Deconstructed Swiss Roll Ice Cream cake

The July 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Sunita of Sunita’s world – life and food. Sunita challenged everyone to make an ice-cream filled Swiss roll that’s then used to make a bombe with hot fudge. Her recipe is based on an ice cream cake recipe from Taste of Home.

I tried this month, I really did. I made this fabulous lemon ice cream and had every intention of making a lime ice cream with the same recipe. Miss Four made us some lemon butter to use instead of chocolate sauce, and I made my very first ever swiss roll.

I filled it with a delightful Lemon-Lime-Pine pudding made from flavoured gelatin and sweetened condensed milk. And the cake itself is this delicious Pineapple Sponge recipe.

Look at that spiral!

But in the end I just couldn't get it together enough to mold a proper cake like everyone else, and the posting date was already past, and really, how were we going to eat such a large dessert anyway? So I dished up individual slices of cake, topped with a scoop of lemon ice cream, and drizzled lemon butter over the top.

At least I did some daring baking this month - the thought of rolling a swiss roll had always scared me, but now that I've done it, I found it was so very simple, I wonder why there is such a mythos around it.

Flash Game Friday

Candy Cruncher

Another GameHouse match 3 game, this time courtesy of Miss Four.

Kids Cooking Thursday: Lemon Butter

This was a good recipe to use up some of the glut of home grown lemons that came from my mother. I was a little worried how Miss Four would behave around really hot microwaved stuff, but she whisked/stirred very carefully, and didn't splash at all. All up this took around 20 minutes with Miss Four doing almost everything, and made two jam jars, and a plastic container full.

Easy microwave lemon butter
4 Eggs
3/4 Cup Sugar
3/4 Cup Lemon Juice
125g Butter, cubed

Fill 2 glass jars with boiling water to sterilise.


Crack the eggs into a microwave safe bowl,


add the sugar and whisk.


Squeeze the lemons, and add the juice


Whisk all together and add the cubed butter


Place in the microwave on HIGH for two minutes - watch impatiently.


Whisk until smooth, and the microwave for a further two minutes.
Repeat, for a total of 6 minutes cooking time.


Empty the water out of the jars, then ladle in the butter.
Seal while hot to get a vaccum, then store in the fridge.

If you'd like to join in with Kids Cooking Thursday please leave a permalink to your own Kids Cooking Thursday post, as per the rules.

Wordless Wednesday: Food Blogger FAIL

Yup. I burnt spaghetti. It's water and pasta. The only thing worse would be burning boiling water. Oh yeah, I've heard of it being done - but thankfully not by me.

Menu Plan Monday

Monday

Cheesy Lemon Pasta

Tuesday

Chicken & Bacon Subs, Potato Gems


Blackberry Sponge Pudding for dessert

Wednesday

Slow Cooker Chicken Casserole

Thursday

Spinach Spaghetti Carbonara

Friday

Cup-A-Soup with homemade rolls, and chocolate cloud cupcakes

Saturday

Pizza

Sunday

By request, a special post-'Grandma's house then shopping' dinner: Macaroni and Noodles


Check back during the week for the recipes, and as usual, check out I'm an Organizing Junkie for literally hundreds of other menu plan blog posts, and please come back here for Kids Cooking Thursday when we make Lemon Butter/Curd in the microwave.

Flash Game Friday

Chainz

A match 3 style game Master Six got me hooked on, one weekend when he was allowed to play flash games on my computer while I was cooking. This is what I came back to when I reclaimed my computer.

Kids Cooking Thursday: Experimental Lemon & Sultana Choc chip Cookies

Originally from AllRecipes, this recipe was tweaked completely out of shape. The end result was a bit crumbly, hence the cooling upside down on the rack, but although the biscuits themselves were fragile, the flavour was anything but!

Our edits were made from necessity, I didn't have any flour, but I'd already promised Miss Four we'd make biscuits. I used bread mix, which would have been fine, if I'd had the full two cups, and not 1 3/4 cups. The choc chips I threw in, because they were there, likewise with the extra sultanas. Maybe it was that my eggs were on the small side? At any rate, here is the recipe we actually made.

Lemon & Sultana Choc chip Cookies
1 3/4 cup wholemeal bread mix
250g butter, melted
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups white sugar
juice from one lemon
1 cup rolled oats
1 1/2 cup sultanas
1/2 cup choc chips

Squeeze the lemon

Stir together the sugar, egg, butter and lemon juice

Make sure everyone has a turn!

Add in the flour/bread mix. Stir until combined.

Add in the sultanas, oats and choc chips. Mix thoroughly.

Place on paper lined baking trays, lick spoon

When dropping batter from spoon, leave a generous gap between each biscuit

Cook for 15 minutes at 180°C. Cool on wire rack

If you'd like to join in with Kids Cooking Thursday please leave a permalink to your own Kids Cooking Thursday post, as per the rules.

Potato and Zucchini Pancakes

I just have one thing to say about these potato and zucchini pancakes I made from my partner site for this month's Taste & Create, My Green Mouth - make a double batch. At least. Maybe a triple batch. I made a double batch, and it wasn't nearly enough for the 5 of us. Ok, it was enough, but not enough, if you know what I mean. Much in the same way that two potatoes if enough per person, unless you roast them, and then you need to provide at least four.

These are tasty, tasty goodies, and I need to make them again. Soon. I followed the recipe as directed on the above link, only doubled, so I won't write it again here. Except, instead of serving them with somewhat healthy Greek yogurt, we had ours with sour cream and salsa. Great for kids who don't like vegies, even better if you have weird kids like mine who do!

My food processor made short work of this!

So far, so good...

Epic fail - did I mention I'm bad at flipping fritters?

I got the hang of it by the second one though

Menu Plan Monday

Monday

Potato & Zucchini Pancakes

Tuesday

Penne Carbonara

Wednesday

Pizza, and Chocolate Bavarian

Thursday

Sweet & Sour Chicken Calzones

Friday

Freezer Suprise with Turkish Delight Parfaits

Saturday
Takeout

Sunday

Beef Pies


Check back during the week for the recipes, and as usual, check out I'm an Organizing Junkie for literally hundreds of other menu plan blog posts, and please come back here for Kids Cooking Thursday

Beef, Spinach & Fetta Gozleme

A tasty bread dough dinner I adapted from Recipes+ April 2010 issue.

Beef, Spinach & Fetta Gozleme
500g bread mix
2 tsp (7g) instant yeast
300ml lukewarm water

350g mince
1 onion, finely diced
1/3 cup char grilled red pepper strips, diced
1 tsp ground cumin
2 Tbsp tomato paste
1/4 cup water
2 Tbsp chopped celery leaves (or flat leaf parsley)
2 Tbsp finely chopped mint
150g baby spinach leaves, chopped
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella
200g fetta, crumbled

Place the first 3 ingredients in a bread machine on the dough cycle.

Heat a little oil in a large frying pan. Brown the mince, making sure to break up the lumps. Add the onion, red pepper, cumin, tomato paste and water. Simmer until the mixture thickens. Remove from heat. Add in the leaves. stir until the spinach wilts. Cool for at least 15 mins.

Combine the two cheeses in a bowl.

Divide the dough into 8 pieces. Taking one piece at a time, roll the dough out into an 18cm circle. It will be quite thin, but be careful not to tear the dough. Spread an 1/8th of the meat mixture over half the circle, leaving a border.Top with cheese mixture. Fold the other half of the dough over to make a sealed semi-circle. Make sure the dough and seams are well sealed, but not too thick, thick dough won't cook completely.

In a clean frying pan, heat a little oil over moderate heat.Fry the gozlemes one or two at a time, for 2-3 minutes a side or until golden. Use a spatula to flatten during cooking. Serve with salad for a balanced meal, or just give everyone two for a filling, unbalanced meal. ;)

Makes 8.

Flash Game Friday

Stackopolis

Build the city according to the blueprint - click fast!

Kids Cooking Thursday: Cake Mix Cookies

Inspired by Cupcake Project, (even though I did it myself yonks ago) I thought we'd make cake biscuits. Because I'm lazy, and broke, we used a 65 cent bag of cake mix instead of making cake batter from scratch, and added a cup of tiny chocolate chips. Followed the directions on the pack, only cutting in half the cooking time. I didn't managed to get any photos until the second tray full was in the oven though, so no cute kid-stirring-batter pics this week :(

It's a good method to use when you have cake mixes to get rid of, or the kids want to make biscuits but don't have 'real' ingredients in the house. This makes a thin, chewy biscuit too, so it would be great for ice cream sandwiches.

Batter waiting for the tray in the oven to be free

Cooling rack chock full of goodies!

If you'd like to join in with Kids Cooking Thursday please leave a permalink to your own Kids Cooking Thursday post, as per the rules.

Wordless Wednesday: Tiny Bubbles

Have you ever really looked closely at dew covered grass in the sunlight?