English Cake

English Cake
The Haviv family often offer English Cake (Gateaux Anglais) with coffee in the afternoon. It is quite dry, which is good with coffee, but originally didn’t appeal to me. In New Zealand cakes tend to be more moist. Like most of Robert’s recipes this was a bit loose and it took a couple of years ...

Bread Pudding

Lunch at Gadi and Yaffa Wainer’s is always a high light of my trips to Israeli. Yaffa always serves up something fab. One of her favourites is bread pudding … and she does it really well. Perhaps it is the challa which, being a sweet bread, I usually find rather uninspiring. But in a pudding ...

Danish Gingerbread

Danish Gingerbread
Kath Wattam – a Kiwi friend who lives in Copenhagen – introduced me to Danish ginger cookies. Apparently they’re a Christmas treat. I love them so tried making my own. Makes about 80 cookies.  Danish Gingerbread Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Eti’s Kids Chocolate Cake

Most mums have a chocolate cake to serve up to the kids. This is Eti’s. Eti Wainer-Iluz Eti's Kids Chocolate Cake Print Recipe

Krantz – Plaited Yeast Cake

Krantz - Plaited Yeast Cake
Galit loves Krantz – a plaited a yeast cake with layers of chocolate or poppy seed spread. Apparently the chocolate variety is German in origin, but the poppy seed variation is middle eastern. I’ve tweaked my original recipe to use the proportions recommended by Yaffa Wainer in honour of the fact that Galit still remembers ...

Chocolate Brownies

One time Davina came to visit and mentioned her chocolate brownies. So after she got home I asked for the recipe. Davina, being American, shipped me two packets of ready made brownie mix. I’m not really a ready mix kind of guy so I made my own recipe. Steven Thomas Chocolate Brownies Print Recipe

Fresh Fruit Cake

Fresh Fruit Cake
Unlike the dried fruit cake recipes common in New Zealand, this cake has a wet mixture. Our recipe is based on one from an Israeli book, although we had to reduce the quantities significantly to fit in our 20 cm x 20 cm cake tin.  Galit Haviv-Thomas Fresh Fruit Cake Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Sweet Toppings for Pancakes

I almost always serve Hotcakes, Pikelets, Scotch Pancakes and Crepes with a sweet topping of some kind. Lemon and sugar is the classic topping for crepes and large pancakes. As a child I remember assembling them at the table; we sprinkled our own sugar, squeezed over the lemon juice by hand, rolled them up, and ...

Chocolate Nut Tart (Crostata di cioccolata con nocciote)

This tart is divine and really impresses when I have to bring a dessert to a function.  Chocolate Nut Tart (Crostata di cioccolata con nocciote) Print Recipe

Forrest’s Mega Muffins

Forrest has a nice way of just sloshing in the ingredients. The result is more like a Cup cake or Queen cake than a normal Muffin, but still very good. Forrest Chambers Forrest's Mega Muffins Print Recipe