Andrew E. Scott

Modern conveniences are great.

Back in the early 80s, there were all sorts of new electronic appliances coming onto the market. My parents asked my brothers and I whether we would prefer a Video Cassette Recorder or a Microwave Oven. Both promised to revolutionise our lives!

We all voted for the VCR. We ended up with the microwave.

Oh well. It wasn’t all bad. We made a lot of microwave cakes. It was amazing – you were 10 minutes to cake at any point in the day.

We worked our way through the microwave cookbook. It turned out that all sorts of things could be baked until they were moist and floppy.

Unfortunately, you can maintain the excitement only so long of cooking stuff in a metal box with a spinning glass dish. These days our microwave is relegated to defrosting, melting and reheating. No actual cooking.

Well, there is one counter-example: microwave popcorn.

Think of all the technology that goes into that special plastic bag, bought from the supermarket, placed into a microwave, and zapped until fluffy popcorn appears. How did they ever make it before? Turns out that it was pretty simple.

And in fact, according to this great article I found on the interwebs, it can still be simple, and yet still use a microwave.

I was so excited by this discovery that I immediately posted it on Facebook, but since all my important recipes have to live on my blog, I’m reposting it here.

And for those who were concerned – the next year we got the VCR.

Ingredients

1/4 cup of ordinary popping corn

salt

Method

Place the popping corn into a sealed microwave safe container, e.g. microwave rice cooker, paper bag folded shut, etc.

Microwave on High in an 850W oven for 2:15 mins. Remove, tip into a bowl, and sprinkle with salt.

Serves 2.

Okay.. a little word of warning. There are trade-offs between the following parameters: wattage of your oven, the amount of popping corn used, size of the cooking container, amount of corn that burns, amount of corn left unpopped. The first time you do this, keep a careful eye (and vigilant nose) on what is going on so that you can hit Stop if anything starts burning. I have erred on the side of unpopped kernels rather than burnt popcorn, but perhaps I could improve this with further experimentation.

Tags: microwave, popcorn, recipe, snack

For our recipe club this month, the theme is “story”, which means that all recipes needed to have some sort of associated story. After struggling to come up with something, my friend Josie suggested the story of the Sugar-plum Fairy (who rules the Kingdom of Sweets in Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker), which sounded great because I’d never come across a sugar-plum before.

It turns out that the “plum” in sugar-plum is the same as the “plum” in plum pudding, i.e. not a plum at all. While there appear to be alternative views on the Internet regarding what the historical sugar-plum consisted of, the common themes appear to be the use of dried fruit, the shape of a ball, and being covered in sugar.

So, despite basing my recipe here on a sugar-plums recipe that is referenced from Wikipedia (can you get more credible than that?) by Alton Brown. I have diverted somewhat from tradition by coating two thirds of the balls in chocolate rather than sugar. Not only does it taste great, but gives a nice layered effect.

Ingredients

1/4 teaspoon (1.25mL) anise seeds or 1 star anise
1/4 teaspoon fennel seeds
1/4 teaspoon caraway seeds
180g slivered almonds
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
pinch of salt
1/4 cup (62.5mL) icing sugar
120g dried plums (prunes)
120g dried apricots
120g dried figs
1/4 cup of honey
1 cup (250mL) raw sugar
250g dark chocolate

Method

Toast the anise, fennel and caraway seeds, e.g. under a grill. Toast the slivered almonds as well, but don’t mix them with the spices yet.

Grind up the spices, combine with the cardamom and salt in a small mixing bowl. Sift in the icing sugar, mix well and set aside.

Place the almonds in a large mixing bowl, and crush, e.g. with the end of a rolling pin, so that they are smaller pieces.

Very finely dice the prunes, apricots and figs, and add to the almonds. Mix together with a butter knife until it looks something like high-end trail mix.

Add in the spiced sugar to the fruit and nut mix, and ensure that it is well mixed through. Then pour in the honey and stir until well combined and the mixture is forming clumps.

Roll scoops of the mix between clean hands to form small balls no more than 1 inch in diameter. I needed to clean my hands several times throughout this process, since sticky hands would prevent the balls forming nicely.

Place each ball onto a wire rack and leave uncovered until all balls are made. You need to make at least 55 balls to make a tower 5 layers high (and you’ll need 91 balls to make one with 6 layers, but you probably won’t be able to make that many with these quantities).

Take the smallest 35 balls (and maybe a few more, but ensure you leave at least 20 balls) and set them aside for coating with the chocolate.

Melt the chocolate, e.g. in the microwave by zapping for a minute then stirring, and repeating until the chocolate is just runny. Put some foil down, then roll the balls in chocolate one by one, putting onto the foil to set. If the chocolate starts going hard, melt it again and keep going.

You can pause at this point. In fact, the balls should keep for up to a week if left on the rack, or longer if kept in an airtight container.

Just before serving, put the raw sugar in a bowl, and roll each of the remaining (non chocolate covered) balls in the sugar to coat them well.

To make the tower, form a base of 5 by 5 chocolate balls, each touching its neighbours. Then place a layer of 4 by 4 sugar balls on top. Then a 3 by 3 layer of chocolate balls, then a layer of sugared balls, and a chocolate ball on the top.

This recipe makes between 65-75 balls, where an adult would probably eat about 5 balls at a sitting. Serve with good coffee.

Tags: alton brown, fairy, plum, recipe, story, sugar, sugar-plum, sugarplum

We probably have pizza of one sort of another every couple of weeks. I’d like to say it’s always home-made. I’d like to say that.

However, I can say that we do make our own pizza regularly. So, I’ve been meaning to put up this recipe before, but for some reason it gets eaten before I think to take a picture. But last weekend, I happened to take a couple of snaps, so here’s the recipe.

It’s based on a recipe in Donna Hay magazine (issue 25), but you’ll need to come up with the pizza topping yourself. This time, we had a “leftover pizza” with roast chicken and vegetables, and a salami pizza with salami and sliced olives. I’m always willing to try new pizzas!

Ingredients

1 teaspoon dry yeast (or 1 packet, approx. 7g)
1/4 teaspoon (~1mL) caster sugar
3/4 cup (~190mL) of lukewarm water
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1/2 teaspoon (~2mL) salt
1 1/2 tablespoons (30mL) olive oil
50mL tomato paste
dried oregano to taste (approx 2 teaspoons or ~10mL)

Method

If it’s been cool (like it is in Melbourne at the moment), fill the sink with warm water to a couple of inches, and place a large mixing bowl in it for a few minutes to warm it up. The dough will rise better in a warm bowl.

Meanwhile, put the dry yeast and sugar in a measuring cup and fill it with lukewarm water from the tap. Stir well to ensure all the yeast is broken up. Set it aside for 5 minutes.

Place the flour and salt in the warm mixing bowl, and make a well in the centre. Pour the olive oil and the yeast mixture into the flour, and stir it together with a butter knife to make a dry dough.

Take off any rings or a watch (this stuff sets like concrete). Knead the dough (you can leave it in the bowl) for a few minutes until it is smooth and elastic. This step can be shared with a young child (!).

Cover the mixing bowl with a cloth and leave somewhere warm for 45 minutes, or until the dough has doubled in size. I’ve found good places to be: the shed, the car, or even back in the sink with some more warm water.

You can leave it for longer than 45 minutes, but if you leave it more than a couple of hours, the yeast will have eaten all the sugar and the dough will be rather sour.

When you’re ready to make the dough into bases (this recipe is enough for two medium-sized pizzas), preheat the oven to 220 degrees Celcius. Put the pizza trays that you’re going to use in at the same time, to help ensure a crispy crust.

Pound the dough down into a ball and split into two. Spread each ball out on a piece of baking paper (saves having to flour a bench top), making a flat disc.

If you don’t have a rolling pin handy, or don’t like the hassle of rolling, just pop another piece of baking paper on top of the dough, and using a smooth object (e.g. glass, rolling pin), press the dough out until it is the shape you want.

When you’ve got the two plain bases ready, spread each with half of the tomato paste and sprinkle with the dried oregano. Then, go crazy with whatever topics you like.

Serves 2 adults.

Tags: donna hay, pizza, recipe, savoury

This is the last part of my “Icecream with Nuts and Ice Magic (but fancy)” recipe from Recipe Club. It’s not particularly novel, but it did complete the dish. Together with the crunch of the white chocolate in the icecream and the crunch of the chocolate shell from the ice magic, the praline added extra crunch that went really well with the smooth icecream, creating a bit of a play of textures and sounds.

I took this recipe from the MasterChef Australia cook book which I got for Christmas. Really, it’s been a book that is more about the reliving of great moments from the TV series, but there are some cracking recipes in there as well. The praline is part of the sticky date pudding recipe (which I can also vouch for).

Ingredients

1/4 cup (~35g) of slivered almonds
1/2 cup (125mL or ~110g) of caster sugar
2 tablespoons (40mL) of water

Method

Start by roasting the almonds. The way I do this is to put them on a piece of foil under the grill, and mixing them around every 30 seconds or so. Within a few minutes they should be smelling good and lightly browned.

Put a piece of baking paper onto a baking tray or sheet, and scatter the almonds onto it, over an area of roughly 20cm x 20cm. Let them cool while continuing with the recipe.

Combine the sugar and water in a saucepan, and cook over a medium heat. Instead of stirring (the candy will stick to a spoon), swirl the syrup regularly. The sugar will disolve, and begin to bubble a lot. Keep going until the syrup becomes a deep golden colour, like honey. This will take a few minutes.

Remove the saucepan and immediately pour over the almonds, and then tip the tray from side to side to cause the candy to cover all of the almonds.

Wait until it sets, and break into shards. They can be stored for a couple of days in an airtight container.

Serves 6-8.

Tags: almond praline, dessert, masterchef, nuts, recipe

The other key part of the recipe from my “Recipe Club” dessert (the previous part being the Ice Magic) was the ice-cream itself. The main problem here for me is that I don’t currently have an ice-cream maker; the last one exploded in the pantry when it got too hot one summer. So, I needed to find a recipe that explained how to make it without one.

I was rescued by a recipe book called Ice Cream (of course) by Joanna Farrow and Sara Lewis. Sadly, this book has been in my possession for several years now without ever being used. It survived several house moves when other books were culled, and clearly there was method to the madness since it turned out to have exactly the sort of recipe that I was looking for.

Ingredients

4 egg yolks
75g caster sugar
1 teaspoon (5mL) corn flour
300mL milk
250g white chocolate (happily Whittakers still makes good chocolate in 250g blocks)
2 teaspoons (10mL) vanilla extract
300mL whipping cream (~35% milk fat)

Method

With the egg yolks, caster sugar and corn flour in a large bowl, stir with a fork until it is well combined and slightly bubbly.

Then pour the milk into a saucepan, place over a medium heat on the stove, and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat and drizzle into to egg mixture, stirring all the while, and you’ll end up with a basic custard mixture in the bowl.

If you’re like me, you’ll have ended up with milk cooked onto the bottom of the saucepan, and will need to get another one or do a quick clean.

Pour the custard mixture back into a saucepan, place over a low heat on the stove, and stir constantly until the mixture thickens, perhaps to the consistency of a pouring custard. It will also get really smooth at that point, which is another good indicator. Don’t try to over-thicken the custard.

Remove the custard from the heat, and pour into a large, freezer-proof bowl.

Break 150g of the white chocolate into small pieces. Then gently stir those pieces into the hot custard, along with the vanilla extract. Leave it to cool for 20 mins or so, and then place in the fridge to chill. This should take about another hour.

Put the cream into a bowl (yes, another one), and whip it with an electric beater until it has thickened, but “still falls from the spoon”. You should see the cream beginning to form little lumps at this point, and it will have doubled in volume.

Remove the bowl of chilled custard from the fridge, fold the whipped cream into it, and put it in the freezer for three hours.

Remove it from the freezer. Using a fork, pull the icecream away from the sides of the bowl. Then, using an electric beater, blend together the frozen and unfrozen parts of the mix for about a minute. The ice cream mixture should be the same consistency as a good milk-shake. Return to the freezer again for another two hours.

Finely chop the remaining white chocolate, so that the pieces are about the same size as choc bits.

Remove the ice cream from the freezer again. Follow the same approach as before with the fork and electric beater, and this time stir in the white chocolate as well. The ice cream mixture should be the same consistency as a thick-shake. Return to the freezer again for another two to four hours, or until firm.

Makes about 1L of ice-cream, so will serve about 8 if presented in cones or about 4 if presented in bowls.

Tags: chocolate, dessert, home made, ice cream, joanna farrow, recipe, sara lewis, white, white chocolate

I’m in a “Recipe Club”, where we get together once a month for dinner, to share food on a particular theme, and try out favourite recipes or those we hope will become favourites. This month, the theme was chocolate, and I had volunteered to make a dessert.

Towards the end of summer, I had gotten into Cottee’s Ice Magic again (although, to be honest, it was the Woolworths’ brand version). It had been years since I’d had it and was surprised that it was still good. And, as you do, I’d been wondering how it works and whether you could make some yourself that tasted *really* good.

So, this was in the back of my mind when I was trying to think up a chocolate dessert, and so I decided to see if the Internet knew the answer. And it did.

The main trick was finding refined Coconut Oil. It is the essential ingredient, as it is liquid above ~24 degrees Celcius but solid below that. Hence, it is liquid at room temperature (at least, in summer) but sets when poured on ice-cream.

I easily managed to find a jar of Melrose Organic Refined Cocout Oil (Butter) in a random health food store in Melbourne city. Unless you really want a coconut taste, make sure you get the refined variety rather than the virgin variety.

My final dessert was home-made double white chocolate ice-cream with almond praline and this recipe for Ice Magic over the top. However, that’s for another post.

Ingredients

40g good quality chocolate (it will taste just like the chocolate)
15mL refined coconut oil

Method

If the oil has turned solid, stand in a bowl of hot water until it returns to liquid state.

Break the chocolate into pieces and place in a microwave-safe container. Place in a microwave on a low setting (e.g. 30% of a 800W unit) for a minute or so until the chocolate sags and is beginning to melt, then remove.

Stir the oil into the chocolate until fully combined, forming a chocolate syrup.

Pour the syrup over cold icecream to serve. It should set within a minute, forming a hard chocolate shell.

If the syrup sets while you are storing it, you can microwave it back to life or rest the container in a bowl of hot water.

Serves 2-3 people.

Tags: chocolate, dessert, ice magic, magic shell, recipe

If you’re anything like us, and had more Hot Cross Buns in your house this Easter than you knew what to do with, then this recipe is for you. Previously, I’ve recommended French-toasting them, but baking them into a pudding is also a very satisfying option. We served them up for a dessert at a family lunch today, and it was very yummy.

This is based on the recipe for Bread and Butter pudding from Donna Hay’s Modern Classics Book 2.

Ingredients

600g slightly stale Hot Cross Buns (we used an 8pk of Woolworths bakery buns)
~100g Spreadable butter
4 large eggs
4 cups (1L)  milk
1/2 cup (125mL) brown sugar
1 teaspoon (5mL) vanilla extract
~1 tablespoon (15mL) raw sugar (a.k.a. demerara sugar) for topping
Water for hot water bath

Method

Preheat oven to 160 degrees C.

Leave the buns in a block, and slice off the “crusts” from the sides and bottom (leave the crosses on). Then slice the block of buns in half, butter both sides and put back together.

Slice the block into thumb-width strips, e.g. 2 buns long and something like 1/3 or 1/4 of a bun wide. Butter the sides of the strips.

Grease a 6 cup (1.5L) round baking dish, and arrange the strips around the inside. A nice pattern is to put the strips in pointing up, but on an angle, arranged in concentric circles.

Place the eggs, brown sugar and vanilla extract in a bowl and whisk briefly. Then add milk mix to combine.

Pour the liquid over the buns in the baking dish and stand for 2-3 minutes.

While waiting, boil some water. When finished, sprinkle raw sugar onto the buns, place baking dish into a baking tray, and pour water into baking tray so that it comes half-way up the sides of the baking dish.

Put the whole thing into the oven and bake for 65 minutes (or until the liquid sets).

Remove from oven and let stand for 5 minutes before serving with cream or ice-cream.

Serves 6-8 people.

Tags: bread and butter pudding, dessert, donna hay, easter, hot-cross-buns, pudding, recipe

My grandfather always makes this recipe at Christmas, so for me it is part of that bundle of food associations that make this time of year particularly special. However, this year he’s been a little unwell, so didn’t have time to make the stuff. He normally produces enough Nuts and Bolts to feel a small nation, and gives gifts of the savoury snack to every family member. The dinner table wouldn’t have been the same this year without it, so I made a quick batch. It is deliciously more-ish!

Ingredients

250g dry-roasted peanuts, unsalted
300g Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain (these are the “bolts”)
1/2 cup (125mL) of light oil (preferably peanut oil)
45g packet of French Onion Soup mix
1 tablespoon of curry powder
1 teaspoon of mustard powder

Method

Heat the oven to 180 degrees Celcius.

Mix together all the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.

Warm oil in microwave, for example, on High setting for 30 seconds, then pour over the dry ingredients and mix well.

Spread the mix across a large, flat baking dish and put into the oven for 15-20 minutes, removing to stir every 5 minutes or so. The result should look dry and smell very aromatic.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool before eating. Needs to be stored in an air-tight container.

This recipe is easily adaptable to taste, e.g. use more or less Nutri-Grain, nuts, curry or mustard as your taste dictates.

Makes enough Nuts and Bolts to fill a 2L container. Best eaten before 1st January.

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Tags: christmas, food, nutri-grain, nuts and bolts, recipe, snack

We took some time off, over the Cup Day long weekend, and I took some of that time to do some baking. The most recent Donna Hay magazine (issue 47) has many seductive pages of biscuit recipes, and I succumbed to this one that makes biscuits that taste like a cross between a choc-fudge brownie and an after dinner mint. Donna Hay calls them Chocolate Peppermint Crackles, but it would be simpler to just call them Choc-Mint Biscuits.

Ingredients

1/2 cup (125mL) hard peppermint lollies
200g dark chocolate
80g butter
1 1/2 cups (375mL) brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups (310mL) plain flour
1/2 cup (125mL) cocoa
2 teaspoons baking power
1/3 cup (80mL) milk

Method

Get the butter out and allow it to soften.

Start by turning the hard peppermint lollies (I used the supermarket’s home-brand peppermint) into a power that the biscuits will be coated with. Put the lollies into a food processor or spice/coffee-grinder and process until they become a fine powder. Set it aside.

Break up the dark chocolate into small pieces for melting. You can either melt it the traditional way (in a heatproof bowl sitting above a simmering saucepan of water) or the fast way (a minute or so in the microwave). Either way is fine as the chocolate will be going into the biscuit mix, and it doesn’t matter if the chocolate loses its shine. Once the chocolate is mostly melted, stir until it is fully melted. Then set it aside.

Now we can start on the biscuit mix.

If the butter isn’t soft, give it a little zap in the microwave. Place the softened butter and brown sugar into a mixing bowl, and beat with an electric mixer for 2-3 minutes.

Add both eggs, beating well after adding each. Add in the vanilla. Then beat on high for another 2-3 minutes until the mix is pale and creamy.

Add the melted chocolate into the mix, and beat well.

Sift the flour, cocoa and baking powder into the mix, stir in the milk, and then beat until smooth.

Cover the mixing bowl with cling wrap and put into the fridge for 30-60 minutes, until the mix is very firm.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius (355 degrees Fahrenheit).

Spread some of the peppermint powder onto a plate.

Take the mix out of the fridge. Scoop out heaped teaspoons of the mix, roll them into balls, and roll the balls in the peppermint powder until thoroughly coated.

Lay the balls out, well-spaced, on baking trays lined with non-stick baking paper. Bake for 12-14 minutes. The balls should spread out and the white coating should crack.

Cool on the trays. Makes between 40-50 biscuits.

Like a chocolate brownie, they are probably better the day after baking.

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Tags: biscuits, chocolate, cookies, donna hay, mint, peppermint, recipe

When Kate and I went to the show the other month, we of course visited the Country Women’s Association of Victoria stand. It’s a mandatory visit to have tea and scones there, and admire the extensive tea-towel collection of its members.

What leads to this post is that Kate impulse-bought a copy of The A to Z of COOKED & UNCOOKED SLICES. A retro self-published cookbook without any pictures, but with eight different Caramel Slice recipes, seven different Lemon Slice recipes, and this recipe called One Tin Slice from someone by the name of Stella Warton from Benalla.

It’s functional name belies the sheer tastiness of this sweet slice. I feel compelled to share it with others! Thanks Stella.

Ingredients

125g Arnotts Nice (or equivalent) biscuits, i.e. half a 250g pack
100g butter
180g choc bits
1 cup of mixed nuts (try to include almonds)
1 cup of dessicated coconut (or shredded coconut)
395g sweetened condensed milk

Method

Get things ready by preheating oven to 180 degrees, then finding a 28cm x 18cm slice tin, greasing it, and lining it with greaseproof paper. Also, crush the biscuits well so there are no big pieces, and crush the nuts so they’re about the size of peanuts. (Don’t crush the biscuits and nuts together, in case you were thinking about that.)

Melt the butter (e.g. in the microwave), and pour into the slice tin so the butter covers the base.

Now, sprinkle in the ingredients into the tin in layers. Start with the crushed biscuits (make sure there are no big gaps), then add choc bits, then half the coconut, then the crushed nuts, then the rest of the coconut. Lastly, pour the sweetened condensed milk over it all.

Bake in the oven for 25 minutes until the slice has turned brown. Cool in the tin a little before removing and slicing.

Should make about 24 pieces.

Tags: country womens association, cwa, one tin slice, recipe, slice