milk chocolate & craisin oatmeal cookies

Coming back from holidays, I came back to a half metre high pile of mail, magazine subscriptions and cookbooks that mum had kindly collected for me - probably the most exciting was a copy of Adriano Zumbo's recipe book which left me quite giddy with excitement! However, just as exciting was this copy of '100 years of sweet baking memories' featuring a collection of recipes all using one of my ever favourite ingredients...condensed milk.

My favourite condensed milk recipe is probably condensed milk and butter spread over toast - I wouldn't say its healthy but its pleasantly sweet and a treat for any day. Well unfortunately my special recipe didn't quite make it into the book but you'll find how versatile condensed milk can be from the range of recipes offered.

Here's the cover! I decided to make the 'White Choc & Cranberry Cookies' but substituting white chocolate for milk chocolate and the cranberries for craisins.

Preheat oven to 160 degrees fan forced. Line two baking trays with baking paper. In a large bowl, cream together 200g softened butter, 220g brown sugar and 125mL sweetened condensed milk. Add 1 egg, 1 1/2 tsp vanilla essence and beat until light and fluffy. Add 225g plain flour, 180g rolled oats, 165g cranberries and 190g milk chocolate bits. Mix well. Place heaped tablespoons of mixture onto the prepared trays and press down each one with a fork.

Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from trays and cool on a wire rack.

Give it a couple of minutes before you dig in - this gives time for the cookies to harden and provide that extra little crunch.

I did toss up whether to use milk chocolate chips or dark chocolate chips and ended up asking mum who thought the milk chocolate would work better. I guess white chocolate and cranberry is one of those matches made in heaven and when you're stuck without white chocolate, milk chocolate would make the closest substitute. 

The cookies ended up tasting great - just the right amount of softness and bite to them. The oats had cooked nicely in each cookie making them still taste a bit healthy whilst being a treat. The boy took a few camping and some into work and before you know it, they were all gone!

danks street depot @ sydney international airport

So chance had it that the first meal of my trip was none other than Sydney's famous Danks Street Depot! It's long been on my list of places to visit and when I saw the sign (shortly after we checked in our bags), I made a beeline for the counter and told the boy that we were eating here...well it wasn't as if we were doing anything else and it could've been forever till I actually got my act together and visited the original Danks Street Depot. 

It's times like these which make me happy!

No busy queues on a Saturday morning; plenty of seating too. I'm one of those travellers who perpetually get to the airport too early so there's always plenty of time for a nice sit-down meal.

From memory, they were offering their burger for $12.50 (from a usual $19) so we snapped up one of those and also got ourselves the Reuben sandwich. Both came with chunky handcut wedges and I loved the tangy ketchup that came with the burger. Since I've seen the Reuben sandwiches which they offer over in the States, this one we ordered didn't have quite as much sliced meat in it but was still rather tasty.

It took about 10-15 minutes for the food to get to our table and about the same amount of time for us to chomp away. Ended up still being early and sitting there watching our plane being fuelled and prepared for our flight.

Definitely a high and mighty start to the trip! Mind you, we were served a meal shortly after boarding the plane so the Danks Street Depot meal (which we ate about 11.30am) really wasn't quite necessary but was pleasant nonetheless. I will definitely make an effort to visit the original Danks Street Depot but hey, it's just as convenient to pop in just before an international flight!

blueberry & vanilla financiers/friands

After unpacking my bags and settling back into my bed for a good night's sleep, the first thing I did after coming back from holidays was to get into the kitchen and bake this tray of blueberry & vanilla financiers/friands. My parents had gone out that particular morning and needless to say, when they got back from the shops, they were gobsmacked to find me up nice and early, bouncing around the kitchen and not jetlagged nor still slouched in bed. I tell you, the trick is to watch as many movies as you can whilst on the plane so you fall asleep through them - that seems to be how I managed to get out of it.

Preheat oven to 190 degrees. Grease 9 holes of a friand tray. In a large bowl, whisk together 4 egg whites until frothy. Add 140g sifted icing sugar, 1 tsp vanilla essence, 50g sifted plain flour, 90g almond meal, zest of 1 lemon and fold everything together gently. Spoon into the prepared tray and push several fresh blueberries into the top of each cake. 

Bake for 20 minutes until golden and a skewer inserted comes out clean. Leave in the tray for 5 minutes.

Remove from the tray and let the friands cool on a wire rack. You might need the help of a skewer to help pull the friands from the side of the mould (do so lightly).

I actually didn't get around to trying Financiers (what the Parisians call them)/Friands (what we call them here in Australia) when I was over in Europe; spent most of my time eating macarons and more macarons (OMG they were so good!) However I did end up going to Fortnum & Mason for afternoon tea, which is precisely where this recipe comes from. Will get to posting about my afternoon tea in due course but have to say, their recipes are just as yummy as they are to have there as they are to make at home.

So glad to be back home with a kitchen to bake!

gingerbread muffins

Since coming back from holidays, the one thing that seems the most crazy is that there's only another 8 weeks till Christmas. All the Christmas displays are up in the shops, mum is asking me to think about Christmas presents for the cousins, and well, I even got lured into buying a pack of 50 Christmas cards the other day at Kmart and that only costed me a dollar! (So a card and an envelope for just 2cents each?!) 

I picked up one of those Christmas baking recipes for free at the supermarket just yesterday and well, I don't think I'll be making a Christmas pudding anytime soon but it did make me think, why is it that they only give you Christmas pudding and Mince Pie recipes each year. Surely everyone has enough of those recipes if you're like me and pick them up from the supermarket every year? So in the spirit of Christmas, I thought I'd offer you this Gingerbread Muffin recipe which I thought tastes every bit like Christmas and something just a little bit different just to mix things up. Recipe is from Food Lovers 'Bread and Muffins'.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Line a 12 hole muffin pan.  In a small bowl, combine 100g unsalted butter, 100g soft brown sugar and 3 tbsp molasses. Microwave on low until melted together.

Add 125mL milk to the butter mixture and stir in 1 large egg. Sift in 150g plain flour, 1 tbsp ground ginger, 2 tbsp ground cinnamon and 1 tsp baking soda. Stir gently until combined.

Divide the mixture evenly between the muffin cases (you should get about 10 standard sized muffins). Bake in the oven for 20 minutes until the muffins are risen and firm.

Leave to cool on a wire rack.

So here you have it, a taste of Christmas in a muffin! Will definitely get round to doing a bit more Christmas baking this year so hopefully here's to a good start!

will be back soon, i promise!

Hello there! Just a quick post to let you know that I'm still around. I've had a rather lovely holiday in Europe for 6 weeks, ate a tonne and fortunately haven't come back too round around the waistline but have still eaten enough to warrant some extra exercise time at the gym (which is where my attention's at at the moment). Have been a little quiet on the blogging front since coming back - I think it's always the case that you want to stay on holiday; especially when you've had a long one so blog posts will resume shortly when I get back in the mindset of doing work and merely stringing words together in a coherent manner.

Thanks a bunch to those who left me comments whilst I was away. You guys make me love coming back to this blog - really appreciate it and you are the loveliest people in the world! I have yet to properly catch up on all your respective blogs and will do so promptly.

I will return shortly!

Panda x