cheese biscuits

i needed to take something to a party last night and was at a loss as to what to bring...everyone had already made it known what their contribution was going to be and all the things i could have brought were being brought by someone else...then, i thought about these...they're yummy, and everyone asked for the recipe, so here it is...

200 grams sharp cheedar cheese
50 grams parmesan cheese
250 grams butter
500 grams strong bakers' flour
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground pepper
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
paprika


preheat the oven to 170C.

line baking trays with baking paper.

place the cheddar cheese in the thermomix bowl and grate for 2-3 seconds on speed 8. set aside.

place the parmesan cheese in the thermomix bowl and grate for 8 seconds on speed 8. set aside.

place the flour, sugar, peppers and butter in the thermomix bowl and mix for 10 seconds on speed 5 or until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

add the cheeses to the flour mixture in the bowl. place the dial on closed lid position and use interval speed to knead for 2 minutes.

portion the dough as desired. i used a mini icecream scoop.

sprinkle with paprika.

bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden.

almond chews

miss k was needing something to take to school for her tutor group's morning tea, and i decided that i wanted to try a new recipe. if it worked, well and good, and if it didn't, it was going to be cut into little pieces and i doubt any of the girls would knock it back, so it would at least get eaten. miss k oroginally wanted to do the mini cupcake thing but got lazy, hence my opportunity to make this, if you must know....i seize opportunities as they present themselves.

2 eggs
1 1/4 cups (310g) sugar
1/4 cup (45g) brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
160g butter, softened
250g self raising flour
150g white chocolate bits
200g flaked almonds

preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius.

line a 20cm x 30cm shallow baking tin with baking paper, leaving the papr hanging over the sides to assist in lifting the cooked slice out of the tin.

whisk the eggs, sugars and vanilla until thick. add the butter and beat until well combined. fold in the flour, white chocolate and 75g the almonds.

sprinkle 35g of the almonds over the base of the tin and spoon the mixture into the tin. sprinkle the remaining almonds over the top of the batter and press gently to spread the batter out evenly.

bake for 30 minutes or until golden. the slice, whilst cooked, will be soft and chewy in the centre.

allow the slice to cool in the tin. lift out of the tin and cut as desired.

apple and sultana scrolls

these are essentially a glorified scone, with yummy things rolled inside and drizzled on top to make them interesting. and irresistable. feel free to vary the filling and icing - think chocolate chips instead of sultanas....caramel icing instead of chocolate icing.....berries instead of apples....get the drift?
the first time i made these scrolls was in august 2004, just before i went to pick miss c and miss k up from school. the weather hadn't quite warmed up and the air was still a little nippy in the afternoon. they were just out of the oven and i made lots of chocolate icing to drizzle over them. to be really honest, the temptation is to drizzle them with chocolate icing the minute they come out of the oven. however, if you let them cool a bit before pouring the icing over, the icing will look better, so it will depend on whether you want them to look more aesthetically pleasing, or whether you want them super gooey and sticky. your call.
try not to overhandle the dough - once it is just mixed, go onto the next step of gently rolling it; there is no need to knead the dough. just think of it as toughening the dough each time you knead. this is a scone dough, remember?

2 cups self-raising flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp mixed spice
60g butter
1/2 cup milk
1/3 cup sultanas
extra flour, for dusting
1 large granny smith apple, peeled, cored, finely diced

chocolate icing
1/2 cup icing sugar
2 tbs cocoa powder
3 tbs milk

preheat oven to 200°C. line a baking tray with baking paper.
place flour, sugar and mixed spice in a large bowl.
melt the butter and combine it with the milk.
make a well in the centre of the flour and add the milk mixture. use a round-bladed knife in a cutting motion to mix until evenly incorporated and the mixture just comes together. turn dough onto a lightly floured surface and gently use a lightly floured rolling pin to roll out dough into a 25 x 30cm rectangle.
sprinkle with apple and sultanas. starting from the long side, firmly roll dough into a log. cut the log into twelve 2cm thick slices. arrange scrolls cut-side up, side by side on prepared tray.
bake in oven for 30 minutes or until golden and cooked through.
remove from oven and transfer to a wire rack.
set aside for 10 minutes to cool.
meanwhile, make the chocolate icing; combine the icing sugar and cocoa powder in a small bowl. add the milk and stir until combined and smooth.
drizzle scrolls with chocolate icing and serve.

sponge cake

the first time i remembered having a freshly made sponge cake was back in september 1971 and i think it was a sunday. if it wasn't, then it was a saturday, but in my mind it was a sunday. my parents and i were at echo point park and we bumped into one of dad's architect friends, tony, and his wife, megan.
from echo point park, you could see this piece of land we had in castle cove. all we ever did when we first bought the land was just look at it. then the years passed and the novelty of looking at it wained. but i digress....
one thing led to another and we ended up at tony and megan's place and we had afternoon tea there. megan (who is jeff wiggle's sister....i know, small world...i also know jeff wiggle's mother) whipped up a sponge cake and dressed it with strawberries and cream.....can't remember if there was jam, but there definitely were strawberries.
i remember being so impressed that someone could just whip up a cake just like that while guests were there. i knew then and there i wanted to be as clever as that when i grew up. i thought i wanted to be able to just whip anything up at short notice. more recently, i did bump into megan, and she's still the very beautiful, tall, stylish and slender lady she was then. amazing how she hasn't changed. i did tell her about how inspirational she was; she didn't remember the occasion, but i'm glad i did.
this isn't megan's recipe, it's actually a recipe for a sponge roll which i use, and it's very quick and easy. the thiness of the cake really speeds things up so it's quick to bake, quick to cool and fill and ultimately quick to get onto the table.

3 eggs separated
1/2 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup self raising flour
1/4 cup wheaten cornflour
2 tablespoons hot milk
1/2 cup jam
300 millitres thickened cream
fresh berries


preheat oven to 180°C. line a 20 x 30cm swiss roll pan with baking paper.
using an electric mixer, beat eggs and sugar until pale and thick.
sift self raising flour and cornflour over egg mixture.
drizzle boiling water around edge of bowl.
use a large metal spoon to gently fold ingredients together (don't over-mix).
pour mixture into prepared pan.
bake for 10 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into centre comes out clean.
sprinkle an extra 1/4 cup of sugar onto a sheet of baking paper.
turn sponge straight from oven onto baking paper.
gently roll up sponge in paper. wrap in a tea towel.
set aside to cool.
whip the cream.
unroll sponge and remove paper.
spread jam, cream and berries on sponge.
reroll and slice to serve.

alternatively, slice the sponge in half lengthways and fill with berries, cream and jam and sprinkle with icing sugar. this is my favourite way of serving this cake - since you don't have to roll it, there can be lots of filling with not too thick layers of cake. yum.

cinnamon rolls by whisks

remember the basic bread roll recipe? you use the dough from that recipe to make these. to start with, i think it would be good to make one pan of cinnamon rolls, rather than use all the dough to make cinnamon rolls .

for one pan of cinnamon rolls, cut out about one fifth or a quarter of the dough. that looks like about a third of the depth of a 28 centimetre round cake tin that is about 5 centimetres high. just an appoximation will do.

sprinkle some flour on your work surface and roll this dough into a long rectangle shape. spread some very soft butter over it.

get a small bowl and put in about 2/3 cup of brown sugar in it with 1 teaspoon of cinnamon. mix this together and sprinkle this over the butter.

roll up the dough, swiss roll style, starting from the long side.

cut this roll into 8-10 pieces and place them in a 28 centimetre round cake tin lined with baking paper with the spiral facing upwards.

place a cloth over the tin and leave the rolls to rise in a warm place for at least an hour.

when you think the rolls have nearly risen sufficiently, heat the oven to 180 degrees celcius.

once the oven has reached 180 degrees celcius, pop the rolls in the oven to bake for 45-60 minutes or until golden brown.

pound cake by whisks

does this title sound boring? i guess it does, but a good pound cake has been one of those elusive things in my life. it's a simple cake, but it isn't....a good one that is. then, there's always this thing called "personal preference" - for me, i want a pound cake to be fragrant, comforting and have a mouth feel that's...that's...velvety, smooth....i don't know, it's hard to explain exactly....i must lack the eloquence, especially in between mouthfuls.
i've tried making this cake in lots of different ways - i've tried it where i don't beat until the sugar's dissolved, i've tried it where i beat it until the sugar's dissolved....i've even tried baking it with half plain flour and half self raising flour (no, i didn't run short of either - i just wanted to experiment) and permutations of these and other methods. all methods were delicious, but perhaps the one where i used half self raising flour and half plain flour and dissolved the sugar was my favourite. that said, this is a favourite cake in all its permutations.....maybe because it's so deliciously buttery and fragrant....something old fashioned and comforting....bliss.... go ahead and try making it - it's almost foolproof, and wonderful to eat.


125g butter
3/4 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 cup self raising flour
2 tablespoon powdered milk
1 tablespoon corn syrup
juice of half a small lemon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg


cream sugar and butter together until light and fluffy.
add eggs one at a time and mix well.
add in flour, powdered milk, and corn syrup.
beat each in well.
add the lemon juice, salt, vanilla, nutmeg, and mace.
make sure everything is well combined, and pour into a greased loaf pan.
bake 180 degrees celcius for 45 minutes, checking for doneness by inserting a toothpick and seeing if it comes out clean. try not to over bake this - it's much nicer when its just done.

chocolate chip cookies by whisks

these cookies are both crispy and chewy - crisp on the edges and chewy towards the middle. to keep them chewy in the centre, it's important not to over bake them; you want them to be sufficiently cooked so they hold together, and still be chewy.
if small mounds of dough are placed on the baking tray to make small cookies, the resulting cookies are not unlike the ones from famous amos. i remember to first time i had a famous amos cookie and thought that they were so buttery, crisp and crunchy - i didn't know that my cookies were a no effort clone of famous amos. the actual intention of these cookies was to copy those of mrs field - these aren't a mrs field's clone, but i'm very happy with them, as are miss c and miss k and all those who have had them.
because these cookies are so quick and easy to make, i often like to whip up a batch before we go somewhere, and there's nothing as homey and comforting as fresh cookies. they also make the house smell welcoming. if you know you are going to see some friends soon, why not surprise them with a batch of these?
feel free to mix and match with the chocolate - if you do end up using chopped up block chocolate, the ones with nuts are very good - and i just love the irregularity of the chopped chocolate - it adds a certain charm to the cookies, don't you think?

1 cup softened butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups self raising flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
600 grams chocolate chips (or chopped up block chocolate, which is my preference)

preheat oven to 190 degrees celcius.
in a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter, sugars, eggs, and vanilla.
add the flour & salt.
mix together.
stir in the chocolate chips.
place walnut-sized dough portions a baking tray lined with baking paper. i find that six lumps of dough fit on the baking tray comfortably. i like to use a small ice cream scoop to scoop out the cookie dough so my hands don't get messy and so the cookies are fairly even in size.
bake for 10-13 minutes or just until edges are light brown. the time the cookies are in the oven really depend your preferences and your oven.
makes 30 cookies.

buttermilk scones by whisks

after making pumpkin scones yesterday, i though i'd give buttermilk scones a go. these scones are very good - the best i have ever had. i have always wanted to make scones, but have resisted because there is always talk of one having to have a light touch with them and i guess i didn't want to know what type of touch i had. i'm very glad that i've bitten the bullet and now know i can whip up a batch of scones with the best of them. i actually think that things like scones should actually be tackled with gay abandon - homemade ones should surely beat bought ones any day. so go ahead and be brave - give them a go and surprise yourself, because if i can do it, you can do it too!

2 cups self-raising flour
2 tablespoons caster sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
80g butter
100g sultanas (or dates, cranberries, dried sour cherries, chocolate chips)
1 cup buttermilk (or 1 cup milk soured with 1 teaspoon vinegar)

preheat oven to 200 degrees C and line a 20 cm square cake tin with some baking paper.

mix together all the dry ingredients (flour, sugar and salt), then rub in the butter with your fingertips till the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. i very often use my hand held mixer and room temperature butter to do this step - it's fast, and i don't end up with messy hands.

add the dried fruit and toss to coat the fruit with the buttery flour.

make a well in the middle of the dry mixture, then pour in the buttermilk and quickly stir together until you get a sticky dough. sift a little flour onto the kitchen bench and tip the dough onto the flour. sift a little flour over the top of the dough and press the dough lightly to about 4-5cm in depth. dip a 5cm round cutter into some flour and cut out the scones, placing them closely together in the prepared cake tin.

bake for 20 minutes, or until the scones are golden and sound hollow when lightly tapped on the top.

remove the tray from the oven and place a clean tea towel snugly on top of the scones for 5 minutes before serving with some homemade strawberry jam and freshly whipped cream!

pumpkin scones by whisks, not flo

whenever people in australia think of pumpkin scones, they think of flo (bjelke-petersen). and never mind the politics of politicians, is there another politician's wife more well known for something other than herself than flo? the names of political wives are flying through my head at the moment - jill wran, tammy fraser, margaret whitlam - the list goes on, but i can't think of anything like the pumpkin scone which makes tham famous. odd isn't it? jill wran (or hickson, if you prefer) is a brilliant woman. i know she has an MBA from AGSM, but this still isn't as widely known as the pumpkin scone. oooh...i just thought of susan rossiter peacock sangter renouf....she's not famous for scones, but she was famous for a time (haven't heard much about her, but then i don't read the gossip magazines unless i have to, ie, at the doctor's surgery) for everything else but scones. she won't be part of my ramblings for another time....

who knows whether it was some cheeky media person who thought it was funny to publisize flo's pumpkin scones as something daggy about the bjelke-petersens, or whether it was some clever well oiled PR machine which thought they would cash in on the wholesomeness of the pumpkin scone and hence the bjelke-petersens' (political) wholesomeness. who knows? but mention pumpkin scone and flo's name pops up. she will forever be famous for the pumpkin scone and the pumpkins scone will be famous because of her. never mind who came up with the idea of putting pumpkin in a scone. flo and that orange coloured piece of baked dough will forever be entwined.

that said, i wanted to find out whether this thing called a pumpkin scone was really worthy of all its fame and glory. was it as good as all that? so i guess in all fairness the pumpkin scone has to be made and put through its paces.

this is the recipe i used:

250 g mashed pumpkin (I used more than this)
2 cups self-raising flour
pinch salt
20 grams butter, melted
1 egg, lightly beaten
milk

preheat oven to 200 degrees celcius.
combine the pumpkin, salt, butter and egg.
add the flour (i don't bother sifting) and mix together with a knife, or in my case, i prefer to use a pair of chopsticks. yes, chopsticks....i know....but hey, it works for me and i think you should use whatever works for you.
mix until the mass becomes a soft dough, then turn it out onto a floured bench.
try not to knead the dough or knead it as little as possible if you must as kneading toughens scones.
sprinkle the top of the dough with a little extra flour and pat the dough until it is about 4 centimetres thick.
flour a 5 centimetre scone cutter, so the scones don't stick while you're cutting them and cut rounds of dough out and place them on a baking tray lined with baking paper. place the rounds of dough right next to each other so they can support each other while they are baking.......isn't that sweet - scones providing each other with moral support? they bake better this way.
brush the tops of the scones with milk and bake for 10-15 minutes until they are golden brown.
split and butter. and top with whatever you fancy. because you can have these scones sweet OR savoury....with jam or ham, OR sweet AND savoury, with jam AND ham...you can have them however you wish
we spread ours with golden syrup.

verdict? yum. something simple given iconic status by a politician's wife. who would have thought?

by the way, this is flo's recipe, in case you want to try it:

1 tablespoon butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 cup mashed pumpkin (cold)
2 cups self raising flour

beat together butter, sugar and salt with electric mixer.
add egg, then pumpkin and stir in the flour.
turn on to floured board and cut.
place in tray on top shelf of very hot oven 225-250c for 15-20 minutes.

i haven't made flo's recipe yet, but i think it's quite similar to mine except i don't have any sugar in mine.

and just so you know, i sit on the political fence, so don't think i sway either way. especially where pumpkin scones are concerned.

cinnamon scrolls by whisks

these are essentially a glorified scone which i like to make when we need something comforting for afternoon tea and we just don't have the time or patience for a scroll made with yeasted dough.
these are really quick and easy to make. when making these, remember that the less you handle the dough the better they will turn out. once you get the hang of making them, you will find that making them is really no effort at all.

2 cups self raising flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
60 grams butter, melted
3/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
60 grams very soft butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

glaze:
1 cup icing sugar
2 tablespoons milk
1/4 teaspoon vanilla

line a 20cm square tin with baking paper and preheat the oven to 200 degrees celcius.
combine flour and salt in a medium sized bowl.
mix melted butter, milk and vanilla together.
pour the liquid into the bowl with the flour and stir quickly and gently with knife just until dough leaves sides of bowl.
tip the dough out of the bowl onto a lightly floured surface.
sprinkle a little flour onto the top of the dough and roll the dough into a 1 cm thick rectangle about 30 centimetres long and 20 centimetres wide.
spread the dough with the very soft butter.
combine cinnamon and sugar and sprinkle it over dough.
roll up, starting on long side.
cut into 16 rounds and place rounds, with sides just touching, in the prepared pan.
bake for 18-20 minutes or until golden brown.
remove from oven and drizzle with glaze.
serve warm.

for glaze:

combine the milk icing sugar and vanilla and stir until smooth.

cinnamon streusel cake by whisks

this smells so good whilst baking in the oven and tastes so good when it comes out, warm or at room temperature. what more could a person want?
i made this in little loaf tins and miss k took slices of this to school and shared it with her friends and all they could think about was cinnamon loaf....don't you love it?

cake ingredients:

125 grams butter
2 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup cream
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup white sugar
2 cups self raising flour
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
pinch salt

cinnamon mix:

3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 dash allspice

streusel mix:

60 grams butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup plain flour

preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius.

put all the cake ingredients in a medium sized bowl and beat all cake ingredients together with a electric mixer (i like to use a hand held mixer) and spread half of the mixture in a deep 28 centimetre round pan lined with baking paper. i like using a springform tin to bake this cake because it makes the cake easier to remove from the tin. just make sure your springform tin holds the base of the tin securely - you don't want the bottom of the cake tin to fall out when you're transfering the tin to and from the oven. something like that would make me want to cry. i know this happened to my friend janet and she said that's how she felt.

mix together the cinnamon mixture in a small bowl and sprinkle over first layer.

dollop on remaining cake batter as evenly as you can (it doesn't have to be perfect) and use a knife to swirl the cinnamon through the batter. as fun as this is, try not to overdo it - just a quick zig zag through the batter is all that's needed - it's nice having the distinct cinnamony lines going throught the cake when it's finished baking.

roughly mix the struesel mixture together (it's fine if it's lumpy) and sprinkle it over the cake mixture.

bake the cake at for 45-50 minutes or until done. to check for doneness, insert a toothpick in the centre of the cake and when you take it out, if there's a wet batter on it, leave the cake in the oven for another 15 minutes, then check again. if there's a moist batter on it, leave it in the oven another 5 minutes, then check again. if the toothpick comes out without any batter stuck to it, the cake's ready.

if the cake's ready, take it out of the oven and put it on a cake rack to cool a little. if you try to take it out of the tin when it comes straight out of the oven, it might just fall apart because it hasn't had a chance to stabilise. this cake is quite moist, that's why it needs a bit of time. just be patient and leave the cake to settle down for a little bit - give it at least 15 minutes - it will still be warm even after 30 minutes or longer. i know...and it smells so good. if you don't mind what your cake looks like, then go for it.