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Christmas Eve Stories

December 24, 2014 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Big Boy left me a note.

He knew I’d be up early in the morning and didn’t want me breaking anything should a giant huntsman spider leap out at me while I was half-asleep and making a cup of tea.

And I thought to myself – this is what life is about. These little stories, the tiny blips of joy in our day to day lives, like the enormous love and thoughtfulness my son conveyed in just sixteen scribbled words.

It was therefore with great care that I made myself a coffee in my tiny Russian tea glass…

These wee glasses have proven to be a very popular festive gift. Both of Pete’s brothers loved them and took a set home each after our early Christmas brunch last weekend…

Pete and I popped into Harkola on Monday morning to pick up some more – at $3.99 for a box of six, they’re an affordable and quirky gift. The packaging is scuffed and worn, with good reason – as Ray explained, they’ve had these very boxes on the shelves for over thirty years. I told him he should unpack them and sell them individually as vintage glassware! Each is stamped with “Made in Russia” on the base, is easy to hold even when filled with hot liquid, and fits perfectly in Big Boy’s new Nespresso machine.

I love that all our friends are excited about these too, especially when we explained the history and the ridiculously cheap price. It’s never been about the cost of the gift, but always the story behind it…

We drove from Harkola in Auburn to Cremorne via Silverwater. It took a surprisingly long time in pre-Christmas traffic. At one point my darling husband turned to me and said, completely unprompted, “I’m really enjoying being in the car with you”.

And it was indeed a joy – despite the congestion and going over the Harbour Bridge three times because Google Maps gave us dodgy instructions – because every moment we get to just be together feels like a gift. Not because those opportunities are rare – quite the opposite in fact – but because those are the times when I’m whole. We often refer to our partners as “our other half” and that truly is the case for me.

We went to Cremorne to pick up a pasture-raised goose from a friend of a friend. I’ve never cooked one before, so tomorrow morning will be interesting…

On Tuesday, I finally stopped playing with crystals…

…and started baking. Having bought supplies during our Harkola visit, I set about making our last minute fruit and nut cakes. The kitchen exploded – there were open packets, lined tins and unwashed dishes piled onto every work surface…

I called out for help and Big Boy and Small Man whipped in like kitchen ninjas, unstacked and restacked the dishwasher, then vanished. By the time the cakes were done, everything was tidied away…

I spent a peaceful hour wrapping the cakes this morning, while waiting for one of my men to wake up and deal with the huntsman…

My mum had requested spritz cookies, so we baked a batch…

A big batch…

And with the leftover egg whites, I roasted up a tray of spiced nuts…

I’d had great plans to temper chocolate this afternoon, but our dear friend PeteA arrived for an unexpected visit. So we downed tools and sat and chatted for a couple of hours instead. We’ve been friends for nearly three decades, but there are still so many stories to share. I sometimes wonder if we’ll ever run out of things to talk about.

Have a very Merry Christmas, lovely folks. I hadn’t intended to write another post this year, but then all my joyous, everyday stories – Big Boy’s note, the road trip to pick up frozen geese, the kitchen ninjas – would have been lost.

May your festive season be filled with many happy stories!

Posted in Food & Friends | 43 Comments »

Merry Christmas!

December 20, 2014 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas

and a Happy New Year!

We’ll see you in 2015!

. . .

With ♥ from our family to yours,

Peter, Celia, Big Boy & Small Man

Posted in Food & Friends | 66 Comments »

Swarovski Christmas Earrings

December 17, 2014 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

I’m supposed to be baking. Or tempering chocolate. After all, it’s only a week to Christmas.

Instead, I’ve been consumed by an urge to create shiny things. Many years ago, I used to make a lot of Swarovski crystal jewellery. I used mostly vintage stones, worked onto either sterling silver or rolled gold findings. I haven’t really made anything over the past few years, but as we’ve discussed before, old enthusiasms don’t die, they just go on the backburner for a little while. So even though it’s nearly Christmas and you’re probably expecting a recipe for a baked treat, here’s a tutorial on making earrings instead. Just for fun!

I like to use 10mm Swarovski crystals for earrings – the red ones below are a colour called Siam. I’ve also used 6mm silver rondelles, 22 gauge sterling silver head pins, sterling silver earring hooks, and a small spacer crystal (Swarovski 5305 in 6mm clear).

Tools required: wire cutter, flat nosed pliers and round nosed pliers.

Stack the crystals onto the head pin. I placed the large crystal at the base, followed by the rondelle and then the clear crystal…

Using flat-nosed pliers, carefully bend the wire, leaving a gap of a few millimeters between the top of the crystal and the bend…

Using round nosed pliers, turn the top into a complete circle – with your fingers, bend the wire half way around the nose of the pliers, then readjust the pliers and complete the loop. This takes a bit of practice…

Grasping the loop with one set of pliers, use the other set to wrap the wire around the gap between the loop and the top bead…

Carefully trim off the tail…

Holding the loop in the round nosed pliers, carefully and gently tuck the end of the wire in with the flat nosed pliers…

Open the loop of the earring hooks by gently bending the wire to the side. Never open a loop by uncurling it, as it weakens the wire…

Slip in the finished earring, then close the hook loop back up again…

If all the wire wrapping sounds a bit ominous, here’s a much easier method. Thread the beads onto the head pin – this time I used vintage Swarovski green tourmaline in 10mm and 6mm, with a small sterling silver spacer between them…

Using flat nosed pliers, bend the wire over as close to the top bead as possible (be careful not to crack the stone)…

Trim the wire about 1cm away from the bend…

Using round nosed pliers, slowly turn the loop. The best way to do this is in two stages – bend the loop half way by twisting the pliers, then readjust them and bend it down to the base…

Open the loop by twisting slightly to the side…

Slip the earring onto the hook and then close the loop back up…

I personally prefer wrapped loops, but they take a bit of practice and the simple turned loops are really just as attractive…

How are your Christmas preparations going? I really have to start baking soon!

Posted in Cool Things | 48 Comments »

Easy Baked Gnocchi

December 15, 2014 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

A few weeks ago, I popped into my mate Joe’s shop to buy some frozen gnocchi to make Sami Tamimi’s Instagrammed recipe.

As I was paying, Carmel gave me this brilliant suggestion for another incredibly easy gnocchi dish. She suggested baking the potato dumplings in sauce, from frozen, and told me that her daughter had absolutely loved the results.

I can never have enough simple dinner ideas at this time of year, so I picked up an extra packet of gnocchi to give it a go. As Carmel had advised, I poured in a layer of good tomato passata, scattered over the frozen gnocchi, then added a layer of defrosted pulled pork*…

This was topped with more passata and a mix of parmesan and mozzarella cheese, then baked in a 180C with fan oven until golden…

The serving plate was scraped clean! Next time I’ll put a bit more effort into the sauce, but as a proof of concept dish, this was fantastic – the gnocchi cooked to tender but not mushy and there was just one dish to wash up at the end of the meal!

*The pulled pork is optional (Carmel didn’t use it in her dish). Whenever I make pulled pork, I always freeze the leftovers in small takeaway containers for later meals. They defrost perfectly and can be used for a multitude of easy midweek dinners ranging from fancy ragus to toasted sandwiches.

Posted in Recipes | 27 Comments »

An Overnight Sourdough – In Pictures

December 12, 2014 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

2019 Update:

This tutorial was written four years ago and the way I make sourdough has evolved since then. Please refer to the 2018 Sourdough Cooking Class: Step By Step Instructions for our latest instructions. 

. . . . .

I write a lot of bread posts – mostly about my sourdough experiments with different flours and ingredients. As I’ve said before, tweaking recipes and trying new techniques makes the whole process enormously enjoyable.

But as all my baking buddies know, a lot of the time we simply bake prosaic, pragmatic (and all of those other words that mean everyday) bread. Bread for school lunches, bread that doesn’t require too much thought, bread that always works.

One of the tricky things about baking with a sourdough starter is figuring out how to fit the long proving times into our busy schedules. Mistime it by just a little bit, and we find ourselves peering into the oven at 2am, willing the loaves to brown. But once a routine is worked out, it’s incredibly soothing and simple to orchestrate.

As I’ve now mailed out oodles of dried Priscilla starter, I thought I’d show you how easy it is to make a very serviceable everyday overnight loaf with her. I’ve taken lots of photos – one-handed, on my iPhone, in poor light. What you see below is what I see when I make this bread (in one form or another) a couple of times a week.

Always start with a bubbly bowl of starter. I take out ½ cup of starter from the fridge at lunch time, feed her ¼ cup each of bakers (bread) flour and filtered water at 1pm, followed by ½ cup of each at about 4pm. By 8pm, this is what she looks like…

This very basic loaf uses just four ingredients – starter, water, bakers (bread) flour and fine sea salt. Measure out 300g of starter in a very large mixing bowl…

Add between 570g – 600g of cold or room temperature water. I start with the lesser amount and then add a bit more later if needed, depending on how the dough feels (it varies from night to night)…

Add one kilogram of bakers (bread) flour… …and 18g of fine sea salt. That’s it…

Get a clean hand into the bowl and squelch all the ingredients together…

Cover the bowl with a shower cap or cling film and let it sit on the bench for half an hour…

Uncover and give the dough a quick knead in the bowl. I spend about a minute doing this…

Now cover the bowl again, wish it a good night and leave it on the bench…

At 6am the following morning, this is what my dough looked like. I should mention here that Priscilla is incredibly resilient – she can prove for hours to the point of overblown and still bounce back for a second rise. Not all sourdoughs can do that, so you might need to adapt accordingly to suit your starter’s temperament…

Dust the bench well with flour and scrape the dough out (I like to use fine semolina as it gives the finished loaves a fabulous crust)…

Using a plastic spatula or dough scraper, fold the outside thirds into the middle…

Divide the dough into two…

…and shape as desired. Instructions for shaping the dough can be found here (point 8). Try to pull the outside of the dough as tightly as possible – this will create a good gluten coat which will help the loaves to keep their shape. Cover with a tea towel and allow to prove a second time…

Place covered pots into the oven and preheat to maximum. The pots aren’t essential – you could just as easily bake on a pizza stone or oven tray, but the pots produce beautifully shaped loaves.

Addendum (2 Feb 2015): the Falcon enamel roasters I use are heat safe to 270C. If you’re using a cast iron enamel pot, check that it can cope with the high temps – often the handles are plastic and will melt at anything over 190C.

Once the shaped dough has puffed up a bit (about half an hour), slash with a serrated knife. I’ve learnt from experience that wielding a razor at 6am in the morning is unwise, so now I use a small bread knife. Make bold cuts – slash with panache!

I couldn’t get any photos of the next bit (and no-one was awake to help me). Carefully take the hot pot out of the oven, remove the lid, place in the slashed dough, then cover and return to the oven. Reduce the heat to 220C with fan and bake for 20 minutes with the lid on.

After 20 minutes, remove the lid and bake for a further 20 minutes with the lid off. This is how the dough looks when the lid is removed – well risen but pale…

After the second 20 minutes (ie. at the 40 minute mark), the loaves are basically done. I like to take them out of the pots and bake them on the racks for a further 10 minutes at 175C with fan, as I find this helps to them to stay crusty…

Addendum (2 Feb 2015): Since writing this tutorial, I’ve changed my baking technique slightly. I still preheat the oven, but I no longer put the pots in to heat up. Instead, I line the base of the unheated roaster with parchment, then place the shaped and slashed dough into it, cover with the lid and place the pot into the hot oven. As the enamel roaster is quite thin, it heats up very quickly. These loaves have a very slightly thicker crust, but this is a much easier method of getting the dough into the oven!

I have friends who use this cold pot technique with a cast iron pot – if you do that, you might want to give the covered stage of the bake an extra five minutes and reduce the time a bit at the end.

. . . . .

Allow the finished loaves to cool on a wire rack. The fine semolina that I used to dust the bench adds a lovely crunchy finish…

Most people don’t have a massive 90cm freestanding oven, so if you’d prefer to bake just a single loaf, simply halve the recipe. Or bake in shifts – shape the first loaf and let it rise, then while it’s baking, shape the second one. This dough would also work well as rolls.

Basic, simple, everyday bread. Just four ingredients, kneaded for about a minute, shaped for maybe three – it doesn’t get much easier than that!

Posted in Recipes | 162 Comments »

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