Recipes?

Which I have also seen called melamacarona (honey macaroons). These are Greek Honey cakes, allegedly as described by Homer.

The following is my mother's recipe:

One pound unsalted butter
--cream until very fluffy, about 20 minutes.
-- while beating, slowly trickle in
One cup olive oil.

Add slowly
One cup sugar which has been dissolved in one cup orange juice

Fold in
2 grated rinds of oranges
one teaspoon each:
ground cloves
cinnamon
nutmeg
2 Tablespoons baking powder

Cake Flour. About 2.5 pounds, one box, plus enough that the dough barely stops sticking to your hands when you roll the dough in 3/4 balls. Roll all the dough in such balls; you will get about 12 dozen of them.

Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 15-18 minutes at 325 degrees.

Dip a half-dozen at a time into boiling honey (barely boiling, about 200-210 degrees). after 20 seconds, turn once. My mother would lift them out at this point with a pair of forks, and drop in a bowl of fine-ground walnuts. Toss and turn with a different pair of forks and place on tray. They do not have to be dipped immediately. They can be frozen dipped or undipped.

Preparation is tedious and easier for two. Boiling is a bit rough on the cookie, so erring a bit on the side of baking hard is good.

Common recipes say you will need a pound of honey, but in my experience that is absurd. Three pounds is closer to it.

Apple compote

Requires the service of a crock pot. I suspect a large ceramic soup pot over a very low flame might also serve.

a pound of raisins.

apples, coarse sliced. They will shrink during the cooking, so fill the pot to the top with them. The raisins will expand. Be conservative with them.

a half-cup or cup of orange juice.

Season with

a considerable amount of cinnamon
a dusting of cloves
a very modest amount of honey.

I suspect mace or allspice might work, but I have not tried it.

Cook at very low heat for a fair number of hours--at my lowest crock pot setting, I went to ten hours. Cooking at very low heat is hard to predict, but the objective is that the apples will turn very soft indeed.

Is choc-chip steam pudding of any interest? I know the recipe's around somewhere ... It's possible the recipe books have some things less common north of the equator. Homework perhaps if there's interest. For the record my cooking's mostly limited to cardboard pizzas and pointing out the occasional nice recipe.

Chocolate self saucing pudding to die for!

Serves 6 or 4 greedy guts

100 g butter, softened
3/4 cups white sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/4 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 Tablespoons cocoa
~1-2 Tablespoons milk (if the mixture is too dry)

1/2 cup soft brown sugar
1 Tablespoon cornflour
1/4 cup cocoa
2 cups boiling water

frozen raspberries (or fresh)
vanilla ice cream - french vanilla is also very good.

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius/360 farenheit with the oven tray in the middle of the oven. Grease or spray with baking spray a 6-8 cup baking dish.

2. Sift flour, baking powder and 2 Tablespoons of cocoa into a bowl or onto a sheet of baking paper.

3. In a separate small bowl mix brown sugar, cornflour and 1/4 cup cocoa, getting rid of as many lumps as you can. I mix it with a fork and just press the lumps out with the prongs.

3. In a large bowl cream butter and sugar, till fluffy, then beat in the egg and vanilla.

4. Fold the flour/baking powder/cocoa mixture into the butter/egg mixture. The mix should be quite stiff but not dry. If it is dry, add a couple of tablespoons of milk to loosen it up.

5. Spoon in to your prepared baking tray. Sprinkle the brown sugar mixture evenly over the top.





6. Slowly pour the boiling water over the back of a spoon over the sprinkled brown sugar mixture but do not mix it in.







7. Bake for 20 - 25 minutes or until the top of the pudding springs back when lightly prodded.



8. This part is crucial: serve piping hot with a handful of frozen raspberries and vanilla ice cream and devour with gusto.