Mandarin Jam

A few weeks ago I noticed that I had a few mandarins left and saw they were going a bit more soft then what I like them to be, so once again I went searching to find a recipe that would be good to use them in - Mandarin Jam.

Ingredients
5-6 Mandarin oranges
3 cups of water
4 ½ cups of sugar


Directions
Peel mandarins, keeping pieces of the peel as large as possible, then set aside.
Cut mandarins in half cross ways, pick out the seeds.
Blend fruit to make 2 cups of pulp, pour into a wide saucepan, add water.
Slice the peel very thinly to make about ½ a cup, add the peel and sugar to the pulp in the pan.
Stir over a medium heat until sugar is dissolved, turn heat to high and boil rapidly while stirring frequently until the jell point is reached. This should take about 40 minutes.
Remove marmalade from heat at once and then bottle.

Banana Bread

Sometimes I have a few bananas that have gone a bit brown and I know I wont eat them, so I have thought instead of throwing them away why don't I find a recipe to use them in and I did just that - Banana Bread.

Ingredients
2 - 3 ripe bananas
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
50g butter or margarine
100g caster sugar
275g self-raising flour
½ tsp ground cinnamon or mixed (apple pie) spice (optional)
1 egg
A little oil or extra butter for greasing

Directions
Grease a 2lb loaf tin, cut a piece of non-stick baking parchment to fit the base of the tin and place it in the bottom.
Preheat the oven to 180°c/350°f/gas mark 4.
Mash the bananas up with the back of a fork or place them into the food processor.
Add all the ingredients into the bowl and mix well.
Pour into the prepared loaf tin.
Bake in the oven for about 50 minutes until risen and golden and a skewer (or a sharp knife) inserted in the centre comes out clean.
Cool slightly, remove from the tin, take off the paper and leave to cool on a wire rack.

Rocky Road

Sometimes after dinner I like to have a little dessert but some times we don't have anything in to satisfy us, and I noticed we had chocolate, marshmallows and some M&Ms in, so I thought I would find out what I could make. Which was Rocky Road. I have never made this before so even though I did make a little mistake by not estimating the amount I needed for the filling (I added way to much and so the chocolate didn't really coat the top of it all), it still turned out alright and for only one mistake I think that is pretty good for first time making ;)

I found the recipe from SortedFood, although I didn't really go with what they said for their filling. I know it is OK to change it to what you like and want (this is just what we had in at the time).

Ingredients
300g plain chocolate
120g butter
30g golden syrup
150g digestive biscuits
handful of mini marshmallows
handful of M&Ms

Directions:
crack the chocolate into pieces and stick in a heat-proof bowl with the butter and syrup.
melt this over a pan of simmering water until smooth and glossy.
crumble the biscuits into small pieces and stir into the marshmallows and M&Ms (or your desired filling).
pour all of these into the melted chocolate mixture and stir to combine and coat.
line a rectangular cake tin with cling film.
transfer the rocky road to the lined tin and leave to set up in the fridge for a couple of hours.
tip out onto a board and cut into chunky squares.

Chocolate Brownies

As it was my brother -in-laws birthday yesterday I decided to make him some chocolate brownies as I knew they are his favourites from what I bake (the last time I baked these he took the whole box).
And I thought I would make a post about them, showing how I make them and what I use.

Ingredients

65g (2 ½ oz) butter
2 eggs
255g (8 oz) sugar
75g (3 oz) plain flour
5g (1 tsp) baking powder
45g (3 tbsp) cocoa powder
100g (4 oz) bourbon biscuits

Directions

Melt the butter and leave to cool slightly
Beat the eggs and sugar until they are light and fluffy
Sift together the flour and baking powder
Stir the flour, baking powder, cocoa powder, bourbons and melted butter into the egg mixture. Mix well
Spoon the brownie mixture into a greased 20cm (8 in) square baking tray
Bake for 30 minutes
Cut the brownies into squares while they are warm, but leave in their pan until they have cooled completely.

Chocolate Shortbread Cookies

Today I was in the mood to do some baking, but most of the recipes that I had I couldn't make because of the lack of ingredients, so I thought I would leave it.
I saw a new post by towards-sustainability and saw on the "you might also like" list a recipe for Chocolate shortbread cookies. I also knew that I had all these ingredients, so off I went to do some baking :)

 

Ingredients

250g butter, softened

½ cup icing sugar
1 cup flour
1 cup cornflour
¼ cup cocoa powder

Method

1. Preheat oven to 160'C/ 320'F.

2. Place the butter and icing sugar in a mixing bowl and beat them until the mixture is creamy.

3. Sift together the cocoa powder, flour and cornflour. Then stir it into the butter mixture to form a dough.

4. Turn the dough onto a floured bench top and knead it lightly until it is smooth.

5. Roll spoonfuls of the mixture into little balls and place them on a greased baking tray, then flatten them slightly with a fork.

6. Bake them for 20-25 minutes or until they are firm. Remove from oven and let the cookies cool down on the tray. Makes around 30 cookies, or 40 small ones.

For me, it was slightly difficult to get the mixture into a dough, so my partner did some research and found that you could wrap the mixture up in cling film and squish it together, so that is what we did and then we made them into little balls.

Thinking

Well I thought to come on here again and just let my thoughts run wild..
I have just been thinking about 2010, and what is gonna happen in that year and so on. I really want to try and get somewhere with this online shop that I hope to make, I need more practise at making the items, so maybe that is whats gonna happen..me getting my hands in there and actually doing these things.
We have just bought a sowing machine so I can start making little pouches etc, which will be great as I always need a pouch for something, lol.
I have found how to make things, the recipes, all I need to do is actually make the damn thing! But I guess I will have more succuss by taking my time...I hope.

Also I have thought about making candles for the shop, the wax that is left from the other candles will be turned into a new candle, this will help me get used to selling things and see if this is what I actually want to do.

Well that is it for me, I dont want to think about this anymore as its making me feel down as I cant do anything just yet....On the good note, I have managed to make the bath oils for my 2 mum in laws :D