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Archive for October, 2011

Strawberry Tart

Posted in Recipes, tagged , , , on October 18, 2011| 74 Comments »

Strawberries have been in abundance at the markets recently, so I made this easy tart for morning tea last Sunday.

It’s simple to make – I used June’s sweet pastry dough (defrosted from the fridge) to line a quiche dish and then blindbaked it until golden.  I’m sure packaged shortcrust pastry would work just as well.

This was filled with a batch of microwave pastry cream, and then topped with halved strawberries.  The boys loved it!

Here’s the microwave pastry cream recipe again (with metric conversions added)…

  • 2 cups (500ml) full cream milk (I used UHT)
  • 6 large (59g) free range egg yolks (use the whites for meringues)
  • ½ cup (110g) white sugar
  • 1/3 cup (45g) cornflour (cornstarch), sifted
  • 1½ (8ml) teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 3½ tablespoons (50g) unsalted butter, at room temperature, cut into small pieces

Step 1: In a large pyrex bowl, mix together the milk, sugar, cornflour and vanilla extract. Whisk well to combine, then microwave on high until hot but not boiling (in my 1100 watt micro, this took two minutes).  Remove from the microwave, whisk well to smooth out any lumps.

Step 2: In a separate bowl, whisk egg yolks together until smooth.

Step 3: Continually whisking, pour the egg yolks into the milk, mixing until smooth.  Microwave on high for one minute, then in 30 second increments, whisking after each burst, until the pastry cream is thick.  In my microwave, this took 2½ minutes.

Step 4:  Whisk well, then add the butter pieces and whisk them into the pastry cream until smooth.  Press a sheet of cling film to the surface of the cream to stop it forming a skin and store in the fridge until cool.

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Five Chocolate Brownie

Posted in Recipes, tagged , on October 16, 2011| 66 Comments »

It’s still Chocolate Week!

To celebrate, I was keen to create a completely over-the-top, heart-racing brownie that squeezed as much chocolate as possible into each bite.  The end result was this once only treat that Pete and the boys loved (it actually gave me the sugar shakes, so I don’t think I’ll be baking it again).

I used five types of chocolate in the recipe – Callebaut 70%, 54%, 44%, Dutched cocoa, and caramelised white chocolate – a total of 620g in the eight inch slab.  I was inspired by a recipe from Debbi Field’s Great American Desserts (the original recipe used white chocolate, dark chocolate, Brazil nuts and caramel).  Please feel free to improvise as desired …

  • 185g (¾ cup) unsalted butter, melted
  • 110g (1 cup) Dutched cocoa powder
  • 165g (¾ cup) white sugar
  • 100g (½ cup, packed) brown sugar
  • 2 large (59g) free range eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla (I used homemade)
  • 112g (¾ cup) plain (AP) flour
  • good pinch of fine sea salt
  • 150g (1 cup) skinned, roasted hazelnuts, chopped
  • 150g (½ cup) caramelised white chocolate, melted
  • 90g (½ cup) Callebaut 70% dark chocolate callets
  • 90g (½ cup) Callebaut 811 54% dark chocolate callets
  • 90g (½ cup) Callebaut 44% dark baking sticks, broken up
  • 90g (½ cup) caramelised white chocolate chips

1. In a bowl, combine the chocolate callets, broken up baking sticks and caramelised white chocolate chips.  Add the chopped hazelnuts and stir to combine.  Preheat oven to 175C (350F) with fan.  Line a 20cm (8″) square pan with parchment paper.

2. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the melted butter and cocoa powder until smooth.  Add the white and brown sugar and beat with an electric mixer until combined.  Add the eggs and vanilla and beat well.

3. In a small bowl, stir together the flour and salt, then mix this into the batter. Add the chocolate callets, chocolate chips and hazelnuts and mix gently until just combined.

4. Scrape the mixture into the pan – it will be stiff and lumpy.  Smooth the surface as much as possible, then pour the melted caramelised white chocolate over the top.

5. With the point of a sharp knife, cut the liquid chocolate into the mixture – this is a messy process as the batter will be quite stiff.  When you feel that the melted chocolate has been sufficiently mixed in, smooth the top out a little, but try to keep the surface a little marbled.

6. Bake the brownies for 30 minutes, or until the edges are set and the centre is moist but not runny.  Allow to cool completely in the pan before slicing.

I didn’t let the slab cool quite enough before slicing into it…

When completely set, the brownies have a firm texture, akin to a dense (and very delicious) fudge.   It’s the perfect treat to share with lots of friends, because it really isn’t possible to eat more than a piece or two!

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In My Kitchen, October 2011

Posted in In My Kitchen, tagged , , , , , on October 14, 2011| 86 Comments »

In my kitchen…

…are magnificent Turkish ceramics, purchased from Metin at the Orange Grove Markets.  I’m a big fan of these intricately detailed pieces, and couldn’t resist these new offerings when I passed his stall last week…

Metin and his wife now have the store in Crows Nest full time, with a wide range of pieces on offer…

In my kitchen…

…is Pete’s favourite drink – Rochester Ginger.  This sweet brew is non-alcoholic, but carries a serious ginger hit, so it needs to either be sipped slowly, or diluted with soda or water.  Pete likes it neat, but I love it with hot water and honey.  The promotional blurb on the bottle describes it as having the “kick of two very angry mules”…

In my kitchen…

…is an Ottolenghi-inspired vegetarian paella, created for dinner with our lovely friend Craig, who came over to give us a yoga lesson…

In my kitchen…

…is the strongest truffle oil I’ve ever tried!  Unlike versions made with extra virgin olive oil, this one uses grapeseed oil, a neutral base that doesn’t overpower the truffle aroma…

In my kitchen…

…is a Scanpan bread knife with holder. My homemade ciabatta can be challenging to slice with a dodgy knife, so I thought I’d buy a sharp serrated blade that I could take on my travels…

In my kitchen…

…is a collection of Miellerie Honey from Tasmania.  Gorgeous Roz from Taste Travel gifted me a jar of the Lake Pedder honey, and I’ve been hooked ever since…

This creamed honey is unheated, and has a texture which varies from a thick caramel (in the case of Lake Pedder) to firm toffee (Blue Gum).  My current favourite is the Prickly Box, but all the varieties are delicious and distinctly different from one another.  I bought mine online from Honey Tasmania…

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

If you’d like to do an In My Kitchen post on your own blog, please feel free  to use this format, and to leave a comment here linking back to your post.  We’d all love to see what’s happening in your kitchen every month too!

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National Chocolate Week

Posted in Recipes, tagged , , , on October 12, 2011| 58 Comments »

Did you know it’s National Chocolate Week in the UK?

To join in the festivities, here are some of the chocolates I’ve been playing with recently…

Maude’s daughter is a mad keen dragon buff, so I made her a flight of them for her birthday.  I used a 50:50 blend of Callebaut 811 (54% dark) and 823 milk…

There were large Lord of the Rings’ style beasties…

…and smaller Chinese snake dragons.  I love the detailing of the scales!

. . . . .

This crocodile was made for a friend’s birthday, but he broke in half as he was being unmoulded – hence the join in the middle of his back.  He’s made mostly of 54% dark with a little milk chocolate added for sweetness…

. . . . .

Some musical instruments for Will (who plays the saxaphone) and Bethany (who’s an accomplished pianist).  Small Man insisted that the trumpet was his alone…

. . . . .

As I’ve mentioned before, I buy almost all my moulds from Candyland Crafts in the US.  The shipping to Australia is expensive, but the moulds themselves are just $1.99 each – cheap enough to splurge on a new one for each occasion. The detailing and quality are astonishing for the price.

I was placing an order for Christmas moulds and couldn’t resist picking up this 3D chef to make a gift for my friends at Chefs’ Warehouse…

. . . . .

Learning to temper chocolate takes a little practice, but once you find a technique that works for you, you’ll never be caught short for a last minute gift again.

I wrote up the method I use here, but it’s a little fiddly.  If you google tempering, you’ll find easier techniques, which usually involve melting two-thirds of the chocolate and then stirring in the remainder until the right temperature is achieved.  You might also find this article  by David Lebovitz useful.  It’s all about trial and error – and in this case, all the mistakes are delicious!

Remember, getting chocolate to temper is reasonably easy, but keeping it there is tricky.  Dark chocolate needs to go into the mould while it’s between 88 – 90F (milk chocolate: 86 – 88F), but if it cools below that, it can drop out of temper and won’t set properly.  The real secret to success is to find a way to keep the chocolate at the right temperature while you work it.  I use heat mats for this purpose – I like the Australian-made ones from Shin Bio, but my friend Christina tells me that a hot wheat pack wrapped in a plastic bag works just as well.

Hope you all enjoy National Chocolate Week – and thanks to the Frugal Feeding Blog and C from Cake, Crumbs and Cooking for the headsup!

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Two Weeks

Posted in Frugal Living, tagged , , , , , , , , , on October 10, 2011| 70 Comments »

I’ve missed you all!

We’ve had a fun couple of weeks, although the weather here has been a bit bonkers. The combination of mild sunny days with heavy rains has led to a burst of growth in the garden.  The irises, which were slow to start this year, are finally greeting passersby from our front yard.

In the enclosed verandah, the tomatoes seem to have stagnated, possibly due to the lack of light and heat. Hopefully October will bring warmer days to ripen the fruit.  The plants are now eleven weeks old and festooned with dozens of green tomatoes in varying sizes.  Here are the largest…

A tiny Venus Fly Trap has taken up residence with the toms in the verandah. We brought it back from the Better Homes and Garden Show, and it’s been quite the talking piece at dinner. We couldn’t resist setting off one of the traps (just once) to see how quickly it closed!

The potatoes that we planted in hessian bags a month ago are growing tall and strong.  They’re almost ready to hill up…

The assorted dwarf beans from New Gippsland Seeds have all germinated, but no luck so far with the snake beans – I suspect we’ve been a little overambitious and sown them too early.  We’ve planted more in seedling pots on top of the fish tank to see if they’ll shoot…

Our bed of kohlrabi is thriving.  We’ve been really happy with these plants – they taste like cabbage, are incredibly easy to grow and use, and they’re not plagued with pests in the same way that other brassicas are.  They also grow well from directly sown seed…

We peel, julienne and stir-fry the swollen base, then feed the leaves to the chickens and the scraps to the worms…

We made a decision this year not to plant any heading lettuce.  This small patch was grown from scattered seed, and I harvest salad leaves with a pair of scissors every two or three days.  It grows back remarkably quickly – even though I’d given the section below a severe haircut just a few days earlier, the gap was indiscernible. Wouldn’t it be lovely if all bad haircuts grew out that quickly?

Despite our decision not to plant heading lettuce, we were delighted to find these green oaks (at least that’s what we think they are) self-seeding themselves all over our yard.  They’re deliciously sweet and surprisingly hardy…

The celery is growing very well this year.  The nice thing about having celery in the garden is that you can bring in stems as needed, without pulling out the entire bunch…

The blueberries have survived their transplant shock-free and are ripening up…

Our young lemon tree is in its second year and trying to fruit, but Pete’s not confident that any of them will grow to full size yet…

The first crop of peas are finished, but this new batch are just starting to flower.  We have an entire month of rain predicted, which will really test this variety’s claimed mildew resistance…

And some photos for Joanna of a lovely acrobatic Soldier Bird feasting on a neighbourhood bottlebrush tree. Also known as the Noisy Miner (not to be confused with the pesky Indian Mynas), both the bird and the tree are native to Australia.  Aren’t they lovely?

Please, catch me up!  How have your past couple of weeks been?

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