Blooming Good Food

Banana-manana Muffins

2008-06-25T17:52:00.004+10:00

I love a banana muffin. I love one for breakfast, even though there's probably too much sugar in it for early in the day. Sometimes, it just doesn't matter.

I found this great recipe on Taste.com.au, for Warm Banana Muffins with custard, but I was just looking for a plain banana muffin recipe. This one looked great, so I just ignored the "add custard after they've baked" part. And what a great recipe. Simple, easy to put together, and the result? I tend to eat more than one when they come out of the oven. What could be a better recommendation than that!

Banana-manana Muffins! (OK that's just my name for them!)

Combined 1 1/4 cups of self raising flour (or, like I do 1 1/4 cups plain flour & 2 1/2 tsp of baking powder) and 1/2 cup brown sugar in a bowl.

Mash up two ripe bananas.

Mix into the mashed banana, 40gm butter, melted, 1 egg and 1/3 cup milk.

Add it to the dry mixture.

Mix it all up until combined. Spoon into greased muffin tins, or muffin cases in the tin. It should divide well between 4-6 jumbo/Texas muffin tins. I like to make big muffins with this mix, but making smaller ones (more cupcake size) works really well too, and you end up with about 8 muffins. Bake them @ 200C for 25 minutes until browning and cracked on top. Cool in tin for 5 minutes, and then turn out.

Devour!

Because it's a relatively small muffin batch, and due to the fact that you use 2 ripe bananas, the muffin is deliciously banana-centric and really moist.

Kept in an air-tight container, they last well for 3-4 days.

I can't recommend this recipe enough. It is SO good, wonderful, easy and what a result!

Warm Banana Muffins

Ingredients (serves 4)

1 1/4 cups self-raising flour, sifted
1/2 cup brown sugar
40g butter, melted and cooled
1 egg
1/3 cup milk
2 ripe bananas, mashed
1 1/2 cups prepared custard

Method

Preheat oven to 200°C. Grease 4 large muffin pans. Combine flour and sugar in a mixing bowl. Make a well in the centre.
Using a fork, whisk butter, egg, milk, and bananas together in a jug. Add to flour mixture and fold together until just combined.
Spoon into prepared pans and bake for 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of a muffin comes out clean. Cool in the pans for 5 minutes, then transfer to serving plates.

* * *

As an aside, I would like to make a quick apology for the lack of updates. I was so excited when I moved my food blog, and then suddenly Real Life took over in a nasty way. Now that it's settled down somewhat, I'm back posting.

Other things I'm posting in the near future:

Quick and Easy Chocolate Sauce
ANZAC Biscuits
Macaroni Cheese with bacon & mushrooms
"Glick's Bakery" in Balaclava, Victoria
"The Chokolait Hub" in Melbourne, Victoria

I can't wait to show you The Chokolait Hub! It's one of the best Chocolaterie's in Melbourne and it's simply delightful.

Upcoming Week

2008-06-04T14:04:00.003+10:00

I'm putting together a couple of posts at the moment, but wanted to share with you some of the things that I've cooked this week, and want to share!

I made the most awesome Macaroni and Cheese (with bacon and mushroom) the other night - I was so pleased with it, and it was SOooooo good.

How good does that look!

Here it is as I served it, with green beans on the side. The smokiness of the bacon and earthiness of the mushrooms really worked with the creamy sauce that coated the pasta. I like topping my Mac'n'Cheese with breadcrumbs mixed with cheddar cheese.

Chocolate Cupcakes with Mint Frosting. MMMMmmmmmm. The Best, Moistest Cupcake recipe EVER. They last for days (although who let's them last that long!!) in a container. I made a batch to take to my sister's house over the weekend, and these are from a batch I made a little while ago to take to a friends house for Afternoon Tea.

Also yesterday, I came across a Jewish bakery in the next suburb that does the BEST bagels EVER. SO GOOD. I'm thinking I have to go back there this afternoon to get more, because we ate the bag of bagels we brought home already! Maybe tomorrow morning...

Welcome to Blooming Good Food!

2008-05-29T00:00:00.000+10:00

Welcome to Blooming Good Food! What's with the title, I hear you ask. Well, I'm an Aussie, and it's one way of saying something's great, or awesome, fantastic, insert any word along these lines :)

I love food, and I've really enjoyed sharing some recipes on my lifestyle blog A City Girl Goes Country, but I came to the realisation that my blog wasn't actually suppose to be a food blog. So I created a new one, specifically for food. And this is it. So, I'm going to import some of my other posts over here, and create a beautiful new space for sharing good food! The posts will be back-dated over the last month or so, so have a good look around :)

Basic Red Sauce

2008-05-28T17:48:00.001+10:00

Originally posted: 25 may 2008:

I've got a couple of basic recipes to put up. I've been putting it off, because I realised the other day that this blog has outgrown what I originally meant for it. So I'm moving it, but I haven't fixed up the other page yet. So, procrastination is my name at the moment.

This is for my friend Star, who a few weeks ago, asked me if I had a good plain tomato sauce for pasta recipe. I usually just make a sauce up as I go, with a few basic things, so I tried out a few different things, and have decided that this batch was a good basic recipe. You can make this, and add other things to it to make quick different sauces. Bacon and chilli, for Spicy Bacon Pasta. Olives, capers, capsicum and a good italian sausage for a variation of Puttanesca. Add a whole batch to some browned mince, and you've got a basic bolognaise.

I learned sometimes the simplest sauce you could make, was cooking some crushed garlic, adding a good tomato sugo, fresh basil leaves and seasoning. And that is a good sauce. But other times, it's nice to have a bit of variation.

See? A plain tomato sauce :)

Simple ingredients. I beg you to ignore the 'jar' of garlic, and in your mind, substitute a fresh garlic bulb...

Moving on, you need an onion, a clove of garlic (or two, depending on how much you like garlic - we love garlic), a tin of tomatoes (crushed or diced), tomato paste, salt, pepper & mixed herbs (or basil & oregano).

Finely dice your onion. Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil to a pan on medium-high, then saute your onion for 3-4 minutes, until it's becoming translucent.

Crush the garlic, and add it to the pan, stirring it in so it doesn't burn, and cook for a further 1 minute.

Add the tin of tomatoes to the pan, and stir them in.

Add 2 tablespoons of tomato paste to the sauce and stir through. Pour 1/4 cup water into the pan and stir. (I usually rinse the tomato tin with water, and add that - gets all the extra tomatoey goodness I can possibly get into the pan.)

Add 1 tsp of basil & oregano, or 2 of mixed herbs (a really good shake) , and season the pot with salt & pepper. Let it simmer for at least 10 minutes, or whilst you've got your pasta on the boil (for example).

Ta da. A nice red sauce. You might like to have two tins of tomato in there, instead of the tomato paste & water, but I find that this volume is good for pasta for two people.

A good sauce to make a big batch of, and stick serves in the freezer. Easy to defrost, and have a good meal on no time.

Basic Red Sauce

2 tblsp olive oil
1 medium onion, finely diced
1-2 cloves of garlic
1x 400g tin of tomatoes (crushed or diced)
2 tblsp tomato paste
1/4 cup water
2 tsp mixed herbs (or 1 tsp of basil & oregano each)

Heat a saucepan and add the olive oil. Saute the onion over medium-high heat for 3-4 minutes, making sure it doesn't burn. Add the garlic and cook for a further 1 minute. Add the tomatoes, and mix in, turning the heat down to a medium-low heat. Stir in the tomato paste, and add the water. Sprinkle the herbs into the pan, season with salt & pepper, and let simmer for 10-15 minutes.

Sauce is great plain over pasta, with some parmesan cheese, or add extra ingredients to it, to make a heartier dish!

Cheese & Chive Scones

2008-05-25T00:00:00.000+10:00

Originally posted: 10 May 2008:

Sundays mean scones to me. In my childhood, my Mum would often whip up a batch of fluffy scones for morning or afternoon tea on a Sunday, and they would be served hot, the batch wrapped up in a tea towel to stay that way, with whipped cream and jam. I learned how to make scones at my Mum's side, so it's been one of the recipes that I've always understood how it works, and how to put it together. I've never managed to have a flat, hard rock instead of a scone (instead of that one time that I put in plain flour and forgot the baking powder required to make it self-raising, but this is the last time that I shall mention this!). To me, a scone is made with flour & butter & milk, not flour and lemonade and something else. It puzzles me that there are recipes that include a fizzy liquid, however I can understand them. I've had family members that couldn't make a scone to save their life, and their results are hard enough to bounce off the floor and stay in one piece.

The feathery texture of scones are reliant on rubbing the butter in to the flour well, and not over-mixing or kneading the dough. However, it's not a disaster if you do - simply let the mixture sit for a while. Wrap it in plastic and pop it into the fridge, then let it come back to room temperature after 15 minutes or so. It's also a recipe that you perfect if you make it often enough. You wont need a recipe for them. My Mum doesn't need her recipe for them, and whilst my recipe is very water stained and flour covered, I now am almost at the stage of not needing the recipe either. And I am definitely AT the stage of knowing the mixture well enough - how it mixes, and comes together - to know how to add things. In fact, my excels-at-scone-making Mum now calls me for my Spinach & Cheese Scone recipe!

For a recent themed competition on another site, I produced these scones. The theme was cheese, and as soon as I saw it, I thought "Ooooh what an excuse to make cheesey scones!!" And they're so good. By themselves spread with butter than melts when they're still warm from the oven, or slightly toasted and eaten with soup the next day, you can't go past Cheese and Chive Scones!

Get out your ingredients: Plain Flour + Baking Powder (or Self-Raising Flour), Butter, Salt, Milk, Cheese & Chives! Pre-heat your oven to 220C (450F) - Very Hot. (I would recommend 200C if you've got a fan-forced oven.)

A quick note about Self-Raising Flour. This is a combination of 1 cup of Plain Flour and 2 teaspoons of Baking Powder.

Place (you can sift it in) 3 cups of Self-Raising Flour (3 cups plain flour & 6 tsp baking powder) into a bowl. Add a pinch of salt. Measure out 60gms of butter and cut it into little pieces into the bowl.

Rub the butter into the flour. This involved getting your hands into the bowl, and literally rubbing a piece of butter into some flour. Your end result is the breadcrumb-like mixture that you see above. (I assume, and I've never done this before, therefore can't recommend it, that you could do this process with a food processor, and end up with a breadcrumb-like result. If you give that a go, let me know.) I don't have a picture of me rubbing in the flour, because surprisingly enough, it's a messy process, and my camera is already dirty enough! It definitely didn't need my flour&butter-covered hands messing it more up!

Add two tablespoons (I've used a 'dessert' spoon here, since my tablespoon is covered in coffee at the moment, and a heaped dessert spoon is approximately a level tablespoon in my book) of chopped fresh chives. You could use dried, if that's all you've got. Fresh are just yummier :)

Add a cup of grated tasty cheese (or Cheddar).

Mmmmmm. Mix it all up gently until combined. (Do this by hand, if you've tried the food processor technique.

Make a shallow well in the centre and add a cup of milk. You can use buttermilk, as this will make it fluffier, and you can add sour milk (which is 1 cup of milk, soured with 1 tsp of white vinegar or 1 tsp lemon juice - a substitute for buttermilk), or you can just use plain milk. It's a personal preference. I would happily suggest that you try both methods for yourself and decide which you prefer!

The recipe book that the basic scone recipe for this post comes from - The Margaret Fulton Cookbook - is from 1968. That version of her Scone recipe uses 1 cup of milk. In her recently published updated version, she uses 1 cup of buttermilk. This is why I've given you both options here. She has given us both options as well!

Using a butter knife, "cut" the milk through the flour mixture until combined. Yes, you use a cutting motion. It works really well :) (If you've really got too much dry at the end of this, you can add a little bit more milk until it comes together a bit. You don't want a wet mixture though.) You may need to bring the mixture together with your hands at the end of the process, and this is fine. Just don't handle the mixture too much, otherwise it loses it's fluffy texture.

Sprinkle a bit of flour on your bench, and turn out your mixture. Pat it together. You want it about 3/4-1" thick - use a roller to achieve this, but use it lightly! You can use a scone-cutter (just a 5cm round cutter) to cut out nice neat circles of your mixture. You'll need to bring the edges of the mixture back together again to cut out more rounds. I don't have a cutter, so I just pat my mixture together into a vaguely square shape and cut it into squares with knife. Personal Preference!

(I don't have a picture of me cutting up the mixture, as like above, my hands were a wee bit too covered in scone mixture at this point, because I had to bring the mixture together with my hands!)

Ta da - all neat and cut out. Place your scones on a tray that's either got a piece of baking paper on it, or has been greased with butter and had a bit of flour shaken on to it as well.

"We're ready!!!" But not quite!!

Smear a bit of butter on the top of each scone. This helps the scones to brown well in the oven. If you like, you can sprinkle a bit more cheese on the top of them instead :D

Now you can pop them in the oven. They'll need between 10 -15 minutes. Check them at 10 minutes. They like to be brown on the top, so if they're not, keep them in there. If they look ready, just slide them out a bit and make sure that they're not undercooked on the sides.

Mmmmm. See how all the outside ones are nice and brown, and the inside ones aren't? Yeah, that's my old non-fan-forced crappy oven for you! They were actually cooked, but I've had this happen before, and the middle one's weren't cooked entirely around the sides. Which is why I say "Just make sure that...".

Open a couple up and butter them. Enjoy with coffee or tea. SO GOOD. The chives add a nice herby flavour to them, and combined with the savory of the cheese, it makes the scones just delectable.

Fantastic to whip up when you've got company coming around unexpectedly, or it's cold outside and you're in the mood for something savory. Also great with soup :)

Very Morish!

Cheese & Chive Scones

3 cups SR Flour (or 3 cups plain flour + 6 tsp baking powder)
60gms Butter
Pinch of Salt
1 cup Milk (or Buttermilk)
1 cup tasty Cheese/Cheddar
2 tblsp Fresh Chives

Preheat oven to 220C/450F (200C for fan-forced). Sift flour & salt into a bowl. Rub the butter through the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs. Make a well in the centre and pour in the milk. Cut mixture with a knife, adding a bit more milk if necessary.

Turn out mixture onto a floured bench, and bring together lightly with your hands. Pat, or roll, mixture to 3/4-1" thickness. Cut out into rounds, or squares, and place on a tray, lightly greased & floured, or lined with baking paper. Smear a bit of butter onto each scone.

Bake for 10-15 minutes, until tops are brown. Serve warm with butter.

Enjoy.

Chocolate Chip Cookies!

2008-05-23T00:00:00.000+10:00

Originally posted: 29 April 2008:

I have a confession to make. I'm addicted to chocolate chip cookies. I have several recipes for them floating around. I've made them so often, I used to have one of the recipes stuck to the inside of my head. As it is, I've now formulated my own recipe, which could probably be found in a lot of cookbooks. A friend's husband loves my chocolate chip cookies, and managed to teach their 2 year old to ask me "Cookies 'izzy?"

They've got to be my foremost default cookie. I try and have the ingredients on hand at all times, and it's not that hard to do. Of course, looking in my cupboard and fridge right at the moment, before I've done shopping for the week, I've hardly got any of the ingredients! Chocolate chips? Nope. Butter? Zilch. Flour?? Get outta here. But I know it can be easily remedied.

Now that the weather has turned towards winter, and the days are colder, the nights longer, my cookie jar calls out to be filled! At the moment? It's got sultana & oat biscuits in it. These cookies are made from the same basic recipe that my chocolate chip ones come from. So, in regards to the recipe that I'm going to write up today, there are many variations, all depending on your own likes and dislikes.

But seriously - who couldn't love these cookies?

Beautiful, golden brown, crispy cookies. YUM. Eaten whilst still warm out of the oven, is sheer decadence.

First: Ingredients

See - stuff that you'll generally find in your cupboard. Butter, flour, sugar, salt, an egg... Pre-heat your oven to 375F/180C.

Take 125gms (1 stick) of softened butter, add 3/4 cup of brown sugar, that you've lightly packed, and 1 tsp of vanilla. Cream it baby. That's right, either in your mixer, or work those arm muscles, but get it to a point where it's nice and fluffy.

Add an egg and mix it in.

Then get 1 & 1/2 cups of plain flour, 1 good tsp of baking powder, 1/2 tsp of baking soda & a pinch of salt. Mix that in with the wet ingredients until it all comes together in a gorgeous mess.

Choc chips! MOAR CHOC CHIPS! No, seriously. At least 150-175gms of choc chips. Add more (or less...) until the mix resembles something that your heart desires.

Like this. Isn't it gorgeous? Don't you just want to eat it up? Well, don't eat TOO much of it, otherwise you'll (a) get sick from eating too much, and (b) end up with many less cookies at the end.

Look at these bundles of yumminess. Aren't they cute! Take a tsp and drop spoonfuls on a baking tray that's either covered with baking paper (the cookies just slide right off) or a silicon tray (less sliding, but same principle) or grease it up (slight sticking? You might lose a couple of choc chips...). ANYWAY get that tray done and spoon the mixture on. It can't wait to get in the oven!

Press each cookie down slightly with your fingers, or don't. It's up to you, how tactile you are. The cookies will still bake wonderfully well if you don't.

Put the tray in the oven for 12 minutes, and check them when the buzzer goes. If you think they're too light, put them in for another 2 minutes. Looking nice and brown? Take 'em out! (It's all about how your oven bakes, whether it's a hot/fast oven, or a cool/slow oven...)

Aren't they adorable! Don't you want to just eat them all up?!?! I know I do! I started trying to upload these photos a week ago, but Flickr wasn't having any of it, and I just ended up baking more cookies!!

Easy, quick, tasty & wonderful recipe. Hope you enjoy it!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

125gm (1 stick) softened butter
3/4 cup brown sugar, lightly packed
1 tsp good vanilla
1 egg
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
150/175gms chocolate chips

Pre-heat oven to 375F/180C, and line a baking tray with baking paper, or grease it up.

Cream the butter, sugar & vanilla together until light & fluffy. Add the egg & mix well. Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda & salt, and mix until combined. Add the chocolate chips, and mix. Drop spoonfuls of mixture onto baking tray, and bake for 12-14 minutes until golden brown.

Makes approximately 30 cookies.

Stay tuned for Cheese & Chive Scones!!

Chicken Noodle Soup (with meatballs Mmmm)

2008-05-20T00:00:00.001+10:00

Originally posted: 7 April 2008:

Greetings! I do apologise for the distinct gap in between this post at the last post I presented. Goodness, it's been a month! I've done a bit of traveling back to ye-olde-hometown (*waves to the new people*), seen some friends, and the most important thing is that I've been cooking up a storm! If I don't have more than 4 new recipes to share - well, you can dress me up in a tutu and call me Lola!!

No, seriously. Don't do that. I really do have at least four brand new recipes to share! Starting off with this one today, I'm sure you'll love them all!

Who doesn't love home made soup? Especially as we're (down here) heading into Autumn, and before you know it, we'll be smack into frosty nights, and wet drizzly days. Oh, hang on - we've already got those! (Boy, did we have a bluster of a storm last week! Why, an entire window blew out in the apartment block facing us, and wasn't that a huge noise! Just about had a heart attack.) This soup recipe I have adapted from that wonder of wonders, one of my favourite cooks, Nigella Lawson, and her book Feast. She cooks up a great Chicken Noodle Soup, which we just love. It's so quick and easy to make, and you can throw it together with things that you'll generally find in your fridge & freezer. What makes mine different from Nigella's, is that I've substituted a few yummy chicken meatballs, instead of just plain chicken breast!

Today, I'll give you Nigella's recipe, and then show you how I've adapted it to get to Chicken Meatball Noodle Soup!

See? Doesn't that look great? Come on in and have a looksee at the recipe :)

Nigella Lawson's Chicken Noodle Soup

500ml Chicken Stock
1 tblsp Soy Sauce
1 Chicken Breast
30gm Baby Corn
50gm Sugar-Snap Peas
50gm Fine Beans
250gm Udon Noodles

(a small sliced chili, if the soup is just for grownups, if you want a bit of heat in there)

Bring the chicken stock to a simmer. Slice the chicken breast into pieces (think thin inch-long pieces). Place soy sauce in a skillet and heat. Poach the chicken breast in the soy sauce. Place vegetables in the stock to blanch, (add the chili) then place the contents of the skillet (both chicken and soy sauce) in the broth, along with the udon noodles. Simmer for 3-4 minutes, until vegetables are cooked. Serves 2.

VERY EASY. Isn't it awesome? Yum yum yum. This soup is so good as well. Let's move on to my recipe.

750ml Chicken Stock
1 small tin of Corn Kernels (approx 125gm)
75-100gm Green Beans (your preference)
1-2 tblsp Soy Sauce
220gm pouch Udon Noodles
+ Meatballs!
250gm Chicken Mince
1 small Onion, diced
1 tsp Cumin
1 tblsp Mixed Herbs
(+ 1 thinly sliced chili, if you like!)

1) Get the meatballs going.

Place all the makings for the meatballs in a bowl. I finely diced the onions, then added a good shake of cumin (I reckon it was about 1 tsp) & a really good shake of mixed herbs (hence the '1 tblsp'). Get your (nice clean) hands in there and squish it around. Pinch off small amounts (between 1-2 tsp of mixture) and roll into balls.

Heat a skillet on the stove, and put a dash of olive oil into it.

Drop the meatballs as you form them, into the skillet, and brown them all. By the time that they look like this, it's time for the soy sauce. It should only take around 5 - 10 minutes to cook them. Whilst they're cooking, let's do the rest of the soup.

Place the chicken broth into a nice big pot on the stove (not huge, unless you're doubling the recipe for 4 people, or tripling it for 6 or something... I would say a 8-cup pot?) and bring the stock to a boil. This should happen whilst the meatballs are cooking. You can even put the stock on to boil before making the meatballs! You just need to get it going.

Slice up the beans. I like to parboil them a big, to get them cooking before I put them in the pot. I put mine in the microwave for about 5 minutes.

By this point, your meatballs are probably feeling pretty cooked through.

Pour in the soy sauce. I like to use a bit more than a tablespoon, but this is something that you have to figure out for yourself. Those with low-sodium diets, use a low-sodium (salt-reduced) soy sauce. Perhaps just a tablespoon for you. For those who are used to more salt in your diets, more towards 2 tablespoons. For your first time, I would suggest 1 tablespoon, and add more if you think it needs it. It's a personal taste thing. Let the soy sauce bubble up around the meatballs for a minute or two, allowing them to absorb
the sauce a bit. Meanwhile, add things to the soup :)

Add both the udon noodles (I use a pouch which just require heating through for cooking - very convenient), and the corn. (If you have baby corn readily available, use that if you'd prefer :) Same goes for the beans, if you want to use sugar snap peas, or snow peas, go right ahead. Both of those probably don't need parboiling, for example, and could just go straight in.)

Time to slide the contents of the skillet into the soup. Be careful - it can splash everywhere!

Drain off your beans, and slide them into the soup as well, which should be happily simmering away.

Everything you need should be in your soup now. Let's have a look at the colour.

Doesn't it look great? It's got a lovely nut brown colour, from the soy sauce that you added to the pan with the meatballs, mixing with the chicken stock.

This soup doesn't need seasoning, as it's got the salty soy sauce in there. As Nigella's recipe is originally in the section for Kids, she notes that you can add a thinly sliced chili to the soup, if it's just for adults. I hardly ever do this (I think it's more a case of forgetting than anything else), but if you wanted to, you could pop it in when the stock is coming to a simmer, or with the vegetables.

From go to woe, from getting home to sitting down to eat, this soup takes about 15-20 minutes. It is just so quick and easy and SO satisfying. I just love it. It's a favourite in our home during the cooler times of the year, and I might just have to make it for dinner tonight!

I hope you enjoy it :)

Gingernuts!

2008-05-18T00:00:00.000+10:00

Originally posted: 7 March 2008:

I love finding new biscuit (and for you Americans, that'd be cookies, not breakfast biscuits) recipes. We've all got out favourites: chocolate chip, Anzacs, oatmeal & raisin. I have a great recipe by Bill Granger which is Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip. Just by substituting some of the butter in the recipe with peanut butter, it lends a lovely sweet nutty flavour to the biscuit. I also love the traditional Anzac biscuit, which is something that has so many different recipes, but all come from the same basic ingredients. Some have equal amounts of coconut, flour, sugar & oats, others have different amounts of each.

Quite often, I go searching for recipes to replace store-bought biscuits: Tim-Tams (that great Australian chocolate biscuit), Mint Slices, Granitas, Gingernuts, Arrowroot. (All Arnott biscuits available in Australia.) Today, I bring you Gingernuts!

This is SUCH an easy recipe, I couldn't get over it the first time I tried it. I seem to say that about all of the recipes that I've posted about, but again it's true! And again, it's an Egg-Free recipe!

Don't they look awesome? Crisp, light, wonderfully gingery, and great to have with a cup of tea or coffee, they're great every-day biscuits.

Gingernuts

2/3 cup (100gm) Self Raising Flour
1/2 tsp BiCarb Soda
1 tsp Ginger
1/4 tsp Nutmeg
1/4 AllSpice (I substitute Cinnamon)
1/3 cup Brown Sugar
50gm Butter
2-3 tblsp Golden Syrup (or Treacle - different taste)

Get your ingredients out. (in the above photo, you'll notice I've got Baking Powder there. That's because I only have plain flour, and need the baking powder in there to make it Self-Raising Flour. The radio is 1 cup flour: 2 tsp baking powder!)

Measure out all your dry ingredients into a bowl, and mix them all up together thoroughly.

Cut up your partially softened butter (butter out of the fridge will be fine - it will just take you longer to rub in) and plop it down into the bowl. Using the tips of your fingers, rub the butter into the dry mixture until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Don't be afraid! Get in there, mix it all up, then seek out those butter pieces and literally rub the dry ingredients into that butter! (same method as old fashioned Scones!)

Notice the breadcrumb texture of the mixture in the above photo!

Now comes the combining part. The reason that the Golden Syrup is 2-3 tablespoons, and not a specified amount, is because you want to add 2 tablespoons to the mixture, mix it through, and add more if the mixture isn't coming together enough! Generally, it's a bit more than 2 tablespoons, and not quite three. Experiment. Put in two, then (I use a fork) mix the syrup up in the dry mixture, pressing it down and through, until it's coming together. Get your hands in there towards the end if you're having trouble making the mixture cohesive. If it's still just not working, add a bit more syrup. It should come together (after a bit of hand-help) like it is in the next photo.

At this point, I'm going to talk about substituting Treacle!

At Christmas time, which is when I made the second batch of this biscuits, I didn't have Golden Syrup in the house. I had just used the last of it up, and we had a tight financial Christmas, so I couldn't see the point of buying another jar of syrup, when I'd already just bought a jar of Treacle! It had been purchased to make a soft load of Gingerbread. (It's all about ginger things in our house at Christmas time!) I'd just scraped enough Golden Syrup out of the jar to make the previous batch of biscuits, but they'd been eaten in about a day, and I wanted to make more. So I substituted the treacle. It has a very similar consistency, but a smokier taste than Golden Syrup. It is slightly more viscous , and is much darker in colour than the syrup. (My partner just got it out of the cupboard, since I wanted his opinion on the difference, and he's having flashbacks to childhood and eating it out of the jar! I can hear "Mmmm nom nom nom" coming from the living room!!)

If you've got treacle and not golden syrup, just use the same amount. The biscuits might spread a little more, but I find how much they do spread is in direct proportion to the amount of liquid syrup is added. Obviously... :)

So after combining the mixture, this is the result.

Divide the mixture into 16. I find it works well if you just use a knife. Sometimes you'll get a few cookies a bit bigger than others. I stretched the batch to make a few more... Roll each piece of mixture, and place on the cooking sheet, pressing down with your fingers or a floured fork.

18 there. Pop them in a 180C oven for 15 minutes, until darker golden in colour, and light brown on the bottom.

Beautiful, crisp, (but they can be slightly soft & chewy at first, out of the oven), golden Gingernut Biscuits :)

Gingernut Biscuits
from Everyday Cooking (Authors Website)

2/3 cup (100gm) Self Raising Flour
1/2 tsp BiCarb Soda
1 tsp Ginger
1/4 tsp Nutmeg
1/4 AllSpice (I substitute Cinnamon)
1/3 cup Brown Sugar
50gm Butter
2-3 tblsp Golden Syrup (or Treacle - different taste)

Combine dry ingredients. Rub in butter. Stir in syrup, and press to a dough-like consistancy. Divide into 16 pieces, roll each piece, and press each ball down with a floured fork (or fingers) on the baking sheet.

Bake at 180C for 15 minutes, or until golden brown.

No-Time Bread from thekitchn.com

2008-05-14T00:00:00.000+10:00

Originally posted: 25 February 2008:

I can't remember how I found this site - I think I was browsing through seriouseats.com one afternoon - but am I glad I did. Apartment Therapy's The Kitchn presented a different idea from The Bread of last year - the No-Knead Bread - with their idea of No-Time Bread. Instead of throwing everything in a pot and leaving it for 24 hours before cooking it, this bread only takes 1 hour before it's done. What? I hear you say. Bread from scratch in an hour? Not Possible! You're pulling our legs. No, No! I profess - I promise you here and now. Fantastic bread, with a great crumb and even better crust, in only ONE hour!

So, if you are craving that fresh bread feeling, but don't have the time to set your bread maker, or indeed want the bread today instead of tomorrow, then is this the recipe for you! Yes, you too can produce this sort of good-lookin' loaf this evening!

TheKitchn's No-Time Bread Recipe

4 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast (two packets)
1 tablespoon sugar
1 1/2 cups water
3 1/2 cups bread flour
1 1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

Implements you need:

If you have a mixer - the mixer + paddle & dough hook attachments. If you don't have a mixer, a big bowl, counter space + a bit of extra flour + something to mix the dough up to begin with (I use a pastry cutter thingy).

Also - a casserole dish (or dutch oven if you've got one) to bake the bread in, a microwaveable bow, and two towels. And a bit of oil.

Let's get going!

Easy to put your hands on ingredients too. Nothing fancy here.

First thing to do? Get that yeast activated.

It's been a bit cold here recently (it's summer, although you'd never guess it, for which I am eternally grateful. Having a summer with days in the 20's (Celsius) is infinitely better than in the 40's (still Celsius..) in my opinion. But it doesn't lend to having warm patches of heat in the house when it's been around 10C the night before...) and I've been having trouble with my yeast fu, so I've taken to popping my oven on very low (the dial is set to a spot before the little notches begin, so I'd say about 50C?) and putting the bowl in there to warm up and get the yeast feeling funky. Works well enough for me!

If you're using a mixer, chuck it all in the bowl of the mixer and let it rise in there.

When the yeast has activated and you've got a mass of bubbling goodness, get the bowl ready to have the flour added. At this point, it's a very good idea to get the oven ready for your bread. The key to this bread, is the oven is very hot, and you warm up the dish (with lid) that you're going to bake the bread in, as the oven is heating, so the dish is the same approximate temperature (darned hot) as the oven. I've been using a Pyrex casserole dish, and I wasn't sure when I first bake the bread that it would be big enough. It is, but the bread bakes flat on top because it grows right up to the lid. In fact, the first time I baked it, when I reached into the oven to take the lid off the pot, it was sitting up OFF the top of the pot, the bread had risen that much!

And I've gone totally away from the recipe. SORRY! My point was, that at this stage, put your lidded pot into the oven, and turn the oven up to 220C (450F).

Activated yeast. Add the 3/4 teaspoon of balsamic vinegar, and then the 3 cups of flour + 1 1/4 teaspoon of salt into the bowl.

At this point, I must digress a little again. The recipe from The Kitchn @ Apartment therapy states that you put all the ingredients into a mixer and set it going for 2 minutes to combine with the paddle. I don't HAVE a mixer, so I just get out my pastry cutter and mix it all up. However, if you do have a mixer, please use it. I would, if I had mine around.

Since I don't, I mix it until it's combined and looking good.

At this point, or just after, I add the extra 1/2 cup of flour. If you've got a mixer, add the last 1/2 cup of flour after kneading the previous mixture for 2 minutes with the paddle. Switch to the dough hook, add the flour, and set a timer for 7 minutes, then walk away and find something else to do. Or clean up the kitchen a bit. Or read a book.

If you're doing it by hand, add the extra 1/2 cup of flour, keep going with the mixing with water implement you've been using. Or if you're like me, and like to get your hands dirty, put the implement down and start kneading the mixture gently in the bowl, turning it around to combine the last of the flour in there.

I must point out that this mixture is quite GOOPEY. No, really. You'll get sticky hands. I tend to have quite a few tablespoons of flour set out on the counter to distribute between the counter & the dough when I turn it out and start kneading it. I probably add an extra 1/8 cup of flour by the end of the kneading.

Knead by hand for 5 minutes, until it's elastic. It wont be goopey by this stage, but still a bit sticky.

Get out that microwaveable dish, and oil it up.

Place the dough in the oiled dish. I like to smoosh the oil around the dish with the dough and then turn the dough over so it's oily side up too. (Yes, the recipe also says this!)

Get one of your two towels. Get it really wet (as in wow, this towel really need wringing out, but not so much that it's dripping all over your floor) and drap it over the dish.

Get your second towel, which is still nice and dry, and lay it over the first wet towel. Then put the towel-covered bowl in the microwave.

Microwave for 25 seconds, then rest for 5 minutes. Microwave for another 25 seconds, and rest of a good 15 minutes. Go read a book. Or wash the Kitchen Aid out. ;)

After that 15 minutes is up, take the bowl out of the microwave and this is what'll look like. Well, if your bowl is small like mine to fit in the smallish microwave.

See - all boofed up. Watch out for your wet cloth though - the dough always sticks to mine. Just use a knife (or like me the pastry cutter thingy) to help it separate from the cloth.

Before you get the dough out of that container, reach into your oven with some good oven mitts and lift the really-hot-by-now-container (casserole dish or dutch oven) out, and take the lid off, making it ready for the dough. Now, lift the dough out, and shape it into a ball.

Plop that baby into the dish. Slash the top of the dough if you like.

Cover the dish with the hot lid and put it back in the oven.

Put the timer on for 30 minutes.

Covering up the dish means that the bread cooks in a little bay of moisture, which helps form the most amazing crust.

After 30 minutes, take the lid off the dish, and bake the bread for another 10 minutes. After that, this is what it'll look like out of the oven.

Good, isn't it. And that's all done in around an hour! When I took my bread out of the oven this afternoon, I realised that it had been an hour since I had been kneading the dough. So there you are - from knead, to baked in an hour!

I simply can NOT recommend this bread enough. The crumb is great, and the crust is simply fantastic. My partner LOVES the bread as toast the next day, and I have to restrain myself from cutting all the crust off the bread and eating it fresh out of the oven. In fact, the loaf that appears baked in this post is currently sitting on my bread board, missing two ends of crust...

See? If you'll excuse me, I think it's calling my name. Eaaat meeeee.

* * *

No-Time Bread
1 loaf

4 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast (two packets)
1 tablespoon sugar
1 1/2 cups water
3 1/2 cups bread flour
1 1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

In the bowl of a heavy-duty stand mixer put the yeast, sugar, and water and let it sit.

Heat the oven to 450°F. Put a Dutch oven (or one of these alternatives) in to warm as the oven heats. Get out your flour, salt, vinegar, spray oil, and anything else you need.

Now that the yeast has had a few minutes to bubble up, add 3 cups of the flour as well as the salt and vinegar and beat for several minutes with the paddle. Add the last 1/2 cup of flour and switch to the dough hook and beat for seven minutes. Alternately, knead vigorously for five minutes, or until the dough becomes extremely elastic. This will still be a wet dough, but not goopy. The dough will clear the sides of the bowl but still stick to the bottom.

Oil a microwave-safe bowl and transfer the bread dough to it, rolling it in the oil. Cover the bowl with a very wet towel. Cover the whole thing with a dry towel and put in the microwave for 25 seconds.

Let rest in the microwave for about five minutes.

Microwave for another 25 seconds, then remove.

Let rest and rise for another 15 minutes.

Shape into a ball and plop into the preheated pan. Quickly slash the top with a knife. Cover and bake for about 30 minutes, then remove the cover and bake for another 10 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown and the internal temperature hits 210.

Chocolate & Raspberry Cupcake-Muffins

2008-05-10T00:00:00.001+10:00

Originally posted: 23 February 2007:

There was a post of Chocolate Chip Muffins (available here) that I saw on a baking community I'm a part of, that I really wanted to try. But when I had the mixture sitting in the bowl, I thought it was missing something. So I trialled out a new recipe, on Valentines Day. It worked really well, so I made them again, and these are the photos from the second time around.

The recipe was adapted by the original poster from a recipe on allrecipes.com, and I further adapted it. For the purposes of this recipe, please note that the pictures and results that I post here are from a HALF batch of the mixture.

I find these are almost a cupcake in taste & texture, hence the name of Cupcake-Muffins.

Double Chocolate & Raspberry Cupcake-Muffins

2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil (canola is good)
1 cup semi sweet (dark) choc chips
1 heaped tablespoon cocoa
generous 2 handfuls of raspberries + juice (if frozen)

Mix dry ingredients (including chocolate chips) together.

Then add the milk & oil and mix together.

Add the raspberries to the double chocolate mix. This is where I have to remind you that I have mixed up a half batch here, so my notes here are for that half batch. Adjust your baking if you are making a full batch.

If you have fresh raspberries, I would say it's a good 1/4 cup, or handful. I must admit I just scooped them from the plastic bag that I'd had defrosting in the freezer, until I thought that there was enough in the mixture to give a good raspberry flavour through the muffin, without overpowering the chocolate. That would probably we pretty hard, come to think of it!

At this point, I was at the end of the bag of raspberries (they were left over from Australia Day, when I made little meringue nests with raspberries as fruit topping) so I just poured in some of the juice that was available from the defrosting and re-freezing (Aussie Day was a warm one, and it's over an hour from Dad's) and defrosting again. I think the juice enabled the raspberry flavour to move through the muffins really well.

Spoon the mixture into prepared (greased, or lined) muffin tins. I used jumbo (texas) muffin tins for my muffins, and I get 4 good sized ones out of a half-mixture.

Bake in a moderate (180C/375F) oven for 23-26 minutes. The original recipe calls for 18, but I find that I need those extra minutes. It'll be because of the raspberries!

And boy, do they turn out well! I find that the mixture bakes very neatly. It doesn't produce a cracked muffin, but neatly rounded tops. I run a knife around the edge of the cupcakes before turning them out, to ensure they haven't stuck. In a greased tin, you might find some of the chocolate chips stick to the bottom of the tin and are left behind. Don't panic! Scoop them out and slap them straight back onto the bottom of the muffin where they used to be! MMmmm smeared chocolate!!

What a dessert these babies turn out to be. Fresh out of the oven (so easy to whip up) and served still warm with vanilla ice cream, they're so good!

I wouldn't hesitate to freeze these cupcake-muffins either. Fantastic to pull out and buzz in the microwave for 40 seconds frozen (15-20 if they're not) to warm them back up.

Chocolate Self-Saucing Pudding

2008-05-07T00:00:00.000+10:00

Originally posted: 11 February, 2008:

I was going through old magazines early last year, when I was sorting out stuff and packing up, and I found a magazine with 50 Chocolate Recipes. Just amazing. It was a collection from many different magazines, all collated. This recipe is from that magazine - sadly I can't remember the one it was. I give you:

Chocolate Self-Saucing Pudding!

Chocolate Self-Saucing Pudding

1 cup (250gm) Self-Raising Flour
3/4 cup (165gm) Caster Sugar
2 tbsp Cocoa (be generous)
1/2 cup (125ml) Milk
30gm Melted Butter
1 tsp Vanilla Essense
3/4 cup (150gm) firmly packed Brown Sugar
1/4 (25gm) Cocoa (extra)
1 3/4 (430ml) Hot Water.

Grease pudding dish, and pre-heat oven to 180C (350F).

Mix SR flour, caster sugar & cocoa powder together.

(If you can, sift ingredients together.)

To bowl, add milk, vanilla & melted butter.

Stir together.

Pour (or spoon, as the mixture is quite thick) into greased dish.

Mix together the brown sugar & extra 1/4 cup cocoa.

Sprinkle over the pudding ...

... and make sure it's evenly distributed.

Pour 1 & 3/4 cup of boiling water over the topped pudding, going gently especially at first.

Place in oven, and bake for 45-50 minutes, until pudding is set & firm.

And this is the remnants of the pudding! Yeah, kinda forgot to take a photo before we demolished it :D

This is an incredibly successful pudding, very very easy and quick to make. Also, if you're going for dinner at a friends house, it's good to prepare, right up to sprinkling the topping. Then you can set the oven, and pour the boiling water on the pudding at your friends place! I did this the first time I made it, and it made a fantastic crust on top. I think it was because some of the sprinkle mix had really settled on top of the pudding.

Give it a go - I think you'll find it's a great pull-the-stuff-out-of-the-cupboard dessert!

Passionfruit Melting Moments

2008-05-03T00:00:00.001+10:00

Originally posted: 9 December, 2007:

So, here I am again, baking my little heart out on a Sunday. Today I made some shortbread to sent to the in-laws for Christmas, and some passionfruit melting moments. I also have a batch of Pioneer Woman's No-Knead bread rolls prooving on the stove, ready to go in the oven in a little bit. But it's all about the Passionfruit Melting Moments.

I searched the internet for a recipe yesterday of Melting Moments, since my bible (Margaret Fulton's Cookbook) failed to give up a recipe for these gorgeous things. I found this recipe and decided to give it a go.

You'll need:

3 passionfruit (I used a tin, since they're frightfully $$ at the moment)

250g butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup (80g) soft icing sugar
1 2/3 cups (250g) plain flour
½ cup (75g) cornflour
PASSIONFRUIT BUTTER CREAM
80g butter, softened
2/3 cup (110g) soft icing sugar

If you're using the passionfruit, take the pulp of the fruit and place it in a sieve. Put a jar underneath the sieve, and press firmly with a spoon, to drain the liquid from the fruit. Reserve the liquid for the butter cream.

Cream together the butter, icing sugar and vanilla until pale and 'fluffy'. I use 'brackets' there, because this is a lot of butter in relation to the icing sugar, and it's a very moist mix. But beat away and get a nice light colour.

Sieve together the two flours, and add half at a time to the butter mix.

Add the pulp of the passionfruit you've drained to the mix. Or, if you're like me, and either balked at the cost of passionfruit (it's just not quite in season) or couldn't get fresh, and bought a jar or tin, chuck in a good couple of tablespoons. See that spoon in the bowl? I used around 3-4 of those. It's dependent on how passionfruity you want your biscuit. 3 gives it a nice taste :)

This is what the mix will look like.

Flour your hands. Take a healthy teaspoon of mixture (the recipe suggested two - I used about half a dessert spoon each time), and roll into a ball, before placing on the tray you have prepared.

When ready, the tray should look thus. Aren't they cute.

Flour a fork, keep the flour handy, and press lightly each ball down with the fork. I found I had to reapply flour to the fork almost after every press, as the mixture is lovely and moist. Repeat for each ball on tray.

This is what the tray looks like when it goes into the oven.
You want a moderately-slow oven, which amounts to around 140C (fan-forced) or if you're like me and have an old oven, 160C. (About 325-350F).
Slide the tray in and cook for approx. 15 minutes, until the biscuits have the colour of light straw.

These are done. I think they're a little under-baked, but when I cooked the next batch for a bit longer, they didn't go any darker in colour. Use your own judgement.

Icing: 80gm butter, 2/3 cup icing sugar. Mix together until light and fluffy and add in approx. 1 tblsp passionfruit juice (either the reserved juice from straining the pulp, or just a tablespoon or so from the tin). Mix together. Get a good consistency that should be on the stiff side. You don't want it to leak out when you put some in the middle and press two halves together.

Devour :)

I'm giving these away as Christmas Presents I reckon. Well, half the batch...

Cinnamon Rolls, by Pioneer Woman

2008-05-01T00:00:00.001+10:00

Original post date: 29 November 2007:

I had a meeting approaching, with a small group of people that I know through a discussion board online. I thought I should go along with some baking. And since I had really wanted to give this recipe a go, I thought - why not! So, I give you:

Cinnamon Rolls - Recipe by the Pioneer Woman!

I have used the Ree's recipe from www.thepioneerwomancooks.com for my cinnamon rolls. It can be found here @ the pioneer woman cooks . com. She has set out the recipe in a very easy to read and interpret form, which I'm going to... *cough* borrow, here. I like it. I'm also however going to write the recipe out, with the ingredients that you need.

CINNAMON ROLLS!

1 litre full cream milk
1 cup vegetable oil (I used Canola)
1 cup sugar
9 cups plain flour + extra for dusting
2x 7g sachets of instant yeast
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
500gm+ butter + extra for greasing tins
2-3 cups sugar
50gm cinnamon (approx.)

7-9 9" tins (disposable - so easy clean up!)

Place the litre of milk, cup of oil and first cup of sugar into a big pot and heat until scalding - just before it boils. Then take it off the heat, and let it cool until it is lukewarm. (This is approximately 45 mins - 1 hr.) When it has cooled, add the two packets of yeast, and let sit until the yeast activates and gets all happy in there. Then turn in 8 cups of flour, and stir it together. Leave it for an hour, and it will look like this!

See, all mixed together and happy. I know it doesn't look much, but that's because of the pot! It's a massive pot I borrow from work, and it's actually raised quite a bit at this point.

Then you add a cup of flour, to this mix, although with a 1 heaping teaspoon of baking powder, and 1 scant (not quite full) teaspoon of baking soda. Mix it all together and leave it alone.

See - all mixed together. Now we're going to cover it.

I wanted to make sure that it was sealed, and I didn't have any plastic wrap so firstly:

I put some foil over it, and then I:

Covered it with a tea towel and left it alone to rise. In fact, I left the house for a few hours and went into town at this point. If you like, you can put it in the fridge overnight until you want to use it as well.

It's been a few hours. Let's see what's under the 'lid'! First the tea towel..

Then the layer of foil...

Wooohh!!!

WOW look at that rise! This is what your dough will look like after a couple of hours on a nicely warm afternoon. If it's overflowing out of your pan, you can tap the pan down, like I did...

And it'll sink. This was fun!

OK, at this point, you're looking at turning part of the dough out of the pan to work with. I scrapped the sides of my pan down, and got my dough in a semi-neat lump at the bottom of the pan, and then divided it into three, because hey - I don't have that much bench space. If you've got lots of lovely bench space, please feel free to do what Ree-The-Pioneer-Woman does, and divide it into half.

Flour your bench liberally. The dough is pretty sticky, so you want to have a nice layer of shaken out flour on that surface.

Turn out your half (or third) of dough onto the bench. Start spreading it out with your fingers.

Until you have a nice rectangle of dough to work with. Then get your rolling pin (or wine bottle) and roll that dough out, keeping the rectangle shape as much as you can manage.

The thickness of your dough at this stage will determine how thick your rolls are at the end. The thinner the dough, the more 'scrolls' you'll get in your rolls. The thicker the dough, the "thicker" each layer of roll, and possibly the less scrolls your get. Mine's pretty thin. Now, for the filling. Melt a pad of butter, and get approximately a cup of melted butter ready in a little jug.

Pour the butter over the dough. Don't be stingy, but on my third of dough, I didn't use quite a cup of butter. Ree-The-Pioneer-Woman says to slather 1 1/2 - 2 cups of melted butter on each half of rolled dough, but I'd say 1 cup is plenty. Up to you, but start with at least that 1 cup.

Spread that butter out on the dough, where the pouring of it didn't reach, until it's all nice and buttery.

Sprinkle up to a cup of sugar over the dough. I used 'normal' sugar, but may try caster (a finer) sugar next time. This may reduce the amount of sugar I need down to 1/2 cup, per 1/3 of dough.

Sprinkle cinnamon liberally over the sugared dough. Don't be afraid of using all that cinnamon. You want it nice and cinnamony. See the little packet of cinnamon I had? it says it's 25gms in there, and I used at least half the packet, to three quarters of it on each third. Be one with the cinnamon. Make sure it covers all of the dough.

Taking one long edge of dough, roll it firmly up towards you.
Gosh it's hard taking a photo whilst trying to hold that roll of dough from unraveling. Sorry about the unfocasedness of it, and the darkness. (Don't have photoshop yet!)

See - a nice tight roll of dough. That's what you want.

Get a sharp knife, and cut the dough into segments, 3/4 to 1 inch thick.

You get a lot of little rolls out of a thinly rolled out lot of dough. Place these little rolls of dough into a greased tin.

I bought 9 disposable tins with lids when I was preparing for this. Glad I did because this little roll of dough? Took up 3 tins! I spread 3 teaspoons of melted butter into each tin and greased them.

See how happy they look there? Awww. Like peas in a pod.

Repeat this process with the other 2 parts (or half) of the dough. I ended up with 9 full tins. Ree-The-Pioneer-Woman ends up with 7. I reckon the difference is in the rolling out of the dough.

At this point, you've got a couple of options. You can leave the dough to rise for about 20 minutes, or you can put them in the fridge and bake them in the morning, or you can pop them in the freezer until needed. Make sure, if using the fridge or freezer, they're well covered. I did both the latter options, and they worked out great :)

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F (or 200 degrees C) and bake the rolls for 15-18 minutes. Watch them, as they'll need to come out when they're nice and lightly golden brown on top, but not too brown! In a fan forced oven, their nice and light brown at 13-15 minutes, and in my old crappy non-fan forced oven, it took 20-25. Go figure!

FROSTING

1 kg bag of icing sugar
2 tsp maple flavouring (or vanilla - I used vanilla)
1/2 cup of milk
1/4 cup melted butter
1/4 cup of strongly brewed coffee
A generous pinch of salt (Ree says 1/8 tsp)

Mix it all together! This is the frosting that Ree-The-Pioneer-Woman pours over her buns! They look like this afterwards.

See! How awesome do they look!

Nom nom nom.

Enjoy with friends :)