Re-inventing the pin-wheel

/ Lisa

I love pin-wheels. I cannot describe why I love them so much, but I think it is a humour aspect. They sound funny and they look funny and you can pretty much put whatever you like in them.

These apple and honey ones were an experiment. I can make a basic scone recipe and it is easy to put whatever ingredient you want on the dough once it is rolled out. But the fun part is finding new exciting ingredients to make more tasty pin-wheels.

I usually make chilli and cheese pin-wheels. They are tasty and simple – you just spread some sweet chilli sauce and grate some cheese and you’re good to go. However, having just gotten back from Hawke’s Bay laden down with wonderous amounts of food courtesy of my mother, I now have about 15kgs worth of granny smith apples sitting in my kitchen/dinning room. Needless to say, something needed to be done with them – bring on ideas of baking with apples.

Ingredients

3 cups standard flour

6 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

75g butter

1-1/2 cups of milk

2 apples

1/4 cup of liquid honey

Directions

Sift flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Rub butter into dry ingredients with fingers until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add milk, small amounts at a time. Mix together by cutting the ingredients with a knife.

Knead dough on a flat, floured surface until smooth. Roll out until dough is about 5mm thick and you have a large rectangle.

Peel and grate both apples and combine with the honey. Spread filling evenly over the dough. Roll the dough to form a log. Cut the log into prefered size of pin-wheels.

Place pin-wheels on baking tray and place in the oven for about 10 minutes at 220°. Pin-wheels will puff up to about twice the size. Once they are golden brown remove them from the oven.

Best served warm, but still tasty cold.

Tips

This basic recipe for the dough is fool proof, you can use it for any type of scone or pin-wheel. Where I went wrong was in the filling.

By grating the apples I made them too moist and created difficulties when it came to rolling the dough into a log. By draining the moisture that came out of the apples it would have made better pin-wheels. You could also just make them into cubes or slices. By mixing the apple with the honey, it made the liquid come out of the apples also contributing to the wet mess I had to deal with.

You have to be careful with scone dough that you do not add too much milk. One problem I had while making these was I added too much milk. If you add it slowly and not necessarily the whole amount then the dough will be fine.

Other ideas for filling

Sweet chilli sauce and cheese

Marmite and cheese

Spaghetti

Baked beans

Cheese

Bacon

Chicken and cranberries with camembert

Other fruits e.g. dates, crasins.

Really you can add whatever your imagination can think of. The possibilities are endless.

This is cheesecake territory.

/ Lisa
When I am in Hawke’s Bay, I tend to test my skills with new types of cheesecake. Usually so I can test them on my father and my soon-to-be brother-in-law who both like delectable things.

This one I have been wanting to make for a while, but it always came in as second choice against others. So finally I decided it was time to make the Butterscotch Pecan Cheesecake.

Cheesecakes have a rep for being rather difficult, but if you know what you’re doing they can actually be quite easy. They probably get the stigma because of how difficult they look – anything that looks that good, must be hard.

But once you know what you’re doing and have done it a few times, cheesecakes become a breeze to whip up.

Ingredients

150g plain chocolate biscuits

50g butter, melted

Filling

500g cream cheese, softened

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3/4 cup (165g) caster sugar (normal sugar is just as good, if you don’t have caster sugar)

2 eggs

1 tablespoon plain flour

1/2 cup (60g) roasted pecans, chopped finely

Butterscotch topping

1/3 (75g) firmly packed brown sugar

40g butter

1 tablespoon cream

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 160°C/140°C fan-forced.

2. Process biscuits until fine. Add butter, process until combined. Press mixture over base of 20cm springform tin. Refrigerate 30 minutes.

3. Make filling by beating cheese, extract and sugar in medium bowl with electric mixer until smooth; beat in eggs. Stir in flour and nuts.

4. Pour filling into tin; bake about 45 minutes. Cool cheesecake in oven with door ajar.

5. Make butterscotch topping by heating ingredients in small saucepan until smooth.

6. Spread topping over cheesecake. Refrigerate 3 hours or overnight.

Serves 8.

Tips

Instead of using chocolate biscuits I just used a packet of wine biscuits, which is what I normally use for a cheesecake base. By using an entire packet you will need to also up the amount of butter used. I used 100g of melted butter. I tend to add more butter than the recipe usually says anyway because I like a base that does not crumble and actually sticks together. I usually use a base which is 1 packet of wine biscuits, 40g of low fat spread, and 2 tablespoons of apple puree. This makes an amazing base, but alas, I did not have apple puree on hand, so had to do it the old fashioned way.

Also, with the spring form tin, if you place the base upside down in the tin it allows for easier removal of the cheesecake.

With adding the pecans I just used a 70g packet, which is the average size of a packet of nuts here in NZ. I didn’t chop them up too finely, because if you’re adding something like nuts to a cheesecake they should be chunks that you can see and eat, not ground up into the mix.

When cooking the cheesecake, I baked it at 140°C with fan-forced. In doing so you don’t have to bake it for as long as a conventional oven. I left it in there for 35 minutes and then turned the oven off and left it in there to cool. By doing this you cook it till just set and by leaving it in the oven it finishes cooking the cheesecake. It makes a more creamier cheesecake than if you were to remove it from the oven straight away.

This cheesecake is best served with a bit of whipped cream on the side. It makes it just that bit more devilish.

 

Getting my fudge on…

/ Lisa / 2 Comments

 

 

 

So I don’t just bake cupcakes – today I decided to venture out into fudge territory. Now I’m very specific about my fudge – I hate those sugary kinds they make me feel sugar-overload-sick. It is quite gay feeling like you have overloaded on sugar when, in fact, you’ve had barely any. I like the creamy ones that have a sweetened condensed milk base.

This is my first attempt at fudge making, as I have only ever watched and eaten what my mother made. So I really don’t know what other types of fudge you can get, except for sugar based or sweetened condensed milk based. But I am sure in my experimenting I will soon find out.

In my venturing out into fudge territory I found I actully don’t have any fudge recipes in the tombs of cookbooks that grace my bookshelves. So I turned to the trusted internet, which always provides something. The recipe I settled on was a peanut butter fudge – I’m a sucker for anything with peanut butter. I’m quite literally an utter peanut butter nutter.

I found this little gem at Fudge Recipe Collection. They deserve all the credit for this recipe.

This one is very simple to make and is very quick too! I also love it because it uses the microwave, which always makes things super easy.

Microwave Peanut Butter Fudge

Ingredients:

360g chocolate chips

360g peanut butter

435ml sweetend condensed milk

Directions:

In a microwave-able bowl, melt the chocolate chips and peanut butter on “high” for approximately 3 minutes (time will vary according to microwave wattage). Stir well. Add the milk and continue to stir until well combined. Pour mixture into a square pan (I used a 20x20cm) which has been lined with waxed paper. Refrigerate until chilled (approximately 2 hours). Turn the fudge out onto a cutting board, then remove waxed paper. Cut into as many squares as you like (I got 36 out of my tin).

Tips:

When you add the sweetened condensed milk to the chocolate/peanut  butter, the mixture cools quite quickly and turns very thick. So when putting into the tin, try and do as quickly as possible so spreading it to the edges is made easier.

I also used crunchy peanut butter – it adds a little something extra to the fudge by having nut pieces in it. The recipe calls for 360g of peanut butter and the jar used was 375g – you would think there would be some left over, but no. So you can safely say it uses an entire jar (that is if you go for the standard size jar in NZ).

With the sweetened condensed milk, it says 435ml but standard cans in NZ are 395ml. I just used one can and it hasn’t affected the outcome whatsoever, so you can cut it down to just a tin.

I also find using dark chocolate when baking gives a stronger flavour, so try and use dark chocolate chips when making this.

I found this recipe really easy and quick. I will definitely be making this again, if only to satisfy my choclolate addiction.

Enjoy!

Review: Separation City

/ Lisa

Have you ever felt like you had one last chance at happiness? For Simon that is the decision he is faced with when he finds himself in the epidemic that is Separation City.

Simon (Joel Edgerton) is married to Pam (Danielle Cormack). They have two kids. They live like they were meant to be together for the rest of their lives.

Then Simon sees Katrien (Rhona Mitra). Simon falls madly in love with Katrien. The only problem is Katrien is married to Klaus (Thomas Kretschmann). They also have two kids.

Separation City follows the entangled love lives of a group of friends.  It is a movie full of interesting characters and witty one-liners which have sprung from the mind of the male dominated perspective.

More well-known for poking fun at politicians, New Zealand cartoonist Tom Scott has made his first attempt at writing a screenplay. He includes his diatribes about politicians throughout, with the best example Simon’s boss Archie Boyle (Alan Lovell).

He is a typical politician – seedy, likes to drink before 11am, constantly fucks up and knows nothing. This creates many opportunities for a giggle and a few cringe worthy moments. He was essentially “monosyllabic but utterly convincing” as Simon once described him – just like any true politician.

Directed by Paul Middleditch, Separation City is Kiwi through and through, having being filmed on location in Wellington with Parliament as a back-drop. Funding from the very frugal New Zealand Film Commission, makes it a by product of the long white cloud.

However, the film has a very international feel. This may come from a small part being filmed on location in Berlin. It could also signify the New Zealand film industry surpassing the small country stigma and joining the ranks of Hollywood elite.

By following a typical pattern of a Hollywood rom-com the obsession Simon develops with Katrin is grand. He describes staring at her like a baby staring at a mobile above its cot. But the natural development of a wrong obsession soon blows the situation up in Simon’s face. In true Kiwi male behaviour, he gets rip-roaring drunk.

This bender ends with a chair being thrown through an umpteenth floor window and an attempt of a naked deep and meaningful.

Another laugh-worthy character is Harry (Les Hill). Harry is Simon’s best friend. Harry is a journalist. Harry is a typical Kiwi male of the thinking – in his own words – if he were to have a feminine side he would be touching it all the time. The character of Harry is well written and Hill manages to portray him without a flaw, creating the best character of the entire film.

This is a hilariously funny film, which male and female alike will enjoy with side-splitting agony. As a first screenplay from Scott, it is brilliant. The direction and acting has brought the wittiest screenplay this year to life in the amazing backdrop which is New Zealand.

The film encapsulates the idea of man-love gloriously – something I only know three fifths of five eighths of fuck all about, to use the words of Archie. But I will eagerly await more from Scott.

Music and Cupcakes and… GO!

/ Lisa

Hello interwebs!

Welcome to my blog – Music and Cupcakes. I am a young journalist – just starting out. This is where I will post what I enjoy most and any commentary I feel like writing.

The first part of my blog is music. I am a huge music fan and write reviews for any CDs I obtain and gigs I can get to. I’ll also cover anything else I feel needs covering or needs my expert opinion on – such as movies.

The second part of my blog is cupcakes, which can actually be expanded to all sorts of baking. I love to bake and people tell me I’m really good at it. So any baking that I do will highly likely end up on here as well – the recipe, pictures and tips on how to make them.

I’ll also include any commentary pieces I wish to write, which will probably be about anything that makes me fell outraged. And I won’t say no to any other young journos who want a place to post their thoughts.