Weekend Cooking: What I Baked (In My Kitchen) in October

 The first Saturday of the month is when I share all the things that I baked in the previous month. 

I just had a look at last month's post  and I note that it looks very similar to this one in that there was a chiffon cake and a self saucing pudding. In my defence, they were both new recipes to me.

First, I made Butterscotch self saucing pudding. This one was really good, but if I had to pick a favourite out of the ones I have tried so far, it is still the  Spicy Apple and Ginger self saucing pudding recipe that I shared a couple of years ago.

The other thing I made was another variation on a chiffon/angel food cake, this time it was a chocolate chiffon cake. It was oh so good! Beautiful and light but also very chocolatey.

Yes, I am still mildly obsessed with making these kind of cakes. I do think that maybe it is time to try and challenge myself to making something different in the next month, but the question is what. I have several cookbooks out from the library so I should surely be able to find something new to challenge myself with.

I am sharing this post as part of In My Kitchen, hosted at Sherry's Pickings

Weekly meals

Saturday - Beef Pepper Pot Pie

Sunday -  

Monday - 

Tuesday - Anniversary dinner

Wednesday - Chicken tenders with chips

Thursday - Loaded beef tacos

Friday - Takeaway

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page

Weekend Cooking: What I Baked in April

And just llike that it is the end of April! The month seems to have gone very quickly, maybe because we were away for a week of it!

Here's what I baked in April:

Carrot, Walnut and Ginger Cake - This is one of our all time favourite cakes. I was thinking about making something chocolatey for Easter, but we ended up deciding that the Easter Bunny would be happy with a carrot cake right. You can see the recipe for this one here.

Upside Down Pineapple Cake - I have made a bit of a foolhardy decision which is that I am going to make something inspired by each episode of Great British Bake Off this season. Originally the idea was to do the technical bake but on week 3 I decided that might be too hard, so now it is just something from each episode. The challenge on week 1 was to make individual upside down pineapple cake, but I didn't have individual ramekins so I made one big cake using a Nigella Lawson recipe. It wasn't as pretty as hers because I didn't have the right size tin and I think our pineappple rings might be bigger than those in the UK but it was delicious and easy enough to make.

Irish Soda Bread - this is another GBBO inspired bake. The weather is getting colder here, so last weekend we made a Beef and Pepper Stew in the pressure cooker that the recipe says to serve with dumplings. We have done it with dumplings previously, and another time with a pastry lid, but this time we served it with freshly baked soda bread! This is bread that is super quick and easy to make so I think we will do this again.

Spicy Apple and Ginger Self Saucing Pudding - We had friends around for dinner last weekend. we served up this Pork and Fennel recipe and then for dessert we had one of our favourite desserts from last winter. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a photo but everyone enjoyed it.

Weekly Menu

Saturday: Crispy Skin Pork Belly with Caramelised Apples
Sunday: Beef and Pepper Stew with soda bread
Monday: Zucchini Parmesan and Tomato Risotto
Tuesday: Spag Bol
Wednesday: Pork Nachos

Thursday: Takeaway
Friday: Leftovers from lunch!

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page.

Weekend Cooking: What I Baked in October.

 I did have a moment of panic when I first sat down to write this post because I thought for a minute that I had only made one thing, but then I had a closer look and realised that I had made a couple of different things. There is no question though that the amount of things that I have made has reduced over the last couple of months, which might be an indication of COVID fatigue, or just needing some new ideas.

Our restrictions have lifted a bit over the last week, and one of the things that we are really looking forward to is beign able to go out for brunch, or for coffee and cake. Currently we are allowed to go no further than 25kms from our house. There are some suburbs that are quite famous for their cake shops, and they are just outside of our range, so it will be a bit longer before we can go for coffee and cake! So, I guess I am just going to have to make some different things.

One of the things I have to figure out how to find some recipes to challenge myself, but that's a challenge for November!

One of the unusual things about all the things that I have made in October is that I have shared all of the recipes on this blog! As you can see I was trying out a few different things when I was taking the photos. I am never going to be a food photographer really.

Lemon Syrup Cakes - This has been one of my go to recipes for years. Quick and easy and super tasty. When I make these I do warn people that they are very lemony! And yet more than one person has taken a bite and said "oh, they are very lemony aren't they!"

Banana bread - I think we have some bananas that are almost ready to be turned into cake! So we might need to makes this again this week. Yes, the recipe is so good that it is going to become one of my go to recipes for the future!

Sticky Ginger and Apple Self Saucing Pudding - Last week I shared this recipe and made this pudding. it was so good. It is probably the end of the pudding season now but I am already looking forward to when we can make it again.


Weekly Dinners

Saturday: Tuna Nicoise Salad

Sunday: Beef Stew with Dumplings
Monday: Maple Mustard Chicken Tray Bake

Tuesday: Baked Zucchini Tomato and Parmesa Risotto

Wednesday: Mexican Chicken and Rice

Thursday: Italian Sausage Tray Bake

Friday: Packet of chips and a biscuit (dinner of champions!)

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page.

Weekend Cooking: Spicy Ginger and Apple Self Saucing Pudding

A few weeks ago I shared one of the recipes that we discovered this winter, and today I am going to share another. Last time was a dinner and this time a dessert.

It will come as no surprise to anyone that this has not been a normal winter - almost the winter that never was. I mean that there was no queuing in the rain waiting for a tram. No getting poked in the eye by umbrellas as you cross the road at peak hour. None of that!

What we did do this winter is eat! And one of the things that we ate several times were self saucing puddings. The first one that we tried was a chocolate and raspberry self saucing pudding. That recipe was so good, I could have imagined making that over and over again until.....we then tried making this version of a self saucing pudding. This recipe originally came from the Queen website although we do cheat a bit and used canned apples instead of fresh ones.

Now, this is the one that we make over and over again, and we now always have the ingredients for this one in the cupboard now! In fact, maybe I should make it again tonight.

Spicy Ginger and Apple Self Saucing Pudding

Pudding
800g (approx. 4) granny smith apples
1/4 cup (55g) caster sugar
150g butter, melted
1 ¼ cups (190g) self-raising flour
1/4 cup (55g) firmly packed brown sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon or Queen Cinnamon Baking Paste
1 tsp ground ginger
60g crystallised ginger, finely sliced
½ cup (125ml) milk
1 egg
2 tablespoons golden syrup

Sauce
1 cup (150g) lightly packed brown sugar
1 tsp corn flour
20g butter, room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste
1 3/4 cups (435ml) boiling water



Pudding

Peel and core the apples, cutting each apple into 8 wedges. In a frying pan over medium-high heat, cook apples, caster sugar and 50 grams of the butter, turning occasionally, until caramelised (approximately 7-8 minutes). Set aside to cool.

Preheat oven to 180C (fan forced). Grease a 2 litre ovenproof dish and spoon in apple mixture.

Combine flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, ground ginger and crystallised ginger in a bowl. Add milk, egg, golden syrup and remaining butter (100g) and stir until smooth. Spoon batter over apples, spreading to cover.

Sauce

In a medium bowl, mix together brown sugar and corn flour. Add butter, Vanilla Bean Paste, salt and boiling water. Stir until butter has melted and mixture is combined. Gently pour over pudding batter, being sure to leave at least 2cm of room at the top of the baking dish. Bake for 45 minutes and serve warm with ice cream.



Saturday: Baked potatotes with whatever we could find for a topping

Sunday: Green Curry chicken pie

Monday: Spaghettie Bolognaise
Tuesday: Pork Nachos
Wednesday: Thyme Roasted Chicked, lentils and goats cheese salad
Thursday: Steak and Frites, Cafe de Paris butter, Asparagus
Friday: Pizza

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. For more information, see the welcome post.

Weeking Cooking: July Bakes

It's the last Saturday of the month and that means it is time to share my baking for this month. I started doing this earlier this year because otherwise every Weekend Cooking post would be about something sweet, which might be a bit much.

It feels like I haven't really baked very much this month. I do have a couple of things that I want to make but I haven't done so yet. So here's what I did bake:

Last month I made a raspberry and chocolate self saucing pudding. This month, I tried a different version of self saucing pudding. This time it was a ginger and apple self saucing pudding and it was oh so good!

I posted about making the Glamington Cake last week!

This carrot, ginger and walnut cake is one of our favourites. It's a Nigella Lawson recipe that I have shared before. It's always a hit when we make it, especialy the cream cheese icing which has a squeeze of fresh ginger juice in it!

The other thing that we cooked this month was some pastries that we had delivered from a local bakery. They were all premade and we just had to bake them but the danishes we had were so delicious that we ended up ordering some freshly made croissants which we are going to have for brunch today!

Have you cooked anything delicious this month?

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page.

Weekend Cooking: June Bakes

It's the last Saturday of the month and that means it is time to share my baking for this month. I started doing this earlier this year because otherwise every Weekend Cooking post would be about something sweet, which might be a bit much.

Lemon and Blueberry crumble cake - This was the first of Queen Baking Club Challenges for this month, and it was definitely a winner! I'll be making this one again.

Sausage Rolls - I know that this isn't sweet but it is still baking. I have never made sausage rolls before. They have always been on my want to make list but never got  there, until now. These were a big hit in my house. The leftovers disappeared into the man-child's bedroom never to be seen again. I am planning to share the recipe for this in the next couple of weeks.

Easy Pain au Chocolate - I had a sheet of pastry leftover from the sausage rolls so I whipped up a few of these. This is a recipe that I originally found in a novel by Barbara O'Neal

Chocolate and Raspberry Self Saucing pudding - Another Queen Baking Club Challenge, this one was my birthday dessert. It was easy, and delicious, although there

White Chocolate Cheesecake - This is my go to dessert when cooking for friends. One that I have been making for more than ten years, and that my friends all fight over the leftovers.

I am also linking up to In My Kitchen hosted by Sherry's Picking

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page.