These little lovelies simply wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the mighty Anzac biscuit, which inspired me with its comforting blend of oats and golden syrup. I shan’t be going into too much more detail on this point, because Anzac biscuits will be coming up …
Today we greet the last entry in the ‘Almonds’ section of the Edmonds Cookbook, Broccoli with Almonds. And can I say, what a delight. Lightly cooked broccoli covered with lemony butter and toasted sliced almonds. Oh yum.
You can tell the state of the economy by the price of a lime, or so the saying goes. What it’s meant to tell you, I’m not sure, but I can reliably inform you that limes in these here parts cost a small fortune at the moment.
This is why I can never resist the bags of juicy, home-grown limes which perch temptingly by the counter for only five dollars a pop when I visit the lovely Shannons to attend to matters of personal grooming.
I’m never at a loss for what to do with a lime and with a whole bag in hand, my thoughts turned to this delicious orange and almond cake that my lovely sister brought along for a lunch visit a few years ago.
Curiously, I learned, the orange is boiled to provide a flavoursome, moist base. It may feel sacrosanct to boil a precious lime, but with a whole bag, I was feeling reckless. Having never considered the possibility of boiling fruit for the purposes of cake before, my imagination was on fire.
A little polenta to the recipe, inspired by Nigella’s lemon polenta cake recipe, gives this cake a lovely texture and just the right amount of chew to the crust. I enjoy the tanginess of the limes, but for the more faint-hearted, include a little extra sugar if you like a touch more sweetness. And, if you make sure to use gluten-free baking powder, this even ticks the gluten-free box.
Ingredients:
Butter and line a 21cm springform tin.
Put the limes in a saucepan, cover them with cold water and pop them on the stove. Bring to the boil and boil for an hour.
Drain the limes, watching for your fingers as they will still be a little hot. Chop the limes into bits and pick out any seeds. Use a blender or masher to puree the limes, skins and all, until smooth. Set this aside.
In a largish bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until they are thick and pale.
Add the pureed limes, ground almonds, polenta and baking powder to the egg and sugar mixture. Gently fold in until everything is just combined.
Pour the mix into the prepared cake tin.
Bake in a 180 degrees celsius oven for 45 minutes, or until a skewer prodded into the centre of the cake comes out clean and the cake is just beginning to pull away from the sides of the tin.
Leave the cake in its tin on a baking rack to cool before turning out. I can heartily recommend this cake warm, with a little yoghurt or vanilla ice cream on the side.
Bacon, chicken, red wine…what’s not to love? Forgive my absence; I’ve been on a food writing course at the weekends over May and June, which has taken up all of the food writing time in my life. I’m back with a vengeance however, and with a few …
Herman came into my life my accident. My plans were to have morning tea with my sister and gorgeous little niece. This did happen. But what I didn’t expect was to leave my sister’s house with my very first sour dough starter for my own Herman the German Friendship Cake.
Herman is the chain letter of sour dough. A lucky Herman recipient is given a portion of sour dough starter and instructions on how to feed, love and nurture Herman for 10 days. On the tenth day, Herman is split into four portions. Three are given away to new Herman owners to start the process again. The fourth portion is kept to be made into one’s very own Herman sour dough cake or bread.
I love the savoury chewiness of sour dough. Ever since reading the lovely Clotilde’s sour dough adventures on Chocolate&Zucchini I’ve been keen to try my own but just a little too scared. My unexpected acquisition of Herman was just what I needed to kick-start my own sour dough adventures. Herman and I were meant to be.
Sour dough starters are rather fascinating. The happy little bugs and bits who occur naturally in flour develop into a culture that will rise dough if they are left for long enough and treated to water, refreshment and the right temperature. And so, Herman took up residence on top of my microwave. Devotedly following the Herman instructions, I heartily stirred Herman each of the first four days. He was developing an interesting bubbly texture.
On day four, the instructions informed me, Herman is hungry. Dutifully, I fed Herman (or refreshed him, as it is known in sour dough parlance) with 1 cup of flour, 1 cup of water and 1 cup of sugar. Days five to eight: more stirring. My Herman now had a sticky-looking top and plenty more bubbling.
Day nine was a big day. Three quarters of my Herman were packaged up and shipped off to their new homes. It was time to turn my mind to baking for day 10.
The Herman website has plenty of delicious ideas for when it’s time to bake your Herman. My sister made the original Herman, and it is indeed lovely. I played around with the original recipe, borrowing heavily from my most favourite Christmas cake recipe, Nigella’s chocolate fruit cake (because why wait until Christmas to make a delicious cake?). Prunes, chocolate, orange and coffee combined to make this Fruit and Chocolate Herman. This recipe produces a dark, dense cake with a pleasant hint of spice.
Fruit and Chocolate Herman
Ingredients:
Grease a 23 cm round cake tin and line the bottom. Heat your oven to 180 degrees celsius.
Stir the flour, cocoa, baking powder, brown sugar, mixed spice and vanilla essence into your Herman starter, which will be in the large mixing bowl as per the Herman instructions. Add the eggs and mix in.
Next, tip in the prunes, raisins, currants and cranberries. Add the orange juice, zest and the espresso coffee, and stir all ingredients together.
Pour the cake batter into a 23cm round cake tin. Bake for 50 minutes until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Cool on a cake rack.
It was time to slay the mighty parsley-beasts. I felt a little regretful about this, as they had done me proud by growing all green and bountiful, despite my doing very little to help them. But, many leaves had been picked for many dishes, and …
This idea came to me by accident, really. I’m always a fan of shortbread, so any excuse for that. But the orange part happened when a lonely orange, languishing in the fruit bowl, happened to cross my field of vision whilst I was enjoying a Sunday morning …
We have recently started smoking. No, not the nicotine kind (don’t worry Mum!), the charcoal kind. And my is it fun.
Our little smoker cost us the princely sum of $50, half price on the GrabOne daily deals website. I think it looks a bit like a cute little alien space pod that landed on earth:
We’ve had adventures with pulled pork (delicious) and smoked beef (still perfecting that one) but my favourite so far has been a smoked leg of lamb, using Yotam Ottolenghi’s lamb shawarma recipe.
I know I prod and poke around with some recipes, but there is really nothing you would want to change about this one: it is totally amazing and has ruined me for all other lamb dishes. The preparation may feel a bit like a labour of love – plenty of fancy and delicious ingredients like cinnamon sticks and star anise and fresh coriander that need to be ground, sliced, crushed and grated. But it is utterly, totally worth it.
The recipe asks that you dry-roast the peppercorns, cloves, cardamom pods, fenugreek seeds, fennel seeds, cumin seeds, star anise and cinnamon stick until the seeds pop, and then add nutmeg and paprika. This will make your kitchen smell absolutely lovely. These ingredients then have to be ground to a powder – we used an old, slightly decrepit coffee grinder with a dodgy cable, borrowed from my parents. No electric shocks resulted, you will be glad to hear.
All of that delightful fresh coriander (40 grams), along with sea salt, lemon juice, garlic, peanut oil, sumac and fresh ginger are mixed with the ground spices to make a paste. I loved this bit because the lovely fresh smells hit you in a big delicious wave.
One then massages the paste into the lamb joint. Which, I won’t lie, does feel a bit odd.
The lamb gets wrapped in its own little foil tent.
Now we divert from Mr Ottolenghi’s method, as we placed ours in our smoker, instead of a 170 degrees celsius oven. A smoker, I have learned, is a delicate thing when it comes to heating and maintaining a specific heat. I must confess I leave the more technical aspects of this part to the spouse, who has a far greater aptitude for tools, gadgets and generally all things that go ‘beep’ than I do. But for those of you wishing for these details, we use charcoal in our smoker, and to cook this joint, we tried to keep the temperature around 200 degrees farenheit / 93 degrees celsius, and took our lamb out when it reached an internal temperature of around 65 degrees celsius.
I’ve already confessed that Mr Ottolenghi has ruined me for all over lamb recipes with this amazing concoction. A purist may be horrified, but I found smoking the lamb joint complemented the flavours beautifully and boy does it make your garden smell incredible while it’s cooking. Happy experimenting ’til next time.
Lucky me, to receive this lovely baking book for my birthday from my similarly kitchen-obsessed little sister. Alice Arndell’s Alice in Bakingland is a treat for the eyes as much as anything, full of pictures of dainty plates, matching teacup-and-saucer sets, all showing off delightful …