My week off

Sorry y'all, since my portfolio has been sent in I've been spending my week relaxing and taking time to do nothing. I did spend most of Thursday baking with Zara (niece) as she is on a semester break from her Cookery class down in Nelson. So she's taught me a few things...like don't cut the roots of the onion till last then you won't be crying so much. Oops. Didn't know that one.

So we made these cupcakes on Monday.

Chocolate caramel filled cupcakes with crunchy peanut butter frosting. Yum!

On Thursday it was ginger and lemon slice and an assortment of cookies courtesy of the AWW Cookies and Slices book. Peanut butter has featured heavily this week, along with butterscotch drops and some fancy italian biscuits which required me to make peanut praline. I tell you what  I hate making the sugar. I burnt it 3 times before passing the job to Zara. Its not as easy as it looks.

But more successfully yesterday I made the most divine tart, which was eaten far too quickly to get a picture of. What I will say though...Thank you Annabel Langbein! Her caramelised onion and feta tart is the most delicious and simple thing I have eaten in ages (apart from The Stone Oven spinach and mushroom pies). I urge you all to source her cookbook The Free Range Cook and try this recipe, its superb. The pastry is OH so buttery, the onions are perfect (and I don't usually like onions), the feta just tops it off nicely and most of all its smells divine when it comes out of the oven! I'm tempted to make it again this week just to show you how delicious it looks. And its an excuse to eat it again!
And today its a simple lemon ricotta cheesecake that Zara is whipping up in the kitchen right now. I can't wait to eat it already. Already have the camera on standby.

My next two papers start today so I'm back to being a student. Ahhh it was nice to have a week's break.