Merle Parrish is a legend in Australian baking circles – not only has she been baking [and winning] at country shows since a teenager but she has endeared herself as a judge on MasterChef Australia.
I received a copy of Merle’s Country Show Baking And Other Favourites in my day job as a journalist at The Leader newspaper, where I review cookbooks as part of My Hungry column.
I instantly loved the book as it is crammed full of nostalgic baking recipes. Continue reading
This weather is driving me crazy! Last year was officially the hottest on record for Australia and one can only assume it is going to get hotter. For a creature the colour of milk, such as myself, this is not good. My skin says I should be living in Scandinavia but here I am, Sydney born and bred.
We have had a reprieve for the past few days but it will soon be hot again. This is cold comfort for my friends in the northern hemisphere currently experiencing snow, storms and freezing temperatures. Stay safe everyone.
In the meantime, here is a super easy treat, perfect for long hot summer days. Misses 6 & 8 made these pops themselves and couldn’t wait to try them. Two thumbs up 🙂 Continue reading
To me Christmas is all about the baking. Well, that’s not entirely true. There’s also the spirit of the season, the wonderment of the day as seen through children’s eyes etc etc but what really gets me excited, and flicking through cookbooks in anticipation, is the bounty of baking that awaits.
Like lots of people have a plethora of Chrissy events to attend, which means finding new recipes to road test.
I had looked at this recipe for a few years after it appeared in issue 42 [Jan 2009] and decided this was going to be the year I made Donna Hay’s chocolate candy cane cookies. Candy canes, in my books, are ghastly – sticky and fragile and far too sweet. Even my kids’ school has banned them yet here I was, buying and bringing these sugar-packed morsels into my home.
Getting to smash them into smithereens was quite satisfying, though…
If, like me, candy canes aren’t your thing, feel free to omit them and enjoy these chunky, chocky cookies unadorned.
GATHER:
110g softened butter, diced
¾ cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon best quality vanilla
1 cup plain flour
¼ cup cocoa, sifted
½ teaspoon bicarb soda
120g dark chocolate, melted
250g dark chocolate, extra, roughly chopped
About 5 candy canes, smashed into little pieces
LET’S GET TO IT:
Preheat oven to 160C and line two baking trays with non-stick paper.
Beat sugar and butter in bowl of electric mixer for 8-10 minutes, until creamy and light.
Add egg, vanilla and beat until combined.
Scrap down sides then add flour, bicarb, and melted chocolate until just combined.
Fold through extra chopped chocolate.
Roll tablespoons [I used heaped teaspoons] into rounds, place on tray and gently flatten. Sprinkle over the chopped candy canes.
Bake 10-15 minutes, depending on size of bickie.
My fondness for cinnamon is probably obvious to devotees of this site. I believe it is the ingredient that is the most bewitching in many baked goods. Using a vanilla cupcake recipe from my beloved Australian Women’s Weekly ‘Quick Mix Cakes’ book I played around until I had the perfect marriage of choc, cinnamon, and vanilla – the holy trinity. Feel free to add even more cinnamon for a richer taste.
I blogged the salted caramel sauce a while back. Find the recipe here: https://thehungrymum.com/2012/04/10/nigella-lawsons-fast-and-easy-salted-caramel-sauce/
Gather:
125g butter, chopped, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 ¼ cup self-raising flour
¼ cup sifted cocoa
1 heaped tablespoon cinnamon
2 eggs
½ cup milk
¾ cup caster sugar [I normally take a few heaped spoonfuls out]
Let’s get to it:
Preheat oven to 180C and line cupcake pan with wrappers.
Beat all ingredients in bowl of electric mixer with paddle attachment on low until combined.
Increase speed and beat until batter changes colour and is smooth.
Drop into cases until three quarters full, then bake 15-20 mins [depending on your oven – check at 15 minutes with a skewer].
Turn on wire rack to cool.
When completely cold spread with salted caramel sauce. 
So I have come late to the pumpkin party but boy am I an enthusiastic participant!
I have always loved pumpkin but in Australia it is eaten primarily as a savoury dish. I only discovered its use in baking from the many, MANY cooking blogs I follow. You may have noticed I have a recipe for pumpkin pie on my blog [sooo very delicious] but as canned pumpkin isn’t readily available here it means chopping/cooking/mashing pumpkin before you can even contemplate baking with it.
We recently returned from a US holiday, where we visited Disneyland [oh! So much happiness], San Fran [can I please move there?] and Hawaii. I dragged my poor family to every supermarket we passed [and many others that we had to make long-winded detours for] in order to stock up on baking provisions that aren’t available here in Australia. The legendary graham crackers. Pumpkin spice kisses. Hersey bars. And tins of pumpkin.
I couldn’t wait to get home and start baking with my imported loot and the first thing I made was Tartlette’s pumpkin semifreddo. Oh, what a revelation! Silky, creamy, and pumpkiny. Devine. All I did was change some of the spices to mixed spice & increase the cinnamon because I’m all about the cinnamon. Here’s her recipe: http://www.tarteletteblog.com/2009/11/recipe-pumkin-semifreddo-with-side-of.html
Then, as I had leftover pumpkin, I made a batch of Baked By Rachel’s pumpkin snickerdoodles. Without exaggeration I would rate these as some of the best bickies [or cookies, to speak in the parlance] I have ever made. Here’s the original: http://www.bakedbyrachel.com/2012/10/pumpkin-snickerdoodle-cookies/comment-page-1/#comment-94230
I served the two together because – well, why the hell not.
Pumpkin semifreddo
Gather:
1 cup heavy cream
3 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons (25gr) sugar
2 tablespoons water
3 large egg yolks
1/2 cup tinned pumpkin puree
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon mixed spice
Let’s get to it:
Spray a loaf tin with non-stick spray then line with plastic wrap, allowing for overhang.
Using whisk attachment in a stand mixer beat cream to soft peak stage then put in fridge.
Place honey, sugar, and water in heavy saucepan, stir, then bring to a boil over medium heat until it reaches 114C on a candy thermometer. Remove from heat.
In a clean bowl beat the egg yolks for a few seconds, then slowly but steadily pour in the hot honey mix. Don’t muck around – the honey mix will begin to solidify if you wait. Whip until the mix is airy and fluffy and incorporated.
Fold one third of chilled cream in, then beat the rest in along with pumpkin and spices.
Gently scrape into loaf tin, cover with plastic wrap and place in freezer overnight.
Pumpkin snickerdoodles
Gather:
225g butter, diced, at room temp
1 egg
2 ¾ cup plain flour
2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup caster sugar ( I reduced the original recipe)
¾ cup pumpkin puree
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon mixed spice
½ teaspoon vanilla
sugar mix:
¼ cup caster sugar
2 tablespoon cinnamon
Stir together in small bowl
Let’s get to it:
Grease and line two baking sheets with baking paper.
Cream butter and sugar until fluffy then add egg, vanilla and pumpkin (do not over-mix).
Sift dry ingredients into a medium bowl and add to butter bowl, mixing until everything is combined.
Place in fridge for around an hour, then preheat oven to 180C.
Using your hands make golfball-sized biscuits, then dip into sugar mix.
Place on tray then gently squash down with a fork (I tried skipping this step and they came out too fluffy and big).
Bake 12-ish minutes; allow to cool on tray for a minute then place on wire rack to cool completely.
I need a 12-step program for my cooking magazine addiction. My knees go weak and pulse races when I peruse racks of glossy mags full of pages of gorgeously styles food. Even though I spend hours each week on food blogs and Pinterest and have so, so many recipes squirrelled away I can’t resist the lure of a new food magazine. Continue reading
How I love a country getaway! When an escape to the country is also a girl’s weekend away it is close to perfection. Continue reading
Not only is Madeline the name of some of our very best friend’s daughters, but also the name of a delightfully light sweet morsel.
If in doubt, bake. That’s pretty much my mantra and it applies to all sorts of moods: feeling down? Bake. Stressed? Make some cupcakes. Happy? Turn on the oven and crack out the KitchenAid, coz we’re going to get our bake on.
I can’t remember what mood I was in when I baked these more-ish brown sugar and M&M cookies but I do recall the delicious scent that wafted through the kitchen as they were cooking. And I remember feeling so tempted that I immediately ate one as soon as they were out of the oven [note: hot bickies are hot].
Brown sugar, for those new to the whole caper, add a depthness of flavour that caster [white] sugar can’t. It also sounds much posher, dontcha think?
This is a mash-up of a couple of recipes from the Australian Women’s Weekly weighty tome Bake. Buy it – you’ll love it.
Gather:
200g butter, diced and at room temperature
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 ¾ cup plain flour
½ teaspoon bicarb soda
3/4 cup M&Ms
Let’s get to it:
Preheat oven to 170C and grease and line two baking trays with baking paper.
Beat butter, vanilla, sugar and egg in bowl of electric mixer until light and creamy.
Sift in flour and bicarb, stir until mixed then stir in M&Ms.
Roll tablespoons of dough into balls and place on trays about 3cm apart.
Bake 14-ish minutes/until golden, cool on trays.
This is Popcorn, my mini schnauzer, hoping she could sample one. #no
Oh Donna, you’ve done it again. I reckon that Ms Hay’s eponymous magazine is just getting better as time goes on. There’s a wider variety of recipes and they are all just so tempting that I every time a new edition appears in my letterbox I want to race to the kitchen and bake. That’s surely a sign of a fab mag.
The recent issue 68 had a cheesecake special, which totally had me drooling. The recipe that most caught my eye was dark chocolate coconut mini cheesecakes with pomegranate syrup. Not being a pomegranate fan I omitted this but don’t think mine were any the poorer for it. Continue reading
the hungry mum 