Pistachio Cardamom Choc-Chip

Homemade choc-chip biscuits are a favourite around here. And I've always held firm to the belief that you shouldn't sully them by adding nuts or sultanas. (Just like my belief that tomato can ruin a good sandwich...)

But I must have come over all exotic when I thought up these little wonders. Cardamom - one of my favourite spices - and pistachios, complementing beautifully all of that chopped dark chocolate. Dunked in a mug of spiced hot cocoa? Well, there's not much more I can say, really. Bake them, eat them, don't say I didn't warn you.

You will need:

125g unsalted butter
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 cups plain flour
1 tsp ground cardamom
150g dark chocolate, chopped
50g pistachios

Cream butter and sugar until it is light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl if necessary. Add flour and cardamom and mix until just combined. Add chocolate and pistachios and mix further until distributed evenly.

Divide the mixture in two and roll each half in a sheet of baking paper to form a log shape. Refrigerate for 20 minutes to firm up.

Preheat oven to 190 degrees Celsius. Line two trays with baking paper. Using a sharp knife, slice biscuit logs into 1cm thick rounds. 

Lay on trays and bake for 10-12 minutes until golden.

Once cool, put them in a vintage biscuit tin then sit on your hands until your guests arrive because there's nothing more embarrassing than inviting people over and having to confess you've eaten their morning tea.

Christina Lowry - Guest Post

Please welcome today's very special morning tea guest. Christina Lowry is not only a mum to two gorgeous kids, a knitter and a gardener, but she is an incredibly talented jeweller with a business selling her own beautiful creations. One of her 'Afternoon Tea' necklaces features as part of our giveaway and I can personally attest to how fab they are, having purchased my own Christina Lowry Designs necklace several weeks ago. Christina writes here about her love affair with tea and coffee, and shares some beautiful photos. Enjoy!

There is much to be said for the humble cup of tea or coffee. When one thinks about the simple pleasures in life, a cuppa with friends surely makes the list. A hot drink has a way of slowing down a moment and nurturing conversations. A quiet cup of tea alone can encourage creativity, or be a moment of respite from a busy day. 

The simple act of drinking tea or coffee is a daily ritual for many of us. Over the years, as our days take us here and there, our rituals come with us. Tied up in these rituals are rich memories. As I sit here now with a cup of tea I have been untangling the threads of memory regarding some of my own caffeine moments. 

I recall being a child of four years of age, waiting as patiently as I could with my sister. We'd stand beside my Grandmother's floral tablecloth as she poured tea for my Grandfather and parents. Pretty plates laid out with cake and biscuits were our reward. Treats in hand we would leave the adults to their conversation as we roamed through her vast house. I can clearly see the plush, maroon, patterned carpet, the heavy furniture and a lifetime of knick knacks and photo frames which carefully adorned each surface. Though we knew we mustn't touch, we often turned small objects over in our hands before replacing them. My Grandfather's green shaving brush. An ornate gilt frame decorating a black and white portrait of my fresh faced Grandmother. A carved handled umbrella. A Bakelite letter opener. By the time the second cup was being poured we had usually moved on to the garden. Beneath walls of passion fruit vines we would scamper, searching for ripe strawberries. After I turned five my Grandfather's chair remained vacant at each visit, though the ritual never changed. 

My University years are coffee stained, and coffee rings grace the pages of my old journals. In those days we lived on a diet of coffee, instant noodles and French toast. It was at this time I met my dearest friend, whose inadequate housekeeping meant that upon visiting for coffee he would often present you with a Vegemite jar as a coffee cup, as the coffee cups were in use as ashtrays. The conversations were long, fascinating and lively, and remain some of my most bittersweet memories, especially since his passing two years ago. 

My husband is not a tea or coffee drinker. (I love him nonetheless.) He did not spend a fair portion of his youth in cafes, as I had done. Impressed on my memory is our first coffee date. Tucked away in an empty cafe in the mountains he was visibly startled from our conversation by the sound of the beans being ground - unaccustomed to it as he was. It was both amusing and endearing. Years later he took me to cafes all around the world. Singapore, Dubai, London, Scotland, Wales, Paris, Prague, Italy, Budapest, Croatia, Greece, Amsterdam. I remember the waitress in Amsterdam jokingly referring to my order as a 'kinder coffee' (children's coffee) because I took it with milk. In a famous coffee house in Prague I shared a table with an elderly couple and Dave was forced to leave due to the cloud of cigarette smoke. My boss in Athens drank thick dark coffee all day long and still took a nap after lunch. 

Quiet moments are rarer now as a stay at home mother of two little ones. Pregnancy concerted me from coffee drinker to tea lover. Now my daily ritual revolves around a morning cup of black loose leaf tea, followed closely by another. While afternoons and evenings are the domain of homegrown peppermint tea. 

Even now, the scent of coffee is a reminder of the many beautiful moments I have shared with people I've loved. Coffee and tea have offered me more than a way to connect, slow down and share in conversation. They've also offered me an excuse to stay for just a little longer. 

Thank you so much for being here today, Christina! You can connect with her at her gorgeous blog, her shop or on Facebook.

A Very Bloggy Morning Tea - Day Two

Did I mention it was cold here in the highlands? Some of you are visiting from milder climes, so I hope you've packed your thermals. I decided that we might have been all tea-and-caked out after yesterday, so today I've been brewing up a saucepan full of spiced hot chocolate. And the cookie tin is full! Pistachio and cardamom choc-chip, anyone? Yes, I thought so.

It's the perfect day for a knit and a natter, so I hope you've brought your project bags. It promises to be a sunny day. We might be able to rug up and head out for some fresh air later, feel the crunch of autumn leaves underfoot. Whatever takes your fancy...it's that kind of week.

Another lovely blogging friend will be over in a couple of hours to share her thoughts on tea and coffee. I can't wait to share this story - it's a beautiful one! And you can have the recipe for those biscuits on your way out.

It's only day two and, thanks to your generous support, we've already nearly reached our goal of $1,000. Don't let that stop you. If you can spare a few dollars, every bit counts. I say we go gung-ho and double the goal!!!! You can donate here. And don't forget to pop back here to enter the giveaway if you haven't already.

Hummingbird Celebration Cake

I'm not sure where this recipe originated. It's handwritten into the recipe book I left home with way back when. It's essentially a banana and pineapple cake with a relentlessly moreish cream cheese frosting. For such an impressive looking and tasting cake, it sure is easy. And it makes a great alternative to the stock-standard butter cake for when you want to layer up a tower of deliciousness to celebrate something wonderful…like a birthday, a christening, or the launch of a Very Bloggy Morning Tea.

For the cake, you will need:


3 cups plain flour
2 cups caster sugar
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp bicarb soda
2 mushy bananas, mashed
440g tin crushed pineapple in natural juice


Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Throw all the ingredients in a bowl and beat with mixers. Distribute evenly between 3 or 4 greased and lined 20-22cm cake tins. If you've only got two matching tins like I do, do it in two lots.

Bake for 25-30 minutes until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

For the cream cheese frosting, you will need:

125g butter
250g cream cheese
1 tsp vanilla essence
500g icing sugar mixture

Soften butter and cheese in the microwave for one minute. Beat until smooth. Add vanilla and icing sugar and beat until well combined. Try to resist eating huge spoonfuls of it straight from the bowl. Layer cakes with frosting between each layer, then smother the entire thing with more frosting.

Serve fat slices on tiny plates, and when you're done, go back for seconds.

Donate to my Very Bloggy Morning Tea here. Check out the great giveaway here. Did you see Vanessa's beautiful cakey tale back here? Go on, it deserves a read.

Slow Heart Sing - Guest Post

I am thrilled to welcome my first ever guest poster, the lovely Vanessa from Slow Heart Sing. Vanessa and I have become firm bloggy 'friends' over the past year. Our kids are the same age and we share a love of good food. She's a mad keen gardener and a real proper published food writer, you know? I'm sure if we were neighbours we'd constantly be in one or other of our kitchens drinking tea and passing the time of day. Now I just have to get her to take up knitting...

I remember cake being a very different entity when I was a child. Cake was cake. Sugar was sugar (and we didn't worry about it). Flour was flour and eggs were eggs. Buying butter and flour in Cairo in those days was an event. Mum would join a long queue once every six months and buy sacks of flour and huge blocks of butter to freeze. When you ran out, you borrowed from other people or you had to wait for the next co-op.

Of course I love the age we live in now, but perhaps there's something to be said about the simplicity of cooking when we were children. There weren't hundreds of contradicting sources of information for a start. Mum didn't have the choices of spelt and fancy nut flours; she didn't have to choose between different sweeteners, and your choice of butter was one slab or two? Organic, free-range, pastured, stoneground and raw? Come again? 

Plain old eggs were cracked into a bowl of no-frills flour and sugar and whisked with one-and-only full-fat milk to make a creamy batter for the waffle maker. We'd have them warm and fill the squares with the whitest of icing sugar. As we took mouthfuls, puffy clouds of powdery sugar rose up our nostrils. Leftover waffles were kept in the fridge very briefly until my sister, my brother and I leapt out of bed the next morning knowing we would be snacking on cold waffles for morning tea.

It was a rare treat but one that made us giddy every time Mum declared a waffle night.

Years later as we moved across the Mediterranean and the English Channel to the UK, my favourite sweet treat for morning tea became the jam doughnut. In a tiny seaside town in Kent, my grandad would bring us back a brown paper bag full of the best jam doughnuts in England. Sugary, jammy and just the right amount of stodge. There was nothing like it.

Did I care they were deep-fried in vegetable oil? Did I care these balls were all fat and sugar? I didn't know and it didn't matter. We had them once in a blue moon and it's something I look back fondly on. Those waffles and those jam doughnuts are the stuff of memories.

I don't have a waffle maker and I haven't had a jam doughnut in years. If you offered me either one now, I'd snatch it off you and find a quiet corner somewhere.

I don't know what my children will say as adults when they get asked to write something about morning tea. Oat and raisin muffins? Spelt pancakes with maple syrup?

Sometimes I ought to spend less time worrying what's in their food and more time making sure we have more family food traditions. I ought to find something that sends them crazy, regardless of what's in it, and make a habit of it – if only once a month or so.

I already know what it is. 

Chocolate cake.

Thank you so much to Vanessa for being my special morning tea guest today. You can connect with Vanessa at her beautiful blog Slow Heart Sing, or on Facebook here. 

I'll be back later today with some seriously good cake and a recipe to share.

A Very Bloggy Morning Tea - Day One

Hooray! I thought this day would never arrive. Finally! Time for some tea, some treats and a good old-fashioned catch-up. Come in, come in. Let me take your coats. It's a brisk little morning out there, yes? The fire's on, so make yourselves comfortable. Grab a seat wherever you can. I'll just pop into the kitchen and put the kettle on and get some lovely tea brewing for us. I've gone all out with proper real tea leaves! Fancy schmancy.

I have a very dear blogging friend popping in later in the morning with a wonderful story about cake. Make sure you stick around.

And I know you can't wait to get stuck into that delicious hummingbird cake up there. The recipe will be yours later this afternoon.

Ooh, is that another knock on the door...

Did you get a chance to check out the fantastic giveaway? Are you having morning tea at your place this morning? What's your favourite blend - English breakfast or Earl Grey? 

PS I've switched back on anonymous commenting so my non-blogging friends can join in the fun. Sorry about the annoying word verification...

A Very Bloggy Giveaway

Here it is - the stash of goodies I've been putting together to say thank you for donating to the Cancer Council via my Very Bloggy Morning Tea and Australia's Biggest Morning Tea. A very big thanks to all the lovely, generous people who have offered prizes. Such a creative bunch of people!

One lucky person will win:

1) Two 100% linen tea towels designed and printed in Australia by ink & weave - 'Tea Freak' and 'Caffeine Fiend'. Use them to dry your best tea set or, better yet, frame them to hang on the wall. Valued at $24.90 each. You can see the other fantastic ink & weave designs at the shop and keep up to date via Facebook.

2) I was so excited to recently discover Maison Blanche Candles. These beautiful candles are handmade in Sydney by the very talented Kristy. She has offered up a tea-lovers package which includes a White Tea and Berries candle and a Green Tea and Lemongrass candle. Valued at $18 each. Visit her shop here, her blog here, or connect on Facebook.

3) When Christina Lowry recently released her Afternoon Tea beads collection, I snapped up a gorgeous necklace for myself. She very kindly offers this one-off 'Teacups and Doilies' necklace made from handmade beads and valued at $25. Connect with Christina via her shop, blog and Facebook.

4) A set of six tea-themed badges by Miss Badger's Buttons. Valued at $6. Be sure to check out Kate's other fun designs at her shop.

5) The gorgeous May of Seal Design Studio and Seal Typo has generously donated two 8x10 prints - this fantastic CS Lewis quote and a You Are My Cup of Tea poster. Valued at $14 each. Connect at Facebook here and here.

6) This beautiful Ruby Victoria Red Teapot linocut print would look lovely in your kitchen, or any room for that matter. Valued at $26. See the other beautiful prints available at the Ruby Victoria shop or connect via Facebook.

7) This limited edition (as in ONE only) original Typically Red tea cosy was designed and knit by moi as promised some time ago. It's made from 100% wool, finished with an ever so subtle pompom and a Craft Queen button, and fits your average biggish teapot. Tea-warming and heart-warming all at once! Value: priceless.

8) My good friend Nicole aka Craft Queen thinks you should be able to do a bit of shopping while you sip your tea. She's generously offered a $50 voucher to spend at her shop. Stock up on ribbons, buttons, papercraft supplies, washi tape - you name it! Keep up to date with the Craft Queen happenings on Facebook or the blog.

9) And finally, for the vintage lovers and collectors, this is an authentic Johnson set of four cups and saucers, gift packaged in the original (slightly damaged) box. I've seen similar sets for sale on eBay for $50.

And two runners-up will win a Bushell's tea caddy and an Australia's Biggest Morning Tea merchandise pack.

To be in the running, I won't compel you to donate to my Very Bloggy Morning Tea but you kind of know that's the idea. You can do so here or by clicking the little button over on the right. For your own peace of mind, know that any donations go directly to the Cancer Council of Australia, not via my place in any way. There is nothing in this for me other than that heartwarming feeling of having done something worthwhile with a bunch of good people.

Please leave me a comment on this post to say hi and answer this short question: What's your favourite hot beverage/sweet treat combo? Tea and scones, chocolate and churros, that kind of thing.

If you choose to remain an anonymous donor but would like the chance to win, please send me an email to typicallyred@yahoo.com so I know to include you. 

Australian residents only, I'm afraid. The generous prize donors are providing postage, so it's only fair we keep it local. (Singapore residents who are friends with my sister, if you win, she will hand deliver the goodies in June, won't you, Em?!) 

Total prize valued at well over $250. Winner announced here at 7pm Saturday 25th May.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your support and kindness.

20/52

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013" via Che and Fidel.

Lola: Doing homework, she reads out the instructions - draw a rocket. "You know, Mum, it should say please."

Pearl: I walked in on an intense game of mummies and babies. She looked up in delight and said, "Oh, look, Stella, it's the REAL mummy." (I should be grateful I wasn't Grandma this time.)

Stella: She will often regale me with stories about when she was a baby "in the olden days."

Previous 52 portraits here.

I hope to see you all here this week - every day! several times a day! - for a Very Bloggy Morning Tea. I'll be back later today to share the giveaway prizes.

Anticipation

Things have been busy around here this week. I've been dusting off my teacups, colour-coding the teabags and trying to work out which outfit coordinates best with my new tea cosy. Oh, and there's been a little bit of baking going on as well.

I'm so looking forward to seeing you all here first thing Monday morning for the launch of A Very Bloggy Morning Tea 2013. I'll be inviting you in every day and getting you comfy. Then a lovely friend will pop over to share a story and a cuppa. And every afternoon I'll be back to hand over a recipe.

If you're enjoying morning tea at your place during the week, either on your own or with friends, I'd love to hear about it. Please let me know on Facebook or do that hashtag thingo that they talk about on Instagram so I can find you - #bloggymorningtea. Or you can always just leave a comment here with a link to your blog post.

Please tell all your friends. The more the merrier.

Can't wait to see you all. Now, where did I leave that cake stand...

A big thank you to everyone who has already made a generous donation. There's a button over there on the right that will take you to the fundraising page. All donations go directly to the Cancer Council.

Autumn + Toadstools

I've lit the fire every night in the past week. The hot water bottles are in action as well. These days are filled with blue skies and glorious sunshine, but it's no longer any competition for the chill. I think we're in for a good cold winter.

We spied mushrooms on the roadside this afternoon and wandered back to take a closer look. Fairy toadstools by the dozen!

Autumn in all its glory, my favourite season by far.

I've joined the Instagram bandwagon, though I'm still trying to figure it all out. I'm @typicallyred if anyone wants to find me (and so I can find you back). Thanks to Caitlin for suggesting we get a little hashtag going for next week's Very Bloggy Morning Tea. How do these things work? #bloggymorningtea?????