Family Baking

Last week I volunteered to do the food for a small “family reunion” that my Dad and Mum were hosting at our house in Tauranga.  I love having an excuse to bake, and especially to present things lovely-ly and bring out the fancy plates.  Here is what I made:

Some delicious macadamia nut and dried apricot biscuits.  These are similar to the ones I have made previously, but these ones don’t have the maple flavouring, and the dough is shortbread.  I got this idea from my mum, and it makes deliciously light biscuits which melt in your mouth!  Yum!  They are quite crumbly though, so not ideal for carrying around in your handbag.  I find Gingernuts to be best for that…

 

Also, what’s that in front of those melt in your mouth macadamia biscuits?

 

Yes!  My favourite lemon cake, with lemon and honey drizzle!  The recipe is in the Edmond’s cookbook, although as I’ve said earlier, I replace the sour cream with thick, plain yoghurt, since the sour cream has gelatin in it…

 

I love this lemon cake recipe, it’s perfect with a cup of tea!  This time though, it’s dressed up in it’s finery – a lovely glass cake stand of my Mum’s, and a dusting of icing sugar – yum yum…

 

Bet you wish you were related to me…

Picnic in the Park

I’ve been so busy the last week, I haven’t had any time to put up pictures of my Picnic in the Park, which I had last Saturday to say goodbye to Wellington!  I had a wonderful afternoon, with cakes, muffins, bread, cheese, crackers, wine, and of course, awesome friends!  In the morning it was all cloudy, but by the afternoon it had cleared up, and Wellington produced one of its famous “Good Days” (the saying is that you can’t beat Wellington on a good day, and how true it is!)

Here is the proof that it is spring – the trees in my (now ex) neighbours’ yard, they even have tamarillos!  Jealous…  Wish I had a tamarillo tree.  More about my garden produce tomorrow though…

For the picnic I made all sorts of goodies..

Pumpkin muffins (use any banana muffin recipe, substitute the banana for cooked mashed pumpkin, half the regular sugar for brown sugar, and add cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves to the mix):

Lemon cake (recipe is in the Edmonds, but I use thick yoghurt in place of sour cream, and drizzle lemon juice mixed with melted honey over the finished product)

I also made a focaccia bread from the Pizza Dough recipe in the Edmond’s, but substituted half of the flour for wholemeal flour.  Here is me attempting to fly my $2 kite at the park:

What a delicious day.  The next day, I had High Tea at my friend Sarah’s house (check out that link for some pictures of it!) – it was such a fantastic weekend of fantastic food!  And on the Friday night I had teriyaki salmon with my other friend, I’ll put up a recipe for that some time soon!!!