My Creating Day

Reporting back on how my "quiet" day is going.

I've managed to stay on-track. I did some baking. I stepped out of my comfort zone a little and tried a couple of new recipes. 

Here we have Gingernuts (left) and Melting Moments (right). (I just discovered that Melting Moments is also an Icecream brand, obviously not in Australia, maybe the US?) I've had mixed success. The Gingernuts are pretty tasty and weren't very hard. One of the things I occasionally miss from Australia is store-bought Gingernut biscuits. These aren't quite the same, but not too bad. Some of them have a too-brown bottom. Victim of our non fan-forced oven and a distracted cook.

The Melting Moments are pretty bad in my opinion (but my husband begs to differ). I used an Australian Women's Weekly recipe. Their standards are high. For starters the biscuits are supposed to look like this photo, piped out of an icing bag. But my icing bag doesn't come with anything that will produce a star that big. Plus I hate icing bags, they are messy to use and difficult to clean afterwards. 

The chocolate mixture you are to dip in uses an ingredient I didn't have, solid shortening. I substituted Olive Oil, but didn't think carefully about it. What it needed was an oil-base that is solid at air temperature. Result? Chocolate that isn't set at room temperature! And it's lumpy because I stuffed up the melting-of-the-chocolate.

The filling between the biscuits is also too soft. Probably should have used butter rather than margarine. Hence I don't feel like they are a great success. The jury's out as to the opinion of the boys. The biscuits really aren't lunch-box material, but they'll do for after school snacks.

Next time I might use this recipe, that says you only have to flatten balls of the mixture with a fork and you don't have to dip it in chocolate! Sounds good.

This is the other recipe I made. An old stalwart, Coconut Loaf. I acquired this recipe when I did some cooking in Primary School. And I know why they chose the recipe, it is simple and fail proof. This has no butter or eggs. Only flour, raising agent, coconut, sugar and milk. It always works and is always tasty. I've frozen one of these for an event next Monday.

After lunch I visited my favourite craft shop for the materials to make three pairs of long pants for my boys. It is such a soothing shop. Not over-the-top like some large barn-sized craft shops I've been in in Australia. 

 I shopped at a leisurely pace and found some heavy knit black material that will make fine pants. My choice has been confirmed by a unanimous vote in favour of the material by all the boys. I'm looking forward to making these.

So, the only thing I missed was a nap. Creating is restful for me. And I'm feeling pretty relaxed, so that is good. My sewing table is ready to set-up for the days to come and I have some tracing paper to make the patterns for the pants. The snack-pantry is full and I can head into the rest of my "quiet" week with a bit more in my energy bank. A good day all round!