fruit and nut pretend truffles

last week at jan's, we decided to go through her cupboard and use up all the scraps of dried fruit, nuts and seeds...we even used up all the honey making these.

300 grams nut and seeds (we used a combination of brazils, almonds, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds)
150 grams dried fruit (we used cranberries, apricots and pears)
100 grams honey
extra sesame seeds to roll the truffles in


pop everything into the thermomix bowl and blitz on speed 7 until the desired consistency is acheived.

form into balls, roll in the extra sesame seeds and refrigerate until firm before serving.

pretend truffles

these are pretend truffles, and purists will scoff and say worse, but i think they aren't half bad considering they have pretty healthy ingredients. again, i made these with the thermomix...it was there, and when it's there, it's easy to use.

250 grams almonds, brazil nuts, sunflower seeds.....whatever nut/seed you have on hand
75 grams sesame seeds
100 grams honey
40 grams cocoa

place everything in the thermomix bowl and blitz on speed 10 for 5-10 seconds, depending on the texture you like. form the mixture into balls, roll in coconut and refrigerate to firm up before serving.

honey picnic cake

this post comes courtesy of my friend liz. in an odd way. odd because i suddenly thought to call her out of the blue for no reason, or so i thought.

liz was trying to make this cake, from memory, beacuse she couldn't find her cookbook. the recipe was in one of those little murdoch cookbooks....sour cream...honey...

did you google it? i asked.

yes. couldn't find it.

and so we continued chatting while i went to my disarray of recipes and pulled out family circle's step by step quick and easy cakes. this is a different publication from lizzie's, but still published within the murdoch stable. went straight to the index and found it.

now, i could understand it if liz rang me to ask if i had the recipe, but how do you explain my calling her to give her a recipe she needed?

anyway, liz says this loaf cuts well and has made it several times, so there is your recommendation.

honey picnic cake

300 grams sour cream
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
2 cups wholemeal plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 tablespoons honey, warmed
1/2 cup pecans, chopped

preheat the oven to slow 150 degrees celcius. grease a 22 x 12 cm loaf tin and line the base and the two long sides with baking paper. blend the sour cream, sugar and egg in a food processor until combined.

add the flour and baking powder and process until well blended. add the honey and process until mixed. add the nuts and process just long enough for them to mix through.

spoon into the prepared tin and bake for 1 hour, or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the centre of the cake. leave in the tin for 15 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool.

honey and oat pancakes by whisks

i first made these scrummy pancakes on a beautiful spring day on my backyard verandah. i bought an induction hotplate a while ago, and it has been wonderful to use. i really love it because i had to do most of my cooking outside, since the kitchen we had didn't have an exhaust fan. now that it does, i still continue to cook outside because it works so well.
cooking these pancakes outside allowed me to sit down at the little table and read the magazine section of my sunday paper and enjoy my coffee - it was bliss. i was multitasking - cooking pancakes, reading my magazine and sipping a coffee.

now for what you'll need:

the ingredients:

2 cups self raising flour

1 cup rolled oats
1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

2 cups buttermilk (don't worry if you don't have any - just add 2 tablespoons of vinegar to regular milk

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1/4 cup honey

1 tablespoon melted butter

extra butter to coat griddle

1/2 cup toasted sunflower seeds

the utensils:

a griddle

mixer

mixing bowl

measuring cups and spoons

ladle

pancake turner

here's everything mixed and ready to go on the table i've set out outside. because this is a real life home demonstration, i have to let you know that the griddle i had set up on the hotplate decided to crack when it was heated. hence the pancakes were cooked on the frypan:

here at not just cake, we know how to improvise. and here is what the pancake looked like when it has been flipped:

and here's a whole pile of the pancakes:

as you can see, these look rustic, and i like that.

honey and oat pancakes

2 cups self raising flour
1 cup rolled oats
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2 cups buttermilk
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 cup honey
1 tablespoon melted butter
extra butter to coat griddle
1/2 cup toasted sunflower seeds

combine the flour, oats, salt and bicarbonate of soda. add the buttermilk, eggs, honey and melted butter. use the mixer to give it a mix. don't worry if the batter is slightly lumpy. you can either use the pancake batter straight away, or you can leave it the the fridge for a couple of hours until you are ready to make the pancakes.
when you're ready, melt some butter on the hot griddle, then use the ladle to pour 1/4 cup batter (more for larger pancakes) onto the griddle. immediately sprinkle each pancake with 1 tablespoon sunflower seeds. if you don't like the sunflower seeds, you can use something else, or not use anything else - the pancakes are nice however you like them. Cook one side of the pancake until bubbles begin to break on surface and underside is brown.
flip pancakes and brown other side.
makes about 10 servings...or one or two really big ones.