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Archive for the ‘Recipes’ Category

Sour Cherry Crumb Cake

Posted in Recipes, tagged , , , on February 20, 2012| 69 Comments »

On Saturday mornings, while both our sons are at swimming, my friend Kathryn will often pop in for a cup of tea.

Yesterday, as we chatted, I assembled and baked this crumb cake, using frozen sour cherries that I’d excavated from the deep recesses of my freezer.  It was the weekend, I was debriefing with a beloved friend, and I was baking.  It was a restorative bubble of peace and camaraderie at the end of a chaotic week.

This easy Nick Malgieri recipe comes from The Modern Baker and was originally written for fresh blueberries.  It uses a large quantity of butter and flour, and the raw dough in the pan weighed a ton.  Despite that, the finished cake was light and gentle eating.

The original recipe can be found here.  In case it’s of use, here are my metric conversions of the ingredients list:

Crumb Topping:

  • 300g plain (AP) flour
  • 5g (1 teaspoon) baking powder
  • 75g sugar
  • 70g light brown sugar
  • ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 180g unsalted butter, melted

Cake Batter:

  • 250g unsalted butter, softened
  • 330g sugar
  • 3 large (59g) eggs
  • 10gl (2 teaspoons) vanilla extract
  • 375g plain (AP) flour
  • 10g (2 teaspoons) baking powder
  • 3 egg yolks
  • 60g (¼ cup) milk (or ¼ cup buttermilk)
  • 450g (3 cups) of pitted sour cherries (defrosted first, if frozen)

The cake was baked in a 23 x 33cm parchment lined pan, and took a little longer than the recommended baking time of 40 minutes.

This is a very large recipe, so it’s worth ensuring you have lots of willing eaters before attempting it.  Our cake fed the neighbours, our dinner guests both last night and tonight, as well as Pete’s family at brunch this morning.  There are still several pieces left for afternoon tea tomorrow!

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Pâte Brisée

Posted in Recipes, tagged , , , , , on February 17, 2012| 63 Comments »

I’ve re-discovered an old recipe for Pâte Brisée which works brilliantly with savoury pies.

It’s adapted from the Silver Palate Good Times cookbook and comes together in a flash in the food processor.  Halve the quantities if necessary, or if you only need enough pastry to cover a single pot pie.

  • 300g (2 cups) plain (AP) flour
  • 150g (1 cup) bread/bakers flour (or more plain flour)
  • 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
  • 250g (1 cup) cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
  • 125ml (½ cup) ice water

1. In the bowl of a large food processor, pulse together the flours, salt and butter until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs.

2. With the machine running, add the cold water gradually until the mixture comes together in a ball.  You might not need to add all the water.

3. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and gently shape into a flat disc.  Wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for at least half an hour before rolling out. The dough can also be frozen for use at a later time.

As I’m not particularly adept with a rolling pin, I prefer to roll my dough out between two sheets of parchment paper.

This batch made enough pastry to cover the tops of both the large beef and mushroom pie above and the medium vegetarian one below, with a small portion left over. Both pies were given a generous egg wash and then baked in a 200C (with fan) oven for half an hour.

There are times when only a pie will satisfy (as the old Big Ben jingle used to claim), and it’s comforting to have a reliable pastry dough for just such an occasion!

PS. I spent ages looking for these rectangular metal pie tins, and finally tracked them down at the Odgers & McClelland Exchange Stores.  They’re made by Falcon Enamelware and are quite lightweight – I think they’re originally designed for camping.   The larger one is 32cm, and results in a large enough pie for the four of us (remember that I’m feeding two starving wolves). The smaller 28cm one makes a dinner for two with leftovers.

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Chivas Regal Chocolate Cake

Posted in Recipes, tagged , , , , , on February 7, 2012| 78 Comments »

Every couple of years, my friend and neighbour PeteV passes me a bottle of Chivas Regal 12YO Scotch Whisky.

He receives the occasional bottle as a gift, but as none of us are spirit drinkers, he’s more than happy for me to use it for cooking (my apologies to Greg and the other whisky drinkers out there who I’m sure will be completely appalled by this).

This chocolate cake recipe from Nick Malgieri’s Bake! provided the perfect excuse to crack open the bottle.  I’ve now made it twice, and I think it only fair to let you know the pros and cons of the recipe before you splurge on a bottle of whisky (or bourbon, as the original recipe specifies) to make it.

First and foremost, the cake is delicious.  It has a moist tender crumb and a deep, dark, grown-up chocolate flavour. Each batch has a whopping 120ml of whisky (four nips!) and according to my friend Rebecca, only 75% of that will burn off during the one hour baking time.  So it’s not a cake to be feeding to little people.

Secondly, it’s made in a very interesting way – the flour, sugar and bicarb are beaten together, and then the butter, softened first to the consistency of mayonnaise, is beaten in gently. It’s worth mentioning that the finished batter is basically a soup, as half a litre (2 cups) of liquid is added at the end.  Go gently on the speed dial of the mixer, or it will splatter all over the kitchen!

The only real negative to report is that I struggled to get the finished cake to release cleanly from the bundt pan.  Of course, I was lazy and didn’t do as Nick instructed, which was to butter the tin, scatter in dry breadcrumbs and then spray oil over the top of them.  But usually a light spray of canola oil is enough in my cast aluminium bundts – although not in this case, as you can see…

Finally, and I’m still not sure whether this is a pro or a con, the batter is absolutely to die for.  It tastes like dark chocolate Irish cream with a little eggnog thrown in for good measure, and  I had trouble ladling it into the pans rather than my mouth.  Pete caught me with my head inside the mixing bowl, snuffling up the leftover mixture. “It wasn’t very becoming”, he told me later.

Are you still interested?  If so, here’s the recipe…

Chivas Regal Chocolate Cake
(based on Maida’s Chocolate Bourbon Pound Cake in Nick Malgieri’s Bake!)

  • 140g (5oz) unsweetened chocolate, cut into small pieces or grated (for the first cake, I used Callebaut cocoa mass, and for the second one, I used Willie’s Cacao)
  • 360ml (1½ cups) hot brewed coffee (I used a strong plunger decaf coffee)
  • 120ml (½ cup) Chivas Regal (original recipe says to use best bourbon whiskey)
  • 300g (2 cups) plain (AP) flour
  • 440g (2 cups) white sugar
  • 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda), sifted
  • ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
  • 250g (1 cup) unsalted butter, really soft
  • 3 medium (55g) free range eggs, at room temperature
  • 10ml (2 teaspoons) vanilla extract (I used homemade)

1. Prepare tins – either line two loaf tins (mine were 21.5 x 11 x 7cm, or 8½ x 4½ x 2¼”) with parchment paper or butter a 10-cup bundt pan, coat it with fine dry breadcrumbs and then spray over them with vegetable cooking spray. I didn’t actually do this, but I will next time!  Preheat the oven to 160C/320F or 150C/300F with fan.

2. Place the chocolate in a large bowl and pour over the hot coffee.  Allow to rest for a minute or two, then whisk to combine.  Stir the whisky into the mixture.

3. In the large bowl of an electric mixer, gently beat together the flour, sugar, sifted bicarb and salt, using the paddle attachment.  Stop the mixer and add in the butter, which needs to be really soft.  Mix on the lowest speed until the mixture comes together and all the butter is incorporated – the consistency at this point reminded me of choux pastry dough.

4. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat slowly to combine, before turning the speed up to medium and beating for a minute.

5. Scrape the bowl and beater down, and then pour in half the chocolate mixture.  Mix very slowly to start (or you’ll end up wearing it!) and then turn the speed up to medium and beat for a minute.  Now add the remaining chocolate mixture, and again beat very slowly to start with, before turning the speed up to medium for a further two minutes.  Resist the urge to drink all the batter at this point.

6. Pour the batter into the prepared tin(s) and bake for about 60 – 70 mins – a cake tester inserted into the middle of the cake should come out clean. My loaf tins only needed 60 minutes, but the bundt pan took slightly longer.

7. Let the cake rest in the tin for 15 minutes before crossing your fingers and attempting to unmould it.  Allow to cool completely on a wire rack before slicing.

Click here for a printable version of this recipe

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Pammy’s Jammy Dodgers

Posted in Recipes, tagged , , on February 3, 2012| 70 Comments »

I love…

Pete’s raspberry jam…

Doctor Who…

and Pam Corbin’s recipes!

So when Pam the Jam’s latest cookbook finally arrived from Amazon, this had to be first recipe I tried.  After all, they’re the Doctor’s favourite snack, and you never know when he might pop by for a visit.

The shortbread recipe was a doddle to make in the food processor, although the rolling and cutting was fiddly, as the dough softened quickly when worked.  I had to keep popping it into the fridge to firm up, so the whole process took a bit of time.

It’s definitely worth the effort though, as the dodgers are crumbly tender and absolutely delicious. It was a great use of Pete’s raspberry jam and blood plum preserves, and the cut-outs made the cutest baby shortbreads…

Pam Corbin’s Jammy Dodgers
(from her fabulous new cookbook Cakes)

  • 175g (6.15oz) plain flour
  • pinch of sea salt
  • 75g (2.65oz) pure icing sugar, sifted
  • 125g (4.4oz) unsalted butter (cold, and cut into pieces)
  • 1 large egg yolk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (I used homemade)
  • raspberry or plum jam (or any other thick jam)

Note: These quantities are enough for 6 – 7 jam-filled dodgers.  As I have a very large food processor, I usually make a double batch.

1. In the bowl of a large food processor, blitz together the flour, salt and icing sugar.  Add the butter pieces and pulse until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

2. In a small bowl, beat together the egg yolk and vanilla, then add it to the food processor and pulse until the mixture forms a ball of dough.  Scrape the dough into a plastic bag and refrigerate until firm.

3. Preheat the oven to 170C (340F) or 150C (300F) with fan.  Working with small portions of cold dough, roll the mixture out between two sheets of parchment to approximately 4mm (0.16″) thickness.  Remove the top sheet and using a medium sized cookie cutter, cut out an equal number of biscuits.  Then using a mini cutter, remove the centres of half of them.

4. Lay the slices on a parchment lined tray and bake for 15 minutes until just firm and barely coloured.  Remove the tray from the oven and dollop a teaspoon of jam into the centre of each whole biscuit.  Top with the cut-out rounds and return to the oven for another 5 minutes or so until light golden brown.  Allow the dodgers to rest on the tray for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely – as the jam cools, the two halves will stick together quite firmly.

The second time I made these, I tried an alternative method for cutting out the cookies, and found it much simpler.

Start by shaping the dough into a thick log, wrap it in clingfilm and allow it to firm up in the fridge…

With a sharp, thin knife, slice the dough into 4mm discs…

Then simply cut the desired shape with cookie cutters…

A tray of Jammy Dodgers, ready for the Doctor’s visit!

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Muscovado Brown Sugar Wafers

Posted in Recipes, tagged , , , on January 16, 2012| 73 Comments »

As you might recall, I’ve recently purchased a copy of Nick Malgieri’s Bake!.

This is first recipe I’ve made, and it’s an absolute winner! I’ve changed the dough shaping method, as I found it too sticky to roll out and cut as Nick suggests, particularly in the middle of a Sydney summer.

The finished wafers are crisp and moreish – the first batch seemed to vanish from the cookie jar in record time, especially when Big Boy discovered he could use them to make icecream sandwiches.

The Muscovado sugar imparts a delicious caramel flavour, but regular light brown sugar would work just as well.  Use medium-sized eggs as instructed, or the dough will be too wet to handle.

  • 300g (2 cups) plain (AP) flour
  • ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda), sifted
  • ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
  • 170g (6oz) unsalted butter
  • 340g (12oz) light brown sugar (I used Muscovado)
  • 1 medium egg, plus 1 medium egg yolk (my eggs were 55g each)
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract (I used homemade)

1. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, bicarb and salt.

2. In the large bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar together until combined.  Add the egg and the yolk one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Add the vanilla extract and beat until incorporated.  The batter should be quite light and fluffy at this point.  Scrape down the bowl.

3. Add the flour mixture and mix at the lowest speed until just combined.  Give the mixture a final stir with the scraper to incorporate any remaining flour.  Cover the bowl and refrigerate for an hour or so to make the dough easier to handle.

4. Turn the dough onto a large sheet of clingfilm (parchment paper doesn’t seem to work in this case) and roughly shape it into a log.

5. Using the clingfilm, shape the dough into a smooth log, then twist the edges to tighten.  Refrigerate the log again for several hours until firm enough to slice.

6. Preheat the oven to 180C (360F) or 170C (340F) with fan.  Line two large trays with parchment paper.  Unwrap the cold dough and slice it into thin 5mm (about ¼”) discs.  Lay them out on the trays, allowing room for spreading.  Work quickly, as the dough will warm up and soften with handling.

7. Bake for 10 minutes, rotate the trays, and then bake for a further 5 minutes or until golden brown. The wafers will crisp up as they cool on a wire rack.  Store in an airtight container.

Click here for a printable version of this recipe

The dough logs freeze well, which makes it simple to bake these up at short notice.  The wafers are quite sweet, but perfect with a cup of tea.  They’re reasonably sturdy too, despite being crunchy, and survive quite well in an airtight cookie jar for several days.  I can see them becoming a house staple!

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