Family Recipe Friday - Mum's Golden Syrup Dumplings

Steaming, light fluffy golden balls, covered with a thick golden caramely sauce!!!!  With a dollop of cream or ice cream!!  YUM   Golden Syrup Dumplings have been a family favourite through many generations of Australian families.  This simple economic recipe provided a tasty dessert for many families.  I have found copies of the recipe Australian newspapers dating back as far as the late 1890’s. 

Golden Syrup which is a by-product of sugar has been a favourite in the Australian Kitchen for many years. With a little research on Trove, I found recipes dating back to the end of the 1800's.  In a previous Friday Recipe blog, I wrote about Anzac Biscuits, and the importance of golden syrup for this recipe.  Again, the sticky sweetness of Golden syrup is the vital ingredient of our golden syrup dumplings.

Launceston Examiner 13 November 1893

Golden Syrup Dumplings were a favourite winter dessert in our household when I was young, and I in turn made it for my children.  This is recipe is from my mother’s book, and she informs me that it the same recipe that her mother used.  It may not be the best for your waist line but every now and then, on a cold winter night, it is sure to be a hit with whoever you serve it to.

 Here is Mum's Golden Syrup Dumpling Recipe.  I am sure it will continue to be passed on through the generations of my family.

Family Recipe Friday - Dad's Recipe for Ginger Beer

As a small child I remember my dad, growing his ginger beer plant in a jar on top of our fridge.  Every day he would religiously feed the plant with dry ginger and sugar until it was time to brew the ginger beer.   Then when I had a young family, I decided to try the recipe as well.  Dad gave me this typed out sheet of instructions, and lots of useful advice on how to brew the ginger beer.  It became a favorite in the summer months amongst my family and friends.  Very refreshing! 


Ginger Beer Plant

Put in screw top jar 8 sultanas, juice of 2 lemons, 1 teaspoon of lemon pulp, 4 teaspoons sugar, 2 teaspoons ground ginger and 2 cups of cold water.  Leave 2 to 3 days.

Then each day for 1 week add 2 teaspoons G. Ginger and 4 teaspoons sugar.

To make Ginger Beer

Pour 4 cups boiling water over 4 cups sugar and stir till dissolved.  Add juice of 4 lemons.  Strain into this the Ginger beer plant using a piece of muslin and squeeze dry.  Add 11 pints cold water.  Fill airtight bottles and keep 3 days before using.

To keep plant alive halve residue in muslin and place back in jar with 2 cups of water for 1 week.  then feed with 2 teaspoons G. Ginger and 4 teaspoons sugar as before.

Family Recipe Friday - Recipes from the Past

I would like to share some recipes from a very very old recipe book that was given to me when I was visiting a great aunt in my teens. I  think my Aunt was so amazed that a teenage girl would be interested in the old book that she gave it to me for safe keeping.  The book, which had been passed down through the family was old and battered and without its cover. It is called Cassell's New Universal Cookery Book, by Lizzie Heritage (Holder of First-Class diplomas in Cookery and Domestic Economy), and was published by Cassell and Company, Ltd in 1896.

It is worth noting a small part of the preface, which starts:

"The great development of intercourse between different nations, considerable advances in the methods of preparing and serving food, and the modern tendency to examine into the principles and foundations of things, have not only brought about a large increase of books upon cookery, but perceptible changes in their character.  Of these developments, the present work is an example.

To the first cause we owe in that the art of cooking has now become to a large extend cosmopolitan.  Differences in local products and climates will always maintain, to some extend, national "schools" of Cookery.  but as much of the French cuisine has long become the common property of civilisation, so an intelligent cook is now expected to know something of the best dishes from the German, Italian, Indian, and American schools, and does not disdain contributions from even more distant fields. It has been said, with truth, that "the most scientific chef who ever served up a Parisian banquet could probably learn something new from the ignorant savage, who chews strange herbs to help him to digest the meat which his intellect has not sufficiently expanded to enable him to cook." Modern Cookery draws both viands and methods from all countries." 

Wow!! You have to take a step back and remember this was written in the 1890's. 

Today, keeping with the International theme of the preface I have chosen to share with you a recipe from the book is:

American Cheese Salad

Required:  shrimps, cheese, oil, seasoning, and garnish as below.  Cost, about one shilling.

This is also known as mock crab.  Put a quarter of a pound of sliced or grated cheese in a mortar, add a tablespoonful and a half of oil or cream, and a scant teaspoonful of mustard, the same of white pepper, salt as required - the cheese regulates the amount - and a pinch of grated nutmeg, with cayenne to taste.  Half a pint of chopped shrimps and a squeeze of lemon juice are added last.  Serve in the shell of a crab, should one be handy; or in scallop shells, and garnish with cress and celery.  the mixture is sometimes put in the centre of a bed of salad on a flat dish.

A simple and delicious dish from the past.