Mojito Genoise

I love a good Mojito, who doesn't? But I love cake even more. So when I saw Lorraine Pascale's recipe for Mojito Genoise Sponge... well. I just had to try it. Result? It looked exactly like in her cookbook Baking Made Easy . Tastewise I'll make a few changes next time. I didn't use all of the sugar syrup and it meant the cake was a bit dry. I was just worried it would be too sweet. I was wrong. Here's a link to the recipe.

Swedish Waffles

Crisp, buttery and slightly savoury, Swedish waffles are delicious served with softly whipped cream and a dollop of homemade cloudberry jam. I tried making some when we were back in Sydney but I think I had a dud waffle maker as the batter separated and drizzled down the sides of the stove. Basically they were inedible.

These however were amazing.

The best waffles are made with a cast iron waffle iron (like my mum's) that has to be sizzling. And don't forget to add lots of butter to the batter!




Simple Swedish Waffles 

Makes 20 waffles or 10 double 

100 g butter, melted 
1 cup cold water 
350 ml plain flour 
200 ml milk 2 tsp baking powder 

Method:
 1. Heat up your waffle iron well in advance so it is hot hot hot! 

 2. Melt the butter and let it cool slightly. 

 3. With a whisk combine water, flour, milk and baking powder until smooth. Add the melted butter. 

 4. Butter the waffle iron if needed. Use a 3/4 cup of batter for each waffle and pour mixture into hot waffle iron. 

NOTE: Don't forget to close the lid. Your waffles should be crisp and golden - this will take a couple of minutes. Remove them too fast and they won't be crisp. 

5. Serve hungry friends as you make the waffles or alternatively stack them on a plate as you make them. But this means the bottom ones will become a bit soft. .

6. Waffles are best served with softly whipped cream and runny jam. Cloudberry or strawberry is best.

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Gingerbread greetings

We made this just before Christmas and it's been gracing the windowsill in the kitchen throughout the holidays. I used a traditional Swedish recipe for gingerbread biscuits which is crisp and buttery with lots of Christmassy flavour. Recipe to come.

The baked gingerbread.






Decorated and ready for assembly.




It was easier than it looks.

Baby it's cold outside

Greetings from Sweden. It's been a chilly few days. Making the change from summer in sunny Sydney to wintery Lapland has been a bit harder than usual. Either I'm really a Sydneysider now or I'm getting weak. 




Anyway. Seeing as it was -34 again today I opted for a brisk walk while it was still light and then spent the rest of the day indoors with the fire going. Life has been quiet, which is good, and we've been playing a lot of board games.... and of course there's been some baking and cooking traditional Christmas foods. 

Review: Lorraine Pascale's Fast, Fresh and Easy Food

This is Lorraine Pascale's third cookbook and although you'd think there wouldn't be much more to write with such a quick succession of books, you couldn't be more wrong.

This is even better than Baking Made Easy. The recipes are fun, colourful, look tasty and  - best of all they actually are. She is the queen of baking and the dessert and baking recipes do not dissapoint either.



Among many we trialled the incredibly tasty Gingerbread pancakes for breakfast and the utterly divine Doorstop Vanilla cheesecake.




I can't wait to try the Watermelon Jello Shots this summer.

Doorstop Vanilla Cheesecake

I love unbaked cheesecake and this recipe from Lorraine Pascale is my new favourite. It is incredibly dense and rich, but at the same time it is quite light and not too cloying. It also makes one massive cheesecake. I think it could definitely feed 20 people. The slices really are like a doorstop so smaller is better. Can't wait to play around with this recipe. It's begging to be made into a strawberry version.
 

VANILLA DOORSTOP CHEESECAKE
75g butter
250g digestive biscuits
2 tbs light soft brown sugar
800g full fat Philadelphia cream cheese
1 lemon
1 vanilla pod (or vanilla essence)
800 ml fridge cold double cream
75g icing sugar

1. You will need a 23 cm springform that is at least 8 cm deep. Melt butter slowly. Place digestive biscuits in foodprocessor and blitz to smitherenss. Tip biscuit crumbs into butter and then press into the base of the  springform tin. Place in the fridge to chill while you work on topping.

2. Put the cream cheese in a large bowl and finely grate zest over. Halve the vanilla pod, scrape out seeds and add them or vanilla extract too. Mix together well to loosen mixture slightly.

3. Pour the double cream into a large bowl and sift in icing sugar. Whisk it, by hand to almost the same consistency as the cream cheese just a little looser.

4. Tip the cream into cream cheese mixture and mix everything gently with as few stirs as possible. Tip onto biscuit base and smooth the top with the back of a spoon or offset spatula.Or set in fridge for 4 hours.

5. Cover with cling film and put in freezer for about 30 minutes until just set.

Dreaming of a White Christmas

Every year I plan to make edible goodies to give as gifts for Christmas. And evey year as December comes around I find myself feeling royally buggered and not at all interested in spending time in the kitchen. With Christmas shopping, functions every weekend and trying to wrap things up at work before I leave for a holiday in Sweden... (yes Sweden!) let's just say I haven't been feeling it this year.

I had however promised a friend I'd make some treats for her party. Inspired by Lyndey Milan's fabulous White Rocky Road recipe I thought I'd whip up a quick batch before the party.

Although these took a bit longer  to make than planned, they are utterly delicious.

And since I'm heading off to a white Christmas in just a few days time, here's my take on White Chocolate Rocky Road.


WHITE CHOCOLATE ROCKY ROAD

600g white chocolate, chopped

120g marshmallows chopped

420g rose flavoured Turkish delight, chopped coarsely
1 cup flaked coconut, toasted

1 cup (140g) shelled pistachios, lightly toasted

1/2 cup pomegranate flavoured, dried cranberries

Silver cachous balls, to serve

1. Place 20-30 cupcake wrappers of your choice on a tray or oven tray.

2. Toast coconut on the stovetop in a pan and then pistachios. Leave to cool on a plate.

3. Chop marshmallows and Turkish delight into smallish bits.

4. Combine marshmallows, Turkish delight, coconut, pistachios and cranberries in a large bowl.

5. Melt the white chocolate in the microwave in 20-30 second burst stirring in-between.

6. Pour white chocolate into the dry ingredients and stir quickly until evenly coated. Time is of the essence my friend, so don't be slow or it will start clumping together as it sets.

7. Dollop 1-2 heaped tablespoons into each cupcake wrapper and decorate with silver cachous for a festive touch. These can also be dolloped straight onto baking paper if you like them smaller.

8. Leave to cool in the fridge for a few hours.

Happy Melbourne Cup Day!

Pressed for time I started on this baby after rushing home from uni last night. Now you might say that 9 'o clock at night is not the best time of the day to start a cake. You'd be right.

But I had promised my collegaues a cake for Melbourne Cup day and I hate breaking my promises.

The base for this cake is the Lavender cake I have made a gazillion times. But that didn't help. The base didn't seem right, the white chocolate mousse wouldn't set and even with some help from gelatine oozed out on the sides. Not to mention that I used too much white choc mousse on two layers and was left with only a smear on the last one. Sigh.

The one thing that did work was the fantastic Swiss Meringue Buttercream from Sweetapolita. Beautiful consistency and not too buttery. A new favourite!

Better photos and recipe to come soon. In the meantime, Happy Punting! 

Review: Simple Pleasures - The Free Range Cook

She's New Zealand's leading celebrity chef, stars in her own cooking series and is a passionate advocate for using seasonal ingredients. Annabel Langbein is back with her 19th cookbook, Simple Pleasures: The Free Range Cook. It's another no fuss, entertaining type food book and at first glance it's lovely. Big mouthwatering pictures, easy read text and simple create at home recipes.

At this point I should mention that I own her previous book Annabel Langbein's Free Range in the City and can honestly say I have not cooked one thing from it. That's not to say I don't enjoy reading it and planning to make some of the recipes, which is what I do with a lot of my cookbooks because I have so many. This time however, for the purposes of this review I set out to cook a few recipes from Simple Pleasures.

- Slow-roast Lamb with a Herb Crust
- Poached Chicken
- Butter Cookies

 



Some thoughts:

The recipes are very simple, some very basic. Unfortunately the poached chicken I made was dry. That could be down to the quality of the chicken. As we all know there's free-range and then there's free-range. In other words depending on how much you spend on your free-range chook it varies.

The herb encrusted lamb I would not make again. I love lavender and this recipe includes it, but there was something about the flavour in the herb crust that did not sit right with me. It was too perfumey and oddly tasted a bit like I had draped the poor lamb in anchovies. Apart from that there was nothing actually wrong with my lamb. The potatoes that baked under the lamb were a ok, but again reminded me of one of my most hated dishes of all time Swedish Sjomansgryta were the potatoes are sliced and cooked in the meat broth.

The butter biscuits though were not bad. I have a similar recipe that uses condensed milk so I know that using this particular ingredient in biscuits works a treat. A note though, even though I halved the recipe it still made one hell of a lot of bikkies, in my case Hazelnut and chocolate and Lavender. These would be great for bake sales.

I'm still debating whether or not to keep this book. Space is at a premium in my house so I might just take down the cookie recipe and give this book away. Any takers?

Summing up the $35 Challenge

It’s been almost a week since the $35 Challenge finished.

I never thought seven days would feel so long, but they did. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I didn’t cope too well. I was hungry a lot. And not because I actually was hungry. More a phantom feeling of can’t have what I want when I want it. It was embarrassing really. Imagine instead what it must be like having so little all the time. Day in, day out, always skimping, making the dollars go further. I can understand how desperate some people must feel. Sure, you would get used to having less. But there must be times when you just long for more.

Some thoughts about living on less:

1. Planning.
There is no “oops I forgot my lunch at home today, I’ll just get a takeaway sandwich”. You can never go anywhere without first planning your meals. Either you bring your lunch or snack with you or you go without.  There’s also the planning and cooking of every single food you ever eat. No shortcuts.

2. Cooking skills.
Eating healthy food on a budget is probably easier if you know how to cook, and particularly if you’re creative.  If you can whip up an omelette from leftovers or make a soup out of vegetable skerricks - all the better towards eeking out the food supply.

3. Eating the same thing.
If you cook in bulk or buy something on special you also eat it for a long time, which saves you money. Get used to eating a lot of leftovers and never throwing anything away…

4. Planning and shopping wisely
Where you shop and what you eat will depend on three things. What’s in season (thus making it cheap), what’s on special, and where is it for sale at the lowest price?

5. Eating out.
Forget it.

At the end of the week I had exhausted my carrot supply but still had some eggs and half a loaf of bread (which I have continued eating this week - it was frozen). I only had a wrap on one day as the corn wraps I had bought on special were incredibly dry and chewy. My boyfriend actually ate most of them. I still had leftover red cabbage. And I ate a lot of salad. A lot. Here's another glamour shot of a carrot, cabbage, celery variety.



Part of the Challenge stated that you could use food that was already in your pantry and fridge. I tried not to use this too much but the ingredients I used were these: margarine and oil, handful of cheese for pizza topping from a piece of old cheese that I had grated and frozen ages ago (a thrifty trick my mum taught me), capsicum half that had seen better days, half a bag of dried dates that I found hiding at the back of my pantry, few tablespoons of tomato sauce for pizza, SF flour for pizza and to make pancakes, 1 cup of lentils that I used in the Storecupboard soup. On Sunday night I had a frozen leftover meal (just to be clear, I didn’t eat it frozen) that had been in the freezer for a while.

There. I feel guilty just writing it.

Here's what I ate:

Breakfasts:
Porridge with dates, 4 days
Scrambled eggs on toast 2 days
Pancakes with apples 1 day (using Jamie Oliver’s 1 egg recipe, oil for pan and last apple, peeled, cubed and cooked in a bit of water until mushy and jamlike)

Lunches
Chicken wings with salad 2 days
Store cupboard soup 3 days
Wrap with veg 1 day
No lunch on Sunday as I had a late breakfast

Dinners
Store cupboard soup 2 days
Omelette with salad 1 day
Pizza with picked meat from 3 chicken wings, bacon (from Bi-Lo Deli) and salad  1 day
Leftovers and salad  1 day
Chicken wings with salad 1 day
Baked potato with chicken wings and salad  1 day

Snacks
Apples
Carrots

Food for thought:
I’ve started to think twice before indulging and splashing out on food.
If I have food in the fridge I will eat it before I look for other options.
Inspired by the Challenge I did a shop and cooked ahead for the week on the day the Challenge finished so that I wouldn’t feel the need to eat out.

Thank you very much to Lauren from Corridor Kitchen for an inspiring Challenge!


Homemade pizza

Day 4: When I cave in and buy a banana

The psychology of not being able to buy whatever you want is interesting. I am not starving or hungry. I have eaten rather well for the past few days on the $35 Challenge for Anti-Poverty Week. Last night for instance I feasted on a very nice baked potato with chicken meat (from two chicken wings from the freezer), salad and cheese. The other day I had scrambled eggs on toast for breakfast. I've been munching on crisp chilled apples as a snack.

But today I really wanted chocolate. Sugar. Anything bad for me. And that's when it happened. I used $1 of my precious funds to buy a banana.

Yes I know, that's ridiculous. I did say I wanted chocolate.

Now I have $2.30 going into the weekend.

Day 1 - Eating well

After a horrendously late night followed by an early morning exercise session I was pretty much ready to eat a horse. I had anticipated this would happen and had prepared myself the previous night. I cooked soup, made salad, baked chicken wings and prepped my brekkie. I felt pretty pleased with myself afterwards if I do say so myself.

Here's what I ate today:

Breakfast
Porridge with chopped dates and milk
(before that banana)
Snack
Orange

Lunch
Spicy Garlicky Chicken Wings
Vietnamese Salad

Dinner
Jamie Oliver's Storecupboard Soup


I made an enormous batch of my favourite salad at the moment. It's from the Zest cookbook. I've omitted a few ingredients like the chili and chopped peanuts as it's lovely and fresh as it is. I never really make the dressing that goes with it either as it doesn't need it.

Vietnamese Salad

Serves 6-8

2 cups finely shredded Chinese Cabbage
2  lebanese cucumbers (I used 1 telegraph cucumber instead with the seeds scooped out as it only cost $1)
1 small turnip
1 carrot
1 bunch mint, leaves picked
1 bunch chives, cut into 2 cm slices (I used parsley as they didn't have hcives at the markets)

Combine ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Distribute serves among plastic containers and pop in the fridge to use for the next 2-4 days.

Taking the $35 Challenge for poverty

“It looks like you’re going on a diet.”

“Hmm… this looks really, uhm, healthy…”

The comments about my food plan for the week have all been along the same lines. But no, I’m not going on a diet. I’m taking a challenge. The $35 Challenge. It’s a great initiative run during Anti-Poverty Week, 14-20 October, by food blogger Lauren Quinn from Corridor Kitchen to bring awareness to poverty. Basically for week I will be living on $5 a day.

Today I did the big shop, trying to stretch my dollars as far as they would go. Luckily I had to meet some friends near Paddy’s market so I stopped by for some fruit and veg and saved myself about $4 in total.

So what did I buy?

Veg:  $15.15
Pantry: $11.05
Meat: $5.45
Total: $31.70








More on what I'll be eating soon!

Lunchtime favourite

I love salads. They make a great dinner and an even better lunch. But growing up, salad as a main meal was only ever served in summer for lunch. I still remember how outraged my dad was one winter evening when I suggested we have tuna salad for dinner. "It's freezing outside, why would I want something cold for dinner"?  In a way he's right. There's nothing cosy about having chilled greens when the temperature outside is -40.

As the weather warms up here in Australia I'm making more salads again. This Tuna and Bean Salad from Petrea King is quick, fresh and healthy and there's enough for the lunchbox the next day.


Tuna and Bean salad
serves 2

150 g green beans trimmed and halved
1 cup cooked cannellini beans
1/4 Spanish red onion, chopped
10 cherry tomatoes, halved
8 kalamata olives
180 g can tuna, drained
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 tsp dijon mustard

Blanch the green beans in a saucepan of boiling water and refresh in cold water. Combine with the canellini beans, onion, tomatoes and olives and place on 2 plates.

Break the tuna into flakes and place on top of the salad. Whisk together the oil, vinegar and mustard and drizzle over the salad.

The Birthday Cake

Mr N is partial to anything with chocolate, and particularly Black Forest Cake. For his birthday this year I attempted (again) to bake him "the ultimate chocolate and cherry cake". It's been a six year process, but I think I might have finally cracked it.

This Dark Chocolate Cherry cake is stunning. Yummy, densely chocolately and with a hint of cherries. It tastes even better the next day. I couldn't find any fresh cherries so I decorated with white choc dipped strawberries which I think worked really well. If there's one criticism... I might cut back on the cinnamon next time as it was a bit too strong. And the base is very delicate. I cut the bottom layer too thin meaning breakage. That said, nothing a bit of ganache won't fix!




Recipe from Swedish cooking magazine Allt om Mat:



Dark Chocolate Cake with Cherries

175 g butter, softened
300 ml sugar
4 eggs
200 ml full fat milk
200 ml plain flour
100 ml cocoa powder
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla sugar

Chocolate filling
400 g dark chocolate (70%)
250 g butter
100 ml icing sugar
200 ml cherry jam

Method:

1. Turn the oven to 175 degrees. Using a 24 cm springform attach baking paper to bottom, butter sides.

2. Beat sugar and butter until fluffy. Separate eggs and put eggwhites in separate bowl. Add egg yolks one at a time to butter and sugar mixtures and then milk. In a separate bowl mix dry ingredients then add to batter.

3. Whip eggwhites until stiff peaks form. Fold carefully into batter.

4. Pour into prepared tin. Bake in lower part of oven for 50 minutes. Let cake cool in pan.


Filling:

1. Melt chocolate and butter in a saucepan. Sift icing sugar into mixture and stir until dissolved. Put aside 300 ml of filling to ice the cake. Let cool to room temperature.

2. Cut cake in three. Spread chocolate filling on one cake. Put second cake on top and spread with cherry jam. Put third cake on top and pour the preserved icing on top and onto sides.

3. Decorate with cherries or chocolate dipped strawberries.

4. Chill the cake for at least 30 minutes. Let it stand in room temperature for 15 minutes before serving. 

It's spring time let's Tosca

Looking through my photos just lately I seem to have been baking a lot. So maybe it's time I shared some recipes.

It's spring time in the southern hemisphere and this Swedish classic Tosca cake is lovely with a coffee in the sunshine.

This is a buttery sponge with a nutty caramel topping. What's not to like! I used a recipe from Swedish food magazine but doubled the topping as it was a bit on the stingy side.

To the recipe

Celebrating today

 
My lovely colleagues put on a beautiful morning tea for my birthday. Wasn't too bad after all being at work today. The Pavlova was absolutely delicious!

On Capital Hill

"Why the hell would you go to Canberra for a romantic weekend?"

Yes, my colleague does have a point. Why would you want to spend a cozy weekend in our nation's capital?  

Why not I say! Here are some of my top reasons:

- It's quiet.

- The air smells good.

- You can rent a segway. Wiiiii!

- There's hardly any traffic.

- There are lots of museums.

- They have Koko Black. I repeat they have Koko Black. End of discussion.

- You can actually spot a real Australian bird or two. And no offense to the imposter Sydneysider the Indian Myna bird, I saw a hawk, huge green parrots (Swift Parrots methinks), Cockatoos and Galah's. I haven´t seen that much colour since I left Perth, it was doing my head in!

- Oh, and I forgot to mention that the drive is straight down the highway from Sydney. Easy as.

Rhubarb and strawberry pancakes at Urban Food:



Hot chocolate at Koko Black:



Goodies from the Old Bus Depot undercover markets: