monte carlos with cherry jam and salted vanilla icing

monte carlos with cherry jam and salted vanilla icing

27 Apr 2026

Do you remember how every-one would rush to choose their favourite biscuit when a packet of Arnott's Assorted Creams were opened? In the pre Kingston biscuit era most people would reach for a Monte Carlo or a Delta Cream but as I wasn't a coconut fan, my favourite biscuit was the very unpopular Orange Slice. 

There are many recipes online for Monte Carlo biscuits (and almost none for Orange slice) but I thought I'd try Natalie Paull's version, which I found in Delicious magazine, because I just love Natalie's recipes.

I made a small batch of sour cherry jam, the salted vanilla icing and the biscuit dough the day before I made the biscuits. This was probably a good idea because the biscuit dough was very soft, too soft to roll into a log. Rather than freezing the dough, as Natalie suggested, I rested it in the fridge for a few hours and when it was firm, I rolled it into a round log. I was also a bit heavy handed when cutting the biscuits so from my half batch I made 9 biscuits.

My jam was on the runny side, so instead of dolloping spoonfuls of jam onto one of the biscuits, I piped a border of the vanilla icing around the edge of one biscuit and spooned the jam into the centre, then sandwiched the 2 halves together. 

Here's the recipe for you which will make between 18 and 20 filled biscuits. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced, you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Monte Carlos' with cherry jam and salted vanilla icing
Ingredients 
110g cold unsalted butter, chopped
120g raw caster sugar
1 tbs runny honey
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
230g self-raising flour
2/3-cup (50g) shredded coconut
1/2 cup (160g) thick cherry jam (or raspberry) 

Salted vanilla icing
1 2/3 cups (200g) icing sugar mixture
80g unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 tbs milk
1 tsp vanilla bean paste

Method
Heat a small saucepan over high heat until hot, add butter and melt, swirling pan occasionally, for a few minutes, until foaming and nut brown. Transfer to a large bowl and cool slightly. Whisk in sugar, honey, egg and vanilla until smooth. Using a plastic spatula, mix in flour, coconut and 1/4 tsp fine salt until combined. Divide mixture in half. Roll each half in a sheet of baking paper to form two 20cm logs, twisting paper ends to seal and tighten logs. Freeze for 30 minutes, or until firm but still sliceable (see notes).

Preheat oven to 160°C/140°C fan-forced. Grease 2 large baking trays and line with baking paper. Cut 1 cm slices from dough, and then place on prepared trays about an inch apart as the biscuits don't spread much. Gently scratch the top of the biscuit with a fork then bake for 25 minutes on the centre rack or until evenly brown and crisp to touch. Cool on tray for 5 minutes then lift onto a cooling rack to cool to room temperature.

For the icing, place all ingredients and a large pinch of salt flakes in a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat on medium-high speed, scraping down side of bowl occasionally, until fluffy.

To assemble, spread half the cooled biscuits with 1 tsp measures of jam, and spread remaining cooled biscuits with 1 heaped tsp measures of icing. Sandwich the jam and icing topped biscuits together, pressing firmly to secure.

Recipe Notes
These are best eaten on the day they’re assembled, but can be stored in a container in the fridge for up to 1 day. The uncooked dough can be kept chilled in an airtight container for up to 1 week, or frozen for up to 3 months. 

These biscuits looked way prettier than the Monte Carlos of old and tasted way better. Maybe if they'd tasted like these homemade ones, I might have been tempted away from the orange slice.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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anzac pear crunch cake

anzac pear crunch cake

20 Apr 2026

Each year I like to bake something in honour of ANZAC Day but this year ANZAC Day kind of rushed up on me. I needed 2 days to bake what I'd planned and with only 1 day at my disposal I had to pivot. I found this lovely looking Anzac apple crunch cake on the New Zealand Woman's Weekly website and decided to make a pear version.

The cake is made from pantry items, so all I needed to buy were the pears.

I followed the recipe faithfully but came a bit unstuck when I topped the cake with the ANZAC biscuit topping. The cake sank as soon as I took it from the oven, meaning it was underbaked. Next time I'd bake it for a bit longer but I also find cakes made with bicarbonate of soda as the rising agent often sink so I'd ditch the bicarb soda and just use self raising flour instead.

Here's the recipe for you adapted from here, which makes a 17-cm cake. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced, you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C. If you'd like to make a larger cake, refer to the linked recipe which makes a 21-cm cake.

Anzac pear crunch cake

Ingredients

115g unsalted room temperature butter

½ cup (125g) caster sugar

¼ cup (50g) brown sugar 
2 tsp finely grated lemon rind
1 egg
1 cup (150g) plain flour

½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp bicarb soda
¼ tsp mixed spice
½ tsp ground ginger
pinch sea salt flakes
1 apple or pear, peeled and diced
30mls milk

Topping
25g unsalted butter
40mls/g golden syrup
1 tbs (20mls) milk
⅓ cup (40g) rolled oats
⅓ cup (25g) shredded coconut
pinch sea salt flakes

Method
Preheat the oven to 175°C, conventional. Grease and line the base of a 17-cm round cake tin with baking paper.

Using an electric beater, cream the butter, sugars and lemon rind for 6-8 minutes or until pale and fluffy. Add the egg and beat until incorporated.

Sift over the flour, baking powder, bicarb soda, spices and the salt, then fold together with the diced pear or apple and milk. Spoon into the cake tin and smooth the top. 

Bake for 40 minutes at 175°C, conventional. While the cake is in the oven, combine the butter, golden syrup and milk in a small pan and heat until the butter has melted. Place the oats, coconut, salt in a small bowl, pour over the butter mixture, and mix to combine. Take the cake from the oven and quickly spoon the topping over the par-cooked cake and return it to the oven. (The cake sank when I took it out of the oven at the 40 minute mark so I would increase the bake time to 50 minutes).

Bake for a further 15-20 minutes or until the cake is cooked in the centre when tested with a skewer and the topping is golden. Place on a wire rack to cool before unmoulding.

While it may not have been a perfect bake, you just knew that the cake was going to be delicious. Just a note that the cake isn't particularly sweet. If you'd like a sweeter cake, you could increase the sugar to a full cup.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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apricot slice and a kitchen mystery

apricot slice and a kitchen mystery

13 Apr 2026

I've been away for the past week, staying at Farmer Andrew's house in Dungog. As I was in the country, I thought it only fitting to bake something deliciously old fashioned like this Apricot Slice. At it's heart is a simple butter cake, flavoured with vanilla then topped with apricot halves and a dusting of sugar. The original recipe comes from Bill's Open Kitchen by the one and only Bill Granger, who sadly passed away a few years ago. There are some lovely recipes in the book and its probably time to revisit some more of them.

Apricot season has come and gone in Sydney so I used bottled apricot halves and  added some finely grated lemon rind to the batter to replace some of the lost zing. The original recipe was a mix it all in batter but as I didn't have a stand mixer, I went the old fashioned route of creaming the butter and sugar before adding the eggs and flour. The baking powder had expired so instead of all plain flour I used a combination of self raising and plain flour instead. I'd not used Farmer Andrew's new oven before and as he was away and I couldn't locate the manual, I just twiddled the dials and hoped for the best.

Here's the recipe for you which was adapted from a recipe from Bill's Open Kitchen. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced, you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Apricot slice – makes 9 slices
Ingredients
150g unsalted butter, softened

125g caster sugar

1½ tsp vanilla extract
finely grated rind 1 lemon

2 eggs
¾ cup (110g) SR flour

¼ cup (40g) plain flour 

a pinch of salt

60 ml (¼ cup) milk
8-10 apricots, pitted and halved (this may vary depending on the size of the apricots). If fresh apricots are out of season you can use tinned or bottled apricots
3 tsp caster sugar, extra

Method
Preheat the oven to 160°C, conventional. Grease and line a 7 x 11 inch slice tin with baking paper.

Cream the butter, sugar, vanilla extract and lemon rind in a medium bowl until light and fluffy. Add in the room temperature eggs one at a time until combined. Sift the flour and salt and add the flour to the batter in 2 batches alternating with the milk to form a smooth batter. Spread the mixture evenly into the slice tin.

Push the apricot halves, cut side up, evenly into the cake mixture into 5 or 6 rows of 3. Place in the oven and bake for 20 minutes, sprinkle over extra sugar and cook for another 20 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. 

When cool, cut into fingers to make 9 slices.

I cut and photographed the slice and when I returned to put the cooled cake into the cake tin, the cut slice you see here had disappeared.

I'd not eaten the slice and as only the dog and I were in the house at the time, I asked Mavis if she knew what had happened. Mavis assured me that she'd not eaten it, and as she's a pretty honest girl, (and she was quietly snoring on my bed when the slice was snaffled) I believed her. I cut myself a piece of the slice and it was so delicious I can't really blame the cake thief.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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upside down fig and mascarpone cake

upside down fig and mascarpone cake

6 Apr 2026

Sometimes my fridge is filled with bits and pieces that need to be used in a hurry. I had some mascarpone that was close to it's expiry date and in the freezer were the leftover figs from the fig galette I made a few weeks ago. I hunted through my recipe books for a recipe that used both ingredients.

I found a lovely recipe for a fig and mascarpone cake in Skye McAlpine's book, A Table in Venice. I was going to top the cake with fig slices until I found a few other recipes online that topped the cake with figs flavoured with Marsala. That sounded like a good idea to me so I decided to combine the two recipes and came up with this upside down fig cake.

Here's the recipe for you that makes a 17 cm cake. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced, you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Upside down fig and mascarpone cake – adapted from a recipe from A Table in Venice by Skye McAlpine and a recipe from Olive magazine.

Marsala figs

6 figs halved lengthways or quartered depending on the size of the figs.

2 tbs caster sugar

45 mls Marsala

Cake

125g room temperature mascarpone

100g caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 room temperature eggs

125g self-raising flour

½ tsp baking powder

a good pinch of sea salt

4-6 fresh figs, stems removed, chopped into chunks

Method

Heat the oven to 180°C, conventional. Grease and line a 17-cm cake tin with baking paper. If using a springform tin, wrap the base with foil to prevent any leaks.

Put the halved figs into a bowl with 1 tbs of the caster sugar and the Marsala, and toss well. Set aside for 15 minutes.

In a large bowl, beat the mascarpone, sugar and vanilla together until creamy then add the eggs and mix until well combined. Sift in the flour, baking powder and salt and stir until well combined. Gently stir in the fig pieces.

Scatter the bottom of the tin with the remaining caster sugar and then arrange the fig halves, cut-side down. Carefully spoon the batter into the prepared tin and place the tin on a baking tray on the middle shelf of the oven, to catch any drips. 

Bake for 1 hour or until golden, risen and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. The cake is quite delicate, so cool the cake in the tin for 10-15 minutes, before turning out onto a wire rack. 

Pour over any remaining marsala syrup and leave to cool before cutting into slices. I served my slice with a dollop of double cream.

The marsala figs are genius but I wasn't sold on the texture of the cake. I think I'll revisit the recipe using a tried and true butter cake batter for the base, so watch this space.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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chocolate hot cross buns

chocolate hot cross buns

30 Mar 2026

I am a traditionalist when it comes to hot cross buns. I only eat them at Easter time and I'm definitely a dried fruit hot cross bun girl. However my next door neighbour does not eat fruit in any form so I decided to step outside my comfort zone to bake some chocolate hot cross buns.

Who else to turn to for my recipe other than the baking goddess herself, Natalie Paull. Last year when her chocolate hot cross buns recipe appeared in Delicious magazine I made a batch which were declared delicious, so this year I made another batch.

You'll need to begin the recipe a day ahead and you’ll need a piping bag or a small zip-lock bag for the cross. Although these are best eaten the day they're baked, the buns are still good the next day.

Here's the recipe for you which makes 8 buns, adapted from here. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Natalie Paul Chocolate hot cross buns - makes 8
Ingredients
1½ tbs dark cocoa powder
1¼ tbs milk, boiled
1 small orange
100ml water, tepid
1 tsp instant dried yeast
35g light brown sugar
300g strong (baker’s) flour
3 tsp mixed spice powder
45g unsalted butter, chilled, chopped
Cooking oil spray, to grease
160g dark (70%) chocolate, chopped (I used 125g)

Glaze
50g caster sugar
2 tsp golden syrup
½ vanilla bean, split, seeds scraped (substitute 1 tsp vanilla-bean paste)
Finely grated zest of 1 orange

Cross
¼ cup (35g) plain flour
¼ cup (25g) dark cocoa powder
1 tsp icing sugar mixture
2 tsp vegetable oil

Method
Mix cocoa powder and boiled milk in a small bowl until a thick rough paste forms. Trim and discard the stem ends of the orange, then roughly chop the trimmed orange and puree in a food processor until almost smooth. Set aside 100g of orange puree.

Pour tepid water into the bowl of a stand mixer. Add yeast, 10g brown sugar and 100g flour.  Whisk by hand until a smooth paste. Place remaining flour and brown sugar on top, then add orange puree, spices, 1 tsp fine salt, chilled butter and the cocoa paste. Stand for 30 minutes.

Attach dough hook to mixer and knead on low for 15 minutes. Add chocolate and knead for a further 5 minutes. It should be soft, smooth and not wet – add 1-2 tbs more flour if it is. Scrape into a plastic tub or large bowl lightly sprayed with cooking oil spray. Rest at room temperature for 40 minutes, or until puffed. Lift dough up by one side and shake to lengthen. Fold dough over on itself and place back in the tub. Turn dough 90⁰ and repeat the shake and fold – this activates the gluten in the dough. Press plastic wrap on top, cover and chill overnight.

The next morning, place the chilled dough onto a lightly floured surface. Portion into 8 x 100g portions. Roll each into a tight ball and place in a 2 x 3 formation, with the extra two on the side, on a shallow baking tray lined with baking paper. Cover lightly with plastic wrap and leave to prove in a warm place for 1 hour, or until puffed, almost touching and bounces back lazily when poked lightly.

Meanwhile, for the glaze, place all ingredients with 1½ tbs water in a small saucepan and place over high heat. Bring to the boil, reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 2-3 minutes, until slightly thickened and syrupy. Set aside to cool.

For the cross, place all ingredients in a medium bowl with ¼ cup (60ml) water and ¼ tsp fine salt. Whisk until combined and smooth, adding more water if the paste is too thick to pipe. Transfer cross paste to a piping bag and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 210°C/190°C fan-forced. Cut a 5mm tip off the piping bag and pipe crosses over the top of buns. Bake for 10 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 190°C and bake for another 10 minutes or until firm and bouncy when pressed. Remove the buns from the oven and brush with glaze. Cool on a wire rack for 20 minutes before serving.

Recipe Notes: adjust the cross mixture with 1-2 tsp extra water if it’s too thick or stiff to pipe. You’ll have more paste than you need, but the exact amount would be hard to pipe easily. Another way of checking buns are cooked is using a kitchen thermometer. The internal temperature will be 90⁰C.

Although these are best eaten the day they're baked, the buns are still good the next day and the butter is not negotiable.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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passover week 2026 - strawberry and cream sponge cake

passover week 2026 - strawberry and cream sponge cake

27 Mar 2026

Just because it's Passover doesn't mean we can't enjoy a strawberry and cream sponge cake. Whilst I couldn't replicate Nadine Ingram's Little Queenie cake that I recently made, I managed to make something similar.

As I don't use raising agents during Passover I used the brown butter sponge cake recipe I developed last year from a Natalie Paull recipe. I knew I wouldn't be able to get my hands on Passover versions of the dairy products needed for the filling so I used lightly sweetened whipped cream instead.

Cardamom isn't kosher for Passover but all the other spices in the compote are, so I just removed the cardamom pods you can see here from the roasted strawberry compote. 

Here's the recipe for you which makes a 20-cm layer cake. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Passover strawberry and cream sponge cake 

To decorate

1 fresh egg white 
8 mint sprigs, picked
50g caster sugar
125g strawberries, hulled
1 tsp pink peppercorns, cracked
6 dried hibiscus petals

 
Sponge cake 
30g superfine matzo meal 
70g potato starch 
pinch salt
135g caster sugar
4 eggs
80g unsalted butter
1 vanilla bean, seeds scraped

 
Strawberry compote
1 tbs dried mint 
½ tsp pink peppercorns, crushed
100g caster sugar
1 lemons, zested
4 dried hibiscus petals
1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped
400g ripe strawberries, hulled

Filling
500g pure cream
60g caster sugar
1 tsp Passover vanilla extract

To decorate
Preheat the oven to 50°C. Line a baking tray with baking paper. Alternatively, if you have a dehydrator, the fruit can be dried easier and it will retain its colour better. You can also substitute whole freeze-dried strawberries, which you can slice thinly with a paring knife, but these can be costly and hard to find.

Lightly whisk the egg white, then brush the mint sprigs with a little egg white on both sides. Toss the leaves in the caster sugar, then place onto the prepared tray or dehydrator shelf. 

Slice the strawberries into 2 mm-thick slices and place them on the tray with the  mint, then sprinkle on both sides with cracked pink peppercorns. Place the tray in the oven for 4-6 hours or in the dehydrator on 60°C for 10 hours. If having the oven on for that long isn't practical for you, the mint will dry on its own overnight in the open air. The strawberries can't really be dried any other way, so you will need to omit them from the recipe.

Cake
Pre-heat the oven to 180°C, grease and line two 20-cm tins with baking paper then dust with potato starch. 

Combine the matzo meal, potato starch and salt together, then sift onto a piece of greaseproof paper.

Over a pot of barely simmering water, heat the sugar and the eggs in the mixer bowl until they are hot to the touch. Pop the mixer bowl onto a stand mixer or use an electric hand whisk and whisk for 8 minutes on a medium/high speed until the egg mix is pale, fluffy and can hold a peak. While this is whisking, brown the butter. Heat the butter in a saucepan over a low heat until the butter starts to turn a toasty brown. Remove from heat, add vanilla seeds and set aside.

Gently scrape the egg mix into a wide, large-ish mixing bowl. Sift over half the Passover baking mix/salt mix and gently fold in with a whisk, turning the mix over while spinning the bowl slowly. Fold in the remaining sifted Passover baking mix until it has been fully incorporated. Slowly pour in the warm melted butter mix and fold in. Scrape the mix into the prepared tins and smooth the tops a little.

Pop the tins into the oven and bake until lightly bouncy in the centre and golden brown, about 20-25 minutes. I usually rotate the tins midway through the baking process. Immediately turn the cakes out onto a tea towel covered rack, remove the baking paper then invert. Let cool completely. 

Strawberry compote
Locate a deep baking tray in preparation for roasting the strawberries. While the sponges are cooling, combine the mint and peppercorns together in a bowl. I find the most effective way to do this is in a spice grinder, but you could also use a pestle and mortar. Add this to the sugar along with the lemon zest, hibiscus petals and the seeds from the vanilla bean. Toss the strawberries in a large bowl with the sugar mixture and spread evenly over the base of the baking tray. Add the scraped vanilla bean and roast in the oven for 20 minutes, giving the tray a little shake halfway through to distribute the syrup. Remove the strawberries from the oven and allow to cool in the tray.

Filling
Place all the ingredients into a large bowl. Use an electric hand beater and mix everything together to combine. Whip until the cream is thick and fluffy. Set to one side.

To assemble
Place one sponge onto your chosen serving platter, drizzle with some of the reserved strawberry syrup then spread half the filling evenly over the top of the sponge all the way to the edges, or use a piping bag fitted with a #11 plain nozzle. 

Press half the strawberries from the compote into the surface of the filling bearing in mind that when you put the other sponge on top, the strawberries shouldn't protrude too high and prevent the sponge from sitting flat. Spoon some of the roasting syrup over the strawberries and trickle a little over the sides. Place the second sponge on top, then spread the sponge with the remaining filling and remaining strawberries. Add the dried strawberries, hibiscus petals and mint, then finish with a few twists of cracked pink peppercorns, if you haven't dried your own strawberries.

I took the cake with me to share with friends, hence no cut slice photo, and it was a big hit. It was absolutely delicious and every-one went back for seconds including the 6 year old twinnies. Success!

That was my lost post for Passover Week 2026 and I hope you enjoyed my bakes.

See you all again next week.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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