Toffee apples

Today I made 56 toffee apples!
Tried and failed but we now have the perfect recipe.

You will need:
8-10 apples depending on size
400g sugar
100ml water
1 tsp vinegar
2 tblsp light syrup
Food colouring
Sugar thermometer
Greaseproof paper

Put the sugar and water in a pan and bring to a boil and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Add the syrup and the vinegar and any food colouring you want.
Keep boiling until the sugar thermometer shows 140°c
Now you can dip the apples in the caramel and put on greaseproof paper to dry.

Wrap the apples in cellophane if you want to make them look pretty!!

DON'T do what I did and stick your fingers in boiling toffee.

My forgotten find!

I dug this out of the very back of my cupboard yesterday. I bought it in Torino a couple of years ago thinking it would make a good present for someone and forgot all about it.
Turns out I wanted it myself and the joy of watching it bubble up and spout out two lovely little espressos was happily repeated again and again.
It is from Bialetti and if I see one again I will buy one to give away this time!

Inspirational and endearing

Please please can someone do this for me when I reach my twilight years???
French photographer Sacha Goldberger realised his 91 year old grandmother was feeling lonely and depressed and decided to take some fun pictures of her - look at what this amazing twosome have cooked up together!!!


I can just imagine what fun they must have had, and what a totally unexpected difference and welcome change to her life this must have meant.

You can see lots lots more pictures on www.mamika.fr

Wibble wobble, wibble wobble.......

Jelly on a plate!
I love these brilliant orange jelly wedges for kids parties. Just split oranges in two lengthwise, scrape out all the flesh and fill with orange jelly. (I put mine in a baking tray filled with sugar to keep them steady while I poured in the jelly but imagine lentils, flour or anything similar would do.) When the jelly has stiffened you can cut them into smaller wedges. If you use a sharp knife that you run under really hot water it slides through easily.
P.S. I found that the jelly subsided a bit after it started to chill so I kept a bit over to top up with.

Naughty Santas christmas nibbles

Buy these saucy biscuit cutters here and cheer old Santa up after his umpteenth meal of biscuits and milk!!

Not very tempting.....

This is my ten year old daughters idea of a fun way to snack at the cinema!! Liquorice strings as shoelaces!! If only she could do it on one of her newer shoes. But in any case, I'm happy she has her own peculiar sense of style :-)

Candied Kumquats

I made these lovely little candied kumquats after findng a recipe on this blog.
It was a long process but very easy to make and they make gorgeous sweets that are perfect for this time of year. Cool christmas present too.
One thing though - check for the large green pips in the teeny tiny fruits!

Crackers for crackers

I realise that something has changed radically in my life when the only queue I make sure I'm first in is the one for the St Edmunds English Church annual Christmas bazaar here in Oslo!!!
Why is that you ask? Well simply to ensure that I get some Christmas crackers for my christmas dinner table.
So come November 13th you won't find me camping out for tickets for a rock concert or queueing for the premiere of this years must see film. Oh no, you'll find me and my sister elbowing little old ladies in the ribs in a mad rush for crackers at the church bazaar!!

Irresistible!

Just managed to lock myself out of the office and had to pop into hunting Lodge to borrow a phone to ask someone to let me in out of the bitter bitter cold. And just to prove that everything happens for a reason I found this brilliant set of gingerbread men cookie cutters. Or rather, Ninjabread men.
Could not resist and can't wait to make them.
Will eat with a nice Stilton and a good vintage port.

Coconut Ice,childhood revisited.

Made this good old sweet today. Great fun to make as it is easy as hell but unfortunately too easy to eat as well. I don't think my kids even like it so I'll have to wrap it up and give it away asap!!!
500g Icing sugar
1 397g can of condensed milk
400g shredded coconut

Sieve the icing sugar into a bowl and mix in the condensed milk with a wooden spoon.
After a bit you will need to knead this well with your hands. You will very quickly find this to be horrificly sticky and wish that you had done this with your mixmaster!! If you have one do.
When the dough is nicely mixed add the coconut bit by bit.
Divide in two parts and dye one half pink with food colouring.
Press one half onto clingfilm and even it out until it's approximately 1cm thick. roll small balls of the other half and spead them on top of the first half and press down until you have even layers of each.
Chill for a couple of hours then cut into squares.
Enjoy!

Cold and cough cure with a bite!

I was looking for a liquer to make for christmas so I talked to my friend Fridtjof who is the manager of Bar Boca in Grünerløkka here in Oslo. Definitely my favourite bar in town. He suggested I make Rock and Rye as it doesn't need to be stored for too long and suits the christmas season. As an added bonus it turns out that it was an old cold and cough remedy in it's heyday.
The Memphis Medical Monthly tut-tutted that when a man “gets within twenty yards of the door of the saloon he commences coughing, and he puts his hand over his chest with an agonized expression and slips in the door and takes some ‘rock and rye.’”
If you too want to have a go making it here's the recipe Fridtjof gave me.
1 bottle of Rye whisky. (Not too easy to find in Norway so Fridtjof says use Seagrams 7 instead)
200g Rock candy
8cl Rum (slightly optional!)
!/4 Lemon
!/4 Orange
15 nails of cloves
1 big fat cinnamon stick
1 spoon of horsehound (Borremynte*) if you can find it!
Mix everything together in a jar and leave for a fortnight. That is except the Horehound that should just be put in a teaball and left in for a couple of hours just at the end.)
I just went to Bar Boca and had a Rock and Rye Toddy to be sure that i still liked it!! I did.
Serve with 1 part Rock and Rye and 2 parts boiling water, serve with a slice of lemon, orange or both and you have a perfect winter toddy.
Alternatively serve on the rocks mixed with a really good ginger beer (I recommend Fentimans)
Or just have a shot whenever you feel that little tickle in your throat :-)
*Borremynte kan godt sløyfes fordi den rett og slett er vanskelig å få tak i. Om du er flink eller sta kan du bestille fra www.Rolv.no. Stedet for alt du trenger av urter men ikke finner på supern!!!
CHEERS - SKÅL