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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!

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18
Jan
2016

REPOST – A Peacock Cake & The Gala At Yala Part 1

categories: Birthday Cake, Cake, Children's Cakes, Sri Lanka, Travel

It was recently the fussiest eater in the world’s birthday and I made him a peacock cake!

Isn’t it adorable? Even if I do say so myself! And for the non-bakers out there it is all assembly, no baking involved. I mean, you can bake a sponge if you want but, for this recipe, it is absolutely not necessary!

Yala National Park – Sri Lanka

But more about our little peacock friend later. The peacock was a special symbol for us as it reminded us of the time we spent at The Yala National Park when we were in Sri Lanka ~~earlier this year.~~..OMG…last year! (2021 Note – This was originally posted in January 2016)

The National Park at Yala is a huge tract of land at the Southern tip of Sri Lanka.. It is home to a myriad of wildlife.
Yala is situated in leopard country and whilst we did two Safaris hoping to see one of these magnificent creatures, we were unlucky both times….or were we? Whilst we did not spot a leopard (pun intended) we saw so many other wild animals, living in their natural habitat that I felt utterly privileged to have been there.

Here was Mr Peacock:

There were monkeys galore:

Sloth Bears:

Some jackals playing:

A crocodile, most definitely not playing:

And a huge amount of elephants – my favourite part was when we saw two older female elephants and a cub walk down to a pond to have a bath and a drink:

Then the baby decided to have a little roll in the water:

Afterwards, they came right up to us, crossing just behind the jeep we were in.

Then there was this little one who decided to head off on his own:

The closest we got to the elusive leopard was these tracks:

On a more sombre note, there is also a monument to the people who lost their life at Yala in the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004.

I could go on about Yala all day and have thousands more photos of all the animals and all the birds but we have a Peacock Cake to talk about!

The Peacock Cake

The recipe comes direct from the Women’s Weekly Cheat’s Cakes 2. The idea behind these books is that you can buy a cake and then just decorate it instead of having to factor in baking as well.

I made the cake for the peacock’s body because there was a random box of cake mix in my pantry. But you could totally use a bought cake. The Women’s Weekly provides a template for the body. I copied it onto a sheet of paper, enlarging it a bit as it was really quite small and I wanted to use up as much of my cake as possible.

One of advantage of cutting around a template is that if a bit of cake “falls” off as you are cutting around it doesn’t really matter and you can have a little taste test as you work. You can call it being greedy if you must. I prefer Quality Assurance.

I used the tip of an ice cream cone for my peacock’s beak. A black jube, topped by a piece of white jelly bean topped by the end piece of a black jelly bean made his eye, with a swoop of licorice creating his cat’s eye.

And you will need something to fortify you because threading all those lollies onto the skewers takes a long time.

If making the Peacock Cake for a children’s party you can place more tail feathers in a glass by the side of the cake if you need too. Just be sure to remove the lollies from the skewers before handing them out.

Here’s the recipe for the Peacock Cake, straight from the book. I had to deviate from some of the sweets suggested because I could not find them – use what you have and let your creative juices flow!!!

This is so fun and colourful and would be a great party cake for a child of any age. If you want to make it and would like a copy of the template, let me know.

Have a wonderful week. I hope it’s full of pomp and pageantry. For me, today is the return to work after the Christmas break which is going to be tough! Back to the dreaded alarm and early mornings. On the upside, tonight I am seeing one of my food heroes, Nigella Lawson, live in conversation at the Melbourne Town Hall – it should be A-MAZING!

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09
Dec
2015

Fruit & Nut Gingerbread Loaf

categories: Books, Cake, Dishiest Dish, Movies

This post for Fruit and Nut Gingerbread loaf was originally written and published in Dec 2015. It is one of many of my older posts, which due to some unknown technical hitch ended up being put back into draft. I am trying to repost them all but please excuse any references that seem odd or out of date!

What a week! Some weeks are diamonds and this week everything I made turned out really well and there was not much to choose between them. So I thought I would talk to you about them all.

First up there was a mash up of this recipe from Donna at A Cookbook Collection which is a super blog that I read all the time:

https://acookbookcollection.wordpress.com/2015/10/21/roasted-grapes-with-feta-and-walnuts/

And Niki Sengit’s entry for Goat Cheese and Walnut from The Flavour Thesaurus where she says:

“Paneer is a white tablet of feta as smooth as a bar of Ivory Soap and usually scattered with crisp walnuts. It’s generally accompanied by sabzi, a thicket of fresh herbs, to offset it’s richness. There will be plenty of mint, plus tarragon and dill, bulbous scallions and, nestled somewhere in among the sprigs and leaves, little radishes like baby robins in their next”

This OMG, I want to eat it right NOW delight is on the menu at a restaurant called Patogh on the Edgeware Road in London. And next time I’m there? I’m there!

Not being there, I made my own and I threw in a heap of roasted grapes à la Donna too! And it was so good! I love being able to nibble food from a platter and this recipe will feature on my Friday night grazing platter all grape season!

Crab and Corn FrittersFor a delicious main meal I made some Crab and Corn Fritters from the following recipe from Australian Gourmet Traveller: <<https://www.gourmettraveller.com.au/recipe/snacks-sides/crab-corn-and-mint-fritters-with-lemon-paprika-mayonnaise-10869/>>

I also made a toasted marshmallow pavlova which was A-MAZING – even if I do say so myself.

The Gingerbread Loaf

Also in the sweet realm but at the opposite end of the spectrum was a fruit and nut gingerbread loaf with lemon icing. The pavlova was light as air and so pretty. The gingerbread loaf was not nearly so pretty but wow! It was kind of like a linebacker against the pavlova’s ballerina, in the best possible way. So full of flavour. And quite right for the time of year! Also, like a good wine, this baby just gets better with age. And it lasts. It kept for about a week in the fridge. It probably would have kept for longer, we just ate it all.

This week, I am looking forward to cooking

Lunch, Starter or Salad: Italian Stuffed Deli Loaf

The Main Event: Chicken, Mushroom and Walnut Cannelloni from Katie Quinn Davies for the Cookbook Guru

Sweet Dreams: Honey Pots

In Other News, I Have Been

Shopping

Another bit of a cookbook binge – I bought the next two Tasty Reads book club books. And as my Christmas present to myself, the new Nigella:

Reading

I gave up on The Reckoning. Life’s too short for a book you don’t enjoy. I have started the December t book club selection, The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks. Personally, I would not have chosen to read this in a billion years – the fictional lives of Biblical characters not being high on my list of interests but I am finding myself increasingly drawn into this story. Which is exactly why I joined the book club – to widen my reading horizons.

I also gave up on The Last Werewolf and am now listening to Time and Time Again by Ben Elton on audio which so far has been great. And I do love a bit o’ time travelling! The only problem with this is that I keep thinking it is called Time After Time and I have had that Cyndi Lauper song in my head for DAYS!!!!

Books Collage3

Watching

Along with time travelling, I am also very fond of a conspiracy theory and I happened to catch the last half of Room 237 on the telly the other night. It blew my mind! How I have missed this up to now I do not know A film about all the hidden meanings in a film I love? I loved it!!! I’m watching it again this weekend. From the start. Possibly several times.

Danny’s jumper is apparently one of the many clues hidden in The Shining that point to Stanley Kubrick having staged the moon landings. For the rest and many more theories about the movie, watch Room 237. It’s mad and awesome and cuckoo lala.

For something else that is nutty in all the right ways, you could try making this Fruit and Nut Gingerbread Loaf!

I adapted my recipe from this one:

Sticky apple and gingerbread pecan loaf cake

Fruit and Nut Gingerbread Loaf

Print Recipe

A delicious fruity gingerbread – perfect for this festive time of year!

Ingredients

Scale

150g salted butter plus extra to grease
200ml milk
150g brown sugar
150g golden syrup
250g plain flour
11/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
2 eggs, beaten
50g dried apricots, chopped
75g pecans roughly chopped (plus more whole to garnish)
50g crystalised ginger, roughly chopped (plus more to garnish)
2 green apples, peeled, cored, cut into a 1 cm dice
50g sultanas
1 tbsp lemon juice
250g icing sugar

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 180C. Grease and line a 1.5L loaf pan with baking paper.
Place the butter, golden syrup and brown sugar into a small saucepan and stir until the sugar has melted and the mixture is smooth and has thickened slightly.
Stir in the milk.
Set aside to cool.
Sift the flour, cinnamon, ground ginger and baking powder into a bowl.
Make a well into the centre and pour in the cooled milk mixture.
Stir with a wooden spoon until well combined, then fold in the apples, ginger, pecans, sultanas and apricots.
Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and bake for 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.
Cool for 5 minutes in the pan then turn out onto a wire rack.
Mix the lemon juice and icing sugar. The mixture should be a thick liquid.
Once the cake is completely cooled, pour the lemon icing over the top.
Top with reserved pecans and ginger.
Enjoy!

Question Time

This week, I want to know your answers to the questions posed on the front of ~~Time After Time~~ Time and Time Again:

“If you had one chance to change history

Where would you go?

What would you do?

Who would you kill?

I can’t wait to hear what you come back with!

Have a great week!

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28
Nov
2015

REPOST – Rosemary and Blood Orange Cake

categories: Cake, Cookbook Guru, Orange, Rosemary

What Katie Ate by Katie Quinn Davies is the featured book on the Cookbook Guru this month. I made Katie’s Rosemary and Blood Orange Cake. It turned out pretty well, despite some massive hesitations on my part.

If you are not familiar with Katie Quinn Davies, Ladyredspecs of Please Pass The Recipe wrote a great post on her background and work here.

One of the issues she mentions with the recipe she tried, a carrot cake that was definitely on my list to make, is a certain vagueness Katie has around specific quantities of some ingredients. This made me chuckle because only a few days before I’d had a very intense (and hilarious) discussion on just that point and it involved rosemary, one of the key ingredients in this cake.

I mentioned I was thinking of making this cake to the work girls. One of them visibly paled. “Go easy on the rosemary” she said. She then told us this awful story of how she had made a rosemary panna cotta for a dinner party and it turned out terribly.

“People were gagging, ” she told us. “The rosemary was soooo strong”.

We asked how much she put in. “Four sprigs” she said. There was then one of those talks which only happens when you really don’t want to go back to work. How big is a sprig? She thought it was the size of the stick you get in the pack from the supermarket. I think it is something about the size of your little finger. One of the girls thought it was about the size of the tip of your little finger. The internet was not really helpful. So we never really got an answer. She used four sprigs of rosemary in her gag inducing dish.

I got home and checked Katie’s recipe. It called for three sprigs.

So what to do? It was less than the panna cotta’s four sprigs and my idea of a sprig was smaller than my friend’s. But all of a sudden three sprigs seemed like a lot. Rosemary is a strong flavour. I really didn’t want people gagging over my cake.

Aarrggghhhhhh!!!!!

In the end I gave in to fear and used two sprigs. And, as one of my friends commented “You can’t even taste the rosemary”. You could taste it could but it was faint. I should have trusted Katie, I think three sprigs would have been about right. And a more exact measure of rosemary would have been ideal!

The Rosemary and Blood Orange cake looked lovely. However, my version was quite bland. This was more than likely my fault for being a coward with the rosemary; it certainly would have been a bit more interesting if that flavour had been stronger.

It was a shame because the orange flavour was pleasant and the structure of the cake was great – the crumb was good, it was moist on the inside and golden on the outside. It just needed a little something…possibly another sprig of rosemary for it to level up from being a decent, if ordinary cake to something spectacular.

The cake keeps really well but the rosemary kind of works against it – after a few days it is hard to tell if those little green flecks are rosemary or teeny specks of mould.

I would like to say I would try this cake again but currently my spreadsheet of cakes to make contains 500+ recipes. So, let’s say I bake a cake every week, which I don’t and this goes to the back of the queue, that would mean baking it again in about ten years.

Actually, that seems about right. Let’s catch up in 2025 for an update on this!

Katie’s recipe, and her stunning photo of this cake can be found here.

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25
Aug
2015

Birthday Beatles Cake

categories: 1960's recipes, Birthday Cake, Cake, Margaret Fulton Cookbook

They say it’s your birthday
It’s my birthday too, yeah
They say it’s your birthday
We’re gonna have a good time
I’m glad it’s your birthday
Happy birthday to you

Hey there

So yes, it was my birthday…and I made us all a cake. And, oh boy, what a cake. Just in case you thought that after that weird stroking meat hand we were done with Margaret Fulton? No way. No how. Nyet.

Because I saved the best for last. Because back in the 60’s Margaret Fulton made a very special cake. Which I totally copied for my birthday. And it was awesome.

What made it so good?

The burnt sugar cake? Incidentally a first for me (and utterly delicious)…

The caramel icing?

That it came with four….huh…maybe fab four friends to help get the party started?

Yes, I made The Beatles Cake!!!! Which of course, you already knew if you read the heading so my attempt at suspense was all for nought.

Here is Margaret Fulton’s original version, made back in the day.

And here is mine:

I think I did a pretty good job of this. I was very pleased with my Beatle cookies. Dare I say they may possibly even look slightly more like their counterparts than Margaret’s original? And I know they’re not going to win any form of identikit prize and it may not be the face of Jesus on a grilled cheese sandwich but it’s almost recognizably The Beatles. If you squint. And look from far away…

I found the recipe here, although the burnt sugar cake is also included in the Margaret Fulton cookbook.

http://www.womansday.co.nz/food/recipes/everyday-recipes/2013/7/retro-recipes-for-a-beatles-party/

I changed it only slightly, I used the same icing pen for the eyes as I used to pipe the yeah, yeah, yeah biscuits and I rolled my liquorice flat (9-10 seconds in the microwave and it became soft enough to roll out). Then I cut the hair shapes out with a pair of scissors.

Also, the template in the link did not work so I had to make my own face templates. I looked at a few things and I decided my best option was actually to use some of the images I found looking under Beatles cartoons. I printed them, cut them out, then cut around them to get the face shapes.

I felt very sorry for Ringo. The original recipe called for a peanut for each of the other Beatles’ noses and THREE cashews for Ringo’s! Too cruel Margaret, too cruel. I used a whole peanut for Ringo and a half peanut for the others.

Beatles Cake Ringo — Beatles Cake – Ringo

To be honest with you I did not think I could pull this one off. There were so many points of worry – the shape of the cookies, decorating them, the right amount of burnt for the burnt sugar cake, the caramel icing. This whole thing was FRAUGHT with a lack of confidence in myself more than any real complexity in the cooking. I mean it wasn’t the easiest thing I have ever made but it also was not as hard as I made it out be in my head.

Beatles Cake - George — Beatles Cake – George

The secret was like most things to give myself plenty of time and to break the recipe into little pieces. I baked the cookies on Friday night, baked the cake on Saturday and did the icing and all the cookie decorations on Sunday. For me this was about right. I think trying to do more would have lead to madness.

Did I mention this was delicious? And in the end….haha…worth all the bother. Margaret Fulton sure knew how to make a cake! It was also HUGE.

But only fitting this time round to finish some words from my favourite Beatle, George Harrison:

All the world’s a birthday cake,
So take a piece….but not too much

Wise words to live by.

Have a great week!

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