Almond & Cranberry Bark

Chocolate Puddings with Sherry Raisins

1. Pre-heat oven to 160°C (140°C fan-forced). Lightly grease 6 x ¾ cup capacity muffin pans. Place butter, sugar, raisins and sherry in a saucepan and heat, stirring occasionally until butter has melted. Allow to cool.

2. Mix eggs through raisin mixture and then fold in the flour, almond meal, cocoa and spice. Pour between prepared pans and bake for 30 minutes. Allow to cool for 10 minutes in pan before removing.

3. Use a small spatula to help remove puddings from pans and serve with custard and cream.

   
   Puddings can be made in advance and re-heated briefly in a microwave to warm through.

Mini Easter Panettone

In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, yolk and vanilla.

In a separate large bowl, combine the flour, yeast, sugar and salt. Pour in the warm milk, then add the egg mixture. Stir well to combine until a dough forms. Cover with cling film, sprayed with oil, and set aside to rest in a warm place for approx. 1 hour or until doubled in size.

Place 12 cardboard patty cases on a baking tray. Alternatively, place regular cases into a muffin tin. Set aside.

Stir in the butter, sultanas and mixed fruit. Mix until combined.

Divide the dough into 12 equal pieces and put into prepared cases.

Cover again and let rise for a further ½ hour.

Brush the tops with milk and bake for 25 mins or until cooked through and golden.

Cool on tray.

Meanwhile, make the icing.

In a small bowl, place the icing sugar and 1 tablespoon of water. Mix until a paste forms. Add small amounts of water until desired consistency. Add a few drops of food colouring to make a pale pink icing.

Drizzle over cooled cakes and sprinkle with dried rose petal leaves or your choice of sprinkles.

Self-Saucing Chocolate Pudding

1. Pre-heat oven to 180°C (160°C fan-forced). Lightly grease a 4 cup capacity baking dish.
2. Combine flour, almond meal, sugar and cocoa in a large mixing bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk together the butter, eggs and milk. Add to the dry ingredients with the raisins and mix well. Spoon into baking dish.
4. For the sauce, combine the water, sugar and cocoa. Pour over the batter in the baking dish and bake for 30-35 minutes until cake is cooked. Serve warm with ice-cream, cream or custard.

Caramel Walnut Brioche Pudding

Butter both sides of sliced Brioche and layer in greased pan (mine is 8” x 11”).

2.     Sprinkle dried Mixed fruit and Walnuts evenly over bread.

3.     Mix eggs, sugar and vanilla paste until sugar is dissolved,then mix together with Cream and Milk.

4.     Pour egg mix over Brioche and let soak whilst you make your caramel.

5.     In heavy based pan add butter, golden syrup and condensed milk, stir until all melted on low heat. This can then be spooned over Brioche into all gaps, finish by sprinkling more Walnuts and Cinnamon.

6.     Place in oven 165’c fan forced for 35-45 minutes, or until centre is set.

7.     Enjoy

# You may like to soak Mixed Fruit in a little Brandy!

Sunbeam Raisin Toast

Gather the ingredients.

Yeast needs warm water to activate, not hot. Just warm. Sprinkle your packet of yeast over the top of the warm water. You don’t even need to stir it in.

Once you get the yeast on the water, add about a teaspoon of granulated sugar.

After a couple of minutes it will start to look cloudy and have a little bit of foam on top.

Once you see the foam, & bubbling you’re ready to use your yeast in this recipe.

In a large bowl, combine the Sunbeam raisins, warm milk, butter, sugar, and salt; stir to dissolve the sugar. Let the mixture cool to lukewarm.

Stir 1 1/2 cups of the flour into the milk mixture and beat until smooth.

Add the yeast mixture and the beaten eggs to the milk mixture and mix to blend well.

Add enough of the remaining flour to make a soft but stiff dough.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for about 10 minutes, or until the dough is smooth and elastic.

Butter or oil a large bowl. Place the dough in the greased bowl. Turn it over to grease the entire surface of the dough.

Cover the bowl with a clean kitchen towel and let it stand in a warm, draft-free place until it has doubled in bulk, about 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

Punch the dough down and divide it into two equal portions. Cover the dough with a kitchen towel and let it rest for 10 minutes.

Shape the dough into two loaves and place them in two greased 8-by-4-inch loaf pans.

Cover the pans with a kitchen towel and let the loaves rise for about 45 to 60 minutes, or until the dough has almost doubled in bulk. Then preheat oven to 180c.

Bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes. Place foil over the loaves for the last 10 minutes if they look overly brown.

Remove the loaves from the pans and let them cool on racks.

Toast & enjoy!

Rum & Raisin Trifle

Place the raisins, sultanas, currants, mixed peel, almonds and dates in a bowl and pour over 3/4 cup rum.  Cover and allow to macerate for at least 8 hours or overnight. Keep additional raisins seperate and add 1/4 cup rum these will be used for garnishing the trifle.

Pre heat the oven to 140 degrees C.  

Place the butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until light and creamy.  Gradually add the eggs and beat well.  

Place the butter mixture, soaked fruit mixture, flour bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon and allspice in a large bowl and stir to combine.  

Line a 20cm square cake tin with two layers of non-stick baking paper.

Spoon in the mixture and bake for 2 hours or until cooked when tested with a skewer.  

Cool in the tin.  Once the cake has cooled remove from tin and freeze to semi-firm

Cut the fruit cake into 3cm pieces and decoratively line the base of trifle bowl & pour over the extra rum

Layer custard over fruit cake and repeat cake & custard layers if desired.

Whip caster sugar & thickened cream until stiff and add to trifle

Garnish with rum soaked raisins, and crushed ginger snaps

To make spun sugar, combine sugar with the water in small heavy-based saucepan. Stir over heat, without boiling, until sugar dissolves; bring to the boil.

Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, without stirring, until mixture is golden brown. Remove from heat; stand until bubbles subside. To make spun sugar, drizzle toffee between 2 wooden spoons over baking paper-lined oven tray.

Shape & stand at room temperature until set.