Double Ginger Scones with Currants #ISW 2025

 Dear Friends, If you think you have seen this recipe before, you just might have. I have posted it before, quite recently, and I am now submitting it for the very important International Scone Week event, #ISW 2025.

 Eaten when warm and aromatic, straight out of the oven especially on a cool morning, they are a little crispy on the outside, soft on the inside and the sprinkle of raw sugar as a topping gives them a slightly discernable crunch.

Chocolate Oatmeal Biscuits or Cookies

 

These Chocolate Oatmeal biscuits are everything that I love about a biscuit. When I made this latest batch with the addition of Dutch Chocolate powder, I realised they are perfect to also enjoy for breakfast, and I don't usually eat cakes or biscuits at the start of my day. 

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.

Pear, Walnut and Chocolate Cake

It's St. Valentine's Day today and the Mahjong girls came over to our house this afternoon for the weekly round of games, so chocolate had to be in the ingredients for the cake I chose to bake. I also had some beautiful Corella pears which had been in my refrigerator crisper for over a week, which is normally unheard of, so it had to primarily be a Pear cake. 

Middle Eastern Spiced Date, Walnut and Chocolate Loaf

Date and Walnut Loaf is quite a classic loaf cake to bake, and I've given this a subtle Middle Eastern flavour by adding Baharat spice powder instead of Mixed Spice, and I've also added a dessertspoon of cocoa to bring an added depth of flavour and colour to the loaf.

Honey Chocolate Cake, Bee Keeping in the Tropics, and our Honey Harvest

Hello to all Chocolate Cake lovers. I'm not a chocoholic, in fact I can give or take chocolate most of the time, but it is one of life's little luxuries along with honey. However, I do love a slice of Chocolate Cake. On the weekend, when I had a craving for chocolate and chocolate cake I was unaware of what was to follow.  I think this was a premonition that we would need lots of cake and extra energy the following week as dramas with our beehive erupted. I was also hosting Mahjong on Tuesday, so my friends happily indulged me in my visceral desire for some chocolate cake and we all enjoyed a slice for afternoon tea. More of our evolving bee story later, because firstly I need to divulge to you the recipe for one of the most delicious chocolate and honey cakes on this planet.

This is a Nigella Lawson recipe, and I chose to bake this one flavoured with honey in appreciation of our bees and all hardworking bees and their bounty of beautiful honey and as a dedication to our Queen Bee Lizzie who swarmed from our hive with her bees during last week. They are wild insects, and they were Lizzie's bees, not ours. The honey used in this cake was produced during her reign as Queen Bee. Despite all of this, the honey we harvested from our hive, two days before the bees swarmed is beautiful in this delicious, moist and very soothing chocolate honey cake.

Let's Bake:

INGREDIENTS

Serves: About 10 slices

100 grams dark chocolate (broken into pieces)

275 grams light brown muscovado sugar

225 grams soft butter

125  millimetres (1/2 cup) runny honey

2 large eggs

200 grams plain flour

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 tablespoon very fresh cocoa powder

250 millimetres boiling powder (1 cup)

FOR THE STICKY HONEY GLAZE

60 millilitres water

125 millilitres runny honey

175 grams dark chocolate

75 grams icing sugar

METHOD

All the ingredients need to be at room temperature, so take them out of the refrigerator in plenty of time.

Melt the dark chocolate (100 g) from the cake ingredients, in a good-sized bowl, I did it in the microwave, but you can melt it in a good-sized bowl suspended over a pan of simmering water, ensuring no water or steam at all gets into the chocolate so that it doesn't seize.  Set aside to cool slightly.

Preheat your oven to 180 deg C/160 deg C Fan forced or gas mark 4. Butter and line a 23 cm / 9 inch springform cake tin.

In your mixing bowl, beat together the sugar and soft butter until it is creamy and light, and then add the beautiful runny honey. Add one of the eggs, let it beat in the butter mixture while adding one tablespoon of the flour. Then add the other egg, and another tablespoon of flour, 

Fold in the melted chocolate, followed by the rest of the flour, and the bicarbonate of soda.

Push the cocoa through a tea strainer to ensure no lumps and add to the batter. Strangely this worked.

Finally beat in the cup of boiling water. 

(At this point in her recipe, Nigella says that she supposes there is nothing stopping from doing all of the steps so far in the food processor, blitzing everything except the boiling water, and then pouring the boiling water down the funnel with the motor running.) I felt much happier mixing this cake in my Kitchen Aid.

Mix the runny cake batter well to ensure it is smooth, pour into the prepared cake tin.

Cook for an hour and a half. Check it after 60 minutes to ensure it's not catching and if it is, cover the top lightly with foil and then check every 15 minutes. If you pull the oven tray out too early to check the cake, it may sink slightly in the middle.

Let the cake cool completely in the tin on a rack.

ICING OR GLAZING, that's up to you.

This cake has such a soft crumb and a beautiful flavour with a hint of honey, and could be served uniced with a sprinkling of icing sugar over the surface if you feel so inclined.

However, I do love an iced chocolate cake, and I know many of you do as well, and as we were in the middle of a heat wave here, I elected to ice the cake rather than glaze it, so I will give you Nigella's glaze recipe in case you would like to glaze instead of ice.

My Traditional Chocolate Icing:

This is how my Mum always iced her chocolate cakes. To ice the cake, I mixed up 4 cups of icing sugar in the food processor to remove any lumps. To that I added 4 tablespoons of cocoa and gave it a quick mix.

Transfer the icing sugar to a medium sized mixing bowl.

I melted 2 tablespoons of butter and mixed that into the icing mixture.

I then warmed up 1/2 cup of full cream milk in the microwave, and slowly added that to the icing sugar until I had the stiff consistency I was after. I wanted to be able to ice the cake the day before I needed it, and be sure that it wouldn't run off the cake in our tropical heat. It didn't. It was the perfect consistency and even retained the decorative squiggles I made in the icing with a fork.  To spread the stiff icing on the cake, firstly put dollops of the icing on the cold cake, then dip a knife in a glass of hot water, and use your hot knife to spread the icing evenly over the surface of the cake. I then used a fork and drew lines of squiggles through the icing. 

I decorated the cake with my home grown Dianthus flowers, which are edible.

You might find this is too much icing for your tastes, so just use what you need and save the rest in a covered container in the refrigerator for another time.

A glaze would have been very difficult to manage, unless I put the cake straight in the frig.

Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Sticky Honey Glaze:

Bring the water and runny honey to a boil in a smallish, though not tiny saucepan , then turn off the heat and add the finely chopped chocolate (70 per cent cocoa solids buttons work well.) Swirl it around to melt in the hot liquid. Leave it for a few minutes then whisk together. Sieve in the icing sugar and whisk again until smooth.

To apply the glaze, select your cake plate or stand and cut out four strips of baking paper and form a square outline on the cake plate. This ensures that even in the perfect climatic setting, the icing will not run out all over the plate. Unclip the tin and place the completely cooled cake on the on the plate you have prepared.

Pour the icing over the cold honey chocolate cake and with a cake spatula smooth it down the sides.

Glaze it about an hour or two before you want to serve the cake, so that the glaze can harden a little.

When you are ready to serve it, you can just very carefully slide out the pieces of paper to show a clean plate.

When Nigella Lawson wrote this recipe she included instructions of how to make bees from marzipan to decorate the cake. One day I might do this, as it looks like fun, and is a perfect way to decorate a honey cake. Just flick to her website to find the instructions for making decorative bees.

Cook's notes:

• I baked this cake a day ahead, iced it and stored it in an airtight container. It can also be frozen, uniced, and wrapped tightly in a double layer of food wrap and a layer of foil for up to 3 months, which sounds like a great idea. Unwrap and thaw at room temperature for about 3 hours. Ice or glaze and decorate on the same day of serving.
• Leftovers will keep for up to a week in an airtight container in a cool place, that would have to be the refrigerator in North Queensland, and there's no way that leftovers will last that long in our home.
• I couldn't find any light brown muscovado sugar, so I used equal quantities of raw sugar and dark muscovado sugar which I have on hand.
• I have closely followed Nigella's recipe here, but I would sift the bicarbonate of soda with the flour at the very beginning, so that I don't forget to add it and to ensure it is evenly added throughout the flour. Is there any reason not to add it to the rest of the flour at the beginning that I don't know about?

BEE KEEPING IN TROPICAL NORTH QUEENSLAND, part 2

You might remember in a previous post I wrote that it is swarming season for bees. We don't really blame Queen Lizzie or her bees for leaving home as the hive was chockabloc full of bees, and we were just two days late with adding new frames and another box to the hive to create more space for them. This was because we were waiting for new frames to be delivered by Australia Post. Once a hive has decided to swarm, it's impossible to change their mind, however apparently the hive can be lured to a nearby location by hanging some honeycomb frames from the nearby washing line for example, while hoping they will be attracted to it.  They can then be relocated to another hive or back to the original hive where there is more room. All of this happened during a heat wave so conditions weren't ideal for a crowded hive or for anybody.  Lesson learned, bees aren't patient.

Below is a photo of the bees bearding at the front of the hive, and preparing to swarm. We think they flew away during the night. At the time, we thought they might have been bearding because of the heat.

Then it all became the perfect storm as the hive was weakened due to the swarming. Militant Robber Bees hungry from another hive were attracted to our hive and were after our honey, but our hive was too weak to fend them off. They were intent on taking our honey and killing our bees in the process. Then Hive Beetles bred in the hive, normally we can keep them under control, but they laid a lot  of eggs because our bees and the hive beetle bait couldn't keep them under control either. The hive beetles created a lot of larvae in the hive which was an awful sight. The larvae ridden frames were removed as soon as Mr. HRK found them. What a shock! 

After the robber bees arrived, Mr. HRK was wrapping the hive in a wet blanket, and turning the sprinkler on it frequently in the heat of the day, so that the robber bees would lose the scent of our hive and also to cool down the hive. The rest of the ruined honey frames had to be removed and placed in the freezer to kill the Hive Beetle maggots, and after four days it seemed we might be on top of the situation. We installed a new Queen Bee in our hive yesterday, so now we are hoping there are enough bees in the hive to support her. Fingers crossed. Gosh, this was all just bad luck, but we are on that continuous learning curve when it comes to bees, along with most other backyard beekeepers.

I've named our new Queen Bee, Sissi, after the famous 19th century Austrian Empress, whose first name was also Elisabeth, but was fondly called Sissi. We have just watched Empress, the story of Sissi, on Netflix, and really enjoyed it. I hope our new Queen Sissi is as sassy, innovative and hard working as the beautiful Austrian Empress was.

This is how Queen Bee Sissy arrived in her small capsule or carriage, accompanied by a few ladies (bees) in waiting.

They will eat their way out through a sugary opening in the top of the capsule. Sorry for the blurry photo. My camera wasn't coping.

I am also calling this divine honey chocolate cake Sissi.

It's taken me a while to post this recipe because there has been a lot happening, and as it stands now, Mr. HRK is concerned there may not be enough bees left in the hive to support the Queen and see our hive grow. If that is the case we will need to buy some more frames of bees. However we will persist. C'est la vie, and if anyone thinks that beekeeping is easy, they are very much mistaken, but it is such an interesting hobby, and we hope we are doing our little bit for the environment and the pollination of our neighbour's gardens.

Warm wishes, Pauline

Raspberry, Oat and Cinnamon Muffins

 

This recipe starts out as a healthy and simple muffin mix, and transforms into something delicious with the addition of Raspberries and rolled oats, or Blueberries and oats, or dried Fig and cinnamon, or whatever you have on hand, or whatever floats your boat at the time really. 

Delicious Fruit Mince Tea Cake

 

This is the perfect recipe for using up that large jar of fruit mince at the back of your pantry, which was intended for Christmas fruit mince pies, but it just didn't quite happen. Can you remember way back then? 

Fruit and Nut Sourdough Toast for Breakfast : makes 1 Loaf

This week I bring to you a fruity, hearty, and nourishing sourdough fruit loaf perfect for Sunday morning breakfast. Sourdough is a slow-fermented bread that is beneficial to our gut biome, and doesn't need commercial yeast to rise. It's made with a live fermented culture, a sourdough starter, which acts as a natural rising agent. Once you have a sourdough starter in your refrigerator, "the mother"  you can start baking sourdough bread. 

Country Style Green Apple And Walnut Cake

 

I like to have fresh cake made for the weekend, such a treat don't you think to eat cake on Sunday with a nice coffee, and this one ticks all the boxes. No icing on this one though, just sifted icing sugar, but you could ice them if you really must. This recipe, was adapted from a school recipe book in Western Australia by Matthew Evans, of Gourmet Farmer fame. These aren't fancy cakes,  they are low cost country style apple cakes, moist and crumbly, and taste even better the day after they are made. Matthew Evans lives in Tasmania where apples are plentiful, and I always have apples in the fruit bowl and walnuts in my freezer staying fresh, so it is easy to make this cake. Apples and walnuts should always be together.

Granny Smith green apples are the best kind to use for this cake. Those of you of my generation might remember Roger Miller's famous song "little Green Apples, from his 1968 album "A Tender Look at Love", which he wrote for his wife. It has been covered many times by various artists and even though I have to say it wasn't an actual favourite of mine, the song bounced into my head as soon as I started thinking about green apples.

"God didn't make little green apples

And it don't rain in Indianapolis in the Summertime

And when myself is feelin' low

I think about her face aglow and ease my mind" 

And if that's not lovin' me, then all I've got to say, .........

Written by Roger Miller. 1968

After that moment of self indulgence, back to the cake. The consistency of this cake mixture reminds me of a mixed fruit cake mixture, where there is a minimum of cake batter and maximun of fruit, and where the mixing spoon stands up by itself in the centre, a sure yardstick of a good fruit cake.  The first time I made these cakes, the mixture makes two 20 cm cakes,  one was eaten very quickly, and the other one sat in the refrigerator for over a week and still tasted perfect, like any fruit cake should. I was pretty thrilled with this recipe. The bonus with making two cakes, is that if you need one for an occasion, pop that one in the frig, leaving the other one to be eaten by the family. 

My 4 year old grandson living  in the Falkland Islands is invited to a lot of birthday parties, in fact in Stanley it seems that everyone in the class is invited to every birthday party always held at a large venue in the town with jumping castles etc, so that means a lot of parties and a lot of cake. Because the population there are basically British, and we know they have a sweet tooth and love cake, well they do in the Falkland Islands anyway, (hope I'm not generalising too much),  I am told there is always a predominance of cake over savouries and healthy food, at the children's parties. Some of the parents, including my son and his wife worry about the amount of cake the children are eating, and when I made this cake I thought this would be the perfect kind of cake for a children's party. Sweet enough, or the sugar can be halved, and there is plenty of fruit in the mixture. That's what I told myself anyway as I ate a second slice. It could be iced and decorated and still be much healthier than a bought one.

Ready to be iced if you wish.

Dusted with icing sugar

This recipe will make 2x20 cm cakes and this time I made a loaf cake and a round one, I have also made a large 23 cm cake, and a couple of muffin size cakes which can be frozen. Whatever works for you will be fine.

Ingredients:

6 large apples, or 8 small, preferably Granny Smith or some other sour variety

200 g (1 cup) demerara or raw sugar (or use a mixture of brown and caster sugar)

2 eggs, lightly beaten

few drops vanilla extract

125 ml (1/2 cup) Extra Virgin Olive Oil

200 g very fresh walnuts, broken up

250 g (2 cups) self-raising flour

pinch salt,

1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon mixed spice or baharat

Icing sugar and thick cream to serve

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 180 deg. C. Grease and line two 20 cm round cake tins or use loaf tins. 

This is a sit down job. Peel and core your apples. Cut and dice into pieces the size of a 5 cent piece. 

Place the apple into a large mixing bowl and add the sugar, eggs, vanilla, oil and walnuts.

Sift in the flour, salt, and cinnamon, and stir to make a smooth batter.

Divide the batter between the tins, then bake for 40 minutes. Test to see if it is cooked by inserting a skewer into the mixture and if it comes out clean, voila the tins are ready to place on a cooling rack. 

Cool the cakes in the tins for a few minutes, then turn them out onto your wire rack to cool.

To serve, dust with icing sugar and serve with a dollop of thickened cream or yoghurt. 

I hope you are enjoying a relaxing weekend, wherever you are.

Warm wishes,

Pauline

Chocolate Hazelnut Meringue slice {gluten free}

This slice might be gluten free but nothing is missing where flavour and deliciousness is concerned. A  chewy chocolate base is blanketed with a layer of Nutella chocolate hazelnut spread, and then with a layer of light and fluffy Meringue. It is a cinch to make even though there are three layers to this slice. Using Nutella is a shortcut that I might use more often.

We have just enjoyed a weekend with family visiting and all the food that I cooked for them needed to be gluten free. So with a little bit of research and imagination this slice surfaced from taste.com.au and it really did exceed my expectations. Everyone loved it which is always satisfying. I served this for afternoon tea however it would also be brilliant served warm as a dessert. Just cut it into larger slices though or offer seconds. I hope you can find time to make this slice as I promise you will enjoy it.

Slice ingredients:

Makes 12

125g butter, melted
1 cup brown or raw sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2/3 cup gluten-free self-raising flour
3/4 cup ground hazelnuts (hazelnut meal)
2 tablespoons sifted cocoa powder

3/4 cup Nutella

Meringue
2 egg whites (room temperature)
1/2 cup caster sugar

Use an 18 cm x 28 cm (base) slice pan.

Let's cook:

Preheat your oven to 180 deg. C./160 deg. fan-forced. Line the base of the slice tin with baking paper, allowing an extra 3cm at the sides.

Combine the first seven slice ingredients in a medium sized bowl (butter, sugar, egg, vanilla, flour, ground hazelnuts, and cocoa powder).  Pour into the lined slice tin and spread evenly over the base with the back of a spoon.

Bake for 25 minutes until the top is just firm to the touch. It may shrink away from the sides slightly. While still hot, spread with Nutella. Set aside to cool in the tin.

Increase the oven temperature to 220 deg.C or 200 deg. fan forced.
To make the meringue, beat the egg whites with an electric mixer until soft peaks form.
Gradually add the sugar, a tablespoon at a time, and keep beating until the sugar is dissolved.
Spoon the meringue onto the Nutella and spread over. Swirl the meringue mixture forming small peaks with a spatula.

Bake for 5 minutes or until firm and golden.

Cool in the tin and them cut into squares.



I stored mine in a container in the refrigerator as I was concerned the meringue might separate from the nutella layer during the day as the weather is warming up. The slice was perfect to serve after being refrigerated.

Life should start returning to normal now I hope. I had a wonderful two weeks in Perth with my son and little Grandson, but have been recovering from a head cold ever since. The Mediterranean Winters in Perth can be very cold and very wet, and then before they know it the hot summers have arrived. Needless to say I am enjoying the milder Winter of the Tropical North once again, and feeling much better.

I hope your week is going well.

Best wishes

Pauline

Apple and Sour Cream Cake Slice

I had a busy day planned and I needed a slice on the table for morning tea. I've been wanting to make this one ever since Mr. HRK's sister Suzanne, who lives in Toowoomba baked it for afternoon tea for us. We stayed for a couple of nights with Sue on our way through at the beginning of our long road trip, only a few months ago. It was so delicious, not overly sweet, and very much appreciated after a long drive that day, so I wrote down the recipe for when we came home. I'll admit that I had to call Sue when I decided to make it to clarify a few finer details, and voila, here it is.

I don't take many shortcuts with cooking now, however using a bought cake mix for the biscuit base does the trick here. Sue used a gluten free one for hers which made no difference to the result. I was quite intrigued by this recipe because of the stages involved.

When Julie and Dave arrived we ate it warm from the oven after leaving it to sit for 15 minutes for the topping to firm up, so it was slightly messier to slice, which doesn't matter at all. It still tasted great.  However the following day after sitting in the frig overnight, the biscuit base had stayed crisp, and it was very easy to slice. Mr. HRK loves it.

This could also be eaten as an easy and warm dessert for the family.

Just have faith, and follow this recipe and I assure you it will work a treat.

Let's Cook:

Turn on your oven to moderate or 180 deg.

Base Ingredients:

1 packet vanilla cake mix (gluten free if necessary) I used a White Wings packet mix. (Disregard cooking instructions on the cake mix box, and follow this recipe adding coconut and butter to the dry cake mix.)
1 cup coconut
1/2 cup or 4 tablespoons melted butter

Topping Ingredients:

250 g or 245 ml from a (400-440 ml) tub sour cream depending on brand (you might need a bit more so that the apples are covered)
385-400 g can of pie apple fruit slices
nutmeg

Method:

Mix together the ingredients for the base in a bowl.
Spread into a well greased rectangular non-stick slice tin and press it into the tin. I often use a bottle to smooth it out by rolling the bottle along the cake base.

Bake for 20 minutes in a moderate oven.

Remove tray from the oven and leave the oven turned on.
Mix the sour cream with the pie apple in another bowl, and spread onto the biscuit base.



Sprinkle with nutmeg, and I add some flaked almonds for some crunch and texture, however this isn't essential. Remember your tray will still be warm when you pick it up to place it back in the oven.

Bake for another 20 minutes at 180 deg. C or in a moderate oven.

You know, whilst I try to cook mostly from scratch, I realise it just isn't feasible for a lot of people. I really started thinking seriously about this when we were travelling and staying with our family and friends along the way. How do families with both adults or parents working manage to get a good meal on the table each night, or produce something special on the weekend without resorting to taking short cuts occasionally? I know I did when I was working. I think that including fast foods too much in our diet  is where the real danger lies to our health. So I am pursuing inventive and delicious ways of including fruit and vegetables into our diets and those of our children and grandchildren, and perhaps some partners and husbands LOL:) Watch this space. Any ideas?

I hope you can try this slice and I would love to hear from you as to how it goes.

Hoping you all have a fabulous week.

Best wishes

Pauline