christmas baking - cake, cookies, chocolate and fish

so I have been busy and no I am not crazy and stay up late and get up early. I have a wee bit of time at home playing with Samuel as I only work 3 half days a week. I really REALLY enjoy my four day weekends with Samuel and they are especially fantastic when Jonathan isn't working and has time off too. We get to do something as a family and something as a couple. I really love our family. This weekend we had fish and chips down at South Beach (sure it lasted 20 minutes and we ended up eating at home because Samuel wanted to see the beach and play with everyone's doggies) and last week we had a date night at Blend Cafe in Melville. Soooooooooooooo good.


Onto my cooking. I have a few recipes that I have wanted to make this season, mainly as gifts for our friends and family. Of course, I need to try them out first though! I don't want to give something that tastes ikky!


So the first thing I made was a christmas cake. Initially when I cut into this cake, it was very rummy! But now - droolishious! I have gone out and bought more ingredients to bake a few more of these cakes. Here is an inside peak - full of dates, cherries, raisins, currants and prunes. Very VERY moist.



Now my Gran (mums mum) is a ginger freak - in a good way. When we lived in Sydney I use to buy her these Indonesian Ginger Lollies from the IGA in Chinatown and mail them to her. She use to ration them out each week. So when I saw these Buttery Ginger Squares I HAD to make them for her present. They have crystalised ginger and ginger powder in them and smell divine. I decided to bake 1/4 of the mixture. The rest is rolled into logs which Gran can cut at her leisure from the freezer. It lasts for one month in the freezer. Cool huh? Most importantly, I got to use my lovely peacock paper on the wrapping. You can buy it from The Wrapping Paper Company.


I have decided to enter this recipe into the December Cook Off Competition at Kitchen Corners. How I love Damaris and her blog. Its a refreshing read which I recommend. Here is to inspiring her to bake some Australian recipes!!!


Now the buttery ginger square recipe came from Belinda Jeffery's 'mix&bake' cookbook. The same book holds the secrets to the last minute christmas cake featured above.


As quoted from her book :

300g plain flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp ground ginger

180g crystallised ginger chunks
250g unsalted butter
150g brown sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
optional, flaked almonds to decorate


1 - put flour, baking powder, salt + ground ginger into processor and pulse to combine. add ginger chunks and mix until chopped into small chunks (or forget about it like I did and make it so small you cannot see it but you can taste it!). Tip this into a bowl (important, although I completely MISSED this sentence, recipe did not FAIL!).

2 - put butter and sugar into processor. whiz until creamy. drizzle in vanilla whilst machine is on.


3 - tip flour back in and combine with butter. do this quickly as too much mixing once flour is added can make the biscuits tough.


4 - scrape the dough, which is pretty soft, into a bowl. cover with gladwrap and put into fridge for around 45 minutes to get firmer. divide dough into 2, roll into a log and wrap in foil lined with baking paper. put back into fridge for at least 2 hours or overnight. you can freeze at this point.


5 - take logs out of the fridge and bang onto the bench to create a flat side (or use a rolling pin if your kids are asleep) and this creates the square shape. back into the fridge for 15 minutes.


6 - preheat oven to 160C. cut dough into 8mm slices and put onto baking tray. cook for roughly 25-30 minutes. make sure you rotate trays and turn front to back for even coverage. they will change colour when ready. cool on tray for 5 minutes, then transfer to rack.

Your home will smell fantastic, trust me!

Yesterday I made two batches of Rocky Road. Was I somewhat inspired by Corrie's White Rocky Road and Chocolate Rocky Road blog entrys. Why YES, I somewhat was ....



Now last night we had our church connect group christmas dinner. I baked wild snapper (which created a funny discussion on what exactly is domestic snapper??) stuffed with nutty rice. It is a really lovely recipe. The rice is flavoured with coriander, cumin, fresh coriander, salt, pepper, parsley, lemon rind and toasted pistachios.

Unfortunately I dont have a cooked picture from last night. Let me know if you want any recipes, I am more than happy to share!