Kotare in the Kauri Tree

This kotare has been watching the fish the pond for a few days now. Hopefully they have enough lilypads and other plants to hide under. Stunning blues on the wings.

Cheese rolling, running, and trolley

Tighe and Quinn spent the afternoon in Tokoroa, competing at the National Waikato Cheese Rolling Championships. They won a few kilos of cheese. Beautiful aged salted cheese.

Cheese Rolling, Slippery slide, Trolley Derby, Tossing the caber, Gumboot throwing and Egg throwing in teams.

They had spent several weekend building the trolley.

The National Waikato Cheese Rolling Championships is held yearly in Tokoroa Cheese Rolling is an ancient sport originating from Gloucester, England.

As far as we know, Tokoroa is the only Cheese Rolling town in NZ and thus the winner here is the New Zealand Cheese Rolling Champion. Tighe came second in the cheese rolling, and Quinn came third in the trolley derby.

The cheese is wrapped in muslin which protects it and it is 14 inches in diameter and four inches thick. It is the traditional size but the hill is not quite as steep,"

Shooting the hoop

Sometimes after an urchin has cooked dinner, he pops out to shoots some hoops. Not sure if the redband gumboots and apron will start a fashion trend.

While the urchins were shooting hoops, a rainbow was in the clouds.

Fruit from the garden

The trees in the orchard are starting to bear fruit. 4 different types of apples.

This year I would really like to eat one of our persimmons, as the birds always enjoy them before I get a chance.

The pears are big and fat, just waiting for them to ripen up.

The figs are starting to fragrance the air, so they are not far away from ripening as well.

The orange marrow have taken over the back garden, and the vine climbs up ponga trees, and twists over the small bushes. We'll be eating them by the end of the week.
 

Hatu-patu

 

17th Birthday Anneke

Happy Birthday Anneke!

Star bread - I'm a Yeast Master

 

I was watching a Russian baker on Youtube, and she made garlic bread in the shape of a star.  

I thought I would try it with cinnamon and sugar.

Made the plain dough in the bread machine. to the first rising.  This is the standard dough I use for all my breads and buns. After kneading, I divided the dough into  4, and let it rest or 15 minutes.  I mixed together 1 Tbsp sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon, and softened the butter.

I rolled out 1/4 of the dough, buttered it and sprinkled the cinnamon sugar mix, and placed the layer in the baking tray.

I repeated the process until I had 3 layers of cinnamon sugar.  I rolled the 4th dough and placed on top. Squash down the outside all the way around the edges.

Using the rim of a  small bowl, I created a circle in the centre, and then cut through the layers at 12, 6, 3, and 9 o'clock.  Cutting edge wedge in half again, and inserting the knife into the circle. Pull the cut wedges towards the circle, and twist twice in opposite directions.

Squeeze the ends together and use a toothpick to separate the layers if necessary.

Repeat the process all the way around the dough layer.  Looks great.

Put aside in a warm place for the second rising. This takes about an hour.

Beat an egg, and brush over the risen dough.  Bake in oven at 190 deg Celsius for 12-15 minutes.

When golden brown, and sounds "hollow" when tapped, remove from oven.

Just for fun, I drizzled vanilla icing over the top.

Perfect for lunch with hot chocolate, and lashings of butter.