Eat the election

Whether you’re voting Lib or Labor (or any other party), why not get into the mood with these over the top red and blue treats?

By LENA PEACOCK

While us Aussies don’t get quite as overexcited when it’s election time as our American friends do, we can take a leaf out of their book when it comes to election themed food. And if you’re completely over hearing anything about the election by now, why not view it as just another excuse to have a party involving lots of delicious food? And if red (Labor Party) or blue (Liberal Party) don’t quite float your boat, just use them as the colours of the Australian flag.

It’s a wrap: The Prime Minister is…

These are nice and easy to eat while watching the election on tv, and are so versatile, they can be stuffed full of any of your favourite fillings.

Tortillas

4 cups of flour

1 ¾ tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

90g butter

1 ¼ cup of water (or a little more if needed)

Red food colouring

Blue food colouring

Place dry ingredients and butter into a bowl. Using your fingertips, work the butter into the dry ingredients until the pieces become the size of peas. Add water until it becomes a soft dough. Separate dough into three balls. Work red food colouring into one of the balls and blue into another. Break each colour into about 4 dough balls. Roll dough balls into thin tortillas. Remove excess flour from each tortilla as much as possible. Cook in a nonstick pan on medium heat just until each side is done – this won’t take long if you rolled them out thinly. Roll with sandwich fillings, or a curry that doesn’t have too much liquid to it.

OTT election beverages

Although there are plenty of alcoholic versions, here’s a child friendly version, which will hopefully keep the election talk tempers down.

Cranberry juice

Non-alcoholic pina colada

Blue Gatorade

Simply combine ingredients in different layers to achieve desired effect.

Election jelly jiggle time

1 box of blue jelly

1 box of red jelly

1 can of sweetened condensed milk

Make jelly as per instructions on packet. Once red and blue layers have set, combine with chilled layer of condensed milk.

Sweet strawberry voters

1 punnet of ripe strawberries

1 bag of white chocolate melts/ or chips

1 cup of white sugar

1 tbsp of milk

1 tbsp of light corn syrup

Blue food colouring

Cooking paper

Wash and completely dry the strawberries. In a pot, simmer 10cm of water and place a glass or metal bowl on top of the pot to create a double boiler. Slowly melt half the bag of white chocolate. When they are melted, remove from heat, and add the second half of the chocolate, stirring until smooth. Once the white chocolate is completed melted, dip strawberries about 3/4 of the way in and then set on top cooking paper for chocolate to harden.

After you’ve dipped all the strawberries, in a separate bowl, mix together the sugar, corn syrup and milk. Then add as much blue food colouring (two drops at a time) to get the right shade of blue you want. Spoon icing into a piping bag (or a ziplock bag with a hole cut in it). Once chocolate has completely hardened, drizzle the icing back and forth on the strawberries until about half of the white chocolate area is covered.

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