Monday 29 August 2011

Time to make candy Daring Bakers!

The August 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge was hosted by Lisa of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drive and Mandy of What the Fruitcake?!. These two sugar mavens challenged us to make sinfully delicious candies! This was a special challenge for the Daring Bakers because the good folks at http://www.chocoley.com offered an amazing prize for the winner of the most creative and delicious candy!
First off i made a chocolate peanut butter fudge to get started. It didnt set as well as id hoped it would but it was still deliciously tasty!

Next i tried my hand at honeycomb. I was quite nervous about this as id heard horror stories! But my honeycomb turned out delicious, next time id take it off the heat a  bit earlier but otherwise i was pretty happy with the result.

The last candy i tried was a white chocolate truffle with rosewater, pistachio & cranberries. This was so yummy! Really different to any truffle id ever had before but it was really nice.


Thanks ladies for such a great challenge, you kept my sweet tooth happy for days!!

Monday 15 August 2011

Daring Cooks - Appams and South-Indian Curries!


All in all a successful challenge with yummy results, my fussy sister in particular couldn't get enough! Thanks Mary!!

Mary, who writes the delicious blog, Mary Mary Culinary was our August Daring Cooks’ host. Mary chose to show us how delicious South Indian cuisine is! She challenged us to make Appam and another South Indian/Sri Lankan dish to go with the warm flat bread.
Appams are made from rice, yeast and coconut milk and sort of resemble a crepe. Id never heard of them before the challenge so it was quite interesting a challenge as i had no expectations of what they would taste like or how they would turn out. The batter ferments for 8-12 hours before cooking the appams individually.

The finished product should be slightly crispier on the edges and spongy in the centre. You need to have a covering over the pan when cooking otherwise the appam does not cook correctly.

I made the appams with a vegetable and chickpea south indian spiced curry,

a cucumber raita(pictured below in green bowl) & butter chicken -i know its not south indian or sri-lankan but my sister could fathom the idea of 'indian' food without butter chicken! haha.