Today we get to stop and remember all those brave souls that have fought for the freedom of our nation over the years, a day we call ANZAC Day (ANZAC stands for Australia & New Zealand Army Corps).
So yesterday I got the girls to make ANZAC biscuits. They're a very classic Kiwi biscuit (cookie for those Americans/Canadians). If you've never made them before, I recommend giving it a go! It's one of my favourite biscuits (but only the homemade variety - I find bought ones too crunchy for my liking!)
ANZAC Biscuits
Picture borrowed from Google - the girls' ones didn't last for a photo!
Ingredients
1/2 cup flour
1/3 cup white sugar
2/3 cup desiccated coconut
3/4 cup rolled oats
50g butter
1 Tbls golden syrup
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 Tbls boiling water
1. Mix together the flour, sugar, coconut and oats.
2. Melt the butter and golden syrup.
3. Dissolve the baking soda in the boiling water and add to butter and golden syrup.
4. Stir butter mixture into the dry ingredients.
5. Place level tablespoons of mixture onto greased baking tray (or shape into balls and flatten with your palm).
6. Bake at 180 C for about 15mins or until golden.
Makes 20 (if you make them tiny - ours were a decent size and we got about 12!)
There are lots of variations on this recipe with nuts, raisins or chocolate chips added, but I just like it standard!
BigMiss has been doing a lot of baking and cooking for me lately. So much so that I can't remember the last time it was actually me doing the baking!
She has a really good kid's recipe book that has clear step by step illustrated instructions and just does it all herself. (The other day she told me she was going to do some baking and I wasn't allowed to know what she was making or come in the kitchen - and I totally trusted her!)
So when I heard about a school holiday cooking program where the kids have to make dinner each night for a week I thought it would be just the thing for her. It's an online program that runs nationally and includes daily challenges with chances to win prizes.
The first day was yesterday and one challenge was to do a Random Act of Kindness involving food. BigMiss decided to make a batch of brownies for our neighbor (a nice single lady that works long hours). She took it over in the evening when we saw she'd come home from work.
And for dinner she made Chicken Couscous Pile Up which tasted absolutely delicious! It was couscous (we dressed it up with apricots, pumpkin seeds and red onion as the recipe just had it plain) with fancy lettuce on top, a crumbed chicken schnitzel on that and topped with chopped tomatoes and plum sauce.
Tonight it's going to be Beef (actually venison as that's all we have in the freezer) Fried Rice and the daily challenge is to do a themed over-the-top table setting. It will be interesting to see what BigMiss comes up with as she's spending the day at a friend's house today and will need to plan it all there!
So, MiddleMiss turned 7 on Sunday.
J told her that I hadn't really had time to make a fancy cake so hopefully she wouldn't be disappointed as she was just going to have a plain round cake.
She was impressed with the pink glittery sprinkles and fancy squiggly candles and said she liked it anyway.
Then J cut her a piece and she was even more impressed that it was a Rainbow cake!
It was loads of fun to make and even tasted good too!
Idea from
here. Recipe and instructions from
here. Other creative types over
here.
BigMiss was invited to a surprise birthday party and was asked to make the birthday cake as her present.
After looking through the birthday cake books and not really choosing anything, I suggested making a number cake (the birthday girl was turning 10, which I figured was an easy number-shape to work with).
We made a chocolate cake, which she mixed up by herself - the recipe I always use is a 'put it all in the bowl and turn the mixer on' type which is really easy for kids!
The '1' got lollies put on randomly, but I suggested more of a pattern for the '0'
I let her choose a bag full of lollies from the 'pick-n-mix' at the supermarket to decorate it with and she wanted five different icing colours. She mixed the food colouring into the icing while I iced the cakes (she found it a little tricky to not mix the colours when putting it on).
She had great fun, and the birthday girl was impressed she had made it herself!
Saturdays I usually do baking. Today it was biscuits (cookies).
This is one of my favourite recipes.
Kiwi Crisps
Ingredients:
1/2 of a 400g tin sweetened condensed milk
225g butter (softened)
1/2c sugar
2c flour
2tsp baking powder
200g chocolate
Preheat oven to 180deg C.
Cream condensed milk, butter and sugar together.
Mix in sifted flour and baking powder and then mix in chocolate.
Shape spoonfuls, place onto baking tray and cook until lightly browned (about 10-15mins).
Cool on a rack and enjoy!
If you're like me and prefer soft biscuits, take them out just as they start colouring. When cooked to golden brown they're crisp and crunchy when cooled.
You can use any form of chocolate in these biscuits - chocolate chips, buttons, a chocolate block broken in chunks, mixed white and dark, mini M&M's (as pictured above), and you can even add 1/2c of nuts to the mix also (roasted cashews are yum!)
And because it uses half a tin of condensed milk, I usually make a double batch so I don't have the other half a tin sitting in the fridge waiting to be used! (They freeze well.)
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