It’s not a party if there’s no honeycrunch!

When I was growing up in the seventies in New Zealand, Rice Krispies seemed to be one foodstuff that every family had in their kitchen.  Whenever a kid had a birthday party, along with little red “cheerio” sausages on sticks and Bluebird chips, there would always be a Rice Krispie offering on the table in the form of honeycrunch bars or chocolate crackles . They fulfilled every desire of the parent and children at that time.  For the parents, they were cheap, quick to make, and could easily be whipped up in large quantities. For the kids, they were sweet, sweet, sweet; which is all a small child needs from a party really.  The hyperactive sugar rush they get from these treats can power them through hours of running around madly and shrieking excitedly. Kids who are served carrot sticks and hummus at parties don’t realize what they’re missing!

A very forgiving recipe

Aside from the non-politically-correct sugar rush honeycrunch gives, they are fun to make with kids as there is not much to making it.  The recipe is very forgiving.  The butter, sugar, and honey mixture should theoretically be boiled until it it changes to an amber colour as you see in the photos below.  If you don’t boil it for long enough, the taste will be a little less caramel-like, and the honeycrunch bars will be a little softer rather than crunchier. No matter how they come out, they will taste good.

The one thing not to do when making honeycrunch

The only thing you should not do is boil the mixture for too long, as it can get a burnt taste, which is the one time when honeycrunch doesn’t actually taste very nice. Oh, there’s one other thing that you should not do: do not eat it all at once, otherwise you’ll turn into an over-excited 5 year old at a birthday party.

And honeycrunch is not just a party food

Actually, it’s not true that we only ate it at parties.  My mother made it often so that it could be popped into our school lunch-boxes as a treat after we’d finished our Marmite sandwiches.  It’s amazing how many kids suddenly want to be your friend when you pull a couple of bars of home-made honeycrunch out of your lunchbox!

Travel photo of the week

This photo is taken on my father’s farm in New Zealand.  The trees on the right are the beginning of a large area of preserved forest (or “bush” as it’s called in NZ). Dad has put up fences all around it to stop cattle and sheep from straying in there, in order to keep it as pristine as possible.  It’s so dense that we were forbidden completely from setting foot in it.  When I was little I imagined that witches and goblins had houses hiding in these trees. In fact, Dad got lost in there himself many years ago.  He ordered his dogs to “Go home” so that he could follow them, and they just slunk around behind him and stayed at his heels.  Mum had all the neighbours out searching for him to no avail, but he found his way out after a night of stumbling around.  Take that as a cautionary tale:  the New Zealand bush is VERY easy to become lost in.  Even people like my Dad, who have a good idea of what they’re doing can lose their way very quickly!

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Honeycrunch from New Zealand

Honeycrunch bars are a sweet treat from New Zealand that can be made quickly with only 4 ingredients!

Course cake, Dessert, party food

Cuisine New Zealand

Prep Time 5 minutes minutes

Cook Time 5 minutes minutes

Resting time 1 hour hour

Total Time 1 hour hour 10 minutes minutes

Servings 16 bars

Ingredients

• 100 g Rice Krispies 4 cups
• 100 g Butter 1/2 cup
• 85 g honey 4 Tbsp
• 50 g sugar 4 Tbsp

Instructions

• Grease a baking tin with sides. I used a 20 x 20 cm tin for this recipe. (That's 8 in x 8 in)
• Heat the butter, sugar, and honey in a medium-sized pot on a medium heat. Let the mixture boil gently, and stir frequently for 5 minutes, until the colour begins to darken slightly.
• Take off the heat and stir in the Rice Krispies.
• Scrape into the prepared tin. Gently spread the mixture out with a spatula or spoon. Do not press down hard.
• Cut into slices while still warm. Leave to set for at least one hour.

By Lisa Watson

Chocolate Crackles: essential New Zealand party food

When I was growing up in New Zealand in the Seventies, every single birthday party I went to would have a plate of chocolate crackles sitting proudly on the party food table, just waiting to be gobbled by sugar-frenzied, over-excited herds of children. The Seventies seem to be coming back into fashion (to the fashion powers that be, please don’t bring back lamé jumpsuits…..), so I decided to resurrect this old childhood favourite.

And why is the coconut there?

Chocolate Crackles are incredibly easy to make and do not need any cooking, except for melting the butter, so could happily be made with just the use of a microwave. They also have very few ingredients in them, which is probably how some beleaguered parent who had to make some sweet treat in a hurry for their child’s birthday party came up with the idea in the first place: by looking in their kitchen cupboard and throwing what was in there into a pot.  It seems that even a Century ago in New Zealand, most kitchens had a steady supply of dried coconut in them, although coconut palms do not actually grow in the country itself.  I’m still not sure why coconut is such a ubiquitous ingredient in cake and cookie recipes in New Zealand.  My guess is that it was something that kept for months without refrigeration back before aeroplanes existed, so it was an easy ingredient to store.

The origin of chocolate crackles

The first known recipe was actually printed in the Australian Women’s Weekly back in 1937, so this is one Antipodean recipe that I will have to let the Australians own (unlike pavlova). Apparently it was used as a marketing tool to sell a product called Copha; a solid fat made of hydrogenated coconut oil. Kellogg’s jumped on the candy-train in the Fifties, as a main ingredient in the recipe for chocolate crackles was one of their cereals, and took ownership of the name “chocolate crackles”.  They tripped and fell flat on their cereal-covered face when they attempted to trademark the recipe a few decades later. Since recipes can’t be owned by any one person or company, their bid failed completely.

You can use butter

As I don’t like the idea of using a vegetable shortening with trans-fats in it, I replaced the Copha with butter.  The crackles came out just fine and the Rice Krispies stuck together nicely, just like I remember them doing with the vegetable shortening that was used in the past.

Travel photo of the week

As I have sadly confessed that this recipe for chocolate crackles is not an original New Zealand recipe, I have decided that Australia should be featured in this week’s travel photo section.  This is a bustling beach in Queensland, Australia called Mission Beach.  We were there in August, which is Winter, but it was warm enough to go swimming, and there were no jellyfish, no cyclones, and no people to be seen anywhere.

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Chocolate Crackles

Easy to make crunchy Chocolate Crackles will be a hit at any child's party and are fun to prepare with kids as well. Find the Antipodean recipe here on Italian Kiwi.

Course Dessert, party food

Cuisine New Zealand

Prep Time 5 minutes minutes

Cook Time 2 minutes minutes

Fridge time 2 hours hours

Total Time 7 minutes minutes

Servings 12 crackles

Ingredients

• 125 g butter 4.4 oz
• 30 g cocoa 1/4 cup
• 70 g icing sugar (powdered sugar) 1/2 cup
• 40 g dried shredded coconut 1/2 cup
• 60 g Rice bubbles (rice crispies) 2 cups

Instructions

• Put paper muffin cases into a muffin pan.
• Melt the butter in a medium-sized pot.
• Turn off the heat.  Add the cocoa and stir until dissolved.
• Add the icing sugar and stir in.
• Add the coconut and mix in.
• Add the rice bubbles and mix gently until they are all coated with the chocolate mixture.
• Spoon the rice bubbles into the paper cases.  Put the muffin pan in the fridge for at least two hours before eating the crackles.

By Lisa Watson

Candy surprise from Down-Under

I had forgotten all about hokey pokey until recently when we went down to visit my family in New Zealand.  Suddenly I saw it everywhere: in ice-cream, in biscuits, in chocolate and even by itself.  It’s New Zealand’s best kept secret (or maybe second best, after the fact that NZ has beaches to rival those in the Caribbean).  I have never seen it outside of the country. As far as I know, they don’t even make it in Australia, which is astonishing as those Australians are always stealing our recipes (look at pavlova, marmite, anzac biscuits…….the list goes on).  Now, for any Australians reading this, don’t worry….you still have your kangaroo meat pies and crocodile steaks all for you. 🙂

I have discovered in my travels that there is a kind of candy called honeycomb in the UK that is similar, but it doesn’t seem to be as ubiquitous as in NZ. There, you find it everywhere : coated in chocolate, in ice-cream, and made at home and in school science labs all over the country.

Fast and fun to make

Hokey pokey takes about five minutes to make and only has three ingredients.  It’s lots of fun to make with kids as it has that “WOW!” factor when you add the baking soda to the sugar syrup.  If the baking soda is fresh, it’ll foam up very impressively.  I remember making it in science class at high school to study the reaction.  Well, I mainly remember eating it, but not much about the explanation behind the reaction. The science lab bit is because of the fantastic foaming reaction between the hot caramel syrup and baking soda that you add at the end to make the holes in the candy. 

Let’s do the Hokey Pokey

Hokey Pokey is also the name of a dance.  One that you probably did on camp, or when you were at school.  Some call it the Hokey Cokey, but I like to think that it’s related to this sweet somehow. Maybe the original makers of hokey pokey, sang the accompanying song, “You put your right foot in. You put your right foot out. In, out, in ,out and wave it all about” while they were waiting for it to cool down.

Very important tips to know

There are only a few important things to remember when making hokey pokey:

1. Stir the sugar when it’s melting, otherwise it will burn.

2. After adding the baking soda, scrape it IMMEDIATELY onto a plate as it sets very quickly.

3. Don’t touch it until it has cooled down, otherwise you will get burned.  It sticks to your skin very easily when its hot.

4. Wash all the tools you use to make it straight away as the caramel sticks to everything otherwise.

The last two points come from personal experience.  I tried it so you don’t have to!

That’s about it.  Once you’ve made it, it will keep for a few days in an airtight container.  You may find though that it will be already eaten after a few minutes!

If you’re looking for other sweet treats from New Zealand don’t hesitate to check out mothballs and russian fudge.

I’m happy to announce that my post for hokey pokey won 2nd prize in a contest on the site Instructables.  It’s a fabulous site for learning how to make any sort of craft you can think of!

Contest Winner

Second Prize in the Sweet Treats Challenge

By Lisa Watson

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Hokey Pokey Candy

A three ingredient candy and a fun science experiment, all rolled into one!

Course Snack

Cuisine New Zealand

Prep Time 2 minutes minutes

Cook Time 5 minutes minutes

Total Time 7 minutes minutes

Ingredients

• 140 g White Sugar 10 Tbsp
• 50 g Golden Syrup 4 Tbsp
• 2 tsp Baking soda

Instructions

• Grease a plate or pie dish.
• Heat the sugar and golden syrup in a medium-sized pot at a medium-low temperature.  Stir constantly with a wooden spoon or a whisk until the sugar has melted.
  
• Simmer on a medium-low heat for 5 minutes, stirring continuously, until it turns a golden amber colour. If you have a candy thermometer, wait until the temperature gets to 145 - 150 degrees C (293 - 303 degrees F).
  
• Take the pot off the heat and immediately add the baking soda.  Stir madly and watch it foam up (very exciting for the kids!).
  
• Pour it STRAIGHT AWAY on to the greased plate/dish and leave it to become cold and set. DO NOT TOUCH IT WHEN IT'S HOT (it'll stick to your fingers and burn you).
  
• When it has cooled, break it into pieces and eat it!

A Special Cookie From New Zealand

This cookie is for some reason called an Afghan cookie, although it is not from Afghanistan, and is not made by an Afghan dog.  Afghan cookies are a specialty from New Zealand and are one of those sweet treats that you find in just about every cafe you walk into there, just like ginger slice and chocolate caramel square. These cookies are deliciously chocolate and get a nice crunch from the addition of cornflakes, which is also something that seems to be used often in cookies made in New Zealand.  Of course, the Australians will probably say that these biscuits were invented there, just like they do for pavlova, and it’s true that I can’t prove it either way, since the Afghan cookies have been around for at least a Century, if not longer.  So, I will just declare that they are a slice of Kiwi goodness and hope that no Australian comes after me to fight about it.

What to do when you make Afghan cookies with kids

The cookies are very easy to make, and lots of fun as a kid project when they want to do some baking. If you do make them with kids, just be prepared to face the fact that there may not be enough icing to glaze the biscuits at the end since it may disappear by the spoonful into someone’s mouth instead of going on top of the afghans. The walnuts help to cut the sweetness of the cookies, but if you aren’t a fan of walnuts, go ahead and stick some pecan nuts on the top (but don’t tell any New Zealander you know that you did that).

Travel Photo Of The Week

This photo comes from one of my favourite places in Northland, New Zealand.  Actually I have many favourite places there, but this is way up on the list!  This is looking to the West of the cape toward Cape Maria Van Diemen.  I haven’t yet been down onto the beach. Somehow, there’s never enough time when I’m up at The Cape, but one day I vow to go for a walk along that deserted piece of sand. Cape Reinga is a marvelous place where you can really see the line made by the Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea crashing together.  It is seen in Maori lore as the jumping off spot for the spirits as they make their way back to their ancestral lands.

By Lisa Watson

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Chocolate Afghan cookies

Afghan cookies are a specialty from New Zealand and are one of those sweet treats that you find in just about every cafe you walk into there.  Make them at home with this recipe!

Course Dessert, Snack

Cuisine New Zealand

Prep Time 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes minutes

Total Time 30 minutes minutes

Servings 15 cookies

Ingredients

For The Cookies:

• 180 g Butter 6.4 oz
• 80 g Sugar 2.8 oz
• 60 g Cornflakes 2 oz
• 20 g Cocoa Powder 2 Tbsp
• 180 g All-purpose flour 6.4 oz

For The Glaze

• 20 g Butter 1 Tbsp
• 10 g Cocoa Powder 1 1/4 Tbsp
• 30 ml Boiling Water 2 Tbsp
• 250 g Icing Sugar (Powdered Sugar) 2 cups
• Walnut Halves for garnish

Instructions

To Make The Cookies:

• Heat the oven to 180°C (350°F ).
• Cream the butter and sugar together until it is white and fluffy.
• Sift the cocoa powder and flour together, then mix in to the creamed mixture.
• Crush the cornflakes slightly then carefully stir them into the mixture.
• Put tablespoonfuls of the cookie dough onto a cookie tray covered with baking paper.
• Bake for 18 - 20 minutes.
• Leave on the tray to cool for 10 minutes, then transfer to a cooling-rack.

To Glaze The Cookies:

Once the afghan cookies have cooled completely:

• Put the butter and cocoa into a small heatproof bowl.
• Add the boiling water and whisk until the butter has melted.
• Add the icing sugar and stir until you have a homogeneous mixture.
• Add dollops of icing on the tops of the cookies (about 1 Tbsp for each cookie).
• Place half a walnut on each cookie.
• Leave the cookie to set before storing in an airtight container.

The excitement of going to town when I was a kid

When I was a kid growing up on a farm in New Zealand, we used to get to visit “The Town” a handful of times a year.  It was always a very exciting trip.  We would get dressed in our best clothes, pile into the Holden Kingswood (affectionately called the Golden Holden), and drive down the windy gravel roads towards Town, an hour away. As we got closer, the road would lose the grass ribbon growing down the middle of it and become wide enough for two cars to pass each other. Eventually, we would feel a slight bump, and suddenly the crunching, rattling sound of the tyres rolling over gravel would stop and the ride would become as smooth as floating on a cloud.  We had arrived at the asphalt!  When we were in town, one of the thrills we looked forward to was riding up and down the escalator there. Who needs a theme park when you have a moving staircase! One of my other excitements was to eat lunch at a cafe.  I would cross my fingers and make all sorts of promises to whatever entity may have been listening, that I would be good for months and not ask for a second ride on the escalator if we could have a bought lunch rather than Mum packing a picnic and making us sit in a park and eat it. When my fervent wishes came true and we did get to go  to a lunch place, we had to abide by the “Two Things” rule.  No more than two foods on your plate, one of which had to be something savoury. I almost always got a mince pie and a yoyo biscuit.  It is true that sometimes, I would go nuts and get a custard slice instead of a yoyo biscuit, but those were dark days.  Every time,when it was too late, I would realize that the yoyo biscuit was what I really wanted after all. Call it a bitter learning experience and let’s leave it at that.

Yoyo biscuits bring back so many memories, just with one bite

It’s funny how when you grow up, these small things that brought you such pleasure when you were young, like my joy at eating a yoyo biscuit, can be completely forgotten about.  In fact, I only remembered about them this week after stumbling over a recipe for them when I was looking for something completely different.  I had a sudden nostalgia to eat one and so made them on the spot. Biting into one brought all the memories and emotions flooding back. It’s amazing how the taste and smell of certain things can do that to you. I felt the excitement I experienced as a kid from our town visits, and could almost smell the stale cigarette- and coffee-permeated cafe (it was before the days of smoking bans inside) as I bit into the cookie.

Yoyo biscuits are delicious, even in today’s world

These are delicious, even without the nostalgia factor, but look away immediately if you are on, or planning to be on, any kind of diet.  Yoyo biscuits are not for the  health-conscious among us.  They are loaded with butter everywhere you look.  That is one of the reasons they taste so good!  If that doesn’t scare you, then I really urge you to try them.  If it scares you just a little, make the cookies small so you get the taste, but still feel virtuous.  If it scares you a lot, you’ve probably left this page anyway and have gone to skim-read Facebook and scoff at what people have put up there.

Beware the cookie stealers!

Beware when you take these out of the oven that no family members wander by and steal one off the rack when you are not looking. You’ll then be left with an odd cookie with no partner. This is a serious kitchen crime which can result in banishment from the cooking area unless there are piles of dirty dishes to be washed.  Though, maybe one being stolen is a good thing as it means that you can smear it with filling and gobble it when nobody can see you. No one will even realize!

Below, I’ve included a photo of the filling so that you can see what sort of consistency it should have once it’s mixed properly.

Travel Photo Of The Week

This is a short of the perils you can meet when trying to drive to town in New Zealand. I used to gnash my teeth with impatience when I was young and we were heading for town.  It always takes so long to get through these guys!

By Lisa Watson

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Yoyo biscuits

how to make Yoyo Cookies from New Zealand. Find the perfect recipe for them on Italian Kiwi!

Course cookies, Dessert, sweet

Cuisine New Zealand

Prep Time 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes minutes

Total Time 30 minutes minutes

Servings 26 - 28 cookies before joining

Ingredients

For The Cookies:

• 175 g Butter
• 30 g Icing Sugar (Powdered Sugar) 1/4 cup
• 1/4 tsp Vanilla Essence
• 200 g All-purpose flour 1½ cups
• 40 g Custard Powder 1/4 cup

For The Filling:

• 50 g Butter at room temperature 3½ Tbsp
• 60 g Icing Sugar (Powdered Sugar) ½ cup
• 2½ Tbsp Custard Powder

Instructions

For The Cookies:

• Heat the oven to 180°C (350°F ).
• Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy.
• Add the vanilla essence and beat in.
• Sift the dry ingredients together. Mix them into the butter mixture.
• Form balls a little smaller than walnut size and place on a cookie tray lined with baking paper.
• Dip a fork in water and press the cookies flat.
• Bake for 15 - 18 minutes until hard to the touch.
• Allow to cool completely on a wire rack.

For The Filling:

• Beat the ingredients together in a bowl.
• Spread one cookie with the filling and join it to another cookie of a similar size.
• Allow the filling in the yoyo cookies to set a little before eating.

Don’t be deceived by the unappetizing name

Since the holidays season is here, over the next few weeks on Italian Kiwi, I’m going to be sharing recipes for sweet treats and cookies that you can make for this time of the year. Christmas is a great excuse to load yourself up with sugar.  Push the worry about the results of that until January! At Christmas time in New Zealand, my mother always made these Rice Krispie and date balls for us to eat as treats. The name “mothball” comes from their appearance, as they are fluffy with white coconut.  A more apt name for them may be “snowballs”, however in New Zealand, Christmas is in the middle of the Summer, so there is no snow to be found anywhere. Or maybe they’re called mothballs as they look like the nether regions of a moth.  on second thoughts, let’s stop thinking about the origin of the name, as it’s getting kind of stomach-churning!  Let’s just enjoy the fact that they’re easy to make and delicious to eat.

Why dates are used when date palms don’t grow in NZ

Mothballs make great gifts!  They look pretty, taste great and keep for a couple of weeks outside of the fridge. To make them harden quickly, you can put them in the fridge for 2 or 3 hours after they’re made. I find it interesting that in New Zealand, many desserts and cakes have dates in them, although it is actually not warm enough there to grow date palms.  I’m guessing that back before there were fridges and any kind of fast transport, dates must have been used often as you could keep them for a long time.  Coconut is another ingredient that crops up often in New Zealand recipes, like these mothballs, but isn’t grown in NZ.  If you want other NZ recipes with coconut, you can have a look at  cookies like ANZAC biscuits , or slices like Chocolate Caramel Slice. I think it was used for the same reason.

Travel Photo Of The Week

This shot was taken very close to where my lucky brother lives. The surf beach you arrive at when you get to the end of this sandy trail is called Mangawhai Heads, and the island you see off the coast is a wildlife refuge.  It’s part of a group of islands that Captain James Cook dubbed The Hen And Chickens (the big one is “The Hen”) when he sailed past them. The Hen’s Maori name is Taranga, which I like better.  You are not allowed to set foot on the island as there are colonies of very rare native birds there that no longer live anywhere else in New Zealand, thanks to the introduction on the mainland of non-native animals such as stoats and rats that eat the eggs and chicks.  NZ has no native land mammals and no snakes, so the birds did not evolve to protect themselves from hunters.  The introduced animals have (for them) fabulous pickings in New Zealand, as they can easily kill the native flightless birds, or eat the eggs that are laid by birds in nests on the ground. Thank goodness for these outlying islands that can help us to save our natural heritage!

By Lisa Watson

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mothballs from New Zealand

Don't be deceived by the name!  Mothballs are a sweet treat from New Zealand made of dates and coconut.  find the recipe on Italian Kiwi

Course Dessert, Snack, sweet

Cuisine New Zealand

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 5 minutes minutes

fridge time 1 day day

Total Time 15 minutes minutes

Servings 20 -25 balls

Ingredients

• 70 g Butter 2.4 oz.
• 200 g White sugar 1 cup/ 7.2 oz.
• 150 g Pitted dates 1 cup
• 45 g Rice bubbles (Rice Krispies) 1 1/2 cups/ 5 oz.
• Dried coconut

Instructions

• Chop the dates roughly.
• Melt the butter in a heavy-based pot on medium-low heat.
• Stir the dates and sugar into the melted butter until the mixture clumps together (about 5 minutes).
• Take the pot off the heat and stir in the Rice Krispies.
• Pour some dried coconut onto a plate.
• Take walnut-sized amounts of the mixture and form them into balls.
• Roll the balls in the coconut.
• Place the mothballs in an airtight container and refrigerate overnight.

Discovering history through an old recipe book

Who is Mrs Rawnsley? Where did she get this recipe for sponge cake from?  Did she make it up herself?  Did she get it from a friend or a neighbour?  These are questions that I’d love to have the answer to, but unless one of Mrs Rawnsley’s descendants is reading this post, I don’t think I’ll ever find out.   I found her recipe for sponge cake when I was carefully leafing through a very old cookbook that belonged to my grandmother (the one you can see below).  I mentioned the book briefly in my last post about growing up in New Zealand. The recipes are faded; some are so faint that they’re illegible.  Beside almost all of the recipes is the name of the person who gave them to my grandmother.

A life in recipes

This makes the book more than a collection of recipes.  It makes it the story of my grandmother’s life; who she knew, where she lived and how people ate at different periods of her life.  There are also some recipes in it, written very carefully by my mother when she was a little girl.  I can imagine her sitting at the dining-room table, studiously writing them down, with her tongue caught between her teeth in concentration.

The sponge cake is very easy to make. It is more the consistency of cake rather than sponge, but tasted it wonderful! It should be eaten within a day or two of making it.  I noticed that it goes stale quite quickly.

A little bit of soul searching

The cookbook leads us along the path of my grandmother’s life from when she started collecting recipes from my great-grandmother, to when she got married, left home and started to meet new people.  We all have a book like this inside of us: a trail of people we’ve met.  Some of them are passing acquaintances and some become friends.  Each and every one of them has some sort of impact on your life, just as you have an influence on theirs. Just remember that next time you smile at a stranger.  That could make the difference in their day! So, enough of the philosophy for now. Here’s the:

Travel Photo Of The Week

Of course, this week it’s a photo of New Zealand.  How can I make a sponge cake from New Zealand and not show you a photo from there too?  My brother and his family are very lucky to live close to this beach called Mangawhai Heads, up in the North of New Zealand. It’s known for its surfing, though it was pretty calm the day we were there (and empty!). We had great fun poking through the rock-pools with the kids.  The kids had great fun rolling and running down the huge sand-dunes behind the beach.  We left that one to them and waited sedately for them at the bottom.

By Lisa Watson

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Mrs Rawnsley's Sponge Cake

Mrs Rawnsley's Sponge Cake is a very old recipe from New Zealand, discovered in my grandmother's faded, falling-to-pieces cookbook. 

Course Dessert, sweet

Cuisine New Zealand

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes minutes

Total Time 30 minutes minutes

Servings 1 cake

Ingredients

• 3 Eggs
• 150 g White Sugar 3/4 cup
• 125 ml Milk 1/2 cup
• 40 g Butter 1 1/2 oz
• 120 g All-purpose flour 1 cup
• 1 tsp Baking Soda
• 1/2 tsp Cream of Tartar

Instructions

• Grease a cake tin with butter and line the bottom with baking paper. Heat the oven to 180ºC (350ºF).
• Beat together the eggs and sugar until they become pale and thick.
• Boil the milk and melt the butter in it. Pour the milk mixture slowly into the creamed egg while beating the batter constantly.
• Mix together the flour, baking soda and cream of tartar.
• Gently beat the flour mixture into the batter.
•  Bake the cake for 20 - 25 minutes until golden brown and firm to the touch.
• Leave to cool for at least 10 minutes before running a knife around the edges and tipping out onto a wire-rack to cool completely.
• Dust with icing sugar before serving.

Making the perfect roast leg of lamb

Easter has been and gone, but roast leg of lamb is not just destined for that long weekend!  This roasted lamb leg was what I actually cooked for my Italian side of the family on Easter Sunday.  Now, it’s not because we actually celebrate any kind of religious holiday, but my husband’s parents and some of his cousins and his uncle happened to be over in France for the long weekend to go to the beach, so it was the perfect time to cook up a leg of lamb. We always try to take advantage of the fact that (nearly) everyone is in the same place at the same time, otherwise we’d end up seeing them just at Christmas time.

I already have one recipe for roasting lamb on my blog, but I figure that you can never have too many, right? This one is really easy to do.  If you’ve ever felt daunted by the though of cooking such a large piece of meat, this is the recipe for you, and if you’re perfectly comfortable with whipping up a roast, then it’s still a good one as the tomatoes help the lamb to become very juicy and tender.

When rosemary bushes go rogue

The rosemary jungle in the garden is getting out of hand again, so whenever I can I try to throw a few sprigs of the herb into things I’m cooking.  It’s a shame you can’t use more than a couple of sprigs at a time.  I need a recipe for rosemary jam, or rosemary liqueur where you use kilos of the stuff.  The problem is that they would taste really revolting……

I used a little bit of it to rub the lamb with, and when I snipped it off one of the bushes, the bush looked as if it was laughing at me…..I can see a horror movie plot in which rosemary bushes take over everything and destroy houses all around them.  It may be a slow-moving movie, as they don’t grow that fast, but eventually (when the audience is asleep), the plants would triumph and take over the world!

Travel photo of the week

This one is from New Zealand.  These are actually not trees, but are large ferns called punga.  They’re scattered all  through the forest(or “bush” as you call it in NZ) in Northland, which is the area I grew up in.  The punga is a very important plant for New Zealand as it is the symbol you see on the jerseys of the All-Blacks (do I need to explain who they are?), the logo for NZ butter, and possibly the symbol that it going to be on the new New Zealand flag , if they ever change it.

By Lisa Watson

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Roasted lamb leg with tomatoes

how to make an easy Rosemary Leg of Lamb with Baked Tomatoes

Course entree, Main Course

Cuisine New Zealand

Prep Time 40 minutes minutes

Cook Time 2 hours hours

Total Time 2 hours hours 40 minutes minutes

Servings 1 leg

Ingredients

• 1 Leg of Lamb
• 3 Cloves Garlic
• 3 - 4 sprigs Rosemary
• 1/4 cup Olive Oil
• 750 g Cherry Tomatoes 1 1/2 lbs
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Instructions

• Take the leg of lamb out of the fridge 30 minutes before you want to cook it.
• Heat the oven to 200ºC (400ºF).
• Peel and slice the garlic cloves. Wash the rosemary, dry it, then scrape a knife over it to crush the leaves a little.
• Put the garlic slices and rosemary in 1/4 of a cup of olive oil. Rub this mixture all over the lamb.
• Wash and dry the cherry tomatoes.
• Cover the bottom of the roasting pan with a thin layer of olive oil, then place the lamb leg in the pan.  Arrange the cherry tomatoes around the lamb.
• Roast for 30 minutes, then turn the oven down to 130ºC (260ºF). Baste the leg of lamb with the juices from the bottom of the pan every 20 minutes.  Cook it for another 1 1/2 - 2 hours depending on how done you like your lamb.
• Slice the lamb and serve it with the tomatoes and juice on top of it.

Hot cross buns, chocolate eating, and musings about the Easter Bunny

Easter is nearly here.  I can hear the hoppity-hop of little bunny paws as they stuff their baskets with Easter eggs…..well, there must be more than one Easter Bunny, right?  Otherwise how would he get the Easter eggs to all the kids on time?  You can’t tell me that he does the Santa trick!  He doesn’t have a sleigh, OR reindeer!  Anyway, aside from eating way too much chocolate, another thing I love to eat around the Easter holidays are hot cross buns. I’m not sure why hot cross buns and actually called “hot cross buns”, as they don’t have to be hot when they are eaten, though they do taste awfully good with butter melting into them when they’re straight out of the oven.  The cross is obvious.  I’m sure it has religious (or pagan) significance, but I’m not going to get into that stuff here.  Just make the hot cross buns and enjoy them, and don’t worry about the symbolism behind them!

Multi-purpose rolls

This recipe comes from my mother.  When I was in New Zealand this time last year (yes, it’s taken me an entire year to get this recipe up!), I made them without the spices and brushed the tops of the buns with milk before cooking them to give them a nice shiny top, and they came out fabulously as dinner rolls.  So, not only can this recipe be used for Easter, but you can make the rolls for Thanksgiving, or Christmas, or just for the heck of it, if you like.

A quick recipe

The hot cross bun dough only goes through one rising, which also means that they’re quick to make (well, quick in making-bread terms).  You can have them on the table in only 2 1/2 – 3 hours from when you weigh out the flour to when you take them out of the oven.  The photo above is before the rising, and the photo below is after, just to give you and idea of how much they should grow.

Hints and tricks from experience

I actually forgot to put the sultanas in when I made these as one of my sons ate the ones that I’d weighed out in anticipation of adding them to the dough, and I didn’t notice.  So, I can tell you after scientific testing, that they taste good also without the sultanas, just not as sweet. The cross is an optional extra.  It doesn’t add anything to the taste.  You can do it just to prove that the rolls are indeed hot cross buns.  I think next time I would just brush milk over them and forget about the cross.  As you can see in the photo below, unless you have a piping bag that you can use, making the cross with the edge of a teaspoon can be quite messy.

So, I wish you all a very happy, and non-rainy Easter full of good things to eat (we’re having a leg of New Zealand lamb, of course!).

Travel Photo of the Week

This is Whangarei Heads, a small peninsula which juts out from the East coast of New Zealand near the town of Whangarei.  I spent a lot of time here when I was growing up, getting into all sorts of trouble with a friend whose parents owned a farm just across the peninsula from where this photo was taken on top of a monolith of craggy towers called Mount Manaia. It takes about an hour or so to wend your way up the slopes through the forest (where once I got lost with the aforementioned friend: a story for another time). The view from the top, as you can see, is spectacular!

By Lisa Watson

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Hot cross buns

An easy and quick recipe for home-made Hot Cross buns from New Zealand.  

Prep Time 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes minutes

Rising time 2 hours hours

Total Time 35 minutes minutes

Ingredients

• 300 g All-purpose flour 2 cups
• 10 g Dry Yeast 2 Tbsp
• 50 g Sugar 4 Tbsp
• 1 tsp Salt
• 250 ml cold water 1 cup
• 250 ml boiling Water 1 cup
• 50 g Butter 2 Tbsp
• 2 Eggs
• 2 tsp Cinnamon
• 4 tsp Mixed Spice
• 500 g All-purpose flour 3 3/4 cups
• 50 g Sultanas (or currants) 1/2 cup

Instructions

• Mix the first lot of flour, yeast, sugar and salt in a bowl and mix.
• Add the cold water, then the boiling water and mix until smooth. Leave for 2 - 3 minutes.
• Add the second lot of flour, the cinnamon and mixed spice. Mix, then add the sultanas.
• Knead for 5 minutes until the dough is smooth.  Keep sprinkling flour on the dough if it is sticky.
• Put a clean tea-towel over the bowl and leave on the bench for 15 minutes.
• Line two trays with baking paper, then break off pieces of dough approximately the size of an egg. Roll them into balls and place them on the trays, spacing them so that there is room for them to expand.
• Leave to rise for  2 hours until they double in size.
• Heat the oven to  200ºC (375ºF).  If you would like the buns to be shiney on top, brush them with milk. To make the crosses, put 2 tbsp of flour into a cup.  Dribble water in and stir until a thick paste forms.  Use a piping bag or the side of a teaspoon to draw the crosses on top of each bun.
• Bake for 15 - 20 minutes until the tops of the buns are golden-brown.

A short introduction

I’m back!  I’m sorry I’ve been away for so long, but the Summer got a little bit crazy!  I had lots of fun in Italy in the Dolomiti mountains, which I’ll be writing about in the coming weeks, but for now, I wanted to start off the “beginning of the year” (I work on the school year since that’s where my kids are) with something very special: a guest post written by a fellow ex-pat Kiwi and internet friend, Emma.  Emma writes a fabulous blog called Adventures of a London Kiwi in which she shares her travel and day-to-day life experiences while living in London. Don’t just read this post by her: go check out her blog!

Emma very kindly agreed to write a piece on her mother’s delicious date scones for my blog.  I had forgotten all about these delicious baked goods until I saw her post on them.  I loved date scones when I was a kid.  In New Zealand they often appear on the table and you can also find them in cafes all over the place.  I have to make them myself soon…..though I’m hoping that Emma will come and visit me one of these days, and make them for me!

So, without further ado (drumroll please…..!!), I pass you to Emma!

Emma’s Date Scones

Growing up on a small farm in a tiny town, buried deep in the centre of New Zealand, we never had much in a material sense as kids. Entertainment usually consisted of running amok in the nearby paddocks, usually with our easy-going cat held hostage, endless re-runs of our favourite movies (this was by choice – anything new was treated with indifference) and clothes for my younger siblings were usually well loved hand-me-downs.

What we were lucky enough to have is a sense of adventure, love, endless attention and a mother who could cook like an angel. She wasn’t perfect in many ways – though who is? – but anything that came out of our oven & fridge was mysteriously packed with enticing flavour in a way that I’ve never quite been able to capture. Was it the years of experience, hundreds of small sheets of scribbled paper recipes or just a gift for seasoning?

One of my earliest memories is sitting in our country kitchen (not an idealised Martha Stewart one, but one where gumboots and overalls hung near back of the door) staring at our oven, willing her latest batch of date scones to rise really quickly so we could tumble them out, burn our fingers and smother them in butter.

Living in London 25 years on, almost 20,000 miles from that kitchen, I still get that feeling each time I slide a batch of date scones into the oven, or spot them in our favourite Kiwi Cafes in the bustling centre of the city. I have managed to glean her recipe for these delicious scones – one of the few she has peeled away from that handwritten cooking book. I’m sure she just keeps the rest to make sure we travel home as often as possible…

I have a suspicion that Lisa – so kind to let me guest post here! – has a collection of recipes just like my mum’s, but you’re lucky enough that instead of making you visit her kitchen table – has published them right here on her blog. Come to think of it though, a trip to Lisa’s sounds utterly delicious!

The best way to make date scones starts the night before. If you’re in a hurry this isn’t an essential step, but to make The Best date scones, it’s a good idea. *Roughly chop the dates, put in a small container, add enough boiling water to cover, pop somewhere safe and dream of date scones in the morning. If you do this step, the next day switch out half a cup of the milk in the recipe for half a cup of the date water.

You’ll also need to make sure you have a 250ml cup measure/mug – that’s how we roll in the Antipodes. None of this ‘weighing’ malarkey, well, not much anyway.

By Emma

And a short P.S. from Lisa: don’t forget to go to Emma’s blog Adventures of a London Kiwi to read more from her!

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Date Scones

Emma shows us how to make date scones: a New Zealand favourite recipe

Course Breakfast, Dessert, Snack

Cuisine New Zealand

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes minutes

Total Time 20 minutes minutes

Ingredients

• 3 cups All-purpose flour
• 3 tsp Baking Powder
• 1 Tbsp White Sugar
• 1/4 tsp Salt
• 75 g Butter 2.7oz, 1/3 cup
• 1 1/2 cups Dates
• 1 cup plus a little for glazing Milk

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 220°C (400ºF) & dust an oven tray with extra flour.
• Sift flour & baking powder into a bowl, then add the sugar & salt.
• Cut butter into the flour until it looks like breadcrumbs.
• Add milk (and/or date water) and dates, mixing lightly until the mixture comes together kneading a few times.
• Press the scone dough lightly out, and score into 12 even-sized pieces at least 2cm apart (that's about an inch for you imperialists).
• Brush with the extra milk, and cook for around 10 minutes or until golden.
• Scoff once vaguely cooler.