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Ginger Kisses

If you grew up with these you will know how gorgeous light and warming they are to eat, and you know how hard it is to restrict yourself to just one of these beauties!

Ginger kisses are a traditional kiwi treat and once you bite into that pillowy ginger goodness you won’t want to leave.

Here is the ingredients list for today’s traditional bake:

2 cups/260g plain flour

1 tsp ground cinnamon

3 heaped tsp ground ginger

1 level tsp baking soda

¾ cup/160g caster sugar

110g salted butter, softened

¼ cup/90g golden syrup

1 large egg

¼ cup buttermilk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

 

We start by sifting the first 4 ingredients in a bowl and set it aside to cream the next 3 ingredients in another bowl.  Once combining those you will add the rest of the ingredients to the creamed mixture.

Heres were you combine the two to make the magic happen, folding in ever so carefully because you don’t want kisses you can bounce off the floor or knock someone out with. 😄

Your oven goes onto the usual 180 C and line your trays with baking paper – I used two as they spread when they cook.

Drop tablespoonfuls of the mixture onto the sheets spaced a little apart to allow for spreading. It’s best to bake them one sheet at a time to allow for even cooking.

Once you room is filled with the gorgeous smell and they are lovely and golden (10-12 minutes) take them out and cool.

Then comes the magic!
I have chosen a buttercream to sandwich them together but if you are going to eat them all in one day feel free to fill with whipped cream.

Here are the ingredients for the buttercream;

60g salted butter

1 cup icing sugar

2 Tsp golden syrup
(feel free to add ground ginger to this if you want an extra kick)

Milk to mix

Place or pipe (if you’re feeling fancy) as much buttercream as you desire onto the base of one kiss and pop another one on top pushing gently to sandwich them together.

Try baking them for yourself and you will agree homemade is best, you also get the added bonus of filling your house with delicious smells for the day. 😊

Thanks for coming back to my blog and I hope to see you here again soon. 💕

2023-06-28T13:05:18+12:0028 June 2023|Bakes, Edmonds Cookbook, History, Kiwi bakes, Vintage cookbook, Vintage Kitchen|0 Comments

Caramel Crunch Fingers

Heading on back to the Girl Guides for the yummiest of treats!

We will start with a foreword from Heather Gunn (Northland Provincial Commissioner):

This book of recipes has been compiled by members of the Northland Girl Guides Association to raise funds for their provincial Camp-site Trefoil Park.

Trefoil park is situated in the centre of Northland. It is being developed to provide camping facilities for Girl Guides and other youth groups.

We hope you will enjoy using “Trefoil Treats” and that it will be a useful addition to your Cookery Book drawer.

Good luck and good eating.

 

This time I chose a recipe which I hadn’t cooked before, just to see if it would become a favourite in our household…and I’m a bit partial to caramel. 😁

INGREDIENTS INCLUDE:

1 cup flour

1/2 cup cornflakes

1/2 cup walnuts (most nuts would be good though)

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup coconut

1tsp baking powder

5oz butter

 

I did a little bit of improvising in order to avoid going out to the supermarket AGAIN and swapped the walnuts out for some almonds and peanuts which I had in my little pantry, I chopped them up a bit too. I encourage everyone to experiment with different types and see where the wind takes them. 😁

Everything goes into the mixing bowl (my kind of recipe), apart from the butter which gets melted and then added. One bowl! Bliss when it comes to washing up!

Stir the butter in and pop the mixture into a rectangular/square baking pan. I used my pretty pink snowflake Pyrex for this one.

Bake in your oven at 350 F for 20-30 minutes (I went for the maximum on this one) and boom your slice is cooked!

Now for the fun bit – and no waiting around for it to cool either – you can ice it while it’s still warm, yay!

Pop 3oz butter, 2 Tbsp brown sugar and 2 Tbsp milk into a small saucepan and bring to boil for 2 minutes. Mmmmmm, ‘enter caramel smells here’. 🤤 The recipe gives a general “add icing sugar to correct consistency” – I think I added 1 2/3 cup for my liking but here again it’s really up to you.

Pour it over the slice and add some more chopped nuts or coconut and bob’s your uncle. 😁

You will need to wait for this to set so cue dance party while you’re waiting. 🥳

It’s is well worth the wait, leave a note for me if you enjoyed this recipe. I would love to hear from you.

Until next time!

Sweet Sensations NZ 💕

2023-06-09T13:24:52+12:009 June 2023|Bakes, Coconut, Girl Guide cookbook, History, Kiwi bakes, Vintage cookbook, Vintage Kitchen|0 Comments

Trefoil Treats

Welcome to a special Girl Guide addition to our trip into the world of vintage cookbooks.

These small fundraising cookbooks are often a goldmine of a variety of different recipies. It’s so much fun to hunt through to find one that takes your fancy. There is nothing that indicates when this one was published but the advertisements inside have phone numbers comprising of 5 numbers, so if anyone has any idea what era this would be please leave a comment. 😊

I decided to pick a recipe I’ve made a few times in the past as a fun twist on a scone recipe, this one has wholemeal flour so that makes it healthy, right? 😊 Let’s just run with that idea I say as I bite into another one.

Today I’m whipping up some super quick Cinnamon Pinwheels.

Our ingredients include:

1/2 cup plain flour, 1/2 cup wholemeal flour

1/4 tsp Salt

2 tsp Baking powder

1 Tbsp Butter

1/3 cup Milk

And For The Filling:

2 Tbsp Brown sugar

1 tsp Cinnamon

1 Tbsp Butter

 

The oven gets put onto 200 Celsius to warm up and all the dry ingredients are sifted into a bowl. Rub in the butter with your fingertips (or my cheat’s way of whizzing it in my mini Kenwood to mix it in super finely). Then the milk also gets whizzed in to make a dough, or traditionally mixed in with a knife.

Turn out the dough onto a floured board and roll it out into a rectangle.  Melt your butter for your filling in a saucepan (or cheat microwave) and brush over your dough. The sugar and cinnamon get mixed together and sprinkled over the buttered dough.

Roll your dough up from one of the long sides and cut evenly into thick slices. Then pop them into your hot oven for 10-12 minutes, easy as that! So quick to make and a nice rustic version with the wholemeal flour, sooooo good warm from the oven!

I hope you have a go at this recipe for yourself as it’s super yummy as an afternoon treat.

Thanks for reading and hope to see you back here soon!

 

2022-08-08T19:13:22+12:008 August 2022|Bakes, Fundraising cookbook, Kiwi bakes, Scones, Vintage Kitchen|0 Comments

Lamingtons

With the school holidays in full swing it felt like a great time to whip up a kiwi classic!

This is something I don’t make that often due to the fact that it can get pretty messy in the kitchen when the kiddoes get involved.

You will find these in every good bakery in NZ, some even filled with cream too. A good lamington is light and soft, soaked in chocolate or strawberry icing and thoroughly covered in delicious coconut.

This recipe makes them from scratch but if you want a cheats version you can buy a plain sponge and do the icing yourself. Just a heads up though, that’s the messy bit. 😊

This recipe requires:

6 eggs

2/3 cup caster sugar

1/3 cup cornflour

1/2 cup plain flour

2/3 cup self raising flour

3 cups icing sugar

1/2 cup cocoa powder

15g butter melted

2/3 cup milk

Desiccated coconut for rolling in.

 

First we put all the eggs in our electric mixer to beat for 10 minutes until they are thick and creamy.  It’s  best to preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and grease and line a square cake tin while you are waiting unless you fancy a quick dance party instead.

The sugar gets put into the egg mixture gradually until dissolved and then make sure you triple fold your combo of flours as this makes for a lovely light sponge. Add this to the mix.

Super simple right! This mixture goes into your prepared cake tin to bake for 30 minutes. When it’s done it gets cooled upside down on a cake rack. A good tip that makes the cake easier to dip in the icing, is to make it a day ahead.

Mix all the remaining ingredients together until it is nice and runny and cut your sponge into squares.  This is where you need to ignore the clean freak part of you and throw caution to the wind. Your hands will be covered in icing as you coat each piece, then roll over in a low tray full of coconut, making sure you have them all covered.

Exercising all of your control leave them to set for a while to make eating them a bit easier.

They are delicious filled with cream and jam too, if you like to treat yourself. 😊

I hope you enjoy these as much as we do, thanks for reading and please come back again soon.

 

2022-07-20T20:20:06+12:0020 July 2022|Bakes, Baking with kids, Coconut, Edmonds Cookbook, Kiwi bakes, Vintage Kitchen|0 Comments

Coconut Cream Sandwich

Welcome back all you lovely people – It’s been a while but I’m ready to jump back into a new recipe today!

We will be travelling back to 1935 and diving into the world of  ‘Everyday dishes to Experiments in High Class Cookery’ with the Bestway Cookery Gift Book.

The recipe I have chosen is delicious and a fantastic addition to your high tea party. Made similar to a sponge with some lip smacking add ons, is the decadent Coconut Cream Sandwich!

Don’t be confused by the word sandwich, this is very much a cake, this just refers to the creamy filling which sandwiches the two layers together.

The ingredients list is as follows:

2 Tbsp desiccated coconut

1/4 lb Flour

1 Tsp Baking powder

1 Egg + 1 Egg Yolk

3 oz Caster sugar

1 oz Margarine

Milk to mix

Jam & Coconut for the top

Filling:

4 oz Icing sugar

2 oz Butter

Vanilla essence

1 Tbsp Desiccated coconut

The flour and baking powder are sieved into a bowl and the coconut is mixed in.

Whisk the eggs and sugar in a separate bowl until they are thick and creamy (this takes about 3 minutes with a good mixer). Then the warmed melted margarine goes into the egg mixture with around 2 tablespoons of milk and your flour mixture.  I mixed this gently so as not to disturb my frothy egg mixture, and keep the mixture light.

Pour your mixture into a greased and lined cake tin (sandwich size if you have one) and bake at 190C for 10-15 minutes.

Now comes the patience test…make sure it is cooled on a rack before cutting horizontally in half through the middle and spread it with the creamy coconut filling.

The filling is super easy, just beat the butter and icing sugar into a creamy mix and add the coconut and few drops of vanilla essence  (I love coconut so much I doubled the amount of this in the filling).

Pop your top half back on (the cake that is 😉) and spread the top with your favourite jam and go wild again with the desiccated coconut over the top.

This is such a lovely take on the traditional sponge and, if you are a lover of coconut like I am, you are in for a treat!

Enjoy this recipe lovely readers and I hope to see you back real soon for more delicious traditional recipes.

2022-06-07T17:54:27+12:007 June 2022|Bakes, Cakes, Kenwood, Vintage Kitchen|0 Comments

Mrs Beeton’s Adventures – Breads

Welcome back to my lovely readers, I thought I might go in a different direction this week, from my usual sweet bakes.

I don’t think you could find many out there that don’t love one of these delicious beauties heated with butter and lashings of golden syrup. Yes today I’m heading into the wonderful world of the golden crumpet!

The glorious crumpet is said to have originated in Wales and the earliest recipe was written way back in 1769. Originally cooked on a iron griddle pan over an open fire, which you will be relieved to know I won’t be attempting today. 😁 No need to ring the fire brigade, lol.

I started out with a quart of milk warmed, this is rather a lot so make sure you have plenty left over for your accompanying cuppa. A quart is equal to 4 cups or 1 litre of liquid. I then added 1/2tsp of salt and 1 1/2 ounces of yeast and stirred that up to froth. This recipe doesn’t actually give any quantities other than the milk so I used a bit of previous knowledge of breads and a bit of good luck.

When adding the flour you need to make sure the dough is more like a batter than a dough, so more on the pouring scale. Then I exercised a bit of patience, yes I know, I’m learning. 😁 Leaving it to sit for at least half an hour to rise and get all ‘bubbly’ (the technical term).

Now make sure you have more than one crumpet ring or you will be stood at the cooktop until your legs give way (gained from experience 😁). Spray oil is a fantastic invention to grease the rings before filling with batter, making them much easier to remove.

I cooked them in a hot pan until they were golden on both sides. When you flip over with a spatula you may get some oosing of batter, no problem, just push the ring down and this gets chopped off so they are all evenly round.

If you manage to wait until they are all cooked you can heat or toast them, or you can eat them deliciously hot off the stovetop with a cute little butter pat and some golden or maple syrup.

Please don’t forget to let me know how you get on with your crumpet adventure and don’t forget to tune in for more Mrs Beeton’s adventures!

 

2022-03-23T13:13:38+13:0023 March 2022|Bakes, Breads, History, Mrs Beeton's Cookbook, Vintage Kitchen|0 Comments

Mrs Beeton’s Preserves – Part 1

Summer Preserving

While away on our much needed summer holiday early this year we discovered an amazing little secondhand bookshop in Whitianga, where I stumbled upon an updated copy of Mrs Beeton’s Preserves.

I was excited to get this home and try something out and it just happened to be the time for a bumper season of sweetcorn from our very own backyard vege patch.

Going straight to the pickles and relish section of the book I found the perfect recipe for Sweetcorn Relish. One of my favourite things to eat is cheese and relish so I was really looking forward to sampling it.

This is a two day process so keep this in mind when setting aside some time to make this at home.

Bear with me while I list the ingredients for you as there are a few, but all are readily available summer veges which, if you make them at the right time of year, won’t cost you much for the amount that the recipe makes.

2 Green peppers, seeded and diced (I used red)

2 Large Carrots diced

2 Large Onions diced

6 Celery Sticks diced

2 Garlic cloves crushed

1tsp Mustard powder

1tsp Turmeric

1Tbsp Cornflour

1 Pint white vinegar

900g Sweetcorn kernels (I cut these straight off the cobs)

100g Sugar

All of the veges go into a large bowl (minus the corn) in layers, with salt sprinkled over each layer. Sprinkle some more salt over the top  and cover the bowl to stand overnight.

Before you start making the relish the next day make sure you bring your clean jars to boil on the stovetop in a large pot of water and dry them out in a moderate oven to sterilise. You don’t want to put hot relish into cold jars, or the other way around as this will cause them to crack.

The next day you will need to start with draining and rinsing the veges twice before putting them into a large saucepan with most of the white vinegar (keep aside a tablespoon to mix with the spices).  White vinegar is not expensive and it is great to have extra in the cupboard for cleaning purposes too. A pretty handy ingredient to have on hand that’s for sure.

The mustard, turmeric and cornflour are mixed in a cup with the extra bit of vinegar you put aside. Don’t add this to the pan just now as it doesn’t go in until later.

Everything is heated in 5 minute sections so it’s pretty simple to remember. Firstly bring the veges to the boil and simmer for your first 5 minutes. Add the 900g (!) of sweetcorn and cook for another 5 minutes. Stir in your sugar and cook for….you guessed it..another 5 minutes.

Lastly add the spice paste you made earlier and 1tsp Salt and stir well, this comes to the boil and simmers for your last 5 minute blast.

Take your jars out of the oven and pour the relish evenly into them and seal (with a clean towel over the lid, so you don’t burn your hands). Once they cool a bit make sure you label them with the date, these babies will keep for 6-9 months so that’s plenty of time to demolish the lot 😄. I got 7 decent sized jars out of this mixture so if you are feeling generous, there are even some to gift to friends and family.

It’s a fairly straight forward recipe to try which doesn’t require any fiddly setting temperatures as does Jam, so I would recommend this one for beginners who want to get into making their own preserves.

I hope you enjoy making this as much as I did and come back again for my delicious vintage cooking!

2022-03-06T12:47:26+13:006 March 2022|History, Mrs Beeton's Cookbook, Preserves, Relish, Vintage Kitchen|0 Comments

Baking with Kids – Valentines Cookies

Here’s something for you romantics out there, a quick and easy piped shortcake biscuit for Valentines Day.

I chose this one as I had my two helpers joining in today and it was a simple little recipe with only…..3 ingredients!  How does that work I hear you ask? Easy as pie, and the result is delicious (I have that on good authority from my two favourite helpers).

We start out with our trusty Kenwood recipe book, circa 1960 and our 3 ingredients; 4 oz Margarine/Butter, 4 oz Plain Flour and 1 oz of icing sugar.

 

My trusty helper number 1 put the butter into our warmed Kenwood mixer bowl and set it to speed 2 until it was pale and soft. Then helper number 2 stepped up and sifted the icing sugar and flour into the bowl (because he makes the least mess, lol).

When the mixture was combined to a soft dough we put it all into a piping bag with a large star nozzle. I took over at this stage as it needed quite a bit of power to squeeze out onto the tray and I had been working out just for this purpose, kidding.

(more…)

2022-02-01T17:20:21+13:001 February 2022|Bakes, Baking with kids, Biscuits, Kenwood, Valentines Day, Vintage Kitchen|0 Comments

Mrs Beeton’s Adventure Dessert Biscuits

These dessert biscuits are fantastic for Holiday treats in the lead up to Christmas!

 

Halloween is over and I am definitely one of those Christmas fanatics – so bear with me here.

My latest bake is a lovely soft biscuit with a outside crunch and as Mrs Beeton says “With whatever the preparation is flavoured, so are the biscuits called, and an endless variety can be made in this manner”.  So go with whatever flavour your little heart desires – today I chose ground ginger to add to my biscuit batter to get everyone in the Christmas spirit.

As per the usual routine I started off with my ingredients set out ready to go.  The recipe needs; 1 lb Flour, 1/2lb Butter, 1/2lb Sifted Sugar, the Yolks of 6 eggs and flavouring to taste.  If your mind is blank as to options for flavouring here are some ideas – Cinnamon, Lemon zest, Currants, Ground ginger, Cocoa powder…let your imagination soar.  If you are feeling fancy, make half and half different flavours!

Soften your 225g (Yeah I know, it’s a lot!) of Butter and beat it vigorously until it resembles cream instead of butter.  I used my mixer for this so as not to wear out my arms this early in the bake, haha.  Then I added in the flour “by degrees”, which is just really a posh way of saying ‘a bit at a time’ until it is mixed in.  Then in went the icing sugar and the flavouring, and followed up by your lovely egg yolks (previously beaten until light and frothy).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Your mixture will end up a soft dough, but still be able to be moulded with your hands into tablespoonful balls.  This mixture made 5 trays of cookies, but you can reuse your trays after removing the cooked biscuits if you don’t have a neverending supply of cookie trays.  Grease and flour, or line them with baking paper – the reusable type is a fantastic save for the environment, it may be more expensive to start with, but in the long run it is worth it.

The cookies need to go into a ‘slow oven’ for around 15 minutes, making sure they don’t gain too much colour (don’t burn them – it does not add to the flavour, haha).  I put my oven at around 160 degrees Celsius and this worked well.

The average cost back in the day was apparently 1s, 6d to make these and you will get around 4 dozen biscuits out of the one dough.  This is why it is such a fantastic recipe to make and gift for Christmas, or pop it on the table to let the gannets help themselves as my family did.  I started out with 52 and now have one plateful left, that’s how moreish they are.  I think they would look super cool decorated with some red or white royal icing and a cherry on top.

I hope you enjoyed this bake and I hope you come back to visit me again soon.  I am over the moon with this fabulous new website and have to credit Yellow Banana Design for all their hard work.  Remember if you are a fan of YouTube also this recipe will be up to view on there very soon under Sweet Sensations NZ.

 

 

 

2021-11-10T09:04:39+13:009 November 2021|Bakes, Biscuits, Makes, Mrs Beeton's Cookbook, Vintage Kitchen, Xmas|0 Comments
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