Scones with jam and cream

Note: To make this a completely salicylate friendly treat replace the strawberry jam and strawberries with some  Hank's pear and vanilla jam.

Ingredients:
3 cups plain flour
4 tsp baking powder
1 tbs caster sugar (not necessary)
80g butter, cubed, at room temperature
1 cup milk, at room temperature
Extra plain flour

Method:
Turn the oven on to 220 degrees celcius.  Sift the flour and baking powder twice.  Place the softened butter, flour mixture into a mixing bowl and use finger tips to blend together until it resembles bread crumbs.  This is a good time to get help but the way warm little hands like to get in there and enjoy this tactile experience will mean your scones aren't as fluffy as they might otherwise be.

Make a well in the center and pour the milk and sugar (if using it) in all at once.  Use a butter knife in a scraping and cutting motion to drawn the flour mixture in from the sides and slice through the center of the mixture making sure you only mix until the mixture has just come together.
Tip it out onto a clean and lightly floured work surface and bring together with your palms, do not knead the mixture.  Just bring it together and use your palms to gentle pat it down to be a two cm thick rectangle.
Use a circular cookie cutter or thin rimmed glass that has been dusted with flour to cut as many scones as you can out of this lot.  Bring together left over bits very gently, the more you handle it the denser they are, and cut out the rest.
Put in the lined trays close together and use a pastry brush or finger tips to paint the tops with milk, if you paint down the sides they won't rise properly.  Cook for about 10 minutes.
(Makes about a dozen to eighteen scones. )
Serve with jam, cream and strawberries.

Chantilly cream
200 ml thickened cream
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1 tbs castor sugar

Place all in a bowl together and whisk until the cream is thick and fluffy. 

Salicylate Friendly - Rustic Beef and Vegetable Pie

This isn't a recipe that's great to cook with children but my children love eating it and it is low in salycilates.

Ingredients
1 tbsp canola oil * 2
400g beef finely sliced and chopped into a rustic mince
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1medium carrot, peeled and cut into 1cm cubes
2 baby potato, peeled and cut into 1cm cubes
1 medium vine ripened tomato, finely diced
1 large leek, finely chopped
1/2 cup peas
125 g butter
1 chilled egg
1 tbsp chilled water
1 1/2 cups plain flour
2 tbsp milk

Method

• Prepare short crust pastry.  Rub butter into flour with finger tips until it resembles bread crumbs. 
• Add the egg and chilled water and bring together with a fork until well combined.  Dust with a little flour if the mixture is too wet to knead.  Use hands and knead lightly adding a small amount of flour if needed.  Wrap in baking paper and place in the freezer.  
• Preheat the oven to 200°C.
• Heat 1 tbsp oil in a large fry pan over high heat and sauté the beef for 5 minutes, breaking up any large clumps. Strain the beef and discard liquid from pan. Place the pan back on heat and add 1 teaspoon of oil.
• Add the garlic, and cook for 3 minutes. Add the tomato, carrot and potato to the pan and cook for an additional 3 minutes stirring often.
• Return beef to the pan. Remove from heat and stir through the parsley, season to taste with salt and pepper and let cool for 7 minutes.
• Remove the pastry and separate 2/3 it.  Roll out the larger portion of pastry to approx 2mm circle and using fingers, mold to a 20cm circular diameter baking dish, removing all air bubbles.  Blind bake for approx 5 - 10 minutes.
• Roll out the pie lid to approx 2mm thick.  Cut out decorations before covering the pie.
• Fill the dish with the pie mixture.  Place the lid on and pinch the sides down, remove excess.  (This is great for adding small amount of grated cheese and using to make savoury snacks.)
• brush with a little milk.
• Bake for 18-20 minutes or until the pastry is golden brown and the filling is cooked through.
• Let sit at room temperature for 5 minutes before serving.

Butter Biscuit Recipe

Ingredients
1 egg
225gms butter
3/4 cups castor sugar
1 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/3 cups flour
or 2 cups flour and 1/3 cup of cocoa'

mix first six ingredients with electric mixer until fluffy.  Gradually stir in flour by hand until well mixed.  Chill for 2 to 3 hours in refridgerator.  Preheat oven to 200C.  Roll out half of the dough at a time on a floured board until about 1/2 cm thick.  Cut using cutters and place on ungreased baking sheet.

Bake for approx 6 minutes, in a gas oven, until edges are starting to brown.  Remove and cool on baking sheet .  When cool use icing for decoration by spreading evenly over the whole cookie.  Sweet Sugarbelle has the most amazing walk throughs on decorating and biscuit making.  These biscuits where perfect for cutting and tasted great before decorating.  Unfortunately the dogs broke in while we were playing in the garden so nobody but Stinky Chinko got to try the final product.  Kiki stood at the door looking nervous and wanting to distance herself from what was taking place inside, either that or she was the worst look out in the history of biscuit heists.

Butter icing
3 cups icing sugar
85 gms butter
1 to 2 tsp milk
1 tsp vanilla

Sugar glaze
2 cups icing sugar
4 tsp golden syrup
4 tsp milk
food colouring (optional)

mix thoroughly and spread evenly over cookie as a base for decorating.  Will dry shiny and firm.

Art and Cooking - Vanilla, Pear and Ricotta Cake

Very exciting thing happened this morning.  It was great to cook with my little chefs and then to have them pull out some art equipment themselves to paint and draw while the cake was baking was fantastic.  I think this cake worked out a little too gelatinous, somewhere between a sponge and a cheese cake, but my children love it.

Vanilla, Pear and Ricotta Cake

Ingredients
150g ricotta
2 pears
1/2 cup caster sugar
4 seperated eggs
1/2 cup plain flour
3/4 tspn baking powder

Syrup
1 cup of castor sugar
1 cup of water
1/4 tsp vanilla essence

Preparation
1. Preheat oven to 180C. Line the base and sides of a 20 centimetre solid based cake tin, with greaseproof paper. Ensure the collar of the grease proof paper is 3-4 centimetres higher than sides of the tin.

2.  remove woody stem, stem fibres and seeds from pear and slice into thick segments.

3. For syrup, place water and castor sugar into a saucepan. Bring to a rapid boil over a high heat. Boil for 6–8 minutes or until it begins to form brown caramel colour. Continue cooking for 2–3 minutes over a high heat until deep golden brown but not burnt.

3. Immediately pour into the cake pan to prevent further cooking. Arrange pear on top of syrup.  I had the syrup simmering while we were making the batter so it was ready only shortly before arranging the pear, rather than sharing the opportunity for a melted sugar burn, I had a production line of assistants passing me pear to arrange in a flower on the syrup.

4. Separate the eggs.  It helped to do this with my eager, on looking little chefs by saying we were going to try and capture the egg yolks.  There are simple things like separating the eggs and folding meringue into a batter that seems really interesting to little chefs.

Method

1. For cake batter, in a mixing bowl beat half the sugar with egg yolks until thick and pale. Add a small lid/cap (about 1/2 tsp) full of vanilla essence and mix through.   Add the ricotta into the egg yolk mixture, whisk for 30 seconds to combine.

2. Sift in the flour and baking powder and beat for 1 minute or until batter is smooth. Pour into a large mixing bowl and set aside.

3. Place egg whites into a clean mixing bowl and whisk until soft peaks form. Continue to whisk, gradually adding remaining sugar. Continue to whisk until sugar has dissolved.  For the first time today my eldest little chef was able to do this unassisted.  My youngest needed me to be there poised and on the ready to realign and make sure nothing dangerous happened, one finger on the switch and holding the beater in place, eyes on little hands.

4. Gently fold in the meringue 1/3 at a time into the batter mixture using a metal spoon.  This is not a job for little hands unless you know they are familiar with it.  We have never approached folding meringue in together so they were just happy to watch and learn a new cooking skill.

5. Pour mixture into a prepared tin and bake for 40-45 minutes, or until cooked all the way through. Remove from oven and allow to cool in the tin for 45 minutes to an hour. Before turning out pull out or cut off baking paper collar so it is level with the cake.

6. Turn out on plate and remove baking paper base.