Category: Baking

05
Oct
2017

Profiteroles For Very Special Occasions

categories: 1970's food, 1970's recipes, A-Zof Cooking, Desserts, France, Pastry

You might think that five and a bit years into this that I would cease to be surprised. Both when things go awry and when by some stroke of mad luck things work out just as they should. Such was the case with the Profiteroles I made on the weekend from the Very Special Occasions Chapter of The A- Z of Cooking (1977). When the profiteroles came out of the oven looking like, well, profiteroles, there were whoops of joy, squeals of excitement and a bit of spontaneous kitchen dancing!

Yep, in this house, this:

Equals This:

But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves just yet. First. Hello V. And whilst we’re on the subject let’s’ all note the name of the chapter. Not just Special Occasions. Very Special Occasions. Requiring very special dancing apparently. And also requiring several goes at making something that was worthy of posting. After all, it’s a very special occasion.

First up there was a go at Carpetbag Steak. Now, if you lookup Carpetbag Steak anywhere on the interwebs, you will more than likely read that it is a famous Australian recipe. I’ve lived here virtually all my life and I have never head of it. However, I really liked the idea of steak and oysters. I made the recipe and it looked and tasted meh.

Then I made a Beef Stroganoff. Tasted good. Looked terrible in all the photos. I think it’s that thing that Jenny from Silver Screen Suppers told me about where brown food just doesn’t photo well. This was about the best…

So then I made Carpetbag Steak v2. A modern recipe this time. Still looked and tasted meh.

I was left with a choice. Champagne and Orange Juice. Or Profiteroles. And believe me . You came so close to having Champagne and Orange juice as your very special occasion meal. Because this is what happens inside my head whenever pastry is mentioned:

The profiteroles only happened because the very special occasion was a long weekend due to the Football Grand Final being the next day. I know right. Who has a holiday BEFORE the big day?

“It’s the dumbest reason for a holiday ever” I said.

“Come to work then” said my boss.

“It’s the best holiday ever. Better even than Jesus being born. Or dying.”

So anyway, on the holiday for best/ worst reason ever I got a little bored in the evening and thought that I would have a flick through The A-Z of Cooking, to plan V-Z. The profiterole recipe caught my eye and I realised that I had every ingredient. And a whole heap of bravado due to being about 3/4 of a bottle of a wine in.

Don’t judge. That produced these. Light as air, melt in the mouth, boozy cream filled and shiny chocolately pastry balls of deliciousness,

The basis for profiteroles, and the reason for my hissy fit is pastry. Choux pastry to be exact. I have made choux pastry exactly once before. For a recipe called Cherry Fritters from The A-Z of Cooking. Don’t bother searching the archives for them. They were a total disaster and I didn’t post them.

But choux starts with a roux…actually no. According to The A-Z of Cooking choux pastry starts with 63g of flour. Yep. 63. Not 60. Not 65. 63. And seeing as this was a very special occasion, 63g of flour it was.

This became this:

Which became these. I couldn’t find a piping bag and my piping skills are non-existent so I just blobbed spoonfuls of the pastry onto the tray. Also, I wasn’t really expecting this to work. And need I remind you about that bottle of wine that was now 5/6’s gone?

Well, slap my arse and call me Charlie if those funny looking blobs didn’t turn into these. They’re shall we say “rustic” but on a scale of one to ten of being recognizable as profiteroles, they have to be at least an eight.

So then fill and ice and sprinkle and you get these: (even more profiteroley).

Here’s the recipe direct from The A-Z of Cooking:

I tweaked the recipe by swapping out the rum for Amaretto and adding some sprinkles.

Make, eat, enjoy, do a little dance of sheer pleasure.

And have a great week!

Signature 1

Save

08
Jun
2016

Pieathalon 3 – Lemon Potato Pie

categories: Cook A Long, Lemon, Pie, Pieathalon, Potato

It will come as no surprise to you, wise people of the internet that this, in all it’s earthy glory, is a potato:

And this, is a can of beans.

They don’t call me Captain Obvious for nothing!

What is probably not so obvious is that you can turn these into this:

That’s right, lemon meringue pie made from spuds and beans.

How?

Well, it’s Pieathalon – the foodie equivalent of Mouseketeer Surprise Day; anything can happen and it usually does!

Starting with a brand new logo (thanks Greg, it looks super!)

Pieathalon is that time of year when bloggers from all over the world swap recipes and rejoice in the kooky baked goods of yesterday. The full list of participants and what they made is at the bottom of the post. Why not go visit them all? Maybe start with Battenberg Belle who is making my pie of choice, Fatty Arbuckle’s Delight, then pop over to Ruth at Mid Century Menu who sent me lemon potato pie!

Lemon Potato Pie – The Pie

The recipe for Lemon Potato Pie comes from 250 Superb Pies and Pastries, a book from 1941. The use of the humble spud instead of the more luxurious ingredient of butter to create lemon curd had a feel of wartime austerity about it. Butter was rationed right? Otherwise….why? No, seriously, WHY?

Let’s not delve too deeply into the minds of 1941 and get stuck right in to the pie. Starting with some grated potato.This was then parboiled for a spell and quickly became a kind of gloopy liquid.

After the rest of the ingredients were added and it cooked some more, the potato broke down even further. However, at the end of the cooking there were still some small flakes of potato which were odd and a bit off putting when you tasted the….sludge. So, even though this was not in the recipe I blended the lemon mixture to make it smooth. Bear, in mind I have the fussiest eater in the world as my chief taste tester!

Lemon Potato Pie – The Meringue

So, then to the meringue. And here disaster struck. I had put the separated whites into a bowl and left them on the far side of the kitchen bench while I made the filling. When it came time to make the meringue I looked around to where I had left the egg whites and they had vanished.

“Did you take my egg whites?” I asked The Fussiest Eater in The World.

“I gave them to the dogs. I thought that’s what you left them for”.

We had no more eggs. And we had been to a rather boozy lunch that day so there was no option of getting into the car to go buy more eggs.

“Crap…guess, I’ll have to finish it tomorrow”.

A bit later, I was making our dinner which was the Argentine Beef Stew from The A-Z of Cooking (1971). I will definitely blog about that one soon, it was DELICIOUS and I remembered something about making meringues from bean water. A quick visit to Google confirmed that you could make meringue from the water that surrounds tinned chickpeas or white beans. Why not give it a whirl? It’s in the same spirit of “make do and mend” as the potato based filling.

I drained the can of beans, the beans went into the stew and the bean water went into the mixer.

I was incredibly surprised to see that it meringued up a treat!

Ooops! I’d over filled my pie!

In homage to Ruth, I thought I would let the Fussiest Eater in The World have the final say on the Lemon Potato Pie.

Lemon Potato Pie: The Verdict

Mixed.

So, what do you think?

“The filling is gorgeous. It’s really delicious”.

And the meringue?

“Tastes like the worst marshmallow in the world”.

Well done cooks of 1941! And thanks Ruth for a super recipe! Your lemon potato pie is delicious!

Sadly, vegans and egg intolerants, the aqua fava meringue was not. It was much more marshmallow-y than meringue-y. It was very gooey and a bit stringy – think mozzarella cheese on a pizza.

Here is the recipe for the pie:

Given the bean meringue was a failure, here is the proper recipe for the meringue from Ruth.

“The recipe for Meringue 1 is 2 egg whites, 4 tbsp sugar, 1/2 tsp vanilla. Beat eggs until frothy, add sugar gradually, and continue beating until stiff. Add flavoring. Pile on pie and bake in 325 degree oven for 15-18 minutes”

Pieathalon 3 – The Bloggers

Here is the full list of the wonderful crazy people who participated in Pieathalon this year. I’m heading off to see their creations! Why not join me?

Yinzerella at Dinner Is Served 1972 (www.dinnerisserved1972.com) Peanut & Beer Pie
Poppy at Grannie Pantries (http://granniepantries.blogspot.com/) Lemon Meringue Pie
Kelly at Velveteen Lounge Kitsch-en (http://velveteenloungekitsch-en.blogspot.com). Heidenische kuchen (Heathen Cake)
Greg at Recipes4Rebels (www.recipes4rebels.com) Fluellen’s Pie
S S at A Book of Cookrye (abookofcookrye.blogspot.com) Perpetrating Chocolate “Pie”
Silver Screen Suppers (www.silverscreensuppers.com) making Creme De Cacao Pie
Battenburgbelle (battenburgbelle.com) has the pleasure of making Fatty Arbuckle’s Delight!
John The Hedonizer is making Fidgety Pie. Www.foodandwinehedonist.com
Susie at Bittersweet Susie (https://bittersweetsusie.wordpress.com_ made Star Gazy Pie
Ruth at Mid-Century Menu (http://www.midcenturymenu.com) Brandy Apple Pie
Surly at Vintage Recipe Cards (http://www.vintagerecipecards.com) Transparent Pie
Erica at Retro Recipe Attempts (http://retrorecipe.wordpress.com) made Mai Tai Pie!

Thanks as ever to the wonderful Yinzerella for making it all happen!

Have a wonderful week. Now go eat some pie!

Save

29
May
2016

REPOST – Devil’s Food Cupcakes

categories: Cake, Chocolate, Food Heroes, Nigella Lawson

What better way to end my devil themed blogiversary party than with some Devil’s Food from the Domestic Goddess?

I adapted Nigella’s recipe into cupcakes and much deliciousness ensued!

These were easy to make, and tasted amazing! A deep chocolate flavour and they were (apologies in advance) super moist. They also lasted for close to a week in the fridge…we are after all only two people and the mix made 15 cupcakes. I took half into work to share the love but someone managed to eat all of his half by himself. Not so fussy after all it appears!

If you head over to You tube you can see Nigella make this cake herself and hear her utter my favourite phrase of the clip when she speaks about mixing the cocoa, muscovado sugar and hot water into a “malevolently dark syrup”. It is Devil’s Food Cake after all!

I pretty much followed Nigella’s recipe except that I added a tablespoon of coffee granules into that same “malevolently dark syrup” because it wasn’t already rich and dark enough! Also because I made cupcakes, I adjusted the cooking time. Mine were in the oven for 18 minutes.

Can I just say….that frosting!!!!! OMG. I ate so much of it I felt sick. Then I ate some more because it was so good!

Devil’s Food Cupcakes

Print Recipe

A luscious chocolate cake with a rich chocolate frosting. Sinfully Good!

Author: Taryn Fryer
Yield: 12 1x

Ingredients

Scale

For the Cake

50 grams best-quality cocoa powder (sifted)
100 grams dark brown muscovado sugar
250 millilitres boiling water
1 tbsp coffee granules (optional)
125 grams soft unsalted butter (plus some for greasing)
150 grams caster sugar
225 grams plain flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 large eggs

For the Frosting

125 millilitres water
30 grams dark brown muscovado sugar
175 grams unsalted butter (cubed)
300 grams best-quality dark chocolate (finely chopped)
Sprinkles to decorate

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4/350°F.
Line muffin pans with cupcake liners. I made 15 cupcakes from this mixture but the number of cupcakes will depend on the size of your containers.
Put the cocoa, the coffee, if using, and 100g / half cup dark muscovado sugar into a bowl with a bit of space to spare, and pour in the boiling water.
Whisk to mix, then set aside.
Cream the butter and caster sugar together, beating well until pale and fluffy.
While this is going on, stir the flour, baking powder and bicarb together in another bowl, and set aside for a moment.
Still mixing, add the vanilla extract into the creamed butter and sugar . Then drop in 1 egg, quickly followed by a scoopful of flour mixture, then the second egg.
Keep mixing and incorporate the last of the flour. Then fold in the cocoa mixture, scraping the mixing bowl well with a spatula.
Divide this batter into the cupcake liners, filling to just over halfway.
Place in the oven and cook until a skewer comes out clean – it was around 18 minutes for me but will depend on the size of your cupcakes.
Remove from the tins and cool on a wire rack.

For The Frosting

Put the water, 30g / 2 tablespoons muscovado sugar and 175g butter in a pan over a low heat to melt.
When this mixture begins to bubble, take the pan off the heat and add the chopped chocolate, swirling the pan so that all the chocolate is hit with heat, then leave for a minute to melt before whisking till smooth and glossy.
Leave for about 1 hour, whisking now and again.
Spread or pipe the frosting over the cupcakes.
Decorate with sprinkles or your decoration of choice.

Notes

If you want to make this as a large cake, watch Nigella’s You Tube clip or you can find the recipe here

https://www.nigella.com/recipes/devil-s-food-cake

If you’re serving these to guests or even if there is just two of you, make sure you spirit one of these away in case you have the need for a Nigella inspired midnight feast!

Have a great week!

08
Mar
2016

Torta Mimosa

categories: Cake, Italy

Happy International Women’s Day!

Today we are celebrating with an Italian treat called a Torta Mimosa. In Italy, men give the women they love a sprig of mimosa on International Women’s Day (March 8th). In Australia, it is autumn and we will not have mimosa (what we call wattle) for another six or so months so swapped in some gorgeous lilies instead.

The Torta Mimosa is also traditionally served on International Women’s Day in Italy. Or as the Italians would say, Festa Della Donna – it sounds so much more glamorous when you say it like that doesn’t it?

The Torta Mimosa, as the name suggests is meant to look like a sprig of mimosa. I’m not entirely sure that it does but damn it tastes good!

It’s a sponge cake, filled with creme pâtissière (and I added some lemon curd), then covered with small squares of sponge to create the mimosa look.

It’s light, fresh and a lovely way to celebrate all the wonderful,amazing women in your life!

I am so very lucky to have a many inspirational women in my life – from family, friends, work mates, the tasty reads crew, friends from the gym, to the people who I have met through doing this blog. I feel privileged to know such a number of smart, witty, sassy, strong women, each of whom help to make my life, and the lives of all around them better and brighter.

Oh boy…this recipe is not hard to make but there are lots of parts.

I made Margaret Fulton’s sponge cake from The Great Australian Cookbook. Twice.
I used the creme pâtissière from The Joy Of Cooking
And I also used some bought lemon curd in the layers to add some tanginess.

Here is a link to a very similar recipe on Epicurious:

Torta Mimosa

To all you wonderful women, I wish you a very happy International Women’s Day!

Signature 1

18
Feb
2016

The Dishiest Dish – Pizza Rustica Con Bietola

categories: Books, Chard, Dish of The Week, Dishiest Dish, Pastry, Podcasts, Prosciutto, Savoury Pies and Tarts, TV

“Hey mambo, mambo Italiano hey, hey mambo mambo Italiano
Go go go you mixed up Siciliano
All you Calabrese do the mambo like-a crazy”

This week’s dishiest dish has us going to Abruzzo for a Pizza Rustica con Bietola. AKA a savoury tart with chard . But Pizza Rustican con Bietola sounds so much more Italian and glamorous doesn’t it? And it will have you dancing the mambo because it is super tasty!

The recipe comes from Made in Italy by Silvia Colloca which was my choice when we did Italian in the Tasty Reads book club a few months ago.

Before I looked inside this book I had my hater face on. As if some B grade actress was going to have any cooking chops – and bear in mind the Claudia Roden book was one of the other selections. This was going to have to be pretty damn impressive to rival that!

Then I started flicking through and ye-es there were several pictures of Silvia looking both incredibly beautiful and impossibly thin. But it was also filled with what looked like some fabulous recipes and things that were not run of the mill. And everything I have made to date has been delicious.

This has included:

Calimari with Tomatoes and Wine
Woodsman’s Chicken
Herb Frittata with Goat’s Curd
Noodles with Zucchini Blossoms and Saffron Sauce
No Knead Spelt Pizza with Soppressata and Potatoes
Pasta Strips with Slow Cooked Goat Sauce

So, this is proving a pretty solid choice. Yay me! Well, really yay Silvia! But you know, I write a blog and it doesn’t get much more totally self obsessed than that so I guess yay me is valid.

Six Week Challenges – Update

I am still on my 6 weeks of no alcohol although I did take last weekend off! Saturday night we were having lobster – OH. MY. WORD. So good!!!! And there was no way on God’s green earth that I was not having a glass of sparkling with that! And Sunday we went out for a Valentine’s Day dinner to our favourite local Greek restaurant. And again – it would have been churlish not to have a glass of vino! But on the whole it is going well . I haven’t really missed it. I also haven’t felt many of the supposed benefits – weight loss, sleeping better, greater productivity etc.

I have been struggling with the daily meditation. I don’t think I have found the perfect time to do it. In the mornings I am usually too rushed and if i try to do it at night I fall asleep. Two places it did feel “right” were one day I did it as soon as I got home from work so it was a bit of a chance to decompress. The other was one morning when I had parked m car at the station, i just stayed in it and did my ten minutes there.

My new one, started February 15th is a flexibility challenge. Every day I will do a short workout designed to improve my flexibility. I am using the program from Fitivity. I have only done a couple so far and they have been fine but a bit boring. I’m sure they will get more challenging as I progress!

I have been thinking of more that I can do over the next few weeks /months:

No processed food
No sugar
Yoga everyday
No Candy crush
Journalling everyday

Are all on the list.

Reading

Room – Emma Donoghue

I have had this book on my To Be Read shelf for YEARS. And finally now I have taken the plunge and have started it – simply because I want to have read it before I see the film. I am probably 2/3 of the way through and I think it is very well written. There are certain parts that I have found quite confronting and other parts that have annoyed me but once I start reading it I find it difficult to put down. I am still having some problems with starting picking it up and starting it each day though…..

Room - Emma Donoghue

The Apologist – Jay Rayner

This is my current audiobook. Marc Bassett is a merciless restaurant critic. One day a chef commits suicide by roasting himself in his bread oven, leaving Bassett’s review taped to the outside. And so begins his career as the apologist.

I am not very far along with this but I am enjoying it so far.

Watching

My Kitchen Rules

I can’t help myself. I am utterly addicted to this. And the commentary on Flawless Vision.

Listening

I Know What You’ll Read This Summer Podcast.

I have only listened to one episode of this but they hated Girl on The Train almost as much as I did so it’s definitely worth another listen.

Room 101

From time to time I’ve decided to list a few pet peeves on here. Things that I would like to see banished to Room 101. Starting with:

Gluten Free Everything

When you label your bread, cakes and cookies gluten free you are doing a good service for those people who cannot tolerate gluten. When you label products that would never have contained gluten in a pink fit “Gluten Free” you are indulging in a cynical marketing ploy. STOP IT. I swear I saw water labelled gluten free recently. It made me want to break things.

Quinoa

Has no one else noticed how bad this smells as it is cooking. I made some the other day and the smell of it made me gag. I”m never cooking it again.

Cooked.com

I took out an annual subscription for cooked.com. This, for those of you who may not have heard of it is kind of like a netflix for cookbooks. Does anyone else have one of these? Do you find it useful? how long have you had it. Does it help you to choose which cookbooks to buy or do you not buy them anymore? I have not actually cooked anything from the site yet. I guess I’d better start! Stay tuned!

Kitchen Nightmares

I had one kitchen nightmare this week. I was all set to make Vitello Tonnato for bookclub only it was a new style “healthy” VT. So, instead of that gorgeous tuna mayonnaise, my tonnato was made out of tofu, anchovies and parmesan cheese. And it was rank! I have never been one to complain about the smell of parmesan cheese. I remember even in primary school when people would say “Yuck, it smells like sick”, I always thought they were nuts. This abomination of a tonnato not only smelt like but tasted like vomit. It was so bad I couldn’t even give it to the dogs.

Now though, I am craving a proper old school Italiano Vitello Tonnato. It’s a shame Silvia’s book does not have a recipe. However, The A-Z of Cooking does. There will be 1970’s Vitello Tonnato on here very soon. I just have to allow the memory of the horror that was that tofu tonnato to subside a little!

What Silvia’s book does have is this recipe for Pizza Rustica con Bietola. I am obsessed by those words. I keep repeating them in an increasingly bad Italian accent! If you would also like to become obsessed with this lovely tart here is the recipe:

This week I am looking forward to cooking…nothing. Because I have been really busy and not done a single bit of menu planning. However, we have a new Tasty Reads book so I might crack this open and give something a whirl.

Oh and this is is my new favourite you-tube. I have watched it about a million times since I found it.

What was the best thing you’ve made this week? What are you looking forward to cooking? Have you read anything interesting? I would love to hear from you!

Have a wonderful week!

Happy cooking.

Signature 1