Red Cabbage with Apples Recipe

Red Cabbage with Apples Recipe
(Austrian Christmas Recipe)

Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 1 ½ hours
Serves 6


Red cabbage is a typical Austrian side dish. During holidays, such as Christmas, people add apples to sweeten this already tasty dish. Red cabbage makes a good accompaniment to a Christmas Day holiday meal of roast goose, potato dumplings, and desserts such as Sacher torte and Christmas cookies.

Ingredients:

1 head red cabbage, finely chopped
1 small peeled onion, cut into quarters*
4 to 6 whole cloves
1 large green apple, cut into quarters
2 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
1 ½ tbsp. sugar
2 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 ½ tbsp flour

Cooking Methods:

1. Combine cabbage, onion, cloves, apple, vinegar, æ tbsp. sugar, and oil in a large pot.
2. Add enough water to cover the bottom of the pot.
3. Bring to a boil and then simmer until tender for about 1 to 1 ½ hours. Add boiling water if needed during cooking to maintain enough water at the bottom of the pan to keep the food from sticking.
4. Sprinkle flour and the rest of sugar over the mixture before serving.

Mini Puddings with Sweetened Butter Recipe

Prep: 30 mins (plus standing time)
Cook: 1½ hours
Makes: 16

Ingredients:

2 ½ cups mixed dried fruit
½ cup orange juice
125 gm butter - chopped
¼ cup brown sugar
2 eggs
½ cup plain flour, plus extra for rubbing into cloth
¼ tsp baking soda
2 cups stale breadcrumbs
16 x 20cm square pieces of cotton
16 x 12cm lengths of string

For Sweetened butter (makes 1 cup)
200g unsalted butter, chopped
½ cup icing sugar

Cooking methods:

1) Combine mixed fruit and orange juice in a bowl; leave overnight in fridge. Using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar until combined. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Fold in fruit, flour, baking soda and breadcrumbs.

2) Wearing rubber gloves, dip cloth pieces into just boiled water for 1 mm. Wring out, spread on table, sprinkle extra flour over and lightly rub it into each piece. Spoon ¼ cup of pudding mixture into the centre of the cloth. Gather cloth around pudding and tie string tightly. Repeat with remaining pudding mixture and cloths.

3) Lower puddings into a large pan of boiling water. Cover pan with lid; boil for 1½ hours, replenishing with hot water as needed.

4) Use an electric beater to beat butter with icing sugar until creamy. Remove puddings from pan, leave to cool and serve with sweet butter.

Christmas tree Cupcakes Recipe

Preparation 10 mins
Cooking 20 mins
Serves 10

Ingredients:

Vanilla Cupcake:

125g plain flour
8g baking powder
125g butter
100g sugar
2 eggs
¼ tsp vanilla essence
2 tbsps milk

Butter Icing:
90g butter
210g icing sugar
Few drops of green food coloring

Decoration:
10 standalone cupcake cups
10 small ice cream cones
Some hundreds and thousands

Cooking Methods:

Preheat microwave oven to 180°C.

In a bowl, sieve together flour and baking powder.

Cream butter and sugar till fluffy.

Beat in eggs and fold in flour carefully. Stir in vanilla essence and milk. Be careful not to overmix.

Fill cupcake cups till about ½ full and place onto metal tray.

Bake on Convection 1 level at 180°C for about 20 mins.


Butter Icing:

In a mixing bowl, cream butter and icing sugar together until smooth and a spreadable consistency is achieved.

Set aside some plain color icing to spread on the surface of cupcake.

Add a few drops of green food coloring to the remaining butter icing and stir until color is well mixed.


To Decorate:

Place the green butter icing into a piping bag with a small star tip/nozzle. If necessary, use a serrated knife to trim top of each cupcake to create a flat surface. Spread the surface of each cupcake with plain butter icing and position an ice-cream cone (upside down) on top.

With the piping bag in one hand, pipe around the cone from bottom to top. Sprinkle with colorful sugar decoration.

Christmas Yule Log Recipe

Preparation 45 mins
Cooking 15 wins
Serves 10

Ingredients:

Cake:
160g semi-sweet chocolate, chopped and melted
50g warm water
5 egg whites
20g castor sugar
6 egg yolks
15g plain flour, sifted

Filling:
180g non-dairy whipped topping
¾ tsp chocolate emulco

Icing:
150g cooking chocolate
90g unsalted butter
90g whipping cream

Cooking Preparation:

Cake:
Preheat microwave oven to 180°C.

Line a 10.5” x l 4.5” metal tray with parchment paper.

Mix melted chocolate with warm water.

In a mixing bowl, whisk egg whites until frothy, add sugar and continue to whisk until egg whites are almost stiff.

In another bowl, whisk egg yolks till thick and pale. Fold in melted chocolate and flour.

Lightly fold one-third of the egg whites into chocolate mixture until combined, then fold in remaining egg whites.

Pour batter into prepared metal tray. Bake at 180°C for 12 to 15 wins or till cake is cooked.

Filling:

Whip ingredients in a mixer until thick.


Icing:

Place chocolate and butter in a microwave safe bowl. Melt in microwave oven for 20 secs. Stir and repeat process till chocolate is melted.
Stir in the cream until combined. Refrigerate for 30 mins, stir at times, till mixture is firm and spreadable.

To assemble, spread cake with whipped topping and roll into a log. Diagonally cut into two. Spread icing on each log. Use fork to make log pattern on icing. Sift icing sugar on top of log to make ‘frost’.

Refrigerate and serve chilled.

Gingerbread Man Cookies Recipe

Preparation 10 mins
Cooking 15 mins
Serves 10

Ingredients:

176g plain flour
¼ tsp soda bicarbonate
Pinch of salt
2 tsps ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
66g unsalted butter, cut in pieces
76g brown sugar
1 tbsp golden syrup
1 tbsp black treacle
½ tbsp milk
1 egg yolk, beaten

Royal Icing:
30g egg white
180g icing sugar
Few drops of food coloring


Cooking methods:

Preheat microwave oven 180°C.

In a large bowl, sift together flour, soda bicarbonate, salt, ground ginger and ground cinnamon. Rub butter into mixture until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

Add in brown sugar, golden syrup, black treacle, milk and egg. Stir well to combine.

Knead lightly until dough is formed. Place dough in between two plastic sheets and roll into ½ cm thickness. Cut out shapes with gingerbread man cookie cutter.

Place cookie dough onto a metal tray lined with parchment paper.

Bake the cookies for about 12 minutes or until the cookies brown in color. Let cool on a cooling rack.

The Royal Icing:

Mix egg white and icing sugar together bit by bit. (You may not need all the icing sugar). Add in a few drops of food coloring if you are making colored icing. Stir until color is even and well mixed.

Fill several bags with royal icing and decorate as desired.

Florentines Recipe

Ingredients:

1 oz cherries
1.5 oz flaked almonds
2.5 oz unsalted butter
2 oz caster sugar
2 tbsp double cream
1 oz sunflower seeds
0.75 oz chopped mixed peel
0.75 sultanas
0.5 oz plain white flour
4 oz dark chocolate, plain pieces

Instructions:

Crush the almonds slightly.

Prepare roughly cut pieces of cherries.

Prepare a solution of sugar in the butter and bring to the boil. Away from the heat, mix in flour, almonds, cherries, sultanas, mixed peel, sunflower seeds and cream. Grease a sheet of baking paper and place heaped teaspoonful amounts of the mixture onto it ensuring there is enough room for expansion during cooking. Bake till the edges are golden brown in 180 degrees centigrade (gas mark 4, 350 F) for about 7 minutes.

Take out of the oven and use a plain large metal biscuit cutter to make rounds by pushing into the biscuits. Bake again until golden brown.

Cool for a couple of minutes before removing to a wire rack for complete cooling.

Prepare melted chocolate by heating in a bowl over water at boiling point. Then take each biscuit and dip it into the chocolate so all the edge is covered. Place on non-stick paper till cooled.