Here is a Maori bread recipe from Auntie Ruby Hinemoa Grey, a Ngati Whatua elder from Orakei, Auckland.

Ingredients

3 cups flour (heaped)
1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder (level)
enough milk or water to make a soft dough
pinch of salt

Directions

Flour dust your board or grease the bowl you are using to mix your dry ingredients and knead your dough until firm, then roll out flat.
Warm your tray in the oven, then dust your tray with flour and put your bread in oven at about 350 to 400 degrees, bake 10 minutes or longer on each side until light brown.

OK. Here’s the disclaimer. I can’t make scones. My grandmother can. My mother can (sort of). My brother can. But I cannot. So if this doesn’t work don’t blame me. They tell me that the secret to making good scones is not to handle the mixture too much. I think using cold butter and cutting it in, rather than being impatient and nuking it also helps… maybe you can do it….

Ingredients

2 cups flour
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
25-50g cold butter
about 3/4 cup milk

Directions

Sift dry ingredients in to a medium sized bowl. Add cold butter. Cut and rub it into the flour until the mixture is about the consistency of rolled oats. Pour all the milk at once, into a well in the middle of the dry ingredients. Mix with a knife, adding more milk if necessary until you have a soft dough. Turn dough onto a floured board. Knead lightly 6-10 times. Pat out until about 1 cm thick. Cut into about 9 squares. Separate if you want hard sided scones, leave together if you want soft sided scones.
Bake at 220-230 C for 8-10 minutes until the bottoms and tops are golden.

Ingredients

75g butter
2 cloves garlic
1-2 tsp curry powder (I also add extra cumin because I like it)
500g kumara (US=a type of yam)
1 1/2 cups water
2 tsp instant chicken stock
about 3 cups milk
1/4 cup cream (optional – but realy good)

Directions

Add the crushed garlic and curry powder to the butter in a large suacepan. Peel the kumara and slice to about 1 cm thick. Cook in the butter, without browning, for 1-2 minutes and then add the water. Cover and cook for 10 minutes until tender. Stir in the chicken stock, then blend, thinning as you do so with the milk. Add the cream and reheat without boiling.

Ingredients

2 Tablespoons Golden Syrup
100g butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons ginger
1/2 cup flour

Directions

Heat the golden syrup with butter and brown sugar in a saucepan until the butter melts. Remove from the heat and add ginger and flour. Drop 4 heaped teaspoon lots onto a greased oven tray (US=cookie sheet). Spread each flat with the back of a spoon.
Bake at 180 C for 5-10 minutes until the mixture darkens slightly. Cool until firm enough to roll around a wooden spoon handle etc. Reheat if already too firm to roll. Brandy snaps should now resemble hollow cylinders.

Store in an airtight container immediately (they go soft very easily). Fill with whipped cream – optional: flavour the cream with brandy essence – just before serving.

Ingredients

2 small apples
1 cup sultanas
1 cup mixed fruit
1/2 lemon, rind and juice
grated rind of 1/2 orange
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp each of mixed spice, cinnamon, salt
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 cup spirits

Directions

Mince apple, dried fruit, and rinds and mix with the other ingredients. Top with extra spirits, cover and refrigerate.

Ingredients

4 oz (100 gm) Butter
4 oz (100 gm) Sugar
1 egg
8 oz (200 gm) plain flour
1 level teaspoon baking powder
pinch salt

Method: cream butter and sugar, add egg and beat well, add sifted dry ingredients and stir to mix. Roll out on a floured sheet of paper and cut into rounds, put into patty pans and add fruit mincemeat (recipe available below). Top with another round and bake at 350° F [180° C] for about 10 minutes until risen and lightly browned on top. Cool on a wire rack and sift a little icing sugar on top when cold.
This recipe is also an excellent one for making biscuits.

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Here’s my favourite recipe for fruit cake.

You’ll need the following: a cup of water, a cup of sugar, four large eggs, two cups of dried fruit, a teaspoon of baking soda, a teaspoon of salt, a cup of brown sugar, lemon juice, nuts, and a bottle of whisky.

Sample the whisky to check for quality.

Take a large bowl. Check the whisky again. To be sure it is the highest quality, pour one level cup and drink. Repeat. Turn on the electric mixer, beat one cup of butter in a large fluffy bowl. Add one teaspoon of sugar and beat again.

Make sure the whisky is still okay. Cry another tup. Turn off the mixer. Break two leggs and add to the bowl and chuck in the cup of dried fruit. Mix on the turner. If the fried druit gets stuck in the beaterers pry it loose with a drewscriver.

Sample the whisky to check for tonsisticity. Next, sift two cups of salt. Or something. Who cares? Check the whisky. Now sift the lemon juice and strain your nuts. Add one table. Spoon. Of sugar or something. Whatever you can find.

Grease the oven. Turn the cake tin to 350 degrees. Don’t forget to beat off the turner. Throw the bowl out of the window, check the whisky again and go to bed.

Bacon & egg pie doesn’t have a recipe – making one is sort-of instinctive. For my money:

Roll out flakey pastry. Lay half in bottom of pie tin.
Chop bacon finely & spread over pastry. Use lots of bacon – 250 grams is an absolute minimum.
Break eggs over the bacon. 6 eggs probably isn’t enough. Try 9.
Add black pepper liberally.
Top with rest of pastry. Brush with milk.
Bake until pastry is golden brown.
Even better cold than hot, but if you want some cold pie left over then best to bake two, and hide the second one.

Notes:

Some people beat the eggs before adding to the pie. This practice was started by tea-room owners trying to bulk out pies with too few eggs, and could reasonably be construed as a criminal act.

Others add such things as peas and diced carrots. This is an abomination in the eyes of the Lord.