Tag: Cookies


Nov
2023

White Ladies Part Two

categories: Australian Gourmet Traveller, Baking, Biscuits / Cookies, Posh Food

Hello Friends, today we are indulging in a sweet treat called a White Lady. Hold up, I hear you say, haven’t we already done this recipe back in March? Well, apparently recipes for White Ladies are like busses. You wait for ages for one to come along and then, all of a sudden three come at once. Because, spoiler alert, there will be another White Lady recipe appearing soon!  Last time, our white lady was a very yummy ice cream with chocolate sauce, this white lady is a delicious shortbread-style cookie.

White Ladies2

But not just any shortbread cookie because these have white chocolate and rose water icing and then a dusting of icing sugar on top of that.  Delicious.  But sweet. 

These need to be balanced out with a nice strong coffee.  The recipe for these White Ladies comes from that bastion of posh food, Australian Gourmet Traveller, the May 1993 issue to be exact. This is the same mag that brought us a lovely Warm Chestnut Salad a while back.  The recipe for White Ladies recipe comes from an article on chocolate and the powerful memories it can evoke in people.  

“What is it about chocolate that makes us cherish the memory of certain occasions with such ecstacy?

And if you think that quote possibly goes a little bit too over the top, what about this one?

One friend’s most potent memory is of eating dark Arabian chocolate on a sultry night while being serenaded by eunuchs

I feel that night might have been memorable even without the chocolate….

My own favourite chocolate memory is of a bright cold day in winter a few years aog.  My best friend and I were in the country celebrating my birthday on a girl’s weekend.  After a morning spent at the Hepburn Spa we drove to nearby Daylesford for some afternoon tea.  I had an Italian hot chocolate which I’m pretty sure was pure melted chocolate.  It was warm and sweet and rich and made for the perfect end to the perfect weekend!

 

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Happily, or possibly sadly for some of you,  you don’t need a hot night in Arabia or a chorus of eunuchs to enjoy these white ladies. A cup of coffee and a few moments of peace are enough!

The Recipe – White Ladies

White Ladies recipe

 

For those of you who like to gift cookies as part of the holiday season, White Ladies could become a perfect addition to your gifting regime  If they last long enough for you to give any away that is!

White Ladies4

Have a great week!

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Jul
2021

Ratafias

categories: 1950's recipes, Almond

One of the frequent debates we have at our Tasty ReadsCookbook Club is whether cookbooks should have a photo for each recipe.  Most people like something to judge their efforts against. I prefer a photo but I  am content to fly blind if required. Which is a good thing because when making these Ratafias from The Daily News Cookery Book (1953) I had no idea what I was going to end up with!

Thankfully, it was these:

Ratafias 1

But as both Julie Andrews and I are wont to say…let’s start at the very beginning. Ratafiaa are almond flavoured cookies.  If you can imagine an amaretti and a macaron had a love child? It would be a ratafia.  Not as chewy as a macaron, not as crunchy as an amaretti.

Ratafias 2

The Ratafias Recipe

A few notes about this recipe.

  • It calls for soft sugar.  I used normal caster sugar in my recipe but in retrospect, I wonder if they meant icing/confectioner’s sugar.
  • It also calls for Ratafia flavouring which I could not find for love or money  The closest thing I could come to was a Ratafia flavoured liqueur but they were 1) a bit spendy and 2) not readily available locally so I used almond essence.
  • Finally, you can roast your rice flour for around 10 minutes in the oven, until you just see the colour start to turn.  Alternatively, if you have an Indian / Sri Lankan grocery near you, they may sell it as roasted rice flour is used to make hoppers.

Ratafias recipe

The ratafias were really yummy and very easy to make.  They will defintely be on high rotation here.  Also, they are a great way to use up left over eggwhites!

Have a great week friends, sorry I have been so absent from here. It’s been a busy few months.  Hopefully I will start to be able to post more regularly now as things, particualry workwise are starting to calm down!

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Aug
2020

Almond Cookies

categories: 1970's food, 1970's recipes, Good Housekeeping World Cookery

These almond cookies come from the China section of Good Housekeeping’s World Cookery (1972). Let me tell you right from the get-go, (and I could be totally wrong here)  but to me, there is absolutely nothing Chinese about them. Not that I have a vast knowledge of Chinese cookies…the only ones I can think of are Fortune cookies which also have absolutely nothing authentically Chinese about them either!

Hmmm…I’m sensing a pattern here…

Almond Cookies2

Having said that, can you imagine what fortune cookies for 2020 should have actually said? 


It feels weird to be starting the recipes for a country with a sweet but it just so happened that I had all of the ingredients to make these cookies in the house already. I hate shopping (or doing anything really) while masked up so an excuse not to have to leave the house is a bonus!  Another bonus is that these almond cookies are really easy to make.  And delicious!

Almond Cookies4
I used coconut oil as the oil for these because I thought it might make them taste more Asian.  The slight coconut flavour alongside the more prominent almond was really nice.  Using coconut oil made for a really crunchy cookie though, so if you like a chewy cookie, I recommend using a different oil.  
Also, a pet hate of mine is recipes that use half an egg!  I mean WTF!!!!  What on earth are you meant to do with the other half?  Luckily I have two sous chefs who are more than happy to solve those problems for me.  But for everyone else, half an egg is a pain the neck!  Happily, though, these are really good I think you can do no wrong by doubling the recipe!


Sous chefs
Here’s the  recipe!


I’ll flick through the book and find some more Chinese-y Chinese dishes over the next few days.  Even if it means I have to brave the world out there to get some ingredients!



Almond Cookies 1Stay safe friends and have a great week!



Jul
2019

Cowgirl Cookies for Cowboy Day

categories: Biscuits & Cookies, Cook A Long, Cowboy Day, Sweets

Giddy up people of the internet and Happy Cowboy Day!

Having said that, this year we are celebrating with two posts celebrating Cowgirls!  First up some OMGZ so delicious Cowgirl cookies.  These are amazing.  So good – as they should he when they are pretty much 2 types of M&M’s, choc chips and nuts held together by butter and sugar.  They also contain oats so they are also (almost) good for you!  

We celebrated Cowboy Day a little early this year because a few weekends ago I found myself entertaining children.  This does not happen very often at Maison de la retro food so initially, I was at a loss of what to serve.   

My go to’s of cocktails and canapes didn’t seem appropriate plus I wanted something I could whip up pretty quickly on a Saturday morning.  A quick flick through the interwebs and yee hah!  Cowgirl cookies to the rescue!

I’m not a big cookie maker so I was a little nervous about making these.  However, a few minutes after these went into the oven that delicious aroma of sweet baking began to fill the house and I was pretty sure I was onto a winner!

Tasting one  (well maybe three or four) fresh out of the oven I became even more certain but the proof of these cookies were not in my eating.  So I was mildly nervous when the oldest of the kids, nine-year-old Christian approached me, cookie in hand.

“Did you make these?”

“Yep”

“When?”

“This morning”

“Huh…..that must be why they taste so good”

https://gph.is/g/Eq6V0pa

Yippee Kay Yay!!!!

I used this recipe from Bakerella. 

And I can recommend it highly. As can the little humans who I made them for.  

Child-friendly post over, but stay a while because coming right up is an adults-only tipple and a teeny peek into the life of a real-life Rhinestone Cowgirl.

See you there!