Category Archives: All Recipes

SHORTBREADS – Thel Payne

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Christmas in our house always started with Mum making the pudding and the cake, the next thing on her list was fruit mince pies and shortbread.  Although I’ve hunted through her recipes I haven’t been able to find her fruit mince pie recipe yet, I know it’s in there somewhere, but I have found lots of recipes for shortbread.  This recipe seems typical of the handwritten ones and was given to her by an old friend – Thel Payne.

Shortbreads cropped

 

SHORTBREADS – Thel Payne

  • 250g buttter
  • 125g castor sugar
  • 375g plain flour
  • 75g rice flour

Cream butter and sugar, add flours.  Knead in basin till smooth.  Divide into 3 pieces and roll into circle approx 10mm thick.  Cut into 8 to 10 pieces and bake in oven 160o for 5 mins then 120o for 30mins.  Turn tray half way through.  When cool dust with icing sugar.

 

 

 

CHRISTMAS CAKE – Dutch Fruit Cake

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The first Christmas after I got married, my husband had to work on Christmas Day so I met him at lunchtime and we had a picnic lunch in the Botanical Gardens, which was a lovely way to celebrate our first Christmas together.  That first Christmas also meant my first Christmas cake baking effort.  It was a disaster, a soggy undercooked cake – ruined. When I told Mum she smiled and told me to mashing it all up in a bowl add a cup of cold tea and recook it as a pudding and to this day I’m still amazed that it worked.  My cooking improved somewhat after that and this Dutch Fruit Cake became the recipe I used for many years.  Adding the mixed peel and nuts and brushing the cake with brandy while still hot makes the cake a little more Christmasy.Dutch Fruit Cake croppedDUTCH FRUIT CAKE

  • 125g butter
  • 250g sugar
  • 1 cup cold water
  • 125g currants
  • 250g raisins
  • 375g sultanas
  • 1 teaspoon mixed spice
  • 1 teaspoon grated nutmeg
  • lemon juice
  • 2 eggs well beaten
  • 1 cup Self Raising Flour
  • 1 cup plain flour
  • 1 dessertspoon treacle or golden syrup
  • ½ teaspoon bi-carb soda dissolved in 1 tablespoon of boiling water

Line a cake tin with a layer of brown paper and a layer of baking paper.  Boil together butter, sugar, water, fruit, spices, lemon juice for 3 minutes.  Set aside to cool.  When cool stir in beaten eggs, flours, treacle and lastly bi-carb soda dissolved in boiling water.   Bake in a moderate oven 180o for 2 hours.  Mixed peel and nuts can be added if like.  For a Christmas touch – when still hot from the oven pierce the cake with a skewer and brush with brandy.

 

 

 

CHRISTMAS CAKE – Foolproof Fruit Cake

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This is the recipe I usually use to make my Christmas Cake.  Back in 2001 I doubled the recipe to make a two tiered cake for Mum and Dad’s 60th Wedding Anniversary, which I had decorated in the 1940s style of their wedding, it looked and tasted great.  The recipe came to me from a friend who made it as a Wedding Cake for her daughter.  As you can see it was passed onto her from her friend ‘Audrey’ so it has quite a history.  I always add the extra prunes and apricots and it makes a lovely cake that lasts as long as you can keep the family away from it.

Jan's Foolproof Fruit Cake cropped

CHRISTMAS CAKE – Festive Fruit Cake

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Last weekend I made our Christmas Pudding so this weekend it’s time to make the Christmas cake.  Usually I make my cake a bit earlier than this, but I decided to make this Festive Fruit Cake and it doesn’t need to be done as early as the more traditional cakes.   I haven’t made it for some years, the ingredients are a bit expensive as it’s full of glace fruit and brazil nuts, but my husband really likes it.  The original recipe was given to Mum by her best friend Tuppy, so I’ve always known it as Tuppy’s Christmas Cake.

Tuppy's Festive Fruit Cake cropped

CHRISTMAS PUDDING RECIPE NO 1

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I’m guessing, like everyone else out there, I’m finally admitting that Christmas is closing in on us and it’s time to start the lists and the Christmas cooking.  So this weekend I’m making our Christmas pudding.  As it’s going to be a lovely family day I’ve decided to make the traditional pudding that Mum made for many years.  When I was a child she made a pudding in a cloth, but in latter years she made this one in her pudding bowl, covering the top of the mixture with greaseproof paper and then foil and tying it off with string.  I still use her technique of making a string handle to lay across the top so that you can take the hot pudding from the boiling water more easily.  This makes a large pudding for 12, but you can halve the recipe if you want to.  I always make the large one and freeze any leftovers to be enjoyed later on.

 

Christmas Pudding 2012 cropped

FOUR HOMEMADE PASTRY RECIPES

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Posting last week’s recipe for the Hot Chicken & Asparagus Roll started me thinking about Mum’s recipes for homemade pastry.  The first one that came to mind was one that I’ve used many times.  At some stage I must have gotten the recipe from Mum and typed it up, it appears in my recipe folder as ‘Biscuit Pastry’ I’m not quite sure why as I’ve always used it as a sweet pie or tart base.  It is really good with lemon meringue pie and lemon tart .

Biscuit Pastry cropped

Looking through Mum’s handwritten recipes I found these three oldies as well.

PASTRY FOR PASTIES

Pastry for Pasties cropped

The family loved homemade pasties.  Mum would have made the pastry, rolled it out, cut it into circle shapes, (probably using a bread and butter plate or a saucer as a template) filled them with finely chopped steak, onions and potato and then folded them over and sealed them.

Pastry recipe:

  • 2 cups Self Raising flour
  • 2 cups plain flour
  • 125g lard
  • 125g dripping
  • 1 cup water

 

QUICK PASTRY

 

I’m not completely sure what Mum used this for, but I like the simplicity of just using flour and cream to make the dough.

Quick Pastry cropped

 

ROUGH PASTE

Rough Pastry cropped

I always thought Rough Pastry was a form of puff pastry, but this recipe seems to be something else again, maybe the rough just means that it’s easy to make?  It should have a lovely butter flavour though and now I’ve found it I’ll have to give it a try myself to how it works.

  • 250g plain flour
  • 90g lard
  • 90g margarine
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 egg yolk
  • ½ cup water
  • Squeeze lemon juice

 

HOT CHICKEN & ASPARAGUS ROLL

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This recipe comes from the back of the Pampas Ready Rolled Puff Pastry pack. Originally Mum had to hand make any pastry she used, so the advent of prepared pastry was almost as good as sliced bread. The first type of prepared pastry came in a block and still needed rolling out which was a bit of a chore, then someone had the great idea of ready rolled sheets and using pastry became a lot easier.

Chicken & Asparagus Roll