Eggless Chocolate Cake

Today my daughter and I made an Eggless Chocolate Cake – now, we have nearly 50 chooks, and you wouldn’t think it possible to not have enough eggs to bake, but it is.

My husband is just managing to collect enough eggs to make Home-Made Goats’ Milk Ice-Cream, so today we went hunting on the internet for recipes without eggs.

The Eggless Chocolate Cake we found here, although we did modify it a little. We only put two dessertspoons of cocoa instead of four tablespoons, and we didn’t put any salt into it. This recipe only takes 15 minutes preparation time, and I think that it was quicker than that with my daughter helping.

The next recipe that we made was Gae’s Shortbread recipe, and also doesn’t need any eggs. This is a very easy recipe to make, too, but we doubled the recipe so that we could put it into a large baking pan. I am planning on freezing half of the shortbread for later – that is if I can get to it before my son eats it all!

Our chooks are moulting at the moment, so it could be a while before we have lots of eggs to bake with, again.  Does anyone have any favourite easy eggless recipes that they’d like to share?

Choc-Chip Cookies

Today my daughter and I cooked a batch of Choc-Chip Cookies, and this recipe is absolutely delicious. It makes approximately five dozen cookies. We thought that seeing that the men were out cutting firewood that they might appreciate something sweet when they arrived home from woodcutting. We also cooked a Buffet Macaroni for dinner so that everything was ready when the men arrived home.

Ingredients

2½ cups rolled oats
2 cups plain flour
¼ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
½ teaspoon cream of tartar
1 cup butter at room temperature
1 ½ cups brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ packet choc-chips

Method

Preheat oven to 185°C. Make a powder out of the rolled oats by putting small amounts into the food processor at a time. In a large bowl, combine powdered rolled oats, flour, bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartar.

In another large bowl blend butter and brown sugar until light and creamy. Stir in eggs and vanilla extract. Then add the flour mixture and stir until well blended. Stir in chocolate chips.

Roll dough into golf-ball sized cookies and flatten out slightly. Place 50mm apart on baking tray and bake for 15 minutes or until a light golden brown. Remove from oven and cool on wire racks. Yields 60 cookies.

My Husband’s Shepherd’s Pie

Yesterday my husband made a Shepherd’s Pie, not just any Shepherd’s Pie mind you, but this one is absolutely delicious, and the recipe is:

Ingredients

1 kilogram of beef mince
3 grated carrots
3 cups grated zucchini
2 cups grated sweet potato
2 cups diced cabbage
2 cups diced cauliflower
2 cups diced broccoli
2 cups of cooked rice
2 tablespoons chutney
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
7 medium sized potatoes
400 grams of grated cheese to cover top

Method

Cook mince with Worcestershire sauce, and while that is cooking, cook the rice and the potatoes. Prepare all vegetables and place into an electric frypan with the mince. Add the cooked rice and chutney. Stir while cooking and add water as needed, as the rice soaks up the moisture. When it is all cooked, place contents of frypan into large roasting dish. Mash the potatoes and spread over mince, rice and vegetable mixture. Sprinkle grated cheese over the top. Place into oven at 180C (350F) for approximately 30 minutes or until cheese melts. Then place under griller to brown the cheese quickly.

If you look at our Shepherd’s Pie, there is one section that has no mashed potato, and that is because I can’t eat it. You could make it without mashed potato, with only the grated cheese, and it is just as delicious. This recipe is very frugal to make, and serves about 8 adults.

Home-Made “Goat’s Milk” Ice Cream

On the 11th January, when we were in Port Pirie, we bought a Sunbeam Snowy, but with the frantic pace of the last couple of weeks, we haven’t really had time to even think about using it. Ice-Cream makers are extremely affordable, with this particular model only costing $45.00. On Monday night my husband made a batch of ice-cream using the recipe in the instruction book, but it was VERY sweet, so last night he made another batch of home-made ice-cream using our own recipe and fresh goats’ cream, and it is absolutely delicious.

The recipe that we used is:

Goats’ Milk Ice-Cream

Ingredients

400 mls of goats’ cream
4 egg yolks
rounded 1/3 cup of castor sugar
2 mls of vanilla essence

Method

Place eggs, vanilla and sugar into a bowl and mix thoroughly until well combined, then add the cream. Beat again, put into freezer to cool down. Set up the ice-cream maker and pour the mixture through the mixture hole as per instructions in the book. It takes about twenty minutes to make about a litre of ice-cream.  Place the mixture into another container of about a litre capacity (to cut down on ice formation) and freeze.

In our household, we have people who are allergic to cows’ milk, so having ice-cream used to present a real problem. My daughter used to cough and cough, and snore like you wouldn’t believe when she had ice-cream, but with the goats’ ice-cream she has no problems, and it is so delicious. This is just another way for us to use the goats’ milk that we are provided with, and another step toward self- God-sufficiency.

Tim Tam Balls

Tonight my son and I made Tim Tam Balls, courtesy of Gae from Cherished ♥♥♥ at Home – thank you, Gae.

We had a wonderful time making these, and my son licked out the bowl with fervent vigour. My daughter loved cleaning up the excess sprinkles and my husband cleaned out the condensed milk tin – he said that it brought back memories of his childhood, visiting his grandpa and eating full tins of the stuff. Me, well I’m just happy to make them for everyone else, and maybe I might have one or two tomorrow. Some of these are going for gifts, so they’re not all for us, although they do sound delightful.

Well, what else would we be doing on Christmas eve? Tomorrow we will be singing and praising our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, remembering the reason why He came to be born. Kylie from Blog, Blog, Blog has written a beautiful post about Silent Night, and how the Lord was sovereign at His birth, how He is still Lord, now; and how He can be Lord of your life, too.