Anzac Biscuits

I've been baking Anzac (stands for Australia and New Zealand Army Corp) biscuits numerous times this last month.
My kids simply love them and consume them at lightning speed.
Fortunately they are so easy to make.
So I thought I would share the recipe here,
this recipe is taken out of one of the Women's Weekly's mini cookbooks named "Biscuits and Slices".

Anzac Biscuits

For better result, use traditional rolled oats rather than quick-cook rolled oats.

1 cup (90g) rolled oats
1 cup (150g) plain flour
1/2 cup (110g) sugar
3/4 cup (65g) desiccated coconut  (I don't use this as someone in my family doesn't like it)
125 g butter
1 tablespoon golden syrup
1 teaspoon bicarb soda
2 tablespoon boiling water

Combine oats, flour, sugar and coconut (if using) in large bowl.
Combine butter and golder syrup in a small saucepan, stir over heat until butter is melted.
Combine soda and water, add to butter mixture; stir into dry ingredients while mixture is still warm.
Place heaped tablespoons of mixture on oven tray lined with baking paper, 5cm apart, press down lightly.
Bake in a slow oven (160C) for about 20 minutes or until golden brown.
Stand biscuits 5 minutes to cool on tray to give time for biscuits to solidify.

Enjoy!

Mango Tango

Mango is no doubt one of my favourite tropical fruit.

The juicy sweetness of its flesh just makes my mouth water every time I think of it.

I love it in ice cream and desserts just as much as on its own.

This is an Ice Cream I made,

it has mango pieces, canned pineapple pieces, unsalted pistachios and dried cranberries in an ice cream made with strawberry puree, whipping cream and sweetened condensed milk,

I love the sensation of every mouthful you get hit with different ingredients,

the fruit and nut combo always appeal to me.

Now dig in, shall we?

This cheesecake is delicious,

even if you think you can't make cheesecake,

you'll have to try this.

It's not as hard as you think.

Recipe from here: Mango Nectar Cheesecake
Only change the fruit to whichever you fancy.
It was originally Apricot Nectar Cheesecake,
I also added mango pieces to the topping.

See the little guys standing up with a letter pegged to them with a mini peg?
They are cute, aren't they?

I just love the idea of them standing around in front of every placesetting at the table to show the guests where their seats are.
I've been combining work with enjoying and eating, in this case Mango Cheesecake,

been twisting wires making these for placecards,

You can't see it clearly, but there's actually a little hook that I twisted for the letter card to sit on.
The top of the stand is like the shape of the top end of a shepherd's staff.

I think they are handy especially when different guests with different names come over,

I can just swap the letters over to suit the initial of their first name.

Or I could make up some name cards with their first name on,

or make the card white and the names black so they look more distinctive.

Now if you would excuse me,

I would like to go back to work......... and the yummy cheesecake and tea.

Have a fabulous weekend, won't you?

Today I'm linking up with My Romantic Home's Show and Tell Friday.

BIG HELLO to everyone and Happy Valentine's Day!

Hiya! How are you all?

Happy Valentine's Day to you.

Just wanted to wish you a very lovely and memorable day,

Apart from the beautifully wrapped chocolate hearts I gave them this morning,

I also baked some special treats for my dearest hubby and family,

I think it's a wonderful way to express my love for them.

May your day be absolutely blessed!

Tea Time Strawberry Gateau

Hi, there, how are you all? Last Friday was a windy day here, and since gardening was not a practical thing to do then; I decided to stay indoors and do something I would enjoy doing. This spot where I look out of my kitchen window kept saying "Strawberries" to me. Strawberries have been in season and they are everywhere, including in my fridge. So why not make a strawberry cake. I remembered seeing this recipe in a British Country Homes and Interiors magazine, I found it in the May 2008 issue, yay! I checked the ingredients, yes, I had all of them on hand except the hazelnuts. However, I had flaked almonds in the freezer, so I would use them instead. This recipe is super easy to make, but looks impressive. I think the most fiddly and time consuming part was to stick those flaked almonds on the cream on the side of the cake, and even that was honestly not really that difficult! So there you go, everything else was simply easy as pie.
STRAWBERRY GATEAU serves 8-10
Ingredients: 225g butter, softened, plus extra for greasing
225g caster sugar (fine baker's sugar)
225g self-raising flour, plus extra for dusting
4 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp milk 20 strawberries
5 tbsp strawberry jam
300 ml whipping cream Flaked almonds, toasted
Icing sugar, to dust
"Flake" chocolate broken up or flowers to decorate.
(1) Preheat oven to 190C. Lightly grease and flour two 20cm sandwich tins. (2) Put the butter, caster sugar, flour, eggs, vanilla and milk into a bowl and beat until smooth. Divide the mixture between the tins and bake for 20 minutes untio the sponge is golden and springs back to the touch. (3) Reserve 10 (I used 12) strawberries and roughly chop the rest. Invert one cake on a plate, spread with jam and scatter with chopped fruit. (I stewed my chopped strawberries in a saucepan for a few minutes with some sugar) Top with the second cake.(4) Whip the cream until stiff and thinly coat the sides of the cake, press nuts into sides. (5) Pipe rosettes over the top of the cake and top with reserved strawberries. (In order to give it a more casual look, I didn't pipe the rosettes, I simply made 12 mounds of cream using a tablespoon) Place a whole straberry in the centre of the mounds of cream and sprinkle broken up "Flake" chocolate in the middle. Dust straberries with icing sugar. Voila, Strawberry Gateau! I rested the glass cake plate on top of a glass drink goblet and made it an elegant pedestal cake stand. Now let's serve the cake with some tea or coffee. Here, do not be in a haste, one slice at a time please. All gobbled up in three minutes! Mmm! So superb and moist!!!! Another one please.............. Another window outlook Have a lovely week with a wonderful outlook.

Easy Scrummy Orange Cake

I haven't posted any yummy recipes for a while. So I thought you might like this. I've always loved orange cakes, this is an extremely easy-peasy mix-all-in-one-bowl, then beat and bake type recipe. Here's the recipe:
Ingredients:
125g butter, softened
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup orange juice
2 eggs
3/4 cup caster sugar (baker's fine sugar)
1 and 1/2 cups sifted self-raising flour
1 tablespoon finely chopped orange zest a handful orange zest thinly sliced for garnish
Orange Icing
1 cup icing sugar
2-3 tablespoons orange juice (add more if needed, mix to semi-runny consistency)

(1) Combine all cake ingredients and beat thoroughly for 3 minutes.
(2) Pour mixture into a greased 20cmx10cm loaf or 20cm ring tin.
(3) Bake in 180 degrees C oven for 30-40 minutes or until cooked.
(4) Turn onto wire rack and allow to cool.
(5) Ice with Orange Icing. Alternatively, you could ice with Cream Cheese Icing, which I personally like better because of its tang. Simply beat 100g of softened cream cheese with 2 tablespoons of sugar and 2 teaspoons of lemon juice until smooth. I even add 2 tablespoons of sour cream sometimes. Now why don't you enjoy a cuppa and some orange cake with me?These flowers are from my garden, they are winter flowering plants and so they give me a lot of joy in winter when my roses are pruned and resting. It's officially Spring here now that it's September, I'm excited and anticipating the coming back of my roses. I'm also amazed by these flowers, they look like they have nature's tassels on them! One of my children has also started a vegie "patch" by using pots, we've been enjoying her labour of love as a result. Everyday we get a beautiful bounty of her harvest, and needless to say, I'm more than happy. Home-grown vegies ARE definitely better and DO taste so much better. She has many things growing, brocolli, choy sum, strawberries, assorted fancy lettuces, spinach and spring onions; just to name a few. She still has carrot seeds she needs to plant out. Okay, I wish you all a great week, eat more vegies.

Peanut Butter Cookies and Kids Boutique

G'day, lovely readers and bloggers, The weather here has been simply Perfect!! Yes, Perfect with a Capital P. We're fortunate our living room has ceiling to floor windows on two sides of the walls, so even when I sit inside, I can open all those curtains and let the sunshine in. Love it. It would be hard for me to live in a dark place. Sometimes my children would think of something I've cooked or made in the past and haven't made for a while and would remind me it's time I did again. These Peanut Butter Cookies were one of those things. They are extremely easy to make. The recipe I use does not use any flour, you can either use crunchy or smooth peanut butter. I used smooth here. Hope you'll try them and enjoy them as much as I did. Peanut Butter Cookies
1 cup (260g) peanut butter
3/4 cup caster sugar (or a bit less would be fine)
1 egg, beaten lightly

(1) Combine ingredients in medium bowl.
(2) Roll rounded teaspoons of mixture into balls. (Go ahead, use your fingers!) Place cookies about 5cm apart on baking paper lined oven trays, flatten slightly with a fork.
(3) Bake in moderate oven (180 degrees C) about 15 minutes or until browned lightly. Stand cookies 5 minutes before lifting onto wire racks to cool.
**Remember, the longer you bake them, the crunchier they get. So if you like them softer and more chewy, it's alright to bring them out of the oven just before they brown. They will look a bit too soft to handle at first, but give them some time they will harden up.These cookies are so yummy, especially if you like peanut butter. I know at our house, we do! Now I'd better treat myself to a couple of them with a pot of tea before they get completely devoured by ravenous members of the family, wink** I also want to mention how a lady from The Vintage Village. com blessed me by aknowledging my blog in one of her posts. You can read it here. She has an online boutique called Cameo Kids Boutique which sells children's clothing, accessories and unique gifts items made from recycled vintage linens. If you haven't seen it yet, make sure you go and check it out, here . Absolutely gorgeous things! To Felicity Anderson: Sorry for my oversight and haven't answered your question till now. The answer to your question is in the Comments part of that post. Thanks.

So good to be back!

After reading Sandy's post at 4 Reluctant Entertainers about the Best Strawberry Bread in the World, I couldn't get it out of my mind. I told you I love fruity desserts, especially with berries. So off I went to get some fresh strawberries so I could try the recipe out. I was fortunate to be able to get strawberries at a reasonable price at this time of the year, I went to a Vietnamese grocer's, they seem to have fresh fruit and vegies much cheaper than the large supermarkets. Oh! I love the Strawberry Bread of course, it is GREAT!!! The best thing is it's so simple to make. I used a tray and spreaded it out (thinner as a result) to be baked instead of using a loaf pan because I wanted it to be cooked pronto. It took half the time to bake. It's called a bread, but it's the sort of thing which is more like a cake than a bread, but it's called a bread anyways, you know what I mean. I'll definitely make it again and again. Thanks Sandy for sharing. You can hop along to Sandy's blog and check out the recipe. Oh! By the way, I love Sandy's spirit, she advocates not perfection, but hospitality and kindness, that's really what it's about when it comes to entertaining and even everyday life, isn't it? I love the way she doesn't let "wanting everything to be perfect" to stop her from having people over. I've been making a few cushion covers too. The striped ones are made with tea towels, I picked them for their lovely blue (and white) and texture, I just love the freshness of the colours. The toile fabric is remnant from making pelmets for our windows in the living room. They go well together, don't they? The grey metal pedestal wire cloche with the little birdie on top is a new addition, I love its colour, the tall pedestal, the feel and the look of it, simply fabulous! There are still a few roses blooming in the front garden, I haven't been able to prune them due to rain and hail and storm, I'm waiting for a dry day or two to finish the job. These hot pink China Doll roses are from a standard (tree rose) weeping rose. It flowers non-stop, it only has a light fragrance, but I love the way the flowers always come in bundles, never single. Best Strawberry Bread in the World, a cup of tea, roses, wire cloche, starfish, ahhhh............ lovely! Thanks again for all of your lovely comments, I can't tell you enough how much I appreciate each one of you, your kindness has certainly made a difference to my life. Keep it up, ladies!