My Saturday was full of kids, baking and playing (with kids and at cooking). I had had a thought the previous night about making a mars bar slice, so when I got out of be and before the grandkids arrived, I made a start on what I thought would be a great slice. I crushed some chocolate ripple biscuits and melted butter to make a base and pressed that into a dish and fridged it while I melted condensed milk and cocoa and marshmallows. Poured that over the biscuits and back into the fridge while I made a caramel top. Melt caramels with cream and butter, pour over the top of the chocolate and back into the fridge again to set.
Melt some chocolate and copha, pour over the caramel and back to the fridge again. Done.
The kids arrive with Lizzy Lou, she looks like death warmed over, don't think she'll be at work for long, but she leaves anyway. I make the kids some breakfast and turn on the tv for them and I head back to the kitchen.
The man of the house had been asking for some ginger biscuits, so I pull out the trusty basic biscuit mix recipe. I'm only going to make a 1/2 mix ( because I had half a can of condensed milk left from the slice), and add cinnamon, ginger and golden syrup to it. I couldn't decide how much ginger to put in, so 2 teaspoons went in and I just hoped it was enough. They only took 10 minutes to cook. Turned out well, but if you like a strong ginger flavour, another teaspoon of ginger wouldn't hurt.
I had some biscuit mix in the freezer so I decided to take that out and make some jam biscuits for the kids.
while I was waiting for that to defrost, I made a coffee and sat down to have a look at facebook. It tells me that it's vegemites 91st birthday. Happy birthday. In honour of the day, I'm experimenting again. Vegemite and cheese biscuits. So the kids get 12 jam biscuits and the rest of the dough is going to my experiment. I added 1 teaspoon vegemite and 1/2 cup grated tasty cheese to the dough mix and rolled 1 walnut sized ball dough and cooked it. 15 mins later and a taste and I added another teaspoon of vegemite to the mix. I Made all the biscuits and let them cool then gave them to the kids for a taste test. General consensus...Yumm. (will add the recipe later when I have proper ingredients, I worked on the weight of the dough)
Lunch time, feed the kids, put Zoe doughball down for a sleep and I'm just heading back to the kitchen when Lizzy Lou arrives back. She's been sent home, still not well. We sit out side with a cuppa and watch the kids play for a while. Number 5 son, miss Tash and the chunky one arrive. Lizzy lou departs for a shower and change of clothes and Number 5 and I are discussing the merits of homemade pizza dough compared to store bought. We are having pizza for tea and if we are making dough I have to get the bread machines going right now. But no. Number 5 wants to bring his dough machine that he has a his place. Argue, argue, he wins. Dough machine is on the way. 10 minutes late he's back with the machine on a trolley, wheeling it into the house. OMG it's huge. Take one pizza recipe and multiply it by five and it doesn't even come close to filling the bowl of the machine, but boy, it's quick.
Take the dough out of the machine, put it near the oven to rise for an hour, then run down to the shops to get more cheese and bits and pieces. When we arrive back, right on an hour later, the dough is risen and falling over the sides of the bowl. Number 5 takes over the kitchen, he's doing the rolling of the dough. I get to chop up the capsicum, onion, tomatoes and other bits. I look over at him, there is flour going everywhere and dough stuck everywhere and geez he's worse than me at messing up the kitchen, but we have pizza bases. The production line begins, sauce, filling cook, sauce filling, cook. Two ovens going. We made garlic and cheese, ham and pineapple, mexican and salami, bocconcini, cherry tomatoes and rocket. (the recipes are on my cook book somewhere, only difference is that they are on flat bread.).
Forgot to take a picture of the garlic one. There is still a lot of dough left over. We are making donuts with some of it. Who knew. And of course I forgot to take a picture of them too. But here's the recipe for the pizza dough........
1 1/4 cups lukewarm water
1 packet (2 1/4 teaspoons) active dry yeast
3 cups unbleached all purpose flour, plus more for dusting
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
Make this in a bread machine on a dough setting or in a processor to bring it all together or by hand, placing wet ingredients in first, then the flour and lastly the yeast. Will need to be kneaded for about 10 minutes then left to rise in a warm place for an hour. This amount will make 2 pizzas.
To make the donuts, roll into balls, poke holes in them if you want and cook in a deep fryer on 180 till brown, and roll in cinnamon sugar. We drizzled some with honey, some with chocolate syrup and some with mixed berry syrup. You have to eat them hot, totally yummy. They are not good cold, it is pizza dough after all.
And I cut the slice. Doesn't look like a mars bar. Not happy. The caramel sank through the chocolate. And it's too dark. Tastes ok though.
Everyone goes home. I venture into the kitchen and quickly depart. I can't face the mess, too tired. The man makes a start but he too gives up. He goes to bed. I fall asleep on the couch. I did make it too bed at some stage.
Sunday. Get up, clean up (takes for ever) and have another thought about the mars bar slice and start making again. Base then caramel then fridge. What's in a mars bar? Google it. Chocolate, malt and caramel basically. I don't have a thermometer to make nougat, so I'm going with condensed milk, butter, horlicks malted milk powder, milk cooking chocolate and marshmallows. Lots of melting and cooling later...
Is it good? It's not quite a mars bar, but it's a soft, chewy caramel, chocolatey, malty, marshmallowy slice. It does need to be kept in the fridge. But I am happy because you can see the layers and it tastes good too. You do have to lick your fingers though. One day I will get that thermometer and try again, but for the time being this will do.
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