Cookbook Challenge: Week 9, Berry

Recipe: Blueberry and coconut muffins
From: Australian Women's Weekly "Kitchen"

So guess what the theme is this week for the Cookbook Challenge? Berry. And guess who did berry pancakes LAST week? Yep, genius over here!

Obviously I don't plan my weekly recipes in advance. If I had been clever, I would've done the pancakes this week and found a different recipe for the sweet week. But I didn't, so I spent a bit of time this weekend looking for another berry recipe. I figured that I was going to bake something, since I didn't fancy my chances of finding a savoury recipe that also incorporated berries.

And muffins it was! These muffins were pretty easy to put together, although the batter was extremely thick. Taste wise, they're not a light, fluffy cake-like muffin - the coconut gives them a chewy, heavy texture that is vaguely similar to a scone. I'm not really selling them, I know, but let me tell you that they are strangely moreish. I ate one, and another, and another.... I hate to tell you how many I ate today (FOUR, for goodness sake).

I think that means they're good.

See previous Cookbook Challenge posts here.

Update: see what everyone else made at My Food Trail.



Blueberry and coconut muffins

Adapted from The Australian Women's Weekly Kitchen

Makes 12

1 & 1/2 cups self raising flour
1 cup wholemeal flour
90g cold butter, chopped
3/4 cup caster sugar
1 & 1/4 cups buttermilk
1 egg, beaten lightly
1/3 cup (desiccated coconut)
150g fresh blueberries

Preheat the oven to 200°C and grease or line a 12 hole muffin tin.

In a food processor, pulse the chopped butter and caster sugar until it resembles large breadcrumbs.

Sift the flours into a large bowl (add in any stuff from the wholemeal flour that couldn't make it through the sieve), and add the butter mixture. Add the buttermilk, egg, desiccated coconut and blueberries. Mix until just combined.

Spoon the mixture into the muffin tin holes and bake for about 20 minutes, or until a skewer in the centre comes out come. Stand the muffins in the tin for five minutes, and then remove on to a wire rack to cool.

Cookbook Challenge: Week 3, Hor d'oeuvres

Recipe: Coconut Prawns
From Australian Women's Weekly - Food We Love

The weeks are going past so quickly - we're on to Week 3 of the Cookbook Challenge already! For this week's theme, hor d'oeuvres, I made coconut prawns.

There is a little blurb about this recipe in the cookbook that says, "My friends are always impressed with these prawns, and the best part is that they're easy and fast to prepare." Now, I don't know what crazy world the author of that blurb comes from, but I don't consider a recipe where you have to peel and devein a kilo of prawns "fast to prepare"! The rest was easy though, so I will give them that.

Whenever I peel prawns, I like to leave the tails on. I think it looks nicer, plus I like to eat the tails - they're like a crunchy prawn chip!



The prawns smelt so good when I took them out of the oven. And they were delicious! The prawns were lovely with the fragrant toasted coconut, and a hint of coriander and chilli. If I was served these at a party, I would be very happy indeed.

The book suggested serving them with sweet chilli sauce, but since I am not a sweet chilli sauce fan, we ate them with homemade chilli sauce that had some added chopped coriander. Alastair, Bro and I scoffed these so quickly once the photos were taken. It was definitely worth peeling all those prawns!

See previous Cookbook Challenge posts here.

Update: See My Food Trail for a round up of posts for this week.



Coconut prawns

Adapted from Australian Women's Weekly - Food We Love

24 uncooked medium prawns (1 kg)
1/4 cup (35g) plain flour, seasoned with salt and pepper
2 eggs, beaten lightly
1 & 1/2 cups (115g) shredded coconut
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh coriander
1 small chilli, finely chopped
24 short bamboo skewers
Chilli sauce to serve

Preheat oven to 180°C. Lightly oil two oven trays or line with baking paper.

Mix together the shredded coconut, coriander and chilli in a bowl. In separate bowls, place the seasoned flour and beaten egg.

Shell and devein prawns (leave the tails on if you like). Coat the prawns in flour, shaking away the excess, then dip into the egg and then finally the coconut mixture.

Thread one prawn on to each skewer. Place in a single layer on to the baking trays. Bake for about 15 minutes, or until the prawns are cooked.

Serve with your desired chilli sauce.

Vietnamese Coconut Waffles

After Alastair and I rolled out of bed one Sunday, we wandered into the kitchen in search of food. Alastair started making coffees, while I stared blankly into the fridge and tried to think of what we could eat.

Suddenly – bing! Waffles! I went online and started searching for a waffle recipe. I found a couple of simple ones and then I looked over at the milk container and realised that Alastair had used all the milk for coffees.

Doh! How was I supposed to make waffles without milk? Breakfast was going to be delayed until someone could go and buy some.

And then I came across a recipe for Vietnamese coconut waffles. Instead of using milk, coconut milk is added. Ding ding! Breakfast needn’t be delayed after all. I was happy (and so was my growling stomach).

These waffles smell divine while cooking, and the eating is pleasant too. I poached a couple of peeled and cored pears in sugar syrup while the waffles were cooking, and we ate them with just the pears and without syrup. They were delicious - fragrant and coconutty. Initially I wasn’t going to blog about them, but they looked so cute with the pear perched on top that I couldn’t resist taking a photo!

If you like your waffles crispy, leave them in the waffle iron until they are dark brown and put them on a cooling rack after you pull them out. They crisp up quite well.



Vietnamese coconut waffles

Adapted from Vietnamese World Kitchen

1 cup plain flour
7 tablespoons caster sugar
1 & ½ teaspoons cornflour
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 egg, separated
1 cup coconut milk
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 & ½ teaspoons vanilla extract

Heat up the waffle iron/maker.

In a bowl, combine the flour, sugar, cornflour, salt, and baking powder. In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolk, coconut milk, butter and vanilla extract.

Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir gently until incorporated.

With an electric mixer, beat the egg white to a stiff peak.

Fold a third of the egg white through the waffle batter before folding through the rest of the egg white.

Add the batter to the waffle iron and cook for about 3 – 5 minutes, or until golden brown. Pull out of the waffle iron and cool on a rack – they will crisp up as they cool (darker waffles will be more crispy).

Cherry coconut mud cake

As mentioned previously, it was my birthday last weekend. It rained allllll day but despite the rain, I had a pretty good day. It started off with brunch at Plum (which was great, as always), and then afterwards Alastair took me shoe shopping as part of my birthday present. Those who know me in real life (particularly my colleagues) know that I have a shoe obsession, so it was a particularly good gift!



What's a birthday without cake though? Before the weekend my colleagues surprised me with a gorgeous chocolate mousse cake. I wish I had thought to take a photo of it! Then on Friday I baked (yes, I made my own birthday cake) and made a cherry coconut mud mud cake. Good cake, but oh my, it's certainly not one for those on a diet. Check out some of the ingredients! 250g butter, 2 cups of sugar, 200g chocolate, a can of coconut milk, plus two king-size Cherry Ripe bars.

I'm not a Cherry Ripe fan, so I thought about using real cherries. But I didn't want to go to the market on my birthday and I refused to pay supermarket prices for cherries, so Cherry Ripe it was!

Fortunately, despite my dislike of Cherry Ripe bars, I liked the cake! It was delicious but very sweet and rich. Good in small slices only! If you try it, I would recommend warming it up a bit before serving. The original recipe included a dark chocolate icing as well as dark chocolate panels, but I left the icing off. Thank goodness I did, otherwise it would've been incredibly sweet! I decorated with white chocolate panels and coloured shredded coconut and I think this was fine although I must admit I didn't eat the white chocolate.



Cherry coconut mud cake

From Australian Women's Weekly "Bake"

250g butter, chopped
1 tablespoon instant coffee granules
1 & 2/3 cups (400ml) coconut milk
20g dark eating chocolate, chopped coarsely
2 cups (440g) caster sugar
1 cup (150g) plain flour
3/4 cup (110g) self raising flour
1/4 cup (25g) cocoa powder
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 x 85g Cherry Ripe bars, chopped coarsely

Chocolate panels

300g chocolate Melts
1 teaspoon vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 150°C fan-forced. Grease deep 22cm round cake pan, line base and sides with baking paper.

Melt butter in a large saucepan; add coffee, coconut milk, chocolate and sugar. Stir over heat until chocolate melts and sugar dissolves; cool to room temperature.

Whisk in sifted flours and cocoa, then eggs and extract; stir in half of the Cherry Ripe. Pour mixture into pan. Top with remaining Cherry Ripe; bake for about 1 & 3/4 hours. Stand cake for 10 minutes, turn, top side up, onto wire rack to cool.

Meanwhile, make chocolate panels: Stir chocolate and oil in a medium heatproof bowl over medium saucepan of simmering water until smooth. Cute two 6cm x 50cm strips of baking paper. Spread chocolate evenly over strips; lift strips to allow chocolate to drip off paper. Allow chocolate to set, then, using ruler as guide, cut chocolate into 4cm panels with sharp knife. Carefully peel away baking paper and place chocolate panels around side of cake.

Dinner at ours: Twice baked cheese soufflé, spinach stuffed chicken roulade and coconut panna cotta.

The other weekend, we invited Benisa, Dany and Dany's father over for some food and a catch up.



We started with a twice baked cheese soufflé, taken from this month's issue of Delicious. In the magazine, it's a goat's cheese soufflé and served as a main (with salad), but as I'm still unsure about goat's cheese I substituted with a sharp cheddar. Also, as we were having it as a starter, I made smaller serves.

The recipe instructs you to turn out the soufflé after the first baking. When I turned one out though, it looked terribly unattractive, so I kept them in the ramekins to serve. By the way, you should've seen them in the oven! They rose very high but deflated quickly on cooling. It was a shame that they didn't reach the glorious heights on the second baking, but they were still delicious. And so cheesy.



For the spinach stuffed chicken roulade, I had an idea about what I wanted to cook, so went searching for a recipe that was similar to what I had in my head. I ended up adapting this recipe from Inglewood Farms (see my recipe at the end of this post). And, am I allowed to say that it was rather good? Well, I won't lie. It was! (Gee, the modesty.)



And for dessert, we had coconut panna cotta with fresh strawberries. The coconut panna cotta recipe was from taste.com.au and not only was it a cinch to make, but it was delicious – smooth, creamy and fragrant. I was tempted to do some caramelised banana instead of the strawberries, but decided that it would be too rich and sweet. (I tried unmoulding one a few hours before dinner to make sure that I could turn them out okay – and since it was already unmolded it would've been a waste not to eat it....).



Despite the expression on Mr Onion's face, dinner was a success. Don't mind him, he's such a crybaby. After dinner, Mr Onion and Mr Cauliflower came to the table for an impromptu photo shoot. Remember our visit to Blenheim a couple of months ago? I saw these in the window of a souvenir shop when we stopped in Kaikoura for some food. I'm not really a knick knack person, but I was strangely taken by them. Why? I really have no idea. I admit that they are ridiculous and kitsch! But I liked them for some reason, so on our way back down to Christchurch, we stopped in Kaikoura just so I could buy them. There were other fruits and vegetables - strawberries, watermelon, broccoli, but Mr Cauliflower and Mr Onion were my favourites. They're very silly but they make me laugh!

Twice-baked cheese soufflé

From Delicious magazine September 2008

Serves 6 (or 8 as a starter)

You can bake these in advance and reheat before serving.

60g unsalted butter
60g plain flour
350ml hot milk
100g cheese (I used cheddar, the original recipe had goat's cheese)
1/2 tsp paprika
4 eggs, separated
1/2 cup (125ml) pure (thin( cream
1/2 cup (40g) freshly grated parmesan

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease six 1 cup (250ml) ramekins or eight 1/2 cup ramekins (if serving as a starter). Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium-low heat for about a minute until foaming. Remove from the heat, then stir in the flour with a wooden spoon until well combined. Return pan to medium-low heat and stir constantly for 1 minute until it is a smooth paste.

Gradually add the hot milk, stirring constantly for two minutes, until smooth. Bring to the boil, then pour into a large bowl. Add the cheese and paprika, then season with salt and pepper and stir until smooth.

Using a balloon whisk, beat in the egg yolks, one at a time. In a separate bowl, whisk egg whites with an electric beater to soft peaks. Using a large metal spoon, gently fold one-third of the eggwhites into the cheese mixture (trying not to loose too much volume). Gently fold in another third of the eggwhites, then finally fold in the reminder.

Fill each ramekin with the mixture so that it is three-quarters full. Place in a roasting pan and fill the pan with enough boiling water to come halfway up the sides of the moulds. Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for 20 minutes or until golden and risen, then remove from the pan and cool.

When ready to serve, increase the oven to 220°C. If you don't want to serve them in the ramekins, line a tray with baking paper. Run a knife around the edges of the soufflé and invert them on to the tray. Pour about 1tbs cream over the top of each one, scatter with parmesan, and bake for 8-10 minutes until the cheese is golden and the cream is bubbling.

Spinach stuffed chicken roulade

Adapted from this recipe here

Serves at least 8

1 bunch english spinach
1/2 cup pine nuts, lightly toasted
2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
30 grams melted butter
Small handful of basil, chopped
8 chicken breasts, skin on
6 slices prosciutto

Preheat oven to 220ºC.

Wash the fresh spinach well. Place the spinach in a large pan/pot and cook for about 4 minutes, until wilted. Squeeze the excess water from the cooked spinach and chop finely.

Place the spinach in a bowl with the pine nuts, garlic, butter, basil, and season with salt and pepper. Mix together well.

"Butterfly" cut each chicken breast. Lay a piece of plastic wrap over each chicken breast and pound it with a mallet or rolling pin until it is thin and flat.

Place a small amount of the spinach mixture on to the chicken, and roll up tightly. You should be able to roll it so the skin is on the outside. Lay a slice of prosciutto on the chicken where it is not covered by skin, and secure with cooking twine.

Heat some oil in a non-stick frying pan on a medium high heat. Sear each parcel on all sides, and then place in an oven-proof dish and finish cooking in the oven for 20-30 minutes or until cooked through.

When ready to serve, remove the cooking twine and slice into rounds. Serve with vegetables/salad.

Lime coconut syrup cake

A few years ago we lived in Fitzroy, in a little house with a little courtyard. There wasn't much to the courtyard out back: a few bushes, brick paving, and a lime tree. We never looked after the tree - didn't even water it - but it seemed to thrive on neglect. When it fruited, there were so many limes I couldn't get rid of them fast enough. I kept forcing limes on people; bags and bags and bags of the bloody things.

At our place now, I have another lime tree, but mine hasn't fruited yet. So it's back to buying limes for us. I bought a bag the other week, and haven't found much to do with them apart from putting wedges in a drink. To ease my guilt over having so many limes sitting around, I decided to use up a few in a cake.

The cake is a fairly simple butter cake with lime syrup poured over it while still warm. While some of the syrup is absorbed, I think it would've been better if I had poked some holes in the cake first. I also think it would've been better if half of the syrup had been reduced down further to be used as a glaze. Ho hum. We went over to our friends' place for pizza and took the cake for dessert. Everyone seemed happy with it. I left the rest of the cake there, and I was told later that a piece was eaten for breakfast. Hearing that made me strangely happy!

(The garnish on top is shredded coconut tossed in a few drops of red food colouring. The plate that the cake is sitting on was a Xmas present from my boss a couple of years ago. It's a beautiful plate, but when I took it out for the cake I saw there was a scratch on it. Boo.)



Lime coconut syrup cake

From Australian Women's Weekly Bake

Serves 8

125g butter, softened
1 tablespoon finely grated lime rind
1 cup (220g) caster sugar
3 eggs
1 3/4 cups (260g) self raising flour
1 cup (90g) desiccated coconut
1/2 cup (125ml) yoghurt
1/2 cup (125ml) milk

Tangy lime syrup
1/3 cup (80ml) lime juice
3/4 cup (165g) caster sugar
1/4 cup (60ml) water

Preheat oven to 180°C/160°C fan-forced. Grease 2cm baba pan well.

Beat butter, rind and sugar in a medium bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Stir in sifted flour, coconut, yoghurt and milk, in two batches. Spread mixture into pan.

Bake cake about 45 minutes or until cooked through. Stand cake in pan for 5 minutes; then turn out onto a wire rack over a tray.

Make the tangy lime syrup; drizzle hot syrup over the hot cake.

Tangy lime syrup: Stir ingredients in a small saucepan over heat, without boiling, until sugar dissolves. Simmer, uncovered, without stirring for 3 minutes.

Portuguese-style chicken curry, daal and cabbage slaw

I'm having difficulty with food blogging at the moment. It's not due to lack of time or energy. It isn't because I'm not eating well, or not cooking good food, or not photographing meals. My issue is with the whole stringing words into coherent sentences thing. It seems that food blogging involves more than just food, it also involves writing. I know! Who'd thought!

However, I am pushing through and making an effort!

The other week, I cooked a meal from a Indian cookbook I had received over Christmas. I made a chicken curry, a daal, and an interesting cabbage slaw that I'd never tried before.

The Portuguese-style chicken curry (aka mungh vindaloo) wasn't as spicy as it usually is in restaurants, although I did try to up the heat factor. Originally, vindaloo wasn't particularly spicy and the cookbook tells me that vindaloo actually means "vinegary". Other sources (internets!) say that vindaloo is a derivative of the Portuguese "vinho de alho" which literally means wine (vinho) and garlic (alho). Vindaloo was bought to Goa by the Portuguese and was traditionally cooked with pork. I used chicken drumsticks in my version. They took ages to cook, but were very succulent.

The daal was good, but a bit overshadowed by the vindaloo and the cabbage. My daal was quite soupy at first, but after standing for a while (I had to wait for the curry to finish cooking) it thickened up. I was rather heavy handed with the ginger!

But on to the cabbage. The cabbage slaw was a real surprise! The coconut gave it a lovely fragrance, and the cabbage was sweet, slightly nutty and spicy. If you like coconut (and cabbage) give it a try. It was very different from how I normally cook cabbage and we really enjoyed it.

Gujarati Cabbage Slaw

From Betty Crocker's Indian Home Cooking

Serves 6

1/4 cup peanut or vegetable oil
1/4 teaspoon asafetida (hing)
1 cup dry-roasted unsalted peanuts, coarsely chopped
1 medium head green cabbage (1 1/2 pounds), finely shredded (8 cups)
1 cup shredded fresh coconut or 1/2 cup dried unsweetened shredded coconut
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh coriander
3 fresh Thai, serrano or cayenne chillies, finely chopped
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground tumeric
Juice of 1 medium lime (2 tablespoons)

Heat oil in wok or pan over medium-high heat. Add asafetida and peanuts; sizzle 30 seconds.

Add remaining ingredients except lime juice, stir fry about 5 minutes or until cabbage is hot; remove from heat. Stir in lime juice.



Moong daal

From Betty Crocker's Indian Home Cooking

Serves 6

1 cup dried whole green lentils (sabud mung), sorted, rinsed and drained
4 cups water
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
1 tablespoon ghee or vegetable oil
1 teaspoon black or yellow mustard seed
1/4 teaspoon asafetida (hing) or garlic powder
1 tablespoon finely chopped ginger
1 medium tomato, finely chopped (3/4 cup)
2 fresh Thai, serrano or cayenne chillies, cut lengthwise in half
1 teaspoon salt

Place lentils, water and turmeric in a saucepan. Heat to boiling; reduce heat. Partially cover and simmer 30 to 35 minutes or until lentils are tender.

While lentils are simmering, heat ghee/oil and mustard seed in a a pan over medium-high heat. Once seed begins to pop, cover skillet and wait until popping stops.

Add asafetida and ginger to mustard seed; stir fry about 30 seconds or until ginger is partially brown. Add tomato and chillies, stir fry 3-5 minutes or until tomato is softened.

Stir tomato mixture and salt into lentils. Partially cover and simmer for 10 minutes.




Portuguese-style chicken curry / Mungh vindaloo

From Betty Crocker's Indian Home Cooking

Serves 4

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 medium onions, coarsely chopped
1 tablespoon coarsely chopped ginger
5 medium cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
3/4 cup tomato sauce (I think this is tomato puree, I used a can of whole tomatoes)
1 tablespoon coriander seed, ground
1 teaspoon cumin seed, ground
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut crosswise into 1/2 inch strips (I used drumsticks instead)
1/4 cup white vinegar
1/2 cup coconut milk
1/4 cup plain yoghurt

Heat in a pan over medium-high heat. Add onions, ginger and garlic; stir fry about 5 minutes or until onions and garlic are golden brown.

Stir in tomato sauce, ground coriander, ground cumin, salt, cayenne pepper and turmeric, reduce heat. Partially cover and simmer around 5 minutes or until a thin film of oil starts to form on surface of sauce. Remove from heat; cool 3 to 4 minutes.

Place sauce in blender (or use a stick blender). Cover and blend on medium speed until smooth. Return sauce to saucepan.

Stir chicken into sauce. Simmer uncovered 3 to 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until chicken is partially cooked.

Stir in vinegar and coconut milk. Simmer uncovered 5 to 7 minutes, stirring occasionally, until chicken is no longer pink in centre.

Beat yoghurt with wire whisk until smooth; stir into chicken mixture. Cook uncovered for 1 minute, stirring occasionally, just until yoghurt is warm. Serve with rice.

Coconut and raspberry muffins

I had an urge to bake last week, and ended up with these muffins after a lot of flipping through cookbooks and browsing the internets. They could be the best muffins EVER. Sweet, moist, nutty, fragrant with coconut and with the occasional tangy raspberry - they were such a treat. Chocolate is so overrated - give me these any day!



Coconut and raspberry muffins

Adapted from Super Food Ideas – August 2006

Ingredients (makes 12 muffins)

1 3/4 cups desiccated coconut
1 1/2 cups coconut cream
1 cup caster sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 2/3 cups self-raising wholemeal flour
1 cup frozen raspberries, putting 12 aside for decoration
Shredded coconut

Method

1. Combine coconut and coconut cream in a large bowl. Cover and stand for 30 minutes.
2. Preheat oven to 170°C. Grease a 12 cup muffin tin or line with muffin cases.
3. Using a metal spoon, stir sugar, egg and vanilla into coconut mixture. Gently stir in the flour until combined. Fold in raspberries.
4. Spoon mixture into prepared muffin tins and put a raspberry on top of each one. Top with shredded coconut if desired. Bake for 20-30 mins or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool muffins in pan for 10 minutes. Lift onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Coconut pancakes with bananas in palm sugar syrup

I asked Alastair what he wanted for brunch on Sunday. I had two possible dishes in mind, one involving baked eggs and the other pancakes. I gave him an option of savoury or sweet.

He choose sweet - pancakes it was!

Coconut pancakes with bananas in palm sugar syrup

Adapted from a couple of recipes seen on internets

Makes 6 medium-small pancakes (enough for 2 people)

For the pancakes

135g flour
Pinch of salt
2 tablespoons caster sugar
4 tablespoons shredded coconut
130ml milk
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons melted butter

For the bananas

70 grams palm sugar
50 ml water
2 medium bananas, peeled and sliced

Mix together the flour, salt, sugar and coconut. Whisk in the milk, egg and melted butter until it all comes together.

Heat a frying pan on medium heat, melt some butter or a touch of oil. Add 1/4 cup of batter. When you start to see bubbles appearing on the surface, flip the pancake over and cook the other side for 1-2 minutes or until golden. Make the rest of the pancakes and keep warm.

Heat the water in a small saucepan and melt the palm sugar (you may want to grate it so it melts more quickly). Simmer until it's darkened and thick, add the sliced bananas and gently toss through the syrup. Serve with the pancakes.

Berry and coconut friands

These friands are SO good. Moist and coconutty, they get gobbled up in my house in no time. Not only are they delicious and very moreish, they also help use up the egg whites that always seem to be floating around in my freezer. 3 thumbs up!

From the May 2007 issue of Cuisine magazine.

125g unsalted butter
1/2 cup self-raising flour
1 & 2/3 cups icing sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking power
1/2 cup ground almonds
3/4 cup fine desiccated coconut
5 large egg whites
oil for greasing
12 berries
icing sugar to serve

Preheat the oven to 175C.
Melt the butter and leave to cool until just warm.
Sift together the flour, icing sugar and baking powder, then stir in the ground almonds and coconut.
Whisk the egg whites until fluffy but not stiff.
Fold into the dry ingredients then fold in the melted butter and set the mixture aside for 10 minutes.
Spray or brush friand moulds with oil. Pour the mixture in, add a berry (or 2) and bake for 20 minutes.
Cool on a rack before tipping out on the moulds.
Dust with icing sugar.
Makes 10.

Breakfast Bars

These are very tasty, and, I do actually eat them for breakfast! Generally I make a double batch and freeze the majority after I've cut them into bars. If I want one in the morning I take a bar out the night before and let it defrost in the fridge.

I'm not sure if they make a healthy breakfast, but I always feel virtuous eating something with oats so I tell myself it is. And even if it's not that healthy... well... everything's relative and it surely wouldn't be as bad as a danish, donut or fry up! (Not that I eat danishes or donuts for breakfast! And only the occasional fry up.)

I no longer know where I got the original recipe from (somewhere on the interwebs) and have made a couple of adaptations. Any dried fruit would work well, but I especially love the taste of the prunes in these bars.

Ingredients:

150g butter
175g (1/2 cup) honey
200g (2 cups) rolled oats
60g (1 cup) shredded coconut
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 tablespoons sesame seeds
200g (3/4 cup) pitted prunes, chopped
100g (2/3 cup) dried apricots, chopped
75g (1/2 cup) sultanas
3 eggs

Preheat oven to 170c. Line a 23 x 32 cm sandwich tin with baking paper.

Put the butter & honey in a small pan over medium heat & stir until butter has melted.

Toss the oats, coconut, baking powder & sesame seeds together in a large bowl. Add the prunes, peaches & currants & mix well. Add the warm honey mixture & eggs & stir to combine, then spoon evenly into cake tin.

Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the mixture is cooked through & the top is golden brown. Remove from the oven & allow to cool in the pan before cutting into 12 bars.