Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Finished Triple Chocolate Cheesecake: Zebra cake


Just a quick post today, as I am attempting to gather myself together for my flight to Christchurch in the morning for the Merchiston High Teas over the weekend (still lots of spaces for Friday 2.00-4.00 and Sunday 11.30-1.30 in case you're interested!) but I thought you'd all want to see how my cheesecake turned out (I need to bake a few days ahead of blogging so I don't have this lag problem!). Firstly, I really don't recommend making cheesecake without a water bath if you can help it. It tasted fine (better than fine, in fact, but more on that in a moment), but I felt I needed to cut off most of the top as parts were very dark (and most of the top layer was white chocolate so it shouldn't have been). It also took a loooong time to cook; almost two hours with the oven on and then we turned it off and went to bed and left it in there all night - and that was pretty much perfect. The water bath keeps the cake at a more constant high temperature when it's cooking, and lets it cook through before the top gets too brown. So next time I will check my equipment before I begin!

As for the taste - it was fantastic! This recipe is definitely staying in my repertoire. I got rave reviews from many colleagues, and had trouble stopping myself from revisiting the plate. It's a pretty simple recipe and I can see it would also work well as a neater layered cake if you're more that kind of person (I am - I wanted to try this and do think it's cool but I have to say I prefer precision and uniformity most of the time. Boring, I know!).

So how did the inside turn out? Judge for yourself:


As Mr Cake points out, zebras don't have three colours, so maybe zebra cake isn't the best description (or maybe Mr Cake is just too pedantic), but no matter what you call it it's kind of funky, don't you think?

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Triple Chocolate Cheesecake

I had a work lunch today so wasn't able to do my "Baking Blitz" at lunchtime, and as I'm taking Thursday and Friday off to fly down to Christchurch and bake for the Merchiston High Teas I will have so much to do tomorrow I don't think it will fit in tomorrow either. So I thought I'd be super nice to my colleagues and do some baking tonight, and perhaps sneak home around lunchtime tomorrow and whisk back in with my 'lunchtime baking.' See how long it takes them to realise I couldn't possibly have made an entire cheesecake in my lunch hour (I think some of them think I'm magic anyway so they may believe!).



Since I obviously had a bit more flexibility with what I made I thought I'd go for something that takes ages - the actual process wasn't too long (though I did use every single mixing bowl in my cupboard!) but the baking takes an hour and a half and then it needs to chill for 8 hours; obviously wouldn't work in a lunch hour!



I got the recipe from What the Fruitcake?!, though it's a concept I've seen on quite a few blogs over the last few months; it works as cake or cheesecake, and I think looks pretty cool when sliced (though sadly I won't be able to show you a slice photo - or even a finished photo - tonight!).


Basically, you make the batter then split the mix in three, then mix dark, milk and white chocolate respectively into the parts. To create a layered effect, you just alternate scooping cups of the different batters into the cake tin; each scoop pushes the previous one outwards, resulting in a stripey effect when cut. I will post a photo tomorrow when we see the inside, I promise!


As I mentioned above, the process was pretty simple, though it would require a bit of elbow grease to beat the cream cheese into submission if you don't have an electric beater.

I was unable to use a water bath for this recipe as I realised part-way through making it that we don't have a roasting dish, or anything else with high enough sides and large enough to hold my cake tin. As a result my cheesecake took too long to cook and got too dark and cracked on top - none of these are real problems in terms of taste (though obviously if it burnt on top it would be!) but they do make it less pretty and also the longer cooking time can be a pest if you want to do other things but have to keep checking on an unruly cheesecake! Moral of the story; use a water bath in the oven!

Triple Chocolate Cheesecake
Ingredients
200g digestive biscuits
1/4 cup brown sugar
115g butter
1 Tbsp cocoa
900g cream cheese
4 eggs
1 1/4 cups caster sugar
1 cup cream
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
100g 70% dark chocolate
100g milk chocolate
100g white chocolate

Method
Preheat the oven to 160 C. Prepare a 22.5cm springform tin by greasing, cutting a round of baking paper to fit the bottom of it, and firmly wrapping in tin foil. The tin foil is to prevent water from leaking in when baking in a water bath, which is preferable but I was unable to do as we don't have a roasting dish.

Crush the digestive biscuits and mix with brown sugar, cocoa and melted butter to make the crust. Press into your prepared tin, evenly coating the base and sides.

In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese until smooth. Add the sugar and beat well, then gradually add the eggs, beating between each addition. Add the lemon juice, vanilla and salt and mix just to combine.

Melt the chocolate in separate bowls and allow to cool slightly. Separate the filling mixture into three even portions and mix in the chocolate.

Scoop about 1 cup of the dark chocolate mixture into your crust, followed by a cup of the milk mixture and then the white. Repeat until all the mixture is in the tin. Don't worry about spreading it (though if you need to when you get to the end tap the tin on the bench a couple of times to force the mixture to the edge). Cover with tin foil, place in a roasting dish of boiling water, and bake for 1 hour 15 minutes to 1 hour 30 minutes, until the mixture is mostly set but slightly wobbly in the middle.

Cool, then chill overnight or for 8-12 hours before serving.

Monday, June 28, 2010

Floriditas, Cuba Street, Wellington

One of my colleagues adores Floriditas and goes there weekly - so it's been on my to-do list for a while - any cafe or restaurant which garners such commitment must be doing something right! A friend was visiting Wellington from Christchurch this weekend, and we were seeking a spot to catch up, and it seemed to be an ideal opportunity.



I arrived a few moments before my friend and her sister and was instantly impressed by the service; I was offered a seat at the bar and provided with a glass of water (I love being brought water without having to ask for it, as I am pretty much always thirsty - and in this case I had just been to the gym so I was extra grateful. Only a couple of minutes later I was shown to a table, and I was joined just after that by my dining companions. So easy!


First order was drinks, and I ordered a hot chocolate, because although all the cold drink options sounded very appealing it was a very cold, wet day and my belly was crying out for warmth. It was chocolatey and good and went down very easily!


One of my companions ordered this very summery looking drink, which she seemed to enjoy but I've managed to lose track of what it was. Oops - well, perhaps she'll remind me and give a better review in the comments!


I was kind of craving french toast, and knowing they were renowned for their breakfast food I had been thinking that would probably be my choice, but alas, french toast doesn't appear on the Floriditas menu. I was completely appeased by my caramelised onion, black olive balsamic and thyme tart, though! It was so good - salty olives, sweet, soft onions, the strong tang of the balsamic and crispy, flaky pastry. My only complaint was that there wasn't more of it (though there was plenty).


Floriditas is known for their eggs - only free range are used - and there are six egg dishes to choose from on the menu. I often find that eating eggs as eggs (i.e. poached or as omelets - they're fine in cake!) upsets my tummy a little so I usually steer clear but I was quite jealous of these luscious looking poached eggs - so white, so fluffy looking. And the bacon so hearty - I think I need to revisit Floriditas for more experimentation!


To complete the trio at our table was another egg dish - and despite my aforementioned issue with eggs I very nearly ordered this; pork, thyme and paprika sausages with poached eggs and hollandaise. I didn't get a formalised review from the eater of this dish (we were too busy discussing all the best places in Wellington to eat - food, my favourite topic!) but the plate was looking pretty clean when she was done.


If your lunch wasn't enough you can treat yourself with a cupcake or Portuguese custard tart - we managed to restrain ourselves but I was nice enough to take a vanilla macadamia cupcake home to Mr Cake. Sadly he wasn't nice enough to share it with me so I don't know how it tasted but it vanished mighty quickly - before I could get to it with the camera. He tells me he especially liked the macadamias on top - and having tried a couple of their other cupcakes I'm sure it was delicious!



Floriditas is located at 161 Cuba Street, Wellington, ph 04 381 2212, www.floriditas.co.nz

Saturday, June 26, 2010

Sky & Helene's Macarons

I know two macaron posts in two days seems like overkill - but the day before we made ours I was in Moore Wilson Fresh and spied this awesome little box (sealed with wax!). After I had advised the guy behind the pastry counter that the blackboard contained a spelling mistake (it said "macaroons", not "macarons" - impressively, he immediately called his supervisor over to tell her so it could be fixed, which made me feel even more ridiculously pedantic) I requested a box (they were tucked away behind the counter). At $7.50 for a box of four they're not cheap, but come cheaper than Christchurch's J'aime les Macarons, which are $2.50 each.


I was a bit disappointed when I got home and realised that the box of four only contained two flavours; the poster on the cabinet they were in showed four different macarons so I had assumed each box was an assortment. Oh well, at least I didn't get the coffee flavour!

Our selection had two lemon macarons and two chocolate ones. I was sad to see that they don't look illustriously filled, but they are flawlessly smooth and macaron-y looking.


So, the big test; how do they taste, and how does that compare to the ones we made?

Well, the chocolate one was pretty tasty, with a rich chocolate flavour, though there was no substance to the shell - no chewiness, it was more like a light meringue biscuit than what I think of as macaron (bearing in mind I've only tried a couple so my judgement is not the most experienced). The lemon one was definitely lemony but I felt it lacked zing - and it really didn't seem to contain much filling. I tend to think that if you were trying these having never tasted macarons before you might think they were either overrated or overpriced.

With, obviously, a slight bias, both Mr Cake and I thought our homemade macarons were better. We agreed that our buttercream filling needed more flavour (for both the passionfruit and the raspberry) but both still packed a better punch than the lemon. The shells on our macarons definitely had the chew factor - far more enjoyable.

 

From an aesthetic perspective, the bought ones are obviously a bit neater - I like how the foot isn't splayed out - but were lots flatter, and I suspect it's not completely authentic for them to be as rounded as mine but I like them. I also think a good macaron should have a visible filling - because you eat with your eyes too!

What do you guys think? Tell me the truth; I can take it! How do mine stack up lookwise - and do you know what makes a macaron kosher?



Sky & Helene's Macarons are available from Moore Wilson Fresh on the corner of Tory & College Streets, Wellington, ph 04 384 9906

Friday, June 25, 2010

Macarons!



Macarons have taken the foodie world by storm over the last few years - a decadent confection consisting of egg white, almond, sugar, and whatever filling takes your fancy. Sounds simple, yes? Perhaps not so much! To be fair, though, they are not that difficult - a little fussy but even if they don't come out perfectly I'm sure you will still enjoy the results; and although I've only made them twice I've been very happy with the results both times.

To me the hardest part is remembering to separate the eggs ahead; apparently the whites are more stable if they're aged at room temperature for a couple of days beforehand. I know it seems wrong but I have done it twice now and have gotten over it a bit. Probably helps that the season means our apartment is not too warm; otherwise it might weird me out a bit more.


The process is straightforward if you are a seasoned baker; beat egg whites until foamy, add sugar gradually, then blitz the almonds and more sugar, and fold into the egg mixture with a bit of powdered colour.


The flavour in macarons in most cases comes mainly from the filling - the nutty quality of the cookies is delicious but really comes alive with a tangy, fruity buttercream or a rich ganache filling. You can also change the nuts - my understanding is that this works best if you keep half the almonds, and replace the other half with, say, pistachios. 

Once you've made the batter you pipe the mixture onto a baking tray:


You could use a spoon to place small mounds if you don't have a piping bag but it's much quicker this way. Once you've piped the mixture out you're supposed to leave it to rest for 30-60 minutes; this allows the batter to form a light crust, which creates a smooth top shell when you bake them and gives the oh-so-desirable 'foot' at the base of the cooked macaron. I'm not sure why the foot is such a feature but I presume it's a good signal that your macarons have succeeded; it's caused by the pre-crusted shell being raised during cooking - since the shell has had the chance to harden a bit the whole thing rises, leaving a thin layer of rough, aerated cookie at the base. Anyway, I expect this is a bit boring for all but the most obsessed of you, so moving right along...


For filling, you can use pretty much any recipe you like; the first time I made these I used ganache, so wanted to try something fruity this time around. I made a French buttercream and split the recipe in two, flavouring half with passionfruit pulp and half with raspberries.


French buttercream (educational post today, folks!) is made by beating a sugar syrup into egg yolks until fluffy, and then gradually adding butter until thick and creamy. Definitely not a recipe I'd recommend if you don't have an electric beater - my wrist got sore holding the beater up so a stand mixer would be the ideal contraption for this!


Again, this is not a difficult recipe, but getting the sugar syrup to the right stage takes some patience, and preferably a thermometer. If you don't want to be this fussy you don't have to, though - just about anything that will hold together will work - a more basic buttercream, ganache, even a simple marscapone/fruit combo - the world is your oyster! As for the pretty colours, you'll need powdered colours to achieve these; most cake decorating or chocolate making shops would have these, and there are plenty of places you can buy them online, too. They tend to be $6 or so for a bottle but you only use a tiny amount at a time so they will last ages. I didn't quite use enough for mine - make sure the mixture looks nice and vibrant as the colour will pale a little as they cook.


Macarons (makes 24 sandwiched cookies; recipe from Tartlette)
Ingredients
90g egg whites (the three size 6 eggs I cracked yielded 100g)
25g castor sugar
200g icing sugar
110g almonds (ground, slivered or blanched)
powdered food colour

Beat the egg whites to a foam (think bubble bath!), and gradually add the sugar until you have a glossy meringue. Put the remaining ingredients in a food processor and pulse until almonds are finely ground (this is recommended even if you have ground almonds, but the previous time I made these I just mixed these ingredients in a separate bowl, which worked out well).

Fold the dry ingredients into the egg whites, until ingredients are well combined and mixture falls back on itself in 10 seconds. Test the mixture by putting a little on a plate; if the top flattens it's ready, if not give the batter a couple more folds to remove a little more air.

Use a piping bag and plain, wide tip to pipe small mounds onto two baking sheets. Leave for 30-60 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 130 C.

Bake for 15-20 minutes - when done you should be able to easily lift a macaron off the tray in one piece.



Buttercream Icing (note; this makes enough for two batches of macarons)
Ingredients
100g sugar
60g water
Seeds of 1 vanilla bean or 1 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 egg yolk
200g unsalted butter, at room temperature
Flavor of choice (with this recipe I tend to add flavour gradually to taste - hence no measurement)

Combine sugar, water and vanilla in a saucepan over medium heat until sugar dissolves. Continue to cook, without stirring, until syrup reaches 125 degrees celcius.

While the syrup is heating, begin to whisk egg and yolk at high speed until pale and foamy. Once syrup is at the correct temperature, reduce speed to low and slowly pour syrup into bowl. Raise speed to medium-high and continue beating until thick and satiny and mixture is cool to touch.

Mash butter until soft and creamy. On medium speed, add the butter in two-tablespoon chunks. Once all butter has been added, raise speed to high and beat until thick and shiny. Add flavor and beat for an additional minute or so.

Assembly
To assemble, pair the macarons with similar sized shells - if yours are like mine there will be some variation! Pipe a small mound of buttercream onto one half then gently press together. Refrigerate to firm the icing (and store refrigerated) but serve at room temperature. The macaron cookies (unfilled) can be kept at room temperature in an airtight container for up to a week before filling, or can be frozen. The whole cookies can also be frozen.


(by the way, gold leaf is the most annoying thing in the world to use!)

Thursday, June 24, 2010

A busy night - so a teaser for tomorrow!


We've just spent a looong time in the kitchen, making a little something, which I will blog extensively about tomorrow - so for now just a teaser photo - and giving our new camera a good thorough workout. All good news for you readers! So a bit of a copout tonight but it's for a good cause - tomorrow's post will be full of pretty photos and a recipe for deliciousness.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Floraditas Passionfruit and Lime Lamington

Earlier this week, I posted about the cupcakes our neighbour bought me, which were correctly identified in the comments as being from Floraditas. One of my colleagues loves Floraditas and the next day she just happened to offer me a Floraditas lamington.


I actually managed to resist the urge to gobble it on the spot (I was off to the gym and lamington is definitely not my optimal work-out fuel) - a remarkable feat. But when I did finally embrace the temptation I was solidly impressed - it's definitely not your typical lamington - the cake was richer and dense, not light, and the coating was flavoursome and tangy, not just pure sugar - but I loved it. I wished I hadn't shared, it was so good! So, to my friendly commenter who recommended against these - I honestly wasn't out to prove you wrong, but I wonder if perhaps you hit a bad day? Or maybe the other flavours aren't as good - or maybe my love of tangy flavours (I like to overload things with lemon and ginger) is distorting my review. ;-) Either way, I'll be back to Floraditas for more!






Floraditas is located at 161 Cuba Street, Wellington, ph 04 381 2212, www.floraditas.co.nz

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Baking Blitz - Sweet and Savoury Tartlets

Today's baking blitz was comprised of two super easy (slightly cheating, possibly, as it wasn't really what I'd normally call baking, though technically the food was baked) yet very popular treats; mini tomato and feta tarts, and mini chocolate caramel tarts. Most of the people who had one came back for another... and another... And I also couldn't get a definitive favourite as most people seemed to like both! My favourite were the sweet ones, though - I can't go past chocolate. ;-)

The best part of all about these is how easy they were. I had to grease my muffin tins the old fashioned way, as I didn't have any baking spray, and I still easily got back to work within my hour.


The 'recipe' for my (not very well photographed) mini tartlets is below. Meanwhile, I'm looking for camera recommendations, as Noel Leeming have finally told me our old camera is toast (it wasn't very old so we now have store credit). I don't want a DSLR (too expensive) but something in between (like maybe this) that will take good photos of food would be good! Do any of you have good or bad experiences with cameras in the $350-500 price bracket you'd like to share?

Sweet and Savoury Tartlets (makes 24 of each)
Ingredients
2 sheets pre-rolled savoury short pastry
150g feta cheese
12 cherry tomatoes
2 sheets pre-rolled short sweet pastry
1 block of Caramello chocolate

Preheat the oven to 180 C. Grease four mini muffin tins (you can do them in batches if need be, I only have two tins so did two batches). Cut the pastry using a round or fluted cutter to fit the muffin tins.

Place the savoury pastry rounds into two of the tins. Crumble the feta and divide between the cases. Top each tartlet with half a cherry tomato. Bake for about 10 minutes, or until pastry is golden brown. Top with salt and pepper to serve.

Place the sweet pastry rounds into the other two tins. Place an upside-down square (it'll look neater when cooked) into each pastry case. Bake for about 8 minutes, or until golden brown. Dust with icing sugar to serve.

Monday, June 21, 2010

Baked Apples - a perfect winter dessert

Tonight's recipe is a variation on something I've been making since I was a child - and it takes all of five minutes to throw together, is pretty flexible in ingredients, and is low in fat as well - could it get any better?


It's so easy I'm not even going to write up the recipe properly. But you really can't go wrong (and I'm sure Google would find you hundreds of recipes for this if you feel the need for specifics). Start by pre-heating the oven to 180 C. Then get an apple for each person you're making it for. So, for Mr Cake and I, that would be two apples. So far so good...

You'll need to core them - an apple corer does a neater job but as you can see gouging through the middle with a knife also works perfectly well (it means you can make a bigger hole, and therefore cram more stuffing inside. Aha!).


Next you need to make the stuffing. Brown sugar and some sort of dried fruit are the only vital elements here (in fact, if you were on a super health kick you could probably even omit the sugar, though I'm sure that wouldn't taste nearly as good). When I was a kid it was usually raisins; tonight, because I was feeling fancy I got some mixed dried berries from the supermarket - and they were divine! You can also add nuts - I used some slivered almonds, a bit of leftover almond meal to help make it a bit crustier (think apple crumble, sort of), and some leftover walnuts, cut into small pieces. Also feel free to add cinnamon, nutmeg, or any other spices you like (though I'd suggest tumeric or cumin might be a bit odd).


The next step is to cram the stuffing inside the apples. The more that's inside the better, as bits left on the tray are liable to burn. If you want to make for extra lusciousness use cider or apple juice to baste it - pour in the bottom of the pan and during cooking a couple of times spoon it back over the fruit. This will give a little extra flavour, and keep the fruit and filling nice and moist. Bake for 20-35 minutes (depending on how large your apples are and whether you like them firm or soft - or how impatient you are!).


Voila! There's dessert. Best served with a small scoop of vanilla ice-cream, or unsweetened yoghurt.

What's your favourite quick dessert to whip up when the sweet tooth hits?

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Cupcakes - the best kind of payment

Okay, the title is a little misleading - I wouldn't accept a full-time job for cupcakes. But where the 'job' involves walking a few metres into the apartment next door and reading my book on their sofa for half an hour in case a child awakens while the parent picks up the other child - well, it hardly calls for payment at all, so unexpected cupcakes form a very acceptable currency in that case.


I'm not sure yet where these are from, though when I've had a chance to speak to Neighbour-Man (who brought them for me yesterday when I wasn't here) I will update the post. If any Wellington folk recognise their origin feel free to identify them in the comments!


The first cupcake was a delicious coconutty concoction - the icing was essentially coconut ice (and I guess that's the look they were going for with the pink colouring), and it was dense and delicious. The cake was also very dense and moist and sweet - I'm not sure if it was a vanilla flavour or coconut as the icing was so full on it was hard to identify, but the whole thing was fantastic regardless. I liked this one best!


The second cupcake was a banana cake with a caramel (maybe dulce de leche?) icing. The cake was fine - Mr Cake really liked it but I'm fairly nonplussed by banana cake mostly. The icing, however, was amazing. Soooo sweet and good!

So thanks, Neighbour-Man, anytime you need to pop out let me know!

Do any readers recognise these cupcakes?

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Ginger cake, sticky date pudding and cookies by mail!

Today is my Dad's birthday. He's usually pretty hard to figure out what to get, so this year I thought I'd put some baked goods in the post, since you can't go wrong with food, right?




I started off with another batch of peanut choc chip cookies, though this time with more peanuts and more chocolate. As you can see there was hardly enough dough to hold it all together! Made for deliciously chunky cookies, though.


And the recipe is pretty generous. Made enough for Dad and a few for our tin. ;-)


Then I made a batch of sticky date pudding. And we ate some, just to test. You've got to make sure your baking is fit for human consumption before giving it as a gift!


So I popped three puddings (these are pretty big puddings - I reckon each one is really two servings) into a plastic container to provide some protection on the trip south in a courier bag. I also poured some sauce into a jar I had saved, and packed that carefully. The cookies were wrapped as a pile, in a mass of waxed tissue paper.

Last on the agenda for a frenzied Thursday night of baking was ginger cake. Unfortunately, I suspect due to lack of concentration and focus being on the third recipe of the day I didn't take any photos of the ginger cake - if  I'm lucky Mum might have taken one when it arrived, and if she has I'll update the post with some pics later. I did take a photo of the packaged cake, ready for posting:


A good old empty cereal box and screeds of sellotape did the trick. Apparently all the goodies arrived intact, and sticky date pudding was dessert du jour for my folks.

Happy birthday, Dad!

Fresh ginger cake
Ingredients
125g butter
1 tsp grated lemon rind
1/2 cup boiling water
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup golden syrup
1 egg
1 Tbsp finely grated root ginger
1 3/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Heat oven to 180 C. Line a 23cm ring tin (or 20cm round tin) with baking paper or grease well. Cut the butter into small cubes, then put in a saucepan with lemon rind and hot water. Heat until butter melts, but do not let the mixture boil.

Whisk in brown sugar, golden syrup, egg and ginger, then stand in a basin of cold water to cool. Add the sifted dry ingredients, and mix to combine well (but don't overbeat). Pour into your prepared pan.

Bake of 40 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. Best served warm - but you can zap it quickly in the microwave if you need to rewarm a slice later on. ;-) I'm also willing to bet this would be great with the sticky date pudding sauce, if you're after a sweeter kick.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Sticky Date Pudding

When we were in Te Kuiti staying with my Uncle Ben and his wife Katharine we made them sticky date pudding. Katharine heavily hinted to me that perhaps the recipe needed to be posted here, and since it's definitely the right season, and we've discovered this is a good freezer-stocking recipe, I thought she might be onto something, so here we go.

This is a pretty easy recipe - can't go too wrong, doesn't take too long to put together. The most tiresome part is making the sauce - but even that's less than 10 minutes and it only involves stirring, so very doable.


Today I used a combination of ramekins and individual pudding cups to bake the puddings (you can steam them but that will take a lot longer so I don't). You can also make it as one big pudding - but I like doing it this way as we can then freeze single servings to microwave later. It's a bit like having a stock of those single serve microwave puddings you get from the supermarket, but these are much better. ;-)


Sticky Date Pudding (serves 4-6 - can be doubled if you want to stock the freezer!)
Ingredients
180g dates, pitted and chopped
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup boiling water
1/2 cup orange juice
50g butter
150g brown sugar
2 eggs
180g self-raising flour
Sauce
150g brown sugar
1 cup cream
½ tsp vanilla essence
1 Tbsp butter

Preheat oven to 180 C. Mix dates and baking soda in a bowl, and pour boiling water over the top.

Cream butter and sugar until pale then add eggs, one at a time. Gently fold in the sifted flour, stir in the date mixture and pour into a greased 18cm cake tin. Bake for 30-40 minutes until a skewer comes out clean. Alternatively used small greased containers - for a single serve bake for 10-15 minutes

Combine all sauce ingredients in saucepan and bring to the boil, stirring. Simmer for 5 minutes. Pour over pudding and serve!


If you want to freeze some for later put portion-sized puddings into airtight containers, add sauce, then just microwave for about a minute (depending on your microwave) to serve.

So now you have the recipe, Katharine. Perhaps Uncle Ben will make you some for dessert tomorrow?

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Baking Blitz - Super Easy Lemon Slice

Today's under-an-hour lunchtime baking recipe comes to us from Eat My Cake Now (French and English, scroll down for the English if your French is as good as mine) and though she calls it the more elegant 'Tarte au Citron', or lemon pie, mine is more of a slice (though not a very solid one) - I suppose it could go either way.

Regardless of what you call it, this is remarkably easy, and was one of my most stress-free midday dashes since I've begun this thing. The slice has just six ingredients (lemon zest optional), and requires no special technique. If you think you can't bake, you're wrong - and you can probably do much more complicated things than this - but this would be a good starting point.


I'll freely admit that the photos on Eat My Cake Now are a lot prettier than mine - but I'm willing to bet she spent more than an hour making the pie/slice and then styling and photographing! ;-)

Lemon Slice
Ingredients
250g digestive biscuits
125g butter
1 tin sweetened condensed milk
2 eggs
125ml lemon juice (approx 3-4 lemons)
zest of one lemon (or to taste)

Method
Preheat the oven to 180 C. Crush the digestives (in a food processor is easiest but if you don't have one pop them in a sealable bag and bash them with a rolling pin. Melt the butter then combine with the biscuits. Press into a lined tin (I found the crust too crumbly to be able to safely remove without paper underneath) - I used a brownie tin.

Combine the other ingredients in a bowl and mix thoroughly. Pour over the crust and bake for 10-12 minutes, or until set.


It was very decadent and delicious warm (though the chocolate I sprinkled on top didn't stand up well to the heat!) but I'm pretty keen to try it again and chill it, as I think it is probably pretty tasty that way, too.

My workmates happily gobbled it all up; one gave it a rating of 9.7/10, and they all made very appreciative noises. The only critique? Too messy to eat!

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Baking Blitz tomorrow - stay tuned!

Things got a bit crazy at work today so I didn't make it home for lunchtime baking, but this week's item is super easy and I think pretty awesome (though I haven't made it yet so perhaps shouldn't count my chickens before they're hatched) - so check back tomorrow evening for a recipe and hopefully a photo or two!

If anyone's interested we've just added a Friday afternoon (2-4pm) and Sunday lunchtime (11.30-1.30) to the Merchiston High Teas, so if you'd like to book your seats drop me a line at mrscake.nz@gmail.com.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Spice!

Just a quick post tonight. Something that's been bugging Mr Cake and I for awhile is our spice storage. A few years back I did have a spice rack, but it was pretty gross and old and I got it secondhand with most of the spices. No wonder I didn't use it often - they probably all tasted of sawdust. Anyway, we use a fair bit of spice in our cooking (and baking) and for the last 6 months have just had a container full of those ratty little cardboard boxes from the supermarket. We kinda knew what we wanted to do but couldn't find the necessary apparatus anywhere. Until last weekend (in Hamilton), that is.


Now, our spices are resplendantly perching on the front of the freezer. And if we get sick of them there we can attach them to the rangehood. Or anything else metal we feel like. Yes, we got magnetic spice jars. I'm really pleased with them - the magnets are nice and strong - no risk of falling off when we open and close the freezer - and you can either twist the lid to get sprinkle/pour holes or take the lid off and spoon it out (much easier to measure from than boxes!). And it looks pretty!

(in case you're wondering, although we are now getting better at recognising spices by their visual characteristics only I have labelled the underside of the jars, just so we don't accidentally use cumin instead of nutmeg or something)

(sorry about the blurry photo, still using my phone as the camera is still with the repair people)

What's your favourite pretty + functional kitchen thing?

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Coconut Rice with Vanilla Honey

The other day when I was talking about cookbooks I mentioned the Donna Hay Seasons book, and the delicious (and easy!) coconut rice pudding recipe. The recipe is supposed to be accompanied by stone fruit, but though I can vouch for the fact that it is delicious with a topping of nectarine, since it's winter nectarines aren't too thick on the ground and this time we just went with the pudding part and the vanilla honey - which is pretty good on it's own anyway (it just doesn't look as pretty).


There are basically two steps - boil the rice and water for 10 minutes, then add everything else and simmer for another few minutes.


Oh, and pop some honey and vanilla in another saucepan for a couple of minutes until it's runny and delicious. Beats most other rice puddings I've tried - not only do you not have to stir, it takes hardly any time at all!

This recipe makes a lot of pudding - I'd say it easily serves 8 (Mr Cake went back for seconds, thirds and fourths, and there's still lots leftover!) so feel free to cut the quantities in half or even quarter if you don't want that much. Or just put it in the fridge for tomorrow - it also tastes good cold, or reheated in the microwave.



Coconut Rice with Vanilla Honey (from Seasons, by Donna Hay)
Ingredients
2 cups/400g arborio rice
1.5 litres/6 cups water
2 cups/500ml coconut milk (since a can is less than this I usually just add extra water and it still tastes great)
1/2 cup/110g caster sugar
2/3 cup/240g honey
1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped, or 1 tsp vanilla bean paste, or 1 tsp of vanilla essence
nectarines and peaches to top with (optional)

Place the rice and water in a saucepan over medium heat and bring to the boil. Cook for 10 minutes or until almost all the water has been absorbed. Add the coconut milk and sugar and stir to combine. Reduce the heat to low and cook for a further 5-8 minutes, or until the rice is cooked.

Place the honey and vanilla pod/seeds/paste/essence into another saucepan and cook over low heat for 3 minutes. If using a vanilla pod remove. Serve rice topped with vanilla honey and fruit (if desired).
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