Plum Crumble Slice

There is a lovely lady at church who has many many many fruit trees.  Enough to provide fruit all year round for her family and grandkids and nieces and nephews and friends and anyone else who needs some and she see me as some one that needs some.  Last year she provided me with apples which I made into applesauce and bottled up, also grapefruit which I made jam and marmalade with and plums which i made plum jam with.

This week she gave me a bucket fill off dark plums.  The only catch... they're too sour for eating fresh.  No problem there are so many things you can do with sour plums.

The next afternoon Grace has decided she wasn't keen on a afternoon nap so i set her up at the sink and she helped me scrub each plum (getting more water on the floor than what was in the skin but she did have a lot of fun) I then halved and removed the stones and stewed the plums for a couple of hours.

I did add a couple of cups of sugar as I was planning on bottling these plums but I'm not keen on too much sugar added to what my children eat, also I'm not sure what the end use of all these plums will be.

After all the plums where cooked there was a LOT of liquid in the pot which and I didn't have time to watch the pot while it reduced down.  When this happens I pull out my trustly slow cooker.  I moved the plums from the pot on the stove into the slow cooker, set it to high and placed a wooden spoon just under the lid leaving the lid ajar so the liquid can evaporate off. 

After leaving the slow cooker going all night I managed to find time to bottle up the plums while the kids were distracted with their breakfast.  I managed to fill 3 large jars. 

I still had just over a cup of stewed plums left over and our banana bread from earlier in the week was finished so I knew I had to make something suitable for George's Kindy lunch box.  A quick search online and I found a recipe for Plum Crumble Slice.  I did not have all the ingredients for this so I altered it somewhat.

Plum Crumble Slice

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 45 minutes

Ingredients

125g soften butter

1/2 C white sugar

2 eggs

2 C flour

2 t baking powder

250g cream cheese

2 C stewed plums 

Crumble topping

3/4 C Flour

1/2 C brown sugar

1/2 t cinnamon

50g butter

Cream butter and sugar.  Add eggs one at a time then add cream cheese and mix well.

Sift flour and baking powder and fold into the creamed mixture. 

Spread mixture in a greased 18 x 28 cm tin and then spread the stewed plums over the top. 

In a clean bowl mix flour, brown sugar and cinnamon.  Rub in butter into it resembles bread crumbs.  Sprinkle over top of plums. 

Bake in a preheated oven on 180 degrees celsius for 45 minutes or until cooked.  

Vanilla Cupcake Recipes

It was my Mothers birthday this week and for family birthday George and I usually make the birthday cake.  My Mother does enjoy her sweets but a whole cake is far to much and only bringing half a cake seems kinda rude.
So how do you cake less cake without taking less than a cake??  Simple... you make Cupcakes!!

These cupcakes were light and fluffy and so delicious.  

Ingredients

•  2 cups flour
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 4 egg whites
• 115 grams softened butter
• 1 cup milk
• Seeds from 2 vanilla pods

Method

Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Separate egg and beat the egg whites until they're stiff then set aside. 


In another bowl combine flour, sugar, baking powder, butter, milk and vanilla seeds. Mix until everything is combined into a thick batter.  Fold in egg whites.

Line your muffin tins with cupcake cups and fill halfway with batter and bake for 15-20 minutes until the top springs back when pressed, or when a tooth pick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Top with vanilla butter cream and fresh blue berries.  Add a candle and sing happy birthday.

Homemade Bagels

4 cups high grade flour
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 Tablespoon oil
2 teaspoons yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water.

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl until you form a dough.

Knead the dough on a floured counter for about 10 minutes, until the dough is uniform and smooth.

Cut the dough into 8 equal sized balls and rest for 10 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 220 c

Take a ball or dough and roll into a sausage shape and then join the two ends together.  Do this for all 8 pieces.

Let the bagels rest for another 20 minutes.

Bring a pot of water to boil, then add your bagels to the water as many as you can fit in your pot without crowding them.  Boil for one minute, then turn over and boil for another minute. Remove from water and let dry before placing on a greased oven tray.  Repeat until all bagels are boiled.

Bake for 10 minutes then turn the bagels and return to the oven for another 10 minutes.

Let cool then slice and cover with your favorite toppings.