the ice cream disaster

Sadly, Isabelle, I have to admit that my foray into peppermint choc-chip ice cream making ended up a bust! So, it looked quite nice, but it was far too "eggy" (no spellcheck, I don't mean edgy. far from it) to contemplate without far too much mint choc chip "Ice Magic". Well, it wasn't entirely a bad idea - of course I had fun making it, and now think I will make some mint choc chip ice cream using the simpler condensed milk and cream route, instead of the modified buttermilk disaster that I tried with this one. What did work with this was when it almost finished freezing, added some "Ice Magic" and swirled it through; Food Critic Andrew's suggestion that far outweighed my crushed Hershey's Chocolate Kisses idea. Oh, well, we all learn from our disasters, yes? I'll keep you posted of course - and I'll see you soon. Is this what you had in mind?

Mint choc chip buttermilk ice cream

So I've been a bit obsessed with ice cream lately, and for good reason! It's well and truly into summer here, and the only sweet thing worth eating sometimes is a scoop of cold creamy ice cream. Sadly, I've just moved away from Sydney as Ben and Jerry open up their first ice creamery at Manly. I'm a big fan of Ben and Jerry's whose ice cream I first discovered many years ago whilst living in London.

Anyhow, as I've said, I finally have room in my freezer so bought come ice cream recently. It didn't last long, and surprisingly, Food Critic Andrew was a big fan of the peppermint choc chip that I had bought. So when I had some spare buttermilk, and some Hershey's Kisses in the pantry, I realised I had to make some peppermint choc chip ice cream! It is cooling in the freezer right now, so I hope that it is succesful - we'll wait and see.......

Spiced cranberry muffins with pecan nuts

We've been in the new place for a week now - so I thought I should give the oven a real trial run before I attempted to make the best cheesecake ever (his favourite!) for Food Critic Andrew's birthday celebration. It is a fan forced oven and I was still getting used to it. Perusing the taste.com.au website, which I am a big fan of, I came across this recipe for Spiced cranberry muffins with pecan nuts. Now the recipe probably won't stay there forever, so I've copied it to this site as well, and hopefully the good folks over at the taste website won't mind too much. I've changed it slightly; I thought that there should have been more cranberry, less ginger. The tastes really develop overnight, so if you can make them before you go to bed for the next day!.

Instead of adding chopped pecans to the top (as per the "Taste" website recipe), I just added a half pecan and sprinkled demerara sugar over the top. They were rather delicious, and made me rather nostalgic. I grew up on a banana farm, and our wonderful next door neighbours, the Donnans had an avocado farm, with a grove of pecan trees (amongst other things). Their daughter, Kerry and I were similar in age, and were occasionally sent down to gather pecans from around the trees. We thought it was utterly great, because we were paid a small amount per bucket. We did spend a lot of time eating the pecans though, and probably didn't realise (or care) that we were eating into our profits. So whenever I eat pecans now, I am transported back to those carefree times. It is amazing how tone single taste can instantly transport you back to somewhere else. That is part of the beauty of food, I think.

This recipe made about 5 large muffins, and a dozen mini muffins. ( I really need to buy another mini muffin pan!)

Ingredients

1 and a bit cups (170g) dried cranberries
2 cups (300g) self-raising flour
3/4 cup (155g) brown sugar
1/2 cup (70g) pecans, coarsely chopped
1 and a 1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
3/4 cup (185ml) buttermilk
1/2 cup (125ml) vegetable oil
1 egg, lightly whisked

halved pecans, extra to top
1 tbs demerara sugar, extra

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200°C. Line 12 x 1/3-cup (80ml) capacity muffin pans with paper cases.
2. Place the cranberries in a heatproof bowl and cover with boiling water. Set aside for 10 minutes to soak. Drain well.
3. Combine flour, sugar, pecans, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and cranberries in a large bowl. Whisk buttermilk, oil and egg together in a jug. Add buttermilk mixture to flour mixture and stir until just combined (do not over mix). Spoon evenly among the lined pans. Combine the extra pecans and sugar in a small bowl and sprinkle over the muffins.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean when tested. Turn onto a wire rack. Serve warm.

The importance of a routine (at least, to me!)

Ah, so I've finally moved into a new place (that's the view from the house! - looking north over farmland, Bega NSW here's another view, here) and my routine is slowly being re-established. I am trying to get used to a new oven, and restocking my cupboard. It's funny how the little things throw you. Even tonight, I made Food Critic Andrew a cup of tea, however of course I don't have any castor sugar in the house. (Add yet another thing to the list...) He is on the phone, so I took out demerara sugar and he'll have to live with that for the moment...hope it goes alright with Russian Caravn tea. Well it's late, and I had an early morning - a 5 am start! So I'm off to bed. I have been faffing around with the new fan forced oven, so am looking forward to baking up a storm in the next few days. It's also Food Critic Andrew's birthday on Saturday so I'll be digging out an old favourite of his...

Moving south - and BBQ -o - rama

So we have finally made the "big move" and spent most of this week packing/moving/cleaning/driving/looking for a new place to call home and I can finally look forward to starting my new job on Monday. We are both so exhausted, and I'm looking forward to sleeping in a bit tomorrow.

We are staying in lovely accomodation which has BBQ facilities so we will be BBQ-ing up a storm in the next couple of weeks, until the place have applied to rent is available and we have been approved (though, we are thoroughly respectable so I'm sure that we'll be fine).

In the meantime sadly I will be missing my oven! I miss baking already, and *sigh* my beautiful espresso machine which is sitting in storage somewhere. So please bear with me good readers till repertoire food is back up and running at full steam ahead!!

Last days in Sydney..and Norwegian cinnamon buns

So Food Critic Andrew and I are moving down south - I got the job and am starting in a couple of weeks. So I'm sorry I've been a bit slow on the blogging, but I've had my mind on other things - gosh it's stressful moving house! You forget....I think. I can't wait to move to the country and have loads more room - and access to the freshest seafood around, as well as some fabulous produce!

I've also been working a fair bit of overtime to finish up some projects at my current job, so on Sundays I've been pretty much curled up on the couch attempting (and failing!) the Samurai Sudoku. I'm great at the regular Sudoku but these Samurai things vex me entirely. The worst thing is that it's not until I'm about halfway through that I realise my mistake! oh well. Anyway, I have actually been cooking away with various bits and pieces - though when you're on the verge of moving, you try not to buy too many perishable good since you'll essentially lose them all (we have a few days without a refrigerator).

I made these yummy Norwegian Cinnamon buns from Nigella Lawson's "How to be a Domestic Goddess" over the weekend. I have been experimenting with half batches to try and cut down on waste, and I've made these many years ago, so thought this might be a good recipe to try and halve. It worked; in fact, Food Critic Andrew commented that he loved it when I cook in half batches because I over estimate the spices/flavouring and things taste so much nicer....

On a side note, I can't wait to move partly because I promised myself I will make my Christmas pudding when we are settled in. Yum! I stare longingly at them in the shops, but I secretly know that store bought is never, ever as good.

Ingredients:

Dough:

300g flour
50g sugar
1/4 tsp salt
3 tsp dried yeast
50g butter
200ml milk
1 egg

Filling:

80g butter (softened)
80g sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 egg, beaten to glaze

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 230 degrees Celsius
2. Combine flour, sugar, salt and yeast in a bowl
3. Melt butter, whisk in milk and egg
4. Combine with flour mixture and knead until it is smooth and springy (I had to add a little more flour here...)
5. Form into a ball, and leave in an oiled bowl, covered for half and hour.
6. Take 1 third of the dough and roll and stretch it to fit over a brownie tin that has baking paper over it.
7. Roll out the rest of the dough (to a rectangle approx. 25 x 10 cm)
8. Mix the filling ingredients together and brush the mix over the base, as well as over your rolled dough
9. Roll the dough up, on the long side, so it makes a Swiss Roll type thing
10. Cut this into about 10 pieces, and arrange on top of your dough that is already on the brownie tin. (Yes, it may not look like it fits, but believe me, it will work!
11. Bake for 25 minutes and cool slightly on a rack.

makes about 10..Yes - mine are slightly burnt on top - certainly didn't affect the taste much!

Experimental portuguese custard tarts

So at the last minute today I decided to make sausage rolls for dinner -and "lo and behold"! leftover puff pastry. So I have some experimental Portuguese custard tarts in the oven right now - they are just browning! They look pretty good and hopefully taste nice as well (though - how can one stuff up custard and pastry? I don't think you can...)

........


So they're done! I think the oven was a little hot and the custard puffed up a bit(maybe the oven was too hot?). And I burnt my finger getting them out of the oven (boo!). Ugly little things too, but quite lovely in taste. Easy, too!

Ingredients:

1 sheet thawed puff pastry
2 tbsp custard powder
1 tbsp vanilla essence
250 ml milk
1 tbsp sugar
cinnamon
8 patty pans

Method:

1. Cut the puff pastry in half and sprinkle sugar over one half.
2. Pat the un-sugared half over the sugared half and press down
3. Roll up from the short end, and cut pastry into 1cm (approx) rounds
4. roll out rounds into 10cm (approx) rounds
5. press into patty pans in a patty tin, or straight into a greased tin
6. Spoon custard (made as per custard powder instructions, except you use half the liquid to get a really thick custard)
7. Sprinkle with cinnamon
6. Cook in a moderate oven (180 degrees Celsius) for about 30 min.s.

Not bad, but I'm going to play around with the flavour a bit and report back. It's a hard job, but someone has to do it!