Coffee and Walnut Cake

It was one of those booky, readingy, coffeey, listening to laid-back music kind of days.
I was hanging with my trusty side-kick Buster thinking it's more like an
Autumn day than a Spring one.
The ghosts of 'autumn cakes past' were calling me.

I had a recipe I was keen to have a go at so I chopped some firewood
and stoked up the old range (or more accurately, clicked the gas gun
and fired up the white enamel Chef cooker) and set to work.

This recipe has a big slurp of sour cream in it and then it's all the
regular gang, butter, flour, eggs, sugar.
A whizz around with the electric beater then in the oven.
Easy Peasy.

You can't beat the flavour of baked walnuts in a cake, can you?
I love 'em.
Think I'll pop on over to my neighbours and share a big fat slice.

Photos: Spring, 2011

Pear, Pistachio and Chocolate Cake

Well, hello there, season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.
I see you've been conspiring with your mate the sun
to fill all fruit with ripeness to the core!
Thanks!
You're awesome!
(apologies to John Keats)

This is such an easy recipe to make.
If you are new to baking I'd thoroughly recommend giving this one a crack.

It comes from an excellent little book
my sister, Leigh found for me - The SBS Foodies' Diary.
As soon as she saw the type of recipes it featured,
she knew it was for me!

We (Mum, Clarrie the Morris Minor and me
- Vince had to stay home in case Clarrie packed it in and I had to ring him to come and get us)
took the cake - still warm - on a picnic.
I felt obliged to give it a round of applause after I polished it off.
It was just like a big gooey nutty peary jaffa.
What's not to love?

Photos: April, 2011

Pinolate

Mmmmmmm.....
Chewy nutty biscuits.

Vince is a big fan of nuts (there's no nice way to say that).
This recipe I ripped out of a Better Homes & Gardens magazine, has four different kinds of nuts and I promised to make them for him.




I actually stuffed up this recipe.
You kinda combine two pastes of different consistencies.
One is an almond slurry and the other a marzipan.
I accidentally used the hazelnuts to make the almond slurry and it turned out like breadcrumbs.
Oops.
But I pushed on and thought - eh, I've come this far - let's see what happens!
They turned out pretty good!

I don't eat a lot of biscuits.
I like the IDEA of biscuits, but I'm not really a grazer - I'm a "mealer".
Sometimes I like one with my afternoon cup of tea.
Soooooo nice sitting on the front porch in the autumn sun.


They're very rich in flavour and sweetness.
I can only eat one at a time.
Vince ate 10 in a row.
He's gunna have a belly-ache tonight!


Home: Mar, 2011