Roasted shoulder pork with Crispy crackling

To get a crispy crackling layer on this shoulder pork I tried deep frying the pork for a couple of minutes prior to slow-roasting in the oven.  I was happy with the result a crispier crackling resulted.

I roasted it covered in al-foil and lathered in honey, BBQ sauce, rosemary and salt and pepper and then used the juices as a sauce for the pork and the roast potatoes and onions.  I cooked the pork uncovered at the end till the internal temp reached 65C and it blackened a bit in the process.

Nice for a weekend and leftovers for sandwiches.

Enjoy!

White Choc Cranberry and Macadamia Cookies

 

I wanted to use reduced fat sweetened ondensed milk and less sugar to try and make a nice cookie.  It turned out ok, a little bit too cake-like and maybe not so sweet.  2 tbls more of brown sugar might do the trick.  The combination of white choc, macadamia and cranberries is very good.

 Ingredients

- 150g softened butter

- 2 tbls black sugar

- 1/2 can 90% fat free sweetened condensed milk

- 1 egg

- 1 tsp vanilla essence

- 1 1/2 cup all purpose flour

- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 cup chopped white chocolate

- 1/2 cup chopped and toasted macadamia nuts

- 1/2 cup cranberries

Directions

1. Pre-heat oven to 170C. 
2. Beat butter and sugar together until creamy and smooth.
3. Add condensed milk and egg.
4. Separately sift together the flour and baking soda and then combine with butter mixture.
5. Mixture should now be a bit stiff.
6. Add in the chocolate, cranberries and macadamia nuts and combine.
7. Using an ice-cream scoop, scoop 2 inch white scoops of mixture onto a grease baking sheet.
8. Press the balls of mixture down a little and then bake for 16 minutes or until golden brown.
9. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack.

Need to consume with a hot coffee.  Batch makes about a dozen cookies the size above.

Enjoy!

Rum Balls

Rum balls are a great treat for a festive occasion.  But why not make them just any time?  Dead easy to make, only takes 20 minutes and a great tasting snack.  The only problem is stopping at just 1...

Ingredients

- 1/2 packet Arnotts Milk Arrowroot biscuits
- 1/2 can sweetened condensed milk
- 1 1/2 tbls cocoa powder
- 2 tbls rum
- 1/2 cup dessicated coconut
- 3 tbls dessicated coconut for coating

Directions

1. Put the biscuits in a sealable sandwich bag and gently crush with a rolling pin
2. Transfer to a medium sized mixing bowl and add the next 4 ingredients.  Use a sieve for the cocoa to remove lumps.
3. Stir and combine into a stiff mixture.
4. Use a spoon to extract enough mixture to roll into a ball a bit less than 1 inch diameter.
5. Coat with dessicated coconut and then place onto a baking tray.
6. Repeat for all the mixture (this quantity makes about 20 rum balls).
7. Place the tray in the freezer for several hours and then transfer to containers for storage in the freezer.
8. Can keep for weeks in the freezer but put them in the fridge on the day you want to eat these.

Perfect any time.

Enjoy!

Yam Cheesecake with Glazed Almonds

Made this cheesecake for my friend's birthday.  The yam, or Japanese sweet potato as it is called here, gives a beautiful purple coloour to the filling.  There is a peanut butter fudge layer separating the crust and the filling and it is topped with glazed almonds!  The filling is deliberately made a little less sweet since the fudge layer and the topping are sweet enough.



Ingredients

For the base

- half a packet of Arnotts biscuits (crushed)

- 150g of melted butter

For the Fudge layer

- 50g butter

- 1 cup brown sugar

- 1 tbls white sugar

- 3/4 cup of milk

- 1 tbls creamy peanut butter

For the Filling

- 2 x 8 ounce packets of cream cheese

- 1/3 cup white sugar

- 3 medium Japanese sweet potato (boiled.  Makes about 2 cups)

- 1 teaspoon vanilla essence

- 4 eggs

- 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

- 1/3 cup of whipping cream

For the Glazed almond topping

- 2 tbls butter

- 1/2 cup brown sugar

- 1/3 cup whipping cream or sour cream

 - 3/4 cup of chopped toasted almonds

Directions

1. Pre-heat oven to 160C.
2. Combine the melted butter and crushed biscuits and press into the bottom of a greased 8" springform pan.
3. Bake the base for 8 minutes then remove from oven to cool
4. For the fudge layer, in a medium saucepan combine butter, sugar and cook on a high heat.
5. Stir constantly as the mixture bubbles away.  The mixture will become hot enough that a teaspoon of it put into cold water stays in a ball.  When this happens take the mixture off the heat and stop stirring
6. Put the peanut butter in the middle and let it cool naturally till it loses gloss.  Then stir with a wooden spoon mixing in the peanut butter.
7. Pour into the spring-form pan and let cool or freeze for 20 minutes.
8. Now you can make the cheesecake filling by beating together the cream cheese, sugar and add 1 egg at a time, the vanilla essence and cream to make a smooth filling.   Separate 1 cup of the mixture that we will use later for marbling.
9. To the main mixture add the softened yam and cinnamon.  Continue to combine the ingredients.
10. Pour half into the springform pan (The fudge layer should now be hardened).
11. On top pour half of the separated mixture and with a metal spatula make streaks combining the two giving a marbling effect.  Continue to add and layer and marble the rest of the mixture.
12. Reduce the heat to 140C and bake for 45 minutes surrounded in a tray with 1 inch of water.
13. After that let the cheesecake cool with oven door ajar for a further 45 minutes.
14. Meanwhile make the glazed almonds by combining the first 3 ingredients of the topping until well combined over a low-heat.  Once thickened a little remove from heat and stir in the almonds.
15. Remove the cheesecake from the oven and run a sharp knife around the edge of the pan. 
16. Pour the topping atop the cake and refrigerate for 6 hours or over-night (i usually cook at night).
17. In the morning carefully remove the springform pan.  The topping should now be hard.

Great with a cup of coffee for breakfast, after yoga of course :-)

Enjoy!

The base after cooking

The fudge layer after refrigeration



Almond Tiramisu

One of the beauties of Tiramisu is that you can adapt the recipe to fit any dish of your choosing.  In my case here I only had about 2 dozen Saviardi biscuits, so not enough to fit one of my regular tiramisu dishes.

So I searched around my kitchen and found my bread loaf tin and that was an almost perfect fit for 3 layers of biscuits.  Not to worry though as the blanket of cream later will hide the unfinished layer.

Adapting the recipe to suit the makeshift vessel was easy and I've added several dimensions to this one to give a bit of variety to regular tiramisu.

Ingredients

- 24 Saviardi biscuits (it's all i had left. 28 would have been perfetto!)

- 6 tbls marsala

- 100g butter, softened

- 2 tablespoons of creamy peanut butter (take big scoops)

- 1/3 cup + 3 teaspoons of white sugar

- 2 egg yolks

- 3 teaspoons coffee

- 1 cup of hot water

- 1 teaspoon almond essence

- 2 cups of whipping cream

- 2 squares of bitter sweet chocolate

Directions

Layer the biscuits in the cake-tin, generously covering each layer with a coat of marsala.

Separately cream the butter and 1/3 cup sugar, then add the peanut butter and egg yolks and combine on high speed.

In a cup of water mix the coffee and 3 tsp of sugar and microwave for one minute.  Combine with the butter mixture and beat till a bit frothy. 

Butters and sugar creamed

Pour the liquid mixture into the dish, covering the biscuits.  They may even float a little, but don't worry as overnight the bicuits will absorb the liquid and all the fantastic flavors.  Put the cake tin into the fridge for overnight.

When you are ready to serve, whip the cream and almond essence, top the biscuits with the cream and shave chocolate on top to decorate.

All combined

After refrigerating 8 hours

I had this one for breakfast!  How sinful...

Enjoy!

The test is liquid in the bottom

Cherry Cheesecake

I prepared this cheesecake the night before my parents arrived.  Let it sit overnigh in the fridge and prepared the cherry topping only an hour or so before serving for morning tea.  Looks great and tastes spectacular.  (Jogging required afterwards though!!).

Ingredients

For the crust

- 1 1/2 packets of Arnotts Malt-o-Milk biscuits http://www.arnotts.com/our-products/products/plains.aspx

- 1/3 cup of granulated sugar

- 3/4 of a 250g stick of butter (melted)

For the filling

- 2 x 250 packets of Cream Cheese

- 3 eggs

- 1 can of Nestle Sweetened Condensed Milk

- 1 tablespoon of fresh lemon juice

- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

For the topping

- 1 can of cherry pie filling

- 1/3 cup water

- 1 tablespoon of corn starch

Directions

Gorgeous crust

Put the Milk Arrowroot biscuits in a sealable food storage bag.  Using a rolling pin, gently crush the biscuits.  In a medium mixing bowl combined the the biscuits crumbs, melted butter and sugar and combine with your fingers.  the Malt-o-milk bisuits are less sweet than the Milk Arrowroot so I add sugar to the base for this one.  Transfer the combined crust mixture to a greased 9" pie dish.  I like using this pie dish for cheesecake as it allow for a lot more of the delicious crust. Press the crumbs firmly into the dish and then bake at 150C for 10 minutes - take out of the oven and allow to cool.

In  a large mixing bowl and using hand beaters, beat the cream cheese and condensed milk until the lumps are taken out.  Add one egg at a time, the lemon juice and the vanilla essence and continue to beat.  Avoid overbaking the mixture.

Pour the filling into the pie dish and place in a baking tray filled to half the height of the dish with water.  This will keep the oven moist when it bakes and prevent your cheesecake from becoming dry.



Cheesecake almost baked



In the water bath

Bake at 150C for 45 minutes checking to see if the cheesecake is done by giving the tray a small shake and the cake should still wobble a bit in the middle when it is done.  Once cooked leave the door of the oven ajar and let the cheescake cool competely in the oven before removing from the oven.  Then allow the cheesecake to refrigerate for 6-8 hours, preferably overnight.

For the topping, combine the water and cornstarch and add to a small saucepan on a low heat.  Add the contents of the canned cherries and simmer until the sauce reduces and thickens up.   Allow to cool in the fridge or pour directly on the cheesecake.

Prepare cherry topping

Run a sharp knife under hot water and use it to cut the cheesecake into the desired sizes.  Very easy to make this one and very satisfying results!

Enjoy!

Ham and Cheese in Puff Pastry

I have to give a lot of credit to my good friend CK.  He takes a lot of these photos and makes the food look so good!

This is ham and cheese wrapped in puff pastry.  Ideal for breakfast and is ready in about 30 minutes.

Ingredients

- pre-prepared sheet of puf pastry (preferably home-made so it's nice a fresh).
- 2 slices of your favorite ham (thick slices work well here)
- 50g Jarlsberg cheese cut into strips about 2 inches long and 1/2 inch wide
- Pepper and sweet basil
- 1 egg beaten

Directions

Pre-heat oven to 200C.

Roll out the puf pastry to about 8 x 6 inch sheet.  Lay the ham on one half of the pastry leaving about an inch from the edges.  On top lay the cheese slices in a grid and top with pepper and sweet basil. 

Fold the pastry to completely cover the filling and then turn the edges up from the bottom all the way around like an envelope seal.  Using a patry brush seal the envelope with egg wash and turn over and place onto a line baking tray or grill.  Paint egg wash on the top and carve a slit or two in the top to allow air to escape.

Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown and expanded.

You can really use any cheese you like.  Mozzarella will work well as it will melt more and tend to ooze out when you cut the pastry.  The lovely buttery layering makes this a delightful way to start the day.  Serve with some tomato or chili sauce and a hot cup of coffee.

Enjoy!