Welcome to Bake Club, Kara! Kara has her own blog, http://kazascakes.blogspot.co.nz/
and she'd like to share the recipe she made on Mother's Day.

This tart is really luscious - it's at its best when it's been well chilled. Recipe from Helen Jackson's book.

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I'm sorry this doesn't look that pretty after being dealt to before the pic was taken, but sure tasted gooood. This saucy little number is from the June HZ House & Garden magazine. And this is my entry into the April Sweet New Zealand, hosted by myself this month!


1 cup self-raising flour
2 tablespoons good-quality dark cocoa
½ cup caster sugar
½ cup milk
1 large egg
60g butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
200g dark chocolate melts, buttons or pieces
1 cup boiling water
Icing sugar for dusting
T...
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6 egg whites
1 ½ c caster sugar
1 c chopped hazelnuts

Preheat oven to 100 C. Trace 3 x 20cm round circles onto baking paper. Turn over and place on baking sheet.
Beat eggs for 1 min. Then add sugar and beat further 6-8 mins until peaks form.
Add the hazelnuts or any other kind of nuts or almond meal.
Divide mixture in 3 and spread over circle shapes. Bake at for 3-4 hours until crispy.

Assemble together with sweetened cream and berries. Our bottom layer was strawberri...

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Nothing like a steaming hot date pudding with caramel sauce and vanilla ice cream!

Recipe from Toast: http://www.toast-nz.com/2010/09/supper-club-4.html

Sticky Ginger Date Pudding with Caramel Sauce
200g dates, chopped
1 1/4 cups boiling water
60g butter
3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
3/4 cup of brown sugar
1/4 cup golden syrup
2 eggs, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 1/3 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
50g crystallised ginger, finely chopped (I added powde...

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I was visiting my lovely friend Kura (who has linked to bakeclub a few times from her lovely 'little library girl' blog http://sweetlittlelibrarygirl.blogspot.com/) in Hawkes Bay and she had a hankering for good ole fashioned Pecan Pie... being time short, we cheated a bit and used pastry, and then followed Nigella Lawson's 'pecan plus pie' recipe for the filling - except we went back to pure principles and just used pecans... we were a bit low on nuts, and it took quite a bit longer to ...
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I have an music video edit session going on in our dining room – what can I feed two hungry media types? Pre-rolled puff pastry to the rescue! Only three sheets left so I made one pear and pecan tart and some spinach and cheese pinwheels.

For pear and pecan tart: peel 3 pears, cut into slices and toss with handful of pecans, some brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger. Spread evenly over pastry sheet, folding up the edges. Baste with some melted honey; you could also brush...

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Ginny says: I exchanged evaporated milk for the cream/milk in an attempt to make it slightly less 'give you a heart attacky'...

3 eggs
375 ml thin cream (1.5C)
375 ml milk (1.5C)
110g caster sugar (1/2C)
2 tsp vanilla extract
6 croissants
200g dark chocolate, roughly chopped

Heat oven to 160ºC
Whisk eggs, cream, milk, sugar, vanilla
Cut croissants into small pieces and arrange half in an ovenproof dish
Sprinkle with chocolate and cover with the rest of the croissants
Pour egg mixture over...

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For our housewarming Mama Chan made these gorgeous meringue bites. I assembled them and topped them with raspberries from her garden.

4 egg whites
¾ c sugar
whisk 8 mins till smooth and glossy
pipe into rounds
Bake in a high oven for 10-12 mins.

Annabel Langbein’s lemon cream:
500 ml cream
¼ c sugar
2 tbs honey
75 ml lemon juice

Boil cream, sugar and honey in a pot, stir to dissolve, simmer 3 mins. Add lemon juice. Strain and cool before putting into fridge to set.

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It was my birthday and I requested this from dear Mama Chan, and she obliged!

2 Tbs caster sugar
125 g plain dark chocolate
2 Tbs brandy or coffee
4 eggs, separated, plus 2 extra egg whites
icing sugar to serve

Preheat oven to 200 C. Butter a 1 litre soufflé dish and dust out with 1 Tbs caster sugar. Break chocolate into pieces and put into a double boiler or a bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water with the brandy or coffee.Set over medium heat and stir ...

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I have wonderful memories of this when I was a child, when we called it wang wang pie.
Pastry;
2 c plain flour, 1/4 tsp salt, cold water
Sift flour and salt, cut in butter and mix until a stiff dough. Put in fridge.

Filling, mix together in saucepan over gentle heat for 5-10 mins:
1/4 c cornflour
2 Tb custard powder (optional)
3/4 c sugar
2 tsp lemon rind
1/4 c lemon juice
3 egg yolks
1 Tb butter

Meringue, beat together:
1/4 c caster sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla
3 egg whites

Roll out pastry, line 20cm flan tin. Cov...
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Mama Chan used Annabel Langbein's crumble topping from her Free Range Cook book.

Line pie dish with store-bought puff pastry. Blind bake at 170C for 20-30 mins.
Mix tin stewed apples or stew 3 apples yourself. Add a cup or so of fresh or frozen berries, 1/2 c sugar and 2 Tbs cornflour. Pour into pie dish.
Make crumble topping by mixing:

2 c flour
1 c ground almonds
1 1/2 c brown sugar
2 c rolled oats
1 c almonds, chopped or slivered
2 tsp mixed spice
together with 250 g melted butter
Put the topping on ...
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Mama Chan always makes brandy snaps for Xmas. But this year after our Xmas dinner we just had pavlova and fruit salad, which was absolutely fine as we all had food comas anyway. Then as we were cleaning up she said, "Oh, I forgot the brandy snaps!", and spent the next ten minutes trying to remember where she put them. No cupboard was left closed or cake tin unopened in the quest to find the elusive snaps. They were under a table in a see-through container with brazil nuts (so she thought it w...
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Makes 4

100g pitted dates, finely chopped
¼ boiling water
50g butter, chopped
½ c brown sugar
1 egg
¾ c plain flour
¾ tsp baking powder
½ tsp ground ginger
2 Tbs milk
icing sugar to serve

Toffee sauce:
100g butter
½ c cream
½ c brown sugar

Preheat oven 180 C. Place dates and water in a bowl and set aside for 5 mins. Put butter and sugar in bowl and beat until light and creamy. Add egg and beat well. Sift flour and baking powder of the mixture. Add ginger, milk an...

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This is an easy-peasy custard Mama Chan usually makes when she has yolks left over from making a pavlova or meringues.

¾ c milk
1 ½ c cream
½ c sugar
4 eggs yolks

Mix all ingredients together and pour into baking dish. Bake at 150 C for about 30 mins until set. The strawberries worked well as a decoration for colour and a complementary taste to the custard.

Mama Chan uses this recipe to make Chinese-style custard tarts (you can just use all milk if you don’t have cre...

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OK, these aren’t officially baked goods, they are fried, but definitely worth the effort. I made them for a little dinner party. They looked posh and went down a treat.

2 ½ cups flour (I used gluten free)
¼ c caster sugar
pinch salt
2 eggs, separated
1 Tbs olive oil
about ¾ c ice water
4 firm yet ripe pears, peeled, cored and cut into ½ inch thick wedges
½ c vin santo (I used port)
canola oil for frying
icing sugar for dusting

In large bowl whisk together 1 ¾ c of the f...

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Hard not to be impressed by the deep, malty colours of Ginny's pumpkin pie (see below). So when I just happened to have some leftover roast pumpkin and orange kumara I decided to make a gluten-free version.
I followed Ginny's recipe and used cream instead of evaporated milk. I also made g-f pastry for the first time with butter and a g-f flour mix. I blind baked the pastry shell for about 15 mins. It turned out a bit too buttery and crumbles easily but still nice. I think the kumara and pumpki...
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Don’t get me wrong – I’ve got nothing against Annabel Langbein’s recipes as featured on her TV programme The Free Range Cook. I just wish this obviously bright and successful woman could add a few more adjectives to her vocabulary! Her superfluous gushing of ‘so good’, ‘so delicious’, ‘so easy’ and ‘so yum’ send me into a groaning fit. On the other side of the culinary coin, Nigella finds ways to promote food porn unlike any other TV chef: everythin...

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This looks like a beauty, Ginny - dark, smooth and most certainly tasty.

Ingredients
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Bless Mama Chan! She made a little mini-me gluten free pudding for Frances as well as a big one for da family (double the recipe).
 
1/3 c raspberry jam,melted
75g butter, softened
1/3 c caster sugar
1 egg
1tsp vanilla essence
1 c plain flour or gluten-free flour, sifted
1 tsp baking powder, sifted
1 Tbs golden syrup
1/2 milk
 
Preheat oven to 160C. If you'd like to do single serve puddings, divide jam between 4 lightly greased ovenproof dishes/tins, or just put all of the jam on the bottom ...
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1 c self raising flour
1/2 c caster sugar
2 T lemon zest
45 g butter
1/2 c milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 T extra sugar
1/4 lemon juice
1/2 c boiling water

Preheat oven to 180C. Mix flour, sugar, 1 Tb zest in a bowl. Add melted butter, vanilla and milk and stir to combine. Spoon into 4 x 1 cup ramekins, slightly greased. Mama Chan used a BIG oven dish instead for our Sunday night family dinner for 6. Sprinkle with extra sugar and zest. Combine lemon juice and water and pour over pudding. Bake for 25 min...
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necatrines (or other fruit, tamarillos are really good; pears are good too; cherries [and plums] are traditional)
2 eggs
1/3 C caster sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 C flour
3/4 C milk

oven to 180C

cut up fruit into large pieces

beat eggs and caster sugar, add vanilla, beat, whisk in flour and then the milk to form an aerated batter.

butter dish, arrange fruit, pour over batter, and bake 45-55 minutes...

sprinkle over icing sugar if that's your thing... serve hot (but good co...
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