Honey Lemon Friands & a Winner

Firstly, the winner of that delicious recipe book is.......

Ellen

Ellen Arthur said...

my favourite place to go for sweet recipes is to call my mum (aunty Chris) and to get the old family favourites. and of course I loooove food blogs, always a winner.

Now straight into the recipe. These little beauties are so moist and moorish, and sticky sweet.

Honey Lemon Friands

Ingredients

6 Egg whites

185gm Butter, melted

2tbs Honey

Zest from 1 lemon

1C Almond meal

1 1/2C Icing sugar

1/2C Plain flour

Honey Syrup

2tbs Honey

1tbs Water

Juice from 1 lemon

Assembly

• Preheat the oven to 160 degrees celsius. Grease moulds with a little butter.
• Place egg whites in a medium bowl; whisk lightly with a fork until combined.
• Over a low heat, add the butter, honey, lemon zest and stir until the butter is melted. Remove from the heat and set aside until room temperature.
• Add the butter mixture, almond meal, sifted icing sugar and flour and stir until combined.
• Fill the moulds and bake for about 12-20 minutes (depending on the size of your mould). Let the friands stand for about 5 minutes before turning onto a rack
• Honey Syrup: Combine the honey & water in a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Remove the pan from the head and stir in the lemon juice. Allow to cool.
• Drizzle the syrup over the friands.

Free biscuits!

Gluten free and dairy free that is. No good for nut allergies though.

These biscuits are sweet and satisfying. I was not compelled to secretly eat the whole batch. I think there were two reasons for this (1) there were so many even I could see any effort would have been futile (2) after I ate one I was curiously satisfied. This was a disturbing discovery so I ate another one to test my response and the result was the same. I was thus left too conclude that gluten free really does fill you up better than gluten infused treats.
Test it out for yourself.

3 eggs

1 1/3 cup caster sugar (295g)

4 cups almond meal (500g)

1/2 - 1 teaspoon almond essence

1 cup pure icing sugar (160g)

• Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius


• Using and electric mixer beat eggs and suga together until thick and pale. Fold in almond meal and essence until well combined. Chill for 30 minutes.


• Roll mixture into walnut sized balls. Roll balls in icing sugar. Place on lined baking tray and use fingers to flatten slightly.
• Bake for 12-14 minutes, until pale golden.
• Cool before serving.

NB/ You can use vanilla essence, rosewater or coconut essence

Too easy.

O.M.G. ........ Party in my mouth

So it would seem that the "it" dessert at the moment are French Macaroons. They're in every foodie magazine I seem to open or on just about every blog I read.

Move over cupcakes, there's a new fad in town and I'm hitching my wagon to it.

So again, using my Bookclub girls as my taste testers, I cooked up a batch of chocolate ones thanks to this months Women's Weekly magazine.

VOTE 1 for Chocolate French Macaroons ..... these guys will change your life, well probably not but your tastebuds will be forever in your debt.

How do I describe them......well, it's like taking chocolate mousse and encasing it in a hard, sugary shell (like the sugary shells that coat M&M's).......chocolate lovers paradise, PERFECTION.

These guys will impress anyone, and even better, they are so easy to make.

So give them a go, add them to your Easter menu, I know you'll thank me for it.

Chocolate French Macaroons

Ingredients

3 Egg whites, these need to be at room temperature

1/4C Caster sugar

1 1/4C Icing sugar

3/4C Almond meal

1/4C Cocoa Powder

Dark Chocolate Ganache

1/4C Cream

150gm Dark eating chocolate, finely chopped

3tbs Nutella

Assembly

• Preheat oven to 120 degrees celsius and line baking paper on oven trays
• Beat egg whites in a bowl with an electric mixer until soft peaks forms. Add Caster sugar; beat until sugar dissolves. Fold in sifted icing sugar, ground almonds & sifted cocoa in two batches.
• Spoon mixture into a piping bag fitted with a 1cm plain tube. Pipe 4cm rounds about 3 cm apart onto trays. Stand for 30 minutes.
• Bake macaroons for about 30mins or until they lift easily off the baking paper. Cool on trays.
• Ganache: Bring cream to the boil in a small saucepan. Remove from heat & stir in Nutella then pour over chocolate in a small bowl. Stir until smooth. Stand at room temperature until spreadable.
• Sandwich macaroons with dark chocolate ganache.

Hints

• Don't add 3/4C of caster sugar to your egg whites, as I did, and wonder why it's too runny. Follow the recipe.


• Nutella - my tablespoons were heaped with Nutella goodness, I don't think you could ever use too much.


• I found that there was enough Ganache for two batches of French Macaroons.


• Kept in an airtight container I found these were still good the next day.

Florentine Tarts

all I can say is YUM YUM YUM!

I'm glad that Kristie posted something that was healthy 'cause there is no chance of me doing that anytime soon.

I made these florentines on Christmas day and they turned out really well so I decided to make them again last weekend when my family all got together.

Rather than typing out the entire recipe I will just link to this page on a site appropriately called taste

The base is not sweet at all but it balances the pure sugar of the toffee on top.

For the love of food

I don't know about you but food makes me happy.

It sets off some kind of endorphins that make me feel like nothing in the world, at that moment, matters.

And because of that, I like to see others happy when they eat something I've made.

I LOVE to be complimented, love it!

I won't show it, I'll politely say "thank you, it was just something I whipped up", but inside I'm River Dancing, Michael Flatley style.

So you can be sure that I'll be cooking my little heart out this Valentines Day, to show my true love that there's no one else I would rather make happy than him.


Almond Meal Cookies

125 gm butter, softened

1/3 C caster sugar

1/3 C brown sugar

1 egg
1 1/2 C plain flour
1/4 C self-raising flour
1/2 C almond meal



Beat butter & sugar together until creamy. Add the egg and combine well

Combine sifted flour & almond meal into creamy mixture and stir.
Knead dough on a lightly floured surface until smooth.

Roll dough between sheets of baking paper until about 5mm thick and refrigerate for about 30 mins.

Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius.

With your chosen cookie cutter cut shapes out of the dough.
Place the shapes on a tray lined with baking paper and bake for about 12mins.

Cool cookies on a wire rack.

To Decorate

Icing sugar

Cold water

Food colouring

M&M's (or other confectionery)



Combine all ingredients, except M&M's, until you get a smooth paste.
You'll only need a tablespoon or so of water to about a cup of icing sugar.