Ginger Dreams... (baking in Wellington)

I have been listening to Minneapolis radio station (yes, The Current) online and have been enjoying the reports of blizzards and negative temperatures from afar. Cold is so romantic when you're far from it! Now I hear that even SF'ers are able to see their breath indoors. My advice, a healthy dose of ginger. It just so happens that I found a "ginger beer fruit cake" recipe and took a picture of it for a certain ginger beer-brewing friend to try out this Christmas, but I will have to include some of the numerous other ginger recipes in the book cuz I just got too excited. The cookbook is the quintessential New Zealand cookbook, by the major baking company Edmonds. It's in every household (the cookbook), as are old tins of Edmonds 'Sure-to-rise" baking powder and mixes. I think that it's just trendy to use the old tins and refill them from Bin Inn but maybe they just like to think about baking and never get around to it and the tins really are filled with the original baking powder..

As I happily reminisce about the crunch of snow and the smell of pine trees, ginger dreams...

The lady who I'm housesitting for is somehow related to Mr. Edmonds himself...



Fruit cake is actually quite popular here, as are many variations on it that come our at Christmas.





Bavarian creams and puddings are under "cold desserts" while sponge cake, (known simply as sponge) is under "puddings." I attempted a sponge today (sooooooo not vegan) and failed so I won't put the picture up. As a 8-year vegan (now dabbling in a no-rules diet), I find it hard to get eggs to perform for me.





Bin Inn, a baker's paradise with every imaginable kind of flour, dried fruit, nut, cake mix, and candy tidbits..




Also has brewing kits..



Edmonds tins


Want a bite? My sponge cake didn't turn out, but my brownies were pretty good. I should know, I ate most of them. I also brought some to the neighbors. Today, the other neighbors showed up with fudge (it's a Kiwi thing) shortly after I had eaten the last brownie. I was sad that I had nothing to give back!