Biscuits for morning tea

I made some biscuits yesterday to take into work for morning tea & I'm really pleased with the result. They're peanut butter, oat & chocolate biscuits. The recipe was in the Epicure section of The Age last Tuesday. Here's the recipe.

They smell very peanutty & the chocolate buttons are a great addition. Chocolate always goes down well on a Monday morning. The recipe says it makes 30, but I got 40 from it. You can tell they're homemade because they're all different sizes (that's my excuse, anyway). I had trouble deciding how big a golf ball was...

Here they are in their plastic cake box, all ready to go.

Cake, roses & Phoebe

I haven't posted about a cake for a while but I quite often bake on Sunday & take something in for morning tea at work on Monday morning. This time, my freezer was full & I'd just bought extra frozen food (peas, spinach & raspberries) to take advantage of a special deal for frequent flyer points. So, I decided to do something with the raspberries as I couldn't immediately think of a cake that needed peas or spinach. I found this recipe for a Raspberry Bakewell cake & it looks & smells lovely. Almonds are another favourite ingredient & there's almond meal in the cake as well as the flaked almonds on top. The mixture was more like a shortbread dough than a cake batter. Half the mixture was patted down in the tin, then the frozen raspberries scattered on top then the rest of the mixture finishing with the almonds.

It's early Spring here so I've also been preparing the veggie patch for summer planting & feeding the roses. The nursery where I bought the roses recommended feeding three times - Grand Final, Christmas & Valentine's Day - which is easy to remember. Well, Saturday was Grand Final Day so I was out yesterday morning flinging around the blood & bone. There's lots of growth already & dozens of buds so I'm looking forward to the blossoms.

And here's Phoebe on her way out the back door. She wasn't in the mood to pose so it's the best shot I could get. Lucky was asleep under her blanket so there's no photo of her at all. We're all enjoying these early Spring days & we've had plenty of rain for the garden lately. It's a lovely time of year.

Fruit & Nut Cupcakes

We're on the downhill run to the end of financial year at work & we need regular sweet treats to keep us smiling under pressure. So, I've made fruit & nut cupcakes for morning tea.

These are from the Divine Cupcakes book by Tamara Jane. The recipe called for chopped dates but I substituted sultanas because I didn't have dates & if I had, I didn't have time to stand around chopping them. One of the most tedious jobs in the kitchen, even with the help of a wet knife. I also chose a recipe that didn't need icing or frosting as I was out all morning yesterday & wanted an easy recipe, which these were.

I've been very impressed with this book. All the recipes I've tried so far have worked perfectly. If the recipe says it makes 24 cupcakes, it does. The cupcakes bake flat so they're easy to ice & there are lots of different icings & frostings to try, as well as gluten & dairy free recipes. I'll be dipping in again before the end of June.