Friday favorites

When the talents were being handed out in my family, my sister got the cooking genes; I got the crafty talents. She's a wonderful cook, innovative and adventurous. I cook the evening meal because I have to, with the emphasis on easy, healthy, and thrifty.

But I am good at the sweet stuff.  I've always been fascinated by the chemistry of baking and preserving - what makes a cake moist and even textured, and why jam sets - or doesn't!

I used to have a stall at the local market every Saturday, selling baked goods, cakes, slices and biscuits. And jam - I sold lots of jam. Having access to free fruit from my own garden and my daughter's orchard, I would often cook up a batch first thing in the morning, and admire the jewel coloured jars that resulted.

Over time, I built up a collection of  recipes, all of them pretty much fool-proof, having been tried and tested over several years. I don't bake much any more; few of us need the calorie intake of days gone by, we don't do so much physical labour now, but there's nothing wrong with the occasional indulgence. It's good to see a revival of interest in home baking, for a while it seemed  in danger of becoming a lost art.

So I'm putting my favorite recipes together, to pass on to my family - the market best-sellers, family favorites from when my kids were younger, and some handed down from my own childhood.

I could easily write a whole blog about food - and believe me, I'm tempted - but that will have to wait until I've dealt with the family history. In the meantime, I plan to do one blog post each week, to share just a few of my recipes. I'm calling them "Friday Favorites". Here's the first one.

 Remember the chocolate hedgehog I mentioned in a previous post? This is the closest I can get to that memory of chocolatey goodness.

 
Chocolate Hedghehog

you will need - a 19 x 29 cm slice tin
250g pkt Morning Coffee biscuits, crushed
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup light brown sugar
2 tabs cocoa
1/2 cup sultanas
1 tab. sherry
1 egg
Brush the tin with oil, line with baking paper, mix the crushed biscuits & nuts in a large bowl.
Melt butter in a small saucepan, add cocoa mixed with sugar, cook for 2 minutes.
Remove from heat & allow to cool for 5 minutes. (You're about to add raw egg to a hot mixture, and you don't want the egg white to cook first, giving you white bits in the mixture.)
Stir in the sultanas. Beat the egg in a cup, add the sherry, and mix quickly into the chocolate mixture.
Pour over the biscuit & nut mixture, mix all together thoroughly, then press into the slice tin.
Press down firmly with the back of a spoon, smoothing it until the surface is as flat as possible, and there is a slight sheen of butter on the surface.
Ice with chocolate butter icing -  about 6 heaped tabs. icing mixture, 2 level tabs. cocoa, a heaped tsp. butter, & hot water to mix - a little at a time.
Refrigerate until set, before cutting into 16 pieces.

Note - I always use butter, never margarine, for baking.
Don't be tempted to line your baking tins with foil, which has a nasty habit of sticking to baked goods. I always use baking parchment.