Orange Sultana Cake with Orange Icing

1 ½ cups Pam’s sultanas

250g Pam’s butter

½ cup Pam’s orange juice

1 cup Pam’s sugar

3 Pam’s eggs

2 cups Pam’s flour

2 teaspoons Pam’s baking powder

½ cup Pam’s milk

Orange Icing

1 ¾ cups Pam’s icing sugar

3 tablespoons Pam’s orange juice

Place sultanas in a saucepan.

Chop butter roughly.

Add to saucepan with orange juice.

Heat until butter has melted.

Cool

Mix sugar and eggs together and combine with sultana mixture

Sift over flour and baking powder and mix in with milk.

Pour into a baking paper lined 20cm square tin.

Bake at 160 deg C for 1 hour 20 minutes or until cake springs back

Cool.

Spread with Orange Icing.

Orange Icing.

Sift icing sugar.

Mix in orange juice until combined.

Pam’s is a brand name for store products found in New Zealand in New world and Pak’n’Sav stores.

I used the products I have, but the same ingredients if you understand what I mean.

I heated the sultanas, chopped butter and orange juice and before the butter had completely melted I removed the pot from the heat and stirred the mixture allowing the butter to completely melt.

I find this helps speed up the cooling down process.

While it was cooling I prepared the cake tin and the other ingredients:

Beat the sugar and eggs together, and sifted the dry ingredients.

I then added the egg mixture stirring it in and then stirred in the flour and milk together.

It is quite runny so there is no need to worry about folding it in.

I poured the mixture into my butter paper lined tin and baked it for the time needed.

It could have been cooked for slightly let time.

I made the icing and iced it when it was cold.

I find icing a fruit cake looks more professional if you tip the cake upside down so you are actually icing the base.

This is a good easy fruit cake to make and it is not rich but has a mild orange flavour.

Ginger Fruit Bars

1 tablespoon golden syrup

3 tablespoons First Choice Spread

¼ cup caster sugar

¼ cup boiling water

3 First Choice Wheat Biscuits, crushed

1 cup First Choice Self Raising Flour

1 cup coconut

1 cup chopped pitted dates

½ cup finely chopped preserved ginger

½ cup chopped walnuts

Place syrup, spread, sugar and water in a saucepan over medium heat (or in the microwave) and melt ingredients.

Add remaining ingredients and mix well

Press mixture into a lightly greased 18cm x 28cm lamington tin.

Bake at 180°C, for approximately 25 minutes.

Cut into 16 bars.

One of the recipes I like where you melt the liquids, add the dry and press in a tin to bake.

Well I followed the directions as I promised.

“First Choice” is a brand of products produced by a supermarket chain a few years ago. I am not aware of them anymore so I couldn’t use them exactly but I still used the equivalent.

I melted all the liquids in a bowl in the microwave and then added each of the remaining ingredients in order, stirring with each addition.

I used Crystallised Glacé Ginger.

However I under estimated the size of the bowl I needed and so they didn’t quite get mixed enough at the end.

I pressed the mixture into my tin but felt it was a bit dry.

I baked it for the required time but didn’t cut it until it had cooled (It didn’t say when to cut it)

It’s a very nice tasting bar (I like dates in baking) and the ginger is not strong.

However as I suspected it has not held very well together and is crumbly.

I will make it again but will make sure it is all mixed thoroughly and if need be, add a little more “spread” (margarine)

Update

Just a little post to let you know I have had a spot of surgery last week so the recipes have been on hold.
However I am recovering and hopefully will be back into it all at the weekend with new recipes

Florentine Squares

¾ cup sultanas

4 crushed Weet-Bix

¾ cup raw peanuts

½ cup chopped cherries

½ x 395gr tin of sweetened condensed milk

½ cup chopped dates

Combine sultanas, Weet-Bix, peanuts, cherries, condensed milk and shopped dates.

Mix well.

Grease and line 23cm square tin.

Bake 180°C 20-25 minutes. 

Cut into squares before cold.

Lift out when cold.

May be dribbles with melted carob

Makes 16 squares.

Another great recipe of mixing it all in the one bowl.

It’s off an old Sanitarian Weet-Bix box but I couldn’t find it on their website so it’s quite old.

I measured out the condensed milk first then added the other ingredients as listed giving it all a good stir with each addition.

I pressed it into my tin and baked for 20 minutes.

Remember to cut it while its warm as it is easier while still a little soft.

It sets hard when it is cold.

I didn’t have any carob so made up a little runny icing (about two tablespoons) with just cocoa and icing sugar and dribbled it over the slice in a diagonal while it was still in the tin.

I love this and it will become a Christmas treat for us I think. It’s quite healthy with all the dried fruit and nuts too.

Chocolate Raisin Biscuits

125gr butter

½ white sugar

1 egg

1 ½ cup flour

¾ tsp baking powder

¾ cup chocolate raisins

Melt butter in a saucepan large enough to mix all the ingredients.

Remove from heat and mix in sugar and egg, beating well with a wooden spoon until combined.

Sift flour and baking powder into the mixture and mix to combine.

Add chocolate raisins and mix in.

Measure a tablespoon of mixture at a time, and roll into balls.

Place on a greased oven tray and flatten with the back of a wet spoon.

Bake at 180°C for 15-20 minutes or until golden and cooked.

Makes approx. 30.

I love recipes that are like this – melt the butter and add all the ingredients in in the same pot.

I followed the recipe (off an old 500gr Chelsea White Sugar bag) just as it was written.

It was very easy and quick to make.

A 130gr packet of chocolate raisins (Pams) is ¾ cup of chocolate raisins

I found that the chocolate raisins melted a little so gave the biscuits a kind of chocolate ripple effect which was quite appealing.

I cooked them for the full 20 minutes.

These are yummy and meet Katrina’s approval so are a definite keeper.

Pork and Apple Casserole .

Ingredients

500g diced pork

1 onion, sliced

1 Braeburn apple, peeled and sliced

420g can Wattie's Condensed Tomato Soup with Diced Tomatoes

1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

1/2 cup chicken stock or water

1 sprig sage

Method

Preheat oven to 180°C. Heat a dash of oil in a flameproof casserole dish. Add the diced pork pieces and brown over high heat. Remove from dish and set aside.

Add the sliced onions and continue cooking until they start to soften. Add the apple slices and cook a further minute. Return the pork to the pan.

Stir in Wattie’s Condensed Tomato Soup with Diced Tomatoes, balsamic vinegar and stock. Bring to the boil. Add sage. Cover, transfer to oven and cook for 1 hour or until meat is tender.

This a recipe on one of those tear off cards you can get from the supermarket.

It is a Food in a Minute recipe and found on the website.

So I said I wasn’t going to change the recipes? well once again I did.

I didn’t have any Condensed Tomato Soup with Diced Tomatoes so I used a tin of Home Brand diced tomatoes and a tablespoon of tomato paste.

I didn’t have a ‘flameproof casserole dish’ either so I cooked it in a large frying pan and then poured it into my casserole dish and baked it in the oven for just over an hour.

I made sure all the pre-diced pork pieces I had bought were about the same size.

It didn’t say how to slice that apple (‘what?’! you say) I mean I cut it in half, took the core out and then cut it into slices about 4 millimetres thick. I don’t have readymade stock so I used ½ teaspoon of dry chicken stock powder in half a cup of water.

I also didn’t have fresh sage (I must get my herb garden sorted) so I used a half a teaspoon of dried.

Katrina and I liked this and there was enough left over to use with a bit of cream added as a sauce over penne pasta for another meal.

Cranberry Crisps

INGREDIENTS (Makes about 30 crisps)

1 cup flour

1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 cup long thread coconut

1 cup rolled oats

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup sliced almonds

1 cup dried cranberries

125g butter

2 tbsp golden syrup

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 cup boiling water

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C and lightly grease a baking tray. Or you can line it with baking paper, whichever you prefer.

2. Place the first seven ingredients into a large bowl.

3. Melt the butter and blend in the golden syrup. Then dissolve the baking soda in the boiling water. Pour the butter and baking soda mixtures into the dry ingredients and mix well until thoroughly combined.

4. Put heaped tablespoonfuls of the mixture about 5cm apart on the prepared tray and press them down well with a damp fork.

5. Bake the crisps for about 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. Then remove from the oven and leave them on the tray for 3-4 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

They can be stored in an airtight container or freeze. 

This recipe came with a reqest to donate to the Starship foundation and was a sneak peek at one of the recipes from the cookbook - Comfort: Food for sharing.

Its another one of those recipes where you can just mix everything in a bowl and there is no need for creaming the butter and sugar etc.

All went fine, mixing the first seven ingredients in a large bowl, melting the butter and golden syrup and then adding to the dry ingredients with the baking soda mixture.

I put spoonfuls on the tray and they seemed rather "wet"

I pressed them with a fork and thought to myself, this is not going to look like the biscuits in the photo.
Sure enough when I took them out of the oven they had spread out flat and seemed to be a complete flop.
I left them on the tray to cool for ten minutes as they seemed to just want to break up.

These do not look good in the photo, as you can see, the photo from the recipe is beside them there on the left.
They do taste very nice but don't eat too many or you will be visitng the little room for awhile.

I'm not sure if I will make them again and if I do I will be adjusting them. Maybe only a little water.
If anyone has bought the cookbook can you check the ingredients and let me know.