Lemon Meringue Slice

Jules adapted this from a Woman's Weekly recipe last year and we have passed it on to many people since. The topping is crunchy-sweet, the filling smooth and tart and the base very short - most probably good over vanilla icecream or with clotted cream, but we have it for decadent smokos. It doesn't last long around here!


~Lemon Meringue Slice~
125g butter
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
2 eggs, separated
1 cup self raising flour, sifted
1/2 to 3/4 cup lemon butter
1/2 cup caster sugar extra
1 cup desiccated coconut

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees and line an 18x28cm slice tin with baking paper.

Cream the butter and 1/2 cup sugar, then add the lemon zest and egg yolks and beat well.

Mix in the flour; it will be a very soft mixture. Spread over the base of the tin with floured fingers and bake for 10 minutes until golden.

Remove the base from the oven and allow to cool while you make the meringue. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks, then add the remaining 1/2 cup sugar gradually until it is all dissolved and you can't feel any granules in the mix. Fold in the coconut gently.

Flatten the base with your hands if it is too puffy, then spread with lemon butter to cover. Spread the meringue over the top, starting at the edges and working inwards.

Turn the oven down to 150 degrees and bake for 20 minutes until meringue has golden peaks. Check half way through and adjust the temperature down if needed - we covered it with alfoil for the first 10 minutes to stop it burning in my thermostat-challenged oven.

Cool in the tin, then lift out using the baking paper. Cut into small squares on a board when it is completely cooled.

Cherry Almond Cake

This came from a card sent to me by a friend. I've been wanting to make it for ages and we went to a friend's place for dinner on the weekend, so I didn't need any further excuse. It's quite easy and is very rich - lovely for a treat. I made half and put in a 20cm tin and it served 8 - 10, used the left over cherries for serving.

...Cherry Almond Cake...

You need:
250g butter
500g caster sugar
6 large eggs
1 tspn vanilla essence
400g plain flour
1 tspn baking powder
200g ground almonds
400g strained (pitted) preserved or tinned cherries

Preheat oven to 180 degrees (160 if fan forced). Prepare a 24cm tin by greasing and flouring sides and putting baking paper on the bottom.

Cream butter, sugar, eggs and essence in the large bowl of a mixmaster and beat until sugar dissolved (5 - 10 min depending on softness of butter). Turn off mixmaster and fold through flour and almonds by hand, then last of all cherries - just enough so they're fairly evenly spread. Pour into tin and bake for 55 - 60 mins (about 45 min if making half).

Serve with extra cherries, cherry syrup drizzled over and cream.

Apple & Olive Oil Cake

This came via Nourish Me - a wonderful spot to read at cup of tea time :
http://nourish-me.blogspot.com/2008/08/thirty-seven.html

And happy thirty seven Lucy! Almost 40 is a great age :)

I've tweaked things a bit, but we all loved this, so here is the amended recipe :

~Apple & Olive Oil Cake~
120g sultanas
freshly brewed tea
750g granny smith apples – about 6 med apples
150ml olive oil
200g rapadura
2 eggs
350g wholemeal spelt flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons bi-carb soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt

Cover the sultanas with warm tea and leave to soak for 20min - several hours. Drain and reserve liquid.

Peel and core the apples and dice small-med.

Preheat the oven to 180 C. Line a 20cm square cake tin.

Beat the oil and sugar together until the sugar begins to dissolve (check by rubbing a little between your fingers). Whisk the eggs with a fork and add them slowly while beating all the time. Depending on the temperature of your eggs and the grade of oil you have used, this mixture will thicken quickly to a creamy consistency.

Sieve the flour, cinnamon, bi-carb soda, baking powder and salt into a large bowl and add the apple pieces. Mix to coat them in flour.

Add the drained sultanas with the sugar/oil/egg mix and fold to combine. This batter will be quite stiff; add a little of the reserved soaking tea to bring it together if you need.

Turn into the cake tin, cover loosely with alfoil with a slit for steam escape, and bake for 1 hour. Check with a clean skewer and turn tin around and bake for another 15-25 minutes, as required. Cool in the tin, uncovered, then allow to cool completely before storing.

This cake is very moist and filling - fantastic for school lunches, picnics and cup of tea time, and a wonderful way to appreciate the seasonal apple glut.

Georgie's Chocolate Cake

This cake recipe has been our family birthday cake since I was about 8. It is dead easy and always works.

~Georgie's Chocolate Cake~

4 tablespoon soft butter

1 3/4 cups SR flour

1/2 teaspoon bicarb soda

2 tablespoons cocoa

1 1/4 cups caster sugar

2 eggs

1 cup milk

vanilla

Sift flour, bicarb and cocoa, stir through sugar. Whisk milk, eggs and vanilla together and pour into flour with butter.

Beat until smooth (packet cake setting on mixmaster) and you can't feel the sugar granules when you rub some mixture between your fingertips.

Bake at 175 degrees for about 3/4 hour or until skewer comes out clean.

I like to ice this with chocolate icing made with icing sugar, cocoa, butter, orange zest and orange juice to moisten.

Leila's Quick Fruit Loaf

Quick and easy. D declares it "the best thing I've ever eaten".

~Quick Fruit Loaf~
1 cup spelt flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup processed bran (any cereal like AllBran)
1 cup dried fruit (any sort, chopped if needed)
1/4 cup sugar
1 large banana, mashed**
enough milk to mix

Sift flour and baking powder together. Stir in bran, fruit and sugar.

Mix through banana and enough milk to bring it together into a muffin-mix consistency.

Pour into a loaf tin and bake in a moderate oven for about 25-30 min, or until a skewer comes clean. Eat warm or cool.


**I use frozen over-ripe bananas (defrosted) for cooking and these work very well - you can build up a stash of frozen black bananas over summer when they seem inevitable, then use them when needed. Freeze in their skins in a sealed container.

Fig & Ginger Jam

Grandma's southern garden grew ancient fig trees; imagination wrapped in the gnarled branches. They were fascinating plants to my northern eyes; trees didn't drop their leaves in our winter and very little in my childhood world resembled European fairytales.

She made fig jam each year. Our occasional visits south were punctuated by fig jam experiences; luscious chunks of fig in syrup with thick cream on fresh bread.

Figs do grow in the North, albeit for only few years before they die, as I found when we lived in the Top End. Each year the roadside F&V stalls outside Darwin would sell figs for a few brief weeks, so one year on the way home from "town" I bought a bag and rang Grandma for her recipe. This is what she told me :

"Use 3/4 pound of sugar to each pound of prepared figs. About 6 pounds of fruit takes half a cup of vinegar, and you can add 2 tablespoons of sherry or brandy if you like. Boil the fruit in a bit of water, then add the sugar when it starts to thicken - about an hour. Take off the stove and add the vinegar and sherry, then boil until it's thick enough - test in a saucer. Bottle it while it's hot."

We live further south now, where fig trees are plenty. Ours is only two feet high, but we are blessed with neighbours who are over-figged, so they've given us a few bags this season already.

Last night we had Dani's Fig, Feta & Bacon Salad http://kitchenplayground.wordpress.com/2008/03/11/while-the-cat-is-away/ and it was good :)

And we've made a version of Grandma's jam :


~Fig & Ginger Jam~
2lb prepared figs - trimmed and quartered
1 1/2 lb sugar
1/6 cup apple cider vinegar
1 tab sweet cream sherry
2 tsp grated fresh ginger
2 tab glace ginger, finely chopped

Cover the figs and gingers with as much water as you like - I prefer a runny fig jam with plenty of syrup to soak into the bread, but if you like thick jam you can cut into cubes (like the store-bought stuff), then use less water and add some Jamsetter with the sugar.

Bring to the boil, then add the sugar (and Jamsetter if you are using) and simmer until the syrup starts to thicken. Add the vinegar and sherry, then simmer until it jells - use a saucer in the freezer to test.

Let it cool a few minutes before bottling in sterilised jars.

The amounts above made 3 medium sized jars.

eta March 2009
Since this seems to be a popular page in search engines, I need to add that my mum advises to add lemon juice to help set the jam. And I've found it doesn't keep indefinitely in the pantry; needs refridgerating after a few months.

Ginger beer

The original recipe came from Down To Earth http://down---to---earth.blogspot.com/2007/05/ginger-beer.html

This is my version of Rhonda's recipe :


Ginger Beer Plant
1 dessertspoon of brown sugar (could use rapadura, white, raw)
1 dessertspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon dry yeast
300mls filtered water or rainwater

Mix all these in a jar with a largish open top. Place a piece of clean thin cotton fabric over the top and secure with a rubber band. Leave it on the kitchen bench and feed it every day with 1 teaspoon of brown sugar and 1 teaspoon of ground ginger, stirring well.


This stage of the process is to grow the yeast population in the ginger beer plant. Yeast will come from the dry yeast you have added and wild yeasts from the air in your house. The cover needs to be breathable to allow air in for the yeast to live and ferment, and temperatures need to be moderate - not too hot or cold. The yeast use the sugar you add to breed more yeast. After a few days (or even one day) you'll see the top looking bubbly and a little scummy. You might even be able to see bubbles rising from the sediment at the bottom - this means that the yeast are alive and breeding and that fermentation is occurring, which is what you are aiming for.


To make the Ginger Beer :
After 7 days of feeding the plant, you need to strain the sediments from it in order to use the yeast-rich liquid. I use a 30cm square piece of old cotton sheeting and place it in a seive over a bowl. Pour in the plant and allow it to drain. You will need to squeeze the last liquid out by twisting the fabric tightly.


Dissolve 3 cups of sugar in 20 cups of water and allow to cool. Add the juice of 2 lemons and the liquid plant. Stir well.


You could bottle in sterilised glass bottles, which is what we did as kids, but overfermentation can cause them to explode. So I use clean plastic softdrink bottles (although the next batch I'll try glass Grolsch bottles with the swingtop lids as well). I pour a little near-boiling water into the bottle through a funnel before using them, but you need to use a funnel or the plastic on the sides will melt and deform as the hot water touches it. As you pour the water out, try to run it over all the sides of the bottle. Pour the ginger beer in and leave a couple of inches space at the top.


Screw the caps on and leave them to ferment undisturbed for a few days in a warmish place (but not too hot). The yeast will continue to multiply in the sugar-rich mixture, and will use the sugar to breed; the byproducts of this process are alcohol and carbon dioxide, which will give the beer fizz when you open it. The longer you leave it the more fizz and alcohol content the beer will have. I've left mine 3, 6 and 10 days, and the 10 day brew was good for a real beer; the 3 day brew was fizzy but no detectable alcohol content (using my 1 pot screamer alcohol detector).


If you want to re-use the plant sediment to start a new batch, use half of the sediment in another 300ml water/dessert spoon of sugar, and feed each day with sugar and ginger, as before. The longer you keep a ginger beer plant alive by re-using it after each batch of beer, the more wild yeast it will grow and the more complex the flavour will become - or so the story goes ;)