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Archive for August, 2006

Blueberry and X Muffins

Published
by
Helen
on August 5, 2006
in food
. 4 Comments

I first went to type this post the other day but just before I pressed “publishâ€? we had an itsy bitsy power surge which quickly erased my post. I can’t even really remember what most of the filler noise was that I had typed so it mustn’t have been important.

As often happens when I am making something I will wander to wherever Mum is at that time and start offering her my different flavour suggestions. This time it was a string of Blueberry and X muffins. Blueberry and Chocolate? Blueberry Poppy Seed? Blueberry with Sunflower Seed topping? Blueberry and Sultana? Blueberry and insert your own idea? Mum liked the idea of either chocolate or sultana but my mind was going for poppy seed or chocolate, after looking in the cupboard and seeing that there was no chocolate I decided to make half a batch with poppy seeds and half a batch with sultanas.

Blueberry Poppyseed, Blueberry Sultana Muffins

Blueberry and X Muffins
Adapted from the Macrina Bakery & Cafe Cookbook (Fresh Fruit Muffin) via Cookbook 411 - Blueberry and Currant Muffins
Makes 18 medium muffins

1.5C plain flour
1.5C wholemeal plain flour
0.75C raw sugar
1.5tsp baking powder
1.5tsp salt
0.5C honey
1.5C milk
4 eggs
vanilla
zest of a lemon or an orange
115g butter (melted)
200-300gish blueberries
poppy seeds, sultanas

Preheat oven to 180ºC, grease muffin pans.
Sift together the dry ingredients in a bowl and put to the side.
Mix the honey, milk, eggs, vanilla and zest together. Pour in the dry ingredients and mix till they are just incorporated. Whilst slowly mixing the mixture pour in the butter till it is mixed in.

Now you can have fun mixing in other things. I placed half the mixture back into the bowl which I had mixed the dry ingredients in and divided the berries between the two bowls. I added probably two tablespoons of poppy seeds to one half and two handfuls of chopped sultanas to the other half.

Cook for 25mins or until a skewer comes out clean. Cool in the pans for a while (5 mins) and then turn out onto wire racks to cool.

Use what you have.

Published
by
Helen
on August 3, 2006
in food
. 2 Comments

I am a firm believer in both using what you find in the cupboard when cooking even when the recipe may call for something else and mixing things up to create new things.

I hadn’t planned on posting these biscuits because they are similar to the Helen’s Best Ever Biscuits, you just change the ingredients depending on what you have. However I was eating these Chocolate and Blueberry in Sunflower Seeds Biscuits yesterday in a lecture break when two my uni girls commented on them. After chatting about them for a while I wrote www.helenthura.com on a scrap of paper and told them that I would post the idea. So here it is.

I have a biscuit recipe that came to us as Apricot Wheat Germs and over the years I faithfully made the recipe as it was listed though occasionally it would be Fruit Medley Wheat Germs if we had no apricots in the house.

1.5C soft brown sugar
250g butter softened
2 eggs
vanilla
1.5C self-raising flour (bleached or wholemeal)
2 cups cornflakes
200g chopped dried apricots
0.5C rolled oats
1C desiccated coconut
1.5C wheat germ

Fan-forced oven at 160°C.
Cream butter and sugar, add eggs.
Mix in the rest.
Roll into balls and flatten lightly and cook in oven till when a finger pressed lightly into a biscuit does not leave a mark. Makes plenty.

These are very yummy and in the last 10 mths or so I have started playing with the recipe, changing the quantities of the cornflakes, coconut, rolled oats, wheat germ and apricots or replacing them all together with what ever I find in the cupboard.

These changes led to Helen’s Best Ever Biscuits back in February. Then in May there was Sultanas and Dried Strawberries and in July there is Chocolate and Blueberry in Sunflower Seeds. Whilst the same basic recipe provides the base each time, changing the “fillings” provides a totally new biscuit experience each time.

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The ideas behind the Chocolate and Blueberry in Sunflower Seeds came in many parts. I was inspired to roll the biscuits in sunflower seeds after thinking of biscuits I had made with Renata (my host mother) when I was in Germany for Christmas in 2002 as well as biscuits I had a little while ago at my friend Leanne’s house. The blueberries came about because I happened to have quite a few packets left in the freezer and the chocolate was because if I left the pack of 85% cocoa in my drawer for much longer it would have been going straight down my throat.

From the basic recipe the Chocolate and Blueberry in Sunflower Seeds did not have the rolled oats or apricots or wheat germ. I increased the coconut and flour, added 80grams of Lindt 85% chocolate, 200gish of frozen blueberries and the sunflower seeds of course. The mixture was quite gooey so I just kept on adding some more of the dry ingredients till it became more user friendly.

Walk This Way

Published
by
Helen
on August 2, 2006
in Music, Uni, paper and random life
. 2 Comments

Yesterday marked the start of the 2nd week back at uni for me and I am getting used to new lecturers, doing my readings, going over notes and starting to plan my assesment pieces. I am a bit ticked off with one of my classes as the lecturer said at the first lecture last week, that he should have the reading brick put together in the next couple of weeks! Dude, based on the fact that reading bricks are designed to have the readings that accompany each weeks lecture, they should be ready for week 1, week 2 at the latest. grr.

These are three things that I am loving at the moment.

Strawberries. Fresh, sweet and flavoursome Queensland Strawberries. Strawberry season also means that the Ekka is fast approaching and that means strawberry sundaes and fireworks.

Hayseed Dixie. I am a big fan of the cover version and these guys with their “rockgrass” versions of classic rock songs produce some of the best covers I have heard in a while.

The Mountain Goats. Well I have loved these two guys for over a year now and in a mere 20 days their new album Get Lonely is released. I can’t wait to hear the other songs after listening to Wild Sage on NPR’s All Songs Considered.

And this is one thing that makes me so incredibly happy.
West Papuan David Wainggai is finally set to receive a TPV (Temporary Protection Visa) after the Refugee Review Tribunal overturned the original Department of Immigration ruling that granted visa’s to the 42 other West Papuan’s who landed on Cape York in January. I can’t describe how happy I was when I first heard it on the news and later read it in the paper. Justice Comes Ashore. Govt weighs appeal against Papuan visa decision.

After I had done my school work yesterday I sat down and had a little play.

I cook. hello world!