Glorious Plums

I just love all the plums we get at this time of year.  Our tree has some beautiful Omega or Black Doris Plums - never quite sure what the difference is actually.  And my mother-in-law has 2 prolific trees.  We made some jam, some dessert topping and froze plenty for later.

With friends coming over for dinner, I decided to try and make a plum cake for dessert.  I found this recipe for German Plum Cake (or Pflaumenkuchen) and being risen with yeast rather than eggs, I didnt have to make any changes for the allergy kid.

I have never made a yeast risen cake before, and I must say kneading the dough was a great stress reliever.  Both the girls joined in the fun.

Sticky dough

After waiting for the dough to rise, we pushed the halved plums into the dough and sprinkled the struesel topping on to it and into the oven.  It sure smells good.

Just out the oven

The cake was really nice, not to sweet and the plums were really tasty.  But I think I need to work on my dough making skills.  For a first attempt I got rave reviews from hubby & the friends we shared it with.

Enjoy

Barbs x.

Fudge-alicious

It was a dreary boring day yesterday.  I had woken up grumpy and just couldn't shake it. I needed something to pick me up. So I decided to make something I hadn't made since I was a kid and had been meaning to make ever since the school fair at the start of last term.  FUDGE.

So I got the old trusty Edmond's cookbook out and adapted it to make it Emma safe.

1 Cup sugar
1 Tbsp Cocoa
1/4 Cup Oat milk
12.5 g Olivani
1/4 tsp vanilla

First mix the sugar and cocoa in a saucepan and then add the milk and olivani.
Heat gently, stirring all the time until the sugar and olivani have melted.
Bring it to the boil and let it boil without stirring until the soft ball stage - about 5 minutes.
Remove from the heat and add vanilla.

Liquid fudge

Let stand for 5 minutes then beat with a wooden spoon until thick.
Pour into a greased tin, mark into squares and leave to cool.

leave to cool...

This was a big winner - the fudge was sweet and chocolatey and oh so very yummy.  It was a good job I only made a small amount coz we ate it all up after dinner.

Ready to eat! YUM.

I will definitely be making more for Emma's birthday in 5 weeks.

Enjoy


Barbs x.

Loving my girls

This weekend is girls only in our house.  Hubby and the big boy have gone to visit Gran in Raglan and have some father and son time (including test driving a new Range Rover Evoke - just incase we win lotto!).

Today we started off with our sunday baking.  Bear made cupcakes, pretty much by herself - just a little help from mum and big sister.

Then a little later we all did some decorating

And Junior Masterchef Emma chose to make afghans, getting her hands in and doing it all by herself

We also took the dog to our beautiful beach and again I feel so very lucky to chosen this amazing place to live

And then to see the girls playing cards by themselves was just so cool.  It is so neat to see them growing up.

I really am so very very lucky to call these two mine.

Barbs x.

Linking in with Loving over at MnM's

For the love of Cooking

We are a foodie house, of that there is no doubt.

One of our favourite TV programmes is Master Chef.   And we are all about having masterchef  challenges and that extends to the kids as well.

As I am little out of sorts at the moment, the family has had to take over the cooking duties and this morning I asked Emma to make something for morning tea.  She chose Hokey Pokey Biscuits from the good old Edmonds Cook Book.

Cookie Baker

Emma did a great job, Hubby said they were the best home made cookies he had had in a long time.  Miss Emma was most pleased and asked if she had made the next round! Maybe this MasterChef addiction is a getting a little out of hand.

Here is the recipe she used.

125g Olivani

1/2 Cup Sugar

1 Tbsp golden Syrup

1 Tbsp Oat Milk

1 1/2 Cups plain flour

1 tsp baking soda

Preheat oven to 180C

Combine Olivani, sugar, golden syrup and milk in a saucepan and heat until the olivani has melted and the mixture starts to come to the boil.  Stir all the time.

Remove from heat and allow to cool for about 10 minutes.

Sift in the flour and baking soda and then mix well.

Roll into small balls and place on ungreased cold oven trays.  Flatten with a fork.

Bake for about 15 minutes or until golden brown.

I so hope the MasterChef franchise realise what they have started here.  And please please let them bring Junior MasterChef to our shores - I have 3 kids who would love to try out!

Chocolate Blueberry Muffins

This morning I needed to make muffins.  Something chocolatey was definitely needed, but there had to be a healthy element to them too.  So I decided on chocolate blueberry muffins.  A quick search on google found this recipe which I quickly adapted to make it Emma Safe

1 3/4 C flour
4 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 C Cocoa
1/2 C sugar
1/2 C choc drops
1 C Oat milk
1 Tbsp Cider vinegar
1/4 C Rice bran oil
1 C frozen blueberries

Step 1 - Sift flour, baking powder and cocoa together, then stir in sugar and choc drops
Step 2 - Mix oat milk, vinegar, oil and blueberries together
Step 3 - Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and pour wet ingredients into it.  Gently combine until all the dry ingredients are wet.
Step 4 - Spoon into greased muffin trays and bake for @ 20 minutes at 180C.
Step 5 - Eat!!!!!

Enjoy

Barbs x.

For the love of Feijoa's

If you're a kiwi you'll know what I'm talking about.  Feijoa's are synonymous with Autumn here in NZ.  Love 'em or hate 'em, nearly every house has a tree.  And for a few short weeks in April, Feijoa's are everywhere.  For those of you who don't know, Feijoa's are a firm green fruit on the outside with a pulpy center.  They have a really distinctive fragrance that gets stronger the longer as they age.  We eat the inside only, but some people eat the outside too.  Each to their own.

The real problem with having a feijoa tree is what to do with all the feijoa's?  Today we had a bit of a production line and cooked up a batch of feijoa's to go in the freezer - some say you can put them in raw, but we found they went brown and yucky, so we always cook them first.

A day's worth

Some people get a little side tracked!

But what else to do with all the fruit......?

Some got pureed and then dehydrated to make our own super yummy and completely natural fruit leathers.  And lots got frozen so we can use it in crumbles later in the year.

But there was still more - so I thought I would make a feijoa cake.  I used my basic vegan cake recipe and made a few adjustments and added a yummy crumble topping

Here is the recipe I created

1 1/2 C Flour
1 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 C Sugar
1 1/2 C feijoa pulp

Mix it all together well and then pour into a cake tin lined with baking paper

25g Olivani
1/4 cup Oats
1 tsp cinnamon
1 Tbsp Brown sugar

Melt Olivani and add other ingredients - add more oats if needed to cover cake.
Sprinkle over cake
Bake for about 40 minutes @ 180 C.

This cake was so yummy and I think even those that aren't great Feijoa lovers will enjoy this and there is no fat in the cake, only in the topping so it is semi-healthy.  And the allergy kid absolutely loved it.

I hope you are enjoying your feijoa's too.

Barbs x.

Loving the year so far

We are probably the only family in town who has been loving the weather lately.  Why would anyone love Auckland's wet, windy unpredictable weather I hear you ask?  Well quite simply because with two sick and grumpy kids and the other one with a broken arm, sitting indoors watching movies and tv, having computer time, a bit of craft and playing games was going to be the routine anyway and we didn't have to feel sorry for ourselves being cooped up all day cause the weather was rubbish!!!!!!

What about this cute dog? What's not to love

Oh to be this relaxed!

And also finding these stashed behind boxes in the garage - I had given them up for lost, given away or thrown out but oh the excitement of seeing them again.  Our record collection, a real nostalgic look back at the eighties, and this is but a few faves...

Also Loving that this week, the sick two have felt better.  Bear had a wonderful catch up with her bestie and the girls all enjoyed making cupcakes together, then decorating them and of course we all enjoyed eating them.

The girls concentrating on their designs

Love Emma's smiley face cupcake.

Broken arms can't stop you baking.

YUM!

Loving a night out just with the girls.  What better way to spend a fun night than Fish and chips on the beach and then a quick play at one of our stunning playgrounds with the best views ever.

Loving friendly strangers who offer to take a photo of all of you

A few other friends dropped by

Feeding the gulls

Enjoying the view on the swing

Circus girl 1

Circus girl 2

How high can I go?

A little surf dancing before we go

Yep, it hasn't been the healthy, energetic start to the year that I had hoped for, but there was a lot to love in there anyway.

Linking up with Paisley Jade