Tag Archives: food blogger hop

  • Impossible Pie

    I’ve had one of those weeks. You know, when nothing goes quite to plan and everything feels simply impossible.

    While not rocking backwards and forwards in the fetal position, this is what I’ve been thinking:

    NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ME.

    I CAN’T DO THIS ANYMORE.

    WHERE DID ALL THE CHOCOLATE GO?

    All these cheery thoughts have been playing in high rotation, spiralling out of control until I get my period. Wham! Suddenly sanity returns.

    Too much information? Sorry. But you know what? Hormones can be a bitch so I’m going straight back on the pill to tame mine.

    Now when life feels impossible there is comfort in domesticity. So it’s a perfect time to bake…. wait for it…. an Impossible Pie.

    You didn’t see that one coming, did you?

    DSC_2139

    Impossible Pie is one of those great Australian desserts that is regularly trotted out at dinner parties, picnics, church socials and barbecues. My mother has been making this for years so when Sweet Adventures Tropical Paradise rolled around I knew it’s time had come.

    For those new readers, Sweet Adventures is a group of Aussie foodbloggers – 84th & 3rd, The Capers of the Kitchen Crusader, Dining With a Stud, and I, The Hungry Australian, who host a monthly, dessert-themed blog hop. You can visit the other blogs taking part in our hops via the thumbnails at the bottom of each post.

    Previously, we have hosted: Sweets for Santa (December 2012), Cake and Three Veg (November 2012); High Tea (October 2012); Feeling Saucy (September 2012); Berry Nice to Meet You! (August 2012); Nuts About Sweets (July 2012); Sweet as Pie (June 2012); What’s Your Cup of Tea? (May 2012); Lemons (April 2012); Layer upon Layer (March 2012); Love at First Bite (February 2012); Death by Chocolate (January 2012); Festive Favourites (December 2011); and Great Australian Pavlova (November 2011).

    This month, Nic from Dining with a Stud was our lovely host and she opted for a tropical theme. You can check out her post on how to join in this hop.

    Now go eat some pie. There, don’t you feel better now? :D

    Print
    Ingredients
    • ½ cup softened butter
    • ½ cup plain flour
    • ¾ cup caster sugar
    • 1½ cups milk
    • 4 eggs
    • 1 cup desiccated coconut
    • 2 teaspoons vanilla essence or paste
    Instructions
    1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
    2. Spray a 10 inch pie plate with baking spray (I find this so much better than butter/margarine).
    3. Beat together all ingredients until thoroughly combined and then pour into pie plate.
    4. Bake for one hour or until set (use a skewer to test).
    5. Leave in pie plate to cool.
    6. Dust with icing sugar and serve with thick cream.

  • Fig, Raspberry & Ginger Ice Cream Cake (Sweets for Santa)

    Can you believe it’s only one week until Christmas?

    Nope, I can’t believe it, either. This year has flo-o-o-wn by.

    I love this time of year. It’s a time to remember what’s important and to spend time with those we care about. It’s a time to give thanks. It’s a time to reflect on the ups and downs of the year and to look to the future with hope and energy.

    And of course it’s also a time to eat and indulge one’s sweet tooth! :D

    So welcome to Sweet Adventures’ Sweets for Santa Blog Hop.

    For those new readers, Sweet Adventures is a group of Aussie foodbloggers – 84th & 3rd, The Capers of the Kitchen Crusader, Delicieux, Dining With a Stud, and I, The Hungry Australian, who host a monthly, dessert-themed blog hop. You can visit the other blogs taking part in our hops via the thumbnails at the bottom of each post.

    Previously, we have hosted: Cake and Three Veg (November 2012); High Tea (October 2012); Feeling Saucy (September 2012); Berry Nice to Meet You! (August 2012); Nuts About Sweets (July 2012); Sweet as Pie (June 2012); What’s Your Cup of Tea? (May 2012); Lemons (April 2012); Layer upon Layer (March 2012); Love at First Bite (February 2012); Death by Chocolate (January 2012); Festive Favourites (December 2011); and Great Australian Pavlova (November 2011).

    This month, it was my turn to host again and of course I went with a festive theme.

    This Fig, Raspberry & Ginger Ice Cream Cake combines some of my favourite Summer flavours. Figs are at their most luscious now, while the raspberry and ginger help create the ‘wow’ factor.

    Merry Christmas everybody. May you all enjoy a day filled with love, laughter and deliciousness!

    Sweets for Santa Blog Hop
     
    Author: 
    Recipe type: Dessert
    Cuisine: Australian
    Print
    A simple but gorgeous cake filled with Summer flavours
    Ingredients
    • 1.5 litre vanilla ice cream
    • 1 packet Ginger nut or Ginger biscuits
    • 50 grams butter
    • 200 grams frozen raspberries
    • 6 ripe figs, or 1 jar figs, cut into eights
    • 8 pistachios
    Instructions
    1. Leave ice cream to soften on the kitchen counter for 10-15 minutes until it's easy to mix.
    2. Meanwhile, put biscuits into a strong plastic bag and crush with a mallet or rolling pin until fine rubble. The finer the better.
    3. Spray a Springform pan with cooking/baking spray.
    4. Melt butter in microwave and then combine with biscuit crumbs in a bowl and mix thoroughly.
    5. Press firmly into bottom of cake tin, using an offset spatula to get it nice and even.
    6. In a large bowl, mix ice cream, 150 grams frozen raspberries and figs until well combined.
    7. Pour onto biscuit base and then use an offset spatula to make the surface smooth and even.
    8. Use the last 50 grams of raspberries to decorate the top, rubbing the frozen berries between your fingers and scattering over randomly.
    9. Freeze for at least three hours or overnight.
    10. To serve, remove from freezer and stand in the sink that you have half-filled with water (making sure water will not go over cake pan top, naturally)
    11. Leave for a minute and then remove from cake pan.
    12. Place on cake stand and garnish with pistachios.

    Sweet Adventures Blog Hop: Sweets for Santa

    If you blog about food we’d love you to join this hop. We encourage you to be as creative as you like – the only rule is that your recipe must be something in keeping with the festive theme.

    Simply follow the steps below and join the fun!

    1. Publish your Sweets for Santa post on your blog sometime between Monday 17 December 2012 – Australian Eastern Standard Time [AEST: Sydney] and will 1:59pm Monday 24 December 2012 AEST. Entries are linked in order of submission and only new festive recipe posts are eligible.
    2. Click here for the Link Code. Copy the code and add it to the bottom of your Sweets for Santa post (you will need to do this in HTML view). Adding the code will create the thumbnail gallery of all the other entries and let visitors hop from other blogs to your blog and vice versa. If you are on wordpress.com (i.e. not self hosted) the list will not show on your blog so please create a text link back to this post instead.
    3. Grab the Sweets for Santa badge from here and add it to your post. Just right click on the image, ‘save as’, upload to your site and add it to your post. Link the badge or a line of text to this page so that others can view the instructions on how to join.
    4. Click here to Enter the Hop. This is really important! The badge and thumbnail list are on your post so make sure to enter the hop so that you appear in the list. For question 1: add the URL of your Sweets for Santa post, not your homepage. For question 2: for caption/title add the name of your dessert. For question 3: for ‘your name’ please enter your blog name. For question 4: your entry is automatically submitted when you click ‘crop’.
    5. Your linked post WILL NOT appear straight away in the blog hop thumbnail list as this is a moderated hop. Your post will be visible in the list after approval.
    6. Hop around to all the other entries in the blog hop, sharing the comment love.
    7. If you are on Twitter use the #SABH to tell the world about your Sweets for Santa post. Follow us @SweetAdvBlogHop or like us on Facebook for new hop announcements and general deliciousness.

    If you aren’t sure how to do something please leave a comment or get in touch.

  • Sweets for Santa (bloghop kicks off 17th December)

    I love feeding people.

    Maybe it’s the Chinese mother in me but I often express my affections through food. So if you’re in my good books, I’m going to want to feed you.

    So every year when Christmas rolls around, my daughter and I make an edible Christmas present for our special friends.

    Last year we made this Sweet & Salty Chocolate Bark and the two years before that we made snickerdoodles, those sugar and cinnamon-crusted biscuits. She was only three years old the first time so she just dipped the cookie dough into the sugar and cinnamon mixture and then licked her fingers all over.

    This year we haven’t decided what to cook yet. I have a gorgeous new KitchenAid Artisan Stand Mixer thanks to the lovely people at Filtered Media and KitchenAid so I’m definitely going to be making something with it.

    Maybe we should make a few different batches of home-made ice cream and serve it like this delightful dish at Press Food & Wine that I enjoyed a little while ago. Christmas Day is bound to be hot here in Australia so ice cream could be just the thing.

    Alternatively, I have some cute Christmas-themed cookie cutters so we could make festive biscuits with a marshmallow fondant. My daughter and my toddler son should be able to manage helping with the cut outs and pressing on the fondant. They’ll be extremely good at helping to eat them, too.

    There’s also Christmas Day lunch to consider, and this year I think I’m going to make some kind of show-stopping cake. Christmas is a great excuse to whip up something rather special, isn’t it?

    So why all this talk about Christmas, I hear you ask?

    Well, this month it’s my honour to be hosting Sweet Adventures’ Sweets for Santa Blog Hop.

    For those new readers, Sweet Adventures is a group of Aussie foodbloggers – 84th & 3rd, The Capers of the Kitchen Crusader, Delicieux, Dining With a Stud, and I, The Hungry Australian, who host a monthly, dessert-themed blog hop.

    Previously, we have hosted:

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