Fudge

I came across a hand written Peanut Butter Fudge recipe in one of mum's cook books. It didn't look very 'fudgey', but it required the exact amount (40g) of cooking chocolate that had been sitting in the cupboard for several months, and I figured if mum had bothered to write it down, it must be good.


As you can see, it's definitely not fudge. But it was very tasty. It's basically coconut rough - a chocolately coconut mix.

So I found another fudge recipe and tried again.


This is chocolate rum fudge. I used the Bundaberg Rum Royal Liqueur, which is dark rum with chocolate and coffee. The fudge was delicious, though it didn't set entirely. Chilled it was perfectly firm, but went gooey if left out of the fridge.

I'll try again at some point, but for now I'm all fudged out.

Bed Socks

A while ago my mum was looking through Paton's 'Big Book of Small Projects 2' that I have, and she pointed out several things that she would like. She now has a pair of bed socks, just in time for the start of spring.



These are the first socks I've made, but I do know that the construction of these was very odd. The pattern was graded as intermediate, but I found the only challenge to be filling in the gaps in the instructions. For such a basic pattern book, which has 'how to' knit and crochet sections, the instructions left a lot of be assumed/guessed at.

Date Self-Saucing Pudding

Around here pudding is a cake that is so dense and moist that you have to eat it with a spoon. And the best type of pudding is self-saucing pudding.





Date Self-Saucing Pudding

1 cup self-raising flour
pinch of salt
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 cup chopped dates
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
1 tablespoon lemon rind
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup apple juice
60g melted butter
3/4 cup hot apple juice
3 tablespoons golden syrup
2 teaspoons butter

1: Sift together flour and salt, stir in sugar, dates, walnuts, and lemon rind. Mix to soft dough with the egg, 1/4 cup apple juice and butter. Spoon into greased oven proof dish.
2: Put the hot apple juice, syrup and butter into a small saucepan and stir over low heat until butter has melted. Pour over pudding and bake in a moderate oven for about 40 minutes.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Cake

This is a chocolate cake with peanut butter cheese cake centre and peanut butter cream cheese icing. It was amazing. To balance out all the peanut butter and cream cheese, I used apple sauce instead of butter in the cake, which had a beautifully light but moist texture. The cheese cake was supposed to be an even layer, but I forgot that this cake batter is very runny, so I had to spoon the cheese cake batter onto it and though it looked nice and even when I did it, obviously the spoonfuls moved about and did their own thing during cooking. The cheese cake is also peanut butter flavoured. I used chunky style, and the pieces of peanut gave a really nice contrast to the smooth cheese cake and fluffy chocolate cake. The peanut butter cream cheese icing? I saw this Smitten Kitchen post and didn't need any convincing that it would be as good as it was.

Pattern Booklets

I discovered the magazine section at one of the local op shops, and it was quite a score for knitting and crochet patterns. Nothing was more recent than the mid '90s, and there were some booklets that were from the '40s/'50s. The majority of the booklets were from the '80s, so they were mostly good for a laugh and I didn't buy a lot.


The booklet above is pretty indicative of what I found, with the hideous '80s patterns and/or styling. I bought this one, and two others, because they had just one pattern that I really liked.


This crochet booklet was a surprise. After having a good laugh at the nipple peeking through there (look closely), I actually looked at the patterns and found that I like seven of the nine included. One dress in particular has gone straight to the top of my must-make queue. I haven't bought the yarn yet, but I'm hoping to have it ready for a wedding in October I'm attending.