is thick enough to coat the bak of a spoon. Do not boil.
Cool and follow instructions for your icecream maker.

Feijoa Paste

This was a roaring success in my book. Really yummy - great with blue cheese.


Ingredients:

1kg feijoa pulp

1.2kg sugar

6 apples - chopped (skin, core and all)

Method:

Peel feijoa's until you have 1 kg of pulp reserving the skins. Set the pulp aside in a large heavy based saucepan for later.

Put the feijoa peel into a saucepan with the chopped apples. Just cover with water and bring to the boil. 

Simmer for 10mins then strain off the 'fruit stock' and discard the apples and the skins.

Add the fruit stock and the sugar to the feijoa pulp in the heavy based saucepan.

Boil the hell out of it for 4 - 8 hours - until the mixture turns a deep red colour and it comes away from the side of the saucepan. I made two batches and it took around 7 hours each time. Stir periodically to make sure it doesn't catch on the bottom of a pan.

Pour into a swiss roll tin and leave to set (we also poured some into sponge tins which was nice as you could cut it into nice wedges once set). Generally leave it exposed to the open air to set - otherwise it will sweat - you want it to dry really.

Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies

This is from Marcus Wareing's 'How to make the perfect...' cookbook. I haven't tried it yet but I like the fact that it uses caster sugar - as the granulated sugar was obvious in the last batch that I made.


Inredients:
180g strong white bread flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of fine salt
115g softened unsalted butter
75g caster sugar
75g soft brown sugar
1 medium egg, beaten
1/2 tsp vanilla
170g 70% chocolate chips or chopped chocolate


Method:
Preheat oven to 170C fan.
Sift flour with baking powder and salt.
Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy using a paddle attachment at high speed.
Mix in egg at low speed.
Add vanilla.
Fold in flour in two batches with a rubber spatula.
Fold in chocolate chips.
Roll into a 25cm x 5cm log on a lightly floured surface.
Refrigerate for 2 hours.
Line a baking sheep with baking parchment.
Cut log into 20 slices.
Bake 12-15min then cool on the baking sheet.

Moist Lemon Ring Cake

Still trying to use up a glut of lemons. Francine kindly sent me a link to this recipe for a lemon syrup loaf. It's a 'bung it all in the food processor' recipe which is perfect as I don't have any electric (or otherwise) beaters here in Westmere.  I also didn't have a loaf tin so I made it in a standard ring cake tin - it worked perfectly - I didn't need to adjust the cooking time at all.  Definitely a keeper. Yum

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/recipes/8059974/Moist-lemon-cake-recipe.html

Perfect Anzac Biscuits

I've tried a few Anzac recipes this year - with some disastrous results - but this one is currently the winner. I like my Anzac bisuits crispy - and this recipe gave me the perfect texture. The mixture was really quite dry..I had to squish them into shapes on the biscuit tray - but the outcome was great.

Ingredients:

• 125g unsalted butter
• 1 tablespoon golden syrup
• 1 cup plain flour
• 1 cup coconut
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
• 2 tablespoons boiling water

Method:

Preheat oven to 180°C. Line 3 trays with baking paper.

Place flour, coconut, sugar and rolled oats in a large bowl.

Melt butter and golden syrup in a small saucepan (don’t burn!), then add bicarb and water.

Fizz! Stir butter-foam into dry ingredients and mix well.

Roll a heaped teaspoonful into small balls and place on trays.

Leave about 3cm between them. Bake for 10-15 minutes.

Cool slightly before lifting off with a spatula to cool on wire racks.