Orange slice or cake.

This cake can be made in to a round or square, or cut in to a slice. Ingredients...
125g Butter (softened)
1 cup Castor Sugar.
Zest and juice of an Orange.
3 eggs.
1 teaspoon Vanilla extract.
2 cups S.R. Flour.
1/4 cup Buttermilk.

Icing...
1 and 1/2 cups Icing Sugar.
1 tablespoon Orange Juice.
A little zest of an Orange.

Method...
Preheat the oven to 180c. Grease and line a 20cm square or round cake tin. I used my brownie tin again.
Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and mix. Now add the vanilla, orange juice and zest and the buttermilk and mix for a short while. Sift the flour in to the cake mix last, but do not over work.
Pour the cake mix in to the prepared cake tin and bake for around 35 minutes, or until the skewer comes out clean.
Allow to cool before turning out.
I iced some of mine with the icing mentioned above.
Put all ingredients for the icing in to a bowl and mix well, pour over the cake.
Also tried something I had not done before. James Martin used this method of decoration on one of his shows.
Sprinkle sifted icing sugar over the cake. Heat a metal skewer with a kitchen blow torch until it is very hot. (Mind you don't burn yourself here) Then using the HOT skewer make marks in a pattern, in the icing sugar.
Thank you James, so clever yet simple as well.

Moroccan Lamb Shanks

Lamb shanks cooked in a pressure cooker. I have had my pressure cooker for years and at first I was really frightened of it, but then one winter (not that we get much of a winter here) I decided either to get rid of it or start using it. Never used a recipe, just went with the flow.
Then, I was reading Ron's blog http://themerlinmenu.blogspot.com/ and thought I had better bring the thing out again. Air conditioning on (temps out side were mid 20c's) and I did a bit of research on Google and found Moroccan Lamb shanks. I won't give you the site because I had to change a few things as I didn't have all the ingredients. And this is what I ended up with. Ingredients....
3 large Lamb shanks (fat removed)
1 tablespoon Olive oil.
2 Brown Onion. (finely chopped)
2 Carrots. (peeled and coarsely chopped)
4 Garlic Cloves (chopped finely)
1 litre Chicken stock.
750 gms Sweet Potato (peeled and coarsely chopped)
200 gms pitted Prunes.
2 tsp ground Cumin.
1 tsp ground Tumeric.
2 tsp ground Cinnamon.
1 tsp Sweet Paprika.
Fresh Parsley (to serve)

Method...
Brown and seal the lamb shanks in a little oil and set a side. Fry the onions in the same oil until just clear. Now put the lamb shanks, onions, spices, garlic and the chicken stock in to the pressure cooker. Bring up to pressure and let it steam away for 20 minutes. Release the pressure once it has cooled a little.
Then add all other ingredients and bring back to the boil, 'til the carrots are just cooked. (You might want to check the liquid here, add a little more if needed) The sweet potatoes do thicken the sauce and suck up a lot of the liquid.
Serve with mashed potatoes or Couscous and sprinkle with fresh parsley.
Do hope you enjoy this, now I am off to check Ron's blog again.

Savoury Square Muffins.

Four corners and four countries come together here to make these delicious savoury muffins. Spanish red onion, Italian Zucchini, English Cheddar cheese and Indian curry powder. (Made in an Aussie kitchen)
You will need....

2 Eggs.
3/4 cup Milk.
1/2 cup Vegetable oil.
1 Zucchini medium sized. (grated)
1 Spanish red Onion. (finely diced)
1 cup English Cheddar Cheese. (grated)
2 tablespoons of Indian Curry Powder.
2 cups S.R. Flour. (sifted)

Prepare your muffin tin, grease well with butter or a cooking spray. I used a square tin because it is new and I wanted to see how well it worked. You could use the normal round muffin tin with 12 muffin moulds in it. Preheat the oven to 180c.
Mix with an electric hand held mixer the first 3 ingredients. Then stir in all of the next ingredients , all but the flour. Leave this until last, as we don't want to over work the flour. Fold in the flour now.
Place the muffin mix in to the moulds and bake for 20 minutes, or until the skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool a little before turning out on to a wire rack.
My new square muffin tin works a treat, they literally fell out when I turned the tray over. I shall use this often.

Old Fashioned Gingerbread.

I have made Gingerbread before and put it on this blog, you will find it here.http://pinkbytes.blogspot.com/2009/02/very-dark-sticky-gingerbread.html
Sorry Rita's Mum in Scotland, but I have to try different recipes now don't I?
This one is called Old Fashioned Gingerbread and I have added Ginger in syrup, finely chopped.

You will need....
225g Butter (softened)
1 cup Castor Sugar.
3 Eggs (lightly beaten)
1 cup Treacle.
1 cup Milk.
3 cups Plain Flour (sifted)
1 tsp. Cinnamon (ground)
1 tsp. Nutmeg (ground)
2 tsp. Ginger (ground)
2 tsp. Bicarbonate of Soda.
Ginger in syrup (chopped) add as much or little as you like.

Preheat the oven to 160c. Lightly grease and line a 23 cm square cake tin. (I used a brownie tin)
Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Slowly add the beaten eggs and combine well. (I used the hand held mixer for this)
Heat the treacle and milk in a saucepan. Remove and allow to cool before adding in to the egg-butter mixture.
Sift the flour, spices and bicarb together and fold in to the wet ingredients. Now fold in the chopped ginger and put the mixture in to the prepared tin. Bake for around 50 minutes, checking with a skewer until it comes out clean.


Allow to cool in the tin before turning the cake out on to a wire rack to cool completely.
I served mine just warm, with vanilla ice-cream.

If you are a gingerbread lover, this is a MUST TRY recipe.