I hope everyone of you had a lovely weekend with family and friends. John and I were invited for Easter dinner with friends and the meal was fantastic but more about that later.
Ever have a 3 Stooges moment? I’ve been around for a long time but I’ve never had an incident where I said, “If I hadn’t been there myself I wouldn’t believe it.”
Parts of my body are so sore just getting someone’s breath near me would hurt. Yes, I’m a stooge.
On Monday morning, a holiday here in Australia for Easter Monday, I went to a Facebook marketing workshop given by @annieinfinite who lives in our area. The workshop was close enough to my house that I could have walked but I didn’t. lazy. If you ever get a chance to participate in one of Annie’s seminars or workshops, I highly recommend them. I look forward to working with her again.
Anyway, about these stooges. In my story there were only two stooges, the dog and me. I arrived home from the workshop around noon and asked John if he wanted bacon and eggs. It’s what I wanted and if he wanted some I’d make extra — it’s how things work around here. I cook dinner and the rest of the time we fend for ourselves when or if we’re hungry. He said yes and I put the bacon on the stove and went to the freezer which lives in the laundry room to get the English muffins out.
I tripped over the dog and for what seemed an eternity I flew through the air, not unlike the old Superman, and crashed head first into the open door of a tall cabinet on the side wall. The cabinet is a 2-door thing and on the closed door knob I had a bag of plastic bags that was hanging into the open door’s space so when I hit the door, the door hit the bags and bounced right back and whacked me on the corner of my forehead.
Okay, now I was out like a light but I hadn’t yet crashed to the floor. I did so and hit my forehead, my elbow and my knee, then the rest of me. I came to right away – who wouldn’t with a dog licking their face uncontrollably as if to say, “Mummy, are you okay???”
I yelled to John. No answer. I didn’t dare to move, I thought I was near death. My head felt like it had exploded. I saw blood on the floor but I didn’t know where it was coming from and I was afraid to see if my brains were next to it.
You wonder where was John? I had said I’d make bacon and eggs if he’d change the washer on the hose tap I use to water my pots of herbs. Who knew that yesterday was the day he’d say yes??
Finally he came in, saw me, touched my head and said, “Ewwww, I’ll cook then?”
Okay, it was funny at the time. I had a 4-inch goose egg on the top of my head, a smaller egg on my forehead and a big blue bruise in the middle of my forehead. My elbow looked like I had a tennis ball stuck to the end of it. A red tennis ball.
It was my elbow that was leaking. It’s very very sore. My head is so sore that I can’t touch my head with a hairbrush. I have curly hair and it’s windy today, ’nuff said. Think witchy old lady and you get the picture.
So today is a new day and I’m fine -ish. If you didn’t see me around the net, now you know that I spent the day moaning and feeling sorry for myself.
Last night we ate take out food because I just wasn’t up to cooking. As we were eating, John looked at me and said, “You know, if anyone saw you and asked what happened, they’d never believe you hit yourself on a door. You look like you’ve been beaten.”
He’d better be nice to me.
What does all this have to do with food? Absolutely nothing but it was funny so I thought I’d share. NOW we get to food.
I was talking with my friend Iris a week before Easter about hot cross buns and recipes and she said she had a great way to use hot cross bun dough. Make the dough, roll it out into a rectangle and then spread pie filling over it, roll it up and cut it into scrolls. It sounded scrummy.
I have a favorite hot cross bun recipe, a jar of apple pie filling I’d been given and I gave the idea a try. They were MARVELOUS! Not sure about orgasmic but they were very close.
I’ll give you my recipe but if you have your own trusted recipe you know you like, this method will work the same way.
I would make these any time of the year and wouldn’t tell anyone it’s hot cross bun dough. The currants and sultanas might remind some people but just roll your eyes as if they don’t know what they’re talking about.
- 1 tbs active dry yeast
- ½ cup caster (superfine) sugar
- 1½ cups lukewarm milk
- 4¼ cups plain, all purpose flour
- 1 tsp ground cassia bark or cinnamon
- 2 tsp mixed spice
- 50 grams melted butter
- 1 egg
- 1½ cups sultanas or raisins
- ½ cup currants
- ⅓ cup grated orange and lemon rind
- ½ cup sugar
- ⅓ cup water
- 4 cups apples, diced
- 2 tbs lemon juice
- ½ cup of sugar (taste your apples, if they are really sweet, you might need less sugar)
- 2 tbs cornstarch (cornflour) (more if the apples are very very juicy)
- ½ cup apple juice - divided
- ½ tsp nutmeg
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- Place apples in a saucepan and sprinkle with lemon juice
- Add sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon and ¼ cup apple juice to the pan and mix well.
- Cook for 5-8 minutes until the apples start to soften.
- Add cornstarch to remaining ¼ cup of apple juice. Add to the pan and cook until mixture has thickened.
- Set aside to cool. (this can be made well ahead of time)
- Place ½ cup sugar and ⅓ cup water in a heatproof measuring cup and microwave on high for 2-3 minutes until mixture comes to a boil.
- Stir and set aside.
- Place yeast, 2 tsp sugar and all the warm milk in a bowl. Stir and set aside for 5-10 minutes until mixture begins to foam, showing the yeast is good.
- Add flour, spices, butter, egg, sultanas, currants, sugar and grated peel.
- Cut together with a knife til a sticky dough forms.
- Knead on a floured surface for 8-10 minutes until the dough feels elastic.
- Place in a greased bowl and cover with a tea towel and set in a warm place for an hour until doubled in size.
- Punch down and on a floured board, roll dough into a rectangle 25cm x 30cm (9" x 12")
- Spread apple filling evenly over dough except the far long side. Leave an inch to seal the rolls.
- Carefully and as tightly as you can, roll the dough starting from the long side and then seal the edge by pinching the dough together.
- Cut into 1½ inch (3.81 centimetres) by taking a piece of dental floss and putting it under the roll, take both ends and cross them over the top and poof, the scroll has been cut.
- Place in a greased baking pan and let rise for 30 minutes to an hour depending upon the temperature of the room. You want them to nearly double in size.
- Bake at 200C for 30 to 40 minutes until golden brown.
- Remove from oven and brush glaze over the top.
Now about Easter dinner. Whenever we share a meal with these friends I always bring something and this time it was dessert. My friend is a celiac so everything must be gluten free. I’m not a great gluten free cook (yet) so I was really searching around for inspiration.
To make matters worse, their best friends from Adelaide were visiting and one is a very good chef. The pressure was definitely on. How could the orgasmic chef arrive with something less than orgasmic?
I was thinking Easter – what goes together Easterish that’s gluten free? I went with chocolate and coconut. I made a coconut macaroon crust and filled it with chocolate custard, drizzled it with white chocolate and added whipped cream and some bunnies I made. It was really good. I need some work on pieistry design.
