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.

Dench Bakers, North Fitzroy

It was such a gorgeous day yesterday that Michael & I ventured out for a walk along the Merri Creek path & emerged on St Georges road for a quick lunch with Chloe at Dench Bakers in North Fitzroy. This is a great bakery that also operates as a café which we hadn’t yet tried out. I have been inside before to purchase the brioche for my Apple Charlotte & I have tried the amazing bomboloni (sensational sugar coated, custard filled doughnut) as pointed out by a couple of local bloggers, Jamie at The Breakfast Blog & Niki at Esurientes, so I was really looking forward to having lunch here.

The place was rocking & of course there were no free tables though there were a couple of stools set up on the side walk so we sat down, had a coffee & waited our turn. A table was free in a few minutes which was great so we happily moved in. The menu was smallish but diverse with various breakfast options both hot & cold, sandwiches, paninis & a great specials board. We both went for the specials, Michael had the zucchini flower & pumpkin risotto which was great while I couldn’t go past the ricotta hotcakes with baked autumn plums even though it was lunch at 1.30 in the afternoon. My dish was sensational, the hotcakes were delicious & the simply baked plums were juicy & sweet & didn’t make the hotcakes go soggy at all which is always a good thing, and look at how huge the serve was! Anyway I love this place & it comes highly recommended, and as Jamie says, as well as eating your brekky or lunch or whatever you will end up walking out the door with a bag of goodies too, the baked goods on offer look too good not to bring some home for later.

Dench Bakers, Atrisan Sourdoughs
109 Scotchmer Street
North Fitzroy VIC 3068
Ph: 03 9486 3554
denchbakers@optusnet.com.au

Upside-Down Cake with Apple & Cinnamon

Finally I have used the last of the Granny Smiths so all of my leftover apple recipes (of which I still have quite a few), can for the most part be put away until next years crop. The lucky recipe to score the last lot was this luscious & wicked (see butter & sugar content) cake from one of my favourite sweets men, Bill Granger of course, from Bills Sydney Food. It was delicious as usual, a few steps to get through so not quite as simple as some but well worth the effort. Looking fwd to making something wicked with chocolate next week now that the apples are gone….

Upside-Down Cake with Apple & Cinnamon

Topping
100g unsalted butter
100g large firm apples, peeled, cored & cut into 1cm slices
juice & zest of 1 lemon
1 cup caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Cake
100g unsalted butter, softened
1 cup caster sugar
4 eggs, separated
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 ¼ cups plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
a pinch of salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
pouring cream, to serve

To make the topping, place the butter in a non stick frying pan over medium heat & melt. Toss apples with lemon zest & juice in a bowl & add to butter. Cook apples gently for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the sugar & vanilla & cook for 5 minutes longer.

Remove apples from the pan with a slotted spoon and arrange in the bottom of a greased & greaseproof paper lined 23cm spring form cake tin.

Increase heat & boil remaining liquid in the pan for 5 more minutes until a rich caramel forms. Pour caramel over apples in base of tin.

To make the cake, preheat oven to 180c. Place butter & sugar in a bowl & cream until light & fluffy. Add egg yolks one at a time, beating after each addition. Add vanilla. Gently fold in the sifted flour, baking powder, salt & cinnamon.

In a small clean bowl, beat egg whites until stiff. Fold through cake mixture with a large metal spoon. Spoon evenly over apples & caramel & smooth out with a spatula. Bake for 40 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Remove cake from oven & leave in the tin for 5 minutes. Remove sides from the tin & place a large serving plate on top of cake. Turn cake over onto serving plate, remove base & greaseproof paper. Serve warm with cream.

Banana Maple Porridge with Buttered apples

Recently when I had Chloe I was lucky enough to be staying at Freemasons Hospital who have a ‘wing’ at the Park Hyatt which I stayed at for a couple of nights, much, much nicer than the hospital I can tell you, don’t get me wrong, Freemasons is nice but it is still a hospital as opposed to the Hyatt which had huge rooms, no one barging in whenever they felt like it, King size beds, a spa & lots of other luxuries including of course a fantastic menu to choose from! Michael & I also spent our wedding night there so it was nice & nostalgic for us to be staying there again (yes he stayed with me of course). Anyway the reason I’m telling you this is because while I was there I was hooked on there Banana Maple porridge on the menu which I had every day I was there, it was sensational so when I was flicking through Bill Granger’s Sydney Food book & saw a recipe for the same well of course I was dying to try out immediately. I’ve never made porridge from scratch before, normally I go the easy way & just add water & pop it into the microwave. This was a bit more time consuming but well worth the effort, it was sensational, I love it & cant wait to make it every weekend. It tasted exactly like the Hyatt’s so not sure who stole who’s recipe? The buttered apples on top were nice & of course I got to use up more Granny Smiths but next time I think I would just serve with some sultanas & extra banana a la Hyatt & save myself the extra effort & pan to wash up. Also I didn’t serve with extra milk as suggested as didn’t think it was necessary. Yet another winner from Bill’s brekky collection.

Banana Maple Porridge with Buttered apples

1 cup rolled oats
1 ½ cups boiling water
1 cup milk
a pinch of salt
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 banana, finely sliced

to serve
buttered apples (below)
2 tablespoons maple syrup
warm milk

Place oats and boiling water in a medium saucepan & stir to combine. Let oats sit for 10 minutes. Add the remaining ingredients to oats in the saucepan & stir again. Bring slowly to the boil over medium heat. Reduce heat & bring mix to a simmer. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring often. The banana should almost dissolve. Remove from heat & let the porridge stand, covered for 2-3 minutes before serving.

Spoon into bowls, top with apples & extra maple syrup & a jug of warm milk on the side. Serves 2.

Buttered Apples

30g unsalted butter
½ kg hard sweet apples, peeled, cored & thinly sliced
1 tablespoon caster sugar

Place butter in a frying pan and melt over medium heat. Add the apples & sprinkle with sugar. Cook gently until the undersides of the apples are pale golden. Turn very gently to avoid breaking & cook until golden & translucent. Serve warm.

Apple Pie

After all my apple recipes I’ve tried this season thks to the tree out the back I cant believe it has taken me so long to get to the good old classical apple pie. With nearly the last of my Granny Smiths I made this superb version from Jamie Oliver’s Jamie’s Dinners. The recipe suggests a mix of both cooking & eating apples however I stuck to the Granny Smiths & it was excellent, my mum proclaimed it was about the best she has eaten & was amazed at how easy the pastry was to make from scratch & of course the result no comparison to the frozen variety at all.

Apple Pie

Pastry
225g flour
140g butter
85g caster sugar
finely grated rind of 1 lemon
2 egg yolks

Filling
A small knob of butter
Flour, for dusting
1 large Bramley cooking apple
4 eating apples
3 tablespoons Demerarra or muscovado sugar
zest of ½ a lemon
½ teaspoon ground ginger
a handful of sultanas or raisins
1 egg yolk mixed with a splash of milk

Preheat oven to 150c. To make the pastry, in a food processor, whiz up the flour, butter, caster sugar & lemon rind, then add the egg yolk & a tiny drop of water to bind the mix together. Butter a 20cm inch metal pie dish (metal is supposed to conduct heat better & cook the bottom at the same time as the top – I used a ceramic dish with no ill effects).

Divide your pastry dough into two & roll half of it out on a flour dusted surface until 0.5cm thick. Lay the pastry in the metal dish & gently push it down into the sides. Don’t worry if it tears or breaks, just patch it up. Pop the pie dish & remaining half of the pastry into the fridge, peel your apples, core & cut into eighths. Toss them into a pan with the sugar, lemon zest, ginger, sultanas or raisins & a tablespoon of water. Simmer gently for 5 minutes or until the apples are just tender. Remove from heat & allow to cool completely.

Remove the pie dish from the fridge & pack the apple mix tightly into the dish. Egg wash the pastry rim & then roll out the remaining pastry & drape over the top of the pie. Roughly pinch the edges together & trim any excess pastry. Egg wash the top, make a couple of small incisions & bake in the oven for 45-50 minutes. Serve hot with ice cream, cream, custard or whatever takes your fancy.

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.

Apple & Blueberry Shortcake

Yesterday to use up even more of the Granny Smith’s I tried out this recipe from Bill Granger, Bills Food. I love his recipes, especially breakfast & sweets, I find them a bit different to a lot of stuff in my other books & no matter how strange they sound or nervous they make me that they wont work so far I haven’t failed to bake a winner. This was no exception, delicious straight from the oven with some fresh whipped cream, very fruity & the shortcake was lovely & light, don’t worry if when you’re rolling it, it sort of falls apart as it all melts into place when cooked.

Apple & Blueberry Shortcake

4 large Granny Smith Apples
finely grated zest of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons sugar
125g unsalted butter
125g caster sugar
1 egg
185g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
155g (1 cup) blueberries
sugar, for sprinkling

To serve
Whipped cream

Peel the apples, remove the cores & cut each apple into about 16 slices. Put the apples, lemon zest, sugar & 2 tablespoons of water into a medium saucepan, then cover & stew over a low heat for about 10 minutes, until the apples are soft but not mushy. Allow to cool.

Cream the butter & caster sugar together in a bowl until fluffy & smooth. Add the egg and mix well. Sift the flour and baking powder into the mixture and stir until combined. Turn onto a lightly floured surface & knead until smooth, Divide into two 7 refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180c. Roll each half of cake dough into a round approximately 22cm across. Press one round into a 24cm non-stick springform cake tin. Spread the apples over the dough, leaving a small border around the edge. Sprinkle with the blueberries. Place the other round of dough on top & press the edges together. Brush with water & sprinkle with sugar.

Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, then allow to cool in the tin for 20 minutes before removing. Serve with whipped cream.

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.

Simple Apple Tart

Another very simple recipe to use up some of my Granny Smiths, this recipe comes from Stephanie Alexander’s ‘The Cooks Companion’. Very easy, hardly seemed like cooking as just a couple of ingredients thrown together. A very nice & light tart which we had with some ice cream while it was still warm out of the oven.

Simple Apple Tart

1 quantity Shortcrust pastry
4 tablespoons apricot jam
3 eating apples, peeled & thinly sliced

Line an 18 or 20cm loose-bottomed flan tin with pastry. Blind bake at 200c for 20 minutes or until golden (note mine took much less time). Remove from oven, allow to cool for a few minutes & reduce temperature to 180c. Warm jam & brush some over case. Arrange apples in slightly overlapping concentric circles. Bake for 15 minutes. Baste with remaining jam & cook for 15-20 minutes until apple looks a little caramelized on the edges.

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.

Apple Latkes

Another apple recipe from Nigella Lawson’s Feast. It appears under the Festival of Lights chapter, another celebration I know nothing about though the book informs me is properly called ‘Hanukkah’, its of the religion Judaism & they make a lot of latke’s. The variety I’m trying are sweet rather than the more traditional savoury variety. The recipe is supposed to make about 20 x 5-6cm latkes, as I was making just for the 2 of us for brekky I made about 10 giant ones. Having never had these before I thought they would be more like an apple flapjack however I was very wrong, they tasted very much like a doughnut & very wicked, absolutely delicious!

Apple Latkes

1 egg
100ml Greek yoghurt plus 75ml semi-skimmed milk or 175ml natural yoghurt
150g plain flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon bicarb soda
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons caster sugar
250g apples (about 2)
vegetable oil for frying
maple syrup or icing sugar & ground cinnamon for serving

Beat the egg with the yoghurt and milk or just the yoghurt if you’re using the plain normal variety, then set aside. Combine the flour, baking powder, bicarb of soda, cinnamon & sugar in a bowl. Peel, quarter & core the apples, then grate them.

Pour the egg-yoghurt mixture into the flour bowl, tip in the apples & fold together.

Pour enough oil to come to about 5mm up in a frying pan and put on the stove to heat. Dollop spoonfuls of the batter into the sizzling oil, a rubber spatula will help you scrape the batter off the spoon & press down the little latkes in the pan. Don’t worry about making them perfectly round. Fry for a minute or two, until golden brown on the underside, flip then fry for another minute on the uncooked side. Remove to a tray lined with kitchen towel to blot excess oil & continue to cook until all the batter is gone.

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.

Blueberry and Bran Muffins

Yesterday day I whipped up this batch of muffins for the weekend, I love muffins because they are so easy to throw together, no beating or electric appliances necessary so when you don’t have much time & energy they are still doable. These also sounded quite healthy felt quite justified in making them. They come from Bill Granger’s Sydney Food book. As you know I am in love with his breakfasts at the moment & aim to attempt most of them sooner rather than later.

Blueberry and Bran Muffins

30g butter
¾ cup honey
½ cup milk
½ cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
3 cups plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ cup bran cereal
1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 apple, grated
2 bananas, mashed
250g blueberries
6 strawberries, halved

Preheat oven to 180c. Place butter and honey in a small saucepan and cook over medium heat for 5 minutes or until slightly caramelized.

Place milk, vegetable oil & eggs in a bowl & whisk.

Place flour, baking powder, bran & cinnamon in a bowl and mix to combine. Stir apple, bananas and blueberries through flour. Add milk mixture & stir until dry ingredients are just moistened. Then fold in butter mixture until just combined being careful not to overmix.

Set out tray(s) with 12 paper liners. Spoon batter into each cup. Top each muffin with half a strawberry. Bake in oven for 25-30 minutes or until the tops are golden & a skewer comes out clean. Cool slightly, remove from tray & 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.

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.

Apple & Pine Nut Cake (Torta di Mele e Pinoli)

Today I made this cake from Australian Table July 2006, to take over to a friends house for brunch. I peeled my apples as they were a bit old & didn’t know how the skin would go in this state. The cake was very unusual, the pine nuts gave a very interesting flavour, the apples of course made it nice & fruity. A good cake if you don’t feel like anything overly rich or sweet.

Apple & Pine Nut Cake (Torta di Mele e Pinoli)

1 cup plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ cup caster sugar
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
125g unsalted butter, melted
4 medium unpeeled golden delicious apples, cored & thinly sliced
¾ cup pine nuts
grated rind of 1 lemon
icing sugar, to dust
Mascarpone, to serve

Preheat oven to 180c. Lightly grease a 20cm springform tin & dust with flour.

Sift flour & Baking powder together into a bowl. Stir in sugar. Make a well in centre & add beaten egg & melted butter. Stir, gradually incorporating flour to make a thick batter.

Fold in ¾ of sliced apple & ½ cup of pine nuts & lemon rind. Spoon into prepared pan. Arrange remaining apple on top of cake & sprinkle with remaining nuts. Bake for 1 hour and 5 minutes, cover with foil if browning too much, until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

Cool cake in pan for 10 minutes before transferring to a serving platter to cool completely. Dust with icing sugar & serve with mascarpone.

Small Block, East Brunswick - Brekky

Sunday morning breakfast at Small Block in Brunswick. Once again we felt like a morning walk & what better way to do it than with a brekky stop in the middle. I’ve been here many times before & never disappointed. The place is always packed & usually a wait on the stairs is the way to go before scoring a table. Today we were lucky & there was a table available outside & the sun was shining so it was actually nice, even for a winters day. The only problem today was that a few customers were letting their dogs run riot off their leashes & they all seemed to want to jump on me or slap me with their tails, not the cafes fault but really wish dog owners would keep their pets under control especially if they are bugging the other customers.

Today I had the baked eggs with tomato, chorizo & saffron ragout, this was served with some toast & was delicious, have never tried this dish before, the eggs on top were delicious & even though baked still nice & gooey. Underneath was a lovely mix of tomatoes, chorizo, onions, saffron & olives, great combination. Michael had the scrambled eggs with pesto & fetta, I’ve had this before & it’s a great full of flavour egg scramble. To drink as well as coffees I had a Phoenix Organic apple & pear juice from New Zealand, these are great juices so try one if you ever come across them. Anyway all in all I love Small block & have never had a bad feed here, I think its all excellent quality & the choices are a bit different from the usual which gets another thumbs up for the place too. Friendly staff & quick service complete the picture.

Small Block
130 Lygon Street
Brunswick East
9381 2244

Taxi

Sunday night my lovely husband took me out for dinner to Taxi for our 6 year anniversary (dating 6 yrs not married – yes I know I am milking as many dates as possible for fancy dinners & special treatment), I have been dying to go here for ages so yes it was my choice & not his. When we arrived at the entrance, which if you don’t know is also the Transport bar entrance, I had my handbag searched, guess they were not taking any chances on the crowds expected to arrive to watch the Oz v Brazil game later that night which we did not hang around for & luckily as a sad loss for us. Also they checked our reservation so that when we arrived upstairs they were waiting for us which was a nice touch. I have to say the service we received all night was very special & impressive, not often one comes away from a restaurant being able to say that I find. The ambience was lovely & romantic, soft lighting, funky music, nice & warm – nothing worse than a cold restaurant where you have to keep your jacket on to stay warm! I was seated on one of those long couches they have with Michael seated opposite, this was great in that I love the old couch seat, very comfy & I had the added bonus of being able to look out & see all of the city lights.

On to the food, to start with we were brought some bread rolls, which they also kept offering us all night – another nice touch not having to beg for extra bread. Then after we had placed our orders – which took a very, very long time as so much delicious sounding food to choose from, we were brought an appetiser – a shot of Carrot, ginger & 7 spices soup – was fantastic & wish I had the recipe, would make a great winter warmer soup. Next I had the Salad of Masterstock pork belly & quail with apple puree, again very nice & the apple puree the pork was placed on made a great accompaniment. For the main I had one of the specials of the day, Half a duck steamed & roasted, rubbed with schezuan spices, served on from what I can remember a salad that contained shredded pumpkin, mint & pink grapefruit amongst other things. I am a big sucker for duck & if its on a menu will order it 9 times out of 10 so have very hight standards, it very tasty & cooked to perfection, not to dry, not to pink & lovely crispy spiced skin. After this I was pretty much full but of course there was no way I was leaving without sampling some dessert from the menu, this turned out to be a very wise decision as my choice was to die for & the best course yet. I had the Cuban Dark chocolate & macadamia mille feuille, absolutely luscious & I nearly had to pick up the plate & lick it clean. Not a cheap night but great if you want something a bit special, wish I could go every week!

Taxi
Level 1, Transport Hotel
Federation Square, Melbourne
Ph: 9654 8808
http://www.transporthotel.com.au/

Automatic

Thursday night I caught a movie after work at Crown so grabbed a quick bite beforehand at the ever reliable Automatic. The place is a bit of a fave of mine, the food is good, not too expensive & always quick, the place is nice & funky too.

Rach had the pumpkin, goats cheese & pine nut pizza which as you can see looks sensational. I had the chicken tikka with Rotti & mango Chutney. The flavour of the tikka was lovely & rich though it was a touch on the oily side as was the rotti. The mango chutney was great & packed quite a punch.

Rach felt like a bit of dessert next & made the mistake of telling them she was eating for 2, can you see the size of the pie, when it arrived people on tables near & far gasped in shock, one even coming over to comment, needless to say not even half was eaten & I helped out a bit too. It was a really good apple pie with lots of ginger which gave it a nice zing.

Automatic
Crown Casino
9690 8500

Spiced Apple & Prune Muffins

For brekky today I whipped up these surprisingly tasty & healthy muffins. I have never made any type of cakey thing with prunes before so was surprised at how sweet they tasted in these little gems. The recipe was a reader’s that I snipped out of a mag a while back

Spiced Apple & Prune Muffins

¾ cup wholemeal self raising flour
¾ cup plain flour
1 teaspoon ground allspice
½ cup firmly packed brown sugar
½ cup chopped pitted prunes
140g tub apple puree
120g butter, melted
1 egg, beaten

Preheat oven to 180c. Spray a 12 x ¾ cup muffin pan with cooking spray.

Sift flours & allspice together in a bowl. Stir in the sugar & prunes. Make a well in the centre.

Combine remaining ingredients in a jug. Gradually fold into the dry ingredients, until just combined.

Spoon into the prepared pan & bake for 15-20 minutes until cooked when tested with a skewer. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.