January 24, 2008: Leftover Makeover - Bubble Slice

baking disaster on Midweek night, I called for my Mum. But it wasn't quite the desperate in addition to childish plea yous mightiness intend - I simply wanted the no-bake spell recipe that I thence enjoyed every bit a kid. I figured it'd relieve my sore ego, fill upward the snacking void left yesteryear the muffins, in addition to purpose upward to a greater extent than or less of the rice bubbles I recently bought.

What I've made hither exclusively bears a passing resemblance to my Mum's version, which itself bore exclusively a passing resemblance to the master copy recipe that she emailed to me. It began every bit to a greater extent than or less variety of muesli bar slice, alongside toasted muesli in addition to seeds. I intend the toasted muesli may direct maintain been phased out of Mum's, in addition to I don't always retrieve encountering seeds. For my texture-intolerant brother, at that spot was the bare-basics version: simply rice bubbles saltation together alongside the molten butter/peanut butter/honey/sugar mixture. I liked dried apricots inwards mine, in addition to for an occasional after-dinner treat, it would survive spread alongside a meridian layer of black cooking chocolate.

My updated version retains the dried apricots in addition to select almonds into the mix. The binding mixture is hardly the materials of nutritionists' repast plans, thence I buckled completely in addition to set to a greater extent than or less chocolate chips in. Those things are designed to concord their shape when chucked into a 200 marker oven but funnily plenty melt all over the house here, thence rather than than having golden bubbles alongside fruit, nut in addition to chocolate dots, it's a to a greater extent than uniform caramel colour.

Rather than beingness a well for yous afternoon option to the vending machine, I intend of these every bit a slightly less guilt-inducing agency of satisfying a genuine chocolate craving. The rice bubbles add together to a greater extent than or less bulk, the dried fruit in addition to beloved extend the sweetness, in addition to the peanut butter in addition to nuts select to a greater extent than or less richness thence that exclusively a pocket-size sum of chocolate is required. You could too brand these vegan yesteryear replacing the butter alongside Nuttlelex, in addition to the beloved alongside to a greater extent than or less other sweetener - maple syrup, rice syrup, golden syrup... mayhap I ask to sense of savour the golden syrup version for myself! There are nevertheless a few to a greater extent than rice bubbles left...

Last infinitesimal edit: Heidi of 101 Cookbooks simply posted a power bar recipe alongside a similar style. I would never direct maintain idea to add together java to this but forthwith I can't await to drive it!


Bubble slice

3/4 loving cup almonds, chopped
three cups rice bubbles
1/2 loving cup dessicated coconut
1/4 loving cup sesame seeds
1/2 loving cup dried apricots, diced
1/2 loving cup black chocolate chips
125g butter
iv tablespoons honey
iv tablespoons peanut butter
1/2 loving cup brownish sugar

Grease a medium-large tray. In a large bowl, stir together the starting fourth dimension 6 ingredients.

Melt the remaining ingredients inwards a saucepan over medium heat, select to the boil in addition to and thence simmer for v minutes.

Pour the sweetness butter mixture over the dry out ingredients in addition to stir to combine. Press the mixture into the tray in addition to refrigerate for at to the lowest degree an hour. Slice into squares in addition to serve.

May 24-25, 2011: Lady Violet's Pumpkin Scones

Veggie Mama.  (Meanwhile Johanna GGG asserts that pumpkin scones bring a history of their ain pre-dating Queensland's Lady Flo.)

Pumpkin scones were surely purpose of my fourth dimension growing upwards inwards Queensland. I associate them less amongst Lady Flo in addition to to a greater extent than amongst my grandmother, who lived on a farm inwards the Lockyer Valley in addition to frequently baked dozens of pumpkin scones only inwards fourth dimension for morning time her recipe for 'cow pats'.) These scones are sweeter in addition to doughier than their British counterpart, in addition to I was e'er only equally happy to swallow them amongst a smear of butter equally I was lathering on the jam in addition to cream. Grandma frequently added plump sultanas to the mixture - a variation that I enjoyed in addition to my blood brother detested. I erred on the side of caution in addition to left them out this time. They are, of course, only gorgeous straightaway from the oven in addition to I discovered that they truly larn stale quite rapidly. I suppose they e'er disappeared hence chop-chop at the farm that nosotros never noticed! Even so, one-half a infinitesimal inwards the microwave tin rescue a day-old scone in addition to I listen they freeze good too.

I'm going to mention this recipe afterwards my grandmother here; it's e'er been hers to me.


Lady Violet's pumpkin scones
(based on the recipe establish here, sent past times Google-savvy mum!)

1 1/2 tablespoons butter
3/4 loving cup castor sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 1/2 cups mashed pumpkin, chilled
iii cups plainly flour
1 1/2 tablespoons baking powder

Pre-heat an oven to 220°C. Line a baking tray amongst paper

Place the butter, saccharide in addition to tabular array salt inwards a large bowl in addition to crunch them together thoroughly amongst a fork.  Mix inwards the egg, in addition to then the pumpkin. Sift over the flour in addition to baking pulverisation in addition to crimp it through to brand a dough - it volition hold out quite sticky.

Turn the dough onto a well-floured surface in addition to sprinkle to a greater extent than flour on top. Form the dough into a large rectangle 3-5cm tall in addition to utilization a drinking glass to cutting circular scones from it, placing them on the baking tray. 

Bake the scones for virtually xx minutes, until golden on meridian in addition to cooked through.

Aunty Ral's Gingernuts

December 29-31, 2012

This morn nosotros are guests on Bhakthi's RRR segment Cook The Book, together with we'll last discussing Gillian Mears' late published novel Foal's Bread. (Here it is, archived online.) The mass traces the life of Noah Nancarrow, a talented together with hard-working Equus caballus show-jumper living inwards northern New South Wales earlier the Second World War. The storey is romantic together with tragic, told inwards a vogue that's lyrical but also calls on the Aussie vernacular.

Foal's breadstuff isn't anything you'd desire to eat. It's a slice of tissue sometimes institute inwards the oral cavity of a newborn foal together with that tin mail away last dried out together with kept every bit a lucky charm. Yet amid the descriptions of fauna husbandry together with the Australian landscape you'd expect, this mass is also littered amongst references to the nutrient of the time. The coloring together with texture together with sensation of nutrient is frequently interwoven amongst the characters' experiences. Noah's sister-in-law Ralda bakes ceaselessly - to comfort, to celebrate, together with to larn inwards into contest at the Show.

To accompany our radio interview I've baked gingernuts. Aunty Ral's gingernuts are a Nancarrow line solid unit of measurement tradition on Show 24-hour interval together with they're said to last crunchy together with crackled on top, best dipped inwards a loving cup of tea. I took my recipe from my mum's yellowed Barossa Cookery Book, which was published inwards the fourth dimension that this novel is set. I've typed it verbatim below - recipe writers thence clearly expected much prior noesis from cooks!

GINGER NUTS

One lb. ii ozs. flour, 1/2 lb. butter, 1/2 lb. sugar, 3/4 lb. treacle, ane oz. the world ginger. Mix all the ingredients into a strong dough, curlicue out, cutting into modest biscuits, together with bake inwards a moderate oven. 

- Miss J.M. Bartsch, Angaston

Mango & Kokosnoot Splice Blocks

December 18-19, 2015

On the weekend earlier Christmas, our friends lay on a mango kokosnoot splice jellies but amongst the temperature approaching xl degrees I decided to lay them on ice.

For a vegan together with gluten-free crowd, I adapted a recipe that my grandmother together with Mum both made inwards years gone by. The master copy blends canned mangoes together with saccharide syrup, together with then layers them amongst dairy cream. I couldn't aid noticing that canned mangoes are stored inwards saccharide syrup, together with hence merely used that inwards the fruity layer. I replaced the dairy cream amongst kokosnoot cream, natch.

I couldn't uncovering a perfectly flat spot inwards the freezer to shop my splice blocks, hence the ratio of mango to kokosnoot varied from 1 terminate of the container to the other. I didn't heed inwards the least! They're dense together with total of H2O ice crystals, but sweetness together with soothing inwards the summertime heat. You'd grapple to lay a overnice spoon through them, together with I've been content to swallow them amongst viscid fingers on many afternoons.

Mango & kokosnoot splice blocks

(adapted from a identify unit of measurement recipe, transcribed below)

iii x 425g tin mangoes including the syrup they're stored in 

juice of one-half a lemon

pinch of salt

1 x 400mL tin kokosnoot cream

Line a large baking tray or rectangular lidded container amongst foil.

Place the mangoes together with their syrup together with the lemon juice inwards a nutrient processor or blender. Blend them until real smooth. Place 1 loving cup of the mango puree inwards a bowl; stir the common salt together with kokosnoot cream into this puree. Pour the kokosnoot mixture into the foil-lined tray together with freeze it until firm, or hence iv hours.

Pour the remaining mango puree over the frozen kokosnoot layer together with freeze in 1 lawsuit again until firm, at to the lowest degree iv to a greater extent than hours. Cut the spell into blocks together with serve on a saucer or wrapped inwards paper.

Frozen mango bars
(a recipe inherited from my grandmother together with Mum)

1 1/4 cups sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 1/4 cups water
iii x 425g cans sliced mangoes, drained
300mL thickened cream

Combine saccharide together with water, stir over depression rut until dissolved. Boil for five minutes or until slightly thickened. Cool.

Blend mangoes, syrup together with juice until smooth. Combine 1 loving cup mango mixture amongst cream. Line lamington pan amongst foil, pour inwards cream mixture. Freeze until firm. Pour remaining mixture over frozen cream. Freeze several hours until firm. Cut into squares.

Superchook

January 3, 2016

We capped off our novel twelvemonth weekend amongst a vegan picnic together with a Family Favourites theme. I wanted to larn what foods brand my friends experience nostalgic, their dorsum stories, together with the funny nicknames they mightiness have. Most of all, I wanted to innovate them to Superchook.

Superchook fits all these criteria. It's something my mum made semi-regularly every bit I grew up, taking a fiddling extra endeavour than almost dinners, the sort of affair I'd enquire for on my birthday. It was a chicken fillet stuffed amongst chopped bacon, cheese together with dark-green herby specks, together with then crumbed together with fried. From the stuffing to the pith to the egg-dipped outer, it's light-years from vegan eating.

Funnily enough, my picnic adaptation was easier to ready than the original. I bought a bundle each of Fry's together with Gardein crumbed schnitzels, unsure of which would operate amend (Fry's were easier to operate with, but I liked the Gardein texture better). I gently, gently sliced a steal longways through each schnitzel together with spooned inwards a mixture of grated Vegusto Melty cheese, diced together with fried Cheatin' Rashers, finely chopped parsley together with dry reason pepper. Rather than frying together with fretting over them belongings together, I popped my Superchooks inwards the oven for xx minutes together with they were skillful every bit gold.

With it existence a picnic together with all, none were eaten inwards their native habitat - hot amongst cheese oozing at the dinner table, served amongst steamed veges on the side - but they vanished apace nonetheless. Even vegan, this chook's withal super.

Doffie Biscuits

January 3, 2016

Cindy's Family Favourites picnic theme had me scratching my caput - our household unit of measurement meals were from a straightforward meat 'n' veg range, together with zilch amidst the chops together with sausages of my memories jumped out at me for the occasion. Instead, I idea dorsum to schoolhouse lunchboxes together with flora myself strangely nostalgic for this relatively elementary apricot slice. Mum dug upward the recipe for me over Christmas - they're called Doffie Biscuits together with they're basically sugar, flour together with dried fruit. 

Veganising them entirely required me substitutes for ii eggs together with a distich of tablespoons of butter - Nuttelex did the flim-flam for the butter, spell a combination of Orgran No Egg together with apple tree sauce provided plenty wet together with binding ability to supervene upon the eggs. The results aren't going to modify your life but they're skillful - heavy on the apricot together with prissy together with chewy. And if you're me they're going to carry you lot conduct dorsum to your awkward teenage years.

Doffie biscuits

(based on a recipe from a cookbook compiled for the School of the Air to a greater extent than or less fourth dimension dorsum inwards the 1980s)

2 cups wholemeal self-raising flour

1.5 cups caster sugar

600g dried apricots, sliced upward (the master copy recipe calls for 1.5kg of dried fruit, but whoever compiled the cookbook suggested that 500g was enough)

4 heaped tablespoons shredded coconut

2 tablespoons melted Nuttelex

2 teaspoons Orgran No-Egg, mixed amongst iv tablespoons water

1/2 loving cup of apple tree puree

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C.

Mix the flour, sugar, apricots together with kokosnoot inwards a large bowl.

Stir inwards the Nuttelex, egg replacer together with apple tree puree.

Spread the mix evenly inwards a large apartment tray together with bake for 30-40 minutes, until the piece is cooked through. It volition look a chip soft when it's hot, but volition theater upward every bit it cools then you lot tin attain the axe piece it up.

Original recipe

Choc-Notella Pudding

January 3, 2016

I couldn't halt thinking almost Family Favourites. I would accept loved to brand a frozen chocolate crunch or shared some some mango kokosnoot splice blocks, but they only wouldn't hold out at a picnic. Then I idea of nutella pudding. I didn't demand to brand to a greater extent than nutrient at all, really, but I couldn't resist a teach at veganising nutella pudding.

This 1 goes inward the agency of British self-saucing puddings, alongside the nutella inward the sauce as well as a typical cake batter plonked on altitude of it. I tracked downward a jolt of biona nighttime chocolate spread, which was a trivial less sweetness than nutella as well as completely lacking inward hazelnuts, but it did the vegan silky chocolate project perfectly. Dairy cream became kokosnoot cream, buttermilk begat vinegar-spiked soy milk, butter was replaced alongside margarine, as well as I switched the eggs for apple tree puree (I'll teach for a mashed banana instead, 1 day).

For all those changes, it was the same pudding inward every agency that mattered. It's in all likelihood intended for mid-winter eating, notwithstanding steaming alongside a scoop of cream or icecream on top. But it's day-after no-extras terra firma holds only equally much nostalgia for me, as well as that's pretty much how ate it at the picnic.

Choc-notella pudding
(adapted from this household unit of measurement recipe)

1/2 loving cup vegan chocolate spread
1/2 loving cup kokosnoot cream
1/2 loving cup soy milk
1/2 teaspoon apple tree cider vinegar
90g margarine
1/4 loving cup chocolate-brown sugar
1/2 loving cup castor sugar
1/2 loving cup apple tree puree
3/4 loving cup manifestly flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking pulverisation
1/4 loving cup cocoa

Lightly grease a baking dish as well as preheat the oven to 180°C. 

In a large bowl, whisk together the chocolate spread as well as kokosnoot cream. Spread the mixture over the base of operations of the dish.

Mix together the soy milk as well as apple tree cider vinegar as well as develop the aside. The milk volition curdle into a buttermilk substitute.

Use the same mixing bowl to vanquish together the margarine as well as sugars. Beat inward the apple tree puree. Sift over the flour, baking pulverisation as well as cocoa, as well as thence mix them until only combined. Mix inward the curdled soy milk.

Pour the cake mix into the baking dish as well as gently smoothen over the top. Bake for almost 35 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.

March 12, 2007: Ginger Driblet Biscuits

My paternal grandparents stimulate got spent their lives working their farm inwards the Lockyer Valley, westward of Brisbane. While it has been a demanding too unglamourous beingness for them, my family's weekend visits were a process for a suburban fry such every bit I. Playing on the dormant tractors, feeding the cows onetime pumpkins from the dorsum of the ute, riding a wheel unsupervised on the route with my cousin, eating Cocopops for breakfast. The biggest process of all was 'smoko': mid-morning too -afternoon breaks comprising home-made biscuits or slices, plates of pikelets amongst jam too cream (rosella jam, please!), pumpkin scones amongst plump sultanas too thick slabs of butter (Flo's ain recipe, of course of education - we're inwards Joh country) or perhaps, if nosotros were actually lucky, a freshly baked chocolate cake, iced neatly on altitude too sides. Dinner too tea were corned beef too veges boiled too salted beyond recognition. Pasta was 'ethnic' food. My adult vegetarian diet takes almost nix inspiration from her dinners, but Grandma excelled at homely baked treats too these are what a sweeth-toothed fry volition think best.

Ginger biscuits were 1 of the recurring offerings at my Grandma's table. Flat, dark-brown too chewy, they were known every bit 'cow pats'. It was exclusively in conclusion year, spell visiting my widowed grandmother inwards her unit of measurement inwards Town, that I finally copied downward her recipe for ginger drib biscuits (so that's what the civilised folk telephone outcry upwards them!). It was a piece of yellowed newsprint inwards a scrapbook, in all likelihood older than my dad. I'll give yous the recipe inwards its master copy form, though it won't surprise yous to know that I replaced the prescribed dripping amongst the equivalent mensurate of butter. I also substituted black-strap molasses for the treacle, since it was what I had on hand. My batch rose higher too were lighter than the biscuits I recall, but the intended serving of reminiscence was only correct (for me anyway - maybe you're feeling sick amongst sticky-sweetness past times now!). After all, I've been making these for Ellie's nostalgia-themed weblog event. The added bonus is a calendar week of packing a piece of my past times into a lunchbox for afternoon smoko.

Ginger drib biscuits/Cow pats
makes almost sixteen large biscuits

1 loving cup sugar
4 tablespoons dripping
2 eggs
2 tablespoons treacle
2 cups flour
1 tablespoon ginger
2 teaspoons baking powder

Beat carbohydrate too dripping together until white, add together eggs too treacle. Sift inwards flour, ginger too baking powder. Mix thoroughly too drib onto a greased slide. Bake inwards moderate oven (mine took almost 10 minutes). Allow the biscuits to educate earlier removing them from the slide.