Amaretti

Preparation Time: 10 minutes approx
Makes around 15-20 small ones

2 egg whites
pinch of cream of tartar
drop of almond essence
1 cup almond meal
1/3 cup caster sugar
2 tablespoons of plain flour
blanched almonds to top each

Rub butter on a flat oven tray or you can use grease proof paper.

Preheat the oven to around 150 degrees fan forced.

Place egg whites and the cream of tartar into a mixing bowl and beat with electric mixer until soft peaks form.  Then add almond essence while beating and then the sugar.  Keep beating until its glossy and kind of thick.

Gently fold in the almond flour and the plain flour and stir until combined.  Spoon into a piping kit with a star nozzle.  Pipe the rounds to what size you like spacing them about 3cm apart.  Top each with one blanched almond.  Bake for around 20 minutes or until lightly golden in colour.  Transfer them when cooked to wire racks to cool then you can keep these in airtight containers for up to two weeks.

Carrot Cake with Macadamias

Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking Time: 30 minutes

Use a square baking tin lined with baking paper

3 eggs
1/2 cup of quality olive oil
1 1/4 cups of brown sugar (soft)
1 cup of self raising flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon of bi carb soda
pinch of salt
1.4 of a cup of quartered macadamias
1 cup grated carrot


Icing:

125g cream cheese softened
1 cup icing sugar
2 teaspoons orange juice
some spare ground macadamias for garnishing the icing


Preheat oven to 170 degrees fan forced.  Grease the baking tin with paper with a little butter/oil.

Combine the eggs, oil, brown sugar in a large bowl.  Add sifted flour, cinnamon, bi carb, pinch of salt and beat with a mixer until combined and smooth.  Add nuts and carrot and stir well.

Pour this mixture into the tin and bake for approx 30 minutes or until skewer comes out with no wet cake on it.  Leave cake for approx 30 minutes on cake cooler.  Make the cream cheese frosting by placing cream cheese, icing sugar, orange juice in a bowl and mixing until spreadable.  Spread over cooled cake and place some grated macadamias on the top.