my photo

return to oz ...

Our great adventure at the beginning of the year almost seems like a lifetime ago now. Even after less than six months some memories have started to go hazy. I have known since my return all my friends wanted to meet up to see the photos etc and last night we all finally got together for an Australian evening at my place. Each friend bought a savoury item and a bottle and I was in charge of the desserts and had decided as best I could to keep to a theme.

Australia has its own mango industry so I adapted my usual party trifle recipe to include a tin of mangoes in syrup, which I can say worked really well. We needed more than one dessert so I decided to try my hand at making some Lamingtons, little sponges coated in chocolate icing and dunked in coconut. Whilst searching on the net for a recipe I found a very handy one for us Brits which measures in metric, I confess not to being au fait with cup measures. They were really nice served warm with clotted cream ice cream. In a previous post I told you about Anzac Biscuits (bikkies) which I occasionally buy from the supermarket, the same site showed a recipe for these. They were really simple to make, although I misjudged the tablespoon measures of golden syrup and once cooled they became rock hard, and came with a denture health warning! Last but not least I made some sugared macadamia nuts, another export from Australia.

I really enjoyed going through the photos again and relating some of our tales of Oz. It really did remind me of the great time we had.

A great tip, two funny facts and a serious warning.

Fresh mangoes freeze really well. They can be sliced and bagged, or pureed and placed into ice cube trays.

Lord Lamington was known to have hated the dessert that had been named in his honour, once referring to them as "those bloody poofy woolly biscuits"!

Anzac biscuits are as Australian as a bunyip!

Macadamia nuts are toxic to dogs, causing weakness and an inability to stand within 12 hours of eating. The exact cause of the why this happens is not known, but recovery is usually within 48 hours of ingestion.