Little Box Brownie

A Baking Blog from Melbourne, Australia

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Believing in a dream

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I have some very exciting news to let you in on. I’m publishing a baking book with the help of the amazing team at Random House NZ. Can you believe it? I can’t, Its been such a long road to get here.
I started the book about 4 or 5 years ago, long before I started the Blog. A baking book was something I felt like I had to do in my life time. So one day I simply started it, not knowing if I would finish it and not knowing if anyone would want to print.
I took it one step recipe at a time. My plan was to get to 100 recipes, slowly and surely the book began to take shape, the further I got into it, the more it began to excite me that I was actually doing it and it was really taking shape. It took me about 2 years to complete, a real labor of love. I didn’t tell anyone really what I was doing, except my family and a few close friends, in someway I guess I was embarrassed to let anyone in on my little secret. What if it was a huge flop and I didn’t finish it, what if I was just wasting my time and it would never see the light of day. So day in day out I plugged away in secret, distributing all the baked goods to neighbors and friends who remained unaware they were my taste testers. They really helped form the shape and the direction of the book and so I owe them a huge thank you.

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Lamingtons

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Happy Australia Day! I hope your all soaking up the sun either at the beach or in your backyard. For todays post I went with an iconic Australian cake, the world famous Lamington. Now for those of you that don’t no what an earth a Lamington is, its a little sponge cake covered in a chocolate icing then dipped in coconut. It is said to be named after a man called Lord Lamington, who was the governor of Queensland. There are many speculations as to who created it and why but I for one am glad they did.

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Magic fruit cake

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 Do you have a secret hiding place? A place where you keep all your little keep sakes, I’m not talking about all your gold and riches I’m talking about those little trinkets that remind you of where you have been and what you have done through out your life. The tickets to the opera or theatre, newspaper clippings, photos of treasured things, cards that people have given you, anything really that you want to keep but don’t really look at on a day to day basis. Well my Mum does, she likes to hid them in books, and not just her books, but my books too. She finds little things and puts them in a book.
The other day I was going through a very old cookbook that I have, in fact its so old and used it no longer has a cover, I would say it was very much loved. As I was making my way through this little book all sorts of little treasures where falling out at me, and then a recipe written in older style appeared, now I don’t know where it came from or who’s it was, but the little recipe written beautifully was called a ‘magic fruit cake’, well it had me at magic, I naturally had to make it.
On the back of the recipe it talks of people, their occupations, where they died and who they married. Because my Mum has been doing her family tree forest, I naturally presume she got talking to some one and they have written it down for her to give to me, and it has found its way into one of my many cookbooks waiting to be discovered and discovered it was.
It consists of five ingredients, apricot nectar (sounds like a drink from the gods, that had me too), brandy (a must in all good fruit cakes), fruit (wouldn’t be a fruit cake without it, would it?), and some flour and some spice (I used 2, nutmeg and some cinnamon).
So with these simple five ingredients, that fact it said magic and that it fell out at me just in time for christmas, I simply had to bake it. All signs lead to cake.
Magic Fruit Cake
 
1 kg fruit (I just used sultana’s) 
2 cups apricot nectar or 1/2 cup of brandy and 1 1/2 cups of nectar)
2 cups wholemeal flour
2 teaspoons of spice ( the choice is yours)
 
Place the fruit, nectar and brandy into a big bowl and set aside for 24 hours. 
 
Pre heat the oven to 160C
 
Sift the flour and spice together and stir through the fruit. It will look like there is to much flour and not enough liquid, but just keep stirring it in.
 
Pour the mixture into a lined round 23 cm cake tin and bake for 1 1/2 to 2 hours or until cooked.

Prune Brownies

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Deck the halls with boughs of holly, Fa la la la la, la la la la. It’s the season to be jolly. I hope your all getting your Christmas hats on, and starting some of that good old Christmas Baking. After all what would Christmas be without a baked good, or two, mmm, or three, or four? Well it just wouldn’t be Christmas now would it? No most certainly not. 

I kicked off my Christmas Baking with my Christmas pudding, which from what I’m told should be baked on the last Sunday in November, and thats exactly when I baked it. If I do say so myself it looks pretty dam divine. It’s sitting in the back of my pantry infusing with flavour and lugs of good old Christmas brandy. Just waiting for Christmas day. I love the traditions of Christmas.

This time, I have brought you another not so traditional Chrissy baked good, but what else would do but a sweet tempting little morsel of a brownie? Not any sort of brownie, a special prune brownie soaked in almond alcohol, is so soft and moist and just oozes Christmas tidings. I would sum it up as a Christmas cake brownie, mmm that sums it up nicely. 

This recipe is perfect for gift giving this season, if you want to make something homemade to give to friends and loved ones, this is it, or if you just need to take a plate to a party, who’s going to resist a brownie that screams Christmas.

So if this brownie is screaming to you, you better jot the recipe down quick smart and get to it.

Happy Baking xxx 

Prune Brownie soaked in Almond liqueur
 
20 prunes, stones removed
1 cup almond liqueur
375 g dark chocolate
300g butter
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2 cups flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
4 eggs
 
Place the prunes and liqueur into a saucepan and heat until the mixture starts to simmer. Remove from the heat and set aside.
 
Melt the chocolate and butter together in a double boiler until the chocolate has melted and the ingredients combined. Remove from the heat the stir through the sugar.
Sift the flour and cocoa powder together and then stir to combine, add the eggs one at a time beating after each addition. 
Add the prunes and combine. Pour into a 20x30cm brownie tin and bake for 45 minutes or until cooked. Cool on a wire rack then cut when cooled.