Girls Night In - Fancy Style!

A proper 'girls night in' usually consists of the following: wine, chat, dinner (usually pizza or Thai food) and maybe a DVD.

Ours consisted of all of these things, but we were a little more spoiled by our hostess in the food department.

Firstly we were treated to some French Champagne. Then some delectable canapes of peppered crisp bread, King Island brie and sundried tomatoes. Next on the list was salt and pepper squid and aioli.

We then stood around the bench watching Missus Amazing Cook construct our main course of duck salad. I couldn't believe my taste buds. Yes thank you!

For dessert I offered to make brandy snaps and vanilla cream.

They turned out great!

Here is the basic recipe I used.

Ingredients:

50g butter

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup golden syrup

1/3 plain flour (though, i had only self raising in the cupboard and it was fine)

1 tsp ground ginger (optional)

Vanilla essence and caster sugar whipped with cream to fill them

Method:

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees.

Combine your sugar, golden syrup and butter over a medium heat until your butter dissolves.

Making sure to stir it. It will look all separated at this stage.

I kept stirring till it came together and looked like a darker golden syrup.

Once its all come together, take it off the heat and let the mixture cool for about 5 minutes.

Add the flour and ginger to the mixture and combine. Try to get rid of any flour puffs...

Mixture should be a light caramelly colour now.

Line a tray with baking paper

1 brandy snap=1 teaspoon of mixture. I put 4 on to start with but found that although i have a large tray, 4 was one too many.

They all stuck to each other and didn't cook right. 3 worked well. Be sure to space them well apart, they spread a lot.

Bake them for around 5 or 6 minutes. I like to watch them bubble then when they almost stop bubbling i'll take them out.

When you take them out of the oven, you need to work quickly because as soon as they cool down, they are no longer malleable. I like to wrap a wooden spoon handle in baking paper for this job. You need to use the wooden spoon and wrap the brandy snap around it to make your tube.

Alternately you can make baskets by draping your brandy snap over the bottom of a glass. Another alternative I like to do is to let them cool in discs and smash them up. You can serve it almost like nachos with the cream or you can have it over ice cream.

Thats it! Now all you have to do is whip your cream, pipe it into the snaps and DEVOUR them!

Thank you lovely ladies for a wonderful night!

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