Tag Archives: easy

chocolate hot cross buns

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hot cross buns

Goddess buns. I definitely liked the sounds of that.

I was doing some reading on the history of hot cross buns. Along with the obvious Christian links, the Anglo Saxon goddess Eostre is also connected. (She also seems to be a goddess that not a lot was known about.) A cross being placed on a bun to represent the four phases of the moon. Eaten during the time of the first full moon after the Spring Equinox. Well how about that… fascinating isn’t it this wonderful world we live in.

I also found out that Chocolate Hot Cross Buns seem to be an Australian/ New Zealand thing. It seems we have far more non fruit loving people down under than the rest of the world- which suits Mr Chocolate just fine, as dried fruit and he aren’t firm friends. The nose wrinkles a little and head pulls back in a sharp subtle manner… sultanas?!
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Chocolate however, no problem what so ever.
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Would the Saxon’s have approved of these Chocolate Hot Cross Buns in honour of the Goddess Eostre? I like to think so, after all, chocolate is, food of the gods.
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cityhippyfarmgirl

Chocolate Hot Cross Buns

250g sourdough starter

1 tsp dried yeast

100g sugar

250mls water/milk*

100g softened butter*

600g flour

200g dark chocolate drops**

100mls water

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp cardamom

1/2 tsp dark malt flour

2 tsp salt

Mix all ingredients together, except for the salt. Autolyse period 20-45 minutes. Add the salt and mix again, then turn out on to a lightly floured bench to knead until you get a lovely smooth ball of dough. Pop the dough back into the bowl, plastic bag over the top and leave to prove.  A couple of proves and folds over the next few hours. Then out onto lightly floured surface again and divide into 16 or so portions. Roll into balls, or simply divide to get a more square shape. Pop them on a lined baking tray, cover and leave for another prove. The dough is ready to be baked, when you press it in and it lightly springs back.

Crosses

1/2 cup flour

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup water

Mix together and spoon into a piping bag just before they hit the oven.

Then bake at 210C for approximately 15-25 minutes, (until golden.)

Glaze

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup water

Bring to a simmer for a couple of minutes and then brush on to the hot buns with a pastry brush.

Vegan variations

* to make these vegan, omit the butter and milk. Substituting the milk for water.

** use a dark chocolate without any milk solids, and add two tablespoons of great quality cocoa

This post submitted to the always wonderful yeastspotting.

loving that… spelt brownie

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speltbrownie

“Often life’s pleasures pass us by simply because we don’t take a moment to focus on them… Make a point of noticing everyday something that uplifts your spirit or tickles your heart… Stop to breathe in the joy of this moment and then tell someone about it. Share your joy and revel in it. When your joy is savoured, and then shared, it is magnified…” ROBIN GRILLE

Weekend get togethers with people that live near and so very far, far away. Time has stretched into years but conversation just flows…loving that.

Deep cups of chai on darkened mornings. Little ones sleep on, just me and my chai and quiet, so quiet…loving that.

Seeing pink faced, sweaty little boys laughing together. Everything is so hilarious… loving that.

Conversations that make you think, ponder, and dig deeper than you would normally venture…loving that.

Seeing her little upturned face to the rain. A joyous smile as rain drops splatter on those soft cheeks…loving that.

Tweaking favourite recipes to incorporate different flavours. Getting the thumbs up from Mr Chocolate, friends wanting the recipe and Monkey Boy declaring me to be the best mama in the world after eating it…loving that.

If anyone else would like to do a ‘loving’ post, (or simply write something in the comments). Please let me know, link back to this post and I’ll do a link up. I would love to know about those little moments in your week that have tickled your heart.

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(For you Karen)

Spelt Brownie

200g chocolate (around about 50% cocoa)

100g butter

100g coconut oil

200g brown sugar

4 beaten eggs

2 tsp vanilla

200g wholemeal spelt flour

In a pot add the chocolate, butter, coconut oil, sugar and vanilla. Gently melt it down and cool it. Add remaining ingredients. Pop into a greased and lined tray.

Bake at 180C for approximately 25-30minutes, and then let it cool in the tin.

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Have a look at some of the wonderful food combinations that Kari is loving at the moment.

a hot King’s crown

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felt crown- cityhippyfarmgirl

felt crown- cityhippyfarmgirl

felt crown- cityhippyfarmgirl

It’s been hot here lately, really hot.

Tuesday got up to 43C, (that’s around 110 farenheit I think). Tuesday night 9.45pm, I was bringing the washing in and it was still 36C. With a not so lovely straight from an oven hot dry wind to add to it. During the day, with the blinds drawn, the kids playing in a cool water bath, my head turns to thoughts of- why oh why does this country not build better insulated houses? Insulation, double glazing… that’s what I was thinking about sitting on the floor of my bathroom. A country filled with well insulated houses and not an air conditioner to be seen…imagine that.

On hot days like this, going outside wasn’t particularly appealing so I needed an indoor activity that would keep The Monkeys interested. Monkey Boy had been asking me all about Kings and Queens that morning so a crown seemed like a good project.

Will you make me one Mama?

Your Majesty…it would be an honour.

Scrap felt and buttons from my stash, made two crowns. One for The King and the other for his brother the young Prince.

felt crown- cityhippyfarmgirl

double ginger bites

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doublegingerbites

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My loved grandparents came to visit… and there were Double Ginger Bites.

The girls came to visit for a little cake and coffee by candle light… and there were Double Ginger Bites.

A little Christmas package was sent…and there were Double Ginger Bites.

I was hungry, and dinner seemed like a terribly long way off…and there were Double Ginger Bites.

Double Ginger Bites

125 grams softened butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 beaten egg

2 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup golden syrup

4 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tps cardamom

3 cups plain flour

1 tsp bicarbonate soda

100g chopped uncrystalised ginger

Mix wet ingredients together. Mix dry ingredients together. Mix them all together. Knead it a little on a floured surface, mixing in the chopped ginger until you get a smooth dough. Let it rest in the fridge a bit until firm, then roll out dough 5mm thickness (or thicker if you prefer) and cut into rough squares and lay on lined baking tray.

Bake at 190C for approximately 15-20 minutes, or until light golden.

making ginger beer…it will put hairs on your chest

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That is bloody beautiful…

There had a been a lot riding on that first taste. It seemed I’d passed though, I had passed the dad taste test. My father had many decades before, made ginger beer for several summers of his childhood. Happily filling the garage with his ginger beer bottles, the occasional pop as a bottle exploded and many glasses of bubbly gingery goodness enjoyed. Now it was my time to give it a go.

Last year Mr Chocolate acquired a taste for ginger beer. It was the drink of choice, the bottle to go looking for at the back of fridge. Thirst quenching, refreshing, gingery and really tasty. Of course I wanted to give it a go, I had to didn’t I? If there was another sort of fermentation process to try, I wanted in.

So I researched how to do it, and in doing so, it seemed a bit like making sourdough… 501 methods to choose from. None of the methods I read seemed exactly suited to me, so I thought I would just play and see how it turned out. Several batches in and I think I’m finally at a method I’m happy with.

Ginger Beer

1/2 tsp dried yeast

1 tsp dried ginger

1 tsp raw sugar

1 cup luke warm water

Add ingredients together in something like a large glass bottle. Shake it around a bit. To the top, with a rubber band attach a small square of muslin.

Daily for seven days, adding 1 tsp ginger and 1 tsp sugar each day.

Day eight- strain with a muslin lined sieve, into a bowl.  Using 2 cups of sugar and the  juice of 2 lemons add to the mixture and stir to dissolve. Pour  mixture equally into 2 x 1.5 litre plastic bottles. Top up with tap water, leaving about two inches from the top to allow for gases to build up.

Put remaining ginger sludge (this is called the plant or mother) back into the glass jar with 1 cup of water.

Bottles leave out on the kitchen bench, for 2-3 days (longer in cooler weather). Tip upside down once a day to dissolve any sugar sitting at the bottom. You’ll be able to feel the gases build up by the tightness of the bottle.

Pop into the fridge and chill.

Gingery, sweet and ready to drink.

tortilla de patatas- Frugal Friday

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Tapas is one thing that Mr Chocolate has a real soft spot for. Anything that involves small dishes being brought to the table with lashings of olive oil over it, there is a good chance he’s straight in there with a fork at the ready.

Our first proper date was at a tapas restaurant. Dark walls, candle lit tables, and jugs of sangria dotted the various tables. Being fluent in Spanish, he encouraged me to try out some words he had just taught me on the wait staff. As my language skills at that stage were limited to “dos cervezas por favor”, any spanish chit chat on my part was questionable.

However the night was young, the sangria was good and my spanish got better. It wasn’t long before our table was littered with empty small dishes, and a smattering of olive oil drops. With satisfied bellies, the jug now empty, our conversation remained lively.

Sparks were flying and… (well, perhaps that’s a story for another day.)

Until then, how about an easy Tortilla de Patatas.

Tortilla de Patatas

(a very simplified version)

In a frying pan add

a good couple of slugs of olive oil

some cubed cooked potatoes (4-ish)

beaten eggs (4-ish again)

cook on a medium heat until it starts to cook on the edges. Then pop a lid on, lower the heat to cook for a further few minutes until cooked through. Season to taste.

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eat with gusto, a glass of sangria and your very best Spanish pick up line

“Donde estas la zapateria?” (which is probably not your best pick up line.)

Ricotta Corn Cakes- Frugal Friday

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Corn fritters were an easy staple in our household growing up. Mix them up and fry them. Simple, frugal and pretty versatile with what you ate them with. As a kid, I liked to eat them with a good dousing of tomato sauce on top. 

Corn fritters was also the first thing I taught Monkey Boy to make. It was a couple of years ago now, and Little Monkey was really sick. I was holding him, but needed to get something on the table for dinner. I asked Monkey Boy to help and between us we did it. With one free hand from me and two of his more than willing hands, we mixed and dolloped. Because of that first proper kitchen lesson several years ago, it’s still his favourite thing to help me make.

This recipe is a simple variation of the humble fritter. A lot lighter with the ricotta, and baked rather than fried. Although you could just as easily fry them if you wanted.

Simple, cheap and healthy.

Team it up with a rocking salad and some homemade chutney. Or eat cold for lunch, (dousing in tomato sauce as an optional extra.)

Ricotta Corn Cakes

1 can corn (420g)

2 beaten eggs

300g ricotta

a couple of shallots finely sliced

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp coriander

75g s/r flour (1/2 cup)

salt to taste

Mix all together and pop in greased mini loaf pans. (Or muffin tray, patty pans, or simply fry them in a frying pan.)

Bake at 200C for approximately 30 minutes.

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For everyone that took the time to comment on my post before, a huge, huge thank you. You all make this whole blogging thing such a wonderful space to be in. I felt really touched by all of your words… and I think you’re all just a bit awesome! 

surprisingly good chocolate hazelnut brownie

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I think hazelnut chocolate is my second favourite chocolate, I boldly declared to Mr Chocolate.

It’s not quite as good as marzipan, but it’s definitely up there… trailing off just a little as I mused on the merits of both of them.

Yep… hazelnut and chocolate, they go really well together.

After voicing my new-found decision of having a second favourite chocolate, I decided I needed to revisit the taste as quickly as possible. Just in case my bold statement had been made in haste. Chocolate…check. Hazelnuts…check. Fifteen minute window period to put it all together?…check. Melt, stir, pour, bake.

It seemed too easy.

Usually my baking needs a few tweaks, a change here and there, and trialled a few times to get it right. So I was surprised after tasting a corner of this one to find it worked just the way it was. I tried another corner just to make sure. No, seemed fine there too. A third corner? Yep, pretty similar to the other two corners.

It really was a surprisingly good hazelnut brownie.

Chocolate Hazelnut Brownie

200g chocolate (50%)

250g butter

200g brown sugar

4 beaten eggs

2 tsp vanilla

150g hazelnuts (I blitzed whole ones)

50g self raising flour

In a pot add the chocolate, butter, sugar and vanilla. Gently melt it down and add remaining ingredients. Pop into a greased and lined tray.

Bake at 180C for approximately 35minutes, and then let it cool in the tin.

a bowl full of sushi

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It’s quiet.

Not a murmur, not a word. Just the rhythmic sound of two forks being taken from bowl to mouth.

The Monkeys are eating two bowls of sushi. This is their favourite dinner at the moment. Not daintily rolled between a sushi bamboo mat, instead carefully constructed by their own little hands. I get it all out, prepare the ingredients and then they assemble what they would like to go in there.

Healthy, looks good, they get to help put it together and most of all they love to eat it.

I can’t help but feel a teeny bit pleased. Pleased and proud of my vegetable loving children. Sure they won’t touch zucchini, mushrooms, sweet potato or spinach. Eggplant also isn’t getting a look in any time soon, but what they won’t eat- they make up for. If that means a bowl full of sushi, with a selection of raw vegetables in there, I’m more than happy to give it to them.

I know kids can be picky little things, but if you plant the seeds of eating healthily from the very beginning and get them involved it sets them up for later on. Once a week, the Monkeys wrestle over who gets to bring in the vegetable box after it’s been delivered to our back door. Carefully sorting what’s in there and what exactly it all is. We don’t get to harvest a great deal from our (rather pathetic at the moment) plant pots, so this along with going to farmer’s markets is a second best. Sorting, learning, preparing and then eating it.

As a child, the idea of sitting through an eggplant or mushroom dish set me up for an hours worth of good solid gagging. These truly were horror vegetables that were put on this earth just to torture me. A few decades on and funnily enough what are two of my favourite vegetables?… Eggplant and mushrooms. The seed had been planted, the palate had already been explored, and then it was just a matter of finding out how I liked to eat those two little vegetables.

So that’s what I’m doing with The Monkeys. Expanding their palates and planting seeds. No, they don’t have to eat handfuls of mushrooms, broccoli, and zucchini. They can try a little bit each time though, just so to remember what it tastes like and then they can move on to what they really love. Vegetables like peas, capsicum (peppers), tomatoes, cucumber, corn, avocado, lettuce, pumpkin and carrot. Pop it all in a bowl of rice, with some shredded seaweed and a little line caught tuna, (Good Fish.)

There they have, a bowl full of sushi.

Dark Chocolate Honey Ganache Cones

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 a little lurker

Dark Chocolate Honey Ganache…

I had been thinking about this combination for at least a year. Dark chocolate ganache… a strong honey… and perhaps some chopped lightly toasted hazelnuts wouldn’t go astray either.

Now pastry or no pastry? A tart could work…

Then I saw the mini cones, done. How easy would that be. Construction began.

Little Monkey liked the sounds of it, he wasn’t leaving my side. No no, not for a second. That little barnacle was tricky to pry off without a wayward chocolatey spoon clasped in his hands.

Left over dark chocolate ganache from the little fella’s birthday cake. Stir in some Leatherwood Honey, and pipe it in to some mini cones. Easy, and now I’m thinking of other possibilities based on this little combination to play with.

What do you think might work?

the pumpkin time had arrived

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pumpkin dhal

The pumpkin had been sitting there, waiting patiently on the kitchen table for weeks.

Days went by, and still nothing. Evening meals came and went on by, still no pumpkin passed our lips. I was waiting for the right moment, the right time to cut in to that deep orange flesh. It had been grown and given with thought and love. I wanted to eat it in the same way.

The time was right, the knife was sharp, our bellies were hungry.

The pumpkin time had arrived.

Pumpkin Scones

25g softened butter

1/4 cup sugar

1 cup mashed pumpkin

1 beaten egg

grated rind of half a lemon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

pinch of salt

3 cups sifted s/r flour

Cream butter and sugar together. Whisk in all other ingredients except the flour. Fold in flour with a knife. Turn out on to a floured surface and lightly knead, just until the ingredients come together. Cut out with a floured upturned glass. Pop on to a baking tray and bake at 210C for about 20 minutes.

scones and wool

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There is something wonderfully soothing about crocheting and knitting. The mediative repetition lulls you while you slowly watch your creation grow and grow. Click, clack, hook, hook…

Recently, when I was in Hobart at a conference. There was a wonderful lady there that had organised a beautiful Crafting Womb. Knitting needles and wool provided. All the listeners had to do was simply knit while they listened to the various speakers throughout the days. A speaker at the front and a silence that was filled with warmth… the gentle click clack of the needles weaving their magic.

So what were they knitting?

They were knitting squares for the Hamlin Fistula Hospital in Ethiopia. (For anyone that doesn’t know of it, please have a look at their website.)

Coming back home, I wanted to do something like this. I wanted to knit or crochet for someone else. A seemingly small gesture, that I knew I could do. I also mentioned it to a couple of friends who were just as keen, and so it begins. A morning at the park sitting in the winter sun, with our hooks and needles, grand plans to begin and continue.

It was a slow start, but with two babies, one toddler and three preschoolers- I think that’s ok. A chance to connect over some simple food and crafting. A brief period to slow it down a little and at the same time creating something that will be used and treasured by someone in need.

That’s something that I definitely want to be a part of.

These scones have been inspired by my baking guru’s Celia and Joanna. They created International Scone Week (actually it goes for a fortnight) and I needed no other baking encouragement. Scones it is.

Date and Orange Scones

3 cups self raising flour

1 cup cream

1 cup water

1 cup chopped dried dates

zest of half an orange (unwaxed)

a sprinkle of raw sugar

a pinch of salt

Lightly mix wet ingredients to dry, and turn out to a well floured surface. Lightly knead using your finger tips mostly, bringing it all together (you don’t want to handle it a lot.) Cut into circles (an upturned glass works well.) and place on a greased or lined baking tray. Bake at 220C for approximately 20 mins or until golden.

Eat with enthusiasm.

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For anyone interested in creating their own knitting/crocheting group for charities, have a search to see what’s local to you. There are a lot of various charities that would all be appreciative of your woollen acts of love and also a beautiful chance to connect with others while doing so. So gather a few friends, pop on the kettle, grab the last of the biscuits from the biscuit tin and get crafting.

Hamlin Fistula Hospital

knitting for charities

best way to join your squares

inspiration to get you going