Make the most of fresh produce with these blueberry custard cupcakes. Really easy to make, great to freeze for lunchboxes, or put them on a pretty plate and share with a friend.
Ingredients:
- 1 quantity cupcake mixure
- thick custard
- Fresh blueberries
Make up the mixture for the cupcakes and half fill your patty cases. Using a piping bag, pipe some of the custard into the middle of the cupcake mixture, then top with more cupcake mixture. Top with fresh blueberries and sprinkle with sugar.
Bake moderate oven until golden.
Apple Crumble
Don’t throw out those apples that have been sitting there in the bowl and are starting to look a little tired – revamp them into delicious apple crumble for a quick and easy dessert on a cold winter’s night (or serve it cold on a hot summer’s night – no point waiting right?).
Ingredients
- apples – red or green
- cinnamon powder
- water
- 1C plain flour
- 1C coconut
- 1C brown sugar
- 125g butter
Method
Peel and chop the apples, place in a heavy pan with cinnamon powder and a little water. Cook over gentle heat until the apples have softened. Note: I haven’t added extra sugar here as the apples are generally sweet enough with the crumble mix.
In a large bowl, mix the plain flour, coconut and brown sugar. Chop the butter into small cubes. Add to the flour mix and rub through with fingertips until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. If the weather is hot, or you don’t want to do this by hand, use a food processor. The next photo needs more work with breaking down the butter (too lumpy!)
Once the apple is cooked, place into the bottom of a baking dish and spread over base. Top with flour mixture. Bake moderate oven until golden on top.
Serve with cream, custard or ice cream (or a combination of all three!).
Chilli Jam
I know I’m allowed to swear when it comes to Chilli Jam, after all – this is my site! CHILLIES ARE $&*! HOT
Well, before you get started on this recipe, MAKE SURE YOU WEAR GLOVES! If you don’t, then I can say “I TOLD YOU SO!!”. I thought I was pretty cool and wouldn’t need to wear gloves while dealing with these hot little pockets of colour, let me tell you, my hands burned for HOURS afterwards and no home remedy would even come close to putting the fire out on my hands – thank goodness I didn’t touch my eyes! I think having 2 hands on fire was worse than childbirth… don’t say I didn’t warn you!
So, I grow my own chillies, and there are more than enough for our needs. I had to find another way to use them up besides our homemade chilli paste. I’ve had a few nice chilli jams over the years, and with hubby going nuts over the smoking, we needed to find something to take it all to the next level.
There are only 3 ingredients in this recipe – chilli, sugar and apple cider vinegar. The quantities are all going to depend on how many chilli you have to use (or you’ve purchased).
Chop up all the chilli and put them into a heavy pot. Add roughly an equal amount of sugar to the amount of chilli – if there’s one cup of chopped chilli, add one cup of sugar. Add an equal quantity of apple cider vinegar.
Cook over a medium heat until most of the apple cider vinegar has evaporated. You also need to check that the mix has become syrupy – to test, put a spoonful of liquid onto a plate and let it cool slightly – if it has the consistency of honey, then it’s ready. If it’s too runny and has been on for an hour, add more sugar and increase the heat.
Pour into sterilised jars, cool then refrigerate. Serve on cold meats, sandwiches, cheese platters or be game and try it on ice cream with some grated chocolate.
Chocolate Brownies
These chocolate brownies are seriously good and incredibly easy to make – if Mr 17 can make them (over and over again) then so can you!
Ingredients:
- 250g choc chips (white, milk or dark or a combination)
- 1 C self raising flour
- 250g butter
- 3/4 C castor sugar
- 1/2 C cocoa
- 4 eggs
Method
Melt the butter. Combine all the other ingredients, add melted butter. Pour batter into a lined cake tin/slice tin. Bake in a moderate oven for about 30 minutes.
To see if the brownies are cooked – you want them still a little gooey on the inside, but firm on the outside. As they cool, they will continue to cook. If you want a drier brownie, cook for a little longer.
