Cadbury

Two slices of white bread, nutella, vanilla icecream cut 1/2" thick = Nutella Icecream Sandwich = Heaven

I made this salad tonight. It was as tasty as ever. I forgot to mention that I add the juice of a lemon to the sour cream/dill dressing. Gives it a nice tang. I cheated tonight however, and used Paul Newman's Creamy Caesar Dressing.

For an easy finger food dessert make "Matchsticks". Cut puff pastry into rectangles roughly 2"x4". Bake in a very hot oven until lightly brown and cooked through. Cool and split. Fill bottom halves with strawberry or raspberry conserve and well whipped cream. Replace tops and dust with confectioners sugar. Don't believe any recipe that tells you to ice the top. Also, rectangles are traditional (hence the name) but they are actually easier to eat if made into 2" squares. HTH

I make a warm chicken salad which is served as a light "ladies" lunch. I will add it to recipe gullet when I get a spare minute. I first slice raw chicken breast into strips (I actually prefer thigh for this) and let it marinade for a while with whatever takes my fancy, usually a bit of garlic, ginger, perhap chilli and some mirin. I then drain any liquid and stir through corn flour (cornstarch?) to coat the pieces well. These are then pan fried just before serving. Initially they will stick together but they do separate and become crisp. The chicken is placed on top of the salad (or tossed through if you prefer) and then a dressing is poured on top. The current dressing is sour cream with dill stirred through and left overnight for the flavours to develop. Garlic stirred through instead of dill is also nice. The salad itself is basically lettuce, cucumber, sliced spanish onion, semi dried tomatoes and small cubed of fetta cheese. I leave the fetta out if using dill dressing. I might get around to making this in the next week or so and will take a photo if so. Edited because I can't type.

Hi, The usual way for serving corned beef here is to have it hot, sliced not too thinly with a white sauce (perhaps with parsley etc.), mashed potato, carrots, beans etc. For lunch it would also be served hot with the white sauce and mashed potato but with a shredded lettuce/tomato etc salad. Nothing too fancy, but then farmers are more interested in eating food than looking at it.

Okay, so being the adventurous sort .... When I made these last my husband commented that they were lighter in texture and tastier than the Hot Cross Buns we get here at Easter time so I made the muffins again. I had left over mixture so I made WAFFLES. They were excellent for dessert last night with vanilla icecream and a drizzle of port over the top. Of course we were too busy enjoying them to think of taking a photo I have a couple left over so a photo might happen later.

2 teaspoons butter for plain scones. For sweet scones (if you want to add sultanas or dates etc) add 1 tablespoon sugar and an egg. I'm glad your scones passed muster. Congratulations on all your efforts and good luck.

How crisp is the outside of the scone supposed to be??? The outside of a scone is firm (knock on the base of a scone to test for "doneness" as for bread) but not hard. I usually place a clean teatowel over my scones as they come out of the oven. The steam helps the crust soften a little rather than dry out. My plain scones are simply 2 cups SR flour, 2 t butter cut in, 1 cup milk 7-10 mins at 230C. Simple, filling food for hungry farmers when there's not much in the house.

I've added my pumpkin scone recipe to recipe gullet . http://recipes.egullet.org/recipes/r1639.html This is not the same as the one I posted above but one I use more often. I have to agree with the "scone additions" rule : plain scone = jam/preserves + cream fruit/flavoured scone = plain butter Jam, cream, butter etc should always be on the side of the plate or more correctly in little pots for people to place on the plate themselves. And yes, scones should be soft and light and fluffy. Edited to add that my scone cutter has a fluted edge - they look nicer imho

Pumpkin Scones These scones are a very Australian way of using surplus pumpkin. If you wish to make round scones add slightly more flour to stiffen the dough, roll onto a floured surface and cut with a scone cutter. Serve scones cut in half with butter. Makes about a dozen 1-1/2 T butter 1/2 c sugar 1 egg 1 c cold mashed pumpkin 2 c self raising flour 1. Cream together the butter and sugar. 2. Beat in the egg. The mixture may curdle at this point but this doesn't affect the end result. 3. Stir the pumpkin into the mix. 4. Fold flour through wet ingredients. 5. Place tablespoon sized heaps onto a baking sheet. 6. Bake in a very hot oven (210-220C) for approx 15 minutes. Please note that Australian tablespoons hold 20 ml. Keywords: Easy, Brunch, Snack ( RG1639 )

Re: Pumpkin Scones The link that Portia provided gives a recipe for the type of Pumpkin Scone that is firmer and is therefore cut into rounds. If you are interested in trying the softer "plop" style, here is my recipe. 60 g butter 1/4 cup caster (fine, not powdered) sugar 1 egg 2 tablespoons Golden Syrup (our spoons are 20ml each) 1 cup cooked mashed pumpkin (no milk, butter etc.) 2 2/3 cups (400g) Self Raising flour 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg 1/3 cup milk Cream butter and sugar, beat in egg and golden syrup. Stir in pumpkin and 1/2 the flour, then remaining flour with enough milk to make a soft, sticky dough. Use a tablespoon to make large mounds on a baking sheet. Cook in a very hot oven (210 - 220C) for 15 - 20 minutes.

Portia, what is the definition of a proper scone? The pumpkin scone recipe in your post looks good but... I would end up adding a mix of spices as you would to a pumpkin pie -- cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice... Perhaps some pecans... I don't want to sell "triangular weird scone wanna-be things" -- I want to sell scones! ← Explaining food across continents can be a bit tricky. Scones look like the "biscuits" I've seen in pictures from the U.S. Round, that is. Pumpkin scones on the otherhand are a fairly moist dough so are "plopped" onto the baking sheet although these too can be cut out of a stiffer dough using a round scone cutter. Pumpkin scones are best without added spices IMHO but with cold butter in top. Other tea fare can include hot crumpets, english muffins, toast (artisanal breads).

Thank you.

Helen, I know this is off topic, but do you happen to know the scientific/botanical name for kinmokusei? It used to grow everywhere near Nakayamadera. My googling hasn't come up with a definitive answer. Thanks.

They look great Klary. Maybe they should be called Nieuwjaar Muffins (what's Dutch for muffin? My dictionary is way too old for such a word.)

I'm not sure that it would work too well. The mixture is really sticky and I would think it would be difficult to fill the hot pan quickly enough. Maybe you should give it a try and let us know. They are rather delicious.

Helen that soup looks absolutely wonderful. The colours are amazing. For those interested in making Takoyaki, I have noticed that the Gem Irons I've seen in the shops lately look very similar to my Takoyaki Iron. I'm not sure if gem irons are commonly available elsewhere?

I had the oven at about 190 C. I must add that the mixture had risen and been punched down a number of times during the process of frying and I also let it rise again before cooking. I used two dessertspoons to get the mixture into the tins as it's quite sticky. They didn't take long to cook, maybe 15 minutes, I didn't keep an eye on the clock so I'm not sure. Goodluck. (They're nice cut in half with butter )

Oliebollen - with a twist. I made Oliebollen this morning. I made half the amount Klary gave in her recipe (with the increased measure of milk). Having made several dozen spring rolls last night for dinner, after cooking about 20 of these delicious morsels, I had had enough of deep frying in my hot kitchen (35 C outside today, 27 C inside). I still had a lot of batter left so I got creative, filling large muffin tins with the mixture and cooking them in the oven. The result was a very light, sweet bun. The oliebollen and the "buns" were given the "thumbs up" by my husband.

Helen, the box of Arcadia cookies from Morozoff brought back memories - I brought back an oblong tin of these and two tins of other Morozoff cookies from my first trip to Japan 18 years ago. The tin now contains my teaching essentials - stickers and stamps. BTW I still often see the spelling schnapper. Keep up the great work.

Klary, how many grams is in each sachet of yeast? I buy yeast in bulk so I 'm not sure. Thanks.

It's 12:50am on 1/1/2006 and I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year and thank Klary and all who contributed for such a great thread, full of fabulous food. Have a great year.

Thank you. I had wondered if cornflour was the necessary ingredient. In regards to my name, I'm not sure if NZ had the Prof Sumner-Miller ads for Cadbury choc where he refers to "a glass and a half of full cream milk in every block of choc" I'm ashamed to admit that my name comes from the time when I first met my husband and unaccustomed to drinking, a glass and a half of beer would have me on my ear, hence the "Cadbury" - didn't take long to rectify the situation though

Thanks Helen, for the sponge cake recipe. I've made sponges with all sorts of variations in the method (melted butter, hot water etc) but not hot milk so I'll have to give it a try. Once I've recovered from Christmas that is. I don't have access to my dictionaries at the moment so I'm not sure what katakuriko is. Do you think good quality plain flour would do? I should add that I live in the middle of nowhere in the Western Australian wheatbelt so "weird ingredients" (shop keepers words, not mine) are a little hard to find.

Helen, can you give a recipe for hot milk sponge cake? I'm curious having not come across it before.