Alice in Wonderland party post 5

Here are some more ideas for you if you are thinking of having a bit of a Mad Hatter's tea party...

Sugar cookies with Sugar paste disks written on with an Edible writing pen.

The Queen of Hearts she made some tarts...well actually Naomi made some Empire biscuits. These were made by adapting this recipe.

I had picked up the cardboard cake stands from a Tesco sale for under £1 each.
Cardboard cake stands are quite widely available now and make a much cheaper (and more child friendly) solution than china, and you can use them more than once if they don't get too trashed.

These were the party bags I made for each young guest to take home. They were simply folded from one sheet of A4 paper.
For instructions and a printable template you can check out my post over at It's a Creative World.

A very Merry Unbirthday to you!

I gave my love a cherry...

These are quick  and easy to make and taste delicious !

Simply take glacé cherries and wrap them with marzipan, then dip them in melted white chocolate and cover with your choice of sprinkles.

You could present them in a pretty box or tin, or wrap some in a cellophane bag tied with a bow. 

...and they really are that easy - and they really are that delicious!!!

Yum yummy yum yum!

Coconut pyramids

 

It's time to make a whole load of coconut pyramids again. The last couple of weeks have been a bit hectic. I've been Spring cleaning the house and getting ready for Passover as well as getting ready to put our house on the market. If you'd like the recipe for coconut pyramids, you can find it here.

We eat coconut pyramids to remind us of the straw and mud bricks that the Israelites made to build Pharoh's treasure cities. 

Exodus 1:14 ...and they made their lives bitter with hard labor in mortar and bricks and at all kinds of labor in the field, all their labors which they rigorously imposed on them. 

However, it's no hardship to eat them...they're yummy. (Although I'll probably not be saying that by day 7!) 

Apple Cake - Yum Yum

Mmmmmmmm! Can you smell this? It's just out the oven - cinnamon apple cake. It's what's for dessert tonight.

Very easy to make and very yummy served warm with a little (or large) scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Ingredients...

Approx 5 Granny Smith's apples - (or you could buy your own - joke) Actually any apples will do.

60gm chopped dates

2 teaspoons cinnamon

2 chicken eggs - or one duck egg. Just to be different today, I used a goose egg! Yes, really!

150gm of brown sugar

150gm self raising flour

I mixed the flour, egg and cinnamon and sugar together with my electric mixer. Then I stirred in the apples and dates, and chucked the lot in an oiled tin for about 30-40 minutes at around 180 degrees celcius. Tonight, I'll just cut the size of slice we each want and microwave for about 40 seconds per slice on full power, then add  ice cream and eat. Then collapse feeling totally stuffed!

It is best served warm because it is a fat free recipe (apart from the fat in the eggs) and so it is not as moist as some recipes, but it is perfect when warm. All that appley cinnamony goodness! Yummmm!!!!

Here's another cake, as designed by my 4 year old. She says she wants this cake for her birthday in May!  Might be a bit more of a challenge!

Fat free, healthy oaty bites

Here's one of my little guessipes. I call them guessipes because the measurements are by no means exact, and sometimes a little adjustment is required or desired.

I started making these because after my husbands heart attack we have been trying to cut out any unnecessary fats and additives. Our diet was fairly healthy already, but we still want to make sure we are doing the best we can.

My husband always used to take a store bought muesli type biscuit to work every day to have with his cuppa, but if you look at the ingredients of these things, they are not particularly low in fat (and they are also expensive to buy).

Due to the fact I have no added fat in my oaty bars, the texture is different- not crunchy, a bit chewy but not too sticky like a flapjack - but they are good - OK so they are not as yummilicious as a flapjack, but then these are healthy - flapjacks I am afraid are not!

(The mug in the picture is my favourite one given to me by a dear friend some time ago - you know who you are !!!)

Fat Free Oaty Bites - the Guessipe

Approx 250g rolled oats or porridge oats.

I jar apple sauce. (I used a 280g jar)

Approx 4 tablespoons runny honey

A handful each of the following:-

pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, raisins, goji berries, dried cranberries, chopped dates.

Method

Mix everything together adding more honey if it is not sticking together enough. Press with your fingers into a large rectangle on some baking parchment on a baking tray and bake in the oven for about 25 minutes at 160 c in a fan assisted oven- adjust according to your oven type. While warm cut into squares and when slightly cooler place squares upside down on a cooling tray to dry out properly. When cold, place in a storage container. Enjoy. They are a good healthy snack to nibble , and they are quite filling - and so cheap to make compared to store bought alternatives!

Chop and change the recipe as you fancy. You can add things like coconut, dried papaya and mango, almonds,crystallized ginger or anything else that you enjoy.

Why not wrap them individually and grab one when you go out to work or play !

My Next Jam Jar Project!

I have transformed some old empty jam jars into - (drum roll please) - jam jars!

Plum and Ginger jam jars to be precise!

I am excited to share this with you, because unlike many of my talented blogging pals, I have never attempted to make jam before. I found that it wasn't such a big mystery after all and want to encourage you if you haven't tried it before to give it a try.

I didn't use a recipe. I just tried to remember what my mum does. I weighed the de-stoned plums - (very kindly given to me from my friends garden) and then added almost the same amount of sugar and some ginger. You could use root ginger or dried powdered ginger. I just did it to taste. Then I boiled the mixture gently until when I tested it on a saucer it was starting to set. I seem to remember my mum showing me that a drop of jam on the saucer when cooled slightly will wrinkle when you push your finger along it.

I washed my jars and dried them in the oven putting them in cold and then turning the oven to a low heat and leaving them there a while to dry out and sterilise.

I allowed the jam to cool a little before putting it in the jars, and then - the best bit for me - finishing touches- I made some pretty labels.

A handy hint for jam makers - If you are going to put sticky lables on your jam, just use ordinary paper and fix them to your jars with PVA water based glue, so that when you want to re-use the jars again, the labels will soak off easily and not leave any sticky residue.

..and I finish off todays post with a little peek at our baby House Martins. They are chirping away beside my kitchen window.

Good Pud !

When you're not feeling so good, there is nothing quite as comforting as a bowl of homemade rice pudding . I use this recipe . I grated fresh nutmeg on the top and it has a yummy skin on it! I know not everybody likes that, but I do. This version I made used dried cranberries, as we had run out of raisins.

Brambles

I can't believe that the brambles are ripening already. Where has the year gone to?

BRAMBLE. Isn't that a lovely word? It's sort of makes me think of going for a country walk and getting purple stained fingers and lips, and listening to birdsong....I guess a country AMBLE...So we picked some brambles and Naomi made us a delicious bramble and apple pie.

Here you can see it cooking, but it didn't last long - so sorry no photo of the finished pie. Well, I have to say, this blog post was a bit of a RAMBLE...I'm off !

Nearly blew the diet with these!

I just made some delicious biscuits that are similar to one you can buy here called Hob Nobs. They were really easy to make - that's always a winner with me.

Trouble is they tasted so good, I had more than one. So that is it - no more biscuits, nope, no more ! I know the family will enjoy them though. Why not try the recipe and you will see what I mean.

So here is the recipe, but you have been warned, they are very more-ish.

Oaty Crunch Biscuits

8oz Self Raising flour

(or use plain flour and add 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder)

8oz sugar

8oz porridge oats

8oz margarine or butter(butter will be tastier)

1tbsp golden syrup

1tbsp hot water

Instructions

Mix the flour, sugar and oats together.

Melt the margarine and the syrup and the water, and then add to the dry mix.

Roll into small balls then put on a greased tray and flatten with a fork. The flatter you make the biscuit, the crunchier it will be. Make sure to leave ample room between the biscuits.

Bake at 180 degrees celcius for about 15 minutes or until they are a nice golden colour. (Don't leave them in too long like I did with one of my trays and I ended up with dark brown rather too crunchie biscuits - oops)

The recipe made loads. I didn't count how many exactly , but it must have been around 40 biscuits. Oh, and then a friend suggested I add some chocolate, and well, now they are even worse - or better depending on how you look at it!

Eggs and Biscuits

My friend Annie brought round some lovely fresh eggs the other day. I thought about using them to bake with , but in the end decided to boil them so we could really enjoy the taste. Two of them were pretty blue eggs, and there were also two duck eggs which I have never had before - they were very tasty.

So I used a shop bought free range egg to make my biscuits with in the end. Here are some of my orange crunch biscuits wrapped to take to a friend as a hostess gift. I used a large size cellophane bag (from my cardmaking stash) and some curling ribbon and a label I printed on the PC.

Recipe for Orange Crunch Biscuits

Rind of two oranges
1 teaspoon of orange essence
350g flour
1 egg
150g caster sugar
150g softened butter
(If you want you could add some grated ginger root or ground ginger to make orange and ginger crunch biscuits. Yum!)

I love this recipe because I use my food processor and it is so easy to make.
First I blend the sugar and softened butter and orange essence and rind and then I add one spoonful of the flour and the egg, and blend again. Finally, I add the rest of the flour bit by bit until the dough starts to ball up in the machine. I then add a touch of fresh orange juice if it is too dry - and if it was a big egg and it is too wet, then I add a touch more flour. It's that whole guessipe thing again. Then I place the dough in a plastic bag and chill for an hour or so. Then roll out the dough quite thin and cut into shapes and bake for about 10 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius. Cool on a rack, and then enjoy or package up prettily and share with a friend.

P.S. - LOOK OUT FOR MY NEXT POST

My next post is going to be my 100th and I will be doing the traditional 100th post giveaway.

I'm just getting it together now.

The last pyramid...

This is all that is left from a batch of about 200 coconut pyramids I made for a Passover Seder Celebration. They always go down well. Here is the very simple recipe.

200g packet of desicated coconut
2 eggs
 100g sugar

All you have to do is combine the ingredients. It might seem a bit dry, but you have to work it all together by mixing and pressing with the spoon. It is hard work! Eventually when it is well mixed I cover and leave it for an hour or so. Then with wet hands I form pyramid shapes and I bake at around 170 until they are golden on top (about 10 minutes)

I hope you can figure out how to convert my UK measurements and oven temperature to US standards if you want to make some. They are yummy at any time of year.

This is one of my painted and stencilled Seder plates I made a few years ago. It started life as the same kind of wooden platter that the coconut pyramid is sitting on.

Guessipe

Whenever I cook, it always involves a fair amount
of estimation and guesswork, so when I am
asked for a recipe, I'm always a bit vague.

So from henceforth, my concoctions shall be known as
GUESSIPES

Potato Soup/ Pasta Guessipe.

The basic guessipe for the soup, was a few potatoes,
a bunch of carrots and some onions cooked in some vegetable stock.
These were the only vegetables I used for the soup as this is
what we have available in the garden at the moment.
I then added some soy milk and a little flour to thicken.
(I'm not a vegan, just trying to increase our soy intake.)
You can add salt and pepper according to your taste.

On the second night, I added some cooked pasta,
a tin of beans and some peas.
Both versions went down very well.

I often do the pasta fling with soup on the second night
if there isn't quite enough left for a meal.

(Pasta version shown here served with homemade wholemeal and oatmeal bread.)

Hope this inspires some cooking!

Falafel Recipe

reWell, here is my falafel recipe. Or the one I adapted anyway...

Ingredients
500g dried chickpeas

2 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

(I added a bit of self raising flour as I didn't have bicarb)

1 large onion

5 spring onions (I just used 2 red onions)

6 cloves garlic

1 large handful flat-leaf parsley

1 large bunch coriander (I used mint instead cos I didn't have any)

salt and pepper to season

vegetable oil to fry


Method:
Soak the chickpeas for a full 24 hours in warm water.

The following day drain and dry the chickpeas then whizz the lot

in the blender until you have a paste. Tar off balls of the mixture and

form falafels from this that should be about 5cm in diameter and

1 cm deep. My mixture was quite wet, so that is why I added the

flour. Just enough to help it be workable. Allow the falafels

you've just made to rest for 15 minutes then heat vegetable oil

(I used extra virgin olive oil and shallow fried them) in a frying pan

and fry the falafels in hot oil until they become

crisp and brown on both sides.

Then the best part....eat them!

garbanzos rule ok!

I made a huge batch of falafel today.

I have only ever bought the easy mix before,

but this time I made them from scratch.

It wasn't quite as complicated as I thought.

I searched the web for recipes and then

decided to take all the easy bits from

the recipes I liked and merge them together.

It seems to have worked!

Now I just need some tahini to go with them!

We searched all the local shops and

there seems to be a tahini shortage.

Weird!

Chargrilled lentils anyone?

Well, I was kind of distracted today,

and I thought I'd cook some lentils,

but I forgot about them,

and this is the result.

I won't be upcycling these into something

else and selling them on Etsy.

Not unless someone can think of something

useful to make them into!

Just one of those days I guess!

I think I need a new pan!

Friday Already!

I've still been busy packaging my rose earrings.

I just love these little aluminium tins I got a hold of.

So, Friday already, and as usual I haven't done half the things

I'd hoped. Still, my challah bread is baking in the oven

with the promise of a restful day ahead.

Here is my easy bread machine Challah recipe

Sorry it's in metric, and is not particularly accurate,

but that's what I use here! It's my own recipe I have adapted

from a variety of recipes. I always look for the easy options!

2 eggs

a splash of milk

enough lukewarm water to make the eggs and milk up to 300ml

520g of strong white bread flour

I sachet of easy yeast - suitable for bread machines

A half teaspoon of sea salt

and two tablespoons of butter

2 tablespoons of honey

(a pinch of saffron if I have any)

I bung the lot in the machine - liquids first -with the saffron,

then the dry ingredients. Then I use the dough setting.

I always like to check once it has started mixing to make sure

the dough looks moist enough. If it doesn't, I just start the machine

off again and add another splash of milk. Once it has risen, I knead

again and, if I am feeling patient, I divide into four bits, roll them

into sausage shapes,and plait them together. Other times I just

stick it in a round tin.Sometimes I glaze with an egg

and add poppy seeds, and sometimes I don't.

Either way, it tastes delicious!

I bake for 30 minutes in a preheated oven at 180 degrees celsius.

I believe the same dough is good for cinnamon rolls.