A good eggy mayonnaise

What if you just want a good, egg-based mayonnaise but without all the fuss? Well, here’s an almost foolproof recipe. It ticks all our boxes: not too oily, no starch, lemon juice rather than vinegar, and delicious.

The amazing coconut-flour chocolate cake (gluten-free)

The choclatey chocolatedness of this cake has to be tasted to be believed. It’s amazing. Its rich, just-crumbly-yet-muddy texture has knocked another long-term family favourite chocolate cake off its perch. That’s how good this is.

Sardine, egg and dukkah salad

This salad is easy to make. It’s just a matter of boiling some eggs and tossing together a few ingredients for a tasty and filling lunch.

A sponge cake with rose petal jam and dusted with icing sugar

The successful sponge cake

This sponge cake is billed as a basic whisked sponge that’s easy to make, especially with an electric mixer. It’s true. It is easy, and it worked. if you have trouble with sponges, why not give this one last try? At least you can make trifle if it doesn’t work.

Almond unsweetened biscuits (gluten-free)

Salt free, sugar-free, gluten-free biscuits for a morning tea? It’s easier than you think with these almond unsweet biscuits. With just two ingredients, they’re so easy to make they’ve instantly become part of our emergency morning-tea repertoire.

The easy-mix apple cake (contains egg)

This cake is so easy to make: just toss everything into the bowl, mix and bake. No fuss, no problems, and a perfect cake every time.

It’s the dead easy version of our almost-easy-mix spicy-topped apple cake from a few weeks ago.

The original banana bread

We call this the original banana bread because it’s the one I’ve been making for years and years. It’s still popular everywhere we take it: parties, church teas, work morning teas, anywhere with lots of people. It’s at its softest and most crumbly while it’s still warm. It’s denser but still delicious the next day, and better suited to feeding a cast of thousands.

Custardy popovers

Custardy popovers are a surprisingly simple but spectacular treat. We first discovered them when the kids wanted dessert one evening and nothing was prepared. I thought I had them snookered: I just pulled out the cookbooks and told the kids we could have dessert if they could find something easy and quick without sugar. But no, my…

Marked: Breakfast songs

Again, it’s Monday: the day for trying something new. A new recipe, a new idea, or even finding a new song; and it’s so easy to find these great new things through the WordPress community. So rather than bury them in my own list of likes and comments, or as a list of great writing…

Scrambled eggs, the way we did them in the olden days ('70s)

It’s just scrambled egg

Cheese souffle, lamb chops, scrambled egg on toast … all dishes served up in a 1970s Australian country-town home economics (cooking) class. Fast forward to this decade. The fare for high-school students in their cooking class in a different city was now pizza, pasta … and a new style of scrambled egg.

French excursion souffle

Our son’s French class visited a French restaurant as part of their appreciation of all things French. He came back with three amazing little treats, and we’ve been wanting to commit them to the formal kitchen notebook for some time. This is the first. It is sweet, but so very worth the effort.

Traditional egg-yolk custard

This traditional egg custard is the perfect way to use up egg yolks. It is easy to make if you can stir and keep stirring, and it tastes rich and smooth and just like custard should. It helps if you have three hands, but even those of us with only two hands should be able to pour, hold and stir well enough for the smooth perfection we know we all want.

The eggs that sinks is fresh; the egg that floats is not

Are these eggs okay?

It’s the question I get asked all the time when someone else is cooking at home. Fortunately, we can know what to do because two 19th century writers have told us in their household instruction manuals. It’s the swim test that I use; but the two writers tell us that the light test is best. Travel back for advice without travelling through time.