Breakfast Bearclaws Revisited

I'm a terrible breakfast eater. I hate cereal and can only eat so much toast, so I often boycott breakfast foods all together and eat lunch/dinner foods for breakfast. However, lately we have been very good with our dinner portion sizes and have been leftover-free, so I've been at a loose end for breakfast. I first made these two years ago and adored them, but then I forgot about the recipe and never made them again.

On a little trip through my old posts, I can across the post and thought that I must make them again. These cookies are very very substantial and they taste fantastic. It's much healthier than a sweet muffin for breakfast and they keep me nice and full until lunch.

This recipe makes lots of cookies, especially since I make mine fairly small. I bagged up a lot of them and threw them in the freezer and they froze and defrosted really well.

I took some of them to work and they were a hit with my workmates too.

Breakfast Bearclaw Cookies
from The Girl Can't Cook by Cinda Chavich

2 cups softened unsalted butter
2 cups brown sugar
4 large eggs
3/4 cup natural yoghurt or buttermilk (I have tried both but like the texture of the ones with yogurt better)
2 cups plain flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup wheat bran
1 tbs baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
4 cups rolled oats
3/4 cup chocolate chips
3/4 cup sunflower seeds
3/4 cup sliced almonds (I like using slivered almonds)

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celcius.

Cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time. Finally add the yogurt and beat well. I use my hand held electric mixer and a very large bowl because the mixture is too large for my stand mixer.

In a seperate bowl, combine all the dry ingredients except for the chocolate chips, seeds and almonds. Add these to the wet ingredients and combine well. Finally, stir through the chocolate chips, seeds and almonds.

Line a tray with baking paper and place small scoops of the cookie dough one the tray. I use about 2 tbs of dough for each cookie and fit about 12 cookies on a tray. They do spread a little bit. Flatten the cookies slightly and bake them for about 12 minutes. My oven runs a little cool but I like my cookies soft so I tend to err on the side of underbaking. The recipe suggests cooking for 12-15 minutes.

Almond Croissants

I had a dream about an almond croissant the night before I decided to make these. I'm funny with almond flavours as I find things like amaretto and marzipan too strong for me but I love the subtle taste of almonds and almond meal, so almondy things walk a very fine line.

I have only had almond croissants from two places in all of my life, and I have been very lucky both times that the croissants were heavier on the sweetness than the almondness. In my dream, the almond croissant came from one of these places and when I woke up, I desperately wanted one. The problem with getting one was that the bakery I was dreaming about was in Cairns (a little way from where I live) and the last time I visited was perhaps 6 or so years ago.

Quite fortuitously, I stumbled across this semi-homemade almond croissant recipe on taste.com.au. It couldn't be easier, simply buy your croissants, make your almond paste, spread paste into croissants, cover with sliced almonds and (in my case) a sweet syrupy Danish glaze and bake in the oven.

I did find that my almond paste was a little too almondy, so I added a bit more sugar to taste. The glaze also helped offset the almondy flavour.

I was very proud of myself when they came out of the oven. I cut a corner off of one and enjoyed it immensley, but they are very very rich and very very sweet (my fault in trying to overcome the almond flavour with sugar) so I didn't eat any more after that.

I'm still proud of them though.

Almond Croissants
from taste.com.au

(This is the recipe as posted on taste.com.au. I halved this and added more sugar to taste but because I didn't keep track I couldn't tell you how much more it was)

150g butter, softened
1/2 cup (75g) icing sugar, sifted, plus extra to dust
4 tbs (1/3 cup) flour
2 cups almond meal
1 tsp almond essence
6 ready-made croissants
1/3 cup almonds (skin on), sliced

Preheat the oven to 170°C.

Place butter, sugar, flour, almond meal and essence in a food processor. Whiz to combine. Split croissants in half. Place bases on a baking tray and spread with almond paste, reserving 1/4 of the mixture. Replace croissant tops, spread with remaining paste, scatter with almonds and bake for 10 minutes. Remove and dust with icing sugar to serve.

Danish Glaze
from Cooks Illustrated Magazine

1/2 cup confectioners' sugar, sifted
2 teaspoons milk
1/8 teaspoon fresh lemon juice


Whisk ingredients together in small bowl and drizzle over the croissants before baking.

New Bread Board!

My new breadboard after it's first treatment with food grade mineral oil. It's so pretty.

Lemon Chicken Pasta

We had some chicken in the fridge that needed to be used and D felt like pasta for dinner, so I sent him off looking for a nice recipe that used pasta and chicken and he found this recipe from taste.com.au.

Despite a little bit of a false start when I discovered that our evaporated milk was actually past it's use by date and a frantic search for another tin, it was really easy. It's a perfect after-work dinner when you don't really want to think. We didn't use the peas or fresh thyme, but finished the sauce with some dried thyme leaves.

It was really lovely. I'm a sucker for lemon flavours and love creamy pastas, so this couldn't be any more perfect. D enjoyed it also. It wasn't heavy like a lot of cream-based sauces, but just lightly coated the pasta. We will definately have this again.

Unfortunately, I was a little shaky-handed with the camera, so you get a lovely photo of the sauce in the pan and a blurry photo of the finished dish.

Lemon Chicken Pasta
from taste.com.au

1 tbs cornflour
1 x 375g can evaporated milk (we did use Light and Creamy Carnation Milk)
Olive oil spray
400g sliced chicken breast fillets
1 brown onion, halved, thinly sliced
2 large garlic cloves, crushed
1 tbs finely grated lemon rind
2 tsp dried thyme leaves (ours are a little old)
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
approx 300g dried pasta of your choice - we used penne

Combine the cornflour and 1 tbs of the evaporated milk in a medium bowl. Gradually stir in the remaining evaporated milk.

Heat a large non-stick frying pan over high heat. Spray with olive oil spray to lightly coat. Pan fry the chicken until brown.

Reduce heat to medium. Spray the base of the frying pan with olive oil spray to coat. Add the onion and cook, stirring, for 1-2 minutes or until soft. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, for 1 minute or until aromatic. Increase heat to medium-high. Add the milk mixture and cook, stirring, for 2-3 minutes or until sauce boils and thickens.

Add the chicken and cook, stirring occasionally, for 1 minute or until heated through. Remove from heat. Add the lemon rind, and thyme. Taste and season with salt and pepper.

Meanwhile, cook the pasta in a large saucepan of salted boiling water following packet directions or until al dente. Drain well and return to pan. Add the sauce to the pasta and gently toss to combine.

Spoon the pasta among serving bowls and serve immediately.

Potato oyaki

I was browsing through Maki's Bento Flickr Group and came across her potato oyaki bento. A potato dough that's grilled or pan fried on both sides with a yummy meaty filling?? How could anyone say no to that?

I am always on the lookout for things to bulk up my lunchtime salads, as I find a salad that is low on protein or carbohydrates just doesn't keep me full. I've been using cooked chicken or adding a small tub of potato salad to keep me going, but these looked much cooler.

I used sweet potato rather than normal potatoes because that was what I had on hand, and I love sweet potato. It was great fun mashing them up for the dough as I did not then have a potato masher and was using a fork, not very successfully. I got quite frustrated and ended up taking to the bowl with the electric mixer which probably pulverised the potatoes more than it was meant to, as I needed a little more cornflour to get it to what looked like the right consistency.

The meat saboro is fantastic. I cooked it while the potatoes were cooling, and it was fabulous on its own. I didn't make very much, and we tasted it so many times I was worried I would run out!

The dough was very easy to manipulate after an overnight stay in the fridge. They were very easy to put together and they were fantastic hot straight from the pan or cooled to room temperature. The flavours worked together so well. I can't wait to make these again.

See Maki's blog Just Bento here and here for the recipes. Thank you Maki!

Gingernut Biscuits

I am not quite sure what made me decide to bake a gingernut cookie. I love the idea of your standard gingernut biscuit, but they are too crunchy for me. I wanted something with the texture of soft chewy gingerbread, with the same spicy flavour but with a tad more sweetness.

I found this recipe for Gingernut Biscuits on Taste.com.au. I liked that it had brown sugar and golden syrup, and despite the comments, I was sure that I could make sure mine turned out chewy.

A few of the reviewers commented that these biscuits needed more ginger. If you were after a gingerbread spiciness, then yes, these needed more ginger. However, if it was a more commercial gingernut flavour you were aiming for, these are perfect as written.

The recommended cook time for these is 10-12 minutes. I did 9 1/2 minutes in my slow and dodgy oven, and they were slightly undercooked. I should have put them back in for another minute or so but I was too scared they would crisp up.

Gingernut Biscuits
from taste.com.au

125g butter
100g soft brown sugar
125 ml golden syrup (1/2 cup)
1/4 tsp ground ginger (increase this if you want a spicier biscuit)
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tbs boiling water
225g (1 1/2 cups) plain flour, sifted

Preheat oven to 180°C. Line 2 baking trays with non-stick baking paper.

Combine butter, brown sugar, golden syrup, ginger and cinnamon in a large saucepan and stir over medium heat until well combined. Heat, stirring frequently, over medium heat until almost to boiling point and then remove from the heat.

Dissolve the bicarbonate of soda in the boiling water and then stir into the butter mixture. Add the plain flour and stir with a wooden spoon until well combined.

Use a teaspoon to spoon the mixture onto the lined baking trays to form rounds about 3cm in diameter. Leave plenty of room for each to spread.

Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes or until a medium golden brown. Remove from oven and cool on the trays. Repeat with the remaining mixture. Store in an airtight container.

More Poppy Cakes!