morning tea

Last week it was my turn to bring morning tea to work. I decided to make something sweet and something savoury. So I settle on sausage rolls, and coca cola cake. I've been making both for years, with the recipes being given to me by Becs.

Sausage rolls are so quintessentially kiwi and ever popular. But once you've tried these chicken, bacon and prune ones, it's hard to ever go back to the frozen supermarket versions. The flavours go so well together and the moisture from the prunes means you don't even require sauce. The loose recipe is pretty simple;


Chicken bacon and prune sausage rolls
puff pastry
prunes
streaky bacon
chicken mince
relish / chutney
plenty of salt and pepper
1 egg
poppy seeds


Mix the chicken mince with a good few dollops of relish and season generously. Lines the chicken mixture, bacon and prunes along the pastry, then roll it up tightly and cut into bite sized pieces. Brush the tops with some beaten egg and sprinkle with poppy seeds. Bake at 180C for about 20 minutes or until the look golden. Enjoy warm or cold.

The photo of this coca cola cake doesn't really do it justice, but don't judge it by the photo alone - give it a go and you'll realise that coca cola cake is one of the simplest chocolate cakes to make, and the outcome is deliciously moist chocolately cake. Although you would never know it contains a cup of coke, it makes a great talking point!

Coca Cola Cake
1 3/4 cups flour
2 cups brown sugar
3/4 cups cocoa
2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
dash salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1 cup coca cola
1 cup of buttermilk (I use trim milk and it works)
1 teaspoon vanilla

Sift all dry ingredients into mixing bowl. Add wet ingredients and beat on medium to high speed till combined. Don’t be alarmed at the consistency - this is a very wet mixture. Bake in 9 x 13 Inch cake tin at 180C until prong comes out clean (around 40 mins).

Incredible chocolate icing

100g soft butter
1 cup icing sugar
2/3 cup cocoa
1 tablespoon vanilla
1-2 tablespoon milk
1-2 tablespoon hot coffee

Combine the above in food processor and blend. Add vanilla, milk and hot coffee. Ice the cake - and you may like to decorate with white chocolate (as I did with this cake - although there was some initial shock as it looked like the cake had been decorated with coconut....)