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

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.

Brunch Bread Sunday 12th Feb06

This morning a few of the girls came over for brunch. Melbourne finally turned on the sunshine for our QLD visitors so we set the big umbrella & chairs in the courtyard & settled in. I made the brunch bread form Jamie Oliver’s ‘Happy Days’ book which I have also seen him cook up on tv. Before I saw him make it I had always flicked passed this page with not much interest as I have a ‘too much trouble’ attitude towards making bread most of the time. Jamie cooking it up looked a breeze & absolutely scrumptious so thought this was the perfect opportunity to give it a go. It took a bit longer than Jamie made it look though it wasn’t all that difficult & the end result was amazing, it was a monster as you can see. The recipe says to feed 6, well there were 5 of us & some had seconds & we still only managed to get through about half, guess what Michael & I are having for dinner tonight? All in all, worked pretty well & as suggested would be great to take along to a picnic or similar.

Savoury Rolled Bread of Parma Ham, Egg, Cheese, and Basil

3 x 7g (1/4 oz) sachets dried yeast
1kg (2.2 lb) bread flour, plus extra flour, for dusting
1 pt tepid water
2 tbsp sea salt
3 tbsp sugar
10 slices parma ham
8 large organic egg, boiled for 8 minutes and shelled
400g (14 oz) cheese, (a mix of Cheddar, Parmesan, Fontina, mozzarella, or any leftovers that need to be used up), grated
2 handfuls fresh basil
sun-dried tomato
extra virgin olive oil
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
chopped fresh rosemary, leaves

Mix all the ingredients together and knead into a dough.
Roll the dough out into a long rectangular shape about 1/2 inch (1centimeter) thick, about 39 1/2 inches (1 meter) long and 7 to 8 inches (18 to 20 centimeters) wide.
Along the middle of the first piece of rolled out dough, lay out your Parma ham, eggs, cheese, basil, and tomatoes. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Pull the dough over the filling so it forms what looks like a cannelloni shape.
Bring one end round to the other so that they join up. Pinch and pat the two ends together firmly to form a doughnut shaped bread. Sprinkle with a little sea salt and rosemary. Transfer to a baking tray and allow to proove for 15 minutes.

Dust with flour and place in a preheated 350 degrees F (180 degrees C) oven until golden, about 35 minutes.