Well Christmas has been and gone….. so we decided to do it again. This time in the middle of our winter. Some Christmas fare just tastes better when its cold. Its also so much more fun to have the decorations out twice a year rather than once!

Great times were had by many (i hope… at least they said so). I grew worried that there was so much food not being touched when people first started to arrive. But there came a moment the hunger must have started because all of a sudden the food was gone and we were being showered with praises over the gingerbread men!

I had fears we made too much gingerbread men and we would end up eating them all week and growing little bellies as a result. But alas there was none left at the end of the evening. They make great party food. There was almost a society formed to teach the most humane way to eat them and shocked glances and were seen as a person ate the little men from the feet up, rather than head down (apparently its a quicker less painful death from the head down).

Today you will get the gingerbread men recipe. I will post the Christmas mince pies and egg nog later in the week.

Gingerbread Men
(from joy of baking recipe)

3 cups of Flour
1/4 tsp Salt
3/4 tsp Baking Soda
2 tsp Ground Ginger
1 tsp Ground Cinnamon
1/4 tsp Ground Nutmeg
1/4 tsp Ground Cloves
113g Unsalted Butter at room temp (we still use salted if thats all we have)
1/2 cup White Sugar
1 Large Egg
2/3 Cups of Molasses (we used Red Seal Blackstrap Molasses this time)

First sift and mix the dry ingredients together. Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy, add egg and molasses until well combined. Then slowly add the dry mixture. Divide the dough into two and wrap each with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for 2 hours minimum. (This time we made our dough 3 days in advance and just kept refrigerated until we were ready to roll out and bake.)

When ready to roll out, lightly flour a surface and roll out dough until about 1/4 inch thick. Use a ginger bread cutter to cut out the cookies, using a spatula transfer from bench to a tray covered in baking paper.

Bake for around 8-12 minutes (they seems to cook really quick – so be vigilant!) Leave on tray for a short amount of time then once holding together well enough transfer to a cooling rack until they are room temperature.

I am no decorating wizz yet, but I did find the frosting from the original recipe too soft. Mine was not right either, would not stick to the little man as I was piping it. You can press decorations into the men when they are hot. But wait for them to cool completely before icing.

Alot has been happening in our little household of late. Mostly good things. Like the above photo suggests. Kylie has been busy. In our house the roles of cooking are generally shared but we have our preferred goods. Kylie likes to make; preserves, relishes and jams. He also distills his own alcohol to create liqueurs. The photo above is some raspberry liqueur and a caraway seed concoction. We also found apples on special and had tonnes of green tomatoes that didn’t ripen so the traditional apple and green tomato relish was made. Good thing too, we are down to only two jars now and the new stuff has to age a little.

Me? I like to bake, cookies, cakes, chocolate things… I also like to make dinner (so does Kylie) I have made a few things in the last week I think need sharing with you all. First it was this yummo sauce. We had it with steak, fresh bread and potatoes, but it would be pretty yum with chicken or just roast vege. I choked and spluttered when the chillies went in (need stronger extrator fan). But man was it a treat! Speaking of treats last night I went to a birthday dinner, that I made the cake for. BOY did I come out a popular one, this upside down banana cake recipe was so good. REALLY good with whipped cream. Other sins I committed this week was to bake a batch of these cookies AGAIN. This time I only managed to pass off a only a few before I ate the bulk of them. SIGH. I feel I must add another confession; I made this yummy lemon slice, which successfully lured a visitor. What else was for dinner this week? Indian foooood. Another bliss place for me.

I have a stratagem:  to do my baking just before the weekend, so others eat it before the week starts, so I am not alone in the house with the yummy food…

And finally; I am bringing in the bacon! Yes I have work again, a bunch of very cool projects have lined themselves up and I am no longer watching the clock tick by waiting for something to fill my day besides adding to the pantry with baked goods and knitting or crocheting until my hands ache. Speaking of knitting and crochet… nah lets wait til next time.

For todays post I am going to share my bread recipe. There have been many experiments in the Quentin de Manson / Hills kitchen for awhile now. Trying different recipes, combining them and generally playing. It’s just so much yummier and more filling (not fulfilling, actually physically FILLING the belly.. nom nom) to make your own – if you have the time! I have no bread maker or those mixer things people use to knead their dough so its all done by hand, with bowl and wooden spoon! I rather enjoy it.

2 cups Warm water
3 tsp Dried yeast
2 tsp Honey
2 tbsp Butter (softened)
2 1/2 cups White flour (high grade bread flour)
2 cups Wholemeal flour
2 tsps Salt
Handful of Sunflower seeds
Handful of Pumpkin seeds
Handful of Linseed
1/4 c of LSA (linseed, sunflower & almonds ground up together)

Mix the warm water, yeast and honey together. Set aside for 15 minutes or until frothy.

Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Make a well in the center and put in the butter followed by the yeast water and honey mix. Mix with a spoon until combined enough to start kneading. Sprinkle the work surface with flour and knead until you have a beautiful smooth and elastic dough.

Set to rise for around forty-five mintes to an hour. (until doubled in size) – For New Zealand homes on a cold day use the airing cupboard or a heated room.

Line a bread tin with baking paper (my bread tin sticks) and take the risen dough and put into your bread tin. Leave it to continue to rise again for around an hour or until risen to the height you like. (I try to avoid the dough rising and spilling over the sides of the tin – because it doesn’t fit in the toaster! )

Here is the bit you will need to experiment with: The oven. In my oven I cook for 40 minutes at just under the 200 degree celsius mark (turning the loaf around half way through the cooking time). But Mum bakes it for just 20 minutes! When I baked mine for twenty mintes it did not cook in the middle and all came apart on me when I attempted to remove it from the tin. If your oven is an oldy like mine I would er on the side of longer – unless you know how long it takes. If you have a food thermometer smittenkitchen has something to say about that.

I am no bread expert and I am sure I will try many more in the days to come. However I am rather fond of this one –  toasted with butter and Almond butter spread on the top. Quite delish! Thanks are due to mumsie for the basic recipe and smitten kitchen for the recipe with butter that was O so tasty, but had a crumbly texture, so i combined my mums (with New Zealand ingredients) with the yummy parts of a smitten recipe.

To be Oh so tacky – as said by Julie on Julie and Julia – everything tastes good when there is butter in it. (that might not be the EXACT quote, but its something like it)

To warm up my fuzzy Monday morning brain I thought I might post a little on my lovely weekend. It started with a Saturday swim at the beach. First beach swim for the summer (i know soo slack) it was divine! I finished it off with some knitting.

We came home to start our baking and cooking fun. I made some more banana cupcakes, this time with chocolate icing and cinnamon. Using my icing funnel bday gift!

On Sunday we headed out with baked goods to a friend farewell pool party, where I was far too busy splashing around in a swimming pool to take photos. So I will leave you with a photo of my earlier-in-the-week attempt at making the kiwi classic pavlova. It was quite delish! Inspired by Jess over at spinning a yarn blog. It was messy and falling to bits, apparently that’s how they should be. I glued it together with vanilla cream…

I also made more cookies in the week (to use up chocolate chips) using this recipe, its fab i recommend! I sent most of them away to Kylie’s work so I wouldn’t eat them all. So addicted to baking right now.

Have a great week!

Kitchen overhead lighting at its best!

Well this evenings baking exploits were semi-successful. Yes we have an edible yummy cookie, but could it be better? I started out using this recipe from allrecipes. But due to lack of soft brown sugar I tried some Golden Syrup (goey sugar) and I don’t like separating eggs due to wastage, in went the TWO eggs, instead of just the yolk of the second. They are goey and crispy, but slightly flat. There is an underlying taste of WAY too much golden syrup and caramelised sugar which might be because I had to cook them rather alot for them to set. One concludes that I needed to add more flour to compensate for the extra egg and use less golden syrup or just make sure brown sugar was in the pantry before cooking!

Whilst I’m gassing about food and cooking here is a site I found in my recipe surfing travels. I think I’m in love with… pretty much everything about it. The food, the photos, the writing is funny chatty tone. Take a geezer at the aptly named “Smitten Kitchen“.

Can anyone tell that I have eaten too much cookie dough and cookies? Feeling very “chipper”. Time for some camomile tea me thinks.

Warning: Looks can be deceiving, this baby is rich and delish!

Its time to share the yummy choccy cake that has been in my family for quite awhile. I think mum tasted it in a restaurant and asked the chef politely for the recipe (..mum is this right?) Anyways, it doesn’t matter how we got it, its now a tradition. Infact, I now associate it with good food and family, so much that even a superior chocolate cake, to me, cannot compare! Do not think this is not a REALLY good chocolate cake though. Because its quite divinely yummy, rich, gooey and quite agreeable. I tend to have to practice it in the same oven a couple of times before it is right. It requires, just the right amount of cooking for the best texture. But even not quite right texture is very very yum yum.

Runny Chocolate Cake (as dubbed by my family)

• 7 oz good quality dark chocolate
• 7 oz of butter
• 4 eggs
• 7oz sugar
• 1tsp vanilla essence
• 1 cup of flour (or ground almonds)
• 1 tsp of baking powder
• 1 packet of Slivered Almonds (we have little packs here) or any sort of nut that will go with chocolate cake

-Melt the butter and chocolate together on a low heat.
-Mix sugar and eggs together until they make a pale yellow colour.
-While sugar and egg mixture still beating, pour in the melted chocolate and butter mixture.
-Add vanilla essense.
-Stop using mixing machine and manually stir in: Flour, baking powder and almonds.
-Pour mixture into a removable base cake tin (medium size)
-Bake at 200 degrees Celsius for 15 mins (give or take 5 mins depending on oven)
-refrigerate to set before serving. (or not, depends if you want it to oooze over peoples plates)

Serve with fruity icecream or yogurt.

This is the best banana cake I have ever tasted! It is more-ish, delicious moist and o so eatable… you will find yourself allowing bunches of bananas go over ripe just so you can make it. Make sure you make it for lots of people, or one end up eating most of it in one sitting, by yourself and biking madly to burn it all off later… nom nom nom… Thanks to my flatmate Katrin for this recipe!

Banana Cake

3 Mature Bananas
175g sugar
175g Butter
1/2 Tblsp cinnamon
2 tbsp Vanilla Sugar (or vanilla essence and sugar should be fine)
4 Eggs
150g Flour
50g Cornflour
1 tbsp Baking powder

Mix together and bake in an oven at 160 degrees for 40 – 55 mins (depends on oven)
Melt chocolate and pour all over!

Since I have been working hard the last few days I have neglected my daily design dose of favorite design blogs. This morning I gave myself until 12pm to get clued up on whats happening in blog land. Thanks to design*sponge (again) i have found a new blog to add to my list of daily inspiration. Its called “La Tartine Gourmande” It is maintained by an amazing woman by the name of Béa. The blog is full of good food, amazing photos and well… luscious-ness.

I made these scrummy cupcakes awhile back. Thought I might share the recipe. I made them in different sizes, some muffin, some cupcake. But next time i’d keep them all cupcake size. They are sweet lemony morsels that way. A massive muffin takes a while to get through!

Last weekend I went into photo and video with Kylie to buy him a new lens. He got one, then the salesman showed me a few lenses I would have fun with on my camera. OOoo and am I. (Lets just say spare cash from selling car is bad… it stayed in savings account for about aaaaa… 2 weeks)

The play starts with photographing our preserves making epic/s. LOTS of apples. I also found a cool tutorial on photographing food from photojojo, nice and easy to read full of easily implementable suggestions…. fun! I kinda enjoy the light and coziness of photos that are yellowed by interior lights tho, helps one remember that they were up til’ 11pm, jarring those apples…

(kylies photo)

The recipe found for the cinnamon looking preserve (can you say Apple turnover, apple pastry aaand apple… yum yum) the original is here, but for your pleasure its also here: (with changes) we doubled the recipe to fill 3x 500ml Jars.

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Dutch Apple Preserves

1 kg Granny Smith or cooking Apples (that’s 1kg after peeling & coring!)
1 cup sultanas
3 cups water
Juice of 1 lemon
2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1 cup light brown sugar

To prepare:

1. Pour water and lemon juice into a large pot.

2. Wash then peel and core apples, then slice them into small pieces. Cast the apple into the pot as you go.

3. Add the sultanas and bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce to a good simmer.

4. Add remaining ingredients and continue to simmer with the lid of the pot off.

5. Simmer for at least half an hour. Stir regularly!

6. Wash 3 500ml preserving jars, place on oven tray and bake in oven at 120 – 140 degrees Celcius for 20 minutes. Whilst they are baking (to sterilise them) wash and dry the screw bands and set aside. Wash and prepare lids according to manufacturers directions.

7. When all is ready. Quickly ladle preserves into clean jars. Wipe jar rims and threads with dry clothe.

8. Cover with two-piece lids. Allow to cool completely before checking seals. Label and date.

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Stay tuned because its autumn (my favorite season) I am all amped to take lots of pretty piccies!