My new favourite thing to make...Biscotti

I have started to write my posts in Word first, and then copy and save them to the computer as more than one has fallen victim to a dodgy work internet connection. And I’m pretty sure I’m not allowed to a)shout and swear as loudly as I’d like and b) throw the stupid computer against a wall. According to Marty I’m never allowed to do b) so I throw the stapler instead. Coincidently, I broke the stapler during one of these tantrums and it didn’t staple properly for ages – it’s to be expected, but on a subsequent tirade I fixed it again by throwing it even harder on the floor and it all bounced back into place. This does not work for everything, but remotes and staplers appear to respond well. I can also check my word count on Word, which is more based on curiosity and some future references than anything else. I digress. I’m going to tell you about my biscotti making experience. A highly enjoyable experience to say the least and I think I’ll repeat it soon to see if I can get it right twice. That is the thing about baking, getting it right every time, or as in the case of my famous brownies, getting it better every time!

So, I found numerous recipes and then found one on www.taste.com.au that was only 4 steps and had great reviews. It was to accompany a very chocolaty dessert so I needed something that wasn’t too sweet or overpowering, and maybe had a slightly tart fruit. And didn’t have pistachios. EVERY biscotti has pistachios (because they look cool with the green – says Marty!)And pistachios are ridiculously expensive shelled and time-consuming not. If you’ll remember the M’Hanncha from a Christmas post I sat and shelled all the pistachios then. Not again. It was fine as I was sitting outside drinking champagne, but I certainly had better things to do this time. I thought, 4 steps, easy-peasy, I was warned of the time-consuming nature of making biscotti but set to work anyway. It is time-consuming, but not in any way different to making biscuits or baking a cake. When you bake a cake you mix the ingredients, bake the cake, let it cool, ice it, decorate it and then eat it. This is a whole day affair. Biscuits need to be made in batches unless you have a commercial kitchen or oven. And biscotti needs to be baked a second time.

We were having the dinner party in the evening, and had been so thoroughly organised, that while Marty enjoyed rewatching the All Blacks rugby game and then watching another game – Wallabies maybe? – I could get stuck into the kitchen quietly and on my own. I did seek his professional opinion through some of the process, probably only because he was there, but now having made it myself I feel equipped to repeat the process and know what to look for. I have become accustomed to attempting challenging recipes set out by Gordon (Ramsay) and Jamie (Oliver) and both offer advice as to how things should look, feel, smell, etc when they are at different stages. That’s the one thing this recipe lacked, but maybe I can impart some of that knowledge. Ready for the recipe?

What you’ll need:

2 cups plain flour, sifted

1 ½ tsps Baking powder

½ cup dried cranberries

2/3 cup raw almonds, I chopped mine a little

½ cup caster sugar

3 eggs, lightly beaten with a fork

What to do:

1.       Preheat the oven to 160deg.

2.       Place 2 cups sifted plain flour in a large bowl with 1 ½ teaspoons of baking powder (I sifted it all together), ½ cup dried cranberries, 2/3 cup raw almonds and ½ cup castor sugar. Combine and create a well in the middle. This will make it much easier to mix.

3.       Add the 3 eggs and mix until well combined. It will be a dough, but not too dry. Mine was on the stickier side as it had been dry and I’d added another egg – Thanks Marty! I did need to add more flour as well. I also added 2 tsps of cinnamon to the dry ingredients and a little more cranberries.

4.       Transfer the dough to an even work surface, lightly dusted with flour and knead with your hands until smooth. This did not take long. I had mixed everything quite well and didn’t want to over-knead it.  Shape into a log and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Press along top of log to flatten slightly. Because of my extra egg my loaf spread as little. In the future I may half the mixture and make 2 smaller logs and they did spread during cooking. This made for lovely long pieces on biscotti, but they could have been smaller.

5.       Bake for 30 minutes, remove from oven and cool.

6.       Cut log into 1cm-thick slices, place on baking tray and cook for another 12-15 minutes until hard.

Yes, the recipe I’ve given you is longer than 4 steps, but that’s because I’ve broken up a couple of the steps. And I’m going to change step 6 completely!

I do not like my biscotti thick and unmanageable. Left to Marty they would have been 1mm thick, but I think mine were between 3-5mm thick. Perfect in my opinion. Not too thin to break apart when used with the dessert and not to thick that you couldn’t bite through them.

I did them in batches as the slices need to be lain flat on the baking tray. I put them in for about 10minutes then turned the pieces over for another 3minutes. My oven has a hot spot in the back left hand corner so the tray generally needs to be rotated anyway. I think they were perfectly cooked!

 

Once cooled they were ready to serve. I loved them and quite enjoyed these biscotti.  Commercial biscotti I often find over-sweet and this had a nice tang to it. My boss – not a biscotti lover- actually rang me after I’d given her some to let me know it was the best she’d ever had and I should think about giving up my day job – to baking. Since I manage her store, I’m not sure if she was aware of the implications, but suffice to say I’d love to spend my day baking goods and selling them! So if you have a restaurant /café that want some biscotti I’ll make you a free trial and you can buy it from me if you love it!

 

I thoroughly enjoyed my biscotti-making experience, and I’d definitely do it again. I’d like to experiment with other flavours and ingredients and see if there are any other recipes out there. If anyone has a suggestion for me I’d love to hear from you.

 

Ciao

xoxo

Carrot & Cumin Salad

Today I have a food hangover. Or maybe a wine hangover? Probably both. We were treated to the gastronomic indulgence that was a whole pig done on the spit at the Greek Deli last night. I haven't eaten rich food like that, in that quantity, for a long time, so that would explain the food hangover. I also probably won't eat like that again until Christmas, so it's OK. And it was so completely worth it. I love pork generally, but so often it's done to dryness and it doesn't meet expectations. This far exceeded expectations, was completely delicious and succulent, and the crackling was perfection.

So to keep my mind focused today, and make myself feel a little healthier I'm going to tell you all about my Carrot and Cumin Salad from Sunday. Coincidentally, this would have been a great accompaniment to last night's feast. I did alter the original recipe slightly, cooking methods, etc but nothing drastic. This is a very, very easy recipe and will be an excellent addition to the usual repertoire of summer BBQ salads, certainly will be added in our house. It comes from one of my favourite recipe books - The Simple Art of Marrying Food and Wine.

What you'll need:
6 medium carrots, peeled and thinly sliced
1 onion, finely chopped
1 tsp Ground Cumin
1 tsp Cumin seeds
Olive oil
100ml Orange Juice
A handful of coriander - if you love it, add more, if not go easy.

Don't scrimp on the orange juice. A good quality, real orange juice will add flavour and the stuff from concentrate is just plain bad for you.

What you need to do:

1. I used the food processor on the fine slicing setting to chop up my carrots. It meant that they weren't all exactly the same size, gave it a great rustic look and cut them finer and quicker than I could do by hand.

2. Add the olive oil to a hot pan - 4 tablespoons was recommended by the recipe - I used a couple of healthy lugs. Add the cumin seeds and ground cumin to the oil and mix. With the finished product I felt I could have added more.

3. Add the onions and cook on a medium heat for 4-5 minutes to soften but not colour.

4. Add the orange juice and heat that through, then add the carrots. Because they were so finely chopped they didn't need to cook for long. I like my carrots with a bit of crunch, and I was making a salad not mash!!

5. Add a little bit of water, season and cook for a couple of minutes until it's all heated through. Taste the carrots to see if they're the desired texture. If you want softer carrots, cook for a little longer. I cooked them for a couple of minutes and let the sauce reduce a little bit.

6. Take the carrots of the heat, strain the sauce from the carrots, back into the pan and reduce down till it's a little thicker and more syrupy. I think that took 2-3 minutes. Pour the sauce back over the carrots and mix through. Allow to stand and cool.

7. Once cool, add the coriander and serve at room temperature.

The whole process took about 15 minutes and I did it early in the afternoon so it could just stand and cool. I had it cold the next day out the fridge and it was just as lovely. In fact the flavours had matured a little as so often happens with food that has spices in it, and it tasted even better. One of those things that can be prepped the day before you need it.

Enjoy! Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Ciao
xoxo

Some important dedications before we get onto the business of food...

I'm nearing the 5 month mark of no blog posts and that's a record I really don't want to hit! The reason for this spectacular laziness? None really, plenty of excuses, not many dinner parties and a thousand other details getting in the way. We did have a wonderful trip to Bali a month ago for my birthday that I will write about, but otherwise there's been different socialising and eating to stay trim and fit. Not that that isn't blog worthy, but there hasn't been much on the new and exciting front.

And then everything happens at once. We had a dinner party for the first time in ages and a few life events (that I'll get to) reignited the flame and here I am again with recipes, pearls of wisdom, and general stories to impart and entertain you with - and to keep me sane. I've found that without this regular blogging, or any of my writing really, my head gets too full of words and they either all come out at once or they get bottlenecked and can't make an appearance at all. A writers block if you will.

I digress. Let's begin at the beginning. The feast I'm about to tell you about is definitely the inspiration and body of this and the next couple of blogs, but there needs to be a dedication or 2 in here. In the last 3 months, 2 of my most important food mentors/teachers/guides have passed away. Both my grans. They both taught me very different skills but ultimately had the same set of knowledge. As I was preparing some of the dishes for Sunday night I got to thinking of their influences on how I cook and eat, and the skills they taught me in my day-to-day life. So this and any related posts are dedicated to Granny Fay and Nana.

Granny Fay, my paternal grandmother, passed away almost 3 months ago and she taught me all I needed to know in the craft department. I learnt to knit, embroider, craft, crochet and sew from her. I also learnt how to make chocolates for Easter and crackers fo Christmas. She was the Queen of the melktert or milktart, a traditional South African custard tart, that she was so good at she sold at a home industry and sold out within hours - after making 50 of them (or some such number). She taught me how to make delicious custard slices and sausage rolls from scratch, and every weekend I went to visit her was a new project. We would make something in the kitchen or be sewing something.

My strongest food influence and my biggest fan, Nana, passed away a couple of weeks ago. As my maternal grandmother her influence on what my mom cooked and passed down to me is obviously strongest. I can see it in the food traditions we have at Christmas and all year round. And some of my favourite dishes are ones that her or my mother would have or still do cook. And here's where I started thinking of her influence in my cooking. I was chopping onions to make the upcoming Carrot and Cumin salad and realised that this particular method of onion cutting was taught to me by her, in her kitchen in Old Belvidere, Knysna. I was sifting the flour for the biscotti and her advice to sift the flour 3 times to make sure the sponge cake was light and fluffy was as clear as day. I'm only sad she won't be able to read this and see that I still use those skills! After my grandfather had passed away, and while Marty was working nights, we had plenty of discussions while on Skype or the phone about cooking meals for 1 and how I often adapted bigger recipes for it, or the different storage methods. She was always interested in what we were doing and loved to read this blog.

I have no doubt over Christmas we will be having a few dishes that these ladies have always served up for our family, and hopefully we can start some new traditions of our own to carry on to our future generations along with these.

And now the feast. After a few fabulous dinner parties last year - particularily in BBQ season - and a couple where attendance was lacking, we decided to take a break and eat out a little more. You get stuck in the same dishes and menus when you don't eat out and experience new trends in food. We also had a fabulous set of guests to invite over who love food as we do and would appreciate something different. This was a feast! Quite literally a anti-pasti/tapas-inspired meal where we could enjoy unique flavours and dishes, but be able to pick and nibble and chat without too much hassle during dinner.

It consisted of -
A Selcection of olives
A selection of dips - namely basil pesto, salsa verde, garlic aioli, horseradish cream, tzatziki, yogurt, farmstyle relish and the list goes on
Cured meats
Smoked salmon
Bruschetta and fresh baguette
Tomato Salad
Chorizo sticks - cooked mild chorizo - YUM
Prawns marinated in garlic, olive oil, chilli and parsley
Carrot and cumin salad
Guacamole
Cucumber sticks
Fennel, radish, celery salad

There was also marinated lamb skewers and Portuguese chicken skewers but we never got to those because we were all full! I'll let you know what they're like because that's leftovers for the week!

And dessert....
Deconstructed truffles with homemade biscotti, nuts, cocoa and fresh fruit ~ a Jamie Oliver recipe.

The biscotti and carrot salad recipes and posts are to follow as they were the most interesting and not pre-bought or prepared. We have made the avocado salsa before and everything else was wonderfully easy. Wine flowed freely and I had a lovely Moscato from Montalto, Mornington Penisula to serve with dessert. A fabulous evening with fabulous company is all that one can ask for, but we got added inspiration and that's pretty great for the next few dinners! Keep reading for 2 awesome recipes...

Ciao for now
Helen
xoxo

ANZAC biscuits...an appropriate baking experience.

Tomorrow is ANZAC day in Australia and New Zealand, so a more appropriate biscuit couldn't have been made. Having not grown up on these biscuits, they were a welcome and tasty discovery - along with Afghan biscuits, but that's a whole other set of ingredients ;)

I actually made the first batch of ANZAC biscuits a couple of weeks ago, I think I may have mentioned that over Easter. They didn't last longer than a day, BUT they were a deviation on the recipe. In my excitement I had forgotten a key ingredient - dessicated coconut - so I quickly sourced a recipe without coconut and kinda blended them. Home-baking at it's finest. The results were different. They tasted like a home-baked biscuit, and were actually quite nice and thin and chewy they way I like them, but they were something I had to get used to. This was the excuse I used to try at least 8 of them from the batch. In retrospect to these, I'd use a little more flour, and a little less butter as they spread quite a lot.

Here's the recipe I adapted:

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
3/4 cup brown sugar
125g of butter
2 tbs golden syrup
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 160degC. Line 2 baking trays with non-stick baking paper. Sift the flour into a large bowl. Stir in the oats and brown sugar.

2. Put the butter, golden syrup and tbs of water in a small saucepan (in the 2nd recipe I did this in the microwave). Stir over a medium heat until melted. Stir in the bicarb.

3. Pour the butter mixture into the flour mixture and stir until combined.

4. Roll level tablespoons of mixture into balls. Place on the trays, about 5cm apart.

5. Press with a fork to flatten slightly. Bake for 10 minutes or until golden brown. These were better cooked a little longer.

6. Set aside on the trays for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack so it cools completely.

So, yesterday. Yesterday was a grotty, wet day and it felt like baking was needed. There is something very homely about the rain pouring outside, biscuit mixture being mixed and the smell that wafts through the house as those babies cook to golden perfection in the oven. In fact, even as I'm sitting here reliving it in my mind for you, I wish I was at home in my kitchen whipping up biscuits and slow-cooked casserole, because the temperatures have plummeted and the heavens continue to open. Hopefully tomorrow will be much of the same and I can enjoy it cooking something delicious!

I had restocked the baking shelf after using up all the flour in last week's banana bread, and yes I had purchased the dessicated coconut to give the ANZAC biccies another go. The recipe that I'd originally got was off www.taste.com.au and had exceptional reviews, so I wanted to give it a try.

This is the original recipe, unmodified and it was a success! I think I'd use a little more butter the next time I make it because the mixture was a little dry, but not unworkable.

Ingredients:

1 cup (150g) plain flour
1 cup (90g) rolled oats
1 cup (85g) desiccated coconut
3/4 cup (155g) brown sugar
125g butter
2 TBS golden syrup
1 tsp bicarb of soda

(use either cup measures or weights with dry ingredients)

Method:
(as above)

1. Preheat oven to 160C. Line 2 baking trays with non-stick baking paper. Sifter flour into large bowl. Stir in the oats, coconut and brown sugar.
2. Put the butter, golden syrup and 2 TBS water into a microwave proof bowl. Heat till melted (about 1min on a 1100W microwave). Stir till combined and melted. Stir in bicarb.
3. Pour the butter mixture into the flour mixture and combine.
4. Roll level tablespoons of mixture into balls. Place on tray about 5cm apart and press with a fork to flatten slightly.
5. Cook for 10 mins or until golden brown (in my oven that was bang on 11mins :))
6. Set aside on the trays for 5 minutes, then transfer onto a wire rack so it cools completely.

Enjoy!! This one is definitely going into the recipe journal. And with thousands of little scraps of paper being jammed into the recipe journal, maybe writing them out will be a fun job to do on ANZAC Day.

After putting these into the oven yesterday, and making a cup of Chai and Vanilla tea, I decided that we've done enough baking for a little while and it's time to get the chef to pull something out of the hat. Any suggestions let me know, but I think some savoury culinary beauties must be on the cards for the upcoming posts, don't you?

There is nothing that can quite compare to the smell of fresh biscuits baking, but slow-cooked lamb shanks or a beautiful, made-from-scratch tagine maybe able to put in some competition!

I'll keep you posted!

xoxo

The Quiche Pastry debate...Part 2

I've actually been knocked down this week with a stomach bug. It took everything out of me, and by Monday I still wasn't eating much. But, chef extraordinaire was out at a meeting and some dinner needed to be made. I had to attempt to eat it, considering I hadn't had anything solid since a sandwich at lunch time - it's done wonders for my diet (there is a hint of sarcasm there as I'd rather not have had the bug!) Cue some comfort food and the perfect opportunity to road-test the next pastry recipe.

As I've said time and again, the love of a quiche has got to be in it's ease. The filling and pastry had to be easy again this time because I wasn't feeling up to the challenge.

Here's the recipe:

1/2 cup oil
2 TBSP milk
1 1/4 - 1 1/2 cups of flour
pinch of salt

Beat it all together. Sift your flour, add the pinch of salt, pop the oil and milk in a well in the flour and beat with electric beaters and it makes an easy, crumbly base.

This time I chopped up heaps of broccoli and a little ham (leave out for the veggies and this is an easy meal for many!) I had in the fridge. I'd also bought a little bag of pinenuts and slivered almonds and threw that across the broccoli. Egg mix and in the oven. Now I overcooked this one a little. That could explain why the base was extra crumbly and a little drier than I liked. Marty also reckons that because I used oil instead of butter that would also add to the dryness. Next time, I'll pay more attention to the quiche in the oven and less attention to the TV and we'll see if it helps.

So, how did this rate:

Ease - 9/10
Flavour - 6/10
Overall - 7/10

A definite second choice. I did love the filling though and it's leftovers for dinner tonight, so maybe when my appetite has returned I'll enjoy it even more.

Let me know your ratings and which was better. Part 3 will be along in the next few weeks, don't want to be over-quiched!

xoxo

The Quiche pastry debate...Part 1

There's nothing quite like a good quiche in the realm of comfort food is there? It's excellent and generally easy for dinner, lunch or for a group. You can make it for dinner and have it for leftovers - if it makes it that long, and the reverse is true, I often use up bits and pieces in the fridge to make up an eclectic type of quiche. There are definitely some ingredients I prefer over others, but generally I don't think you need to over think a quiche filling. What IS key to me is the right base.

There is a base I have or at least I remember growing up on. I think I've phoned my mom dozens of times to get the recipe because I keep writing it on a scrap of paper and throwing it away. I have an online food blog and a hard copy recipe journal, you'd think I'd store it somewhere. Anyway, on the last phone call she gave me 3 different recipes and I have stored these this time. But I couldn't remember which one it was I wanted. I think it is this one I'm going to tell you about today, and this is the one I made on the Roasted Figs evening.

Here's the recipe:
1 cup flour
115g butter
2 tsp sugar (omit for savoury dish)

You can melt the butter in the dish you're going to use, and add the flour to create the crumbly pastry. Add a pinch of salt. I actually like to add a little paprika to the mix too. Just for something different.
I tend to make the pastry in a separate bowl, but it's not necessary at all. The filling for this quiche was a classic favourite for me. Asparagus, bacon and onion.The bacon was cooked to crispy and the onions almost caramelised. I used 5 eggs in the filling, but I have used 6 eggs in the past - with milk - for a deep, dense quiche. I don't mind using that many eggs because for 2 of us a quiche often does 2 dinners and a lunch.

How did it rate?

Ease - 10/10
Flavour - 7/10
Overall - 8/10

I'd definitely use this again.

Part 2 coming soon!

xoxo

Buffalo mozzarella, Courgette and Mint Risotto...a new Favourite!

We entertained for the first time in aaagggeeessss on Saturday night, and while the evening is fresh in my mind I'll share...fresh in that I remember dinner, after copious bottles of wine the rest is hazy. Marty needed to cook a vegetarian meal, and we had already decided on risotto, just not a flavour. Whatever we were having was to be followed by the famous brownies, served hot with vanilla ice-cream.

I didn't have any recipe books on hand, all of the ones at home were not Jamie's as SOMEONE had them all at work, so I got into a trusty app on the iPhone, Jamie's 20 Minute Meals. This is a great little paid app and probably even more perfect on the iPad. You're able to quickly and easily navigate recipes, with videos on how to do the most important aspects of the recipe, and can just as quickly add the ingredients to a shopping list. This shopping list can also be sent via email, so if you're not going to get to the grocery store the other half can do it on the way home. Enough about how great the app is, just go get it!

More importantly, the recipe - if you don't have the app or an "i_" to download it to.

Ingredients:

Serves 2

1 small courgette
1 small bunch fresh mint
1 x 125g ball buffalo mozzarella
1 small red onion
1 stick celery
1 knob butter
150g risotto rice
400ml vegetable stock
100ml white wine
1/2 medium fresh red chilli
25g Parmesan
olive oil
sea salt
black pepper, ground

How to:

1. Place a large saucepan on a low to medium heat. Peel the onion and trim the celery stick, then finely chop or coarsely grate them.

2. Add the butter to the hot pan with onion and celery, a splash of olive oil and a splash of water. Cook over a low heat for around 5minutes, stirring occasionally until softened. Meanwhile...

3. Trim the ends of the courgette then slice lengthways into quarters. Cut into chunks.

4. Bring the stock to the boil in a medium saucepan, then turn the heat down to low.

5. Pick the leaves off the mint stalks and put them to one side. Add the stalks to the saucepan of stock. Finely grate the Parmesan.

6. Once your vegetables are very soft, but not browned add the rice to the pan. Stir and fry the rice for a minute until translucent, then add the wine and keep stirring until the wine has been absorbed by the rice.

7. Turn the heat under the rice up to medium then add a ladleful of hot stock, avoiding the mint stalks - these are there to add flavour but not to be eaten! (Note from the chef - the heated stock is the key to a great risotto!)

8. Stir constantly and continue adding stock, a ladle at a time, waiting for the rice to soak it all up before adding the next ladleful. Continue until you've used 2/3 of the stock. Meanwhile...

9. Finely chop the mint leaves and the chilli. (Deseed the chilli if you don't like things too spicy.) Stir the chopped courgettes into the stock and keep adding it until the rice is just cooked and the risotto has a nice oozy consistency. If you run out of stock, use boiling water.

10. Take the pan of risotto off the heat. Tear the ball of mozzarella into pieces and stir into the pan with half of the chopped mint leaves.

11. Stir through half of your grated Parmesan. Taste the risotto and season well with a good pinch of salt and pepper. Cover with a lid.

Here's where we changed things a little bit. The recipe recommends to get you table set, then serve the risotto between the plates, top with the remaining Parmesan, mint, chilli and serve. We make it in our Le Creuset pot, which is not only the easiest option for cooking and cleaning, but looks great when presenting. Marty stirred in the rest of the Parmesan and mint and left a little to sprinkle on top, and served as such so we could all dig in. I served this with a simple garden salad.

On the side he also cooked up a chorizo sausage for the meat-eaters to add to theirs. The risotto on it's own was completely delicious and the chorizo added was divine too. So there are 2 options for you! That's about as step-by-step as you're going to get :)

We had some the next night for dinner as well and it was fantastic. Certainly a winner in our house that will be done again, changed slightly or not. It's one for the books, and I'll put it in my recipe journal so I always have it on hand.

Hope you enjoy it too!!

xoxo

Cinnamon shortbreads and Roasted Figs... Delicious Autumn fare.

Here's another 2 things I've never done before. Made shortbreads and roasted figs. In fact, I've never cooked with figs before ever. How did this come about then you ask, figs were on special in the supermarket. I bought some thinking I'd find something to make, and on the day of the Spiced breakfast bread, I made these for a delicious dessert. Dinner that night is a whole other matter. It will become part of a 3-part saga in the hopes I try and test the best pastry for quiche.

The shortbread recipe was surprisingly easy and they were delicious. Another of Gordon Ramsay's but a different book completely - Chef for All Seasons. Marty thought they were perfectly cooked, but I could have had them cooked a little longer so that they were a little drier and crispier. This recipe is also designed to be kept in a tube-shape in the freezer so you can have shortbreads whenever you like, and that's what we did. We only needed a couple each for the recipe, and I have frozen the rest. I cut off a couple the other night and baked them a little longer and they were incredible.

Now when it comes to shortbreads, I may not be a connoisseur, but I have grown up on the best shortbreads I think there are - in my opinion. Christmas-time was the time that my gran, and too my mother and aunt would slave over the oven to make homemade mince-pies, Christmas cake and shortbreads. And those shortbreads were melt-in-your-mouth. Hopefully one day that recipe will be passed on to me so that my kids can enjoy them as much as we all did - unless my mother wants to make them and send them down from Queensland. An arrangement I am more than happy with. Could it be that we only had them once a year that made these shortbreads so irresistible or are they just that good? Nothing store-bought has ever compared and I can safely say that as nice as my shortbreads were, they were a distance second to the ones I love with all my heart! It's probably a very good thing for the waistline that we only have them once a year.

The figs were interesting, and tasty, but following the recipe I would have added more liquid, be it butter or whatever was appropriate, to make more syrup so I could have cooked them longer and they would have got softer. I will also listen to Gordon when he says use a pan that's big enough, the pot I used was too little and was a little bit awkward to work with. Nevertheless this was interesting and when figs are roaming about again I will put in a brave second attempt, potentially enlisting the chef's help with the figs.

Stay tuned for the delicious risotto we had on Saturday, and the quiche pastry debate is set to begin.

xoxo

Spiced Breakfast bread - an update and the recipe!

Well that took longer than expected. Here's a link to the recipe for this bread:

https://plus.google.com/107346167256278601901/posts/DhUBqH8EkzQ#107346167256278601901/posts/DhUBqH8EkzQ

And here's the recipe:

Spiced Breakfast Bread - From Gordon Ramsay’s “Gordon Ramsay Makes it Easy”

Ingredients (Makes 10-12 slices)

• Butter to grease
• 3 free-range eggs
• 50g light brown sugar
• 250g thin honey
• 125ml milk
• 125g plain flour
• 125g buckwheat flour
• 1 tsp five-spice powder
• 1 tbsp ground mixed spice
• 2tbsp baking powder
• Finely grated zest of 2 oranges

Steps

Heat the oven to 320f/160c, and lightly butter a 25x10cm (9x5 inch) loaf tin.

Whisk the eggs and sugar together in a large bowl over a pan of hot water on the stove, using an electric whisk, until the mixture is pale and thickened (enough to leave a ribbon when the beaters are lifted). Remove the pan from the heat, but leave the bowl set over it.

Warm the honey and milk together in a small pan and gradually beat into the egg mixture until evenly mixed.

Sift the flour, spices and baking powder together into a large mixing bowl and carefully fold in the egg mixture, followed by the orange zest.

Spoon the mixture into the loaf tin and bake for 35-40 minutes until well risen, firm to the touch and golden brown on top. Leave in the tin for 5 minutes then turn out and cool on a wire rack.

Author’s Note

Serve warm, cut into slices. Best eaten on the day it is made, though any leftovers can be frozen. Delicious with a compote of cherries.

Ciao xx

Spiced Breakfast Bread...experiment

Well, I have been industrious in the kitchen - at times, and industrious at work, but writing...hmmmm. I suppose I could say the computer deleted my post, but that's as likely as the dog eating my homework! No, I have just been procrastinating, and what makes it worse is that the finer details of my 'industriousness' are slowly fading. Could this be old-age?!?

The sooner I share with you the better! One Monday I decided to stop mucking about and get into the kitchen. I had actually been missing just getting in there, donning my red apron and mixing up something different. I decided to start with something I had never made before, with some methods I have never used before. Recipe to follow in the next post!

This is a Spiced Breakfast Bread recipe from Gordon Ramsay's Gordon makes it easy.. book. It is very clearly set out, and seemed relatively simple to make, but when the moment of truth arrived, the result wasn't as desired as I would hope.

Don't get me wrong, it was edible and I have certainly managed to eat it, but it was not soft and delectable as I had hoped. I will say that I made one change to the recipe, which I hadn't thought a problem, maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, if any one's a breadmaker some guidance would be appreciated. The recipe called for 125g of plain flour (check) and 125g buckwheat flour (couldn't find) so I substituted it for plain flour. Could this have been the mistake? I followed the method of cooking to a tee, and when it came to checking the bread the clean knife I had used to test it came out clean. So I pulled the loaf out and left it to cool for 5 minutes in the loaf tin as instructed. When I can to remove it, it had sunk in the middle, and it seemed uncooked through the centre. Now, I've made 100 banana breads before with no hassle and never had a cake sink in the middle so I'm not sure whether it was the ingredient switch or a case of over- or underbeating in the recipe. If anyone has an answer, it would be appreciated as I'd really like to do this again, but I'm not in the mood for multiple flops! It's not good for my ego ;)

I ended up toasting a piece very generously and drowning it in butter, and then freezing the rest. The flavour was delicious. A really wintery, gingerbready smell and flavour enveloped the house for the afternoon and I was quite ready for a fire crackling in a fire place and a cup of mulled wine, but I can't keep baking a bread just for the smell of it!

I will post the recipe in a following post, and hopefully someone else will take a crack at it and pass on their comments. If yours is superb, pass on your hints and tips, or if any of you seasoned bakers can help let me know because...I want to get it RIGHT!!

See you soon,
xoxo

Happy New Year!

Happy 2012 everyone! I for one am hoping this year is bigger and better than the last and am looking forward to all types of successes this year. For myself, my friends and family. And yes I do realise it's the 1st of Feb, but I've always felt like the new year really only starts in February. Traditionally, I seem to take holidays in January, or at least everyone else does so it doesn't feel like we're getting into the real world till now!

And to start that off I have realised that I need to be updating this blog of ours MUCH more regularly! We started it to be able to document and share our own culinary experiences. And we started that by delving into the world of Jamie Does... and how that progressed! As fun as it's been to do this ourselves, it would be so much more fun to do it with others. There are lots of you that have been party to the delicious dishes, well at least at the party and some have featured in pictures, or with notable mentions, but we want to keep discovering! There's only so much 2 people can do, and I know each and everyone one of my friends have dishes that they 'own', that they can bring out when they want to impress. You also all have interesting things that we can share! And so came the idea of 'Something New in 2012'. Each week we'd like to challenge ourselves with a new discovery! Be it a new cuisine, meal, cake or something old that's new for us (or me!). It's time to expand the horizons and get the taste buds rocking in all manner of ways, and here's where we need some crowd participation...

We'd love to have everyone join us and be part of that 'Something New'. Each week we'll set out what it is we're delving into, or someone can suggest it, and then we can all try it. Find a recipe on the Internet, in your Nana's old cookbook, or at your favourite bookshop, cook up the storm and share those pictures, comments and experiences on Facebook and with us so we can upload them to this blog. How does that sound? Are you with me? Are you? Let's think of it as a 40 week challenge. We've already missed 5 weeks of the year, and there are always weeks that it is too much - or we're on holiday, and to top it off, if you don't want to make the week's thingy, well you don't have to! It's not school and it certainly shouldn't be a chore.

And the most exciting part, it doesn't matter where any of us are in the world! Actually that's what makes it more fun, all those different culinary delights that could be shared. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it!

I'm excited to get this rock'n'rolling and I hope someone you will be too! It's time to take this blog to the next level!!

Have a fabulous week everyone!

Ciao
xoxo