Cookie Swap

Over the weekend we met up with some very talented bloggers at a cookie swap hosted by the lovely Lydia of Lydia Bakes!  It was fantastic meeting Kirsten of High Tea With Dragons, Danelle of A Couple of Night Owls and who also runs a personal blog; Danelle Bourgeois, and Amanda of Here Comes The Sun.



What is a cookies swap you ask?  Cookie swaps are generally held at Christmas time, the idea is that you invite a group of friends, and have each person make enough of one kind of cookie to share.  The cookie swap is a chance to catch up with friends during the busy holiday season while you sample the treats, then trade and get an assortment of delicious treats to take home.  Everyone leaves with a lovely gift and plenty of new recipes (great for when people pop over at Christmas).  We were lucky enough to have some cute boxes to take home our cookies in courtesy of Little Ink.  Because of the cookie swap’s link to Christmas Lydia set everything up with a mid winter Christmas theme, it was so cute!



Since we all blog we didn't share the recipes at our swap, we will all be posting them on each of our own blogs, but we will link everyone’s recipes into this post as they appear.  Over the next week or so you will see our recipes for Monte Carlo Biscuits, Chocolate Sprinkle Cookies and Sprinkle Sandwiched Cookies.  Lydia made some Browned Butter Snickerdoodles, Kirsten made White Chocolate and Raspberry Crinkle Cookies and Danelle made some decadent Chocolate Truffle Cookies - so there is plenty to look forward to.


Have you hosted a cookie swap before? Maybe you are keen to give it a go... remember, if you do we'd love to see your photos.  Also if you bake something from our blog and send us a pic we will enter you into the monthly Billington’s competition.

Thanks for hosting us Lydia – it was a great afternoon!

Check out these links for event round-ups and recipes from the Cookie Swap (we will add them as they pop up on the internet):

• Recipe post for Mel’s Chocolate Sprinkle Refrigerator cookies
• Recipe post for Mel’s Monte Carlo biscuits
• Recipe post for Courtenay’s Cookie Pops / Sprinkle sandwich cookies
• Danelle’s Chocolate Truffle Cookies and post about the Cookie Swap
• Lydia's Brown Butter Snickerdoodles
• Kirsten’s post about the cookie swap and her White Chocolate Raspberry Crinkle Cookies recipe
• Photos and a quick write up about the Cookie Swap by Amanda on Here Comes the Sun

Christmas Baking Class

 

We are VERY EXCITED to announce we will be holding a Christmas Baking Class at the beginning of December!  This is our very first baking class and we are really looking forward to it.

The class will be hands on - we will step you though making a couple of different Christmas cupcakes, some cookies and a sweet treat which you will personally get to make and take home after the class.  You don’t have to be a baking whizz, we are there to help.

We will be providing everything you need during the class as well as some light refreshments, so if you have ever wanted to try some of our baking made by us, now is your chance!

We would love to meet some of our Auckland readers (and if you are out of town and feel like travelling then we would super love that too!) so if you are keen to join us and take part in the fun, please flick us an email to bmtbblog@gmail.com and we will send you out some more details.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Auckland Taste of New Zealand Festival

 
New Zealand’s biggest ever culinary festival will be running in Victoria Park, Auckland 19-22 October. It offers visitors a chance to taste incredible cuisine from some of New Zealand’s best restaurants, discover gourmet products and meet award winning chefs, including Rick Stein, Gary Rhodes, Annabel Langbein and Josh Emett. If you are keen to head along you can find more information about the event and tickets here.

Free New Zealand wide Farmers’ Market Cooking demonstrations

Farmers' Markets New Zealand, in conjunction with the REAL New Zealand Festival, are running a national series of FREE Farmers' Market cooking and producer demonstrations.  The aim is to highlight the very best of local Farmers' Market food, along with NZ's top chefs.  New Zealand’s first ‘master chef’, Brett McGregor and Julie Biuso are just a couple of the chefs involved in this programme which is runs from September 4th to October 23rd.

Check out the schedule of events on the official website or have a look on facebook to find out what chef is going to be cooking near you.

Awesome idea huh?  Go watch and become inspired by the chefs (there will be live video so you won’t miss anything), then everything you need to get creative in the kitchen is at the farmers’ market ready for you to take home :)

My day at the Auckland Food Show 2011

So, today I went to the Auckland Food Show.  Going on a Thursday, and to the preview day was awesome – still heaps of people but there wasn’t all the queuing to get to try stuff and waiting to move about.  I had quite a pleasant time taking everything in by myself.

I arrived there about 40 minutes before my truffle making master class so I looked around one of the halls.  Oh, before I looked about, I signed up on one of the computer terminals that were set up outside the main hall to get a sticker page printed off, containing my details so I could quickly enter ‘the over 60 competitions’ that were running at the show – don’t do this, I didn’t see all these supposed competitions.  There were a few, but really, you don’t need a sticker sheet to save you time in entering them.  Really they just want you on their database.

Annabelle White at the Truffle making master class

The truffle making master class.  I found this pretty disappointing.  It wasn’t all that different from going to one of the celebrity chef demonstrations except you need to pay for it.  And, since I knew how to make truffles I didn’t learn anything new there, however the other master classes, on topics I don’t know as much about clashed with the celebrity cooking demonstrations I wanted to see yet I still wanted to go to a master class so I was kinda stuck with this one.  I did get a goodie bag though and I learnt how to make chocolate into a play dough-like consistency so you can make stuff out of it, like the rose in the picture below.

Flower made out of chocolate and some of the truffles

My Whittaker’s loot from my goodie bag

Adam Liaw

After the master class I went and watched Adam Liaw in the theatre.  He made the most wonderful smelling chicken curry dish and some coconut rice.  He had recipes for other dishes but wasn't provided with the correct ingredients so he didn’t make them and he reckons he had just got off the plane from Aussie about 45 minutes before getting to the food show, so I don’t think he had the time or was in the right frame of mind to sort this out.  He would have been very pushed for time to cook anything else anyway, I think.  Adam was just like I remembered him off Master chef and I really enjoyed watching his demonstration.  I am inspired to try make his curry as it really did smell that amazing and I was sitting a fair bit away from the stage too.

Julie Le Clerc

After Adam’s demonstration I watched Julie Le Clerc.  Apparently she has a show on Sunday, TV 3 at 5pm called ‘Cafe Secrets’.  I am going to try catch it this week as she is popping into little and friday which is one of my fave cafes.  She made dishes using tea – she marinated Salmon in tea and used tea to cook some rice.  She also made smoke paprika buttermilk scones and a chocolate yoghurt cake – yum, yum!

Once I had watched these two chef’s I went back to checking out the exhibitors at the show.  I was laden with two very heavy bags and my shoulders ached by the time I got back to my car.  I picked up a few show specials – yes, I did take up the GÜ show offer, I got myself some Pitango pouches, and subscribed to Foodtown magazine ($25 for a year and I got a goodie bag and a spin of their prize wheel - I won a pack of salmon!)

My GÜ score – cost $20 but you got a pot of puds, two lots of their desserts that come in their cute glass ramekins, a box of ganache tubs and a cute little coolie bag!

My Pitango pouches – it was 3 for $10.  Seriously if you want a quick and easy meal try one of their curry’s over that microwavable 2 minute rice.  I usually get the Red Thai Curry but I purchased the Green variety today for a change.

Simon feels like he missed out, in fact he had to sit a computer exam today, so we might head back to the food show in the weekend.

Update…

On my food show decision.  I’ve got myself a ticket to the Thursday and a ticket to go to the truffle making master class presented by Annabelle White.  The master class finishes just in time for me to go watch Adam Liaw and the Julie Le Clerc.  Win!

Auckland Food Show 2011

The Auckland Food Show for 2011 is coming up in less than a fortnight, running from Thursday 28th July through to Sunday 31st July at the ASB Showgrounds.  Doors are open from 10am until 6pm on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and 10am – 5pm on Sunday.
I can’t decide what day to go.  I’ve been looking at the celebrity chef programme and have been trying to choose.  I seriously recommend going to watch one of the  chef’s cooking demonstrations – they are usually pretty inspiring and you get just that little bit extra out of attending the show.  I’ve managed to see Donna Hay cooking at two different food shows and watched Sophie Gray last year (pictured above).  Adam Liaw is going to be at the show this year – I religiously watched the season of Australian Masterchef that he was on and I reckon he would be awesome to watch cook.  I’m pretty interested in seeing Julie Le Clerc too – I have no idea what she is like, but I have some of her cookbooks and the recipes are all very appealing.
A new thing that has been introduced this year is the ‘Masterclass Series’.  You can pay a little bit more and attend a class, limited to 50 people, which runs for an hour.  There’s truffle making, learning about meat, making tapas, cheese tasting and a matching wine to your food class.  These intrigue me too.  Decisions, decisions.
If you’re not keen on celebrity chefs and master classes, you can always just attend the show for all the food that is on offer.  Each year there are new products on display along with hundreds of free samples and show specials not to be missed.  I’ve seen that GÜ will be running a show special ($20 for two puds, one pot of ganache and a tub of naughties) which is one thing I am decided about – I will definitely take advantage of it!
So, put the food show into your diary and have a great foodie day out :)

Diary Date: The Auckland Food Show

 
There is just over a month now until The Food Show comes to Auckland.  I’m definitely going – I love trying all the new products on display.  There are hundreds of exhibitor stalls, many boasting free samples, to go and visit.  I also try to stop in and watch one of the celebrity chef demonstrations.  The picture above is of Donna Hay at the 2009 food show, making what was a very delicious looking ‘flourless chocolate cake’.  I love her.  I can’t wait to see the celebrity chef line-up for this years event.

The Auckland food show this year is running at the ASB showgrounds from Friday 30 July to Sunday 1 August, with Thursday 29 July as a special pre-view day.  Last year they reckon they had 41,548 people come along, so it is a very popular weekend activity!

For more info visit the food show website.