Where's Debbie?

You might be wondering if I've dropped off the face of the earth. No but I've been on holiday. In Japan. Yes, I could have told you but the purpose of the blog is to tell you what I've been doing, not what I'm going to do - besides I'd hate to make it easier for any e-stalkers out there.

Japan was fantastic - the food was, naturally, fantastic. The people were so incredibly lovely and the weather was just a bit warmer than here!

Unfortunately being in Japan does not help you cook the entire Edmonds cookbook. Sigh. So I had to get straight back into it, jet lag and all, although I did give myself at least a 24 hour break and there was only a 3 hour time difference. I am slightly shocked by how cold it is in Auckland though. Nothing like a bit of warm baking on a cold night.

So I had huddled next to the heater, thumbing through the pages, deciding what to make. It was already 7.30 and I didn't want to spend all night up baking. So I made two reasonably simple recipes - Zoi biscuits and Peanut Shortcake

Zoi biscuits - I'm not exactly sure what a Zoi is. It was one of those recipes where I had to tell everyone what the ingredients were and to be honest the biscuits weren't really interesting enough to warrant the effort! There was a little golden syrup and ginger in there but neither came through particularly strongly. I feel kind of sorry for them, it must be quite to be a boring biscuit.

Peanut shortcake - rather the opposite, not even a little boring. The typical shortcake base and then covered in a chocolate/peanut/egg white topping, it was nice and crisp on top and gooey underneath - a lot like a peanut brownie. Could be happily served at any café I think.