Almond Croissants

I had a dream about an almond croissant the night before I decided to make these. I'm funny with almond flavours as I find things like amaretto and marzipan too strong for me but I love the subtle taste of almonds and almond meal, so almondy things walk a very fine line.

I have only had almond croissants from two places in all of my life, and I have been very lucky both times that the croissants were heavier on the sweetness than the almondness. In my dream, the almond croissant came from one of these places and when I woke up, I desperately wanted one. The problem with getting one was that the bakery I was dreaming about was in Cairns (a little way from where I live) and the last time I visited was perhaps 6 or so years ago.

Quite fortuitously, I stumbled across this semi-homemade almond croissant recipe on taste.com.au. It couldn't be easier, simply buy your croissants, make your almond paste, spread paste into croissants, cover with sliced almonds and (in my case) a sweet syrupy Danish glaze and bake in the oven.

I did find that my almond paste was a little too almondy, so I added a bit more sugar to taste. The glaze also helped offset the almondy flavour.

I was very proud of myself when they came out of the oven. I cut a corner off of one and enjoyed it immensley, but they are very very rich and very very sweet (my fault in trying to overcome the almond flavour with sugar) so I didn't eat any more after that.

I'm still proud of them though.

Almond Croissants
from taste.com.au

(This is the recipe as posted on taste.com.au. I halved this and added more sugar to taste but because I didn't keep track I couldn't tell you how much more it was)

150g butter, softened
1/2 cup (75g) icing sugar, sifted, plus extra to dust
4 tbs (1/3 cup) flour
2 cups almond meal
1 tsp almond essence
6 ready-made croissants
1/3 cup almonds (skin on), sliced

Preheat the oven to 170°C.

Place butter, sugar, flour, almond meal and essence in a food processor. Whiz to combine. Split croissants in half. Place bases on a baking tray and spread with almond paste, reserving 1/4 of the mixture. Replace croissant tops, spread with remaining paste, scatter with almonds and bake for 10 minutes. Remove and dust with icing sugar to serve.

Danish Glaze
from Cooks Illustrated Magazine

1/2 cup confectioners' sugar, sifted
2 teaspoons milk
1/8 teaspoon fresh lemon juice


Whisk ingredients together in small bowl and drizzle over the croissants before baking.

New Bread Board!

My new breadboard after it's first treatment with food grade mineral oil. It's so pretty.

Lemon Chicken Pasta

We had some chicken in the fridge that needed to be used and D felt like pasta for dinner, so I sent him off looking for a nice recipe that used pasta and chicken and he found this recipe from taste.com.au.

Despite a little bit of a false start when I discovered that our evaporated milk was actually past it's use by date and a frantic search for another tin, it was really easy. It's a perfect after-work dinner when you don't really want to think. We didn't use the peas or fresh thyme, but finished the sauce with some dried thyme leaves.

It was really lovely. I'm a sucker for lemon flavours and love creamy pastas, so this couldn't be any more perfect. D enjoyed it also. It wasn't heavy like a lot of cream-based sauces, but just lightly coated the pasta. We will definately have this again.

Unfortunately, I was a little shaky-handed with the camera, so you get a lovely photo of the sauce in the pan and a blurry photo of the finished dish.

Lemon Chicken Pasta
from taste.com.au

1 tbs cornflour
1 x 375g can evaporated milk (we did use Light and Creamy Carnation Milk)
Olive oil spray
400g sliced chicken breast fillets
1 brown onion, halved, thinly sliced
2 large garlic cloves, crushed
1 tbs finely grated lemon rind
2 tsp dried thyme leaves (ours are a little old)
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
approx 300g dried pasta of your choice - we used penne

Combine the cornflour and 1 tbs of the evaporated milk in a medium bowl. Gradually stir in the remaining evaporated milk.

Heat a large non-stick frying pan over high heat. Spray with olive oil spray to lightly coat. Pan fry the chicken until brown.

Reduce heat to medium. Spray the base of the frying pan with olive oil spray to coat. Add the onion and cook, stirring, for 1-2 minutes or until soft. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, for 1 minute or until aromatic. Increase heat to medium-high. Add the milk mixture and cook, stirring, for 2-3 minutes or until sauce boils and thickens.

Add the chicken and cook, stirring occasionally, for 1 minute or until heated through. Remove from heat. Add the lemon rind, and thyme. Taste and season with salt and pepper.

Meanwhile, cook the pasta in a large saucepan of salted boiling water following packet directions or until al dente. Drain well and return to pan. Add the sauce to the pasta and gently toss to combine.

Spoon the pasta among serving bowls and serve immediately.

Potato oyaki

I was browsing through Maki's Bento Flickr Group and came across her potato oyaki bento. A potato dough that's grilled or pan fried on both sides with a yummy meaty filling?? How could anyone say no to that?

I am always on the lookout for things to bulk up my lunchtime salads, as I find a salad that is low on protein or carbohydrates just doesn't keep me full. I've been using cooked chicken or adding a small tub of potato salad to keep me going, but these looked much cooler.

I used sweet potato rather than normal potatoes because that was what I had on hand, and I love sweet potato. It was great fun mashing them up for the dough as I did not then have a potato masher and was using a fork, not very successfully. I got quite frustrated and ended up taking to the bowl with the electric mixer which probably pulverised the potatoes more than it was meant to, as I needed a little more cornflour to get it to what looked like the right consistency.

The meat saboro is fantastic. I cooked it while the potatoes were cooling, and it was fabulous on its own. I didn't make very much, and we tasted it so many times I was worried I would run out!

The dough was very easy to manipulate after an overnight stay in the fridge. They were very easy to put together and they were fantastic hot straight from the pan or cooled to room temperature. The flavours worked together so well. I can't wait to make these again.

See Maki's blog Just Bento here and here for the recipes. Thank you Maki!

Gingernut Biscuits

I am not quite sure what made me decide to bake a gingernut cookie. I love the idea of your standard gingernut biscuit, but they are too crunchy for me. I wanted something with the texture of soft chewy gingerbread, with the same spicy flavour but with a tad more sweetness.

I found this recipe for Gingernut Biscuits on Taste.com.au. I liked that it had brown sugar and golden syrup, and despite the comments, I was sure that I could make sure mine turned out chewy.

A few of the reviewers commented that these biscuits needed more ginger. If you were after a gingerbread spiciness, then yes, these needed more ginger. However, if it was a more commercial gingernut flavour you were aiming for, these are perfect as written.

The recommended cook time for these is 10-12 minutes. I did 9 1/2 minutes in my slow and dodgy oven, and they were slightly undercooked. I should have put them back in for another minute or so but I was too scared they would crisp up.

Gingernut Biscuits
from taste.com.au

125g butter
100g soft brown sugar
125 ml golden syrup (1/2 cup)
1/4 tsp ground ginger (increase this if you want a spicier biscuit)
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tbs boiling water
225g (1 1/2 cups) plain flour, sifted

Preheat oven to 180°C. Line 2 baking trays with non-stick baking paper.

Combine butter, brown sugar, golden syrup, ginger and cinnamon in a large saucepan and stir over medium heat until well combined. Heat, stirring frequently, over medium heat until almost to boiling point and then remove from the heat.

Dissolve the bicarbonate of soda in the boiling water and then stir into the butter mixture. Add the plain flour and stir with a wooden spoon until well combined.

Use a teaspoon to spoon the mixture onto the lined baking trays to form rounds about 3cm in diameter. Leave plenty of room for each to spread.

Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes or until a medium golden brown. Remove from oven and cool on the trays. Repeat with the remaining mixture. Store in an airtight container.

More Poppy Cakes!

Roast Chicken with Buttery Potatoes

I was watching Masterchef on Friday and I really liked the look of the Roast Chicken and Buttery Potatoes that George cooked in the Masterclass. I have never really handled a chicken carcass before but I had always wanted to roast a whole chicken, I've just never been confident enough to try.

This was a little bit easier as it was only the chicken breasts on the bone being roasted. D doesn't like dark meat, so this was perfect for him and the size was better as there are only two of us.

The problem that I had was that Masterchef don't publish actual recipes for the Masterclass recipes, you are given the video clip but the specifics aren't always given. Despite this, I decided to give it a go.

Earlier this morning we went out to the local market and picked up the chicken and herbs (and preserved lemon). We got home, I put the chicken on my board and remembered that I can't stand the feel of raw chicken. I hate it. I handle chicken as little as possible and I'm quite skilled at it because we eat chicken an awful lot. I solved the problem by digging up a handful of food handling rubber gloves and set to the chicken with a cleaver.

I couldn't find the wishbone. I watched George take the wishbone out, I looked at the illustrations on Cook's Illustrated and I had no idea what I was looking for on my chicken. As it turns out, in my hacking I did manage to remove it, because it wasn't there when I was carving it.

The legs/thighs came off really easily, I used them for an easy slow cooker lunch. I was very proud, but then I went a few steps too far and started hacking without a really good idea of what I was supposed to do and cut out the spine, which meant I no longer had a cavity in which to stuff things. I thought that if that was the worst thing that came out of my chicken massacre, I did pretty well.

Two halves

When it comes to cooking, the most obvious thing that they didn't mention was what temperature the oven needs to be. I went back to Cook's Illustrated and checked out their recipe for an easy roast chicken and decided to set my oven at 190 degrees Celcius.

The next step was to seal the chicken in a hot frypan until browned lightly on each side. I cooked mine for about two minutes on each side. I actually think that Masterchef cooked their chicken a lot longer on the stovetop because George says that it should only need 8 minutes on each breast in the oven. Mine took much longer than this in the oven.

After the chicken had browned, I added about 20 cloves of unpeeled garlic, 5 shallots and a red onion (D loves red onion) to the frypan and tossed them about. I'm not sure why, that's just what they did on the video. Then move chicken, garlic and onions to a roasting tray. Next you are supposed to stuff the chicken, but since I didn't have a cavity left, I just made a nice little pile of rosemary, thyme and sage and lined the back of the breastbone with preserved lemons.


I gave it a little drizzle of oil and a sprinkle of sea salt and into the oven it went. This took approx 50 minutes to cook at 190 degrees Celcius.

After the chicken went into the oven I turned to the potatoes. In the Masterclass, George cuts little cylinders from the potatoes using a cutter. I just cut my potatoes into thick slices and then trimmed off the skin. The potatoes go into a frying pan of melted butter and it looks like heaps of butter. Heaps. So, I used heaps. I tried melting 125g of butter with some grapeseed oil, but once I added the potatoes I couldn't deal with all the fat and strained a good deal of the butter off.

Anyway, the potatoes fried away for a little bit. I wasn't sure what I was looking for with them. I let them get a little bit of colour on one side and then flipped them over to colour the other side. After maybe 6 or 7 minutes in total where I really didn't know how I was supposed to cook these stupid potatoes, I added some chicken stock, turned the heat down and left them to boil away.

After about 25 minutes of chicken cooking, I realised that the potatoes would be cooked well before the chicken, so I took them off the heat, threw in some thyme and covered the pan.

potatoes after coming off the heat

After the chicken had cooked for nearly 45 minutes I was concerned that the garlic and onions would burn, so I added a very small amount of chicken stock to the bottom of the roasting tray.

The chicken came out of the oven at 51 minutes and I let it rest for about 6 minutes.

I deglazed the roasting tray with some white wine and let the whole tray (vegetables and all) sit over the heat until the pan juices and wine reduces right down. It was quite shocking at how quickly it went from being watery juices to being a reduction just about ready to burn on the edges. I had wandered off to check the chicken and nearly didn't get to it in time.

While the chicken rested and the sauce was reducing, I put the potatoes back on the heat and warmed them gently.

Carve the breasts off the chicken and serve with onions, garlic and potatoes and a little sprinkle of thyme and black pepper.

It was awesome. The chicken was so moist and juicy and full of flavour. The potatoes were also really tasty, but the amount of butter (even after I strained heaps off) they were cooked in made me a little bit hesitant about them. I didn't want to enjoy them so much that I'd be tempted to cook them again.

The whole meal was devine. George called the dish a sexy little restaurant dish. Well, I don't really know how food can be sexy, but it certainly was awesome. I'd love to see how a professional chef would make it taste but I am so proud of my efforts.

Macarons from Belle Epoque

Not only did we get cupcakes from Poppy Cakes on our visit to the Emporium, we also stopped off at Belle Epoque at their pattiserie because I saw these gorgeous looking chocolate macarons in the window.

These were just as awesome as the cupcakes, and they weren't too sweet like macarons can be - just rich and chocolately.

Belle Époque
Emporium
1000 Ann Street
Fortitude Valley
Ph 07 3852 1500
www.belleepoque.com.au

Poppy Cakes

I was half paying attention to a recent episode of the Great South East or Brisbane Extra (that's how much I was paying attention) and they mentioned the love people have discovered for New York style cupcakes and how these cupcakes have come to Brisbane thanks to a business called Poppy Cakes.

I'm a sucker for cupcakes, so D and I went for a visit the very next morning. We purchased a selection of four cupcakes (they range in price from $3-$4 each) from their lovely store. There is large window into the kitchen where you can watch as the staff load their mixers with all the good things needed for a tasty cupcake. On our latest visit, they were making a buttercream and had the biggest block of butter I had ever seen!!!

We took our little hoard home and cut them delicately so we could inspect the insides and cake-to-buttercream ratio. Both of which were more than satisfactory. Then we tasted them. And we were sold. They are spectacular. They taste just like a homemade cupcake except one that has been made by an exceptional baker. The buttercream is perfectly balanced and doesn't come across being too sweet. They are so good that now I just go to Poppy Cakes and get my cupcake fix and the cupcake section of my blog is just forgotten...

Vanilla Passion - Vanilla Cupcake with a Passionfruit Buttercream

Red Velvet - Red Buttermilk Cake with Vanilla Buttercream. One of my favourites.

Chocolate Chocolate - Chocolate Cupcake with Chocolate Buttercream, another favourite.

Chocolate Vanilla - Chocolate Cupcake with Vanilla Buttercream.

They also make lovely coffee and hot chocolate and the staff are always so friendly. The store is a joy to visit even if a visit didn't mean awesome cupcakes!

Poppy Cakes
Emporium
1000 Ann Street (Wickham Street entrance)
Fortitude Valley
Ph 07 3257 4844
www.poppycakes.com.au

Goodies from Eumundi Markets

Some tasty goodies from the Eumundi Markets. We love the Spanish Tapas stall there (although I can't find where I wrote down their name!), especially their bacon and egg rolls. Even though it seems a little odd getting a bacon and egg roll from a stall selling Spanish tapas.


Once you taste one you won't think its odd at all. It is awesome, soft bread, tasty bacon and a spicy tomato sauce that just takes the simple breakfast to something else entirely. It has spoiled all other lesser bacon and egg rolls for D.


We also like the tapas tasting plate, with its potatoes, chicken, mushroom, couscous, spicy sauce and yoghurt sauce. I had the proper descriptions written down with the name of the stall and I can't find it, but I will go back to Eumundi and get the details for you, in the name of research.

If you are in the area, you should visit them.