waste not want not.............

Last weekend I had another recipe in the Sydney Saturday Daily Telegraph

here it is below for anyone that missed out

Xx Siobhan Rogers

This has been my latest mum mantra in our house, The amount of waste my kids create is unbearable so I have had a crack down lately. Its not just the grocery money but the waste of our resources and the effort that goes into producing.

I always seem to have stale bread.

One of the best uses for my stale bread (other than bread crumbs) is little individual bread and butter puddings.

They are very slap bang together, the kids love making them and more importantly eating them.

You can fancy them up with custard or icecream or just eat them warm with a cup of tea.

Use any bread you like, seeded, wholemeal, sourdough, brioche, crossants – any bread will work.

For Easter I like to use Italian Panatone or hot cross buns.

For this batch I used

½ a stale white bread bagette and two Italian rock hard crunchy bread rolls cut into slices and butter for spreading onto the bread

Wet Mix

mix all of this together in a bowl and let it sit for 5 or more minutes

600ml poring cream

½ cup caster sugar

1 vanilla bean cut in half and seeds scraped

5 eggs lightly beaten

pour the wet mix into the bowl of stale bread.

Let it sit until all the liquid is soaked into the bread, add in the chocolate chips.

Line your individual tins and spoon in your bread mixture half way, then dollop a little jam and continue adding the bread mixture until the tins are full.

Leave the tins full of the wet bread mixture to sit for a little and let the batter settle.

At this stage you could refrigerate until you are ready to bake them - you could prepare to this stage a day ahead if you wanted.

Bake in a medium oven 180c fan forced for 30/40 minutes or until golden on top and set.

They are best eaten fresh ! and warm from the oven.

Recipe Ingredients

For this batch I used

½ a stale white bread bagette and two Italian rock hard crunchy bread rolls cut into slices

butter for spreading onto bread

Strawberry jam

Dark Chocolate chips

Wet Mix

mix all of this together in a bowl and let it sit for 5 or more minutes

600ml poring cream

½ cup caster sugar

1 vanilla bean cut in half and seeds scraped

5 eggs lightly beaten

spread a little butter onto the bread slices on one side and place the buttered bread into the wet mix

Let the bread and wet mix sit for at least an hour and mix it up every now and then to make sure all the bread is soaking up the cream and egg mixture.

Mix in the chocolate chips to the bread mix

Once the bread has soaked up all the liquid, line some patty cake cases with baking paper, I used two different shaped pans – you can use anything.

Using a spoon - spoon in the bread mix to your individual tins, filling half way. Add in a little spoonful of jam and continue to spoon in the bread mix until the tin is full. Let the mixture sit for 10/15 minutes to settle.

Set the oven to 180c fan forced oven and bake for 30- 40 minutes or until golden on top and the mixture looks set.

The individual puddings are lovely warm or cold and a lovely treat.

Instead of Choc chips and Jam you could use sultanas, add a little orange zest or use fresh fruit in season such as fresh Figs or Raspberries.

Donuts and dyeing

Autumn has me cooking and crafting, I taught my usual Sydney classes last Thursday and Friday at Hobby Sew Top Ryde 

and alternate Fridays at Kim Bradley Creations Castle Hill 

and then the beginnings of kids sports .... Soccer gala, Soccer game, Rugby gala, Soccer game.

We have a couple of weeks till netball starts.....

All in all a busy couple of days - but good time was had by all and even better it was a little cool and drizzly - yes I said drizzly was good.

Everyone was happy and cozy and I made doughnuts - I've been meaning to make them for weeks. I made a cake type doughnut way back for a christmas story and I have been meaning to test out doughnuts made with a yeast dough ever since. I did a quick google and found a doughnut dough recipe on Taste.com 

I couldn't find my small cookie cutter for the inside hole of the doughnut..... and decided at the last minute to make Jam doughnuts.

The only change to the recipe from taste was that I cut the circles of dough using the large cookie cutter and then covered the tray of circles with a tea towel and left them to rise for half an hour or so and then shallow fried them in a frying pan. 

When the doughnuts had cooled I used a piping bag to pipe jam into the centre of the doughnuts and then sprinkled them with icing sugar...... Not pictured are some doughnuts I piped Nutella into..... Not pictured because they were eaten quickly! 

actually none of the pictures are that great because no one would let me take pictures!

These are all from my Instagram

and more food.... This weekends Sydney Saturday Daily Telegraph should have another of my recipes in it - I'm talking about waste and getting kids into using up left overs.

The other activity of the weekend was Tye Dyeing. 

The girls found some white T'shirts and calico bags - I found the bucket of dye supplies and that happily occupied most of Sunday afternoon. Ill write a how too post next...

but here is a look at some more Instagram pics

I'm off to post an order of Pom poms

I currently have my pom poms marked down from $15 per meter to $10 per meter

use the code 

pompom 

at the check out for a $5 discount per item in the accessories section in my shop.

The pom poms are 100% cotton, large and hand made in India.

and the code

winteriscoming

for a 30% off any item over $300 in my shop

Thanks

Siobhan R

Xx

Flourless Chocolate Brownies - Gluten Free

This is an oldie but a goodie - from a post in 2011

Chocolate Hazelnut Brownie

(gluten free)

380g Dark eating chocolate

180g Butter

1cup Brown Sugar

3eggs

1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract

150g Hazelnut meal

1tsp Baking powder

Heat the oven to 180C fan forced, and line a 

20 X 30cm tin with baking paper.

Melt butter and chocolate in a bowl, leave for ten minutes to cool. Beat sugar and eggs until pale in colour and creamy, fold through the egg mixture into the chocolate mixture add vanilla and mix through hazelnuts. 

Add in hazelnut meal and baking powder mix gently. 

pour into tin and bake in the oven for 35 - 40 minutes. Its ready when the skewer comes out moist but not wet. Leave the brownie to cool completely in the tin (it will continue to cook once out of oven), then cut into squares and sift icing sugar over the top.

Happy Cake Day

Hi All 

Here is the Recipe from the Sydney - saturday Daily Telegraph

Chocolate Sponge layer cake

An impressive layer cake to serve up at any occasion!

The chocolate sponge is a good go to recipe for kids to make, its simple and light and great for any occasion. 

I used fresh cream and burnt salted caramel for the filling as it’s the kids favourite at the moment. 

Anything can be used for the filling like jam with fresh cream, nutella with fresh cream or even a butter cream icing. 

The choices are endless. For the outside I have used a swiss meringue because it is very forgiving when you are trying to ice the outside of a big cake and perfect when kids are decorating. My miss 8 who is by no means a cooking oficionado (I promise she really isn’t) decorated this cake, again you could do a butter cream icing.

*Chocolate Sponge Cake with burnt salted caramel and fresh whipped cream in the middle and Swiss meringue on the outside.

Ingredients and Directions

Chocolate Sponge

4 eggs

1 cup of caster sugar

30g butter

3 tablespoons of cocoa

4 tablespoons of boiling water

1 ¼ cups of self raising flour

Grease and line two 8 inch round high sided cake tins.

Set oven to 150c fan forced

Beat eggs together in your electric mixer, gradually adding sugar beat until pale and fluffy and sugar has dissolved.

In a separate bowl put the cocoa, butter and boiling water together, mix until a chocolate smooth paste forms.

Fold the chocolate paste into the egg mixture.

Sift flour into the wet mix and fold until combined – try not to over mix as all the air will come out.

Divide the mixture evenly between the two cake tins and bake for 30-35minutes.

The sponge is cooked when it springs back after lightly touching.

Remove from the tins and let them cool on a wire rack.

300ml Thickened Cream

Beat cream

Burnt Salted Caramel

*this is an adult step as the caramel is extremely hot

2 cups of white sugar

200grams Butter cut into cubes

1 cup of thickened cream

1 tablespoon sea salt flakes or to taste

Pour the sugar into a heavy based saucepan and cook on medium heat until the sugar starts to melt, use a small whisk to mix the hot sugar in the pan so that it cooks evenly.

Continue cooking until the caramel reaches a temperature of about 175c or until it is a deep amber colour, at this point it can burn very quickly.

When the caramel is the right colour and just before it is burnt take it off the heat and add in the butter whisking till the butter melts. Add in the cream and whisk till all combine.

Let the caramel cool in the pan and then pour into jars or bowls, let it cool to room temperature and the refridgerate until needed.

Swiss Meringue

10 egg whites

2 ½ cups caster sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla paste

use the bowl of your electric mixer and place the egg whites and sugar in it, place the mixing bowl over a pan with water in it (double boiler) and slowly whisk the eggs until they reach a *temperature of  70c

*this cooks the eggs whites and also makes the meringue stable

Once the mixture is hot enough put it into the mixer and beat the egg whites until they are cool – around 10/15 minutes. Put the swiss meringue aside until you are ready to use it.

Cake assembly

Find a flat plate that will fit the cake and place the bottom of the cake on the plate, I put my cake down with the flat side up (Its up to you and makes no real difference).

Spread the burnt salted caramel (or flavour of your choice) onto the cake and then top that with the fresh whipped cream, drizzle more of the caramel on top of the cream.

Place the other cake on top and double check that it looks level – it doesn’t have to be perfect, you just don’t want it to be the leaning tower of Pisa and the top slide off.

Meringue Icing

I use a palette knife when decorating cakes but anything flat will do like a spatula.

Do the sides first and then the top, make swirls or flatten to your desired effect and try not to eat to much as you go…

Let me know how you go and enjoy 

Siobhan Rogers Xx

my new book due in store April 2015

available at most bookstores

see my previous post for links