#18 Golden Syrup Dumplings

It's very Autumnal here, icy crisp mornings and then sunny warm afternoons that draw slowly in at about 5 o'clock. So I want Golden Syrup Dumplings. I always make twice the sauce, I feel the dumplings need to swim in a puddle of sauce and custard. This recipe is for four people, but I would double the sauce. I was pleasantly surprised to find the dumplings were very light and fluffy: not that I thought they wouldn't be good, but they were extra good!!! You can whip these up in about half an hour too. Perfect.

Golden Syrup Dumplings serves 4

• 1 cup self raising flour
• 60g butter, diced
  
• 1 egg
• 1-2 tbspn milk

Sauce

• 30g butter
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 1 cup boiling water
• 1/4 cup golden syrup

Sift the flour into a bowl and rub in the butter using the tips of your fingers. It should be as fine as breadcrumbs. If you give the bowl a shake, any big lumps come to the top.

Make a well in the centre and add the egg and 1 tablespoon of the milk. Swirl to mix and then gradually stir in the flour. It should be not too sticky, not too dry. Add a little more milk if you need.

Meanwhile put the sauce ingredients into a large saucepan and bring to the boil over a medium heat, stirring every now and then.

Roll the dumpling mixture into walnut or ping pong sized balls and drop gently into the sauce. Boil for 20 minutes and then serve with custard and cream. These also reheat well.

#17 Fish Cakes

Remember the Mashed Potato from MM#15?? I mentioned fish cakes, and voila, here they are!!! I used salmon but any cooked fish you like is perfect. I have also used sweet potato and carrot as part of the mash depending on leftovers. And there are never many leftovers here!! (Two Labradors)

Fish Cakes makes about 18

• mashed potato for 4 or 6
  
• one onion, finely diced
• 1/4 cup chopped parsley
• salt and pepper to taste
• zest and juice of 1/2 a lemon
• 415g tin of salmon drained* and flaked
  
• two eggs, beaten**
• breadcrumbs
• oil/butter for frying

*It is better for one's health to add all the bones and skin, but I hate the bones and skin: and so I don't.

** You can add an extra egg to the potato mixture, but with refrigeration the mixture holds its shape and stays together when frying.

Start with cool mashed potato and add the parsley, salmon, lemon juice and zest. If you prefer, you can lightly sauté the onion, and I do, and then add it to the potato mixture. Gentle fold together so as not to break up the fish too much. Use a wet 1/4 cup measure and scoop out the fish cakes. Place on a tray and refrigerate for about 30 minutes.

Lightly beat the eggs, you may add a little water or milk and use just one egg if you like. Dip each cake lightly into the egg and then roll in the breadcrumbs. Refrigerate again for about 30 minutes or over night. They can be frozen at this point.

Heat the oil/butter over a medium heat and pop the fish cakes in. Cook for 4-5 minutes each side. Drain on paper towel and then serve with a salad or vegetables and mayonnaise. A wedge of lemon does just fine here too. The cooked cakes can be frozen as well. They are very versatile!!

#16 ANZAC Biscuits

Next Sunday is ANZAC Day, the 25th of April, and so I have baked ANZAC Biscuits. Not cookies, never cookies. It is against the law to call them cookies. Really. I never bake any kind of cookies, I always bake biscuits!!

I have baked two kinds on ANZAC Biscuits: one with coconut and one without. I like the one without much better, it must be like the recipe my mum used to make. The recipe tastes too salty for me, perhaps more salt was added to preserve the biscuits?? They do need some salt though.

One year my class researched and found out that in actual fact Hard Tack biscuits were sent to the troops. These biscuits were also know as ANZAC Tiles or Wafers. We cooked some, and ANZACs as well, and then pinned them to the wall in a plastic bag for weeks and weeks. The hard tack was still hard and edible. The ANZACs looked reasonably OK, but we were loath to eat them in case they were bad!!

The method/cooking time is the same for both biscuits, so I will list the ingredients for both recipes and then the Method.

ANZAC Biscuits - recipe with coconut makes about 36

• 125g butter
• 2 tbspn Golden Syrup

• 1 tbspn boiling water
  
• 1 tspn bicarb soda (Baking Soda in the US I think)

• 1 cup rolled oats
  
• 1 cup plain flour
  
• 1 cup desiccated coconut
• 1/2 cup caster sugar
• 1/2 tspn salt (recipe says 1 tspn)

ANZAC Biscuits- without coconut (my preferred recipe) makes about 16

• 90g butter
• 1 tspn Golden Syrup

• 1 tbspn boiling water
• 1 tspn bicarb soda

• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1/2 cup plain flour
• 1/2 cup caster sugar
• 1/4 tspn salt (recipe says 1 tspn)

METHOD - preheat oven to 175*C

• Gently melt butter in a pan and then add the Golden Syrup and stir. Remove from heat.
• Put the bicarb soda in a small bowl and pour over the boiling water. Add immediately to the butter mixture. It will foam up slightly.
• Place all the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix thoroughly. Make a well in the centre.
• Pour the butter mixture into the dry and then mix till combined. You have to mix well, because some flour and oats always hides at the bottom.
• Roll into tablespoon sized balls and place on a lined tray and press down gently with the back of the fork. The second recipe was wetter and so I just scooped out with a tablespoon full and rolled lightly. These also spread, so I only put 8 on the tray and that was perfect.
• Bake for 16 minutes, swapping trays halfway through. Check at 12 minutes just in case.
• Cool on trays for 5 minutes especially for the second recipe, they need to cool and 'set'
• Store in a sealed container.

You can, in a totally apocryphal way, add choc chips, or ginger or even spread the base of the cooled biscuits with melted chocolate!! I don't.

#15 Delicious Mashed Potato

I am a working family's dream. I will happily eat the same thing for tea every night for a week. My latest fad is grilled pork cutlet chop, gravy, local apple sauce, peas, local mint jelly, carrot batons and mashed potato.

On the other side of the world they are all gleefully starting to eat new potatoes, but as we gently fade into Autumn, I look for the starchy white fleshed potatoes to mash. And that's what I am cooking today: mashed potatoes.

Our local green grocer has quite a selection of potatoes and today I chose Kennebecs, but you should check locally to see what's best in your area. We are spoiled for choice. So here's how I make mashed potatoes.

Delicious Mashed Potato serves 4

• 800g mashing potatoes
• 1/3 cup hot milk - 30 secs in the microwave
  
• 40g butter
• salt, pepper
  
• garlic clove crushed, chives snipped

Peel your potatoes and then rinse and cut into cubes, I actually cut wedge shapes about 3 cm long. Place into the pan and then just cover with COLD water. This is very important because it allows the potato to cook evenly, otherwise the hot water cooks the outside too quickly and makes them crumbly. Add a pinch of salt. Place on the stove and bring to the boil. Once boiling, put the lid on the saucepan and turn the heat down so the water is just simmering. (I added a crushed clove of garlic for some extra flavour)

Check progress at about 15 minutes by sticking a knife or fork into a large piece of potato. It should be tender but not falling apart. Generally it takes 20 minutes. Drain the potatoes and then put back on the stove for a minute or two to make sure that the potatoes are dry, shake the pan a little to help it along. (Remove the garlic, or you can squeeze the flesh out and add it)

Roughly mash the potatoes and then add the hot milk and butter. Mash till all combines and then fluff by whipping with a fork. Serve with a scattering of chives, or add some Parmesan cheese, blue cheese, crispy bacon, the sky's the limit really. My plate shows one serve.

You can use the left overs to make some yummy fish cakes. Just add some finely chopped onion, an egg and some tuna or salmon. Form into cakes and refrigerate for about 30 minutes and then dip in egg and breadcrumbs and fry till crisply brown. Yum!!!

#14 TimTam Pops

Bakerella, she of the Cake Pops, also made some sort of Oreo Pop. I can't find it, but today I present TimTam Pops, and Mint Slice Pops. I can't taste them because they are chocolate, but they look pretty edible!!! I may try my hand at some Cake Pops before too long.

TimTam/Mint Slice Pops

• 1 packet of TimTams or Mint Slice or other chocolate biscuit
• 65g cream cheese (Philly)
• 300g more or less of chocolate, to be melted
• pop sticks, I cut some satay skewers

In your blender, whizz up the biscuits until they are crumbs and then add the cream cheese and whizz some more till it is all combined. Place in the fridge. When cold, cut into cubes of desired proportions, roll into balls. Insert sticks and refrigerate till 'set'. The dip into the melted chocolate and they are done!! I topped the Mint Slice Pops with a little crushed peppermint lolly. I poked holes in some polystyrene and then stood up all the pops to dry.

Peri Naughty and Lorelai Gilmore were stalking the photo-shoot.

I wonder why???

#13 Red Velvet Cupcakes

I had oft heard tales told of the Red Velvet Cupcake, but I had never seen or tasted one in real life. Sadly, there was no tasting as the cake has cocoa, but MrsDrWho inhaled the smell of the freshly cooked cakes and declared them delicious without even taking a bite. After a bite? Agree(1000)!!!

Also, gird your loins, because this is post #13,. It's not triskaidekaphobia, it's the fact that we are one quarter of the way through the year already, and I have stuck to my Monday Munchies for thirteen weeks.

For more Red Velvet Cupcake action, look here!!

Red Velvet Cupcakes makes about 20

• 125g butter
• 300g caster sugar (1 1/3 cups)
  
• 2 eggs
• 250ml buttermilk
• 30ml red food colouring*
• 1 tspn vanilla extract
• 1 tspn bicarb soda
  
• 3 tspn white vinegar
• 250g plain flour (1 2/3 cups)
• 30g very good cocoa powder

• 500g cream cheese (Philly)
• 125g butter
• 500g pure icing sugar, sifted
• 1 tspn vanilla extract
  

Preheat the oven to 180*C and line two 12 hole muffin trays with paper cases.Cream the butter and sugar and add the eggs, buttermilk, food colouring and vanilla and beat till combined. Stir in the bicarb soda and vinegar and then the flour and cocoa.Spoon into the paper cases and bake for 20-25 minutes, They will be cooked when the top springs back when pressed lightly, and the cake has shrunk from the edge of the tin.Cool on a rack and then ice when the cakes are cold..

To make the icing, soften the butter and cream cheese, add the vanilla and beat till smooth and fluffy. Slowly add the icing sugar. Whip till it looks like frosting.

*Some recipes say Cochineal, other red food colouring. I could only buy Pillar Box Red and so that's what I used.

#12 White Chocolate Scones

The Afternoon Tea-ish theme continues this week with scones, but not just any scones, these are the kind of scones I have always been fearful to try: Lemonade scones. However, seeing the recipe in this month's Delicious magazine gave me pause, so I decided to chance my cooking arm!! Beware though, these scones are big, big and fluffy and as light as air. MrsDrWho's only complaint is that there were mouthfuls without white chocolate, so I think more than doubling the chocolate content is warranted.

White Chocolate Scones -makes 8 large scones

• 3 cups self-raising flour
  
• 1 cup lemonade
• 1 cup thin pure cream
• 50g white chocolate-MrsDrWho thinks 150g to get some with each bite
  
• 50 ml cream extra
• strawberry jam for serving

Preheat oven to 190*C and line a tray with baking paper.Sift the flour into a bowl, make a well in the centre and add the cream, lemonade and chocolate. Stir with a knife and then bring together with your hands. Don't really knead, be gentle!!Turn out onto a floured surface and roll or press out to2.5cm thickness. Here I deviated from the recipe, they said to cut out eight round scones with a 5cm cutter, but I made a disc shaped dough and then cut it into eight wedges. Use the extra cream to brush the top of each scone. When I make these again I will make 12 or 16 from the same mixture.

Place carefully on the tray and bake for about 12 minutes, or until risen and golden. Cool on a wire rack and then serve dusted with icing sugar, filled with jam and maybe a dollop of cream on the side. MrsDrWho ate hers plain, and I tasted one too, I can eat these, and they were truly delicious!!!