Spiced Orange Almond Biscuits

We are still primarily eating no sugar and enjoying the changes it has made to feelings of satiety after each healthy meal we consume as well as being free from the cravings of sugar so often felt in the past.  I enjoy the way I eat so much now that I rarely desire to eat cakes or biscuits, or sweets of any type.  The children of course continue to request lollies as we near birthdays and ice creams as the weather warms, but their consumption of sweets is greatly reduced.   I do slip, just now I ate a Cadbury Rose which my neighbour delivered to us as a thankyou gift for collecting their mail while they travelled. 

However we largely don't eat store-bought treats in our home.  When we do want something different the following biscuit recipe is one I've devised which still has the children coming back for more....and more....and more.  It's delicious and I hope you enjoy this.

With the sugar out of the equation I find that the flavours of the spices and orange zest, and almonds as well, are much more pronounced.  It's interesting how our palate changes along with the foods we consume.  

Spiced Orange Almond Biscuits

Cream 200g butter with ½ cup glucose being careful not to beat too long with the glucose as it goes hard.
Add 1 egg and the zest of one orange.
Beat in ½-¾ cup spelt flour.
Add 1-2 tsps ginger and cinnamon and 1 tsp cocoa.
Continue beating in almond meal to make a stiff dough - perhaps up to a cup, or more.

Roll into little balls, push a small crater with your finger, and place onto trays to bake in a moderate oven for 10-15 minutes. (edited by Ess ;))

It's Time to Bake Bread

"The smell of good bread baking, like the sound of lightly flowing water, is indescribable in its evocation of innocence and delight."

The Art of Eating, M. F. K. Fisher, (1908-1992)

For a long time now I have wanted to make my own sourdough spelt bread.  Yet I have no experience in bread baking - my aunty used to bake bread but stopped before I was old enough to learn from her.  Baking bread was something my mother never did in my memory.  She did make a loaf in the bread maker however.

My husband has assumed the bread making role in our family regularly baking spelt bread in our bread maker.  He makes a lovely loaf which my children enjoy.  So do I in recent times as I am unable to buy the lovely spelt sourdough loaf I regularly purchased at Dough at the Adelaide Central Markets before we moved.

However my goal is still unachieved - baking my own spelt sourdough.  I still haven't found a blogger who has found success to this end.  So I'll have to keep searching.  I have however made a couple of friends who are experimenting with sourdough bread baking so I look forward to some baking days with them.  I don't they think are using spelt but at least I will progress further in my quest to bake sourdough bread.

Today, thanks to the inspiration of Rhonda's post yesterday on Five Minute Bread and a Spelt Bread Recipe published by Four Leaf, I have two loaves of spelt bread in the oven.  We are eagerly anticipating a lunch of hot bread dripping with butter and/or olive oil along with some delicious Potato and Leek Soup.  The smell of my home is divine today and while I don't actually feel hungry yet, I am beginning to salivate with the fragrance tickling my nose.

The mix started to be seemingly a little dry, yet I persisted.

After time to rise, punching back and rising again (which I did in a preheated oven turned off due to our cold weather today),

the loaves were kneaded lighty, placed in warm pans and ready to bake.

Just look at the results.  The girls are were very eager to have our lunch when it was ready.

Icing Granny's Lamingtons

We did ice these lamingtons just a day or so after we baked the butter cake for them.

I just have not got to blogging about it.  I'm probably spending my time eating them ;)

Creaming the butter

Sifting icing sugar with cocoa

Adding the secret and unique ingredient ;)

Production line in swing with Ess and Eee.  My hand seems to need to be in every bowl :)

This box of prepared lamingtons reminds me very much of the box my Granny would carry out to our picnics.  Beautiful pale, hand-formed lamingtons, coated in chocolate icing, covered with coconut.

The finished cake is a sweet, rich and moist delectable delight which few can resist the lure of.  Very moorish as well unfortunately.

I have to say that these lamingtons were definitely given the thumbs up.  The girls have been telling me lately that my food should be "sold in a shop".  I think I'd prefer to cook less and eat more than anyone running a shop, and stay home with my family.  Ess is letting me know as I write that "they are certainly fit to be restaurant desserts".  I'll take that as a very high compliment.  Really I am just glad to be creating fond memories for them which they'll cherish for their lifetime.

Lamingtons: Butter or Sponge?

Fresh Butter Cake squares waiting to be made into lamingtons,
 if they aren't consumed first.

There are some times when you just wish you still had your Granny around to ask a few questions.

Do you find that?  As I'm getting older and have a more mature perspective of the world, shall we say, I find myself wanting to ask my Granny a few more questions than I had thought to before she died when I was about 20.

Creaming the butter

When growing up I took for granted the fabulous lamingtons my Granny made for the family to share on picnics out on the farm.  I just devoured them.  We all did.  They were fabulous.

Little Eee loving helping with creaming the butter and sugar 

As I grew older I realised there were other sorts of lamingtons you could buy from bakeries and also supermarkets.  I never really took to those at all.  I have however come across a few and eaten a few as they are a favourite sweet of my dear Generous Gentleman's.  They always left a metallic taste in my mouth, and still do.

Ess helping sift flour into our bowl

So when the opportunity arose to take the family to the Great National Lamington Bake Off in order to celebrate Australia Day we all jumped at the chance.  I was curious to see what it was all about and how a chef might interpret the lamington these days.  My girls love baking (and tasting of course) and my lovely husband just loves eating lamingtons.  So it was a match made perfectly.

Fresh golden butter cake with the recipe I transcribed
at the age of about 10 years

When it was discovered that two out of the three chefs were baking a sponge cake for their lamington a question arose concerning the original and authentic lamington.  Would it have also been a sponge cake or would it have been a butter cake?  Granny always made a butter cake for her lamingtons and I have assumed that the spongey light and fluffy cake was made by the bakeries and supermarkets.  However it seems that some others consider the sponge base is a more authentic lamington.  Or perhaps they prefer the light and fluffy sponge cake?  It seems that the CWA baked a butter cake for their lamingtons as well.  I am yet to find an example of the sponge cake being used for lamingtons by the older generation, apart from mass production for school fetes and the like.  What is your preference?  

For the results of the bake-off take a read of the Canberra Times article.

Waiting for icing and coconut

Now I'm on a mission to bake lamingtons with my family in the fashion of my Granny's, to share with them the tradition I hold such fond and vivid memories of.  I'll ask them which cake they choose as their cake of preference: butter or sponge?  I already know my choice.