Maple pecan pinwheels

Ingredients

Biscuit 

185g butter roughly chopped
2 cups plain flour (300g)
½ cup brown sugar (100g)
2 tblspns maple syrup
1 egg yolk

 Filling 

1/3 cup maple syrup
½ cup pecan nuts very finely chopped
4 tsp cinnamon sugar

Method

Put the butter, flour and sugar into a food processor and process until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs. Add the maple syrup and egg yolk, and process again until the mixture forms a ball, then remove from the processor, and knead on a lighly floured board until smooth. Wrap in a 60cm long piece of plastic wrap (there is a reason for that length) and put in the fridge to rest for an hour.
Remove the wrap and set it aside for later.

Roll out the dough between two sheets of baking paper – you are aiming to get a rectangle of dough 48cm long and 28cm wide (which is the width of the average sheet of baking paper). You don’t want to make it too long, because it needs to be able to fit in your fridge. I found that putting the baking paper on a silicon sheet helps to keep it still on the bench.

Spread the maple syrup on the dough, sprinkle with the pecan and cinnamon sugar. Roll it up along the long edge, using the baking paper to help. Wrap in the plastic wrap and put in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 180°.

Remove the plastic from your roll, and cut 1cm slices, and bake on a greased baking tray (I reused the baking paper). Bake for about 15 minutes until golden brown. Cool for 5 minutes on the tray before moving to racks.

Makes about 50 biscuits.

Deepest Darkest Chocolate Fudge biscuits

Ok, I am about to share with you one of my most precious recipes. These amazingly rich, tasty and chewy biscuits (cookies for my US friends, so don't go thinking this is a scone recipe!) are seriously unbelievably good.  The recipe was given to me by my friend Jocelyn, for which I will thank her forever.

It is a rare recipe that uses this much chocolate without being too sweet. Cocoa, melted chocolate, chocolate chips, this recipe has it all, and the final result is truly special. 

One of the fun things too about this recipe is sharing the list of ingredients with friends... making a double batch particularly so, because then you can tell them that it contains 1.3 KILOS of chocolate chips. 

I think that one of the keys to this recipe is beating the butter and sugar by hand... I don't know why it is, but I do it by hand, and my version seems to come out better than those made by friends using a mixer. Proof that there are times in life, where it is best to do things the slow way.  If you are going to use a mixer, I advise beating on a slow speed.

Deepest Darkest Chocolate Fudge Biscuits (cookies)

214g plain flour
56g cocoa
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
a pinch of salt
227g milk chocolate broken into pieces
113g unsweetened chocolate broken up (a nice dark bittersweet will do)
340g soft light brown sugar
170g unsalted butter (take out of the fridge to soften)
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence

OPTIONAL - 680g plain chocolate chips. 

Method

Sift flour, cocoa, bicarb and salt. Set aside.

Put plain and unsweetened chocolate pieces into a double boiler and heat for 12 - 15 minutes. Stir till smooth and keep at room temperature until needed. (You can microwave the chocolate instead, but be very careful not to over cook it)

Beat butter and sugar. Once creamed, add eggs, one at a time, beating into to the mixture. Add vanilla essence and beat. Add chocolate and beat. Add flour mixture and chocolate chips stirring until thoroughly combined.

For lovely big giant cookies, drop a tablespoon of mix per biscuit onto baking sheets (about 6-8 biscuits per sheet).   For more normal sized biscuits, a heaped teaspoon is about right. 
Bake on the top and middle rack of the oven at 170ºC for 15 minutes, rotating half way through baking time. Do keep an eye on the time, as the high sugar content means that they can burn very easily. 
 

Cool on sheets for 5-6 minutes. Transfer to cooling rack. 

Sit back and enjoy one of the most sensational sweet experiences of your life.

Apple and cinnamon cupcakes

2 tsp cinnamon

4 tsp vegetable oil

4 tsp baking powder

250g caster sugar

320g plain flour

50g unsalted butter, melted

2 lightly beaten eggs

175ml buttermilk

2 peeled finely diced apples

Turn the oven to 175 degrees (350F). Line a cupcake tin with paper liners (this recipe makes 12 decent sized cupcakes)

In a bowl combine the sifted dry ingredients.

In a large bowl beat the liquid ingredients until well combined. Add the dry ingredients and beat until nearly combined. Stir in the apples - careful not to overmix!

Bake for 20 minutes. Cool for 5 minutes, and then remove from the tin and cool on a wire rack. Top with brown sugar frosting. These keep for up to 2 days or freeze (without icing for up to 3 months).

Honey malt slice

This wickedly rich slice is based on a recipe from the Women's Weekly "biscuits and slices" recipe book.

340 grams of butter

2/3 cup honey

1 1/2 cups malted milk powder

4 cups corn flakes

4 cups rice bubbles

1 cup ground almonds

1 cup desiccated coconut

1. Lightly grease and line 2 20x30cm baking trays. Take a sheet of baking paper and lay it along the pans, allowing the paper to extend beyond the edge of the pan.

2. Combine the malted milk powder, butter and honey in a saucepan. Stir on a low heat until the butter is melted. Pour over the dry ingredients, stir, then pour the mixture into the pan. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate till set.

Pear and butterscotch clafouti

Clafouti was originally made with cherries, but has developed far further and now includes all sorts of fruit. I love it, as a simple, quick to make and incredibly elegant dessert.

Traditional cherry clafouti includes a splash of kirsch. I decided to make a pear clafouti this time around - decided by having a surfeit of eggs in the house, and a large tin of pears at hand. To add a little extra twist, I had a think about flavours and concluded that butterscotch schnapps might just work. And indeed it does - the butterscotch schnapps being quite a warm creamy flavour it worked well with the custard and contrasted with the slightly crisper sharper edge of the pear.

Now I am sure a purist would use freshly sliced pears for this recipe, but then again, a purist wouldn't be allowing butterscotch schnapps anywhere either, so they can go be purist and we can enjoy the fruits of our experimental labours. Tinned pears mean that you can create this delicious dessert at any time of the year or day of the week. If you do use fresh pears, peel and core them, and slice them thinly.

Ingredients

Butter
5 eggs plus 2 egg yolks
1/2 cup vanilla sugar (I make my own by keeping my vanilla bean pods in the sugar jar)
1/2 cup sifted flour
1 and a half tablespoons butterscotch schnapps
1 cup (250ml) cream (normal 35% fat cream is fine; occasionally I even use sour cream)
3 extra tablespoons of caster sugar
1 large tin of pears, drained

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

Take a large ceramic or glass pie dish (a gratin dish will do at a pinch). Grease the bottom with the butter and sprinkle it with the caster sugar; shake the dish to get an even spread of sugar.

Place the eggs and vanilla sugar in a bowl and beat until pale and creamy Sprinkle on the flour, add the cream and the butterscotch schnapps and mix with the whisk to combine well.

Arrange the pears around the dish in an attractive pattern. Pour the batter over the top.

Bake for about 45 minutes, until set. Allow to cool, and serve sprinkled lightly with sugar, with or without icecream.

Chocolate Caramel Slice

This is a bit of an Aussie classic, and is totally rich and sweet and addictive. I took a tray of these to a potluck the other night. My friend Kate tried one and decided that she was skipping all the other food at the party (quiches, salads, crumbles and pies) and was going to eat nothing but these for her dinner!

Base
2 cups self raising flour
250g butter
1 1/2 cups dessicated coconut
1 cup fine sugar

Caramel Layer
2 tins of sweetened condensed milk (around 400g each)
60 grams of butter
60mls (4 tablespoons)golden syrup

Topping
300g dark chocolate
40g copha/vegetable shortening


Method

Turn the oven on to warm up, to 180 degrees. Start by making the base. Put all the dry base ingredients in a bowl. Melt the butter, allow to cool a little and then mix into the dry ingredients. Line the base of a baking dish with baking paper (allowing the paper to go up two sides to help you get the slice our later). Tip the base into the tin and spread and press down with the back of a spoon.

Bake for 10 - 15 minutes until lightly golden. Cool.

While the base is baking, start the caramel - put all the ingredients in a pot and heat them, stirring continuously for 8-10 minutes - it will thicken and go golden. Pour over the biscuit base and spread out to ensure the base is covered. Cool until set (this will take 3 or 4 hours in the fridge).

Then, in a double boiler, heat the chocolate and copha and stir together till melted and pourable. Pour over the caramel and biscuit, and then cool again. Cut into squares to serve.

Party food - traditional sausage rolls

I have another catering gig - my friend Oggy's wedding. I gave the bride and groom a list of potential dishes, from which they could choose a menu. They asked what the chances were of having every one of them, as they liked the sound of all of them so much! But the groom also had his own special request: sausage rolls.

I have posted up a sausage roll recipe previously: my chicken, basil and prosciutto sausage rolls. Various friends having made them have declared them to be a great success. That said, these are not going to fulfill the desire of the groom: I think he wants a good red meat sausage roll. So a bit of experimentation has produced this recipe, which I think will fit the bill perfectly. It makes 100 cocktail sized sausage rolls. I know that this sounds like a lot, but believe me, they disappear quickly during a party!

You do need a food processor for this recipe, and it is super quick and easy. Be warned though, there is no way to avoid getting your hands messy!

1.3kg beef mince
2 medium eggs
2 large onions
2 1/2 cups fresh white breadcrumbs - use the food processor to process stale 'square' bread.
4tsp dried herbs - I used sage, oregano, basil and marjoram
1 tsp freshly ground pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1.5 kg pre-rolled puff pastry (5 rolls)
1 egg lightly beaten, for brushing on top of the rolls

Peel and roughly chop the onion. Pop it into the food processor and process until it is quite fine in texture (but not liquid!). Put into a large bowl with the breadcrumbs. Stir in the herbs, salt and pepper.

There is no need to rinse the bowl of the food processor. Just put in the mince (you might need to process in two lots) and process it down to make it a sort of paste. It doesn't need to be perfectly smooth, but it does need to be much finer than the original mince. This will help the filling to hold together. Put into the bowl, and break into the bowl, two of the eggs. With your hands, mix the whole lot together.

Cut the sheet of puff pastry in half lengthwise. Take a good handful of the filling and form into a fat sausage (I guess about 2.5 cm/1 inch in diameter) and lay along the long edge of one piece of the pastry. Brush the opposite edge with water and then fold the pastry over to make a roll. Place seam side down. Repeat with the other pieces of pastry.

Cut the rolls in 3cm lengths. Brush the tops with egg yolk, and chill for at least 15 minutes. Bake for about 15 minutes until golden brown in quite a hot oven - 240 degrees. Serve warm with tomato sauce, home made or otherwise. (These can happily be made the day before, or even made and frozen uncooked)

White Christmas

The white christmas of my childhood had copha and milk powder in it, if I recall correctly. A lack of ability to find copha in the shops here prompted the development of this very rich and tasty version. I hope you enjoy it as much as my friends have!

• 600g white chocolate
• 2 cups rice bubbles
• 100g red glace cherries
• 100g green glace cherries
• 100g silvered almonds
• 100g dried cranberries
• 80g sultanas
• 1 cup desiccated coconut

Method

1. Line a 30cm x 20cm (base) baking pan with baking paper. Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water (don’t let bowl touch water). Fold in the remaining ingredients. Pour mixture into the prepared pan, pressing down with a large metal spoon. Refrigerate for 4 hours or until set.
2. Turn slice onto a chopping board. Using a knife that has been dipped in hot water, cut into squares. Serve.

Dark chocolate tartlets

Photo by Ed.

I served these tiny tarts at the wedding I catered for my friends Patrizia and Ed. (Full menu here). They were a real hit - rich and creamy and just the right size for a not-quite-guilt-free mouthful. 

Ingredients

320g dark chocolate, (at least 60% cocoa but I actually don't recommend more than 80%) 

500ml cream 

4 egg yolks 

2 whole eggs 

1/4 cup sugar 

gold leaf to decorate 

Method

 Combine chopped bittersweet chocolate and cream in a heavy saucepan. Whisk over low heat until chocolate is melted and smooth. Remove saucepan from heat and allow to cool a little.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks, egg & sugar. Very gradually whisk chocolate mixture into the egg mixture until smooth and blended.

Pour chocolate filling into crust, sprinkle with gold leaf, and bake at 180 degrees until set (about 15-20 minutes for a single large shell, or 5-10 for small shells).

Miniature chocolate chip cupcakes

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups sifted self-raising flour 

3/4 cup caster sugar

1/2 cup cocoa powder, sifted 

3/4 cup dark or milk choc bits 

1 tablespoon cocoa powder, extra, to serve 3/4 cup milk

125g butter, melted, cooled

2 lightly beaten eggs

Instructions 

Preheat oven to 200°C.

Prepare an oven tray with tiny paper lined foil cups.

Combine flour and caster sugar in a bowl. Stir in cocoa powder and choc bits. Make a well in the centre. Add milk, butter and eggs to flour mixture. Using a metal spoon, stir gently to combine.

Spoon mixture into the paper cups, till 3/4 full. 

Bake for 5 to 10 minutes until risen and set. Cool.

Coconut Mango Cake

This cake is both delicious and pretty. The mango gives it the most glorious gold colour and the taste combination of coconut and mango is sensational. You can use either fresh mango puree, or tinned at a pinch. Ingredients 

330g caster sugar 

250g butter 

4 eggs 

160ml mango puree 

2 cups desiccated coconut 

375g self raising flour 

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees. 

Grease and line a cake tin (baker's grease will work really well too... hmmm must post the recipe for that!). 

Beat the sugar and butter in a mixing bowl until combined (not light and fluffy, just combined) then add the eggs one at a time - don't beat strongly, just to combine. 

Grab a wooden spoon and stir in the coconut and mango puree and then the flour. Spread into your prepared cake tin - the mixture is quite thick. 

Bake for about 1 and a half hours. Stand for a few minutes in the tin before turning out on to a wire rack; flip so it is top side up to cool. 

Icing: 1 and a half cups of icing sugar 1 egg white 2 tablespoons mango puree 3/4 cup desiccated coconut Beat the egg white till foamy... gradually beat in the icing sugar a tablespoon at a time. Stir in the puree and coconut, and then spread onto the cake.

Yoghurt Cake

This recipe is from a non-food blog: french word of the day. I subscribed to Kristin Espinasse's list a few years ago when I moved to Geneva. Back in 2007 she posted up a recipe for a yoghurt cake which sounded really fun to make, but somehow I never got around to making it. Not sure why, guess because whenever I had yoghurt in the house, I ate it instead of baking with it! After I had an operation two years ago, I have become oddly sensitive to yoghurt, to the point where I really can't eat it any more. Some friends of mine were emptying their fridge before they departed for a long trip and gave me some yoghurt. Rather than throw it out I thought to myself "ahah! I can finally make that recipe!". Here's hoping that I can eat cooked yoghurt. The funky thing about this recipe is its beautiful simplicity.

Ingredients: 

one small container of plain yoghurt (reserve the container for measuring the remaining ingredients)

flour

sugar

vegetable oil

two eggs 

2 teaspoons baking powder 

Instructions 

Fill/empty the yoghurt container... ...3 times with flour ...2 times with sugar ...1 time with vegetable oil.

First combine yoghurt, beaten eggs & sugar. Next, add flour and baking soda, stir. Add a pinch of salt... Pour in oil and mix well. 

Pour into a greased cake pan and bake for 45 minutes at 150°C (300°F). How easy is that?

Cinnamon & apple cookies

With the delicious combination of oats, brown sugar, apples and cinnamon, these biscuits are like an apple crumble in biscuit form. This recipe isn't mine, but is adjusted from the ever reliable Australian Women's Weekly. Remember if you are cooking from this blog, my recipes are metric! 

2 eggs 

1 1/2 cups brown sugar (275g) 

1 teaspoon vanilla essence 

1/2 cup mild vegetable oil 

2 tblspn golden syrup 

2 cups rolled oats 

1 1/2 cups chopped dried apples (135g) 

1 3/4 cup plain flour (150g) 

3/4 tsp baking powder 

1/2 tsp bi-carb soda 

1 tspn ground cinnamon 

Set your oven to preheat at 210 degrees. Beat the sugar and eggs with an electric mixer until the mix becomes light in colour. Stir in the vanilla essence, oil and golden syrup. Then stir in the oats, apple and sifted dry ingredients. 

Cover and refrigerate for an hour. 

Roll tablespoons of the mix into balls, and press down onto a silicone-paper lined baking tray. Bake for 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool on the tray.

Clementine Cookies

I had a fit of baking last night: we are doing some fundraising at work for the Australian bushfire appeals. I did a giant batch of anzac bikkies. I finished the anzacs at about 2am but by then the baking bug had bit me and I found myself searching through my cupboards for ingredients to make something, anything more! My eyes fell upon the net of clementines in the big fridge (ie, on the balcony, which during winter becomes my second fridge). Grand. I would make something from them. Grand. umm... what?? From this 2am dilemma sprang this invention: 

Clementine Cookies 

 2 dessert spoons of finely grated clementine rind 

2 egg yolks

125 g butter 

1 cup caster sugar 

2 tablespoons clementine juice 

2 and a half cups self raising flour 

Turn your oven onto moderate (approx 170 degrees C) to warm up. Beat the egg yolk, butter, rind and sugar until fluffy. Add the flour and then drizzle in the juice until it comes together into a dough. 

Knead gently on a lightly floured surface until the dough is smooth. Take dessertspoons of the mixture and roll into balls. Press onto baking trays that are either lightly greased or have silicon paper. 

Bake for 15 minutes until lightly browned and allow to cool on the tray. Once cool ice and decorate - make up an icing with clementine juice and icing sugar. 

This recipe makes about 60 biscuits.

Brie and Asparagus Quiche

Surprisingly, because it isn't the season for them, there were bunches of asparagus in the shops this week, and at a pretty reasonable price. No I didn't do terribly immoral things by buying asparagus from the other side of the world... no, these had a pretty ok carbon footprint having come from Spain. So... what to make for a winter dinner with friends, using this delicious vegetable? I know... 

Brie and Asparagus Quiche

1 cup cream or sour cream

1 bunch of asparagas (500g)

200g brie

salt & pepper 3 eggs 300g shortcrust pastry

• Roll out the pastry and line a ceramic or glass quiche dish.
• Lay out the asparagus and tuck slices of brie between.
• Mix eggs & cream till nicely blended. Season with salt and pepper
• Pour egg mix into the quiche dish
• Bake in an oven at 200 degrees C for 25-30 minutes until nicely browned.
• Serve warm or cold as you like... delicious!

Lemon iced biscuits

I made a batch of these pretty iced biscuits as a birthday gift for a dear friend. They were sweet, delicious and incredibly cute. 

200g butter 

1 tsp vanilla paste 

1 egg 

1 1/2 cups of plain flour 

1 cup caster sugar 

1/2 cup self raising flour 

Method 1. Put all the ingredients into your food processor. Pulse until combined. Wrap ball of dough in plastic wrap and put in the fridge to rest for an hour. 

Method 2. Beat butter, sugar, vanilla and egg until pale. Gradually add the flour until combined. Wrap in plastic wrap and put in fridge to rest for half an hour. Roll out to 5mm and cut out circles. 

Because this recipe has a raising agent in it, it isn't really suitable for shaped biscuits. 

 Another easy option is to form the dough into cylinders and roll in plastic wrap,twisting the ends. Cool for an hour and a half, remove from the oven and then slice to make rounds. 

 Bake in a moderate oven for about 10 minutes. Cool for 5 minutes on the tray and then move to wire racks. Ice with lemon icing (add lemon juice drop by drop to icing sugar until you have a spreadable paste). Sprinkle with decorations while the icing is still wet.

Sweet potato, pumpkin & feta pizza

Long gone are the days of pizza having to have tomatoes and mozzarella. Nowadays you can get pretty much anything on a pizza, for example, tandoori chicken & thai green curry. You can even buy strange dessert pizzas. I am all for pushing the envelope in cooking, so I am pretty open minded about what should or should not go on a pizza. That said, there are some things that should simply not go there... along with deep fried mars bar and deep fried cupcakes, and I am thinking that rocky road pizzas are one of those things.

But this delicious pizza is all good. The combination of the sweetness of the pumpkin and sweet potato and saltiness of feta create a perfect partnership joined with the textural joys of the softness of the vegetables and crispness of the crust. 

1 small sweet potato (around 200g) 

1 wedge of pumpkin (around 200g) 

1 onion 

50g feta 

pizza dough 

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees C. Peel and dice the pumpkin, sweet potato and onion. Pan fry with a little olive oil on a relatively low heat until the onion has gone transparent and the vegetables have softened. 

Spread the mixture onto the pizza dough and crumble feta on top. Bake for 20 minutes until the crust has crisped and the cheese has browned.

Marmalade Cupcakes

There is a bit of a tale to this recipe. A friend of mine broke her leg. Her mum, being the caring sharing type, decided she couldn't stay in Australia with her daughter suffering a broken leg in Switzerland, so she flew across.

And what does a worrying mum do with herself during the day when her daughter is stuck on the couch? She makes marmalade of course! So how does this connect to me and marmalade cupcakes? Well my friend moved back to Australia and kindly donated to me the unused contents of her cupboards - including a lovely jar of marmalade.

Inspired to bake one day, I created these delicious cupcakes; only wish my friend was here to try one.

• 125 butter
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 2 cups of flour
• 1/2 teaspoon bicarb soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup milk
  
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup orange marmalade

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. If, unlike me, you have a muffin tin, put the paper cases into it, otherwise, just lay them out on a tray.

In your mixer, beat the butter and caster sugar until light fluffy. One by one, add the eggs, beating well between additions. While the mixer is still going, add the marmalade.

In another bowl, combine the flour, bicarb, salt and baking powder.

Now, alternating between the milk and the flour mixture, add to the mixer, until combined (but don't overbeat).

Fill the paper cups with the mixture and then bake for around 20 minutes until risen and golden.

The special joy of these cupcakes is that the marmalade makes little pockets of marmalade toffee, which are just delicious. I topped them with a simple icing made of marmalade, icing sugar and cream cheese but actually I loved them just as they were. I took them to work and they were inhaled with gusto.

This recipe made about 2 dozen cupcakes

Savoury pullapart bread

I have been having a bit of a bread baking frenzy. It started after the fete de Geneve, when a friend gave me a big bag of rehydrated dried mushrooms. I couldn't use them all so I froze it in bags. I also made a batch of bread dough for a dinner, which completely failed to rise. I am a persistent sort of girl though, so I put the bread dough in the fridge, and the next morning, when I looked in the fridge there was risen dough! Hmmm... what to do with it? I took it to work and at morning tea time, used some of the mushroom mix to make a loaf of cheese and mushroom pull apart bread. My colleagues devoured it and that just got me started...

Next thing I know, I am making cinnamon scrolls, fruit bread, and today, bacon onion and cheese pull apart bread.

Pull apart bread is great fun both to make and eat. Kneading bread is always satisfying, as is seeing the wonderful dough double, and then the pleasure of forming the lovely savoury bites. The scent of baking bread fills my apartment and I am only surprised that my neighbours haven't been knocking on the door demanding a bite!

This recipe is pretty flexible and you can put whatever filling inspires you into the centre, sweet or savoury.

Pull apart bread

1 package instant yeast
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons salt
500g flour
1 cup warm milk
1 large egg
8 tablespoons melted butter or oil

Filling
1 onion finely chopped
150g bacon, finely chopped
200g cheese grated

Method 1
Combine the dry ingredients. In another bowl put all the liquid ingredients, egg, milk & oil. Add a cup of the dry ingredients and stir well. Gradually add the other dry ingredients until you get a soft dough. Knead on a lightly floured work surface for about 6 minutes until the dough is smooth and springy to the touch.

Method 2
Place dry ingredients in bowl of electric mixer (not food processor). Use the mixing blade and add the wet ingredients. Once combined, change to dough hooks and knead for 4-6 minutes, until the dough is smooth and springy to the touch.

Oil a large bowl. Put the dough into the bowl and then turn it over so that the surface is oiled. Cover with plastic wrap. Place somewhere warmish (funnily enough, beside my laptop seems to work well for me, so that the warm air from the fan circulates around it) for about an hour and a half until the dough doubles in size.

Fry the onion gently it starts going transparent, then add the bacon. Fry just for a minute. Allow to cool while you grate the cheese.

Once the dough has risen, deflate and then grab pinches of dough (about the size of a walnut. Form into a ball, then flatten it out into a disk. Put a little of the onion and bacon and grated cheese onto the centre of the disk and then pinch it closed to make a little ball. Layer into a lightly oiled loaf tin.

Allow to rise about 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Once the bread has risen, bake for about 30 minutes until the bread is a dark golden brown and when turned out of the tin the bottom of the loaf sound hollow when tapped.

Eat, ideally while still warm!

Vegan Coconut Cake

Two of my colleagues are leaving Geneva for the flatter climes of Australia. One of them is, like me, a foodie, so I just had to cook something for their farewell morning tea.

First up... a vegan cake. My friend James is a vegan and every time we have a morning or afternoon tea he is left holding his cup of coffee unable to eat any of the goodies. So I decided that this time around he would not be left cakeless. I wanted to make something that wasn't "typical" vegan food, all wholemeal flours soy and treacle, but something light, fluffy, properly cake-like. So I baked this very yummy coconut cake, only to get to work to discover that James is off this week on holidays. How frustrating! Still, my other colleagues wolfed it down so it was still a success story.

Coconut Cake

3 cups of self raising flour
2 cups caster sugar
1 c dessicated coconut
3/4 tsp salt
2 cups coconut milk
2/3rds of a cup of vegetable oil (something without a strong flavour)
1 tsp vanilla
2 tspns vinegar

Start by putting your oven on to heat up to 180 degrees. Grease and sprinkle a ring tin with flour (I in fact use baker's grease - recipe to come).

In a your mixer combine the flour, dessicated coconut, sugar and salt. Stir in the coconut milk and oil and mix until you get a smooth batter. Just before pouring into the cake tin, stir in the vinegar - this step seems to be the key to getting a lovely light cake with a soft texture and golden crust.

Bake around 1 hour 15 until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes away clean. Don't open the oven to test it until it has been in at least 25 minutes or it will sink! Cool briefly in the pan then turn onto a cooling rack. This cake is beautifully moist and needs no icing.