Di-licious

I often crave baking biscuits but its normally when I'm feeling a bit lazy and don't have any softened butter to hand. At times like these a quick mix bickie recipe is a life saver, especially when all you need is a food processor to do all the hard work for you. I found this Lemon and Poppy Seed biscuit recipe in the delightful  Alice in Bakingland  cookbook by Alice Arndell.  Alice, a finalist in New Zealand's Hottest Home Baker show, is a champion of real home baking as well as her local community. I found the book at the library and was instantly jealous of the gorgeous vintage styling and delicious sounding recipes. Alice also has a blog Alice in Bakingland where you'll find more of her recipes. It's definitely worth checking out. Mum and dad had dropped off a big bag of home grown lemons last week and up until now they'd been serving as a charming still life arrangement on the dining table.  It felt good to put them to use.  The finished bi...

These biscuits hold a very special place in my heart.  It's the first Norwegian recipe my mother gave me. Back in the day when I was a government PR girl, I would bake a big batch and gift wrap them in cellophane bags to give to my work colleagues.  After a couple of years they guys would get expectant looks on their faces in the last week of work - yes, they are that di-licious! I like to think of these as Norway's version of the Danish butter cookie you often see in gift tins at Christmas time except its made with love and not in a factory. The dough is really simple to make - cream the butter and sugar, add the egg and sift over the flour and mix til it forms a soft dough.  And when I say soft, I mean soft.  It has to be refrigerated otherwise its unmanageable. Ideally you would whip it up the night before and bake it the next day. You might also be interested to know that you can make these cookies with a heart smart margarine like ...

I'm ashamed to say that I’m not very fluent in Norwegian but I do have the important things down pat like chocolate - sjokolade , cake - kake , and thank you for the meal - takk for maten . Then of course there’s the important social greetings like “Hello” - Hei! “Happy Birthday” - Gratulerer med dagen , and Merry Christmas - God Jul . But there’s another part of the Norwegian language that I am slowly mastering – cookies. Cookies are the traditional language of Christmas in Norway.  Each year on Christmas Eve, families lay a feast which must include seven sorts of classic Christmas cookies.  My mum tells me the number varies according to the region you come from – she remembers her mum making twelve different cookies but these days seven is more common. These days most families buy their cookies for the Christmas table but there are still some husmors (housewives) who still bake the holiday favourites.  There are over twenty classic Christ...

This week I’m going to make a bold suggestion.  Instead of queuing up at the shops, why not give a home-baked gift instead? Every year I pull my hair out, trying to work out what to give family and friends.  I walk aimlessly around monolithic shopping centres and to what end? I walk out dejected and despondent – unable to find just the right gift.  A couple of years ago when we were all feeling budget-challenged, my girlfriends and I resolved to make our Kris Kringle gifts instead of buying them. It was fantastic. It required thought and effort. That year I gave a jar of my first, backyard plum-tree jam. I received a beautiful Christmas angel painting that takes pride of place in my living room each year. When you make a gift you give something of yourself.  A beautifully presented box of di-licious home-baked biscuits could make you THE must have Secret Santa of the season. These shortbread-style biscuits look like a slice of Christmas...

If there is one baked good that universally signifies Christmas, it would have to be gingerbread. Originally a German recipe, these aromatic cookies are very much a part of Scandinavian yuletide celebrations as well as those of the western world. Quite simply, these cookies just smell like Christmas. This gingerbread cookie recipe is enough to make a whole gingerbread house, an army of gingerbread men, garlands of cookies for decorating the tree or plenty of cookies to decorate and give as gifts. If you only bake one thing this Christmas, please give these a try.  The recipe is easily halved. If you prefer a spicier biscuit, add more ground ginger.  If you don’t like ginger so much, reduce to one teaspoon and increase the mixed spice to 3 teaspoons.  I’ve provided an indication of how long to cook the cookies for, but use your nose too – when you can smell them, chances are they’re almost done. There are so many ways you can decorate...

It seemed like a good idea at the time. Drive to Byron Bay for my sister's wedding so we could transport the wedding cake I'd made her. A six day break where we spent four days in the car. Insane right? Did I mention I made a wedding cake? Not your quintessential tiered, fondant creation mind you.  In a nod to our Norwegian heritage, my sister asked me to make a traditional wedding cake called kransekake. If you haven’t seen one before, kransekake isn’t actually a cake; it’s a tower of eighteen sweet almond macaroon rings – think baked marzipan – ‘glued’ together with royal icing.  Instead of cutting the cake, the bride and groom lift the top ring.  The number of rings that stay attached to the top ring is supposed to signify how many children the happy couple will be blessed with.  The rings are then broken up into pieces (starting from the bottom) and served with coffee.  The dough is a cinch to make but its the baking that brin...

I love getting feedback from Di-licious Cupcakes readers.  Every time a new comment comes in I feel a surge of  cake love spreading across the blogishpere.  It seems I'm not the only one who thinks that life is too short to eat bad cake! And the cake love isn't just limited to the blog site.   Di-licious Cupcakes is also on Facebook and Twitter for the more socially connected reader (although I confess I still struggle with Twitter.....)  Following is as easy as clicking on the pretty icons at the top right hand side of the blog, just under the banner. And this weekend, my embryonic social networking adventures have struck gold - two fans (friends) wrote to tell me about their success with recipes featured on Di-licious Cupcakes !  Woo hoo! "Thanks Di ... I tried your chocolate macaron recipe and it worked brilliantly! My family didn't stop raving about them! ..."    Katie, via Facebook " I was up at 8am this morning, mak...

This week Olive and I went on an eBay road trip to pick up her 'new' tap shoes. I could have just had them posted but I had an ulterior motive.  The pick-up location, although right over the other side of town, was reasonably close to my old neighbourhood which happens to be a mecca for great food and coffee. After picking up the tap shoes (and bonus ballet shoes the seller thoughtfully included) I was looking forward to lunch.  But as soon as I pulled out of the car park, the sky turned black and the rain started to pour.  Bugger.  I kissed my lovely lunch dreams goodbye and did what any sane parent of a three year old would do in the same situation - I headed for the nearest shopping centre with an underground car park. Ten minutes later I was sitting in the food court eating  ricepaper rolls while Olive got Happy (I think you know what I'm talking about).  Not quite the foodie experience I'd been hoping for. Every cloud has a silver li...

When I was a teenager I loved dipping french-fries into the chocolate sauce of a McDonalds sundae. My friends were horrified. Unbeknownst to me I'd had my first gastronomic epiphany: pairing salty and sweet. I’ll admit I’m perplexed by the American obsession with a PBJ (sorry, I just am) but a Snickers bar – I’m all for that. And one of my most loved cupcake creations is a rich chocolate cupcake, dressed in whipped chocolate ganache and sprinkled with sea salt flakes. So it should come as no surprise that a salty sweet peanut cookie would ring my bell. How to be a Domestic Goddess is one of my favourite cookbooks to read – I just love the way Nigella writes. Unsurprisingly, she's nominated these cookies as one of her favourites (and most addictive). They are everything they promise to be – salty and sweet with ta luscious greasiness that only vegetable shortening can give a biscuit. I do question Nigella’s suggestion of pressing down the cookie batter wit...

It’s a glorious autumn morning here in Melbourne and I’m getting soup ready for the slow cooker so I can concentrate on housework. To make life easier, my daughter is happily watching The Wiggles sing on TV. I feel slightly guilty that I’ve resorted to the electric babysitter again, but it buys me time to focus on the onions and the vacuuming. “Mummy, I want a snack. A sweet-some-thing snack. P-l-e-a-s-e Mummy.” Its times like this I love my freezer. Here’s a fact that every mum should know – baked biscuits and cookies freeze. I won’t be so bold as to claim that every single biscuit or cookie can be frozen but most can, and should be if you love the taste of home-baked. To freeze biscuits or cookies, let them cool completely after baking and place them into an airtight container or freezer-safe snap lock bags. Label and date and store them in the freezer for up to three months. (They will probably last longer than this in the freezer but I’m being conservative in case the...