My Recipe Collection

Hearty beef casserole

Alison Holst's


750g beef stewing steak
2 sliced onions
2 sliced carrots
2 sliced celery
1 can chopped tomatoes
1 tsp oregano
1tsp soy sauce
2T sherry
1tsp instant beef stock
1Tbsp brown sugar

Brown the meat. Dump everything in the slow cooker

Today is my DD's 1st birthday. We bought her a small chocolate mud cake from the cake kitchen and the cake was just PERFECT!!. There is a slice left in the fridge and I am trying to resist myself from polishing it off. MUch better than the cheesecake shop's mud cake IMO.

So I was browsing around, looking for a good recipe to try.

What I like about the cake kitchen's chocolate mud cake are :


It is a rich chocolatey cake
The cake is moist and just melt in your mouth
It is not too sweet, just nice
It is dense and not spongey


I found a few recipes on TNN. Will try and give it a go sometimes.


Annabel Langbein's One Step Chocolate Cake


Ingredients:

2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 cup milk or unsweetened yoghurt
¾ cup premium quality cocoa powder
200g (7oz) butter, softened
2 tsp baking soda
1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
¼ tsp salt
3 cups self-raising flour
1 cup boiling hot coffee

Optional ganache topping:

250g (8oz) chocolate
1 cup cream

Method:

Heat oven to 160 degrees C (375 F) and line a 30cm (12 inch) round tin with baking paper.

Place all ingredients in the bowl of a food processor and blitz until combined (or place ingredients in a mixing bowl and beat with an electric beater).

Pour mixture into prepared tin and smooth the top.

Bake for 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool in tin.

Place in a sealed container or freeze if not using at once.

To make ganache, melt chocolate and cream over low heat in a pot or microwave for 1½-2 minutes, stirring every 30 seconds until chocolate is fully melted and mixture is creamy. Either drizzle from a spoon over cake or cool ganache until it is firm enough to spread and cover cake

Chocolate cake (make a huge cake -suitable for birthday cake, can be halved)

2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 cup yoghurt
3/4 cup cocoa
200g butter '
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
3 cups self raising flour
1 cup coffee (1tsp instant in water)


Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl, then melt the butter, add eggs and yoghurt then mix all together. Bake @ 160 for 1 hour


Crazy Chocolate Cake (Dairy and egg free -apparently moist and yummy)

2C flour
1.5 C sugar
1C cocoa
1/4 t salt
1t b.powder
1t b.soda


Mix dry ingred together then add:

1/2c white vinegar
1/2 c oil
2 c coldwater
1.5t vanilla essence

It is a runny mixture!
40min at 180 Eggless and dairy free.


CHOCOLATE MUD CAKE (vegan)

125g (4 ounces) soft margarine
1 cup castor sugar (or you can use a sugar alternative if preferred)
1 teaspoon (5ml) vanilla essence
1/2 cup cocoa
1/2 cup hot water
2 teaspoons (10ml) fresh lemon juice
1 cup soya milk
1 3/4 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1. Cream margarine, sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy. Blend the cocoa in the hot water and gradually add to the marg/sugar mixture.
2. add the lemon juice to the milk to sour it.
3. Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and add it to the creamed mixture alternately with the soured milk. Mix thoroughly.
4. spoon the cake mixture into greased and floured 8" cake pan and bake in a moderate oven (180 deg. C) for 30-40 minutes or until the top springs back when lightly pressed.

I remember fondly my favourite baked american style cheesecake from Sainsbury's. I haven't been able to find anything like that since.

From the picture, this recipe looks pretty similar. SO it is on my to do list.I was browsing the magazine on my night shift and found this recipe. It was aaaagessssss ago, can't remember the name of the mag.

serves 12-16

200g sweet shortcrust pastry
500g cream cheese (room temp)
1C sugar
1C sour cream
2t vanilla extract
4 large eggs
1/4C cream -lightly whipped

1) Pre heat oven to 180C. Grease a 22cm springform cake tin

2) Roll out pastry to 4mm thick and use to line base of tine

3) Prick pastry all over, then chill well. Bake for 10 mins, remove to cool

4) Reduce the oven heat to 150C

5) In a bowl, beat the cream cheese and sugar untill smooth and fluffy. Add sour cream and vanilla and beat gently to combine

6) Gently beat in the flour, then beat in eggs one at a time ( be careful not to overbeat at this stage)

7) Pour the cheesecake mixture over pastry base. Bake for one hour and 15 mins or untill filling is just set. Cool in the tin before carefully removing

8) Spread whipped cream over the surface of the cake to decorate. SLice to serve

Tip- Use a hot, slightly wet knife to cleanly slice cheesecakes

I was tidying up our messy drawer yesterday and found this recipe on a piece of scrap paper, must be from the last time I made this recipe during Eid. I got this recipe from CARI. If I remember it correctly, the poster said she got this recipe from Majalah RASA. What I like about the recipe is the corflakes turns out crunchy. Must use good quality cornflakes like Kellogs though. One thing I found, the batch of cookies that I made using butter bought in New Zealand is more buttery, too buttery in fact.I made the cookies when we were living in Dublin, and they were fine. So I must try and use 50/50, margarine and butter and see if I can tone down the buttery taste a bit.


180g flour
150g butter
80g icing sugar
50g cornflour
1 egg yolk
80g cornflakes -broken into small pieces -I use my pestle & mortar to do the job
1/2t baking powder

Cream butter and sugar
Add egg yolk, continue to beat the mixture
Add cornflour
Then add the flour, small amount at a time

I shaped the dough mixture into tiny balls and put them in paper cups, but you can do it anyway you like

Baked in preheated oven.

I can't remember how hot the oven should be, but the same as baking other raya goodies :)

I think sticky toffee/date pudding is the same thing. It's not one of my fav, in fact I think I don't like it. But it is my DH's fav. I remember when we lived in the UK, he will buy the ready made one everytime we went grocery shopping.

We had 2 kilos (yes, TWO kilos) of dates that somebody had kindly brought to our house when we have our 'open house'

So I should try and make the pudding one day to use up the dates.

Original recipe by Simon Holst, got the recipe from here


For 6 individual (or one 23cm square) pudding/s:


1 cup (about 175g) pitted dates, chopped
1 cup hot water
50g butter
1 cup self-raising flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp mixed spice
3/4 cup lightly packed brown sugar
2 large (size 7) eggs


Place the roughly chopped dates in a medium-sized microwave bowl. Cover with the water then microwave on high power (100%) for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in the butter, then set aside to cool.

Sift the flour, baking soda and spices into another medium bowl, then stir in the brown sugar. Add the eggs to the date mixture, stir until well combined, then fold this into the dry ingredients.
Divide the mixture between 6 large non-stick sprayed or oiled muffin pans, or pour it into a prepared 23cm square cake tin. Cover muffin tins with foil, then place in a roasting pan containing 2cm of boiling water. Bake at 180°C (or 170°C fan-bake) for 25-30 minutes, until puddings are firm when pressed in the centres. Leave to stand for 5 minutes before removing from pans. (Bake the large pudding uncovered for 30 minutes or until centre is firm when pressed.)


Serve warm topped with the sauce below.


Butterscotch Sauce

3/4 cup sour cream
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoon orange liqueur or grated rind of 1/2 an orange


Combine all ingredients and heat until sugar dissolves. (For a thicker sauce, simmer, stirring frequently, for 5-10 minutes.)


Note: Each large muffin tin holds about 1 cup of mixture. Use other containers, like ramekins, if preferred.

We haven't done our groceries shopping for weeks now, I am running out of stuff to cook, so today I decided to make some kheema. My DS loves mopping up the curry with nan bread, but we've eaten lots of 'yeasty' based food lately, so I thought I'd make some puris instead.

Both recipes are from my Classic 1000 recipes -my indian food bible :)

Puri (makes 8)

2C plain flour
salt
water

mix all the ingredients,knead until not sticky. Divide the dough into 8 small balls. Then roll each ball into thin circles.Fry in hot oil, one at a time.I like to let the dough rest for a bit before I roll the puri. 1/2 hr should sufficed. I found that it is much easier to roll the dough if I let it rest for a bit. It is best eaten straight away


Potato kheema matar (serves 4)

A)
2T oil

B)
1 onion
4 cloves garlic
1/2 inch ginger
1 green chilli (more if you want yours spicy)

C)
1/2t turmeric
1t ground coriander
1t ground cumin
1t garam masala
900g mince (lamb/beef)
3 potatoes -diced
salt
1 tomato-diced
225g peas
2T fresh coriander




The original recipe says ingredients B should be finely chopped, but the lazy me just dry processed everything in my food processor :)

Heat the oil, fry ingredients B till all is browned

Add ingredients C, fry for 1 min.

Add meat, salt & tomato

Cover and simmer for 20mins

Add water if necessary

Stir in peas & coriander, simmer for 5 mins

Serve

I didn't put the peas because my DH and kids didn't like it. Today I added some grated courgette because I have some left over in the fridge that needs to be used up, so you could add other veges if you like, just experiment and see what will work

I normally buy the sachet and use the whole sachet, but this recipe calls for just 2T, just takes slightly longer to finish as there is less starter there


1 & 1/3 cup full fat milk powder ( i havent had luck using skim milk)
1/3 cup sugar ( optional)
tsp vanilla (optional)
2T yogurt mix (powder)


just add water and make as you would with a whole pack of easi**. Keep the left over easi** in the fridge or freezer. As a yoghart starter you can freeze some of your yoghart in icecubes and use 2 or 3 each time you make a new batch of yoghart instead of easi** starter.

I was browsing CARI today and found an old recipe of mine, I've baked a lot of this brownie since posting the recipe. LOve it!

by:1mas2ra (CARI) -Chewy gooey choc brownies

750g Fruit loaf:

290mls warm/hot water
2T oil 1t salt
2T brown sugar
470g flour
2 t cinnamon
3t yeast

Add 3/4 cup mixed fruit (i just use sultanas) just after yeast has been mixed in (5mins).

Bread maker (BM):750g fruit/sweet setting





50/50 loaf:

400mls warm/hot water
2T oil
2t salt
2T sugar
300g white flour
300g wholemeal flour
20g kibbled rye
3t yeast

BM-1kg Wheat setting





Hot cross buns

240mls hot water
2T brown sugar
1/2t salt
1T oil
1 egg
500g flour
1T cinnamon
3/4C mixed fruit
1T yeast Dough setting.

Shape into 12, rise for 1+hrs, put crosses on top made with flour/water mix and bake at 180deg till golden.





Oatmeal bread

290mls warm/hot water
1/4 cup honey
2T oil
480g white flour
200g rolled oats
1 1/2t salt
2 3/4t yeast

Sweet setting, 750g loaf.





Pizza dough:

4tsp yeast
450g white flour
1tsp sugar
2Tbsp olive oil
1tsp salt 220ml water

Put all ingredients into breadmaker, set to dough cycle. Once finished, place in a greased bowl in the fridge to rest. Shape dough (makes 2 pizzas), rest at room temperature a further 10 mins.

Add toppings, bake 220 dgrs C 15-20 mins It does make 2 HUGE pizza's but you can halve the amounts