Fruit Loaf

Now that I have sworn off baking & the making of all things sweet temporarily I managed to sneak in this lovely fruit loaf this weekend telling myself it was bread & not a cake so allowed. I don’t make bread very often but every now & again I get a hankering for it, especially after Megan dropped in for lunch the other day & brought along a fabulous loaf that her husband had baked that morning, very impressive & not something Michael would ever do or most husbands/boyfriends I know of for that matter! The recipe comes from Jamie Oliver Return of the Naked Chef & was delicious, its quite a heavy loaf as I find most fruit breads are, but slathered with a little butter it is perfect for breakfast or a snack & I can imagine in a couple of days will go well in the toaster too, it makes a massive loaf which will last for ages.

Fruit Loaf

30g fresh yeast or 3 x 7g sachets of dried yeast

30g sugar or honey

625ml tepid water

1kg strong bread flour

30g salt

extra flour for dusting

Fruit Mix

a pinch of ground cinnamon
1 clove, ground
200g dried apricots
100g dried dates
200g dried raisins

Firstly you need to get your fruit mix ready. Put all ingredients in a food processor & chop very finely.

Now to make the bread

Stage 1. Dissolve the yeast & sugar in half the tepid water.

Stage 2. On a large clean surface or in a large bowl, make a pile of the flour & salt. With one hand make a well in the centre & pour in all of the dissolved yeast & sugar mixture, with your fingers make circular movements, from the centre working outwards, slowly bringing in the dry ingredients until all yeast mixture is soaked up. Then pour the other half of the tepid water & the fruit mix into the centre & gradually incorporate all the flour to make a moist dough. If needed add a little extra water & also note that you may not need to use all of the water as the dried fruit retains water too, you will have to watch the dough carefully & be the judge. For mine I used the exact quantities.

Stage 3. Knead for 5 minutes & if any sticks to your hands just rub together with a little extra flour.

Stage 4. Flour both hands now & lightly flour the top of the dough. Make into a roundish shape & place on a baking tray. Score the dough with a knife. Leave the dough covered in glad wrap to prove in a warm, moist, draught free place, it needs to double in size, about 40 minutes. Preheat the oven to 200c.

Stage 5. Take the proved dough & bash the air out, then shape into a round & place on a floured baking tray to double in size again, about 40 minutes.

Stage 6. Bake in a preheated oven for 50 mins to 1 hour. Loaf will be cooked when it sounds hollow when tapped. Allow to cool for 30 minutes before eating.

Toasted Grain & Nut Cereal

After my success with granola the other week I was really keen to try to make some more home made breakfast cereals & found this recipe for muesli in Bill Granger’s Sydney Food. I didn’t add the rye flakes as I couldn’t find them anywhere I looked, for the fruit I added apples & apricots & the end result was absolutely delicious, even better than the granola & a lot less fussy with less ingredients. Try some, it’s oh so much nicer than anything you will buy & as good as the ingredients you choose yourself to put into it.

Toasted Grain & Nut Cereal

125g unsalted butter
¾ cup honey
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla essence
500g rolled oats
1 cup unsalted sunflower seeds
1 cup slivered almonds
1 cup shredded coconut
¾ cup unsalted pumpkin seeds
1 cup rye flakes
1 cup chopped dried fruit, such as sultanas, apricots or apples (optional)

Preheat oven to 170c. Place butter, honey & vanilla in a small saucepan & cook gently over a low heat, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes, or until honey and butter are combined. Place remaining ingredients, except the fruit, in a large mixing bowl and mix well. Slowly stir in the butter mixture, making sure that each grain is evenly coated. Spread the cereal over 2 large baking trays & bake in the oven for 25 minutes, or until the grains are crisp & very lightly browned. Stir occasionally to prevent the mixture from sticking to the trays.

Remove from oven, cool & then add the fruit & mix well. Can be stored at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 1 month. Makes 1.5kg.

Apple, Dried Cherry & Almond Loaf

Finally I found some dried cherries down at my local health food store on Lygon street, they were bloody expensive so I hunted down all of the recipes I had that required them & this is the first one I tried. This is a lovely recipe by Bill Granger which appeared in a recent Delicious magazine, I’m not sure if it’s also in one of his books, it’s not in the 2 I own. I used the wholemeal flour making me feel very healthy yet again and I found the cherries to be quite nice in this loaf mixed with the nuts & dried apple. I didn’t bother with the toasting, extra honey or ricotta to serve & found it didn’t need them at all, both warm out of the oven or cooled down to room temperature it was great though I’m sure the additions would make it even more wonderful. Look out for my next dried cherry recipe which will be completely at the other end of the ‘healthy’ range & be completely wicked!

Apple, Dried Cherry & Almond Loaf

½ cup rolled oats
300ml milk
1 ½ cups plain flour (or you can use wholemeal)
3 teaspoons baking powder
100g dried cherries
50g dried apple, diced
75g soft brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/3 cup honey plus extra to serve
1 egg, lightly beaten
¼ cup roughly chopped unsalted almonds, plus 2 tablespoons extra for sprinkling (optional)
Fresh ricotta, to serve

Put the rolled oats in a small bowl, pour the milk over them & leave to soak for about 10-15 minutes. Preheat oven to 180c. Lightly grease & line a 1 litre (4 cup) loaf pan with baking paper.

Sift the flour & baking powder into a bowl & stir in the undrained rolled oats, dried fruit, brown sugar, cinnamon, honey, egg & chopped almonds. Mix together well.

Spoon the mixture into the pan, level the top & sprinkle with extra almonds if desired. Bake for 45 minutes or until cooked through. Cool for 5 minutes in pan before turning onto a wire rack to cool completely. Toast & serve with ricotta & honey.

Hot Cross Buns & A Belated Happy Easter

Being Easter of course I had to make my first ever batch of hot cross buns & what better book to look to for the recipe but Nigella Lawson’s Feast of course. Traditionally they are meant to be eaten on Good Friday however I made them for Easter Sunday as that’s when the family was getting together for a picnic & I wanted to share them (read – not eat the whole batch myself). The fact that you make the dough the night before I loved as with little Missy on my hands these days, recipes done in stages are better than long drawn out sessions in the kitchen which would be interrupted by a hungry baby no doubt & of course the baby does come first! In the end the flavour was pretty darn good with all the extra’s, ie cardamom & cloves though due to my own stupidity (I misread & didn’t notice the ‘let come to room temperature first ‘ bit) I think my dough was a little on the hard & chewy side & possibly could have risen a bit more if I had followed the recipe correctly. They still rocked, especially when first out of the oven, later I tried them at room temp – nice & in the microwave – even better I think so all in all pretty good & much nicer than the store bought variety by far.

Hot Cross Buns

Dough
150ml milk
50g butter
zest of 1 orange
1 clove
2 cardamom pods
400g bread flour
1 packet easy blend yeast 97g)
125g mixed dried fruit
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ground ginger
1 egg

Egg Wash
1 egg, beaten with a little milk

For the crosses
3 tablespoons plain flour
½ tablespoon caster sugar
2 tablespoons water

Sugar Glaze
1 tablespoon caster sugar
1 tablespoon boiling water

Heat the milk, butter, orange zest, clove & cardamom pods in a saucepan until the butter melts, then leave to infuse.

Measure the flour, yeast & dried fruit into a bowl & add the spices. When the infused milk has reached blood temperature take out the clove & cardamom pods & beat in the egg. Pour this liquid into the bowl of dry ingredients.

Knead the dough either by hand or with a machine with a dough hook. If it is too dry add a little more milk or water. Keep kneading until you have silky, elastic dough but bear in mind that the dried fruit will stop this from being exactly satin smooth. Form into a ball & place in a buttered bowl covered with cling film, & leave to prove overnight in the fridge.

Preheat the oven to 220c. Take the dough out of the fridge & let it come to room temperature.

Punch the dough down, and knead it again until it is smooth & elastic. Divide into 16 balls & shape into smooth round buns.

Sit the buns on an oven tray lined with baking paper. Make sure they are quite snug together but not touching. Using the back of an eating knife, score the tops of the buns with the imprint of a cross. Cover with a tea towel & leave to prove again for about 45 minutes – they should have risen & almost joined up.

Brush the buns with the egg wash, then mix the flour, sugar & water into a smooth thick paste. Using a teaspoon, dribble two lines over the buns in the indent to make a cross, then bake for 15-20 minutes.

When they come out of the oven, mix the sugar & boiling water, and brush each bun to make then sweet & shiny.

Banana & Raspberry Loaf

A quick & healthy mid week snack, that’s right it has fruit which is good for you & brown sugar & anything brown is healthy right? Ok, well that is what I tell myself anyway & really it’s not as bad as some cakes. Delicious & you can really taste the raspberries which give the flavour a great zing. Note I don’t eat it with butter as I don’t find it’s needed at all. The recipe is from the September 2006 Australian Table magazine.

Banana & Raspberry Loaf

Butter, to grease & serve
2 egg whites, lightly beaten
2 large ripe bananas, peeled, mashed
¾ cup (165g) brown sugar, firmly packed
¼ cup (60ml) vegetable oil
1 ½ cups (225g) plain flour
1 ¼ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon bicarb of soda
1 ¼ cups (190g) frozen raspberries

Preheat oven to 160c. Grease a 14 x 21cm loaf tin. Line base & sides with baking paper.

Combine egg whites, banana, sugar & oil in a bowl. Sift in dry ingredients & fold together until just combined. Fold through raspberries. Spoon mixture into prepared tn & bake for 1 ¼ hours or until skewer inserted comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes in pan before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely. Slice, toast if desired & serve with butter.

Chocolate Truffle Tarts

After all the apple cooking I have done of late, I finally got sick of cooking with the one fruit & decided I needed an intense chocolate fix. Megan was coming over for lunch so I hit her with these Chocolate Truffle tarts. As the name suggests it is pretty much a truffle though in tart form & with the added bonus of an oreo base & lots of luscious raspberries hidden in the tart & the cream it is served with. Very rich & delicious though you would struggle to eat more than one without feeling sick! A quick note, the recipe was to serve four yet I made eight & still had some chocolate mix leftover which with extreme willpower I threw out instead of just eating up. The recipe comes from a recent Delicious magazine.

Chocolate Truffle Tarts

150g chocolate cream biscuits (Oreo’s are what I used)
120g unsalted butter, melted
300ml thickened cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
250g good quality dark chocolate, roughly chopped
300g raspberries
1 tablespoon icing sugar
½ cup cocoa powder, to dust

Lightly grease the base & sides of eight 8cm x 2cm loose bottomed tart pans. Process biscuits in a food processor until fine crumbs form. Add melted butter & process until well combined. Press biscuit mix firmly over bases of tart pans to cover. Chill while you make the filling.

Heat 200ml cream in a pan with the vanilla over low heat & bring to just below boiling point. Remove from heat, add chocolate & stir until melted. Transfer to a bowl & cool completely.

Using a fork, crush half the berries in a bowl. Spread over biscuit bases, then cover with chocolate mixture. Cover and freeze for 2-3 hours until firm. (Remove from freezer 30 minutes before serving.)

Combine icing sugar & remaining berries in a bowl. Crush with fork until sugar dissolves. Press mixture through a fine sieve into a bowl & discard seeds (I omitted this step being quite happy to have my berries seeds & all). Whip remaining 100ml cream & swirl through berry puree. Dust tarts with cocoa & top with berry cream

Fruit Crumble

For a quick wholesome (nearly) snack, a fruit crumble is always nice, I followed Jamie Oliver’s version from The Naked Chef. I also replaced half the flour with oats & used brown sugar as suggested to make it all a bit healthier. I really like the flavour the oats & brown sugar give over the refined white sugar & flour combo any day anyway. As a bonus I also got to use up some more of my Granny Smiths as well as some peaches & nectarines that were getting a bit old sitting around in the fridge. Sorry the photo is not the best but I find it hard to make crumble look exciting – its all in the taste instead.

Fruit Crumble

Crumble
225g plain flour (or sub half with oats)
115g butter
90g sugar
pinch salt

Fruit
455g fruit, washed & prepared
3 tablespoons sugar (or sub with brown sugar)

Serve with custard, ice cream, cream, mascarpone

Just stick all the crumble ingredients in a food processor & blitz until it resembles fine breadcrumbs (you can also do this by hand)

Put the fruit into a shallow ovenproof serving dish and sprinkle with the sugar. Spread the crumble mix over the prepared fruit. Give the dish a bit of a shake & bake in the oven at 200c for about 30 minutes or until the top is evenly golden.

Welcome Baby Chloe - Quick Apple Cake

For those of you that follow this page you are probably guessing that the reason I haven’t been around for a week or so is that yes I finally made it to the hospital & now have a gorgeous baby girl – Chloe. Both Michael & I are over the moon & loving every minute together as a new family. Today she is one week old & to celebrate I thought baking a cake was only due. As I haven’t really been up to any cooking yet, only having got back home on Saturday I kept things very simple & made a bit of an apple cake using yet again more Granny Smiths from the tree out the back.

This recipe comes from Stephanie Alexander’s ‘The Cooks Companion’. Very easy & was in the oven before Chloe cook utter a whimper of neglect. A nice cake to have with an afternoon cuppa.

Quick Apple Cake

2 cups peeled & chopped eating apple
2 tablespoons apple brandy, brandy or rum
140g unsalted butter
160g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 eggs
120g caster sugar

Soak fruit in spirit for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 200c. Butter a 24cm ring tin or 22cm round cake tin. Melt butter & allow to cool. Sift flour & baking powder. Beat eggs & sugar until thick & fluffy & fold in flour mixture gently. Drizzle in melted butter, then fold in. Fold in apple & any juice. Spoon into tin & bake for 40 minutes until ckae is golden brown & tests clean.

Apple Charlotte

For a lovely Valentines day dessert (using apples of course) I turned yet again to Nigella for this classic British recipe from Nigella Lawson’s Feast, it falls under the Wedding Feast chapter which is close enough to Valentines day for me. Now this is no ordinary Apple Charlotte & therefore I had to do a bit of shopping before I started this one. Firstly the recipe called for Calvados which I had never heard of before so looked it up using good old Google to learn that it is a fine apple brandy coming from the Normandy region in France, so off to Dan Murphy’s & now have a whole bottle of the stuff which is quite tasty by the way. Next I needed a brioche or challah loaf. Living in Brunswick I had no clue where to find a challah so instead went in search of a brioche. I tried 5 bakeries before I was successful, ended up buying it at Dench's Bakery Cafe, 109 Scotchmer Street, North Fitzroy which by the way looks like a lovely place & think I will be back there for a coffee soon. Normally I would just substitute with the ingredients I had but wanted to make this special for a change & of course to see how good the original recipe is. The end result was nice though as you can see from my picture I didn’t quite get the bread to hold together, don’t think it impacted on the flavour though. The buttery goodness of the brioche definitely stood out over using ordinary bread too. I served this with a bit of double cream though don’t think it really needed anything with it, in fact I enjoyed it plain & cold the next day even better than warm out of the oven when freshly baked. So all in all it was nice to try something different though I found it quite fiddly & probably wouldn’t bother to go to the effort again.

Apple Charlotte

75g golden sultanas (or normal ones)
3 tablespoons Calvados
about 8 Cox’s apples-I used Granny Smiths from my tree (approx 1.35kg)
175-250g unsalted butter, (depending on the staleness of bread)
75g caster sugar
1 cinnamon stick
1 brioche or challah loaf, sliced as thinly as possible & left to become dry but not hard
3 egg yolks (retain the white separately of one of them)
2-3 tablespoons Demerara Sugar

Preheat oven to 180c and at the same time slip in a baking sheet to heat up – or wait to do this while the apples are cooling if you prefer. Put the sultanas and calvados into a small saucepan and bring to the boil, then turn off the heat & leave the fruit to plump up in the liquid while you get on with the puree.

Peel & core the apples & cut each in half, then each half into 6. Put the apple into a pan with 30g of the butter, 60ml water, the caster sugar & the cinnamon stick. Cook over a fairly high heat with the lid on for about 10 minutes or until the apples are soft, then give a good beating with a wooden fork or spoon and transfer the rough puree to a bowl to cool.

Melt the remaining butter and paint the bottom & sides of a 21 or 23cm springform tin. Line the bottom & sides with dry sliced bread, painting it with butter first to mould into a neat jigsaw puzzle of pieces with no gaps, save some slices for the top. Paint the joins with the egg white to help it adhere well & stick together.

Beat the egg yolks and plump sultanas into the cooled apples & then fill the bread lined cake tin with them. Layer the top with buttered bread slices & then butter the top again, before sprinkling over the demerara sugar. Cook on the preheated baking sheet for about 30-40 minutes until the top & sides are crispy & brown.

Remove to a wire rack, and leave to reach the warmer end of room temperature before springing open. Or even safer, unclip in on your serving plate.

Nigella suggests to serve with custard or crème fraiche.

Sultana loaf

For my first day at home I couldn’t wait to do some baking. As this was a just because I felt like it cake for Michael & I, I tried to pick something not too wicked & ended up with this lovely Sultana loaf from last years Spring edition of Donna Hay magazine. Packed full of sultanas (fruit is healthy right?), it is delicious spread with a little butter, sometimes the simple things can be underrated, this is one of them.

Sultana loaf

25g unsalted butter, softened
2 tablespoons caster sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons golden syrup
1 cup milk
2 cups plain flour, sifted
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon bicarb of soda
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 ¼ cups sultanas
butter to serve

Preheat oven to 180c. Place the butter & sugar in a small bowl & beat with electric mixer until light & creamy. Stir in the egg, golden syrup & milk. Add the flour, cinnamon, bicarb of soda & cream of tartar & beat well to combine. Stir through the sultanas. Spoon the mixture into 2 x 17cm lightly greased nut loaf tins (or you could use a loaf pan as I did). Stand the tins upright on a baking tray & bake for 40 minutes or carefully remove one end & check that the cake is springy to touch. When the tins are cool enough to touch, turn the cake out onto a wire rack. Slice & spread with butter to serve.

Fresh Bircher Muesli with Stone Fruit

The other morning while up at the ungodly hour of 6.30am to water the garden in my allocated time for the weekend I thought I would be very good & gets some oats soaking for my very own bircher muesli. I’ve never made theis before so didn’t know what to expect. I always opt for richer, wicked foods when making brekky and this has never tempted me before as it seems to be so bloody healthy. The recipe I used was from Bill Granger's Bills Sydney Food - for me Bill is the King of brekky at the moment. Sorry you cant actually see the museli in the photo, just too much yummy fruit on top. For those of you who have not made or tried this before let me tell you it is scrumptious & quite filling, enough to keep one satisfied for hours. Something to make again & the fruit combo’s are of course endless to keep it interesting.

Fresh Bircher Muesli with Stone Fruit

2 cups rolled oats
1 cup apple juice
1 cup coarsely grated apple
½ cup natural yoghurt
juice of 1 lemon
½ cup sliced peaches & nectarines
¼ cup mixed berries
2 tablespoons honey

Place oats and apple juice in a bowl and soak for 1 hour, or overnight. Add grated apple, yoghurt & lemon juice to oat mixture & mix well. Spoon into serving bowls & top with fruit. Drizzle with honey.

Summer Fruitcake with lemon mascarpone cream

As well as pasta, I have been quite fond of cakes these past few months & I think if I wasn’t working I would be hard pressed not to make one very single day, now that would be a very bad thing. Luckily I am still slaving away so usually only manage to sneak one in a week. This week I had some friends coming over for lunch & had this recipe from Delicious magazine that takes advantage of the abundance of summer fruit in our shops now so I was dying to try it out. As well as berries it also used peaches, the sweetness & slight tartness of each working beautifully together. Also the almonds gave this cake so much more, I was lucky any even got baked the mixture was so irresistible. I found I had to cook it about 10 minutes or so longer than required & the end result was still a lovely moist cake full of fruity goodness and don’t skip the lemon cream, its goes really well too.

Summer Fruitcake with lemon mascarpone cream

250g unsalted butter, softened
250g caster sugar
6 eggs
½ cup (120g sour cream)
200g raw almonds
180g plain flour, sifted
1 ½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
150g raspberries
150g blueberries
2 small peaches, peeled & sliced
Icing sugar to dust

Lemon Mascarpone Cream

200g mascapone

150ml thickened cream

Juice & rind of 1 small lemon

Preheat oven to 180c. Grease a 24cm springform pan & line the base with baking paper.

For lemon mascarpone cream, beat ingredients in a bowl to combine. Cover & refrigerate until ready to serve.

Place butter & caster sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer & beat until light & fluffy. Whisk in the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Whisk in sour cream. Process almonds in a food processor until fine crumbs, then fold into the mixture with the flour & baking powder. Stir in the vanilla then pour in half the batter into the cake tin and sprinkle with half the fruit. Repeat layers of batter & fruit. Bake for 40-45 minutes (cover loosely with foil if it starts to brown), until a skewer comes out clean when inserted in center. Cool in pan for 15 minutes then place on a rack & dust with icing sugar. Serve with lemon mascarpone cream.

Cherry, White Chocolate & Almond Muffins

Today I made these luscious muffins, they are a Bill Granger recipe so how could I go wrong, I believe the recipe is from his new book, Every Day? & they featured in a recent edition of delicious. Cherries are my absolute favourite fruit of all & it is a crying shame that they’re season is so short. So now that they are here I am eating as many as I can, the pitting was great fun, one for the muffins, one for me, & lots of gorgeous cherry red juices to lick off my fingers when it was all done. Add some white chocolate, almond meal & this was definitely a recipe for success to be repeated many times.

Cherry, White Chocolate & Almond Muffins

2 ½ cups (375g) plain flour
1 tbsn baking powder
2/3 cup (150g) caser sugar
½ cup (60g) almond meal
90g unsalted butter, melted
1 egg
1 ¼ cups (200g) pitted fresh or frozen cherries, halved
150g white chocolate, chopped
Demerara sugar to sprinkle

Preheat oven to 180c. Line a 12 hole muffin pan with paper cases.

Sift flour and baking powder into a large bowl, add caster sugar & almond meal & stir in. Whisk together the melted butter, egg & buttermilk, then add to the dry ingredients & stir until just combined. Stir in the cherries and white chocolate.

Divide the mixture among the muffin holes, sprinkle with sugar & bake for 20-25 minutes until firm, golden & a skewer inserted comes out clean. Turn onto wire racks to cool.

The Age Harvest Picnic at Werribee Park

On this gorgeous Melbourne day I headed out to the Age Harvest Picnic at Werribee Park with Michael & my parents. We got there at about 10 so we got a good park & a good spot to set up on the lawn. It’s a beautiful setting & there were heaps of stalls filled with goodies. You can see in my photo how packed it ended up being by about lunch time. Some of the treats I bought to take home were Basil infused olive oil from Barfold Olives, some very refreshing Ginger & green Apple Fruit Soda cordial – made to an ancient tradition with fresh fruit, no preservatives, colours or artificial flavourings, Goldfields ‘Kamarooka’ honey, lot’s of jams from Marcia’s Munchies, hand made with natural ingredients – they were all so good I couldn’t decide so bough them all cherry, raspberry, tangelo marmalade & apricot, Some quince paste & stunning Virtuous Vanilla plum jam from Olive Branch preserves – though I don’t know what was virtuous about it – I thought it was wicked! I also tried lots of great bickies & sweets which I didn’t buy any of as at the moment I’m too busy making my own all the time. I had a small tub of chicken & seafood Paella from The Paella Pan - who do paella party catering – sounds interesting & the dish was yummy, some fantastic ginger ice cream from Irrewarra Natural Ice cream & tried some of Micahel’s Red Duck beer – very refreshing also. I love these events & today was the perfect day fro it, even managed to escape with minimal sun burn.

Buttermilk pancakes with Caramelized fruit.

Sunday morning for brekky to use up my left over buttermilk from last weekend some more pancakes were in order, I found another recipe using buttermilk in Bill Granger Bill’s Food. Buttermilk is low in fat, there is not much sugar in the mix & it is served with fruit so I could even kid myself that I was being healthy once again. As with all of Bill’s breakfasts, these were great, seems l & easy too. The fruit was supposed to be plums which of course aren’t around yet so I used nectarines, these were nice & even gave a bit of a bitter tang for contrast, think sweet juicy plums would work even better. Oh & this week I halved the recipe & was still heaps for the 2 of us.

Buttermilk pancakes with Caramelized fruit.

250g (2 cups) plain flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
a pinch of salt
2 tablespoons sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
750ml (3 cups) buttermilk
75g unsalted butter, melted
unsalted butter, extra for greasing the pan

To serve

Caramelized fruit
Maple syrup
Yoghurt

Stir the flour, baking powder, salt & sugar together in a bowl. Add the eggs, milks & butter & whisk to combine.

Heat a large non-stick frypan over medium heat & brush a small mount of butter over the base. For each pancake, ladle 80ml (1/3 cup) of batter into the pan & cook for about 2 minutes until bubbles appear on the surface. Flip & cook for another minute. Transfer to a plate to keep warm while cooking the rest.

To caramelize fruit, heat a frying pan over high heat, cut the fruit in half, remove stones, sprinkle cut side with sugar & fry cut side down for about a minute.

Serve in stacks with fruit, yoghurt & maple syrup.

Fifteen Melbourne - Finally a look in!

A couple of weeks ago when I heard that Fifteen was opening for reservations I suggested to Michael that it would be great if he could get us a booking there, you know a nice surprise seeing as how I'm normally the one doing all of the organising for the 2 of us. I thought the booking line might be a bit busy but had no idea that within a matter of days they would be booked solid until the end of January next year, amazing what a tv show can do for you. Anyway Michael being the fantastic hubbie that he is, got on the line & waited for 1.5 hours (on speaker phone while he was working so it was bearable!) & got us a booking for a Saturday night no less, very impressive.

There have been a lot mof mixed feelings out there about Fifteen so I was quite curious to see exactly what it would be like. I love the idea of what Fifteen stands for, helping those in need but at the same time providing us with a (hopefully) great experience in oder to achieve that goal. At the same time I think that for $90.00 a head for the 6 course tasting menu which is your only option for dinner, the food has to be bloody good & stand up to other great Melbourne restaurants.

I had very high expectactions for the food, a few months ago I did a Queen Vic Market cooking night with Tobi Puttock & the food was to die for so I was hoping for more of the same.

Ok so now down to last night. On the decor, I loved it & it was totally different to the 'artist impressions' as seen on tv. The colorful bar area which Jamie knocked looked great & the colors were much more toned down, oranges, reds, very warm & filled with wine very subtle too. The place is split into 3 areas, the private dining room which I spied a corner of, looked very dark & gothic from what I could see, would be nice having a private party there with some friends, I believe it seats 10. Then onto the main area, on entering you walk down some stairs where you can see straight into the kitchen, then around the corner the bar area with more casual looking dining area in front, light wooden seats & tables, etc. this is split down the middle where you go into the second dining area which is where we were seated. I loved this area, all dark wood furniture, dark wood floors, black walls & ceilings, a purplish couch forming the back seat for the tables on the side & back walls & long mirrors along the walls too & some very funky globe light fittings hanging here & there. Ask Michael, I love black & the trend seems to be now to have everything all nice & light so this darkess worked well for me.

Now onto the food, as mentioned it is a six course set menu, soup, seafood, pasta, main, dessert & cheese platter with a choice of 2 dishes offered for the pasta & main course.


First course was Borlotti bean & pasta soup with fresh grated parmesan & Fifteen olive oil.

This was really nice, though needed a bit of salt, luckily there was a dish of Pink Murray River salt flakes on each table - nice touch - which did the job. As you can see it was a very thick, hearty, warm & homey soup which I would love to replicate at home.


Next was fried whitebait, sage salt, lemon & aioli.

As you can see a very small serve but dont be put off, by the end of the night we were well satisified & if the courses were any biggger we would have struggled to fit them in. The fish was cooked perfectly, nice & light & the salt/aioli combo went very well with it.

For the Pasta course I opted for the Fifteen ravioli with biodynamic riccotta, free-range egg yolk, served with white asparagus & butter broth.

Yummo, nothing beats home made pasta & the runy egg filling was quite unusual, quite a big ravioli too as you can see. Michael went for the Risotto of calamari, squid ink, celery, chilli & fifteen olive oil which he reallay enjoyed too.


For the main we both had the Slow roast Bachus Marsh grass fed beef, Nicola potato & fennel al forno, braised greens & salsa verde. The other choice was Tasmanian Salmon. The beef dish smelled divine which I think was mainly due to the whole clove of roast garlic hidden amongst the greens which I happily devoured. The beef was very tasty though mine was a bit on the cold side which is obviously a bit dissapointing. Mine pictured was cooked a little extra as I'm not supposed to be eating any raw or underdone meat at the moment, Michaels was as per the menu & pretty bloody which is a good thing, nothing worse than an overdone piece of cow.

Dessert was Vialono Nano Tiramasu, little twist on the traditional with crostoli.

The twist was rice instead of sponge/biscuits in the tiramasu, I have to say that this & the crostoli were fantastic & by far by favourite course of the night.


Lastly, the cheese course. pear, quince paste, muscatels, grissinei, some fruit bread & of course the cheeses, sorry have forgotten what they were except tto say that one was lovely & oozy & the other was as bitey spanish crumbly one, both fantastic, in fact the whole cheese course was really great.

Overall the whole experince was enjoyable, the staff were very friendly & helpful, extensive wine list to choose from, fast servce though not too fast that you had no time between courses & the food was good, presentation & tatse. For 2 weeks of opening & a bunch of kids that a couple of months ago had no idea it is pretty amazing to see how far they have come though I would like to see them improve some more & lift the food from being just pretty good to being fabulous!

Fifteen Melbourne
115-117 Collins Street
Melbourne
1300 799 415 www.fifteenmelbourne.com.au

Banana and Date Bread

Last week the latest edition of Donna Hay Magazine was delivered to my door & flicking through I knew I just had to make of this luscious sounding bread which even sounded remotely healthy, I mean it did have fruit in it so it must be good for you right? After popping it in the oven to cook for a tantalizing 1 hour & 10 minutes of the most lovely aroma wafting through the house, I did a bit of spoon licking, let me tell you the raw mix was pretty damn good, lucky I tried it after starting the cooking or none might have made it into the pan! Also I have to mention that one and a half cups of bananas is a lot at today’s prices so I was very lucky to score a bag of lady fingers at Coles going for $4.00 a kilo, they weren’t even that brown but were just perfect for mashing up for the cake mixture. The end result was divine, dates and bananas are another perfect combination I’ve decided, the cake was nice & moist on the inside & had a crispy outer shell, Michael and I both scoffed heaps while it was still warm out of the oven.

Banana and Date Bread

125g unsalted butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 ½ cups plain flour, sifted
1 teaspoon baking powder, sifted
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 ½ cups mashed banana
¼ cup maple syrup
1 cup chopped dates

Preheat oven to 160c. Place the butter & sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until pale & creamy. Gradually add the eggs & beat well. Fold through the flour, baking powder, bicarb soda, nutmeg & cinnamon and stir well to combine. Stir in the banana, maple syrup & dates. Spoon the mixture into a 7 x 32cm lightly greased loaf tin lined with non-stick baking paper. Bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Allow to cool in the tin & slice to serve.

Cook Islands Trip

We have just returned from our week of Paradise in The Cook Islands, as you can see from the photo, it is gorgeous over there & the pic doesn’t even do the place justice. We even got to spend a day & night in Tahiti as on the way there some very strong winds – apparently 120kms/hour, prevented us from landing so we had to divert, thanks to Air New Zealand for providing all we needed it was actually really enjoyed rather than being the disaster it could have been. They put us up in The Intercontinental which was beautiful, we spent the day swimming in their gorgeous & mammoth pool, walking around & chilling out. As for the food, well I know resorts aren’t usually the best but I have to say the buffet lunch was pretty awful so the eating extravaganza I had planned was not off to a good start.

All in all our food experience did not end up being that great apart from a couple of good feeds, for the most part I thought it was pretty awful, so as you can imagine I was very disappointed. Most of the food is imported from New Zealand which brings the prices up for a start, they are more or loss on a par with Australian restaurant prices which I wouldn’t mind paying if the quality was the same. The fact that it wasn’t & there really weren’t any cheap & easy options available for dinner didn’t make me any happier paying these prices. Lunch was a bit better with more available & at more reasonable prices. We had a tropical breakfast included daily which was fine, not much can go wrong with cereal, fruit, toast & pastries after all! I hate to write about bad experiences but really wasn’t left with much option. So anyway that being said now I will tell you about the good bits.

When we finally made it The Cooks, our first port of call was the stunning Island of Aitutaki, the photo is actually One Foot Island which is one of the surrounding motu’s (Islands). We did an Island cruise taking in a few surrounding Islands & some snorkelling – fantastic, and we had a local lunch on Honeymoon Island put together by the cruise people. This was great as they laid out a platter of traditional fruits & vegetables including Sea Grapes, these were very weird looking, a small branch with lots of very small ‘green grapes’ attached, squeezed with lime juice very tasty & apparently very good for you too, paw-paw, guava, lady bird bananas (as you can imagine I made the most of readily available bananas & stuffed myself with them for the whole week), some baked tapioca pudding – yum, steamed tapioca, purple kumara, fresh coconut & some fresh tuna sandwiches. Most of it was delicious though I was a bit iffy on the kumara & steamed tapioca. It was all served in a tiny little open hut on woven plates lined with freshly picked leaves of some sort, really enjoyed this experience.

That night was Sunday & not much is open on Sunday nights in Aitutaki so we opted for Te Vaka Bar & Grill, we caught a taxi there & the lovely driver gave us a piece of sponge cake for the ride that she had freshly baked that afternoon, it was delicious & moist & as you can probably tell the people here are very friendly, a very nice experience & cheap too! The restaurant was in a lovely open air building with the usual wicker furniture & Island feel, the food here was quite nice too, not fantastic but pretty good. Michael tried the Cook Islands speciality ‘Ika Mata’ which is fresh tuna marinated in lemon juice then tossed in coconut cream with onions, garlic, tomato & cucumber, he gave it the thumbs up, being pregnant I had to take his word for it as raw fish off the menu for me for now. I had Garlic chilli prawns, these were good too, with the marinade all making a lovely thick jammy sauce for the prawns. Michael then had some coconut topped Mahi Mahi (very nice fish if done the right way – we had a lot of it over the week) with calamari & I had an Island chicken curry, absolutely huge servings, don’t think I even ate half of mine. I then had some ice cream with freshly grated coconut & chocolate fudge sauce, their desserts were not overly creative! All in all it was a pleasant experience.

As you can probably tell by now they are very big on coconut on EVERYTHING in The Cook Islands, I was ok with it at first but by the end of the week hated it as most of the time thought it was way overdone & think it will be a while before I eat anything with coconut again which is a shame as I really like the stuff.

Anyway back on the mainland, Rarotonga a couple of places worth mentioning. FBI fish and chips , near the main bus stop in town. As we were getting off the bus we could smell it and you know what that smell does to you, we had no choice but to then find the place & order up. The fish was Parrott fish & the batter was light & crispy & all seemed to be cooked in nice fresh oil & at NZD11.50 for the 2 of us very good value for a change.

We went to Trader Jacks for dinner one night which is apparently the place to go, unfortunately I thought the food was crap here, our char grilled octopus was very tough & chewy & the coconut braised lentils it was served on well, yuk! For the mains Michael had some Wahoo fish, pan fried with garlic, lemon, fresh herbs & fries, this was nice & simple & really good, I ended up eating half of it as my Mai Mai wrapped in banana leaf & served on a bed of ginger, coriander, chilli & COCONUT cream was disgusting, I had one bite & didn’t go any further. So I was pretty hungry after this & ordered dessert, Chocolate & apricot cake with chocolate fudge & ice cream – bad mistake again, cake was dry & I don’t know what the fascination is with bloody vanilla ice cream & hot chocolate fudge on anything either! The place had a good feel & was fun but I would definitely order plain if going again, the bar pizzas looked & smelt terrific too – maybe that’s the way to go?

For our last night we went to Tamarind House, recommended as the best spot on the Island I had high hopes & it didn’t disappoint, the setting is a majestic restored colonial era building & the piano player perched in the corner all night also added to the ambience. Michael started with the seafood chowder, another Island specialty which he enjoyed & I chose the chicken & mushroom won tons which were delicious, I finally learnt not to order Cook Islands food which I have developed an intense dislike for! For mains I had some smoked salmon spaghetti & Michael some Island style swordfish, we both left very happy customers for once.

All in all it’s a gorgeous & relaxed place for a holiday, Aitutaki was the highlight & highly recommended but if you go don’t have too high expectations for the food, hope I am not being too critical here, who knows maybe its just my pregnant taste buds after all.

5 things to eat before you die

Reb from Cucina Rebecca has tagged me for the latest meme which seems to be spreading like wild fire, 5 things to eat before you die. This all started not so long ago by Melissa at The Travellers Lunchbox. Here is my contribution which doesn’t contain quite as many fancy things as some, when I came to thinking about my favourite things, they all came back to pretty simple stuff!

1. Pierogi – Home made & Polish style the way my grandma used to make them. One of my best memories from childhood was visiting my Grandma when a fresh batch of pierogi were made, or even better making them with her, this was a whole day affair as when you make them you make 100's so you can give them out to the whole family to take home of course. I think the fact that they were made on this mammoth scale each time is what has deterred me from making my own so far. Pierogi are a European pastry, hers were filled with mashed potato mixed with loads of onion fried in butter. They are then boiled, drained, lots of butter applied until melted & then served with lashings of sour cream. The seconds were then pan fried a golden brown & again served with sour cream. So this simple fair is something I miss dearly & have vowed to stop being so lazy & make & perfect myself before I die. Now that I am about to start my own family hopefully this will inspire me so that my children can grow up with them as I did.

2. Cherries - these luscious beauties would have to be my favourite fruit of all time. I love them & eat them all on their own, they are so sweet & heavenly that I find they need no embellishment. The only downside to cherries is that the season is so short that from beginning to end I eat as many as I can before its all over for another year.

3. Chocolate - sorry to be so general but good chocolate in any shape, size or form is on my ultimate food group list for obvious reasons

4. A picnic of fresh local produce somewhere fabulous with the one you love. A couple of memorable ones for me would have to be a spring picnic in Paris in the botanical gardens with Michael, eating French cheese, bread & wine amongst other delights & the recent picnic I had in Lorne for my wedding anniversary which as well as some fantastic fresh food we topped off with a bottle of Dom Perignon which we had picked up in Champagne itself a few years ago, great food for me does not have to be fancy, the setting & company can play just as major a part & nothing beats eating fresh regional food where its made, ie Fresh bread, local cheeses, chutneys, jams, fruit, dips, chocolates

5. Grilled Haloumi on fresh bread. Something more specific for number 5. Haloumi grilled with a bit of oregano & drizzled with some lemon juice on top of some really good fresh bread would have to be one of my favourite ways to eat cheese, I do love all cheese however this is number one & is so good can pretty much eat enough so that it is a meal in itself

And before I go I will pass this on & tag (hope no one else has got to you first!)

Mellie at Tummy Rumbles
Sarah at Sarah Cooks
Niki at Esurientes
Kaylyn at Kaylns Kitchen
Ellie at Kitchen Wench

Blueberry butter cake and Goodbye Sharon

Saturday Sharon had a bit of a going away bbq & I of course thought it was a great opportunity to test out a new cake. I chose this luscious Blueberry butter cake from Bill Granger’s Bill’s Sydney Food. I love his cakes, so far they have all been perfect so whenever I can I knock out another one. As blueberries are a bit expensive at the moment I used frozen ones, they were being cooked so figured it wouldn’t hurt. These worked fine though I think because of the moisture content the cake need about an extra 15-20 minutes over the recommended 50 minutes, after 50 there was a pool of liquid on top which I poured off & the cake was still pretty much raw in the center. I have to say I was a bit worried at this stage but luckily the extra time cooked it & there was no damage, ie burnt top that I was panicking about! The cake went down perfectly with lots of very nice comments. It’s a pity I don’t have a photo of the cut cake as it looked fantastic, in the center the fruit had dropped to the bottom so it was sort of spread through the whole cake & the crumble topping just made it, all in all another winner from Bill.

Blueberry Butter Cake

For an old-fashioned Sydney experience you’d use mulberries from the tree that always stained your mother’s washing on a windy day – and get your fingers and lips red in the picking. The blueberry is more urbane.

Topping
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
¼ cup plain (all purpose) flour
75 g (2 ½ oz) unsalted butter, cold

Cake
2 cups plain (all purpose) flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
125g (4 oz) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup caster (superfine) sugar
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup sour cream
2 cups blueberries

To make the topping, place brown sugar and flour in a bowl, add butter and rub in with fingertips until mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs.
To make the cake, preheat over to 180c (350F). Sift flour, baking powder and salt into a mixing bowl. Place butter and sugar in a bowl and cream together. Add the eggs, and mix. Add the dry ingredients, alternating with sour cream, mixing well after each addition.
Pour the cake batter into a greased 23cm (9 in) spring form cake tin. Sprinkle with blueberries and topping mixture.
Bake the cake for 50 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack, topping side up.
Serve warm or at room temperature with fresh cream. Serves 8.