Pasta

I think my camera hates the night as my photos just never do the subject justice. This is the best I could get:



Anyway that aside, I made pasta last night. I don't know what this is called, perhaps round ravioli? I filled little round pasta shapes and sealed them with the end of a teaspoon by pressing them together with it. The filling was made with bacon and mushrooms fried with a little garlic and butter. The sauce is a tomato, garlic, pesto and cream mix. And although Owen was at first skeptical he went back for seconds, and thirds but there was none left. Yay success!
Now all I need is a pasta machine so I don't have to hand roll it. It took FOREVER!

Excitement!

Hello!
I haven't posted anything for a week as last Wednesday I was whipping up a quick banana cake for Madeline to take to Girls Brigade there was suddenly a clanging unusual noise, a funny smell and the mixmaster stopped working! Nooooo!
Now it sounds so stupid but going back to hand mixing a cake was foreign to me, and especially painful thanks to my still broken finger. I was LOST (ok, yes lazy too) ! So today we took the broken mixmaster and receipt back to Harvey Normans. I have a HUGE thank you to my mum who bought the very excellent and efficient Sunbean Mixmaster as my last birthday present but decided I needed an upgrade! To a sexy cream coloured KitchenAid mixer! Ahhhh the excitement!!! For once I was lost for words.
To sum up I think I have the best mum in the world. Sorry all of you out there but I do.
Anyway here is my dream machine. I might have to kick Owen out of bed tonight to make room for it. He he.



So my first mission with this was to make some cookies. Two types. One chocolate and the other lemon vanilla. Just plain ones.



Recipes are as follows:

Plain choc biccies
125g butter, softened
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1/4 cup self raising flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder

Beat butter, sugar and egg, then add sifted flour and cocoa in two batches.
Knead dough on floured surface until smooth; roll dough between sheets of baking paper until 5mm thick. Cover and chuck in fridge for 30mins.
Preheat oven to 180 or if fan forced 160 deg Celsius and using any cutter you like (I used plain round) cut your shapes and place on lined baking tray. Bake for 12mins.

Lemon Vanilla cookies
125g butter, softened
2 teaspoons finely grated lemon rind
1/2 teaspoon vanilla paste
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 egg
1 2/3 cups plain flour

Beat butter, rind, vanilla, sugar and egg until well combined. Stir in sifted flour, in two batches.
Knead dough and cover and bake as above in choc biccie instructions - these ones will only need 10mins to bake however.

A Year Already

A year ago today I had my first post on this blog. I would just like to say thanks to everyone out there that reads it and gives me feedback and also to those that order from me so I have things to post! Thanks to you it just keeps getting better.

Also please note I have a new email address for delissimon related things. It is now delissimon@vodafone.co.nz

I'll leave you to check out these wedding cakes made by a Kuwait pastry chef by the name of Omar Addihaoui. I'm trying to imagine what the bride was wearing if the cake is this full on. I'm also trying to imagine how long you'd be eating this cake for before it was all gone.









There are more photos...click here to see.


THANKS!

Monday Night, Family Night

Last night was the usual Monday night family meal, and I made this decadent and most popular by far dessert.

Its very simple and I am all about simple and easy but extremely delicious. Here's the recipe.

3 egg whites
1 1/2 cups white sugar
250g block Cadburys Energy chocolate
1/2 cup any roughly chopped nuts - I used pecan and almond
1/2 cup chopped dates - I used dried apricots as I ran out of dates but you could use cherries also.

Whip the egg whites until stiff. Gradually add sugar and mix in well. Chop the block of chocolate up and fold into the egg white mix with the nuts and fruit. Put in a well greased cake tin and bake in a preheated oven at 160-180 deg celcius for 40 mins.
Serve with ice cream or cream and impress your guests!

Delissilinks

Here's a beautiful cake and cupcake stand for a wedding from The Cupcake Gallery. I love the colours.



Egg cuber. Why??????

And this classic from the ever faithful Cake Wrecks. Remind me never to make a batman cake.


And although this isn't related to food, its a crack up:



Alrighty...have a good day!

Butterflies

Egg croustade with feta and sundried tomato

This is the first savoury dish I've done on this blog, must be all that sugar overload that's made me crave a lot of savoury lately. Last time I craved this much savoury food I was pregnant. And that, dear readers, is NOT the case this time.

Anyway. Here's tonight's experiment. Kumara sourdough from that wonderful bread shop Wild Wheat, with a bit of deliciously creamy goats feta from Kapiti Cheeses and an egg added to the middle. The recipe called for watercress but I used sundried tomatoes as a topping. Topped off with a teaspoon of wholegrain mustard and salt and pepper and my favourite ingredient to anything - smoked paprika, all added to a dash of cream and spooned on the top.


Before going in the oven:


And after (bad lighting and terrible pic sorry):



Fed this to Owen who pronounced it "pleasantly surprising". This from a guy who thinks that if he eats a non meaty dish he might just shrivel up into an anemic old man and die. I think his greatest fear is that I will become a vegetarian.
I should note however he followed it up with a large plate of spaghetti bolognese.

Cookies!

Handmade ginger cookies with a decorated fondant icing.

Choc Banana Muffins

Chocolate and Banana Muffins. Not much else to add to that, except perhaps to say they are really yummy!

Fathers Day

Today was Fathers Day. Katie made dad some vegemite toast and Madeline honed her tea making skills. And I burnt some eggs.
But I also made a really nice soup for lunch which we enjoyed with some French bubbly and a cake to toast both Owen and my dad for just being cool dads. And to top it off Auckland put on a cloudless beautiful day so we could eat out on the deck for the first time in months.

Happy Fathers Day to all you great fathers out there!





The cake and cupcakes are choc lemon with lemon buttercream and fondant icing.

The best cake recipe cont.

A couple of months ago I posted about my best cake recipe but a few people have asked me to actually print the recipe for them. So here it is below.

1 1/2 cups self raising flour
3 tablespoons cocoa
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon white vinegar
6 tablespoons oil (not olive oil as the taste is too strong)
1/4 teaspoon salt.

Preheat oven to 180 deg Celsius
Add first 3 ingredients and mix together then add water and mix again. Add vinegar and oil and salt and mix together really well. Pour into lined 20cm baking tin and bake for 20-25 mins. You know its ready when you touch the cake and it springs back instead of being all gooey in the middle.

For some ideas on how to adapt this cake recipe for other flavours then click on the link at the top of this post. I should mention that this makes excellent cupcakes and will make roughly 24 depending on what size you want them!

Easy Muffins

With hordes of children trooping through our house on a regular basis I've needed a quick recipe to satisfy hunger and not take too much time creaming butter and whipping this and that. I've stumbled upon this gem for an easy muffin mix - and the best part is you can add whatever is in your pantry. This one has lemon rind and frozen mixed berries in it.





A superb light muffin with plenty of flavour. Here's the original recipe here but I'll print it below too.

220g self raising flour, sifted
3/4 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup oil (I use rice bran, olive oil is too strong a flavour)
3/4 cup buttermilk or regular milk with a squeeze of lemon juice added. Or just regular milk.
1 tspn vanilla
150g added flavour such as frozen berries, mashed banana, choc chips, grated apple...anything.

Preheat oven to 180 deg Celsius
Mix dry ingredients together, make a well and add combined wet ingredients. Add the berries (or whatever you decided on) and mix until just combined. Over mixing won't give you a light fluffy muffin.
Cook for 15-20 mins.