Passionfruit Crunchies a childhood favourite biscuit

Passionfruit Crunchies are an absolute favourite from my childhood. Probably because only 1 or 2 batches were made every passionfruit season. Then you had to wait until next year.

Mum (AKA Grandma Kiwicakes) made them every year. This year Grandma Kiwicakes passionfruit vine failed, as ours had taken off prolifically, I decided it was time I gave them ago and asked for the recipe.

Grandma Kiwicakes tells me the recipe was from "the Truth cookbook - an old scandal rag" - seen below without a cover. These recipe books certainly already expect you to know how to cook - with instructions like, "sandwich together with passionfruit icing" I used butter/icing sugar and 1 passionfruit to make my icing.

I doubled the recipe, and used larger than teaspoon sized balls, as mum always made them BIG. This resulted in two oven trays, with 34 halves, resulting in 17 biscuits when sandwiched together. You can make them any size you like.

I baked at 180C

Chelsea Buns - My family recipe journey

Until now I'd never made Chelsea buns before, I'd more than eaten my fair share of them. If you've followed my family recipe journey over the years, you'll know my Grandad was an amazing baker. He used to make these for me (even my own special batch, with no raisins, which as a child I didn't like in my buns)

These were easy to make and made the house smell amazing. They were enjoyed by guests. for morning tea - just as well, as the recipe made tons.

I've searched all of the family recipe books and I simply cannot find the recipe, so I used a recipe from our good friends at Chelsea (reprinted with their permission)

Emily's Chelsea Buns

Ingredients Dough
1kg high grade flour
20g salt
50g softened butter
100g Chelsea White Sugar
25g instant active dried yeast
1 small egg
600ml warm water or milk

Filling
50g melted butter
3 Tbsp Chelsea Soft Brown Sugar
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ cup sultanas

Icing
1 cup Chelsea Icing Sugar
Hot water

Raspberry essence to colour and flavour icing pink (my addition)

Method

To make dough:
Place all the dough ingredients into a large mixing bowl, then using a wooden spoon combine the ingredients together until a dough mass has formed.
Tip the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 10 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic in feel. Kneading is the trick here!
Lightly oil a bowl large enough to allow the dough to double in bulk, then put the dough in the bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Leave in a warmish place for 20 minutes.
Gently knock back the dough in the bowl by gently folding it back onto its self.
Cover again with plastic wrap and leave for 20 minutes then place into the refrigerator overnight.
To assemble buns:
Roll dough into large rectangle.
Use pastry brush to brush the melted butter on and then sprinkle brown sugar and cinnamon over pastry.
Sprinkle sultanas (that have been soaked for 5 minutes in boiling water) over.
Roll up dough and cut into 12 pieces. Bake at 190°C for 20-30 minutes.
Mix together icing sugar and water until a drizzling consistency is reached then drizzle over buns when cool.

Extra tips
As an alternative, you can also glaze with Chelsea Honey Maple Syrup.

Grandma Kiwicakes slice

Grandma Kiwicakes brought this tasty slice to work last week, I grabbed the recipe from her for you all. She's been making it for years, but she says she doesn't make it very often, as the dried fruit/nuts ingredients adds up and it's so tasty, it vanishes in a day, when there's a few people about.

Ingredients
1 cup flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup desiccated coconut
1tsp baking powder
125g melted butter
1 cup each of pecans, walnuts, dried aprciots and pitted prunes (you can change the fruit and nuts about to suit your self adding cranberries or other dried fruits, whatever you have is fine, you just need 4 cups total)
1 1/2 tins condensed milk (based on 395g tin)

Method
Preheat oven to 180C
Combine first four ingredients in a bowl and stir in melted butter. Press in to a swiss roll tin and bake for 12-15 mins until just golden.
Scatter the nuts and fruit evenly over the base, then drizzle the condensed milk evenly over. Bake for 25 minutes until golden. Cool before cutting.

Grandma Kiwicakes bakes again

As a child I was never too thrilled when Grandma Kiwicakes made "Chinese Chews" as I wasn't a fan of raisins or sultanas. Luckily I grew up and it's pretty tasty to me now. How times have changed, I very much doubt a recipe would be called Chinese chews these days, unless it was in fact Chinese. Looking through vintage cookbooks (somewhat of a hobby of mine) I've noticed there quite a number of recipes with highly inappropriate names for our modern times.

Have you got a vintage recipe with a funny name - I'd love to hear about it.

Passionfruit melting moments or Yo-yo's

Grandma Kiwicakes has been inspired to make passionfruit crunchies (although we always called them melting moments or yo-yo's) after my latest melting moment blog post. She used to make these every summer when I was a child

The recipe comes from this really old recipe book of household hints, Mum made them every summer from the late 1970s, however the book is much older than that.

The dough is super yum (just don't let Grandma Kiwicakes catch you stealing it)

The recipe in the book is only for the biscuits. Grandma Kiwicakes own twist is to make up a butter icing with passionfruit pulp added for the liquid and them squish em together once they've cooled to make a yo-yo.

Melting moments - every kiwi kids favourite

Recently I've decided my little boy is ready to learn to bake &; cook. His older sister is hugely passionate. In fact if you follow my blog regularly, you'll have seen many of her recipes, both sweet & savoury. My dad was a fantastic cook, so is my hubby. I think every person needs to learn, it stands you in great stead for later in life. I've joked to him he'll get the best girlfriend if he can cook, to which he replies "eww girls!" I'm also trying to as we go along, to teach my children about home made vs shop bought and knowing your ingredients. He's always loved to pitch in and help when anyone is baking or cooking. However now I've started an actual campaign to teach him things (which includes a recipe journal, the kind you hand write in, not the kind you place printed pages in) On the weekend we started with our Marmite toasties Then we moved on to Melting Moments. To keep him enthused, I wanted to start with easily achievable things. We'll move on to the souffle in 5-10 years when he's mastered the basics. For kids, the squashing with a fork is the best bit!.

Melting moments are a firm favourite with most kids, including my little man who is a picky eater. I have fond memories of them as a child and still love to indulge.

Ingredients

Biscuits

200g Butter, room temperature

½ tsp Vanilla Essence or vanilla bean paste

½ cup Icing Sugar

½ cup Cornflour,

1½ c Flour

Icing

75g Butter, softened

1½ c Icing Sugar

A little hot water

Method

Preheat the oven to 160ºC. Line a baking tray with baking paper.

Place all ingredients in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse until just combined. Remove lid and scrape sides. Continue to pulse until the dough forms a ball.

Roll a small amount of the biscuit mixture into balls (about the size of a walnut)  and place them on the prepared baking trays.

Use a fork to flatten and mark the top of each biscuit.

Bake the biscuits in the preheated oven for aprx 12 minutes until lightly golden.

Leave the biscuits to cool on the tray.

To make the icing, place the butter and icing sugar in a bowl. Add 1 tbsp hot water at a time until a firm spreadable consistency is reached. When the biscuits are cold, spread the icing on one biscuit and press another biscuit on top of it.
Makes 12 aprx (24 halves)

A nice seasonal twist is to add passionfruit pulp instead of hot water (we made a few of those for Daddy on the right)

Marmite cheese toasties - a blast from my childhood past

These simple but tasty kids snacks are a blast from my childhood past. My mum (aka Grandma Kiwicakes) used to make them over the weekend for us and store some in an airtight container for school lunchboxes during the week

And the recipe couldn't be simpler. So much so I hesitate to call it a recipe. Simply toast your bread, spread with Marmite and add grated cheese sparingly (too much makes them soggy)

Cut in to soldiers before baking at 180C until the cheese is bubbly. Remove and allow to cool. At this stage they seem to grow legs and walk off the tray whilst your back is turned. If you can mange to cool any completely, they will keep in an airtight container for a few days.

My family recipe journey - Our Family Christmas Trifle

It seems Christmas 2013 I became the official trifle maker for my family. Grandma Kiwicakes rues the day she ever discovered this trifle in a magazine back in about 1980, it's now the only trifle my brother and I ever want. We deem it "Our family trifle". Poor Grandma Kiwicakes cannot make any other, unless she makes this one too (she hankers after her own mothers trifle which had cherry jelly in it). I've actually tried a few different trifles in my time. My mother in laws trifle is in fact very nice, but as she opts for pineapple, I think of it as pineapple pudding not trifle.

I'm not sure why my brother and I are so opinionated about our trifle being changed, we don't have problems trying different versions of other foods. Maybe it's because we only ever had it once a year on Christmas day. And of course Boxing Day trifle tastes even better. The recipe is in fact so simple, many would struggle to see what we find so attractive about it.

Here's my trifle from Christmas Day 2013. Mum always put a crushed Cadbury Flake bar on top. I see now, looking at her little old recipe book the original had apricot halves on top. It's been made in this same etched crystal bowl every year for the last 30+ years.

Ingredients

1 Swiss jam roll

1 can apricots halves in juice

2 Tbsp Sherry or Brandy

4 Tbsp custard powder

1 pint milk (600ml)

2 dessert spoons of Caster Sugar (I prefer Chelsea)

To decorate

Whipped cream

1 Cadbury Flake bar

Slice swiss roll & arrange in dish. Sprinkle with sherry and some of the juice from apricots. Arrange the apricots over the top of the swiss roll. Make custard according to directions from brand. Cool slightly, then pour over fruit & swiss roll. When cool cover with whipped cream and crumble a flake bar over the top.

Mini Pavlovas for Grandma Kiwicakes

I have a shocking secret to reveal, I had never made pavlova before this week, it's one of those things Grandma Kiwicakes is famous for, so I've never felt the need. My recipe is Grandma Kiwicakes own recipe scaled up to make 8 mini pavlovas (and altered just a wee bit). When served they fit perfectly on a bread and butter plate

Ingredients

6 egg whites

2 cups caster sugar (I like Chelsea)

1 heaped tablespoon of cornflour

1 Tbsp of vinegar, I use white, but malt works well too.

Vanilla essence (or other flavour you may refer)

4 Tablespoons cold water

Preheat oven to 180C degrees. Place all ingredients in your stand cake mixer, turn on medium speed and leave to mix for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, the mixture should have lovely stiff peaks, if your turn the mixer whisk upside down, the peaks should hold in place.

To make pavlovas of a similar size, I draw 8x 10cm circles on the back side of baking paper (you don't want pen transferring on to your pavlovas). Using a large piping bag without a nozzle fitted pipe your meringue mixture so that your circles are as tall as they are wide (they will flatten and widen as they bake). Don't put them too close together, or they will spread and join together when baking.

When you place your pavlovas in the oven, be careful not to slam the door, immediately drop your temperature down to 120C degrees. Bake for 1 hour 15 minutes. Once time is up, turn the oven off, but leave pavlovas in the oven until cool. (If you want to bake as one large pavlova, bake for 3 hours, then leave in oven switched off until cool)

These can be baked ahead of time, as once stored in an airtight container they will keep for at least 3 days.

I served with whipped cream and an edible pineapple flower. See how to make edible pineapple flowers here

Grandma Kiwicakes makes Black Bun for Hogmanay

Grandma Kiwicakes has been busy, she's made Black Bun for Hogmanay (the Scottish word for New Years Eve) When I was growing up my Grandad made dumpling for Christmas and Black Bun for Hogmanay. It needs a little time to improve (in the same manner a Christmas cake does), hence it's made some weeks before.

Usually we make it in one square cake tin. See my earlier post here for recipe and full size version  However this year as my older brother is overseas, Grandma Kiwicakes made them in loaf tins, so she could post one to him. It should be arriving in the mail in the USA right about now.

My family recipe journey - Scottish Dumpling

This recipe for dumpling was my great granny Agnes Luke's. My grandad made it on high days and holidays. He never had a fail that I knew of (unless you count the time my granny bleached his pudding cloth to clean it and the smell of bleach ruined the dumpling). Both my grandad Donald and his little brother Lachie made these - they were an institution during my childhood. My mum (aka Grandma Kiwicake's) tried and failed at the recipe, if you don't get the flouring right, water gets in and ruins it. As I've mentioned previously in my family recipe journey blog posts, I sure do wish I paid a little more attention to grandad's recipes at the time, of course we take it for granted our loved ones will be around for ever, grandad passed away when I was a teenager. However during this recipe so many memories came flooding back about how grandad used to do things, with added input from mum, we finally cracked it.

Recipe (from my original written copy)

1lb flour

3/4 sugar

3/4lb sultanas

7ozs shreddo

1/2 tablespoon syrup

2 teaspoon mixed spice

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoon cream of tartar

1 teaspoon salt

2 1/2 tablespoons treacle

Mix all dry ingredients together. Add a little milk to mix. Do not make the mixture too soft. Add treacle and syrup Put your cloth (pudding) through hot water. Wring it out. Rub flour over the cloth (as below photo). 

Grandma Kiwicakes, did an online search and found with the advent of the microwave, people were steaming miniature puddings in a microwave oven bag (we tried a tiny one, on the day, while making our big one (it worked well, but not as great as the original method, it does save 2.5 hours cooking time though)

To cook large pudding place on plate in the bottom of a pot of water and boil for 2.5 hours (water must boil entire time). I tied the top of pudding cloth to a wooden spoon stretched across the top of the pot, to keep it upright.

When untied from the pudding cloth, it looks a pasty white colour from the flour, this is normal, sprinkle with brown sugar.

As it dries, it gradually gets darker in colour

Until eventually it is the colour I remember when the skin dries (like that of tanned leather)

It almost has a crust when cut.

Dumpling is best served warm, we ate it with either cream, or custard, or even a special brandy butter Grandma Kiwicake's would whip up. However she was also well known for frying it the following day and eating it with black pudding.

Scottish Shortbread - by Grandma Kiwicake's

Grandma Kiwicakes has been busy in the kitchen, with her vintage cookie stamps. She has been using my Grandad's recipe (her daddy). If you want his recipe you can get it from my earlier post here 

My children adore it when Grandma bakes shortbread with them. What traditions do your parents do with their grandkids or kids?

Sugar mice from my childhood

I often find, a smell, a sight or a taste has the ability to transport me back to my childhood. Recently I tried some of the new Regalice white chocolate fondant and in my mind I was right back with these mice. 

I immediately telephoned Grandma Kiwicakes and asked her to find the promotional pamphlet for making these mice (it came with the tins of condensed milk) - shock horror it could not be found. But thanks to the wonder that is the online community and the responses I received to my facebook plea for the recipe, I was able to make these wee fellas. 

Special thanks go to Trish Woods-Curle, who took the trouble to search scan and email the brochure through. Trish's version at a guess, would be the copy after mine (mine was printed on white or cream paper with pink accents and black writing, prior to colour photography being the norm, it would have been printed in the late 1970s or 1980 - if anyone has that version I'd still love to see it). Trish tells me her Mum wouldn't let her make them. Funny that, Grandma Kiwicakes (my Mum) would never let us make them either, it was my Granny, who let my older brother & I make them during school holiday visits. Shockingly I can also add, my grandparents also let us have sugar or condensed milk on toast (they have a lot to answer for, for my sweet tooth!). I'm not surprised Grandma Kiwicakes didn't let us make them, as a parent I'm not sure I'd let the kids eat a bag of icing sugar and 1/2 tin of condensed milk for just 4 mice.

I made them just the way we did as kids, the recipe is for peppermint mice. However we only ever made the white ones peppermint and the pink ones were left plain. We also always used slivered almonds for ears, pink cachous for the nose and silver for the eyes. Granny always seemed to have a box of Black Knight licorice on hand and we cut a long flat strip up for tails and whiskers. I had forgotten how the resulting icing spread slightly before it properly dries, making the mice a little wider than when they are modelled (but it all came racing back to me). 

As an adult, I would struggle to eat a pink mouse, although a wee piece was nice for old times sake, I had to chase it down with a piece of peppermint mouse, to take away the cloying sweetness.

The original recipe, click to enlarge & print.

We always used licorice for tails, this recipe calls for string - but until I can see a copy of my original old recipe, I don't know if the licorice was something Granny came up with.

I've thoroughly enjoyed my "mice" memories, as during the time I sourced this recipe and tried it out, I've thought an awful lot about the baking I did with my grandparents, as well as the time I spent with them in Turangi, during my school holidays.

A note to those considering making this icing, it's not overly suited to modelling, it spreads before setting and dries with almost a wrinkly crust - great for elephants skin wrinkles though)

I hope you've enjoyed my trip down memory lane. Does tasting or smelling something have the ability to transport you down memory lane, if so what?

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My family recipe journey - New Years Black Bun

It has been a while since Grandma Kiwicakes & I tackled another recipe in our Family Recipe Journey. With New Years day fast approaching, we thought it a good idea to tackle Black Bun. I never ate this as a child - I can kinda see why, it wouldn't be to most kids tastes, but I do remember the hype surrounding it, when Grandma Kiwicakes' great aunt Jessie sent it from Scotland each year. The finished product is so darn heavy, the postage must have cost a fortune. When the Black Bun arrived, my Granny would never let anyone even taste a crumb until New Years day. So by the time New Years Day rolled around, everyone was desperate for a piece.

Black Bun uses a large quantity of dried fruit and is similar in some ways to a Christmas cake

At this stage once drenched in Brandy, the fruit itself is delicious.

The pastry calls for margarine, but Grandma Kiwicakes recollection of the margarine used in the 1950s, when she was in Scotland (prior to coming to NZ), was that it was not like NZ margarine. So we decided to use the butter flavour Crisco.

The entire Black Bun is encased in pastry, on the bottom, all 4 sides & the top.

Your fold the side walls of the pastry down, so when the top goes on, it helps form a good seal.

The edges need to be pressed with a fork around the circumference, pricked across the entire top and 5 skewer holes should be poked in, to let the steam escape.

We baked ours, in a 9'' diameter square cake pan, that was 80mm deep.

Black Bun

Pastry Ingredients

3/4 lb flour

pinch of salt

4oz butter

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 egg (beaten)

Filling Ingredients

1 lb flour

1/2 lb castor sugar

2lb muscatel

2lb cleaned currants

6oz almonds

2oz candied peel

1/2 tsp black pepper

1/2 oz jamaican pepper (this is allspice)

1/2oz ground ginger

1/2 oz cinnamon

1 tsp cream of tartar

3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/2 pint milk (300ml)

1 tbsp brandy or sherry

beaten egg as required

To make pastry. Sift flour & salt. Rub in butter or margarine. Stir in baking powder & enough beaten egg to form dough (like shortcrust). Roll out pastry to line your cake tin.

To make filling. Sift flour, stir in sugars. Prepare fruit (chop & stone raisins if reqd). Stir in fruits & peel & spices, add cream of tartar & baking powder. Stir in milk & brnady. Pack in to prepared cake tin. Level the mixture, fold down side walls of pastry over top of filling. Cover with pastry lid. Make 4 or 5 holes with a skewer, right to bottom of tin. Prick all over lid with a fork, and crimp edges around circumference. Brush top with beaten egg. Bake in moderate overn 350f for 3 hours. Keep for at least 10 days before cutting.