Baking/Cooking Ideas, Tips & Recipe Shares..

I'm sure the Better Homes is a really good cookbook too. At least you have one!

I haven't read any of the other posts I am completely butting in here so apologies 'if' someone has already given a recipe for CHRISTMAS CAKE just slap me!! :tongue:

So yes...you've guessed it I would like a recipe for CHRISTMAS CAKE please.....I personally hate fruit cake especially orange peel... but my hubby loves it and I thought what with it being Theo's 1st Xmas, Mummy should make it extra special!!

x x G x x

Georgi wrote:I haven't read any of the other posts I am completely butting in here so apologies 'if' someone has already given a recipe for CHRISTMAS CAKE just slap me!! :tongue:

So yes...you've guessed it I would like a recipe for CHRISTMAS CAKE please.....I personally hate fruit cake especially orange peel... but my hubby loves it and I thought what with it being Theo's 1st Xmas, Mummy should make it extra special!!

x x G x x

Georgi, I think my Mom has a really good one, I hate Christmas Cake as well but this one I actually don't mind, I will get it from her and post it for you.. xox

That will be FANTASTIC!!!!! thank you!!

Georgi wrote:That will be FANTASTIC!!!!! thank you!!

Hun, sorry it is taking so long, my Mom is trying to find the recipe. Hopefully she will find it this morning and then I can post it.

No worries honey I won't be making it just yet anyway.....unless I am supposed to?????

Georgi wrote:No worries honey I won't be making it just yet anyway.....unless I am supposed to?????

No, no it isn't something to make now unless you want it now to have.

kellybean wrote:

24Penguins wrote:does anyone know how to toast pumpkin seeds?? lol i remember having them as a kid but i dont know what temperature to set the oven to, or if you are supposed to put anything on them or just put plain raw seeds on a cookie sheet. help! lol. i thought it would be a fun healthy treat though if someone knows how!

When I do seeds, I rinse them off good, spread them out on a sheet, lightly salt them and bake at 250 until they dry up good. You need to watch them and stir them otherwise one side will be wet. Usually takes 45 minutes?

I don't rinse them off too good, I may be weird but I kinda like a little bit of the orange stuff with them.

LOL.. That looks too gross.

So, I tried baking a chocolate cake today. I was gonna use the recipe for the one on here, but i didn't realize that it used a box cake, and i didn't have any on hand. :cry: So, I found one online, but then midway through realized DF left an 18-count carton eggs with one in it!!!! :angry: So, after leaving the kitchen for like half an hour in anger and frustration, I sent Jadah across the street to her friend's house to ask if I could "borrow" an egg. I finished the stupid cake, but it was too dry, and the frosting was too runny. I am disappointed because I wasted way too much time and energy on it. Oh well.

If anyone has any MOIST chocolate cake recipes that calls for cocoa let me please. In the mean time, I might just go to the store this week and grab a box of chocolate cake mix to do the one posted earlier. OK, rant over.

mscherry42 wrote:LOL.. That looks too gross.

So, I tried baking a chocolate cake today. I was gonna use the recipe for the one on here, but i didn't realize that it used a box cake, and i didn't have any on hand. :cry: So, I found one online, but then midway through realized DF left an 18-count carton eggs with one in it!!!! :angry: So, after leaving the kitchen for like half an hour in anger and frustration, I sent Jadah across the street to her friend's house to ask if I could "borrow" an egg. I finished the stupid cake, but it was too dry, and the frosting was too runny. I am disappointed because I wasted way too much time and energy on it. Oh well.

If anyone has any MOIST chocolate cake recipes that calls for cocoa let me please. In the mean time, I might just go to the store this week and grab a box of chocolate cake mix to do the one posted earlier. OK, rant over.

Oh that sucks.. One thing I will tell you about the cake recipe I posted on Pg. 1, I have never made a cake so moist in my life as that one...

this is great girls
i have a quick on and sorry i hardly ever measure lol

honey mustard chicken

Chicken breast sliced thin
Potatoes- cut thin
250ml cream ( i just get long life pouring cream)
1-2 packets of cream of chicken dry soup mix
1/2 jar ( 80g or so) whole grain mustard
1 tablesppon of honey
Peel and slice potatoes thin
Cut chicken thin
layer in a casserole dish, one layer chicken 1 layer potato etc
Mix the cream, soup mix and mustard in a seperate bowl then pour over chicken and potatoes
Cook until potatoes soft and chicken cooked ( approx 1 hour) i also sprinkle grated cheese on top

Yummy!!! nice with veg or salad
( sorry if not exact measurments lol i am good at guessing lol)

and for dessert

This one is one of my favs, i always make it at christmas time too

Chocolate Peppermint Slice
2/3 cup ( 90g/30oz) self raising flour
1/4 cup( 30g/1oz) cocoa powder
1/2 cup (45g/1 1/2 oz) desicated coconut
1/4cup (60g/2oz) sugar
140g (4 1/2oz) butter, melted
1 egg, beaten lightly

Peppermint filling
1 1/2 cups ( 185g/6oz) icing sugar, sifted
30g(1oz) Copha ( white vegetable shortening), melted
2 tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon peppermint essence

Choc topping
185g ( 6oz) dark choc chopped ( i always use milk choc)
30g ( 1 oz) copha

1. preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius ( 350 F)
Line a lightly greased tn with baking paper
2. Sift cocoa and flour into a bowl, Stir in coconut and sugar, then add melted butter and egg and mix well. Press firmly into the tin. Bake for 15 mins an leave to cool ( press downwith back of spoon so compact)
3. To make peppermint filling, sift the icing sugar into bowl. stir in the melted copha, milk and peppermint essence. spread over cooled base and chill for 5-10 mins or until firm
4. Choc toppoing- put choc and copha in a heatproof bowl and stir over a pan of barley simmering water until melted ( i just melt in microwave lol) spread choc topping over the peppermint filling and refrigerate until topping is firm, cut witha warm knife ( or when choc top is cold but not yet set)
Nutrition per peice ( makes 24 pcs)
protein 1.5g
fat-10g
carbs-20g
dietry fibre-0.5g
Cholesterol 25mg
730kj ( 175 cal)

ENJOY

Here's my Stuffed Shells recipe. It's from a book called (Favorite Name Brand) One-Dish Recipes/Secrets of Slow Cooking.

Classic Stuffed Shells
1 jar (26 to 28 oz) RAGU Old World Style Pasta Sauce, divided.
2lbs. part-skim ricotta cheese
2 cups part-skim shredded mozzarella cheese (about 4oz)
1/4 c. grated Parmesan cheese
3 eggs
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh parsley
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 box (12 oz) jumbo shlls pasta, cooked and drained.

Preheat over to 350 deg.F. In 13"x9" baking pan, evenly spread 1c. sauce. Set aside.

In large bowl, combine cheeses, eggs, parsley, and black pepper. Fill shells with cheese mixture, then arrange in baking pan. Evenly top with remaining sauce. Bake 45 min. or until sauce is bubbling. Makes 8 servings

Ok, here's how I change it. First of all, I don't use RAGU! I make my sauce (you all have the recipe!) so I use that instead. One batch of my sauce gives us plenty of leftovers, so I either freeze it for later use or use it the next week for shells.

Tonight I cut it back by about a third. About 1c. of ricotta; shredded about 1/2 of the 8oz of mozzarella, maybe 1/8c. Parmesean cheese, and one egg. Whoops, forgot to add pepper tonight. Probably just a few dashes. I never have fresh parsley so I leave that out. I cooked 8 shells and had just a little bit of cheesy stuff leftover.

I don't put sauce on the bottom. I just use cooking spray, place the shells in, and then top with sauce. The sauce will run down anyway as it cooks. I use a Corningware pan that's small enough to keep the shells from tipping. It's easy to overbake so I put mine in for 30min but probably will check it at 20min.

Salad and garlic bread and you're good to go!

mmmmmm sounds yummy beth, but what are stuffed shells??? tacos?? or are they very large pasta shells?? i dont think we have those here
Gee i ask alot of questions about word meaning lol but im ALL the way down under hahahaha

Sparkles, it's pasta!

This is not the receipe I posted, but here's a pic so you get the idea.

ok gottcha lol
so you stuff the pasta like ravioli
yum i think i will give it go.
so its just the large pasta shells which are like3cm big or so

Quick post,
I made a curry chicken dish tonight that turned out quite nice, seeing as how I rushed through it, and didn't realize that I didn't have all the ingredients that the recipe called for, but both girls ate seconds! I'll post it once I figure out what all I tweaked and figure out some rough measurements.

just skimming through some of these yummy recipes and thought it was funny to see 'self-raising flour' on sparkle's recipes, that is such an Aussie thing! I'm not sure what the equivalent here would be (we just have plain old flour, none with the self-raising agent in it) - maybe a bit of baking powder + flour? Not sure how much you'd use though. *shrugs* may not be a big deal but I can imagine it would cause trouble if you just substituted plain flour for the self-raising! (And I miss being in Australia so much so anything that reminds me of it makes me smile!)

I love to cook and i'm sure I have something to share at one point!

Oh we have self-raising flour here in the UK too!! I tend to use it even when it states use plain

Does anyone have a good chocolate frosting recipe. I made a chocolate cake from scratch today, and it was 50 times better than the last one. I used a recipe that called for mayonnaise, of all ingredients, go figure. My uncle, who's a chef, said that adding mayo makes for really moist chocolate cakes, and he was right. But, unfortunately, my chocolate frosting recipe was not good. It wasn't thick and solid enough. I put it in the fridge, which helped to "firm" it some, but it still wasn't to my liking in consistency. Jadah and I both agree that this cake was much better, but I'm still not quite there. But, the cake recipe was quick and simple, and MOIST.

Hey Everybody!
I just saw you wanted a chocolate frosting recipe, but I actually have a peanut butter recipe that IS AWESOME on chocolate cakes I absolutely LOVE IT!

PEANUT BUTTER FROSTING

1 - (1-lb.) pkg. Domino® Confectioners Sugar (approx. 3 3/4 cups)
1/2 cup - butter or margarine, softened
3 to 4 tablespoons - milk
1 teaspoon - vanilla
Heaping 1/3 cup of PB


I need to try some of your yummy recipes!!!!

Sparkles, those chocolate mint slices have made me sooo hungry! That is the sort of thing I love. I will definitely be making some to take to work with me x

Here's something my mom just shared with me that is a quick, easy, and very yummy ''candy'' for Christmas.

Ingredients
Rollo caramel candies
half pecans
m&ms (Christmas red & green are great)
Pretzels my mom says they have round ones - rings? I could not find anything like that here, but I got some thin square ones that kinda looked like a grid, and they worked out fine.


Pre-heat oven to 275
put a piece of foil on your cookie sheet
lay out pretzels on the cookie sheet, and place an unwrapped Rollo on each one.
Bake for 2 1/2 minutes

take cookie sheet out of oven, and press a piece or pecan, or two m&ms into each rollo, flattening it out somewhat. Cool in fridge.

YUM!