She really does surprise me sometimes. I just stood back, mouth open, became very quiet - akin to watching from the shadows, a lion dining on its prey – I daren’t disturb her, and witnessed this miracle unfold before me.

It didn’t last long – a handful of bites and she was over it, but none the less, I was still impressed. She’s not too bad with some vegetables – peas, corn, potatoes, broccoli, sometimes carrot, never asparagus – but I still lay a spear on her plate everytime we have it for dinner – no pressure! I figure the more she sees us enjoying vegetables, and the more they are available to her, one day – just maybe – she might like it.

Schnitzel

pork – a small, fairly simple cut, not too thick

wholemeal flour (or plain flour)

1 free-range egg, lightly beaten

panko (Japanese bread) crumbs (if you’ve never used these before, do yourself a favour and grab a packet of them from the Asian foods section in the supermarket. They are super crunchy!!)

big handful of fresh parsley, chopped

oil with a high smoke point (rice bran oil is brilliant) – just under 1 centimetre of oil in the pan

Method

Pour the flour, egg, and crumbs with parsley added into 3 separate bowls

coat the pork:

in the flour

then Egg

then the panko/parsley mix

If you have time, pop them onto a plate and into the fridge for maybe 30 minutes – this helps the crumbs to stay put.

Heat the oil (about 1 centimetre) in a frypan on a medium-high heat. Keep a good eye on it – add a couple of panko crumbs every once in a while – once they start to bubble as soon as they are in the oil, it is hot enough. Place the fillets in the oil (don’t overcrowd the pan) and wait until they look golden on the sides then flip over and cook until golden all over. Drain on an absorbant paper towel.

Then serve with the appleslaw and maybe some oven chips.

Apple-Slaw

Mix all these ingredients together in a big bowl:

1/4 white cabbage, shredded finely

1 granny smith apple, grated with skin on

handful of pecan nuts, chopped

dollop of whole-egg mayonnaise

pepper

Serve it all with a wedge of lemon.

He first started with following the recipe to a T, found in the Edmond’s Cookery Book, then he tried a few variations, and this one has come up as the winner.  It’s a temperamental beast though - you have to keep an eye on it and take it slowly, otherwise it’ll turn into a grainy, crumbly-concrete-like mess.  If it’s done right it should be completely grainless, with a fine melt-in-the-mouth quality. It’s not like a russian fudge, creamy and sticky – it’s more like a candy-style fudge. quite firm, and when cut it’s a little flaky. Infact, that’s one way it’s been described – like a Flake chocolate bar.

I’ve never (successfully) made this fudge. I tried once and it was a complete disaster (see description above) , and since then I’ve left it to the Fudge Maste…Expert Darren has this fudge down to a fine art, and I show you all the steps he now takes.

Ingredients

2 cups caster sugar

2 heaped tablespoons cocoa

1/4 cup milk

1/4 cup cream

25g butter

1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence

100g dark chocolate (about 70%)

Method

Grease and line a large tin with butter

Pour sugar and cocoa into a saucepan.

mix to combine.

add milk and cream and stir to combine – leaving for 5 – 10 minutes to help start dissolving the sugars

and butter and the candy thermometer

Heat RIDICULOUSLY slowly on the stove top, stirring constantly until the sugar is dissolved and butter melted. (this could take 20 minutes – you want it to have NO grains of sugar whatsoever before it starts to boil) Wet the sides with a pastry brush to get all the crystals.

Bring to the boil. DO NOT STIR! Watch it carefully.

To ensure there are no crystals of sugar forming on the edge (sugar crystals are your enemy) dampen a pastry brush and wipe the sides gently.

Ask your wife to chop the dark chocolate into fine shards (It’s the only part of the process I’m game to help with!!)

Darren will station himself in front of the stove, never taking his eyes off the candy thermometer! He’s rather particular about his fudge.

Let mixture boil until the soft ball stage. Darren now uses a candy thermometer – and this is definitely the way to go. It has a ’soft ball’ marking on it.

Have a folded teatowel on the bench ready, then remove saucepan from heat, place on teatowel and wait a moment or two

carefully pour in the vanilla and add the chopped dark chocolate.

whip it with an electric beater on a fast setting in the saucepan until the fudge becomes thick. If you don’t whip it long enough, it won’t set firmly, too much and it will stay put in the saucepan!

Quickly pour the fudge into the prepared tin.

Score the top and let it cool on the bench, then in the fridge.

Grate the vegies, caremelise the onion and garlic, add pumpkin to the onion to cook a little

Toss all the vegies in flour

Add the rest of the ingredients – QUICK! don’t overmix it!

Pop into greased muffin tin then into the oven until a skewer comes out clean.

Photograph them at ten thirty at night with front flash and no care whatsoever.

Ingredients

1 large red onion, diced and caramelised

3 large garlic cloves

200g pumpkin, grated

200g carrot, grated

100g zucchini (1 sml zucchini) grated

1/2 capsicum, diced

120g fetta, cubed

30g parmesan cheese, grated

2 cups self raising flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 heaped teaspoon of mustard

1 big handful of herbs, chopped - basil, oregano, sage, parsley

1/2 cup milk

60g butter, melted

3 eggs

Why it became so messy is probably because we were so damn excited to try a drink that doesn’t actually exist - be it only in the mind of millions of children and adults around the world.  I think the most exciting thing is that it started off as a little idea, and then all of a sudden all of us knew about butter beer before it actually existed. And ever since, culinary nerds like me have been trying to recreate the mythical brew.

And when we first tasted it… it actually tasted the way I expected!

I’m just going to gush here a bit about how much I LOVE the Harry Potter series – both the books and the movies – and I cannot WAIT to see the new movie tomorrow with Darren. Yay for movie dates!

There are a multitude of recipes online for butterbeer, and a lot of them would taste awesome! I was really impressed with this one – thank you KC for letting me know about this one. The best thing about this version is it uses local Bundaberg Ginger Beer, brewed not 4 hours north of Brisbane.

Pour some ginger beer  and a few tablespoons of cream into a jug (only about half full) then froth it up with the milk steam wand on your espresso machine. If you want a cool drink, froth it for a short time, if you want a warm drink froth it like you would milk for a cappucino. Pour it into a glass (we really should have used steins!).

You need no specialist equipment! Or, in other words, my lovely daughter has been playing with the juicer and it is, quite possibly, at the bottom of her toy box. I better go find it…

I  know this sort of post is a little bland  -  and duh, anyone can squeeze an orange. But I think it’s important not to forget these simple ways of preparing delicious, healthy food. 

So cut the orange in half (valencia are the best, you can use navels, but they are more of an eating orange, you’ll get less juice). Squeeze the bejeebers out of it. Squash and massage every last bit of juice out of the flesh with your thumbs and squeeze it again. The reason for the big bowl is you don’t need to be so specific about where the juice goes – you can get a bit tribal!

Pour it into a glass, fish out the pips with a spoon and top it up with water.

And they are SO cheap. And they make you feel AMAZING when you eat them. And they just POP when they’re cooked just right. Fresh. Vibrant.  Crisp, but still yielding on the tooth.

This is a way I’ve recently been cooking beans.

I boil them fast in half a centimetre of salted water in a frypan for a few minutes until they are almost exploding out of themselves with that vibrant GREEN.

Then I pour away the rest of the remaining water that hasn’t evaporated, add a teaspoon of good olive oil, a chopped garlic clove and fry it on high heat for about a minute.

I’ve been serving them with everything, in a bowl to share, next to pizza, stew, anything. And they were only 99cents a kilo today. This really is something that you see at top end restaurants – for $9 for a handful of beans.

Last Sunday I was given the opportunity to attend a workshop hosted by ‘Cakes by Judy C’ at Ashgrove.  Her shop sells an array of beautiful cakes, biscuits and other baked sweets. Just recently she has been offering workshops to small groups of people who are interested in learning specific cake decorating skills.  I’ve always been impressed with decorated cakes but daren’t try making one myself – I simply didn’t know how to do it! But since doing this workshop I have complete confidence that I will be able to ice a cake again at home. And this all comes down to Judy’s teaching style. She is a natural tutor – for the 5 ladies in the workshop, she first showed us how she would decorate the cake, and then we were each given a cake to decorate ourselves. Throughout this time she would move between us, offering advice and assistance if we needed it.

If you are interested in learning this skill, I highly recommend Judy’s workshops.

I was pleased as punch with my cake and so proud of what I had acheived. And at the end of the day we not only went home with our finished creations, but we also took with us the confidence of a new skill.

Here follows a step-by-step How To of icing a traditional fruit cake. I have focused mainly on the base icing only, because I feel that the only way to get that flawless, professional-looking cake is to get a perfect, satin-finish white base.  

 Here is a quick list of utensils and tools we used during the day. Most of them, apart from the wood float you probably will have already. If you would like to buy a wood float, you can contact Judy – she has them handmade! (I’m seriously thinking about getting one!)

• A cake to decorate
• Pettinice icing (or any good quality ’plastic’ icing)
• Cornflour
• Decorations
• Royal icing (eggwhite and icing sugar)
• Sherry
• A foil-lined card cake platter (or a plate!)
• dessert spoon and water
• Pastry brush
• Rolling pin
• Wood float /acrylic float (see photos below)
• a pin
• a small knife

Judy had baked a batch of beautiful fruit cakes for us and had them ready at room temperature. (P.S. Judy’s cake is to die for – one of the best I’ve ever had!)

Hot Tip! Often, before adding the fruit to the cake batter, she will smear some batter over the sides of the cake pan then  add the fruit to the batter and pour it in. This eliminates a lot of the extra fruit on the outside of the cake, which can cause dimples.

Turn the cake over so the flat bottom is facing up and remove the paper (Judy uses old butter paper to line her tins. I love her for that!! )

Hot Tip! To stop the cake from ’sweating’ after it’s complete, make sure the cake and the icing are at room temperature before you begin.

Make sure the cake sits in the centre of the presentation platter

If the cake is sitting unevenly, take some icing and roll it into a sausage with your hands and wedge it under the cake to ensure it sits flat

Make more thin sausages and with moist fingers press and wipe it along the bottom edge of the cake to fill the gap down there.  If there are any divits on the top or sides of the cake made by the fruit in the cake, press them down and see how far they go in. With wet fingers, press little smudges of icing into them to fill the hole.

As you go, wet the back of a dessertspoon and press and wipe the icing so it sits flat on the cake.

Wipe away any crumbs and water with a teatowel

Brush the whole cake with a fortified alcohol. You could use sherry (which we used), brandy, cognac or rum. Whatever you choose, to help preserve the cake, it must be over 17.5 percent alcohol.

Again, wipe away any crumbs off the platter and clean and dry your whole bench.

Dust your bench with pure cornflour, cut a large piece of pettinice icing from the block and knead it with your hands until you feel a change in texture to smooth and silky. The heat of your hands with make it more maleable.

Dust the dry bench again with plain cornflour. Roll the piece of icing until it will fit over the cake and down the sides. Don’t roll it too thin!

Pick it up and with one quick movement place it straight onto the cake.

Working quickly now – rub your hand across the top of the cake to make it smooth

Carefully smooth the sides and press it onto the cake

Rub the icing back and forth so there are no creases or lumps

This is a specialty tool, but it is wonderful! Use the smooth wood float to further smooth the surface of the icing. Rub it firmly across the top and around the sides

If you notice any air bubbles sitting under the icing take a very thin pin, find the airpocket with your finger and at an angle pierce the icing then press out the air with your finger and gently smooth it over.

With the acrylic icing trowel smooth the top and sides and with the edge cut into the icing all the way around the edge of the cake

Now use a knife to cut the excess icing completely away from the cake

Lift the excess icing away and smooth out the edges again with the trowel

Wipe away any smudges of icing from the presentation platter.

Ta Da! That’s how you ice a traditional fruit cake!

Use extra pettinice icing to make the decorations. It can be coloured using liquid food dyes. Massage the dye into it, then shape it how you wish.

To get the decorations to stick to the cake, use a small wet artists brush and use the water as a glue.

Add extra decorations (like these lovely red cinnamon flavoured holly berries)  by piping royal icing onto the cake. Also use the royal icing to add the candle wax detail and to use as a glue to help the inedible ribbon to stay put.

We used a little edible lustre powder to make the candles glow.

Iced cakes like this can last for months and months at room temperature – just pop them in a container so the bugs won’t get to it before you do!

I’m sorry to say this cake lasted no more than a few days – but it was delicious! My justification is that I plan to make one just like it again before Christmas to hone my skills.

Merry Christmas!

Cakes by Judy C

Shop 1/227 Waterworks Road
Ashgrove QLD 4060

Phone: (07) 3366 9111
Fax:(07) 3366 9222

http://www.cakesbyjudyc.com.au/

Follow your instincts to make pizza dough.  Because one thing I’ve learned when it comes to pizza dough is that you pretty much can’t get it wrong. The only thing is that the texture will be different each time – and that’s not a bad thing at all!

Try it with different flours, with or without oil, add some herbs or spices, add more or less water, yeast, salt… even try letting it rise for diffferent amounts of time.

Use your eyes, feel the density and elasticity with your fingers and the heel of your palm while you knead the dough.  Smell the yeast doing it’s thing.   Perhaps keep an eye on what you put in, just in case it turns into the perfect creation – and you can emulate it once more if you wish.

Now, I’m not saying I’ve perfected it – no where near it! But this a great exercise to allow your instincts to take over for a while. Get the practice of cooking out of your head and into your senses.

Ingredients. These are all approximates, go on…. follow your senses!

2 cups plain flour and extra for dusting

about 1 cup luke-warm water

1 tbsp olive oil

1 pinch salt

1 tsp instant dried yeast

1 tsp raw sugar

Method

Mix it up on your kitchen bench or in a big bowl, knead it, massage it – then leave it rest in a lovely warm spot (I pop it on my stove – unlit of course). You can use it straight away - it just won’t be so risen. Or you could leave it overnight! Do whatever makes you feel good – or whatever you have time for

Then, dust some flour over a baking sheet and roll the dough out, arrange your choice of toppings over the top and pop it in a moderate (180 degrees) oven until it looks delicious!

My Toppings

for the pizza sauce I used a can of tomatoes, heated in a frypan until it becomes very thick (it takes about 15 minutes. This is a very easy and very cheap way of making your own sauces!! and no added salt and nasties!)  But use can use any good pizza sauce

crispy bacon

fetta

baked pumpkin pieces

sundried tomato strips

lots of herbs from the garden – oregano, rosemary and thyme

grated cheese

Serve with some bright green vegies!

I’m almost all the seven dwarfs all at once. 

 So, it’s time to stop being such a bastard to my own body. 

And what better a place to start than to buy a few new fancy ingredients and have a play. Geeta Enterprises, a pokey, crowded, mess of a shop sits in the middle of McWhirters in The Valley -  right next to a lively tattoo parlour. I love poking around in there, checking out all the spices, chutneys, chilis, and a whole wall piled high with dried beans, legumes and rare flours. Of course, there’s a great selection of Indian beauty products too – and a great Bollywood soundtrack to boot!  I grabbed a massive bag of pre-mixed Dukkah for less than $5 and a big bottle of Pomegranate Mollases. I’d first heard of this syrup when I was googling pomegranates for this recipe, and it sounded delicious – sweet and sour. It’s actually quite potent – you don’t need too much. It’s cloyingly sweet, sour, surprisingly bitter and makes your mouth water – literally!

It goes perfectly with the yoghurt and fetta in this recipe  - actually, all the ingredients in this salad compliment each other perfectly. If I were you – I would try this recipe I was rather pleased when I stumbled upon it (then, of course, mucked around with the recipe!) and will be making it again.

Oh – and try it NOW! The star ingredients are in season!

Ingredients

2 large beetroots, chopped into 8 wedges then cut in half again

1/2 fennel bulb

1/2 spanish onion

2 slabs of moist, crumbly fetta  – cut into cubes

Salad greens, washed and ready to go

a few good dollops of low-fat greek yoghurt

a few tablespoons of pomegranate molasses, diluted with a tablespoon of water

olive oil

dukkah (feel free to make your own of course!)

salt and pepper

Method

1. Pop the beetroot into some cold salty water and bring to a boil. Cook for 20 minutes or until soft when skewered with a small blade. Remove from water and let cool a little

2. Cut the fennel and onion into slither-thin slices with a SHARP knife (golly - fennels are built like bunkers!)

3. Toss the fennel, onion, and greens with a tiny little bit of olive oil to make it all nice and shiny

3. Dollop yoghurt and smear across the plate with the back of a spoon (you know, like the REAL chefs do!)

4. Arrange the salad bits, beetroot and fetta on the plate

5. Drizzle some pomegranate molasses over it all, a pinch of dukkah, a crack of pepper maybe…

And you’re done!

Our little one had her 2nd birthday not long ago and is now ridiculously tall and ridiculously gorgeous and ridiculously intelligent. I would go so far as saying she is a down-right genius. Oh yes. And I know that I sound like every other proud parent, but of course, she is simply more advanced than every other child who has ever lived. hehe

The family came together to share a meal and wish her a happy birthday – I have made a pact with myself to ensure that I go to at least moderate effort when it comes to the birthday cake – I was a liiiittle lazy this year and went with simple cupcakes – this recipe was wonderful! With the addition of a few tablespoons of lavender it really made them lovely and fun. 

It is the ultimate old-skool cake topping – derived straight from the Woman’s Weekly Birthday Cake. Ladies and Gentlemen, if you remember this book you are my kindred spirit – floating through the 1980’s thinking only of the next birthday party - what will you ask Mum to make this year? Last year was the Dolly Varden Cake, maybe this year will be the jelly-filled swimming pool, or the cricket bat? Maybe the Train with 4 carriages, or the Cake Typewriter?

Cupcakes

Ingredients

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Line a muffin pan with paper cases.
2. Mix flour and sugar in a bowl
3. Then add the butter, eggs, milk, vanilla and lavender. Stir until combined
4. Dollop the mixture into the patty pans. Bake for 12-18 minutes or until golden and springy.
5. Leave to cool for a few minutes then pop them on a wire rack to cool completely before icing them.

Lavender Icing and decoration

• 150g butter, cubed, at room temperature
• 270g pure icing sugar, sifted
• 2 scant tbsp milk
• blue and red food colouring – to make purple
• Lollies - Marshmallows, sprinkles and smarties to decorate.

Method

1. Chuck the butter into a large mixing bowl. Use an electric beater to beat for 2 minutes or until it is a light colour and fluffy.
2. bit by bit add the icing sugar and beat the crap out of it until it’s very pale and fluffy. Add a little milk at a time until it’s at a thick spreading consistancy.
3. start adding a few drops of red and blue colour, slowly building up the colour until you’re happy with the intensity.
4. The flowers on top are made with one marshmallow per cupcake, and with a pair of scissors you cut 3 slices into the marshmallow to make 4 petals. Then you press one side into a saucer of sprinkles, arrange them on the icing and dot a smartie in the middle secured with a smidge of icing.
5. Don’t forget the candles!

Happy Birthday Chicken.

(Thanks Mum for booting me into gear to FINALLY update this neglected blog   Gee, if this blog was a puppy… )

Cupcake recipe adapted from Taste.com