A Few of My Favourite Things !

Another clipped out recipe made! This one is from Gourmet Traveller September 2008, a dessert served at The Connaught. It’s a little more complicated than your average brownie but is also well worth the effort. It consists of three layers and is definitely not a one bowl kinda dessert.

The bottom layer is a moist chocolatey brownie studded with walnuts (macadamias if you follow The Connaught), the middle is caramelised banana slices and this is all topped with a dark (milk in the original) chocolate mousse. Here’s what it looks like:

I wanted to gift a few of these to a friend whose parents are visiting from Sweden but the brown paper casing had become saturated with oil from the butter. So, I picked up some cute fabric from Lincraft to wrap around the individual cases. One cake also went to a neighbor who is celebrating her birthday this week. That leaves two one for us!

Chocolate & Walnut Brownie

200g butter
100g dark chocolate
3 eggs
210 caster sugar
100g plain flour
100g walnuts, coarsely chopped

1. Melt butter & chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water, stirring occasionally until smooth.
2. Whisk eggs & caster sugar until thick & pale, fold through the chocolate mixture, then fold in flour and walnuts.
3. Spoon into individual paper cases & bake until just firm to touch (15-20 min). Cool completely

1 tbs finely grated ginger
2 bananas, sliced
100g brown sugar

1. Heat brown sugar in a large frying pan over medium-high heat until melted (2-3 min)
2. Add ginger, stir to combine, then add bananas in a single layer and cook, turning occasionally, until caramelised and tender.
3. Arrange on top of brownie, squashing to make a uniform layer & leave to cool.

2 eggs
55 g caster sugar
3/4 tsp gelatine, dissolved in small amount of very hot water
5g Pavlova Magic (or eggwhite powder)
300ml thick cream
200g dark chocolate, melted & cooled slightly

1. Whisk eggs & sugar in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water until thick * can hold a ribbon (10-12 min). Remove from heat.
2. Whisk in gelatine & Pavlova Magic powder.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk cream until soft peaks form. Add melted chocolate and fold to combine then fold in egg mixture.
4. Spoon mousse over caramelised banana and refrigerate until set (2-3 hr).

I love flicking through magazines and newspapers looking at recipes but I rarely clip them out because I know that I’m not likely to get around to trying it out. However, I love banana cake and when I saw Patrick Craig’s Caramelised Banana cake recipe in one of the Melbourne papers (I forget which), it sounded so good that I had to tear it out. This was in July last year and I have only just made it today, but I DID actually get around to making it – woohoo!

This isn’t your everyday banana cake as it does include the addition of pineapple pieces, as you would find in a Hummingbird Cake. However, I couldn’t find any cans of pineapple pieces in the pantry so I decided to swap it with lychee instead. Now, that probably sounds strange initially because I certainly haven’t ever seen a banana cake with lychee before but it actually works really well as the flavours are not too dissimilar.

So, onto the recipe itself:

1. Combine 2.5 cups plain flour, 1.5 cups caster sugar, 1/2 cup chopped walnuts, 2 tsp baking powder, 1.5 tsp baking soda, 2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp salt
2. In a separate bowl, lightly whisk 5 eggs and add 1.5 cups olive oil then add to dry mixture
3. In a hot pan (no butter, no oil), quickly caramelise 2.5 cups chopped banana pieces & 400g lychee pieces
4. Add fruit to cake mixture & pour into 22cm round cake tin (or a loaf tin & some muffin caese!)
5. Bake at 180C for 30 min or until cooked through (I had to bake for 50-60min).
6. Serve with whipped cream (or ice cream)

We had to dodge puddles to get there but we did make it to the Connex Sizzle yesterday. Not great weather for a BBQ but good news for people with prams as we didn’t have to weave our way through heavy crowds and contend with dirty looks.

We purchased a $35 ticket for 4 tasting plates and I already knew which 4 dishes I wanted to try.

This was A’s selection as he had heard so many good things about Maha – the Lamb Kebab by Shane Delia. Pretty tasty but not much about this particular kebab would induce me to pick it over a roadside or cheap cafe kebab.

Mmmm, this Bebere Marinated Chicken, Smoked Tomato, Cucumber & MInt Salad in Pita Bread by Matt Wilkinson of Circa was really yummy. They could have done me a favour by using less fatty chicken. I’m not usually someone who fastidiously picks away every bit of skin but I estimate that I pulled off about 20% of each chicken piece.

By far the most disappointing of the four, I had had such high hopes for Teage Eqard’s BBQ Char Siu Pork with Plum Sauce and Marinated Beanshoots but it failed to convert. I found the pork just that side of overdone and lacking in flavour, especially since the name had my mouth watering at the thought of real char siu. A pity as there was a big push on pork products at the festival with a 2-for-1 offer that was being handed out by the lovely ladies.

Whoa!!! Dallas Cuddy of Verge’s Miso Marinated Prawn with Salad of Soba Noodles, Spring Onions and Ponzu was the absolute pick of the bunch. I could have eaten this ten times over, no joke, and I even crunched down the tail, shell & all. Even my one year old couldn’t stop munching on the prawns and slurping down the soba.

We also managed to drag (!) ourselves down for Wicked Sunday today however I have to say that having been here twice now, this event just doesn’t excite me. I love chocolate, I love cakes, I love gelati but…y’know how it is when you just feel…well, nothing. There are heaps of coffee stalls so this is heaven for any coffee connoisseurs, but still how many cups can one person have? I guess some more than others! What I can say is that I LOVED the way St Ali set up their stall:

and also, this could get REALLY confusing…