Monday, September 24, 2012

Pancakes


I will always find an excuse to have pancakes: Pancake Sundays, pancake dinners, pancake desserts, pancake snacks! I think that my love of pancakes started when Dad would make them for us for breakfast on the weekends. Since then I instigated pancake sundays with flatmates and have experimented with different flavours and toppings, creating different ways to celebrate events such as shamrock-shaped pancakes for St Patricks Day and finding any excuse or meal to try something different.
This recipe from Alison Holst and is the recipe that I have always used. Its super easy and it never fails to give light fluffy pancakes.

Pancakes:

50 g butter, melted
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1 ½ cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
3 Tbsp sugar


Melt butter and whisk in eggs then milk.
Add flour, baking powder and sugar and lightly whisk until just combined and smooth. Don’t over-mix or you will get tough pancakes! (You can add a little extra milk to thin out the batter to the right consistency; I tend to add 2-3 Tbsp extra.)

Lightly grease a frying pan with butter and heat over a med-low heat.
Pour the batter into the warm pan. (A ladle works well to give a good size.)
Flip the pancakes when the edges start to look cooked and bubbles start to appear in the centre.
Cook the other side until the centre springs back when touched.

Top with your favourite toppings and enjoy!
(makes approx 8 pancakes)
Golden Syrup








Lemon & Sugar
Different topping/flavours to try
  • Butter and maple or golden syrup – Classic!
  • Lemon juice and sugar
  • Bacon: Particularly good with fried banana or berries.
  • Chocolate: chocolate or m&m’s to the batter or cover the pancakes with chocolate sauce.
  • Fruit: eg banana fried in brown sugar, apple and cinnamon, Peaches and chocolate
  • Caramel/butterscotch sauce
  • Apple Crumble Pancakes
  • Berries: add berries to the batter or pile on top with icing sugar. You can also make a berry sauce by heating in a saucepan with a few tablespoons of sugar.
  • Bounty Bar pancakes: add 3 Tbsp of coconut to the batter and cover the pancakes with chocolate sauce. This also tastes great with grilled pineapple.
  • Buttermilk pancakes: replace the milk with buttermilk. You will need to add extra milk to thin out the mixture. This also works with yoghurt.
  • Cookies & Cream pancakes: add crushed up biscuits to the batter, serve with chocolate sauce and cream. 
Berries and Bacon

Monday, September 17, 2012

Orange and Almond Yo-Yos


It is only fitting that the first recipe I post should be in keeping with the Kiwi inspiration behind our blog. This week I was helping out with morning tea for my department and I decided to make a New Zealand favourite: Yo-Yo’s, a pair of deliciously buttery biscuits sandwiched together with an equally buttery filling. This recipe puts a twist on the original by using orange and almond flavours.
For the biscuits:
250g butter, softened
1 tsp. vanilla essence
80g icing sugar, sifted
225g plain flour
75g cornflour
For the orange almond filling:
80g butter, softened
2 tsp. grated orange rind
A few drops of almond essence
110g of icing sugar
 
Preheat the oven to 160°C/140°C fan. Grease and line an oven tray with baking paper.
Beat together butter, vanilla essence and icing sugar until light and fluffy.
Stir in sifted flour and cornflour.
Roll large teaspoons of the mixture into balls and place on the tray 3cm apart. (Don’t worry if the mixture seems dry, with enough work it will hold together nicely.)
Use a fork to gently flatten the biscuits. (If you dip the fork into some flour it will stop it from sticking to the biscuits).
 
Bake the biscuits for 15 minutes then cool on trays.
Meanwhile, make the orange almond filling by beating all the ingredients together in a bowl.
Once the biscuits have cooled completely, sandwich pairs together with the butter filling.
Enjoy!
 
 

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Welcome to our sweet as blog

This is our sweet as blog. 
Here will add some of our favorite recipes to share with our adoring fans (aka friends and family). This will include some of our experiments and tried and tested creations. A lot of this stems from our chronic need to procrastinate and baking doesn't quite cut it anymore. We need to start a blog!