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Berry Yoghurt Cake

September 4, 2010 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

This old-fashioned little cake is pretty easy to make.  It’s moist with a soft crumb and like most tea cakes, it only keeps fresh for a day or so.  It’s supposed to be baked in a 20cm/8″ square pan, but I’ve always used a 23cm/9″ one – mistakenly at first, and then out of habit ever since.

This particular cake came about quite serendipitously – our miller friend Kevin Sherrie spotted us a half bag of self-raising flour (half a 25kg bag, that is), I had berries from our last trip to Marrickville, and Pete had a fresh batch of yoghurt made, which I flavoured with a little berry puree.

The original recipe specified fresh blueberries, but I never have them on hand, so I always use defrosted frozen berries.  Note that you really do need to let them defrost, or they’ll sink like stones into the cake batter.  As it was, mine were still a little too cold, hence the craters in the top of the cake.

  • 150g (10 tablespoons) butter, cut into pieces
  • 155g (¾ cup) caster (superfine) sugar
  • 2 large (59g) eggs
  • 265g (1¾ cups) self-raising flour
  • 200g (7oz) berry yoghurt (I used homemade, but the original recipe recommended Attiki brand fat-reduced strawberry)
  • 150g (5.3oz) berries, fresh or defrosted if frozen
  • Icing sugar (confectioner’s sugar) to dust

1. Preheat oven to 180C (360F) or 160C (320F) with fan.  Line the base and sides of a 20cm/8″ or 23cm/9″ square cake pan.

2. Beat together the butter and sugar in a large bowl until pale and creamy.  Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

3. Stir in half the flour and half the yoghurt until just combined.  Then stir in the remaining yoghurt and flour until combined.  Scrape the batter into the prepared tin and smooth the top.  Scatter the berries evenly over the top and bake for 35 – 40 minutes (check it after 30 minutes), or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

4. Allow the cake to rest for 10 minutes before removing from the pan to finish cooling on a wire rack.  Dust with icing sugar before serving.

Click here for a printable version of this recipe

Posted in Recipes | Tagged , , | 10 Comments »

Chocolate Butterfly Cakes

September 2, 2010 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Aren’t these cute?

I’m inviting Ozoz (The Kitchen Butterfly) and Heidi (Steps on the Journey) over for a virtual tea party.  Oz because these are known here as butterfly cakes, and Heidi because our recent discussion inspired me to seek out this old-fashioned recipe, a staple of kids’ birthday parties alongside the fairy bread and chocolate crackles.

Butterfly cakes are usually vanilla flavoured, filled with cream and decorated with a little jam for colour,  but I couldn’t resist this simple recipe from Trish Deseine’s Chocolate cookbook. The cake component is quite mildly flavoured, making it a perfect foil for the rich buttercream.  Of course, you could easily adapt this technique to any cupcake recipe!

Cakes

  • 125g (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
  • 125g (40z) white sugar
  • 3 large (59g) eggs
  • 100g (3½ oz) plain (AP) flour
  • 25g (1 oz) cocoa powder (sifted)
  • 1½ teaspoons baking powder (sifted)

Butter cream

  • 150g (10 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
  • 250g (9 oz) icing sugar mixture (confectioner’s sugar)
  • 40g (1½ oz) cocoa powder  (sifted)

1. Preheat oven to 190C (375F) or 175C with fan (350F with fan).  Line patty pans with paper cups.

2. In a mixing bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until soft, then add the eggs one at a time and beat to incorporate.  Add the flour, cocoa and baking powder and mix well to combine.

3. Half fill the paper cups (mine took a heaped dessertspoon full each) and bake for about 15 minutes or until firm.  The little cakes will be quite flat with a slightly domed top.  Allow to cool completely.

4. To make the butter cream, stir the cocoa powder into two tablespoons of hot water to dissolve. In a mixing bowl, beat the dissolved cocoa powder, butter and icing sugar together until light and fluffy, adding a little more hot water if necessary.

5. With a small sharp knife, carefully cut out a circle from the top of each cake, leaving a hollow dip on the top.  Fill the hole with butter cream (I used a piping bag).  Cut the removed circle into two halves, and position them in the butter cream at an angle to resemble butterfly wings.  Now invite a few friends around for a tea party!

Click here for a printable version of this recipe

Posted in Recipes | Tagged , , , , , | 43 Comments »

Frugal Living #5: Small Things Matter

August 31, 2010 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

I really can’t complain about our living costs.   Since we started along this path of  “quasi-sustainability”, our food expenses have dropped dramatically.  Paradoxically, we’re eating better than ever before, with very little  pre-prepared or heavily processed food in our daily diet.

It’s tough economic times though, so we’ve again reassessed to see where we can save a bit of money without feeling like we’re depriving ourselves.  We’ve already made lots of big changes, but there’s still room for a bit of tinkering.  These things won’t save us a fortune, but it’s surprising how quickly it all adds up!

Homemade pasta

As I mentioned in a previous post, we used to struggle with homemade pasta.  So much so that until recently, we’ve always purchased it from our mate Joe at Peppe’s Pasta, at $7.50 per 500g.  Now that we have our trusty Ottolenghi recipe down pat, we’ll be making this at home. And since our girls are reliably laying five eggs a day at the moment, the pasta will only cost us $1.20 per 500g!

Homegrown lettuce

Everyone talks about how wonderful it is to have homegrown herbs, but I’ve only just realised how fabulous it is to grow lettuce!  It’s ready to harvest within a matter of weeks, and I go out every morning and pull a few leaves off for the boys’ lunches.  If you have room for a small herb garden, even if it’s in pots, I’d recommend you plant a little lettuce as well.  If nothing else, it might convince the kids to eat their greens!

No more pinenuts

I  love pinenuts, but they’ve recently become prohibitively expensive – good quality ones from Lebanon or Spain are between $60-$100/kg.  I now happily substitute slivered almonds, which are a tiny $12/kg from Harkola. There’s always a bag hidden in the fridge somewhere.

No more packaged dips

Not that we were buying many, but it’s so easy to make dips at home that we really don’t need to spend money on them anymore.  In addition, the commercial versions tend to have a lot more oil and salt than our homemade ones.  We make our own hommus, taramasalata, roasted beetroot dip and nasturtium pesto – more than enough variety to fill a nibbles tray.

Aldi

Friends, if you’re not buying at least some of your groceries from Aldi, then you’re probably spending more money than you need to.  I know we certainly were.  I think the notion that Aldi products are inferior is a misconception – they may not always be better than what you can buy at Woolies or Coles (although sometimes they are), but they’re usually comparable in quality.  And they’re almost always cheaper!  Aldi also have a great organic range, with items you won’t find in other supermarkets.

Emergency meals = no more takeaway

I once read somewhere – I think it was in Shirley Conran’s Superwoman - that one of the best ways to reduce stress in the kitchen is to have a list of emergency meals written down.  These need to be easy to prep and preferably quick to cook, with minimal washing up.  It was suggested that the list be taped to the inside of a cupboard, where it could be referred to whenever exhaustion might otherwise drive you to pick up the telephone and order $60 worth of takeaway.  Our list includes dishes like baked bean toasted sandwiches, risotto and survival soup. Our boys adore them all!

If you have any money saving tips, please share them with us.  Every little bit helps!

. . . . .

Previous Frugal Living posts:

Posted in Frugal Living | Tagged , , | 52 Comments »

Roasted Potato Focaccia and Upper-Crust Apples

August 29, 2010 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Over the weekend, I baked a couple of Dan Lepard’s irresistible treats, including this most recent recipe from his Guardian column.

It’s made with baby potatoes, a mix of green and black olives, and bakers’ flour – and baked in a large parchment-lined roasting tray.  The perfect accompaniment to an all vegetarian dinner party!

. . . . .

It’s not apple season here at the moment, and most of the available fruit is coming out of cold storage.  It’s not the best for eating raw, but wonderful for cooking.

We turned five large Pink Lady apples into Dan’s upper-crust apple pie – the fruit was tossed in a hot butter caramel, then topped with a delicious pastry laced with Calvados.  Small Man, our apple pie aficianado, declared it to be most fine…

Posted in Food & Friends, Recipes | Tagged , , , , , , | 20 Comments »

Saffron and Turmeric Pasta

August 28, 2010 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Everyone has their culinary bugbear – some can’t bake cakes, others struggle with pastry, and many are put off by tempering chocolate.  For us, it’s always been homemade pasta.  That’s not to say we haven’t thrown time and money at trying to get it right, but each attempt has turned out stodgy, floury and brittle.

So it was with some trepidation that we decided to try a recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi’s new cookbook, Plenty.   But oh, we were so delighted with the results!  The pasta was mixed in minutes in our large food processor, and passed easily through the rollers and cutters without the usual shredding and crumbling.

We began with four eggs from our girls, and gifts from friends – a small box of saffron from James and a knob of turmeric that Diana grew in her backyard.  The recipe specifies ground turmeric, but Di’s fresh version was too good to pass up.

The finished dough was a glorious golden yellow…

  • 440g pasta flour or 00 flour
  • 4 large free range eggs
  • 4 tablespoons (80ml) boiling water
  • 4 tablespoons (80ml) extra virgin olive oil
  • 2 scant teaspoons saffron threads
  • 1 teaspoon ground turmeric (we used grated fresh)

1. In a medium sized bowl, soak the saffron threads in the boiling water for ten minutes, then stir in the turmeric and olive oil.  Add the eggs and beat well to combine.

2. Place the flour in the large bowl of a heavy duty food processor and, with the motor running, gradually pour the egg and oil mixture through the chute.  Pulse the food processor until the ingredients are thoroughly mixed and start to come together.

3. Tip the dough and any loose flour onto a clean bench and knead briefly until smooth.  Wrap snuggly in a plastic bag, and then rest the dough in the fridge for at least 30 minutes, or up to one day.

4. Cut the rested dough into four pieces, keeping three covered as you work the first one. Shape the small ball into a long rectangle, then pass it through the rollers of a pasta machine, starting with the thickest setting.  Pass the sheet through, fold it, and pass it through again – repeating this process a few times to give the dough strength.

5. Once the pasta is elastic and doesn’t tear or crumble through the rollers, gradually reduce the  settings until it reaches the desired thickness.  Flour the thin sheet of pasta well, then either cut it into strips with a knife, or pass it through the cutting blades of the pasta machine.  Hang the noodles up while you process the remaining dough – we used a laundry rack, but I think tradition dictates a wooden dowel supported between two kitchen chairs!

This pasta cooks in mere minutes in salted boiling water, and we served it with slivered almonds, mint, parsley and the spiced butter and shallot sauce which accompanied the recipe in the cookbook.  Truly superb vegetarian fare!

PS. We’ve repeated this recipe without the turmeric and saffron and found it works perfectly well for “everyday” egg pasta.  The quantities given above make approximately 750g of pasta dough.

Click here for a printable version of this recipe

Posted in Recipes | Tagged , , , , | 32 Comments »

Sourdough Fruit Loaf

August 27, 2010 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

I’ve been experimenting with sourdough fruit loaves, and came up with this rather pleasing combination. It’s slightly spicy, slightly sweet and quite addictive!

For my sourdough baking friends, the formula is listed below, but in more general terms, I adapted my standard recipe as follows:

1. The all white bakers’ flour was replaced with a mix of bakers’ flour to organic wholemeal spelt to organic rye in a ratio of 4:2:1 (600g bakers, 300g spelt, 150g rye).

2. A teaspoon each of honey and ground mixed spice was added to the dough.

3. Approximately half the flour weight in walnuts and mixed dried fruit was worked in at the initial kneading.

I didn’t soak the rye or spelt, but will try doing that next time to see if it alters the texture of the bread at all.  These loaves tend to brown very quickly in the oven, so need to be monitored carefully to avoid burning.

As you can probably guess, we’re having lots of fruit toast for breakfast this week!

Sourdough Fruit Loaf (makes three 850g loaves)

  • 300g sourdough starter (166% hydration)
  • 550g water
  • 75g extra virgin olive oil
  • 600g bakers’ flour
  • 300g organic wholemeal spelt flour
  • 150g organic rye flour
  • 1 teaspoon honey
  • 1 teaspoon mixed spice
  • 16g salt
  • 100g walnut halves
  • 100g raisins
  • 200g dried cranberries
  • 200g Turkish figs, chopped

Posted in Recipes | Tagged , , , , | 31 Comments »

Hommus

August 25, 2010 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

I find it hard to resist a bargain (the avocado doesn’t fall far from the tree), so when I saw these enormous cans of chickpeas on sale at Harkola a few months ago, I had to buy one.  From memory, we paid a tiny $3.50 for this 3.2kg can!

Of course, actually opening a can this size is quite a commitment, so it sat in our pantry for quite a while.  I finally opened it on the weekend, to find large, tender chick peas of great quality.  I froze four portions in ziplock bags for future soups and stews, left some in the fridge for more immediate use, and turned the rest into hommus.

The recipe I now use for hommus was inspired by an episode of Barry Vera’s Feast Bazaar.  It’s a very light and low fat dip, as opposed to most commercial versions on the market today.  That’s because the puree is loosened with hot water rather than oil, resulting in a silky, almost fluffy paste. I didn’t  measure the quantities for this, as we adjust the recipe each time for taste and texture.

Rinse and drain the chick peas, then load them into the bowl of a large food processor with a clove or two of coarsely chopped garlic. Turn the machine on, then add hot or boiling water slowly through the chute until the mixture blends to an almost smooth paste (photo below).

Now add a few tablespoons of tahini paste (we prefer the Lebanese version),  the juice of one or two lemons, a little extra virgin olive oil, and salt to taste, then blend again until well combined.  The original version didn’t add olive oil, but we quite like the flavour, so we add just a little bit to ours.  Do keep tasting as you go, adjusting seasoning and ingredients to your own personal preference.

This recipe works well with tinned chickpeas, but absolutely brilliantly with dried ones that have been soaked overnight and boiled for a couple of hours.  The latter will produce a very smooth and silky hommus, as the freshly cooked chickpeas are softer and blend more readily than their canned counterparts.

The original Barry Vera recipe recommended serving the hommus spread thickly onto a plate and topped with slices of pan-fried, sumac-coated lamb fillet.  We usually just eat it with sourdough baguettes!

Posted in Recipes | Tagged , , , , , , , | 42 Comments »

Garden Photos

August 23, 2010 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Joanna’s beautiful garden photos inspired me to take some of my own.  Here’s a glimpse of our winter garden…

The dwarf nectarine and peach trees are flowering…

The first vegetable bed is growing well. We’ve planted kale, spinach, cabbage, beetroot, celery, parsley, lettuce, broccoli, and broadbeans.

Broccoli…

Lettuces…

The second bed has just been planted out.  In addition to more of the above, it also includes peas, carrots and shallots…

The peas are thriving!

The garlic are growing steadily in their laundry tub home – in total we have about forty plants…

The three rhubarb crowns are thoroughly enjoying their semi-shady spot…

The asparagus are still in pots, but growing well.  Spice Girl gave us a single pot, which we divided into seven smaller plants.  We still need to find a permanent home for them…

Our incredibly robust chilli bush has continued to fruit all winter, albeit sparsely…

Bed three is now ready for planting – tomato and capsicum seedlings are ready to go, along with the chitted seed potatoes…

Edit: Our large prunus tree has never fruited, so we have no idea what type it is, but it flowers prolifically every year.  Here are a couple of photos for Heidi..

What’s growing in your garden at the moment?

Posted in Food & Friends, Frugal Living | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 45 Comments »

Smithsonian Zoo’s Lion in the Snow

August 21, 2010 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

……

Courage does not always roar.

Sometimes courage is the quiet voice

at the end of the day saying,

“I will try again tomorrow”

……

Mary Anne Radmacher

……

……

I’ve used these photos before, but was delighted to find high resolution copies on Wikipedia recently.  They’re public domain material and I believe these Mehgan Murphy photos of Luke the lion first appeared in advertising material for the Smithsonian Zoo in 2008.  Clicking on the photos will bring up larger images.

I thought sharing them with you might be a nice way to start the weekend…

…..

Posted in Cool Things | 17 Comments »

Wholemeal Spelt

August 20, 2010 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Spelt is one of the so called “ancient grains”, grown in parts of Europe from the Bronze Age to medieval times. It’s related to modern day wheat, but with a noticeably different flavour and some purported health benefits.  These include a broader nutritional profile, and a more easily digestible protein structure, which makes spelt accessible to some people with wheat intolerances.  However, it does contain gluten, which means it’s not suitable for coeliacs.

Spelt flour is very expensive – a kilo costs six times as much as regular bakers’ flour, and twice as much as organic bakers’ flour.  Having said that, it makes little difference when you compare the cost of using it at home to the price of purchasing ready made – an organic spelt loaf might cost $2.50 in raw materials, but a loaf of sourdough (made with regular bakers flour) from a reputable bakery could set you back $8 or more.

As we were delighted with the results of our 100% white spelt loaves, I thought it might be fun to experiment with organic wholemeal spelt.

The 100% spelt sourdough loaves I made were slow to prove, and despite a surprising amount of oven spring, the wholemeal crumb didn’t display the huge holes of the white spelt.  That didn’t detract from the bread though, which was deliciously nutty and, as Pete put it, wholesome.  The rising dough and  baking loaves exuded the most gorgeous aromas and our sons, who don’t usually like anything other than white bread, ate an entire loaf between them for lunch, smothered in peanut butter and jam.  The spelt baguettes formed the backbone of a vegetarian dinner we had on the weekend, and went perfectly with Pete’s beetroot dip and guacamole.

Emboldened by this success, I tried using the wholemeal spelt in Dan Lepard’s Guardian cookie recipe.  I substituted cranberries for the dried blueberries (which are prohibitively expensive here) and omitted the almond essence.  Dan’s recipe was written for regular wholemeal flour, and the essence was included in part to mask any bitterness in the flour.  As the spelt has a nutty, sweet flavour, I didn’t think it was necessary here.

The end result were these chewy, moreish treats, reminiscent of old-fashioned oatmeal cookies. I’ve already eaten two this morning!

Posted in Food & Friends | Tagged , , , , , , , | 32 Comments »

Guacamole

August 18, 2010 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Thank you all for your advice on our avocados!

For the past week or so, we’ve had avocado on toast for breakfast every morning, and eaten copious amounts of guacamole.

In the course of all this, we’ve made some interesting discoveries.  Firstly, adding a little vitamin C (ascorbic acid) to guacamole keeps it beautifully green, even after an extended time in the fridge.  We crushed up a couple of tablets (you probably only need one, but we were making a big batch), removed the casing, and dissolved the powder in a little warm water.  This was then sprinkled sparingly onto the avocados as they were being mashed.

Here’s a photo of the guacamole after it had been in the fridge overnight (we did press a sheet of Gladwrap onto the surface)…

. . . . .

Secondly, we’ve found that guacamole freezes very well. We portioned small amounts into ziplock bags and stashed them in the freezer…

To see how they were traveling, we defrosted one after three days.  It had kept its colour beautifully and wasn’t watery at all, perhaps because the bag had excluded most of the air.  If we were planning to do this again, we’d probably leave out the tomato, as I’m not sure how it will hold up over an extended period in the freezer.

We took a photo to show you the defrosted guacamole – Pete suggested using a bowl, so that it looked less like “astronaut food”…

. . . . .

The recipe we used was very simple, and based on one given to us by our friend Barbara…

  • 3 ripe avocados
  • 1 large tomato, chopped
  • juice of half a lime
  • chopped coriander (cilantro) to taste
  • salt to taste
  • 1 vitamin C tablet, pounded, sieved and dissolved in a little water

Using a fork, mash the avocados, sprinkling sparingly with a little vitamin C water as you go – you don’t need very much at all.  Add the tomato, coriander and lime juice and continue to mash with a fork.  Taste and season with a little salt if necessary.  Now invite the neighbours around for a party!

Posted in Recipes | Tagged , , , , , | 40 Comments »

In My Kitchen – August 2010

August 16, 2010 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

In my kitchen…

…is a tray of our ever reliable chocolate slab cake.  Big Boy asked me to bake it to “help” him study for his exams…

In my kitchen…

…is a tub of organic honeycomb, a gift from our lovely friend Moo, who tracked it down at one of his local Adelaide markets.  He told me that, short of getting on a plane to Kangaroo Island, this was the closest thing he could find to completely natural, unprocessed honey…

In my kitchen…

…is our “lucky” Elvis mug.  We don’t actually believe in luck, but I often make Big Boy a cup of tea in this before his exams.  It always makes him laugh, and I think that’s a good frame of mind to be in before a test!

In my kitchen…

…are interesting treasures from far away.  Lovacores, avert your eyes now, because on my bench I have a jar of Sardinian Bottarga (grated mullet roe), pickled baby onions in balsamic vinegar, and a treasured jar of Piment d’Espelette.  The Piment was a gift from gorgeous Anna of Five in Paris, who was in Sydney on holidays recently…

In my kitchen…

…is a messy, yummy apple pie – Small Man’s favourite dessert.  I tried to be artistic and decorated the top with a pastry apple – hopefully you can make it out in the photo below (it’s a bit tragic, I know).  Interestingly, the pastry, which is usually quite wet, was much firmer when made with our homegrown eggs – possibly because they’re fresher and the proteins are stronger…

In my kitchen…

…are bags of certified virus-free seed potatoes, recently arrived from Tasmania.  The plan is to grow four varieties over the coming year – Bintjes, Spuntas, Red Norlands and King Edwards. The first two batches have been set out to chit (sprout), and the rest are carefully stashed away in a lightproof box.  We’ve never grown potatoes before, and are quite excited by the prospect of having them fresh from the garden!

Tell me, what’s happening in your kitchen this month?

Posted in In My Kitchen | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 41 Comments »

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