Sweet Sunday

It's been a while since I baked. After suffering some small baking disasters (weird thyme muffins, exploding scones, raw brownies) I was somewhat reluctant to get back into it. Leave the baking to Ellen, I thought, and I meanwhile will cook every variant of lentil and barley stew known to man.

But, I have a new kitchen to christen, new co-workers to meet, and honestly: I just couldn't go past these peanut butter cookies.

Gosh, they're good. At the risk of being kicked out of Australia, I'm going to confess that I don't really like ANZAC biscuits. They're so often dry and hard and disappointing. Which I suppose makes sense - war-time food is not famous for flavour.

These biscuits would make an ANZAC weep. They're rich and buttery and lovely. They're crunchy on the edges and soft in the middle, and just the right amount of chewy.

And they go quite well with my (tiny) new kitchen:

As does this bottle opener. Probably my favourite (and certainly most used) kitchen item.

I'd be lying if I said the ducks on the curtains didn't help me pick this place.

My baby coriander. This attempt at growing herbs is going oh-so-much better than the last time. It turns out neglect is not a substitute for water and sunlight.

Having said that, I have managed to forget what these are. Sorry baby mystery herbs. I'm sure you'll grow up to be delicious no matter what you turn into.

But back to those cookies.

Here's how you do it:

Preheat your oven to 175 degrees C.
Combine 2 cups rolled oats with 2 cups sifted plain flour in a large bowl.
Add 2 tsp baking powder and 1(ish) tsp salt. Set aside.
In another bowl, mix 3/4 cup vegetable oil with 3/4 cup natural peanut butter. I used crunchy. Add 2 cups of brown sugar, 1/2 cup oat milk and 2 tsp vanilla extract.
Mix the wet and dry, and then use a dessert spoon to spoon out the dough onto baking paper lined trays. Space them out, they'll spread in the oven.
Bake for 14 - 18 minutes, or until they start smelling divine and browning at the edges.

Take them into work. Or eat them all by yourself. I won't judge.

Mon Petit Macaron

Strawberry macarons with white chocolate ganache

Do you like incredibly complex cooking? Baking to create a mess? Do you enjoy the feeling of failure? If so, then the following recipe is for you! Macarons are the most frustrating, finicky and difficult of all baked goods. They fail almost as often as they succeed, and sometimes for the most inexplicable reasons. One day the below method can produce beautiful macarons, crisp on the outside and soft and fluffy in the middle. The next day this recipe may well produce a flat, sickly smelling mess, or a fluffy goop that expands in your oven like The Blob. Macarons can fail due to factors like humidity, air temperature, how quickly you open your oven door, or how loudly you had Kanye West blaring when you turned the blender on. Friends and family wonder why I bother with the things at all.

So why bother? Well... essentially macarons are show-stoppers. They elevate you from "that girl in the office who made that nice fruit loaf that one time" to "that miracle worker over by the printer who we should promote." I will remember my first successful macarons as fondly as I remember my first kiss. When they fail, they fail hard, but when you get macarons right I guarantee you will feel like a wizard. They're beautiful to look at, and you can really experiment with flavour too. A chocolate cake is always going to taste like chocolate, but once you get the hang of macarons you can come up with all sorts of exotic and peculiar flavours. White chocolate with green tea ganache, lavendar and rosemary with dark chocolate ganache. Raspberry with lemon creamy filling. Macarons make for creative baking, and if you can face the inevitable failures they really are an awful lot of fun.

Lemon macarons with cream cheese filling

My lovely friend Natalia very obligingly shared the following macaron recipe with me, and even had me around to her place for a day long tutorial (and several glasses of her Dad's home made grappa. Grappa helps with macaronning, as it turns out!) It's definitely the most straightforward, low fuss recipe I've encountered. Plus I've benefited from Natalia's trial and error here, she tweaked this recipe herself. You can definitely expermient when it comes to flavouring macarons, although I am yet to succeed in flavouring my macarons with anything liquid. As such I'd suggest starting with dry flavouring. Dehydrated fruit works a treat, as do nuts, dried herbs,even chilli or pepper. This recipe makes 24 macarons. You may want to halve the recipe for your first few attempts. Less goes in the bin that way!

What you will need:

2/3 cup almond meal

1 1/3 cups powdered icing sugar

3 egg whites

6 tbsp granulated sugar

Gel food dye in whatever colour you choose

Granulated nuts, dehydrated fruit, green tea powder or whatever else you fancy for flavouring

Baking paper stencils for piping. Use a thick black pen to trace circles (roughly 3cm in diameter) onto baking paper. Lay a second blank sheet of baking paper over the top of the inked one before piping. 24 macarons, so that's 48 black circles. Ugh.

What you will need to do:

- Preheat your oven to 180 degrees celcius. You can heat the oven with the fan force on, however i'd suggest turning the fan force off once your macarons go in.

- Using an electric blender, pulse the almond meal and powdered icing sugar together for a few minutes. If you are flavouring your macarons blend in any nuts, dehydrated fruit or powdered flavouring etc. at this stage too. If I flavour my macarons with nuts I add them in place of some of the almond meal. If i'm flavouring with something like a green tea powder, lavender flowers (my favourite) or dehydrated strawberries I add these in place of a few tablespoons of the powdered sugar. Once your mixture is very fine, sieve it twice and set aside.

- In a stainless steel bowl beat the egg whites, slowly incorporating the granulated sugar, until the egg mixture stiffens. If you are using food dye, add a few drops of it at this stage too. Do not use oil or water based dyes as these will lead to macaron ruination. Good gel dyes are available at places like DJ's or specialty cake decorating stores.

- Using a rubber spatula, gently fold half of the almond meal mixture into the beaten egg whites until just combined. Add the remaining almond meal mixture and fold this in too.

- Once the almond meal mix and egg whites are more or less stuck together you need to “macaronnage” your mixture: Spread your macaron mixture along the side of a stainless steel bowl as if you are spreading butter on toast, take up your rubber spatula and run it along the underside of your mix, then fold the mixture over itself and spread it out again. Repeat this step once a minute for ten minutes, or until the mixture turns glossy and drips slowly from your spatula in a ribbon.

- Now its time to pipe your macarons! Transfer the mixture to a piping bag and carefully pipe your shells. Hold the tip of your piping bag as close to the baking paper as you can and allow your macaron mixture to sort of mushroom out as you pipe. Once all your macarons are piped, bang your baking trays firmly on your benchtop once or twice, this helps push out any air bubbles that are likely to ruin your macarons. Now set them aside somewhere and allow them to dry out. Natalia suggested drying my macarons for fifteen minutes on a hot day, half an hour on a cool day. Her recommendation seems to work so I'm stickin' by it!

Piped macaron mix. Your mix should look flat and glossy.

- Finally, bake your macarons for around ten to fifteen minutes, depending on the heat of your oven. They should rise and form "feet" - once my macarons have feet I often open the oven (very slowly) and cover them with foil, just to prevent them from browning or discolouring.

Macaron shells with "feet"

- Allow your shells to cool, then fill them with ganache, jelly, cream cheese or whatever else you care to try and gently sandwich them together. I've taken to spraying mine with an edible shimmer spray too, just for a little extra shine.

Different recipes tell you vastly different things about macarons, but Natalia's recipe works well for me (most of the time...) Practice makes perfect folks, and macaroning takes lots of practice! Oh and fun fact! Most people associate macarons with Marie Antoinette, however their origin is a source of much debate. Read an interesting history of macarons here. Happy Baking! Or not.

Cupcake, deconstructed.

by Sarah Wilson and Allen Hemberger

Read more about this beautiful thing here.

The Hampering

Happy New Year, readers! I hope you've celebrated in style. Ladies of taste and distinction that we are, Tara and I ushered in the new year with fascinators, passion pop and a lot of rather terrible dancing. I drank, I ate, I took my shoes off and ran around outdoors, and now that those last few fateful swigs of cheap champagne are leaving my system I'm finally feeling capable of blogging again.

So, Christmas hey? Well that's done and dusted for another year. My Christmas was the usual exhausting, lovely, talk-politely-to-that-distant-relative-you-hate kind of affair. My sister, my man and I combined our vegetarian super powers to make Jamie Oliver's delicious nut roast (otherwise known as "the best stuffing my Pop has ever tasted" *sigh*) and of course we had pudding, salads, daggy christmas hats and wine. So. Much. Wine.

What else happened this Christmas? Well... I totally made hampers you guys! I gave them to people, and they were well received, and people ate and drank and were merry. You have no idea how relieved I am that the hampers were well received. Baking, jamming, truffling, macaroning, turkish delighting... I held my breath when people first tasted what I'd made, and I swear to Dawkins had someone looked unimpressed, I would've staged an almighty Christmas meltdown. I'm not saying homicide, but I have a feeling the fallout would've attracted the attention of the local media... the words "crazed" and "rampage" come to mind.

So above is a photo of my completed hamper. Chris, my tolerant and talented partner (fiancee, boyfriend, guy I like to kiss on the mouth) did all of the design work, I did all of the cooking, and together we hot-glued and folded and tied bows until what you see above was finished. Rather naively I had assumed that preparing eight odd Christmas hampers would be relatively straightforward. Hah. Flash forward a month and I was stuck in my kitchen at 2am on a wednesday night, microwaving vegan gelatine alternative and scraping almond meal from the walls. Nonetheless... I'll do it all again next year. I'm just proud as punch at how everything turned out:

Lime Jelly from here. I didn't modify this recipe at all, except to leave the lime pulp in (but not the peel).

Chocolate Truffles from here. I prepared half with the milk chocolate and sea salt, and rolled the other half in a combination of cocoa powder and cayenne pepper. The salted truffles tasted a little like caramel, and the chilli chocolate ones were warm, rich and slightly spicy.

Turkish Delight from here. I substituted gelatine for agar-agar, a nifty vegan seaweed derivative that works just like gelatine but without all of the snouts and trotters and beef skin. I'm pretty sure Turkish Delight is one of those inherently difficult to enjoy sweets. It's sickly, it smells like grandma's potpourri, and the powdered sugar it's rolled in is a choking hazard. But I got it in my head that I needed to make a Turkish Delight with the White Witch quote from Narnia printed on it. So: Turkish Delight for all!

Pfeffernüsse. I made these using this basic recipe, but I doubled the spice quantities. Apparently these babies develop their flavour over time, but given that I was baking them a day or two before Christmas I thought it best to flavour them heavily to start with.

Oh, and I made Macarons. Boy did I make macarons. I made three failed batches of Macarons, two average batches, I made a great batch really early on and then promptly ate the lot, and I made the macarons seen above in the few days before Christmas. I'll blog about the delicate art of macaroning some time soon. I'll need an entire post to dedicate to my macaron saga...

So, hampers! Burns and spills and hot glue everywhere but hampers got done, bitch. Please let me know what you think of our lovely goods! New year, new goals... I'm toying with the idea of attempting a market stall this easter.

AWAAM's Godless Christmas: a How To

The Christmas Tree Cluster

.

We decorated my parents’ house and their Christmas tree yesterday. And it was while I was twining tinsel around every object in the house that I realised something: I really like Christmas. Not just the tinsel, but everything else. The lights and the shopping and the wrapping of presents. The food, the family, the fights. The deep breath before the start of a new year.

.

For an atheist, it was a small revelation. Ever since I was a child, and I lost my belief in Santa and God in rapid succession, I’ve always enjoyed the time off, the presents and the togetherness, but never the trappings. I’ve merely tolerated the festive season. This year, however, something changed.

.

I’ve decided that Christmas – or the summer solstice, or the winter solstice, or what have you – is, as the religious believe, a fantastic opportunity to celebrate and be thankful. To enjoy tradition and ritual, and to honour something larger than ourselves. So this year, I’m celebrating something pretty special: the birth of the universe.

.

And I’m doing it the traditional AWAAM way: with food and music.

.

.

Stars are already a symbol of Christmas - why not co-opt them in the same way that Christianity did from the pagans? It was, after all, in the furnace of the earliest, dying stars that the heavy elements of the universe were forged, from which all life eventuated. We are all star stuff. Celebrate that by busting out these delicious looking Star Cookies, found at the ever wonderful Souvlaki for the Soul.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a wonderful and hilarious ode to a godless universe. This gorgeous cake is a recreation of one of my favourite scenes from the series. Nothing says ‘let’s celebrate our brief existence’ like a whale and a bowl of petunias, recently come into being and plummeting towards the earth. You can find detailed instructions on Geek Mom.

My recommended listening this Christmas is something a bit different. Gather your family, find yourself a radio, and tune into a dead station. Listen to the static. Most of it is caused by random electromagnetic interference, but about 1 or 2 percent of it is 13 billion year old radiation left over from the Big Bang, expressed in microwaves that can be picked up by your radio. What you are hearing is the birth of our universe.

.

And if you’re still in any doubt that the universe and our place in it is worth honouring, watch this extraordinary video.

Happy Christmas everyone.

Macarons of my Dreams

About a month ago I travelled to Sydney with a freind of mine (of Troubadour Cottage fame) to see the lovely Grizzly Bear play at the Enmore. Because I get confused by simple tasks like booking busses, we arrived in Sydney with about 8 hours to kill before the show.

Happily, we got ourselves thoroughly distracted by the Aroma Festival in The Rocks. Food and street performers, markets, and a lot of people. It looked something like this:


After battling the crowds for a while, we took refuge in a shmick looking cafe called Baroque, which appealed to us mostly because it had chairs. Little did we know we would find the JOY and LIGHT that is the perfect macaron inside its rather shiny walls. I know that I'm inclined to hyperbole...but trust me when I say all other macarons are but a shadow of these.

These macarons convince non-believers. These macarons bring the sun back. These macarons would probably clean your room and call your mother if you asked nicely. We've since been back to Sydney, and instead of buying two macarons each, we bought...eight. Clearly the next time I head SYdney-side, I'm going to have to make space in my luggage.

Passionfruit and chocolate, strawberry and vanilla, and salted caramel.

If you're ever in the area - and by area, I mean the same city - hunt these babies down. And bring me some back, please.

My New Cuisine Crush

It's very nearly winter down south, which usually means I am craving roast beef, yorkshire pudding, and piles and piles of pasta covered with cheese. This year however, I've ditched the heavy European fare in favour of a winter of Thai food. Coconut, lime, ginger and lemongrass are my flavours of the season. Warming me to the core with chilli - not carbs - and enlivening my evenings with a new culinary challenge too (there is nothing worse than food boredom, my friends). Below are my two favourite Thai dishes. I've built up the recipes from bits and pieces that I have read online, and developed them through rather a lot of trial-and-error experimentation. If you'd like to embark on your own Thai adventure, I suggest you do the same - as David Thompson says, Thai food is all about intuition and interpretation.

Note: A few of the ingredients required here can be a little hard to come by, but don't let that deter you - tracking them down is half the fun! Black glutinous rice (otherwise called sweet black rice, Thai black rice, or even Indonesian black rice) can be tricky to find, even in the best of Asian grocery stores. Similarly, thick rice noodles can be hard to track down. The noodle fridge at my favourite Asian grocer is usually empty by five in the afternoon, probably because noodles are delicious and they walk off the shelves... so get in early folks. White pepper is a little known ingredient, but it's used extensively in Thai cuisine. Use whole peppercorns and grind them up yourself, the powdered stuff is rubbish...

Pad See Ew

What You Will Need:

• 1 large chicken breast
• 300g approx of firm tofu
• 500g of large, flat rice noodles
• 1 large bunch of pak choy
• 2 eggs
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 tbsp of black soy
• 1 tbsp of rice wine vinegar
• 1 level teaspoon of white pepper

For the Marinade:

• 3 tbsp of oyster sauce
• 1 tbsp of fish sauce
• 1 tbsp of light soy
  
• 1 tbsp of black soy (sweet soy)
• 1 small chilli, finely chopped

What you will need to do:

1. Combine all marinade ingredients in a large bowl. Thinly slice the chicken breast and dice the tofu into bite sized chunks, then add to the marinade, stir to coat everything, and refrigerate the lot until it's time to stir-fry.

2. Heat a little oil in a smallish frying pan. Beat the eggs together with a pinch of salt and add to the hot oil. Fry the eggy mixture til you've got yourself an omelette, then slice into strips and set aside. Turn the heat down on your frying pan, add a little water, and blanch the pak choy until it is vibrant green. Set this aside too.

3. When you're ready to stir fry, heat a little oil in a large wok. Add the garlic cloves and fry until

lightly browned. Add the chicken/tofu mixture and all of the marinade, then toss the lot until the chicken is cooked through and the tofu has charred slightly.

4. Now it's time to add your noodles! The noodles I use are each about two metres long, so I add them one at a time, snipping them into manageable lengths as I go. I'd suggest separating your noodles in this way even if they're not ludicrously long, as it stops them from sticking together in a sad little lump. Stir the lot until the noodles begin to char too.

5. Finally, add the eggy slices and pak choy. Drizzle in the extra soy and rice wine vinegar, and at the last minute, add the white pepper. Toss until warmed through and serve immediately with slices of lime on the side. Noodle perfection.

Black Rice Pudding

What you will need:

• 2 cups of black glutinous rice
• 1 400ml can of coconut milk (full fat is best!)
• 1/4 cup of caster sugar
• the juice of one lime
• Shredded coconut & sesame seeds, fresh fruit - whatever you'd like to top your pudding with!

What you will need to do:

1. Rinse your rice in cold water, then soak, although not necessarily according to packet instructions. Different brands of rice recommend differing soaking times; I would suggest four hours at a minimum, but the longer the better.

2. Once your rice has finished soaking, it's time to steam! I do this by bringing 2 to 3cm of water to the boil in a large pot. I place my rice in a metal colander, then rest the colander over the boiling water and cover the lot with a lid. (I plan to invest in a proper Thai steamer set, but my colander / pot method works well in the meantime.) Steam for 30 - 40 minutes.

3. While your rice is steaming, heat the coconut milk over a low heat. Stir through the sugar (1/4 of a cup is just a guide. Most recipes I have read call for more sugar, but I don't posses a sweet tooth so I don't use very much. Adjust to taste.) Squeeze in some lime juice, just enough to cut through the rich, sugary coconut milk. Toast a little shredded coconut and some sesame seeds too, or prepare any fruit you'd like to serve, and set aside.

4. Your rice is sufficiently steamed when the grains are soft, but not mushy. I like the grains to almost burst when chewed. Place your steamed rice in a bowl and stir through just enough of the coconut milk to create a thick, glossy purple porridge. Push the rice mixture into moulds and turn out into serving bowls to create delicious, purple pudding mounds. Pour a little of the extra coconut mixture around the pudding, and top with toasted coconut, sesame seeds, or fruit. Serve immediately.

Dear Weekend

We had some good times, didn't we? I'm sorry that it ended so soon. But I will always think fondly of our time together.

Like the Farmer’s Market’s (or…Farkets) on Saturday morning. Buying purple mystery turnips and visiting the Mushroom Man from Mittagong. Discovering that there are still delicious, ripe plums being sold. Perusing the amusingly shaped pumpkins. Buying 3.4 kilos of fruit. And having eaten most of it already.

Finally seeing The Last Unicorn. And it exceeded expectations. From Mummy Fortuna and the three breasted harpy, to the soundtrack by America, to the way it always felt like it was just on the verge of becoming Jem and the Holograms. Prettiest. Unicorn. Ever. Working on my minestrone recipe. Although the barley and the pasta turned out nicely, sadly it was not to be a good batch. Slightly overcooked green beans. Slightly undercooked cabbage. Forgetting to add tomatoes. Weekend, it was just not meant to be.

.

This apple tart however, was a triumph. Despite making a very sticky pastry dough, and not refrigerating it for long enough, it pulled through, all flaky and buttery and delicious. Recipe and photo from Smitten Kitchen.

Listening to Heartland by the former Mr Final Fantasy, Owen Pallett. It's wonderful - dark and earnest, dense with sound and story. Listen to these tracks here, and buy it here.

.

Tryst with Mephistopheles

Lewis Takes off His Shirt

.

Oh Weekend, I miss you already.

Sugar and Spice and All Things Nice: Easy Muesli Slice

A few evenings ago, whilst half way through an episode of my favourite serial-killer thriller, I was suddenly and inexplicably struck by an overwhelming craving for muesli slice. I can't say where the craving came from, needless to say I'm concerned about the psychological implications of craving baked goods whilst watching this gorgeous man hack up bad guys and stalk around Miami looking broody. But rather than question where my craving came from (potentially getting bogged down in some sort of Freudian appetite analysis) I'm choosing to focus on the positives: my craving was bizarre enough, but the outcome was delicious. A chewy-but-crunchy slice that is so easy to make it's positively criminal. The recipe is my own little creation, and I'm chuffed that the slice turned out as well as it did, given that I haphazardly made this one up as I went along!

What You Will Need:

2 cups muesli (I used a bircher muesli with the candied peel picked out. Peel. Ick.)

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup self raising flour

1/2 cup raisins

125g butter, melted

2 lightly beaten eggs

1 tbsp maple syrup

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

A liberal pinch of salt

What You Will Need To Do:

1. Preheat your oven to around 180 C. Combine all dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.

2. Melt butter over a low heat, stirring through the maple syrup. Allow to cool slightly then add to the dry mixture along with the eggs. Stir until all ingredients are wet.

3. Line a 20cm by 10cm baking tray or oven proof dish with baking paper. Spread slice mixture evenly across the bottom of the dish, make sure to press the mixture into the corners of the dish.

4. Bake until golden brown. This took about 35 minutes in my little oven.

5. Once browned, stand slice until cool. Remove the slice from the baking tray and dust with a little icing sugar. I enjoyed my slice with a second episode of Dexter and a strong cup of coffee.

So there you have it, my very first recipe-free baking success. This is the sort of slice that tastes nourishing and wholesome. Perfect for entertaining flights of fancy involving baking for one's sexy serial killer husband. Of course I could've fantasized about baking for this dream boat, but sadly it's not meant to be... The man doesn't eat.

Cooking For Friends (I heart Jamie Oliver)

I hosted a dinner party recently, a reciprocal dinner party of sorts, to thank our guests for a delicious meal they'd cooked for The Boy and I some weeks earlier. I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous about cooking for said friends, the meal we enjoyed at their place was delicious Okonomiyaki and I wasn't sure I could serve anything as tasty. I thought about 'winging it' and cooking recipe free, but I really wanted to serve something perfect, and with unattainable perfection in mind, I turned to my first (cooking) love for a little help: Jamie Oliver.

I know Jamie isn't everybody's cup of tea, but I adore him. He sparked my interest in food and in cooking, and his fourth book in particular (Jamie's Kitchen) taught me how to fillet a fish, bake bread, make pasta from scratch, and really introduced me to the idea that cooking for friends is fun. And it is, when you relax, and I did, thanks to the below recipes:

Jamie's Simple Baked Lasagne

Jamie's Chocolate and Pear Tart

I didn't alter these recipes much at all. I probably used more herbs in the lasagne than the recipe calls for, and I didn't use anywhere near as much creme fraiche as is suggested either. For the pear tart I baked a pastry shell as per this recipe, it turned out well despite my opening the oven door about thirty times to make sure I hadn't burnt it, and I served the pear tart with a little more creme fraiche which I sweetened with icing sugar and a touch of cinnamon.

When you're cooking for friends who have read your recipe blog, there are certain expectations attached to any meal you prepare, the food had better taste damn good. It had better taste so good that your ceaseless photographing of the meal goes unnoticed, it had better taste so good that your friends won't post "SHE'S A FRAUD!!" comments all over your blog and expose you as an amateur, causing blogging shame. Needless to say, the entire lasagne was consumed, and the pear tart was delicious. Thankyou Jamie, you're my hero! <3

Taking Frankie For a Walk - Lemon Meringue Pie

These school free days I'm planning some cooking firsts. Makin' pastry. Makin' pasta. Makin' bread. Mmm, carbs - my favourite flavour. Not without a little help from my friends, though, and this week I thought it would be a good chance to take Frankie out and about and see how she cooks.

Frankie's Aftertoon Tea is a lovley book shaped around a lovely concept. Recipes practised, tweaked and loved by generations are presented for your baking pleasure among beautiful photographs and sweet stories of afternoon teas with mums and grandmas.

I'd never made - nor, I confess, eaten - Lemon Meringue Pie, but it looked awfully pretty, so I put my dinner party guests at risk and gave it a go. It turned out rather well (despite a tense and somewhat masterchef moment where I was convinced it wasn't set on the inside) so I thought I'd present the recipe for you here, with some tips and tricks gleaned along the way, and a whole hearted reccomendation of the book.

Kate Fitzgerald's Lemon Meringue Pie

What You Will Need:

Pastry

• 70g SR flour
• 130g plain flour
• 120g cold butter, cubed (I used Lurpak - delish)
• 1 large happy free range egg

Filling

• 2 tbsp plain flour
• 2 tbsp cornflour
• 1/2 cup caster sugar
• 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice, strained
• 2 egg yolks, lightly beaten
• 1 tbsp butter
• Grated rind of 1 lemon

Meringue

• 3 egg whites
• 4 tbsp sugar

What You Will Need to Do:

Let's start by making the pastry. First step: don't be scared. If you have a food processor, it's the easiest thing in the world. Even if you don't, I imagine it would still be very simple, just slightly messier!

• Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Combine your sifted flours, sugar and butter in a food processor. Blend until it looks like fine, soft breadcrumbs.
• Add egg and continue to process until the the mixture comes together in a ball. This might take a little while - don't take it out to soon, it will come together. Just keep hittin' that pulse button. Cover and refrigerate for an hour.
• Roll out your dough on a well floured surface, until it fits a 22cm pie dish. Don't stress if it's a bit crumbly.
• Gently transfer into your dish, patch up any cracks and trim the edges.
• Blind bake for ten minutes, remove rice or weights and bake for a further ten or fifteen minutes, or until lightly coloured. Set aside and allow to cool.

I always use rice for blind baking, and it always works out fine. I also never have the patience to let things fully cool, and that works out okay too! Now onto the filling...

• Combine sifted flours and sugar in a small saucepan.
• Add the lemon juice and one cup of boiling water, stirring well to combine.
• Cook until it thickens, probably 5 to 10 minutes. Remember to keep stirring - I was somewhat distracted by visitors at this point, and it got a little bit lumpy. Luckily, I did what Simon Bryant always does when things go a bit wrong: strain it and hope for the best.
• Add egg yolks, rind and butter. Stir well. Poor into your (mostly) cool pastry.

Now we make the meringue. Again, not as hard as you might think! The recipe specifies a glass bowl - I used ceramic, it was fine. As long as it isn't metal, you'll be fine. Make sure your bowl is completely dry as well, water does damage to meringue!

• Beat egg whites until stiff
• Gradually add sugar, and beat until thick and fluffy.
• Pile it on top of the filling, use spatula to swirl into pretty patterns, thusly:

Warm in the oven until brown on top, and enjoy with ice cream and friends.

I didn't manage to get a photo of it cut open - we got stuck in a little too quickly for me to intrude with awkward photo taking (interupting dinner to take photos is the curse of the food blogger). You'll have to trust me when I say it was simply lovely, and that my grandma would approve.

Get Out Your Measuring Cups (Almond & Apple Crumble Cake)

Well folks, this is my unprecedented second blog post of the week... I can scarcely believe it! But believe I must, and all things considered it's really no surprise that I've posted twice this week. It's cold outside, the weather is unruly, the wind messes up my hair, and staying inside baking is vastly more enjoyable than braving the elements to take in some fresh evening air. So, second post of the week! It's a cracker, it really is.

Almond and Apple Crumble Cake

Brought to you via my grandmother, who kindly shares her cooking secrets, if I remember my pleases and thankyous.

What You Will Need:

• 250g sugar
• 180g plain flour
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 3 apples, peeled, halved and thinly sliced. I used a granny smith and two pink ladies (Oooh-er!)

For the crumble:

• 60g butter
• 100g sugar
• 1/2 cup slivered almonds
• 3 tablespoons of flour (approx)

What you will need to do:

1. Using an electric beater, beat cream until stiff. Add eggs one at a time, stir in essence, baking powder, sifted flour and sugar. Your batter should be quite thick, but smooth and glossy.

2. Pour cake batter into a greased 20cm spring form cake tin. Arrange sliced apples over the top of the cake in layers. (Three apples covers the top of the cake completely, and then some.)

3. Bake cake at 180 degrees celsius for approximately 45 minutes. My oven is very old and not particularly hot, so my cake took almost an hour. I'd suggest checking your cake at 40 minutes, if it's not cooked through, continue to bake until the batter is no longer wobbly. Keep your oven at a moderate temperature setting to avoid burning your cake at the bottom.

4. While the cake is cooking, blend all topping ingredients over a low heat. Add enough flour that the mixture absorbs all the melting butter and begins to crumble - three tablespoons is just a guide.

5. Once your cake is no longer wobbly in the centre (at the 45 minute mark or thereabouts) tip the crumble mixture over the cake and bake until browned. Serve warm with cream, or cool - depending on your inclination. Served warm the cake falls apart in a most appealing, steaming, apple-scented fashion.

So there you have it. Don't get used to my twice-weekly blogging enthusiasm. I have a sneaking suspicion that I baked tonight to fill the gaping hole that Masterchef has left in my evenings... hopefully I'll stop feeling separation anxiety soon and my normal lazy weeknights will return. I enjoyed the musical stylings of Mr Andrew Bird whilst baking this cake. I strongly suggest you check out his takeaway show over at the amazing La Blogotheque - possibly my all time favourite website. Check out these Takeaway Shows if your evenings are feeling a little empty now that Poh and Justine and Julie (and Gary, and George, and Matt) have left your weeknights. They're just great.

The Best Birthday Cake

About two weeks ago my little brother celebrated his first birthday, and as such I had the pleasure of heading home to Canberra to attend his very first birthday party.  The party was held on a lovely Saturday afternoon, there were balloons, presents, lollies for all, and glasses of champagne on offer for the older guests too. The younger attendees enjoyed a few giddy hours playing in the backyard with a bubble machine, while the grown ups enjoyed a very civilised afternoon tea and a relaxing drink in the sun. Birthday Boy had a fantastic day (despite being completely unaware that all of the excitement was in his honour) and I spent the day in awe of my talented little brother's new and exciting abilities. He stands up all on his own now, babbles away in a most conversational manner, and to my sheer amazement offers to share his food! Bless his little heart.

The event was a great success, in part due to my Stepmum's seemingly innate skill for entertaining, and in part due to the inaugural First Birthday Cake, prepared by my Dad. Dad is a fantastic cook, and his roast dinners, freshly caught fish, pastas and delicious deserts have fostered my love of food for as long as I can remember. Birthday Boy's cake was up to his usual standard (and absolutely huge - the photos don't do it justice!) and I'm going to share the recipe with you here. It is adapted from a Jamie Oliver recipe that I *think* can be found in his first book, The Naked Chef. I haven't been able to find it online so I reproduce it for you here:

What you will need:

• 200g caster sugar
• 200g butter
• 200g flour
• 4 tablespoons cocoa
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 cup slivered almonds

For the filling:

• 200ml whipped cream
  
• Fruit jam or fresh berries if desired

What you will need to do:

1. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, flour, baking powder and cocoa and beat with an electric mixer until the batter is smooth. Finally, stir through the slivered almonds.

2. Divide the mixture evenly across two 20cm spring form cake tins and bake for approximately 20 minutes.

3. Remove the cakes from oven, allow to cool completely before removing them from cake tins. Cover one cake with whipped cream and any jam or fruits that you would like to include, then carefully place the second cake on top of the first. Refrigerate the lot for at least half an hour before icing.

Apparently the original Jamie recipe calls for a runny chocolate drizzle icing. Given that many of the attendees at this particular party were under the age of three and likely to make a mess, Dad opted for a creamy dark chocolate icing that didn't so much drizzle as meld to the cake like delicious chocolate cement. I could wax lyrical about how marvellous the cake tasted, but I think the demolition-style 'after' shot speaks for itself...

Children's birthday parties always stir in me a strange sense of melancholy. A nostalgia for barely remembered parties of the past perhaps, or maybe I'm just so hopelessly emotional that any sort of happy family moment makes me feel a little weepy. Which leads me to my musical segue for this post. Listen to these girls, they are sisters - sixteen and eighteen years old - and they are divine. Melancholy, naive, and with adorable Jens Lekman-esque accents that seem somehow at odds with their startlingly strong voices. This is the second post in a row where I've featured them -I'm ever so slightly besotted, and I think everyone should rush out and buy their new EP: Drunken Trees. First Aid Kit have stolen my heart.

First Aid Kit - In Our Own Pretty Way

First Aid Kit on Last.fm

Punky's Choc Chip Cookies

My favourite food as a child was the humble chocolate chip cookie. Give me a pile of cookies and a big ole glass of milk and I was the world's happiest camper. Although we all know by now cookies are a "sometimes food" it's not something I ever intend to grow out of. My treat for you today is my recipe for double chocolate and macadamia cookies. They're chunky, chewy, fat and full of chocolate, my requisites for the perfect cookie.

Double Chocolate and Macadamia Cookies

What You Will Need

• 2 cups plain flour

• 1/3 cup caster sugar

• 1 cup brown sugar

• 3/4 melted butter

• 1 egg and one egg yolk

• 1 tsp vanilla extract, or 1 tbs vanilla essence

• 1/2 tsp baking soda

• 1/2 cup dark chocolate bits

• 1/2 cup white chocolate bits

• 1/2 cup macadamia nuts, halved or quartered

What You Will Need to Do

• Mix sugar and butter with electric beaters

• And egg, egg yolk and vanilla, and blend until light and creamy

• Sift in flour and baking soda, combine
  

• Stir in chocolate chips and nuts

• Eat some of the dough. You know you want to. Just a little. A teaspoon, maybe. Or two.
  

• Time to shape your cookies. I use a loaded tablespoon per cookie. Roll dough between your hands until you have a little cookie ball and set on a tray lined with baking paper.

• Compress each cookie softly with the heel of your hand, just so it's a bit less spherical.
  

• Place in an oven preheated to 170 degrees C and bake for roughly 15 minutes, or until golden at the edges.

For me, these cookies always come with a big heap of nostalgia. In honour of this, and the fact that fact that these fine fellows are touring the country, I thought I would post some of my favourite childhood music, Simon and Garfunkel. These following tracks are childish in the very best way.

Punky's Dilema
At The Zoo
The 59th Street Bridge Song

Check the tour dates here.

Oranges & Lemons

It seems that winter has arrived early this year. So early, and with such unforgiving speed, that at our house we simply weren't prepared for the onset of the cold. My house is a darling little terrace, built in 1888. It's quaint, it's charming, I'm in love with the plaster fixtures and high ceilings, but the fireplaces are strictly decorative, and the place is about as well insulated as a particularly flimsy shoebox. I've been looking for every excuse to have our oven pumping these last few weeks, and these cakes are two great reasons to turn the gas on. Two delicious, citrusy offerings that put me in mind of the sunny autumn days we're apparently not going to see this year. Put on your warmest woollen socks, and enjoy these cakes with a piping hot cup of tea.

Lemon Syrup Cake

This recipe comes to me courtesy of The Boy and his Mum. It was originally written down by The Boy's Great Great Grandmother, making him the fifth generation of his family to have prepared and enjoyed it. It is seriously delicious, and if you have a Boy around the house who is as big an eater as mine is, I'd suggest making double quantities.

What you will need:

• 125g butter
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup self raising flour
• 1/2 cup plain flour
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons of lemon zest

For the syrup:

• 1/3 cup lemon juice
• 1/4 cup caster sugar

What you will need to do:

1. Heat your oven to 180 degrees, grease a loaf tin and line the bottom with baking paper.

2. Cream the butter and sugar until the mixture appears light and fluffy, then add the eggs one at a time, beat the mixture well after each addition.

3. Sift the flours and salt and add in a little at a time. For each addition of flour mix in a little of the milk too.

4. Once all the flours and milk are mixed through, add lemon rind to what is now your cake batter and give the lot one last stir.

5. Pour the batter into your greased loaf tin and bake for 40-45 minutes

Adding the syrup:

1. While the cake is cooking, combine 1/3 cup of lemon juice and 1/4 cup of caster sugar, and stir until the sugar has dissolved.

2. When cake is cooked and still hot from the oven, pour over the lemon mixture and leave to stand until the cake has absorbed it all. Mmm, delicious.

Flourless Orange Cake

This recipe is quite time consuming, but entirely worthwhile. In my opinion Oranges + Cake = Best Thing Ever, and this cake in particular is really orangey. It's dense and moist without being too sweet. Everything a good cake should be. Adapted from the Claudia Roden Middle Eastern Cookbook.

What you will need:

• 2 large oranges
• 6 eggs
• 250 grams almond meal
• 250 grams of caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder

What you will need to do:

1. Place oranges in a pot and cover with water, bring to the boil, then cover and simmer for two hours.

2. Remove oranges from water, chop into chunks and remove any pips. Using a food processor, blend the orange chunks until smooth. Then set aside to cool completely.

3. Preheat your oven to 190 degrees, and grease a 24cm spring form cake tin.

4. Beat the eggs together and add to the orange mixture, blend until combined.

5. Add in almond meal, sugar and baking powder and stir until all ingredients are wet. Pour the mixture into cake tin and bake for one hour.

Serve this cake with just a little bit of cream poured over the top. It is delicious warm as well as cold, in this cooler weather I warm mine in the microwave a little before digging in.

These two cakes are delicious, they make for perfect afternoon tea. Fresh and fruity, and a great way to enliven the kitchen when you're cooped up inside, hiding away from the dismal winter weather. The second cake in particular does take quite a while to prepare, but the boiling oranges filled my kitchen with a lovely sweet smell, and while my cake baked I listened to these sweet young things, their Fleet Foxes cover warms my heart. Play it on repeat for a little while, they're magic.