This passionfruit icecream is one of my absolute favourite recipes, and now that I can make it in my thermie, it is so easy to make.
The combination of the citrus and yoghurt results in a tangy icecream that complements the passionfruit flavour and reminds me of long, lazy summer holidays . My grandma had abundant passionfruit vines, and we used to arm ourselves with spoons, cut the passionfruit in halves, scoop out the flesh and devour them.

Makes 1 Litre

Ingredients:
110g (approx 10) passionfruit & juice of 1 orange
125g caster sugar
300ml cream
300ml natural yoghurt
3 tablespoons lemon juice

Method:
1. Grind the sugar first, if using raw sugar, add the lemon juice and fruit (passionfruit and orange juice) and purée on speed 5 for 5 seconds.
2. Add the cream and yoghurt and mix on speed 3 for 10 seconds, or until combined.
3. Churn in an icecream machine.

Variations:
Replace the passionfruit and orange juice with strawberries, raspberries or any other fruit that takes your fancy, and reduce the lemon juice to 1 tablespoon.

I know there are already a couple of mince pie recipes in the forum, but I often get asked for my recipe, so I thought I would post another one!
My recipe has evolved over the years. I used to make a suet based one, but his one has no fat in the mince at all, and the flavour leans towards citrus. I store it in a large glass jar in the fridge, and it lasts for months. When you get sick of mince pies, you can spoon it over icecream or make it into a slice or a cheesecake. It makes a large quantity, so I make it in my stock pot instead of the thermie, but I use the thermie for all the chopping. This recipe can easily be halved if you don't want to be eating mince pies in June

Ingredients:
175 g almonds ( can be replaced with 175g prunes if you want a nut free mince)
300g seedless dates
1 kg pack of mixed dried fruit (or any combination you have on hand)
2 large apples, quartered and cored
Finely grated zest of 2 large oranges
Finely grated zest of 2 large lemons
250 ml Orange juice
185ml lemon juice
125g marmalade ( I used mandarin )
50ml Cointreau

Method:
1. Put almonds into thermie and chop on speed 5 for 10-15 seconds, depending on how finely you like your nuts chopped. Remove.
2. Put dates into thermie and chop on speed 6 for 15 seconds. Remove
3. Put half the mixed dried fruit into thermie and chop on speed 6 for 10 seconds. Remove, and repeat with remaining half. Remove.
4. Put apples into thermie and chop on speed 5 for 10 seconds. Remove.
5. In a large saucepan, place sugar, marmalade, orange and lemon juices and zests, and Cointreau. Stir over a medium heat until the sugar dissolves and the mixture comes to the boil.
6. Add chopped Fruit and nuts and stir well. Reduce heat to medium low and cook for 8 to 10 minutes stirring often. Remove from heat.
7. Spoon fruit mince into sterilised jars for gifts,  or into one large glass jar and store in the fridge.

Sour Cream pastry (Margaret Fulton)

Ingredients
325g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
185g chilled butter, diced
1 egg
100ml sour cream

Method:
1. Put the flour, salt and butter into thermie and turbo a few times until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs.
2. In a jug, mix together the egg and sour cream.
3. With the motor running, process at speed 3 or 4, and slowly pour the egg/cream mixture through the hole in the lid, until the pastry comes together. You may need to add a little more sour cream, depending on the size of your eggs, or you may not need to add it all.
4. Tip out, and form into a ball. Wrap in plastic film and place in the fridge for at least an hour.
5. If you have any of the egg/sour cream mixture left over, reserve for basting.

Assembly:
Preheat oven to 200C
Flour the bench top & roll out the pastry thinly. Cut out circles using a 7 1/2cm round cutter, and place into greased patty pans. Once you have filled one tray, place in the fridge whilst you complete the second tray. This pastry is very soft, and needs to be kept cold. You should have enough pastry for 3 dozen pies, topped with stars, or 2 dozen pies if you want to top with a lid. You will need to re-roll the pastry as you go. You will need to cut out 3 dozen stars for the tops, or 2 dozen rounds for the lids. If doing whole lids, you will need to cut a slit in the middle or use a small star cutter to allow the steam to escape as they cook.
Take one tray out of the fridge at a time, and place a tablespoon of fruit mince into each pie case. Top each one with a pastry star, or a lid and press edges of pastry well to seal. Glaze star or top with reserved egg/cream mixture or beaten egg, and sprinkle with Demerara or raw sugar.
Bake for 20-30 minutes, until golden brown.

These are delicious eaten on the day they are baked, but can be stored in an airtight container, or frozen.

This slice is a grownup variation on the traditional White Christmas slice, but is much nicer IMO. I cut the recipe out of a magazine last Christmas - I think it was BH&G.
You could probably do the whole recipe in your thermie , but I'm always really careful melting white chocolate as it can burn easily, and prefer doing it in the microwave. Choose whichever method you are most comfortable with.

Ingredients:
350g White Chocolate
90g Cranberries
80g Pistachio's
150g Rice Bubbles

Method:
1. Melt white chocolate (microwave, double boiler or thermie)
2. Place nuts in thermie and chop on speed 5 for 5 seconds. Remove to a large mixing bowl.
3. Place cranberries in thermie and chop on speed 6 for 15 seconds. Add to mixing bowl.
4. Add rice bubbles and melted chocolate to mixing bowl and stir until combined.
5. Spoon mixture into a 20cm square tin, lined with baking paper.
6. Place a sheet of grease proof or baking paper on top and press down firmly. This will prevent the slice from crumbling when you slice it.
7. Refrigerate for an hour, or until set.
8. Slice into squares with a sharp, serrated knife.

Name of Recipe:Capsicum cream sauce with pork chops
Number of People:4
Ingredients:
2 cloves garlic
1 small brown onion, quartered
1 stalk of celery, roughly chopped
1 large tomato, roughly chopped
100g roasted capsicum (1 large capsicum)
1 teaspoon finely chopped rosemary
125ml cream
4 pork chops


Preparation:
1. Preheat frypan for pork
2. Put onion, garlic and celery into bowl, and chop on speed 5 for 5 seconds
3. Scrape down and add 1 tablespoon of oil and sauté at  90C on speed 2 for 4 minutes
4. Meanwhile, Grill pork until cooked to your liking
5. Add roasted capsicum and tomato to bowl and cook at 90C, speed 2 for 5 minutes, leaving the measuring cup off.
6. Add rosemary and blend at speed 5 for 5 seconds.
7. Add cream to bowl and cook at 100C on speed1 for 2 minutes.
8. Reduce temperature to 50C and cook for 5 minutes on speed 1.
9. When pork is cooked, remove to a plate to rest. Add sauce to frypan to deglaze and mix in all the yummy meat juices.
10. Serve pork with sauce and a salad
Photos:

Tips/Hints: I adapted this recipe from the book "1000 Best Ever Recipes from AWW"

These are a pretty piped biscuit with a soft texture. This recipe makes 4-5 dozen small biscuits that you can leave plain, or decorate with 100s and 1000s or chocolate chips or nuts. I even topped some of them with mini marshmallows about 5 minutes before they had finished cooking (if you add them before baking, they tend to get too brown).

Ingredients:
250g butter, softened
150g sugar
25g cornflour
30g cocoa
250g plain flour
1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon of vanilla ess

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180C and line your baking trays with baking paper
2. Place butter and sugar into bowl and cream on speed 3 or 4 for about 3 minutes
3. Add egg yolk and vanilla and mix on speed 5 for 5 seconds
4. Add cornflour, cocoa and flour and mix on speed 3 until just combined.
5. Place mixture into a piping bag fitted with a 1 cm star nozzle, and pipe rosettes onto trays, leaving room for spreading
6. Top with a choc chip, or sprinkle with nuts or 100s and 1000s, or leave plain
7. Bake for 20-25 minutes and leave on tray for 5 minutes before removing to a cooling rack.



members' comments

Obbie - made vanilla instead of adding chocolate. Some piped, the rest rolled into balls. Yum.

This is my go-to chocolate cake that I have been making since I first learnt to cook. It is always moist and never fails. The original recipe is in my mother's handwriting in the Favourite Recipe Book she gave me with our family recipes in it many years ago. The original recipe called for all the ingredients  to be beaten together for 2 minutes, before the eggs are added, and then beaten for a further 2 minutes. I have adapted the recipe for my Thermo Chef, but have given suggestions for a Thermomix.

Preheat your oven to moderate (180C), and grease 2x 20cm sandwich tins.

Place the following ingredients in the bowl of your thermie:
250g SR Flour
225g sugar
40g cocoa
1/2 teaspoon bicarb soda
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 cup milk
100g melted butter
Mix for 1 minute on speed 4 (speed 5 TMX)

Add 2 eggs and mix for another minute on speed 5 (speed 5 TMX)

Pour into prepared tins and cook in a moderate oven for about 30 minutes, until cooked.


This can also be made into cupcakes, and will make approx 1 1/2 dozen, medium cupcakes. The mixture is quite runny and easy to pour into cupcake papers.

I made these cupcakes for my daughter's cake decorating party on the weekend, and iced them with the leftover icing. This is a photo of the leftover cakes that I had put in the freezer. I quickly pulled them out of the freezer and took this photo!



Members' comments

This is a very popular cake for birthday cakes

CP - Guess what?, this truly IS a quick mix cake. Very nice, ES and thank you so much for sharing. Used a ring tin and cooked for 30 mins. Too easy.

JuliaC83 - Made this in a ring tin as well - fabulous height!!! I switched 100g butter for 100g coconut oil ... adds a really subtle hint of coconut. Delicious!!

maddy - Loved the recipe Emerald Sue.  It was lovely & moist like you said. The regular sized cupcakes took 19 mins. To cook, and the mini cupcakes took 12 mins. My new favourite chocolate cake. I love this mix, and I find it keeps well & is more moist compared to the choc bimby's cake. I have found that this is the only mix that gives perfect domes...especially in a mini muffin tin.

CC - I promised to make a cake for a charity event tomorrow. Your recipe fitted perfectly into my Williams-Sonoma cookie cake pans Sue. I sandwiched them together with halve quantity of the buttercream recipe that johnro used recently.

Wonder - I made this last night to feed a hoard of teenagers that called in. DD has recently cut lactose from her diet so I subbed butter for rice bran oil, milk for lactose free milk and the cocoa powder for pure cacao powder. The cake seemed to take longer to cook than I expected but fortunately I had put it in a ring tin so it was ok. I didn't taste it but the kids said is was good and the texture looked good.

Double Delight - Yum Yum, easy and moist. Thanks.

Denzelmum - Quick and easy, made in 8" square tin.  Thank you.

Hally - Just taken cup cakes and a round cake out of the oven, they rose very well, in fact all have domed. Never had this before, but will just cut the dome off & eat it.

ES - this cake does dome. If you want a flat top, try baking in a silicon pan.

Augusta - to get a flatter top, next time you make this cake just slice off the dome and turn it upside down, I always had to do this with cakes that I used to make for people as this gives you a flat surface to work with.

maddy - I don't see the doming an issue at all, especially with cupcakes as it aids the shaping for piping swirls of icing.

KarenH - Made a double quantity of this recipe this morning as a "test run", and although it nearly filled the thermie, it worked fine - so double quantity is do-able.  I used a 26cm square cake tin, and in my oven it took nearly an hour to cook. It is a lovely cake, perfect texture and lovely and moist.  Thanks for the recipe ES (and your mum!).

kezza - This is a great cake.  As everyone has said its lovely and moist.  I have made it in a ring tin and experimented on the weekend with cupcakes and smaller bite size cakes.  Had the dome thing a bit, but not too bad.  I am still pondering whether to use fan forced or not.  Does this affect the doming or is it just the mixture?
Made this cake for Easter Sunday and used Maddy's fantastic chocolate buttercream.  Cake was loved by all and everyone said icing and filling tasted just like chocolate mousse.  Thank you ES and thank you Maddy.


 

This is one of my favourite biscuit recipes. The biscuits are light and crispy, and very, very moorish. It's hard to go past the flavour combination of dark chocolate and orange. The dough will keep in the fridge for up to two weeks, before baking, and can even be frozen, once it has been formed into logs.
I have made this in my Thermochef, but have given suggestions for a Thermomix.
This recipe makes about 60 biscuits, depending on how thinly you slice them.

Chocolate Orange Refrigerator Biscuits

Ingredients:
75g dark chocolate, broken into squares
175g raw sugar
Zest of 2 oranges
150g butter, softened
175g plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon orange juice

Method:
1. Put chocolate into the bowl and grate on speed 7 (TMX Speed 6). Remove from bowl and set aside.
2. Put sugar and orange zest into the bowl and blitz on speed 8 (TMX Speed 7) for 5 seconds.
3. Add butter, and cream together on speed 3 (TMX Speed 4) for 3 minutes.
4. Add grated chocolate, flour, baking powder, and orange juice to the bowl and knead (TMX Interval setting) for 15 seconds. Scrape down and knead for another 15 seconds.
5. Turn out onto a pastry mat, and divide into two balls. Roll each ball into a log about 5 cm thick and 15-20cm long. Wrap in greaseproof paper, and twist the ends.
6. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours, and up to 2 weeks.
7. Cut into slices about 3mm thick, and place on lined baking trays, leaving room for spreading.
8. Bake at ,180C for 12-15 minutes, until the biscuits just start to colour.
9. Remove from oven and let sit for 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack, as they will harden as they cool.
10. Try not to eat them all in one sitting  



members' comments

Amy - Mmm, these smelled amazing and Mum said they tasted pretty darn good too!

maddy - These taste as good as they smell.

Uni - DH didn't like the look of these, he ate one, 'oh these are nice thanks love'. I only made 5, I didn't refrigerate the dough before baking.

Wonder - Made this dough last night and it was very soft, I needed to add a little more flour when trying to roll them. Refrigerated overnight and cooked today, Mum, Dad and DH thought they were lovely but the kids didn't like them and I don't eat biscuits. The smell was divine.

SuzieG - Mine was soft too Wonder which made it a bit messy. I just roughly shaped with spatula and then plonked on baking paper and shaped it into a log from there. Out of the oven, house smells divine, have eaten one YUMMY!! Will sneak a couple more once the little people are in bed! Great recipe thank you will be making again.

CP - These are really nice ES. You are very talented indeed.

Amy - My dough wasn't soft at all. But maybe that was because I doubled the ingredients.

matmob - I have just made a batch of dough and put in fridge overnight.  I also found the dough very soft and sticky, had to end up using quite a bit of flour on the mat to be able to deal with it - hope this doesn't affect the final result.  Will post again after they are made.  I also grated the chocolate for a bit too long - the recipe doesn't say how long to grate??

TAT - these biscuits are light, crispy and incredibly moorish. Gorgeous! Best of all, I love that I can freeze the dough or keep it in the fridge whenever I need to make some cookies quick. Great recipe. Thanks!

phatassphairy - made a batch of this today ..... have them in the fridge .... and I will bake them for the kids afternoon tea tomorrow .
Smell so yummy already .... I hope that nice orange smell wafts through the house while cooking.

This cake tastes just like an apple tea cake, but it is made with green tomatoes instead. I bought a box of green tomatoes at the market, made some sauce and chutney, but still had half a box left, so with nothing left to lose, I thought I'd try something a bit different...

Ingredients:
720g green tomatoes
300g sugar
115g butter
2 eggs
250g plain flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon bi carb soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
75g raisins or sultanas
75g walnuts

Method:
1. Wash and halve the tomatoes and puree at speed 5 (speed 6 TMX) for 15 seconds.
2. Pour into a colander and press as much juice as you can out of the tomatoes with the back of a wooden spoon or a spatula. Let drain for about 1/2 hour. Discard the juice.
3. Preheat oven to 180C.
4. Cream the butter and the sugar on speed 3 for 4 minutes.
5. Set speed 3 for 30 seconds, and add the eggs through the hole in the lid, one at a time. Scrape down, and mix for a further 30 seconds at speed 3.
6. Add the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, bicarb soda and salt and mix speed 4 (speed 5 TMX) for 15 seconds.
7. Add drained tomatoes, sultanas and walnuts and mix on speed 5 (speed 6 TMX) for 15 seconds or until combined.
8. Pour into a lined 23 x 33cm (9 x 13") tin and bake for 40-45 minutes OR into cupcake papers and bake for 15-20 minutes. Test with a skewer- if it comes out clean, they are ready.

Topping:
A lemon or cream cheese icing would suit this cake, but I prefer a topping of demerara or raw sugar mixed with a little cinnamon sprinkled on top prior to baking.

I made this cake in my ThermoChef, but have given suggestions for a TMX
This makes quite a large cake, or about 2 dozen cupcakes



Members' Comments

Chookie - ES,  I have made another one to take for the staff where my daughter works.   Gave some to our plumber for morning tea and he thought it was banana cake.   Still got a few green toms, so will make some smack ones for the swap at the Farmers Market on Saturday. It was lovely

Cecilia - Thanks.  It was yummy.  I can't stop talking about your recipe - such an interesting concept.