Banana Chocolate Cookies

Banana is not a normal ingredient for a biscuit! I had never heard of it before but I had some bananas that needed to be used so Mum and I whipped these up over the weekend. With the dark chocolate in them they are super rich and the banana makes them moist. Really tasty little biscuit!

Dad tried one though and said that Grandma used to add nuts when she made them, (the ones that look like little brains apparently (lol!), which we decided were walnuts) so next time I make them, I will be trying that variation. I think that would add a lovely texture to them.

125g dark cooking chocolate

125g (1 cup) plain flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

60g (1/4 cup) butter or margarine

90g (1/2 cup) brown sugar

Egg, beaten

1 banana, well mashed

Melt chocolate in the top of a double-boiler over gently bubbling water. Sift flour with baking powder and salt on to a sheet of greaseproof paper. Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add egg and beat well. Fold in half the flour mixture, then mix in mashed banana and melted chocolate. Fold in remaining flour.

Drop rounded teaspoons of mixture on to greased baking trays, allowing room for spreading. Bake towards the top of a hot oven at 200°C for 10-12 minutes. Cool on a wire cooling tray.

Makes approx. 20

Printable Recipe

Coconut Orange Creams

My parents have a rural weekender property (the farm) and we decided to spend this weekend up there. It was a lovely relaxing weekend spent cooking, crocheting and helping put the new kitchen together (it's going to look so nice!).

Mum and I had fun baking a couple of Grandma's recipes. This biscuit is so cute and my Dad said that Grandma used to make it in both lemon and passionfruit as well (passionfruit would be super yummy I reckon!). Grandma hasn't noted how she did those variations but I have made a note below the recipe on how I would imagine the variations would be done.

Biscuit Ingredients:

6oz butter or margarine

1/3 cup sugar

2 egg-yolks

Grated rind of 1 orange

1 ½ cups S.R Flour

1/2 cup coconut

Egg white

Extra coconut

Filling Ingredients:

1 oz butter

1 dessertspoon orange rind

1 cup sifted icing sugar

 Method:

Cream shortening and sugar. Beat in egg-yolks and rind. Fold in sifted flour, then coconut to make a fairly stiff paste. Roll into small balls. Place on greased biscuit tray, flatten with a fork. Brush top with a fork. Brush top with lightly beaten egg-white and sprinkle with extra coconut. Bake in moderate oven 15 minutes. Cool on rack. Just before serving join together with orange butter cream. 

Variations: 

For Lemon: swap orange zest in both biscuit and filling for lemon zest. 

For Passionfruit: Use either lemon or orange zest in biscuit and then add some passionfruit pulp to the filling mix. Add extra icing sugar until filling is thick enough to hold its shape as the biscuits should not slide off one another when stuck together.

Strawberry Dessert Cake

Firstly I want to wish my Mum a happy birthday! I hope she is having a wonderful day! 

We went around to my Mum and Dad's place last night for a family dinner for Mum's birthday and we made this beautiful dessert cake. I wasn't sure what I was going to make for mum's cake (she had only told me that she didn't want chocolate, so that didn't narrow it down very much), but then I had some strawberries for breakfast a few days ago and they were so sweet that I decided I wanted to use them in mum's cake. I went trawling through Grandma's recipes and stumbled across this one. 

There's a couple things that I've noticed about cooking all these old recipes. Firstly, sometimes its really hard to work out what they will look like when they are done. We are all so used to recipe books having photos of all the finished products these days! And also, on a number of occasions I have read a recipe and thought, "that can't be right" or "can't see how that is going to work" but every time the recipe comes together and surprises me! This recipe did both of these things. As we were making it last night (yes, I had to get Mum to help me make it as I have a cold and didn't want to contaminate the rest of the family, so thanks Mum for making your own cake!), Mum and I really couldn't picture how it was going to turn out. Mum kept asking "is it supposed to be like this" and I kept answering "I think so. We just have to follow the recipe and see what happens". Anyway, I'm pretty sure we got it right! It looked great and tasted even better and I'm really excited to share this recipe! 

And once again, happy birthday Mum! 

2 cups Self Raising Flour

½ teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons sugar

3 tablespoons margarine

1 egg, well beaten

Two-thirds cup milk

Sprinkle ½ cup sugar over 4 cups sliced fresh strawberries, cover and let stand at room temperature. Sift flour, salt and sugar into basin. Work in the margarine finely. Combine the egg and milk, and stir into the flour mixture. Blend well. Spread this dough in a well greased 7 x 12 x 1 ½ inch cake pan. Spoon the berries and juice over the top of the dough. 

Now blend together ¼ cup sugar, ¼ cup butter and 3 tablespoons of self-raising flour. Drop this mixture evenly over strawberries. Bake 35 to 40 minutes in a moderately-hot oven (400 deg F). Serve warm with cream or ice-cream. Makes 8 to 10 servings.2 cups Self Raising Flour

Note: we cooked it at 180 degrees C

          The mixture that goes on top will be a similar consistency to a crumb. 

          We baked it in a round dish as we didn't have a rectangle one the right size.

Blackberry and Macadamia Nut Biscuits

Mmmm... Macadamia nuts. Probably up there as my favourite nut, so I was dying to try these out. Turns out they are very similar to a jam drop. I would actually describe them as a jam drop on steroids! I ended up taking some of these on a work trip and they were a great snack while on the go.

Another easy recipe, but it took a bit of effort to get these to come together and then when they did come together the dough split a bit when putting the indent in the top so I had to sort of shape each one. Totally worth the extra bit of effort though!

Makes 18.

Preparation 30 mins

Cooking 15mins.

This recipe can be made up to a week ahead.

125g butter, chopped

½ cup castor sugar

1 ½ cup plain flour

½ cup chopped macadamia nuts

¼ cup blackberry jam

Preheat the oven to moderate (180°C). Line two oven trays with sheets of baking paper. Beat butter and sugar in a small bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Stir in sifted flour and nuts. Roll level tablespoons of mixture into balls; place on prepared trays, allowing 5cm between each biscuit. Using the end of a wooden spoon, make an indent in the top of each biscuit, fill with the blackberry jam. Bake in a moderate oven for about 15 minutes or until biscuits are firm. Stand for 5 minutes; transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Suitable to freeze. 

Chocolate Crunch Sultana Slice

We are off camping early tomorrow morning so I have been busy preparing all the food and the like. Since I will have lots of strapping young men to feed I thought it would be a good opportunity to try one of Grandma's more decadent sounding slices as I could then palm them all off the guys and not consume too much myself (not good for the waistline this recipe!)

90 grams unsalted butter

4 x 65gram mars bars (I don't think they even make them this size anymore, I just got a bag of mini ones and weighed them out)

3 cups just right

½ cup sultanas

250 grams dark chocolate

1 tablespoon coconut

Combine butter and mars bars in saucepan. Stir over low heat until melted. Combine cereal, sultanas and melted mixture in a bowl. Press evenly into lamington tray. Melt chocolate. Spread over slice. Sprinkle with the tablespoon of coconut. Refrigerate until set and cut into pieces. 

Note: Mine took a long time to set and even when they did set they were a bit sticky but I was a little heavy handed with the butter and I think that could be the culprit, so my piece of advice: weigh the butter!

Phillis' Jam Drops

Flipping through Grandma's recipes and I notice that occasionally the recipe isn't complete. Some of the recipes are just a list of ingredients, without a method. This is one of those recipes, except that not only was it missing the method it was also missing one of the main ingredients! The Jam! Luckily that is pretty self-explanatory from the name and the mix is an easy one to put together.

These jam drops are so good too! Crisp on the outside with a soft centre and the biscuit is not too sweet so the jam becomes the main flavour. Definitely going on my list of baking regulars!

So the recipe from Grandma is below and then below that is the method I used tonight when I made them.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons butter

¼ cup sugar

1 egg

1 cup S.R Flour

Method

Cream butter and sugar. Add egg and beat together. Mix in flour and then roll teaspoonfuls of the mixture and place on a greased baking tray. Press down in the centre of each biscuit to make a well. Spoon a little jam into each well (I used raspberry).

Bake at 180 degrees for about 12 minutes or until cooked through and browning on top. 

Edit 9/7/2012: After storing them in an airtight container overnight they have lost their crisp outside but they are sill really nice

Mexican Stuffed Peppers

I was surprised by the results of this recipe. Usually when I cook I use lots of different herbs and spices to pack my food full of flavour. This recipe however was the complete opposite of that. It only used one spice and relied on the flavour from the capsicum and the cheese sauce. It was quite a nice meal but I think I would add a bit of garlic and Worcestershire sauce next time I made it though, just because I can't help myself.

4 green peppers (capsicums) (I used red ones and only 2 of them, as there's only 2 of us)

1 tablespoon oil

500g minced steak

1 onion chopped

½ teaspoon chilli powder

½ teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons raisins

30 grams butter

30 grams flour

2 cups milk

30 grams grated cheese

Part boil the peppers until slightly soft. Cut in half lengthways. Remove seeds.

Fry mince and onions in a pan. Add salt and raisins and chilli powder. Fill the peppers and hold together with toothpicks if necessary.

Make a cheese sauce by melting butter in a pan. Add flour and milk, stirring well over heat to thicken. Stir in the grated cheese. Place peppers in a baking dish. Pour sauce over and bake 180°C for half an hour (approx.)

The capsicums when they came out of the oven.

I served it with rice, cherry tomatoes and cucumbers slices.

Raspberry Cake

I've had a really crazy week this week with work, so I took a bit of time out last night and baked a cake!

This is a really nice recipe however next time I would make a double batch of the mixture so that I can put more on the bottom as the raspberry jam did come out the bottom in some parts of the cake. It would also show off the different colours between the top and bottom layers better.

4 oz butter (120 grams)

4 oz sugar (120 grams)

6 oz plain flour (180 grams)

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 eggs

1 tablespoon cornflour

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon mixed spice

Milk  (I just used a good splash of milk)

Raspberry jam.

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, then flour, cornflour and baking powder. Put half the mixture into a prepared slice or sponge roll tin. Spread with layer of raspberry jam. To the remaining mixture add the cinnamon, spice and milk. Spread carefully over jam layer. Bake about 30 minutes in 350°F oven. When cool ice with lemon icing and sprinkle with chopped nuts. 

Maori Kisses

WOW! It was so cold this morning. I really didn't want to get out of bed, but alas, holidays are still a few days away, so off to work it is. I think the only way I'll make it through today is by drinking copious amounts of hot tea. Luckily the biscuits I made last night will be the perfect accompaniment to my cup of tea at morning tea time.


These were the first biscuits I've made that are 2 biscuits joined together, I love them. They are so cute and not to mention yummy and somehow comforting (I think its the dried dates). Its a really simple recipe to put together so enjoy, everyone (and keep warm)!

½ cup butter

½ cup sugar

¼ teaspoon vanilla

2 tablespoons milk

1 cup S.R flour

1 tablespoon cocoa

½ cup chopped walnuts

1 cup chopped dates

Cream butter and sugar, add essence and milk. Add sifted dry ingredients, fruit and nuts. Roll into small balls, flatten fork on cold grease tray. Bake in moderate oven for 15 minutes. When cold join together with vanilla icing. 

Note: These do get a lot bigger while baking so its important to make the balls quite small (unless you would like huge kisses!). I used a teaspoon as a pretty good measure.