On a recent girls weekend away to the Blue Mountains my friends and I discovered an amazing shop dedicated to all things gingerbread. Continue reading
Tag Archives: ginger
Lime coconut cheesecake squares
2 May
I have a bit of a fixation with cream cheese of late. I just cannot get enough of baking recipes that use this creamy, unctuous ingredient. I also love pairing cream cheese with savoury ingredients – I am looking at you, smoked salmon – but when there is a block of cream cheese within arm`s reach I WILL turn it into a sweet treat. Continue reading
White chocolate cinnamon blondies recipe
29 Feb
I am totally and utterly in love with blondies. I find they are just as gooey and moist as their darker brownie cousins but with the added bonus of being more adaptable to different flavours. Continue reading
Gingerbread whoopie pies from scratch
29 Apr
You guys, I bought a whoopie pie pan! I swore I wouldn’t coz my baking paraphernalia has taken over the kitchen. When we visited San Fran last year we went to my mecca – the three-storey Williams-Sonoma kitchenware store. I went twice in two days and lugged soooo much stuff back to Sydney [via Hawaii – my poor suitcases] but decided against buying the whoopie pie pan. Continue reading
Spiced roulade with vanilla buttercream
27 May
I fell in love with the book ‘Bake – Essential Companion’ by pastry queen Alison Thompson after borrowing it from the library and my lovely hubby surprised with a copy of my own for mother’s day last year.
If you’re a baking fanatic like me you’ll have hours of kitchen fun with this book. I’d never attempted a roulade until this one and I must say, I was very nervous. I did have a few problems with cracks in my cake and totally panicked until the Hungry Dad came to my rescue [swoon] and solved the issue with some ingenious use of plastic wrap. And the finished product was utterly delectable. I omitted the original recipe’s ¼ teaspoon ground cloves as my pantry was clove-free. Continue reading
Fresh ginger biscuits / cookies
14 May
My mum’s birthday and Mother’s Day are just one week apart, which means trying to get presents for both events is tricky. First world problem, I know, but after all my mum has done [and continues to do] for me I feel I need to give her something.
Mum adores ginger and last year I made her a jar of Donna Hay gingerbread biscuits, which she loved.
This year I had a ginormous amount of fresh ginger so searched out a cookie recipe that used the real stuff. I found it at http://allrecipes.com/recipe/fresh-ginger-cookies/
This produces a spicy biscuit, which is perfect for ginger fans. The original recipe called for the cookie to be rolled in sugar before baking but I opted to stud mine with dark choc, and some with walnut pieces, and some with both [for those indecisive moments].
I also reduced the amount of sugar in the original recipe as I wanted something a bit tart.
You’ll need an hour to chill dough so allow plenty of time when making this [guess who didn’t?]
GATHER:
2 ¼ cups plain flour
2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger [tip – keep your ginger in the freezer to make grating simple]
1 egg
¼ cup golden syrup
¾ cup caster sugar
170g butter
walnut pieces or dark chocolate pieces to decorate
LET’S GET TO IT:
Grease and line 2 baking trays with baking paper.
In bowl of electric mixer beat ginger, butter, and sugar until light and fluffy.
Beat in golden syrup and egg then fold in flour until just combined.
Cover with plastic wrap and chill in fridge for an hour.
Preheat oven to 170C and roll golf ball size clumps of dough.
Place on tray, flatten gently with fork and top with walnut or chocolate [or both].
Bake for 14-ish minutes and allow to cool on rack.
Easy gingerbread muffins
6 Sep
I love making muffins – they are quick and easy and people tend to think it is fine to eat what is essentially cake at any time of the day. Win! I felt like making something with a hit of ginger recently and stumbled across this recipe on bestrecipes.com.au and knew it would be good. It creates quick, fast muffins that are moist and flavoursome.
GATHER:
1 cup of boiling water
¼ cup golden syrup
1 teaspoon bicarb
2 eggs
½ cup vegetable oil
¾ cup caster sugar
2 cups plain flour
1 tablespoon ground ginger
LET’S GET TO IT:
Preheat oven to 170C and line a 12 tin muffin pan with wrappers.
Pour boiling water into a bowl, add golden syrup, bicarb and mix, then allow to cool for 5 minutes.
Stir in oil, eggs and sugar and mix.
Add remaining ingredients and stir with a silver spoon until just combined [do not over-mix or muffins will be tough]. Mixture will be very wet so use a ladle to fill up muffin wrappers.
Bake 15-ish minutes.
Serve warm as is or allow to cool, then dust with icing sugar.
Donna Hay gingerbread biscuit [cookies] recipe with dark chocolate
17 May
I adore Donna Hay. I love her magazine, her homewares, her style, her gorgeous store, everything. I’ve been lucky enough to meet her a few times and begged her for a job [no luck there, unfortunately]. I have every edition of her magazines and the vast majority of her cookbooks. All get a workout in my kitchen and her recipes are versatile, simple and usually no fuss.
For my mum’s birthday recently she decreed a ‘no gifts’ policy. The exception was anything home made. With this in mind I set about making her some gingerbread bickies. Mum adores gingerbread and I knew she’d love these.
The recipe is from Donna Hay Magazine issue 6. I use it every year to make gingerbread men at Christmas and it always turns out beautifully.
I dressed the biscuits up with dark chocolate glaze, another Donna Hay recipe, this time from the Simple Essentials – Chocolate book.
GATHER:
125g softened diced butter
½ cup brown sugar
½ cup golden syrup
2 ½ cups self-raising flour
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon bicarb soda
LET’S GET TO IT:
Preheat oven to 190C, line two baking trays with baking paper.
Place butter and sugar in bowl of electric mixer and beat until light and creamy then add golden syrup.
Add sifted flour, ginger and bicarb soda and stir to combine.
Knead lighty on a floured benchtop to form a smooth dough.
Roll dough between two sheets of non-stick paper until 5mm thick. Use cookie cutter to cut out shapes.
Bake for 8 or so minutes/until golden.
Cool on trays.
When totally cold decorate with choc glaze.
CHOCOLATE GLAZE:
Melt 150g best quality dark chocolate with ½ cup pouring cream in a small pan over low heat, stirring until melted and smooth. Stand for 20 minutes to thicken. Then dunk the biscuits in the melted, gooey mix. Yum.
I keep a container of this in the fridge as it can be used to top a big cake, cupcakes, sandwich biscuits together, heated to pour over ice cream or eaten by the spoonful.
Chocolate ginger cupcakes with rich chocolate glaze
16 Apr
This recipe is from a book called [take a deep breath] Green & Black’s Organic Ultimate Chocolate Recipes The New Collection. The recipe is ‘the Hummingbird Bakery’s ginger chocolate cupcakes’ and I made these for my mum at Easter, who adores choc ginger.
GATHER:
100g plain flour
1/2 tablespoon baking powder
140g caster sugar
20g cocoa powder, sifted
40g butter at room temperature
100mL full at milk
1 egg
1 heaped teaspoon powdered ginger
LET’S GET TO IT:
Preheat oven to 170C and line cupcake pan with wrappers. I used a muffin pan and made larger sized cakes.
In an electric mixer combine butter, sugar, flour, baking powder, ginger and cocoa until all mixed together.
Combine milk and egg in a jug, whisk and add to the mixture in two lots. Mix until everything is combined.
Fill wrappers two thirds full and bake for 15-ish mins [for small sized cupcakes] to 20-ish [muffin size].
Remove to wire rack to cool completely.
The book had a choc/ginger icing combination but I used my go to, fool-proof Donna Hay chocolate glaze recipe: mix 1/2 cup of cream with 150g dark chocolate in a small pan. Stir over low heat until melted and smooth. Remove from heat; allow to stand 10 mins until thickened. Pour over a well chiled ckae and tap to remove air bubbles. I usually have a container of this in the fridge and use it for ice cream topping [a few seconds in the microwave makes it gooey and warm], icing for cakes and slices, and eaten by the spoonful… it is good just to have on hand…
I decorated mine with little edible silver balls because they are pretty. Ginger crystals would have been the logical decoration.
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