Lamingtons

When I first thought of the idea of baking all the classic Australian baked goods the first thing that came to mind was Lamingtons. Almost everyone else suggested pavlova but not me. Come Australia day everyone’s serving pavlova but I’m handing out Lamingtons.

I mean what’s not to love, it’s perfect cake covered in chocolate icing then rolled in coconut. I like them so much I’ll even eat the ones you get pre-packaged from the supermarket. But we all know homemade is best.

I won’t lie they can be fiddly and a bit messy to make . You also need 24 hours to make them. This is because you need to freeze the cake. What’s that skip, why freeze the cake? Well you can ice the outside of a cake pretty well as soon as its cooled from the oven, but cut the cake and icing is not a fan of sticking to the crumbly insides. However freeze the cake and voilà the cut sides aren’t crumbly when frozen.

So righty O let’s make lamingtons

You’re going to need cake which is going to need butter and sugar

we’re adding the usual eggs, vanilla, milk and flour and mxing with our butter and sugar

an assitant in the form of a child is good and enhances the whole messy factor

chocolate icing!!

Lamingtons – recipe adapted from Super Food Ideas April 2002

Butter cake

125g butter

3/4 cup sugar

2 eggs (room temp is best)

1/2 tsp vanilla

2 cups SR flour

1/2 cup milk

Preheat Oven to 180 degrees C

cream butter and sugar together

add eggs one at time beating well after each egg. Beat in Vanilla

add 1/2 the flour, then 1/2 the milk. The repeat with remaining flour and milk. Mix until all combined.

pour batter into baking paper lined 18 x28 cm slab tin

Bake for about 30 mins or until a skewer comes out clean

Turn out onto a wire rack. Once cool wrap in cling wrap and freeze

Just before you need to ice them, take cake out of freezer and chop into desired sizes (usually square)

Chocolate icing

500 g icing sugar

1/3 cup cocoa

1/2 cup milk

15 g butter chopped

4 cups desiccated coconut

sift the icing sugar and cocoa into a heat proof bowl. Add milk and butter

stand bowl over a saucepan of hot water. Stir until all combined and nice and smooth

Holding each piece of cake on a fork one at a time dip them in the icing until completely covered in icing. Let excess drip off then roll in coconut.

place on rack to let icing harden slightly (essentially you need to be able pick the lamingtons up without getting totally covered in chocolate icing).

You can vary it by cutting pieces of the un iced cake into 2 spreading jam or cream (or both) between the 2 halves then sandwiching back together and ice as above

Store in an air tight container.

Sundays with Joy – Kale Spinach Banana Peanut Butter Smoothie

This week in Sundays with Joy Facebook group we made a green smoothie

As we all know I bake – like a LOT. As much as I would like to live on cake alone, I need to do something to compensate of all the baked goods. One of these things is to have green smoothies for breakfast (well weekday breakfast because weekend breakfasts are for pancakes, bacon, waffles etc.). I got into these after my mother in law and sister in law started raving about them. I like them because they are healthy, like super healthy as kale’s packed with goodness. They are also easy and quick to make and I can sip it whilst running around getting everyone ready for work, school etc, or if I’ve run out of time take it with me.

I usually just blend up a small handful of spinach/kale a frozen banana, and whatever fruit is on hand. But this one is different it has both kale and spinach (although I had no spinach so used silver beet), frozen banana, peanut butter, honey and milk.  The peanut butter and honey I could totally see working in a green smoothie and I’ll probably add to the ones I usually make. But the milk well I was a bit unsure. Joy’s recipe said cow’s or soy or almond milk. I used cashew milk instead.

Overall it tasted like a pretty good green smoothie, prefect for attempting to balance out the butter and sugar in my life.

Recipe available from the Joy the Baker cookbook

Jupiter Creek Farm CSA box week 7

Ok we’ve missed a few boxes due to holidays and life getting in the way but here’s week 7 in our Jupiter Creek Farm CSA box adventure. For more on the whole CSA thing see here.

Its interesting to see the seasons change through the produce in the boxes.  The citrus are now starting to make an appearance and the summer fruits and veg are long gone.

So what was in the box?

• Cabbage
• Cauliflower
• Purple carrots
• Potatoes
• Spring onions
• Silver beet
• Kale
• Celery
• Oranges
• Mandarins
• Pears
• Apples

Cabbage.  This is the first box where we’ve had cabbage, and its red cabbage.  It’s really fresh and crisp so I’m thinking of  using it in some kind of salad.  But I did see  recipe for a cabbage and onion tart which I might try out.

Cauliflower.  Well There’s not quite enough of it to make a soup, so I’m thinking of a good old fashioned cauliflower with cheese sauce to accompany a roast.

Purple carrots.  These are purple on the outside, but orange on the inside.  I’ve been waiting to try out a recipe for carrot pancakes  and this week might be the week.

Potatoes, well I can’t go past baking them, scooping out the insides, mashing with chopped spring onion and grated cheese, popping this back in the potato and baking with cheese sprinkled over the top.

The silver beet (chard) and kale will be used in green smoothies and to accompany meals.  I also really must try making kale chips.

The celery, well there is only 2 sticks of it, so it will be the base for a casserole or used in stir fry.

The oranges are so good, really sweet and I’ll just eat them as they are.

My daughter loves mandarins and will easily eat the lot, as well as the pears, and everyone will eat the fresh crisp apples just as they are.

Part of the In Her Chucks CSA link up party

Panaeng Curry

Been a bit quite on the blog front as we’ve been off enjoying some sunshine in Phuket Thailand.   We rode elephants, visited tropical islands, enjoyed Thai food and did a Thai cooking class.

The cooking class was the one I blogged about here.   I wasn’t too sure about blogging about cooking in Thailand again.  But well one doesn’t go to Thailand everyday and we did cook new dishes.

Instead of describing all the dishes I’ll give you a recipe for a curry we made.  Panaeng Curry (Penang Curry).  We made it all form scratch including the paste.  It’s not hard at all, and while we used a mortar pestle I’m sure you could use a food processor.

It’s not a hot curry, but you can adjust it by adding or reducing the amount of chilli

Panaeng Curry with pork (penang Curry) recipe adapted from Phuket Thai Cookery School serves 2

Panaeng Curry Paste

5 black peppercorns

2 tsp coriander seeds, roasted

1 tsp cumin seeds, roasted

6 dried chilli soaked 15 mins (adjust if you want less spicy)

1 tsp galangal finely chopped (should be able to get this from Asian grocers)

1 tbsp lemongrass finely chopped

1 tsp coriander root, finely chopped

1 tsp kafir lime peel chopped ( I think this one might be hard to source some maybe just use normal lime peel)

pinch salt

1 tbsp roasted peanuts

1 tbsp garlic chopped

1 tbsp shallots chopped

1 tsp shrimp paste

1 tsp fresh turmeric (optional & available form Asian grocers)

pound the spices together in mortar and pestle, then add in other ingredients. Pound until a smooth paste is formed (could use a food processor  if you don’t have a mortar and pestle).

The curry

2 tbsp Panaeng Curry paste

1 cup + 2 tbsp coconut cream

3/4 cup pork fillet (or chicken, beef, whatever takes your fancy)

1 tbsp palm sugar

1 tbsp fish sauce

[inch salt

4 kafir lime leaves

1 long chili chopped for garnish

Heat 2 tbsp of coconut cream in saucepan with a bit of oil, add in curry paste.  Fry until fragrant.  Add  a little bit more coconut cream, you don’t want it saucy, but not pasty somewhere in between.

Add Pork fry until pork is sealed.

Add rest of coconut cream.

Season with palm sugar, fish sauce and kafir lime leaves.

Serve with rice