Melting Moments

I found this recipe here, and bookmarked it, and set a reminder on my phone to bake bake bakE! I figured i couldnt go wrong with these crumbly morsels, but i have had my fair share of wrecked cookie batches due to a) crap oven or b) unreliable recipes.

Melting moments:

250g butter, cubed
55 g (1/3 cup) icing sugar, sifted
1 tsp vanilla essence
260g (1 3/4 cups) plain flour
50g (1/3 cup) cornflour

filling
60g (3 tbs) butter, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla essence
pink food colouring
110g (2/3 cup) icing sugar, sifted

1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees celsius. Line a baking tray with non-stick baking paper.

2. Use electric beaters to beat butter, icing sugar and vanilla essence in a medium bowl until pale and creamy.

3. Sift the flour and cornflour together into a bowl and add to the butter mixture. Beat on lowest possible speed until just combined and a soft dough forms.

4. Lightly flour your hands and roll teaspoonfuls of the mixture into small balls. Place on the prepared baking tray about 5cm apart (note – these expand in the oven!). Use a fork that has been dipped in flour to flatten each ball to about 3cm in diameter and 1cm thick (mine were a bit larger).

5. Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes or until cooked through. Cool on the baking tray. Transfer to a wire rack and repeat with the remaining mixture.

6. To make the filling, use electric beaters to beat the butter, vanilla essence in a small bowl until pale and creamy. Add the icing sugar and beat until combined, then add colouring until desired colour you want. Cover and place in fridge until required.

7. To assemble the biscuits, spread the base of a biscuit with filling and then join with another biscuit. Repeat with the remaining biscuits and filling.

The Town of Berry - & their famous Donut Van

Queen Street, Berry

About 2 hrs drive out of Sydney

The first time i went to Berry was maybe about 4 years ago - on a day trip to Kiama with my family. Berry is about a 20min to half an hour further from Kiama, but its so worth the drive to come here for these awesome donuts.

This trip to Berry would be my third in 4 years - 2nd & third time dragging Richard with me for the long drive to get my donut fiX!

The van also sells hot drinks, cold shakes, and on this visit new additions hot dogs, hot chips, and few other hot food items but one thing everyone always orders is their freshly made donuts. YES you heard me, FRESH and is - made only when they are ordered :)

just an average food stand in a van

on the side of the road... nOT!

yummy in my tummy - fresh hot donuts

When you grab your paperbag of donuts you can feel the incredible heat from then as they have just come out of the fryer and popped into the bag, burnage is possible so i know not to just take a huge bite but to sort of break a piece off carefully with my fingers and blow on it to cool it down before *CHOMPING* it down like a mad donut monster hehe.

"munch munch*

the simplest form of donuts

coated in sugar & cinnamon

Being the greedy chicka that i am - i buy 6 for $5 and save two for us for later in the day as they are just as nice cooled down and slightly soggy from being bashed around in my bag haha :O)

Cappuccino's

We also ordered some hot beverages to go with the hot donuts (even though it was a pretty hot day i didn't mind it at all) but our cappuchinos were watery and way too hot to drink. Even when it cooled down i couldn't finish it :(

The town of Berry lies on the one street called Queen street, so when you enter Queen street that is the only place you need to be. Parking anywhere along that road (and im sure there are a few small side streets but i've never had a problem finding parking. The Donut Van you will find on the right side furthest from you, you can't miss it!

So while i've been here three times now i've never actually explored the place.. so we went for a walk and found a few interesting shops.. :)

what a spinnout..wooah

Now this was really random a street pole with atleast 30 places ?! Various places in Oz i guess but still cool.

This bottle shop/motel just beside the Donut Van is covered in HUB CAPS! Small large medium any size you can find i think it looks pretty cool.

On Queen Street you can also find clothing stores, a butcher, a few cafes, a pub and other shops that i didnt think were too interesting to go into until Richard pulled me into this liquor store called "berry bottle shop"..

This wasnt just any old liquor store .. as you can see in my pictures below- almost every bottle of wine had a note attached to it - with a description of the drink! This guy has tasted almost every drink in his store! Haha, what an alco.. kiddin! hehe.

So obviously you would trust this dude and his stock as he would only stock the wines he thinks is worth selling so we asked him for some recommendations & left with two bottles (one sweet muscato for me and one red for Richard).

anything rainbow will attract my attention

"better than sex . . . and cheaper!"

We spent a good ten or fifteen minutes in this shop (only cos Richard is a winohead hehe).

Another shop that caught my eye was this clock shop called "cuckoo corner".

tick tock tick tick tock

The shop is just full of clocks, and even the huge standing vintage clocks they had a few (but had a ridiculous price tag on them i felt poor just looking at them so i didn't take any photo's)

I asked the lady behind the counter if i could take some pictures and she kindly (and shyly) said yes as if she thought

I've also been told there is a famous PIE shop in berry which i might have a look for the next time i'm visiting (probably later this year!)

Santos

231 Canley Vale Rd (Cnr Derby St)

Canley Heights 2166 NSW

Phone: (02) 9727 0580

My first non-photo food related post EVER.!

Two weeks ago on a Monday night, me Jc & Bich went out for dinner for a catch up.

Santos was originally located on the main road (beside the Pub) but have recently moved across the road on the corner of Derby Street.

We shared a large plate of chips (with extra chicken salt which was charged at $2.60, but you get a small cup full of this stuff and Bich says it's worth it even to come here just for the chicken salt and chips!).

Also sharing a plate of garlic bread (Bich wasn't really hungry) while Jeremy has a creamy chicken and avocado pasta and i chose a creamy red pasta with sundried tomatoes.

Later that night i began to feel incredibly sick, and went for a lie down to try and get some sleep but this feeling in my gut was awful and i could feel my food going back up my food tube.. (esophagus??)

At around midnight i spewed out my pasta dinner (i won't go into detail but it was definitely and no undoubtedly the pasta that i ate).

This is the fourth time in my life that i've had food poisoning.

The first: cherries, i have no idea why as they were new from the shop but it could be the fact that i was shovelling them into my mouth and not fully chewing them before swallowing (i love cherries but i went through a period where i was so turned off by them cos of this incident)

The second: a late night snack at a cafe in Liverpool (i've forgotten the name but its right outside westfields closest to the doors) it was a sunday night (i remember because it was work the next day and also Richard's birthday) and i had a chocolate croissant. I felt sick when i woke up in the morning and out it came ew. I have not eaten a croissant ever since! (this was around 2006-2007). I have not been there since.

The third: Bircher Muesli i made myself which i kept in a box with a loose lid in the fridge. If the lid wasn't broken and it was closed properly then i don't think i would've gotten sick as usually they keep for about a week in the fridge except this was only at day four. I had some around 10am for morning tea and not even an hr later i was insanely sick with vomiting and was sent to the doctor and then home. I didn't eat bircher muesli for a long while after that, at least 3 yrs. I made some last year but the satisfaction in eating it was no longer there (and i felt like i was eating it for health purposes only, not for any cravings of any sort)

And now my fourth time, due to a pasta dish at this restaurant.

Initially i had no plans to do anything except move on with my life and perhaps never set foot back in that restaurant. After telling Mel though, she convinced me to tell the restaurant owner, and i also thought maybe i could ask for some sort of compensation.

I rang Santos the next day but although the manager was not there, the waitress (i assume) took my name and number and said her boss will ring me back some time soon.

A few hours later the manager rang me back and asked me what i had, and proceeded to tell me that he served the same dish to eight other people and so far no complaints, and that he also receives his ingredients fresh off a refridgerated van and that his food storage and handling complies with the food acts in Australia (or something along those lines).

He wasn't at all talking to me in a contradicting manner, and was very professional about it, and he offered me a free meal the next time i came in because he did want me to come to his restaurant again. So my name is down in books as 'free meal'.

Now my question to you is - what would you do in my situation? I know it's free food and all but i've been slightly scarred from the incident. It's unlikely that i will get food poisoning two times in a row (i have eaten at the old Santos a couple of times with no problems), but should i be wary? Should i take the offer?

I'd love to hear your thoughts..

Photo's courtesy of http://jhieu.wordpress.com/