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Satay peanut sauce
1 cup chunky peanut butter 1/2 cup very hot water 1/2 cup packed brown sugar 1/3 cup lime juice 1/4 cup soy sauce 2 tablespoons sesame oil 2 tablespoons chili/garlic paste 6 cloves garlic, peeled & minced 3 scallions, chopped finely 1/4 cup chopped cilantro The most difficult ingredient to find is likely to be…
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Cinnamon rolls
Cinnamon rolls are delicious, but a little bit time consuming to make. It is well worth the effort, though, especially when you get your littles involved in making them! 1/2 cup milk (120ml) 1/2 cup water (120ml) 1 egg 3 cups all purpose flour (375g) 1 teaspoon salt 4 tablespoons butter 1/3 cup sugar (65g)…
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Water icing
Water icing is simple and cheap to make. It’s also super flexible, suitable for many sweet treats! 1 cup powdered sugar 2 – 3 tbsp hot water a few drops vanilla (optional) lemon juice (optional) other flavourings as appropriate for your recipe Sift the sugar into a bowl. Decide what optional flavourings you are going…
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Shortening substitute
I am trying to replace all the “weird” ingredients in my cooking with more natural ingredients. Shortening has been a particularly difficult one to substitute, as it has certain properties that no other cooking fat has. One suggestion I read was to try substituting clarified butter. In a spirit of scientific enquiry, I tried it…
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Kitchen scales
I know that most American cooks use volume measurements in their cooking, but a set of dual-unit (lbs and kg) kitchen scales allow more precision and more repeatability in your cooking. Just now, on Amazon.com, there are sets of digital scales from $7 to well over $200. Most of these scales are well rated by…
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Cake Flour substitute
Cake flour makes the best cakes; light, delicate, delicious. It is also expensive and can be difficult to find. So let’s substitute it! 3.5 cups All Purpose (plain) flour 0.5 cups corn starch Put the ingredients in a container with a firmly fitting lid, and shake well to combine. (Pretend you’re playing the maracas…) Use…
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Pancake syrup
Based on my experiments with treacle and dark treacle, I decided to take on pancake syrup. With genuine maple syrup being quite expensive, and commercial pancake syrups being mainly high fructose corn syrup, I wanted something with ingredients I have in my pantry. One problem with the cheater pancake syrups on sites like Allrecipes is…