A Few of My Favourite Things !

I had recently come across some wattleseed at my not-so-local supermarket. This bushfood which is harvested as a seed from a plant member of the Acacia species, was originally used by Australian Aboriginines as a valuable, nutritious food source. They ate it raw, dried or incorporated it into their baking. Roasted and ground, wattleseed has a nutty flavour with coffee undertones.

As I don’t often come across native foods, unless it’s sold as a speciality item at markets, I wanted to make something with it. I decided on cupcakes and wanted to pair it somehow with pecans because I think the flavours match really well. In the end, I made a pecan crumble to sprinkle on top and for the surprise part, I would fill the cupcakes with an espresso frosting to enhance the coffee flavour.

I used a basic cupcake recipe from Nigella’s How to be a Domestic Goddess and added about 2 tablespoons of this native spice. Chopped up pecans mixed with some raw sugar on top then into the oven they went. Once cooled, I made an espresso then used it to mix some icing sugar into a paste. This went into a piping bag with a sharp nozzle and was piped in through the base of the cupcakes. This is not a particularly fluffy cupcake so it took some effort to get the icing in. If you look carefully at the photo, you will see that I didn’t end up with much of the frosting inside but this turned out quite well because it wasn’t overly sweet.

These babies were really good. An unusual flavour that reminds you of coffee but not quite as strong as coffee/espresso cupcakes. Can anyone enlighten me on why my cupcakes have a little hump in the centre though? I’ve never had this happen before.

Head over to Alanna’s for all the surprises in month’s Sugar High Friday round-up!

Wattleseed Pecan-Crumble Espresso Cupcakes

125g SR flour, 125g butter, 125g sugar, 2 large eggs, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 1 tsp baking powder, 2 tablespoons wattleseed, 2-3 tablespoons milk. Crumble: chopped pecans and a sprinkle of raw sugar. Frosting: Espresso and icing sugar

1. Cream butter and sugar, then add eggs and vanilla extract
2. Add dry ingredients and mix.
3. Add milk to form a batter with a ’soft dropping’ consistency
4. Spoon into muffin tin, sprinkle pecan/sugar mixture on top and bake at 200C for 20 minutes.
5. Mix the espresso and icing sugar into smooth paste and pipe into middle of cupcakes through base

Is there to be no end to my culinary disasters? Actually, as much as this one did not work out, it actually did work out in the end.

Have you tried those Greek almond cookies that are shaped like a crescent? Well, A. has been telling me how much he loves these. One of his friend’s mum used to make this and they would have it warm from the oven - mmmmm, heavenly. I really wanted to recreate this memory for him so I googled a few recipes and set about making the dough. I really can’t remember which recipe I ended up using now, but the dough was so soft that it could not actually be shaped into crescents and I ended up forming quenelles. Into the oven they went and, boy, did they smell fantastic! One look through the window though would have shown you that they melted into puddles so flat that you would have mistaken them for brandy snaps instead of the almond crescents they were meant to be. One bite into the cookies though and we were the ones melting! They actually tasted a lot like brandy snaps and were heavenly served either alone or with a great vanilla icecream, a dessert that A. has named ‘Shards of Delight’:

I’ve just discovered these at Victoria Market this season and love peeling off the soft pink-green outer shell to reveal the harder shell of the nut that we normally associate with pistachios. The same colours are reflected on the inside, with the paper-thin pink skin covering up a bright green kernel.

I just realised, as I’m typing this recipe out, that I completely left out the 1/2 cup of EVOO that shold have been mixed in together with the yoghurt! Trust me to get a recipe wrong, but hey maybe it was actually right this time because the cake turned out to be light, fluffy and moist. It reminds mw of a chiffon cake. I think I may just leave out the olive oil again next time :-p I didn’t grind the pistachios so finely that it was like using pistachio meal, so it was lovely to get the crunch of some pistachio pieces as you eat the cakes.

1. Roast pistachios at 150C for 10-15 min then rub in the folds of a clean tea towel to remove the outer skins (like Gina, I didn’t go out of my way to get all the skin off and it didn’t seem to pose any problems). Increase oven to 175C.
2. Grind finely in a food processor then add flour, salt and baking powder and process briefly to mix.
3. Beat egg whites with 3/4 cup sugar to form stiff peaks. Remove to another bowl.
4. Beat egg whites with rest of the sugar until pale yellow. Add yoghurt then mix in pistachio-flour mix with a spatula.
5. Gently fold egg whites into batter and pour into lined cake tin. I used most of the batter in a 20″ round tin and the rest into my new silicone mini muffin tray.
6. Bake for 40 - 50 min until skewer comes out clean. With the babycakes, I baked for around 15 min.

A couple of weeks ago, we went to a farewell picnic for some friends who are returning home to Strasbourg after spending a couple of years working here. For the afternoon tea, I made the very Australian (or New Zealand depending on who you listen to) dessert - a pav.

I followed Stephanie Alexander’s recipe, which she promises will result in a crisp shell with a marshmallow interior. I got the crisp shell but not much in the way of marshmallowiness so I should probably reduce the cooking time from 1.25 hr to 1 hr. To decorate, turn upside down, dollop some softly whipped cream then top with luscious mangoes and passionfruit pulp.

1. Preheat over to 180C
2. Beat egg whites & salt until satiny peaks form
3. Beat in sugar, a third at a time, until stiff and shiny
4. Sprinkle in cornflour, vinegar and vanilla and fold lightly
5. Spread onto baking paper within 20cm radius circle and smooth tops & sides
6. Place in over and reduce temprature to 150C. Bake for 1 - 1.25 hr (depending on your oven)
7. Turn oven off and leave pav to cool completely.
8. Turn upside down and top with whipped cream & fruit

My entry for this SHF, hosted by spitoonextra, focussess on cream. Cream is made by allowing full-fat milk to settle, allowing the higher-fat layers rise to the surface and be skimmed off. When I was little, I did not like cream in the least. Ice-cream was fine, but cream on its own? Uh uh, not for me. On the other hand, A. thought cream was the bee knees and one of the treats he used to buy at fairs was a cylindrical waffle cone filled in the middle with pure white, creamy cream.

Now, although I still don’t love cream the way A. does, I can see how it can add depth to savoury dishes such as beef stroganoff (not that I’ve ever had this before). And of course, as most of us would know, cream is an essential component of many desserts. Imagine chocolate ripple cake without cream. It would just be…um, a pack of chocolate ripple biscuits. Okay, you can dunk it in milk and it would be pretty good but once you sandwich a row of these biscuits with whipped cream, it turns from just a pack of dry chocolate biscuits into something wonderful – a dessert that would not be out of place at a birthday celebration.

I was flicking through my copy of Yoshoku when I came across their Tokyo Tiramisu, which sounded perfect for a summery dessert. After pondering upon this for a couple of nights, I was inspired by the memory of the Ispahan from Pierre Herme. Why couldn’t I make an Ispahan Tiramisu instead?

I didn’t have time to make any rose macaroons so I had to make do with the normal savoiardi biscuits. The sponge fingers were carefully placed on the cake tray and brushed with lychee syrup until fairly well saturated. Whipped cream flavoured with some Eau de Rose from Fauchon was piped on top of the row of fingers, then raspberries and lychees scattered over the cream. This was topped with another layer of savoiardi biscuits and rose-flavoured cream. For the decoration, I piped out the outline of a heart in Valrhona Ivory chocolate and once set, placed this gently on a pile of red rose petals. Mmm, lovely, light and a wonderful melding of subtle flavours.

sugar high friday, shf, food and drink

Mum is a wonderful cook, excelling in both savoury and sweet dishes. However, in the days before I had developed any interest in food, I did not have a real appreciation of this. I ate her food everyday so it just seemed normal to me and, in fact, my brother and I use to beg for the meat-and-3-veg dishes that all our friends had for dinner or, horror of horrors, even McDonalds! (I can’t even remember the last time I had burgers from there)

I had my first white Christmas experience this year! Although there was some snowfall when we were visiting New York last year, that was nothing compared to the beautiful snowfall we had in Europe this year! The showflakes were just drifting down gently to greet us. I couldn’t help but stick my tongue out to catch the flakes as we were walking around. Hmmm, do you think people would have been looking at me funny?

Anyway, one of the loveliest sweets we had was in Prague - a honey cake. It was moist, with spongy layers of cake layered with coffee-flavoured cream. It’s pictured here with almond toast.

When we were in Belgium on our last trip, we missed out on trying waffles even though they were being sold on every street corner. Since returning home, we have heard from friends that Belgian waffles are pretty amazing.

Recently, an article on Belgian waffles appeared in our local paper and it included a list of the best places in Melbourne for these sweet, buttery delights. We have yet to check out these places back home, but seeing this Belgian-owned stand at Staromestke Namesti in Prague reminded me of the experience that we did not have.

These particular waffles are like giant versions of the Dutch stroopwaffles - thin, crispy waffles biscuits (cookies) with a caramel filling. The closely-guarded recipe for both the waffle dough and the buttery caramel was perfected by the guy’s grandfather, who passed it onto his father, who then passed it onto him. He hopes to pass the tradition onto his own children in the future.

The waffle is made by pressing the dough into the waffle iron and cooking until done. The waffle then gets lifted out and carefully sliced horizontally through the middle in preparation for the caramel (this needs a light hand and some practice!). After spreading the caramel onto one half of the waffle, the top half is quickly slapped back on.

These waffles were so delicious when eaten immediately while still warm with the caramel oozing out with every bite. Perfect for a cold and snowy winter’s night.

After our snack, we wandered to the Old Town Square in the heart of the city where the biggest Christmas Market in town is held. The atmosphere here feels so much celebratory than home with stalls selling gingerbread, Christmas decorations, roasted chesnuts, candied almonds and so on. There is a large Christmas tree in the middle of the square and a nativity scene in front of it. Everyone is rugged up in thick jackets and scarves, wandering around with paper cups of mulled wine or grog (hot rum) in their mittened hands.

We came across an unusual-looking traditional Czech pastry called Trdlo. The stallholder told us that the word ‘trdlo’ means crazy - I guess because the bread is loopy? Any other ideas?

Anyway, the dough is wrapped around a steel rolling pin, baked over open flames then rolled in sugar, vanilla, rushed almonds and cinnamon while it’s stil hot. Deliciously warm and fragrant but the bread is just a tad on the doughy side for us (as with most of the bread here, we find). It seems very popular here though - I wonder if you can only find it at this time of year?

Well, it has been a ’sugar-high’ Friday but, unfortunately, my creations are not sufficiently dark enough to qualify for SHF #13 although I desperately wanted to participate. 

It all started last night when I made my first attempt to bake my MIL a cheesecake in a waterbath. After baking for 1.5 hours and cooling for another hour in the oven, I discovered that it’s not a good idea to bake the cake in a springform tin! I went to bed with cakes on my mind and the first thing I did upon waking this morning was to pull out and flick through Nigella’s How to be a Domestic Goddess. After 1 lopsided cake and a failed cheesecake, I was determined to not have a third disaster. Having used up 7 eggs on yesterday’s botched cheesecake, I was low on ingredients but I had everything required for a Victoria Sponge. I only made one small substitution, which was to use soymilk in place of regular milk as we don’t often have milk in the house unless we are expecting company. This is a really straightforward recipe and the batter can even be made by blitzing all the ingredients in a food processor before adding the milk.

The sponge was left to cool while I took A on a surprise birthday adventure - Diving with the Sharks in the Melbourne Aquarium. It should really be called Diving with the Rays as they really were the feature in the dive. We were able to even stroke them as they swam by!

Upon getting home this evening, I decided to bake yet another cake so that we would have one cake for my MIL and another one for A (yes, Plum, this would be the third lot of cake for him but what can I say? I like celebrating his birthday!). I have been eyeing the recipe for a Sour Cream Chocolate Cake (again from Nigella) for some time now and this looked like a good time to try it. Another straightforward recipe that involves creaming the butter with dry ingredients, mixing wet ingredients with cocoa, then mixing both together. It really couldn’t be any easier and results in a light moist chocolate cake. After brushing some syrup on the bottom half, I filled it with whipped cream and sour cherries and topped the cake with more cream. The cake demanded some shavings of chocolate to be sprinkeled over the cream - but wait, I had no chocolate on hand to shave. Luckily, I had recently been presented with some Fran’s Chocolate bars! While the chocolate cake was in the oven, I filled the Victoria Sponge with a mango-cream mixture and topped it with diced mango.

Both cakes were a hit and we’re hard-pressed to choose a favourite out of the two. The mango complemented the sponge beautifully and made for a lovely springtime dessert. The chocolate cake is very light on chocolatiness, the very opposite of a mudcake which I sometimes feel can be a little too rich. The sourcherries, which seemed overly sour on their own, were just right in the moist chocolate cake. All-in-all a succesful baking day - phew!

Victoria Sponge

225g soft unsalted butter, 225g caster sugar, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 4 large eggs, 200g self raising flour, 25 g cornflour, 3-4 tbs milk

1. Cream butter and sugar until pale
2. Add eggs, one at a time, adding a spoonful of flour in between each.
3. Fold in rest of the flour and cornflour and when it has all been incorporated, all a little milk as required to obtain a ’soft, dropping consistency’.
4. Pour into 20″ springform tin and bake for 50 - 55 min.
5. Leave in tin for 10 min before turning out to cool.

Sour-Cream Chocolate Cake

200g plain flour, 200g caster sugar, 3/4 tsp baing powder, 1/4 tsp bicarb soda, 1/2 tsp salt, 200g soft unsalted butter, 40g cocoa, 150ml sour cream, 2 large eggs, 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1. Combine all dry ingredients except cocoa in large bowl and mix butter in well.
2. In separate bowl, whisk together set ingredients and cocoa.
3. Slowly add cocoa mixture to dry ingredients mixture, beating until thoroughly mixed.
4. Bake in 20″ springform tin at 180C for 45 min.
5. Leave for 10 min in tin before turning out to cool.