Tres Leches Cake

While I was making the cake that fed the world, I also was experimenting with a Mexican tres leches cake because who can resist making a cake that soaked in, among other things, the glory that is sweetened condensed milk and cream? I am a huge fan of both sweetened condensed milk and cream (sorry hips).

So despite the fact my kitchen was littered with red velvet cake at various stages of readiness, I couldn't resist making this cake too.

This cake is a lighter-than-air sponge that is cooked, cooled and then poured over with a mix of the aforesaid sweetened condensed milk, heavy cream and evaporated milk. THEN it's topped with whipped cream. Heaven.

It's so easy too, thanks to this foolproof recipe from The Pioneer Woman. Everything happened exactly as it was supposed to, with my only hiccup being my lack of a rimmed platter. I had to use a baking tray.

before soaking

after soaking

I adored this cake. The brilliant thing about a tres leches cake is that despite being soaked in the three milks, the lightness of the sponge stops it from getting soggy. It ends up with this divine almost juicy texture (in a good way). The flavours come together like you wouldn't believe, it doesn't taste anything like I would have expected. I simply can't describe how wonderful this cake is. I did take some of the cake to work along with the red velvet cake, but the moment I realised that everyone seemed to prefer the other cake I greedily hoarded the rest of the cake at home and enjoyed sneaky slices for as long as I could.

I was a little concerned about how long I could keep it in the fridge because of the cream and milks, but the cake held up quite well to about a week in a sealed container. That being said, don't take my word for it as I was quite happy to risk a stomach ache after because it meant I could eat the cake first, so please be cautious.

I would have to say that this cake is one of the best cakes I have ever made and one of the most enjoyable to eat. Fantastic!

I used this recipe from The Pioneer Woman Cooks if you would like to try it yourself.

Thanks to a huge backlog of posts, the posting of this recipe has been a little delayed. It was originally made in September 2009.

The cake that fed the world...

I've made some changes to the blog layout to try and make my blog look a little bit more cohesive, rather than disjointed colours. I know that white is hardly original, but I like the fresh and clean feel it has. What do you think?

On to the post...

This cake came about because I was reading about the wonder that is cake balls here, here and here. Cake mixed with icing rolled into balls and dipped in chocolate? Who thinks of these things? As strange as it sounds, I had to try it.

The first time I tried I took the cheat's way out, using a Devil's Food Cake mix. They were okay, nothing special, but since the cake and icing were brown and I used milk chocolate, the coating was brown too so there wasn't the lovely contrasting colours like there are on the other blogs. The flavour too wasn't quite there but the whole thing had quite a lot of promise.

So I had to make them again. I really loved the idea of a red velvet cakeball, after seeing the amazing pictures of them over at Bakerella.com. Red velvet cake isn't seen all that often in Australia so I wasn't sure how the lovely red colour came about. I looked at lots and lots of recipes, but ultimately decided to try this one from Smitten Kitchen because I have never had a Deb recipe fail me before.

It turns out that the lovely colour comes from food colouring. Lots of it. I don't know what I was expecting but I did have hopes that it would be some amazing chemical reaction of some sort. Anyway, after a trip to the supermarket for some food colouring, I was off.


I didn't really think about quantities while I was getting prepared. Normally I would halve recipes because there are only two of us and there's only so much food you can take to work to force on your co-workers. This didn't even cross my mind so I made the recipe as written only to start being slightly concerned when the mix came dangerously close to the top of my mixer bowl.

There were no accidents, but when it came to pouring the mixture into the tins it became quite clear that I had heaps more than the two round cakes I was intending to make. So I pulled out the cupcake trays and started filling. By the time I had used all of the mixture, I had 24 cupcakes and 2 full-sized cakes. So, this mixture makes a lot.


I have never used food colouring in cooking before. There isn't really any instructions on the label of the food colouring bottle so I wasn't sure if I just dropped it in directly or if it needed to be mixed with water or how much you are supposed to use. In hindsight, Deb's recipe calls for 6 tablespoons of red food colouring and this is probably what I should have done, but my food colouring bottle seemed so small that I couldn't see how I'd be supposed to use the whole bottle in one cake. I only used a tablespoon. So my cake was brown. Oh well. You live, you learn.

Tastewise, the cake was yummy. So moist and chocolately. I love cream cheese icing, so pair them together and it was awesome. One of the round cakes was donated to the cake balls cause (which I'll blog about soon) and the cupcakes and the other round cake were taken to work. They were very very well received. We don't have that big an office, but all cakes and cupcakes disappeared with surprising speed.

The recipe I used came from this post on Smitten Kitchen.

Thanks to a huge backlog of posts, the posting of this recipe has been a little delayed. It was originally made in September 2009.

Christmas Trifle

Admittedly, the only thing truly Christmassy about this trifle is that I only make it at Christmas time, but that still makes it a Christmas trifle in my book. Our Christmas trifle was clearly meant to be, as the Matt Preston Christmas menu planned Matt's Mum's Chocolate Chestnut Cake for dessert and we had bought all the ingredients including a $10 jar of chestnut puree, but ended up with trifle all the same. I still have to make the Chocolate Chestnut Cake though, it sounds pretty good.

It was my mother's fault that we ended up with trifle for dessert, because she was watching Delia Smith's Christmas special and mentioned that she made a lovely custard using double cream and vanilla pods. Mum specifically said that when she saw it, she knew I would love it probably because she knows how much of a cream person I am. That being said, I still am not much of a custard person, unless it comes to trifle. Or when it's going to be turned into ice cream.

Still, I added the recipe to my pile of things to cook over the Christmas holidays. I still hadn't made a definite decision on trifle yet, but I was mulling over what I would do with a batch of custard. Somewhere my subconscious must have decided on trifle as I started looking at pound cake recipes.


The logic was that if I wanted trifle I needed cake. We had jelly, I had the plans for the custard, we had cream (I cleaned out the fridge on Boxing Day and found 4 500ml tubs of double cream. I have no idea how I ended up with that many tubs of cream!) but no cake. I've never made a pound cake before because I love the plain buttery cakes that you buy from the bakery or if you're desperate, the supermarket and they are perfect for things like trifles. Of course, this was on Christmas Day when there were no bakeries or supermarkets open, so I had to make my own.

There are many variations of pound cake recipes, but they only tend to differ with their weights and measurements. I ended up going with this recipe from Taste.com.au as it had a series of handy tips at the end that I found really useful. All the recipes agree that you must beat your butter very very well in order to keep the cake from being too dense and heavy. I put my butter on top of the preheating oven to soften and then forgot about it, so when I finally went to bake I had butter that was on the verge of melting. I think that worked for the cake though as I was able to whip it up really well. My stupid oven took 1hr 15m at 190 degrees C to cook the cake through, but start checking at 45-50 mins.


This is a gorgeous cake. Lovely and buttery and full of flavour. The recipe suggests toasting slices of stale cake and then drizzling them with maple syrup and I can't wait to try that when my cake goes stale, but the challenge is making it last that long!

Basic Pound Cake
from Australian Good Taste Magazine as posted on Taste.com.au

250g unsalted butter, cubed, at room temperature (see note)
220g (1 cup) caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
4 large (59g each) eggs, at room temperature (see note)
250g (1 2/3 cups) plain flour
3 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 170°C. Measure all your ingredients.

Beat butter in a medium bowl with an electric mixer until smooth. Add caster sugar and vanilla essence and beat until very pale (almost white) and creamy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl occasionally to make sure the ingredients are evenly combined (see note).

Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition, and scraping down the sides of the bowl frequently. If the mixture starts to curdle, stand the bowl in a sink of warm water, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon so the butter doesn't melt, for 15-30 seconds, then continue beating.

Sift together the flour and baking powder. Gently fold the flour mixture into the butter mixture with a spatula or large metal spoon until combined. Be careful not to over-mix or the cake will develop a tough texture.

Spoon the cake mixture into the loaf pan and smooth the surface with the back of a spoon. Smoothing the surface will help the cake rise more evenly.

Bake in preheated oven for 50-55 minutes or until cooked through. When ready, the cake will start pulling away from the sides of the pan and a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake will come out clean. Stand the cake in the pan for 5 minutes before turning onto a wire rack. Turn the cake the right way up and cool to room temperature. Cut into slices to serve. Store in an airtight container for up to 2 days.

Notes & tips

It is important to have both the butter and eggs at room temperature before you begin making the cake. The room temperature butter will transform to a light, creamy texture more readily when beaten with the sugar, and the eggs will incorporate more air and give a lighter texture. If these ingredients are chilled, the mixture will curdle when the eggs are added and can give the cake a heavy, coarse and uneven texture.

The final texture of the cake will be affected by the type of beater/s you use. It is best to use a regular beater/s as opposed to a whisk attachment. The idea of beating the butter and sugar is not only to combine the two but also to incorporate air. A whisk attachment can be used but you will find that it won't beat the butter as vigorously and the resulting texture of the cake will be more coarse and less even. Beating butter and sugar until almost white in colour also softens the butter enough to incorporate the eggs without the mixture curdling.

If the eggs are added too quickly or, as mentioned in step 1, if they are too cold, the mixture will curdle and in turn will affect the texture of the cake. Make sure you beat the mixture very well after each egg is added.


Now I had the cake, on to the custard.

I haven't made custard very often before, in fact I think I've only made custard to be custard once before in my blogging history. I've made custard as an ice cream base a few more times, though. Most of the custard recipes I have tried have been a combination of cream and milk, but this recipe was pure cream. It also was incredibly quick to make. Would that be because the cream base was thicker to start with than a milk and cream base? It was cooked and ready in less than 5 minutes.

Not only was the custard incredibly easy to make it was also very tasty too. I used vanilla bean paste in place of vanilla beans but I did not find any loss of flavour. My stove decided that it wanted to be super-hot when I heated the custard and it came to near boiling point incredibly quickly. I hadn't even had a chance to whisk my egg yolks. I took it off the heat while I whisked together the egg yolks, sugar and cornflour and then mixed the slightly cooled cream into the eggs before putting it back on the heat. It took no more than two minutes of stirring to coat the back of a spoon.

I love the heavy vanilla flavour of this custard. It was deliciously creamy. I don't think I would eat it by itself, but it was a perfect addition to our trifle.


Traditional English Custard
from Delia Smith's How to Cook Book One as posted on her website

Note: Delia recommends using golden caster sugar, however I substituted regular caster sugar and had no problems.

1 tsp vanilla bean paste
275 ml double cream
3 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon cornflour
25 g caster sugar

Place the cream and vanilla bean paste in a small saucepan. Now place the pan over a gentle heat and heat it to just below simmering point.

While the cream is heating, whisk the egg yolks, cornflour and sugar together in a medium bowl using a balloon whisk. Then, whisking the egg mixture all the time with one hand, gradually pour the hot cream into the bowl.

When it's all in, immediately return the whole lot back to the saucepan using a rubber spatula. Now back it goes on to the same gentle heat as you continue whisking until the custard is thick and smooth, which will happen as soon as it reaches simmering point. If you do overheat it and it looks grainy, don't worry, just transfer it to a jug or bowl and continue to whisk until it becomes smooth again.

Pour the custard into a jug or bowl, cover the surface with clingfilm and leave to cool. To serve it warm later, remove the clingfilm and sit the bowl over a pan of barely simmering water.

So we had our cake and our custard. While I was making the cake, D made some jelly. He had never made it before and was excited it was so easy. He loves jelly and says he is now going to make it all the time.

Since our trifle is very boring compared to the alcohol soaked, fruit filled trifles that are out there I told D that I would add some Baileys with Coffee to our whipped cream to give a little nod to the more boozy trifles. I added a tablespoon of Baileys to about 250ml cream and whipped it up, but we couldn't taste it. Oh well, it wasn't meant to be!

Trifle Checklist

Cake - check
Custard - check
Jelly - check
Cream - check

Since our cake hasn't been soaked and I want to save some for toasting later, our trifle was left deconstructed and we assembled it individually in bowls. It was fantastically decadent and we ended up eating it for Boxing Day dinner since we were still full from lunch and hadn't been able to fit dessert in earlier. D firmly believes the cake makes the trifle, but I think it's the mix of all the textures and flavours that makes it so delicious.

Boxing Day Afternoon Brunch

Even though we had a delicious Christmas Day lunch at A and D's house yesterday, I couldn't resist having a Christmas-themed Boxing Day Afternoon Brunch (linner? dunch?) too.

This probably unnecessary indulgence came about because of Matt Preston. More specifically, Matt Preston's article in The Age, 'A very merry Christmas on any budget'. I read that article and all my Christmas plans went out the window and we were now having a Matt Preston Christmas. Then A and D invited us to their place and they very generously said we didn't need to bring anything, so there was no need for my extravagent budget menu.

D was very kind and understood that I was at a bit of loose end after that, so he suggested having a second Christmas dinner on Boxing Day. I was very excited about that, the Matt Preston Belated Christmas Feast was on!!!


We were going to drive up to Eumundi to check out the Boxing Day markets and we were going to buy nice fresh produce and anything we'd forgotten while we were there, but the weather was a little iffy so we didn't end up going. This meant there had to be some culling to the belated Christmas menu. In the culling, some substitutions were made and we ended up with a lovely combination of traditional favourites, new Matt Preston recipes and some very processed ham and turkey. The meats were still quite nice, but it seemed that if I wanted something small (there are only two of us after all) it was all terribly processed. Next time I might try going for some turkey steaks or breasts from the deli rather than looking for a rolled roast.

Everything was delicious and we stuffed ourselves silly, D excusing himself from the table 'to go lie on the floor'. In a nice change, the portion sizes worked out really well for the two of us and we only have the meat, cucumber salad and some gravy left over. This was the plan all along, to have leftover meat for sandwiches and leftover cucumber salad because it tastes even better the next day.

Belated Christmas Menu

Summer Punch

Beans with toasted almonds and fetta
Iceberg salad with red wine vinaigrette
Cucumber salad
Nigella's roast potatoes
Roast carrot and onion with thyme and rosemary
Ham and Turkey

Trifle

Summer Punch
adapted from Matt Preston article

1 litre Ocean Spray cranberry/raspberry juice
1 bottle sparkling apple juice
1/3 cup orange juice
ice
Juice of one lime
200g strawberries, halved
100g blueberries
1/3 bunch mint, torn
sugar syrup and soda water, to taste

Mix crandberry/raspberry juice, apple juice and orange juice, squeeze in lime juice and add ice, fruit and mint. Serve with sugar syrup and soda water to taste.

I love punch, but I have a fairly strong idea of what I think it should taste like. I think I must have had some I really enjoyed when I was younger. This was not what I think of when I think of punch, but it was still really nice. I didn't measure while making this, as I only had a fairly small jug and just guessed at the amounts, adding a bit more here and there to get the taste I liked. Still, it turned out very very *very* tart. I couldn't make it any less tart by upping any of the ingredients, so I took the cheat's way out and made a sugar syrup of one cup sugar and one cup water boiled together. When you added some sugar syrup to the punch it brought it all together really well and added some necessary (in my opinion) smoothness. It is still quite strong so I have found that I enjoy it even more watered down with some soda water.

Beans with toasted almonds and fetta
From Matt Preston article

doesn't it look good in the lightbox?

300g green beans
100g fetta
80g slivered almonds, toasted
small handful chopped mint
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp red wine vinegar
squeeze of lemon juice
Salt

Cook beans in boiling water for two minutes, drain. Shake olive oil, vinegar, lemon juice and salt in a jar. Toss dressing with beans then top with crumbled fetta and toasted almonds.

Oops! I just realised I forgot to add mint. Oh well, there is some leftover so I'll add some to the leftovers. This was also very yummy. I felt the dressing needed quite a bit of salt, even with the saltiness of the fetta. I loved the contrasting textures of the crispy beans, creamy fetta and crunchy almonds.

Iceberg salad with red wine vinaigrette

Very simple this one. I didn't even bother adding other things to it, it was just a big bowl of iceberg lettuce with a simple red wine vinaigrette.

2 tbs extra virgin olive oil
2 tbs red wine vinegar
1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
salt and pepper

Place all ingredients into a jar and shake well. Easy.

Cucumber Salad

This is a standard Christmas dish. I love it. It was my nanna's recipe and it's as unhealthy as can be, but it just says Christmas to me.

White vinegar
White sugar
Cream
Cucumber
Red onion
Salt and pepper

Mix a half to three quarters of a teaspoon of sugar in three-four tablespoons of white vinegar in bowl until sugar dissolves. Add cream, stirring, until the mix tastes nicely tart and creamy. Add sliced cucumber and red onion, then season with salt and pepper. Leave to sit in the fridge for a few hours or overnight before serving.

It really is a recipe that depends on taste, and I often add too much cream and then have to balance it out again by adding more vinegar. It's worth it though.

Nigella's Roast Potatoes
from Feast by Nigella Lawson as published here


2 x 320g jars goose fat
2.5kg potatoes, such as King Edward's
2 x 15ml tbsp semolina

Preheat the oven to 250C. Put the fat into a large roasting tin and then into the oven to heat up for about 20-30 minutes.

Peel the potatoes, and cut each one into 3 by cutting off each end at a slant so that
you are left with a wedge or triangle in the middle.

Put the potatoes into salted, cold water in a saucepan, and bring to a boil, letting them cook for 4 minutes.

Drain the potatoes in a colander, then tip them back into the empty, dry saucepan, and sprinkle the semolina over.

Shake the potatoes around in the saucepan to coat them well and, with the lid clamped on, give the pan a good rotate and the potatoes a proper bashing so that their edges fuzz and blur a little: this facilitates the crunch effect later. I leave them to rest at this stage. If you don't, you'll need to have preheated the oven earlier!

When the fat is as hot as it can be, tip the semolina-coated potatoes carefully into it (they splutter terrifically as you put them in) and roast in the oven for an hour or until they are darkly golden and crispy, turning them over halfway through cooking.

If the oven's hot enough, they may well not need more than about 25 minutes a side; but it's better to let them sit in the oven (you can always pour off most of the fat) till the very last minute.

When everything else is served up, transfer the potatoes to a large (warmed if possible) serving dish and bring to the table with pride in your heart.

So says Nigella. I say that goose fat is too expensive to sacrifice two jars to roast potatoes, so I use canola oil with three dessertspoons of goose fat. I have managed to make my jar of goose fat last three years this way. It's not going to make it until next Christmas, unfortunately, as the use by date is in October. I only used three fairly small potatoes, so mine were done after 15 minutes on each side.

They were served alongside some carrots and onions which were roasted in their own tray with a drizzle of oil, a dash of salt and pepper and some sprigs of rosemary and thyme

We are too full to contemplate the trifle at the moment, so check back tomorrow for that recipe.

Homemade Lightbox

This little guy was a gift from my Secret Santa - isn't he awesome? Thank you Santa!

Do you remember being a kid and whitegoods or browngoods in big boxes and the boxes were more entertaining than what came in them? Well, my mother bought us our very first Scanpans for Christmas and they came in a lovely big box. I adore my saucepans but I also had big plans for the box.

Previously for my food blogging photos I had tried using a box covered with some wrapping paper to give some consistency to my pictures and to hide the hodge-podge backgrounds because I could never find somewhere nice to take the photos.


For a while, that was my setup. My little box usually set up on the stairs as that was where the best light was. Then my box got crushed when we moved and there was nowhere in the new house where the light was food-photography friendly. The light was so frustrating in the new house that I let my photos go a little bit. No one really wants to see the vaccuum cleaner in the background of your shots, but I didn't have anywhere else to take them!


D was taking out the Christmas rubbish and I stopped him from taking the box because I wanted to make another background. He sent me to Google and told me to search for a tissue paper lightbox which brought up this page on WikiHow.


We couldn't find any white tissue paper without having to venture into the Boxing Day sales, so my lightbox is blue, but it turned out quite well. Here's to slightly more professional looking backgrounds in the future!

This morning we went for a lovely drive down to Max Brenner on the Gold Coast. We well and truly got our chocolate fix after a hug mug of hot chocolate and a chocolate drizzled waffle with chocolate ice-cream. I forgot I had brought along the camera and D had already started by the time I remembered, so this is a mid-meal shot. It was good. After our chocolate breakfast and making my lightbox, it's time for our Boxing Day Dunch, bring on more roasts!!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to you and your families, I hope you are all having a wonderful day.

Here's a snippet of our Christmas festivities. Our absolutely amazing lunch was courtesy of the awesome A and D, except I forgot to take pictures after the entrees. Take our word for it, our main course starring turkey, ham and ambrosia salad, was delicious. We finished our meal off with some jelly slice and staggered home ready for a good nap. Thank you so much A and D!

Oysters Kilpatrick. This was the first time I have ever tried oysters, and I have decided I'm definately a fan. They are yum!

I had planned on a Matt Preston Christmas menu when it was just going to be D and I, but this was put on hold when we were invited out. Our ham and turkey will be cooked tomorrow along with some assorted salads, but I had to start the Christmas "cooking" early with this Summer Punch, the recipe can be found here.


Also thank you to my wonderful friends and family for their foodie-related gifts. I love them all.


After lots of food, friends, fun and presents (and a quick vacuum of the house - sometimes I just can't ignore that urge, even on Christmas!) we are happy, full and sleepy. A great end to a perfect Christmas.

PS: To everyone who found my blog looking for the recipe to Nigella's Roast Potatoes, I hope they were wonderful addition to your Christmas table!

Colourful Bento

I'm very proud of this lunch. I think it has a nice array of colours and textures and flavours, and also a nice nutritional balance too. I think this is one of my first bentos that actually looks like a bento!

In case you're wondering, the bottom tier contains some soba noodles tossed with sesame oil, some baby spinach leaves, half a sausage, some bean sprouts and shredded carrot with a little bottle of thick soy sauce. The top contains some nashi pear, a wedge of less-than-bloodlike blood orange, some sugar snap peas, two strawberries and a cake ball.

I probably could have balanced the top out a bit more, but I love nashi pears and couldn't resist putting a whole half in.

I loved that this tiny little box was full of goodness. It kept me going all day.

Saganaki

We visited a new Coles store nearby recently and I found some saganaki cheese in their cheese fridge. I had always thought that saganaki was the name of the dish made in the saganaki pan, and not actually a type of cheese, so I'm not quite sure what kind of cheese this was.

Anyway, when you buy cheese clearly labelled saganaki, you have to fry it. It just wouldn't be right to have it any other way. I was browsing through the forums on Taste.com.au and I saw that one of their recipes that was going to be deactivated was a recipe for saganaki, so I thought I would give it a try to give the recipe a proper send off.

The recipe is pretty straight forward. The cheese is cubed and coasted in seasoned flour, then dipped in egg and breadcrumbs before being shallow fried. Generally, if I'm frying a Greek cheese I would use haloumi and I'd just put pieces of haloumi on a grill. I've never gone to this much trouble for cheese before.

That being said, they were extremely tasty. The crumbs got all crispy and stayed quite puffy while the cheese went all melty and gooey inside. Some of them did crack open during frying, leaving me with cheese and crumbs separate, but they still tasted good.

They were fun to eat, but the deep fried part just took the cheese to a level of unhealthiness that I coudn't quite get past. I enjoyed them, but I felt guilty the whole time. I think I'll stick with my grilled haloumi when I get the urge for fried cheese.


Saganaki
from Super Food Ideas previously posted on Taste.com.au
(I've halved this recipe)

1 tbs plain flour
1 egg, lightly beaten
3/4 cup fresh white breadcrumbs
180g saganaki cheese, cut into 3 cm cubes
grapeseed oil, for frying
lemon wedges, to serve

Place flour in a shallow bowl and season with pepper. Place egg and breadcrumbs in separate shallow bowls. Coat the cheese in seasoned flour, shaking off excess. Dip in egg, then coat in breadcrumbs.

Pour oil into a frying pan until 2cm deep. Heat over medium-high heat. Cook cheese in batches, turning often, for 3 minutes or until light golden and the cheese is starting to melt. Sprinkle with salt and serve with lemon.

Baklava

More September Cooking:

I can't believe that I made this baklava back in September and I haven't posted about it until now. I was so proud of my baklava too!!

I have been having lots of fun with Greek flavours, making things like Kreatopetes, Greek Chicken with Horiatiki Salad (not exactly the hardest thing to make, but still...), Avgolemono and Pastitsio. I've now got a copy of George Calombaris' book Greek Cooking from the Hellenic Heart too, so I've got lots more recipes to try!

Although the pastitsio has been the most complicated thing I've tried to date, it seemed so simple compared to this baklava. I had built baklava up in my head so much that I didn't think I'd be able to make it at home. I wanted to try though, so this is my attempt. Although I was disappointed in the flavour initially, I have to say that it turned out a lot better than I thought. Letting it sit and the flavours develop is a necessity.


I visited Samios' Fine Foods in Woollongabba and picked up this lovely Cretan honey for the syrup. It added a beautifully complex flavour to the finished pastry. I also picked up some walnuts and almonds for the nut mix.

I halved the original reciple, which can be found here, simply because I don't have any large baking trays. This meant I did have to make some adjustments to the filo before I started layering which was quite fiddly. Do you think I could convince D that I need a new baking tray so I can make baklava without having to cut ends of the filo? Hmmm.

I did have a little bit of trouble with the bottom layer as I misread the recipe and didn't put down enough filo sheets, but I don't think anyone noticed.

After a night in the refigerator it tasted amazing. It was as good as some of the baklava I've puchased. I took it to work to share with my colleagues and they all seemed to like it as well. One of my colleagues is Greek and she said that I made it very well, which was great feedback and made me even prouder of my baklava. D loved it as well, which was surprising. He's never really been interested in any of the Greek sweets I like to smuggle into the kitchen from time to time. This recipe is a great one too, clear and easy to follow.

Baklava
from evelyn/athens on Recipezaar
(note I've halved this recipe, see the link for ingredients as written)

Syrup

1 cup honey (preferably Greek thyme or a good quality honey)
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
1 cinnamon stick
1/2 tablespoon lemon juice
lemon peel (without pith - 2 inch-long piece)
orange peel (without pith - 2 inch-long piece)

Pastry

2 cups coarsley ground walnuts
1 cup coarsley ground almonds
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
21g butter, melted
220g filo pastry
225g unsalted butter, melted (don't use less, this is what will make your baklava taste exceptional, and it has to be BUTTER!)
whole cloves



Make syrup first so that it can come to room temperature: In a small saucepan, combine honey, sugar and water. Bring to a slow boil, stirring occasionally, until the sugar is dissolved. Add lemon juice, cinnamon sticks and peels and cook over a medium heat for 10 minutes, until slightly thickened. Remove peels and cinnamon sticks and allow to come to room temperature before using.


Combine walnuts, almonds, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves and 21g melted butter together in a bowl and mix thoroughly.


Place filo between sheets of waxed paper and cover with a slightly damp towel to prevent it from drying out. Brush bottom and sides of an 9x6 inch pan generously with melted butter.

Cut the filo to fit your pan if necessary. Place 8 filo sheets into bottom of pan, brushing each sheet generously with butter, allowing sheets to drape over each of the 4 sides of pan. Brush these with melted butter.

Spread 1 cups of nut mixture into pan, distributing evenly over bottom. Fold over the overlapping filo sheets brushing each with butter, to envelop the nut mixture.

Repeat layering process 2 more times to form 3 nut layers.

Top pastry with remaining sheets and generously brush top layer with melted butter. Tuck in the buttered filo neatly around.

Score through top layers of pastry with a sharp knife to form diamond shaped pieces. Stud each diamond-shaped piece (and any odd looking ones near the ends of the pan) in the centre with a whole clove per piece. Pour remaining melted butter over pastry and lightly sprinkle some water on top too (wet your hand under the tap twice and shake this out over the pastry).


Bake pastry in a 165°C oven for 1 hour, until nicely golden-brown. Allow to cool for 5 minutes. Carefully spoon cool syrup over pastry. Allow to stand at least 3 hours or overnight. Cut through the scored pieces and serve. I removed the cloves before cutting as they are not traditionally eaten.

Christmas Salad Recipes

A friend has offered to give me a recipe for the world's best (and easiest) brownies in exchange for some Christmas salad recipes. Who can resist an offer like that?

My favourite salads are definately ones that can (and have been) served at Christmas dinner. My top two-and-a-half salads are:


Binny's Pumpkin and Asparagus Salad - it's just as good if not better using roasted sweet potato too!

and
Not Quite Nigella's Antioxidant Salad

and

absolutely anything drizzled in buttermilk dressing from Smitten Kitchen.

Both of these salads just look gloriously Christmassy too, which is just a happy coincidence.

This year I'm branching out a bit in the salad stakes. I'm currently leaning towards a couscous salad with pomegranate seeds and a Moroccan chicken salad, but there's still 6 days left to go and I reserve the right to change my mind!

What are your favourite Christmassy salads? Inquiring minds want to know (and get a brownie recipe)!!

Pom Poms

While reading through Almost Bourdain, I found a post where Ellie asks "what is the goodness you get by combining dulce de leche caramel, chocolate, popcorn, toasted coconut and peanuts?". Well, the answer is these delicious pom poms but I didn't even wait to read it before I headed to the kitchen to try them.

Ellie's husband thinks these taste a bit like Snickers bars. Now, I love the odd Snickers bar but I think these are way way better. I have to admit I was a little lazy in the construction of these (hey, I was still sick. That's my excuse, anyway), but they were still absolutely awesome.

They are also very easy. I made my dulce de leche according to the instructions in Ellie's post. I'm a little apprehensive about the whole boiling of the can and I didn't really fancy having to wait 3 hours, so an easy alternative suited me down to the ground. It took me a little longer than 10 minutes to get a lovely caramel colour, but it was so exciting watching the butter and condensed milk change colour and consistency. I tasted a little along the way, just to make sure everything was going well.

Ellie's recipe also calls for toasted shredded coconut, but I am not a big coconut fan so I omitted this. I can't think how they could have been better taste-wise, so I don't think leaving this out was a problem.

My laziness ruined things a little when I used microwave popcorn. I didn't take the time to make sure that only popped kernals went into my bowl and unfortunately our little sweet parcels did sometimes have unpopped kernals in them. D did not like this at all and was quite disappointed, as he liked the taste but didn't want to risk coming across something hard. I was more than willing to chew carefully because they were tastier than any caramel popcorn I've ever had, but they did take something away from the whole experience.

So, next time I have to be much more careful with my popcorn quality control. Other than that, they were a breeze to make and they are so tasty you would think they needed far more effort than they do.

This post is again a little delayed (I made these over two months ago) and writing this has made me realise how good they were. I now have a little jar of dulce de leche sitting in my fridge and I think I have some popcorn somewhere, I may have to try and make these again very very soon.

See the post Pom Poms over at Almost Bourdain for Ellie's recipe.

Special Dinner for One

More August cooking (well, eating, actually)

D was heading out to a party with some mates where dinner was provided, so I decided to indulge myself with something special.

None of this really qualifies as cooking, as most came prepared from Zone Fresh, but it looks so pretty and tasted so good that I had to post it.

There was a bacon and spinach wrapped lamb topped with pesto, some bean and bocconcini salad and coleslaw. I did make the salad dressing for the coleslaw using the buttermilk dressing from Smitten Kitchen.

Easy and yum.

Pizza

I mentioned in a previous post that I used some pizza bread dough to make my own fully home-made pizza. I've always shied away from making my own pizza dough as anything yeasty that requires kneading frightens me (although I do have a mixer with a dough hook, I really should remember that). This recipe is so simple even I can do it and it was the reason I was able to make my very first fully homemade pizza.

I topped it with some passata and grated mozzarella cheese and dotted it with some Italian sausage and it was yum. I keep forgetting that I have a pizza stone, so I just cooked it directly on a tray and it was a little soggy in the middle but it was still oh so tasty. It was so good I said to D that we should try making our own dough for our next pizza night. He's not quite convinced, but he didn't get any of this so I may have to make it again.

Lamb Pasta Bake

More August Cooking

I love lamb. I like the flavour, I like what you can do with it, I like the texture when it's cooked. I just really really like it. D, on the other hand, doesn't like lamb. He knows how much I like it though and he has been willing to experiment with lamb prepared in different ways to see if we can find something that appeals to him.

So far, we have tried some spiced lamb cutlets, thinking that the heavy spice mix would cut through the lamb taste, but he didn't really like it. I wondered if maybe it was a textural thing, because no amount of spice mix can disguise that, so we tried this Lamb Pasta Bake taken from a recipe on Taste.com.au.

As the recipe says, it takes not only the flavour but also the technique from Greek Pastitsio. D loves pastitsio made with beef so we were both quite excited to try this.

I mentioned the last time I made pastitsio that I couldn't work out how to make it without a sinkful of dishes and this recipe was no exception. It was worth it though, the pasta bake was very good. It wasn't quite as rich as the version I make with beef, but I really don't think you could tell that one was made with beef and one was made with lamb. D certainly couldn't tell and was quite happy to eat his share.

I don't really know if we've found the reason for his lamb aversion or if we've discovered that you can smother anything in lashings of cheese and cheese sauce and it will taste good, but I'm happy that he liked it.


Lamb and Pasta Bake
from Taste.com.au

2 tsp olive oil
1 brown onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tsp dried mixed herbs
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
500g lamb mince
1 x 700g btl passata (tomato pasta sauce)
1 x 400g can diced Italian tomatoes
250g dried rigatoni pasta
1 egg, lightly whisked
35g (1/3 cup) coarsely grated cheddar

Cheese sauce
70g butter
2 tbs plain flour
500ml (2 cups) milk, warmed
40g (1/2 cup) coarsely grated cheddar (I used kefalotiri)
20g (1/4 cup) shredded parmesan
Ground white pepper
2 egg yolks, lightly whisked

Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, for 7 minutes or until the onion is soft. Increase heat to high. Add the mixed herbs and cinnamon. Cook, stirring, for 30 seconds or until aromatic.

Add the mince and cook, stirring with a wooden spoon to break up any lumps, for 7 minutes or until the mince changes colour. Add the passata and tomato. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 25 minutes or until sauce thickens slightly. 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. Transfer to a large bowl. Set aside to cool slightly. Stir in the egg.

To make the cheese sauce, melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat until foaming. Remove from heat. Stir in the flour. Place over medium heat and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes or until the mixture bubbles. Remove from heat. Gradually add the milk, whisking constantly with a balloon whisk until smooth and combined.

Place the pan over medium heat. Bring to the boil, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, for 2 minutes or until the sauce thickens and coats the back of a spoon. Remove from heat. Stir in the cheddar and parmesan. Season with salt and white pepper. Set aside to cool slightly. Whisk in the egg yolk.

Preheat oven to 190°C. Add the mince mixture to the pasta mixture and stir until well combined. Spread over the base of a 3L (12-cup) capacity freezerproof baking dish. Pour over the cheese sauce. Top with the cheddar. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden. Set aside for 20 minutes or until set.

Pizza Bread

For Valentine's Day this year D took me out for dinner at the Roman Empire Restaurant. One of the dishes we really enjoyed were their trio of dips, not only because of the flavourful dips but also because of their yummy garlicy pizza bread.

I've never been able to recreate the pizza bread faithfully and I realised recently that it was because I was going about it the wrong way. While browsing the web recently I came across this recipe for pizza bread on the blog Not Made of Money.

It looked so easy with no extended rising times or multiple kneads. In case you couldn't tell, my preference has definately been for easier recipes lately. Simple is the key!!! Otherwise I end up having to rest halfway through and it's hard to be able to get back to it later. Anyway, this recipe looked so simple I tried it pretty much straight away.

It was awesome. The dough came together so easily and was so manageable and pliable. This is good, because I suck at rolling things out. I did pick up on some new techniques from the Good Food and Wine Show, so I may have to try this again to give them a go. My pizza bread was made in the abstract blob shape and spread with some crushed garlic before it went into the oven.

It came out perfectly. It was exactly the texture that I was looking for. The taste was pretty good too, but next time I will consider others and cut back on the amount of garlic. Just a little. I served these little pizza stars with some amazing store-bought hoummus. I'm serious, store-bought. I couldn't believe something so good came out of a packet. I was going to make my own, but after tasting that I'm just going to keep buying it. It was really good.

Since it takes less than 20 minutes to pull everything together for this pizza bread, I have made it again quite a few times. One time I even put toppings on it and had my first completely homemade pizza, but more on that later.

You must go to Not Made of Money and read this post here for the recipe. You should make it too, because it's that good.

Kai Larp (Spicy Minced Chicken Salad)

More August Cooking

The recipe from this fresh, herby and flavourful salad comes from my Lao-Thai Cooking Class at the James Street Cooking School. This was far and away my favourite of the dishes we made in class and I couldn't wait to try it at home.

It's so simple. All that needs to be done is to poach some chicken minced with salt and garlic in a heated stock seasoned with salt and sugar (in class they minced thier own chicken, I just used chicken mince and mixed through some salt and crushed garlic). Once the mince is cooked, season it to taste and then add copious amounts of herbs and serve with sticky rice. It's just awesome. I really need to make this again and soon.


Spicy Minced Chicken Salad (Kai Larp)
adapted from James Street Cooking School

200g chicken mince
pinch of salt
1 tsp crushed garlic
3 tbs chicken stock
pinch of extra salt
pinch of white sugar
3 tbs lime juice
pinch chilli flakes
1 tbs fish sauce
3 shallots, sliced
handful of mixed mint and coriander leaves

Mix the chicken mince with the salt and garlic.

Heat the stock and season with salt and sugar. Add mince and simmer, stirring often, until just cooked. This will take about 3-4 minutes and it's important not to overcook the mince or it will toughen. Season with lime juice, chilli flakes and fish sauce.

Mix in the shallots and herbs and adjust the seasoning if necessary. Serve over sticky rice.

Microwave Thai Sticky Rice
from ThaiTable.com

This recipe is absolutely fantastic. It's the easiest way to make sticky rice and it comes out perfectly every time. It's amazing and you should visit the ThaiTable.com website for more great Thai recipes, but I have given the instructions for this one below.

1 cup sticky rice

Soak the rice for 10 minutes in warm water in a bowl (the recipe recommends that you use a non-plastic bowl so the plastic doesn't melt during cooking).

Cover the bowl with a dish and cook at full power for 3 minutes. Stir the rice around to move the rice from the top to the bottom. At this point there will be a mixture of cooked and uncooked rice.

Heat for another 3 minutes. When fully cooked, all the rice should be translucent. If it needs more cooking, continue heating and checking every 3 minutes or so. The length of time depends on your microwave.

Brownie Roll-out Cookies

What does one do when they are craving cookies but one isn't really well enough to bake? Well, I searched through Google and delicious for "easy chocolate cookie" and "simple chocolate cookie" and found a recipe for these browne roll-out cookies at Smitten Kitchen.

It was easy, simply combine the wet ingredients in the mixer and the dry ingredients in a bowl and then add the dry to the wet. Chill the dough, then roll out and cut out. I halved the dough and put the other half in the freezer for later.

I had trouble with the rolling and the cutting. My cutting board defies all efforts to make it non-stick and normally I roll out between sheets of baking paper. That wasn't working very well (probably because of me) so I ended up rolling it out on the floured board. I tried using a cookie cutter, but the shapes kept sticking and in the end, I just cut it into rough rectangles. I cooked them too long, which meant that the softness that Deb talks about wasn't really there once the cookies cooled. Crispyness notwithstanding, I took Deb's advice and made them into icecream sandwiches anyway, and the melting icecream (it's been hot here) softened them nicely.

A few days later I defrosted the frozen dough and tried again, this time working a little bit more slowly. I used my baking paper method for rolling out but took it in stages, working with a smaller lump of dough each time and it was much more successful. I tried cutting down the cooking time but since I was making little sakura-shaped cookies, they were much smaller than my initial rectangle cookies and these little guys still were a little over-cooked. However, they did retain a small amount of softness and were much more successful than my first batch.

In hindsight, a roll-out cookie probably wasn't the best choice for someone wanting an easy cookie recipe. I was looking at the mixing method and didn't think further than that. My impatience and frustration didn't do these lovely little cookies justice. Their potential is huge and the cocoa flavour really comes through well. They are perfect with a glass of milk. I might give them another try when I'm baking at full-strength again.

See this post at Smitten Kitchen for the recipe.

Does anyone have any foolproof, easy, non-technical biscuit recipes that they can recommend?

Fruit Coolers

It was quite a hot August in Brisbane, the weather was (and still is!) quite summery. It was quite hot where Deb from Smitten Kitchen is too, and she made these melon coolers in an attempt to cool down.

I am a big fan of unsweetened fruit drinks. I hate the syrupy sugary taste of bottled drink, whether it be fruit drink or soft drink. Unfortunately, I do have a weakness for Coke, but I can only drink it while it's still really fizzy because if it sits it just becomes a syrupy goopy nasty concoction. This is a good thing, because it means I can rarely drink a full bottle and I prefer the new small 200ml can sizes. Anything that limits my intake of that much sugar and processed crap is a good thing, I just can't seem to kick it entirely.

Anyway, back to fruit. Fake sweetness really turns me off, but I love fruit juice. I have to be careful, as some juices can trigger migraines but I still really love fruit juice. I've never had a melon drink, but it was really hot and the thought of an icy fresh fruit cooler was way too tempting to ignore.

Unfortunately, I didn't have any honeydew or rockmelon, so I gave this a try with some ripe pawpaw. Pawpaw probably wasn't the best idea as the fruit is quite soft, and once pureed it didn't want be strained through my cheesecloth, the solids persistently seeped through when I attempted to squeeze it. I don't think I got the maximum juice out of my fruit. I used a bit more lime to make up for the pawpaw's more subtle flavour and it turned out really really well. It's a bit more effort than I would normally go to for a summer drink, but it would be spectacular for entertaining as it looks gorgeous.

If you want to try this for yourself, see this post on Smitten Kitchen.