When you have five children at school, the end of the year can be a hectic time. Here’s what Kylie Fox cooked up for her kids to take to their class Xmas parties.  Maybe you can draw some inspiration from her santas’ on sleighs, snowflakes, and ginger bread men. We are in awe!

For Cook Club this month, I decided to make one of my favourite desserts – spectacular and far simpler to make than you’d think, but it’s a bit too full-on for everyday. Here in Australia, where we celebrate Christmas in summer and our delicious berries are in season, well, a triple-layered Pavlova has to be the perfect Christmas Day dessert ~ Mandy

What You Need:

• 200ml of egg whites. I find it easier to measure egg whites this way, because at my place the eggs come in all shapes and sizes from our backyard chickens.
• 1 ½ cups of caster (super fine) sugar.
• 200g of dark chocolate.
• 400 ml of cream: 200ml for whipping, plus another 200ml for mixing with the chocolate.
• Mixed berries. I used strawberries, blackberries and blueberries.
• 2 ½ teaspoons of white vinegar.
• 3 tablespoons of cornflour.

How it’s Done:

Preheat oven to 130 degrees C. Line three baking trays – I use pizza trays – with baking paper, and mark a circle on each, aprox 20cm in diameter and set aside.

Very carefully separate your egg whites from the yolks. I use a groovy little kitchen gadget that I think came via Tuppaware years ago, but on the days when that gets lost in my junk drawer, just cupping your (clean) hand and letting the whites slide through your fingers does a pretty good job.

Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites on their own until they turn white with foamy peaks. Add the caster sugar little bit by little bit on medium-high. Be patient! Make sure each sugar edition has dissolved before adding the next lot. An easy way to check this is by rubbing a little mixture between your fingers. If you can still feel grit from the sugar, beat a little longer. Once complete, your mixture should be white, stiff and very glossy. At this point, add the vinegar and cornflour to stabilise the mix (Confession – I forgot to add the vinegar and cornflour, but it still worked.)

Divide mix into three, and spoon onto your baking trays. Using your circles as a guide, smooth out mixture as much as possible, and keeping the sides tidy. Add to the oven, turn heat down to 120 C. Bake for 1 hour, 10 mins (Confession – mine were ready at one hour exactly, so do keep an eye on them), then turn off the oven, open the door and allow the meringues to cool completely.

While your meringues are cooling in the oven, melt the chocolate over a double boiler with 200ml of cream. A double boiler is basically a saucepan with a little bit of water in it and low heat, and another large bowl placed directly over it. Don’t allow steam or water to come into contact with your chocolate. Stir constantly, and eventually it will come together in a chocolate sauce. Allow to cool.

Prepare berries, and whip remaining 200ml of cream. I always add a dash of vanilla extract. On a serving dish, very carefully place one of your cooled meringues. Using about a third of your chocolate ganache mixture, smooth on top of the meringue, followed by a third of the whipped cream and berries. Place your second meringue on top and repeat the process, then the final meringue, chocolate, cream and berries.

For serving on Christmas Day, you could add more berries to the plate, tinsel or baubles to decorate.

Good luck Cook Clubbers, I’m looking forward to seeing what Bel comes up with!

And now… Belinda videos her efforts and tries the Jamie Oliver trick. #whipit

Alayna Cole shares a simple Just Right biscuit recipe.

6 tbl butter/margarine

1/3 cup caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 egg

1 tbl milk

1 cup flour

2 cups cereal (for this batch I used a mixture of Just Right and Special K, but I’ve also used Crunchy Nut before and any similar cereals would also work)

1. Cream butter and sugar with an electric beater
2. Add vanilla and egg. Continue mixing until soft and fluffy.
3. Add flour and milk. Fold.
4. Add cereal. Fold.
5. Place heaped tablespoons of mixture on a greased baking tray.
6. Bake at 180°C for 10-15 minutes, until golden

NEW YORK & HAWAII

Well, we’ve been back home in Australia for a couple of weeks now, and it’s taken me that long to find my blogging feet again. All up, we spent four weeks in America, stayed in seven cities, caught ten flights (including the teeny-tiny plane to the Grand Canyon), too many buses, cabs and shuttles to count. It was, without doubt, the most incredible trip of a lifetime. Our kids are now pretty seasoned travellers, and already asking where the next holiday will be to!

Our last stop in mainland USA was New York – a very long way from sunny California! Two of my foodie ambitions was to check out a fair-dinkum NYC hot dog, and of course the pizza. Believe me, we had plenty if both! There are, of course, hot dog stands on every corner, but this one struck me as typical New York City; about a block from the Twin Towers Memorial site, on our way to walk along the Hudson River and wave to the Statue of Liberty. I got to have my New York Hot Dog, served with the lot. It was delish! (Until I grubbed ketchup all the way down the front of me…)

On our walk back to our hotel, we stopped into a pretty grubby-looking cafe on the edge of a construction zone for our kids to use the restroom. Being the polite kind of people we are, we decided to stay for hot chips and a milkshake. It was only once we were seated that we noticed the temporary wooden sign spray painted with the words ‘Medi Centre’, and the photographs and hand-written RIP messages pinned to the walls showing the horror and chaos of September 11, when that very cafe we were sitting in was turned into an emergency medical facility. A very emotional experience for all of us.

On a lighter note – PIZZA! My all time favourite food! We ate A LOT of it in New York. A lot. A few doors down from our hotel was a take-away pizza shop selling slices for 99 cents each, or $10 for a whole ‘pie’. Now I’m not talking average sized slices, either. These were the massive-one-slice-will-fill-you kind. We could easily feed our whole family of five for $10, with leftovers for the fridge. Win! We went back more than once.

On our way home to Australia, we stopped over in Hawaii for three nights. Bliss, bliss and more bliss! What a contrast to the crazy-busy city of New York. We stayed at the simply amazing Hilton on Waikiki Beach, and it was there that I finally got what I’d been craving for weeks – fruit. Check out my seasonal breakfast platter, served with a gluten-free ‘bread’ (more like a sweet cupcake, but hey, I wasn’t complaining!) Banana, melon, star fruit, berries, pineapple and dragon fruit. I ordered the same thing every morning, with a side of bacon. Because protein. And really, no one does bacon like Americans. Or pizza, or hot dogs, or cheeseburgers, or waffles, pancakes, clam chowder or super-sized buffets…yeah, you get the picture.

Thanks, USA. We had a blast!

It’s amazing how much baking someone can do when they have a lot of more important things they should be attending to~ Alayna Cole

2 cups of SR flour

2 tbsp caster sugar

1 tsp baking powder

½ an onion, diced

3 rashers  of bacon, diced

1 cup of grated cheese

2 eggs

¾ cup milk

½ cup olive oil

1. Combine flour, sugar, and baking powder in a bowl.
2. Add onion, bacon, and cheese. Fold to combine.
3. Make a well and add eggs, milk, and oil. Fold gently until just combined.
4. Place muffin papers in a tray and ¾ fill each with mixture.
5. Bake for 20-25min at 200°C, or until golden. Test that muffins are cooked by inserting a skewer into a muffin. If it is clean when removed, then your muffins are ready.