Friday, August 13, 2010

Borders vouchers!

Including one for 40% off all cookbooks! All valid from Friday 13th to Wednesday 18th of August.

Click here for the link.

Enjoy! Lots of love, Little J

Saturday, August 7, 2010

The joy of making pancakes!

Long time no blog. Yup, life has caught up with me and the last time I blogged was in February... Miss CL was right that I would neglect the blog.. I do have valid excuses study, work and we're building our first home! But I'm back!

The art of saving money requires a bit of imagination and effort with things you want to do in life. This morning it happened to be pancakes. Having a mortgage means forced savings and no longer reaching for the 'shake and mix' packs.

Even though they are about $3-4 each these costs all adds up. It a bit like the stories financial advisers in Marie Clare tell you, if you give up your daily coffee you'll be able to afford a car in ten years time... Eh.. and I couldn't be bothered driving to IGA, which would mean I'd have to change out of my PJs.

My close friends will know that I love to bake and cook but to be honest I haven't made pancakes from scratch since I was young. Miss EC recently asked for my shortbread recipe and I shared with her that I got it from the website 'Joy of Baking'. It's fantastic because similarly to the Australian Women's Weekly recipes they test it out the recipes to makes sure it tastes good.

Whipping out all the ingredients that I had home at already, eggs, butter, flour, sugar.. I thought I really do love I can create meals that others can enjoy by just putting these raw items like these together.

I won't go through the recipe, you can get it by clicking the link here.



It might not look like the recipe makes much, but I halved it and ate half of what I made as I was frying them. Yum!

My tricks for making the pancakes are:
  • When you heat up the pan use the standard tempurature for the fry pan

  • After you make the first pancake on standard tempurature turn the heat down to low, by then your pan would have completely warmed up; if you leave it on standard heat your pancakes will burn before the batter is cooked. The colour should turn golden brown

  • After pouring the batter onto the fry pan and before you decide to turn the pancake make sure most of the air bubbles pop before flipping the pancake over

  • Like the recipe says don't over mix the batter, otherwise it won't turn out soft and fluffy

  • You can change the recipe how you like it for more flavour. For example putting in cinnamon or using brown/raw sugar instead of castor sugar


Only thing missing was maple syrup... should have gone to IGA!

GTG! Lots of love, Little J