tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-345499472024-03-08T06:01:01.799+10:30Saucier:Notes on food and cookingA collection of stories and recipes gained from years of bluffing my way through the kitchen. Please feel free to ask any questions, request any recipes or pass on some of your own cooking tales.Wanderin' Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05512852268796093458noreply@blogger.comBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34549947.post-7283587888871137852014-05-17T20:40:00.001+09:302014-05-17T20:40:27.757+09:30Spring has sprung!<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd_FFaSvK4ZCrBwTzOm_P2a62wOjx5MHveIkhmrJarrSJx-9lZGpUYj8w5kpYqV0RLop5EH2tGW08iKVrDU81U6xceTyyoRogPGSsILv9RfgBW_3aQQUv2zSPCwWLMPJDpmwQf/s2048/Photo%25252020140517121004.jpg" target="_blank" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd_FFaSvK4ZCrBwTzOm_P2a62wOjx5MHveIkhmrJarrSJx-9lZGpUYj8w5kpYqV0RLop5EH2tGW08iKVrDU81U6xceTyyoRogPGSsILv9RfgBW_3aQQUv2zSPCwWLMPJDpmwQf/s500/Photo%25252020140517121004.jpg" id="blogsy-1400325028081.8274" class="aligncenter" alt="" width="500" height="375"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><p> I was up at 6:30 on a Saturday morning so you better believe this was for a good cause. </p><a name='more'></a><p> So there was a call out for Kingston Samaritans this week to bake for the charity stall held on Saturday at the surbiton farmers market. Rusty and I had never been to the farmers market before but the weather is nice this weekend and that makes you want to get up and out early to make more of the sun and the farmers market seemed to be as good an excuse as any. I went a little crazy with the cakes.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhY_4bbwILcVqIRPeMxEilXMJGUBCQnHmOvY4MCma4l83n4hYLQrJrchT9qWnZ8SEv914H7lW6jZs9B9MVMERJchVe9faA2j-zh0T3qk04dA5-ponT5I4qlIUZDD4lSeG_LcPN/s2048/Photo%25252020140517121004.jpg" target="_blank" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhY_4bbwILcVqIRPeMxEilXMJGUBCQnHmOvY4MCma4l83n4hYLQrJrchT9qWnZ8SEv914H7lW6jZs9B9MVMERJchVe9faA2j-zh0T3qk04dA5-ponT5I4qlIUZDD4lSeG_LcPN/s500/Photo%25252020140517121004.jpg" id="blogsy-1400325028075.1892" class="aligncenter" alt="" width="500" height="375"></a></div><p> This one was a double layer lemon cake with another sugar peony I made this week to keep my practise up. It's a little wonky but I guess so are flowers sometimes so that's probably ok. The lemon was a nice flavour change, flavoured with lemon juice and zest, it had a lovely fresh lemon taste rather than using a lemon extract. </p><p>The cupcakes were straight out vanilla and chocolate. The little flowers on them were all rolled from fondant as well. Where have you been all my life fondant! I don't like eating you but you do make things look pretty. I made them in little gingham cases some with piped grass, some just with green rosettes and flowers on. </p><p>We headed down to the market bright and early to set up, it's a lovely little market just on Maple road. Stuff started selling gradually through the first hour before Rusty and I had to head off and I'm waiting to see if they sell everything that we had though even when people weren't buying cakes they were still donating which is lovely. For those of you who don't know, the Samaritans provide 24 hour 7 days a week listening support to those at risk of suicide or in emotional distress, people can call, email, text or visit and talk to someone face to face. Their website is www.samaritans.org if you want to check it out. </p><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaogU-JdnGZZQqZZS4BQfO2BdBlUddxTzuN1Z5kMfvKmcFC34cZn174jIyn4YZ6KtxHLfaOMgkIxCvHgjT9PeCawTBXIWs179CaeGrzPwBhli2Dd4O04SCxUChhFWnqyibPV46/s2048/Photo%25252020140517121005.jpg" target="_blank" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaogU-JdnGZZQqZZS4BQfO2BdBlUddxTzuN1Z5kMfvKmcFC34cZn174jIyn4YZ6KtxHLfaOMgkIxCvHgjT9PeCawTBXIWs179CaeGrzPwBhli2Dd4O04SCxUChhFWnqyibPV46/s500/Photo%25252020140517121005.jpg" id="blogsy-1400325028050.154" class="aligncenter" width="500" height="375" alt=""></a></div><p> </p>Wanderin' Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05512852268796093458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34549947.post-68925937814704298872014-05-09T02:54:00.002+09:302014-05-09T03:09:49.573+09:30What can't you do with cream cheese?<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ-V64vSEg3hM9Q6MngVdEeOmw0-vyDUzLbu6D5LeOzL9hjJvTw1bqyalhNwsjGyC6D56vpqbW3RBGXDZNTiBpo98uBLT_FOs3GKuEofzl7LsWIZQZrPolK5mml9poDUZmLVUE/s2048/Photo%25252020140508182353.jpg" target="_blank" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ-V64vSEg3hM9Q6MngVdEeOmw0-vyDUzLbu6D5LeOzL9hjJvTw1bqyalhNwsjGyC6D56vpqbW3RBGXDZNTiBpo98uBLT_FOs3GKuEofzl7LsWIZQZrPolK5mml9poDUZmLVUE/s500/Photo%25252020140508182353.jpg" id="blogsy-1399570769735.938" class="aligncenter" alt="" width="500" height="667"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: none;"> </div><p> I don't know why I do these things, I wish I had some kind of pithy anecdote to share with you on the deeper meaning behind why I choose to cook things, but sometimes random is how I interact with the kitchen. There is no other reason for why I started this experiment other than the cat lady was coming over and I thought she might like cream cheese</p><a name='more'></a><p> Specifically cream cheese in the middle of a little red velvet cupcake. This might have been a bit of therapy for me actually. I'd had a really hard Samaritans duty the night before that finished at 2:30am and then I and the universe conspired to only allow my mind to dwell on nice things. As we drove home that night, we passed the gates of Bushy park as a huge herd of deer were patiently crossing the road, one behind the other. We stopped the car and I got out to watch them for a bit and they looked at me as if to say "What are you lookin' at?" It was unexpected and oddly peaceful. The next day Rusty and I went for a picnic in Richmond park and walked around isabella plantation.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkb2q5hoYf1I_XssSMPAH-sgFu6n8uVzOkj4w4Dcuwdmt1ZFr594h5LXok6pVZ0TYDeZIclRAsOlVt1_kwgGlVDiuF0jylqImAtu5tPOjMHEf3wWAziUcB0-Piz-RNS4vpGfjf/s2048/Photo%25252020140508182353.jpg" target="_blank" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkb2q5hoYf1I_XssSMPAH-sgFu6n8uVzOkj4w4Dcuwdmt1ZFr594h5LXok6pVZ0TYDeZIclRAsOlVt1_kwgGlVDiuF0jylqImAtu5tPOjMHEf3wWAziUcB0-Piz-RNS4vpGfjf/s500/Photo%25252020140508182353.jpg" id="blogsy-1399570769712.3303" class="aligncenter" alt="" width="500" height="375"></a></div><p> More pretty and calming things. Having regressed to the psychological state of a well medicated 50's housewife, I decided to bake. I haven't really gone in for the whole things in things with cake deal before but got it in my head to try a cheesecake stuffed red velvet cupcake, which is your cakey picture above ...obviously.</p><p> I've posted my cake recipe before, red velvet cake is basically that with about 4 tablespoons of red food colour and 1/4 of cocoa. The cheesecake centre was a bit of an experiment but I went for 300g of cream cheese with 1/2 cup of caster sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla, mixed those things together and then put blobs of it in the bottom of patty cases before covering them in red velvet batter and baking them for 15 mins. The cream cheese buttercream is basically 300g cream cheese, 125g soft butter, 2 cups icing sugar and the trick here is to not over beat the buttercream otherwise it goes too liquid, add some vanilla for flavour and you're done. They freeze really well so we could pace ourselves and they are pretty moreish. Cat lady had no complaints at any rate. </p><p>My next cream cheese experiment was with another tried and tested recipe, it was my brownie recipe with a cheesecake swirl on the top. I am a really bad blogger and I haven't actually given you my brownie recipe before so here goes. This one is fool proof and the brownies are proper chocolatey, not too sweet and for those who don't like nuts in their brownies, they're perfect. I've been making this one for nearly 10 years now and people get obsessive about it. </p><p>Get 200g of good dark chocolate and slowly melt it with 200g of unsalted butter. Let it cool to body temperature before you go adding it to anything eggy, I recommend that you start with this bit of the recipe first for that reason. As your chocolate butter pool is cooling slightly, beat 3 eggs with 1 and 1/4 cups of caster sugar. Ah beating eggs, there's something strangely cathartic about it, knowing they can never beat you! </p><p>Once you've wrought vengance over your eggs, sift in 2/3 of a cup of plain flour and 1/2 of a cup of cocoa then add your chocolate butter mix. If you're making normal brownies then add 2/3 of a cup of white chocolate chips and 2/3 of a cup of milk chocolate chips, but if you're going on a cheesecake experiment then ina separate bowl get 300g of cream cheese, 1/2 cup of sugar, vanilla, one egg, beat them together. </p><p>Get 9 inch square or rectangular pan, line it with baking paper, for normal brownies pour in your brownie mix, spread evenly in the pan and bake for 35 mins at 170 degrees. For crazy cheesecake brownies, spread 2/3 of your brownie mix in the pan and spread evenly, pour on your cheesecake mix and then dot the remaining brownie mix over the top, attempt to swirl the brownie mix and cheesecake mix artistically, give up and then sprinkle over some chocolate chips and pretend that what now looks like a brownie and a cheesecake were involved in a high speed crash was intentional on some level. Bake for 35 mins and then chill before serving. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh1PZqSUwyd9TypsKtBcftUKzZZSpRjalWEx_IlTE_beB7TBRQujO-mV3C3G0eFeSDH9INdCNq0s0Sa5uUavVT2aDqROj8SXsJpQJkwftUz615nL-fbFPe5QahyphenhyphenjwEUYYu0Tu6/s2048/Photo%25252020140508182354.jpg" target="_blank" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh1PZqSUwyd9TypsKtBcftUKzZZSpRjalWEx_IlTE_beB7TBRQujO-mV3C3G0eFeSDH9INdCNq0s0Sa5uUavVT2aDqROj8SXsJpQJkwftUz615nL-fbFPe5QahyphenhyphenjwEUYYu0Tu6/s500/Photo%25252020140508182354.jpg" id="blogsy-1399570769739.306" class="aligncenter" alt="" width="500" height="667"></a></div><p> It looks unholy but it tastes amazing. Would be great if you needed to make some kind of treat for work because your boss has just come back from leave and started a new job and you didn't get to make her cake before she left coz it was lent. I'm sure there are other scenarios where a cheesecake brownie might be called for also. See how you go. </p><p> </p>Wanderin' Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05512852268796093458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34549947.post-12946374241878204432014-05-08T07:45:00.002+09:302014-05-12T06:10:59.855+09:30More adventures in cake <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCgECRebzTsRYKQN8WhD4cCH1G3pQ64XwAhTxTbM_N4RcakhG-17zwIY5iPbqZE6nesGJMUGyoSvYxQpmzK8rvwQrFLs2Fl4nzbhYIgQCUc1DmHvFKLESXUctU65ccU0XB_sG7/s2048/Photo%25252020140511214022.jpg" target="_blank" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCgECRebzTsRYKQN8WhD4cCH1G3pQ64XwAhTxTbM_N4RcakhG-17zwIY5iPbqZE6nesGJMUGyoSvYxQpmzK8rvwQrFLs2Fl4nzbhYIgQCUc1DmHvFKLESXUctU65ccU0XB_sG7/s500/Photo%25252020140511214022.jpg" id="blogsy-1399840857866.871" class="aligncenter" alt="" width="500" height="375"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><p> It had to happen at some point. Buttercream is a gateway drug and eventually the kids turn to something more exotic, something with a kick, something a little harder</p><a name='more'></a><p> Buttercream, for those not in the know, is basically butter, icing sugar or confectioners sugar for those on the other side of the Atlantic and then milk or water and whatever flavouring you want to add. It's super sweet, quick and easy to make and hard to mess up. If you do happen to mess it up, it's pretty easy to fix. However, too much of a good thing is just too much and I started searching for something that was not going to be as sweet on the palate. I had started to make larger cakes, taller cakes, wider cakes and the taste of the buttercream just became too much. It was time to enter the world of Swiss meringue buttercream. </p><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ3IxWFXvIoYT4A0EomFbAr0tRDNwJNJdxkEsnhstkJIRSIF7RCp80J-yvKLaOLUUaqVds2QUr6tZziQJPlq0-urIA6Z0VM2QDo3Pm0J9bUXJgtvO21JnutXi3FuGdIJKfSSPN/s2048/Photo%25252020140511214022.jpg" target="_blank" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ3IxWFXvIoYT4A0EomFbAr0tRDNwJNJdxkEsnhstkJIRSIF7RCp80J-yvKLaOLUUaqVds2QUr6tZziQJPlq0-urIA6Z0VM2QDo3Pm0J9bUXJgtvO21JnutXi3FuGdIJKfSSPN/s500/Photo%25252020140511214022.jpg" id="blogsy-1399840857926.0422" class="aligncenter" alt="" width="500" height="500"></a></div><p> Swiss meringue buttercream is a bitch to make. There is no way of dressing that fact up. It's meringue, obviously, so it involves cooking egg whites and sugar until the sugar dissolves and there is no chance you'll poison anyone and then beating it until cool, which is about 20 mins if you don't have a stand mixer. Then you add butter, it looks all curdled, you freak out and freeze in horror and it miraculously uncurdles itself and then you sigh with relief and add flavour to it and then spread it on everything that isn't fast enough to get out of your way. It's less sweet than normal buttercream, it's also creamier and it spreads and pipes beautifully, but I only make it for special occasions because it it soooo time consuming. There is an even tricker version called italian meringue buttercream which is basically beating a hot sugar syrup into egg whites then adding a cream inglese and butter. Tastes divine but it's a lot of steps. Swiss meringue is better once you get the hang of it. The cake above there is a chocolate triple layer cake with a crushed malteaser filling and a malted chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream.</p><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieZjJN-XyaNkfCjrycBAYFJLI5uCrZYL_C2qja_lAoiS4q4hEn8nzHB8C_DkCguFd6TnNc46xl6qKgBcTyNssq6GBo5gPSzZgrT4IM4Pn0DgDXswYhhrQ9Un4WN9hbcNTzr1c6/s2048/Photo%25252020140511214022.jpg" target="_blank" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieZjJN-XyaNkfCjrycBAYFJLI5uCrZYL_C2qja_lAoiS4q4hEn8nzHB8C_DkCguFd6TnNc46xl6qKgBcTyNssq6GBo5gPSzZgrT4IM4Pn0DgDXswYhhrQ9Un4WN9hbcNTzr1c6/s500/Photo%25252020140511214022.jpg" id="blogsy-1399840857862.4377" class="aligncenter" alt="" width="500" height="667"></a></div><p> This little guy represents my next foray into icing. He's my first attempt at getting 3D and he's made out of fondant. I sculpted him for one of my long suffering team who has been paroles for good behaviour and promoted to another role. The loves minions, chocolate and sweet, sweet fondant so this cake represents all three. What you can't really tell from the photo is that his sitting on a double layer chocolate cake with fudge icing which is one foot square. I've made a few cakes this size now, it's the largest size of cake I've made and I've got a little trick to share wih you for baking it. With really big cakes the problem that you face is doming. The cake will cook too fast at the sides where the batter touches the tin and not fast enough in the middle leaving you with dried out edges and a huge dome of cake in the centre. The trick is to keep the edges cooler for longer to give the centre more of a chance to cook and then the whole cake rises evenly. The way I tackled this was by creating a thermal collar. I get wet paper towels and then, laying down the foil I layer the paper towels flat, usually with three or four layers of paper towel then I wrap the foil edges over to seal it in and pop it in the freezer. I try to freeze it overnight usually and then wrap it around the sides of your tin and clip with bull clips before poping in the oven. It works every time. You can get purpose made things that do this for you but they're expensive and if you don't do this often it's a wasted investment. </p><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVFsVMsJW-Qqetr7EHm4WT4vQU8GEm_c7Ds5TVBtHDLKcPLz2U90unU62RaYGZcnU8sf9uuEZEizldA19ivLSh411OlUFK4jE08SYQGsaRqWHS1NxMsDQGD0Ykvj_rl0NPgBA4/s2048/Photo%25252020140511214023.jpg" target="_blank" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVFsVMsJW-Qqetr7EHm4WT4vQU8GEm_c7Ds5TVBtHDLKcPLz2U90unU62RaYGZcnU8sf9uuEZEizldA19ivLSh411OlUFK4jE08SYQGsaRqWHS1NxMsDQGD0Ykvj_rl0NPgBA4/s500/Photo%25252020140511214023.jpg" id="blogsy-1399840857929.0159" class="aligncenter" width="500" height="375" alt=""></a></div><p> My second foray into fondant was also my first foray into sugar flowers. I've piped buttercream flowers but this is a whole new thing, this is sculptural. This one is a peony, but I also made a rose. And what you see here is the first time I've ever covered a cake in fondant. It's fun fondant, in theory is basically like play dough you can eat but it will turn on you, it can be sticky, sometimes it's too thin, if it's too humid then it starts to sweat. It's not as easy as the cake boss makes it out to be, but nothing is the first time you try it so I'm going to keep going and see how far I can get. Sugar flowers are fun too once you get the hang of them. Just make them with enought time to dry out properly. These are for a bake sale at work tomorrow so I hope someone buys them. </p><p>So the adventure continues! Who knows where next but I might have to get to the point where I start charging for this because it's costing me a fortune! </p><p> </p>Wanderin' Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05512852268796093458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34549947.post-29567720078320110772012-11-01T01:47:00.003+10:302012-11-01T01:52:58.887+10:30By god these are good cookies.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzO-njyCE8wKSLmC2zIjj6m8XeSfA_sdj_lD1xQDTTfNarUh1CUNFqvo2nF8kL4rZlx5rO_b-P3JGabGSTOLR-hZsrcWZebVWO7CYcrdmBJcIbIJ77AwcX-UG1hvo1xGdXcFFq/s1600/662-the-cookie-monster-is-serious-about-his-cookies.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzO-njyCE8wKSLmC2zIjj6m8XeSfA_sdj_lD1xQDTTfNarUh1CUNFqvo2nF8kL4rZlx5rO_b-P3JGabGSTOLR-hZsrcWZebVWO7CYcrdmBJcIbIJ77AwcX-UG1hvo1xGdXcFFq/s1600/662-the-cookie-monster-is-serious-about-his-cookies.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Its getting cold now, and there is need
for comfort beyond that which cake can provide. Also Russ cant dunk
cake in his tea but he can do that with cookies.
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When we go to Brighton we usually get
ourselves some cookies from a place called Ben's cookies which is
just near the lanes. They used to have an outlet near South
Kensington station and when I was working in Chelsea, sometimes I
would stop by and get some on the way home. Russ really likes the oat
and raisin cookies and I like the milk chocolate ones. The thing with
the Ben's cookies is that they're awesome when they're hot but once
they cool down they are kinda flaccid. Which is a disturbing quality
in a cookie. They were clearly designed to be consumed fast. If I'm
making cookies at home though, they cant possibly all be consumed
that fast otherwise we'd either die of heart attacks or diabetes so I
need to be able to make cookies that are crispy on the outside but
chewy in the middle. Because we have different favourites I wanted to
combine them together to make something that was less sweet than a
chocolate chip cookie and maybe a tiny bit better for you with the
oats and raisins.
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And here it is, my awesome Oat, Raisin
and dark chocolate cookies. I like them because the raisins and dark chocolate give you a little sweetness, the oats make you feel fuller so you feel satisfied with less and the cinnamon reminds me of Christmas. I didn’t have a picture because we ate
them all so you'll have to make some to find out what they look like.
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Pre heat your oven to 170 if you have a
fan forced oven, 180 without the fan.
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In a nice big bowl beat together 125g
of soft butter with 2/3 of a cup of soft brown sugar. Sift the sugar
because brown sugar always seems to get really clumpy I find. Add in
1 large egg and ½ a teaspoon of vanilla and mix til its all
combined. You can do this bit in a mixer or by hand which ever works
for you but I tend to mix by hand once I start adding in my dry
ingredients out of habit more than anything. Add in ¾ of a cup of
plain flour and ½ teaspoon of baking soda (Or the same quantity of
self raising flour if you have it just omit the baking soda) ½ a
teaspoon of cinnamon, ¼ a teaspoon of salt, 1 and a ½ cups of
rolled oats, ¾ of a cup of raisins and 100g of chopped dark
chocolate. I go for the chopped kind because it melts slightly in the
cookies as they bake so you get these nice little pools of dark
chocolate rather than the chips that mysteriously retain their shape.
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You can make your cookies all nice and
uniform if you use a little ice cream scoop to space them out on your
trays otherwise just try and make them as uniform as possible. I like
to make them about golf ball sized as you get a nice big cookie then
which will satisfy most anyone. They spread on the trays so give them
a couple of inches of space around each cookie to grow. Bake for
about 15 mins or until you see the edges start to go golden and let
them cool on their trays for about 10 mins before you go moving them
about.
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They lasted for up to a week in the
biscuit tin here but by the time I thought I'd blog about them they
were gone. Should yield you about 12 to 18 big cookies but could be
more if you made little ones.<br />
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Next up: Roses and chocolate. </div>
Wanderin' Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05512852268796093458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34549947.post-60540345265477770732012-11-01T01:21:00.001+10:302012-11-01T01:21:28.857+10:30Cake at the end of the rainbow
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Some times, after a period of sustained
effort and focus, you just want to break out and do something a
little crazy using as many e numbers as the human body can contain.
That’s what I did. </div>
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It was Russ' birthday in August and
normally I would make him a cake but on the day before his birthday
we had a wedding of a couple of our friends so there was no time and
I had no choice but to buy him one. I felt dirty. I felt particularly
bad about it as well seeing as it was his first birthday as a married
man and here I, his new wife, was already slacking on the duties and
not making him a cake. Was it true? Does everything slip after the
wedding? I had to make amends so I told him that I would make him
anything that he wanted and what he wanted was a rainbow cake.
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They're pretty straight forward really,
just fiddly and there are a couple of things you need to get right to
make sure that the colours are right. This gives you a 6 layer cake
which feeds a million people if you cut it into tiny enough slices. A
rainbow can feed the world.
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<br />I bake at 170 in a fan forced oven 180 if its not fan forced
and do pre heat your oven, better yet get yourself an oven
thermometer so that you know that when you're setting your oven at
180, it actually gets to 180. <br /> Cream together 250g of butter with
2 and 1/3 cups caster sugar for about 7 mins or so til its all nice
and fluffy then I add 5 egg whites. If I was just making a normal
cake then I'd add 2-3 whole eggs instead of the egg whites but
because I want the vibrant colour in this I just add eggs whites.
<br />Add them a little at a time and beat in between additions so
they're all nicely incorporated. I use an electric beater at the
moment because I don’t have a fancy stand mixer but either works.
If you do have a fancy stand mixer, I resent you slightly, but you
can use either the whisk attachment or the paddle beater attachment,
no one cares.
<br />
When I get to adding the flour I change to a spatula or spoon
because the more you beat cake mix once you've added the flour, the
tougher the mix will be which is not what you want, you'll still be
stirring in the flour rather than folding it in like you do with a
soufflé but its less aggressive than mixing it mechanically I find.
It works for me but you see what works for you before settling on
your preferred method. <br />Add in about 3 cups of flour and 1
teaspoon of salt in batches, you can use self raising or plain with
the addition of 3 teaspoons of baking powder, purists go for the
plain flour option, I think it depends on your brand of flour I'm not
averse to just using self raising and not adding baking powder. I'm a
rebel in a pinny.
<br />
Add in 1 and a half cups of buttermilk in between your flour
additions. You can use normal milk but I find the buttermilk gives it
a nice richness, the acid in it helps the rise of the cake and I
prefer the texture too. Add in 2 teaspoons of vanilla if you want a
vanilla cake otherwise you can just add little 1/4 teaspoons of other
flavours once you've divided out the batter into 6 portions if you
want to individually flavour each layer.
<br />
I find that if you divide the mixture out so you've got one cup of
batter for each colour it divides up pretty equally.
<br />
I use gel colours to get the intensity of colour that I want for
this cake. Mix in just enough til you get the tone of colour that you
want, you only need a tiny amount with gel colours. The liquid
colours just don’t give you the tone because you'd need to use a
heap of them and end up watering down your batter. <br />Spread into
your preprepared tins, I prepare mine by buttering them and then
cutting out a disc of baking paper to stick in the bottom and that
always sees me right<br />Should be about 15 mins in a pre heated oven.
Test with a toothpick in the centre to make sure they're done and
then ice them to your hearts content.
<br />
With mine I ended up using about 2 times my normal quantity of
buttercream because you're filling each layer and its a pretty big
cake, you could just as easily though not ice the outside just stack
and fill and then you'd see the layers and have less icing. Its up to
you my friends. Because this was such a huge cake I ended up slicing
it and putting the slices on to paper plates which I then wrapped in
cling film and froze so that Russ could have a slice of cake whenever
he wanted and then the rest when to a good home with the guys at
work. Have made this one a few times now as it was a bit of a winner
and its been received really well each time. If you wanted a
variation you could also adapt this by dividing out the recipe and
then graduating one colour through the layers so the colour got a bit
more intense with each one. That'd be cool.
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<br /><br />
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Next up: By god these are good cookies.<br />
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Wanderin' Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05512852268796093458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34549947.post-4417008676204822422012-11-01T00:42:00.000+10:302014-05-17T20:48:04.249+09:30Everybody loves a wedding!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6LDKpfQah1WuY00tDCw2LcESi2Ct8bNNukEz4eYXgwms2ss_PPa1zFWqnxbPp2snlFLIBvUiaRUw6RDFadhmaXsC5AbgBypCWokE2RHfVtt8WLK1I7TmXQGzw2oKQp3ACnK4R/s1600/Wedding+pictures+014.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6LDKpfQah1WuY00tDCw2LcESi2Ct8bNNukEz4eYXgwms2ss_PPa1zFWqnxbPp2snlFLIBvUiaRUw6RDFadhmaXsC5AbgBypCWokE2RHfVtt8WLK1I7TmXQGzw2oKQp3ACnK4R/s1600/Wedding+pictures+014.jpg" id="blogsy-1400325451506.4546" class="" width="200" height="320" alt=""></a></div><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Long time no blog! I've beendocumenting my travels over at my Where's Jane blog but now that lifehas become relatively more settled it is time to start posting backhere now. So what have I been up to then?</p><a name='more'></a><p><span style="line-height: 1.3em;"> </span><!--more--></p><br><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Well for a start I got married. Russand I had a lovely relaxed English summer wedding over here inTeddington in June of this year.</div><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"> Apart from the awesomeness of theactual getting married part, it was a great chance for us to get tocreate as many things as we were able for the wedding itself, whichmeant that we got exactly what we wanted and weren’t paying anyoneto do things that we could do ourselves, which frankly just bugs me.Weddings are supposed to be about love and making a commitment to theperson you chose to spend your life with not spending £500 onfavours and the same on cake. Don’t get me started on the cost ofinvites. </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"> </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Russ, being the artist of the familydrew our invites we agreed on the design together and got themprinted up at the local printers with envelopes to match. We thenhand tied ribbon to them for decoration and they were done. Idesigned my wedding dress and my mother in law made it for me. Russpicked out our music and I, of course, made the cake.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">What follows is the story of how Iapproached it and some things you might want to consider if you'reattempting your own wedding cake or a celebration cake for a largegroup of people. </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"> </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><strong>The decision making process:</strong> </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Ah wedding cakes, now they are becomingmuch more individual but when I was growing up, all the wedding cakesI knew of were fruitcakes with layers of marzipan and royal icingwhich didn’t really fit with the idea of a summer wedding for me.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I knew I wanted layers of differentflavours because I wanted there to be something for everyone's tasteand it feels that little bit extravagant. When I started out in theprocess, I envisaged a 3 or 4 tiered cake, each with its own flavourand decoration but after speaking to the restaurant that was hostingour reception and realising how much space that cake would take up inour fridge let alone theirs I opted instead for cupcakes. Russ wantedto do the whole cake cutting thing, so we went for a top tier wecould cut and then cupcakes that guests could take themselves. Weneeded something we could store, something that was fuss free that guests could help themselves torather than having to wait for someone to cut it for them andsomething that looked awesome as well. We also didn’t want atraditional cake topper, the whole bride and groom on top of the cakedidn’t really fit with us so in December, we went to Brighton forour annual weekend away/last minute Christmas shopping trip andhappened to find an “All you need is love” cake topper which wasmuch more us. </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"> </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><strong>The testing phase:</strong> </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">And so began the testing. From aboutFebruary onwards, nearly every week I was heading in to work with anew flavour or decoration style. I wanted to go for light flavoursthat reflected the season and avoid anything too heavy so in the endI went for orange blossom with a blood orange buttercream, lemon withlemon buttercream, vanilla cupcake with fresh raspberries baked intothe centre and a vanilla buttercream and a vanilla vanilla cupcakewhich was as it sounds, vanilla.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Each one had their own colour thoughall were decorated with the same swirl and a little edible lustrespray.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"> </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">The top tier we jumped around onflavour choices for a while, we talked about carrot, chocolate andcoffee, chocolate and peanut butter buttercream, but we eventuallydecided on chocolate with a banana buttercream filling and vanillaicing on the outside. </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Being summer we wanted to go for anatural outside kind of theme to the decoration and so the top tierwas white on the sides with a simple beaded border, the top was greengrass piped from buttercream with royal icing daisies and our caketopper. </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"> </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">The testing phase wasn’t just aboutdeciding on flavours and decorations, once we had gotten the flavoursdown, I needed to test out how to best store the cupcakes, how longthey would take to decorate from start to finish, quantities ofingredients and how much time we could allow between creation andconsumption and I needed to be mindful of the fact that it was goingto be summer and possibly quite hot when I was baking and decoratingeverything. All of this was key as I was making everything myself andwe wanted people to be able to have more than one cake if they wantedit so I ended up making about 100 cupcakes and the top tier was a twolayer cake as well. I also needed to figure out how to transporteverything and store them in the restaurants fridge in the easiestway possible that would ensure that they didn’t get crushed beforethe wedding day. </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"> </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><strong>Implementation Phase:</strong></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"> </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">During testing I established that itwould take me about 2 hours including cooling and decorating time tomake each flavour of cupcake, given that we had four flavours thatwas 8 hours total just for the cupcakes. The top tier took a bitlonger, it takes longer to cool and the decoration required a bitmore precision and therefore less speed so in testing it came out toabout 3 or 4 hours. That meant unless I wanted to be bridezilla onthe last days before my wedding, I had to split things out. We couldfit the top tier in our fridge when it was fully assembled so thatwas no problem, I could make that on the Tuesday before the wedding(which was on the Friday) and then wrap it in cling film to protectit and keep it fresh before boxing it up to take it to the venue onthe Thursday morning. </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I made 2 layers of chocolate sponge andthen a batch of buttercream, flavoured a third of the buttercreambanana and then used the rest to cover the cake and pipe decorationcolouring where needed for the grass. So it was four hours of easybaking and decorating and I was a happy bride. </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Wednesday was the cupcake marathon so Istarted out early, sent Russ out for a massage at the Lush spa inKingston so he was a relaxed groom and I had the place to myself andthen I baked. I used the same base recipe to keep it simple and thenjust added the flavour variations as I went. Vanilla, raspberries,Orange zest and orange blossom extract, lemon zest and lemon oilextract et voilà. </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Once the last batch of cupcakes wasbaked it was time to start decorating and so continued the productionline. In the end, having the momentum helped and it actually took meless time than it normally would have, I think in the end it onlytook me about 6 hours. </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I found suppliers on the internet thatsold deep cupcake boxes that held 24 cupcakes in cupcake inserts madefrom thick corrugated cardboard which made them stackable and keptthe cupcakes fresh. In test phase the cupcakes were still good afterabout 4 days being stored in the boxes in a cool dry place but Iwanted mine to be as fresh as possible so it was only 48 hours maxbetween creating and consumption. I also found a simple perspex 7tier cake stand that we could use to display everything on the net, Ithink it set me back about £60 and worked out cheaper than hiringone of the same size, its configurable too to you don’t have to gofor the whole 7. We only went for 6 on the day but you could just aseasily only use a couple. We printed out a cupcake menu for theguests so that they knew what was what and framed it in a cute littlevintage looking frame I got from one of the local charity shops. Allin all, I probably spent about £120 on ingredients, the stand andboxes, the topper and all the little tools and gels I needed fordecoration, the time was my own and I probably saved at least 50% onprice if I had of gotten someone else to do them. </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"> </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><strong>How did it turn out?</strong></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"> </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Great! Everyone loved them, at the endof the night there were very few cakes left and those that were leftwere taken by the last remaining guests so we had no left overs tocart home. I couldn’t have been happier. The process worked wellthough I did get sick of making wedding cakes by the end of it butthat’s natural when you do a lot of one particular thing.Definitely recommend it for anyone out there who wants to make theirown wedding cake or special occasion cake to feed a crowd. I wasworried about the weather, as all brides do before their wedding,baking brides doubly so. The day before the wedding was particularlywarm but by then the cakes were made and happily stored in the fridgeat the venue by then and they had been kept in their boxes in thecoldest part of the house the night before that. I did however lookat hiring a fridge to store the cakes on the off chance that it wasincredibly warm and if you live in a warmer climate I'd definitelyrecommend it if you don’t have air-conditioning in your house andare planning to use buttercream like I did.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Think about how your flavours matchtogether, its definitely easiest to have a common base recipe thatyou can adapt to your different flavours with a few additions muchlike the Italians have a tomato based “mother sauce” that theyadd variations to, to make all different kinds of meals.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I've given you mine before but ifyou're interested in a specific flavour, comment and I can give youmore detail if you need. </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Simple is the key but simple is alsorelative, the way I did it was simple from my perspective but mightnot be from yours or alternatively you might have a higher thresholdfor simple. Think about what you're capable of doing in the timeframe that you have and go with it. Use commercial decorations orfresh flowers and ribbon, use boxed cake mix if you feel like itseasier. Its your creation so do what you like. </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"> </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Want to see some pictures, here you go!</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><strong><br></strong></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHLNLZpbiYQ8z_OLXTKtlfQLWHPmjtJTLLrn9k8syytEn_I9umABx1VTmOCR-iYN4bxyJxX7f9-16UQBupUTJ2kI0b2bJDdyDYyV8ShMkwBUnywP2daIGQfABUtNSnirZ20ALw/s1600/Wedding+pictures+048.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHLNLZpbiYQ8z_OLXTKtlfQLWHPmjtJTLLrn9k8syytEn_I9umABx1VTmOCR-iYN4bxyJxX7f9-16UQBupUTJ2kI0b2bJDdyDYyV8ShMkwBUnywP2daIGQfABUtNSnirZ20ALw/s1600/Wedding+pictures+048.jpg" id="blogsy-1400325451539.805" class="" width="200" height="320" alt=""></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUG49zUoJ33ffs4Lh8UJp5xBgSpe2DheSUactZmUnPL4iWC0uEZwCUCHBc62C9nyScJlMLjxLoQTy103lFCjumAysnjZkAsVyIr99Zg3_JSZ7nnMoVINzmXcRAEceqmatDm9pm/s1600/Wedding+pictures+058.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUG49zUoJ33ffs4Lh8UJp5xBgSpe2DheSUactZmUnPL4iWC0uEZwCUCHBc62C9nyScJlMLjxLoQTy103lFCjumAysnjZkAsVyIr99Zg3_JSZ7nnMoVINzmXcRAEceqmatDm9pm/s1600/Wedding+pictures+058.jpg" id="blogsy-1400325451502.739" class="" width="200" height="320" alt=""></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLh7Qmt5AYeS7weAP0lE1lTLArDGMR7NP6QRt01Zx5F0cGY2eUhPOs6hWmHspHemz_orHDeZAJMnKrjJzPrklaS1dNUun2slaZLvsyn1sbYqihIsbSnW3-qzr43LBVuVj2SLLO/s1600/Wedding+pictures+060.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLh7Qmt5AYeS7weAP0lE1lTLArDGMR7NP6QRt01Zx5F0cGY2eUhPOs6hWmHspHemz_orHDeZAJMnKrjJzPrklaS1dNUun2slaZLvsyn1sbYqihIsbSnW3-qzr43LBVuVj2SLLO/s1600/Wedding+pictures+060.jpg" id="blogsy-1400325451498.7852" class="" width="200" height="320" alt=""></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTHRd_Jq9lITiPMSmTmqNLGNpOwc5ZTGoHuIwOGfnQX7NvVIIKpHEhxFmxbDd4lc00X5BxJvxQPmrgzunorPJHkM9fOetVc1V7ylCuDRXh3UjhdJMCoW571G7wDqn9_pe9JpTo/s1600/Wedding+pictures+101.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTHRd_Jq9lITiPMSmTmqNLGNpOwc5ZTGoHuIwOGfnQX7NvVIIKpHEhxFmxbDd4lc00X5BxJvxQPmrgzunorPJHkM9fOetVc1V7ylCuDRXh3UjhdJMCoW571G7wDqn9_pe9JpTo/s1600/Wedding+pictures+101.jpg" id="blogsy-1400325451502.769" class="" alt=""></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS1VQXTuerplTin4xUeqWMvy9YS60ToMoNNrGSIvTOVIQOjBSr4hUWGPjo27nuhAQ4aPUzHOlBK92tnst9OI1YR-acGlcjaW_z90EhNoMhd5x5KO0OZGGJifi1FMp66hphkXs2/s1600/Wedding+pictures+164.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS1VQXTuerplTin4xUeqWMvy9YS60ToMoNNrGSIvTOVIQOjBSr4hUWGPjo27nuhAQ4aPUzHOlBK92tnst9OI1YR-acGlcjaW_z90EhNoMhd5x5KO0OZGGJifi1FMp66hphkXs2/s1600/Wedding+pictures+164.jpg" id="blogsy-1400325451538.0479" class="" width="320" height="200" alt=""></a></div><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><strong>Next up: Post wedding baking or Mama'sgetting crazy with the colours now</strong>. </p><p> </p>Wanderin' Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05512852268796093458noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34549947.post-13697746067414688482008-11-18T21:39:00.002+10:302012-04-04T18:41:19.966+09:30The inevitability of change<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLATnTE6to67G64xkvyiu1Fp_s_kRNNZ6o7Cnuwd0Pg7x1gc_eaAo_m8bgAVGtQZ42QtgL7QSQiR760AMi-qlNx-iRsxZ8SM3F2zLPk5JaSam3HYCB089wE50tVEQjS1vaqV3u/s1600-h/DSCF1929.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5269954550723017282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLATnTE6to67G64xkvyiu1Fp_s_kRNNZ6o7Cnuwd0Pg7x1gc_eaAo_m8bgAVGtQZ42QtgL7QSQiR760AMi-qlNx-iRsxZ8SM3F2zLPk5JaSam3HYCB089wE50tVEQjS1vaqV3u/s320/DSCF1929.JPG" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 240px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /></a><br />
Ah its been a time of upheaval dear reader, I am now well and truly out of my little Preston home and am living the life of a gypsy, hanging my hat where ever I can find space for it. Currently that space is in Bendigo, mercifully it is my last week of work otherwise I think I may fall over having to commute 4 hours every day. This is practise for what is to come though and I tell myself that everything can be survived if you focus on what comes after it. <span class="fullpost"></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span class="fullpost"><br />So what does come after it? I have quit my job, packed up and moved out of my flat and in about 2 weeks will be heading off first on a big red plane to Sydney and then on an even bigger white one to Abu Dhabi, eventually making my way to London where I'll base myself for an as yet undetermined period of time. I will be back for next Christmas, that is a given, I might be back sooner, I might not who knows but I wanted an adventure so I'm making myself one. <br /><br />This all started last Christmas in the baking heat, it had hovered somewhere around 40 degrees for entirely too long as far as I was concerned and I thought wouldn't it be nice to be somewhere cold, seriously cold, like the Icehotel in Sweden for instance, I had always wanted to go there and see the northern lights, hear if they really do hum or if that was a rumour spread by stoners. <br />I was tired of wishing for things, tired of thinking wouldn't it be nice and made a decision then and there to make it happen. That if I wanted to see the Icehotel then I should go see it. <br />So I am. A week before Christmas in fact. I'll be flying to Stockholm, wandering around for a day and then catching a plane up north into the arctic circle to potentially freeze my arse off in a rather unique hotel. <br />The idea that this is actually happening is still slightly surreal, but that may be down to the lack of sleep I've had even before exiting my little garret in the northern suburbs. Sleep has increasingly become consumed by the details of the trip. Time that once was spent sleeping now ticks past while I plot out details or arrange for books to be ferried back to Casa De Dad or throw out things that I had once decided to keep for some reason that now eludes me. <br />There might well be a benefit in this exhaustion though, it does leave me too tired to freak out or worry much. I just wearily trust that the plans I've made will come to fruition, trust in my own ability to find my way through tricky travel situations when they arrive and given that I've gotten myself this far with everything I'm prepared to continue to have faith. <br />It just feels like the right time to do this, global economies not withstanding. <br />I had thought I was rather a sentimental person but I extracted myself from little home without shedding a tear or feeling too nostalgic, maybe I had that feeling in increments over the last year, maybe it leached out of me in short bursts rather than in one big memorable moment as I looked for the last time on my scrubbed clean and vacant flat. <br />There is one thing I will miss though and I made an effort to spend a little time saying good bye to it. I've talked a bit about the Preston Market in this blog, one of my favourite places to go and wander. For as long as I lived in Preston I never went longer than 2 weeks without paying it a visit. <br />So on the day before I was to finally move out, a Saturday, I decided to pay it one last visit. <br />I wanted to get out of the flat to avoid the awkwardness of the open house that had been organised by the estate agent and I had found about half a dozen empty Rewine bottles that I decided to take back. Off I trekked, clinking like an alchie on my way down to the market. Found once I got there that the Rewine people cant actually take back the bottles apparently for hygiene reasons but they agreed to reuse mine themselves and we talked about my trip for a bit. Its my main topic of conversation at the moment, it must be getting really boring for my friends. <br />Coffee has increasingly become the glue that holds my personality together in these busy times and there is a fantastic coffee place just in the deli section that sells coffee beans of all types either whole or ground depending on your preference, all kinds of little biscuits and the most satisfying display of Italian chocolates all wrapped up in different coloured foils. <br />I skulked towards the coffee place and asked them for a coffee so strong it might kill me, I have it black with 2 sugars, as strong as they can make it. Oh dear god, awesome, awesome coffee but hotter than the sun. I grabbed myself some breakfast as it cooled, a bacon roll from one of the many stalls that ring the deli section. I stood there while the cooked it fresh for me, there is one thing I have to say about the market, this may be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your perspective, certainly it results in a bit of theatre which can be fun, but in my time going there I've noticed that the market is like a magnet to every whacked out, doped up crazy bogan within a 25 mile radius on Saturday mornings and one stood next to me with his wife/ defacto/significant other next to him. “Give us a chop suey roll” he drawled at the woman behind the counter “This” she said uncertainly pointing towards an egg and bacon roll “Nah, that” that he barked waving a tobacco stained hand at about 10 things in the bain marie. “A spring roll” the counter lady asked picking one up with her tongs “Nah” he shouted “A fuckin chop suey roll”. Counter lady was lost. “A chicko roll” his female counterpart interpreted for him a little too late I thought. “Yeah yeah, a chicko roll and some chips and a coke” he said suddenly feeling grandiose. Then he began a mathematical debate with the counter lady about why she thought that $2.80, $2.20 and $3.00 in her mind made $8 while in his head and his lady friend's head they only added up to $7. <br />That was the point at which I decided to take my bacon roll and coffee and move down to sit in front of the flower shop to eat in peace. I drank my reviving coffee and read the menu of the take away place on the corner, Cafe Latte $2.20, cappuccino $2.20, Long/Short Black $2.20, Instant coffee $2.20. Yep, somewhere in the world they still sell instant coffee, so if you are one of the rare breed who thinks 'Coffee from a coffee machine, pah, give me instant I say' you will be welcomed with open arms at a take away place in the Preston market as long as you are armed with $2.20. <br /><br />I ended up buying myself a little carry on suitcase and some of those big plastic bags for my packing and allowed myself one last indulgence of a hot jam donut from the van near the fruit and vegie section before dragging myself home for the last of my packing. <br /><br />This wont be the last of my posts by any stretch of the imagination, I'll still be cooking my way around the UK and posting to you about that, I'm also posting to a travel blog for all of your non food related needs, links to follow. <br /><br />Bare with me, this might be fun. </span>Wanderin' Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05512852268796093458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34549947.post-41900718227576238802008-09-02T23:14:00.004+09:302012-04-04T18:41:36.768+09:30Life, love and lessons in baking<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRYq4qCW1dMd7LTOc9WCM-4SwfC_eJvbCNp-SP3rqEd81h4QrnPdlv7xmat9GsIE-PKC-YCWi_eLrnzD9A1j07phM8iCfnl8DUiCxT8smPgvhPoPxExCYQuIdqxmfINaSu4fg1/s1600-h/DSCF1825.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5241420600789720882" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRYq4qCW1dMd7LTOc9WCM-4SwfC_eJvbCNp-SP3rqEd81h4QrnPdlv7xmat9GsIE-PKC-YCWi_eLrnzD9A1j07phM8iCfnl8DUiCxT8smPgvhPoPxExCYQuIdqxmfINaSu4fg1/s320/DSCF1825.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br />
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Well the road to hell is paved with good intentions and my last post was full of them.<span class="fullpost">I wanted to stop the whole sweet thing I really did, I had confined myself to baking sweet things for birthday cake orders only and was enjoying my liberation back into the world of savouries and sauces where all my cooking had begun. Then we had international food day at work. </span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span class="fullpost"><br />We used to have international food day when we were in primary school, you'd bring a dish that was representative of your cultural back ground and you'd have to tell the class about it. I always felt somewhat embarrassed because John and I were the only Anglo Saxon kids who went to our primary school and everyone else always came with such fantastic things but all we had to offer was scones. <br />They don't seem so exotic compared to a vindaloo or goulash, this was the 80's and we were at a catholic primary school in Elwood that felt like it was still in the 50's so vindaloo's and goulash was still very much exotic, atheists were exotic, it was that kind of place. <br /> <br />Mercifully by the time I entered the work force the concept of international food day had simply become a device used to break up the crippling monotony of another day in the office, like lottos, quizes, or the guys who come to clean the windows on their little hydraulic platform because even though they look like paroled bank thieves and probably cant see you through the coated glass anyway, they are an oasis in the vast wasteland that is working for a corporation. <br />Some one will look around and sense that the morale level is low and cheerfully suggest that we all bring in a little something on a Friday and we'll all latch on to it like we've just been thrown a life line because now we have something to look forward to that isn't a fire drill or free cheap house wine and snacks at a quarterly departmental presentation.Hmm, jaded much?<br /><br />There are a number of good cooks where I work, we get fantastic currys, dips, breads, I think we even had some baklava this time, but thankfully for me in the absence of a distinct cultural heritage I'm just looked upon to bring something cakey, preferably chocolate. <br />I use these occasions now to experiment, actually I do that pretty much anytime I'm cooking for someone now unless they're paying me for something specific, and when a food day is announced I'll usually get a couple of people coming up to me asking me what I'm going to bring in or maybe asking for something specific like the flourless nutella cupcakes I made for someone's going away but I'd been thinking of trying something brave. <br /><br />I'm in a phase of my life at the moment where being brave and confronting scary things is a bit of a theme that I'm embracing, I'm about to pack up my life here and head off into the unknown for a bit of an adventure which while certainly not an indiana jones type adventure certainly feels big to me after working in a steady job for the last 7 years. I'm heading to Abu Dhabi, Sweden to stay at the icehotel and then a bunch of little trips to places like France, Spain, Italy, Norway and where ever else takes my fancy and I have enough money for. Its a deciding what to do with the next 10 years of my life trip basically, I was comfortable in my little rut for a while there but now comfortable isn't enough so instead I'm choosing the unknown. <br /><br />Having opened that one door now it feels like all doors are opened so, possibly melodramatically, the occasion of deciding which cake to make for international food day is no longer just about a cake, its a metaphor for life damnit. <br /><br />There has been a cake that I have wanted to try making for a good ten years or so now but I was a little intimidated by it. Ever since my Dad got cable and I watched episodes of the River Cafe and then got a copy of their cook book from a discount cook shop in Bendigo I've wanted to make The River Cafe's signature dessert, Chocolate Nemesis Cake. <br />What made me hesitate was a couple of things for one there is nearly 700g of chocolate in this recipe depending on which variation you chose and 10 years ago I was a struggling student sometimes forced to exist on minor acts of buffet fraud in order to survive (friends and I would go to the La Trobe Uni bar and buy one plate on all you can eat burger night and then take turns to go up and get refills till we all had a meal) so buying that much chocolate in one hit would pretty much wipe out my entire food budget till next austudy day. <br /><br />The second hesitation was purely one of guts, there was a cooking technique needed for this recipe that I'd not tried before and I was at a point in my education as a cook that I can now recognise as the rather conservative, total lack of confidence phase that comes after experimenting wildly and failing miserably in the kitchen. <br /><br />And so begin the metaphors, for me learning to cook has been like life in general, when I was little it was something I decided that I was going to be good at one day, when you're young and you have the luxury of time you imagine yourself being good at a great number of things but often lack the planning to figure out exactly how that is going to happen, its enough to just imagine that it will. <br /><br />When you get to being a teenager you're hit by the inertia of physical and the social, your head along with the rest of your body makes you think that you know a great deal more than you really do and also that you're ready for a great deal more than you are. Society in the form of laws and some kind of parent or guardian usually steps in to remind you that you aren't as smart as you think you are bucko. At this point in my cooking career I had bought my first blow torch and abandoned recipe books as little more than food porn. <br /><br />Usually what happens in life to slap you in the face during this phase is you fall in love and it all ends horribly this either causes an epiphany which after some very bad poetry, a drastic change in appearance and a couple of one night stands, serves you well for the rest of your life or alternatively you spend your remaining days playing out that relationship on other people you meet, like a serial killer of the heart, constantly seeking further refined examples of that one first love and forever wondering what went wrong. For me in my cooking history this experience involved blind baking and making my own pastry, and this ended as all tragic first loves do messily and after having done things of which I am not proud. <br /><br />Whether in pastry making or love the lesson is the same, and its put best by Kenny Rodgers in his classic “The Gambler” “Know when to hold em, know when to fold em, know when to walk away, know when to run”.<br /><br />Heartbreak and pastry can make you cautious, and I was, so when The River Cafe recipe called for this giant rather expensive cake to be cooked entirely without flour and in a water bath I just wasn't ready to put myself out there yet. So I put it aside and I moved on, played around with other things, made some cakes with nut meals so I could get my head around the chemistry of cooking without flour until I felt like I was confident enough to tackle the Nemesis. <br /><br />I was familiar with my oven, I have a bunch of great suppliers for the raw ingredents like chocolate, I had all the equipment I needed, it was time. <br /><br />So off I went, I preheated my oven to 160C, got myself 675g of dark chocolate (something around 70% cocoa is good but go with what you have on hand if you cant get that) melted it with 450g of unsalted butter and then beat the christ out of 10 eggs and 675g of caster sugar till it was all light and fluffy. Then I combined the melted and slightly cooled butter and chocolate to the eggs and poured into a spring form pan that I'd lightly greased and then floured with cocoa powder instead of flour so that you don't get white marks on your cake. Insulate the tin with a layer of greaseproof paper and foil wrapped around the outside and then place the tin in a roasting tray and fill with boiling water halfway up the sides of the pan, this helps cook the cake evenly. <br />Bake it for about an hour or until the cake is set, you can test it by putting your hand on the surface. <br />Then once its set let it cool in the oven with the door ajar, this will stop the surface from cracking, I do the same thing when making cheesecakes. <br /><br />I took it to work the next day and served it with crème fraiche which I find balances out the cake beautifully and it was a total hit, I even got an order for one on the spot. Apart from the expense of the chocolate and the slight intimidation of having to use the water bath and being paranoid that the cake wouldn't set without flour I had nothing to fear but fear itself. <br /><br />Let this be a lesson to all of you, don't spend the next 10 years wondering, get out of that crappy relationship, quit that mindless job, bake that expensive and intimidating chocolate cake and embrace your fears.<br />But don't make your own pastry some things just aren't meant to be.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSIBDDMZ6zesMPZC6wRXQxZBobdFEkKlLCdisQ55UDtm4h152sB9tLHpn-oq7ffqr4A_hPKpL0Ea2kiCGLNujskkMXSotcNRUJkid6pE-n05-QyAhzK95Zodj2b-z6NAguV-Sy/s1600-h/DSCF1827.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5241420610641317858" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSIBDDMZ6zesMPZC6wRXQxZBobdFEkKlLCdisQ55UDtm4h152sB9tLHpn-oq7ffqr4A_hPKpL0Ea2kiCGLNujskkMXSotcNRUJkid6pE-n05-QyAhzK95Zodj2b-z6NAguV-Sy/s320/DSCF1827.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxvbUlBe9gVzzfVieu5KROmLAB0fYBuUky022t9Hc9Dol8xVap7Ch7heWywWIPlmY-7J55bN15Qs1oe0izScgwWNwaGx2HDljGL6NyMCLXe67VlxpjSleB1WTD9YSk0CD6qZq6/s1600-h/DSCF1828.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5241420615415280226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxvbUlBe9gVzzfVieu5KROmLAB0fYBuUky022t9Hc9Dol8xVap7Ch7heWywWIPlmY-7J55bN15Qs1oe0izScgwWNwaGx2HDljGL6NyMCLXe67VlxpjSleB1WTD9YSk0CD6qZq6/s320/DSCF1828.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a></span>Wanderin' Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05512852268796093458noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34549947.post-35258606096361353392008-07-20T21:47:00.010+09:302012-04-04T18:41:49.284+09:30Not Entirely By The Bucco<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSaYNPusN_RPIakwRSs3ZV_DN0ItXv63dAWH_hAhBNvOCxQZJ3pyvRLt14YGunlQh11y0jZdkVAqttJIYPHbio8WdZWmjAs4NwqLvy0x2VJ63nvNRTZJZMpAhH62rUyYeXs5qi/s1600-h/osso.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5225079339430802866" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSaYNPusN_RPIakwRSs3ZV_DN0ItXv63dAWH_hAhBNvOCxQZJ3pyvRLt14YGunlQh11y0jZdkVAqttJIYPHbio8WdZWmjAs4NwqLvy0x2VJ63nvNRTZJZMpAhH62rUyYeXs5qi/s320/osso.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br />
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Oh its cold dear readers, colder than a witches teat. Probably shouldn’t say that, I’ll anger the pagans.<span class="fullpost"> You know I noticed the other day at a bookshop that there are so many books dealing wholly and solely with cupcakes that they have their own shelf, and this was a Dymocks, not a particularly cupcake centric environment. Made me think I’d gone entirely too mainstream so I vowed to make my next entry sugarless. So here I shall reveal to you the recipe I make whenever it’s cold and I’m feeling in need of bolstering. One gets bored making the same kinds of things all the time anyway, before I did the Melbourne Show generally I wouldn’t make sweet stuff, only on occasion for kids birthdays or friends or when dining guests felt the need of sugar coated comfort and requested it. I don’t want you thinking I’m all one sided or anything. I can cook stuff, really I can.</span></div>
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<span class="fullpost">Osso Bucco or Ossobuco depending on whether you care about spelling (I consider spelling a serving suggestion rather than a rule, shocking I know) is a dish originally from the Lombardy region in Italy apparently. It seems to be traditional in regional cuisine, regardless of which region the aforementioned cuisine happens to be from, to be very pedantic about exactly how the particular dish is cooked, which is understandable. If you feel connected to something you tend to want it to be represented in what you believe to be the best way. I have never been to Lombardy and in fact wasn’t aware that this dish was from Lombardy until after I started cooking it so I have no allegiances to declare. For me it started when I was in uni and it was cold and I wanted meat but couldn’t afford much of it so it had to be cheap, I also wanted something that I could cook once and then eat for a couple of days after and so my version of Osso Bucco was born. If you are from Lombardy you may wish to look away now, I won’t apologise, it is delicious.</span></div>
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<span class="fullpost"> I think part of the relationship with food we have is the sometimes selective belief that it can heal us and make us feel better. I say selective because by that logic food that was not so nutritious should then makes us feel sick but we don’t tend to think about that so much when we’re reaching for a little of what we fancy, we nibble on the sly and hope that Mother Nature doesn’t notice. I know that if I feel seedy some lemon juice in water will always make me feel better, if I’m coming down with a cold I’ll make myself something with lemon, parsley and garlic as key ingredients and I can’t go more than 2 days without green peas. Whenever I feel a cold coming on or if I feel as though the ravages of daily life are getting on top of me I go to the butcher and get myself some shin, beef or veal either is fine, they even call it Osso Bucco so you can’t go wrong, I make sure I have some wine on hand, something halfway decent, if you can’t drink it you really shouldn’t cook with it, I mean it’s not like you have to go out and secure yourself something from Chateau Lefite but if there’s a cask of wine you have sitting under the sink that you’ve taken with you from the last three houses you’ve lived in when someone left it at your place after a party you had to celebrate the end of the second year of your arts degree and you didn’t want to drink it but you thought you could get rid of it at the next uni party you had, don’t use that. Throw it away, you’ll never drink it, no one will ever drink it, it’s the lost wine of your twenties and you can never get it back but it’s ok, your friends will get richer and leave you better wine in your thirties, you’ll feel better once you’ve moved on.</span></div>
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<span class="fullpost">One of the next key ingredients in Osso Bucco is stock. If you have something to prove to yourself then by all means make your own stock at home, I will tell you this though, no one is impressed by you, if you have to do it because all the other stocks you find contain gluten and you have someone gluten intolerant coming to eat with you then ok but don’t get arsey about making your own stock. This is an egalitarian cooking blog, if you choose to make your own stock then good luck to you big fella but no one should feel ashamed for using the bought stuff. Get yourself some Bay leaves, these were a relatively late edition to my Osso Busso recipe but they really do make a difference I find. You can add any other type of herbs you like but generally for me I don’t like to add too much of anything, everything in this dish has its own part to play, function rather than fancy. You can cook this in any manner you wish, if you have a nice heavy casserole dish you can cook it on the stove top or in the oven but for me I tend to use my electric fry pan. Ah the electric fry pan, reminds me of my youth, for some reason my mother used ours to cook pretty much everything, the stove top was used for boiling the kettle and vegetables and the electric fry pan was used for everything else. I got one for Christmas from my dad one year and its come in very handy, it allows you to control the heat and slow cook very evenly so I’m describing this recipe on that basis but adapt it as you wish.</span></div>
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<span class="fullpost">Heat a little olive oil in the pan, add a chopped onion and sauté until a little soft, add a little chopped garlic and then brown your beef just to get a little caramelisation happening, let’s go on the assumption that you’re cooking for between 2 and 4 people here so you have about 4 pieces of Osso Bucco. Add your red wine, I like to have a lot of sauce with my osso so I would use about 2 cups of red wine, let this bubble at a high heat for a minute or so to allow the alcohol to evaporate, I find it makes the overall result a little sweeter and more rounded. Add your beef stock, again about 2 cups and a couple of tablespoons of a good tomato paste, lower the temperature to a slow simmer, add your bay leaves at this point and leave it to simmer for at least an hour. After an hour peel some carrots nice big chunky ones and leave them in fairly good sized pieces about the size of your thumb is a good reference, throw them in and let them cook. After another hour peel some potatoes and cut them into chunks as well, I don’t use anything to thicken my sauce when I’m making this dish, I find generally I don’t need to. Osso Bucco means hollow bone, when you buy the Osso Bucco you’ll find that the big bone in the centre of the meat has this kinda creamy marrow in it that will melt into the sauce during the cooking adding to the flavour and thickening the sauce naturally, the potatoes will also assist with thickening as well depending on whether you use floury ones or waxy ones.</span></div>
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<span class="fullpost">When making this dish so I could take a photo for you I decided to make some mashed potatoes as well coz it was particularly cold and I had a friend over to spend the night in watching Dr Who, any excuse is a good one for mashed potato. I don’t know how I became such a geek but Osso Bucco and the Dr was a good night in damnit, we also drank 3 bottles of wine so maybe that helped. One little trick I’ve found with the mash though is that if you heat the milk and butter before adding it to the potatoes it makes them so much creamier. After about 45 mins poke your potatoes with a sharp knife to test them, once the potatoes are ready you’re pretty much close to the end. About 5 mins before I serve I add green peas, oh I love peas sometimes I have them for dinner all on their own, if there is a dish in existence that cannot be improved by the addition of peas then I don’t want to eat it sir. I also make a little gremolata at this point, which basically for me is just lemon zest and parsley finely chopped. Traditionally this would also include garlic and anchovies and if you want to go for that you certainly can, for me particularly if I’m feeling a smidge fragile the combination of the raw galic and anchovy is a little much for me where as the Osso Bucco itself is hearty and sustaining and the parsley and lemon curbs it from being too rich and stodgy. To continue the festival of carbohydrates some crusty bread is nice to go with this dish, it does improve in flavour the next day as well which is what makes this one such a winner. If you happen to get drunk drinking your wine and eating your Bucco the night before and get up the next day wondering if it really was that delicious or if you just had drunken taste buds it’s nice to get a little boost when you try it again and have your dreams realised all over. Make it and share it around, it will be the making of you and your loved ones.</span></div>Wanderin' Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05512852268796093458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34549947.post-37239924155656090062008-06-03T23:08:00.005+09:302012-04-04T18:41:59.831+09:30Gluten Free Tardis<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv79iW363JrzaH6TagMC5mbvYlOpbnN4FiMclROPSWqZpepc0aDaXI9qb2dUvx8OzLHcP68CxNWeYQQ59HczmPYVc07ewYpcaZyIoks-bkn8orsedq1CMCjEjSrgQEIUMNs8FP/s1600-h/2007_1104orphancakes0006.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5207652437738257122" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv79iW363JrzaH6TagMC5mbvYlOpbnN4FiMclROPSWqZpepc0aDaXI9qb2dUvx8OzLHcP68CxNWeYQQ59HczmPYVc07ewYpcaZyIoks-bkn8orsedq1CMCjEjSrgQEIUMNs8FP/s320/2007_1104orphancakes0006.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br />
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There are so many good things about the recipe that I’m about to give you that I can’t even begin to start this post by focusing on only one. It’s chocolaty, which according to my brother John is the only way to do dessert. Its gluten free, which seems to be an increasing issue now days as people become more sensitive to the environment around them and it’s the most flexible recipe I think I’ve ever found, it’s the tardis of recipes. <span class="fullpost"></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span class="fullpost"><br />This is hands down the most requested recipe I have, I have never once served it to anyone without them asking me for a copy, to have kept it away from you for so long almost makes me think I’ve been holding out. No longer gentle reader, here it is in all its glory.<br />I stumbled across this recipe originally some years ago when someone asked me for a flourless chocolate cake. When I’m looking for a recipe I want the least amount of ingredients I can get away with, you don’t want to have to go out and buy a heap of things and the less ingredients usually means that you can make it pretty quickly which is handy sometimes if you need to make something during the week. I tend to pare back recipes in any case to kind of tailor them to my own taste.<br />Normally I’d give you the recipe at the end but this has been an evolutionary kind of recipe so here is the recipe I started with.<br />Preheat your oven to 180 C and then in a heatproof bowl over simmering water melt 185 g of dark chocolate and 125 g of butter. Beat 5 egg whites and 1/3 cup of sugar until stiff peaks form. Beat the yolks with 2/3 cups of sugar until pale and creamy and then combine the melted chocolate and butter. Fold in 250g of ground almonds. By this point the mixture will be pretty stiff, start to combine the egg whites, the first spoonful will be to loosen the mix then the rest should be folded in gently.<br />I bake nearly all my cakes in spring form pans essentially because I don’t have any more room for extra kitchen stuff, I’m packed to the rafters with kitchen stuff, and for this recipe you’ll use a 22cm springform pan, line it even if it’s a non stick pan it’s just nice to have the extra insurance.<br />Spoon your mix into the pan and then bake for about 45 mins, check after about 30 mins because these things often depend on your oven.<br />I tend not to decorate these beyond a little icing sugar and maybe some berries because the cake speaks for itself but you knock yourself out.<br />So that was the first stage, I took it to work for my friend’s birthday, everyone oohed and ahhed and I sent out the recipe to a couple of people. I really liked the result so I started to play.<br />I hadn’t cooked with nut meals before so I started trying those out; I made a version of the cake using the same amount of hazelnut meal and milk chocolate. I love hazelnut, not a fan of nuts generally but hazelnuts have snuck in there anyway, to be honest it was probably nuttella and that was what this version of the cake tasted like, nuttella in cake form. Delicious.<br />Then for my brother I decided to make a white chocolate version because he loves white chocolate, I cook a lot with the kids when I go over there so for one of Jacks birthdays I made a white chocolate and orange version using the same amount of white chocolate, ½ a cup less sugar and the zest and juice of an orange. Again it turned out really well. Because the texture of the cake is so dense it’s an easy one to cook in ovens that you’re not familiar with or are less reliable, densely textured cakes can hide a multitude of sins that something light like a sponge cake would reveal instantly. Dense cakes are like old friends, welcome at parties and they never tell your secrets. Sponge cakes are like the popular kids in high school, the idea of having them is delicious but they would turn on you in heartbeat.<br />There are only so many cakes you can make though and one wintery evening I had occasion to come up with a hot pudding. I think I may have been watching a documentary on volcanoes or something but I decided that I wanted to come up with something textural and a little soufflé like so I took the original recipe but took out 2 of the egg yolks and was a lot gentler when combining the whites to retain as much of the air as I could. Then I spooned the mix into 4 ramekins and at the centre of each one placed a couple of squares of whatever chocolate I was using and baked for about 30 mins at 180 C. When they cooked the mixture soufled up and the chocolate melts in the centre forming a magma like pool so that when you crack the surface with your teaspoon it crumbles down into this dark pool of chocolate. A soufflé for those that can’t eat wheat.<br />As usual I’ve also done a cupcake version, the same recipe but with a tablespoon and a half of honey, the inclusion of honey will make cakes retain a little more moisture so this makes for a tender and decadent little cupcake and that is the picture that you’re getting with this post though I will be taking pictures of the chocolate volcano as well because I think you really have to see that.<br />Enjoy and make them in good health.<br />Oh I also included a picture of some cupcakes I made for my friend Ally’s 30th just cos I felt like showing off, they were gluten free as well, it’s a tenuous link because it’s mostly about the showing off, and they look pretty damn it.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp4aZoCId3wcoo_y76YIyH-yHXmHckaAbVHc6rRWl50dDuvxr4CH_AJwSX07C4WpR98eqaf7z0oCZORE8lbRTE-KnXiDDQnXVj3ShXRKSC51oXhAV4AKJ30ID7z0053ZXg4Hxu/s1600-h/2008_0503ally0006.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5207655240715645426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp4aZoCId3wcoo_y76YIyH-yHXmHckaAbVHc6rRWl50dDuvxr4CH_AJwSX07C4WpR98eqaf7z0oCZORE8lbRTE-KnXiDDQnXVj3ShXRKSC51oXhAV4AKJ30ID7z0053ZXg4Hxu/s320/2008_0503ally0006.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br /></span>Wanderin' Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05512852268796093458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34549947.post-55341772190590587802008-04-20T23:49:00.003+09:302012-04-04T18:42:10.345+09:30Progress through pancakes<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh7FH9HbOnHqG0DdeEIbLJGSzsY8roe4G2OZJB51LQNaiAqp4p-FFlDCHYpVVzP7PifcptmdFDb8XD3MLejUQt38J8tr9V0YV8uY7hec_LvRpQ-5rqsMHVyddJeG-1Rtj74k08/s1600-h/blog+pancake.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5191335432697792610" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh7FH9HbOnHqG0DdeEIbLJGSzsY8roe4G2OZJB51LQNaiAqp4p-FFlDCHYpVVzP7PifcptmdFDb8XD3MLejUQt38J8tr9V0YV8uY7hec_LvRpQ-5rqsMHVyddJeG-1Rtj74k08/s320/blog+pancake.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br />
There are points in ones life where you have traveled far enough down a particular road to be able to make something which tangibly demonstrates progress.<br />
For some that may be babies, a house, winning a gold medal but in the humble world of this cook it is the pancake.<span class="fullpost"></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span class="fullpost"><br />Not just any pancake mind you but a mother fluffy pancake, the kind of pancake that if making pancakes was an Olympic sport these are the ones that the Chinese and East Germans would come up with. These are pancakes that beg to be drug tested.<br />But let’s begin at the beginning, as a young kid who is interested in cooking there are really only a couple of things one can reliably attempt on their own without risking life, limb or property, the allure of whisking things and cracking eggs make pancakes an attractive childhood recipe, they certainly were for me. Both my parents worked so on summer holidays or late at night when parents assumed we were asleep I would try and make pancakes for my brother and I. John liked them thin like crepes and so did I generally because, never being able to remember exactly how to make pancakes, not having actually been given a recipe I’d always struggle to remember exactly how much of everything should go in them. Was is plain flour or self raising? How many eggs should I use? How much milk? Do I really need sugar? Sometimes I would crack it and make at least edible pancakes that would pass muster with the brother. Though more and more I’m convinced that his pleas of “No you make them yours are good” were just because he was too lazy to make them himself much like the time he emotionally blackmailed me into sewing on his cub scout badges one Wednesday morning by looking sad and mournfully entreating “But all the other mothers do it” I’m 11 months younger than he is so that never should have worked but what can I say, I’m a sucker for a quivering bottom lip. I do remember horrible pancakes that I’d made though, pancakes so heavy you could have used them to retread mining trucks, pancakes that cracked and bounced like paper pulp when you tried to fold them over.<br />There seems to be a two party divide when it comes to pancakes as there is in a number of elements in life, left or right, scrunch or fold, cat or dog, thick or thin.<br />People seem to be very loyal to their breed of pancake, those who favor thin look at you like you’ve just admitted to marrying your midget, hermaphrodite first cousin from Omaha if you align yourself with the thicker pancake. I asked a number of people for their preferences in order to come up with some kind of refined egalitarian pancake that would appeal to everybody and came to the conclusion that the problem that those in the thin camp had with thick pancakes were that they were often inordinately heavy, there is such a thing as too much pancake so I needed to find a way of encompassing the fluffiness of the thick pancake with the lightness of the thin. There was one tip I got a while back that seemed to work and that was lemonade, instead of using milk in the batter lemonade gave you both lift and a certain amount of sweetness which seemed to be successful when tested on willing lab rats at the time but it still wasn’t quite what I was looking for.<br />What finally cracked it for me though was a trip to little B &B at the foot of Mount Macedon one weekend with my sister in law and the kids. It was a gorgeous little place, open fire, quiet gardens, chicken coop that the kids would obsessively check for eggs, exactly the kind of place I’d love to run myself one day. My sister in law had the bacon and eggy type breakfast with all the usual accoutrements, me not being a fan of eggs I tend to miss out on the whole full breakfast ritual so the kids and I had pancakes instead.<br />There are rare but blessed occasions where I’ve had meals that were a revelation to me, the first time I had Kangaroo at the now defunct Bistro Inferno on Brunswick street in the 90’s, the first time I had kippers when I was three, the pea puree and soufflé at Bistro Vue, these pancakes now enter into this category. But first a moment on the bacon that came with them, a happily unexpected bonus as though god himself came down and said “Here’s a treat, you’re doin ok kid”.<br />I’ve gone on about bacon before, its one of the main things that prevents me from being vegetarian, I thought I’d found some damn fine bacon and had been putting myself through the emotional rigors of the polish deli for a number of years in order to get it, now I feel as if all that was wasted time, like finally breaking out of a volatile relationship my eyes have been opened and I just cant go back there now. I have resigned myself to living with the prospect of infrequent bacon at least until I can ingratiate myself to the owner and find out who she buys it from.<br />Now to the pancakes, they were cheerily yellow from the free range eggs that the kids had been scaring out of the chickens for the last 20 mins, just a little crispy on the edges and soft and fluffy like soufflé on the inside.<br />The secret, egg whites, that’s it, egg whites, separate your eggs and beat the whites then fold them in to the rest of the mix at the end. Why hadn’t I thought of this before.<br />I had to come up with a recipe quick to restore my dignity. And so I did and now I will post it below for you to appropriate as you wish, if you already knew about this, you’ve been holding out on me and I am deeply displeased with you, for those of you that didn’t enjoy them in good health. I served mine with a burnt caramel ice cream that I’d found an old milk bar recipe for and though I would make for a friend who likes caramel but cant eat it because the commercial ones have gluten in them, its very easy to make and beautifully rich.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Mother Fluffy Pancakes</span> (Makes about 8 medium sized pancakes)<br /><br />1 cup plan flour, if your making gluten free ones as I have you can use the same quantity of self raising gluten free flour.<br />1 cup buttermilk,<br />2 egg yolks and 3 egg whites<br />Half a cup of caster sugar<br /><br />Separate the egg whites from the yolks and add about half of the quantity of sugar. Beat til stuff peaks form then mix the yolks, buttermilk, flour and remaining sugar until smooth and then fold in the egg whites. Heat a fry pan on a low to medium heat with a little butter and then ladle in the mix, the mix is fairly velvety due to the egg whites so it wont spread out in the pan at all but because they stay really high and fluffy you really only need one ladle and want to keep them small. Usually the way to tell if a pancake is cooked is by seeing airbubbles form on the uncooked surface of the pancakes but you wont see that so much with these ones you want them to be a little soft like soufflés in the middle so look instead for the edges of the pancake to get golden or shake the pan a little when the pancake moves freely on the surface then its cooked on the bottom and you can flip it. I haven’t included spices in this recipe though I normally use vanilla, this is up to you. Try cinnamon or nutmeg or anything you’d like really. Serve immediately.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Burnt Caramel Ice Cream </span><br /><br />2/3 cup of caster sugar<br />1 cup milk<br />1 cup thin cream<br />6 egg yolks<br /><br />Melt the sugar in a heavy bottomed saucepan until it turns a dark gold colour, take it off the heat and gradually stir in the milk and cream. The caramel will get hard and at this point it will all seem like a horrible mess and you will curse me as you wonder how you will ever get your sauce pan clean but take it back to the heat, just a medium heat, and stir and you’ll find that the caramel will melt again into the milk and cream and everything will be fine, trust me. Whisk the egg yolks in a heat proof bowl until pale and then stir in the hot caramel milk mixture a little at a time otherwise you will scramble the eggs. Pour everything back into the sauce pan and heat over a low flame until the custard coats the back of a spoon. Strain the mix and let cool, if you’ve got an ice cream maker then you just follow the manufacturers directions to make the ice cream otherwise put into a covered container and place in the freezer, after a few hours take out and break it up with a fork or electric mixer if your feeling slack. Put back in the freezer and freeze again for another few hours then do the same thing all over again. You know you can probably get an ice cream maker from the good guys for like $30 bucks, they even make shrek ones now. After you’ve done your freezy frezzy beat up thing for the second time put it back in the freezer for another 8 hours until the ice cream is firm. Really, its $30 bucks and you get ice cream in like 20 mins, they’re fantastic things you can even make sorbet.</span>Wanderin' Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05512852268796093458noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34549947.post-74169642777543737822008-03-02T14:10:00.008+10:302012-04-04T18:42:23.506+09:30The Worlds Oldest Profession<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzogiCrrZ6URTSoJ_7K7df6E6Fkw62Q539Dmxz8w2UZwMwK9U6tlbY8_U93AuS8BAZZBmv04u2iZ0dRbCWnD2PWQ1EoatiyfdrgL0L0JPNtCNoRmCorZ-JahXI7DZ6hGx7AAu9/s1600-h/2004_0101butterfly0005.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5172988292269182114" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzogiCrrZ6URTSoJ_7K7df6E6Fkw62Q539Dmxz8w2UZwMwK9U6tlbY8_U93AuS8BAZZBmv04u2iZ0dRbCWnD2PWQ1EoatiyfdrgL0L0JPNtCNoRmCorZ-JahXI7DZ6hGx7AAu9/s320/2004_0101butterfly0005.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br />
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And so I have a confession, not something I’m proud of though nor am I ashamed, at some point necessity and the seductive lure of the demon dollar strikes us all. It all started around Christmas, Livvy needed a pink tea set and Jack needed lego, always with the lego and when I was asked it all seemed so innocent, how bout doin’ something Christmassy for me luv? And so I did, and then there were birthdays, and more birthdays and now I’m in and I don’t know if I’ll ever get out again. <span class="fullpost"> </span></div>
<a name='more'></a><span class="fullpost"><br />Ladies and Gentleman, I’ve been making cakes for money, yes that’s right, I’m a cake whore. This all started really because I was bringing in my practice cakes that I was making for the show to work and people kept telling me to sell them. Since the show ended I haven’t stopped despite my determinations and now it’s a freakin cottage industry. Not that I’m complaining mind, thought this was never something I’d seen myself doing there’s a reason I’ve kept doing it. It’s like painting but with icing and I kinda like the idea of making temporary art, I realize that might sound somewhat pretentious but I have to say honestly I really don’t care, it is a kind of art and the fact that its fleeting makes me feel more willing to try different things with it because I know that there will always be another chance to try again. <br />It’s an entirely different and less forgiving branch of cooking requiring me to be more focused on what I’m doing, certainly in the preparation of things. There’s a little amount of leeway sure but ultimately you have to follow a recipe, experimentation really only works when you know the rules as far as sweet baking goes. What I really get out of it though is the decoration, I got myself a bunch of Wiltons colour gels so it really does feel like mixing up paint and I’ve broken myself of my fear of the piping bag thought I still need a bunch more practice, I have all my little decorating accoutrements collected in a box that I can just take out and delve into whenever a project comes up.<br />I’ve got a few little girls birthdays coming up but the next big one is an Alice in Wonderland themed party for a 31st which I’m really looking forward to. Recipes and photos will follow there I can assure you. <br />I promise I’ll be posting again shortly because I’m working on something at the moment and you don’t really get a recipe out of this one because I’ve given you my cake recipe before but you will get photos, lots of photos, one of which is of my darling niece Kate who turned one recently and no recipe could top that surely.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxR6DJkwzJUpvAU2jffU95am_iLn320QmEB7ygZelXtTko9c9_apTFKn-e3eHpIMMCfBZ8ooA3smUVl7i7YZ7GC8eNSy0u3iqWh-s8uvjta2wGdL9R1SPaJETbL_TEOwHhwJC7/s1600-h/2004_0101kate0003.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5173002762014002354" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxR6DJkwzJUpvAU2jffU95am_iLn320QmEB7ygZelXtTko9c9_apTFKn-e3eHpIMMCfBZ8ooA3smUVl7i7YZ7GC8eNSy0u3iqWh-s8uvjta2wGdL9R1SPaJETbL_TEOwHhwJC7/s320/2004_0101kate0003.JPG" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-5ta8hEtZY-zjWVSO4qIQc9U9SgZXD_SJ7X1EmHUhF7OKhU9amRyftAjWvhStFRLO12qctp8pSsGLNI_vsk_t29TSCnzZwRwX20mwD1TVHXjUpt6fZGPBTu5n1D5FsEv7GQE6/s1600-h/2004_0101kate0009.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5173002770603936962" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-5ta8hEtZY-zjWVSO4qIQc9U9SgZXD_SJ7X1EmHUhF7OKhU9amRyftAjWvhStFRLO12qctp8pSsGLNI_vsk_t29TSCnzZwRwX20mwD1TVHXjUpt6fZGPBTu5n1D5FsEv7GQE6/s320/2004_0101kate0009.JPG" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlEavZBSCuq2qIT1WuMDLl23mDxNvvBWLZqaZjP0LlhKHWPbMZ69DE-BWp9QeC25bqfcp9G_c1zgSPr8MYt44YTVabAG1JdBgACLLj0lJQ2M9j8mK5snfQE0IfiAusiC15IP7a/s1600-h/2007_1221christmas0010.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5173002779193871570" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlEavZBSCuq2qIT1WuMDLl23mDxNvvBWLZqaZjP0LlhKHWPbMZ69DE-BWp9QeC25bqfcp9G_c1zgSPr8MYt44YTVabAG1JdBgACLLj0lJQ2M9j8mK5snfQE0IfiAusiC15IP7a/s320/2007_1221christmas0010.JPG" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVDHcRayz5jJzHQXcboYMzRH0THai7UA1MILl851VtHfW8ry6cR5N66VmFuimk65YnlQILT8hgxTo2gKSfQygt4vB9V1PJX0T2qabsHohfTq2db41TniTK382GEIIC1glq9ubv/s1600-h/2007_1104orphancakes0002.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5173002787783806178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVDHcRayz5jJzHQXcboYMzRH0THai7UA1MILl851VtHfW8ry6cR5N66VmFuimk65YnlQILT8hgxTo2gKSfQygt4vB9V1PJX0T2qabsHohfTq2db41TniTK382GEIIC1glq9ubv/s320/2007_1104orphancakes0002.JPG" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a> </span>Wanderin' Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05512852268796093458noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34549947.post-31894398473062292392007-11-04T01:14:00.000+10:302012-04-04T18:42:40.744+09:30The show must go on<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEjFn-GJ-bWdjLdEaDsUMNfgf5KaWvIndyKgDUpcQpTZZmK4IpK995IMJJsdBEqTFMQ-my9UmLOEIkPkypzjECWz8S_52YEKLLUVR6DwlHAXEnQD6NbMGeTcP6Yg-Ki7wS6cRx/s1600-h/2007_1021kids0004.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5128627713784253618" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEjFn-GJ-bWdjLdEaDsUMNfgf5KaWvIndyKgDUpcQpTZZmK4IpK995IMJJsdBEqTFMQ-my9UmLOEIkPkypzjECWz8S_52YEKLLUVR6DwlHAXEnQD6NbMGeTcP6Yg-Ki7wS6cRx/s320/2007_1021kids0004.JPG" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br />
So it’s been a while huh. I’m noticing there’s a pattern with these blogs where I always open them with an apology for my absence. No ones reading anyway so screw it.<br />
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<span class="fullpost"><br /><br />I have been a baking machine. Ever since I decided that I was entering the show every weekend was devoted to testing out different recipes, different flavours, decorations and icing. Everywhere I went I foisted cupcakes on unsuspecting friends and work colleagues. It started with the Crabapple bakery cookbook, I tried their vanilla cupcake recipe and it was pretty damn good, though I have to admit that I found their quantities gargantuan. I’ve yet to get to try one of their cupcakes but I can only assume that they must be at least half icing because their butter cream icing recipe stated that it was enough to ice 24 cupcakes but for me it always seemed enough for at least 48. <br />Then I discovered Cake Deco in flinders arcade in the city, dear god I could bankrupt myself in there. They have stuff you would never even have thought existed for cakes. <br />All kinds of decorating equipment, different shaped tins and a million different sugar decorations. I shied away from the sugar decorations thinking that, although the rules didn’t stipulate it the spirit of the competition would kind of frown on commercial decorations.<br /> I made the usual leap from vanilla to chocolate but thought they were a little boring so tried Musk and Rose flavorings. They were surprising and did well with the work mates who divided pretty equally in terms of which were their favorite. Personally I favored the musk, which was a turn around on 24 years of having an aversion to it after my grandmother, who had dementia, bombarded us with musk lollies as kids, you remember those musk necklaces and watches that you used to be able to get at milk bars, she gave us millions of those and for years I could just never look at a musk lolly but in cupcake form they come up pretty well. <br />It was around this point that I started to hate cupcakes and began dreading having to make them, but make them I must. <br />After finding the rose and musk flavours a little too cloying and sweet I decided to try for something fruity so passion fruit was the next experiment, passion fruit icing is always popular but a little tip, don’t try to make passion fruit butter cream icing, for some reason it tastes kinda creepy. All along I was experimenting with what would make for the perfect texture. I tried using egg whites instead of whole eggs, altering the creaming time for the butter and sugar, different flours and raising agents. I found a really good brand of flour that was milled extra fine for things like sponges and played around with it for a while but in the end it made the cakes too light, great for a sponge but I think cupcakes need to be a little firmer in texture so that you can take the paper case off them without them falling to crumbs in your hand. <br />After so much sweetness I wanted something a little lighter in flavour for my cupcakes so for flavoring I decided in the end to go with Orange blossom, by this point it was a month away from competition and I just had to pick something so Orange blossom it was. Don’t let my cavalier tone sway you though they were damn delicious. <br />Instead of using self raising flour I decided to go back to plain and amended an old recipe I had for red velvet cake, it used butter milk and a mixture of 1 teaspoon of baking soda and 1 of white vinegar as the raising agent which gave the cakes a faint tartness that worked really well with the orange blossom flavour. <br />Thanks to global warming the season for Blood Oranges was a month early this year so I decided to try and use them where I could and used the juice in the icing and the peel for decoration, this worked well but got stupidly expensive so I went back to plan organic navel oranges. <br />At this point I just could face those freakin’ little cakes anymore, I was supposed to be tasting them but all I could manage was a bite before throwing the rest away, just too too much sweet thing. I never thought I would say it but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Everyone else seemed to look forward to them though, particularly everyone at work, friends kinda rolled their eyes, I’m referring to you Scott Gooding, but work colleagues flocked to my desk on Mondays to try out the latest test batches, half the time I wouldn’t even get to send out an email saying that there were cupcakes on my desk before I’d turn around and there would be a flock of Optus employees crowded round me like they were seagulls and I had chips, I think next time I do this I’ll demand that at least one of them pretend to have only one leg and squawk as I throw them the cakes. <br />Shortly before the competition I realized I was useless with a piping bag and panicked a little, I’d made so many cupcakes that I couldn’t remember what it was that I was supposed to be doing anymore and had a tiny little ‘my cupcakes are horrible I’m going to my room and never coming out and you cant make me’ tanty, but I maintained my dignity and internalized it like all good Anglo Saxons. <br />I broke out the piping bag and practiced til I could make the perfect rosettes. <br />All seemed promising until the day of competition; I awoke early and was driven to the show grounds by my self appointed manager. I had a slight freak out as we drew near and began to make pitiful whining sounds but my manger slapped me like a drunken stage mother and I got over it. The nice arts and crafts people let me put my entries in early and kindly cooed at them and said they were pretty which gave me hope. I totally advise if you’re ever planning to go to the show go as early as you possibly can, its great without all the bogans and screaming children around. I got tired of carrying around the remaining cupcakes as there were only 5 required for competition and so started offering the remainders to stall holders, there was a guy selling kites who happily took some for him and his son but I tried to offer one to a security guard and he wasn’t so forthcoming, bastard, why doesn’t he get a real job. <br />We killed time wandering around parents island, a collection of gourmet food and liquor stalls and told absolutely everyone that I came into contact with that I was entered in the cupcake competition. Judging was at about 11:30 so we headed back to hear the verdict but got side tracked by these clever women making sugar flowers. <br />I never got to hear my cupcakes being judged but I can tell you that I didn’t win this time. <br />I asked the judge for feedback but she didn’t really have anything specific, just that they were good and to try again next year. Personally I think they wanted vanilla, because every other entry was vanilla, I was the only crazy person who tried to flavour them. <br />I am totally doing this next year though, it might sound a little odd but there is a lot of fun to be had in baking for the royal show, I’m diversifying next year though, I’m going for cupcakes, sponge and mudcake. Cupcakes coz I’m determined to win something now, sponge coz I’m a masochist and mud cake coz there were very few entries in that section and sometimes winning by default is the sweetest victory. <br />A big thanks to all the friends and family that were guinea pigs and gave me feedback and to all the friends who came to the show and made me feel better by saying supportive things like “You wuz robbed mate”. And thanks also to Rob, the self appointed manager who tested every batch and became quite the connoisseur.<br />Despite vowing to never make cupcakes again I’ve been suckered into it repeatedly, when I think about it too much it feels like I’ve been sucked into some tiny cake version of hell. <br />But don’t let me dissuade you from trying to make them, knock yourself out, treat it like doing drugs though, make sure you have a sober friend, drink lots of water and when it stops being fun its time to give it a rest. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Orange Blossom Cupcakes. <br />Makes 24. </span><br /><br />Preheat your oven to 180 degrees C, here’s a little tip, get yourself an oven thermometer they’re much more trust worthy than the dial on your oven and you’d be surprised how much the oven temperature differs particularly when you are cooking in a crappy oven in a rented apartment like mine. <br />Cream together ½ a cup of soft butter and 1 ½ cups of caster sugar either in a stand mixer or with an electric hand held mixer for about 5 minutes on a high speed, if you want to get crafty you can experiment and find the best amount of time for you as the creaming stage is kinda crucial to the overall result of the cupcakes. <br />Add 2 large eggs one at a time waiting a little bit between each addition to allow the eggs to combine with the butter and sugar, let your eggs get to room temperature before you add them as well as I found this seemed to improve the texture somewhat. <br />Turn down the speed of your mixture to low and start to add 2 ¼ cups of plain sifted flour in batches of about 4 so that the texture of the mix remains even and you don’t get lumps, alternate the additions of flour with splashes of buttermilk, you’ll add 1 cup of buttermilk in total, you don’t want to beat the mix too much at this point or the gluten in the flour will start to toughen the mix so you can do this part by hand if you’re worried about that. <br />Add a teaspoon of vanilla essence and 4 tablespoons of Orange blossom water that you can get from pretty much any deli now if not in a darkened corner of your supermarket.<br />In a small bowl combine 1 teaspoon of baking soda with a teaspoon of vinegar, it’ll fizz up and then you’ll fold it into the mix, this lightens the texture of the cake and is the raising agent. Spoon into paper cases and bake in the oven for about half an hour or until the cakes are golden and a skewer inserted into the center comes out cleanly. <br />Decorate and enjoy.</span>Wanderin' Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05512852268796093458noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34549947.post-53730925330926595352007-07-12T16:22:00.000+09:302012-04-04T18:43:00.306+09:30Everybody loves the little cakes<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg985ZpKD7Q34Aqj_1007HsYa47eMD300Sl47svoAtrHN_xG4_xvxQ7btagXt1a3FSo9O9chZFft1m0wdibkMjgpyIIM6dBob00yOV71hes40KXmwcD-xFXkNCGkSCaydv0QVNJ/s1600-h/blogpic.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5086204291308054274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg985ZpKD7Q34Aqj_1007HsYa47eMD300Sl47svoAtrHN_xG4_xvxQ7btagXt1a3FSo9O9chZFft1m0wdibkMjgpyIIM6dBob00yOV71hes40KXmwcD-xFXkNCGkSCaydv0QVNJ/s320/blogpic.JPG" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br />
So we’re all probably aware now of my fascination with the traditions of cooking at home and it is this that has lead me on my next little cooking adventure.<span class="fullpost"> I’ve had an interest for sometime in the world of the CWA, good honest salt of the earth women who descend en mass at times of turbulence to make endless sandwiches, knit winter woolies and if you’re really lucky bake a sponge, don’t think I make light of their efforts though, the CWA has also dispensed more than 2 million dollars worth of aid to drought affected families in rural areas over the last couple of years.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span class="fullpost"><br /> There’s been a resurgence of the CWA in the last few years as we modern gals hanker for someone to teach us the things that our grandmothers knew but never got to pass on. They’ve also produced a very concise cookbook which I know a number of modern fella’s to follow on leaving home in a bid to fend of starvation and occasionally woo women and or men lets not be biased. <br />One particular area of expertise for these ladies, and a source of hot competition, is sponge baking. They can tell just by looking whether a sponge has been over beaten – resulting in large air holes in the sponge, whether the sugar hasn’t been mixed in properly as evidenced by a sticky or crusty surface to the sponge and are on the look out for drag marks where the cake might have been loosened from the tin with a knife, an indication that the tin wasn’t greased properly. Good lord you have to respect that kind of skill. <br />Now I don’t particularly go with the theory that there is a right way to do everything, there are certainly successful recipes but in my eyes a successful recipe is down to a few elements that you can, essentially through experimentation, isolate and then play with any way you want and its that which ultimately draws me to these kinds of things.<br />The recipes the ladies use and pass on are tried and true and they are a combination of tradition and thorough experimentation. <br />Every year at the Royal Melbourne Show an arts and crafts competition is held, where sponge battles sponge and jams, preserves, and fruitcakes are tested against the best and damnit I’ve thrown my hat in the ring. I haven’t thrown caution to the wind and entered the sponge competition, I’m saving that til next year, I figure I need to learn to paddle a little better before I jump into the tank with the sharks. But I am now a competitor in CLASS 223 PATTY CAKES (5). Iced with or without edible decoration eg: Sprinkles, etc. Baked in paper cases. I chose this one because it’s enough of a challenge to keep me occupied but not so much that I can’t have a snoop around on the day and see what everyone else is doing and possibly get some sponge making tips. <br />The cupcake seems to have been on the rise lately too which may have initially started with the appearance of the magnolia bakery’s cupcakes in an episode of sex in the city, certainly in Melbourne though the opening of bakeries like the Crabapple Bakery in Prahran has lead interested cooks towards all things cupcakey. <br />There is a joy in a perfect pretty cupcake, just enough for one and decorated so that you feel like you’re at some kind of fairytale picnic or one of the privileged children in a Charles Dickens novel. So now begins the experimentation, I’m working on finding the right flavour and decoration. I started practicing with my niece and nephew Jack and Olivia at the weekend though it wasn’t so much experimentation. I realised this when my sister in law Jenny said to me “John and I have just been saying you’re brave for cooking with both of them, we usually only try that with one at a time”<br />Now I know how my Uncle Bill might have felt baking scones for the boys on the beaches of Normandy during the war.<br />That’s kind of the point of cooking with kids though, if you’re really worried about the result or the mess, wait til they’re in bed, the fun of it is in them trying things out and pouring and stirring and both the kids are expert egg crackers.<br />Though they did get to see what coconut milk tastes like straight and I think we can safely say that the icing was a hit.<br />So dear readers, any lingering fantasies for cupcake flavours? Submit them and I’ll try them out for you and if you are within cake distance furnish you with the results. <br /><br />The recipe I used with the kids is a kind of variation on one from the Crabapple Bakery, because I’ve only just started trying things out though it’s not all that different from theirs. It’s a bloody good recipe I must say. I first made these the Thursday night I got the book at about 8:30 at night when young Rusty decided he wanted dessert so they’re fairly foolproof. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Coconut Vanilla Cupcakes</span><br />Makes 24. <br /><br />Preheat your oven to about 170 C or 160 if you have a fan forced oven. <br />Cream 200g of soft butter with 1 ¾ cups of caster sugar for a couple of minutes either in a mixer or with a hand held electric mixer. Add the sugar in batches so that it combines evenly. Add 4 eggs one at a time beating between each addition. Add a tablespoon of vanilla extract and beat in. <br />Sift together 2 ¾ cups of self raising flour or the same amount of plain flour and 2 teaspoons of baking powder, add this to the mixture and either beat at a low speed in your mixer or do what I prefer to do and fold it in with a spatula, at the flour in batches of three or four adding in a cup of coconut milk in between until combined. <br />Spoon the mix to 2/3 fill your cupcake cases and bake for about 20 mins or until the cupcakes are golden and a skewer inserts cleanly. <br />Mercifully these cool down pretty quickly so you can ice them in about half an hour or so. <br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Butter cream Icing. </span><br /><br />Beat about 200g of butter which has either been left out of the fridge to get to room temperature or if room temperature is pretty cold like it is now zap it in the microwave for a bout 5 seconds til its soft start to add your icing sugar in batches of about three or four, you’ll end up using about 1kg of icing sugar and that will ice about 24 cupcakes if you’re generous with the icing. Have about half a cup of milk at the ready and add it in between the additions of icing sugar to keep the mixture soft and then you can flavour it or colour it in any way you like. We used lime essence in the pale green cupcakes and orange essence in the pale orange ones. The pink ones were just because that’s Livvy’s favourite colour. Interestingly in the morning even though it was freezing cold out there in Gisbourne we woke to find that ants had come to devour the cupcakes, the ants voted for Jacks cupcakes which were the orange and lime ones and left Livvy’s pink ones entirely untouched. So Jack got the ants vote. <br /></span>Wanderin' Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05512852268796093458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34549947.post-69878829425047867582007-04-29T14:36:00.000+09:302012-04-04T18:43:18.324+09:30Sometimes its whats on the outside that counts<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhutaNQg4Iy8fNRue-CzcTZWcIYc9j0sxlYNpeRn6eQULa8pO3iWxj_5lLCLLGBRIyvEfixNfx_6BTGyofhN4HoysPRic89mhKMFlEs70PBfdXkIvbcJfImKddw2friS3kL3kFn/s1600-h/2004_0118chestnuts0004.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5058717514477060338" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhutaNQg4Iy8fNRue-CzcTZWcIYc9j0sxlYNpeRn6eQULa8pO3iWxj_5lLCLLGBRIyvEfixNfx_6BTGyofhN4HoysPRic89mhKMFlEs70PBfdXkIvbcJfImKddw2friS3kL3kFn/s320/2004_0118chestnuts0004.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br />
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Fear not dear reader for I have returned, I shall not furnish you with details as to my unexplained absences because frankly finding excuses to cover up the fact that I’ve been lazy will become tedious for us both. I suggest you just ignore them and we both hope for the best.</div>
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Getting cold lately isn’t it, not as quickly as it should be sure, I mean just last night I heard crickets at sunset, what that’s about I don’t know but I was driving through somewhere near Bulleen the other day and it looked fairly autumnal and wandering through the market the other day I found that Chestnuts seem to be in season. I’ve cooked very little with chestnuts, made a dessert once with chestnut flour and I think I was served some roasted chestnuts with duck in a restaurant once. Certainly hope they were chestnuts, what ever they were the imagery outshone the taste but then again I’m not all that nuts about nuts. I think I like the idea of chestnuts more than the reality, they look so inviting when they sell them in winter in those little oven things on street corners, always makes me think of running home with the last of my Christmas shopping a couple of days before Christmas in London sometime in the late 1890’s to sip sherry by an open fire or sit benevolently in the kitchen whilst cook prepares a Yule log out of chocolate and marzipan for the Christmas table. You understand I’ve never done any of those things of course; I’ve done far too much hard living to still be alive at 130. </div>
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You get my point though, I think chestnuts I think winter, I think winter I think cozy, I think cozy I make something with chocolate. Originally this story didn’t start with chestnuts or chocolate. It began as all good riddles do, with an egg. </div>
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Duck egg to be exact, had to get eggs to feed a starving artist and I saw some duck eggs there all nestled in their little wicker basket and decided to try some. I don’t eat eggs on their own per se so I knew that I would end up putting them into a cake of some kind and that’s what I’ve heard they’re particularly good for. Something to do with the consistency of the whites making for a lighter texture. So I got four of them, huge things, looked like ostriches laid them. Kept on with my travels and made the chestnut discovery, wallowed in the whole global warming thing and like any decent housewife decided to bake it a cake. Now I may be a little crazy, a little prone to doing things the hard way, but there was no way in hell I was roasting and grinding my own chestnuts to make a cake and for some reason no where I looked in the market had Chestnut puree, I even went to Safeway and for a heartless corporate chain they sometimes carry some odd little items but nothing. </div>
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No matter, I know I can always turn to the perennially hip, Piedimontes. I can’t tell you how much I hate going there, it mightn’t be cool to admit but good god I’d rather poke out my eyes sometimes than go to Piedimontes. They always put things in weird places and I have to run around looking for them and I’ve embarrassed myself too may times there. Last week I knocked over a big stack of Italian biscuits trying to pick up a shopping basket one handed (it might not sound difficult but I’m special) and then one time I left a trail of sugar after me while I was wandering around looking for stuff because the packet of sugar I had in my basket had a hole in the paper. And I’ve had weird guys try to pick me up there, one with exceptionally bad breath springs to memory and it took me three aisles to shake him, no means no trench mouth. And people don’t get out of your way, they have long elaborate discussions about which brand of toilet tissue to buy and about whether they can find the biodynamic brand of Rooibos tea that they tried at their last Pilates class. This is all very small of me I know but it bugs me, I want to get in and out of there as fast as humanly possible and I never achieve that goal because at every step of the way some Birkenstock clad hipster is gaping open mouthed at goats’ cheese. </div>
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But if mama needs her chestnut puree then that’s what she’s got to do. </div>
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So I head over there on my way home on a Saturday after heading out on a tram and two buses to see someone in Doncaster coming all the way back in the first decent down pour of rain we’ve had in what seems like an eternity, soaked to the point that I squelched when I walked but too tired to care. Managed to remain upright, not crash into any inanimate objects around me or create a trail of anything and I found the prettiest can of Chestnut puree I could have hoped for. It’s that I’ve got the photo of this time coz cake is cake you all know what one looks like. It may be gullible but sometimes I like the packaging, it makes sense to make the packaging pretty, you’re more likely to keep it that way. Alright, I’m a sucker for marketing but its clear I’m going to try and justify this anyway I can. </div>
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All the chestnut recipes I’d found didn’t do what I was looking for, there was one for a chestnut rosemary and pine nut cake which looked kinda like foodies went on a bucks night food binge and regurgitated their rustic Tuscan cuisine. And some kind of chocolate refrigerator cake which just looked like fancy fudge. </div>
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So I made one up, you know how everyone tells you that you have to be really careful with cakes so that things come out right and if you’re even slightly off then the sky will fall, its bollocks, anything that fails you can pass off as a mud cake. Just tell them it’s a dense chocolate gateau and they’ll never know the difference…………. </div>
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So I made a dense chocolate and chestnut gateau and iced it with a light chocolate whipped cream. The duck eggs seemed to make it just that touch richer and the Chestnut puree make for a nice slightly caramelized texture to the surface of the cake, kind of satisfyingly chewy. </div>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Chocolate Chestnut Gateau</span>. </div>
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Preheat your oven to 170 C. Melt 150 g of chocolate with 150 g of butter in a double boiler over a low heat. Beat two duck eggs with 1 cup of caster sugar til pale and fluffy then add I can roughly 425g of chestnut puree, get the pretty can you can use it for something later, I’m still trying to figure out what to do with mine, suggestions? (Behave)</div>
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Continue whisking eggs and sugar and Chestnuts for a minute or two before adding ¾ of a cup of good quality cocoa and 1 ¾ cups of plain flour. Add your melted chocolate and butter and pour into a 20cm greased and lined tin. Bake for approximately 1 hour until the surface is firm and the cake appears set; insert a skewer if you like to be sure about these things. Allow to cool before topping with whatever you like, whipped cream is what I used that I flavored with cocoa and icing sugar but you can try anything you like. </div>
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It’s lovely particularly on the first day and can be reheated subsequently if you haven’t iced it to make a nice little pudding.</div>Wanderin' Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05512852268796093458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34549947.post-5804006761396185452007-02-01T00:01:00.000+10:302012-04-04T18:43:43.561+09:30The joy of cooking<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhOacqeYP9ttB9Ccaq5t4uAzaozyO1SzKQuk0ercqecoJwGG-5P-CD3BhUSVGaIbNvpuU8GphLSoIZUATOWle071P5X_MucUFj9_GdGcqrfo43WrUK78FuuoZ59v7qJdVJW_Iz/s1600-h/2004_0121Chicken0004.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5026188810908677090" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhOacqeYP9ttB9Ccaq5t4uAzaozyO1SzKQuk0ercqecoJwGG-5P-CD3BhUSVGaIbNvpuU8GphLSoIZUATOWle071P5X_MucUFj9_GdGcqrfo43WrUK78FuuoZ59v7qJdVJW_Iz/s320/2004_0121Chicken0004.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br />
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It had been a rough week for the cook, fraught with emotional minefields, punctuated by giddy moments where I just didn’t give a fuck. Often at times like those I channel my energy into making something.<span class="fullpost"> Not unlike my fore mothers in the days before Oprah and Cerapax, I like to think. </span></div>
<a name='more'></a><span class="fullpost">When despair comes a knocking we cheerfully bake it a pie, ‘what’s that you say, my husband has a mistress? Delightful invite her in she can have hers a la mode’. ‘My teenage daughters gone and got herself pregnant, what joy, this calls for brownies’. But Ladies and Gentlemen, when the shit really hits the fan, a girls gotta roast herself a chicken.</span><br />
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<span class="fullpost"> I have elevated visions of roasted chickens, beautiful crispy salty skin and evenly textured tender flesh with the perfect roasted vegetables to go with it. The vegetables I could always do, I could live nine lives off what I can do with a potato if you’ll excuse the bragging but I could never get the chicken right. It was alright once you hacked into it and covered it in gravy but that was never enough for me. I have to have things perfect or at least they have to resemble my idea of perfect.<br />My Dad does a very nice roast chicken and though I’d never tell him this I always wondered how he did it, and a roast chicken somehow always seems so hospitable, I guess that’s because they aren’t often served as restaurant fare and seem perpetually relegated to the domestic kitchen. And so this week, when doom seemed to have me on speed dial, my thoughts would often turn to what I was going to cook for Australia day. This maybe the fault of an overly sentimental advertising campaign for red rooster, but when I think of Australian dinner I don’t think of bbq’s or prawns I think of a roast chicken, cooked on a Sunday while the kids are out in the back yard running under the sprinkler and dad has a beer and reads the racing pages.<br />The kind of chicken that is carved in slow motion so the slices fall effortlessly to the side ready to be served. The kind of chicken that some poor woman who has had the life sucked out of her by her self obsessed husband and kids, has slaved hours over only to have them devour it in seconds and then argue over whose going to help her do the dishes. But it doesn’t matter, no; none of it even raises a wrinkle on her brow because she made the chicken. Golden, roasted, succulent chicken, and one day if she’s very good and if her brood aren’t careful, one of them will choke on a bone.<br />No I jest, I’m sure the thoughts of the dedicated post war housewife never turned to homicide, instead she just went quietly mad. Probably made a cracking sponge though.</span></div>
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<span class="fullpost"> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Roast Chicken.</span></span></div>
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<span class="fullpost">The big thing for me in making this one was balancing the salty crispiness of the skin against the moistness of the chicken and as I’ve learned from trying to get anything crispy, water is the enemy of crispy things. So I got myself a nice chemical free chicken and I bathed him and then I patted him dry with kitchen towel and then I seasoned him outside and in and I chopped up some thyme and sliced up a lemon and stuffed him with them instead of breadcrumb stuffing because I find the breadcrumb stuffing a little stodgy and I would assume that my faithful companion rusty feels the same. I didn’t need to truss him as he was a modest chicken and dutifully kept his legs together, note that is the chicken I’m talking about and not the charming Rusty, though he too would never need to be trussed. But if you come across a slatternly chicken you may find the need of a little bit of unbleached cotton twine to restore some semblance of dignity. I got my oven on to about 190C and I peeled some onions and wrapped them in foil to roast with the chicken, a little olive oil and balsamic on the onions makes them roast nice too. Then I prepared some pumpkin for roasting, a lot of pumpkin or Rusty will make his you never make enough pumpkin face and then I roasted everything in the oven for about an hour and a half. The trick to checking if a chicken is cooked is whether or not the juices run clear so you can either stab it gracefully with something if you are so inclined or just check the little crook between the body of the chook and its leg, usually they collect there and if their clear then you’re usually safely out of salmonella country.<br />I’ve given you my recipe for roast potatoes before so you can follow that for this one as well there’s no need for me to repeat myself. Rest your chicken in a warm place for about 20 mins before serving, everything needs to rest when you roast it, let it relax, play it some music, light it an aromatic candle, whatever floats your boat just leave it alone. Serve with the vegis and a little light gravy you made from the pan juices and lets face it probably gravox. We’re emancipated people we shouldn’t be afraid to use powdered gravy, oft times it’s delicious. Don’t wait til tragedy strikes; roast yourself a chicken today, because at the end of the day misery only feeds you for so long.<br />P.S You might have noticed there’s no chicken in that photo…Sorry but we ate it. It was lovely I assure you.</span></div>Wanderin' Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05512852268796093458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34549947.post-57611036785960811212007-01-03T12:56:00.000+10:302012-04-04T18:44:03.474+09:30T'was the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stiring not even a mousse<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSfams_Eno2FIKQ_wUB-5YJ52Eomv1htIFy19jexutlUjlqD5-YCumnFv7hVa35YlZtevd_timMwLL4VtnNnd7ZPzzjLe8Ju0nmJ4gq0uWx5TqVkO0yGna6H3SLLSliVXy3BJE/s1600-h/2006_1226christmas0016.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5015627221374525570" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSfams_Eno2FIKQ_wUB-5YJ52Eomv1htIFy19jexutlUjlqD5-YCumnFv7hVa35YlZtevd_timMwLL4VtnNnd7ZPzzjLe8Ju0nmJ4gq0uWx5TqVkO0yGna6H3SLLSliVXy3BJE/s320/2006_1226christmas0016.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br />
Christmas dinner this year went pretty well I thought, as did my dining companion Rusty it would seem. <span class="fullpost">I called the nice butchers over at Belmore Biodynamic meats and ordered a roast shoulder of pork, deboned and with the rind still attached so we’d have lots of crackling. I was looking forward to it for weeks, tender pork, crunchy crackling, a nice Madeira sauce to go with it and plenty of roast vegi’s, we even had Yorkshire puddings it was a feast. Though after putting all this thought into what we were going to have for dinner I had no idea what to do for dessert.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span class="fullpost"><br />I didn’t want something to heavy because we were having a big dinner and I hate that Christmas tradition of eating rich and heavy food til you’re sick and I also didn’t want to have to put a heap of effort into cooking some kind of elaborate dessert either.<br />I’d done that last year making a double layer red velvet cake with Vanilla butter cream icing on Christmas day after returning from my Brother and Sister in laws in Gisbourne and then making a roast beef dinner with all the trimmings, which ended up leaving me exhausted and not really in the mood for Christmas.<br />As it was I came back from Gisbourne on Christmas Eve to give myself more time to prepare only to find out that the pilot light went out on my water heater while I was away, the water heater is about 20 feet off the ground on the outside of my building. I ended up calling the estate agent and my lovely Landlord came with a ladder and lit the pilot light on Christmas Morning, it was a Christmas Miracle, particularly considering that Christmas Day 2006 was one of the coldest in ages and I didn’t look forward to having a cold shower.<br />I got a lot of cooking related presents for Christmas this year and was able to use most of them with Christmas dinner, my brother got me a really schmick stainless steel copper based saucepan which I used to make the sauce and my sister got me a bottle of Cointreau which ended up giving me my idea for dessert. A few years back I found a recipe that the indefatigable Delia Smith had published for Chocolate Mousse, I have tried it a few times and it’s really really really easy and always turns out perfectly.<br />It basically tastes like airy chocolate without that fatty overly creamy thing that a lot of mousse recipes seem to have. Apart from being slightly allergic to the cream I find adding it diminishes the flavour of the chocolate.<br />To make it slightly more christmasy and grown up I decided to do a double layered mousse, one layer of dark chocolate one layer of white, both flavored with The Cointreau my sister got me, so you had a link between the flavours but two different characteristics. That and the fact that the recipe doesn’t need the oven at all, you just melt some chocolate beat some eggs with some sugar and that’s pretty much it.<br />Serve it in a nice glass or serving bowl and let it chill in the fridge for an hour or two.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Double Layer Cointreau Chocolate Mousse</span><br /><br />Melt 200g of dark chocolate in a double boiler or a metal bowl over a saucepan over just simmering water. Separate 3 eggs reserving both the yokes and whites and beat the whites til stiff peaks form with 40grams of caster sugar.<br />Once the chocolate has melted stir in the egg yokes and add a dash of Cointreau to taste. Slowly begin folding in the beaten egg whites, be gentle at this stage because otherwise you just lose the air. Pour the dark chocolate mousse into martini glasses or just one serving dish and let set for about 20 mins in the fridge. While it’s setting melt 200g of white chocolate and follow the same steps to make your white chocolate mousse.<br />A couple of tips with this one, I find the eggs are easier to beat if they are at room temperature and I always make sure I wipe out the bowl that I’m going to be beating egg whites in with a slice of lemon. Grease will stop you getting as much lift out of your egg whites and the lemon removes any residual grease that might have been left over from the last time you used the bowl or your beater, even though its been washed sometimes a little film of grease can linger so the lemon trick is kinda handy. You’ll get about 5 individual serves of this or one largish one. Because there are raw eggs in this recipe you should be careful about giving it to pregnant women or little kids, damn them they ruin everything.</span>Wanderin' Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05512852268796093458noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34549947.post-6853513719653315052007-01-02T13:41:00.000+10:302012-04-04T18:44:19.470+09:30They call me Limoncello<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUa7AG7D1GekrEcPUSvOKcdMvrFH06pgu6oLcN6MWR4ZVl8bGHWVrcQIviW2EBdRfezEc4cNNsMeNeikrrRIEJbkPpkaJoX2_NWYqUe28DS6N4OrSC0O2snN9YNq6R9GYwz7Rp/s1600-h/2006_1226christmas0007.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5015267630142610002" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUa7AG7D1GekrEcPUSvOKcdMvrFH06pgu6oLcN6MWR4ZVl8bGHWVrcQIviW2EBdRfezEc4cNNsMeNeikrrRIEJbkPpkaJoX2_NWYqUe28DS6N4OrSC0O2snN9YNq6R9GYwz7Rp/s320/2006_1226christmas0007.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br />
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So I haven’t posted for a while huh, I’m sure nobody was left, rocking backwards and forwards while sucking their thumbs waiting for me but the absence should at least be acknowledged. So fear not gentle readers I’ve returned, it was Christmas that stole me from you, Christmas and all the million other things that suddenly needed my attention, rumors of my death were greatly exaggerated.</div>
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I thought I’d show you a little bit of what I’ve been doing during the lull in posts. Christmas kinda snuck up on me this year a little, suddenly I had a bunch of stuff to get and very little time to get it in. I really like getting people presents though and sometimes I find making things when you just cant think of what to buy someone can turn around a gift that might otherwise have been just another DVD.</div>
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One of my friends and I decided that we would try and make each other things so that we didn’t go nuts with the getting expensive presents and I spent ages thinking of what I could make.</div>
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The last few years I’ve started turning to cooking more to make people presents because I figure if its something I like doing that people like me doing for them then why not and cooking as a gift lets you be a little more extravagant and do things you might not ordinarily do if you were just making someone dinner. </div>
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This particular friend is a bit of a booze queen, I’m not casting aspersions or inferring that she should join any anonymous organizations, it’s not a problem she just likes her drink, so naturally when I’m thinking of cooking for her I’m thinking of how we can involve booze somewhere in the mix. </div>
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There are a couple of homemade booze experiences in my life the first of which was a brief encounter with a friend of mines beer making operation when I was about 16.</div>
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I’m not a fan of beer but that stuff was bloody good it was made from rainwater from the <st1:place><st1:placename>Glass</st1:placename> <st1:placename>House</st1:placename> <st1:placetype>Mountains</st1:placetype></st1:place> in <st1:state><st1:place>Queensland</st1:place></st1:state>, it’s not like they trucked it in that’s where they were living at the time. </div>
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The second was at uni when we were all so broke that we couldn’t afford decent booze and so were forced to make our own from the range of essences they used to sell at liquor land outlets before they banned them. I think someone died from drinking the essence straight or something. They weren’t too bad considering, they had a bunch of different ones that you could make like cointreau, vodka, gin, brandy, midori, things like that and they were cheap you could buy one for like 6 bucks and make litres of whatever the essence was for. Basically they came in these 300 or 400ml bottles and you had to make up a sugar syrup and then add the essence to the syrup to dilute it and add enough sugar to make it palatable and then wait for it all to cool down and bam you got booze.</div>
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We would take them to parties in recycled bottles and make cocktails that made you feel like you were drinking cleaning fluid.</div>
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Neither of those things seemed like they were exactly right for a Christmas gift though, I didn’t have time to brew my own beer and there’s something decidedly cheap about making your own booze from an essence so I was at a loss until I saw something on cable about people making their own Limoncello. Limoncello in case you hadn’t come across it is an Italian Lemon Liqueur that you can usually find now in most bottle shops but can be easily made at home. It’s basically a concoction of lemon rinds sugar and alcohol. </div>
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You can use any alcohol, I used vodka in mine, and apparently the higher the proof the more lemony the flavour because the oils in the lemon rinds become soluble in the purer alcohol. I haven’t tested that theory yet but I’ll let you know when I do. </div>
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Realistically you could probably use this method to infuse any flavour into your chosen alcohol, the lemon though is really nice in summer particularly if you store the bottle in the freezer so its icy icy cold. I think she liked the present anyway. She ended up piking on the making me something idea and got me some cute little flan tins and a couple of little heart shaped ones and a little ladle that will come in very handy for skimming sauces and stocks so I was happy too. </div>
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Limoncello</div>
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If you want to make this for a gift for someone make it about a month or two before you want to give it to them then you can strain out the lemon rind and make it all pretty. Myself I like the lemon rind being in there so I made it about 2 weeks before to let the flavours develop a bit before I gave it to my friend for Christmas.</div>
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6 lemons ( I prefer to use organic ones if I can get them but that’s up to you)</div>
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1 bottle of vodka (700-750mls or 3 cups of your chosen booze)</div>
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1 cup of caster sugar</div>
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I ¾ cups of water</div>
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Put your lemons in a bowl and cover with boiling water, let them stand for about an hour then drain them and dry them and make your zest. You can either grate the zest or use a zester to get long strips like I did. In the time that you’ve been soaking your lemons make up a sugar syrup with the water and the sugar by putting them in a saucepan and bringing it to the boil, let it boil for a few minutes and you’ll see it starts to thicken. Take it off the heat and let it cool. </div>
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Make sure you’ve thoroughly cleaned and sterilized what ever bottle you’ve chosen to keep your Limoncello in and then pour in the alcohol and lemon zest before topping up with the sugar syrup. Store it in a cool dark place and give it a bit of a shake every so often and you’ve got yourself some Limoncello. </div>Wanderin' Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05512852268796093458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34549947.post-1163409119122493672006-11-13T19:28:00.000+10:302012-04-04T18:44:54.446+09:30The importance of turning up late<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5273/3808/1600/2004_0101Noodles0002.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5273/3808/320/2004_0101Noodles0002.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br />
You can never rely on people, particularly when you’re cooking.<span class="fullpost"><br />I have a mate of mine that I cook for all the time, I call him Rusty.<br />Every weekend barring death or dismemberment he dutifully comes over and I cook him something.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span class="fullpost"><br />He’s the willing recipient of nearly all my food experiments and often goads me into creating things for him by telling about things he’s tried somewhere else.I know he’s goading me because he gives me this look, this slightly head cocked, slanted smiling mouth and squinting eyes, that’s meant to trigger my ridiculously competitive streak into finding out how whatever he’s tried is made and then finding a way to better it.<br />I can read him like a book but secretly I enjoy the challenge, I’ve learnt a lot of things that way including this recipe. A few years back when I had first moved into a place on my own I found I got into my little cooking experiments much more, I think because I could devote entire days to them without being disturbed, there was no one else to negotiate the space with and I could cook and potter to my hearts content. I would head down to the market and by something I couldn’t identify from the Asian grocers and then come back and try and work it into a recipe. I went through a phase of making lots of Asian inspired things as a result and Rusty and I would have many coursed meals of rice paper rolls with three different kinds of dipping sauces and various steamed veggies with rice and different dressings. It was after one of these feasts that he turned to me ever so innocently and said “You know, I really like satay sauce but I just haven’t found a really good one” and then he gave me the look.<br />I silently cursed myself for being so easily manipulated but couldn’t help but set my mind to coming up with the perfect satay sauce.<br />I had been thinking about it for a few days while I headed up to Bendigo to visit dad and by the time I came back the recipe was set in my head. I called Rusty and summoned him to dinner on my return.<br />I always ask him what time he’s going to arrive and then add an hour, he’s a busy boy and occasionally time to him is a relative concept. He said he was turning up at 7, a magical time he refers to as about 7 but which translates to somewhere between 8 and 8:30. I was born on the day I was due, that seems to have set a precedent for me in terms of how punctual I am and I’ve had to learn particularly when cooking for people that not everyone is as crazy about turning up to places on time. I have this dish planned of the special satay sauce and noodles with various steamed vegetables and grilled chicken breast; I’ve gotten most of it ready but was waiting til my errant Diner arrived before finally putting everything together. 8 o’ clock rolled around but I had built that into my buffer so I didn’t mind. 9 o’ clock rolled around and I started to get annoyed but tried to be Zen about things. 10 o’clock rolled around and I was starting to think of ways to dispose of his body, calling him and saying “hey man where are you” would have seemed the logical option but I was rather stubborn in those days and refused to call on principal, kind of a ‘you reckon you can be cavalier about time, I’ll show you cavalier about time young man’ situation, calling to ask where he was would have been admitting defeat dagnabit.<br /><br />Finally just before 11 o’clock Rusty bounced through the door with a cheery “hey man sorry I’m late I had to make a prop for a show”. Bastard. Lucky for him I was too faint from hunger to kill him and I was able to get dinner together in about 15 mins. To commemorate his lateness I called the recipe “11 o’ clock noodles” they’re quick to make particularly late at night and most of the ingredients you’ll already have in the cupboard. You can serve it with noodles or rice and any kind of vegetables that you like, I’ve only tried it with chicken so far but I’m sure it would be great with pork or beef as well.<br />And in Rusty’s defense he is much better about arriving on time now, as a consequence though we don’t have 11 ‘o’clock noodles nearly enough.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">11 ‘o’ Clock noodles</span><br /><br />The kind of vegetables you want for this one and whether you want to steam them or stir fry them or even roast them will depend on what you do first with this dish, the chicken takes about 10 15 mins to cook and the sauce about the same so the vegetables will dictate the rest.<br />With the chicken I like to cook the breasts whole but butterfly them slightly so that they have an even thickness, I end up slicing them anyway but I like to cook them whole because I find they are more tender and have a nicer texture under the sauce, when you cut them into little pieces before hand they always seem to end up being slightly rubbery in texture I find, its all down to preference though so you do what you like, I put a little lemon juice on them while grilling for seasoning as well instead of salt.<br />For the sauce take a couple of shallots or half a red onion and dice, I don’t strain this sauce so I like to try and dice things as finely as I can, sweat the shallot or onion off in a little peanut oil with some diced lemongrass and garlic and a deseeded diced chilli, if you like things with some spice keep the seeds in this sauce goes well with a little chilli heat you don’t want them to colour too much you just want them to soften, if you don’t have a chilli then a dash of chilli sauce will do but it needs that heat if you end up using the sauce add it once the coconut milk is in or it will make things burn.<br />The smell tends to dictate when I add the next ingredient, when you can smell the perfect balance of lemongrass, shallot, chili and garlic add about 300mls of coconut milk.<br />I like the light coconut milks because they have less fat and leave the sauce tasting a little cleaner given that you add peanut butter to this sauce as well the whole coconut milks can be a little too rich.<br />Turn down your heat a little and let the coconut milk come to a simmer before you add a tablespoon of peanut butter. You could go all out and roast your own peanuts and grind them into a paste and add them, that would be nice but realistically the reason I keep making this dish is because it’s easy and quick and most people love it so I don’t mind the peanut butter.<br />Stir til the peanut butter melts into the rest of the sauce and then add a dash of Ketjap Manis and the juice of a lemon to taste. Stir that through and let simmer for another minute or two then assemble your noodles, vegetables and chicken and spoon on the sauce. Garnish with bean shoots, fried shallots or coriander or all three if you like garnish, it’s a good basic sauce that you can tinker with on your own </span>Wanderin' Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05512852268796093458noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34549947.post-1161407998537213762006-10-21T14:47:00.000+09:302012-04-04T18:45:17.029+09:30The Tale of the Mystery Sausage.I’ve had a liking for a number of years for Chinese Plum Sausages. I don’t know why but mercifully for some reason I’ve always been able to stumble across at least one butcher that’s easily gotten to that will make Chinese Plum Sausages.<br />
<a name='more'></a> <span class="fullpost">I’ve only really found them here in Australia, I think maybe it might in part relate to the same kind of reasoning used to explain the presence of things like pineapple and beetroot in hamburgers here, we like a little sweet with our meat. Actually in reading over that I realize that me talking about butchers who are easily gotten to makes me sound like I’m a member of some heavy handed sausage mafia. Fear not dear readers, I’m no thug, I was talking about physically getting to them by either walking or catching public transport. No butchers were harmed in the making of this dish. Though some might deserve it.<br />My latest source of Plum Sausage is again the Preston Market. There in the meat section there is a butcher that I go to regularly to get my meat on weeks where I’m feeling too poor to splurge on the absolutely impeccable meat that they sell at Belmore Biodynamic Meats on Miller st in Preston. The name of my Preston Market butcher escapes me but I think it might be something like Joe’s Gourmet Meats or something we’ll call them that anyway. I tend not to look at the signs I just look at the trays and if nothing catches my eye I move on.<br />I had started going to Joe’s after a couple of years of going to the markets and trying nearly all the butchers. When I try out a butcher I want the quality of the meat to be good as well as the people behind the counter being nice, they don’t have to go overboard or anything but I want to be able to know that if I ever need something cut a certain way I can ask. Joe’s are the best on balance for everything I found, they have pretty good quality meat, the people behind the counter are always friendly and quick to serve you when you get to the counter and they have two counters side by side, one that does you’re straight forward unadorned cuts of meat like steaks and chops and roasts and the other that does all the convenience stuff like pre crumbed schnitzels, marinated kebabs, lamb back straps and ribs and also the gourmet sausages under which my Chinese Plum ones apparently fall. That’s where the gourmet comes into the name it would seem. The lamb back straps too are particularly good they come in this tangy barbeque/tomato marinade thing and are always really tender. They go really well with some salad greens, little pan fried new potatoes and a little balsamic reduced to a syrup.<br />In the last month or so I think they’ve gotten a new sales girl at the counter because I don’t recall seeing her before and she has that air of confusion that can usually be explained by inexperience. I went there for my usual staples including the Chinese Plum Sausages, as I always do, about a month and a half ago, when she served me at the counter for the first time.<br />It was a busyish Friday night and I had to wait a while before she got around to me but that was ok, like I say they’re always normally pretty good. She got me the other stuff I asked for and then at the end I asked for a couple of the Plum sausages because I felt like a little treat and they were right over in the very corner of the display counters furthest away from the counter staff as they usually are, I don’t know why they’re there, maybe I’m the only one that likes them. Usually they get out this log rod thing to pull them in closer but she looked around confused for a bit and couldn’t find it so she went to the cool room to get some more presumably and then came back with a couple of sausages and started to wrap them up.<br />They didn’t look like my sausages normally do but it was busy and she was new and I didn’t want to be all whiney about it so I took my sausages and went on with my life.<br /><br />I got them home and a day or so later when I decided to cook them I got them out of the freezer and I’m looking at them thinking these are so not my sausages; there is basil in them for a start. Nothing that could even be vaguely referred to as Chinese (and in Australia that’s a pretty broad umbrella) has basil in it. They looked different, they smelled different, they were mystery sausages.<br /><br />I decided to cook them anyway, why not. They were fantastic, not Chinese plum but bloody good, some kind of sun dried tomato and basil thing I’m guessing.<br />It was a shaky moment there for my relationship with my Preston Market Meat butcher but the mystery sausages were still great so I was prepared to forgive them.<br />I went back last night for the first time since then and she was there to serve me again. She seemed a little more world weary on this visit, I think she’s getting over the job, either that or they are getting over her coz there was a sign on the wall behind her advertising for a new counter person. I asked for my sausages and she went to the fridge again, I kinda like this game you never know what you’re going to get, she comes out with the sausages, they aren’t the ones like last time but they aren’t the Chinese plum ones either. I take them home unpack all my stuff and start studying for a test I have to take in the next couple of weeks –its math, I’m terrible at math. I decide to knock up some of the sausages for a lateish dinner with some beans because I couldn’t really be bothered doing a hell of a lot of cooking and it inspired me to put the recipe up here.<br />It might not be pretty but there’s a lot to be said for a little bit of comforting late night sausage and beans, my naturopath told me to “eat like a pauper” in the evenings “like a king” in the mornings and “like a prince” at lunch, I know sausage and beans isn’t what she’s talking about but I like to pretend that she does so if she asks I can say “what, that’s peasant food”<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sausage and beans.</span><br /><br />Look you can dress this up or dress it down either way its going to be good and it’s a one pan dish. Get your sausages, if you find the sausages you’re getting are a little fatty boil them for a bit in unsalted water first, that will cook them most of the way and remove a lot of the fat and then you can just finish them off in the pan to give them colour. For the beans you can be as basic as just getting some baked beans from a tin and throwing them in to heat through or if you have a little time you can still use something like tinned canellini beans dice a little onion and sauté it, throw in the beans and then add some nice skinned chopped tomatoes a touch of brown sugar some balsamic vinegar, chopped oregano, a little crushed garlic and let everything reduce on a low heat for a bit.<br /><br />I’m not giving you a photo of this one either, where would the mystery be in that.</span>Wanderin' Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05512852268796093458noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34549947.post-1160901605145094392006-10-15T17:59:00.000+09:302012-04-04T18:45:32.027+09:30The art of the joy<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5273/3808/1600/2006_1015Cracklejoy0002.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5273/3808/320/2006_1015Cracklejoy0002.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br />
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I have this vague fascination with domestic cookery. Actually that’s a lie I have a near pathological obsession with domestic cookery.</div>
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<span class="fullpost">In my mind I have visions of struggling 50’s housewives trying to stave off madness with valium and the perfect cream filled sponge. There has been this transition for women until the sexual revolution of going from being someone’s daughter to being someone’s wife and there are thousands of books that were written in order to assist women through this ‘delicate phase’.Margaret Fulton made a mint out of it; Mrs. Beeton had been dead for years though not to the knowledge of her readership who devoured titles like Mrs. Beeton’s Everyday cookery and Mrs. Beeton’s hints to housewives.<br />There is for me a kind of morbid fascination with this perception of generations of women sublimating the rage of their lost ambitions with perfectly arranged buffets and also I have to say a certain amount of admiration for women who can take something that they have to do day in day out and find a little art in it.<br />I’ve collected over the years a number of cook books and my favorite ones tend to be the older books, the Mrs. Beetons, the CWA books, the Good Housekeeping Cookery Books- Authored by the Good housekeeping institute don’t you know, there was an institute? Is that like the ponds institute? I can’t help but imagine stern women with tight perms in white coats berating women whose jelly wont gel-.</span></div>
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<span class="fullpost"> It seems to me in reading these commercial domestic cookbooks that there is a disconnection from the food, which kind of plays into that idea of everythings alright in the suburbs if you don’t look under the surface,it’s not so much about how something tastes but that something is prepared correctly and looks perfect.<br />Read Elizabeth David for instance and you can tell that she is someone who loves food and flavour and is deeply connected to both, her recipes read as though you were standing next to her and she was throwing things in a bowl which is very much the style of most of today’s cookbooks and why I think her writing endures.<br />For me the present trend toward cooking shows, books and the slow food movement does highlight this idea that in the past home cooking was the province of the housewife and that it was a duty separate from the kinds of cooking that was undertaken in restaurants run by mainly male chefs. Now there is a drive to replicate the kinds of dishes and techniques used in restaurants by cooks at home where as previously I would argue that in the past there has existed a clear delineation between ‘good housekeeping’ and gastronomy.</span></div>
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<span class="fullpost">In late 2004-2005 my friend Rob was starting work on a show that he was going to be directing as part of something called the Builders initiative which was a project to build bridges between young Australian theatre actors, writers and directors and their older counterparts, enabling new works by writers who had been around at the creation of La Mama and the pram factory to be performed and directed by younger actors and directors and vice versa.<br />The first and thus far only installment in the project was a play called Tyranny written by Barry Dickens and directed by Rob at La Mama in March of 2005. I cook for Rob pretty regularly, he’s kind of my food muse, and he had decided that he wanted to incorporate food into one of his shows and had talked about it a couple of times so when Barry came up with what essentially was a really surreal, experiential piece he through why not. Directors had often used smell in theatre to highlight elements within the script so why not taste.</span></div>
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<span class="fullpost">I had gone along to the first reading of the script as an observer as there was no actual role for me in it other than providing whatever food we decided was going to be part of the experience but one of the actors that had been cast wasn’t able to make it to the reading so I read in for him and Barry ended up liking how I read so he went away and wrote a character in for me. My character was referred to as the spinster though she was kind of an uber 50’s housewife, a representative of the whole idea of suburbia and the struggles of the suburban housewife. Through rehearsal and readings the point at which Rob wanted to introduce the food became apparent, there was a scene at the end of the show where an older female character was being attacked, raped to death, almost devoured by the young men that she had let into her house and into her life and while this was happening on stage Rob wanted the audience to be complicit in the act by having them also devour something. I wanted for the show to create something like highly constructed party food, to take this idea I had about the style of food produced for occasions by a harried 50’s housewife, being about design and novelty, and also take the idea of kids food and harking back to the kinds of things that we all would eat at parties as children, an ideal of innocence. I had to be aware that I had nowhere other than my own kitchen to prepare food and nowhere at the venue to heat or really store food so it had to be something that I would be able to readily produce, not have to heat up and wouldn’t perish easily and considering we were doing 5 shows a week, I work full time and I had to be able to produce at least 40 pieces of whatever we decided on. I went back and forth with things in my mind a heap of times and would ask the cast what they thought of when they thought of party food and the two things that kept coming up were honey joys and chocolate crackles and then in the heat of sugar fuelled madness someone suggested combining the two. It sounds horrible I know but eventually we came to the Crackle joy, a kind of honey joy chocolate crackle hybrid that is constructed to look like a sunflower. At the end of the show I would go out on stage to do my final monologue while handing out the crackle joys and during the final scene while this poor woman was being attacked the sounds of her struggling were punctuated by the rustling and crunching of the audience as they devoured their crackle joys.<br />You’d be surprised how good they taste actually, I often had to stand guard over the crackle joys at the end of the night as remaining audience members tried to weasel them out of me, anyone who sat in the back row and missed out would always complain. So here’s the crackle joy, lesser known honey joy chocolate crackle hybrid, hitherto only experienced by those who work at my work and have gone to see the show at La Mama though they were recently revived for Rob’s surprise party.</span></div>
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<span class="fullpost">Crackle joys.</span></div>
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<span class="fullpost"> (makes about 20)</span></div>
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<span class="fullpost">Preheat your oven to 150c. Melt 1/3 of a cup of sugar 1 ½ tablespoons of manuka honey and 90g of butter in a saucepan. Measure out 4 cups of cornflakes and pour the melted honey butter sugar mix over. Stir to ensure that the mix covers all the cornflakes and then sit yourself down in front of the tv coz this next bit is gonna take a while. Spoon out the honey joy mix into patty pans and arrange the flakes into a cup shape, for the show I tried to do this as painstakingly as possible with the larger flakes forming petals but I did a dry run of them last night so I could take a photo for you to see what they looked like and you can be a little slap dash to a certain extent. As long as they are roughly in the shape of a cup then you are still within the normal bounds of crackle joy accuracy. Bake in the oven for about 10 mins and then let cool briefly while you prepare the chocolate crackle part. Take 1/3 of a 250g block of copha and melt. Measure out 2 cups of coco pops 2 dessert spoons of icing sugar and an equal amount of a nice bitter cocoa powder. Combine the copha and the coco pops and with a teaspoon place a little mound of chocolate crackle in the center of each honey joy flower. Chill in the fridge for a few minute and they are ready to go. I used manuka honey in this recipe coz it has a slightly bitter after taste I find and I wanted to pare back from the sickly sweetness of the honey joy.</span></div>Wanderin' Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05512852268796093458noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34549947.post-1159926534232783302006-10-04T11:10:00.000+09:302012-04-04T18:45:54.429+09:30My Daddy grows the Limes<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5273/3808/1600/2006_1003Lime20001.2.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5273/3808/320/2006_1003Lime20001.2.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br />
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There are certain things I come across food wise that I tend to get some might say irrationally excited about. The bacon for one, though I do guarantee it is good bacon, another is the limes that my Dad grows in his backyard in Bendigo.<br />
<a name='more'></a><span class="fullpost">They are Tahitian Limes and they grow on a smallish tree he has by the steps to the back veranda. I should really stop tormenting you with ingredients and then not give you the means to go get them yourselves so I will tell you that you can buy Tahitian limes at various markets in Melbourne, they are grown up in Queensland and shipped down at various times through out the year. I still won’t tell you where the Bacon deli is though, I’ve given you enough clues to its location and I don’t really feel like giving those people more business than they already have.<br />Enough of the character assassination, back to the limes.<br />The limes from Dad’s tree I usually pick when they are green but you can leave them to go yellow on the tree and they are still fantastically tasty. They have this kind of lemony, limey, lemonade flavour to them, if you can remember the taste of green icy poles from when you were a kid, that flavour they had that could only really be described as green, well that’s what these limes taste like and every part of them has variations on the intensity of that one flavour. When you pick them you can smell it on the surface of the skin and taste it in the zest as well. I use them in a heap of things, on chicken or fish, in dressings and cakes. I made a lime and coconut cake with them once which was quite nice. But my favorite way of using them is in this Lime and Green Apple Sorbet.<br />When thinking of a recipe I tend to not just stop at thinking about how something will go together and different flavors that might compliment each other, I tend to think about how it will be tasted by whoever I’m serving it to. In what order different flavors will hit their palate and with what strength, and also the texture in the mouth and what the person might be reminded of when tasting whatever the dish might be.<br />I also like little tricks, like magic tricks, ingredients that might be a huge part of the dish but are totally unrecognizable in the flavour or a way of preparing something that makes the final result a little unexpected. I’ve been playing a little with the whole idea of molecular gastronomy but really just don’t have all the wiz bang equipment that a girl really needs to do it justice. I wanted with my Lime and Green Apple sorbet to keep everything as smooth and fine as possible so that when it hits your mouth it just dissolves and all you are left with is the flavour, like the sorbet did some kind of disappearing act.<br />I took a rough photo of the sorbet so you could see how it was presented but when serving this for a dessert I would take the sorbet right from the freezer without letting it soften and use a hot metal spoon to scrape it into clouds so that it just needed the smallest amount of heat to dissolve in the mouth. I serve it with a touch of blackcurrant syrup at the bottom of the glass as a kind of reminiscence I suppose. When I was a kid we would always be sent to school with apple and blackcurrant Breaka box drinks, if you’re in your late 20’s now you might remember them as well. You used to get them from the supermarket in packs of 6 and they had stickers on them that everyone would collect like teenage mutant ninja turtles or he-man and the masters of the universe or some generic break dancing thing. So the blackcurrant is just a little hark back to the playground at lunchtime when I drink my box drink and pretend it was fine wine. I got a shock when I finally tasted what wine was like I can tell you.<br /><br /><br /><b>Lime and Green Apple Sorbet</b><br />I have two pieces of equipment that make this recipe really quite easy but with persistence they could be made without them. One is my ice cream maker which I bought for roughly $50 at Myers and the other is the food processor which my brother got me for Christmas (Thanks John). I do think you need the food processor to get the sorbet to a really fine texture but you don’t have to have the ice cream maker if you don’t already have one just put the mix into a shallow metal or plastic container and got the fridge every 45 mins to whisk it and make sure that ice crystals aren’t forming. You wont get as smooth a texture but it will still be tasty.<br />Make yourself a sugar syrup of one part sugar one part water and let this cool. Basically to make a sugar syrup you just combine your portions of sugar and water and bring it to the boil in a sauce pan making sure that all the sugar has dissolved. Core 4 or 5 green apples, leave the skin on coz it adds to colour and squeeze over the juice of at least 4 limes. Blend in the food processor and add about 800mls of sugar syrup, keep blending until there are no huge lumps, its still going to be lumpy but you want to try and get as much flavour out of it as you can taste the mix at this point and see if you need to add anything to balance the flavour correctly you want to make sure its pleasantly acid but you can still taste that fresh green that you want. Strain through a fine sieve using a spoon to push as much pulp through as you can. Strain a second time. Let the mix chill in the fridge before putting into your ice cream maker, with mine I have to make sure the mix is cold but if you have a fantastic ice cream maker that can chill sorbet just by looking at it then omit this step its not for taste its for machinery. Because this is a sorbet and it contains no fat it doesn’t matter how long you churn it for because you don’t have to worry about it splitting like ice cream, I tend to churn it till its smooth and silky and then let it get a little firmer in the freezer. To serve get a mug of boiling hot water to heat your spoon and scrape the surface of the sorbet to get clouds rather than anything that resembles quenelles or something like that. You want this sorbet to be soft and fluffy. A touch of blackcurrant syrup in the bottom if you care for it but the other thing that goes really nicely at the bottom of the glass is rose cordial which you can get from any Arabic grocer the perfume of the rose cordial goes really well with the lime</span>Wanderin' Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05512852268796093458noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34549947.post-1159769335904324142006-10-02T15:18:00.000+09:302012-04-04T18:46:11.062+09:30The things a girl will do for bacon<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5273/3808/1600/2006_0924food0002.4.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5273/3808/320/2006_0924food0002.3.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a> <br />
Some girls search for that perfect man, some the perfect shoes. Me I searched long and hard for the perfect bacon. This maybe why I’m single and incidentally why I also have very few pairs of shoes.<span class="fullpost"></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span class="fullpost"><br />The perfect bacon in my eyes had to be flavorful but not to salty, preferably smoked and had to be able to be cooked almost to the point of incineration without tasting like salty carbon wafers. My Dad often talked about the bacon of his youth, just the right flavour, cured exactly how bacon should be, but he grew up in the north of England during the depression and into World War 2 so some how I think he does that just to torment me.<br />The Irish rave about their bacon, they don’t tell you why its supposed to be worth raving about of course just that its grand “oh tis grand to be sure” they say. I used to live there once; I didn’t think it was so great, maybe they gave me the crap tourist bacon “Paddy, the Australian want some bacon” “Ah give her the other stuff Michael to be sure” Nothing like bad bacon to fuel racial stereotypes now is there.<br />After I came back to Australia I moved out to Preston, bit of a let down you might assume but it has a fantastic market and the shopping strip on high street has these little Asian bazaars full of ingredients I’d never seen before but would take home each week to try to use in something, you should try it I found a lot of really cool stuff that way.<br />When next you go shopping take home one ingredient you’ve never used before, taste it raw (unless that might kill you) then cook it in a couple of different ways and you might surprise yourself. Also those little shops are great places to pick up cheap utensils.<br />What I loved most about the market itself though was the Deli’s, this collection of Italian, greek and polish places. Shops that sold pasta, olives, verjuice, all kinds of dips and tapenades, coffee, wine and spirits, nuts in every size and description and holy of all holies a polish deli that sells the grail of all bacons. It’s double smoked its moist and sticky but never wet or slimy; it’s the perfect ratio of fat to meat so as not to remind you that too much might give you a heart attack.<br /><br />Fantastic you think, mission accomplished, wrong. The people who work there are horrible to me. You know I’ve kinda struggled knowing that I’m going to be writing this post about bacon, I didn’t want to mean or unfair but sod that these people are horrible. I’m there nearly every week for the bacon fine I might only be bringing them in $10 bucks or so but they work in a deli its not like at the casino, there’s no high rollers counter for the people who spend $100, the deli counter should be a place of egalitarianism in an otherwise harsh and cruel world.<br />When I first started going there I took their surly grunts and lack of service with poise and good humor, they had my bacon after all, but it all came to a head one day when I had gone to the market on a Friday night to get groceries in preparation for a weekend of cooking for friends. It was late and admittedly I was tired but I had already been to see my lovely chicken butcher and as it has done for the last 8 years my exchanges with them were nothing short of a pleasure. I get up to the counter and I wait, clearly in view of every counter lady there but no one comes. They chat to the couple next to me in Polish, all three of them, maybe there is a high rollers counter and I just never get to use it, I mean it would seem to be the only logical conclusion for there to have to be three people making what I can only assume to be small talk leaving me standing there. After what seemed like an age a man comes back from behind a curtain at the back of the shop and gestures to me “Vhat you vant” I gallantly ignore his tone and move on “ Could I please have half a kilo of the double smoked bacon sliced thickly please?” Note the use of manners and specific instructions. “Vhat?” He says, calmly I repeat myself a little louder but not so as to seem annoyed “ Could I please have half a kilo of the double smoked bacon sliced thickly please?”. Just then one of the three Deli Ladies from Macbeth breaks away from their coven and looks over to me. The man grunts something at her and walks away. “Vhat you vant?” I detected a sneer, I’m not being paranoid it was definitely a sneer now I’m pissed off no one sneers at me not when I’m giving them money, not in front of the bacon. I cut out the please “Half a kilo of double smoked bacon sliced thickly”. She walks off and comes back with an unsliced hunk of bacon and starts to wrap it up. “No, sliced thickly” I interrupt. She sighs as if slicing the friggin bacon is the greatest inconvenience in her life thus far and from the look of her she lived through a war.<br />She takes her sweet time slicing the bacon, nearly throws it at me and demands the money. That’s it I think bacon or no I am so never going back there again. I go home angry and rant to the eater of the bacon about how I hate the Deli women and I’m never going back there. And then I cook with the bacon and I think damnit they have me over a barrel. So now every week just so I can get the perfect bacon I have to run the gauntlet of the polish deli women like a cave dwelling hunter gatherer fleeing a hungry saber toothed tiger or three. I’ve considered learning polish but I fear mispronunciation would only make them angrier. It’s bloody harsh bringing home the bacon.<br /><br /><b>Farfalle with Bacon, Green peas and pecorino.</b><br /><br />Get a nice big pot to boil your water in, make sure its salted but don’t bother putting any olive oil in it does absolutely nothing. Once the water has come to the boil and you’ve put your pasta in, get your frying pan on high with some olive oil and peel and chop up an onion roughly red, white or brown it makes no difference, into the pan with it, then if you managed to get your bacon sliced chop it into batons again it doesn’t matter what size they are just do it to your taste. Let the onions and bacon cook through and get all nice and golden and peel a clove of garlic or if you hate peeling garlic minced garlic from the jar will do, its not great but no ones looking, The reason you don’t put the garlic in til the end is because if you had put it in at the start it would be burnt and horrible and bitter by this point garlic doesn’t need a hell of a lot of cooking add a little of the pasta water and a touch of balsamic to the pan and deglaze anything that has caramelized on the bottom then season to taste. Throw your peas in with the pasta when the pasta is about a minute away from done, if you can get your hands on fresh peas can you also get me some, I only ever seem to be able to find the frozen ones which is not a tragedy really because the fresh ones take longer to cook. Drain your pasta and peas and then throw them into the pan with the bacon and onion and toss everything through evenly grate through some pecorino and your done.</span>Wanderin' Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05512852268796093458noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34549947.post-1159084792090707362006-09-24T17:29:00.000+09:302012-04-04T18:46:35.079+09:30The Prodigal Roast<div style="text-align: center;">
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I don’t think there was ever went a weekend without a roast being cooked at home. Whenever you go to my Dad’s house if you haven’t visited in a while he’ll make you a roast beef. Its like the prodigal roast, home is the hunter, home for a roast.<span class="fullpost"></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span class="fullpost"> Cooking the roast was for some unknown reason the one thing I did not pay attention to during my childhood. I can tell you how much my grandmother paid for her house in Geelong sometime in the 1930’s. I can recount my first memory which was incidentally when my mother discovered I cut my first tooth, but I cannot recall how either of my parents cooked the family roast.<br />I just knew that it meant that I had to peel the vegi’s and it seemed to take all day, and also that they never made enough roast potatoes.<br />For years I winged my way through cooking roasts, I’d start with a vague game plan like cook meat at this temperature for this long and then turn the heat down to cook the vegi’s for another hour or more and then things pretty much fell apart from there.<br />Things would end up over cooked or undercooked and I would never have any idea as to why. So here you go this is pretty much what I’ve figured out about roasting so far, I’ll even give you my recipe of really crispy roast potatoes. Let’s go with Roast beef, just coz, roast anything you want as long as it’s legal.<br /><br />I started reading Harold McGee’s book about a year back, it was kinda like reading biographies of old Hollywood, you know the ones where you find out everyone was gay and you think “But how come? they seemed so butch”, in it he breaks down a few long held ideas about the chemical process of cooking like the long held belief that adding olive oil to butter will stop it burning, it wont, and that searing meat in a pan before roasting seals in the juices, it doesn’t, the only way to seal meat would be in polyurethane, if you sear it in a hot pan it wont seal in the juices but it will create a crust on the meat and that adds to the flavour.<br />I like the idea of looking at cooking from a scientific perspective, I do think of it somewhat as a pseudo science its part creativity and part scientific principal and because of that part fact part fiction combination often times people end up doing things that they might believe make the difference to how a dish turns out but in actual fact does absolutely nothing.<br />Make cooking an experiment, everything I write about here is stuff I’ve observed during experiments.<br />For years I had been cooking roast beef on the highest heat in the oven for an hour before turning down the heat and slowly roasting, the result was all the juice evaporated from the meat and it ended up tough.<br />To try and alleviate that I started resting the meat which made a bit of difference until a saw something with Heston Blumenthal who is an English chef who runs a restaurant in the UK which was named best restaurant in the world in 2005. Obviously a guy worth taking cooking tips from.<br />He was saying that he’s been experimenting with the whole roasting process and had found that the slower you roast something the more tender it turns out which would seem logical considering dishes like osso bucco where you take a really tough cheap cut of meat and you cook it really slowly to break down the fibres.<br />He cooked this piece of beef at about 90c for 24 hours and it was beautifully rare when he carved it and everyone was suitably reverent when trying it so I thought I should give it a try, now my oven wont even go that low but I thought fair enough lets see if I can get something along those lines.<br />So I’ve started roasting red meats at about 160c for at least 2 hours usually more depending on how big the cut is and it’s something that seems to work whether I’m using an expensive cut from an organic butcher or something I bought from Safeway at the last minute.<br />This means that the moisture from the meat itself evaporates relatively slowly, gives the meat a uniform texture as opposed to the outside being really well done and the inside being rather rare which happens at higher temperatures and in your tougher cuts of meat the long cooking dissolves collagen in the meat into gelatin which makes it more tender.<br />So I flavour my beef with whatever I have around at the time, maybe some mustard maybe some garlic maybe a little red wine, whatever you think.<br />I add pepper but I tend not to salt the meat at this point more out of habit and a desire to monitor my salt intake than anything else and also because I do find that creating a crust on the meat before roasting it adds quite a bit of flavour without the extra salt.<br />I sear the meat on all sides in a really really hot pan with a little olive oil for a minute or so then place it in a roasting dish with some carrots, onions or whatever vegetables you happen to have with a little oil.( I don’t put the potatoes in the roasting dish though I have a whole other thing going there).<br />I let my meat roast with its vegi’s at 160c for at least an hour and a half for about a 1kg portion if you like it rare to medium, if you like it more well done then aim for about 2 and a half hours it’s at a low temperature so you wont dry it out. Check on it every so often just to make sure everything is cooking evenly and to turn the vegi’s and after about 45 minutes before the meat is done to your liking start your roast spuds.<br /><br /><b>Crispy Roast Spuds.</b><br /><br />I use Sebago potatoes for my roast spuds they usually come unwashed from the supermarket and are pretty big they have a nice fluffy texture when cooked and also work really well when making mash potatoes. If I was making a potato salad I’d use something like Desiree spuds but I think you can’t beat a Sebago for roasting.<br />Peel and cut in half, the bigger the spud the less water it seems to absorb when you boil them.<br />Boil or steam your spuds until they are tender, no par boiling, no blanching, boil those spuds then drain them and let them sit freely draining in the colander until as much moisture as possible has evaporated away.<br />Then get a large roasting tray and coat with a little canola oil or sunflower oil, any oil that you can get a high heat from, I used to do this with butter and olive oil but it made the potatoes taste too fatty and masked their natural flavour so using the canola oil as well as being a little kinder to your heart is a little cleaner in the cooking.<br />Space your potatoes out on the tray they won’t get crispy if you crowd them.<br />When the potatoes are ready to go into the oven take the meat out and let it rest.<br />Turn your oven up to about 260c and roast the spuds on the highest shelf in the oven until they start to colour on the bottom then turn them and put them back into the oven after about 20 mins go back and check them and they will be pretty close to done, turn them again and start getting ready to carve the nicely rested roast. If you were brave and decided to try making that most fickle of dishes the Yorkshire pudding then you would have put it in at a high temp with the spuds but we’ll talk more about that another time. If you salted the water when boiling the spuds you will probably find that at this point you don’t need to add extra salt when you are ready to serve them. I’ve tried this recipe in both gas and electric ovens and its worked in both so try it out and tell me what you think.<br /><br />A couple of flavour combinations I’ve tried for roasting.<br /><br />For lamb: Orange, Rosemary, Marsala and thyme<br />Oregano, garlic, lemon and olives<br /><br />For Beef: Red wine garlic and rosemary<br />Black pepper, whole grain mustard and port</span>Wanderin' Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05512852268796093458noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34549947.post-1158473103124665142006-09-17T15:21:00.000+09:302012-04-04T18:46:50.723+09:30<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5273/3808/1600/2006_0917benders0011.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5273/3808/320/2006_0917benders0011.jpg" style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px;" /></a><br />
<b>Everything tastes good when you’re a kid</b><br />
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Sometimes on Sundays when I was about 6 or 7, my mother would make scones. Not particularly memorable scones but I would look forward to her making them all the same. <span class="fullpost">She would roll the dough and push out the scone shapes with a drinking glass covered in flour and fingerprints. I’d watch her like a hawk silently willing her not to roll the dough too thick, not to make the scone shapes too close knowing that I got to use what ever was left over. What ever was left I would make into a strawberry Jam tart by rolling out the scone dough to fit a saucer slathering it in jam and then if I had enough scraps I’d make them into strips and have a lattice on the top, I was all proud coz it looked pretty.<br />I loved the idea of putting something in an oven and having it come out totally different, of the way things magically thickened in the saucepan and of knowing how to fix things if they went wrong like how to smooth out gravy if you hadn’t been paying attention to it and it went lumpy. It was necessary, there was always a reason to cook, if someone was sick you took them something so they wouldn’t have to make the effort or if people came over you offered them a biscuit or cake or you knocked them up a bit of lunch.<br />I grew up in the 80’s when it seemed like the basic skills of cooking were starting to disappear, everything could be bought prepacked and then microwaved or it could be picked up or delivered in 30 mins so I felt like cooking was practicing a dying art, like learning Latin or knowing how to crochet.<br />This was long before any lifestyle shows or cooking programs came to light when the only contact I had with anyone cooking was at home where it was done every evening out of practicality or at church gatherings where scores of blue rinsed perms would construct finger sandwiches from a tin of tuna, some mayonnaise, cold shredded chicken and some iceberg lettuce or a bit of ham and cheese if it wasn’t lent, and a sprig of curly parsley to dress it up.<br />Don’t think that I talk of any of that disparagingly; I always loved those spreads, for a heap of reasons some of it was genuinely tasty too, it’d all be laid out on various table cloths grouped according to whether it was savory or sweet and there was always a potentially life threatening leaky stainless steel urn on a card table piled with a leaning tower of Styrofoam cups, a tin of international roast and a box of Lipton’s tea bags. Scores of cakes, sponge cakes, Swiss rolls, a pav in summer, neenish tarts, scones with sultana’s in, little cupcakes with that thin icing that was poured on top and set like plaster.<br />(I speak from experience about the leaky urn too, when I was five I stood next to it unknowingly and it dripped on my foot and gave me a blister the exact shape of a jelly bean)<br />Everything was arranged perfectly to give you the feeling that you were walking into bounty, no one went hungry.<br />Everyone had something that they could do really well, so and so made a terrific sponge someone else made lovely butterfly cakes and if they were nice then they would give you the recipe or let you in on the trick that made it all work.<br />My mum was an alright cook, she didn’t seem to enjoy it most of the time, probably because she had to do it everyday, but occasionally she would get revved up by something and go all out to make something different.<br />She got a recipe from one of my Aunties once for apricot chicken and she went all out to make fried rice to go with it ‘just like the stuff you could get from the Chinese take away’.<br />She pre cooked the rice and let it dry out on big plastic trays in the second fridge in the shed overnight, and chopped everything up and put them aside into little bowls that we handed to her while she stirred the wok (newly acquired from the man at the Chinese take away incidentally).<br />In the end she decided it was all too much hard work and you could get it from the Chinese shop much easier and she never made it again but the trying was fun.<br />Dad’s experiments in the kitchen seemed slightly more dangerous and unpredictable but if they went right the reward was there at the end.<br />Experiments that worked were the times we made donuts and the time he brought bags and bags of chocolate home from the biscuit factory he worked at and we made our own chocolates.<br />Ones that I wasn’t so sure about were the time he made cheese scones at 11’o clock on a Saturday night from a block of moldy cheese that was in the fridge “Eat it” he said, “that’s what penicillin is made from, its good for you” or the first time he had to look after us on his own overnight when Mum was away at some function and he tried to make us eat vindaloo. My brother and I were probably only 6 and 7 and we were desperate for Mum to come back to make us something sensible to eat, I think he sensed that we weren’t ready for Indian cuisine just yet coz after that he took us to the beach for an ice cream.<br />I’ve never really been taught to cook I’ve just practiced, I started cooking for my family out of necessity starting with things like casseroles or chicken schnitzels or spag bol and then when I grew up and moved out of home I’d cook for housemates coz I’d figured out how to cook a roast and sometimes I liked to show off and I got to play around a lot more then because I didn’t have to worry so much about who liked what I could just cook stuff and people would either eat it or they wouldn’t. Sometimes things would turn out really well, sometimes they wouldn’t but that’s how I learnt. I love cooking, I like invading people’s kitchens and making them dinner, though whether they like that is another thing. I love inviting people over and cooking them something they haven’t tried before or they haven’t had in ages. I like cooking for people and talking about cooking and giving people recipes and stealing bits of recipes from something someone else has cooked. There’s no real philosophy to any of it I don’t have a manifesto or anything I just enjoy the art of cooking, sometimes its really simple and sometimes its not but there’s always fun in the attempt. Most of the things I cook have a story attached to them so I like to post them along with the recipes and things that seem to work cooking wise. If you want to ask me anything about cooking feel free, it strokes my ego and I like to be helpful also if you read a recipe and have figured out a great way of cooking something post it in the comments and be revered for all eternity. I’ll put things up as I think of them and try not to waffle on too much though I promise nothing.<br /><br /><b>SCONES</b>This recipe isn’t my mothers; I don’t know if she followed a recipe truth be told. This one started out as a recipe from Delia Smith, (a slightly terrifying and very precise English woman who instructs people to cook as if they are idiots) but it evolved slightly as I either left stuff out or tried different things. I was given a video collection of Delia’s how to cook series once as a Christmas present and she devoted an entire episode to how to cook an egg (would you believe 3 minute eggs take 3 minutes to boil) but lets not quibble she has an OBE and I live in a flat in Preston so I’m willing to defer to her in certain instances. This recipe is great to do with kids so if you have kids bring them into the kitchen if you don’t have kids either go out and make one (we’ll all wait for you) or borrow someone else’s kid. Make them wash their hands though, they’re cute but they’re filthy.<br /><br />Preheat your oven to 220c; I always forget that bit so I like to put it first.<br />Sift 2 cups of self raising flour into a bowl with a pinch of salt.<br />Add 30g of butter cut into cubes and rub this into the flour with your finger tips, Delia says its easier to rub in if it is room temperature and I agree with her there it’s a good idea to keep your butter out of the fridge anyway I find unless it’s the height of summer. It just makes it easier to use when you need it for recipes.<br />Once the butter’s rubbed in it’ll look like breadcrumbs and then you want to add ¾ of a cup of milk.<br />Stir it in with your hand and if it feels a bit too sticky add a little extra flour as needed.<br />Knead the dough on a floured surface until it’s smooth and either pat or roll it out to about 3 or 4 centimeters thick before you start making the scone shapes either with a scone cutter or just a floured glass. If you have left over dough you can either roll it out and make more scones or save it and make my little jam tart.<br />Place them on to a baking tray either spaced a little apart or collected together. There are two schools of thought on the whole scone/tray arrangement, if they are spaced apart then they get crispier tops but if you group them together the sides stay soft and they hold each other up apparently. The thought of food huddling together in an oven disconcerts me so I’ve always spaced my scones out so they can tough it out alone but you do what you like. Brush their little heads with milk and then bake them for about 12 to 15 mins, check them after about 10 mins by just cracking the oven door a bit and when they’re all nice and brown they’re ready to go.<br /><br /><b>LITTLE JAM TART</b>Grab a heatproof saucer and flour it a little, roll out your remaining dough to about 1cm thick and cut off any overhanging bits. Spread with a generous amount of strawberry jam right to the edges ( I like strawberry jam but you can put what you like). Use the over hanging bits of pastry to make a couple of long thin strips that you can criss cross over the top of the tart. Brush the little lattice bits with milk and bake in the oven usually about 10 mins will do it.<br /><br />Eat the scones first coz the jam thing is like lava when it comes out of the oven, I learned that the hard way it wasn’t fun.</span>Wanderin' Janehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05512852268796093458noreply@blogger.com2