AUSTRALIA - Classic cakes - Friands

Thank you to Angela for introducing me to friands and sharing all her fave recipes and great cake advice!!

Friands  are another tasty wee cake that I've not seen anywhere in Scotland but are in all the cafes in Austalia. They are light muffin type cakes (though generally smaller) and are made with ground almond, and can be made in all different flavours - raspberry, strawberry, anything you fancy...

Here are a couple of different recipes. The first made with just egg whites.


Almond and Strawberry friands
6 egg whites
185g melted butter
1 cup (125g) ground almonds
1 1/2 cups (240g) icing sugar
1/2 cup (75g) plain flour
100g strawberries

1. Preheat oven to 200C. Grease friand pans.
2. Place egg whites in a bowl and whish with fork until combined. Add butter, almond, icing sugar and flour. Stir til just combined using wooden spoon.
3. Divide into tins and top with strawberry slices.
4. Bake for 25 mins. Once baked cool in tin for 5 mins then turn on to rack (top side up) to cool completely.
5. Serve warm or at room temp dusted with icing sugar.

Variations: blueberry, sliced banana, raspberry and white chocolate, lime & coconut ( 2 teaspoons of finely grated lime rind, 1 tbsp lime juice and 1/4 cup (20g) dessicated coconut into egg white mix).

Mini Raspberry friands

melted butter to grease
Plain flour to dust
1 1/2 cups (195g) sifted icing sugar
1/2 cup (75g) sifted plain flour
1 1/2 cups (55g) ground almonds
3 eggs lightly whisked
180g unsalted butter, melted & cooled
100g frozen raspberries
2 tbspns flaked almonds
icing sugar to dust

1. Preheat oven at 180C. Grease thirty 40ml mini muffin pans with melted butter. Dust with flour. (You get specialist friand tins in Australia - not so common in the UK, so muffin tins or cupcake tins will do).

2. Combine the sugar, flour and almond meal in a bowl. Make a well in the centre. Add egg and butter. Stir until well combined.

3. Divide among the prepared pans. Divide the raspberries among the centres. Sprinkle with flaked almonds.

4. Bake for 15 - 20 mins or until light golden. Set aside in the pans for about 5 mins to cool slightly before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

5. Dust with icing sugar to serve.

AUSTRALIA - Classic cakes - Mud cakes

A popular celebration cake in Australia is the Mud cake - a dense cake in dark or white chocolate, or caramel. Here's the recipe for a white chocolate version.

Take a deep breath for that candle!!

White chocolate Mud cake

Serves 12

250g butter, chopped coarsely
150g white chocolate, chopped coarsely
2 cups (440g) caster sugar
1 cup (250ml) milk
1 1/2 cups (225g) plain flour
1/2 cup (75g) SR flour
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 eggs lightly beaten

White chocolate ganache
1/2 cup (125ml) cream
300g white chocolate, chopped coarsely

1. Preheat oven to moderately slow. Grease deep 20cm round cake pan, line base and side with baking paper.
2. Combine butter, chocolate, sugar and milk in a saucepan; using wooden spoon over a low heat, without boiling until smooth. Transfer mixture to a bowl and cool for 15 mins.
3. Whisk in flours then essence and egg, pour mixture into prepared pan.
4. Bake cake in moderately slow oven for 1 hour. Cover  pan loosely with foil; bake about 1 hour. Discard foil, stand cake in pan for 10 mins then turn onto a wire rack, turn upside down to cool.
5. To make ganache - Bring cream to boil in a small saucepan. Pour over chocolate in small bowl, stir with wooden spoon until chocolate melts. Cover bowl and refrigerate, stirring occasionally, for about 3o mins or until ganache is of a spreadable consistency.
5. Place cake on serving plate, spread all over with chocolate ganache

AUSTRALIA - Classic cakes - Lamingtons

Lamingtons


Another Aussie classic ...

Ingredients:
6 eggs
2/3 cup castor sugar
1/3 cup cornflour
1/2 cup plain flour
1/3 cup self raising flour
2 cups coconut

Icing:
4 cups icing sugar
1/2 cup cocoa
15g butter, melted
2/3 cup milk

Cake -
1. Grease 23cm square tin
2. Best eggs for about 10 mins til thick & creamy
3. Gradually beat in sugar, dissolving between additions
4. Fold in triple sifted flours
5. Spread mixture into tin and bake for about 30 mins.
6. Once cool, cut cake into 16 squares, dip in icing. Drain off excess and toss in coconut.

Icing -
Sift icing sugar & cocoa into bowl, stir in butter & milk. Stir over pan of simmering water until right consistency.

AUSTRALIA - Cherry Ripe and Womens' Weekly

Cherry Ripe
One of my favourite Aussie lollies is the Cherry Ripe - a cherry and coconut fondant filling covered in chocolate. Many cafes have created slices with a nice biscuit base, topped with cherries, coconut and chocolate.
Here's a recipe for a Cherry Ripe slice.

Ingredients
1 cup of self raising flour
1 tablespoon of cocoa
1/3 cup sugar
100g butter or margarine
100g crushed 'Marie' biscuits
For the filling:
1½ cups of desiccated coconut
1 tin of condensed milk
1 packet of chopped glace cherries
150g cooking chocolate
30g marg

Method
Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease and line a 20 x 30cm lamington tin.

Melt the butter and combine the sugar, sifted flour and cocoa, and crushed biscuits.

Spread into a lamington tin and bake for 20 minutes.

For the filling: mix together the coconut, condensed milk and chopped glace cherries, and spread evenly onto the base. Cook for a further 15 minutes.

Melt the cooking chocolate and marg together and spread over the cooled slice.

Cut into squares when the chocolate is set.

This recipe was taken from the Australian Women's Weekly web site. The magazine is a bit of an Aussie institution producing hundreds of baking and cookery books. Here's a link to the web site -

http://aww.ninemsn.com.au/food/


And so after a great couple of weeks with my family in Australia indulging on many festive Aussie  treats, we leave the Antipodes and head for a new continent, first stop South Africa

AUSTRALIA - An Aussie Christmas

An Australian nativity

Well, we definitely had a very different Christmas this year-  swimming in the sea on Christmas Day, barbies, picnics on the beach, and not a sprout in sight!!

Christmas barbies

Christmas dinner Aussie style

Followed by -

The good old Pav and Trifle

or, another favourite the Ice cream slice?

or the healthy option?

and if you're still hungry?

Recipe for Ice Cream slice - 
You can adapt this recipe to include any of your favourite chocolates, or fruit, nuts etc.

1. In a dish lined with paper place a layer of rectangular biscuits eg malt biscuits.
2. In a dish whip 600ml of cream.
3. To the cream fold in 1 tin of condensed milk and mix in together.

(If you want to make a chocolate version add a melted chocolate bar to the cream mixture and mix together)

4. Add in any chocolates you like eg crushed maltesers, cherry ripe, crunchie, mint crisp.

5. Pour over biscuits.
6. Add another layer of biscuits on top.
7. Freeze overnight.

More Christmas recipes to follow...

NEW ZEALAND - Pies!

And so onto the Antipodes, first stop New Zealand.

PIES, Pies and more pies!!!
Everywhere you go in NZ, you find pies!! Steak and pepper, chicken and corn, vegetable, ham & egg....

First sample Veggie pie at Hokatika - South island

Gourmet steak and pepper pies at Just Deserts Christchurch

The most delicious -  Hangi pie 

NEW ZEALAND - The Maori Hangi

The Maori Hangi

 from Wikipedia -
Hāngi (pronounced [ˈhaːŋi]) is a traditional New Zealand Māori method of cooking food using heated rocks buried in a pit oven still used for special occasions.
To "lay a hāngi" or "put down a hāngi" involves digging a pit in the ground, heating stones in the pit with a large fire, placing baskets of food on top of the stones, and covering everything with earth for several hours before uncovering (or lifting) the hāngi.

In Rotorua the thermal activity from beneath the ground is perfect for a hangi. The Maori's in the area use the thermal steam and water to cook their food, do their washing, heat their houses and bathe in.  We visited the thermal Maori village in Rotorua - Whakarewarewa  and saw how they made use of the thermal activity -

Hangi oven

Traditioanl hangi - placing a stone on top means 'don't lift the lid whatever you do as I'm in the middle of baking the Christmas cake!'

Thermal Pool used to cook the sweetcorn

THE BEST pie we had in New Zealand - the Hangi pie -

We camped our way round NZ and had the luxury of undeground heating, hot spring pools and a steam hangi for making our dinner!

Ian gets on his gloves to combat the steam!

Steamed sweetcorn, sweet potatoes and veg

The juiciest corn on the cob!!

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