Cake

I was a bit of a grinch last year. Because all of my family (bar immediate) live in another country, it has sometimes felt like Christmas lost some of its charm when we moved. Last year I had just arrived back from Vietnam before Christmas, so I had some excuse as to why I didn't bother getting a lot of people gifts. It was still quite embarrassing being empty-handed when they handed you a beautifully wrapped, thoughtful present. On the other hand, I really hate the commercialisation of Christmas (especially in Australia - sorry), the crazy post-Christmas debt putting strain on families and the environmental effects of buying masses of highly manufactured, low-quality gifts produced in (often ethically questionable) factories overseas and all the waste it produces - all these things taking away from what Christmas should really be about.
This year I will be getting gifts, but be putting thought into what I buy. With a lot of my friends, we've decided to go for a nice meal instead of getting each other presents. I also loved Katie's Edible Gift Ideas article in this month's Delicious magazine (yours truly holding the box of meringues - famous, right?) and am planning to make a big batch of maple & cinnamon roasted nuts to give to work friends. And because that doesn't leave my other-than-for-Europe savings quite depleted, I can afford to buy those few close friends and family decent gifts that won't be long-forgotten by next Christmas.


PS. Photos from a recent batch of Christmas cakes I made. I think there's definitely mixed thoughts about this traditional cake, especially since so many people seem to really not like the ingredients that make up a big part of it - glacé cherries, mixed peel and raisins. I belonged to this school of thought until I recently had some of the best Christmas cake I ever tasted and tried to recreate it. I won't include a recipe as I'm sure a a google search will provide you with one, but my tips would be to leave out the mixed peel (who actually likes it?) - use dried apricots instead, be heavy-handed with the brandy when soaking the raisins as well as pouring some over once baked (boozy cake = delicious cake) and not to be afraid of including lots more ginger, mixed spice and cinnamon than a recipe might recommend.

SWEET

I turned 21 on the weekend. On Saturday night I had a big party (more on that soon), and on Sunday afternoon a high tea.
These are two things I made for it:

BAKE

TEST

The 50mm f/1.4 lens that I had wanted for ages finally arrived! Albeit with a guilty conscience - I can't really afford it at the moment - but I really wanted it to arrive in time for Europe so I can capture all those food memories with the lens' beautiful crispness. I promise not to have every photo I take from now on overly shallow depth of field-y (it's so tempting though!). 
Photos of my brother (domestic god) baking.

STRAYA

CHEESE & VEGEMITE BISCUITS

NEED:

125 grams chilled butter, cubed

120 grams (½ cup) cheddar cheese, grated

150 grams (1¼ cups) plain flour

2-3 teaspoons vegemite (depending how much you can handle) (I only put the tiniest bit on bread)

1 teaspoon cold water

DO:

Place all ingredients in a food processor and using the pulse action, process until the ingredients just come together.

Remove the dough, form it into a disc shape, wrap in cling wrap and chill for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 180C, roll dough out on baking paper to about 5mm, cut shapes out and bake for about 15 minutes.

Happy Australia Day folks! I'm not one for themed posts but with my new cookie cutters I couldn't resist. Have fun (everyone who resides Down Under at least) drinking VB, eating lamb and listening to Triple J's Hottest 100 (which I very sadly was too late getting my vote in for). It's been 9 very happy years that I've been in the Lucky Country and I'm very thankful to Australia for opening it's doors to my family and I.

TACK

PEANUT BUTTER & ALMOND COOKIES

NEED:
100g butter, softened
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
1 egg
1 1/4 plain all purpose flour, sifted
1/4 teaspoon baking soda, sifted
whole almonds, for decorating

DO:
Preheat oven to 180C.

Place the butter, peanut butter, vanilla and brown sugar in an electric mixer and beat for 8-10 minutes or until well combined.

Add egg and beat for 2-3 minutes or until pale and fluffy.

Add flour and bicarbonate of soda and beat until smooth dough forms.

Roll the dough out between 2 sheets of non-stick baking paper to about 5mm thick.

Use a cookie cutter to cut rounds (7cm cutter makes about 22), leaving room to spread.

Place on baking trays and press almonds into the rounds to decorate.

Bake for 12-14 minutes or until the edges are golden & allow to cool.

Before you judge, it's done tacky on purpose! When my brother's girlfriend brought these gems over in that great, bright 80's Tupperware container I couldn't resist keeping with the theme and photographing them on that equally 80's tablecloth. These were my comfort food tonight as I have been struggling with assembling an IKEA shelf that I really underestminated the difficulty of building. Have (mostly) kept with my mini resolution of not eating any chocolate for the month of January in an attempt to lessen my addiction. (Yes, it's actually an addiction. I shamefully wouldn't be able to go to sleep at night if I hadn't had any chocolate that day.) Anyway, these are good.Do try if you have the chance.

Thanks Madi for the recipe & cookies!

WHITE ON WHITE

Having 3.5 months holidays and being borderline bored means I've got time to bake my brother a birthday cake (alas, not the most manly of cakes) and add cutesy type to the photos. This 'Best Coconut Butter Cake' is one of the few things I use our Thermomix for. It's indulgently rich and addictive, so much so that I sneakily finished about a third of the cake after the guests had left last night. That's a third of a stick of butter. Brb, gym.

ONE PERCENT

A few months ago, we used to joke that if you were seen eating a banana you were part of the richest 1% since they were so expensive for a while as a result of the Queensland floods (that is, if you live in Australia). Now they're back to normal prices, the rest of us 99% can enjoy them, especially in classic favourite recipes such as banana bread (who are we kidding, really it's cake). Not exaggerating, this is one of my favourite foods.

CINNAMON BANANA BREAD

NEED:

3 large ripe bananas, mashed

500ml plain flour

250ml sugar

1tsp ground cinnamon

125g butter

2 eggs

60ml water

1tsp (heaped) baking powder

1tsp bicarb soda

pinch salt

DO:

Beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and creamy

Stir the mashed banana in and beat for a few seconds

Add the eggs one by one and beat until thoroughly mixed

Stir into the mixture the flour, cinnamon and salt

Dissolve the bicarb soda in the water and stir into the mix, then add the baking powder and mix

Pour the batter into a well-greased loaf bread pan and bake for about 45 mins in oven at 180C

Allow to cool in the pan for a few minutes before taking out

SUNDAY AFTERNOON

I didn't really feel homesick much while in Europe last year, but one of the few moments I remember missing home a lot was when my mum sent me some homemade Anzac biscuits. This recipe is based loosely on a classic Anzac biscuit one, but made better with coconut and almonds (is that an unaustralian thing to say?). Anyway, it's good. Not overly sweet, they're ridiculously addictive, especially whilst warm & you can almost fool yourself that they're healthy...

OAT, COCONUT & ALMOND COOKIES

Need:

• 1.5 cups rolled oats
• 1 cup plain flour
• 0.5 cup desiccated coconut
• 0.5 cup brown sugar
• 125g butter (vegan = coconut oil)
• 3 tablespoons golden syrup
• 0.5 teaspoon bicarb soda
• 2 tablespoons boiling water
• flaked almonds

Do:

• Preheat oven to 150 degrees celsius
• Combine oats, flour, sugar & coconut
• Melt butter with golden syrup in a saucepan/ in the microwave
• Mix bicarb soda with boiling water and add to butter mixture
• Combine with dry ingredients
• Spread mixture over two trays lined with baking paper (the mixture will be quite dry) (you can make them into cookies at this stage but I find it's much easier to just cut them once baked, plus long shapes make for optimal tea/coffee dunking)
• Sprinkle almonds
• Bake for about 15 minutes (longer if you don't want them as chewy)
• Cool slightly (it'll be very soft when taken out but will harden in a few minutes), as soon as it's cool enough to handle, cut into rectangles. Or leave as one huge biscuit if you prefer.

Taken on Canon 600D