Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

During the festive season, I baked my favourite gingernut cookies.

I don’t bake them often though, because whilst they’re my favourites, no-one else in the house eats them if there’s anything else on offer. So a week or so after baking, there was still half a jar left…

The browned butter friands were more popular – so much so that I baked them twice. There were a few leftover from the second batch…

It was then that I discovered how brilliant leftover cookies are as crumble topping! I’ve used stale cake before, so I had an inkling it would work, but the gingernuts added a delicious crunch and flavour which went really well with the berries…

• 2 cups frozen berries (I used a mix of blueberries and sour cherries, but you could use anything you have lurking in your freezer)
• ¼ cup jam
• leftover gingernut cookies
• leftover browned butter friands

Note: this is a very flexible recipe, so please use whatever you have on hand. We’ve made it with tinned peaches and apples in the past, as well as all sorts of cakes (un-iced) and non-savoury breads. I stash leftover stale cake and brioche in the freezer just for this purpose.

The cookies add a wonderful texture and flavour. I’m not sure though that chocolate ones would work, and I found our shortbread cookies a little dry and salty for the topping. But sweet, American-style, slightly cakey cookies are perfect!

Some loose instructions:

• Preheat oven to 160C with fan. Gently heat the jam in the microwave to soften, adding a little water to thin it out if necessary. Stir into the frozen berries and mix well.

• Tip everything into an ovenproof dish. I used an Emile Henry pie dish.

• Crumble the leftover cookies and cake over the top.

• Bake for 20 – 30 minutes, or until the topping is golden brown and crisp, and the berries are bubbling and juice is just starting to seep through the crumble.

• Allow to rest and cool a little before serving.

I’ve stashed the rest of the gingernuts in the freezer for a future crumble, along with some maple syrup cookies that no-one would eat. I made this batch with a mixture of cookies and friands, but it works equally as well with just cookies (I’ve tried).

It’s a fabulous last minute dessert and the boys love it (particularly Small Man). Best of all, it means I can bake gingernuts again in the future, even if I’m the only one who will eat them!

Although Wiki claims that friands are originally from France, very few of my French friends have ever heard of them. Instead, they seem to be a uniquely downunder treat, popular in both Australia and New Zealand. They share a similar ingredients list to French financiers, although they’re made in quite a different way.

One distinguishing characteristic of financiers is the use of beurre noisette (browned butter). I thought it might be interesting to incorporate that into my friand recipe.

I had to get Pete to make the butter for me – I always chicken out and pull it off the heat too soon…

Pete’s tip is to cook the butter very gently until it turns brown and starts to foam…

• 6 large free range egg whites
• 150g browned butter, cooled
• 70g plain flour
• 130g almond meal
• 180g icing sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 190C or 175C with fan.  Brush a mini loaf pan (mine was a Baker’s Secret petite loaf pan with eight holes) with melted butter and line the base of each hole with a piece of parchment paper. Don’t skip the paper, or the friands will stick (trust me).

2. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour and icing sugar. If you’re feeling lazy, just sift the icing sugar (it’s the only way to get the lumps out). Stir in the almond meal.

3. In a separate mixing bowl and using a hand whisk, beat the egg whites for about a minute until they’re frothy, but not stiff.

4. Quickly but gently fold in the dry ingredients, then add the cooled browned butter (including any sediment).  Stir until just combined.

5. Spoon the mixture evenly into the prepared mini loaf tin. Bake for 25 – 30 minutes, rotating the tray once during the baking time.  The finished friands will be well risen and  golden brown in colour.

7. Allow to cool on a wire rack before serving.

The browned butter gave these a subtle nuttiness and an attractive speckled appearance that I found very appealing. They were also fabulous in a berry crumble (recipe to follow)!

Last week, Pete’s sisters Kate and Penny, Ray (Pen’s husband) and our nephew Joseph, drove down from Orange to celebrate an early Christmas with us. Uncle Steve (Pete’s brother), his fiancée Ali, and cousin Jono were also here.

Our annual gathering usually takes place a couple of weeks before Christmas, which allows us to hit the Sydney Fish Market early in the morning (before the crazy festive season rush) and splurge on an abundance of super fresh sea food.

And splurge we really did this year, although everyone chipped in, so the cost wasn’t prohibitive. To keep my beloved nephew happy though, I spent an hour the night before making dumplings for him…

We bought half a kilo of King Salmon sashimi, which Pen and I turned into three large plates of sushi…

A kilo of Balmain bugs, Penny’s favourite…

We had a 2kg ocean trout and a smaller coral trout, both of which were oven roasted…

Ray, who had been dreaming about them all year, insisted on 3kg of cooked tiger prawns. I baked a 75cm slab of sourdough focaccia, and we made a large salad and homemade mayonnaise…

On top of that, we had 30 scallops, three dozen oysters (half Kilpatricked) and 30 dumplings (for Joseph). And between 12 of us, we managed to eat almost all of it.

We were seriously beached.

Then Ali produced a watermelon cake from Black Star Pastry…

…and Penny set fire to her very alcoholic Christmas pudding…

Later that afternoon, cousin Richard and his family popped in. Their son Sam made short work of what was left of the mountain of cherries Pen and Ray had brought down (Sam managed to get four into his mouth at the one time)…

The following morning, Small Man, our resident Christmas elf, set up the tree!

. . . . .

Wishing you all a joyous, peaceful Christmas!