A Healthy Fruit Cake

 My friend Rea gave me this recipe and made it for morning tea at aqua.  It's delicious and one of the moistest fruit cakes I have ever tasted.  I think you could add in extra nuts to your liking, and substitute sherry for any alcohol you enjoy.  It's essentially a boiled fruitcake, cooked in a traditional low oven but with a very untraditional ingredient!

Ingredients

1 kilo mixed fruit
1 cup apricot nectar

1 teaspooon honey

1 cup cooked, mashed pumpkin (400 grams) - I use butternut pumpkin as its sweeter.

1-1/2 cups self raising flour

1 teaspoon mixed spice

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

walnuts to decorate

1 tablespoon sherry

Method

Preheat oven to 150C.  (a slow oven)

Place fruit, nectar and honey in a saucepan, bring to the boil.  Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes.  Allow to cool.

Stir in pumpkin.

Fold in sifted flour, spice and bi-carb.

Pour into a greased and lined 18cm square or round cake tin.

Bake for 1-1/4 to 1-1/2 hours, or until cooked when tested with a skewer - it should come out clean and dry.

Pour sherry over the cake while hot, and allow to stand at least 10 minutes before turning out to cool.

Store in an airtight container.

 This cake is a combination of a recipe I had plus some additions of my own.  I usually only make marmalade once a year, give lots to my friends and keep some for us.  I make it out of blood oranges which have a lovely sweet and tart taste.  The secret is to boil it for a lot longer that you think it needs.  This year I made 3 kilos worth of oranges into marmalade and it took a total of 4 hours!  As a result I made this cake without the orange rind or essence as it did not need any more than the marmalade.  (Which was delicious, as was the cake!)

Marmalade Cake

Ingredients

125 g butter

2 teasp grated orange rind

1/4 teasp orange blossom essence

2 eggs

1/2 cup orange marmalade  + extra

1/2 cup desiccated coconut

1-1/2 cup SR flour

1/2 cup milk

Method

Pre heat oven 160C fan forced.  Grease and line a loaf pan.

Beat butter, rind and sugar until light and fluffy.  

Beat in eggs.

Fold in marmalade, pean then coconut, flour and milk.   Spread in loaf pan and bake for aprox 45 mins.

Spread with a little marmalade while hot. Cool on a rack.

W.W. Sweet Chilli Sauce

 I have finally been able to get my chilli bush to grow and produce an abundance of chillis! so what to do with them? Make Sweet Chilli Sauce of course.  After testing and searching through a whole lot of recipes I found this one from the Australian Women' Weekly.  I have only tweaked it a bit but have made several batches and it works every time.

Keep it in the fridge once it is made, or if you want to keep it longer out of the fridge just us a canning/preserving system.

Ingredients

250g fresh long chillies

3 cups white vinegar

2 cups water

2 cups white granulated sugar

2 teaspoon salt

2inch piece of fresh ginger

6 cloves garlic

Method

Remove stems off chillies, peel ginger.  Chop into pieces and place in food processor with 1 cup of water.

Process until chillies and ginger are very fine.

Place remaining water, vinegar, salt and sugar into a saucepan and simmer to dissolve the sugar fully.

Add the chilli and ginger mixture to the saucepan and cook uncovered
on rolling simmer for 20 minutes.

Peel garlic and process to a fine chop, then add to the saucepan and cook for another 20-40 minute.  It should be reduced to about half. 

Take the saucepan off the stove and allow to cool for 10 minutes.

Pour into sterilised jars and allow to cool on the bench before refridgerating.

Christmas Biscotti - Cranberry and Pistachio

 Whoa be it for me to upgrade an Aust. Women's Weekly recipe because they have been a standby for me and many others (including my mum) for many years.  Why?  Because they work, EVERY TIME.  But....

Hmm, (embarrassing pause) however I recently misread this recipe and used baking powder instead of bi carb and used coconut sugar instead of castor sugar because I had none.  -  The result was better than the original, so if you want to substitute castor instead of coconut, and bi carb instead of baking powder go ahead!

You can also substitute any nut or fruit combination you enjoy, and instead of vanilla use any delicious essence (e.g. almond) you like.

One tip - chilling is a MUST. You could even chill overnight if that suits you better.

My emergency Christmas dessert.

 Have you been asked to provide dessert at the last minute or simply having people over unexpectedly?  Well do not panic!  Here is the easiest dessert I know that can be whipped up in minutes (plus a trip to the store).  I guarantee it will impress your guests.

Step 1 - Shop

From the store buy an unfilled sponge (don't worry a filled one will still work), a jar of lemon curd, a lemon, and about 600 mls of whipping cream.  I assume you have a couple of eggs at home.

Step 2 - Assemble

Cut up the sponge into large (about 2inch) pieces and put at the bottom of a trifle dish.  Sprinkle (ie. pour on) some limoncello (or grand Marnier, or rum, or whatever booze you like), that has been mixed with a little sugar and water.  Taste to see if you need to add some lemon juice as well.

Whip the cream and add some sugar and the zest of 1-2 lemons to taste.

Put 1/2 on top of the sponge.

Spread the lemon curd on top, then the rest of the cream. 

Put into the fridge.   Serve when you need to.

Options :

1. If you had time you could put a layer of raspberry jelly on the bottom, that would take about an hour to set before you can put the sponge on.  Looks like you spent hours though.
2. Put some raspberries (could use frozen) on top of the lemon curd.
3. If you have frozen raspberries, you could make a coulis and pour that onto the sponge too.
4. You could top with raspberries or grated chocolate, or strawberries.
5. Make Lemon Meringue trifle - If you are feeling fancy you could whip up 2 egg whites with some sugar to form a meringue and then pile on top.  Torch with a blow torch to brown the edges.  This is what I did and it is very impressive.

If you just don't have time for any of this cut up some fruit and cheese, add a slice of fruit cake and away you go!  Merry Christmas.

QUICK AND EASY LEMON IMPOSSIBLE PIES

 This is a quick recipe that uses ingredients you will probably have in the cupboard. They are little morsels of lemon and vanilla loveliness.

Pre-heat overn to 160C fan forced
Grease a muffin tin (12)
In a bowl mix together 
2 eggs
can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup lemon juice 
1/4 cup melted butter
1/2 cup self-raising flour
1 tpn vanilla 
zest of 1 lemon.
When smooth, evenly pour into muffin tins.
Bake for 18-20 mins, or until golden on top and set .
Dust with icing sugar

Christmas Cosmopolitan.

 I love this because I can make a huge bottle full (minus the lemon and ice) and keep it in the fridge ready for anytime over xmas.  It is from the Barefoot Contessa herself!  We have it every Xmas but I always forget the recipe, so I am saving it for posterity.  i have converted it from ounces.

• 1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (2 lemons)
• 1/2 cup Cointreau liqueur
• 1 cup cranberry juice cocktail, such as Ocean Spray
• 1 cup good vodka, such as Grey Goose
• 
  
• Ice

In a pitcher, stir together the lemon juice, Cointreau, cranberry juice cocktail, vodka. Fill a cocktail shaker half full with ice and pour enough of the drink mixture into the shaker to almost fill it. Shake the cocktail for a full 30 seconds (it’s longer than you think!) and strain into martini glasses. Serve ice cold.