Thursday, June 30, 2011

Kiwi Food Blogs and How to Keep Up!

I like to think that you guys enjoy what I write, and I love hearing your comments and thoughts, but I also love checking out other food blogs, and though I used to mainly follow overseas blogs there are so many great Kiwi food blogs now I wanted to share some of them with you.

While writing this I counted up the Kiwi food blogs I know of and got to an astounding 75! Of course, lots of these are updated infrequently, which suits me just fine as I'd never keep up otherwise, but long gone are the days when there were only a handful.

I don't want to overwhelm you so I'll just mention a few. If I've missed your favourites please share them in the comments - and I'll share some more with you in a few weeks, when you've had time to digest these! ;-)

Lovely Wee Days is written by three lovely ladies spread across the country, with lots of yummy recipes. I love the weekly "A few of our favourite things" post, in which each of the authors write something she's enjoying that week - I have discovered a few new favourites of my own from this feature!

Hungry and Frozen is wonderfully friendly and conversational, with much mention of music, Laura's other love, but certainly no skirting around the glory of good food. Emphasis on having fun with food and making sure you don't skimp on the good stuff (butter! And other delicious things).

Sasa of Sasasunakku features lots of Japanese inspired foods, among other things, and I always find her recipes completely alluring and much more exciting than the things I make. She is also on a mission to fight hangrrr (that's the anger that comes with hunger) - a very valid cause!

The delightful Nessie shows us that Baking = Love, where she shares glorious baking from the heart - and has recently introduced a feature I'm a bit of a closet fan of - Trash Tuesdays. This is where she lets her readers in on her sneaky junk food habits. I certainly have plenty of those and it's reassuring to see a fellow foodie publicly confessing she does too!

Delaney, who the lively lass making a name for us food bloggers on Good Morning once a fortnight, pens Heartbreak Pie, which is quirky and honest and always interesting.

Toast features lots of drool-worthy recipes and funky photos. Mairi not only provides gorgeous recipes (remember this ratatouille goats cheese crumble? Her fault!) but also takes very arty photos, and lately has been publishing versions of the same photo taken with camera and iPhone - it's really interesting to see the difference, and you'd be suprised how often the iPhone one comes out better.

Sugar & Spice is a relative newcomer, written by fellow Wellingtonian Shirleen. I am often impressed by the luxury factor in her home-cooked meals - last week she wrote up this lovely roast quail recipe; something I certainly wouldn't have thought of making for dinner!

If you're a keen blog reader (like me) you probably have your own way of managing your reading, but I thought while I'm on the topic I might highlight a few of the ways you can keep up with your favourites.

You can bookmark the sites, and visit them when you are looking for some reading - you won't get told when a site has been recently updated but you at least will have control over how much of your day gets sucked into drooling over food. ;-)

The main way I follow blogs is via Google Reader - you can subscribe to any site you like to read using this, and whenever the site is updated the new post will show up in your feed. There are other sites that do this but I find Google Reader easy since I use Gmail for email so already have a Google account and am always signed in. To subscribe, look for the subscribe button on the site you're on, or check the bookmark menu on your browser.

Often us bloggerfolk will post links to our latest offerings on Facebook or Twitter - I use both, and enjoy the conversation that can result following the update. I made a pricing update on the peanut butter post the other day was a result of a discussion on my Facebook wall after I linked to the post, and I've many times been inspired by tempting tweets from other foodies.

You can also get blog posts delivered to your email - if you glance at the right hand column you should see a wee box you can pop your email address in. Once a day (if I update) you'll get an email with the latest post in it.

How do you keep up to date with your reading, and what other blogs do you like? I'm hoping since you're here you like mine a bit - what else do you read?

Monday, June 27, 2011

Homemade Peanut Butter

I promise that I'll be back to my normal sickly, sugary, buttery creations very very soon (in fact, we just did the shopping and butter was on special so now there are *ahem* five blocks of it in my fridge!) but for today I thought I'd revisit something that was suggested as a money-saving option last week - making our own peanut butter (thanks to makeitgiveit for the instructions and to tartankiwi for pointing me to them).


I did make some earlier in the week, but I wasn't completely happy with it, so wanted to play around a little. Tonight I had the opportunity to fiddle a little more, and am quite content that I never need buy the stuff again.


On attempt one I bought natural peanuts - just the unadulterated nuts. I also overcooked them ever so slightly, which made them a little bitter (they were still edible, especially once skinned, but not really the flavour I was after). I didn't really want peanut butter full of flaky peanut skins so unrobed them by rolling them vigorously in a clean teatowel.


Once they were skinless I popped them in my trusty mini food processor (stick blender attachment) and ground them to a pulp. I added perhaps 1 tablespoon of sunflower oil to about 350g of nuts - but I'm not sure if I needed to - it might have come together on its own if I'd pulverised it for longer. Anyway, the overcooked nuts made it slightly too bitter, and it was quite oily too, so on to round two. 


 The second lot of nuts I bought were roasted, salted nuts, which don't cost any more and conveniently come skinless already. They're also coated in vegetable oil and salt (which I would otherwise add - what is peanut butter if not a sodium carrier, after all?). Since I'd heard that roasting could lend an amazing depth of flavour and the off-the-shelf "roast" looked a tad anaemic, I popped some of these in the oven too - just 10 minutes at about 170 C. Blended them up, with a much better result than the first lot. But... Well, I'm pretty lazy. And I don't know about you, but when I'm looking to eat peanut butter I'm not necessarily seeking smoky, complex flavours and depth - so I thought I'd try straight from the bag, too.


They don't look as pretty and golden, but they still blend well. If you try this, you'll think it won't work - the nuts first become crumblike, and look as if they're too dry to combine. They will eventually release their oil, though - blend in short bursts if you fear for your food processor's motor - so stick at it and you'll get a very spreadable paste.


It won't be as smooth as the stuff you buy, but it's smoother than I expected. Do feel free to further roast your nuts if you like even your humble PB to have depth - but do you know, I really do prefer the anaemic one. It's extra likeable when you think about how easy it is to make - buy salted roasted peanuts, place in food processor, blitz. Spread on hot toast or eat by the spoonful. 

I'm finding it unbelievable that it's never occurred to me before now to make peanut butter myself - we grow so accustomed to getting things from the supermarket. It definitely does work out cheaper than buying it [edit: it works out cheaper than Eta or Sanitarium or nicer brands - it'll cost about the same as the cheap brands but I dislike them so my analysis was flawed. Sorry!] - and you can choose how you have it. Have you ever discovered how to make something you assumed was far more difficult than it is?

Saturday, June 25, 2011

$88.48 = The Cost of Eating (Well)

So, we've come to the end of the week. I've just polished off the last of my tinned peaches and Mr Cake is eating some oats (which might sound strange at 9pm but is actually a pretty normal evening snack for him).


Above is what we had after our first shop. We subsequently bought yoghurt, brown sugar, peanuts to make our own peanut butter, and more milk and bread, spending a total of $88.48.  And this is what we have left:


Not much! Some of our homemade peanut butter and half a loaf of bread; one whole packet plus a couple of pieces of Mr Cake's lunch meat and some of the hummus; some rice, stock, spices, onion and garlic; and perhaps a cup of oats and some brown sugar. I guess we could last another day on this if we needed to but there's not much nutrition left!

I didn't eat or drink anything we didn't buy this week - Mr Cake had a couple of biscuits at a work meeting and a drink with his colleagues on Friday night but I don't think either of those are significant enough to have altered his nutritional needs. ;-) The only things we used from our pantry were oil, salt and pepper, and some spice for the dhal (we bought two packets as a representative sample since it would have been silly to buy six spices for a one-week experiment).

It was a really interesting experience - we're both looking forward to eating some "treat" foods tomorrow and being able to delve into the pantry for variety, but often limiting yourself in strange and seemingly inconvenient ways have unexpected positives. Some of the things I've learnt this week:

 - we waste way too much. Needing to make the most of everything made me realise we're often a bit careless. It won't take much adjustment to reduce waste, which should have a positive effect on our grocery bill.
 - a little bit of planning saves a lot. I've decided we should do a fortnightly Countdown online shop for everything we can, and only go to the supermarket for fruit, veg, milk and bread (because our freezer is too small to hold more than a couple of loaves).
 - I really value being able to whip out the butter and sugar and throw together something delicious of an evening. I missed that!
 - making breakfast and dinner on the cheap is pretty easy but keeping take-to-work lunches interesting, filling and low cost is tricky (do you have tips for this? What do you have for lunch?).
- fruit and vegetables, even though we shopped at the supermarket instead of the farmers' market, weren't too expensive - we spent $22.43 on produce and got quite a bit - the trick is buying in season. Probably spending another $3-4 on a couple more apples and some greens would have been optimal, but we certainly didn't feel like we were lacking in nutrition.
- some things - like peanut butter - which we tend to accept come in jars or packets are actually pretty simple to make yourself.
- I think a carton of eggs would have been a good addition to our shopping list, since omelettes are quick and filling and boiled eggs can also be good snacks - we probably could have done without the third loaf of bread if we'd had a snack alternative

Based on this I think the two of us could entirely reasonably get by on $90 a week - but it would involve a lot more effort. At present, with both of us working full time, I'm happy to concede that we won't always get the best deals and that spending an extra half hour at the office is worth more than scrimping at the supermarket. I also have no doubt that if circumstances require it's possible to eat for significantly less than we did - one commenter this week said she had a weekly $30 food budget while studying. Yikes! Anyway - I feel like the average person should be able to eat reasonably well on $45 a week - which is reassuring with all the negative media around food costs.

Here's a breakdown of what we ate:
Breakfast
Porridge with brown sugar and/or tinned peaches
Lunch
Peanut butter sandwiches or
Hummus sandwiches or
Hot beef sandwiches or
Leftovers 
Fruit
Dinner
Dhal with rice (2 nights)
Kumara, pumpkin and peanut soup (2 nights)
Tomato/mince (sort of bolognaise but not quite) with pasta
Leftover tomato/mince sauce with potatoes added and rice (1 night) and pasta (1 night)
Snacks
Yoghurt
Peanuts
Fruit

Would you have done anything differently? Are you surprised at how little or how much we spent?

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Food Budget Update

This will just be a brief update, as I'm exhausted! The food budget challenge is still going strong; we haven't run out of food yet (that's a bonus!). Which is partly why I can't bring you any fun baking post - rest assured, I'll be back with a vengeance next week. ;-)



We have bought a couple of extra things - some brown sugar, to liven up the porridge; some peanuts, with which to make peanut butter (which I'll write about when I've further refined the process, not sure I've optimised it yet!) and some extra milk. Because of the moldy porridge incident and the supermarket's refund policy I'm only counting half the cost of the milk (1 litre effectively just replaced what we lost in the yucky oats) so it was $6.77. That brings our shopping total to $86.97. I am pretty convinced we will need one more loaf of bread - Mr Cake ate nine pieces yesterday! - but otherwise we should be right. We made a big batch of chilli mince tonight, with the tinned tomatoes, all the leftover lentils, and some carrot grated through it. Tonight we had it with pasta; if we add potato to it tomorrow it should last two more dinners. Exciting stuff, eating the same thing three nights running!

I am sure there is quite a bit of scope to either save more or eat better within this budget - having a stock of things like lentils (we could have put more in our mince to make it go further but didn't want to buy another whole bag) would help. Also, over a longer term you have the option of making enough food for three nights but freeze some of it to help keep the variety in your life. I also think it's important to have a bit of sanity money that you can spend on treats or the odd meal out, even when you're on a budget - it makes sticking to the budget much more viable. Though we've been eating out this week we've really eliminated all treats (unless you count the brown sugar!).

Can you survive without treats? What's your can't-do-without vice?

Monday, June 20, 2011

Dhal and Shopping on a Budget

I knew this challenge would be distortive - I didn't want to use things already in the pantry, because we keep it so well stocked that we'd only need to spend $20-30 on produce to have a normal week's food. Because most people have a few basics (flour, sugar, spices) we're a bit more limited. I did make a concession on spices - we bought a couple (since we've planned some spice-heavy meals) but decided it was okay to use some we already had. I also decided we could use oil, salt and pepper we have already since a) the overall cost of these over a week would be tiny and b) we are in no way short of any of them and buying more would be stupid (although we're doubling up on some things they're things we go through quickly, so that's not an issue).

So what did we buy? I won't go through everything, but here's the haul:


Oats for breakfast porridge, plus a couple of tins of peaches to jazz it up; bread, peanut butter, hummus and sliced beef for lunch (not all together! And the latter is for Mr Cake, who is very tolerant but who I don't wish to drive insane - definitely a luxury); and for dinners, we've planned dhal (two nights); pumpkin, kumara and peanut soup (two nights); pasta with tomato sauce and veg (two nights) and mince and veg (we'll probably spice the mince and maybe add tomatoes, and we may yet reconfigure the last two meals). We also bought plenty of fruit (kiwifruit and mandarins were both very cheap, yay), which Mr Cake chews through at an unbelievable pace.

We were lazy/weak (it was raining sideways!) and skipped the Sunday vege market, though that probably would have saved us another couple of dollars (and many of you recommended it as a great budget option). Living in Wellington CBD and not having a car means that for the rest of the shopping we have the choice of New World, New World and New World, which is easily the most expensive supermarket - so again that drives prices up. 

We have already added to the original shop - omitting yoghurt turned out not to be viable for the protein-hungry Mr Cake - but though I'll add it to the tally it didn't actually cost us anything, due to us having the misfortune of getting a moldy bag of oats. Sadly we didn't notice until we had made a massive potful of porridge (to last a couple of days) with about a litre of our precious milk - so while the supermarket's policy of replacing the oats and refunding the cost seems generous, we'll probably be spending more on milk later in the week (unless we make the porridge with water, and I'm not sure if I can face that!).

All up, so far: $80.20. We opted for budget/on special products wherever possible, and went for brands we wouldn't normally choose for bread, yoghurt and peanut butter - and yes, all three are very noticeable. The biggest surprise for me was the taste difference in the peanut butter. While I love the really fancy stuff we chew through it way to fast for me to be buying Pic's all the time, so we normally have Sanitarium - I didn't think there could be that much difference between that and Pams but oh, there is, believe me! (guess I'm showing my inner peanut butter snobbery, forgive me)




Last night and tonight we had dhal for dinner - not too much vitamin content but certainly not unhealthy, and very hearty and filling (and tasty!). We'd normally use liquid stock rather than stock cubes, but taste-wise I couldn't really tell the difference (though I would normally have added salt, which we didn't need to do!) - otherwise this is a standard meal for us (actually, we had it last week too - wouldn't normally have it again so soon but it's so cheap to make...).

So tell me - have you seen any obvious savings I've missed yet? What are your favourite inexpensive dinners?

Doesn't look that pretty, though...
Curried Red Lentil Dhal (from Alison and Simon Holsts' Very Easy Vegetarian Cookbook)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion, diced
1 teaspoon garlic, minced
1 large bay leaf
1 teaspoon chili powder
2 teaspoons curry powder
2 teaspoons turmeric
2 teaspoons mustard seeds
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
1 cup split red lentils
2 cups of chicken or vegetable stock, or 2 teaspoons stock powder and 2 cups water
salt
1 -2 tablespoon chopped coriander, leaf

Heat the oil in a large pan. Cook onion and garlic until the onion has softened and is turning clear. Add bay leaf and measure the spices then add all at once and cook, stirring continuously, for 1-2 minutes longer.

Add the lentils and stock, bring the mixture to the boil, then reduce the heat to a gentle simmer. Cover the pan and cook until the lentils are tender, 20-30 minutes. Stir in the coriander and serve with rice.

(note that we omitted the bay leaf and coriander due to cost. We made double as it's so cheap and filling - it might be lunch tomorrow as well)

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Food Trade Offs and a Food Budgetting Challenge

There are lots of choices to make about the food we eat these days, to the point of it being tricky to know what to buy sometimes. There's organic, free-range, fair trade - all sorts of options when it comes to just about anything. And then there's the price of it - how much has the price of dairy, for example, been in the news lately?

I reckon everyone has a different view and there's not necessarily right and wrong, just shades of grey - but I do think it's really important to figure out what you value and what you can afford, and work from there (you can tell I live with an economist, right?). As an example: free-range eggs are expensive. I use a lot of eggs, and always have. When I was a student, I valued having cake over happy hens, and felt my student budget couldn't reasonably stretch to free-range. Some people might judge me for that - but that's how it was. Now I earn enough to be able to buy free-range (which I also happen to think taste better), so I do - but I like knowing that folks who maybe aren't so flush, or who rank other things higher on their priority list, can still have their cheap eggs.

I've been getting a bit riled with the media lately, as there have been quite a few reports along the lines of people-can't-afford-to-eat-anymore. I know there are people who have it tough - but this line often seems to come from people whose lifestyles have expanded to fit their generous budgets and think that those with less clearly need the same budget to survive. I've had times when money has been tight (as have most of us!) and so know there are corners to be cut, and I've devised a bit of an experiment.

For the next week, Mr Cake and I will be going budget on our food. I'm not setting a spend limit - I just want to see how little we need to spend to be well-nourished. We'll plan out our meals, and pare down the luxury stuff (which we do have a fair bit of) but we certainly won't be subsisting on weetbix and rice alone - and I'll share a couple of updates of what we spend and what we're eating.

Because I am focussed on food I'm not counting other groceries so this isn't necessarily a great reflection of normal household spend - but I think it'll be interesting to see how it pans out.

We normally budget what we think is a fairly generous $160 a week on groceries (this doesn't include eating out), being keen foodies who like some luxury items and a lot of baking stuff. $20-$30 of that might be non-food items - so I'm working on the assumption that our food would normally cost about $130 (which is probably conservative, I'm sure I sneak in more top-up shops than I care to think about!). Because Mr Cake and I a) value our fancy food and b) tend to be time-poor, a lot of the savings we make won't be sustainable for us - but it will be interesting to see how much it costs to feed the two of us for a week.

Have you ever done anything like this? What are your cost-saving tips for eating on a low budget?

Friday, June 17, 2011

My Chocolate Tour of Wellington

When we went to Melbourne in March one of my top priorities was scoping out the chocolate shops and doing a completely necessary taste-test of their wares. On returning home I realised we have a few pretty good chocolate options on our doorstep, so embarked on a similar venture here. Well, clearly I had to wait a little while to recover from the chocolate-induced coma, but I've bounced right back so here goes round two. 



Stop number one on the tour is L'affaire au Chocolate, tucked away in Berhampore. Unassuming, but the aroma of chocolate hits you as you walk in the door, and the ever-helpful Jo will tell you all you could ever want to know. She gave us samples of some amazing French chocolates, with different origins and bean quality/grade, and it was very interesting to see how this changed the tasting experience, the melting speed varies and texture and flavour differed too. We've tried chocolate from various regions before, with our Michel Cluizel sampler box - a great DIY experience and you can get the boxes online from Aji if you want to give it a go, but the grades of bean were new to us - they were distinctive, though I would struggle to tell the difference if I wasn't having them back to back. I guess I need to eat more chocolate so my tastebuds learn! ;-) 


The chocolates were wonderful - the chocolate itself was wonderful, and they were very rich, very smooth. The ginger one had a creamy, dark filling and the ginger was strong - just how I like it. The honey flavour was also lovely, and again the flavour came through very well. The chilli one was quite potent - good, but not for the faint-hearted (Mr Cake loved it)! Very good chocolates, distinctive flavours (but well balanced) - well worth seeking out. If Berhampore isn't so handy to you you can also pick these up at Kirkcaldie & Stains. 


Bohemien have two shops - the original is in Hataitai, but my regular haunt is the one on Featherston Street (Moore Wilson Fresh also stock the chocolates). This time we visited Hataitai, where if you're lucky you'll get to chat to George, the owner (he's great, we attended a workshop run by him last year, and he runs group classes from the Hataitai kitchen from time to time, so if you want the full chocolate experience give him a call).

The chocolates are always great here (as are the macarons), and at $1.50 each they're cheaper than most boutique chocolates. Bohemien means "fresh" and the chocolates are fresh and the flavours are very true - no artificial flavourings in use here. My all-time favourite is the sea salt caramel, and the passionfruit caramel is another noteworthy specimen, but I am yet to try a flavour I don't like (and I have tried almost all of them!). A bonus here is that many of the chocolates are made in both milk and dark varieties, so you can pick whichever you prefer - great for milk-chocolate lovers like myself.

I also quite like the presentation - a little different from the norm, which makes them distinctive, and also perfectly proportioned for sharing, so you get to try all the flavours if you have a willing partner in crime - well, if you're willing to share at all. ;-)


The third stop on my tour was the more commercial Butlers - this is an Irish brand, and the Willis Street store was the first outside of Ireland to open. Oddly, they don't allow photos of the chocolates in the shop, though the staff were perfectly friendly and helpful. The chocolates themselves aren't bad, but when compared with the alternatives (and with Bohemien being slightly cheaper, even) I would definitely veer towards one of the others. They were quite sugary and clearly not fresh - perhaps I was spoiled by eating the others first. Sorry, Butlers! I have heard they serve a good hot chocolate...


Last but not least I stopped in at the Esque stall at The City Market. Esque don't have a store, but you can make contact via the website and they are at the market most Sundays. Their range consists of tablets in a variety of inspiring flavours - beautifully presented, simple and chic, and each hosts a French phrase and a description of the chocolate. I purchased an almond praline tablet - apparently this was a flavour chocolatier Annette produced as an Easter egg this year, and customers enjoyed it so much she has made it one of her regular flavours - and received a salted chocolate bar free.

The chocolate is dark, but not too dark for my easily-overwhelmed tastebuds - a nice 58% - and clearly of high quality - this is great treat chocolate. The almond flavour is lovely, not as nutty as I had imagined but this wasn't a negative - it was subtle and lovely, a wee bit of sweet, nutty crunch when the chocolate has melted away. The salt flavour really won me over, though - I do adore salt, and have long been a fan of salted caramel anything, but just salt and chocolate - I'm not sure that I've encountered that before. It works fabulously, though - adds an extra layer of flavour for your tastebuds to play with. The chocolate was perfectly smooth, so though I knew the flavour when I tried it the salt surprised my mouth - I definitely recommend giving this a try!



I did also want to pick up some Schoc chocolates - the Schoc kitchen is in Greytown, which is a little too far even for me to go just for chocolate, but Ciocco, which is visible from our apartment building, and used to be my go-to Schoc stop, has done something strange with its operating hours - they were closed before 4pm the day we tried to visit, despite the cited closing time of 5pm on the website. Schoc do make great chocolates, though definitely at the pricier end of the scale, so if you know where to get them they're worth a whirl - and if you're passing through Greytown the kitchen smells divine so stop in, even just to breathe the chocolatey air. ;-) 

Wellington may be a relatively small city, but I reckon we give Melbourne a run for its money - perhaps there aren't as many chocolate shops but the local chocolatiers have high standards and there are some excellent options for the hardcore chocolate fan.

Wellingtonians, have I missed any favourite chocoholic haunts? What's your favourite chocolate shop? And can you bear to share them or do you hide them away to have all to yourself?




L'affaire au Chocolat, Bohemien, Butlers, Esque and Schoc are in various locations around Wellington - see the websites for locations and stockists.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

The Australian Women's Weekly Kids' Party Cakes

Does the title of this post ring any bells? Perhaps this will bring the memories flooding back:


Yes? No? Maybe? Well, for me this book was probably the beginning of the cake obsession. Like so many other children of our generation we pored over it to determine the cake of choice for our next birthday. My Mum was (I imagine still is, though she doesn't have the same call for making kids' cakes these days) pretty good at representing our childhood flights of fancy in cake, and repurposing lollies as decor - one year I had a sewing box cake, filled with pebble buttons and such things. When I turned four I got a Hickory Dickory Dock clock - not identical to the one in the book but it was a pretty good representation and certainly no self-respecting four-year-old would complain about a cake so awash with lollies as this:

Shortly after this photo was taken I attempted to decapitate my sister with the big knife entrusted to me for cake-cutting duties
I'm pretty sure we were having a better time than we let on in this photo. ;-) Anyway, when I saw that The Australian Women's Weekly was rereleasing the book I knew a copy was destined for my shelf. They've jazzed it up a bit, and some of the classic cakes aren't in the new book (no princess sleeping in a fancy princess bed! Woe is me!) but I imagine it suits the children of the 21st century perfectly.

Snazzy new cover - but good to see the use of freckles (those 100s & 1000s covered choc buttons - we loved them as kids)
Of course, I had to give one of the cake ideas a go, and the echidna looked striking and easy - a winning combination! Actually, most of these cakes are really simple to make, and the book comes with a set of paper templates in the back of it - you can cut them out and use them to shape the cakes (e.g. for the number-shaped ones). 


The echidna is an ice-cream cake, so there's not even any baking required. You just line a bowl with gladwrap, fill it with ice-cream, freeze it again to firm up, then add some bits and bobs to make it echidna-like. The book said to use a cream-filled sponge finger for the snout, but I couldn't find those in our supermarket, but I found some almond biscuits which seemed about right. Substitutions of all descriptions are fine - so long as it does the job!


In retrospect I think I did this in the wrong order - it would have been much easier to grate chocolate/sprinkle cocoa over the "body" first (I used both as I didn't have enough chocolate!), then do the face, then the spikes - but as you can see the spikes went on first, which was a little awkward. Anyway, I won't walk you through it, since I think it's pretty self-explanatory; the book suggests that quick-setting chocolate ice-cream topping for the face, but I used chocolate - either works fine - and chocolate finger biscuits (what else? They're in all the best cakes - check out my clock cake if you don't believe me!)


Do you have fond memories of this book? What was the best birthday cake you ever had?

Monday, June 13, 2011

Beehive Pears

Another stressful day for Cantabrians - I don't really know what to say, I've run out of words for my hometown. All I can really say is stay strong - an empty sounding platitude repeated over and over, though certainly not said with any less meaning!

My family and friends are all fine - sure, there's a bit more damage to stuff, and it's very depressing that everyone seems to be backpedalling, but we'll get there eventually - these things do make you realise what is truly important in life.


Because sugar always helps in hard times, I have a nice, sweet dessert recipe to share. I spotted these pretty pears on the dangerously addictive Pinterest, which is basically a sort of online pinboard - people "pin" up pretty or quirky things they've spied around the web, and the photo links back to the site.


I love pears, I love honey, and I love pastry, so really how could this not be good? They're also kinda cute - I'm not sure if you see the beehive in them, as mine were a little irregular - but they're more interesting-looking than many desserts. They're also pretty easy - chuck some stuff in a saucepan with the pears for half an hour, then mummify with pastry and bake.


Pears pretty much top the dessert-fruit list for me - well, they perhaps tie with lemons, which make an appearance in this dish anyway - I enjoy lots of others but something about the texture of pear, and the oh-so-subtle flavour that goes well with so many delectable things (chocolate, honey, toffee, custard, almond, ginger - and many more) wins out for me. It's funny, though, I pretty much never eat them. What's your favourite fruit, either to bake with or eat?


Beehive Pears (adapted from Sprinkle Bakes)
Ingredients
4 pears
2-3 sheets of ready made puff pastry dough, thawed
4 cups water
2 cups sugar
1 cup honey
1/2 lemon
1 vanilla bean, seeded with hull reserved or 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
3 cinnamon sticks
6-8 whole cloves

Peel pears and core from the bottom. Trim off the bottom of the pears so they sit flat.

In a medium saucepan, combine the water, sugar and honey and bring to a simmer. When the sugar has melted, add the pears, vanilla, lemon, cinnamon and cloves. Simmer pears until tender - 20-40 minutes, depending on ripeness and size. Remove from pot, set on a lined oven tray, and allow to cool slightly. 

Preheat oven to 180 C. Cut the pastry into 1cm strips and wrap the strips around the pears, working quickly and starting from the bottom. When a pastry strip ends wet the end with a little of the syrup and press the next strip gently on top. Wrap to the top, tucking in the end piece. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until pastry is golden brown.

Discard vanilla, lemon, cinnamon and cloves and drain off around half the syrup. Simmer the remaining liquid over medium heat until thick. Drizzle over pears to serve.

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