Desserts and Sweet Treats | Finding Feasts

Gulab Jamun | Indian Syrup Soaked Doughnuts

Gulab Jamun | Indian Syrup Soaked Doughnuts are delicious light and moist deep fried balls that have been sitting in a sweet syrup gently scented with cardamom and saffron.

I have been wanting to make these for such a long time, ever since my first tasting, which oddly I can’t quite pin point. They really are like an Indian version of a doughnut and ideally with the same consistency, that being light almost fluffy. So with Mother’s Day on Sunday I was able to explore this amazing dessert.

Surprisingly they are a very quick dessert to make and have an added bonus of needing to be made ahead of time so the balls have time to soak up the syrup. So you can easily make these in the morning and then leave till serving time later in the day or night. All you need to do is lightly reheat them so the are slightly warm, this can be done (carefully) in the microwave, on the stove top or, ideally place in a low, warm oven during dinner.

A couple of things to point out with Galub Jamuns is that you do not want to overwork the dough, the more the dough is worked during the mixing process the greater the risk of gluten forming. This will produce a tough, dense ball that will have trouble soaking up the syrup. They are still edible but not ideal.

If you are wanting to make more balls than the 12 that this mixture makes (will serve 4 people with 3 balls each) then make a completely new batch of dough, don’t try to double the recipe as you run the risk of tough balls. I tried two different recipes, this one and then one, which was a bigger batch of dough and that batch was definitely not as light as this recipe.

The balls may appear small when you first roll them out but they will almost double in size, firstly from the cooking and then soaking up the syrup. Three balls works perfectly per person.

Try adding different flavours to the syrup; rose water is very popular, a couple of strips of peel from a citrus fruit will work beautifully, maybe a chai spice blend (great for Christmas).

Happy soaking! Blondie

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Polish Stefanka cake – Honey cake

Looks good huh! It’s a Polish cake called Stefanka or Miodownik (honey cake) and yep, it’s pretty awesome.

Each school holidays Imogen and I do our usual girls road trip to Rosedale, a small holiday town on the NSW South Coast to visit Nanna and Pop. During one of my last visits I decided to make something Polish, sweet and slightly challenging, Stefanka cake it was.

Like all recipes there are many, many versions of this cake on the web, with altering ingredients, toppings and layers. The one that appealed to me the most was on my favourite Polish cooking website called, Kwestia Smaku.

The cake has the most amazing filling made from semolina, milk, butter, icing sugar and almond extract, almost a custard like texture. The chocolate topping isn’t bad either.

When I first read that it had semolina I ran a mile, you see in the cooler months mum used to make us eat a semolina style porridge as kids for breakfast and I HATED IT! No disrespect to you mum but it was bland, lumpy and gluggy, I still get shivers just thinking about it! Fast forward many, many years, add some sweetness and the semolina it is to die for! I only just had enough filling for the cake, most of it was eaten from the pot by me and Miss H.

Cake difficulty wise I would rank this about a 6 out of 10. The pressure point in this cake are the layers. The cake is meant to be quite soft and sponge like. I failed at the soft and sponge like bit, although in my defense I was using a foreign oven, so I over baked the cake layers. It was definitely 100% edible but would have been much better had the layers been a little softer, cloud like.

All in all, I am very chuffed at my first Stefanka attempt, if anything I have also learnt how to make a yummy semolina custard!

If there are any Polish fans reading this and you know where the cakes name originates from do drop me a line! I know that Stefanka or Stefania is a Polish female name, similar to Stephen in English however I am stumped why the cake has been named so!

Bella

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ANZAC Biscuits

ANZAC Day – 25 April, 2016

“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them”.

I’ve only been to one dawn service. It was in Melbourne, Victoria about 18 years ago and as miserable, cold and wet as it was, I found it heart warming that so many people turned out to pay their respects to service men and women, young and old and those gone but not forgotten.

As many of our service men and women prepare for todays ANZAC day marches around Australia I realised that I know absolutely very little about the humble ANZAC biscuit.

For those unfamiliar with Australian and New Zealand history, ANZAC day falls on the 25th of April each year. It is a national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand and commemorates the anniversary of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) landing in the Gallipoli Peninsula, Turkey during World War I. Nowadays, it is a day that goes beyond the anniversary of that landing and honors the service men and women both past and present.

The exact origins of the ANZAC biscuit are not so clear, it can however be traced back to the Scottish oat cakes. The original biscuit, used in soldiers ration packs was not sweet at all. According to the Australian War Memorial the ANZAC biscuit or Soldier’s biscuit was a hard or tile like wafer that the soldiers were given as part of their rations. The biscuit was given instead of bread due to its long shelf-life, however wasn’t said to be very palatable.

The current sweet version appeared in cook books during the 1920’s and was used at fete’s for fundraising for the troops overseas. With ingredients such as butter, flour, coconut, golden syrup and bi-carb soda it has also been suggested that the wives would make these biscuits to send to the troops overseas because of their long shelf life. Unlike traditional biscuits no eggs were required!

Miss H loves ANZAC biscuits, however with having a wobbly tooth these slightly more chewy biscuits are just the perfect treat to share with friends and family both young and old.

Bella

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Chocolate Dipped Marshmallow Easter Eggs

Click image for recipe – Chocolate Dipped Marshmallow Eggs

Chocolate Dipped Marshmallow Easter Eggs … Looking for bright and colourful ideas for Easter this year lead me to find these gorgeous little things at Kitchen Simplicity. These are incredibly simple to make – once you work out how to mould them, and they look so divine!

Cheri says to wet your hands so as to make the forming of the eggs easier. I went the latex glove route, just to be sure, wet them and then dove into the mixture….

OMG! It was like dealing with some hyper viscous, glue demon. I could not get it off my hands, there were strings of marshmallow flying around the kitchen and no sign of the Rice Bubbles even coming close to forming a ball.

About to give up and go the way of Cheri’s other idea of forming a slice rather than going through the work of making eggs; I decided to take off the gloves, get my greased spoon and use plastic wrap to control the unruly Rice Bubble mixture (inspired by Heston Blumenthal’s scotch egg recipe that I had watched the previous night – thankfully!) and it worked – beautifully!

I will definitely be doing these again next year, maybe with white chocolate and different food colourings for a more rainbow look.

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Mini Pecan Tartlets

Pecan pies are like an old friend you haven’t seen for a while but have fond memories of the times you had together.

My first pecan pie memory is with my uncle. We had just traversed across to Kareela Hutte through an absolute blizzard from Antons at Thredbo ski resort, we couldn’t see the tips of our skis it was the worst snow conditions I had ever been in. We were frozen and sore from being on such an extreme incline for so long and just desperately trying not to get blown down the mountain. That pie was the best darn pie I had ever had… I don’t even remember what else I had for lunch that day, just that pie.

Although there are a thousand different recipes for Pecan Pie I have a couple of little differences in this recipe to a ‘standard’ one. Firstly the pastry is a cookie dough so you don’t need to blind bake the case but you still end up with a flaky, slightly crumbly texture, which we all love in a tart! Secondly, I use maple syrup instead of corn syrup – It may not be the healthiest dish but you may as well keep it as simple and clean as possible.

Reconnect with old friends… Blondie

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Gooey Dark Chocolate Brownies

Lets be honest, not all chocolate brownies are created equal. There are brownies which can be dry and crumbly, sometimes leaving you feeling like you have just consumed a cardboard box with some sugar added to it, or brownies that are rock hard which means that are not brownies at all, rather more of a biscuit, and then there are brownies which have just the right amount of chocolate / cocoa goodness, a soft like centre and melt in your mouth yumminess. These are MY Brownies!

My gooey dark chocolate brownies are made with 70% dark chocolate, cacao, salted butter, eggs and sugar. These simple ingredients all to come together to form a gooey and decadent dessert.

They are rich but not overly sweet so you can definitely come back for more. Bake the brownies for around 40 minutes for a soft and gooey brownie centre – nothing else compares!

Enjoy! Bella

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Christmas Brandy Cherries

Finding Feasts - Brandy Cherries — Click image for recipe

Like Blondie I too love Christmas. I love the lights, the songs, the decorations and the FOOD!

Growing up, like most kids, Christmas for me was all about the presents. Which kid in their right mind would say that it’s about anything else but that? Miss H starts making making her Santa wish list as soon as Halloween is done and dusted.

Christmas for me as an adult is all about the food and plenty of it, and maybe the odd occasional glass of wine or champagne…OK a lot actually! The present side of things frustrates me. Everyone seems to get flustered about the perfect. You hear so many stories of gifts being re-packaged or shoved in the bottom of the draw, never to see daylight again. I too have been guilty of this!

Last year I decided to experiment a little and have a go at making my own edible gifts!

Kicking off gift No. 1 idea are these Brandy Cherries.

The cherry season is in full swing and depending on where you shop you can pick them up for about $15 per kilo.

Just in time for summer desserts and Christmas cocktails!

Bella

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