Sultana and Apple Scones with Lemon Curd #ISW2023

 

International Scone Week 2023 is a celebration of scone making, and a shout out to all those cooks who have enjoyed baking a great scone over the years. The perfect scone is a joyeus thing.  Let's have a sconversation about scone making, over a cup of tea and a delicious scone with lemon curd, or jam and thickened cream if that's what you prefer. The perfect scone should have puffy height, a soft, tender crumb, and shouldn't flake like a biscuit. This Sultana and Apple scone ticked all of those boxes.

The Freshest Coconut and Lime Ceviche for Easter

 

This Easter, if you like to enjoy Seafood on Good Friday as we do, why not make some   Ceviche for a seafood treat, it's fresh fish with a zing. Ceviche is typically made from very fresh raw fish which is "cooked" or cured in citrus juices such as lime or lemon. With other ingredients added such as fresh herbs and spices, it is a delicious, light and zingy starter for any meal, or can stand alone with a fresh salad as the delicious main meal. We used a very fresh fillet of Kingfish, about 500g, trimmed and cut into 1 cm cubes. The fillet needs to be at least 1 cm thick. However any firm white-fleshed fish could be used. With this recipe, the actual cooking of the fish is the easy part, as the acidulant in the lime juice  “cooks the raw fish.

In My Kitchen - July 2020

I've been doing a lot of cooking this past week, as we have had a succession of visitors here since Friday. It's great to see Queensland travellers on the move in Queensland, travelling North up the East coast to Cairns, soaking up our sunshine, although yesterday was rainy, but that's okay. In addition to three lots of visitors, including my brother and sister-in-law, we had 11 friends from our tennis group for dinner on Friday  night, and then my Mahjong ladies were here Tuesday afternoon for cake and Mahjong, in that order, ha, ha. It was a lovely afternoon, with the lorikeets putting on a dazzling display around our bird bath.

Honey, Yoghurt and Chocolate Cake: the Easiest and most Delicious Cake for Afternoon Tea

Cake dusted with icing sugar and Nasturtium petals

Honey, Yoghurt and Chocolate Cake

This cake lovingly made by hand with honey, yoghurt and dark chocolate chips is a winner, and the family will come back for more. It's pretty healthy too really. We were staying at Pine Trees Lodge on Lord Howe Island looking forward to the traditional afternoon tea at 4.00 pm but I had already promised myself that I would forego having something to eat in favour of  enjoying a three course dinner that night. It was Thursday and we had been enjoying afternoon teas and amazing dinners each night since the previous Sunday when we arrived, so perhaps it was time to cut back. Then I saw this cake on the table made by the chefs that day,  and need I say anymore. It was absolutely delicious, and I have been wanting to make it ever since we came home. 

Have a nice weekend and I hope you are tempted to make this cake. It will be well worth it, and your friends and family will love you for it.

Ingredients

150 g honey
300 g butter
170 g full-fat plain yoghurt
100 g raw sugar
200 g dark chocolate chips
2 free range eggs, at room temperature, lightly beaten
130 g plain flour
130 g self-raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste (or the seeds scraped from one vanilla bean)
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon

Let's cook:

This recipe requires an oven set to 180 deg. C or a moderate oven. The oven doesn't need to be turned on until halfway through the cooling period of Step 1. Grease and line a 25 cm round spring-form or loose based cake tin with non-stick baking paper.

1. Put the honey, butter, yoghurt, sugar, vanilla and lemon zest into a saucepan over low-medium heat and melt together, stirring occasionally. Transfer to a large bowl and set aside to cool for 45 minutes.

2. In another bowl, sift together the flours, baking powder and salt.
3. Whisk the eggs into the cooled butter mixture.

4. Add the chocolate chips to the sifted flour and give it a light stir to coat the chocolate chips so that  it     distributes throughout the cake mixture well
4. Then slowly fold in the sifted flour mixture and chocolate chips.

5.

5. Pour the mixture which resembles a batter into the prepared cake tin and cook for 45 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Remove from the oven and stand in the tin for 10 minutes.

6. Remove the cake from the tin and allow to cool on a wire rack.

7. Serve dusted with icing sugar, edible flower petals from nasturtiums, tarragon or whatever you have on hand in your garden and thickened yoghurt or cream.

Have a happy and healthy weekend everyone. I would love to hear from you if you make this cake, or just say hello in the comments box below.

The recipe comes from the beautiful Pinetrees Lodge Recipe book which guests were all given a free copy of. I think I will be using it a lot.

(Thanks to Nanna Chel's blog for the Speedy illustration below. I thought it was cute.)

Best wishes

Pauline

Coconut and Lime Ceviche as a starter or canape, from the kitchen of Pinetrees Lodge on Lord Howe Island

Coconut and Lime Ceviche

Greetings from Food and Wine week on Lord Howe Island. Ceviche is typically made from very fresh raw fish which is "cooked" or cured in citrus juices such as lime or lemon. With other ingredients added such as fresh herbs and spices, it is a delicious, light and zingy starter for any meal. We used a very fresh fillet of Kingfish, about 500g, trimmed and cut into 1 cm cubes. The fillet needs to be at least 1 cm thick. However any firm white-fleshed fish could be used. With this recipe, the actual cooking of the fish is the easy part, as the acidulant in the lime juice  “cooks the raw fish”.