St Patrick's day chip n dip

The idea for this chip n dip started with firstly a need to create something for St Patrick's day

And secondly because our basil plant was reaching the end of the road, as it always does in summer - which always means it's pesto making time. (pesto recipe at bottom of blog post)

I found these great Farrah's Garden spinach wraps to make my own chips using a little mini shamrock cookie cutter

Simply cut the little shamrocks from the wraps. I got 24 per wrap

Spray with cooking spray or oil and shake over garlic salt, or just salt if you prefer. Bake 7 minutes at 180C, you do need to set a timer and watch them, they burn very easily.

The centrepiece for my chip n dip bowl, was a refreshing pesto sour cream. To get a pesto shamrock follow these simple steps.

Place your cookie cutter in the centre of your pesto sour cream.

Pack with pesto. Lift off. Chill immediately to solidify your shape.

A heaping great spoonful of pesto is mixed in to sour cream to create this super tasty dip. I mix in the container, so I can then spoon in to my clean bowl

To make my pesto, I pack my food processor bowl with basil leaves, add 2 cloves of crushed garlic along with the juice of 1 lemon (qty's need not be exact). Along with a 100g pack of parmesan and a good couple of handfuls of toasted nuts (pine nuts or walnuts whatever you have is fine). I turn my food processor on and down the shoot drizzle olive oil - I never use a fixed amount, just until the consistency looks right 

If ever there was a time to break out the retro "chip n dip" bowl, this would be it. Pile it up with your home made tortilla chips and you're ready to party. My hungry hordes declared these "A taste sensation!"

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.

Sweet Cream Cheese Button Cookies

Cream Cheese Button Cookies 

Ingredients

100g butter softened

100g cream cheese softened

1C white sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

3 C flour

1 tsp baking powder

gel food colourings

In a bowl cream butter, cream cheese and sugar until fluffy. Add egg and vanilla, mix until smooth.

Add dry ingredients to the creamed mixture. Divide dough in to your required number of colours and tint each batch of dough with colour of your choice (it must be gel paste colourings). 

Chill dough in fridge at least 2 hours. The dough become soft quickly. I rolled my dough out on cook-a sheets and cut chilled dough in to buttons, using 2  round circle cutters. use the next size down circle to imprint the round indentation. I used a tip 3 piping nozzle to imprint the button holes. 

Preheat oven 180C. Bake 10 minutes. Chill completed cookie designs for 5-10 mins before baking. This helps to ensure the cookies don't spread.

I printed the cards on the top of my cookie bags, using this wonderful free printable from the lovely ladies at  On To Baby blog. You can change the colours to suit your own theme and there's other great free button printables for party invites, table cards &  much more. The bags are our size 2 cello bags

The Rocky Road to Easter - from Kiwicakes test kitchen

Today's treat is moreish Marshmallow Rocky Road. It has been Easter-shaped and packaged in clear bags set off with these limencello yellow styling tags. 

The star of the show in this simple recipie is limited edition marshmallow flavoured white candy melts. They are actually white! You could use regular white chocolate in its place, but it always has a creamier yellowish tone.

Once your 500g of candy melts have been melted over a double-boiler, let cool slightly before incorporating 200g mini marshmallows. Press into a lined sponge roll tin so the rocky road is between 1 and 2cm high then smooth the top. 

Sprinkle liberally with Yellow edible glitter for a real Easter feel. Do this while the mixture is still warm. Then transfer to the fridge briefly to set the chocolate.

Season your shaped cutters for easy release by wiping a little decorating cream around the inside. Here I am using the duck, basket, bunny and carrot cutters from the Easter Egg Cannister set of 10 shapes. Simply press down to create the desired shapes.

Here you can see how effective the really white white candy melts are against the coloured mallows and yellow edible glitter. How simple!

Here is a rocky road ducky packaged up ready for Easter giving. We also stock the cute little chicks pictured to accompany your Easter treats.

Skittles infused Cupcakes

Last year you may recall I made skittles infused vodka. I still have a heap of it I haven't used, so I decided to try skittle cupcakes, as I had plenty of candy, too. I used a regular vanilla cake mix, to which I removed 1/3 cup of water and replaced with 1/3 cup of skittle infused vodka (the alcohol actually bakes out, leaving behind the skittle flavour - it's like using an extract really, so safe for kids to eat).

I tested baking with both whole skittles and skittles cut in half.

The skittles that were cut in half were the most successful in the baked cupcakes. The whole skittles made a big gooey mess, whereas the half skittles made a nice tasty addition when eating the cupcake.

I like the simplicity topped with a single skittle. To my buttercream icing, I added 1Tbsp of skittle infused vodka (replace other liquid you'd normally add). The icing doesn't taste of alcohol, and 1 Tbsp over an entire batch of icing is such a small amount, so the kids can eat this icing, too. Just make sure to put the vodka back on the top shelf, as it's a very enticing colour for kids. 

You can find the circus cupcake papers here.

Amaretto liqueur with Amaretti cookie ice cream

This ice cream, which is more like a gelato, was made for Grandma Kiwicakes birthday. I adore Amaretti cookies, you can find them at most good delis. However, here in Whangarei we can usually only get them at Christmas time when our supermarket gets them in. I always grab some.

This year I decided I wanted to make something with them. I received an ice cream maker for Christmas so this seemed an obvious choice. I started researching Amaretti ice cream recipes, I didn't find anything that suited my needs, so I decided to create my own.

The recipe looks a little tricky, though no part on its own is hard, you just need the luxury of a little time. For me it was the perfect Sunday afternoon activity.

Ingredients:

4 cups of milk

1tsp vanilla bean paste

1/4c sugar

6 egg yolks

pinch of slat

2 Tbsp Amaretto liqueur

12 Amaretti cookies (this fills 1/2 cup when crushed)

Make sure your ice cream bowl has been in the freezer for at least 24 hours. Then you need to cook your custard base. In a saucepan add your milk and vanilla bean paste, heat on medium-to-low for a few minutes. It should be hot, but not simmering.

In the mean time you can whisk together your sugar and egg yolk. The yolks should become paler in colour. It usually takes about 2 minutes.

Remove your milk mixture from the heat. Take 1/2 cup of milk mixture and add this hot milk to your egg mixture, whisking quickly the whole time until all the hot milk has been added to your eggs.

Return everything to the saucepan and heat again on medium to low until it thickens in to a nice custard. Stir every now and then to ensure it's not catching or burning. Aprx 15 mins.

Once your custard has thickened, remove it from the heat and strain through a sieve. Allow to cool before adding a pinch of salt and Amaretto liqueur. Refrigerate to chill for a couple of hours. (You cannot put hot mixture in your ice cream maker, it will not work).

Add your chilled custard to your icecream maker and follow the instructions according your manufacturer. My ice cream maker is a Cuisinart brand, my ice cream took 20 mins to churn.

When there is 5 minutes left to go on your timer, add the crushed Amaretti cookies.

When it's finished churning, place in a container and freeze overnight. Serve with crushed Amaretti cookies. You need to remove this from the freezer 5-10 minutes before you want to scoop it, it sets rock hard, so cannot be scooped straight from the freezer.

Rocky Road - with freeze dried strawberries & raspberries

This Rocky Road could not be simpler and it tastes better than any Rocky Road I've ever tried. In a bowl simply place one bag of mini marshmallows (if you buy the gluten free ones, this entire recipe will be gluten free). Add nuts of your choice, I used two handfuls of walnut pieces. I used half a bag of Freeze dried strawberry slices or raspberries per batch. My silicone baking pan is aprx 28x18cm but any size will do. Melt 500g of dark or milk chocolate over a double boiler and stir through your dry mixture.

Allow to cool at room temperature. I reserved some of the prettier slices of freeze dried strawberry for the top of my strawberry batch, I placed them on top before the chocolate set. For my raspberry batch (below), I used some of the crumbled pieces from the bottom of the packet, to sprinkle over the top.

For my strawberry batch I sprinkled over edible gold glitter.

All packaged up ready to give as gifts for Christmas, but they would make lovely gifts all year round.

Popcorn Cluster Cups - from Kiwicakes test kitchen

This sweet popcorn is chewy and delicious! Start by popping a bag of popcorn and crushing 200g of candy canes or your favourite boiled sweets.

Cut 1-2 lengths of marshmallow rope into pieces (the more you use the yummier it is!) Microwave in short bursts until it goes gooey and inflated as below. Mix to coat popcorn and candy mix before it hardens.

Serve in cutesy pink cupcake papers and decorate with further lengths of marshmallow rope.

Another popcorn option is to go savoury and festive. Simply dry roast 3 teaspoons each of ground cinnamon, cumin and paprika in a warm pan. Add 6T butter and stir to melt together then pour over a bag of pre-popped microwave popcorn and stir to coat.

This is a moreish movie snack and goes nicely with a chilled beer!

Toffee-style popcorn looks gorgeous for Christmas when presented in sleigh cupcake papers and adorned with candy canes. Over a bag of microwave popcorn sprinkle 10-12 crushed candy canes and 150g of your favourite melted nut brittle/bark/toffee bar. Stir quickly to combine. Break the toffee'd popcorn into chunks to serve. The pepperminty candy canes and chopped nuts make this popcorn really addictive.

Fruit cake - the ultimate according to my tasters

I've made a few fruit cakes in my time, but I've never found THE RECIPE until now. Thanks goes to the lovely Elaine for passing it on to me. Both my Mother in law and Grandma Kiwicakes have declared it one of the nicest they've ever eaten. And I quite like it myself, too.

I recently made some for a fundraising bake sale. I made over ten different items in one afternoon, so these had to be decorated simply &;.with the help of Christmas plunger cutters, pre-coloured Satin Ice and a little glitter - they were decorated in about ten minutes each. I decided to go with non-traditional colours to jazz up the bake sale table.

This recipe is very simple and has so far cooked beautifully every time I've used it. The only bother I find is waiting for the simmered fruit cake mix to cool. To speed this up, I find using a large frypan instead of a saucepan helps. Although, if you've planned well enough in advance this part can be done the day before.

Ingredients:
1.2kg fruit mix
250g butter
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp mixed spice
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups water
1 Tbsp golden syrup
1 tsp baking soda

Simmer all together for 10 minutes, then allow to cool (can leave overnight). 

Add
3 eggs well beaten
3 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
essence of brandy, rum, lemon or almond (or a mix of all of them)

Bake at 150C 1-2 hours (until skewer comes out clean)

This mix makes one very deep 8'' cake. Or 2.5-3'' deep 9/10'' cake. Or having tested it out for small cakes, I was also able to get from one batch 1x each 4'', 5''& 6'' - all baked at 3'' high.

As these were for a bake sale, I made one with marzipan and one without, to suit varying tastes. Whether you use marzipan or not, it is still important to fill the holes where fruit has shrunk away, so the surface of your fondant layer stays nice and flat on your finished cake.

I used the snowflake plunger cutter from this set, cut from white fondant Satin Ice to make a cut-out for the top of the cake.

The cake is covered in pastel green Satin Ice fondant and sprinkled with hologram glitter. A bead mould is a very quick way to make a fondant border to finish a cake. I prefer this to ribbon, as it's quicker to attach to a cake and doesn't need removed prior to cutting the cake.

I used the bauble plunger cutter from this set, cut from white fondant Satin Ice to make a cut-out for the top of the cake.

The cake is covered in pink Satin Ice fondant and sprinkled with hologram glitter.

Apparently the cakes, along with the other goodies I made for the bake sale, sold very quickly. I hope they enjoyed my cakes.