Toffee

I've never made any sort of candy before, other than caramel as a topping for cinnamon buns. Which, let's face it, isn't exactly complex.

The creation of this toffee was part of the mother's day extravaganza that I planned, based off of my mom's favorite candy - the heath bar. Obviously, this toffee was a central part of the cake, and I was terrified that it wouldn't turn out properly. I had planned on having some emergency backup store bought toffee, but couldn't find any in Perth on a Sunday. I almost couldn't find a candy thermometer, either. By the time I tried the fifth and final cooking supply store I was close to just deciding to eyeball the toffee. I'm glad I didn't have to, though, because having a candy thermometer made this recipe surprisingly easy to make.

One important note is to use a really large pan. When boiling, the toffee mixture quadruples in volume. I wasn't prepared for this, and had to do some quick moving and pour the burning hot melted sugar from a small saucepan to a larger one halfway through.

As to serving - I chose to allow the toffee to cool in a large slab so I could simply shatter it into shards to sprinkle on my cake. If you would like bars of toffee, then it's best to use a sharp knife on the toffee while it is still warm and cut the toffee into slabs. Then, when the toffee has completely cooled it should just snap apart.

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Toffee Recipe

2 cups (455 gr) butter

2 2/3 cups granulated sugar

1/3 cup water

1/4 cup light corn syrup

Line a baking sheet with baking paper.

Cut the butter into small, even squares.

Place the butter, sugar, water and corn syrup in a large heavy saucepan and heat over medium heat.

Stir mixture constantly until butter is melted and sugar is dissolved.

Insert a candy thermometer into the pan and bring the candy to boil.

Occasionally brush down the sides of the pan with a wet pastry brush to prevent crystallization of the sugar that sticks to the sides.

Continue to boil the candy, stirring frequently, until it reaches 300 degrees on the candy thermometer. If the mixture separates, simply stir vigorously until it reincorporates. It will turn a dark, golden brown color.

As soon as the mixture hits 300 degrees, pour the toffee onto the baking sheet. Do not scrape out the pan, and be careful of the hot sugar as it will really burn if it gets on you!

Spread the toffee evenly across the pan with a spatula.

Allow the toffee to cool completely, and either break into slabs or use the back of a spoon to shatter into shards.

To the kitchen!

Homemade Oatmeal

For once, my lack of updates isn't due to a lack of cooking. Rather, it comes down to the fact that I've misplaced my camera. This means that I'm reduced to taking photos with my phone, which makes even the most delicious looking cake look unappetizing. Luckily, oatmeal is a rather boring looking food all the time, so I don't feel bad not including a picture with this recipe.

Oatmeal really is the simplest thing to make. I woke up this morning at 4am, and couldn't fall back to sleep for the life of me. So I decided to get up and make a nice warm bowl of oatmeal to fill my tummy and hopefully send my back to sleep.

The beauty of oatmeal is that you can flavor it with anything you have on hand. As long as you have something to sweeten the dish, and some sort of fruit to vary the taste, you're home free. Plus, it only takes about 5 minutes to make.

I personally prefer very thick oatmeal, which I then water down with cold milk. I love the juxtaposition of hot oatmeal and cold milk!

Homemade Oatmeal

Makes one large portion, or two small ones

1 cup quick cooking oats

1.5 cups milk + extra if desired

Roughly 2 tblsps of a sweetener like brown sugar or honey

A handful of fruit - raisins, chopped apple or peaches

Roughly 2 tsps of cinnamon

1 tsp vanilla

Bring the quick cooking oats and milk to boil. Dump in the sweetener, fruit, cinnamon and vanilla.

Allow the oatmeal to boil, and thicken, stirring often to stop it from sticking to the sides or burning on the bottom.

Cook for about 3-5 minutes, or until the oatmeal reaches the desired thickness.

Pour oatmeal into a bowl, and add a little bit of cold milk to the dish if desired.

And that's it! The quickest hot breakfast you'll ever make!

To the kitchen!

Cinnamon Blondies

I am a huge fan of one bowl recipes - anything that minimizes the dreaded dishes is fine by me. While these blondies do need more than one bowl, they are extremely to make and require minimal dishes.

These blondies (which are like brownies but without the chocolate) don't rise much while baking, so they are quite dense. The cinnamon adds a nice twist to these caramely blondies, but I think that they're still a bit bland. I think next time I make these I'll use more cinnamon, and add a bit of cardamom to see if that adds a bit more depth of flavor.

Because these don't really brown, it can be hard to tell when they are done. It is important not to overcook them, as they continue to set after being pulled out of the oven. I tend to press gently on the top of the blondies, and if they are firmish to the touch then I pull them out.

Sorry about the photo quality - can't seem to find my camera so I had to take this on my phone! I'll put up another photo next time I make these.

Cinnamon Blondies

1 cup flour

1/8 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

7 tblsp butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanila

3/4 cup pecans, chopped and toasted

Topping

1 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350F/ 175C. Either butter an 8x8 dish or line it with baking paper.

Whisk the flour, salt, and cinnamon together in a medium sized bowl.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the melted butter with sugar. Add the egg and vanilla, stirring till smooth.

Add half of the dry ingredients, stir until smooth, and then add the rest of the dry ingredients.

Mix in the pecans.

Spread the batter into the baking dish - it will be a little bit gloopy so be careful to avoid getting any on the sides. Sprinkle the topping mixture evenly across the batter.

Bake for 20-25 minutes. The blondies may appear underdone, but they will set as they cool.

To the kitchen!

Wow it's been a while

Things have been a bit hectic in my world, with several life changes getting in the way of regular updates. I've moved back home with my family, in the hopes of being able to help out a little bit with the care of my father (who was recently diagnosed with brain cancer). As such, I don't have free reign of my own kitchen like I'm used to, and often have no idea what's even in the pantry or fridge!

I've also recently lost the drive to cook much, which results in some pretty boring meals when it's my designated cooking night. I've decided not to stand for this any more though - So here is my very late New Year's resolution to go back to updating this blog regularly!

Hopefully I'll have something new and delicious up in the next few days. I'm browsing the internet as I type this, looking for some culinary inspiration. To the kitchen!

15 Minute Brownies

It's the end of my last semester at university, so my last few weeks have been spent racing between filming locations, the editing suite, classes, work, and my bed. I've been eating an unfortunate amount of fast food, and if it wasn't for a close friend who's been bringing me the leftover sandwiches from his cafe the rest of my diet probably would consist toast and scrambled eggs.

It's safe to say that I haven't had much time to spend in the kitchen baking my heart away! So when a friend linked me this recipe for 15 minute brownies, I knew I would have to try it out. It's taken me about two weeks to get around to it, though, as I haven't had the time to run to the shops to buy chocolate. This morning I got home from the editing suite at 7 in the morning, slept until noon, headed back into finish off editing my movie, finished around 9, and then stopped at the gas station to pick up some chocolate. I knew that my reward to myself would be these fantastic sounding brownies.

Unfortunately, for me it took a bit longer than 15 minutes to make these brownies, as my oven takes about twenty minutes just to heat up. I probably could have whipped up a full batch of brownies up in that time. Still, it meant that I had more time to sit down and catch up on my favorite TV shows while the oven was heating up.

This recipe makes about six medium sized round brownies. Following these instructions the batter didn't really mix together well - the butter didn't absorb into the mixture. I thought that this might have been because there was too much butter in the recipe, but once baked I found the brownies quite dry.

This is great for a quick chocolate fix, but I think that once I have a bit more time I'll experiment with perhaps creaming the butter and sugar together, and then adding melted chocolate and see if that blends the ingredients together more effectively.

I don't have photos to share today, as these were gobbled up by myself and my house mate before I remembered to grab my camera. So I guess I'll just have to make this again!

15 Minute Brownies - from Lobstersquad

65g chopped chocolate

65g butter

1 egg

65 g sugar

40 g flour

Pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 180C/ 356F.

Melt chocolate and butter in the microwave on medium for a minute.

Beat in the egg, sugar, flour and salt.

Bake for six or seven minutes.

Eat!

To the kitchen!

Homemade Pasta

My little sister is taking a cooking class at school, and every weekend when she comes to stay with me she brings along heaps of enthusiasm to show off her new recipes. Her latest request was that we make homemade pasta.


I think the only other time I've actually made pasta from scratch I was 8 years old. I was expecting this to be really hard, but it actually was super easy.

Fresh pasta cooks in only a few minutes, so prepare the sauce before you toss the pasta in the boiling water. I must say, this tastes pretty good with just some olive oil and salt and pepper mixed through.

Homemade Pasta
Makes enough to serve 4-6

3 1/3 cups flour

4 eggs

a pinch of salt

Make a mound with the flour and salt on a clean work surface and make a well in the middle.

Pour the eggs into the well (crack them in a bowl first if you're worried about shells) and work the eggs and flour together until you have a smooth dough. Add a little bit of water if the dough is not mixing properly. Kneed the dough for about 10 to 15 minutes, until it is smooth, firm, and quite elastic.

Separate the dough into two pieces. Flour your work surface and start to roll out the dough, rolling from the middle. Flour as necessary to keep the dough from sticking.

If you have a pasta machine, roll the dough to a thickness that will fit through the machine on the largest setting. Push the dough through, fold it in half, and push it through again. Reduce the size of the pasta machine setting to the next smallest size, and push through the dough through. Continue with this until you are pulling the dough through on the thinnest setting. Then either run the dough through slicing attachment, or lay it out on your work surface and cut into your desired shapes.

If you don't have a pasta machine, then you're in for a bit more work. Using a rolling pin, roll the dough as thin as you can - remember that fresh pasta doubles in thickness when it is cooked. If you want to cut the dough into strips, roll the sheet of the dough up into a tube, then slice the tube into rounds of the desired width, then shake the sheet out with your hand to free the strands.

Boil the pasta as you would usually.

To the kitchen!

Cute Recipe Cards

One of the presents I was given for my birthday this year is this really cute collection of recipe cards from boygirlparty.com.

I am now filled with the urge to buy the whole range of cards - apart from these adorable owls they also come with cats, dogs, and hummingbirds!

Now I just need something equally pretty to store these in, and neater handwriting so that I can actually read my own directions...


To the kitchen!