Today the lil monkey had Empanadas for lunch

So today my lil' Monkey and I were so focused on buying him some sun glasses that we didn't think about lunch. Luckily he went down just long enough for me to make something yummy: empanadas.
I thought those are great because really you can stuff any leftover in them. For my little one I filled them with ham, onions, green capsicum, cheese and a grated kumara. I cooked the filling first so it had time to cool.

Then I made the pastry that I have found on this website: http://blog.superhealthykids.com/2011/02/starting-e-week-with-empanadas/. 
This site has awesome recipes for kids.

Ingredients:
- 3 Tbsp of butter (I used reduced fat margarine)
- 1 Tbsp of olive oil
- 1 Tbsp of white vinegar
- 1/2 cup of water
- 1 tsp of salt

Place all the ingredients in a pan and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat and stir in:
- 1 cup of whole wheat flour
- 1 cup of white flour.

Put the dough in the fridge until it has cooled. Once the dough is cool, roll out and cut into circles or squares out of the dough. Fill with desired filling. Bake at 180 Degree C for 20 minutes or until the bread dough is browning and cooked through.

I made mine into kind of ravioli shape and the lil monkey loved them... Considering that lately he would only eat eggs or Terriyaki chicken with rice, I feel we have achieved something here.

And again for Christmas I made some Gingerbread cake pops

I forgot to take pictures of them on their own so here is a pic of them in the goodie box I was assembling for my son's swimming instructor.

For the gingerbread cake: (from Martha Stewart)
8 Tbsp unsalted butter at room temperature
2 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ground ginger
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
2/3 cup of unsulfured molasses (I didn't have any and to be honest I have no clue where I could find some here so I used Treacle)
1 tsp freshly grated ginger
2 large eggs lightly beaten

1- Heat the oven to 350F (180). Butter and flour a 9 by 13 inch cake pan; set aside.
In a bowl combine boiling water and baking soda; set aside.
In a large bowl, sift together flour, ground spices, salt and baking powder; set aside.

2- In an electric mixer with paddle attachment, cream the butter until light. Beat in brown sugar until fluffy. Beat in molasses and grated ginger, baking soda mixture and flour mixture. Beat in eggs.

3- Pour the batter in prepared pans; bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean 30 to 35 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack.

While you wait for the cake to cool, you can make the brown sugar frosting:

Brown sugar frosting: http://southernfood.about.com/od/icingrecipes/r/bl50618m.htm

Ingredients: 

1/2 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar, packed

1/4 cup milk

2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar, more or less

hot water, optional

Preparation:

In a saucepan, melt 1/2 cup butter. Add the brown sugar. Bring to a boil and lower heat to medium low and continue to boil for 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Add the milk and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Cool to lukewarm. Gradually add sifted confectioners' sugar. Beat until thick enough to spread. If too thick, add a little hot water.

Assembly
Break the cake in pieces.
Mix the frosting to the cake and make it into a sort of a paste.
Put in the fridge to harden for at least an hour.
Take it out of the oven and place it between 2 sheets of food wrap.
With a rolling pin, roll it out and flatten it.
Cut the gingerbread men out.
Place them on a cookie pan and place them in the fridge overnight or even in the freezer. Make sure they are covered with a food wrap so no water gets on them.
When they have harden enough, melt some milk chocolate with a little bit of vegetable oil- something neutral, you don't want to spoil the taste of the chocolate (double boiler method). Leave it to cool slightly since you are going to dunk the gingerbread men you don't want them to melt or get the chocolate messy.
Before you dunk the gingerbread men, prepare another cookie pan or another dish with a baking sheet over it to place you gingerbread men once they have been covered in chocolate.
Dunk your gingerbread men in the melted chocolate. If you want to stick some decorations (like the buttons on mine) you will need to do it immediately after you have placed the gingerbread men to set.

And for Christmas I also made some... Chocolate dipped Hazelnuts Shortbreads

I wanted to make shortbread but not the ones I usually make during the year. I wanted the Wow factor and I found this recipe on the Food Network website: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/dave-lieberman/chocolate-dipped-hazelnut-shortbread-recipe/index.html.

Ingredients

• 1 cup husked hazelnuts
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, room temperature
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 ounces good-quality semisweet chocolate

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Place hazelnuts on baking sheet. Bake until they're a shade darker and fragrant, about 10 to 15 minutes. Remove from oven and set aside to cool.

Lower oven to 325 degrees F.
Place hazelnuts in blender or food processor and pulse to coarse bits; set aside. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt to blend; set aside.

Beat butter and sugar together with a wooden spoon until smooth. Beat in egg. Gradually beat the flour mixture into the butter mixture. Add the chopped hazelnuts and mix until distributed evenly throughout.

Form into long cookies and place on greased cookie sheets. Bake until firm, about 15 minutes. Remove from oven and cool on racks.

In a saucepan over lowest heat or in a double boiler, melt chocolate. Dip 1 end of cooled cookies into melted chocolate. Place back on cookie sheet to harden.

I shaped mine in stars. I thought that was more Christmassy :) Although I realized as I didn't take any pics of the shortbreads once they were dipped... Well, will have to make them again.

Happy Baking :)

and for Christmas I made some: Christmas mince Pies

For those I turned to my Baking Bible aka: The Edmonds Cookery book... And they always turn out to be a crowd pleaser.
Here is the recipe for the pastry (if you do have the book, turn to page 86)
Sweet Shortcrust pastry:
1 cup of standard plain flour
75g of butter
1/4 cup of sugar
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon of water
This recipe works if you double it too which makes it a lot easier.

Sift the flour. Cut in butter until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in sugar. Add the egg yolk and water. Mix to a stiff dough. Chill for 30 minutes before using. Use as required for sweet pies and tarts.

Christmas mincemeat:
2 medium apples, unpeeled, quartered of cored
275g packet vegetable shortening or melted butter
1 1/4 cups of currants
1 1/4 cups of sultanas
1 1/4 cups of raisins
1 1/4 cups of mixed peel
1/4 cup blanched almonds
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 tablespoons brandy or whisky or lemon juice

This is where I put my own personal touch of cutting corners and I buy the already mixed mincemeat (the one that is already prepared in the red tubs) and for the liquid I used cranberry juice and port.

Mince and finely chop apples, suet, currants, sultanas, raisins, peel and almonds. Add the sugar, salt, nutmeg and liquid (depending on what you are using). Mix well. Spoon the mixture into clean jars and seal. If using fruit juice, refrigerate.
Makes 6 cups.

Christmas mince pies:
400g Sweet Shortcrust Pastry
1 cup of Christmas Mincemeat
1 egg, beaten
Icing sugar

On a lightly floured board roll out the pastry to 3mm thickness.
Cut out rounds using 7 cm cutter, and use to line about 16 patty tins (I use mini muffin tins).
Using a 6cm round biscuit cutter, cut out the tops from the remaining pastry. I actually used a star shaped one (just my preference).
Spoon a teaspoon of mincemeat into each base. Brush the edges of the bases with some of the egg. place tops over the filling, pressing slightly around the edges to seal the pies. Glaze with the remaining beaten egg. Bake at 180 Degree C for 15 minutes or until lightly browned. To serve, heat at 140 degree C for 15 minutes or until warm. Dust with sifted icing sugar.

Happy Baking :)

Banana custard cake

Gosh has the silly season been busy (despite a quite average weather to say the least!). Then I decided my house needed a good top to bottom clean which took me a whole week so I've been quite busy but it doesn't mean I was cooking and baking as well. Anyway, let's move on to the important part: the food!!!
My husband had an afternoon tea at work on the Friday before Christmas and his section needed to bring cakes. I thought "I don't want to do the predictable chocolate cake", I want to make something summery but naughty at the same time... After all it was 2 days before Christmas. So I came up with this recipe. The cake is still the moist yellow cake from Bakerella that I love making and this is very easy and delicious. You can find the recipe here: http://www.bakerella.com/finally-i-found-it/.
To this wonderfully moist cake I added some homemade banana custard (inspired from the custard tart recipe on page 214 of the iconic Edmonds cookbook) which goes like that: 
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup of milk
- 2 tablespoons of sugar
- 2 bananas cut in very small pieces

In a saucepan, whisk together eggs, milk and sugar. Cook, stirring often until almost boiling. Remove from the stove and add the banana pieces. Stir to mix the bananas. Pour into in bowl and cover with glad wrap touching the top of the custard to avoid a skin to form.

For the meringue I used a 7 minute frosting from a book called: cupcakes by Elinor Klivans. Here is the recipe:
- 1 1/4 cups of sugar
- 1/3 cup of water
- 3 large egg whites
- 1/4 teaspoon of cream of tartar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla exctract
- 1/4 teaspoon of almond extract ( I have not used this one)

Put the sugar, water, egg whites and cream of tartar in a heatproof bowl or the top of a double boiler with at least a 2- quart capacity and beat with a handheld electric mixer on high speed until opaque, white and foamy, about 1 minute.

Put the bowl over, but not touching, a saucepan of barely simmering water. The top container should sit firmly over the pan of hot water; be sure to keep the cord of the electric mixer away from the burner. Beat on high speed until the frosting forms a soft peak that stands straight up if you stop the beaters and lift them up, about 7 minutes.
The frosting should register 160 Degree C on a thermometer.

Remove the container of frosting from the water, add the vanilla and almonds extracts, and continue beating for 2 minutes to further thicken the frosting.

Assembly:

Level your 3 yellow cakes to make sure you don't end up with the tower of Pisa and also to keep the custard between the cakes (otherwise you might have a landslide).

Select the more levelled cake to go on the top. I generally turn it around and put the bottom of one of the cakes as the top of the finished cake (the bottoms are always flat).

Put your first cake on the plate you are planning on serving the cake on (since it is quite a tall cake it can be tricky to move it). Pour half of the custard, spread stopping about 1/2 cm from the edge of the cake.

Place the second cake on top and repeat with custard.

Place the third cake over.

Pour 3/4 of the frosting over the cake and with a off set spatula spread to the side and smooth. Pour the rest of the frosting on top and decorate as you wish. I added some untoasted shredded coconut on the sides of mine and some banana chips at the top.

 

Happy baking everyone :)