Press

May 23, 2013 Judith4 Comments

Autumnal rain, while gratefully received, does tend to curb weekend activity. However, where a door to outdoor occupation closes, a window of indoor opportunity opens – a chance to assemble the biscuit forcer and press out an intricate array of delicate little icing sugar sprinkled treats.

If you’ve never been acquainted with a biscuit forcer (or more recently, cookie press) before, there is a creative pursuit waiting to be explored. With little culinary skill required, it is simply a case of mixing up a buttery dough – recipes accompany the kit – rolling it into a sausage and feeding it into the cylinder. Choosing the patterned discs dictating the biscuit shape is the only challenge – the press chef is provided with quite an extensive collection. (Where a number of chefs are involved ie house bound young, this stage can become quite interesting).

Once arbitration and conciliation is complete, it’s time to start pressing. Suddenly a baking sheet full of dainty shapes appear, which when removed bronzed from the oven and dusted with icing sugar, provide an irresistible plate of afternoon treats.

My observation of cookies these days, is that they are of ever increasing dimension and far outlast any cup of tea or coffee they were originally designed to complement. These little forcer biscuits scale back this recent up-sizing trend and are a reasonable representation of the portion size a treat was intended to be.

Readily available on Ebay or the like, a biscuit press may well add a new dimension to your life.

Postscript: Once the simple process of individual pressing is mastered, the logical progression is to create pairs for sandwiching with icing and jam for homemade melting moments – bring on the rain I say.

recipes

Miss Drake

May 19, 2013May 19, 2013 JudithLeave a comment

How wonderful it was for newly married women of the 1950’s (and decades prior) to have the wisdom of Miss Lucy Drake to see them through any cookery challenge that may have presented. Armed with her Diploma of Domestic Economy and a Trained Teacher of Domestic Arts, (awarded in Melbourne no less), this accomplished domestic champion was qualified to see these lasses through any boiled fowl in egg sauce, diplomatic pudding or jellied rabbit situation that may have arisen, without even having to refresh the lipstick. As it happened, my mother was one of those fortunate brides, as evidenced by our well-worn copy of The Original and Only Miss Drake’s Home Cookery, ever at the ready in the kitchen of my upbringing.

I guess then, it was no accident that Miss Drake had a hand in my early cookery development. With Miss D’s guiding hand, I learned the art of the Lemon Meringue Pie, so often in fact that the book would fall open to the spattered page. So for old time’s sake, this millennium family was treated to one this evening. Here is how Miss Drake directs one:

”LEMON TART. This quantity for big sandwich tin; half this for small tin. I lb. plain or good short crust (page 120). Interior for Tart.—2 lemons, 2 eggs, 5 tablespoons sugar, 5 tablespoons cold water, 2 dessertspoons butter, 1 dessertspoon arrowroot blended with 2 dessertspoons cold water. Reserve the whites of eggs to whip stiffly for the top; then fold 3 dessertspoons castor sugar into stiff whites, 1 cherry and little angelica. If eggs and butter are dear, half this quantity of interior is sufficient. Method— 1. Light oven. Make short crust. 2. Shape tart. Whilst it is cooking, get ingredients for interior. Put water, egg yolks, sugar, butter, blended cornflour, grated lemon rind and juice all into a small saucepan. Stir over fire till it boils and thickens. When tart is cold put in the mixture. Whip whites stiffly, fold the castor sugar in. Decorate the top like icebergs. Return to oven just to tint. Decorate with cherry and angelica.”

For me, following Miss Drake’s directions was an indulgent exercise in nostalgia, but you may not find the vintage terminology as endearing. Therefore, here is a Lemon Meringue Pie in modern terms (from another domestic matriarch, Margaret Fulton), that you may be more comfortable with.

Shortcrust Pastry (frozen sheet)
3 egg yolks
1/2 cup caster sugar
2 tbsp Plain flour
grated rind and juice of two lemons
4 tbsp water
3 egg whites
pinch cream of tartar
1/4 cup caster sugar

Line your pie dish with shortcrust pastry sheet and pinch the edges for decoration. Weight down with rice or dried beans and bake for 15 mins at 180 degrees celsius. Remove weight and bake for a further 5-10 minutes or until golden.
Make filling by mixing the egg yolks, sugar , flour and lemon rind in a heavy based saucepan and gradually stir in the lemon juice and water.
Cook, stirring constantly, over medium heat until the mixture is smooth and thick. Cool, then pour into cooled pastry shell.
To make meringue, beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar until thick. Gradually add the sugar, 2 tablespoons at a time, beating until the mixture is thick and glossy and the sugar is dissolved.
Spread over the filling in the pie shell, sealing it completely with the meringue.
Bake in a 180 degrees celsius oven for 8-10 minutes or until meringue is golden. Serve cold.

Postscript: I would love to be able to tell you our old ”Miss Drake”‘ lives on in my kitchen, but alas not. All is not lost however, as I have recently discovered that some wonderful people at Swinburne University, have archived this book within their image bank and have made the entire publication available as a downloadable PDF – so Miss Drake can assist you too, with your next Boiled Jam Roly.

recipes

Crockpot

May 15, 2013 JudithLeave a comment

Growing up in a 1970’s household with a working mother, it was not uncommon to awaken to the smell of onions and meat browning. Reason being, my mother was the first generation of crockpot cooks, who have now evolved into the slowcooker generation.

A new name, but essentially not a lot has changed in terms of the workings or output of these machines. Perhaps only the aesthetics – ours being an earthy brown ceramic inner, housed in a vibrant orange metal unit to reflect contemporaneous kitchen décor. Today we are offered stainless steel and white. (In line with the colour pop emerging trend, I expect we shall soon be marketed these appliances in an array of primaries).

Our crockpot does all its work in the cooler months, and to provide us with lovely offerings it only requires meat and onions to be browned, cuts on the bone or large chunks thereof and removal of visible fat, in return.

At the end of the day (literally), regardless of model colour or name, there is nothing finer than opening the door to the aroma of your ‘low and slow’. Fill your crockpot with these Thai Beef Curry ingredients and an aromatic blend of cinnamon, lemongrass and bay will be first to greet you as you turn your key in the lock tonight.

2 tbsp peanut oil
2 large brown onions cut into wedges
1kg chuck steak, cut into large cubes
195g jar Massaman curry paste
250ml coconut milk
250ml chicken stock
2 cinnamon sticks
2 bay leaves
3 medium potatoes chopped into chunks
1/2 cup roasted unsalted peanuts
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp fish sauce
handful of coriander leaves
1 lime

Heat 1 tbsp of the oil in a frying pan and cook off the onions until browned, place in slowcooker.
Heat remaining oil and brown the beef in batches, add to slow cooker.
Add paste to pan and cook, stirring for one minute until fragrant, add to the slowcooker.
Add coconut milk, stock, cinnamon, bay leaves, potato and nuts to the slowcooker. Cook on low for 6-8 hours.
Remove cinnamon sticks and stir in the sugar and fish sauce.
Serve garnished with coriander, limes wedges on the side and fluffy white rice.

Postscript: curiously, with the technological strides taken over previous decades, crockpot manufacturers may have managed to up the styling and revamp the recipes but have overlooked a feature that would change the lives of many disappointed hungry evening families – a reminder device to switch the machine on before you close the front door behind you……

recipes

Coffee

May 1, 2013 Judith5 Comments

When was the last time you savoured a lovely slice of coffee cake? 1972? Yes, that’s very likely the same decade that I last had mine too. With its pseudo-European overtones and bordering-on-illicit focal ingredient, one could not help feeling just a little bit grown up being offered a slice.

With movement in time, so came improvement in coffee cake. Today’s are far superior to those gran-used-to-make, and I say this not because I’m gerontophobic, but because we now have access to authentic rich coffee – the essential ingredient that alluded our grandmothers. When I think of the talcum-style coffee products these early cooks had to rely on, it is a wonder that the coffee cake recipe was not forced to extinction. Instead of large screw top jars of dust-like powder, we now have the benefit of slick espresso machines to deliver a damn good shot on demand. (Just one more thing to be grateful for)

And with one shot in the batter and the other in the icing, this coffee and walnut cake is a wonderful way to cherish culinary evolution.

185g softened butter
3/4 cup caster sugar
2 eggs
2 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup sour cream
2 tbsp good coffee
1/2 cup of chopped walnuts and some extras to dot on the icing

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius and grease a large round cake tin.
Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy.
Add eggs individually, beating well after each addition.
Sift all of the dry ingredients together and fold them through the creamed mixture alternately with the sour cream.
Add the coffee and gently mix through until well combined.
Fold through the chopped walnuts.
Spoon mixture into cake tin and bake for 45 to 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
After cake has cooled, ice with 1 1/2 cups of sifted icing sugar, with 1 to 2 tablespoons of good coffee mixed in until it is a firm spreading consistency.
Scatter walnut halves across the top.

Postscript: Now I’m sure our European friends are smirking quietly here, as never were they without the magic stuff.

family · recipes

Salute

April 24, 2013 Judith3 Comments

As we pause to pay respect to our brave soldiers who fought on distant shores, an equally courageous group must also be remembered – the women who remained.

Without a single text, email or status update for reassurance, the womenfolk endured what must have seemed like an endless silence, with only the hackneyed adage ”no news is good news” for psychological comfort.

So what did they do to fill this emotional void – amongst an inventive array of homecrafts, they baked. Unable to be at the side of their loved ones, they did what most of us do to protect our broods as they go forth into the world – nourished their souls in the best ways they could think of: fruit cakes and biscuits.

And if we can recall our own intense care and attention lavished on first-day lunch boxes, then I guess we have some minor benchmark to compare the love and concern that went into the parcels of baked goods, sent lovingly to their cherished.

Anzac biscuits have become an iconic representation within this time of tribute, and lest we forget those who baked them.

1 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup desiccated coconut
1 cup plain flour
1 cup caster sugar
125g butter
1 tbsp golden syrup
2 tbsp boiling water
1 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Preheat oven to 150 degrees celsius. Grease or line baking trays will silicone paper.
Combine first four dry ingredients in a large bowl.
Melt butter and golden syrup over a low heat.
Mix the boiling water with the bicarbonate of soda and add this to the butter and golden syrup mix (it should foam well).
Add this wet mix to the dry mix and mix well.
Place tablespoonfuls of the mixture onto the prepared trays and bake for approximately 20 minutes or until golden brown.
(Biscuits will harden as they cool. Makes approximately 24)

Postscript: Even though much of the baking finding its way to the front had perished or disintegrated upon arrival, the intention and love packed within the parcel remains forever intact.

family · recipes

Chocolate

April 22, 2013 JudithLeave a comment

I’m not afraid of spiders,
and lions don’t make me quake,
but there’s one thing I cannot pass,
and that is, and that is,
a chocolate cake!

But why are you afraid of a chocolate cake Grandma? was something I often wondered, when in early childhood, as I followed my grandmother around her garden she would recite this and other childhood rhymes to me. Now, many decades later, I have come to understand the essence of this verse clearly. One of the most divine (and irresistible) experiences of life, is certainly a slice of fresh, lavishly iced, rich chocolate cake.

My preference is for chocolate rather than cocoa in a chocolate cake and moist fudginess (the sour cream takes care of that). Turn out one of these, and let’s see if you have the courage to pass it.

1 cup boiling water
125g dark chocolate, broken up
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
250g softened butter
1 1/2 cups caster sugar
3 eggs separated
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 1/2 cups plain flour
a pinch of salt
1 tsp baking powder
2/3 cup sour cream

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius.
Grease a large bundt tin or two loaf tins.
Combine water, chocolate and bicarb in a bowl and stir until chocolate is melted (it foams up and becomes light and airy). Leave to one side.
Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy and then beat in the egg yolks one at a time.
Stir in the vanilla and gradually mix through the chocolate mixture.
Sift the remaining three dry ingredients and fold into the mix alternately with the sour cream.
Beat the egg whites until peaks form and fold into the mixture.
Spoon mix gently into prepared tin(s) and bake for40-45 minutes (loaf tins) or 1-1 1/4 hours for large tin. Test with a skewer to ensure cake(s) are cooked through.

Our cake was topped with a chocolate icing – melted butter and chocolate, icing sugar, vanilla essence and 2 tbsp of boiling water, but it is equally good dusted with icing sugar and served with fresh thick cream.

Postscript: if you reside with locusts, as I do, this recipe is brilliant as the end result will be a large generous cake, or two regulars (one for now and the other for the freezer – if it makes it there)

recipes

Syrup

April 15, 2013 Judith8 Comments

In the wake of the recent tsunami of chocolate, a citrusy slice of syrup cake is a welcome relief. Dipping a forkful into creamy yoghurt with some added pistachios for crunch, is a very satisfying way to doff your hat to the passing of another egg-laden seasonal celebration.

As a spacer to all of the chocolate that faced one at every turn in this house, I seized upon this cake recipe from Amber Rose to serve as an easter dessert. It is quite middle-eastern in its make-up – with its composition of pistachios, almonds, honey and orange blossom water. Being syrupy by nature, this cake makes a wonderful dessert – the moisture and sweetness yielding almost a pudding consistency.

Orange blossom water is available at continental delicatessens or if you live in a swish neighbourhood – your local supermarket! Once you have a bottle in your possession, this Lime Cake with orange blossom and pistachios, can be your easter antidote. (Don’t forget to snap off a small branch of your backyard citrus for a very authentic garnish)

225g plain flour, sifted
2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
80g almond meal
100g pistachio nuts, toasted in a pan and chopped
2 eggs
250g honey
250g greek style yoghurt
150ml olive oil
grated zest of 1/2 lemon
grated zest 1 lime

syrup
100g honey
juice of the lime
1 tbsp orange blossom water

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius, and grease a fluted cake tin.
Mix the first five dry ingredients in a bowl. In a separate bowl, mix together the remaining six ingredients.
Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the wet ingredients. Mix until combined and then pour into the greased cake tin.
Bake for 50 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out clean. Cool in the tin.
To make the syrup, boil 150ml water and the honey together for 5 minutes. Add lime juice and boil for another minute. Add the orange blossom water.
Use the testing skewer to pierce holes all over the cake and gently pour the syrup over the cake.
When the cake is completely cold, remove from the tin and serve with extra yoghurt and chopped pistachio nuts.

Postscript: should you still be wading through the aftermath of chocolate eggs, a friend of mine dispensed with hers ingeniously by making large batches of chocolate custard with them in her thermomix – just a thought.

recipes

Baked

April 2, 2013 Judith4 Comments

If you can measure, mix, pour and bake, then there’s no reason why this delicious specimen can’t be cooling on your benchtop, as this one did on mine recently.

I have no ability to take in the intricacies of an intriguing story or keep track of a workplace crisis and cook simultaneously – something must be ignored, usually the food. For that very reason, when friends are dining, I need to make sure as little attention as possible needs to be given to food after the gathering arrives. A baked cheesecake is a clever culinary solution, as it can sit cooling its heels in the refrigerator from the day prior – its flavours rounding out beautifully by serving time. That being, not a thread or mere detail of the latest goss is lost, when all that is required is to slice and pass.

And as this recipe yields such a generous cake, there is plenty left over for neighbourhood coffee banter the following morning.

To ensure you miss nothing either at your next do, get this simple Baked Raspberry Cheesecake happening in your oven well in advance.

250g packet of Granita or other sweet biscuits
125g melted butter
250g softened cream cheese
250g ricotta cheese
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup sour cream
1 tbsp grated lemon rind
3 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp cornflour blended into 1 tbsp water
a generous handful or so of fresh or frozen raspberries

Process biscuits to crumbs and then add melted butter. Process briefly until combined.
Press this mix into the base of a large greased springform cake tin and place in the refrigerator.
Process all of the remaining ingredients EXCEPT the raspberries until smooth.
Pour this mix over chilled base. Sprinkle raspberries evenly over the top.
Bake in a preheated 150 degree celsius oven for approximately 50 minutes or until cheesecake has set.
Chill in the refrigerator until firm. Serve with thick cream.

Postscript: should you not be in possession of a food processor, don’t walk away. The biscuits can be crushed with a rolling pin and the filling beaten with a hand mixer.

recipes

Leftovers

March 25, 2013 JudithLeave a comment

Apart from the usual positives of sharing a roast dinner with the neighbours, another perk came in the form of a new idea. What usually becomes of the remains of a roasted chicken in this house, is sandwiches and dog scraps (in that order). Never has a scrumptious chicken, leek and mushroom pie ever crossed my mind as the finale for these birds.

Fortunately, I have a kitchen savvy pal living right opposite, who was not only quick to point this out, but even speedier to extract the leavings and seal them in an airtight, assuring me they were perfect for such a purpose. As we cleared and reset for dessert, she had rattled off her method, which as I scraped and stacked, I quickly committed to memory. The following night, the family received such pie – a far cry from dog scraps.

If you can keep this plan in mind after your next chicken roast, I am able to attest that the end result is going to be: happy families and disappointed dogs.

1 leek
200g button mushrooms
75g butter
2 tbspn flour
500ml chicken stock
2 big handfuls of shredded cooked chicken
2 sheets puff pastry
milk to brush

Slice leek and mushrooms thinly.
Melt butter in a large frying pan and cook leek and mushrooms until soft.
Add the flour and mix thoroughly. You will have a thick mass.
Gradually add stock, stir and cooking until you have a consistency that you like for your pie filling.
Add the chicken and stir until heated through. At this point season, but be very careful with the salt as sometimes the stock contains enough. Set to one side.
Line the base of your pie dish with one sheet of the pastry and prong it all over with a fork to prevent it rising. Bake in a 180 degree oven until par-cooked (about 10 minutes).
Push down any risen puffed bits on the base and add the pie filling.
Cover with remaining sheet of puff pastry and seal by pinching the edges together all the way around. Lightly score the top of the pastry with a sharp knife and brush with milk. Put the pie back into the oven for a further 20 minutes or until well browned. Serve.