Old-fashioned Apple Crumble & Chocolate Fudge

I typed this up ages ago on my original blog.  My daughter recently asked for chocolate fudge, that is what I call self saucing chocolate pudding, I called it that as a child.  These recipes would not be metric. 

My Nana was a good cook.  She loved to bake slices and make puddings.  She also made trifle.  I loved her mixing bowl, it was a slightly different color at the bottom from use.  All was made on the kitchen table, mostly baked in the wood oven.  She had flour drawers built into her cupboards when she ordered them.  Her drawer had a broken tea cup for measuring.

Apple Crumble
1 cup Self Raising Flour
3/4 cup coconut dessicated
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons butter
Rub butter into dry ingredients.  Put onto top of stewed apple and bake. 
This recipe is before metric.
Chocolate Fudge
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1 cup Self Raising flour
2 level dessertspoons cocoa
Cream butter and sugar, add unbeaten egg.  Fold in milk, flour, and cocoa alternately.  Pour cake mixture into deep greased baking dish.  Make topping with 1/2 cup sugar and 2 level dessertspoons cocoa and sprinkle on top of cake mixture in dish then gently spoon 1 1/2 cups hot water onto mixture.  Bake in moderate oven 35 mins. 
Also a non metric recipe.

Cake made with oil

I often look in the taste site for cakes made with oil. Today I found a standard cake recipe in an odd cookbook we got secondhand a year or two ago. At the moment we are in an unusual position lately and have more butter than oil or we could have made it and showed you a picture. We deliberately got some butter in case the girls wanted to bake. My youngest is making some jam drop at the moment. (They turned out looking like kolaches, but they look delicious.) We are thinking baking helps our very frugal diet at the moment. I have some advice, don't look at the Taste site for cakes unless you are prepared to buy lots of ingredients and are not hungry!

The recipe comes from The Complete Australian Cookbook. Sometimes these types of books come up on ebay.

We have changed the flours from grams to cups, same with the mls for oil and water.

The cake has variations.

Basic Cake with Oil

240g flour or 1 2/3 cup
250g sugar, or 1 1/3 up
3 eggs, separated
125ml or 1/2 cup oil
125ml or 1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla essence or other flavouring
3 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt (just remember Australian cups are bigger, same with tablespoons)

Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together in a mixing bowl.

Beat the egg yolks, oil and water together well in a bowl, then stir in the vanilla essence.

Add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly.

Beat the egg whites in another bowl until stiff but not dry, and fold into the batter.

Turn the batter out into two greased sandwich cake pans, 220mm in diameter, and bake in the oven at 190°C (375°F) for 30 minutes.

Turn out onto a wire cooling rack.

Variations:

Chocolate cake: Sift 1 1/2 tablespoons cocoa with the dry ingredients

Spice Cake: Sift 1 teaspoon each of ground cinnamon, ground ginger and ground allspice together with the dry ingredients.

Coconut cake: Stir 3 tablespoon desiccated coconut into the batter before adding the egg whites.

Are homemade meat pies cheaper?

This is what I am wondering. My husband kindly made six standard sized meat pies today (pictured). I have trouble finding recipes for pork sausages. Pork sausages are usually around $3 for 1lb or 500g which is how much the recipe needs. These were just the standard pork sausages, not special or extra delicious ones. The rest was flour, butter and an apple & parsley.

Pork Pies

500g pork sausages
1 apple or pear, grated
1 tbs chopped flat-leaf parsley
Pinch grated nutmeg
2 1/4 cups (340g) plain flour
80g unsalted butter
1 egg, beaten, plus 1 egg yolk to glaze

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C. Grease a 6-hole muffin pan or pie tins
2. Squeeze the sausage meat out of the casings into a bowl. Add the apple, parsley and nutmeg, then season with salt and pepper. Mix well to combine.
3. Sift flour into a bowl, add 1 teaspoon salt, and make a well in centre.
4. Melt the butter with 100ml water in a pan over low heat, then add to the flour and stir to combine.
5. Add the beaten egg and use your hands to bring the mixture together to form a smooth ball. (I use a dinner knife for pastry.)
6. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured board, then use a 10cm pastry cutter to cut 6 rounds from the dough. Use rounds to line the prepared muffin pan, leaving a slight overhang.
7. Divide the sausage mixture among the muffin holes. Bring the remaining pastry together into a ball and re-roll. Use a 7cm cutter to cut 6 lids from the dough. Brush the overhanging pastry in the muffin holes with a little water, sit the lids on the filling, then fold the overhang up around the edges and press in. Roll any excess pastry into long thin strips and use to run around the edge of each pie to form a decorative seal.
8. Brush the pies with beaten egg yolk and bake for 35 minutes or until golden.
9. Cool slightly before removing from the pan. Cool completely before packing. Serve with tomato chutney or sauce.

Adapted from the Taste site.

Great Wildcrafting Recipe

Today I saw on TV a recipe that uses either apples, blackberries or plums, but you can use a garden fruit, rhubarb. It is an old Scottish recipe called Friar's Omelette and I saw it on a program called Good Chef, Bad Chef.

It is great as the other ingredients are simple things like eggs and breadcrumbs. If you are a fan of stewed apple check it out. Garry also gives an example on the video how much water you need to start apples off and general tips about stewing apple. Sort of a lost art for fruit that can often be free.

Baking with Lemons

Please visit Spades and Spoons. Paola has been baking with lemons, so I decided to post my Mum's recipe that has lemon icing.

Chinese Chew

1 large cup self-rising flour

1 pinch salt

2 eggs

1/2 large cup chopped walnuts

1 large cup chopped dates

1/2 cup sugar

1/4lb butter

Combine all ingredients, beat eggs and add to melted butter. Mix all together. Bake in flat tin 20 mins. Ice with lemon icing.

I found a recipe in an old scrapbook of mine.

Lemon Icing

1 cup icing sugar/powdered sugar
1 tab lemon juice
2 teas water
2 teas butter

Sift icing sugar into bowl. Add melted butter, water, lemon juice, mix until smooth.

Baking with Coconut Milk

Recently I made the recipe below. The pictures were nice, but I was in a rush, and my raspberries were thawed. That had the effect of coloured batter and wet bits in the cake. I have my freezer away from our usual home. The raspberries pictures were a day old in the fridge, I used those too. However, I thoroughly enjoyed eating the cake. It tasted like raspberries and cream. It was all very exciting. If you are not keen on cakes with butter in them because of heartburn or whatever, try coconut milk. I haven't tried more than one recipe though.

I decided a month or two ago that coconut is one of those tastes Australians appreciate. I noticed today that the cake can be toasted. I didn't try that.

Raspberry & Coconut Loaf

1 3/4 cups desiccated coconut
1 1/2 cups coconut milk
1 cup caster sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 2/3 cups self-raising flour
1 cup frozen raspberries
pure icing sugar, to serve

Combine coconut and coconut milk in a large bowl. Cover and stand for 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 170°C. Line base and sides of a 7cm-deep, 10.5cm x 20.5cm (base) loaf pan with baking paper, allowing a 2cm overhang at both long ends.

Using a metal spoon, stir sugar, egg and vanilla into coconut mixture. Sift flour over coconut mixture. Gently stir until combined. Fold in raspberries.

Spoon mixture into prepared pan. Bake for 1 hour 10 minutes to 1 hour 15 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool loaf in pan for 10 minutes. Lift onto a wire rack to cool completely. Dust with icing sugar and slice. Serve toasted, if desired.

Here are some more recipes that include coconut milk. They look delicious! Especially since I recently tried a sweet impossible pie from a fund raising book that is old, but still popular.

Coconut & Lemon Self-saucing Pudding
Coconut & Passionfruit Self-saucing Pudding
Pear & Raspberry Coconut Bread
Coconut Pudding with Golden Syrup
Impossible Coconut Pie
Passionfruit Layer Cake

My family like their baking racks in the oven differently to what I would like them, so my cake grew through the rack. It was a bad time of day to be baking. I had to stay home to wait for it to cook too, while the others went somewhere.

Using Fresh Raspberries & 5 Cup Cake

Last Saturday my kids picked the raspberries that are growing at our new home. You can read about it here. We got a few more the next day. The first ones were washed and put into the freezer. My daughter wanted to bake something to take to the new house as during the year making lunches that people wanted to eat when we went there for the day got harder. Originally I started to stay home because of a netball commitment.

She baked these on Monday. She used a very nice large wild apple as well, she thinks they taste nice, the apples, and they do.

I remember her calling me from the other house asking for raspberry recipes. I did a search. She then she particularly wanted baking recipes. I found one I want to make too when I get the ingredients. It is similar to the 5 cup cake mentioned on the other Belinda's blog. Belinda's cake is so quick to make it is ready before my oven heats up. I make mine with sultanas as a friend suggested.

Anyway, this new recipe is not exactly in cups like the 5 cup cake. It is also a quick mix, the added extras are an egg and vanilla. The milk is coconut milk instead of fresh milk. I usually have some in the pantry, but haven't at this time.

Raspberry & Coconut Loaf

1 3/4 cups desiccated coconut
1 1/2 cups coconut milk
1 cup caster sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 2/3 cups self-raising flour
1 cup frozen raspberries
pure icing sugar, to serve

Combine coconut and coconut milk in a large bowl. Cover and stand for 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 170°C. Line base and sides of a 7cm-deep, 10.5cm x 20.5cm (base) loaf pan with baking paper, allowing a 2cm overhang at both long ends.

Using a metal spoon, stir sugar, egg and vanilla into coconut mixture. Sift flour over coconut mixture. Gently stir until combined. Fold in raspberries.

Spoon mixture into prepared pan. Bake for 1 hour 10 minutes to 1 hour 15 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool loaf in pan for 10 minutes. Lift onto a wire rack to cool completely. Dust with icing sugar and slice. Serve toasted, if desired.

My daughter put the other printed recipes together with some wool. Here are the links:

Raspberry & Apple Teacakes
Frozen Yoghurt Lollipops
Chocolate Raspberry Ripple Cake
Baked Berry Custards
Christmas Brownies
Quick Chocolate Cakes
Banana and Raspberry Bread
Berry Yoghurt Bake
Raspberry Buttermilk Muffins
Raspberry Sour Cream Tea Cake
Jam Roll Charlotte
Raspberry Cheesecake Brownies

Simplicity Chocolate Cake ~ Australian Classic

I'm in cake heaven again. Recently I was reading about my favourite cake my Nana made on a blog. In it the cake was adapted to make lemon muffins and I was thrilled. My Nana made variations as well, mostly lamingtons. I found on the net more variations. Today I was even more thrilled to find in a fund raiser book I bought recently, and older one reprinted, more variations. I have been having such fun with this book. I have made Sweet Impossible Pie for one thing.

Muffins
Variations 1
Variations 2

I have written the recipe in a composite of my Nana's recipe and the fundraiser recipe.

Simplicity Chocolate Cake

3 tab or oz butter or margarine
1 cup sugar
2 level tabs cocoa
1/2 cup milk
1 cup Self Raising Flour
2 eggs
1/2 or 1 teaspoon almond or vanilla.

Melt the butter. Pull all other ingredients into a large basin and pour the melted butter on top of them. Beat really hard for 3 (8?) minutes, or low speed beat hard for 2-3 minutes. Pour the mixture into a prepared tin and bake in moderate oven. Be careful not to overcook. Time will depend on size and shape of tin. Loaf tin 350oF or 180oC for approximately 40 minutes.

Ice chocolate cake with chocolate icing and nuts or just dust with icing sugar.

Lamingtons

Make simplicity chocolate cake without using the cocoa.

Lamington Icing:

1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon butter
1 cup hot water

Place in saucepan and bring to boil. Thicken with 1 dessertspoon custard powder (Bird's if you are in the US) and 1 dessertspoon cocoa. Boil 5 minutes.

Cut cake into squares and dip into icing. Sprinkle with coconut.

Cinnamon Cake
1 teaspoon mixed spice and 1 teaspoon cinnamon (instead of cocoa)

Orange Cake
Juice of 1/2 an orange and rind and make up to 1/2 cup of milk (replaces cocoa and milk).

Passionfruit Cake
2 tablespoon of passionfruit and make to 1/2 cup of milk (replaces cocoa and milk).