Little Box Brownie

A Baking Blog from Melbourne, Australia

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Guinness Stew

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Happy St Patricks Day everyone! Whats more Irish than Guinness, ok maybe four leaf clovers and leprechauns, which are really hard to find, and I could hardly cook them, could I?

Now I was never a lover of stews (casseroles). I think I have childhood memories of eating to much of the stuff. I’m sure all New Zealand Children grow up eating stews. Well it really is a good hearty meal, and because of the climate, well what better meal to cook on a cold winters night.

 I think when you eat something to much especially as a child you get it in your head that you really dislike it, well I certainly did.
It wasn’t until a few months back that I was working late one night when my Dad was in town, and he cooked a stew for dinner. He put all sorts of things into it including parsnips which is vegetable that I have never really been fond of. The meal was a simple hearty stew that was really good.
So when I saw a recipe in ‘Good Taste’ magazine for a Guinness Stew, I thought hey why not. Being me I can never follow a recipe to the exact detail so this is my version of their stew…..
Guinness Stew
1.5kg of stewing beef chopped
olive oil
1 chopped red onion
5 chopped french shallots
1 teaspoon of crushed garlic
5 slices of bacon
1.5 cups of mushrooms sliced in half
2 cups of beef stock
400mls of Guinness stout
4 sprigs of thyme
2 sprigs of rosemary
2 tablespoons of tomato paste
2 tablespoons of cornflour
1/4 cup of water
 
Pre heat the oven to 180 degrees
 
Heat the oil in an french oven on the stove top. When the oil is hot, brown the meat. Add the onion, shallots, Garlic, bacon and mushrooms and cook until browned. Then pour in the stock and guinness. Add the thyme, rosemary, tomato paste and stir to incorporate. 
 
Cover with the lid and place in the pre heated oven. Cook for 3 hours or until the meat is tender.
Combine the cornflour and water to make a paste and then stir into the stew to thicken. 
 
Serve with some mashed potato.

Banana Bread

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Ok, so its taken me about three hours to figure out how to put a like button for Facebook on this page. I have come to the conclusion that I simply hate HTML coding, its like talking in a foreign language. Its worse than that it would be like trying to communicate with aliens, in actual fact that would probably be easier. I finally managed to find a website that explained how to do it and gave me the coding (Jump for joy). There was however one small hick-up, I had an account with facebook not a page, which who knew made all the difference.
So to those who are following my old account sorry but I will be getting rid of that just as soon as I have attempted the impossible and tried to bring the content over to the new page. The new page is a little empty at the moment, but all you have to do is click like. Over there ———->

Banana Bread

So….. I have no food in the fridge, well limited food in the fridge, which, to be honest is an unusually occurrence for me.
I do however have a banana which probably should have been eaten a week ago, and has turned black. One banana is not much good, so a quick rummage through the freezer, to find the other two bananas I put in there a couple of months ago. And what do we have? Banana bread I think. I haven’t made it for the longest time.
I am, however out of milk, yet for some strange reason happen to have some cream in the fridge, so my fridge isn’t completely empty. Oh and there is eggs and butter in there too, but even an empty fridge has these vital ingredients, doesn’t it. Well mine does.
So out of nothing comes something…..

Banana Bread

100g butter
3/4 cup of brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 eggs
2 tablespoons golden syrup
3 very very old bananas, mashed
1/2 cup of cream
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder

Pre heat the oven to 180C

Cream the butter and sugar together, add the vanilla, eggs, golden syrup, bananas and cream and stir through. Sift in the flour and baking powder into the banana mixture and stir until combined.
Pour into a lined loaf tin and bake for 45 minutes or until cooked.

The beautiful cups in these photos where generously donated to me my a good friend, Maree, thank you Maree there so beautiful, I will treasure them.


Spice up your life

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The first time I came across chilli and chocolate was in the movie ‘chocolat’ staring Jonny Depp and Juliette Binoche. I have never experimented with this favour combo in my cooking, well that is until now. I have however had chilli hot chocolate at some of the beautiful chocolatier shops that are scattered throughout Melbourne. I love the flavour combo, so I decided I would try it in a brownie. The chilli flavour is very subtle, you probably wouldn’t even know it was there unless someone told you. It just ascents the flavour of the chocolate creating the slightest spice, left lingering your mouth. 


Chilli & Chocolate Brownies

150g butter
500g chocolate buttons
5 eggs
2 cups brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
1 teaspoon of chilli powder
3/4 cup of flour


Pre heat oven to 175C

Cube the butter, then place into a bain marie, with the chocolate. Slowly heat until the chocolate and butter have melted.

In a separate bowl place the eggs, sugar, essence and chilli, beat until the mixture becomes glossy and thick. Slowly add the chocolate mixture to this while stirring constantly. Then sift in the flour and stir until combined.

Pour into a 20×30 cm tin and bake for 20 minutes or until cooked.

Peaches and Strawberry Slice

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Peaches and Strawberry Slice

I know, I know, whats with all the strawberry recipes?? Well the simple fact is they’re so incredibly cheap at the moment, every time I go past the veggie shop they call to me.
Buy me, buy me, they sing. They sit at the front of the shop and wait, I swear they do.

Who can resist a beautiful strawberry, who am I kidding – who can resist any kind of strawberry, even the not so good ones can be made into a beautiful pie, tart or cake. So these, not so beautiful strawberries that found their way home today, have been paired with some peaches, which also sat at the front of the shop and waited for me. Would you believe I went looking for apricots to make and apricot tart? Well, that was not meant to be as there was not a single apricot to be found. Anywhere.

I shall try not to bring you anymore strawberry dishes, but I’m not promising. Summer finished here in Australia on the 28th of February, so we are officially in Autumn (fall for all my American followers). I expect strawberries will soon be on there way out, and the winter fruit and veggies will be on their way in. So best to make the most of them while they’re still around!!!

Shortcake slice

Peaches And Straberries

Slice with icing sugar
Peach and Strawberry Slice

Filling

7 fresh peaches
1/4 cup of water
8 strawberries chopped


Base/topping

200g butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 cups of flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder

Pre heat the oven to 175

Cut and de-seed the peaches into eighths. Place in a saucepan with the water and heat until the peaches become soft and start to break up. Remove from the heat and set aside
To make the base/topping, place the butter and sugar into a bowl and cream together with and electric mixer. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition. Sift in the flour and baking powder and stir until a dough forms.
Press 2/3 of the mixture into a lined 15x20cm tin. Then pour over the peaches, and press in the strawberries. With the remaining dough pull pieces off and place randomly over the top of the fruit until mostly covered. Place in the oven and bake for 35 minutes or until golden.
Cut up slice

Rustic slice