Foundation Kitchen Skills

This is the basic biscuit recipe, but I will give you the whole range of tasty biscuit variations that you can create, just by adding a few favourite ingredients.

Here is another bake that nearly everyone loves. It is a great treat to take to any morning tea or school bake sale, but it is also a very welcome after school snack for hungry children or a filler for a weekend family day at home. Lets kick off with a plain scone recipe and I will add a cheese scone recipe after this one.

This quick and easy brownie recipe is absolutely delicious in every way possible. Give it a try at home.

This is such an easy crowd pleaser for adults and children alike. My mother used to make it for all of our family birthdays or celebrations and that tradition has continued amongst my sisters and myself, and will most likely carry on into future generations. It can be made in 15 minutes and is set and ready to eat in an hour. I am not sure where Mum found this recipe, but our neighbours were Polish, so that may have been the source. Don't you sometimes wish that you had aske

I have been looking forward to this post for a while, which is strange because I don't like chocolate in anyway or form ( see earlier post ) . Maybe it was because chocolate mousse has always seemed to be beyond the capabilites of mere mortals like us, exclusive to the elite professionals only.

There is a cheesecake for every sweet craving you can think of. Once you have learnt a basic cheesecake recipe, you can customize it to fit you own cheesecake fantasy, ( as long as it is not too weird ). And another plus for cheesecake is that it can be made ahead of time and stored in the fridge, so it is one less thing to think about when you have friends or family for dinner. I am going to give you two basic blueprint recipes for cheesecake. The first is the common, clas

This dessert has that instant 'Wow Factor' and gives you the chance to be a complete show off. You could even try a little pirouette as you place the dessert in grandiose style onto the table. After all, this dessert was named after the famous Russian ballerina, Anna Pavlova. ( Just an important aside, make sure that you do your pirouette after you have put the pavlova onto the table, not while you are still holding it ). On that note, I have a little digression here. I don'

I felt excited about writing this post, because there is something wholesome and good about a home made cake. It really does bring a feeling of warmth, acceptance and love to any situation. I hope that all of you have had experience of that at some point. So, because of this, my amateur advice is to skip all the fashionable emotional and psychological trends and instead, simply learn how to make a cake . Lets start with the basic steps to creating a successful cake. A persona

First off , I have to start with a personal confession. I hope that you won't hold this against me , its something that I can't help and don't like to discuss , but the thing is , I really don't like chocolate . OK, it's out in public now and I must say that it is a relief to no longer hold onto my abnormal secret alone. Luckily , Chef Chahna has taught me some of her chocolate skills, and my twins are very happy to taste all of my trials and give their blunt feedback . So

This is the most useful and versatile of all the pastries and the one that we will learn together in the Foundation Section . Though , once you have mastered this pastry , the various other kinds will be relatively easy to learn .

I know what you may be thinking , but this is not a trashy column in a gossip magazine , so elevate your mind back up to the fine art of creating with food . Why is egg separation necessay you may ask , and the answer (I was told by Chahna ) is that clean egg whites , free of any yolk , can be whipped into stiff , stable peaks and used in meringues , pavlovas , light delicious mousse , as well as other desserts that we will come across later on in this blog . The separated eg