Chloe's Caramel Fudge - Thermomix

A couple of years ago I came across Chloe from NZ on IG and she posted this fabulous caramel fudge recipe and I have been making it on special occasions ever since.  I can't believe I haven't ever written out the recipe for my blog before so I can easily refer back to it.  This is a Thermomix recipe and the fudge melts in your mouth.  I made a batch for my lovely neighbours.

INGREDIENTS

• 200gms White Chocolate Melts
• 125gms Butter
• 2 Tablespoons Golden Syrup
• 220gms Soft Brown Sugar
• 395gms Sweetened Condensed Milk

METHOD

Line a 28cm x 18cm slice tray with baking paper, leaving some overhanging when fudge is set.

Place chocolate in Thermomix bowl and chop 5 sec/speed 7. 

Transfer into a bowl and set aside until needed.

Place condensed milk, butter, golden syrup and brown sugar into the mixing bowl and cook
8 mins/100 deg/speed 3.

Scrape down the sides of the bowl with spatula and cook a further 20 mins Varoma/speed 3.

Add chopped chocolate and mix 10 sec/speed 4 (or until mixture is smooth)

Immediately transfer fudge into prepared tray and smooth surface.

Leave the fudge on the bench overnight to set before cutting into pieces.

Belgian Chocolate Slice - A Christmas Tradition

Every Christmas I make Belgian Chocolate Slice which believe it or not the recipe was was a tear out page from a 1992 magazine which was a promotion for Glad Bake [parchment paper].

When I first started making this slice I didn't even own a mix master and would put the biscuits in a brown paper bag and try and roll a bottle over the top to crush them.  Fast forward to 2024 and the Thermomix takes about 2 seconds to crush the packet of chocolate biscuits.  It's a family tradition that I make this every year and all of my family look forward to eating it too.

It should have a place on the blog so here is the recipe.

BELGIAN CHOCOLATE SLICE

INGREDIENTS

50gms Unsalted Butter

100gms Dark Cooking Chocolate

1 Egg beaten

250gms Arnott's Choc Ripple Biscuits

75gms Mixed Dried Fruit [or you can just use sultanas]

75gms Glace Cherries

75gms Chopped Nuts

150gms Dark Cooking Chocolate Melted [for the top]

METHOD

Line a Slice tray with glad bake [parchment paper].

In a bowl put the biscuit crumbs, dried fruit, cherries and nuts and give it a stir.

Melt butter and 100gms dark chocolate in a saucepan. [I melt it in the microwave about 45 seconds and then see how you go in 15 second spurts.

Once the butter & chocolate are melted stir in beaten egg and pour into the bowl that has the biscuit crumbs, dried fruit, cherries and nuts.

Spoon mixture into tin and press down firmly, smoothing over the surface.

Refrigerate until chilled.

Melt 150gms dark cooking chocolate and pour over slice.

Refrigerate to set.

Cut into small squares and serve.

Around here - Christmas Season

It has been raining in Brisbane the last few days and would you believe it Term 4 of Tennis was 11 weeks on a Tuesday night and 5 Tuesdays of the 11 it rained.  Term 3 was 10 weeks however I only enrolled on the second week and it only rained on the last night.  The grass is growing so fast due to summer heat and the rain a couple days after it's done it looks like it hasn't even been mowed.

Last week I went to QBE and bought a beautiful cookbook of a person who I follow on IG.  She is Turkish and lives in the USA and started a IG account and posted her cooking videos and has grown a huge following to over 10 Million people which has lead to her first cookbook.  I can say the quality, style, photography, textured linen feel cover is absolutely beautiful. She also has a Youtube Channel.

The tips, the layout and instructions and all the recipes are beautiful.  I love hearing about her story and how she got here.  The first thing I'm making is a long fermented pizza dough.  Mix together on a Tuesday night pop it in the fridge until Friday night.  It's called Schiacciata which is a bread/pizza dough recipe and I'm looking forward to cooking this in my pizza oven.  The photo above and below are from the book, not my photos or cooking yet.

For our Christmas table this year I'm going to turn our napkins into little Christmas Trees so I've ordered a click and collect from Kmart for the Napkins.  See Beth from Baby Mac Blog's post from last year where I got the idea from.  I wanted to do this last year however the napkins all sold out and I'm still waiting on my order to be fulfilled at the moment so hopefully they are in stock.

Here's a few Christmas photos from the archives.

Around here - Christmas Season

Here we are just a few weeks away from another Christmas.  This year is the first year in 16 years I didn't have the end of year mad rush with school events and concerts.  So far I've got all the Christmas presents for one kid for Christmas and nothing yet for the other.  I want to give presents that they actually want so it's a little hard when one of them doesn't know what that is.  There's still time to work this out and I'm sure it will get sorted in time.

My son turned 21 last week, how does that happen, wasn't it only yesterday I gave birth to him.  Time moves so quickly the older you get.  I'm so proud of both of my kids out in the world doing their thing, saving up, travelling, they are both amazing cooks and meal prepping their lunches for work.  I'm very proud of them and also the values I've instilled in them is shining through.  I'm also so proud of myself as a single Mum and raising them on the smell of an oily rag and how they have grown into such confident young adults.

I bought myself a new Breville Coffee Machine during the Black Friday sales and it's a bit of a learning curve from my Nespresso Pod machine.  Getting the right grind and timing of the pour but it's been a fun thing to learn.  My son got a fancy coffee grinder for his 21st and little coffee scales from a local coffee place that I took him too a couple of weeks ago so he's right into the perfect expresso as well.

I also bought myself two new bedside table lamps from Freedom as the ones I bought over 13 years ago were old and I had snapped one of them at the top of the lamp.  I love my new lamps and the textured base and it really makes the bedroom.  The picture below is from the Freedom website, not my room but this is my beautiful lamp.

My veggie gardens are full of weeds at the moment so I need to get stuck into that on the weekend.  I mowed the lawn last night after all the rain we had so it was quite long.  It always looks great but I don't enjoy mowing the lawn anymore.  Ten years ago it was no problem but I'm not that cardio fit so it's an effort.  I've been doing weights at the gym for the past 4 months and I'm loving getting stronger but my cardio fitness needs a lot of work so I find mowing an effort.

Teddy is loving going to the dog park every morning and is besties with another dog called Teddy and they run and chase each other all over the dog park which is great because he comes home he's tired and ready for a big nap so I can get on with things for the day.

I have so many lovely Christmas photos over the years as every December I participated in Ali Edward's Photo project called "December Daily".  Thought I would share a few of my favourites below.

Hope you are having a relaxing lead up to Christmas and it's not so crazy.