#3 Baking - kiwi as pikelets

 Dame Alison Holst would have to be one of New Zealand's greats. Born in 1938, she became a best - selling food writer and television chef, teaching generations of Kiwi's how to cook what she referred to as "everyday food". This iconic star, of course, had to be in "The Great New Zealand Cookbook". Alison contributed two recipes, and they were as kiwi as lamb docking on the farm and cattle and sheep in ya back paddock.  Pavlova and pikelets. Not really having an excuse to bake a pavlova, I went for the pikelets. Typically Dame Alison included handy hints along the way, such as dipping the tablespoon in hot water before measuring out the golden syrup. I particularly appreciated the art of pouring the batter off the tip of the spoon to land the mixture in the frying pan. My intention was to keep some for the lunch boxes, but after an afternoon of docking, these were used to refuel the worker bees.
To support the filling of the tins I turned to Jo Seagar, and like Alison Holst, she has produced a prolific number of cookbooks and television shows. The Chocolate chunk oat cookies sounded good with their combination of healthy ingredients such as oats with the lesser health sounding ones such as condensed milk and dark chocolate. Pleasantly surprised a starving family member hadn't as a last resort consumed all the cooking chocolate after the cry "we have nothing to eat", I was able to assemble all in about 10 minutes.
I was on a baking roll, and next turned to Te Aro, Wellington, where Shaun Clouston from the "Logan Brown" shares an "Orange cake" recipe. This involves boiling two whole oranges for 2 hours, then puree and sieving them. The other ingredients are 6 eggs, sugar, ground almonds and baking powder. Shaun also provides the instructions for "Pohutukawa honey roasted stone fruit" which serves as an accompaniment for the orange cake - I must say it looks delicious in the photo, but I wasn't prepared to spend $9 /kilo on US stone fruit ... I will keep this recipe up my sleeve for when the Hawke's Bay summer fruit is in bountiful supply.
If ya lucky you may find Orange cake served at the "Logan Brown", let me know if you do ... although I reckon for the pikelets pretty much any kiwi home will do ... its kiwi as!


Pikelets

Docking under way
Chocolate Chunk Oat Cookies

Orange Cake

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