Friendship cake recipe

I first had Friendship Cake when I was a teenager. I loved it! My best friend gave me a cup of the starter culture, and within a few weeks everyone in the town we lived in had made it and you couldn’t give the starter away for love nor money!

Several years later, I realised that the cake was actually a form of Sourdough, and I’d been making sourdough bread for years. I had been searching the internet for a friendship cake recipe similar to the one I had as a teenager, and finally found one. I’ve changed this one drastically from the original recipe I found, however this tastes just like I remember the one in my teenage years did.

Click here for the recipe

I’m easy to please

I could be easy to please, or I could just be rather weird… Last wednesday I bought a brand new Stock Pot. Eight litres (32 quarts) of lovely, shiny stainless steel saucepan! Wonderful! I even showed it off to our niece who was staying with us that night. “Right, lovely, uh-huh.” Well, I’m excited! I cooked up five litres of chicken stock on friday, previously I’d only been able to make around two litres at a time! Woohoo!!! It really doesn’t take much to make me happy.

I also just discovered The Essential Ingredient has a shop here in Canberra! Yay!

Sourdough Bread recipe

Here’s the first of the two recipes that I promised to post. Well, it’s the links to it anyway!

http://whatscookingamerica.net/Bread/FrenchSourDough.htm This is the recipe for the sourdough bread I made recently. I don’t make my starter the same way though, I mix the flour and water and then sit the uncovered bowl outside for a few hours on a quiet, windless day. That puts wild yeast from the air in the bowl to start the fermentation. It turns out different every time! The only thing to watch is if there is any pink mould or discolouration develop on the starter, you MUST throw it out and start again!

I keep my starter in a jar in the fridge and feed it 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup flour once a week. I also use organic unbleached wholemeal flour for the starter as it has more food for the yeast organisms. If any grey watery ‘hooch’ develops on top of the starter you can either stir it back in or pour it off, it’s harmless.

I’ll post the recipe for the Minestrone in a few days!

Yummy!

Minestrone and homemade sourdough bread for dinner…. I feel so full! And the really cool thing was that the bread was in rising, and the soup was made, all by 9.45 this morning! So I had to knead the bread again, set it to rise and then bake it later, but that only took a few minutes of work. And it tasted soooooo scrumptious!!!! Soup so thick we could almost eat it with a fork…. the bread was a bit heavier than usual, but still tasted great! Yummo!!!!!

Why I like to grow my own vegies

Taco’s for dinner last night… I went to the shops and bought what I needed and then checked the receipt when I got home. $5.99 for an iceberg lettuce and $3.87 for a single tomato!!!!! This was at our local supermarket that is normally really good with prices, it wasn’t organic food or anything, although that may have been cheaper! Far out…….

White Choc and Macadamia cookies

I was given this basic recipe from a friend and then I added the white choc and macadamias to make my own version, it makes about four dozen biscuits. I LOVE white choc and macadamia cookies, but I really can’t justify paying $3 per biscuit at the shops! These taste just as good if not better than the bought ones!

Basic Recipe

Ingredients:
500g Butter (16oz)
1 cup caster sugar
5 cups Self Raising flour
1 can sweetened condensed milk

Method:
Cream butter and sugar, add milk, then slowly add flour. Mix well. Shape mixture into balls, flatten slightly with a fork and place onto a greased tray. Bake in a moderate oven for about 10 minutes until browned.

I added about 300gm white chocolate, bought in a block and just roughly cut into chunks, and 80-100gm macadamia nuts, also roughly chopped.

You can make all kinds of variations - try adding mini M&M’s, chocolate chips, sultanas, nuts or anything you fancy. If adding coconut, omit half a cup of the flour and add one cup of coconut.