Rum Balls

My Gran wouldn’t have used imitation rum or rum essence and neither should you. She would have put out just a few on a pretty plate, with a few tiny squares of Cherry Ripe slice and a few Christmas-tree-shaped biscuits (each with a cachou on the top for a star) and then given me the job of offering the plate around, a job that made me feel infinitely valued and loved and made me envious of her talent in the kitchen.

A few crafty ways to make sure all your hard work (ahem) is not in vain; the plate needs to be a modest size so that the offering doesn’t look stingy, with the scarcity of treats available they are guaranteed to vanish quickly. A piled-up plate gives people the option of “take it or leave it”, because they can see that there’ll still be some left later. Also giving the plate to a small child to offer around, people will be more likely again to take something as they don’t want to see the child disappointed. 

250g sweet biscuits (using a mixture of different biscuits can make these more interesting. Try using chocolate cream biccies and scraping out the filling.)

3 tablespoons condensed milk (You might have to add another one as you go if the mixture dries out and stops collecting coconut when you roll them)

1 cup coconut

3 tablespoons cocoa

1/4 cup rum

extra coconut

Put the biscuits in a plastic bag and batter with a rolling pin, don’t crush them in a blender as the texture will be lost. Mix all ingredients and roll into small balls and roll in coconut. When forming them try to make them such a size that people can elegantly pop a whole one in the mouth, instead of taking bites. This way people are also likely to desire more than one. Refrigerate on a lined tray to set.

Make up a mixed plate of delectable treats and give a small child the job of offering the plate around, they’ll thank you later.

Caramel Crunch Oreos

Oreos are not part of my childhood memories, but each time I have one I feel like they should be. My Nan used to always have a Family-sized Packet of Arnotts Cream Biscuits in her cupboard and I would take the Shortbread Creams, prise them open and scrape out the cream filling with my teeth. Oreos are one of the few bought biscuits that I will eat, not just out of politeness. 

Having said that, you can often take something in its basic form and improve upon it. Think of Swiss Rolls and their transformation into a trifle. Think of Butternut Snaps and cheesecake base. You see? So why not take a humble Oreo, dip it in caramel, roll in granulated nuts and then, once that's set, dip in melted dark chocolate? Here's the caramel;

2 tabs golden syrup

3/4 cup sugar

125g butter

Melt ingredients together in a small saucepan over low heat. Simmer for five minutes or until slightly darkened in colour and syrupy. Err on the side of underdone because it will continue to cook a bit in the hot pan as you start dipping the Oreos. This is also good, with the nuts, turned through air-popped popcorn until everything is sticky and coated.

Serve your finished Oreos with a glass of ice cold milk, slumped in front of a Hallmark Special.

Blondies

If I was asked to bake anything for teenaged girls again, these would be my immediate reaction. They disappeared faster than I could have imagined possible. Even though I undercooked them and thought they were going to be a complete disaster I was well rewarded with compliments, heavy sighs and general yummy noises. I would even be so bold as to suggest that these might have a secret combination of chemicals which cures PMS.

180g white chocolate

125g butter

1 ¾ cups caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla

4 eggs

1 ⅔ cups plain flour

¼ tsp baking powder

Melt chocolate and butter together in pan over low heat (Don’t worry too much if it “curdles”, just throw the sugar in and keep going with the recipe.) Take off heat and add sugar and vanilla. Add eggs one at a time mixing in well. Lastly add flour and baking powder. Pour into square cake pan and bake at 170 C for 45-60 mins.

Serve warm, with and smile and plenty of printed copies of the recipe to hand out. Guaranteed to help you make friends quickly.

American Pie

I don't know whether it's all the American blogs I read or whether it's just a phase I'm going through, but lately I find myself drawn toward distinctly American tastes. I've got a growing pile of "Things To Try" which includes, and I never thought I'd say this, Pumpkin Pie! For Aussies, pumpkin is dinner, not dessert. I'm pretty sure my family would think I was going mental if I even mentioned it, but I can't help feeling I might be missing out on something, never having had the sweet stuff.

I'm also curiously drawn to the combination of maple syrup and bacon, and the saccharin-sweet "Meet Me in St. Louis". I wonder whether it might not just be that Christmas is in the air, joy and goodwill abound and my tastes and temperament are generally leaning to sweetness.

Here's my first foray into what I consider "American" food. Pie, in my mind, is quintessentially American, especially sweet pie. It conjures up images of a '50s style diner, pastel uniforms, frilly aprons, paper hats, bitter coffee and the smell of burning fat in the air.

Shell:

125g unsalted butter, cubed

1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour

½ tab sugar

½ teaspoon salt

¼ cup buttermilk, cold

Toss butter into flour and put in the freezer for 20 minutes. Use a food processor to cut the butter into the flour. Add sugar and salt. Gradually pour in buttermilk, just until the pastry comes together. Turn onto a bench, rapidly work the dough into a disc, wrap in gladwrap and place in the fridge for at least an hour. Roll out and use pastry to line a springform cake pan. Lots of people worry about pastry but the trick is to only roll the dough out once if you can, then patch the base together. The more shaggy and patchy it is the more homespun and welcoming the pie and the more ultimately delightful the pastry. Return to fridge to chill while you get on with the filling.

Filling:

3 large eggs

1 cup sugar

2 tabs flour

125g melted butter, slightly cooled.

1 cup buttermilk

2 teaspoons vanilla

rind of ½ a lemon, finely grated

Beat eggs slightly, add sugar and flour and mix until creamy. Add melted butter, buttermilk and vanilla extract. Bake at 170°C for about an hour or until the custard is set. It will still jiggle a little bit once it’s set. Leave to cool in tin, eventually, carefully, slowly and gently transfer to a plate or cake stand and refrigerate.

Blackberry Sauce

½ cup blackberry jam, seedless/strained

1 tab Triple Sec

Heat up the jam in a saucepan over low heat, remove from heat, whisk in Triple Sec. You can pour the sauce, hot, over the pie when you serve it or you can pour it on the cold pie, as a final layer, and refrigerate.

Full English

I wouldn't dare to try to explain how to cook a Full English Breakfast. For me it's always about hovering by the stove in my pyjamas, a cup of strong coffee, quick hands, hot plates and a warm oven that's recently been used to quickly warm some pre-breakfast croissants. And the rule is; there ain't no rules! I do things in the order from longest cooking to shortest, eggs right at the end because I like them runny. Everything (except the beans) is cooked one after the other in the one pan and stashed in the oven as it's done. Here's your ingredients list:

Sausages - Whatever you like, from cheap supermarket ones to fancy gourmet ones. Whatever you buy, give them a little twist in the middle and voila! Chipolatas!

Bacon - Or prosciutto. England has the best, fattiest, tastiest bacon. The stuff they call "streaky" bacon here is not a patch on England's common-or-garden supermarket bacon. Believe me.

Black Pudding - I know, I know, but in small doses...

Heinz Beans - As Alan Davies says, "Why can't all beans be like Heinz beans?"

Mushrooms - Let them absorb the fat from all the meat, and add a little butter for good measure. Try to get something with a bit of flavour, like Swiss brown.

Eggs - Free range obviously, preferably from your own flock.

Toast - Wholegrain. In a shop they'd give you white, but I rarely have it at home. Besides you can feel a bit virtuous when you have wholegrain bread with all this excess.

Serve with a glass of bubbly and a come hither smile...

Cheesecakelets

So last night I finally got around to making these. My excuse is that before I've always looked at the recipe in Nigella's "Feast" and thought "Well, I'd have to buy cottage cheese..." but since the diet, we've had cottage cheese in the house almost constantly because it's so low in fat. (Which means that if you make these and you substitute sweetener for the sugar you can actually get away with eating quite a good size serving!)

They are a little unusual at first, if you're expecting normal pikelets. Once you get used to the idea, you can really appreciate their allusion to baked cheesecake. For those of us who are chronic-cheesecake-craving sufferers these are a blessing from the heavens!

Another good thing about these is that because you're making little pikelet-sized bites, you can actually cook all the batter up relatively quickly, whereas I find pancakes slow because I can only really concentrate on one at a time. Maybe it's just me.

225g cottage cheese, try to get as much cheese and as little liquid as possible when you're scooping it out.

3 eggs

50g flour

2 tabs caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

Whisk all the ingredients together and cook tablespoonfuls in a hot frypan. They'll take probably just under a minute to firm up underneath and then flip them and give them about 30 seconds before turning onto a plate and serving immediately with fresh raspberries and raspberry ripple ice cream. Delicious.