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Daily Archives: August 14, 2013

Pear Upside Down Cake

Posted on August 14, 2013 by The quirk and the cool

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This is a revisit of my Red Wine, Pear and Almond Cake:
https://thequirkandthecool.com/2013/07/07/red-wine-pear-and-almond-cake/

Having made the cake again, I wanted to add a couple of pieces of advice to the original recipe: you really need to line the baking tin with baking paper – the cake has a tendency to leak the red wine syrup from the bottom of the tin into the oven! Very messy!

Also I think that you could easily make the cake in an ordinary cake tin as it turns out quite well.

And of course the cake would work well without red wine syrup.  Without wine, apples or stone fruit work well.

You could also substitute a caramel syrup using butter and brown sugar.

In a small saucepan, melt the ¼ cup of butter and add 2/3 cup of  brown sugar. Stir to combine, and cook until the mixture comes to a boil stirring continously.

In this version you would pour all the caramel syrup over the fruit in the bottom of the tin and definitely line the tin with baking paper!

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Cookie Sampler

Posted on August 14, 2013 by The quirk and the cool

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This selection of cookies, presented as a cookie sampler, comes from a recipe from Annabel Langbein for Butter Cookies:

http://www.annabel-langbein.com/annabel/blog/one-clever-cookie/

Annabel suggests making a quantity of dough and dividing into portions, flavouring each portion in whatever way you fancy!

I chose Carnival Cookies with hundreds and thousands, Cranberry and White Chocolate Cookies, Chocolate with Chocolate Chip Cookies and Sultana and Cornflake Crisp Cookies.

The quantities I have used are half those mentioned in Annabel’s recipe. I ended up with about 3 dozen or so cookies.

Ingredients

250 gms butter
1/2 cup sugar
3 tbsp sweetened condensed milk
A few drops of vanilla extract
21/4 cups plain flour
2 tsp baking powder

Flavourings of your choice (see below)

Method
Preheat oven to 160 degrees C. Line 2 oven trays with baking paper.
Cream the butter and sugar. Beat in the sweetened condensed milk and vanilla, then stir in the flour and baking powder.
To make Cookie Sampler, divide dough into 4 portions. Mix flavourings (see below) into each portion.
Chill mixture for 15 minutes. Roll into walnut-sized balls, place on baking trays and flatten slightly. Decorate according to instructions for different flavourings. Bake until lightly golden and set (about 20 minutes).
Allow to cool for 10 minutes on the tray then transfer to a rack to cool completely before storing in an airtight container or jar. They will keep for several weeks – if they become a little stale simply refresh for 5 minutes in an oven preheated to 180 degrees C.

Cookie Sampler
Once you’ve made a batch of Butter Cookie dough, divide it into 4 and mix a different flavouring into each portion (you’ll get about 8 -12 cookies in each flavour).

Carnival Cookies
Roll 1 portion of dough into balls, dip each ball into hundreds and thousands then flatten onto tray.

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Cranberry and White Chocolate Cookies
Add ¼ cup coarsely chopped dried cranberries and ¼ cup coarsely chopped white chocolate to 1 portion of the cookie dough.
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 Chocolate with Chocolate Chip Cookies
Add 3 tsp dark cocoa, 3 tbsp milk or dark chocolate chips to 1 portion of dough.
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Sultana and Cornflake Crisps
Add 3 tbsp sultanas and 4 tbsp lightly crushed cornflakes to 1 portion of the cookie dough.
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Posted in Biscuits and Slices, Small Baked Things, Sweet Food and tagged , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.
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