Look what the Easter Bunny brought today…
Aren’t these dinosaur eggs the cutest thing ever? The baby dinos were inside the speckled egg shells. (I love the reflections in this photo!)
Happy Easter to you all!
Archive for the ‘Food & Friends’ Category
Happy Easter
Posted in Food & Friends on April 12, 2009| 4 Comments »
Pasticcio
Posted in Food & Friends, Recipes, tagged Greek pasticcio, mince and pasta bake, pasticcio recipe on April 9, 2009| 11 Comments »
We hadn’t seen Moo in seven years. So when he rang a few days ago and asked what we were doing the following night, my instant reply was, “Nothing I can’t cancel”. We had a wonderful night catching up, discussing everything from sharks’ teeth fossils to remote controlled helicopters.
About ten years ago, Moo (Michael to his work colleagues) sent us a homemade Christmas card shaped as a 3D star. He’d spent ages cutting out the little points with a Stanley knife. It hung on our tree for years, until the cardboard finally wore out. I’ve asked him to send me a new star for the tree this Christmas!
Good conversation is always enhanced by easy comfort food, and Pete’s pasticcio is as easy and comforting as they come. Well, easy because I didn’t have to make it, but comforting and flavoursome nonetheless. It’s a traditional Greek dish, characterised by the addition of cinnamon, which fills the kitchen with a delicious aroma as it bakes, and smothered in a golden bechamel , enriched with egg yolks.
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
- 2 onions, chopped
- 500g minced lamb
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 3 tsp dried oregano (if you can find Greek rigani, all the better)
- 250ml (1 cup) red wine
- 150g tomato paste (we used homemade, so it wasn’t quite as salty or thick)
- 500g penne pasta (dried)
- 125g salted butter
- ¼ cup plain flour
- 750ml (3 cups) milk
- 80g (1 cup) grated pecorino or romano cheese
- 4 egg yolks
1. Preheat oven to 180C. Grease a deep baking dish or tray.
2. Heat oil in a large frying pan and cook the onion until soft. Mix the cinnamon into the meat, then add this to the pan, breaking up the lumps and cooking for 5 minutes until brown and cooked through. Stir through the oregano, red wine, tomato paste and 2 cups of water. Reduce the heat and simmer for 45 minutes until the sauce has reduced and thickened. Season to taste.
3. Cook the pasta in a large pan of boiling water for 10 – 12 minutes until just tender. Drain and return to the pan. Stir through the mince sauce, then spoon into the baking dish.
4. Melt the butter in a large saucepan and add flour. Stirring, cook for one minute, then whisk in the milk until smooth. Reduce the heat and whisk until the sauce is smooth and thickened. Remove from the heat and whisk in the cheese and egg yolks (stir fast, so the yolks dissolve in rather than scrambling).
5. Spread the sauce over the pasta and bake for 30 minutes until golden, then rest in the dish for 10 minutes before serving. Any leftovers reheat brilliantly the next day!
White Chocolate Bundt Cake
Posted in Food & Friends, Recipes, tagged white chocolate bundt, white chocolate cake on April 8, 2009| 6 Comments »
. . . . .
Joyce is my tribe.
A year or so ago, after an enjoyable café lunch, the Yummy Mummies had time to kill and wanted to spend it in a recently opened shabby chic store, full of cut crystal and vintage lace pillowcases. I was appalled and lobbied very hard for a visit to the butchers instead (“maybe he’ll have beef cheeks this week!”), but my pleas fell on deaf ears. When I complained to Pete, he said, “Joyce would have gone to the butchers with you. She’s your tribe.”
Now that you know that, you can probably understand her pain at being without an oven for five months whilst her kitchen is being renovated. One afternoon last week, the doorbell rang and there was Joyce, looking slightly harassed and asking, “Do you have any baked goods? We’re desperate!”
Of course, we always have cakes and cookies of one sort or another, so I sent her home with a care package. When she came to pick up a refill on the weekend, her son Red Roars, whom I adore, sidled up to me and said, “Auntie Celia”…(he only calls me that when he wants something)…”could you please bake me a birthday cake?” How could I refuse?
This white chocolate bundt cake is a tried and tested Mrs Fields recipe from her Great American Desserts cookbook. It is Big Boy’s all time favourite treat. The white chocolate you use will determine whether your cake is good or great – we use Callebaut, but I’ve successfully used white Lindt in the past. I’ve substituted Greek yoghurt for the original sour cream with no ill effect – if anything, it’s a little lighter and easier to eat with the reduced fat content. I finish the cake by either dusting it with icing sugar, or drizzling white and milk chocolate over the top, depending on how energetic I’m feeling.
White Chocolate Bundt Cake
- 450g (3 cups) plain (AP) flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
- ½ tsp salt
- 250g (2 sticks/1 cup) unsalted butter, softened
- 440g (2 cups) white sugar
- 1½ tsp pure vanilla extract
- 5 large (59g) eggs, at room temperature
- 115g (4oz) white chocolate, melted and still warm
- 250g (1 cup) thick Greek yoghurt
- 115g (4oz) white chocolate chunks or chips
Topping (optional)
- 115g (4oz) white chocolate
- 65ml (¼ cup) heavy cream
- 115g (4oz) milk chocolate
1. Preheat oven to160C (320F) with fan. Spray a 12 cup cast aluminium bundt pan with oil (I never bother dusting with flour, as the non-stick pans are really very good). Note that the original oven temperature was 175C (350F), but I always drop it down a little for the cast aluminium pans.
2. In a bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
3. Cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl using an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and the eggs, one at a time, beating for 20 seconds after each addition. Slowly beat in the melted white chocolate. Scrape down the bowl.
4. Add the flour mixture to the butter in thirds, alternating with the Greek yoghurt. Beat for 45 seconds after each addition. You want to end with flour rather than yoghurt (improves the final texture of the batter). Place the batter in the pan in three layers, separating each layer with the white chocolate chips.
5. Bake for 55 – 60 minutes (I start checking it after 45 minutes) – the top will be brown and a sharp thin knife inserted in the centre will come out with a few crumbs on it. Allow the cake to cool in its tin for 15 minutes (don’t be impatient), then gently loosen around the edges before inverting onto a wire rack to allow the cake to finish cooling at room temperature.
Topping (optional)
1. Original instructions : In a glass or ceramic bowl, heat the white chocolate with the cream on high until just melted – stir until smooth. Allow to cool for 10 minutes, then drizzle over the cake.
2. In a separate bowl, heat the milk chocolate in the microwave until just melted – stir until smooth. Drizzle over the cake.
I’ve never had much success with the white chocolate ganache (it always turns out too runny), so often I’ll just melt white and milk chocolate (separately) in the microwave and drizzle both over the top of the cake (which is what I’ve done in the photo above). And whilst the chocolate topping does make the cake extra special, it’s really fantastically flavoured and works almost as well with just a dusting of icing sugar.
This is a very flexible recipe, which works well in smaller sizes – cupcakes or fancy mini tins – just adjust the time accordingly to ensure the cakes don’t overbrown. Most bundt pans I’ve seen are a 10 cup capacity rather than 12, so you’ll have excess batter for baking little extras!
Compost Jelly
Posted in Food & Friends, Recipes, tagged apple jelly, compost jelly, homemade pectin, make your own pectin on April 1, 2009| 19 Comments »
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said…I’m going to Christina’s to pick up a bag of apple cores and peels…”
It’s lucky that my husband knows me well enough to take these sorts of comments in his stride. Christina was making apple pie and I’d asked her to keep the leftover bits and pieces for me. I know it sounds ridiculously frugal, but apple cores and peel make fantastic pectin and I religiously save and freeze the cores from Small Man’s morning and afternoon teas. I’d been at it for a couple of weeks and was accumulating a tidy collection, when Chris mentioned her pie. I arrived with a plate of vanilla kifli and offered to trade for her bag of “compost bits”. No wonder people think I’m strange.
In total, I had a dozen frozen Fuji cores, a full bag of green apple peel and cores from Christina, and the peel and cores from another six Fujis that needed to be eaten (I cooked the pulp into pie filling and stashed it in the freezer). It made the most gorgeous pectin (instructions here), as well as some delicious apple jelly.
Apple jelly is pretty easy to make – it’s what you end up with if you add sugar to your homemade pectin. After I’d let the liquid drain through the calico (without pressing – that’s very important, or you’ll get cloudy jelly), I measured out a litre of the drained apple stock. This was poured into a large saucepan and brought to a boil, then the juice of a lemon and four cups of sugar were added (the ratio is one cup of sugar to each cup of apple stock – sometimes you can get away with a little less, but if there isn’t enough sugar, the jelly might not set).
The pot was brought to a rolling boil until it reached 220F (104.5C) on a candy thermometer. It really doesn’t set until it gets to that temperature, but if you don’t have a thermometer, you can always check if it’s ready by putting a small blob of jelly onto a cold plate to see if it wrinkles. There is always some froth on the top of the liquid as it boils – that’s a good sign that the pectin is setting – just skim it off carefully and discard.
Once it was ready, we poured the hot jelly into sterilised jars and sealed. We boiled the finished jars in a hot water bath for 10 minutes, just to make doubly sure they won’t go mouldy.
We ended up with three large jars of pectin and four jars of apple jelly. I took two jars of jelly to Christina’s house – one for her and one for her dad (after all, it was his green apples). Her brother opened the door and looked at me quizzically as I handed him the jars and said…
“This is for Christina – it’s Compost Jelly”.
. . . . .
Edit: I’ve just had an email from a lady who had trouble getting the apple jelly to set. This was the original YouTube video we learnt to make the apple jelly from – I thought it might be useful to link it here:
Chocolate Slab Cake
Posted in Food & Friends, Recipes, tagged chocolate sheet cake, chocolate slab cake, easy chocolate cake on March 31, 2009| 17 Comments »
I love recipes which are simple, homely and comforting – dishes which are easy to make, large enough to share with the neighbours and so delicious that my boys request them over and over again. A couple of years ago, I was reading Consuming Passions by Michael Lee West – a collection of stories and recipes, drawn mostly from her Southern US upbringing. In one section she mentioned a “Chocolate Sheet Cake” and the concept fascinated me – I loved the idea of being able to bake a big tray of chocolate cake and ice it before it had cooled, right in the pan. But it was West’s description of the cake that was particularly evocative:
In my family, whenever a chocolate sheet cake appeared, it was usually to soothe a broken heart, or to soften the impact of an impulsive thrift-shop purchase. It was not a cake of holidays, but a cake that cajoled and flirted, a cake that said, ‘Forget about your problems, sweetie. Come sit by me for a while.’
Since then, the chocolate sheet cake, or Choccy Slab Cake as it’s known at our place, has become a household staple. After some experimenting, we’ve finally come up with a combination that keeps everyone happy – a Mrs Field’s devil’s food cake recipe, baked in a roasting pan, and topped off with an ever reliable Jamie Oliver icing. The whole ends up greater than the sum of its parts, because the icing over the warm base creates a very moist and velvety cake, which keeps well for the few days it takes to be eaten.
I made this cake for Alex’s 21st – it’s a great recipe for feeding lots of intoxicated and hungry twenty year olds.
Note: click here for a printable copy of this recipe.
. . . . .
Cake
- 13/4 cups (440ml) boiling water
- 170g (6oz) dark chocolate, chopped finely (we use Callebaut callets)
- 1 cup (110g) unsweetened cocoa
- 2 cups (300g) plain (all purpose) flour
- 2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda (baking soda), sifted
- good pinch salt
- 285g (10oz) unsalted butter, softened
- 13/4 cups (packed) (380g) brown sugar
- 4 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1. Preheat oven to 175C (350F) with fan. Line the base and sides of a large roasting pan with parchment paper (Bake). I do this by squishing an extra-large sheet of Bake into the pan and pleating the corners, or snipping with scissors and overlapping them. My tray is 37 x 27 x 5cm (141/2” x 101/2” x 2″), but the recipe is quite flexible, so use whatever you have on hand and adjust your cooking time accordingly.
2. In a medium bowl, pour the boiling water over the dark chocolate and let it sit for five minutes. Add the cocoa and stir until the mixture is smooth. Allow to cool while you prepare the rest of the cake.
3. In another bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt. Don’t whinge about all the bowls you’re using, it’s worth it.
4. In a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer, cream the butter and brown sugar, then add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla, then add all the flour mixture and half the chocolate mixture. Beat on low speed to combine, then on high for 1½ minutes. Add remaining chocolate mixture and beat on low to combine.
5. Pour the batter into the roasting pan and bake for 30 – 40 minutes, until a thin sharp knife inserted into the centre comes out clean. Be careful not to overcook it. Remove the cake from the oven, but leave it in the pan. Allow to cool a little while you prepare the icing.
Icing
- 100g (33/4oz) dark chocolate callets, or finely chopped chocolate
- 100g (33/4oz) unsalted butter
- 100g (33/4oz) icing sugar, sifted (it’s important to sift, or you’ll get lumpy icing)
- 3 Tbsp (60ml) milk
Melt all ingredients in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water, stirring constantly until well blended. Pour the finished icing over the warm cake, jiggling the pan around so that it’s all evenly coated. Let it sit for say another 15 minutes or so, then put the whole thing into the fridge to set.
The cake can be kept at room temperature once the icing is set.
. . . . .
More food for the masses: Party Pizza!
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