Rochelle Elliot's Blog: The World of WellyChelle, page 8

WellyChelle’s Lemon Lamingtons

You will need:

1 box of lemon jelly crystals

1 sponge, made yourself, if you must, but they sell them at the supermarket, infinitely quicker and more practical, since I am yet to master the making of the perfect sponge.

Desiccated Coconut – not to be confused with desecrated coconut, as I called it as a young lass. Am guessing the lamingtons would be lacking in joy and joviality if you covered them in desecrated coconut.  Though I am not sure how exactly one would go about treating  coconut with violent disrespect?  Perhaps the whole process of desiccating a coconut, is by its very nature, some what desecrational?

I think I have wondered off topic!

Here’s how easy the delicious lemon lamington is to make:

Take one cup of boiling water in a bowl, sprinkle over the jelly crystals and stir till they have dissolved.  Do not whisk or beat, it forms a whole pile of very annoying bubbles on top that won’t go away.  Just stir it with a spoon or a fork.

Stick the bowl in the fridge until the jelly is half way, sort of set.  So it’s sort of a thick liquid, starting to get its wobble on, but you can still stir it, without it being all lumpy.

Don’t panic if you forget it’s in the fridge and get side tracked doing other important stuff; mopping floors, hanging out washing, reading book 4 in the Jack Reacher series by Lee Child…

I did this, and a few 10 second bursts in the microwave took the mixture back to a more liquid consistancy.

Now, the fun begins:

Cut your sponge into squares. You will also need to cut off any top  browned bits.  These don’t matter when you’re making darker lamingtons, but the Lemon ones I found show through to the sponge. I didn’t bother taking the darker base of the sponge off, I mean no one sees that anyway, it’s in their gob and if they do turn it upside down, they are mad yokes, because all the cream would fall on the ground.

So, once you’ve got your little squares, dunk them in the jelly, then roll them in the coconut and set them aside on a baking tray or rack lined with baking paper to set a bit.  Once you’ve done, pop them in a container and whack em in the fridge!

Eating time:

When it comes time to present the little luscious lemon lamingtons, slice through the top on an angle, spread with some lemon curd and a put a blob of cream on top, then a little blob of lemon curd to make it look all pretty!

These really are the bees knees. So easy to make, and so yummy to eat!

 

Tagged: kiwi baking, lamingtons, lemon lamingtons, New Zealand baking, sweet recipes

Meet our Scottish Biscuit Cousins; The Empire Biscuit!

So my little chickens, after the success of the Kiwi version of Belgium biscuits yesterday, I was feeling quite chuffed to have found out that they had biscuit cousins on the other side of the world.

The Scottish Empire Biscuit appears to be a well loved and delicious baked item, and I read a few blog posts from people sharing their fond memories of going along to their local bakery in their Scotland-land home towns and having these wee treats!

So I thought it would be quite nice to try out the Empire Biscuit.

I found a Scottish recipe, and some advice that suggested the dough would be very soft so to have plenty of flour on hand.  I didn’t need 48 biscuits, so gave the ingredient amounts a bit of a tweek, and came up with the following recipe.

The dough is in fact, very soft.  It took a bit of trial and error, but my suggestion for less mess and ease of cleaning up, is roll the dough out between two sheets of baking paper, but sprinkle the bottom piece of baking paper with flour first.  Then once you’ve pressed out your biscuit shapes, you can use a fish slice to slide them across on to your baking trays.

I would like to take a moment to show off and tell you that I had run out of jam, so I used the half bag of berries I had in the freezer, and threw in some lemon juice and brown sugar, and 10 minutes later I had my own batch of jam… it was delicious!

And making jam is so fabulously domestic and seems like a totally mad yoke of a thing to do, but when it turns out so lovely, it makes you feel like Nigella, although my dressing gown is not silk. And was splattered in blackberry juice and flour, which never seems to happen to Nigella!

They baked in my fan forced oven in 8 minutes.  I iced the tops first, and used a wee red m&m on each for decoration – glace cherry is the traditional way to go but YIK YAK YUCK!  The only time they cross my threshold is when I reluctantly put them in Christmas cakes for other people.

Be generous with your jam in the middle; no one appreciates a stingy spread of jam when enjoying a treat like this, and it really adds to the deliciousness!

Right off we go!

Scottish Empire Biscuits (makes 12 finished biscuits)

Ingredients:

225gms butter
100gms sugar
500gms plain flour

Decorate with:

Half a cup of jam
icing sugar and milk or water to form spreadable icing.
a lollie or if you must, half a glace cherry for the top of each pair of biscuits

Directions:

Step One

Cream butter and sugar for three minutes, until light and fluffy.

Step two

Slowly add flour until mixture comes together to form a soft dough, It will still be a bit sticky.  Have some spare flour handy!

Step three

Divide dough in two, then roll out each section of dough between baking paper, and cut out with 6cm cookie cutter.

Place biscuits on trays lined with baking paper, and bake in the oven at 180 degrees for 8 – 10 minutes.

Step Four

Allow biscuits to cool on a rack, then ice each top with white icing and a little red lollie. Spread a good dollop of jam on each bottom and carefully mush the tops on.

Step Five

Present to guests and tell them all about how WellyChelle taught you about biscuit cousins!

Tagged: baking, Scotland, Scottish Empire Biscuit

Belgium Biscuits in the blink of an eye!

Okay my chickens, maybe a few blinks, but they are not the palava I assumed them to be, why I haven’t attempted them sooner I can’t understand!

Belgium (or Belgian) biscuits are named because of their visual similarity to the Belgian bun, with their icing sugar / water icing and a wee cherry in the middle.  But they are also known in other parts of the world as Empire biscuits.  Our kiwi version goes down a more spicy line than, say Scotland’s version.  And it appears we seem to have lost the glace cherry along the way (thank the lord, can’t stand the things!). If you buy them in a packet here in NZ, you’ll find the icing in the middle of the biscuit, but I have a feeling this is more for easy packing reasons!

So, shall we get on with it?

First thing you need to know, is there is no chilling of the dough – lets all do a wee happy dance about that shall we…

Right, come back now, because there are other things you will need before you get to bake your way to Belgium heaven!

Lets start with the list of ingredients.  I used the Edmonds Cook Book recipe.  I’ve seen other recipes with golden syrup and more sugar and what-not, but to be honest, these ones turned out so lovely, I don’t think I’d make too many changes!

So to get you started, you will need:

125g butter, softened
¼ cup brown sugar
1 egg
2 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp cocoa powder
1 tsp ground ginger
1/4 to 1/2 tsp mixed spice (depending on taste). Okay, so the recipe says 1 teaspoon, but I find it can get a bit too spicy and like to go a bit easy on it.  You do what you feel comfortable with!

You will also need icing sugar, vanilla or raspberry essence and water for the icing, and approximately half a cup of raspberry jam for squashing the bikkies together!

Step 1

Put your oven on to 180 degrees and line your tray or trays with baking paper.

Step 2

Cream your butter and sugar for approx 3 minutes.  Add the egg and give it another good beating till combined.

Step 3

Sift in all your dry ingredients and mix it all together into a strong dough.

Step 4

Take half the dough and roll it out between two sheets of baking paper.  Get your ruler out and stop when you get to about 3mm thickness, stop!

I used a 6cm biscuit shape to cut out circles.  You could do hearts or butterflies or what ever takes your fancy!

Ready to bake

Step 5

Bake for approx 10 to 15 minutes, depending on your oven.  Remember biscuits keep baking a wee bit after they come out, so when they start to colour, keep a close watch!

Leave to cool completely on a baking rack. It doesn’t take too long!

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Step 6

Mix together your icing sugar, essence and water into a nice paste.  Pop a few drops of colouring in if you want the icing pink.  Or you could do what I did, and use a bit of raspberry juice if you don’t have essence, or you could use that Chelsea berry icing that comes ready to go, at the supermarket.  What ever makes you happy!

Start assembling!  I suggest icing before jam, simply because once you start with the jam, it all gets a bit squishy!!

If you’re feeling artistic, you can sprinkle a few wee pretty things on top…

and you’re done!

Didn’t i tell you it was easy!

 

Tagged: baking, Belgium, Biscuit

A spot of fundraising!

Hey chickens,

I hope the week treated you well, and you’ve got a lovely weekend planned!

If you’ve got  spare five minutes, I would love for you to pop on over to my Pledge Me page and check out my efforts to gather a bit of funding together to get the ball rolling to get my book self-published!

There are some lovely rewards on offer, and some fun things coming up…

https://www.pledgeme.co.nz/1101

Check out my video as well!

WellyChelle’s PledgeMe

Thanks lots and lots xxx

Tagged: chick lit, fundraising, publishing, self publishing, women's fiction, writing