Food Art and Random Thoughts

Baby Brights Update

2010-06-13T16:26:00.005+12:00

This is the reason why I haven't been doing much foodie blogging lately. I've been working feverishly to finish quilting this quilt before my friend's baby turns 5 and goes to school! I started the top in November before baby was born because the sex wasn't known but once the top was finished I couldn't decide what colour to quilt it with. Then I decided to quilt it in thread to match each block but figured that it would take me so long to thread individual bobbins and thread and unthread the machine each time that I may was well quilt it by hand. What was I thinking!

The quilt is being mailed this week. I hope mum and baby like it.

Dad's Plaid

2010-05-27T23:44:00.003+12:00

The next time I say I'm going to finish a quilt by grid quilting it a quarter of an inch apart somebody please slap me - hard! No wonder this quilt took over three years to complete although it wasn't so much 3 years of actual work on the quilt but 3 years of procrastination because once you get to a certain point of a quilting design there aint no going back. I lost track of how many reels of thread I went through by the time I was done.

I gave the quilt to my dad for his 70th birthday last year. He says he wants it on his coffin when he dies - I'm not sure how I feel about that. Hmmm.

An Oldie But A Goodie

2010-05-11T21:35:00.000+12:00

I was looking for something quick, easy and relatively inexpensive to bake as I hadn't tried anything new in a while. A recent email newsletter from Foodlovers featured a recipe I hadn't had for years and it fit the bill perfectly.

Chocolate Weetbix Slice
by Helen Jackson

Ingredients
180 g butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup coconut
3 weetbix, crushed
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa

Method
Preheat the oven to 180 C
Melt butter and add vanilla
Mix dry ingredients in a bowl and mix in the butter
Press firmly into a slice pan and bake for 20 minutes
Allow to cool and then ice with a thin chocolate icing
Sprinkle with coconut
Cut into pieces as desired - fingers are nice

But wait.... there's more.....

I did a bit of googling to see if there were any other variants out there and I came across one that had a marshmallow topping. That particular recipe had brown sugar instead of white and no cocoa. However Helen's slice was so scrumptious I decided to use it as my base. It was the first time I'd made marshmallow and I wasn't so sure what I was doing. For my personal taste I think there was a bit too much marshmallow to base but my co-workers pronounced it delicious.

All the Single Ladies

2010-04-28T21:52:00.004+12:00

Every time I hear Beyonce's song All The Single Ladies I can't help but think of that episode of Glee where the football team danced along to it. Too funny.

Cooking for one doesn't need to be boring or unhealthy. When hubby is away I usually take the opportunity to make myself something that he wouldn't care for - like something with blue cheese or lots of shrimp or scallops.

We recently went to a party which had an American theme and we enjoyed some wonderful Jambalaya. Thoughts of that delicious meal inspired me to create my own jambalaya/gumbo type dinner. It's by no means authentic but very tasty.. and did I mention healthy?

Louis1ana inspired Shrimp and Sausage Rice Bowl
Serves 2

Ingredients
1 medium brown onion, chopped
1/2 large green pepper, chopped
2-3 stalks celery, chopped
Oil or cooking spray
1 can chopped tomatoes in juice/puree
1 cup brown rice
2 cups chicken stock, preferably homemade
Oregano
Bay leaf
Garlic salt
Black pepper
Smoked paprika
Smoked sausage, sliced as desired (I used a bier stick)
Shrimp
Parsley, sliced spring onion or some basil to garnish

Method
Spray the bowl of a rice cooker with cooking spray or drizzle in a little oil
Add the holy trinity of onion, pepper and celery
Cook for a little, stirring occasionally, until the onion is translucent
Add your sausage
Dump in the tomatoes
Add the seasonings
Add the rice and chicken stock
Put the lid on and cook until the rice is almost done
Add your shrimp
Adjust seasoning - I found I had to add some hot sauce and a dash of Montreal Steak Seasoning which is one of my currently pantry favourites
Garnish as desired
Enjoy

Lest We Forget - ANZAC Day 2010

2010-04-22T10:59:00.003+12:00

Today is ANZAC Day - the date on which we remember and honour those who fell that day in 1915 and every other fallen hero, who died in the service of our countries. Both New Zealand and Australia share the day, as we shared our forces and our men in two world wars.

ANZAC Day begins with dawn services, throughout New Zealand and Australia. The old soldiers march into the parade ground, prayers are said for the dead, the ode to the fallen is said and then the last post played and the flag is lowered.

Ode to the Fallen

"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them."

Red Poppies are worn, as in England, for Armistice Day a tradition that grew from the poem In Flanders Fields:

In Flanders Fields
by John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

History has it that ANZAC biscuits or cookies to Americans, were baked by women during WW1 for their sons/husbands/brothers/fiances etc overseas on deployment. Basically they are a rolled oat biscuit made without eggs in order that they keep longer. The golden syrup is the binding agent. I've successfully used maple syrup as a substitute.

I searched the web and my collection of recipe books to find the best recipe but for the most part the only significant difference was the amount of butter used.

ANZAC Biscuits (Cookies)

Ingredients
1 cup flour
pinch salt
1 cup sugar
1 cup desiccated coconut
1 cup rolled oats
125 grams butter
2 Tablespoons golden syrup
2 Tablespoons boiling water
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla essence - optional

Method
Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl
Melt butter, golden syrup and essence together
In a small bowl or cup mix the boiling water and baking soda and then add to the butter mix
Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix to combine
Roll tablespoonfuls into balls and place on greased or lined baking sheets
Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for about 10-12 minutes until the biscuits have flattened out and are starting to brown

Pictured is a batch of fruity ANZAC biscuits that I made from A Treasury of New Zealand Baking. The recipe is by Dean Brettschneider. The biscuits have brown sugar instead of white and an assortment of seeds and dried fruits (I used pumpkin seads because I didn't have sunflower seeds). I think I prefer authentic ANZAC biscuits. You can find Dean's recipe here and make your own decision.

What I Did Last Summer

2010-02-18T00:02:00.003+13:00

Did ya miss me? I haven't been blogging this year on account of not having a functional camera. There's not much point to a food (or art) blog that doesn't have photos is there.

Just before Christmas I got some junk mail which had a knitting pattern on it for little doggie jumpers. It's a project that the SPCA is running and I think it must be quite a sucessful program because when I googled it I came up with an entry from 2008. Check out the some pictures on Crafty m.e's blog or get your own pattern here from the Wellington SPCA site.

I thought it would be fun to have one of my kitties model a jumper but surprisingly they weren't having any of it and the photo here is the best of a bad lot. One thing about your average cheap and cheerful digital camera is that it's not so great on action shots and action shots were what I was dealing with as Sticky tried to back her way out of the jumper. It was kind of funny in a mean sort of way.

BBM - Indulge Me

2010-02-16T18:55:00.004+13:00

2009 ended with another round of Blogging by Mail organised but the wonderful Stephanie of Dispensing Happiness. My apologies for the late post but my camera had a hissy fit and is only working intermittently. Time for a new one I think.

My package didn't arrive until the New Year which was fine by me because I knew it was on its way. Belated gifts are like IOUs which my mother always told me are good for your soul because they give you hope. I was delighted to find out that my swap partner was none other than Breadchick from The Sour Dough. Our paths have crossed in the blogosphere but this was the first time we'd really connected.

I was thrilled with my box of goodies which contained some items I'd hinted that I would like to receive. So what did I get?

Montreal Chicken Seasoning - I like to use it on hamburger patties on the grill - yeah I know - chicken seasoning on beef - what's up with that? It's also nice on skillet fried potatoes.

Good Seasonings Italian Dressing - we don't have anything like it in NZ. I like it as a salad dressing and also as a marinade for grilled veggies.

Strawberry & kiwi flavoured lip gloss. Just what a girly girl needs.

Pretty pink decorating sugar. I see some frosted cupcakes in my baking future.

A cute little mini whisk - so useful for sauces and dressings.

A fantastic book called The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry. It's about an American woman's experiences at the Cordon Bleu Cooking School in Paris. It was an easy read and made me realise that French Cooking a la Cordon Bleu is definitely not my style.

Any finally a pretty little magnet with images of wildflowers on it.

Thank you dear Breadchick for a very indulgent treat and thank you Stephanie for hosting this great event.

Cranberry Walnut Bread

2009-12-28T09:33:00.000+13:00

One of the coolest benefits of having a blog is meeting new people through your readership or by postal exchanges. Here is a recipe from my new blog friend Esme who I met through the latest round of Blogging by Mail (organised by Stephanie of Dispensing Happiness).

I used butter instead of margarine (I couldn't possibly work for a dairy company and have margarine in the house!) and I didn't put raisins in as I didn't have any. I halved rhe recipe to make one loaf and probably overcooked it just a little. It certainly didn't need an hour in my oven - 30 minutes would probably have done it. No harm done though - just an excuse to spread more buter on the sliced loaf. YUM. Next time I think I might put in some frozen cranberries in lieu of the raisins. You can find Esme's original recipe here.

Esme’s Cranberry Nut Bread

Ingredients
1 cube margarine (1 stick)
1 1/2 cup brown sugar
4 eggs
3 c flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
2/3 cup raisin
2/3 cup chopped walnuts
1 can whole cranberry sauce

Method
In a large bowl cream margarine and sugar
Beat in eggs one at at time
Add dry ingredients
Add cranberry sauce, nuts and raisins
Turn into 2 greased and floured loaf pans
Bake 1 hr at 350 degrees (or until loaf tests done)
Cool 10 minutes
Turnout to wire racks to cool

Truffles and Treats

2009-12-27T12:00:00.000+13:00

I like to give homemade treats and preserves as Christmas presents and this year was no exception. I made truffles (the cheat's kind with cookie crumbs rather than with chocolate and cream), rocky road and some date and rice bubble balls. I really think that making edible gifts like these should not be reserved for the holiday season. They are so easy, relatively inexpensive and make a great gift at any time of year.

Carla's Liquer Truffles

Ingredients
1 packet plain biscuits eg wine, Girl Guide - crushed
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
185 grams icing sugar
125 grams butter - melted
4 tablepoons (or more) liquer of your choice
Coconut

Method
Place biscuit crumbs, cocoa, and icing sugar in a bowl
Add melted butter and liquer
Form into balls and roll in coconut
Set in the fridge

For a nice variation you can roll the trufle mixture around a halved marshmallow.
I made Malibu rum truffles for my first batch and for my second batch I used Frangelico and added some hazlenut paste to the biscuit mix. I dusted the Frangelico truffles in cocoa powder rather than confusing the flavours and rolling them in coconut.

Rocky Road

Ingredients
Two king sized blocks of chocolate (400g- 500g) - I used Cadbury Dairy Milk
1 packet mini marshmallows
1/4 cup chopped salted peanuts
1/4 cup coconut
1/2 cup chopped dried fruit - I used dried strawberries

Method
Line and 8" x 8" cake tin with baking paper
Melt chocolate
Add other ingrediets and stir well to combine
Spread into prepared tin and chill
Cut into desired size pieces when set

Note: You can vary the combination and quantities of nuts and fruit to suit your taste. Try some chopped turkish delight with pistachio nuts for a festive looking rocky road. You could even use white chocolate if you wanted.

Odd Balls
From the Foodlover's website - no other source given

Ingredients
1/c cup sugar
75 grams butter
1 cup dates
2 cups rice bubbles
Coconut

Method
Slowly heat the sugar and butter in a saucepan
Add dates
Stir and mash with a potato masher until soft and pulpy
Remove from the heat and add the rice bubbles
Roll into balls and then dip in coconut
Chill until firm

Oatmeal Cake with Coconut Frosting

2009-12-26T13:17:00.000+13:00

Back in July I visited my dear friend Deb in Kentucky and was not at all surprised that she offered me a piece of cake with my afternoon cup of tea. It looked like one of my favourites (also a Deb recipe) - Lazy Daisy Cake, but it was somethink just a little bit different. Most Americans will probably have tried this cake before. From my investigations the recipe seems to have been around for about 50 years old and appears everywhere you google. I made the cake for some co-workers recently and it went down a treat. The cake is so moist and tender you'd never suspect there was something healthy like oatmeal in it.

Deb’s Oatmeal Cake

Ingredients
1 1/4 cups boiling water
1 cup oats (regular or quick-cook, but NOT instant)
1 stick butter (4oz)
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/3 cups flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

Method
Mix boiling water and oats in a bowl and let stand approx. 20 minutes
Meanwhile, cream butter and sugars
Add eggs and vanilla and beat well
Add oat mixture
Sift in dry ingredients and mix
Bake in a greased 9 x 13" pan at 350 F for 30 - 40 minutes (until
center tests done)
While still warm, spread topping (recipe below) on cake and return to oven to broil for around 5 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Topping
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 1/2 sticks butter (or a little less) (6oz)
1/2 cup cream
2 cups coconut

Sa Sa..... Salad

2009-12-20T12:30:00.000+13:00

Spinach, avocado, strawberry and asparagus salad to be exact.

Doesn't this just shout summer? There are countless recipes for Spinach and Strawberry Salad with a poppyseed dressing but I've jazzed my salad up a bit with the addition of some asparagus and avocado. The creamy avocado and tender asparagus add a little textural something to the mix.

Spinach, Strawberry, Avocado and Asparagus Salad

Ingredients
1 bag of baby spinach leaves
1 punnet strawberries, sliced
1/2 a ripe avocado (or more if you want), chopped
1 bunch asparagus, blanched and sliced

Dressing
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup oil
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 tablespooon finely choppped red onion
1 tablespoon poppy seeds
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon worcestershire sauce

Method
Combine salad ingredients in a bowl
Combine dressing ingredients in a jar and shake to combine
Dress salad just before serving

I made the salad a couple of weekends ago when we had a few guests at home for a barbeque. One of my friends was in charge of dessert and she brought this fantastic looking Black Bottom Pie which is a Ruth Pretty Recipe. You can't tell from the picture but the pie has a chocolate custard on the bottom and a silky vanilla topping. YUM.

Why I'm not putting up a tree this year....

2009-12-06T14:40:00.006+13:00

If this is what happens with a table top tree can you imagine the havoc with a full sized tree?

Perhaps it was an act of revenge after I tried to put a little santa hat on Sticky.

The Easiest Lemon Curd Ever

2009-12-04T18:00:00.002+13:00

Don't fall off your chair in awe over at the styliest photo ever on my blog!

This fantasticly easy recipe is courtesy of my blog friend Tammy. The great thing about it is that it's made in the microwave with no faffing about over a double boiler. My mixture looked a tad overcooked but a few seconds in the food processor and voila - velvety, unctuous, luciousness.

Tammy's Lemon Curd

Ingredients
200 grams butter
200 grams sugar
Zest of 2 lemons
120 mls lemon Juice
6 eggs, beaten and strained through a sieve

Method
Put the butter, sugar, zest and juice in a microwave bowl
Cover with gladwrap and microwave for 4 minutes on high
Stir then whisk in strained eggs
Microwave uncovered for 2 minutes
Stir with a whisk and then whizz in a food processor for about 30 seconds
Pour into sterilised jars
Store in the fridge

I have a new favourite way to use lemon curd - mix equal quantities of Greek yoghurt and lemon curd and serve with fresh summer berries.

There are some more lemon curd combinations I really want to try including a lemony tiramisu. I stumbled on this recipe after a reader left a comment and I thought hmmm why do I know that name? And then I realised it was a published food writer who was commenting on my lil ole blog. What a proud moment. Check out Sue Story's blog here. She is a contributing writer to one of my most used magazines and her Lamb Tagine recipe in Annabel Langbein's book The Best of Annabel Langbein is fantastic.

Meatless Monday - Mee Mamak

2009-11-30T06:00:00.000+13:00

When we lived in Wellington one of our favourite restaurants was a cheap and cheerful Malaysian place called Satay Village. My husband’s favourite dish there was the vegetarian Mee Goreng, mine was the Chicken Rendang or the Chicken Sambal depending on my mood. In Palmerston North we have a plethora of Asian restaurants but they are mostly Thai so my husband has been missing his noodle fix and I’ve been trawling the net trying to find a recipe for Mee Goreng to make at home. The recipe I’ve settled on is absolutely nothing like the Mee Goreng from Satay Village but is a quick and easy dish that is healthy and delicious. It’s from Cuisine Magazine’s website and you can find the recipe here. I didn’t used to use the beansprouts that the recipe calls for but after talking to a Malaysian girl at work she persuaded me that they are an integral part of the dish and that they add texture. I have to admit she’s right. While the recipe calls for a mixture of prawns, chicken and tofu, I only ever make it with tofu. I used to buy a type of tofu from Japan that comes in a tetrapak but it's the soft kind and you end up with a dish that has a scrambled egg effect. It's much better with the firm tofu that you can stir fry to let it soak up some flavour before adding the noodles.

Baby Brights

2009-11-27T13:23:00.004+13:00

Here's a preview of something I've been working on recently instead of baking - the photo doesn't do the fabulous bright fabrics any justice at all. I was searching for ideas for jelly roll quilts and came across a really neat site MaryQuilts.com which has lots of cool ideas for quick and easy quilts, especially quilts for charity. I need to make a quilt for my cousin who has a significant birthday next year and I've been looking for ideas.

As yet this practice piece has no owner but I have someone in mind....watch this space.

Blogging by Mail - Indulge Me Package Shipped

2009-11-26T21:02:00.004+13:00

A teaser but hopefully not a spoiler. I shipped my package today and it's on its way to someone who, like me, has a cat, or maybe two. Come on now - you didn't really think I'd spill all the beans did you?

Here's another clue or at the very least another adorable picture of my girls.

One Bowl Chocolate Cake

2009-11-24T23:00:00.001+13:00

When it comes to cake I'm not a huge fan of chocolate but I think I may have found my new go to recipe for the times someone says "make mine chocolate" ....

It's light and tender with a subtle chocolate flavour and yields a pretty decent sized cake. This recipe is so easy - just add all the ingredients to one big bowl and mix – no sifting, no creaming of the sugar and butter! And you can even use light yoghurt if you’re that way inclined…

One Bowl Chocolate Cake

Ingredients
115g butter, softened
1 ¾ cup self raising flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ cup cocoa
1 ½ cups sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons instant coffee dissolved in ¾ cup hot water
¾ cup natural yoghurt – (or use your favourite flavour such as strawberry or use a low-fat yoghurt option)
2 tablespoons raspberry jam (I had none so used plum)

Method
Grease a rectangular cake dish (a 9" x 13" pan works well) and preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius/ 350 degrees fahrenheit
Add the following ingredients to a big bowl and mix (you can use your arm muscles or an electric mixer
Pour mixture into pre-greased dish and bake for 45 minutes or until cake tests done
Cool and turn out onto a cake rack
Once cool, ice with butter icing

Butter Icing
Cream 115g butter
Add the following and mix
¾ cup icing (powered) sugar
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
1 teaspoon water

Blogging By Mail - Indulge Me

2009-11-24T22:41:00.004+13:00

The wonderful Stephanie of Dispensing Happiness has gone a little nuts and organised another round of Blogging by Mail. Yes, I KNOW, at this time of year - what IS she thinking! I couldn't be more delighted. I love these events because they are a great way to meet new bloggers and of course you get good mail. Because I lived in the US for 3 years and I feel that I have a special connection with the place, I always ask Stephanie, very nicely of course, if she will match me up with someone in the US. That's all I'm sayin' - y'all 34 other participants will just have to wait and see who I am sending to.

The hard part about sending stuff overseas is that all the really cool things like candy and books are expensive to send. My BFF lives in the US and our birthday and Christmas packages to each other usually put us back about $35-$50 for postage alone. For once or twice a year we just suck it up. So, dear BBM partner, if you are reading this, keep things light and small - please.

Oh and just so I don't have a photo-less post and this blog isn't called Food Art and Random Thoughts for nothing, I thought I'd share some photos of Smudge and Sticky.

How cute and adorable am I?

It wasn't me who did this

No really it wasn't.

OK so maybe it was but look at what my sister is up to...

Preserved Lemons

2009-11-11T06:00:00.000+13:00

Around this time of year I usually start making some preserves to give away as Christmas gifts. I thought I should try and do something with those pesky lemons of mine and thought that a nice big jar of preserved lemons would make an excellent Christmas gift. My first hurdle was to find a jar big enough to hold the lemons. Then I discovered that my lemons were in fact too big to fit more than about 3 of them in a jar. There was no option but for me to go to the supermarket and buy lemons which seemed completely ridiculous since the whole reason for me wanting to make preserved lemons was to use up my own supply. The lemons I purchased were imported from the US and probably Lisbon variety.

There are lots of recipes out there for Moroccan Preserved Lemons and if you google preserved lemons you'll find plenty of other blog entries but there's not a lot of variation in what you do.

Preserved Lemons

What you need
A very large glass jar with a lid
LOTS of lemons
Salt
A bay leaf or two
A cinnamon quill

Method
Wash and dry your lemons
Cut a little off each end of the lemon
Cut your lemon almost into quarters but leaving one end intact (I really don't see why you can't cut them completely into quarters and if I'd done that I could have fit them in the jar)
Sprinkle each lemon generously with salt
Place in the jar
Fill the jar with lemon juice
Poke the bayleaf and cinnamon quill in the jar
Seal and leave for at least a month before using

To use
Rinse the lemon and discard the flesh
Slice the lemon rind finely and add to your chosen dish be it a tagine or a salad or even muffins like Barbara from Winos and Foodies did. I tried Barbara's muffin recipe and they were delicious.

Whittering about Whitebait

2009-11-05T16:58:00.000+13:00

Today's biology lesson: In New Zealand, whitebait are the juvenile of certain galaxiids which mature and live as adults in rivers with native forest surrounds. The larvae of these galaxiids is swept down to the ocean where they hatch and the sprats then move back up their home rivers as whitebait. In other parts of the world whitebait refers to much larger fish.

Whitebait fishing season is very short (about 10 weeks in most areas) and because they are such a delicacy whitebait commands big prices during the season and you can pay upwards of $70 per kilogram. You can of course by frozen whitebait from China but it just ain't the same.

Whitebait in its raw form - not very appetizing looking

Check out the beady lil eyes of these teeny weeny fish

Now that the eyes disguised with lots of cracked black pepper the whitebait are transformed into fritters

Whitebait Fritters

Ingredients
250 grams/1/2 a pound of whitebait
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon all purpose flour
Salt and LOTS of cracked black pepper (it disguises their eyes!)
Butter for the frypan

Method
In a bowl, mix the egg and flour until smooth
Add the whitebait and stir gently to combine
Season with salt and pepper
Put a little butter in a frypan on medium heat
Drop a spoonful of fritter mix into the pan and cook for 30 seconds
Flip and cook on the other side
Serve with buttered fingers of fresh white bread with lots of lemon juice on the side
YUM!

Pink Ribbon Cupcakes

2009-10-09T18:00:00.000+13:00

I wanted to make something for Pink Ribbon day but was was in a bit of a hurry and didn't really have time to come up with something fun and interesting. As you can see, my frosting efforts need A LOT of practice. Considering this was the first time I'd made cupcakes in a very long time and the first time I'd used a piping bag in a very long time I don't think they look too awful and anyway, people were so enchanted by the pink sugar glitter they didn't notice anything else.

Liz’s Carrot and Banana Cupcakes

Ingredients
150ml/ 1/4 pint mild flavoured oil (I used rice bran)
250g/8oz self raising wholemeal flour
2 tsp baking powder
150g/5oz light muscovado sugar (I used brown sugar)
60g/2 oz walnuts, coarsely chopped
125g/4oz carrots, grated (I used 2 medium sized carrots)
2 ripe bananas, mashed
2 eggs
1 tablespoon milk

Method
Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl
Mix well until thoroughly combined
Spoon into cupcake papers
Bake at 180C/350F for 20-30 minutes or until they test done
Note - this will depend on the size of your cupcakes. Mine were quite large as I only got 10 cakes from the mixture. They took about 30 minutes
Transfer to a wire rack to cool
Decorate as desired

Happy Birthday Queenie

2009-06-03T16:52:00.003+12:00

The first Monday in June is a public holiday in New Zealand to celebrate the birthday of Queen Elizabeth II. It's our last long weekend until Labour day at the end of October and pretty much marks the beginning of a dreary winter. What better way to celebrate than to have an afternoon tea served on fine china. Tiaras compulsory of course.

We had a lovely range of goodies including pikelets with cream & jam, little bread cases filled with a cheesey corn mixture and topped with tomato, chocolate cake and club sandwhiches. My contribution to the tea was something quick and easy because I was going out the night before and didn't have much time to bake. I made my reliable, tried and tested orange cake. It's one of those ones where you bung everything in the food processor - no creaming required and best of all it doesn't even need icing. I've blogged about it before and you can find the entry.
here

Mama's Got A Brand New Bag #2

2009-04-07T18:00:00.000+12:00

I wrote this random post and filed it away in draft but since I've not been baking much lately I figured it was time for this little piece of randomness to be used.

Some time ago I had a day to myself in Wellington, my home town. Well actually Upper Hutt is my home town but Wellington is where I worked for over 15 years. They say you can't beat Wellington on a good day. Unfortunately the day I visited was drab and drizzly. This is a photo I took of Wellington harbour from the bus to Upper Hutt looking out towards Oriental Bay.

Here's a look at the sea from the east coast of New Zealand, this time looking across to Kapiti island. This was on my bus trip home to Palmerston North.

I had a lovely wander around Wellington and took the opportunity to snap a few photos. Here's a sculpture on Featherston Street that caught my eye.

And here's a picture of one of New Zealand's cultural icons - buzzy bee. It's right beside the largest wooden building in the southern hemisphere.

It's quite appropriate that Buzzy Bee is not far away from "the beehive" - our parliament building.

I did a little shopping at Moore Wilson's which is an Aladdin's cave of foodie accessories. When I spied the little blow torch in my favourite shade of turquoise and at a reasonable price I just had to have it; similarly the lime green kitchen timer. I usually use the timer on my microwave but many's the time I've either forgotten to put the timer on or wanted to use the microwave for something else in the middle of baking. My new timer is magnetic and will stick to the fridge. It's also big enough to take with me if I leave the room to go update my Facebook page or whatever else might be on the agenda for the day. Here's a tip for you re timing in general which is quite useful. As you put your cake in the oven, note down the time on a piece of paper. Sure it won't help you if you leave the room and get distracted by something but it's a good standby if you are in the kitchen and had forgotten to put the timer on. The tea towels - well they're in my favourite colours and I couldn't pass them by. Lastly some Maldon sea salt which has been smoked - I've not tried it yet and I'm sure it'll be good although I'll be judicious about what I use it on/in. Once I made a rogan josh curry which called for paprika but all I had was Spanish smoked paprika. I can tell you it does NOT have any place in a curry and it's a fusion combination that doesn't work. I am the laughing stock of my Indian friends who take great joy in reminding me of my faux pas.

If you are in doubt about my favourite colours check out my shoes....

What's in a name?

2009-03-10T18:00:00.001+13:00

My mother and I enjoy a good play on words and are also known for using malapropisms. It’s our greatest fear that one day we’ll say something and people won’t “get” the humour and think we are just stupid like a certain US ex-President. When I was growing up we always referred to Rhubarb as Rupert and a popular winter dessert in our household was Rupert Crumple. Today I present to you a very tasty Rupert cake recipe.

I had a large amount of cream left over from a dinner party and thought it would be a good idea to use it up in a cake that perhaps called for buttermilk in keeping with my well publicised theory that dairy is pretty much interchangeable. My mother-in-law had given me some rhubarb from her garden so I searched for rhubarb and buttermilk and came up with a recipe from Allrecipes.

I read a lot of the reviews which mentioned cutting down the sugar, upping the rhubarb, adding oats to the topping and adding extra spices so I decided to tweak the recipe and see how it turned out. I’m pleased to say that this is definitely a keeper. It’s a very moist and tender cake, probably on account of all that wonderful fat from the cream. Usually I don’t know how well cakes keep because more often than not I take my baking efforts to work and there are never any leftovers. Most recently I baked this cake for my father-in-law’s birthday and it was eaten over a long weekend. If anything the cake got moister.

Rhubarb and Ginger Cake
Makes a 9" x 13" cake

Ingredients
½ cup butter (4 oz)
1 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
1 cup cream (or milk) soured with the juice of half a lemon or 1 tablespoon of white vinegar
4-5 cups sliced rhubarb
½ cup crystallised ginger washed (to get the sugar off), and sliced (optional)

Topping
¼ cup butter (2 oz)
1 cup brown sugar (very lightly packed)
½ cup rolled oats (regular, not quick cooking or steel cut)
1 tsp cinnamon

Method
In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy
Add egg, vanilla, ginger, cinnamon and beat well
Into a separate bowl, sift flour, baking soda and salt
Add dry ingredients alternately with cream to the butter and sugar mixture.
If desired toss the rhubarb in a little flour (I omitted this step with no ill effect)
Add the sliced rhubarb and ginger
Spoon into a lined and greased 13” x 9” cake pan
Combine butter, brown sugar, rolled oats and cinnamon and sprinkle over the top of the cake.
Bake at 350 degrees F/180 degrees C for 40 minutes or until cake tests done.

This is the cake before going into the oven - just use your imagination for how delicious it looked after baking. I'm sure it would be delicious served warm from the oven with a dollop of cream on the side.

When Life Gives You Lemons....

2009-02-20T18:00:00.000+13:00

.... make Yucca!

While living in the US we we were introduced to a wonderful party drink called yucca (yucka) and despite having an abundant supply of lemons I'd never actually gotten around to making some of my own. The weekends have been sunny and the pool has been hovering around 30-31 degrees celsius/88 degrees fahrenheit - perfect conditions for a nice refreshing batch of yucca or as I like to call it "electric lemonade".

I think what had put me off making yucca until now was the fact that the original recipe calls for a 5th of vodka (750 mls) and unless you have company that's just a little too much alcohol for two people. Also, I've been unable to find a large enough glass jar. I scaled the recipe down by about a quarter and use an empty Ocean Spray Cranberry juice jar which works pretty well.

Here's the recipe:

Yucca Cocktail

Ingredients
175 mls vodka - approximately 6 fluid ounces
1/4 cup granulated sugar
Ice
3-4 large lemons, deseeded and chopped small enough to fit through the mouth of your jar
A large glass jar with a wide mouth lid

Method
Mix vodka and sugar in the jar
Add lemons and ice
Wrap in a towel and shake until the sugar dissolves and the towel is starting to stick to the jar

Serve over ice in a tall glass
Enjoy

A Viola for Valentine's Day

2009-02-16T13:00:00.001+13:00

I feel like a big old blog fraud because I haven't posted since last year or participated in any blog events. Just as well I hadn't made any new year's resolutions about posting more often. This past weekend I invited my friend Marti around for dinner because her husband was out of town and I thought she might like company on Valentine’s Day.

On the menu was Chicken Marbella which is a classic recipe that never goes out of date and is a great make ahead party dish. You can google it and find a frillion entries about it including one by my cooking hero Ruth Pretty. I served the chicken with chunky cut, pan fried potatoes seasoned with my current favourite condiment - smoked Marlborough sea salt from the Smoke and Spice Company. This spice blend reminds me a little of McCormick’s Montreal Steak Seasoning and I highly recommend it, especially for steak or lamb on the barbeque. It is also great on fresh tomatoes on toast - Vogel's of course. For a bit of green we had some steamed green beans sprinkled with toasted flaked almonds.

Dessert was something quick and easy – my mum’s lemon mousse(previously posted under a Hey Hey It’s Donna Day entry) which I served in mini brandy snap baskets and decorated with canned boysenberries. The combination of sweet yet tangy mousse, crispy brandy snaps and juicy berries was fantastic. Marti asked for seconds which was a nice compliment.

My husband and I aren’t much into Valentine’s day and we didn’t even buy each other a card this year but look what I got……

This little pansy had self-seeded and was growing in the middle of our back lawn. My sweetie mowed around it especially for me - wasn't he thoughtful.

Joe Crow Chicken

2008-11-24T18:00:00.001+13:00

As photos go, this is as uninspiring as they get, but the recipe is completely worth it.

We recently purchased a new barbeque for the summer season - a big stainless steel mothership of a barbeque. My role is the preparation of the food rather than the actual cooking and I have a major issue in that all my husband wants to cook on the barbeque is sausages, steak, meat patties and the occasional shrimp on a skewer. All in all a barbeque is just a giant and expensive kitchen appliance. My goal this summer is to encourage him to be a little creative and this recipe was my first attempt. First I had to get over my aversion to using chicken meat other than breasts. Yes I know that thigh meat is moister and more succulent than breast meat, but by the time I cut out all the fat and oogey bits, the meat that's left is very messy looking - especially when I forget to buy boned thighs. My tip for any like-minded chicken choppers is to use lots of minced garlic in the marinade to conceal any bits of fat that might be left on the meat.

Tequila Lime Chicken

Ingredients
Chicken
Olive or avocado oil
A generous slosh of tequila (I used Jose Cuervo Gold - don't waste your good Patron or Herradura on this)
Juice of 2-3 limes
A squirt of sweet chilli sauce or some finely sliced fresh red chilli
A handful of chopped coriander/cilantro
2-3 cloves of garlic, chopped

Method
Place your prepared chicken in a bowl
Add a little oil and mix with the chicken to combine
Add remaining marinade ingredients and leave to marinate for 4-6 hours or even overnight
Cook on the flat plate of your barbeque until done

This would be delicious served with a mango or kiwifruit salsa

Blogging By Mail - 10 Things or Less

2008-11-17T18:00:00.002+13:00

Stephanie, from Dispensing Happiness organised another round of her highly popular Blogging by Mail. Blogging by Mail brings back good memories for me because it was a BBM event which was the kick in the pants for me to start blogging. I'll always be thankful to Stephanie for that. This time the brief was "10 items or less". Can you believe that 116 participants signed up for this round?

The wonderful Allison of Sushi Day sent me a box of goodies. She wasn’t sure what she could send from California to New Zealand so opted to fill my box with some of her favourite things. If you are a fan of sushi you really need to check out Allison's blog - it's awesome.

Candy corn: In honour of Halloween. We don’t celebrate it in a big way in New Zealand but the retailers are starting to catch on.

Green tea: Allison packed her favourite brand – Numi Gunpowder Green.

Mochiko: Allison suggested making this into a pudding which you can do in the microwave. I did a bit of googling and came up with a recipe for Mochiko Chicken on the Allrecipes site which sounds mighty tasty.

Inari: I had no idea that these little tofu wrappers came in a canned form and will be keen to try them out.

Coconut water: A favourite of Allison’s boyfriend Son.

Dry roasted edamame: I’ve only ever had fresh edamame before and these little slightly salty snacks are a delicious treat.

Honey Maid Graham Crackers: Allison wasn’t sure if we got these in NZ and she’s right, we don’t. The closest thing would be a digestive biscuit or a superwine. I think these are destined to become a pie crust and I’ll have to pick a typically American pie filling to go on top.

Quadratini Wafers: Made in Italy. Allison warned me that these little not too sweet vanilla flavoured wafers are addictive. She wasn’t wrong. I shared some with my co-workers at afternoon tea time but the rest were all mine and there aren’t any left!

Mixed rice crackers: The perfect snack to have with drinks for a Japanese themed dinner party.

Candy wipes: You might miss these in the photo as they look like a roll of candy but actually it’s little individual wipes which you moisten to use. A great thing to have in my handbag for emergencies.

Thank you Allison for a thoughtful package and of course a big shout out to Stephanie for organising yet another fantastic round of blogging by mail.

If you want to check out what I sent to my swap partner go and visit Melody at The Trap Door.

When’s the next one!

The Great Bake Sale of '08

2008-11-07T12:29:00.007+13:00

Recently my office held a bake sale to raise funds for our social club. This was the second such event we've held this year and I think people knew what was expected and went the extra mile. For my contribution I offered a cake made to order. So far the winner hasn't decided what she wants but I have given her a list of my tried and true recipes. Take a look at some of the fantastic entries.

A Swedish Apple cake

Fortunately not a lamb flavoured cake

Pumpkin Spice cake for halloween

Decadent chocolate cake

Pot black

Gingerbread house

Moo cake

Boozey chocolate cake

Chocolate cake decorated with chocolate finger biscuits and chocolate covered almonds

I feel mean posting without a recipe so here's something created by one of my colleagues which was what I bought at the bake sale.

Monica's Honey Almond Bites

You need
Pastry
Mascarpone
Slivered almonds
Honey
Chocolate

Method
Make some short pastry
Cut pastry into small circles (you can use a drinking glass as a cutting guide)
Place the pastry circles into a small muffin tin and then blind bake in a fan oven (pre-heated to about 180°C) for approx 7-8 minutes
Dry roast the almond pieces (approximately 100g) in the oven for a few minutes
Mix about two tablespoons of Clover honey with mascarpone cheese (1 packet) and add the almond pieces
Place the honey and almond mixture into the pastry cases and cover with melted dark chocolate

Potluck Italiano #2

2008-10-15T12:00:00.000+13:00

Longtime readers may remember an early post about a
potluck Italian dinner. Well we got together again for another round but with a slightly different guest list.

We started off with an antipasto platter. Don't you love how easy these are to put together by opening a few jars of this and that, and then artfully arranging things on a nice platter. We had salami, cheese, marinated sundried tomatoes, olives, gherkins, baby peppers stuffed with feta and melon wrapped in proscuitto. My tip for the day: remember that prosciutto and melon should be a one bite portion. Having a long strip of prosciutto dangling down your chin is not an attractive look.

Our next course was baked portobello mushrooms with pesto, tomato and mozzarella. If you like the taste of insalata caprese you'll love this dish because of its similar flavour combination. It would be a good option for winter time when fresh basil isn't available.

My non-cooking husband was up next and was determined to make his newly learned signature dish - Tuna Pasta Bake. It's the only thing he knows how to do other than poached eggs on toast or spaghetti/baked beans on toast. Well that's not quite true, - he actually makes a very decent salad. To be fair to the guy I barely let him in the kitchen except for clean up duty so he doesn't really have a chance to get creative. Our guests gave him a hard time because this particular dish is... shock horror... am I actually admitting this in public?.... made with the assistance of a packet of Maggi sauce mix and is not from scratch.

For our main course we had hearty meatballs in tomato sauce with basil and mozzarella served over fettuccine. To complement the meatballs I made green beans with garlic and almonds as well as my Sicilian pepper dish.

The finale was Tiramisu which was made with Frangelico and Cointreau for the booze component - it was a lovely flavour combination. To offset the richness I made a winter fruit salad of oranges and green kiwifruit. Even though I knew how I needed to cut the oranges I decided to google the technique and I came across two interesting blogs, Coconut and Lime, and The Scent of Green Bananas. These days when I'm searching for culinary assistance on the net I usually add "blog" to my search. I guess because I know that people tend to write about recipes and techniques they've actually tried that I trust them a little more. Sometimes I learn something along the way - did you know when you cut an orange like this the resulting piece is called a "supreme".

And what did we drink with all this wonderful food? We started off with some bubbles. No prosecco this time but a French bubbly followed by good old "Lindy", New Zealand's favourite methode traditionelle. From there it was onto a red (or four including two Chiantis), and a Matua Savignon Blanc which we had with the tuna dish. You could say we had a good night!

Announcing the Arrival of...

2008-10-07T17:14:00.006+13:00

....well that's the thing really, they don't have names and I need help.

We went to visit a breeder in Levin on Sunday intending to come home with a couple of Burmilla kittens. I love the look of their silver coats and little round faces. However, we had decided that we would let the kittens pick us and each Burmilla we approached would put her ears down and pull away from us. We ended up coming home with two Burmese kittens.

Barinka Shine is an 11 month old Blue Silver burmese and her half sister, Tabitha is a five month old chocolate silver. You can check out their parents here if you are interested. Billy Boy is their daddy and Barinka's mum is Paris, a blue Burmese; while Tabitha's mum is Kelli, a Chocolate Tortie Burmese.

Husband and I are disagreeing about their names because I want pretty sounding names like Phoebe or Lucy (apparently cats like names that end in an "ee" sound although how a person can know that I don't understand). When we were first talking about getting a pair of kittens we thought we'd call them Guido and Luigi after the characters in the movie Cars but those names don't fit our girls. Husband is not a fan of people names unless they are a bit "out there" hence our last cat being called Scooter and the one before that Allie which was actually short for Alligator and not a person's name at all.

I quite like the idea of finding a pair of names However, Lucy and Ramona (from that song by Michael Nesmith), Patty and Selma, Phoebe and Ursula, Patsy and Eddy; and Thelma and Louise were all turned down.

I've even toyed with a foodie names like Cookie, Coco, Bailey or Lindy (short for Lindauer, a bubbly NZ wine). As a kid we had a pair of Siamese cats which were named Sausage and Mash.

Let's get those suggestions rolling in.

Update 09/10/08: Husband has come up with Smudge for the grey kitty which suits her personality because she smooches and smudges all over you and, well, she's smudge coloured. As for the young one, someone suggest Sticky since she sticks to her sister like glue. I'm not sure I can live with that but I'm thinking about it.

The Great Palmy Foodlovers Winter Lunch of '08

2008-10-06T18:30:00.001+13:00

A few weeks (OK months) ago I got together with some of the local gals who are regular contributors to the forum on the Foodlovers website. We had lunch at Rendezvous restaurant and I enjoyed the rare privilege of taking photos of my food in public. Not that I’m complaining about the gloriously sunny day but the bright winter sunlight streaming into the restaurant made lighting for the photographs a bit difficult. I can’t remember who had what now but it looks like we ordered a portobello mushroom panini, poached eggs on a potato and salmon cake, and seafood pasta. I'm think there was another sammich and some Eggs Benny but those photos were likely victimes of the aforementioned sun strike.

After lunch we were all delighted by a surprise gift from Raewyn G. She’d handcrafted pretty little boxes and filled them with YUMMY chocolate fudge - so delicious that I don’t even think mine lasted the rest of the day. Raewyn said it was Tammy’s recipe and you can find it on her blog Wee Treats by Tammy - it's really really good (both Tammy's blog and the fudge recipe).

Thanks to Raewyn Mc for organising a very pleasant outing. Let’s do it again soon.

Happy Birthday to Me

2008-10-04T09:30:00.000+13:00

Our neighbours invited us to dinner to celebrate my birthday last Friday and I was treated like a princess albeit sans crown but that's OK.

We started off with some Veuve Clicquot for the birthday toast - I'm a big fan of bubbly especially when it's the good stuff. The entree was homemade crab ravioli served with a shallot and saffron sauce. Everybody protested when we were served three ravioli but I noticed that no plate went back with leftovers.

The main course was a wonderful beef tenderloin which had a wee bit of a story to it. Chef neighbour sent his wife out shopping for some pork tenderloin and being a recent immigrant from the US she didn't realise that in NZ the name tenderloin pretty much always means beef. Sooooooo, chef neighbour duly brined the meat expecting it to be pork and prepared a mango and mint salsa and a berry sauce (which had some fancy French sounding name I can't remember) to go with. The end result still worked well with the fruit sauces being a wonderful complement to the juicy beef. New seasons green beans and some herby roast potatoes were our accompaniment.

The piece de resistance was of course the birthday cake, complete with candles. Chef neighbour had prepared a luscious lemon layer cake made with rice flour and filled with a berry mousse. I think it was a recipe based on something from a bakery from back home in Palo Alto. I had seconds! Right in front of my usually non-dessert-eating husband but hey it was MY birthday after all.

I didn't get a birthday present from my husband because we will soon be spending some serious money on new kitties. The house has been very quiet with Scooter gone. I would love to rescue a couple of cats from the SPCA but I haven't found any suitable candidates to take home. I've been researching different breeds and identified a few that I liked based on looks or purrsonality (Bengal, Occicat, Devon Rex (hybrid) and LaPerm) but we have met a local breeder of Burmillas who has these gorgeous creatures and I think this is the route we're going to take. Since we both work we are going to get two so they have company during the day and don't tear up our house too much.

Blog Party #38 - Birthday Baking

2008-09-19T18:00:00.000+12:00

Stephanie from Dispensing Happiness invited me to Blog Party #38 which is a party for her very own self. I wanted to contribute something typically kiwi so I opted for Lolly cake which might be quite difficult to replicate if you live outside of New Zealand or Australia. The closest thing to malt biscuits in the US would be graham crackers. As for fruit puffs... hmmmm..... They are kind of dry and I have a suspicion that they're like those circus peanuts candies in texture. You could probably substitute marshmallows.

Lolly Cake

Ingredients
1 packet of malt biscuits
120g butter
1/2 a can of sweetened condensed milk
1 packet of fruit puffs
Dessicated coconut to coat

Method
Crush the biscuits very finely in the food processor. IMHO this is not one of those biscuit concoctions that is nice with "pebbles in the sand"
Melt the butter and mix it with the condensed milk
Chop the fruit puffs in half
Combine the crushed biscuits, fruit puffs and butter/milk mixture in a large bowl
Form into a log shape and roll in coconut
Refrigerate until firm
Cut into slices

Lolly cake even has its own website which includes a recipe and a bunch of other stuff about variations. There's even an entry on Wikipedia.

Happy Birthday Stephanie.

They say things come in threes....

2008-09-18T18:00:00.000+12:00

I have had three baking disasters recently but am pleased to say my run of bad luck is broken. I've learned a couple of lessons along the way so it's not all bad.

Lesson 1 - if a cake recipe has particularly moist ingredients such as a large quantity of banana; and the recipe calls for a long cooking time - trust the cooking time.

Lesson 2 - unless your cake is a tried and true recipe, test a piece before serving it to your unsuspecting morning tea guests. At the very least cut the cake open.

Lesson 3 - Baking Powder is a key ingredient and cannot be substituted with cornflour/ cornstarch.

So what really happened?

Well the first disaster was because I was being lazy and rather than using Dorie Greenspan's delicious banana cake recipe (which I first discovered on my friend Lisa's blog - La Mia Cucina) I opted for a melt and mix version. It had a cup of bananas in it and tested done in about half the cooking time. So far so good. I frosted it with chocolate icing and set it out for a morning tea which I did not attend. I asked for feedback since I'd told them it was a new recipe and the comment was "everyone loved the custard filling". Hmmmm

The second disaster was partly because I was baking at stupid o'clock in the morning and was probably not quite focussed. My baking powder and cornflour are in the same sized containers although they have different coloured lids and are clearly labelled. My first attempt at making Wondercake was a complete disaster and resulted in a squat, dense, baked product which I wouldn't give the courtesy of calling cake; and similarly (my third disaster) my batch of cheese, tomato and onion muffins were little stodgy balls of dough. I suppose that not only was there no leavening agent, the cornstarch would have played some weird chemical part in the mix.

Kathy's Wondercake
Makes a small cake about 8 x 8

Ingredients
1 cup flour
2 teaspoons Baking Powder
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons melted butter
2 eggs
Milk
Flavourings as desired - cocoa, lemon, orange, coffee, spice, vanilla etc

Method
Put flour, sugar and baking powder into a bowl
Add dry spices if desired
Whisk the melted butter with the 2 eggs and make up to 1 cup with milk
Add to dry ingredients
Beat with a handheld beater for 5 minutes
Bake 180 degrees /350 for approx 40 mins or until cake tests done
Ice as desired

This makes a light and tender cake. The first time I (successfully) made this cake I chose to use a teaspoon each of cinnamon and ginger and then iced it with a caramel icing and decorated it with chopped crystallised ginger as you can see below.

The second time I put orange zest in the cake mix and used fresh orange juice in the icing. I think this is my new "go-to" cake recipe and I'm planning a lemon/lime version next time round.

Interestingly, Wondercake bears a striking resemblance to my former go-to cake recipe Lazy Daisy Cake which I was introduced to by Deb. It is pretty much what they call a hot milk sponge and the proportions of ingredients are amazingly similar. The difference is the temperature of the milk and the fact that Wondercake is beaten for 5 minutes. I wonder... what would happen if I just beat it a little bit? I'll tell you later.

What's your go-to cake recipe?

Scooter 1994 - 2008

2008-09-16T17:00:00.000+12:00

My dear old cat Scooter developed cancer and a couple of months ago we made the sad but merciful decision to put her to sleep. I'll miss her "helping" me with my quilting and the laundry, I'll miss her hanging around my ankles waiting for tidbits in the kitchen; and I'll even miss her delicately licking my eyelids at stupid o'clock in the morning to tell me she wanted breakfast.

Since Scooter warranted her own label on my blog I've put together a little photographic tribute which was inspired by a recent post by Deb.

International Chocolate Day

2008-09-15T18:00:00.000+12:00

Did you know that 13 September is International Chocolate Day? I don't know who decreed it. Isn't every day Chocolate Day?

Recently, I offered to bake a co-worker something for her birthday and she requested brownies. I don't have a favourite brownie recipe so I consulted a few different recipes from some of the doyennes of New Zealand's cooking scene Ruth Pretty, Annabelle Langbein and Jo Seagar. Just to make sure that these kiwi women had the right idea about an American recipe I consulted Dorie Greenspan's Baking, from my home to yours.

The recipes were quite similar in that they all called for almost equal quantities of butter and sugar and all of my recipes needed 4 eggs. The major difference was in the quantity of flour. Brownies are not my favourite thing but when I have them I like them fudgy and intensely chocolately. None of those cakey textured, pale things that try to pass themselves off as brownies. No sirree Bob.

This picture belies the brownie's dark colour - I just took the photo to show the dry, shiny top. The hole in the middle is where I tested the brownies with a thin knife - just like they say you should. My knifeblade came out a bit gooey but I reckoned on them continuing to cook in the pan and crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.

The verdict - YUM

Chocolate Brownies

Ingredients
225g/8 ounces butter
200g/7 ounces dark chocolate, chopped
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups plain flour

Method
Preheat your oven to 180/350 degrees
Grease and line an 18 x 13 pan
Melt butter and chocolate over a low heat
Combine melted chocolate with sugar
Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition
Stir in vanilla essence
Pour into baking tin
Bake for 35 minutes until set
Cool
Cut into squares

Here's a recipe from one of my co-workers. No photo I'm afraid but I can personally vouch for their deliciousness. Please note that the imperial measurement conversions are not precise but I'm sure that exact measurements aren't as critical for brownies as they might be for a cake.

Michelle's Dark Chocolate and Raspberry Brownies

Ingredients
150g/5 ounces good quality dark chocolate
150g/5 ounces butter
4 eggs
340g/12 ounces brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
140g/5 1/2 ounces self-raising flour
70g/2 1/2 ounces cocoa powder
Pinch of salt
100g/3 1/2 ounces chopped good quality dark chocolate
~1/2 cup frozen raspberries (can use walnuts or anything else)

Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F
Line a cake tin with baking paper
Melt the first amount of the chocolate and butter and mix
Leave to cool
Whisk the eggs and mix with the brown sugar
Add the vanilla
Sift the flour, cocoa and salt into the mixture
Add the melted butter and chocolate and the chopped chocolate and raspberries
(I sometimes mix them in or sometimes sit it on top of the brownie mix when in the pan but last time I had them on the bottom so when I turned it out you could see all the raspberries)
Pour into the cake tin and cook for 25 - 30 minutes
I normally have to leave for longer
I prefer a sticky brownie and even when I cook for longer still is lovely and moist
Remove from oven, leave to cool, lift out of the baking paper and cut into pieces then dust with icing sugar

Ginger Crunch

2008-09-02T19:00:00.002+12:00

OK so this is not a picture of a plate of cookies but wouldn't you just love to eat them all up? These cuties were temporary residents at the SPCA where I volunteer for a few hours on the weekend.

Ginger Crunch
Adapted from a Simon and Alison Holst recipe and a recipe from Quick and Easy Slices by Robyn Martin

Ingredients
Base:
150g/5 ounces butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 cups plain flour
2 teaspooons ground ginger
Icing:
100g/4 tablespoons tablespoons butter
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tablespoons golden syrup (if you can't get golden syrup, maple syrup *might* work)
1 cup icing sugar
Finely chopped crystallised ginger (optional)

Method
Preheat your oven to 180 degrees C/250 F
Place all base ingredients in a food processor and process until the mixture is the texture of coarse breadcrumbs OR melt butter and add the rest of the base ingredients and mix until blended (my favourite lazy method)
Press mixture into a lined pan 20cm/8in square or larger if you like a thinner base
Bake for about 20 minutes or until evenly and lightly browned
While the base cooks make the icing
Measure butter, ginger, golden syrup and water into a pot or microwave bowl
Heat, without boiling, until melted
Take off the heat and sift in the icing sugar and beat until smooth
When the base is cooked pour the icing mixture over the warm base
Sprinkle with chopped ginger if desired
Leave to cool and set
Do not take from the pan until it has cooled completely

High on the hills was a lonely goatherd...

2008-08-15T18:00:00.003+12:00

Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo.

This is one of those posts that would win an award for the worst possible food photos - sorry about that.

A group I work with has a tradition of celebrating Swiss Day with a pot luck lunch. After struggling to find a suitable traditional Swiss recipe I took a leaf out of Cakelaw's book after reading her post Red White or Swiss and opted for a recipe that involved the colours of the Swiss Flag.

This slice recipe is similar to a Louise cake except that it has cherries and almonds in it and the topping is not as merginuey because it uses whole eggs rather than just egg whites. Despite the three steps involved it’s a breeze to make and tastes delicious. You can find Alison Holst’s Louise cake recipe here

Not your Momma’s Louise Cake aka Cherry Slice
Adapted from Alison and Simon Holst’s book 100 Favourite Muffins and Slices

Base
1 cup plain flour
¼ cup granulated sugar
100 grams cold butter, chopped into small pieces

Filling
½ cup berry jam
¼ - ½ cup glace cherries – chopped finely

Topping
1 ½ cups dessicated coconut
1 cup granulated sugar
½ cup plain flour
50g cold butter, chopped into small pieces
2 eggs
½ cup flaked almonds (optional)
¼ - ½ teaspoon almond extract

Method
Heat oven to 180 degrees C
Spray a 23cm square pan with non stick spray (I lined mine with baking paper)
Place all base ingredients in the food processor and process until they look like fine breadcrumbs
Press into the tin
Bake for 15 minutes
While the base is cooking prepare the topping
Place the first four ingredients into the unwashed food process and blend together until the butter is cut through the mixture
Add the eggs, flaked almonds and almond extract and blend until the mixture comes together
Spread the warm base with jam and sprinkle the chopped cherries over
Using a spoon, blob the topping mixture over the base, smoothing it out gently to cover the jammy filling
Bake for a further 20-30 minutes or until the top is golden brown
Cut into squares to serve
Refrigerate in a covered container, between layers of baking paper for up to a week. Freeze for longer storage.

Now when have I ever baked something and not had to improvise a little? I didn’t have raspberry jam so instead used a product from Barkers which was a mixed fruit spread called Wild Berry Glory which has blackberries, boysenberries, raspberries and blackcurrants sweetened with concentrated pear juice. It was probably nicer than using jam because it wasn’t as sweet and gave more depth of flavour than a straight raspberry jam.

Also on offer were Swiss chocolates, cheese fondue and two fantastic pies; one a savoury cheesey, oniony concoction and the other a sweet egg custard. For the health conscious we had cherry tomatoes and cucumber slices seasoned with Knorr Aromat seasoning which apparently is a staple in every Swiss person’s pantry.

Aussie Invasion

2008-07-31T18:55:00.000+12:00

Recently we had some friends from Australia to stay with us for the weekend and those of you who see my on Facebook know that I agonised about what to make for dessert for a few days. What better conversation starter to have for dessert than a Pavlova. Our rivalry for ownership of this classic dessert is well known

I'm not a huge fan of Pavlova and it wouldn't be my first choice if I was presented with it on a dessert menu but I wanted something that I could make the night before and I didn't want to do a tart or a pie or anything to "bready" since we were having a pasta bake with fresh bread a salad for our main course.

A friend at work suggested Pavlova roll filled with lemon curd but the recipe I had from the cookbook I started as a newlywed called for crushed pineapple and toasted almonds.

Pavlova Roll
Serves 6

Ingredients
4 egg whites
2 teaspoons vinegar
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 teaspoon cornflour/cornstarch
8 tablespoons caster sugar
1 bottle cream, whipped
1 medium tin crushed pineapple, drained
Flaked almonds

Method
Beat egg whites and add cornflour
Beat slightly and add vinegar and vanilla
While still beating add 6 tablespoons of sugar and beat until stiff and glossy
Fold in remaining sugar
Grease bottom and sides of a swiss roll tin and line with baking paper
Spread mixture into tin and sprinkle with almonds
Bake at 180 degrees C for 15 minutes or until brown
Take a piece of baking paper and sprinkle it with sugar
Tip cooked pav onto this and gently peel the paper lining off
Cool slightly
(At this stage it can be stored loosely wrapped in the fridge until a few hours before serving)
Spread with whipped cream
Top with fruit
Roll up long edge to form a log - good luck with that!
Refrigerate for at least two hours

I used my stand mixer and got great volume with my egg whites so my pavlova was too thick to roll and didn't look very pretty it still tasted great though. The tart pineapple, and crunchy almonds are a good foil to the sugary marshmallow and velvety whipped cream.

On Saturday the weather was revolting so we took a drive to the Wairarapa to visit a few wineries. We picked up some nice Pinot Noir from Te Kairanga and some Pinot Gris from Ata Rangi. At Ata Rangi I picked up a very styley t-shirt.

We also visited Shoc Chocolates in Greytown and purchased some yummy treats. Check out their interesting flavour combinations such as Tequila, Lime and Rock Salt which are exquisitely hand painted white chocolate hearts streaked with red, yellow and green or Wasabi and Ginger Truffle. Their tablet chocolate comes in amazing flavours and I sampled some strawberry and black pepper. I picked up a trio of treats to send to my BFF but their flavours will have to be a surprise. I hope she likes them.

Blogging by Mail - the Little Things Edition

2008-06-04T18:00:00.001+12:00

I love it when Stephanie Dispensing Happiness announces another Blogging by Mail event. The idea of getting mail that is not a bill is even more fun when it contains foodie treats.

The package I sent went to Lisa of Pittsburgh Needs Eated and the package that I received came from Sara of Heaven on Earth. It took a wee while getting to me because of an addressing glitch but as they say, better late that never. The upside of the delay was that Sara and I have gotten to know each other through a few emails and we've shared some recipes such as her wonderful ginger and pumpkin bread. Because the word "spices" was on the customs declaration the folk at our border control decided they needed to open my package. Fortunately there was no note in there telling me that anything had been removed for destruction as was the case one year when a friend sent me some fresh mistletoe at Christmas.

What did I receive?

To set the scene, a CD by Maria Muldaur.

Violet mints - a very interesting candy that tastes like the smell of violets.

Old Bay Seasoning was on my wish-list and I was very happy to find it in my package. Now I must try some crab cakes - it's a pity I'll have to make them with canned crab. We actually not really a pity because the idea of dealing with de-fleshing a crab squicks me out more than a little bit.

Some chicken seasoning - smells delicious and I can't wait to use it on my next roast chicken. I've not heard of Bell's Seasonings before.

The cutest little individual foil baking cups I've ever seen. Little star shapes by Reynolds. These will be getting recycled I can tell you! Check out a review of them here.

I'd indicated on my wish list that I wanted to expand my repertoire of Mexican cooking. Sara obliged by sending me some Ancho Chillies which I will certainly try in her recipe for chicken with peanut sauce.

Sara also sent a lovely selection of Celestial Seaonings tea. I love their products, particularly the zinger ones.

A big thank you to Stephanie for organising another great event and thanks to my new blog friend Sara for putting together such an interesting package.

Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum

2008-05-31T17:00:00.002+12:00

....well not quite but almost.

One of my co-workers turned 40 recently and I asked him what kind of cake he would like me to bake for him. He said he wanted something with alcohol in it, on it or around it and I asked him what his tipple was. His response - “Pirates like rum”.

Although I’ve already made Dorie's rum drenched pound cake I googled for a new recipe and found one on a blog called Eatables. The recipe calls for a butter rum glaze which uses a LOT of butter and a LOT of rum.

The photo is terrible but you can see the very appropriately themed breath “mints” which I found at a very cool store in Wellington called Iko Iko – it’s one of those tacky gift shop kind of places selling the same marvellous miscellany like might find at Archie McPhee's. I'm very sad to report that I didn't find a yodelling pickle at Iko Iko!

Don't hate me if you have an earworm now.

Farewell Daring Bakers

2008-05-28T17:33:00.002+12:00

Did you miss my post for the Daring Bakers’ April Challenge? I thought so. Not that you would have wanted to see my efforts because the April Challenge was not my greatest work. My cheesecake pops look like little decorated meatballs!

It’s hard to believe that it’s time for the latest challenge to be revealed – check out the Daring Bakers' Blogroll to see what everyone has been up to this month.

Despite the challenge only being a once a month event I’ve come to the conclusion that I can’t really commit the time required and I bid farewell to the Daring Bakers Group in terms of being a member. Those of you who know me personally will be well aware that I’m deadline challenged. Fortunately, in my professional life I’m a bit more focused.

I enjoyed the challenges (and believe me they were definitely challenges) issued over the past year and a bit; and I'll treasure the friends and acquaintances I've met along the way. Special mention goes to my dear friend Lis of La Mia Cucina and her partner in crime Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice who are the co-founders of the wonderful, creative group of food lovers that make up the Daring Bakers. It's hard to imagine that the group started off with less than 20 people slightly over a year ago and now has close to, if not more than, 1,000 participants. That is absolutely mindblowing.

I look forward to a time when I can join the group again - in the meantime I’m sticking to one off events. Here's a classic example of me missing a deadline. I had the best intentions and a great recipe but did I get around to it? No.

I missed Lisa's WCC No. 26 Pressure Cookers, Dutch Ovens and Crockpots but had I participated this is what I would have made.

Beef and Mushroom Casserole

Ingredients
Olive oil
1 package button mushrooms, sliced
2-3 cloves garlic, sliced or crushed
1 can diced tomatoes in juice
1 package dry oxtail soup mix - onion or mushroom soup mix would work well too
1kg/2 lbs or thereabouts of stew meat, diced – I like to use blade steak
2-3 stalks of celery, sliced
1-2 carrots, chopped into chunks or slices
1 onion, peeled and quartered - I do this because my husband doesn't like onions IN things but he doesn't mind the flavour and this way I can pick them out
Red wine - use something that is good enough to drink

Method
Saute mushrooms and garlic in a little olive oil until the mushrooms are soft
Add a good slosh of red wine and cook on medium heat until the mushrooms have absorbed some of the wine
Set aside
Combine dry soup mix and canned tomatoes in an appropriately sized jug or bowl
Place meat and sliced vegetables in your crockpot
Add mushrooms and any wine "jus" from the pan
Add soup and tomato mix
Stir everything together to combine
Cook on low for about 8 hours
This tastes even better the next day as the flavours develop a little more complexity

Serve with fluffy mashed 'taters and some steamed winter veg. Anyone else for Brussels sprouts? My husband reckons there are only four people in the entire world who like Brussels sprouts. Surely he's wrong!

Six Word Memoir

2008-05-21T07:00:00.003+12:00

Some time ago, my blog friend Tammy of Wee Treats by Tammy tagged me for a meme. The original concept was:

Write your own six-word memoir.
Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like (uhhh no thanks - although I'm happy to share a photo of Scooter - doesn't she look pretty with her daisy chain necklace? I must have been really bored that day).
Link to the person who tagged you in your post (see above).
Tag five more blogs with links (see below).
Remember to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play (done).

OK, here goes....

Generous
Creative
Gregarious
Indecisive
Impetuous
Deadline-challenged (that is so one word!)

I'm not one for tagging but they are THE RULES so here I go in no particular order:

Deb of Red Shoe Ramblings
Lisa of La Mia Cucina
Bron of the eponymous (I've always wanted to use that word) Bron Marshall
Barbie of Barbie2Be
Stephanie of Dispensing Happiness

ANZAC Self-saucing Pudding

2008-05-15T23:30:00.000+12:00

I'm really behind in my posting and completely overdue to share my adventures in the kitchen creating the Daring Bakers' April Challenge. To tide you over here's a recipe I made over ANZAC weekend in keeping with the ANZAC-ey theme of coconut and rolled oats. It's a really old fashioned, comforting pud and when my husband takes a second helping of dessert it's high praise indeed. Golden syrup, butter and hot water form a delicious caramel-like sauce. You could probably substitute maple syrup if you're unable to find golden syrup where you live. The recipe says it serves 4-5 and while that's true, I feel that the recipe doesn't make enough sauce for my taste. Your options? Half the pudding or double the sauce! I didn't decide to half the recipe until I had all the dry ingredients in the bowl so all I did was divide it in half and put one portion in a ziplock bag in the freezer. I then halved the milk measurement but used a whole egg as it's kinda hard to half a raw egg.

You'll find the recipe on the Taste magazine website.

But wait.... there's more .....

The next weekend when I was again in the mood to make a warming winter pud I got creative with the leftover batch of pudding mix. I melted some butter (about 100g I think) and mixed it with some brown sugar which I spread over the bottom of a pyrex baking dish. Then I sliced some bananas which were past their best for eating and squeezed over some fresh lime juice to cut the richness of the butter and sugar. I added milk and egg to the pudding mix and blobbed it over the top. No time for photos after it was baked but here's what it looked like prior to the addition of the pudding. It was very nice but I think I prefer my ANZAC self-saucing pudding straight up.

Lest We Forget

2008-04-24T17:00:00.003+12:00

Today I went to a potluck lunch at work to farewell a co-worker who is going on maternity leave. She's having a boy so the theme was of course BLUE but you'd be forgiven for thinking the theme was teal. We had bluberry loaf, blueberry muffins (my contribution), a vanilla cake with blue icing and blue lamingtons as well as some savoury items; although who'd think there would be such a thing as too much sugar?

Tomorrow is ANZAC day which is a day of commemoration for those who died in the service of their country. The poppy is an international symbol of rememberance and explains the decoration on the star of the lunch - an ooey gooey citrus cake. I'm pleased to be able to share the recipe with you.

Sonya's Lemon and Orange Crumble Cake

Ingredients
Cake:
1 ¾ cups self raising flour
3/4 cups caster sugar
90g/approx. 3 ounces unsalted butter, chopped
Finely grated rind of one lemon
2 eggs, lightly beaten
Filling:
¼ cup orange juice
¼ cup lemon juice
¾ cup sugar
2 teaspoons cornflour/cornstarch
90g/approx. 3 ounces unsalted butter, chopped
Sifted icing sugar/powdered sugar for dusting

Method
Preheat oven to 160 degrees C/320 degrees C
Line the base and sides of a 20cm/8 inch round springform tin with baking paper
Put the flour, sugar, butter, rind and eggs in a food processor and pulse to combine
Press 2/3 of the mixture into the prepared tin, reserving the remainder
For the filling:
Put the juices, sugar, cornflour, eggs and butter into a medium pan and stir over a low heat until the mixture comes to the boil
Reduce heat and cook for 2-3 minutes
Remove and stand for 10 minutes to cool
When the citrus filling is cool pour it over the mixture in the tin
Crumble the remaining cake dough on top
Bake for 30-35 minutes
Stand on a wire rack before removing from the tin
Dust with icing sugar

Hay Hay it's Donna Day - #19 The Clafoutis Edition

2008-04-20T11:53:00.009+12:00

Is it a batter? Is it a sponge? Is it a custard? No - it's clafoutis!

Bon Marshall is the happy hostess of this round of Hay Hay it's Donna Day and I was delighted to see that she chose something that I've wanted to make for ages - clafoutis. Originally from Limousin in France, clafoutis is traditionally made with unpitted cherries. Donna Hay's version, which Bron selected, is made with plums and chocolate or should that be prunes et chocolat?

My blog friend Tammy recently made her clafoutis and she altered the recipe slightly and used a combination of milk and lite cream instead of just cream. Since I'm always trying to make my recipes a little healthier I thought this was a great idea. I also thought that the cup of chocolate that the recipe called for was a little over the top, especially if you're going to the bother of using less cream! I probably only used about a 1/4 of a cup. In hindsight the amount was perfect for my taste but I should have left it in bigger chunks. Like Tammy, I used canned black doris plums.

You can find the original Donna Hay recipe on Bron's blog.

I loved this recipe, the rich chocolate and the tart plums were an outstanding favour combination and the recipe was quick and easy to do. I am keen to try other variations over my winter entertaining season.

LiveSTRONG with a Taste of Yellow - 2008

2008-04-16T18:00:00.000+12:00

My blog friend Barbara over at Winos and Foodies is hosting an event in support of Lance Armstrong's LiveSTRONG day which is a one-day initiative to raise awareness and funds for the cancer fight. LiveSTRONG Day 2008 will occur on Tuesday, May 13.

Barbara's event is called A Taste of Yellow and requires participants to make something involving a yellow ingredient. Last year I made an inedible yellow cake, a banana cake with lemon glaze and a yellow lentil curry. This year I'd like to share with you a delicious side dish that my sister-in-law made for me recently. It is a really good accompaniment to fish.

Sicilian Peppers

Ingredients
4-6 peppers - a mixture of red, yellow and orange. Don't use green ones as they are a bit bitter
3 cloves garlic
Olive oil
1 tablespoon capers - rinsed and drained
6 anchovy fillets
1/2 cup mixed olives of your choice - I used pitted kalamata olives and some pimento stuffed green olives
3 tablespoons wine vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste

Method
De-seed peppers and slice into thin strps
Slice garlic
Saute peppers and garlic in olive oil until caramelised
Add capers, anchovies and olives and stir to combine
Mush the anchovies up a bit if necessary (see note below)
Finish off with the wine vinegar
Serve warm or at room temperature

Note: 1. The original recipe called for 6 tablespoons of olive oil and I about died when I saw SIL cooking with that much oil. OK I know that olive oil is the good kind of oil but you sure don't need that much. I used about a tablespoon and it was plenty. 2. If you have anchovy haters at your dinner table don't tell them what's in the dish and they'll never know. The anchovies mush up to nothing if you stir them in well and then all they do is give a subtle depth to the flavour.

I dedicate this recipe to my family and friends who have been touched by cancer.

When Life Gives You Plums....

2008-04-02T18:06:00.003+13:00

.... Make plum jam!

I was given a big bag of plums from someone at work and thought I would make a batch of jam. Although I’ve been making chutneys and relishes for regularly for the last few years it seems like a frillion years since I made jam. Things were going great, my jars were sterilised, my fruit and sugar bubbling away.

... and then my mum phoned me – right in the middle of the “stir constantly” stage. Frick on a Stick! After a brief conversation I went back to my jam making; stirring, stirring stirring. I looked at the timer on the microwave and thought – great, only seven minutes and 23 seconds to go. WRONG! I’d forgotten to put the timer and was looking at the actual time on the microwave clock. Who knows exactly how long I’d been stirring; I know I started it when the news still on and that finished at 7.00 pm. The recipe called for cooking the jam for 18 minutes so I think I may have overdone it, just a tad.

Frick on a Stick on a Brick! ……my mother phoned again as I was pouring the jam into the jars. “What part of I’m in the middle of fricking jam making don’t you understand mother??? “ She got her own back when I phoned her later and managed to time my call to be right in the middle of her favourite soap - “What part of I’m watching Coronation Street don’t you understand?” she asked. I love you mum!

Actually it didn't set quite as hard as I thought it might. Mum tells me that the trick is to stir a little hot water into the jar and then keep your jar in the refrigerator. Another idea I read for overcooked jam is to use it in thumbprint cookies. I think Dorie Greenspan has a recipe in her book Baking: from my home to yours.

An article in a recent Essentially Food magazine on homemade preserves suggested that you should write down the time you start to cook something. Usually with cake baking it’s not so much of an issue because you can test for doneness with a skewer or see if it’s starting to brown or pull away from the sides of the tin. I usually go by the smell but sometimes by the time you can smell a cake it’s already overbaked. Given that I’ve forgotten to put the timer on twice in two days I think that writing down the time may be a very good suggestion to adopt.

My most recent timerless cooking fiasco before the plum jam was a chocolate cake which I ended up giving to the birds because I didn’t want my baking reputation at work to be besmirched. While I was breaking it into pieces I suddenly had the thought that I could have just split it, filled it with whipped cream and put a really nice ganache on top and that would probably have offset the dryness but by then it was too late. Oh well, never mind.

To make this a bit of fun, a free (and pre-loved/read I might add) cooking magazine to the first commenter who can tell me who I stole my expletive from.

Plum Jam
based on the Edmonds Cookbook recipe

Ingredients
2 kgs/approx 4 1/2 lbs plums
1 1/2 cups water
6 cups sugar

Method
Place all together in a large pot
Bring to the boil
Skim out stones and skins as you go
Boil rapidly, stirring constantly, for 18 minutes or until jam tests set
(to test jam drop a teaspoon of jam onto a chilled saucer and leave for a moment. If you can run your finger through it and leave a clear trail your jam is good to go)
Bottle in sterilised jars

Daring Bakers' March Challenge - Dorie Greenspan's Perfect Party Cake

2008-03-30T14:59:00.005+13:00

When Lis reminded me that it was my turn to host and therefore choose the recipe for March's Daring Bakers Challenge I didn't have to think at all about what source the recipe would come from; the only question was what to choose. If course I am talking about Dorie Greenspan and her wonderful book Baking from my home to yours. My first choice would have been Dorie's Most Extra Ordinary French Lemon Cream Tart but we had recently had lemon meringue pie as a challenge. Instead I chose a recipe that had some room for personalisation; Dorie's Perfect Party Cake on page 250. Dorie's original has seedless raspberry preserves and lemon buttercream between the layers and the cake is finished off with more buttercream and coconut. For my version I stuck with the lemon flavourings and used lemon curd as the filling. Ideally it would have been a great use for all those leftover egg yolks but that was in the too hard basket for me this time around so I opted for store bought stuff which in this recipe actually worked really well.

A few Daring Bakers had some problems with the recipe on account of my poor proof-reading skills - it really does help when you have all the ingredients listed and the correct amounts of the aforementioned ingredients don't you?

Often with our Daring Baker's challenges the biggest part of the challenge is to follow the recipe EXACTLY as written; exceptions to this being unavailability of products or allergies. This month though I decided to let the Daring Bakers loose and allowed them freedom with shape, size, colour and filling/flavouring. The results I've seen so far have been very imaginative and some of the bakers really had fun with decorations and alternative ingredients. Two outstanding efforts were the baker who made a cake in the shape of a lamb and one very daring baker who thought bacon might be an exciting addition. Bacon? In cake? You be the judge. You can read about it on Leah's blog I Came to Eat. Check out the other Daring Bakers on the Daring Bakers'Blogroll.

So how did I get on making my cake?

Mis en place - who doesn't!

Getting ready - note my shiny new Kenwood mixer and my colour co-ordinated utensils. I'd like to say it's on purpose but apart from my measuring spoons the lime green (my favourite colour) accent on my Tupperware is a happy coincidence

Getting ready to bake

Ready for the oven

The baked cakes - do you like my lime green froggy mitt? It's silly but surprisingly useful

Making the Swiss meringue buttercream

Health and Safety lesson - do not bake without shoes. The boiling water on the bottom of my simmering meringue dripped on top of my foot as I was transferring the meringue to my Kenwood bowl and left me with a small but minor burn

The cooked meringue goes into the Kenwood bowl ready for the buttah.

The buttercream starts to come together. I really do love my new Kenwood mixer - I don't know how I got on without it

The first cake layer

Layering the lemon curd

A side view of the cake layers

Ta dah!

I suppose you want the recipe? Well you really should do yourself a big favour and go and buy Dorie's book. If you don't already own it, you NEED it.

OK so this is already a mile long but it seems that lots of Daring Bakers are linking back to my post for the recipe so I'd better put it on here. Hope you don't mind Dorie; did we tell you we love you??

PERFECT PARTY CAKE
From Dorie Greenspan’s Baking from My Home to Yours (pages 250-252)

Words from Dorie
Stick a bright-coloured Post-it to this page, so you’ll always know where to turn for a just-right cake for any celebration. The original recipe was given to me by my great dear friend Nick Malgieri, of baking fame, and since getting it, I’ve found endless opportunities to make it – you will too. The cake is snow white, with an elegant tight crumb and an easygoing nature: it always bakes up perfectly; it is delicate on the tongue but sturdy in the kitchen – no fussing when it comes to slicing the layers in half or cutting tall, beautiful wedges for serving; and, it tastes just as you’d want a party cake to taste – special. The base recipe is for a cake flavoured with lemon, layered with a little raspberry jam and filled and frosted with a classic (and so simple) pure white lemony hot-meringue buttercream but, because the elements are so fundamental, they lend themselves to variation (see Playing Around), making the cake not just perfect, but also versatile.

For the Cake
2 ¼ cups cake flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 ¼ cups whole milk or buttermilk (I prefer buttermilk with the lemon)
4 large egg whites
1 ½ cups sugar
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
1 stick (8 tablespoons or 4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ teaspoon pure lemon extract

For the Buttercream
1 cup sugar
4 large egg whites
3 sticks (12 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
¼ cup fresh lemon juice (from 2 large lemons)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For Finishing
2/3 cup seedless raspberry preserves stirred vigorously or warmed gently until spreadable
About 1 ½ cups sweetened shredded coconut

Getting Ready
Centre a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter two 9 x 2 inch round cake pans and line the bottom of each pan with a round of buttered parchment or wax paper. Put the pans on a baking sheet.

To Make the Cake
Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.
Whisk together the milk and egg whites in a medium bowl.
Whisk together the sugar and lemon zest in a mixer bowl or another large bowl and rub them together with your fingers until the sugar is moist and fragrant.
Add the butter and working with the paddle or whisk attachment, or with a hand mixer, beat at medium speed for a full 3 minutes, until the butter and sugar are very light.
Beat in the extract, then add one third of the flour mixture, still beating on medium speed.
Beat in half of the milk-egg mixture, then beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients until incorporated.
Add the rest of the milk and eggs beating until the batter is homogeneous, then add the last of the dry ingredients.
Finally, give the batter a good 2- minute beating to ensure that it is thoroughly mixed and well aerated.
Divide the batter between the two pans and smooth the tops with a rubber spatula.
Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the cakes are well risen and springy to the touch – a thin knife inserted into the centers should come out clean
Transfer the cakes to cooling racks and cool for about 5 minutes, then run a knife around the sides of the cakes, unfold them and peel off the paper liners.
Invert and cool to room temperature, right side up (the cooled cake layers can be wrapped airtight and stored at room temperature overnight or frozen for up to two months).

To Make the Buttercream
Put the sugar and egg whites in a mixer bowl or another large heatproof bowl, fit the bowl over a plan of simmering water and whisk constantly, keeping the mixture over the heat, until it feels hot to the touch, about 3 minutes.
The sugar should be dissolved, and the mixture will look like shiny marshmallow cream.
Remove the bowl from the heat.
Working with the whisk attachment or with a hand mixer, beat the meringue on medium speed until it is cool, about 5 minutes.
Switch to the paddle attachment if you have one, and add the butter a stick at a time, beating until smooth.
Once all the butter is in, beat in the buttercream on medium-high speed until it is thick and very smooth, 6-10 minutes.
During this time the buttercream may curdle or separate – just keep beating and it will come together again.
On medium speed, gradually beat in more lemon juice, waiting until each addition is absorbed before adding more, and then the vanilla.
You should have a shiny smooth, velvety, pristine white buttercream. Press a piece of plastic against the surface of the buttercream and set aside briefly.

To Assemble the Cake
Using a sharp serrated knife and a gentle sawing motion, slice each layer horizontally in half.
Put one layer cut side up on a cardboard cake round or a cake plate protected by strips of wax or parchment paper.
Spread it with one third of the preserves.
Cover the jam evenly with about one quarter of the buttercream.
Top with another layer, spread with preserves and buttercream and then do the same with a third layer (you’ll have used all the jam and have buttercream leftover).
Place the last layer cut side down on top of the cake and use the remaining buttercream to frost the sides and top.
Press the coconut into the frosting, patting it gently all over the sides and top.

Serving
The cake is ready to serve as soon as it is assembled, but I think it’s best to let it sit and set for a couple of hours in a cool room – not the refrigerator. Whether you wait or slice and enjoy it immediately, the cake should be served at room temperature; it loses all its subtlety when it’s cold. Depending on your audience you can serve the cake with just about anything from milk to sweet or bubbly wine.

Storing
The cake is best the day it is made, but you can refrigerate it, well covered, for up to two days. Bring it to room temperature before serving. If you want to freeze the cake, slide it into the freezer to set, then wrap it really well – it will keep for up to 2 months in the freezer; defrost it, still wrapped overnight in the refrigerator.

Playing Around
Since lemon is such a friendly flavour, feel free to make changes in the preserves: other red preserves – cherry or strawberry – look especially nice, but you can even use plum or blueberry jam.

Fresh Berry Party Cake
If you will be serving the cake the day it is made, cover each layer of buttercream with fresh berries – use whole raspberries, sliced or halved strawberries or whole blackberries, and match the preserves to the fruit. You can replace the coconut on top of the cake with a crown of berries, or use both coconut and berries. You can also replace the buttercream between the layers with fairly firmly whipped sweetened cream and then either frost the cake with buttercream (the contrast between the lighter whipped cream and the firmer buttercream is nice) or finish it with more whipped cream. If you use whipped cream, you’ll have to store the cake the in the refrigerator – let it sit for about 20 minutes at room temperature before serving.

When Life Gives You Pumpkins....

2008-03-20T14:19:00.004+13:00

... make Pumpkin and Ginger Bread!

A colleage at work gave me a humungous pumpkin that had self-seeded in her fiancé’s cow paddock. I like crown pumpkins because the flesh is kind of dry and not all wet and flavourless when you cook them. Here is the pumpkin against my biggest chef's knife (8" blade). In the scheme of things it's probably a pretty average sized pumpkin but heck I took a photo and you're gonna get to see it whether you like it or not!

Our weather hasn’t quite cooled enough to think about making a nice big pot of soup so I cast my mind to baking and I found a great pumpkin bread recipe on a friend’s blog. It’s right up my alley – quick, easy, requires no frosting; and even better it’s a great keeper.

I know it’s not really fair to take someone’s well used recipe and mess about with it before you’ve even tried it but I just couldn’t help myself. The modifications I made were to reduce the oil by ¼ cup and add an extra ¼ cup of pumpkin. I also reduced the sugar by ¼ cup and added some finely chopped crystallised ginger in its place. Next time I make this recipe I will cut the the ginger in slices because I would like a more intense ginger burst but the crystallised ginger is certainly a great addition.

How to line my pans neatly? Google to the rescue! I found a really great pictorial (and an amusing post) at Brown Bread Icecream and I can say that Rachel's instructions for cutting the paper to shape worked really well for me.

This pumpkin bread is definitely a keeper both in terms of longevity and remaining on my regular baking list. You can find the recipe over at Heaven On Earth - go check it out.

Scroggin Cookies

2008-03-15T11:17:00.001+13:00

I promised I'd post a recipe soon and here it is....... I came across this cookie recipe in a Healthy Food Guide Magazine and thought I'd try them out in my quest for a non-crunchy cookie that might please my husband. I made a couple of adaptations, one of which was completely unintentional because I didn't read the recipe properly but they still turned out OK. They were particularly delicious soon after coming out of the oven because the chocolate was all gooey and melty. As with all sweet things, moderation of consumption is the key. It's a bit difficult with this recipe because the uncooked dough is very moreish and I'm surprised I had any left to bake!

Scroggin Cookies
Adapted from Alison and Simon Holst’s School Lunches and After School Snacks
Makes about 40

Ingredients
200 g butter (7oz OR 1 and 5/8 sticks OR 13 Tablespoons)
¼ cup peanut butter (I used cashew butter)
½ cup sugar (I forgot to put this in)
1 cup (packed) brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla or almond essence
1 ½ cups plain flour*
1 tsp baking soda
2 cups rolled oats
1 cup chocolate chips (didn't have any so used coarsely chopped block chocolate - 70% - the good stuff!)
1 cup sultanas (golden raisins) (I used a mixture of sultanas and chopped dried apricots)
½ cup chopped walnuts (didn’t have any so used coconut)
*Use ¼ cup less flour if using instant rolled oats

Method
Heat oven to 180 degrees celsius/ 350 degrees fahrenheit
Mix the butter and the next five ingredients together in a large bowl (that means the nut butter, sugars, eggs and essence)
Stir in the flour and baking soda
Add everything else and mix using a wooden spoon or your hands
Shape with two spoons or put flattened rounds of mixture on a baking paper lined tray and leave space for spreading
Bake in batches for 12 minutes or until lightly browned
Cool on a rack

They didn't spread much and I wonder if they would have spread more if I had the full amount of sugar in them. Hmmm

Made to the actual recipe the nutritional breakdown is:
Energy 622Kj (149cal)
Protein 2.5
Fat 7.6g
- saturated 3.9g
Carbs 17.7g
- sugars 11.7g
Fibre 0.9g (I would have thought there'd be more)
Sodium 65mg
Calcium 20mg
Iron 0.6g

Useless information: Scroggin is the name for the fruit and nut mix that trampers and hikers take with them for quick energy. I guess it's the kiwi equivalent of trail mix.

A Random Act of Blogging By Mail

2008-03-14T23:39:00.006+13:00

OK so this isn't a recipe post as I promised but look at what I got recently!!

Have you ever participated in a Blogging by Mail aka BBM? The idea of getting a package full of goodies was one of the spurs that got me started with my blog and I have the wonderful Stephanie of Dispensing Happiness to thank for that. Then from my first BBM I became friends with the lovely Lis of La Mia Cucina who talked me into becoming a Daring Baker and the rest, they say, is history.

Seriously though back to the package. Stephanie and I have gotten to know each other a little since then and I've sent her a random package here and there - some Turkish Delight after she mentioned it in a post referring to The Chronicles of Narnia (wow hard to believe that was over a year ago); and a Donna Hay magazine. Well the randomness was reciprocated with a fantastic selection of goodies which Stephanie selected to try and give me a taste of Americana.

What did she send?
A box of Jiffy corn muffin mix - I love corn muffins and cornbread in any way shape or form; sweet or savoury
A selection of indivual servings of the kind of sugary cereal you always look at on the shelves but know you really should pick the low fat, high fibre granola instead
A contanier of Chips Ahoy chocolate chip cookies which says it's 4 servings but looks like just one to me! What's up with manufacturers and their inconsistent serving sizes?
A bottle of Annie's naturals organic yellow mustard
Some BBQ sauce - not her favourite kind she said but it was one she found in a plastic bottle rather than glass. It's Dinosaur brand from Syracuse NY and is described as "sensuous slathering sauce"
Some Chef Boyardee Ravioli - I'll keep this in my drawer at work for a winter lunch
San Marcos chipotle peppers in adobo sauce - Stephanie must have read my mind as my supply is almost out and they're only available by mail order in NZ. I use it for Rachel Ray's Park City Chicken
Some candy - Necco wafers, Nerds and orange flavoured TicTacs - mmmmmm sugar
and of course what package would be complete without chocolate - it's the good stuff, some Belgian milk chocolate and some Paul Newman brand peanut butter cups and and two kinds of Paul Newman brand milk chocolate bars. Their comment on the package which says "To find out how eating this chocolate helps the planet..." somehow makes you feel completely justified doesn't it!
Lastly a little personal indulgence - a travel sized selection of Burt's Bees products - they smell gooooooood.

Thank you Stephanie you really spoiled me.

I've signed up for the latest round of BBM and my package is winging its way to .... yeah I know it's a secret but I'll give you a clue......Pittsburgh. Is it destined for you??

Mama's Got A Brand New Bag

2008-03-13T21:36:00.005+13:00

Well actually Mama's got a brand new kitchen tool and this post should more appropriately be entitled "Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!"

Although I'm a fan of quick and easy cakes which often have a melt and mix technique, a lot of the recipes I'd like to try out start off their method with ".....preferably with a stand beater" so I decided it was time I got myself one.

Barbara of Winos and Foodies has announced this year's LIVESTRONG day baking event - A Taste of Yellow. Why is this relevant? The announcement reminded me how my hand-held mixer just about burned it's poor little motor out because it couldn't cope with my cake batter and I thought yep I NEED a stand mixer. I'd really like a Kitchen Aid but in New Zealand they are ridiculously expensive - almost $1,000. If a Kenwood was good enough for my Mum, it's good enough for me. It has a 600 watt motor and a 4.3L bowl so should be fairly sturdy.

So guess what I'm off to do now? What shall I make first?....You'll have to wait and see.

A Night of Passion

2008-03-10T22:19:00.004+13:00

Recently, as a thank you for working on a special project my boss gave me a gift voucher entitled "A Night of Passion". Sounds a bit dodgy don't you think? Well actually the voucher was for a complete three course meal from a place called Passion Deli in Feilding, delivered to my door. Apart from letting them know your dislikes or allergies the menu was a surprise. My 21st wedding anniversary last Friday seemed the perfect opportunity to use it. When I phoned to order our meal I had the option of having it delivered hot and ready to go, plated up but needing heating (and returning the dishes the next day) or, the option I went for, to have it delivered in takeaway containers to heat up and serve at my leisure. I set the scene by putting proper table settings on the table which seemed very weird as we normally eat at the kitchen counter; I had some pretty purple daisies in a vase (sadly from my boss and not from my husband), an 80's playlist on the iPod (Grace Jones, The Cure and Madonna were there for starters) and a bottle of bubbly opened up to start the night off.

The concept was novel and I certainly enjoyed not having to cook dinner. The quantity of food was far too much for two and although I don't mean to sound ungrateful, I wasn't all that excited about the flavours. What did we get? I'm sure you'd like to know....

...A nice loaf of rosemary and garlic bread (the leftovers went to the ducks on the golf course next door for their breakfast), an antipasto style selection of chicken kebabs, salami, olives, cheeses, ham and some aioli and pesto to go with. The main course was chicken breasts cooked in a creamy bacon and tomato sauce. To accompany them was a pasta salad with chargrilled zucchini and olives, a rice salad with poppyseeds, sultanas and a turmeric infused dressing, and a roasted vegetable medley of kumara, pumpkin, peppers and red onion. Dessert was mocha cheesecake and there was a nice bottle of Mission Chardonnay to wash it all down.

Stay tuned dear readers - I'll be posting again soon and shock, horror - I'll have some recipes and photos. Honest.

Waitangi Day

2008-02-08T18:00:00.001+13:00

Here's how Scooter and I spent the 6th of February which was a public holiday on account of Waitangi Day.

I didn't spend the whole day just enjoying the sunshine; I decided to do some baking. I'm a gal who likes crisp cookies but my husband prefers his chewy and soft so I've been on the lookout for a really good chewy cookie recipe. The contender this time was Deb's Oatmeal Cookies. I'm sure she won't mind me sharing the recipe here but if you want to read her original post check it out on Red Shoe Ramblings. For my variants I used dried blueberries - just because I had them in the pantry; and some chocolate chips. In the oat department I didn't have enough regular cooking oats so had to make up the difference with some giant oats I'd bought to make muesli. I thought the cookies were a little on the sweet side which may be why they spread quite thin and then of course ended up a little crisper than I expected. It could be that I used butter (unsalted lactic butter in fact) instead of shortening. I would like to try them again and make the orange version. Note that all comments in the following recipe are Deb's.

Deb’s Favorite Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients
3/4 cup shortening
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup water
1 tsp vanilla (the real thing, please!…not that icky imitation stuff made from wood pulp…ugh!)
3 cups uncooked oats (I use the quick-cooking kind because I like the finer texture, but if you want chewier cookies the old-fashioned ones work too)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 cup (more or less) raisins

Method
Preheat oven to 350F. Beat together shortening and sugars until fluffy, then add egg, water, and vanilla and beat until creamy and smooth. Combine dry ingredients, then add to sugar mixture a little at a time, mixing well. Fold in raisins (I like the golden ones!) or any other extra Stuff (see variations below). Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto a parchment paper-lined cooking sheet (grease the sheet if you don’t have parchment paper, and then go buy some before the next time you bake! seriously!!) and bake for 12 - 15 minutes. (Less time will give you a softer, chewier cookie, which is what I like. If you like yours crispy-crunchy [*cough*freak*cough*] then go for the longer time.) Makes around 5 dozen cookies.

Variation One: Relatively UnJunky Orange Spice Craisin Oatmeal Cookies
Leave out raisins
Instead of 1/4 cup water, add 1/4 cup orange juice
Add 1/2 tsp. orange extract
Add 1/2 tsp. orange zest
Add 1/2 tsp. ground cloves (optional, but I like it)
Increase cinnamon to 1 1/2 tsp.
Add 1 cup (or a little more…I don’t measure) dried cranberries

Variation Two: Totally Junky but Very Yummy Chock Full o’ Stuff Cookies
Leave out raisins (or leave them in if you think they’d taste good with the other stuff…your cookies, your rules!)
Add 1/2 cup each (more or less…I don’t measure this part):
~dark chocolate chips
~toffee chips
~cinnamon chips
~sweetened flake coconut

The previous night my neighbour came over for dinner as she and I were both home alone. We decided we needed to cook something a little on the healthy side so we had pan fried salmon fillet. I thought the richness of the salmon needed a fresh and zingy tasting accompaniment so I made some mango and avocado salsa. It's not like you really need a recipe for salsa but here's what I did.

Mango and Avocado Salsa

Ingredients
1 mango
1 avocado
2-4 red tomatoes
1/2 a small red onion
Juice of half a lime
1/2 cup chopped coriander (cilantro)
Salt
Hot sauce if desired - I used Waha Wera which is a kiwifruit and habanero hot sauce

Method
Finely dice the mango, avocado, tomatoes and onion and combine with the lime juice and coriander
Season to taste

I had leftover salsa and thought it would go really well with some grilled shrimp for my dinner the next night. I was right! To make the salsa a little more substantial I added some diced red pepper and some yellow tomatoes that needed using up. You could probably also turn the salsa into a salad by adding a can of black beans or kidney beans. Doesn't this look delicious?

Did you miss me?

2008-02-07T18:00:00.002+13:00

I haven't been home to do much baking and cooking lately as I've been a bit of a social butterfly and sports spectator over the last few weekends.

First up was the Toyota Racing Series at Manfield. Watching sports, let alone motor racing is not really my thing but when you're watching from the comfort of a corporate box with your own bathroom and access to food and drink it makes the day much more enjoyable. We even got to "walk the grid" and go down onto the track before the race cars were getting ready to start.

Secondly I went to the Wellington Rugby Sevens tournament. This is a much loved sporting event and tickets sell out in minutes. I've been fortunate enough to attend the for the past three years. The day is as much about entertainment as it is about the sport. People put a lot of thought into their costumes and it's really fun seeing all the different groups of people. Of note this year were kermits, vikings, brides, flintsones, parking wardens, whoopie cushions (yes really) and convicts to name a few. You can't really pick anything specific from the photo but you can get an idea of the variety and colour. The official photo gallery is really worth checking out. One very popular person was someone who bore a striking resemblence to Colonel Sanders. As he moved through the crowd you could hear everyone chant "Colonel, Colonel, Colonel".

The entertainment was great and I particularly enjoyed the Austen Powers and Freddie Mercury impersonators - I love Austen in his Spy Who Shagged Me persona.

Crowd favourites are always the Kenyans. After every match they do a little dance which I tried unsuccesfully to capture here. They are so popular that despite losing their game the crowd spent more time cheering for them than watching the semi final that was being played as the Kenyans came off the field.

The day was finished off perfectly with a win by New Zealand. This is when I wish I had a better zoom on my camera so I could capture these perfect specimens of atheleticism with their shirts off doing a celebratory haka! Yeah baby. There's a better photo in the gallery.

We stayed at the Bolton Hotel which is one of my favourite places to stay in Wellington. The beds are really comfy and they have those faux fur rugs that feel so snuggly and they even have a pillow "menu" where you can order up a different pillow if the regular one doesn't suit your needs. One of these days I must try out their lavender scented pillows. Previously when we've stayed I've kicked myself for not having my camera because the view from hotel is of a little historic building (the Sexton's chapel in fact) and part of the Bolton Street Memorial Park which contains 1,334 gravestones and memorials dating back to about 1840.

Part of the Wellington motorway was built over the Cemetery which you can see here. The photo doesn't do it justice at all but Bolton street is really really steep.

Daring Bakers' Challenge - Lemon Meringue Pie

2008-01-29T18:40:00.000+13:00

This month's challenge was hosted by Jen, The Canadian Baker and I was quite excited about it because it is one of my mother's favourite desserts and I'd been on the lookout for a reliable recipe.

As some of you already know my blog is currently a secret from my beloved. He is so NOT a foodie that he just wouldn't get it, not to mention the whole public thing about blogging. Sometimes this causes a few problems with my Daring Bakers' Challenges if I don't have an occasion to bake/cook for and I run out of time which is more often than not the reason for my non participation, not because I don't like a recipe. What's not to like about lemons? I thought I was in luck this month because we had an invitation to our neighbours' house for dinner and I was asked to bring dessert. Unfortunately I didn't find out until early afternoon on the day of the dinner which meant I had a one shot attempt for the Lemon Meringue Pie. I started with the crust and I should have known that I was doomed to failure when I smelled burning and realised that I'd not removed the price sticker from my new pie dish. With the heat it had falled off onto the bottom of the oven and was turning into something brown and crispy. Just as well I wasn't cooking my egg mixture on the stove top at the same time or I would have had to abandon it in order to put out the potential fire in my kitchen. Mmmmm - can you say burned crust with a side of burned price tag?

In disgust I threw in the towel and uttered that particularly appropriate word that Kiwis say when they are frustrated.... .bugger!. Check out the video clip and you'll see what I mean!

I was glad that I hadn't started on the filling while the pastry was baking because this recipe is a big sucker and calls for 5 eggs and I would have been really annoyed to have wasted 5 eggs. The technique for the Lemon Meringue Pie filling is slightly different from most I've seen in that you thicken the egg mixture before you add the lemon juice. I'll be curious to see whether my variety of lemons works using this method - I know it doesn't when you bung everything in together and try and thicken it up. I will definitely be making this pie soon as I'm determined to have a success. The pictures of those I've seen look mouthsmackingly delicious. Check out the Daring Bakers' Blogroll and see for yourself but make sure you have some time up your sleeves because I hear that we are up to 500 members now.

Subsequently, I cleaned my oven which is a Smeg brand and one of those ones where you dismantle the insides and pull out the liner. To do this I had to consult the manual and I discovered that because my oven is not vented it's suggested that you reduce your oven temperature by 10-20 degrees (Celsius). I've always thought that my oven was a bit fierce and now I know why.

Bring on the next challenge!

A Cracker of a Christmas

2008-01-11T18:00:00.000+13:00

In late November 2007 my lovely mum shouted me to a Ruth Pretty cooking class. Ruth’s Christmas themed classes are so popular that she runs several of them during her spring cooking class series.

Going to a class at Springfield is a treat to the senses in every way. The country setting is picturesque, the cooking demonstration is educational as well as entertaining; and the food and wine is always memorable. And of course there’s the opportunity to spend some money in Ruth’s Kitchen Shop.

On arrival we were welcomed with a beverage (freshly brewed coffee, an assortment of teas or a cold orange juice) and a bite. This time Ruth showcased a pretty little cupcake stand (available for sale in her shop) and served us fruity cupcakes topped with an almond paste star.

Ruth’s commercial kitchen doubles as her classroom and everyone sits on stools behind stainless steel benches. There’s a mirror hanging from the ceiling which means that everyone gets to see what Ruth or her assistant is preparing.

The class proper started around 10am and all the way through Ruth shared her clever tips along with many amusing anecdotes. Where a special ingredient was called for Ruth would pass around the item for class participants to smell or sometimes taste. We sampled horseradish sauce (Royalty Brand) and locally grown macadamia nuts; and sniffed vanilla bean paste.

Morning tea was time to get some fresh air and stretch our legs while enjoying a slice of Ruth’s award winning Christmas cake and her famous tomato chill jam with Philadelphia cream cheese on a rice cracker which I wrote about here. And if that wasn’t enough there were also juicy tangelos and a bowl of giant strawberries on offer.

For our entrée Ruth we had smoked salmon and herbed cream fraiche mille fuilles and duck liver parfait between crispy gingerbread rounds. While Ruth supplied the recipe “catering style” her suggestion for a fuss free Christmas was to serve these passarounds “deconstructed”. I didn’t even venture to taste the duck liver parfait as I’m not a fan of game or offal. The only thing like that I’ll eat is mum’s homemade chicken liver pate and even then I have to NOT think about what’s in it.

Usually after the appetizers are served participants are asked to leave the kitchen and enjoy a wander around the garden while the staff set up for lunch. This time Ruth advised that because of another function at the house we would have to stay close to the kitchen. After a short while Ruth informed us that there had been a tragedy at the house but since the place was already set up for their function we may as well take advantage of it and so we dutifully followed Ruth to her house.

Those who didn’t already realise there was a bit of a scam going on could have taken a hint from the fact that on a gorgeous day all the curtains were drawn. The Laurent Perrier flowed freely and we enjoyed some whitebait fritters as passarounds. Finally the scam was revealed and we were led outside to the verandah where a very long table was set out for our lunch.

My lunch companion - I can always be counted on to find a furry friend.

Our entrée was Karitane Crayfish served over microgreens with oranges and avocado and a citrus dressing. If I could get myself over the ickyness of dealing with the crayfish I’d definitely make this dish myself although as Ruth suggested it would be equally as nice with scallops or prawns.

The main course was a Standing Rib of Beef served with a caper vinaigrette. The vegetables were a melange of steamed greens (asparagus, celery and beans), parsnips and shallots which were served with a cashew and thyme sauce, and new season Jersey Benne potatoes. Finally there was a little garlic studded Yorkshire pudding.

In keeping with the Christmas Cracker theme dessert was a filled filo pastry concoction shaped like a Christmas cracker served with a cherry compote and garnished with candied orange peel. It was a lovely combination of creamy filling, buttery pastry and tart fruit.

At the end of the class Ruth always gives participants a gift to take home. Sometimes it’s a dozen free range eggs or some locally grown garlic. This time it was a jar of Quince Jelly which I shall look forward to eating with some blue cheese – perhaps I’ll even make some crispy gingerbread to go with it.

Check out Ruth Pretty's websitefor more information and for some great recipes.

Merry Christmas

2007-12-21T14:56:00.000+13:00

Well this is likely to be my last post for 2007 as I'm on vacation as of NOW - yippeeeeeeeeeeeee. I'm back to work on the 7th of January 2008 and probably won't have much computer time. Hopefully I'll have baking and photographing time galore.

I'm spending part of my vacation in the sunny Bay of Plenty region - Mt Maungaui specifically and to work off my Christmas excesses(like the photo below of the shared morning tea we had at work this week) I'll be taking a walk UP "the mount" as it's known by the locals. It's very hard work but worth the views.

You want me to walk up that???

The view on the way up

Looking down towards the city/residential area

Aren't the pohutukawa trees pretty

I hope you all have a wonderful festive season whatever you are celebrating and I look forward to sharing my adventures (culinary or otherwise) in the new year.

Dare to be great in 2008!

Oranges Poranges

2007-12-12T18:00:00.000+13:00

I'm channelling Witchiepoo today (and showing my age!). Let's all sing together...

Oranges poranges, who says,
oranges poranges, who says,
oranges poranges, who says?
there ain't no rhyme for oranges!

Back in September I posted about a whole orange cake that involved simmering an orange, cooling it, removing the pips, etc etc etc. Some of my readers commented that the cake sounded nice but the method seemed like a whole lot of faff and faddle. Well here's the solution - a very easy whole orange cake that you make in the food processor. Even better, it's an un-iced cake - my favourite kind to make being the lazy baker I am.

The recipe is from a great little New Zealand site called Foodlovers and the forum there is a wonderful place to visit if you are searching for an elusive recipe or wondering what to do with that glut of fruit or unusual ingredient. You can find the orange cake recipe here.

Being Christmas time I decided to be a little creative with the recipe and add some frozen cranberries (about a cup) to the mix. Frozen cranberries are relatively new to New Zealand groceries and I've not had a lot of experience with them. They were whole cranberries and I worried about them being too tart in the cake so I added them early and let the food processor cut them up a bit - probably a little bit too much but at least I'll know for next time. That's the nice thing about experimenting.

This cake is very moist and has a nice texture. It has just a hint of bitterness on account of the peel but it's pleasant and not overwhelming. This is one of those good for breakfast cakes but then again isn't any cake breakfast food???

Chocolate Cafe Cake

2007-12-05T19:00:00.000+13:00

Why is it that chocolate products are so UNphotogenic? Or is it just my photographic skills? No - don't answer that one.

Much as I adore chocolate in its confectionary form (milk chocolate preferably) I'm not a big fan of chocolate cakes and would never order one at a cafe or restaurant because they are usually dry, spongey things lacking in flavour and texture. If I volunteer to bake for people I'm often asked for a chocolate cake and this is the recipe I use. It's dark and dense but not too rich and has a really good chocolate flavour. Best of all it is great with just a dusting of icing sugar and the method is pretty much melt and mix. If you are looking for a quick and easy chocolate cake this is it baby!

Anna's Chocolate Cafe Cake
Original source unknown but likely from a supermarket magazine

Ingredients
2 ¼ cups flour
¾ cup cocoa
1 ½ tsp baking soda
1 ½ cups white sugar
1 ½ cups (375ml) warm milk
3 tbsps vinegar
150 grams (a little over 5oz) butter
1 tsp vanilla essence
Icing sugar

Method
Preheat oven to 180 degrees C
Line base of a deep 23 cm round tin with baking paper (I actually use a bundt tin because it looks prettier as an un-iced cake)
Sift flour, cocoa, baking soda and sugar into a bowl
Combine milk and vinegar then stir in melted butter and vanilla essence
Pour into dry ingredients and mix thoroughly
Turn mixture into tin
Bake for 45-55 mins or until the cake tests done
Leave in tin for 15 mins then turn onto a rack to cool
Dust with icing sugar

Note
Do not have your milk too warm or else the vinegar will coagulate with the milk and you will end up with a big lump of casein. Ask me how I know!

Daring Bakers' Challenge - Tender Potato Bread

2007-11-30T18:00:00.000+13:00

Well it's official – I am not a breadmaker. Heck - I am not even a breadmaker’s elbow. Much as I luuuuuuurve to eat bread in pretty much any form, I most definitely do not love to make it, least of all by hand. There’s that whole time thing with the raising of the yeast and the kneading is not something I enjoy. However, the November Daring Baker’s challenge was issued by Tanna from My Kitchen in Half Cups and I’d missed the two previous challenges so I really had to participate for fear of being kicked out of the group.

The recipe sounded really great; I mean really great, and the variations gave lots of interesting options with the addition of different herbs, cheeses or olives but as I was time challenged I decided to stick to the basics. The end result was edible but unattractive and not very exciting in flavour. The best thing to come out of this challenge was the pleasure of being able to snip fresh rosemary from my very own herb pot and the worst thing to come of this challenge was that the fairly high heat of the baking reminding me that it is time to clean my oven – ugh!

In hindsight I think I should have tried to make a foccacia style loaf but I opted for the ball of dough/freeform shape.

I really only took this photo to show off my expensive-but-worth-it WMF spitzenklasse bread knife. Anyone who enjoys homemade or bakery bread should have a decent bread knife like this.

If you've got a few hours to spare you can check out how the other Daring Bakers got on by visiting our blogroll and selecting a baker of your choice. I've picked a random post for you here.

I’m looking forward to the December challenge which is..........drum roll please ...............................oh come on people, you didn’t really expect me to accidentally spill the beans did you? Ha! You’ll have to wait til the New Year to find out.

Aloha

2007-11-20T18:00:00.000+13:00

I’m baaack. I know you missed me.

I still haven’t quite settled back into normal routine so I have no foodie offerings just yet. Hawaii was fabulous and we had a really fun time on our cruise. The reason for the holiday was a celebration of a friend’s 50th birthday. There were 6 couples in our group – all Americans apart from ourselves. It was the first cruise for us but most of the others were veteran cruisers. Unfortunately for me there were no real foodies on the trip so I didn’t feel comfortable whipping out my camera during dinner.

Here’s the extremely expurgated version of our trip….

On the Big Island we rented a van and drove around the National Park at Hilo to see the Kilauea Volcanoes. Everyone was getting all excited about seeing the steam coming out of the ground but I was thinking – “Well that’s a big nothing – I can see that by driving two and a half hours up the road”. I realise I am blessed to live in such a beautiful country as New Zealand.

On Maui the others got up at stupid o’clock to drive up the top of Mt Haleakala and see the sunrise. My husband I and I opted to have a lazy day on the ship. The main reason though was that I needed to see the ship’s Dr because I had a scratch on my cornea. $150 later I had some icky ointment and was told no makeup and no contacts for a week which is not the verdict you want to hear when you’ve spent months getting into shape in preparation for having frequent photo opportunities. For the most part it didn’t matter because summer holidays are all about sunglasses and sunhats but at night time when we dressed up for dinner I felt like the ugly bung eyed duckling

On Kauai we rented some Harleys and a Jeep for the non motorcyclists and took in the sights of including Waimea Canyon.

I loved seeing all the chickens and herons on the roadside and smelling all the lush greenery which was fragrant after a recent shower.

On the final night of the cruise we sailed past the cliffs of Kauai that have featured in movies like Jurassic Park and King Kong. Awesome.

At the end of our cruise we had two days at an amazing resort hotel – the JW Marriott at Ko Olina. It was one of those places that took your breath away with beautiful rooms - definitely the biggest hotel suite I've ever stayed in; its own fish pond full of pretty tropical fish, sting rays and baby hammerhead sharks, and of course views to die for.

Here's one of the stingrays coming up out of the water.

The highlight for me was a lei making session which was hosted by a couple of kids from a local cultural centre.

Food-wise there was nothing particularly special to write about although the fresh tropical fruit was delicious. Our cruise was “freestyle” which meant there was no specific meal times and no compulsory formal night. We ate from the buffet a lot but also ate in their speciality restaurants which incurred an extra cover charge of around $10 per person – The Lazy J Steakhouse (crab cakes and filet followed by bananas foster), East Meets West (shabu shabu), Little Italy (Caesar salad and fettucine with shrimp fra Diablo) and the Liberty restaurant (crab cakes again, then braised beef short ribs followed by a baby coconut cream pie). On land we lunched at Cheeseburger in Paradise in Lahaina which had a really fun atmosphere – in fact the town reminded me a lot of Key West. We had a great dinner on Kauai at Duke’s Canoe Club. They are famous for their hula pie but everyone was too full from their wonderful salad bar. As far as I can figure out Hula pie is a cookie crust filled with macadamia flavoured icecream, topped with fudge sauce and macadamia nuts and finished with whipped cream.

I almost forgot to mention the cute little towel animals that the steward put on our bed every day on the cruise. Here's one of my favourites.

Aloha and Aloha

2007-10-26T07:00:00.000+13:00

... or hello and goodbye

I know I’ve been terrible about posting any new recipes lately and I’m sorry to say that I won’t be participating in this month’s Daring Bakers’ Challenge but I’ve been exercising like a mad woman and eating rabbit food in order to get my body bikini ready for a holiday in Hawaii. In two days time I shall be on NCL Pride of America cruising around the Hawaiian Islands. I’ll be back in e-land in the second week of November.

Aloha!

The Great Pantry Cleanup of '07

2007-10-11T18:00:00.001+13:00

My husband has been getting sick of opening the pantry door only to have something fall out at his feet. I can't see what he's worried about because whatever falls out has a safe landing on the gigantic pile of stuff on the floor of the pantry. Inspired by an article in a magazine I thought I’d give my pantry a big clean out. The end result was quite frightening because I couldn’t actually fit everything back in. I took before and after photos but apart from things being straightened up you can't really tell the difference although if you look hard enough you'll find the Easter Bunny that ended up in my chocolate caramel tart.

When we lived in Kentucky where the being snowed in during winter was a possibility there was very good reason to have multiple cans of things but now am close enough to swing my choice of four different supermarkets on the way home from work. If I run out of anything during a baking session at stupid o’clock then I’m less then 5 minutes drive from a 24 hour supermarket. Why then, do I have so much stuff in my pantry?

The article talked about what a person should have as basics in their pantry and also the kinds of extras you need to make cooking more interesting. That’s probably why I have various cans of tuna (in oil, in brine and flavoured); four kinds of mustard (Dijon, American, honey and hot English) five different kinds of rice (basmati, brown (meh!), sushi, Arborio, and although technically a grain not a rice - wild rice); five different kinds of syrupy stuff (maple, treacle, apple, golden and corn); five different kinds of vinegar (malt, white, rice wine, balsamic and white balsamic – oh and crema di balsamica); five different kinds of oil (canola, olive, sesame, rice bran and avocado); eight different kinds of canned fruit (plums, peaches, pineapple, pears, cherries, mangoes, apricots and mandarins) and for a little more variety nine different kinds of dried fruits (apricots, dates, prunes, figs, craisins, sour cherries, blueberries, sultanas and raisins and I didn’t include the crystallised ginger, glace peel and cherries in that count). I’m a little embarrassed to mention some of the more unusual extras I have but I will because if you've read this far I am sure you really want to know: tamarind paste, pomegranate molasses (what DO you do with that stuff? I haven't even used it), harissa, dukkah, liquid smoke, black truffles from Umbria, Italian mustard fruits, chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, spearmint flavoured sugar for rimming one’s mojito glass, hibiscus flowers in syrup which you put in a glass of champagne, and a jar of iitty bitty little baba things in limoncello syrup.

What is the most unsual thing in your pantry?

Happy Birthday To Me

2007-10-10T16:43:00.000+13:00

Good grief - I knew I was hopeless at remembering people's birthdays but it's a bit sad when I can't even manage a post about my own!

26 September is also the birthday of a co-worker and we had a shared morning tea. Pictured above is the delicious flourless citrus cake made for me by my boss. It was moist and dense and would be a lovely dessert cake because it's not too sweet. I imagine it would be even better served with a dollop of creamy Greek yoghurt or some marscapone.

Orange, Lemon and Almond Cake
Source unknown but based on a Sephardic recipe from Claudia Roden

Ingredients
1 orange
1 lemon
400g ground almonds
150g sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 eggs
Butter and flour for preparing tin
Handful of flaked almonds for decoration

Method
Simmer the orange and lemon in water til soft (the lemonw ill probably soften first) – allow about 45 minutes
Leave to cool
Open the fruit and remove the pips
Blend with just enough of the cooking liquid to make a pulp or push through a sieve
Beat the eggs in a bowl and stir in the fruit pulp and dry ingredients
Put into a greased and floured tin (one with a loose base is best) and sprinkle the top with the flaked almonds
Bake at 190 degrees celcius for about 40-50 minutes or until browned and springy to touch
Allow to cool a little and then remove from the tin and put on a serving plate
Dust with icing sugar if desired

Also on the morning tea table was a lovely lemon syllabub sponge cake which was a Ruth Pretty recipe from the Saturday newspaper, a hummingbird cake, chocolate brownies (recipe to follow in another post), some cute little cupcakes (coffee and lemon - but not together), and a lemon curd cake. I was too busy eating a little slice of everything to take photos.

I had a wonderful day which even included flowers and a card from my husband. My birthday gifts from friends included the usual suspects of chocolates, quilting fabric and wine. I also received Paris Sweets by Dorie Greenspan and Simple Indian Cooking by Madhur Jaffrey and I've already earmarked several recipes to try. My reading pleasure will continue with Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.

La Festa al Fresco - 2007

2007-09-03T06:00:00.000+12:00

Lisa and Ivonne are hosting an event called La Festa al Fresco the premise of which is to prepare a dish using seasonal ingredients. Lisa talked about something that grows in your area and I'm not sure whether scallops count? They are certainly seasonal and are in season right now. Prices vary wildly from $10.33 a dozen down to $6.95 when they're on special. My husband was out for dinner one night last week and since he doesn't care for scallops mixed with stuff like pasta and veggies I decided to create a special dinner for myself. It wasn't half bad although I think I need to fiddle with it to make a sauce that's tasty yet not too calorific. Next time I think I'll leave the mushrooms out.

Sautéed Vegetable and Scallop Pasta
Serves 1

Ingredients

1 dozen scallops
1 zucchini
½ a red pepper
2 shallots
Mushrooms
1 nice juicy ripe red tomato
Olive oil
Splash of cream
Splash of white wine
Pasta of your choice – fusili or rotini is nice
Salt
Pepper
Parsley
Parmesan

Method

Slice the vegetables as desired

Saute in a little olive oil and set aside
Meanwhile, cook your pasta in plenty of boiling, salted water

Drain the pasta
Rinse, pat dry and trim off any icky bits on the scallops

Scooter hopes she'll get lucky with a stray scallop trimming...

Sear the scallops
Mix everything together
Grind some cracked pepper over it
Garnish with parsley or parmesan if desired
Enjoy!

Daring Bakers Challenge #9 - Milk Chocolate Caramel Tart

2007-08-29T06:00:00.000+12:00

Caramel is not a favourite flavour of mine but it is a great pairing with chocolate. Milk chocolate was specified for this recipe and I did use it but for my taste I think that dark chocolate would have worked better. It probably didn't help my tart that in the interests of frugality I used an elderly, hollow Easter bunny that was sitting in my pantry and some regular chocolate melts rather than buying excellent quality chocolate. No-one else noticed but I could tell.

This challenge was actually a breeze and although I had a few moments where I wondered if I was doing the right thing I didn’t have too many problems.

When I rolled out my tart pastry I placed it between two silicon baking sheets and that worked really well for me; I think every kitchen should have a pair. Flavourwise I felt the pastry was a little delicate but that’s not really a bad thing with the richness of the caramel and the chocolate mousse. The texture was very tender again a good thing because there’s nothing worse than a tough crust that flies across the room when you cut into it.

I had never made caramel using the dry technique before and had no idea what I was doing. It was one of those "feel the fear and do it anyway" experiences. Essentially you just heat up your pan of sugar over a low to medium heat until it melts. It’s like magic to watch. I stirred my first batch part way through and it crystalised a bit but soon incorporated into the melted stuff. The worst part was when I added the cream and ended up with a huge lump of like goo that looked like dinosaur snot! I decided that I wasn’t going to waste my ingredients and effort and wondered what would happen if I just continued to beat the bejeebers out of it over a low heat. Miraculously the cream incorporated with the sugar and caramel was born.

After such a success with the first batch of caramel I was keen to make more for the Caramel Fragments. I bashed them with a rolling pin between my wonderful silicon sheets and have yet to find the two pieces that bounced off the bench into the living room. No doubt I’ll find a sticky piece of something covered in cat fluff if I look hard enough.

Daring Bakers Challenge #9: August 2007 – Milk Chocolate and Caramel Tart
Source: Eric Kayser's Sweet and Savory Tarts

Hosts: Veron of Veronica's Test Kitchen and Patricia of Technicolor Kitchen)

Chocolate Shortbread Pastry
Note: The Chocolate Shortbread pastry can make 3 tart shells.
Preparation time: 10 minutes + overnight refridgeration

Ingredients
1 cup (250g ) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (150 g) confectioners’ sugar
½ cup (50 g) ground hazelnuts
2 level teaspoons (5 g) ground cinnamon
2 eggs
4 ½ cups (400 g) cake flour
2 ½ teaspoons (10 g) baking powder
1 ½ tablespoons (10 g) cocoa powder

Method
A day ahead
1. In a mixing bowl of a food processor, cream the butter.
2. Add the confectioners’ sugar, the ground hazelnuts, and the cinnamon, and mix together
3. Add the eggs, one by one, mixing constantly
4. Sift in the flour, the baking powder, and the cocoa powder, and mix well.
5. Form a ball with the dough, cover in plastic wrap, and chill overnight.

Milk Chocolate and Caramel Tart
Preparation time: 40 minutes
Baking Time: 30 minutes
Refrigeration time: 1 hour

Ingredients:
½ lb (250 g) chocolate shortbread pastry (see recipe above)
1 ½ cups (300 g) granulated sugar
1 cup (250 g) heavy cream (30-40 percent butterfat) or crème fraiche - I used regular cream
¼ cup (50 g) butter
2 whole eggs
1 egg yolk
2 ½ tablespoons (15 g) flour
1 ¼ cups (300 g) whipping cream
½ lb (250 g) milk chocolate

Method
1. Preheat oven to 325 °F (160 °C).
2. Line the baking pan with the chocolate shortbread pastry and bake blind for 15 minutes.
3. In a saucepan, caramelize 1 cup (200 g) granulated sugar using the dry method (just heat in a heavy bottom pot on a low-med heat until it melts) until it turns a golden caramel color (like golden or maple syrup). Incorporate the heavy cream or crème fraiche and then add butter. Mix thoroughly. Set aside to cool.
4. In a mixing bowl, beat the whole eggs with the extra egg yolk, then incorporate the flour (I used a whisk to reduce the risk of lumps but ended up running the egg/flour mixture through a sieve as suggested by some helpful Daring Bakers).
5. Pour this into the cream-caramel mixture and mix thoroughly
6. Spread it out in the tart shell and bake for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool. I baked mine a little longer, about 10 mins more – the caramel should feel “jiggly” to touch.

7. Prepare the milk chocolate mousse: beat the whipping cream until stiff. Melt the milk chocolate in the microwave or in a bain-marie, and fold it gently into the whipped cream. Make sure the chocolate isn’t hot hot or the cream will melt - ask me how I know!
8. Pour the chocolate mousse over the cooled caramel mixture, smoothing it with a spatula. Chill for one hour in the refrigerator.

Caramel Fragments

Melt ½ cup (100g) granulated sugar in a saucepan until it reaches an amber color
Pour it onto waxed paper laid out on a flat surface
Leave to cool
Break it into small fragments and stick them lightly into the top of the tart. If there's a next time I'd try for long shards rather than chunks.
(in real life the caramel isn't as red as it looks in the photo - the colours are a wee bit off)

A big thank you to Veronica and Patricia for an interesting challenge. It was great fun to do and very well recieved by my co-workers who enjoyed my efforts.

Last Things

2007-08-27T12:00:00.000+12:00

Yep - another meme. I don't know what it is I like about these things but they are a little bit addictive.

What is the last thing you ate? Roasted pumpkin and kumara with Montreal steak seasoning, roasted red peppers, feta and coriander - at my desk. Want the recipe? Find it here

What is the last blog or site you came from? Red Shoe Ramblings where I found this meme.

When is the last time you had a decadent dessert? Last night I made an apple bread and butter pudding out of a Healthy Food magazine. It had sultanas and lemon zest in it and was quite tasty for something that was supposedly healthy. However, the last time I had a truly decadent dessert was a week or so ago at Bella’s restaurant when my husband and I split a piece of their ooey gooy chocolate raspberry layer cake. Ordinarily he doesn’t have a sweet tooth but this seems to be a favourite and who am I to complain when he wants to split a piece of cake? It’s so rich I wouldn’t want a whole piece anyway although I’d give it a good shot!

When is the last time you missed the sound of someone’s voice? Haven’t really missed anyone for a while. Although I wish I could just pick up the phone and talk to my US friends any old time I wanted. Time zones are a bugger.

When is the last time you truly laughed out loud? Sunday night, watching Failure to Launch, at the bit where the gorgeous but unfortunately shirted, Matthew McConaughey got bitten by a chipmunk and had it hanging off his hand.

Your turn...

7 Random Things

2007-08-23T07:00:00.000+12:00

Some time ago Lis from La Mia Cucina tagged me for a meme. Ordinarily I love these things but I’ve struggled to write this one.

1. Lime green and turquoise are my favourite colours. How do you like my new blog look? A bit much? I thought the white was a little bit boring and I'm not au fait enough with computing to come up with anything fancier. Hey - check out my new kitchen toys.

2. I am very finicky about meat on bones and won’t eat chops, chicken wings or legs. I make an exception for ribs and lamb shanks because they’re usually so tender the meat falls off the bones anyway. At restaurants I go so far as to cut all the meat the bones and put them on my side plate before I can eat my meal. Having said that, BBQ ribs would rate as one of my favourite foods.

3. When I was about 11 or 12 I got hit by a car while crossing the road on a pedestrian crossing. As a result I fractured my pelvis and have a scar in the inside of my left thigh. Unfortunately it’s too high up to show anyone. Much to my disgust I missed out on school camp. Kind of served me right though because I had snuck out of the house on my bicycle to go and buy candy for the camp and shouldn’t have been out. My mother and brother drove past the accident scene as I was lying on the ground but they didn’t know it was me. Later my brother commented that he thought he recognised my trousers. For the record, they were rust coloured corduroy bell bottoms. Styley!

4. I have moments when I hate my name. Because it is unusual people just can’t get it right. The most common name I get is Morgan although I often get Maureen, Robyn or Norma. I particularly hate it when people call me Marvin or Mervyn – they’re boy’s names fer Pete’s sake. Recently I asked my mother what the other options might have been and she said Hannah or Gabrielle. I’m not sure if I really want to share this random fact but one of the options was Dorcas. Imagine the teasing I would have got. If I’m somewhere like a coffee shop and have to give my name I struggle to quickly come up with a name other than my own. I never even think about using my middle name which is Jean. The funny thing is that if I decided to change my name I really don’t know what I prefer.

5. As a teenager I was a contestant in the Miss Wellington competition. I didn’t place. My husband takes delight in bragging about marrying a beauty queen.

6. My late Grandfather was a real magician. His stage name was Mister Fy . He passed on all his tricks and tools of the trade to my brother. When I was a kid Grandad used to entertain me with a ventriloquist act using my dolls and one day after he’d left I cut up one of them to see where the voices were coming from.

7. My husband doesn’t know I blog and would probably flip if he found out – on two levels. One is the whole internet/privacy thing and the other is my obsession with food. Oh well, I’ll deal with it when it happens. Most of my Daring Bakers creations are done when he’s out of town.

The usual self tagging rules apply.

Tomato Chilli Jam

2007-08-20T18:00:00.000+12:00

When you go to a cooking class at Ruth Pretty's Cooking School, more often than not you’ll be served her delicious Tomato Chilli Jam with morning tea. It is one of those perfect flavour combinations – slightly sweet but tart tomatoes over creamy cream cheese, atop salty rice crackers, garnished with a fresh snippet of coriander. YUM! It is not dissimilar to the very popular American styled jalapeno jelly.

This past summer, my father-in-law gave me some homegrown tomatoes – big juicy orange ones. I diced them up, put them in the freezer and earmarked them for tomato chilli jam. When I cooked them I was a surprised and even a little disappointed to see that they turned red, like regular tomatoes. The tomato chilli jam calls for ginger, fish sauce and surprise, surprise - chillies. I was a tad generous with everything to the point where I would have had to label my preserves as “rip yer lips off tomato chilli jam with a hint of fish”. My solution was to make a second batch without the fish sauce, ginger or chilli and mix the two together in the final stages. I've ended up with a slightly more caramelized version due to the extra cooking but it's at least edible. So edible in fact that I've polished off the jar I kept for myself jar and need to make some more.

You can buy Tomato Chilli Jam at Ruth's shop and the recipe appears in Ruth Pretty's Favourite Recipes. However, Ruth has generously shared her recipe with the world on her website and I urge you to make use of your summer tomatoes and try the recipe for yourself.

1 Year Ago Today...

2007-08-18T11:00:00.000+12:00

.... a blog was born and I can't believe it's been a year already. I've kept in touch with old friends, made some new ones and challenged myself along the way. A big thank you to Deb of Red Shoe Ramblings and Barbara of Winos and Foodies for encouraging me to take my first steps and thanks also to Lisa of La Mia Cucina and Stephanie of Dispensing Happiness for their support in the early days when I was even more clueless about blogging than I am now.

Since I'm lacking a recipe and to make this a pretty post here's a gratuitous lemon tree shot taken early one morning a few weeks back. My tree is bursting with new season fruit so I foresee a lot of lemon recipes in my future.

Morven's World of Cake - The Answers

2007-08-13T18:00:00.000+12:00

Now that Blogger is playing nice with me and I can edit my HTML again here are the answers to my quiz. Sorry to have kept you waiting.

The winners of my little brain teaser competition were Brilynn and Peabody and a little somethin' somethin' will probably be winging its way to Lis and Barbie2Be as well.

1. Who is attributed to the quote “Let them eat cake”?
The answer I was looking for was Marie Antoinette. I asked who is “attributed to the quote”. However, it is widely agreed that someone else said it. Check out an opinion on it here

2. What is the name of the main actor in the recent movie “Layer Cake”?
Daniel Craig

3. Who painted “Still Life with Cake”?
Most people said Raphaele Peale but the picture I showed was by Pablo Picasso. You can see the Raphaele Peale picture at The Met in New York or check out Pablo's work below.

4. What is the French word for cake?
Gateau

5. Who made the world’s biggest cookie?
This was a bit of a trick question for all you Googlers out there. A New Zealand company called Cookie Time made the world's biggest Cookie in April 1986.

Cookie Time was put firmly on the international map by baking the World ’s Biggest Cookie - a giant chocolate chip creation covering an area of 487.15m² (or 5,243.6 sq ft!)... now, more than ten years on, Cookie Time are still hold the official Guinness World Record. In 2003, American company Immaculate Baking Co. set about trying to break the record by baking a 100ft diameter cookie (Cookie Time’s was 81ft; 24.9 metres in diameter). At the time it looked like Americans might have done it - it certainly looked like one big pile of cookie dough! But as it turned out, they failed in their attempt to gain the official title. Cookie Time are still officially Guinness World Record holders for baking the World’s Biggest Cookie!

6. Who is the patron saint of pastry chefs?
St Honoré
I note that Taste magazine has a recipe for Gateau St Honoré in the latest issue. No disprespect but it is not as pretty as the creations by the Daring Bakers.

7. If you were eating a mooncake what would you be celebrating?
Mid Autumn Festival aka Moon Festival/ August Moon Festival/ Lantern Festival

8. What ingredients characterise a tres leches cake?
Evaporated milk, condensed milk, whole milk (or cream)

9. Black Forest cakes contain cherries; what else is associated with the Black Forest?
Cuckoo clocks, fairy tales or honey.
Most people misread this question and thought I was talking about what was in a Black Forest Cake which of course would include whipped cream and chocolate.

10. Thanks for the lovely suggestions of what kind of cake I might like - the lemon cheesecake with a swirl of olallieberry jam sounds delicious and the lemon buttermilk breakfast cake and the sour cream chocolate cake and Dorie's banana cake - wait, let me wipe the drool from my keyboard. However, if I had my pick of any cake it would be my mum’s fruit cake. I'm stunned that this kind of cake is frequently the butt of jokes in America. What's wrong with you people??? Mum makes an absolutely gigantic one at Christmas time and cuts it into quarters to give it away. I could eat it for breakfast, lunch AND dinner. My mother-in-law makes a pretty decent fruitcake too. Hers is quite different and contains only three basic ingredients – dried fruit, orange juice and flour plus some essences.

Mary's Fruit Cake

Ingredients
1 kg/2.2 pounds or 35 oz dried fruit
2 cups orange juice
2 1/2 cups self raising flour
1 teaspoon mixed spice
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 teaspoon lemon essence
1 teaspoon almond essence

Method

Soak the fruit in orange juice overnight.
The next day add self raising flour spice and essences as desired.
Preheat the oven to 160 C
Pour into a greased and lined cake pan and bake 1 1/2 hrs 160 deg. then 1 hour 140 degrees (not fan bake)
Enjoy!

Postscript: I have seen a similar recipe with slightly different proportions. it calls for 2 cups flour, 2 tsp baking powder, 1 kg fruit mix and 2 cups OJ. The baking time for that cake (in a 24 cm/approx 10" round tin) is only 1 hour at 150 degrees C.

Monthly Mingle - Earth Food

2007-08-06T18:00:00.004+12:00

Meeta of What's for Lunch Honey? asked "What action are you taking that helps the earth? It does not have to be anything spectacular or a list of 100 things - just the one small action that you consciously do that reduces the impact."

What has a cat got to do with a monthly mingle you might ask? Well read on and you'll find out...

I am fortunate to live in a city which offers recycling as part of our weekly rubbish collection so we separate out our plastics, glass, papers, cans and regular rubbish. We also have a compost bin in our yard although I'm a little bit lazy about using it for kitchen waste. I’ve taken the recycling of our newspapers one step further though. I volunteer at the local SPCA every 2nd Sunday and they use cut up newspapers as liners for the kitties’ litter trays. So each night after I’ve read the newspaper I sit at the kitchen counter and cut up my paper and save it till I’m next at the SPCA. This is a job I’d ordinarily do during my time at the SPCA so I figure if I’ve done it before hand I get to spend more time loving on them all. Who could abandon a gorgeous creature like "Sylvia"? I am pleased to report that she didn't stay with us long and went to a good home.

Ok - so here's my recipe and for a change it is a completely original creation which evolved because I made a tomato and lentil soup that tasted far too sharp. I knew that a touch of sugar would take the edge off the sharpness but I felt that it needed something more. A pureed pumpkin base seemed an obvious choice and my instincts proved correct because the resulting combination was delicious and the pumpkin gave the soup a velvety base that contrasted nicely with the chunky bits. I’ve since made this soup 3 times and each time it has been a little different depending on the pumpkin (crown is a tad more watery than buttercup) and the seasonings and the quantities of other vegetables. Also, I’m truly my mother’s daughter and can’t resist putting a little something extra in my soups – most recently some leftover French onion soup. That batch was without a doubt the best.

Pumpkin, Tomato and Lentil Soup
Serves approx 8

Ingredients
Pumpkin – about half a butternut or big chunk of crown
Onion ½ - 1 depending on your preference
Garlic 2-3 cloves
Carrot 1
Celery 1-2 stalks
Green pepper ½
Canned diced tomatoes in juice 1-2 cans – Moroccan or Indian spiced are nice
Lentils - organic of course! I used canned lentils because I had trouble sourcing dry lentils in the supermarket and I didn’t think that soup was a good use of my box of lentils de puy!

Method
Saute very finely diced (really teeny tiny – about the size of a lentil) vegetables in a little oil or butter. Up to you what you put in - it might depend on what needs using up in your fridge!
Set aside
Peel and dice the pumpkin and just cover with water and cook until the pumpkin is tender.
Drain the cooking water but save it
Mash the pumpkin
In a large pot add the sautéed veges and pumpkin plus as much pumpkin cooking liquid to get the consistency you like. It’s your soup so if you want to stand your spoon up in it that’s fine with me.
Add the canned tomatoes
Add the drained lentils
Adjust seasonings eg salt and pepper, cumin, garlic salt – whatever you fancy.
Add a teaspoon of sugar if tastes too sharp
This freezes really well.

Pretty in Pink - Daring Bakers July Challenge

2007-07-30T18:00:00.000+12:00

The July Daring Bakers Challenge was organised by Peabody of Culinary Concotions fame, who chose Strawberry Mirror Cake.

A colleague recently left her job to move back to her hometown and during the time we worked together she became a good friend to me. I wanted to make something special for her farewell morning tea and I thought that the mirror cake would be perfect for her since one of her favourite colours is pink.

It’s winter in New Zealand right now so the only strawberries in the stores are imported from the US. I couldn’t find frozen strawberries so as per the allowable ingredient deviations I opted to make a raspberry mirror cake. Wouldn’t you know it on the day I chose to make the cake I went to the supermarket for some fresh cream and saw Australian strawberries at a very reasonable $3.95 per punnet. I chose to stick with the raspberries because I needed to free up the space in my freezer.

I have come to the conclusion that the degree of difficulty of a Daring Bakers challenge should be measured by the number of bowls you dirty during the process. Mirror cake is certainly up there with the best of them. I dirtied 2 bowls for my Genoise sponge, 1 for the syrup, 3 for the Bavarian Cream and another for the mirror – total bowls used = 7 and let’s not count the saucepans.

Getting started....

What went wrong along the way and what would I do differently?

1. I didn’t have a pan suitable for making the sponge so I just used two round cake pans. I think it was a better way of doing it – no wastage.

2. I queried the baking temperature of the sponge because it was hellaciously hot (450 degrees F) and other recipes I’d read were 100 degrees lower. Of course I didn’t query this until I was about the start baking so went with my gut feeling (which turned out to be incorrect) and baked my sponges at the lower temperature. They still turned out OK. A little tip for contact lens wearers – do not be too hasty to peer into the oven or else your contact lenses will feel like they have melted to your eyeballs. I expected them to be all crinkly round the edges when I took them out but I guess they’re made of stronger stuff that I thought.

3. This was really my first attempt at working with gelatin and I had no idea what to expect. The instructions said “Sprinkle the gelatin over the strawberry puree in a small bowl and set aside until spongy.” What spongy meant I didn’t really know. The raspberries I used were pureed straight from the freezer and I worried that my gelatin wasn’t going to do it’s first dissolving bit so I scooped off as much as I could without disturbing the puree. The top had gone a bit wrinkly but I wouldn’t have described it as spongy. I thought it would be a good idea if the raspberries were at least at room temperature so I stirred up the stray bits of gelatin and nuked the puree and tried again. Seemed to work OK.

4. When making my Bavarian cream I think I may have been dangerously close to curdling my mix. I blended it with the gelatin mixture but there was no sigh of it being remotely like the texture of softly whipped cream and I panicked and added some more gelatin (previously softened in water of course). When I layered all the components and put the cake in the fridge to set for the allocated 1-2 hours I was not at all surprised to find that my Bavarian layer was a little on the firm side – oops.

5. Unlike my lucky US counterparts I do not have a fridge with an icemaker and one tray of icecubes wasn’t going to go very far so I just used a bowl of cold tap water to cool my Bavarian cream

6. When it came to making the mirror I didn’t have anything to drain my berries through and sorta kinda maybe just a little bit pressed down on them to extract the juice which of course is what gives you a foamy appearance and why the recipe says not to do it! Fortunately, because I had used raspberries and the colour was very dark it wasn’t too noticeable.

7. In hindsight, I probably wouldn’t have spent $40 on a bottle of booze just to used a couple of tablespoons in this recipe. I don’t think you could taste it. I’m pleased that I hadn’t splashed out and got a slightly more expensive but delicious sounding “raspberricello”.

The verdict – a heck of a lot of faffing about with all the steps involved in creating this masterpiece but I would describe it as gorgeous, impressive, and delicious.

Special thanks to Lis for helping me out with my post this month. You're a doll!

Caramel Creations

2007-07-23T18:00:00.000+12:00

A regular reader complained that I hadn't posted in a while so I've unearthed something from my drafts folder to make her happy.

When I’m at the gym with my personal trainer one of the frequent topics of conversation is food since diet and exercise go hand in hand. A while back I was talking about the HHDD Cheesecake Challenge (it was HHDD #10) and mentioned how proud I was that I didn’t yield to temptation. My trainer commented that one of his colleagues really loved cheesecake and because I like nothing more than to bake for other people I saw this as an opportunity to try out Lisa’s cheesecake with the longest name in the world aka Lisa's Decadent and Ohhh So Evil Peanut Butter Dark Chocolate Caramel Ripple Cheesecake - or LDOSEPBDCCRC.

Lisa said her recipe made a huge cheesecake so I opted to cut the recipe in half - I mean really - two POUNDS of cream cheese. Did you read that? TWO POUNDS!! I used oreo cookies for the crust since the recipient of my cheesecake is American and I figured he might like a bit of a taste of home. Interestingly I noted that the oreo cookies we can buy in New Zealand are manufactured in China. I don’t really care for them and find their black colour offputting as a food item. The mixture seemed very buttery so I baked my crust for 10 minutes and then cooled it before adding the filling. When it came to dividing the filling I didn’t get my split 50/50 so the chocolate layer was much smaller than the peanut butter layer. The chocolate layer was a little runny while the peanut butter layer was very thick. I use an unsweetened chunky peanut butter which I think is more like what’s known in the USA as natural peanut butter. It’ll be interesting to see how it works out when I try the various recipes in Dorie Greenspan’s book that say "do not use natural peanut butter". Lisa used crushed candy in her cheesecake mix but I felt there was enough going on in the mix so didn't bother and you can't get that kind of candy in New Zealand anyway. Instead of using caramel sauce I thought I'd be clever and use pre-caramelised sweetened condensed milk which you can buy in the supermarket. It wasn't as great a success as I'd hoped and despite warming the caramel in the microwave and stirring it furiously it didn’t thin out or get very smooth. I ended up just blobbing it in a very unartistic manner on top of the cheesecake and then swirled it around with a skewer.

The recipient of the cheesecake pronounced it delicious and said that it reminded him of one from The Cheesecake Factory. That was Lisa's idea when she created her recipe so I guess she did good. Thank you Lisa for a great recipe.

I had a lot of leftover caramel from my cheesecake baking session and wondered what to do with it. I'm not one to waste things even if it means adding a whole lot of other ingredients to get there. A quick look at the Nestle website provided the perfect recipe – chocolate muffins with a caramel filling. Fortunately for my diet I’ve decided that caramel isn’t really my thing. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I don’t like it but if I was offered free choice from a box of chocolates the caramel filled ones would be the last on my list. However, I really should quantify that because it’s flowing or soft caramels I don’t like. Hard caramels are completely different story - give me a nice turtle or a Russell Stover Pecan Delight and I’m very happy camper. Especially if they’ve been in the freezer and the caramel has chilled to an almost toothbreaking hardness.

Mmmmm - don't these look ooey gooey?

Morven's World of Cake

2007-07-10T09:39:00.000+12:00

I'm on the social club committee at work and one of our most popular events each year is a quiz night. We have the usual suspects of sports, entertainment, general knowledge and a company related round but because of my love affair with baking I decided, as quiz mistress, to have my own category. I even included a "guess the mystery ingredient" section where I offered samples of spice cake with tomato soup as the secret ingredient, a kumara cake which was a little like a carrot cake in taste, chocolate sauerkraut cake which was not quite so disgusting as it sounds - truly! Lastly I made a chocolate cola cake (I can't find the recipe but it was one that did not contain marshmallows).

I thought you might like to share the fun so if you would like to play along please send your answers to me at morvenATxtraDOTcoDOTnz with "Morven's World of Cake" as the subject. I'm offering a little foodie package which I will negotiate with the lucky winner.

You have two weeks from today (entries will close on 24 July 2007). Since I'm fairly confident the scores on this quiz will be high I'll draw a random name from all participants.

Who is attributed to the quote “Let them eat cake”?

What is the name of the main actor in the movie “Layer Cake”?

Who painted “Still Life with Cake”?

What is the French word for cake?

Who made the world’s biggest cookie and when?

Who is the patron saint of pastry chefs? (shame on any Daring Baker who does not get this question)

If you were eating a mooncake what would you be celebrating?

What ingredients characterise a "tres leches" cake?

Black Forest cakes contain cherries; what else is associated with the Black Forest? (I will accept one of three things and my decision is final)

And finally, to round things out to a nice even 10, if you offered to bake me a cake, what kind/flavour would I chose? This is merely thrown in so I can provide you with a delicious recipe when I post the answers but if I were judging on correct answers it might be the tiebreaker.

Daring Bakers Challenge #7 - Bagels

2007-06-27T18:00:00.000+12:00

After bailing out of the May Daring Bakers Challenge (Gateau St Honore) I was compelled to participate in the June Challenge to make bagels. The charming hostesses of this month's challege are Quellia of All Things Edible and Freya of Writing at the Kitchen Table and I thank them both. This challenge brings back pleasant memories of when I lived in Wellington and a girlfriend and I had a Saturday morning ritual of going to a gym class and then stopping off for a bagel and a latte at Wholly Bagels before going home. Low fat cream cheese and skim milk in the latte of course! In Palmerston North we don’t have any speciality bakeries or bagel shops like Wholly Bagels so the only thing you can buy is the supermarket variety and quite frankly they are just bread rolls with holes in them. A proper bagel is chewy and satisfying.

Unlike my adventures with Martha Stewart’s Crepe Cake this challenge did not present me with any difficulties other than a brief moment when I was boiling the bagels and the baking paper on which the unboiled bagels were sitting caught alight because it was too close to the gas element. I had never really baked any kind of bread product that required hand kneading so that was a learning experience for me and I was surprised to discover I enjoyed it. All of my bagels were instant floaters but that didn’t seem to affect the end result. After observing my efforts during the various stages of making the bagels my husband asked if it was really worth the hassle. I note that he ate two in very quick succession so I’m guessing he must have enjoyed them. I opted to make my bagels completely plain because I anticipated putting both sweet and savoury things on them. We ate the first bagels with a traditional accompaniment of smoked salmon and cream cheese and for the rest of the week I had a bagel for breakfast with cream cheese and olallieberry jam; the jam was a gift to me from Barbie2Be and it is the best jam I have ever tasted – tart and fruity. Yum! Call me silly but everytime I look at that jam name I can't help singing a little song in my head along the lines of that 11958 classic by the Chordettes:
Lollipop lollipop
Oh lolli lolli lolli
Lollipop lollipop...
except that it goes..
lallieberry
lallieberry oh lallie lallie berry
lallieberry..

Isn't the white on white on white attractive? I was too hungry to faff about with a nice tablecloth.

Real Honest Jewish Purist's Bagels
Daring Bakers Challenge #7 - June 2007
Recipe sourced from http://www.jewish-food.org/recipes/brea0007.htm

Ingredients
6-8 cups bread (high-gluten) flour
4 tablespoons dry baking yeast
6 tablespoons granulated white sugar or light honey (clover honey is good)
2 teaspoons salt
3 cups hot water
a bit of vegetable oil
1 gallon water
3-5 tablespoons malt syrup or sugar
a few handfuls of cornmeal

Equipment
large mixing bowl
wire whisk
measuring cups and spoons
wooden mixing spoon
butter knife or baker's dough blade
clean, dry surface for kneading
3 clean, dry kitchen towels
warm, but not hot, place to set dough to rise
large stockpot
slotted spoon
2 baking sheets

How You Do It
Step 1- Proof Yeast: Pour three cups of hot water into the mixing bowl. The water should be hot, but not so hot that you can't bear to put your fingers in it for several seconds at a time. Add the sugar or honey and stir it with your fingers (a good way to make sure the water is not too hot) or with a wire whisk to dissolve. Sprinkle the yeast over the surface of the water, and stir to dissolve.
Wait about ten minutes for the yeast to begin to revive and grow. Skipping this step could result in your trying to make bagels with dead yeast, which results in bagels so hard and potentially dangerous that they are banned under the terms of the Geneva Convention. You will know that the yeast is okay if it begins to foam and exude a sweetish, slightly beery smell.
Step 2- Make Dough: At this point, add about three cups of flour as well as the 2 tsp of salt to the water and yeast and begin mixing it in. Some people subscribe to the theory that it is easier to tell what's going on with the dough if you use your hands rather than a spoon to mix things into the dough, but others prefer the less physically direct spoon. As an advocate of the bare-knuckles school of baking, I proffer the following advice: clip your fingernails, take off your rings and wristwatch, and wash your hands thoroughly to the elbows, like a surgeon. Then you may dive into the dough with impunity. I generally use my right hand to mix, so that my left is free to add flour and other ingredients and to hold the bowl steady. Left-handed people might find that the reverse works better for them. Having one hand clean and free to perform various tasks works best.
When you have incorporated the first three cups of lour, the dough should begin to become thick-ish. Add more flour, a half-cup or so at a time, and mix each addition thoroughly before adding more flour. As the dough gets thicker, add less and less flour at a time.
Step 3- Knead Dough: Soon you will begin to knead it by hand (if you're using your hands to mix the dough in the first place, this segue is hardly noticeable). If you have a big enough and shallow enough bowl, use it as the kneading bowl, otherwise use that clean, dry, flat counter top or tabletop mentioned in the "Equipment" list above. Sprinkle your work surface or bowl with a handful of flour, put your dough on top, and start kneading. Add bits of flour if necessary to keep the dough from sticking (to your hands, to the bowl or counter top, etc....). Soon you should have a nice stiff dough. It will be quite elastic, but heavy and stiffer than a normal bread dough. Do not make it too dry, however... it should still give easily and stretch easily without tearing.
Step 4- Let Dough Rise: Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, and cover with one of your clean kitchen towels, dampened somewhat by getting it wet and then wringing it out thoroughly. If you swish the dough around in the bowl, you can get the whole ball of dough covered with a very thin film of oil, which will keep it from drying out.
Place the bowl with the dough in it in a dry, warm (but not hot) place, free from drafts. Allow it to rise until doubled in volume. Some people try to accelerate rising by putting the dough in the oven, where the pilot lights keep the temperature slightly elevated. If it's cold in your kitchen, you can try this, but remember to leave the oven door open or it may become too hot and begin to kill the yeast and cook the dough. An ambient temperature of about 80 degrees Fahrenheit (25 Centigrade) is ideal for rising dough.
Step 5- Prepare Water for Bagels: While the dough is rising, fill your stockpot with about a gallon of water and set it on the fire to boil. When it reaches a boil, add the malt syrup or sugar and reduce the heat so that the water just barely simmers; the surface of the water should hardly move.
Step 6- Form Bagels: Once the dough has risen, turn it onto your work surface, punch it down, and divide immediately into as many hunks as you want to make bagels. For this recipe, you will probably end up with about 15 bagels, so you will divide the dough into 15 roughly even-sized hunks. Begin forming the bagels. There are two schools of thought on this. One method of bagel formation involves shaping the dough into a rough sphere, then poking a hole through the middle with a finger and then pulling at the dough around the hole to make the bagel. This is the hole-centric method. The dough-centric method involves making a long cylindrical "snake" of dough and wrapping it around your hand into a loop and mashing the ends together. Whatever you like to do is fine. DO NOT, however, give in to the temptation of using a doughnut or cookie cutter to shape your bagels. This will push them out of the realm of Jewish Bagel Authenticity and give them a distinctly Protestant air. The bagels will not be perfectly shaped. They will not be symmetrical. This is normal. This is okay. Enjoy the diversity. Just like snowflakes, no two genuine bagels are exactly alike.
Step 7- Pre-heat Oven: Begin to preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
Step 8- Half Proof and Boil Bagels: Once the bagels are formed, let them sit for about 10 minutes. They will begin to rise slightly. Ideally, they will rise by about one-fourth volume... a technique called "half-proofing" the dough. At the end of the half-proofing, drop the bagels into the simmering water one by one. You don't want to crowd them, and so there should only be two or three bagels simmering at any given time. The bagels should sink first, then gracefully float to the top of the simmering water. If they float, it's not a big deal, but it does mean that you'll have a somewhat more bready (and less bagely) texture. Let the bagel simmer for about three minutes, then turn them over with a skimmer or a slotted spoon. Simmer another three minutes, and then lift the bagels out of the water and set them on a clean kitchen towel that has been spread on the counter top for this purpose. The bagels should be pretty and shiny, thanks to the malt syrup or sugar in the boiling water.
Step 9- Bake Bagels: Once all the bagels have been boiled, prepare your baking sheets by sprinkling them with cornmeal. Then arrange the bagels on the prepared baking sheets and put them in the oven. Let them bake for about 25 minutes, then remove from the oven, turn them over and put them back in the oven to finish baking for about ten minutes more. This will help to prevent flat-bottomed bagels.
Remove from the oven and cool on wire racks, or on a dry clean towels if you have no racks. Do not attempt to cut them until they are cool... hot bagels slice abominably and you'll end up with a wadded mass of bagel pulp. Don't do it.
How To Customize Outside of Bagels: After boiling but before baking, brush the bagels with a wash made of 1 egg white and 3 tablespoons ice water beaten together. Sprinkle with the topping of your choice: poppy, sesame, or caraway seeds, toasted onion or raw garlic bits, salt or whatever you like. Just remember that bagels are essentially a savory baked good, not a sweet one, and so things like fruit and sweet spices are really rather out of place.

I know this picture doesn't exactly make you want to leap out of your chair and run to the kitchen to make a batch of bagels but do try them some time - you'll be glad you did.

Salad Stravaganza - Roasted Vegetable Salad

2007-06-25T18:00:00.001+12:00

This recipe is in support of fellow foodies, Lis and Kelly in their quest for thinner thighs and tasty salads. It’s not quite salad weather here so my offering is something that can be served at room temperature or slightly warmed. It’s my version of an extremely tasty salad from Café Cuba in Palmerston North.

Roasted Vegetable Salad

Ingredients
Pumpkin
Kumara (sweet potato)
Red, yellow or green pepper - your choice
Coriander (cilantro), chopped
Spring (green) onion, sliced
Feta cheese (reduced fat of course), diced
Seasonings as desired

Method
Peel and chop the pumpkin and kumara into chunks a bit bigger than bite sized
If using fresh pepper chop into largish pieces as they’ll shrink a bit
Season to taste with sea salt and cracked black pepper (I’m currently addicted to McCormick’s Monterey Steak seasoning) and roast the pumpkin, kumara and peppers in a hot oven until cooked
I use an oil “mister” so I pretty much dry roast my vegetables. If you are not trying to cut back on fat feel free to drizzle your veges with some lovely EVOO. Yes I know - I post ONE Rachael Ray recipe and I'm channelling her already - sorry
Place your cooked vegetables in a bowl
If using peppers in a jar, chop them up and add to your pumpkin and kumara mix
Add the spring onions and coriander
Toss through diced feta
In my opinion it doesn't need any dressing but hey - it's your salad, do what you want with it. A little balsamic vinegar might be a nice touch
This is particularly nice served warm with a dollop of tomato chutney on the side

I Heart Rachael Ray

2007-06-20T17:31:00.000+12:00

... well at least her Chipotle Cashew Chicken Recipe.

Some friends of mine in Kentucky are fans of Food Network (aren’t we all) and in particular, the princess of perkiness, Rachael Ray. We had been discussing a recipe which used Montreal seasoning. It’s something I hadn’t heard of before as we don’t have McCormicks in NZ and I was very curious about it. The recipe was for lamb or chicken patty pockets served with lemon rice and eggplant-chickpea curry

I have no excuse not to try the recipe because my friends gave me a giant jar of Montreal seasoning to bring home. Unfortunately eggplants are hard to find right now so it’ll have to go on my to make list. For those of you reading from a non-US country you can make your own version of Montreal seasoning with this recipe from The Secret Recipe Blog. I will have to try it before long because I have become completely addicted to Montreal seasoning and use it everywhere I can; on sauteed mushrooms, on oven roasted vegetables, in my bolognese sauce; it's great stuff. Watch for it in Lis and Kelly's Salad Stravaganza event soon.

When my husband and I were in Los Angeles we stayed at the Marriott in Torrance which but a hop step and a jump from Del Amo Fashion Centre. Del Amo used to be the biggest mall in America until it was eclipsed by The Mall of America in 1992. For all you trivia buffs out there here’s some about Del Amo…

The mall was the setting of an important scene in the Quentin Tarantino film Jackie Brown. In the movie a subtitle stated that the Del Amo Mall was the "largest indoor mall in the world".
The movie Bad Santa co-starring John Ritter has most of its mall scenes filmed on the inside and outside of the mall.
The "International" food court was used in a scene from the 1982 movie Valley Girl, starring Nick Coppola, who later adopted the name Nicholas Cage.
The Comedy Central show Reno 911! has used Del Amo Mall for both interior and exterior shooting.

One afternoon we were working out in the hotel gym – him doing free weights and me – sitting on an recumbent cycle with my ear plugs in watching ...yep ...Food Network with Rachael Ray. I know it seems like a bit of a contradiction but in actual fact it worked really well because the show I was watching wasn’t finished by the time my workout was over so I stayed on the bike a little longer. Once of the ingredients in the recipe that was being demonstrated was…. wait for it….. Montreal seasoning. I knew I had to try it. And there was the sweet/savoury thing going on too which is always appealing to me. You can find the original recipe here

Chipotle Cashew Chicken with Brown Rice aka Park City Chicken
From Every Day with Rachael Ray
6 Servings

Ingredients
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 large onion, 1/4 finely chopped, 3/4 thinly sliced
2 cups brown rice
4 cups chicken stock or low-sodium chicken broth
2 pounds chicken meat (tenders; skinless, boneless breasts; skinless, boneless thighs), cut into 2-inch pieces
2 tablespoons grill seasoning blend, such as Montreal Steak Seasoning blend by McCormick
2 to 3 tablespoons dark soy sauce, such as tamari (eyeball it)
4 garlic cloves, chopped
1 red bell pepper, seeded and thinly sliced
10 to 12 water chestnuts, sliced or chopped
1 cup frozen green peas
3 tablespoons canned chipotle chiles in adobo sauce, finely chopped (available in the international foods aisle), or 1 1/2 tablespoons ground chipotle powder
1 tablespoon ground cumin (a palmful)
2 to 3 tablespoons honey (2 healthy drizzles)
1/4 to 1/3 cup pure maple syrup (eyeball it)
2 to 3 tablespoons cilantro or parsley leaves (a handful), chopped, your preference
1 cup raw cashews

Method
In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine 1 tablespoon of the vegetable oil (1 turn of the pan) and the butter
When the butter melts into the oil, add the chopped onion and cook for 2 minutes, then add the rice and cook for 3 minutes more
Add the chicken stock and cover the pot
Raise the heat and bring the stock to a rapid boil
Once the stock boils, reduce the heat to low and cook, stirring occasionally, until the rice is tender, about 18 minutes

While the rice cooks, make the chicken
Heat a large skillet over high heat
Season the chicken with the grill seasoning
Add the remaining 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil (2 turns of the pan) and then the chicken
Brown the chicken on both sides, season with the soy sauce, then move the chicken to 1 side of the pan
Add the sliced onion, garlic and bell pepper
Cook for 2 to 3 minutes, then add the water chestnuts and green peas, and mix the vegetables and chicken together
Add the chipotle chiles and cumin and toss to coat
Glaze the chicken mixture with the honey and maple syrup and turn off the heat
Add the chopped cilantro or parsley (whichever you prefer) and the cashews

Spoon the rice into bowls, top with the cashew chicken and serve
As Rachael would say Yum-o

Morven’s comments:
Other than halving the recipe I made it exactly as stated - well almost. I am not a fan of brown rice so I used white. I know it’s good for you with its extra fibre and all that good stuff but I just don’t care for it. My preferred rice is basmati which I choose because it is a low GI variety.
I wouldn’t bother with cooking the rice with butter and onions and stock because there is just so much flavour going on with the rest of the dish that rice may as well be plain.
For half the recipe I used two chipotle chillies which gave a nice mellow heat without burning your lips off.
Neither the honey, not the maple syrup were dominant but I'm sure they added to the complexity of the flavours.
I'm definitely making this again!

Buzzy Bees and Kiwis

2007-06-11T18:00:00.000+12:00

I can't believe how slack I've been since I got back from vacation and that it's been over a month since I posted anything. I guess I haven't really got back into baking or trying out new recipes so there has been nothing to share.

Before I left for my holiday I mentioned that I was burning the midnight oil trying to get some baby quilts finished for friends we would be visiting. I was sewing the binding on the quilts just hours before my plane left and had to pack a needle and thread to finish the handsewing at my destination. Deadlines and me do not play well together.

I'm pleased to say that our friends are the proud parents of two adorable little boys who weighed in at 5lbs, 3oz and 4 lbs, 6 oz respectively.

The finished quilts...

Closeup of Buzzy Bee quilt...

Closeup of Kiwi quilt...

Martha Stewart's Deepest Chocolate Crepe Cake - a la Daring Bakers

2007-05-10T18:00:00.000+12:00

The Daring Bakers were at it again in April and I missed the due date for posting because I was on vacation. I'd arranged for a blog buddy to post on my behalf but the poor gal didn't realise that paranoid lil me had given her my password in code and forgotten to mention how to crack the code. Never mind; better late than not at all.

Brilynn of Jumbo Empanadas selected Martha Stewart's Darkest Crepe Cake as the Daring Bakers' challenge for the month of April and may I say that it was indeed a challenge. Judging by the comments from the other gals I was not alone. It's OK Brilynn we still love ya! Honest.

Yet another baking effort where my photographic skills leave much to be desired and I have decided that chocolate isn't a very photogenic food. It comes up too dark and you don't get any definition of shape and form. Things are not helped by the fact I have white dishes, a white countertop and white splashback.

My parents came to stay for the weekend that I had designated for crepe cake construction and I thought that the crepe making exercise would be the perfect mother/daughter activity although mum tells me that when we baked together when I was a youngster I used to say to her "Mummy why don't you have a smile on your face when we're baking?". She never told me what I did to piss her off.

While some of the crepe cake making was shared it was mostly me doing the work with Mum offering advice and guidance in the background. Mum proclaimed that I wasn't part of a daring bakers group I was part of a "messed up in the head " baking group. Well that's the polite translation; you work it out for yourself. We both decided that Martha must have devised this recipe while sitting in her prison cell as a particularly evil revenge on an unsuspecting baking public.

Let me tell you that this is not a recipe you'd want to use when you need something quick and easy. Did I mention it was a challenge? I started on Saturday afternoon by making the crepe batter which needed to stand for 2 hours or overnight. Into the bowl went an entire family sized block of chocolate. I like to try and use local products so I went for Whittakers Dark Ghana 72%. Then there was some butter added to the mixture. A LOT of butter I swear that Martha was channelling Paula Deen at this point and I could feel the kilos piling onto my hips already.

Mum had brought her electric crepe maker with her to see if it would simplify the process a little. If you've not seen a crepe maker check out this one by Villaware - yours for a mere $29 bucks. It's kind of like a little non stick hotplate on a handle. You simply (well that's easier said that done) turn it upside down and dunk the contraption ever so briefly - like for ONE second - into your batter, flip the crepe maker over and if you are lucky you have a perfect crepe. If you are not so lucky as was the case about 3 times out of 10 for me, the crepe mixture just plops back into the batter meaning you have to try and fish the lumpy bits out. One of the tricks is to have the crepe maker level. I ended up with two distinct piles. Perfect crepes that were the size of the entire crepe maker and not so perfect crepes that were undersized. Amazingly, they were all perfectly round. If you do use an electric crepe maker you need to be prepared to have batter from here to Africa, all over the bench, on the floor, on your shirt and in your hair. Mum says that the batter didn't behave as nicely as the plain ones she's made and she reckons it's probably because of the chocolate.

In the middle of making the crepes I took a wee break to beat the cream required for the hazelnut filling because that had to be refrigerated for an hour. I have no idea why - guess it had to be chilled. Perhaps Martha just wanted people using her recipe to waste more of their free time.

After the crepes were completed I set about making the filling which meant whisking egg whites and sugar over a bowl of simmering water then adding another unimaginable amount of butter and some hazelnut cream. There was some discussion among the Daring Bakers over what we should use as hazelnut cream and the majority went for Nutella or similar. I used 50% Nutella and 50% hazelnut paste which is a Turkish product made of ground hazelnuts and sugar that I discovered quite by accident on a recent foodie shopping expedition.

In a perfect world this cake should be very tall - 32 layers plus filling tall in fact. By about layer 24 my cake started to resemble the leaning tower of Pisa. If the challenge was "recreate the leaning tower of Pisa by using baked goods" I would have received an A+ for lean and an F for tower. However the combination of tender, silky crepes; smooth, creamy filling; and sticky chocolate was delicious albeit incredibly rich. Everyone at work who tried a piece thought it was fabulous. One person even said that I should be a professional *blush* and I can only assume they were going by taste and not looks.

I thank Brilynn for the challenge, no really I do; and I can say without a word of a lie that I will not make this particular recipe again but I can see potential for doing some creative stuff with crepes. I have a recipe in a new book I bought called "Wicked" that calls for plain crepes filled with a lemon curd filling but I wonder how it might go with my lemon mousse? Hmmmm

In the extremely unlikely event that you wish to experience for yourself the horror that is Martha's Darkest Chocolate Crepe Cake you can find the recipe here. Good luck; you'll need it!

Do check out the other Daring Bakers' blogs to see how much fun they had with this challenge. Some of the pictures will just blow you away with their beauty and decorative creativity.

A Taste of Yellow

2007-04-19T17:00:00.000+12:00

Finally updated with photos..........

Barbara of Winos and Foodies has organised this one off event in support of LiveSTRONG Day.

LiveSTRONG Day is the Lance Armstrong Foundation's (LAF) grassroots advocacy initiative to unify people affected by cancer and to raise awareness about cancer survivorship issues on a national level and in local communities across the country. LiveSTRONG Day 2007 will occur on Wednesday, May 16.

The A Taste of Yellow has been approved by the Lance Armstrong Foundation as an official LiveSTRONG Day event. Barbara is organising the event to raise awareness of cancer. However if you wish to make a donation you can do so by visiting the Lance Armstrong Foundation donation page.

Barbara's challenge was to make something using a yellow ingredient and the first thing that sprung to my mind was of course cake! I had 6 egg yolks left from the latest Daring Bakers challenge which just cried out to be used for a "yellow cake". Unfortunately I wasn't really paying attention to the recipe which called for sifted flour as opposed to flour, siftted and yes it does make a difference. The first clue was when the batter was so thick my beater was struggling to mix it. Usually when I have a bit of a disaster I just tell everyone that my recipe was experimental and I've never had any complaints but this cake was a little on the dry side. I thought that if I slathered it in chocolate frosting people might not notice but even frosted with a delicious chocolate "gana-icing" (a combination of some leftover ganache and some icing sugar) the cake was not good. In doing my research on yellow cakes I discovered that the traditional frosting is chocolate and I can't quite work that out. The taste of the cake is plainish with a hint of vanilla. I would have used a lemon frosting.

Since I was getting ready to go on vacation time was marching on and I worried that I wouldn't have anything to contribute to this event but then I remembered something I'd saved as a draft. It's a potato and lentil curry and the lentils are the yellow kind so technically it still fits with the theme. The recipe is from Taste magazine and you can find it here. Basically it's a thick, soupy concoction of spices, lentils, tomatoes and potatoes. It's quite delicious and I'll be making it again especially now our weather is getting cooler.

I served it with poppadums and some raita which I made without a recipe. The instructions go a little like this.

Raita

Ingredients
Lebanese cucumber
Plain unsweetened yoghurt
Pinch of chilli
Salt
Cumin seeds

Method
Grate a quantity of Lebanese cucumber and squeeze it with your hands to expel as much liquid as possible
Mix in plain yoghurt to desired consistency
Season to taste

OK so I weakened; I really wanted to do something cakey for this event. I had some bananas in my fruit bowl which were going nicely spotty and soft. A banana is yellow is it not? I used Dorie Greenspan's recipe which I first heard of through Lisa. It is THE moistest banana cake you'll ever make. Due no doubt to the cup of sour cream in the mixture. Most of Dorie's recipes call for a 12 cup bundt pan and mine is a lot smaller. As luck would have it my mother recently gave me - ok - so I spied it in her cupboard and said "oh look a baby bundt pan" and of course mum offered it to me. It belonged to Nana and is one of those old fashioned light coloured aluminium ones. The combination of my regular bundt pan and the mini one were perfect for Dorie's recipe.

You can find the recipe on Lisa's blog at La Mia Cucina. I know I'm being lazy today but I guess that's what being 2 hours away from catching a plane does to you.

I'm leavin' on a jet plane....

2007-04-18T13:35:00.000+12:00

... don't know when I'll be back again.

Well actually, I'll see you in a couple of weeks; and dammit, now I have an earworm of that song.

Our first stop is Kentucky where I'll be catching up with various friends for a week and reacquainting myself with all those good old Southern dishes I used to enjoy when we lived there - ribs, cornbread, chicken fried steak and some iced tea to wash it down - sweet of course.

Then we are off for a few days R&R in Las Vegas. I'm almost embarrassed to tell you where we're staying in Vegas so I will save that for a trip report. We're hoping to go and see The Blue Man Group, do a little gambling (25 cent slots for me, blackjack for him) and enjoy the sights.

Y'all be good while I'm gone won't you.

Hey Hey It's Donna Day #11 - Mousse

2007-04-16T18:00:00.001+12:00

mousse
[MOOS]
A French term meaning "froth" or "foam," mousse is a rich, airy dish that can be either sweet or savory and hot or cold. Cold dessert mousses are usually made with fruit puree or a flavoring such as chocolate. Their fluffiness is due to the addition of whipped cream or beaten egg whites and they're often fortified with gelatin. Savory mousses can be made from meat, fish, shellfish

Some people,like me, are squicked out by the thought of eating raw eggs and some
people, like me, are put off at the thought of working with gelatine for fear of ending with something that feels like rubber. So when Helen of Tartlette named mousse as the theme for Hey Hey It's Donna Day #11 I had a wee challenge ahead of me - to find an eggless, gelatineless mousse recipe.

I now present to you the easiest lemon mousse you will ever make. No seriously! It is dead easy and takes just minutes to prepare. No eggs, no gelatin and only three ingredients. The recipe is courtesy of my mum and she can't remember where she first saw it but has been making it for years and receives rave reviews. It's an ideal recipe to remember if you get caught and have to make a dessert at the last minute. As long as you can run to the store for some cream, if you have lemons in the fruitbowl and a can of condensed milk in your pantry you are good to go.

The Easiest Lemon Mousse You'll Ever Make

Ingredients
1 can sweetened condensed milk - not lite
150-300 mls cream (less will give you a thicker end result)
Juice of 4 lisbon lemons - this recipe does not work with meyers and I can't vouch for any other varieties
Finely grated zest of 2 lemons

Method
In a medium sized bowl, beat the cream until soft peaks form
In another bowl mix together the condensed milk, lemon juice and lemon zest
Fold the cream into the lemon mixture until combined
Pour into your chosen serving dish/dishes and refrigerate until ready to serve
The mixture will thicken up on standing and will be quite stable for several days
It is particularly nice served in a brandy snap basket or as a filling for brandy snaps themselves. The brandy snaps will melt if left too long so it's best to fill them just before serving

For a recipe to make your own brandy snaps check out the Chelsea Sugar website here. Or, for a brandy snap basket recipe see here.

Cuter than Scooter?

2007-04-11T18:58:00.000+12:00

I don't think so!

I'm in the process of making a couple of baby quilts which need to be made quickly due to my leaving things til the last possible moment. Procrastination should be an art form I tell you. The babies are due 11/04 and I leave for my holiday to the US on 19/04 so perhaps I should be sewing rather than writing this post? I pulled out this quilt to use as my reference and laid it over a nearby chair and naturally any quilt or garment that is laid over a piece of furniture becomes an instant cat bed.

Why can't I just give this quilt away and only have to make one more? Well this quilt won a blue ribbon at the Georgetown County Fair - from memory I think the ribbon was for the quilting which was just an all over, meandering stipple pattern. The quilt sentimental to me and I haven't had the heart to give it away.

Here's a sneak preview of my efforts so far.....

Because the quilts are being given to friends in the US I wanted to use a New Zealand theme and have chosen some fun fabrics for the feature squares. For the first quilt I chose Buzzy Bee which is somewhat of a New Zealand icon. Buzzy Bee has been around since the 1940s and almost every New Zealand child would have had a Buzzy Bee pull along toy. Now you can get plush toys, stationery, key rings and buzzy bee themed clothing - it's just not the same. The other quilt will have little cartoon kiwis (as in the flightless birds, not the furry fruit) as the feature fabric and will be in similar colouring.

Blogging By Mail - The Easter Edition

2007-04-10T18:05:00.000+12:00

A big thank you to Emma of The Laughing Gastronome for organising another round of Blogging By Mail.

I was delighted to receive a box of Easter inspired treats from Barbara of Winos and Foodies. Beautifully wrapped in pastel coloured tissue paper were all the fixin’s to make Easter biscuits. Barbara sent me cocoa, icing sugar, a set of food colourings, some silver cachous (AKA dragees or non pareils), the cutest little bunny shaped cookie cutter and a pretty tin to keep the finished biscuits in. To top it all off a tiny, gold wrapped, Lindt chocolate bunny. Thank you Barbara for a very thoughtful box of goodies.

I don’t have a tried and tested recipe for cut out cookies so I sent an SOS to my friends The Daring Bakers and received a very prompt reply from Quellia at All Things Edible. I couldn't find the recipe on her blog so I've reproduced it here. Hope that's OK Quellia?

Quellia's Sugar Cookies

Ingredients
1 cup butter at room temp (1/2 pound or 227 grams)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 large egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 2/3 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Method
Preheat oven to 350F
In a large bowl, mix butter and sugar together until fluffy (I used a wooden spoon)
Beat in egg and vanilla
In a small bowl, sift flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg and add to butter, sugar and egg mixture
Mix well until a ball forms
Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead gently for 1 minute
With a rolling pin, roll dough out to a thickness of about 1/4 inch
Cut with cookie cutters (you can sprinkle with colored sugars here if you want)
Bake on a non-stick cookie sheet for 9-12 minutes
Let cookies cool slightly on a baking sheet, then move to a rack to cool completely

I chilled my cookie dough for an hour but two would have been better as it's a softish dough.

Quellia's recipe was for cookies with a hint of nutmeg but because Barbara had sent cocoa powder and I wanted to make chocolate bunnies I substituted 1/3 of a cup of the flour with 1/3 cup of cocoa and I added a teaspoon of cinnamon to the mix. The combination of brown and white sugar in the cookie mixture gives a really good flavour. I love their texture - crisp but not hard. I will definitely add this recipe to my collection.

A friend needed to give her husband some quiet time to study so she came to my house to help me bake and decorate the cookies. Because the cookies spread a little and also because I only have two cookie sheets we had to bake them in several batches. It's a wonder we didn't burn more of them because we were so distracted with our decorating and chatting that most of the time I forgot to set the timer. Our decorating skills leave something to be desired and I was a bit generous with the food colouring but hey I'm a bright kinda gal. We experimented with some coloured sugar, 100s and 1000s (jimmies or sprinkles) and the silver cachous, but we didn't care for the look very much so they didn't make it to the photo shoot. It was a lot of fun and I can see why kids enjoy this kind of baking. How cute are these bunnies?

Limoncello

2007-04-02T18:00:00.001+12:00

My lemon tree is still fruiting although what's left on the tree is overblown from having been on the tree too long. The fruit is huge, juicy and somewhat mutant. My photo sucks but do you know how hard it is to hold something in your palm and then try and take a photo one handed? I think perhaps my lemon tree may have had a liaison with a grapefruit tree somewhere in its history.

I have no idea what variety it is but I think it's probably a Meyer as the lemons are extremely juicy but not as acidic as a Lisbon. Food Reference tells us this...The Meyer Lemon (Citrus meyeri) is thought to be a cross between a lemon and an orange. They are thought to have originated in China about 400 years ago. The Meyer Lemon was introduced to the U.S. from China by Frank Meyer in 1908. Meyer lemons look like a large orange, with a very soft edible skin. They are sweet, juicy and fragrant, and are excellent in vinaigrettes and sauces, or sliced skin and all in salads.

I made some lemon curd but the egginess (eggyness?) of the flavour icked me out just a tad. So what else can you do with an abundance of lemons? Most cake recipes don't use enough lemon juice to make a dent in my supply and I don't have room in my freezer for juice anyway. The warm weather this summer made me dream of lolling about beside the pool with a nice cold drink and I thought Eureka! - Limoncello I guess in my case that should be Meyer! - Limoncello.

Limoncello has long been a staple in the lemon-producing region along the Italian Amalfi Coast in Capri and Sorrento. The Amalfi Coast is known for its citrus groves and narrow winding roads. There are a number of New Zealand producers of limoncello and I have a bottle of Vin Alto in my cellar. A bad limoncello tastes like rocket fuel - or at least what I imagine rocket fuel might taste like. Lemon Z make theirs from Yen Ben lemons and spring water. Bella Verde use Villa Franca lemons. Check out their recipes including one for limoncello fudge - can you say mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm? There's also VinAlto and they have a few nice sounding recipes too.

Limoncello
Source of recipe forgotten - oops!

Ingredients
12 lemons
2 (750-ml) bottles of 100-proof vodka, divided (see note below)
2 cups water
2 cups sugar
Makes about 9 1/4 cups limoncello
Total time: 30 minutes, plus at least 3 weeks infusing time

Method
Remove the yellow part of the lemon peel with a sharp peeler or fine grater, carefully avoiding the bitter white pith. If any pith remains on the back of a strip of peel, scrape it off
Put the yellow peels in a jar or bottle, add 1 bottle vodka and seal tightly
Leave the bottle to steep until the peels lose their color, at least two weeks (I left mine a month)
Put the water and sugar in a saucepan and boil until it turns clear
Let the syrup cool
Strain the vodka from the peels and mix it with the remaining bottle of vodka and the syrup
Put the liqueur in bottles, seal tightly and let the components marry for at least 1 week before using
For drinking straight, store the limoncello in the freezer

Note: My liquor store salesperson told me not to waste my money on high end vodka (like Absolut or NZ's 42 Below) for making limoncello and I took his advice and bought something mid range.

Cuisine magazine offers some great suggestions for using limoncello including a fabulous dessert recipe by Julie le Clerc for limoncello roll with lemon conserve.