Pumpkin Coffee and Pumpkin Spice Milanos

Yessss more pumpkin! I warned you it's this time of year again so there will be heaps of pumpkin stuff on this blog. I purchased pumpkin spice milanos a couple of weeks ago because I was super curious. Unfortunately, they didn't live up to my expectations, they were dry and the pumpkin chocolate flavor didn't mesh as well as I wanted. Also I think I'm completely spoiled for biscuits (packaged cookies) now because of Tim Tams. 

Anyway, I had also fought this pumpkin spice coffee from World Market. THIS MIGHT BE MY FAVORITE THING FROM WM TO DATE. This coffee is fantastic, and is now my new favorite blend. I basically have gotten used to drinking coffee black, though I still prefer it with a splash of skim milk. So when I want coffee in the morning brewed at the apartment, I'll just suck it up and have it black. But this coffee is different. It has just the slightest hint of pumpkin flavor at the beginning of the sip, as well as in the after taste. This makes it go down very easily and cuts the bitterness of the beans. I LOVE THIS COFFEE SO SO MUCH, I'm actually considering stocking up on it so I have it for the off season (It's only sold from September to November). 

So I have my amazing coffee, and I had all of these pumpkin milanos… and I thought to myself that the milanos could be vastly improved by dipping them in my coffee. I was spot on. The coffee stopped them from being dry (duh) and the pumpkin in the coffee brought out the pumpkin flavor in the cookies better. A good solution in how to use my milanos, and an excellent pumpkiny breakfast!

Bundaberg in STL?!

So Bundaberg Ginger Beer is an Aussie Staple (one I never actually did a blog post about). I generally don't like soda, but I actually do enjoy Bundaberg (especially as a mixer), since it is sweeter than typical American ginger beer, and it also comes with a sweet pull top! I wasn't something that I drank a lot in Australia, but it was such a comforting site to find in in St. Louis!!!! There is a soda and candy shop, called Soda Fizz that opened up on the loop this summer. One of my friends took me there when I got back and I scoured the store until I found this treasure! Since returning to the states I've been frantically searching to see if I can find any Aussie staples around. So far I have found that "Arnnett's Biscuits" (aka snooty american Tim Tams) can be purchased at World Market. Violet Crumble can be found there too. There is a new specialty grocery store on the Loop that sells tins of Milo and jars of vegemite. And Soda Fizz sells Bundaberg. I have not been able to find Boost chocolate bars :,(, Just Right Ceral, or Aussie Strongbow Cider anywhere. 

It's funny how seeing Aussie brands and foods has become a very comforting sight. I've made myself vegemite on toast/cheddarmite sandwiches about once a week since returning to St. Louis, and I've already run through one of my two boxes of Just Right, much to my dismay. As Australia starts to feel farther away, seeing these little things make feel sadly nostalgic. On the flip side, seeing an Aussie food item in a store brings happy memories and stories to the forefront of my mind. I've shared these stories with friends to explain my enthusiasm for these little things, and doing so makes me feel a lot closer to being back Down Under!

Homemade High Tea

One of the fun food things in Australia is that like England, they have a tea time/afternoon snack culture. Now, this isn't really as prevalent as it is in Britain, but it made me start thinking about High Tea. And this lead me to he idea of making a fancy high tea once I got home. And naturally, this sort of genius had to be shared with my baker of a sister. So we resolved to make ourselves a fancy homemade high tea when I got back to Chicago. For those of you that don't know, High Tea is a multi-course afternoon meal, usually consisting of finger sandwiches, pastries, and scones. My sister and I carefully planned out our tea, bought the ingredients, and spent an entire day preparing this meal. It was an ambitious endeavor, but really it turned out wonderfully. We even had menus (below). 

We had this wonderful fancy chocolate rose tea that my sister had gotten in London. We tried to make some fun tea treats to go along with it. We basically divided and conquered the cooking, but I had a couple of minor difficulties so my sister ended up helping me out some, especially with making things look nice. Our first course was a platter of fruit salads, which we decided to call the amuse bouche. I rolled cantaloupe balls in procuitto (yes it's a meat, but it's the only part of this meal that is), the saltiness of the procuitto and the sweetness of the melon go amazingly together. I also this crazy watermelon/feta salad. I constructed a cube of rectangular pieces and then garnished it with mint. It didn't turn out quite was pretty as I hoped for, but it tasted amazing. The winner of this salad was the mint, it brought out the freshness of both the fruit and the cheese. Can't wait to make this one again (though maybe not in cube form).

Our second course was the savory finger sandwiches and deviled eggs! This was fun to make because we got to choose what flavors we wanted to use. I ended up making 4 types of sandwich, and 2 kinds of deviled eggs. For the sandwiches we ended up making all vegetarian ones. I used two types of bread: light rye and honey wheat. I cut off the crusts and then cut the bread into the fun shapes of triangles and rectangles. I did 3 sandwiches on the rye and one on the honey wheat. The honey wheat one was pears and goat cheese. The first of the rye sandwiches were cream cheese and cucumber (classic tea sandwich). Next I made some eggs salad and made egg salad sandwiches. I tried not to use too much mayonnaise, but then didn't use enough and the egg salad didn't stay together all that well. We garnished those sandwiches with fresh chives (see below). The last sandwich was a pickle cheddar, and dill butter sandwich. This one was probably my favorite. The pickle and cheddar went together amazingly, but the dill butter really made this one. I actually infused the butter with dill and salt. This made it really dill tasting and fresh and it added another dimension to the sandwich.

Okay the deviled eggs. My mom gave me this wonderful book full of deviled egg recipes for a present. My sister and I decided to try two kinds of deviled eggs from the book. The first was Sunrise eggs (below left) and the second was Boursin Garlic eggs (below right). The Boursin ones were the winners! The sunrise eggs were infused with orange juice and sundried tomato pesto. I really wanted to like these eggs, but they just tasted a little too weird. The boursin ones on the other hand were out of this world. We added roasted garlic and herbed boursin cheese. We then garnished them with fresh chives. The creaminess of the boursin and the flavoring of the garlic and herbs made these eggs taste gourmet. We loved them, I will definitely make them again.

                         

Our next course was a tea time classic. Scones! I while I would have preferred Australian/British scones we instead used the awesome scone mix from World Market. We got the plain flavor, and I have to say these were absolutely amazing. While at World Market we found mini jams and clotted cream! So we got that to eat with the scones in the traditional manner. They were delicious and really fun.

After scones we got to the pastries, specifically cookies and cakes. We had Earl Grey Lavender Cupcakes (below left), made by my wonderful sister. She infused the cake with earl grey tea and the frosting with lavender extract. These were the perfect thing to go with tea, tea cupcakes! Next we had Petit Fours! Okay, these are my absolute favorite thing that my sister makes. They are her own invention of cake, call blush cake. This is almond cake with rose and orange extracts. And it's brilliant. For these petit fours she makes strawberry buttercream frosting for the middle layer and then dips them in orange glaze. They. Are. The. Best. And they take her a long time to make because they have so many components. She doesn't make them often, but did them for me as a back from Australia treat. Also they were a perfect addition to high tea. The last dessert in this course was Raspberry frosting sugar cookie sandwiches. These were also outstanding. We found this wonderful soft sugar cookie recipe, and used that for the cookies. My sister then made this wonderful raspberry buttercream that was  heavenly. Lastly she sugared the cookies with raspberry sugar. Is your mouth watering yet?

Our last course was Midgardises, little ending sweets. For this we made Lemon shortbread dark chocolate truffles… and we also bought some meringues from Trader Joes (below). The Truffles were made in a very similar fashion to my Tim Tam Truffles. We used shortbread cookies, lemon curd, and cream cheese frosting to make these. Also we used food coloring to make sure that the filling had a nice lemon yellow color. This time we stuck them in the fridge to harden for a hour or so before they were dipped in the chocolate. Also my sister did the dipping so they turned out pretty!

This tea was such a fun and exciting thing to do with a summer day!! Almost everything (looking at you sunrise eggs!) turned out excellently! It was also really fun to spend the day cooking and baking with my sister. She's the master dessert baker and watching her work reminds me that I have a ton to learn when it comes to baking and cooking, thankfully I have access to a wonderful teacher :D

Kiwiana: New Zealand Snack Food

So because I loved tasting Aussie candy and snack food so much, I really wanted to try some Kiwi snack food when I was in New Zealand. Specifically, CookieTime cookies, which a couple friends and told me about. When one of our tour guides asked it we wanted to do anything else before we went to our hotel, I asked if we could stop at a convenience store for some cookies! Our guide loved this idea and was nice enough to help us pick out some other classic kiwi snacks. My mom and sister got really into it, but no so much my dad, haha. We ended up with some CookieTime cookies (above), which were yummy. I tend to like my cookies a little softer, but they tasted really good. My favorite thing was the BumperBar, which is also made by CookieTime, but has fruit and chocolate in it. I liked these better because they were chewy and had fresh fruit in them!! The banana ones were amazing!!!

My sister's favorite thing was the Pineapple Lumps. I had totally forgotten that I tried these in Australia. I didn't love them because I had been expecting something else when I tried them. My sister pointed out that they were like pineapple Charleston Chews, and she love love loved them. I like them just fine now that I think of them that way. Also apparently they are much bigger in NZ than Oz, so it was nice to try them there. 

We didn't get to try Hokey Pokey Ice Cream, which is also supposed to be huge in New Zealand, but hopefully we'll be back someday and can try it then :) Eating gourmet abroad is fun, but trying classic junk food also gives you a unique taste of the culture, and is a super fun way to explore a country. It is now on my list of things to make sure I do whenever I'm somewhere new!

Tasting my way around Fitzroy

Fitzroy is a funky neighborhood in Melbourne. It's filled with Coffee Shops and boutiques. It is somewhat of the hipster area. It was also one of my friend's favorite part of Melbourne so I wanted to check it out! I walked there from the Queen Victoria markets, and that's where I spent most of my afternoon. The architecture makes the area look bohemian, and the funky names of the stores give in personality. I bought this mini strawberry cupcake (above), as a walked around. It wasn't amazing, but it was $1 and cute. It started randomly pouring on my when I was there (below left), so I ducked into a coffee shop and got a chai (below right). They give you a pot of milky tea, and you have to strain it yourself. It was really good and the chai hit the spot on a rainy afternoon. I drank it and read my book!

I continued to walk around and made a few small on sale purchases. I got a map of Australia poster for $4 and a scarf for $2.50! When I got hungry I stopped at Lord of the Fries, a Melbourne fast food chain known for their amazing chips, a bunch of friends had recommended it to me. I got their Sweet Potato fries with sour cream and sweet chili (below), they were amazing!!!!! Just the right thing for lunch!

I had such a nice time enjoying an afternoon of walking around and exploring. I've realized it's a nice and leisurely way to get the feel of different areas of a city!

Balsamic Sweet Potato Chips

Snacks for dinner! After I made the Tim Tam Truffles I was not in the mood to make anything complicated for dinner. So I opted to try and make sweet potato chips. Super east and quick, they turned out pretty well. Basically I sliced 2 small sweet potatoes rather thinly (after steaming them in the microwave for about 2 minutes). Then marinated them in Balsamic vinegar with garlic salt, by shaking them in a tupperware container until they were covered (below left). I then arranged them on a plate and microwaved them for about 8 minutes, sprinkling more garlic salt before doing so. The before and after pics are below right, they shrink up and get crispy. Also I found letting them sit for a minute or so after the microwave helps them crisp up even more (as tempting as it was to just go ahead and eat them). This was a delicious and easy meal that I would usually do as a snack, but it also sufficed for a light dinner. 

Spinach and Feta Muffin + Finals Studying

So I returned from a live aboard dive trip on the Great Barrier Reef yesterday… and immediately headed to the library because it is actually reading week and I had to get started on finals studying. I've got one on June 14th so now it's basically crunch time. This morning I went for a run, showered, and then booked it back to the library, where I have now been for the past 6+ hours. Of course, a long day of studying means appropriate study foods are needed. Number 1: Coffee!!!!! I got myself my typical large skim flat white (notice that the 'large' size here is a medium in the states) at Darwin's and also grabbed a feta spinach muffin. They heat the baked goods up for you there, which is great, it was a really nice and filling treat for breakfast. I also brought with me yogurt, kiwi, and my Just Right cereal so I had yogurt and cereal for lunch later in the day. And I also brought a can of soup with me, so I can eat it later if I get hungry. Basically, I did not want to have to give up my spot because I got hungry so I brought enough food for the entire day if need be. I also brought water in my new Prodive water bottle (above) that I got on the dive trip! I was properly prepared and have gotten through all of my material for my first two finals today, I may go through some paleoceanography material again, but I'm pretty much done for the day. I find that if I don't have excuses to end my studying I'm able to plop myself down for hours and just power through it. Guess that's one of the perks of being a Junior and going through the hell that is finals 6 times now...

Aussie Chocolate Bars Take 5: Boost Toffee Crunch and Chokito

Okay this might be my last chocolate bar post, because I think from now on if I get a chocolate bar I'll be getting Boosts, they are definitely my favorite! However, we were traveling last week, so candy on the go is a must and I tried two more bars when I was in Cairns. The first was a special addition Boost bar, it had toffee in the middle instead of krispies, and oh my, it was absolutely heavenly!!! This is the winner folks, the best Aussie Chocolate Bar… too bad I think they were just testing it out in Cairns because it is no where to be seen back in Brissy, but I'll keep an eye out.

The Chokito was also really good, but seriously nothing can compete with my Boost bars at this point. Chokitos are caramel flavored fudge coveremilk chocolate with krispy balls covered in milk chocolate. It was pretty yummy and definitely hit the spot as a plane treat home, but the caramel fudge would have been better if it was chocolate fudge with real caramel instead. Still I really liked this one, and I think I sent it home for my family to try (I sent them a huge Aussie snack food care package last month, and it finally arrived so I can mention it here without spoilers!) so I'm glad they will get to enjoy it! I now wish I had sent a Boost home, but they can taste it when they come visit in July.

Aussie Chocolate Bars Take 4: Boost and Picnic

Okay, let me start off this post by saying that these are my FAVORITE two chocolate bars that i've had here. So good were they, that I think I'm adding them to the list with Tim Tams and Just Right Cereal, as things I'm going to be taking back to the states with me. Let me explain why I liked these so much. The Boost bar is one that I had been avoiding because on the wrapper it looks like it had solid crunchy in the middle. Well serves me right for judging a cary bar by it's wrapper. The inside it a heavenly mix of creamy chocolate, caramel, and some rice krispies (below). The whole thing is then covered in chocolate. The texture as well as the way the chocolate and caramel messed puts this guy at the top of the list. Absolutely amazing bar, the only thing that would make it better is some dark chocolate.

The Picnic bar was also amazing. I delicious combination of nugget, wafer, caramel, and rice krispies. This had a much chunkier texture than the Boost, but less chocolate. The peanuts and the caramel made this combo so great, that I didn't mind that it had less chocolate. It's also a super filling bar, and great it you're hungry and craving sweet and salty.

These bars were both amazing, and now I'm going to have trouble trying more because I'll just want to keep buying these two!

The Ultimate Tim Tam Guide

Okay. I've mentioned Tim Tams a couple of times on this blog, but have yet to devote an entire post to them. This is why. I've been waiting until I tried all flavors of these magnificent cookies, and could review them in their entirety. Well today was the day that I finally for around to tasting them all! So the post I've been waiting to do all semester: The Ultimate Tim Tam Guide.

Tim Tams are chocolate biscuits (cookies are called biscuits here). The easiest way to think of them is the Aussie equivalent of Oreos. Only they are SO MUCH better than Oreos. A Tim Tam is a rectangular chocolate cookie sandwich. It is chocolate cream between two chocolate cookies, covered in chocolate. Sounds good right? Well it is! They are really delicious and they make them in lots of different flavors and fillings besides the typical chocolate ones (see above). I tasted almost all of them (I didn't try the white ones, which were white chocolate covered vanilla cookies with vanilla cream, because I don't really like white chocolate). So the rest of the post is my ranking of the Tim Tams, as well as comments about each kind!

1. Dark Chocolate

These are unsurprisingly me favorite flavor of Tim Tams. Dark chocolate is richer and less sugary than milk and these Tim Tams are no exception. They are the best. Also this was the first flavor that I did a Tim Tam Slam with. A Tim Tam slam, is when you bit off both ends of the Tim Tam and stick it in a drink (preferably hot, but cold works too) This could be coffee, hot chocolate, or tea. I did mine with matcha (see above). You then use the Tim Tam as a straw and suck the liquid through it. You will notice the cookie starts to fall apart, at that point you slam it into your mouth an enjoy. It. Is. Amazing. Basically the Tim Tam becomes this gooey, cakey, choclatey mess, and is three times as good as the cookie by itself. Dark Chocolate Tim Tams can be slammed with all kinds of drinks. Their versatility, along with their general amazingness is why they beat out all other flavors in the rankings.

2. Orange Dark Chocolate

What makes dark chocolate better? Fruit! These Tim Tams are like the dark chocolate ones but have orange cream filling instead of chocolate. They are great because they have all the best qualities of the dark chocolate ones, but also a wonderful unique flavor that comes out amazingly in this cookie!

3. Mint Slice

Okay, so this isn't technically a Tim Tam. But it is a biscuit made by the same company, Arnott's, so I'm counting it. Imagine that a York Peppermint Patty and a Thin Mint had a baby. That is literally what this cookie is. It's basically self-explanatory why this is ranked 3rd on the list.

4. Chewy Caramel

So these guys are basically the original Tim Tam, with a little extra. There is chewy caramel in the middle of the cookie! If you refrigerate them (you have to in the summer because they melt!) it gets hard and crunchy, but at room temp it's gooey and chewy. These are really amazing, the carmel really adds something to the cookie.

5. Chocolate Brownie

                                

I mean this Tim Tam's filling is fudgey brownie batter. I transforms it into more than just a cookie. These ones are seriously addicting and so rich and delicious. I haven't done a slam with one, but I bet it would be out of this world!

6. Double Coat

So these Tim tams are something special. They have an extra coating of chocolate on the outside, and I think a little more cream in the middle as well. Basically the Double Stuf of the Tim Tam word. Also wonderful, I love Tim Tam slamming these ones because they can take a little more liquid before they break down. I did my Tim Tam Slam with Milo (above left). Milo is basically hot chocolate mix, but it's made of malted barley as well as coco (I posted about Milo here). It's amazing and went really well with the Tim Tams. It was such an Aussie thing to eat for dessert it made me happy!

7. Turkish Delight

Turkish Delight is one of the main flavors here, they have Turkish Delight flavored everything, so of course, Tim Tams are no exception. I really liked these ones. They have rose flavored jelly in the middle, and it goes really well with the chocolate. The cookies were actually dark chocolate, but the coating was the traditional milk. They were a yummy surprise!

8. Dark Chocolate Mint

These Tim Tams are basally milk chocolate coated with dark chocolate cookies, and dark chocolate filling with mint extract in it. They are pretty yummy, but I prefer the plain dark ones (the dark chocolate coating really makes it!). Also if I want mint biscuits I really prefer the Mint Slices. I think those two things hurt they're ranking.

9. Salted Caramel

These Tim Tams are caramel cookies, with caramel filling, and a gooey salted carmel center, covered in the milk chocolate filling. Though the salted flavor is really yummy and adds an extra dimension to the cookie, they suffer from lack of chocolate cookies and filling. This makes the Chewy Caramel ones much better. 

10. Double Chocolate Vanilla

Oreo lovers take note! This are the typical Tim Tam, but with vanilla filling instead of chocolate. This basically makes them a chocolate covered oreo. Really yummy, and very satisfying, but the chocolate lover at heat had to rank them lower then all the more choclately flavors :)

11. Raspberry White Chocolate

So as I mentioned, I don't really like white chocolate, but wanted to try these because of the raspberry creme. They were my least favorite, but I did like how the raspberry complimented the vanilla cookies. 

So this is my list of Tim Tams! There may be a couple of other flavors floating around somewhere, but I haven't seen them around Brisbane. These biscuits are my FAVORITE Australian food and I will miss them dearly when I leave. So much so that I'm bringing as many as I can fit back to the U.S. with me. Especially the Dark Chocolate ones!