Orange & Almond Torte

Here is a fabulous cake, another perfect chocolate & orange combination, this time from my ‘Slice of Port Douglas’ cookbook that I picked up holidaying there a few years back.
I managed to hold out over a week before using my fabulous new Kitchen Aid again, I am really trying to only bake sweet things when I’m either off visiting or having people over, any more & my waistline would be in more trouble than it could handle. This cake was well worth the wait, my parents were very impressed & so was I, it was very moist & the chopped & not too finely ground texture of the nuts & oranges was nice, without being dry or crumbly. One note though, the syrup is nice but if you cant be bothered I really don’t think you need it. When I make this one again I will not bother.

Orange & Almond Torte

2 Oranges
300g blanched almonds
1 teaspoon baking powder
6 eggs
200g caster sugar

Chocolate Ganache
200g plaistowe dark cooking chocolate
½ cup cream

Orange Cointreau sauce
2 cups water
1 cup caster sugar
zest of 2 oranges
Cointreau, to taste

Place oranges in a saucepan & cover with cold water. Bring to the boil, reduce heat, cover & simmer for 2 hours. Discard water & set oranges aside to cool. Remove the seeds (if any).

Preheat oven to 160c. Process the almonds & baking powder in a food processor until consistency resembles crushed nuts. Set aside. Process the oranges (skin & all) in food processor until smooth. Beat eggs & sugar in a bowl until light & fluffy. Fold the orange & almond mixture into the egg & sugar mixture. Pour the mixture into a greased & lined 26cm (10 inch) spring form tin. Bake for 1 hour or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Turn onto a wire rack to cool.

To make the Ganache, place chocolate in a food processor & process until chocolate resembles course breadcrumbs. Heat cream in a saucepan over low heat & do not boil. Remove cream from heat & slowly add chocolate mixture, whisking until smooth. Immediately spread over the cooled torte.

To make the sauce, place water, sugar & zest into a saucepan & bring to the boil. Reduce heat and cook over a low heat until sauce becomes syrupy. Add Cointreau to taste. Serve with a dollop of cream & some syrup drizzled over the top.

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.

Andy Fairfield Granola

Over the long weekend I thought it would be fun to make my own breakfast cereal. The recipe comes from Nigella Lawson’s Feast & is really simple & the taste is amazing, it’s great with milk for brekky or just by the handful as is whenever a snack is required. It makes about 2.5 litres worth so you end up with heaps & I think it was definitely worth the effort. Mine cooked for 40 minutes in a fan forced oven & was probably just slightly overdone though not too much the worse for it. And by the way I’ve never eaten Granola before though I’m pretty sure its just muesli by another name so I don’t know how this compares to the store bought variety.

Andy Fairfield Granola

450g rolled oats
120g sunflower seeds
120g white sesame seeds
175g apple compote or sauce
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
120g brown rice syrup or rice malt syrup or golden syrup
4 tablespoons runny honey
100g light brown sugar
250g whole natural almonds
1 teaspoon Maldon salt
2 tablespoons sunflower oil
300g raisins

Mix Everything except the raisins together very well in a large mixing bowl. Spread the mixture evenly on two large baking trays & bake in a 170c oven, turning over halfway through baking & re-distributing the granola evenly during the baking process. This should take anything from about 40 minutes. Electric tends to be faster than gas.

Once baked, allow to cool & mix together with the raisins & store in an airtight container.

Baked Pears & Dates

Here is another beautiful recipe for baked pears, the spices leave a heavenly aroma wafting through the house & the sour cream is really good with the brandy & sugar mixed in. I even forgot the almonds so I suspect they would be even better with these sprinkled on top.

Baked Pears & Dates

¼ cup (55g) firmly packed brown sugar, plus 1 tablespoon extra
grated rind & juice of 1 orange
1 teaspoon ground mixed spice
2 firm beurre bosc pears, cut into quarters & cored
8 dates, seeded
300g sour cream
1 tablespoon brandy or rum
½ cup (35g) slivered almonds, toasted

Preheat oven to 200c. Combine sugar, orange juice, rind & mixed spice in a large bowl. Add pears to bowl & coat well. Place pears, cut side up, with juice and dates in a heatproof dish. Bake for 20 minutes. Turn pears, baste with liquid & bake for another 20 minutes, until pears are coloured & tender.

Meanwhile, combine sour cream, extra brown sugar & brandy in a bowl. Serve with warm pears & a little syrup, sprinkled with almonds. Serves 4

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.

Damp Apple & Almond Cake

Over the next couple of weeks I will be bombarding you with apple recipes as my Granny Smith tree out the back has a huge crop for a change, here is the first, a very interesting flourless cake from Nigella Lawson’s Feast. It appears under the Passover section and seeing how I don’t even know what or when Passover is & therefore am unlikely to ever celebrate it, what better time to make this cake then right now. I prepared the apples the day before & with that done the cake is incredibly easy to make, you just chuck everything in the food processor & whiz, no sifting, beating separate ingredients, etc.
The end result was a very moist (damp) cake indeed though in no way did it taste undercooked. The flavours all blended in beautifully & you couldn’t even really taste the apple flavour, it had a nice tang & reminded me almost of orange cake, strange as there was nothing orange flavoured to be found in the ingredients at all. Definitely repeatable.

Damp Apple & Almond Cake

Apple Puree
3 tart eating apples (or 4 small as I found I needed)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 teaspoons caster sugar

Cake
Almond oil/flavourless vegetable oil to grease tin
8 eggs
325g ground almonds
275g caster sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
50g flaked almonds

To Decorate
1 teaspoon icing sugar

Peel, core and chop the apples roughly. Put them in a saucepan with the lemon juice and sugar, and bring pan to a bubble over medium heat. Cover the pan and cook over low heat for about 10 minutes or until you can mash the apple to a rough puree with a wooden spoon or fork (You should have about 285g of puree). Leave to cool.

Preheat oven to 180c. Oil a 25cm springform tin with almond oil or a flavourless vegetable oil & line bottom with baking parchment.

Put the cooled puree in the processor with eggs, ground almonds, caster sugar & 1 tablespoon of lemon juice & blitz into a puree. Pour & scrape with a rubber spatula into the prepared tin, sprinkle with the flaked almonds on top & bake for about 45 minutes. Check after 35 minutes as oven temperatures vary. Put on a wire rack to cool slightly, then spring open. This cake is best served warm though is still good cold. Before serving, sieve some icing sugar over the top.

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.

Movida

Last night I caught up with Megan & Rach for dinner at Movida, which is a fantastic little tapas bar tucked away in a laneway in the city. They do dinner in 2 sittings, either 6 or 8.30, so if you do the 6 you have to get out fast & if you do the later session you can settle in & relax. As we were all going straight from work we did the 6.00 session as last time I went for the later one we were all very drunk by the time we got there, not very good at restraining myself from the bubbly whilst waiting! The menu is divided between tapas (small dishes) & racions (slightly bigger dishes) that are designed to share. You can also have a banquet. I love eating this way as it means you get to try so much more of whats on offer. Last night was no exception with 3 hungry girls not afraid to eat! The huge selection we tried last night was as follows:

Bread with Olive oil
Ensalada Valencia – Valencian Salad, endive, orange, palm hearts, & Manzanillo olives
Croqueta - Fried croquette flavoured with chicken & garlic chives
Tortilla de Patatas – confit potato & onion omelette
Setas Asado Con Jerez – Oven roasted portabello Mushrooms finished with sherry vinegar
Gambas A La sidra – whole prawns cooked in terracotta with Asturian cider
Chicken Speical – cant remember the exact flavours, was braised with an almond meal breading
Costilla Con Sobrasada - Roasted lamb cutlet encased in a Catalan pork & paprika pate
Vierna, Jamon Y Espuma – Half shell scallop oven baked with jamon & potato foam

Churros – Rich hot drinking chocolate & Spanish doughnuts & Ganache Caliente Con Turron, Hot chocolate ganache pudding with vanilla bean ice cream & nougat

Everything was absolutely yummy as you can see form the photos, the salad which the waiter suggested was really good & a bit different, the croquettes absolutely melted in your mouth, the mushrooms didn’t look much but were very tasty, the chicken special was delicious, in fact it was all lip smacking good. I had also heard that the churros for dessert were to die for so of course I had to try them along with the ganache which we shared between the 3 of us, of my God, as Rach put it, you could come here for dessert alone. The dipping chocolate was so thick & rich & good, it was a shame we ran out of dippin doughnuts & had to leave some & the ganache was exceptionally good too.

All in all it was really, really good & lots more to try in future visits, the menu changes regulary too so always something new to try. Very highly recommended, just remember it is very popular so book at least a week in advance

Movida
1 Hosier Lane, Melbourne
Ph: (03) 9663 3038
www.movida.com.au
Open 7 days 12pm to Late

Mughlai Chicken

The other night I cooked up this delicious curry form my new Nigella ‘Feast’ book.
As Nigella says “there is an elegance and depth of flavour in this pale, mild, creamy braise that bowls me over every time.” I have to agree, to look at its not overly exciting & there is no fieriness to it yet the end result is perfect. It’s also suggested to cook the day before, I did it in the morning & seemed to soak up the flavours very nicely.

Mughlai Chicken

Serves 8-10

2.5cm fresh ginger, peeled
4 cloves garlic, peeled
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
½ teaspoon dried chilli
4 tablespoons ground almonds
125ml water
5 cardamom pods, bruised
1 cinnamon stick, broken in half
2 bay leaves
4 cloves
4 tablespoons vegetable oil
1.5kg boned, skinned chicken thigh fillets, each cut in 2
2 onions
250ml Greek yoghurt
250ml chicken stock
125ml double cream
100g sultanas
1 teaspoon garam masala
1 tablespoon caster sugar
1 teaspoon salt
75g flaked almonds, toasted

Put the ginger, garlic, cumin, coriander & chilli into a food processor & blend to a paste. Add the ground almonds & water, then blend again & set aside.

Put the cardamom pods, cinnamon stick, bay leaves & cloves into a small bowl.

Heat the oil in a large pan & add the chicken pieces – in batches so they fry rather than stew – and cook just long enough to seal on both sides, then remove to a dish.

Tip the bowlful of spices & turn them in the oil. Peel & finely chop the onions, add to the pan of spices, & cook until softened & slightly browned, but keep the heat gentle & stir frequently to avoid sticking. Pur in the blended paste and cook everything until it begins to colour. Add the yoghurt, 125ml at a time, stirring it in to make a sauce. Then stir in the stock, cream & sultanas.

Put the chicken back in the pan along with any juices that have collected underneath. Sprinkle over the garam masala, salt & sugar. Cover & cook over a gentle heat for 20 minutes.

The suggestion is to cook a day ahead so at this stage take off the heat & cool until reheating next day. Serve with toasted almond flakes.

Wedding Anniversary picnic, Lorne

For our 1st wedding anniversary today Michael planned a nice romantic picnic, we picked a spot just off the Great Ocean Road in Lorne, overlooking the waves crashing onto the shore. To celebrate Michael finally put the bottle of 1995 Dom Perignon on ice, it was gorgeous, there is definitely something special about good French champagne, I mean just the thought of it is romantic so luckily it tastes bloody good too!



To go with the champas we had a fine selection of produce that we picked out from the local deli/fruit & veg shop, Yarra Valley fig & Almond paste, Maffra longhorn vintage cheddar, some lovely Cobram estate Olive oil & Malouf’s Classic Egyptian dukkah, dips, kalamata olives, olive bread & a crusty French stick from the bakery, roast chicken, crackers, tomatoes, rocket, grapes, strawberries, chocolate coated apricots, really it was a feast fit for a Queen & no expense was spared. This all made for a luscious romantic day out with my love in a gorgeous setting, Thank you Michael!

A La Grecque – Aireys Inlet

Sunday night I took Michael to this new restaurant in Aireys inlet which is run by Kosta Talimanidis, the guy who used to run the famous Koasta’s in Lorne, this is his new venture which I have heard much talk & praise about so couldn’t wait. Nothing disappointed form the moment we walked in, the décor is very bright, with white walls, painted with colourful murals here & there & bright bulbs hanging down around the bar area. The staff were very friendly, helpful & quick.

To start with we shared 2 entrees, 1st grilled soutzouk which for those of you who do not know what this is, is a spicy Turkish sausage, served with an eggplant jam, fantastic flavours that were perfect together. 2nd was some Kalimari in a light batter served simply with rocket & aioli, scrumptious.

For mains I had a roast pork shoulder (sorry abt the blurry photo), served with baked apples, pancetta & sage & Michael had some Grilled blue eye with a dill sauce & some greek salad. We also had some potatoes & a beetroot, rocket & yoghurt salad. I loved every mouthful of each dish. And of course we had to finish up with dessert, there was no way I was leaving without it! I went all traditional & had the almond, hazelnut & rosewater baklava which was huge & I’d have to say the best I’ve had & Michael had the slow roasted peaches with ottway ranges honey & Meredith sheeps milk yoghurt, again divine.

This is definitely one of those places I will have to visit again as would love to try every single item on the menu. Well done!

Thursday 11th Nov - Queen Vic Market Cooking class with Allan Campion

Last night I went along to the Queen Vic Market for 1 of their cooking classes, I have been to a couple before & they are always good fun. For those of you who havent been the term 'class' is a bit misleading I find as it is more of a demonstration.

The classes run year long on various nights/weekends & each class is different & is brought to you by a different chef & their specialities. Basically up to approx 15 people sit around a table watching the chef do his thing while drinking wine & firing away questions to gain the answers to all of those things a cook book just doesn’t tell you!
You then get to eat the magnificent results & take home the recipes to attempt yourself if you are game

Last nights class was 'The seasonal produce Diary' by Allan Campion now an annual 'bible'
In case you're not familiar with Allan Campion, he & his wife produce a 'seasonal produce diary' each year which as the name suggests lists Seasonal ingredients for each month of the year as well as recipes incorporating the same .
It is a fabulous little diary & also food & wine events in Oz are marked in the calender so you cant forget to go, a list of places to buy great produce as well as details on markets etc is also included. Apparently it sells out very quickly so grab one now before they run out

Last night he cooked up for us some fabulous recipes all from the diary, Sweet corn & ricotta hotcakes with rocket, smoked salmon & a basil & lemon dressing - is your mouth watering yet? & yes they did taste as good as they sound.
Next was a leg of lamb stuffed with preserved lemons, zaatar & herbs served with an almond pilaf - so easy & so delicious
And to top it all off a nectarine & limoncello meringue slice - need I say more?
Truly wonderful food & we should all try & follow his lead & only cook with the best seasonal ingredients to achieve maximum flavour in all we cook

Allan is fabulous & after the delicious celebration of foood he created for us last night just about everyone bought the Diary as well as various other cookbooks he has released, they all look sensational & very 'do able' (not sure it that is really a word).

Anyway check out the book & check out the classes, great fun