Well, I've been baking again! And I have to say this has been my most successful attempt so far! Being Father's Day, i thought I'd be a good little daughter and please Dad with a dessert from his home country.
Greek dad = Greek Easter cookies
Technically it was the wrong celebration to be making them, I realise that, but I thought the fact that I was baking him something was good enough! He'd be chuffed with the fact that I was actually taking interest in something Greek...instead of embarrassing him by not being able to speak or understand the language when his friends try to talk to me!
So i had the house to myself yesterday, and i took advantage of the peace and quiet to get cooking. I'm learning from my past mistakes, i realise that I need to have all the ingredients and utensils out and ready so that I can run through the recipe smoothly without panicking at my inability to find the vanilla essence. I even improvised a bit and cut the measurements so we wouldn't have to eat them for weeks, and swapped some of their ingredients for some a little more Sophie-friendly.
Wanna see?
They tasted goooood. Kinda citrusy, they have a bit of lemon and orange rind in them, but it's a very mild flavour. haha...it's kinda sad i'm so proud, but if you knew how little i like to cook... it's a big thing in my house!
I got the recipe from online, check it out at the taste.com.au site.
Oh, and Dad was chuffed :) mission accomplished.
kiss hug
Monday, September 3, 2007
Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's off to bake we go...
Monday, August 20, 2007
Memory Mondays # 4
This week's memories don't travel quite as far back as the last ones...in fact they're from last night. This does kinda defeat the purpose of these posts, but the photos bring back pretty vivid memories for me, so they'll do.
After a highly frustrating and emotional afternoon, I cheered myself up and finally relaxed, making some jam cookies with Nara, my brother's Brazilian girlfriend (she's visiting for a few months, but leaves in a couple of weeks.. very sad). This worked pretty well, the first batch came out looking yummy and tasting really nice - we couldn't help sneaking a couple off the tray, despite the huge banquet being cooked up by my brother for us. Then we finished up the second batch and put them in the oven to bake. 15 minutes later, we opened the oven to find about 20 perfect looking cookies, topped with a blob of blackberry jam. Yummy.
So I carefully pulled them out of the oven with a teatowel and started taking them over the to bench where they could cool. I made it about 30 cm before the tray slipped and the cookies fell jam down onto the floor. Cue tears of frustration, followed by hysterical giggling. A great way to top off the emotionally exhausting afternoon! But after we cleared all the dried jam off the floor, and mum added more jam to the fallen cookies, assuring me no-one would care they had been on the floor (and we wouldn't tell my other brother and his girlfriend who were coming around a bit later ...muahaha) everything was ok. And the cookies tasted gooooood.
Better than they look, I can assure you. Hence the mostly empty plate in the last shot! :)
Nicole's Jam Cookies
1/2 cup caster sugar
2 tablespoons butter
1 egg
1 cup flour (self-raising)
jam of choice (I recommend strawberry)
1. Cream butter and sugar
2. Add egg and flour, mix gently
3. roll into balls and place on greased baking tray
4. make small holes in the surface and drop jam in
5. Bake 15 minutes, moderate oven
6. Extra nice if you dust with icing sugar when cool
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Sunday, July 29, 2007
millions of cupcakes, cupcakes for me
Guess who baked?!
A slight obsession with cupcakes and muffins that has come over me in recent weeks has inspired me to get down and dirty in the kitchen today. This was also aided by the desire to put off starting a media release for uni...
Now those who know me will be aware that as much love as I have for eating, I have hatred for cooking, so this was a big step for me. I started easy, with a recipe for some choc chip cupcakes I got out of an old Women's Weekly cookbook. After not a hell of a lot of beating, whisking and stirring, and only 20 quick minutes of baking, our kitchen was filled with the yummmmy smell of melted chocolate.
I'm becoming domesticated, Mum is so proud.
exhibit A
one little runty one got a bit burnt on the side, but other than that they tasted pretty good for a first go. Next stop, icing!
kiss hug
