Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

For Father’s Day lunch, my mother suggested roast lamb. My dad is now in his eighties and quite a fussy eater, but a good roast is something he’ll eat with relish.

Of course, this meant getting up at 6am on Sunday morning to prep the meat, which wasn’t particularly easy as we’d been at a 50th birthday dinner the night before. Thank goodness for Jamie! His roasted lamb shoulder recipe was an absolute stunner and will be our house standard from now on…

I began with two 1.5kg lamb shoulders from George at Dulwich Hill Gourmet Meats. Jamie uses a single 2.5kg shoulder, but I’ve never seen them quite that large here. I baked each cut in its own Falcon enamel roasting pan side by side in my 90cm oven.

Here’s our take on Jamie’s recipe…

• handful of garlic cloves
• bunch of rosemary
• olive oil
• sea salt
• 1.5kg lamb shoulder (I baked double this amount – two shoulders – for seven adults, and we had about half a shoulder leftover)
• 2 onions

1. Preheat the oven to 175C (I used the top and bottom elements only, without the fan). Peel and chop the garlic cloves coarsely, strip the rosemary leaves off the stems and then combine both in a bowl with a generous glug of olive oil and salt (Jamie uses a mortar and pestle, but I was too hungover to wrestle it out of the pantry at 6am). Give the mixture a good squelch with your hand.

2. Peel and chop the onion into eighths. Lightly oil the roasting pan – it should be a snug fit – then lay in the onion wedges to form a base to rest the meat on.

3. Stab the lamb several times with a sharp knife, then rub over the garlic and rosemary, pushing bits of garlic into the cuts. Place it on top of the onions, then add 50ml of water. Cover tightly with foil and cook for three hours. Over that time, the house will start to smell amazing.

4. After three hours, remove the foil and carefully pour all the juices and fat into a bowl. Add another 200ml of water to the pan and return to the oven (uncovered) for a further 45 minutes to an hour, until the meat is well browned and incredibly tender. Keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t burn or dry out – add more water if needed.

5. Remove the finished meat from the oven and cover with clean foil, then allow to rest until serving time. Mum and dad were running a bit late, so we put our covered meat back into the oven after the potatoes were done to warm up a little in the residual heat.

The leftover bowl of pan drippings didn’t go to waste – the potatoes and pumpkin were tossed in a large spoonful of lamb fat before baking, and the rich stock was used for gravy (cooked up with a little flour, a dash of port and seasoned carefully with salt and pepper).

I was seriously chuffed with how well this turned out – and not just because it looked almost exactly like the photo in the book! The meat was sticky and incredibly tender – the bones pulled out cleanly and we shredded and served the meat with two forks. Pete commented that the days of carving lamb are over!

The quality of the lamb shoulders was amazing – full credit to George and Yiota for always having such superb meat on offer. They weren’t cheap – $46 for both shoulders – but that was more than enough for seven adults, and we could easily have fed ten to twelve. That’s surprisingly economical for such a protein rich, special occasion meal!

Goodness we’ve been busy!

There’s a string of birthdays at the end of August and beginning of September, and I’ve been baking cakes. Lots of cakes. I’ve simplified the process this year by baking in the paper pans I bought from Southern Cross Supplies…

I always use our Chocolate Slab recipe, and for Small Man’s cake above, I divided the batter between two of the 8″ pans (I’ll include another copy of the recipe below).

For Carol, Lily and Maude’s cakes, we made a batch of dark caramel in our new copper pot and squiggled it out onto an oiled tray. Once set, it was broken into shards (or “wings”, as Nic called them) which were positioned on top of the cakes after frosting…

We still have to work a bit on our presentation, but overall we were pretty happy with the result!

Chocolate Birthday Cake

Cake

• 1¾  cups (440ml) boiling water
• 170g (6oz) dark chocolate, chopped finely (we use Callebaut 811/54% dark callets)
• 1 cup (110g) Dutched cocoa
• 2 cups (300g) plain (all purpose) flour
• 2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda (baking soda), sifted
• good pinch salt
• 285g (10oz) unsalted butter, softened
• 1¾  cups (packed) (380g) brown sugar
• 4 large (59g) free range eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract (we use homemade)

1. Preheat oven to  either 165C (330F) with fan (if baking in paper pan) or 175C (350F) with fan (if baking in a metal pan). Spray two 8″/20cm paper pan with oil. Alternatively, line two 8″ round pans with parchment paper. Note that the original Mrs Fields’ recipe specified 9″ pans for a wider, flatter layered cake.

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 with a whisk until the mixture is smooth.  Allow to cool while you prepare the rest of the cake.

3. In another bowl, whisk together the flour, sifted bicarb soda and salt.

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 prepared pans and bake for 40-50 minutes (time will vary depending on the thickness of the batter and your oven temp), until a cake tester inserted into the centre comes out clean. Be careful not to overcook. Remove the cakes from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool. Once cool, carefully tear the sides and base of the paper pans away.

This quantity of batter is sufficient for a very large double-layered cake. For the cakes we were giving away, I made single layers (each using a half batch of the batter) and decorated them with chocolate frosting and toffee shards.

. . . . .

Chocolate Frosting (makes enough for one large double layered cake)

• 315g (1¼ cups) unsalted butter, softened
• 500g (4 cups) icing sugar mixture (powdered sugar), sifted
• 110g (1 cup) Dutched cocoa powder, sifted
• 10ml (2 teaspoons) vanilla extract
• Milk as required to make a spreadable frosting – start with 65g (¼ cup) milk and add more as needed

1. Sift the icing sugar mixture and cocoa together in a large bowl. Be warned – if you don’t sift, you’ll end up with lumpy icing!

2. Using an electric mixer, cream the butter in a large bowl, then beat in a third of the icing sugar/cocoa mixture and the vanilla. Beat in the remainder of the icing sugar/cocoa mixture alternately with as much milk as needed to create a spreadable frosting.

This recipe is a family favourite, and I find that it always works. When baked as a large sheet cake, the texture is a little tenderer (possibly because I top it with a chocolate glaze while still hot). As round layers, the crumb is a bit sturdier, which makes them perfect for stacking and decorating with frosting.

Oh, and a note to my friend Sally – we did try making spun sugar. I ended up with hard toffee stuck to my hair, on my fleece vest, on my slippers, concreted to the floor tiles…suffice to say it didn’t go all that well the first time. We’ll have to try again!