Melting Moments

These are light, crumby, buttery, sweet biscuits (cookies) that I’ve been baking for years. The plain version is the original but I’ve developed my own chocolate version, which is also included here.

Ingredients:

120g / 4oz butter or margarine (recipe says butter but I’ve always used marg) OR
140g / 5oz butter or margarine if you’re making the choc version
60g / 2oz icing sugar (confectioner’s sugar)
30g / 1oz cornflour (cornstarch)
1 cup Self Raising flour
2 tablespoons cocoa for the chocolate version
About 2 tablespoons white sugar for choc version

Method:

Preheat oven to 150 C / 300 F

1. Melt butter/margarine and sieve (sift) in icing sugar. Mix well.

2. Add sieved (sifted) flour and cornflour to butter mixture (and cocoa for choc version). Mix thoroughly until it forms a dough.

3. Roll into balls – this quantity should make 20 balls. Place the balls on a greased / oiled baking tray (cookie sheet) and squash down with a fork. I generally push the fork down twice, the second time at right angles to the first time, to form a cross-hatch on top.

 

4. Choc version only: using a sieve, sprinkle white sugar over the biscuits.

5. Bake at 150 C / 300 F for 15 minutes.

6. Allow to cool on the tray. Once cooled they can be kept in a sealed container or on a cling-wrapped plate in the fridge.



Icing (Frosting)

There are a variety of ways to ice (frost) these. Traditionally they’re sandwiched together with vanilla icing, but there’s many variations and you can simply pipe squiggles of icing on top of the biscuit if you don’t want to make sandwiches.

Ingredients:

4 metric (20mL) tablespoons icing (confectioners’) sugar
2 metric (10mL) teaspoons butter / margarine, melted
1 metric tablespoon milk
1 metric teaspoon vanilla essence (can be substituted for any other flavour of essence, such as lemon, orange, raspberry or peppermint)
Food colouring if desired.

Method:

Mix all ingredients together to make a creamy mixture. Spoon or pipe onto the biscuits as desired, and chill before serving.

Jelenka's Crocodile

I am not talking about crocodile meat, but about this crocodile:


This is an interesting looking stuffed bread that is perfect for entertaining. Taste-wise it's nothing spectacular, but it makes a good presentation. Especially if yours is not as cross-eyed :o) as mine and its mug is less pig like.

For the crocodile body:

3 1/4 cups (500 g) flour
1 cup (250 ml) milk
1 egg
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
A pinch of sugar
A pinch of salt
40 g fresh (compressed) yeast or 4 teaspoons dry yeast (that is four times the yeast normally needed for this amount of flour, but it works)

For the filling:

1 hard boiled egg, sliced
1 roasted pepper, cut into strips
200 g ham, chopped
100 g cheese, shredded/grated

* Or, put in whatever you have in the fridge - the filling is up for interpretation. Just make sure that the filling is cooked beforehand if needed.

Directions:

Knead dough using the pizza setting of the bread machine.

The pizza setting has much shorter time for rising than the regular dough setting. With this amount of yeast, the dough rises quickly!

It's important to have all of the filling prepared before the dough is done. Again, it rises quickly even at room temperature, so you need to work fast.

On a piece of aluminum foil and with the help of a rolling pin, roll the dough into a rectangle about 1.5 cm/ 1/2 inch thick

Arrange the filling in the middle along the long side of the rectangle.

To give credit where credit is due :), and because her pics are better than mine, here are the step-by-step instructions on how to make the croc, courtesy of Jelenka at http://www.eva.ru/

The pictures are pretty much self-explanatory, but ask me for translation if there is anything you don't understand. It looks way more complicated than it actually is.

Bake for 15 min at 325 F/162 C or until a toothpick inserted in the bread part comes out clean.



Edited to add: you cut it in slices across the shorter side and eat it like a regular stuffed bread.

Christine's Potato Salad

This is a smooth, creamy, eggy potato salad, great for people who aren’t fond of the acidic taste of potato salads that use ordinary mayonnaise, mustard, dill or whatever. I invented it entirely out of my own head, to satisfy my need for a dairy-free potato salad. It’s always a hit at parties, and is perfect for Summer entertaining.

Whole-egg mayonnaise is a thick, creamy, smooth mayonnaise that is generally dairy-free and as the name suggests uses the whole egg rather than only part of it. It’s widely available here in Australia. Using whole-egg mayonnaise is essential in this recipe as it gives the salad its distinctive smooth taste.

Serves 8 people.

Ingredients:

8 small red potatoes (we usually use the ‘Desiree’ variety, but really any potato will do)
8 eggs
2 spring onions (aka scallions / green onions: these)
Whole egg mayonnaise (usually requires most of a 440g / 1 pound jar)
6 slices good quality sandwich ham (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

1. Place eggs in a saucepan in cold water. Place them over high heat and leave for 15 minutes. This will hard-boil the eggs. Shell eggs as soon as they are done for easy shelling. Set aside to cool.

2. Chop potatoes into good-sized pieces (at least 3 or 4 cm / 1-1.5 inches along each dimension) and place in a saucepan in cold water. Bring to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes or until just done. Drain and set aside to cool.

3. Chop the eggs into quarters, or use an egg-slicer.

4. Place the cooled potatoes and chopped eggs into a large mixing bowl. Add several large dollops of the mayonnaise to the bowl and use a plastic or wooden spoon to stir through to coat the potato and egg generously in mayonnaise (a metal spoon will cut the potatoes and eggs). Keep adding mayonnaise until the other ingredients are thoroughly covered.

5. Finely chop the spring onions and add to the mixing bowl (reserving a small amount to garnish). Stir through.

6. If you are using ham, dice the ham into 1cm / ½ inch pieces and add to the bowl. Stir through.

7. Season with salt and cracked pepper if desired, and stir through.

8. Spoon into a serving bowl and garnish with a little more spring onion. Refrigerate until serving.

This will keep very well for 3-4 days in the refrigerator if kept in a bowl with cling wrap / Glad wrap / cling film etc over the top. Although it sounds strange, it can also be fried up as leftovers. It makes a very good meal when fried up with left-over meat!