Lemon Yogurt Cake

We are lucky enough to have a new magazine in this country. A really good and informative Foodie magazine full of interesting articles and some truly delish recipes. Lemon Yogurt Cake was submitted to the mag by one of it's readers and I would like to thank Karen from Victoria for doing so. It is a very tasty and light cake and delightful served with cream.

Here is her recipe.

1 3/4 cups Caster Sugar.
2 Eggs.
1 cup Rice Bran Oil.
1 cup Yogurt (plain)
Grated rind of 2 Lemons.
2 cups S.R. Flour (sifted)
2 tbsp Lemon juice.
Icing sugar (to dust)
Thick cream (to serve)

What to do...

1. Preheat oven to 180c. Grease and line a 20cm round cake pan with baking paper.

2. Whisk together sugar, eggs, oil, yogurt and lemon rind. Fold in flour and 1/2 tsp salt, then stir in lemon juice. Pour into prepared pan. Bake for 45 minutes, until skewer comes out clean.

3. Cool in pan for 5 minutes. Turn out onto a

wire rack to cool. Serve with a dusting of icing sugar and cream.

The cake I made is at the top. Then Karen's

recipe as it was shown on page 26.

Then, last is the front cover of our lovely new magazine.

Award time for me too.

I have just been awarded this wonderful award from the classy lady who writes the classy blog called

http://2drumsticksandabottleofwine.blogspot.com/

well that's her blog address.

2 drumsticks and a bottle of wine.

Do take the time and go and read her blog, it is well worth it. She is such a busy lady, how she finds the time to do all she does, I will never know.

Thank you so much J.

The rules for this award are quite simple. Which I shall print out now.

1. Choose 5 blogs that you consider deserving of this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and their contribution to the blogging community.
2. Each award has to have the name of the author and a link to his/her blog.
3. Each award winner has to show the award and put the name of and link to the blog that presented her/him with the award.
4. The award winner and the one who has given the prize has to show the link of Arte Y Pico blog so everyone will know the origin of this award.
5. Show these rules.

Now, who shall I give it to? It's hard having to stick to 5 only, as there are so many good bloggers out there in blogger land.

1. To Violet at http://violets-homecooking.blogspot.com/

2. To Teresa at http://teresagskitchen.blogspot.com/

3. To Pi at http://pistachioenlacocina.blogspot.com/

Can you see a trend here? Yes I am sucking up to admin on Violet's Pantry. Te He.

4. To Sharron at http://sparklesdelights.blogspot.com/

5. To Amy at http://www.newnigella.blogspot.com/

Have fun everyone and HAPPY BLOGGING to you all.

Lemon Butter/Curd

Following on from my Citrus crop posted a few days ago, and from the Lemon Butterfly cakes. Thought I better put up the recipe for Lemon Butter/Curd.

You will need...

Clean sterilized glass jars.

1 large glass bowl for going in microwave.

330mls of fresh lemon juice (I used 7 large lemons)

8 ozs Butter.

1 lb Sugar.

8 eggs well beaten.

In the large glass bowl stir the sugar into the lemon juice. Cut the butter into small pieces and add to the bowl.

Finally, pass the beaten eggs through a sieve, pushing through with a wooden spoon. Throw away the yukky stringy bits from the eggs.

Microwave on high, for a minute at a time, stirring each time too. Until the curd is fairly thick ( it took me 8 minutes in all. Don't be alarmed if it looks a little thin after this time 'cos it does thicken when set in the jars)

Place the hot Butter/Curd into the jars and label.

Will keep for a few months in the fridge, once opened.

This recipe was given to me by a lovely Scottish lady called Rita. (Jaygirl from Violet's Pantry)

Thank you Rita.

Lemon Butterfly Cakes

Cakes:

2 cups S.R. Flour.
3/4 cup Castor Sugar.
2 Eggs.
3/4 cup of Milk.
1/2 cup softened Butter.

2 teasps of Lemon zest.

Fillings:

Lemon curd.

Raspberry jam.

Marmalade.

To finish:

Icing sugar.
Lemon jelly sweets.

Small M & M's.

Method:

Cream the sugar and butter together, add eggs and mix again.
Now put in the milk and mix a little and then slowly,
a little at a time, add the flour. I used my hand held mixer.

Stir in the lemon zest with a spoon.
Place mix into cupcake cases and cook in the oven for
20-25 minutes at 170c

Allow to cool before doing next step.

With a sharp pointed knife, cut out a circle

but not too deep. Cut the circle in half to form

the wings.

Fill the hole with Lemon Butter or as I did, some

raspberry jam and some with marmalade.

Place the wings, and dust with icing sugar.

Now add your decorations.

Done. Enjoy.

Pineapple upside down cake

Recipe for Pineapple Upside Down Cake:

Topping:

80 grs Butter.

1/2 Cup brown sugar.

Small can of pineapple slices.

Glazed cherries (optional).

Cake:

2 eggs.

2/3 Cup Sugar.

3/4 Cup pineapple juice (from can).

1 tsp vanilla essence.

1 Cup self raising flour.

1/4 tsp salt.

Topping:

Do the following in a 20cm cake pan.

1. Melt butter in microwave and then pour into cake tin.

2. Spread brown sugar evenly over the butter.

3. Arrange pineapple slices and the cherries in a desired pattern on the butter / sugar.

Cake:

1. Beat eggs for about five minutes.

2. Continue beating and gradually add in sugar, then juice and vanilla.

3. Add sifted flour and salt to the mixture.

4. Pour over the topping in the cake tin.

5. Bake in oven (moderate 180C) for 45 minutes to an hour.

6. Turn pan upside down on a plate and cool for 10 - 15 minutes.

Today's Citrus Crop from the Vegie Garden

We are so lucky where we live. We don't have frosts,

although the temperature does drop to around 3c

in winter. But in the summer, it often reached the

high 30c's and one Christmas not so long ago, it

was 52c on Boxing Day. Yes, we melted that year.

Anyway, what I am getting at here, is we are in an

excellent position for growing Citrus. Hot and long

summers, and all we have to worry about is keeping

the water up to them. We do have two water tanks

in now, so that should help us this summer. With

heavy water restrictions here on the coast, we can't

just go and turn a tap on. Much as I would like to

some days.

What do we have in?

Imperial Mandarin. (gave us 23 in second year)

Grapefruit. (second year gave us over 50)

Lime. (third year, too many to count)

Valencia Orange. (third year and over 50)

Meyer Lemon. (hundreds)

Lemonade Lemon. (again, hundreds)

Now I am in a bit of a dilemma, having harvested

today. What do I make?

Fed up of making marmalade and the like.

So will be juicing a load and freezing it.

Orange and Lemon muffins.

Self saucing Lemon pudding.

Lemon chicken, are just a few I have thought of.

That is a Meyer Lemon I am holding, sorry about the picture quality, but my arms weren't long enough to get it in focus properly. LOL, LOL.

Pineapple and Coconut Cupcakes.

The basic recipe first....

2 cups S.R. Flour.

3/4 cup Castor Sugar.

2 Eggs.

3/4 cup of Milk.

1/2 cup softened Butter.

Method.

Cream the sugar and butter together, add eggs and mix again.

Now put in the milk and mix a little and then slowly,

a little at a time, add the flour. I used my hand held mixer, but

you could use a wooden spoon or a Kenwood/K.A.

Place mix into cupcake cases and cook in the oven for

20-25 minutes at 170c

To make the Pineapple and Coconut Cupcakes, I did this.

Changed the milk to Coconut milk.

Added tiny pieces of Pineapple to the mix before going in the oven.

The Icing.

1 pack Philly Cheese (at room temp)

1 1/2 cups Icing Sugar.

2 tablespoons of Pineapple Juice. (Maybe a wee bit more if needed)

Mix the Cheese and juice together, then add the icing sugar,

again, a little at a time.

When the cakes have cooled, ice them and sprinkle Coconut flakes

over the icing and top with a piece of pineapple.

Three CHOCOLATES, Muffins.

Not more muffins, did I hear you say? YES. We love them and they are so easy to make. See basic muffin recipe under my labels.

What a handy little delight these are too. Ideal in lunch boxes, for morning coffee break, with an afternoon cup of tea or as a dessert after dinner. In fact, any time of day you just get the nibbles.

For these, I added 1/2 a cup of cocoa and a full cup of dark chocolate chips. When they were cooled from the oven, I melted white cooking chocolate with a little bit of Copha (vegetable shortening) When it had cooled a little, I spooned it on to the top of each muffin and then dressed it with broken up pieces of dark Cadbury's Flake.

Hence the three CHOCOLATES.

My lovely muffin cases came from an excellent cake decorating supply shop at Castle Hill in N.S.W. And they are online too. Here is the link.....

http://www.cakedecoratingcentral.com.au/

Would you like to see a muffin close up? Just don't blame me if you get drool all over your keyboard. LOL

Spiced Fruit Cake

I love playing with recipes, adapting them to suit myself,

and if it works, YAY, I am a happy little girlie.

This is actually a Barm Brack recipe that I played with.

So it is now a Spiced and Boiled Fruit Cake.

This is what I used..

500 grams mixed Dried Fruit.

(Prunes, Currants and Sultanas)

2 cups of Water.

200 grams of Brown Sugar.

200 grams of S.R. Flour.

2 Eggs.

1 teasp. Cinnamon.

1 teasp. Nutmeg.

1 teasp. Cloves.

(All ground)

1 cup of candied Cherries (cut)

Raw sugar for putting on top.

What to do.....

Place the water and spices into a large saucepan

and bring to the boil. Put in the dried fruit and

half the brown sugar and bring back to the boil.

Then gently simmer while you do this next step.

Sift the flour into a large bowl, add the last of the

brown sugar. Now have a cuppa while the fruit

is cooling. You turned it off when you made the

cuppa.

Okay, back to it. Pour the fruit mixture into the

flour/sugar bowl and add the two eggs. Mix with

your wooden spoon, we don't want to break up

the fruit. Add the cherries now too.

If the mix is a little too stiff (mine wasn't) you

can add a little canola oil here. Just a touch mind.

Grease a loaf tin (I used my Analon loaf tins) 2

Place cake mix into the tins and sprinkle the

raw sugar on top. Bake in a oven at 170c for

around an hour, or until skewer comes out clean.

Take out of oven and allow to cool before taking

out of tin.

This cake keeps for ages in a cake tin, but one

of mine went in the first day, so I hid the

other one.

Now sit back again with another cuppa and

a slice of this delightful cake.

Middle Eastern (Harissa) Chicken Tenderloins

I am sure all you good cooks out there already

know about HARISSA. A middle eastern spice.

It's new to me and I adore the flavour it gives

to almost everything I use it on and in.

I have been using McCormicks as it is already

made up. The contents read.....

Cumin.

Garlic.

Salt.

Onion.

Turmeric.

Paprika.

Coriander.

Red Pepper.

Parsley.

Pepper.

Cinnamon.

Nutmeg.

A few days ago, I made Chicken tenders.

First I gave an egg wash to all the tenders,

and then I coated them in flour and Harissa

mixed together.

Then I fried them in a mix of good olive oil

and butter. A couple of minutes each side and

drained them on paper towel.

I had made a simple salad of lettuce leaves

shredded, onions, corn and capsicum.

Which I dressed with shop bought mayo,

a little white vinegar and 2 teaspoons of

the Harissa spices. (All shook up)

The meal was delightful, a sweet yet savoury

salad, the warmth of the tenderloins and the

garlic/cheese bread married very well together.

Finished off with a good dollop of sour cream

and chives.

Might have to give making my own Harissa a

go in the future.

Marbled Eggs

This is not my idea, I saw it on another blog

but for the life of me, can I remember who's?

NO. I am sorry, but the credit goes to you

for giving me the idea. The other blogger

used green tea to colour her's. I didn't as I

had none.

Some are done with normal tea, some with

rose pink food colouring and others with yellow

food colouring. Not too happy with the last.

What did I do?

Boiled the eggs for 2 minutes only in water and

white vinegar. (Vinegar to stop the eggs from

cracking)

Then I took then out of that water, gave them

a couple of taps with a spoon so as to crack

them, but not too hard.

Then I put them back into water again in a

saucepan with the different colourings in each.

3 in all, in my case.

Boiled again for a further 5 minutes and then

allowed to cool in their coloured water.

When totally cool, I peeled them very carefully

and to my surprise, it worked.

White Chocolate Rainbow Muffins and Fruit Loop Clusters

This is my basic muffin recipe yet again, which can be found under labels.

This time , I added white choc chips and a half a cup of coloured sprinkles. And drizzled melted white chocolate to the top once they had cooled.

Not sweet enough for you?

Then I made Fruit Loop Clusters.

Fruit Loops are really a breakfast cereal for children,

and are very high in sugar, so don't make

too many of these if you don't want the tooth

fairy visiting too often.

Very easy to make.

Melt a bar of white cooking chocolate over

boiling water. Add a little, say 50 grams of

vegetable shortening and stir to combine.

Measure into a large bowl 4 cups of the Fruit

Loops and then pour in the melted chocolate

mix. Stir to make sure each loop has chocolate on it.

Then spoon into paper cake cases, put in the fridge or a cool place until they set. Even my BIG kids liked these. Aren't they pretty?

Here are both, muffins and the clusters ready

to be eaten. And can I say, they were

devoured mighty quickly.

BRILLANTE WEBLOG

Another award form the very talented, foodie, writer and blog keeper. Kitchen Goddess. She is writing her own cook book at the moment and is about to get it published. How she finds the time, I do not know. But her love of writing and food shows in her blog, do go and visit her.

http://culinarytravelsofakitchengoddess.wordpress.com/

It states on her blog that I must pass this on. To me there is no question to whom I shall give this too. All the girls who write on this very new blog and are doing great stuff. Coby, Gail, Nickki and the others who are writers on this exciting blog.

http://vipantrywedonthaveablogblog.blogspot.com/

Your's for the taking girls. A big THANK YOU to K.G.