Lemon Poppyseed Biscuits

LEMON & POPPYSEED BISCUITS

Poppyseeds are such a cool ingredient. I've always loved when it's paired with orange or lemon in muffins. I was directing a student show at the beginning of the year and wanted to make some delicious treats for closing night. I had some lemons and looked for some recipes to go with it. When I found lemon poppyseed biscuits, I knew I had to make them. They were delicious and went straight into my recipe pile. Last week I was rehearsing my new play, "Six & Out" and wanted to make some biscuits for the cast. Again I had some lemons left over and made these. The cast loved them, and so did my workmates when I took the leftovers to work. In fact, they went so fast not everyone got one.

Lemon is pretty subjective. I put in extra lemon juice and thought it could have done with some more. However the girls at work thought it had the right amount. So if you like things a little more sour, don't be afraid to add a bit more lemon. These are quite light and very nice to eat. I've been so busy lately I've only been baking simply. I'll have to pull out some bigger recipes soon. Give us all a challenge for some baking!

INGREDIENTS:

150g Unsalted Butter, softened
1 cup Caster Sugar
1 Egg
2 cups Plain Flour
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
1 tablespoon Poppyseeds
1 tablespoon Lemon Rind, grated
1 tablespoon Lemon Juice

DIRECTIONS:

1 - Preheat oven to 180°c and line trays with baking paper.

2 - Using  mixer, beat butter and sugar until pale and creamy.

3 - Add egg and beat to combine.

4 - Sift flour and baking powder over butter mixture and add poppyseeds, lemon rind and juice. Stir to combine.

5 - Roll tablespoons of mixture into balls. Place balls, 5cm apart, on trays.

6 - Bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until golden brown.

7 - Serve and enjoy!

Catch you again soon with some more sweet treats!

Wayne
xx

Monte Carlos

 MONTE CARLOS

For this installment I have pulled out a classic. A classic biscuit, and one I have been making for a while and still get requests from friends for. In fact, these pictures are mostly from all different batches. I haven't made these for a month or so, but thought I'd share the recipe as many people have wanted it.

Monte Carlos were always a favourite for me in the Arnott's Classic Creams, I'd always try and claim those when the Tunks family opened a packet. I never realised it included coconut, of course when I found out it seemed obvious. Now I promise if you make these, your friends will be happy. Whenever I do, they go quick. Super quick. I even made some to go with Christmas presents last year. This is one of my favourite recipes - and I hope it's one of yours.

If you make them, please let me know how you go!

INGREDIENTS:

185g Unsalted Butter, softened
1/2 cup Brown Sugar
1 Egg
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1 1/4 cups Self-Raising Flour
3/4 cup Plain Flour
1/2 cup Coconut

Raspberry Jam, for filling

Filling:
60g Unsalted Butter, softened
3/4 cup Icing Sugar
1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
2 teaspoons Milk

DIRECTIONS:

1 - Preheat oven to 180°c and line 2 baking trays.

2 - Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and beat well.

3 - Add sifter dry ingredients and coconut and mix well with a large spoon.

4 - Roll teaspoons of mixture into balls and then shape into ovals and place on lined baking trays. Rough up the surface with a fork.

5 - Bake in a moderate oven for 10 to 15 minutes, or until golden brown.

6 - Cool on a wire rack.

7 - For the filling, cream the butter and sifted icing sugar until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and beat well. Add the milk gradually, beating well.

8 - Put a teaspoon of jam in the centre of half the biscuits and a teaspoon of filling on the other half of the biscuits.

9 - Press both halves together and enjoy.

Wayne
xx

Lemon & Lime Shortbread

LEMON & LIME SHORTBREAD

So here's my final installment of baked goodies from my recent party for my idol, Madonna. First there was the great birthday cake, then the Wagon Wheel slice (which coincidentally has quickly become one of my most viewed blogs); and now, here's the great Lemon & Lime Shortbread. Down the bottom I have also included a picture of the sausage rolls I made for the night. They were pretty simple, but oh so tasty. I made mulled wine for the first time too, both will be made several more times!

These shortbread biscuits are quite delicate and have a nice little tang. These are perfect for nice afternoon with a friend, a cuppa tea and the latest gossip. They are quite easy to make, but really make sure you rest the dough in the fridge before rolling out and cutting. It needs that chill to firm up and be easier to roll and cut. There a few stages to this, but it is worth it as they pretty divine.

Go forth and bake my friends. I'll be heading back to some of my old favourites for the next few blogs.

Recipe originally found at: http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/8021/lemon+and+lime+shortbread

INGREDIENTS:

250g Unsalted Butter, softened
1 cup Icing Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
2 cups Plain Flour
1/2 cup Cornflour
2 Lemons, rinds grated
1 Lime, rind grated and juiced
1 cup Icing Sugar
90g Unsalted Butter, softened

DIRECTIONS:

1 - Line baking trays with baking paper or biscuits liners, I ended up using 3 trays.

2 - Using electric beater, cream butter, sugar and vanilla until pale.

3 - Add flour, cornflour and the rind of the lemons and lime. Stir to combine.

4 - Turn onto a floured surface and knead gently until smooth. Shape shortbread into a 20cm rough circle and wrap in baking powder. Refrigerate for at least 20 minutes.

5 - Preheat oven to 160°c.

6 - Roll shortbread out between 2 sheets of baking paper until 5mm thick. Using a cookie cutter (simpler shapes are best). cut out biscuits. Press remaining together and roll out, cutting more shapes. Repeat process until you are out of dough. Refrigerate for 30 minutes, or until firm.

7 - Bake shortbread for 20 to 25 minutes, or until golden and firm to touch. Cool on trays.

8 - Using an electric mixer, beat icing sugar and butter until pale. Add a tablespoon of fresh lime juice and beat for a further 30 seconds.

9 - Spread icing over the half of the shortbread and sandwich with another shortbread piece.

10 - You can dust with icing sugar if you like.

11 - Enjoy.

Catch you again soon,

Wayne
xxx

Sultana & Oat Cookies

SULTANA & OAT COOKIES

Now these very tasty and very easy to make biscuits were the ones which got me started in my little baking heaven. Back in 2011, in my first year in Melbourne when I wanted to start baking but wasn't so sure if I could do it, this was the first recipe I tried. And it has become a favourite of mine I make quite often, even teaching it to my Mum (Apparently my nephew loves them too). I like to pretend that it's actually a little healthy. Sure, it may not be, but it's not as bad as many of the other biscuits out there. It uses brown sugar and honey to give it taste. Plus there's also great muesli and oats in it. Now I always like to get a good brand muesli to put in it (I use Carmen's). Tried it once with cheap muesli and it wasn't anywhere near as good.

I'd also like to thank you all for reading my blog, I have gotten some great feedback - so thanks. And if you haven't joined yet, please join the "Baked By Wayne" Facebook group at:

https://www.facebook.com/BakedByWayne

I also included these biscuits in a massive collection of baking I did today for my friend Corey's short film shoot. "Dante's Folly" is being shot this weekend in Shepparton and I'm travelling up there for a small role - exciting. Anyway, more recipes next week, this weekend is a massive one for me.

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup of Self Raising Flour, sifted

1 cup of Toasted Muesli

1 cup of Sultanas

3/4 cup of Rolled Oats

1/2 cup of Brown Sugar

125g of Unsalted Butter, melted

1 Egg, lightly beaten

1 tablespoon of Honey

Sprinkle of Cinnamon Sugar

DIRECTIONS:

1 - Preheat oven to 190°c and line 2 biscuits trays with liners or baking paper.

2 - Toss dry ingredients in a large bowl with a wooden spoon.

3 - Add melted butter, egg and honey and stir with spoon until combined.

4 - Use your hands to make balls, about the size of a dessert spoon.

5 - Bake for 10 - 12 minutes, until golden.

6 - Enjoy and pretend they're healthy.

Have a great weekend and do some baking if you have time!

Wayne

xx 

Bakes from my birthday - a love letter to Raspberri Cupcakes

BAKES FROM MY BIRTHDAY - A LOVE LETTER TO RASPBERRI CUPCAKES

So it was my birthday recently, 38. Yes, I'm getting old. I had a few friends round to help celebrate which was wonderful. As a former Sydney boy who's only been in Melbourne 2.5 years, I feel very blessed to have made such great friends. Especially generous ones, the presents were incredible - including a brilliant new coffee machine that I'd marry if I could. And it was very lucky my Mother was able to make the trip down. She has not been very well at all. Loved having Mum here and was extra happy I was able to share with her my newish baking skills and how they've evolved.

Now baking is a really Melbourne thing for me, I have a bigger kitchen than I did in Sydney. (Any Sydney friends will know how small my Newtown box was). Part of my evolution as a baker has been about getting baking crushes on other bakers through their blogs. My favourite is definitely Steph from Raspberri Cupcakes. Her bakes are divine and I have been making her stuff for a while. A few I often get requests for are the Spiced Blondies with Chai Infused Ganache, the Cherry Shortbread Bites and the Malted and Salted Choc-Chip Cookies. I knew I wanted to make some of her bakes for my birthday, so I did. I'll share with you what they are. Now her recipes are so good I never need to change ingredients. I don't want to steal from her, so instead I'll post links to the recipes. Plus please check out all her recipes and amazing pics. She is a Baking God and you will be salivating. Friends, I will take requests if you want me to bake more of her stuff.

Now the first one was the birthday cake. My good friend Hannah said I shouldn't make my own cake, but I really wanted to. Mostly to make this great cake. Steph's original recipe was a purple ombre cake, but I decided to make a rainbow cake instead. Gay much? The recipe was the same, all I changed were the colours and I made 4 layers like she suggested in the recipe. Now the sprinkles task was difficult, especially when I only had a few minutes till people started arriving, but it was worth it. It looked amazing.

Here's the recipe link:

http://www.raspberricupcakes.com/2011/11/purple-ombre-sprinkle-cake.html

Next up are the Neopolitan Melting Moments, or Yo-Yo's as they are called here in Melbourne. I had been wanting to make these for a while. I love how the melting moments, melt in your mouth. Hence the name. And the different flavours in these just sounded wonderful, and they were. Yes, they took a while to make, but were worth it. Out of all my birthday baked goods, these were the ones I was keenest to try. I changed nothing, the recipe was spot on.

Here's the link:
http://www.raspberricupcakes.com/2010/06/neopolitan-melting-moments.html

Finally there was the lemon meringue cheesecake. I made this for my boyfriend's birthday this year. It's the trend to make a cheesecake for him for his birthday, he loves them. Last year was the apple pie cheesecake, this year was the lemon meringue one. Mum loved the sound of it and asked me to make it for her when she was down. Of course I couldn't say no to my favourite person, and happily made it again. Plus, it's bloody tasty. The combination of lemon meringue and the cheesecake is a perfect match. I highly recommend this for your next dinner party. Again, I changed nothing from the original Raspberri Cupcakes recipe.

Here's the link:
http://www.raspberricupcakes.com/2009/05/lemon-meringue-cheesecake.html

The party was a success, as were the baked goods. There were a few other things I made I may share soon too. But I really want to write this blog to say thanks to Steph at Raspberri Cupcakes for inspiring me and pushing my baking to new heights. I look forward to seeing more of your amazing creations.

Back on Monday with the red velvet cheesecake my friends have been asking me to share.

Wayne

xx

GINGERNUT BISCUITS

Biscuits are really the first thing I got into baking. Besides tasting pretty damn good, they are also quite easy to make. Plus they usually don't have a huge range of ingredients. I've really enjoyed learning to make some of my favourite all time biscuits, making everything from Melting Moments/YoYos, Monte Carlos and Kingstons. Next on my list was the classic gingernut. I only slightly liked these as a kid, I guess as we get older our taste buds develop because I've grown to really love the taste of ginger. Now these were fun to make, easy and tasted divine. My friend Josh (pictured below) was coming over to help me prepare for an audition, so these were a thank you. He had quite a few, so I guess he appreciated it! I dunked these into my favourite tea of the moment, T2's Melbourne Breakfast, and they were divine. I'll be busy baking over the next few weeks with my birthday coming up and my Mum in town, I'll try and blog recipes when I can.

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup of plain flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 tablespoon ground ginger
60 grams butter (I used salted for this recipe)
4 tablespoons of brown sugar
1 tablespoon golden syrup

INSTRUCTIONS:

1 - Pre heat oven to 180 degrees and line 2 baking trays with baking paper

2 - Sift flour, baking powder and ground ginger and combine in a bowl.

3 - In a saucepan, place butter, sugar and syrup. Put on a low heat and stir softly until butter is melted and all ingredients are mixed. Don't let it boil.

4 - Add wet ingredients into the bowl and mix until it becomes a soft dough. It will be quite sticky.

5 - Roll into teaspoon sized balls and place on the trays, pressing down gently with a fork. Make sure you allow room for the biscuits to spread.

6 - Bake for approximately 15 minutes or you can touch them and see they are getting solid.

Although 1 tablespoon of ginger seems a lot, it was perfect. If not as big on ginger, you can reduce.

Enjoy and remember to send in any pics of stuff you make.

Wayne
xx