December Food Edition 5 - Macadamia Toffee

This recipe has been copied from a hand written recipe in a friend's collection, so I am unsure of its origin.

225g (1 cup) white sugar
80ml (1/3 cup) water
200g unsalted macadamia nuts*

*I did two batches, one with 200g macadamias, which seemed way too many, next one with about 50g, not enough. I reckon somewhere in between, depending on how nutty you want it.

Combine white sugar and water in a heavy saucepan over low heat. Cook for 5 minutes or until sugar dissolves. Increase heat to high and bring to boil. Cook - without stirring, occasionally brushing sides down for 5-7 minutes until golden. (The colour changes quite rapidly, so keep an eye on it. I burnt the first batch, although it was quite tasty!). Reduce heat to low, add macadamia nuts, and cook for 1-2 minutes stirring until nuts are covered. Pour onto lined tray (baking paper). Allow to set - I just left mine on a chopping board on the bench overnight covered up and it was set nicely. Coarsely chop or snap with your hands.

I served this alongside a chocolate torte with double cream at a family christmas lunch.

My first attempt at toffeeeeeee

Gluten free chocolate torte

The one at the front is the burnt one, with far too many nuts, the one at back much closer to what was intended.

December Food Edition 4 - Orange and Passionfruit Melting Moments

One of my BFFs has problems digesting gluten, so I had a crack at some gluten free yoyo's / melting moments. Recipe is here: http://gourmettraveller.com.au/orange_and_passionfruit_yoyos.htm from Gourmet Traveller - I replaced the plain flour with plain gluten free flour - buy in any good supermarket.

A nice short biscuit, not too sweet. I wished the orange was a little more prominent, but they were nice. Paler that normal yoyos containing custard powder.

December Food Edition 3 - Early Christmas Dinner

A few weeks before Christmas we decided to throw a dinner party as a spur of the moment thing, for our wonderful local 'family'. We ate well -  a big roast leg of lamb, spuddies in rosemary, dutch carrots cooked in red wine vinegar, thyme and garlic (smashing!), sweet potato, pumpkin, greens... followed by xmas pudding and brandy custard. There were great plans for yorkshire puds to soak up the yummo sauce, but I got a little distracted by the cider supplied by one of my guests!

Lamb, with rosemary, garlic and anchovies stuffed into those little slots.

They're bloody gorgeous, wish I'd taken a photo when they were cooked.

Nice pair of jugs!

I may get killed for this, but here are the wonderful people that I got to spend my early Christmas dinner with! Love them.

Anyway, happy Christmukkah one and all. Hope you got to eat some smashing food, with some smashing people like I did!

December Food Edition 2 - Peppermint Chocolate Fudge

My lovely husband sometimes says there are two things in this world that you shouldn't watch being made - laws and sausages... but I think there's a third part to this...

I call this stuff fudge, although... dear foodists, I know its not truly 'fudge', but it feels, looks and eats like fudge, so for today, we're going with that.

Blitz 2 packets of chocolate ripple biscuits in the food processor (or bash up in a bag with a rolling pin if you have no FP). Melt 1 large block of peppermint filled chocolate (I used cadbury peppermint block, see photos) together with 125g unsalted butter. [I used microwave, but a bowl over saucepan of water probably works too!]. Put biscuits, chocolate/butter mix and a can of condensed milk into a large bowl and mix like crazy until combined. It gets pretty sticky. When combined, tip into a slice tray lined with baking paper. Heat up a dessert spoon under hot tap water, shake off then use the back to smooth out the top of the "fudge". Give the tray a bash on the bench for good measure too. Grate a Peppermint Crisp chocolate bar over the fudge, and if you like, drizzle melted white chocolate over too. Pop in the fridge overnight. Cut into small pieces (its quite rich). Trim off the messy edges first if you have high standards - I personally find this a great shame and waste of fudge, so enjoyed eating the trimmed off bits for breakfast!  I gave this away at Christmas and it increased my street cred imensely! Forget the ingredients, and enjoy!

Blitzed chocolate ripple biscuits

Cadbury Dairy Milk Peppermint

Condensed milk, chocolate ripple bickies, melted chocolate and butter. Heaven on a stick...

Yes, I made two batches at once - I call it multitasking, you might call it "Erica doesn't have forearms big enough to stir a double batch all at once, what a wuss".

Before the 'setting'

Set.



The pieces are "small". Trust me.



December Food Edition 1 - Apricot Jam

My camera cable has been found, and I have finally been able to download hundreds of pictures off the camera, and write in my blog!

I'm thoroughly enjoying being on holidays for a few weeks over Chrissy and new year, and have been making the most of the time off, making copious amounts of jam, fudge and many other sweet treats.

Our stone fruits are in various stages of ripening, and being eaten by hungry birds. The apricots are always first, so my story will start with apricot jam.

Apricot Jam
This is our third summer living here, and hence my third crack at apricot jam making. Previous years I have shared my fruit, but this year there was less (we haven't been able to water much, as the river pump is out of action, and we have only one house tank)... so I kept it all to myself. I did share the finished product around though of course!

I ended up making 3 big batches over 2 days, using Stephanie Alexander's recipe from Cooks Companion. I managed to get it to set (somewhat) without adding any pectin, just the last few lemons off the tree.

Apricot Jam Recipe
1.5kg apricots, firm-ripe rather than soft,
1 cup water
2 tablespoones lemon juice
1.5kg sugar

Wash, halve or quarter the fruit and remove stones (don't throw them away...)
Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celcius.
Put the apricot stones inside a teatowel and crack them open with a meat mallet (probably a nut cracker would do the job, but I don't have room for one in my kitchen!) Extract the kernels and set aside. Discard all the debris, making sure that none of the sharp shell falls into the kernels - they would really hurt to crunch into!

Put water, fruit and lemon juice into non reactive saucepan, bring slowly to boil. Simmer about 20 mins, or longer if you like your jam less chunky. Meanwhile put sugar into oven on a tray and warm it to hand-hot in the oven. (A note here, I find the 160 deg oven is simply too hot to do the job [my hand-hot is a lot less that 160] and a bit of a waste of energy, next time i'll just put the oven on as low as possible and bring it to hand-hot). Suit yourself. Add warmed sugar and reserved kernels to pan, stirring until sugar dissolves, then boil rapidly for about 15 mins or until setting stage. Pop into hot, sterilised jars including the kernels.

Apricot Kernel peeking out from hard shell

Kernels

 




The finished product - notice my special birthday gift in action - HHC labels from my awesome friend Cathy!

I hope you enjoy the recipe, and those of you who received a jar under the Christmas tree on Sunday, please let me know what you think!

Coming up next... Peppermint and Chocolate Fudge...!