If you want to control what goes into your toasted muesli (and also half the price of the supermarket box), you can make your own. It does not require specific equipment: an oven and a small food processor, a chopping board and a knife. You can even do without the food processor.
This recipe uses some dry fruits and nuts. Feel free to adapt the ingredients, for example you may want more nuts of various kinds and no dry fruits, or you may substitute the apricots with shredded coconut. I did not write down my first attempt to toasted muesli, it was a lot of nuts, chia seeds and coconut. One guiding rule: use (based on weight) round 60% weight of rolled oats. Commercial toasted muesli are most often 80% rolled oats.
Ingredients:
750 g rolled oats
150 g dry apricots
150 g dry figs
150 g pepitas
150 g hazelnuts
150 g raw macadamia
1/4 cup olive oil (use any good vegetable oil of your choice)
1/4 cup of liquid honey
1/2 tsp salt
Method:
With a large knife, cut the figs in strips and the apricots in small pieces up to 5 mm long
Place the nuts (macadamia and hazelnuts) in a small food processor and blend to reach small to medium size. For example, you want each hazelnut cut at least in two and each macadamia at least in four. I find that there will be some full nuts left and I will cut those with the knife on the chopping board. There may be a few whole nuts left, that’s all right.
In a large baking tray, place all dry ingredients, roughly mix.
Put the honey and oil in a small bowl, heat up 15 seconds in the microwave and pour over the mix. Using your hands, coat all the ingredients as much as you can.
Then bake on 180-200°C. After 10 minutes, use a fork to move the muesli around. Repeat every 10 minutes until toasted.
Three easy meals with leftover slow cooked meat! Yeah!
Ahead of a long day away from home, I sometimes use the convenience of the slow cooker to have dinner ready by the time we come home. Just practical, nothing fancy. Recently, I cooked a pork shoulder into pulled pork and we had quite a bit of leftovers. It can be quite difficult to find ideas to serve the leftovers pork differently. At other times, it may have been lamb or beef. Today, I am sharing three easy meals with leftover cooked meat.
Mushroom & pulled pork risotto.
This is great with any type of pork seasoning you may have used as you can use the risotto stock and type of cheese you use to balance the taste. Here I used the large king brown mushrooms; these mushrooms never made it to the quiche I had in mind at the back of my head when I bought them! Preparation and cooking time: 20-30 minutes or 30-40 if you take your time!
The good old shepherds’ pie (hachis Parmentier, in French).
What a crowd pleaser for all ages. Tasty meat with delicious mashed potatoes? You cannot go wrong. Here you can add tomato sauce, garlic and additional spices if required to balance the flavours or add some vegetables to make it a bit lighter and increase the volume of the lower part of the dish is this is necessary. There are hundreds of ways to go about it.
Preparation and cooking time – 40-50 minutes with a lot of hand free time between steps!
I love wraps filled with lamb, a bit of yogurt, some green leaves and fresh chilli! Preparation and cooking time is very low, you only need to reheat the meat throughout and prepare your green leaves, lets say 10-15 minutes maximum!
These chocolate crackle tops are easy chocolate biscuits to make. They suit all ages, can be used for parties, lunch boxes, morning or afternoon tea or with a simple dessert like yoghurt or stewed apples. This is a recipe perfect for involving the children: mixing, adding ingredients including breaking the eggs, measuring ingredients, forming balls, coating the balls,…
I tried the original version and a version where I removed the cocoa because I was using a strong chocolate and did not see necessary to add the cocoa. Below is the original version and how to apply the variation.
Round 2, icing sugar finely sieved
Makes 35-40
Ingredients
200 g dark cooking chocolate
90 g of butter
115 g of caster sugar
5 ml of vanilla essence
200 g of plain flour
½ tsp of baking powder
Pinch of salt (omit if using salted butter)
25 g cocoa powder
100 – 150 g of icing sugar for coating (see recipe)Tip: Using or not cocoa powder. if you use a chocolate with a high level of cocoa, adding the cocoa will make the biscuits too strong in chocolate. Either use a 50 % cocoa cooking chocolate and the cocoa or if using a 70% chocolate, do not add the cocoa and add one tablespoon of flour (or the dough will be too wet).
Method
Melt chocolate and butter until smooth
Add eggs one at the time, mixing in between each egg
Add sugar
Stir in vanilla essence
Add in at once the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder.
Your dough would be quite soft. Place a plastic film on top and place in the fridge for at least an hour (or a day!). If you have used couverture chocolate, you dough would be fine to use straight away (couverture chocolate crystallise quite quick when cooling down).
Once the dough is hard enough, remove from the fridge. Heat up the oven to 180 deg C. Use an ice-cream spoon or any strong spoon to form walnut size pieces. Roll in a ball. Place a couple tablespoons of icing sugar in a larger bowl and dust the balls all over. Remove any excess by shaking it off.
Place on a baking sheet covered with a baking paper or buttered. Insert in the oven for no more than 10 minutes (between 7 and 10 minutes). The top should be lightly firm. Transfer to a cooling rack. You will need two rounds or two baking sheet to bake all the biscuits. Keep well for a week in a box.
Tip: Ensure the icing sugar is fully free of lumps for an even result.
Rolling to a walnut size ball
Coating in icing sugar , ready, steady, roll!
Placing on baking sheet
Version 1- original (as you can see I had not sieved the icing sugar to full dust)Version 2 – very thin coat of icing sugar , this batch omitted the cocoa
How to get that amazing pizza at home? The secrets of a good pizza are many but they are simple and accessible to anybody. I stumbled on them through trial and errors and input from different people, including my brother or a previous flatmate. Now I think we have nailed it! I say we, because my two daughters are now in charge of the topping and are getting pretty good at it.
We do pizzas regularly, maybe a few times per month. A pity I don’t take more photos or them, the ones last weekend were amazing! My children invariably ask for the Hawaiian pizza (ham, cheese, pineapple). Not my favourite! The “grown up” pizza is different depending what we have in the fridge: a salami pizza, a three cheese pizza, a vegetarian pizza and even a tahini based with spices mince pizza.
A variation of the traditional Hawaiian pizza, swapping ham for sausages
Here are my secrets, I expend on each further down:
The dough: keep it thin and simple
The order of the ingredient: cheese does not go on top but directly above the tomato sauce
The quality of the ingredients: good quality ingredients and please no tin food (exception of the pineapples pieces!), use fresh food!
Limit the amount of main ingredients: there should be up to 3 key ingredients above the cheese layer, no more. See the list below
The use of a hot oven and pizza tray or pizza stone: make sure your oven is super hot, same for the pizza tray. I use these large aluminium pizza tray (less than $10 each at hospitality stores, same as in pizza shops), they do a great job and are easy to handle. I prepare the pizza on baking paper which when ready I slide onto the hot tray.
Here we go in more details.
Secret No 1: the dough
Making your own dough at home is not hard nor does it require hard labour. Feel free to use a food mixer (dough hook) but if you are making just one pizza, your food mixer may be too big for the small amount of dough. For pizza, I don’t mind doing it by hand from the start.
Preparing the dough
A very large pizza (or 2 medium) will need 250 g plain flour (bakers flour if you have some), 150 g of warm water, 1/2 sachet of dry yeast (4 g), a good pinch of salt, 1/2 tsp of honey, a drop of olive oil.
Note here that honey and olive oil are not strictly necessary t the process. I find that the olive oil makes the process easier and smoother and gives the pizza base a little extra taste. The honey is not necessary to the rising of the dough, it does help accelerate it and more importantly for me, give a tiny sweet touch to the base.
It is important not to put the salt in direct contact with the yeast (it kills it).
Mix all together, if the dough is a little dry add additional water one spoon at the time (it can happen as some flours require more water). Once you have a ball, punch that ball on the counter back and forth. it is very easy if you alternate hands each time: push with the right hand to the back (and a bit left for ease), bring back, push with the left hand to the back (and right) and bring back. This move is effortless.
Last weekend, I had some friends of my young children wanting to help in the kitchen towards the end of their playdate, the 6 years old little girl did a great job while chatting away, just to show you how effortless it is.
After 5 minutes your dough will be quite soft and flexible. This is enough, let it to rest in a bowl covered with a cloth. If you don’t have much time, give it 1/2 h rest minimum, otherwise, wait until double, knock back gently, this is then ready to use.
A thin dough
Unless you train again and again to master extending the dough when suspended on the top of your fist, you need to find something that works for you. For me, I simply use a rolling pin with a little flour for dusting . I roll the dough quite thin over a baking paper. Make sure it does not stick to it, and rest for a few minutes while getting all the ingredients ready (or calling in the kids to do the topping). And don’t worry if the form tends to look like the map of Australia, even better!
Secret No 2: the order of the ingredients
The order should be:
Tomato sauce
Cheese
If I am using white mushrooms very thinly sliced, this is when I put them
Meat or vegetable
Additional item such as olives, capers, small quantities of blue or goat cheese
And finally some salt if necessary and a filet of olive oil
Secret No 3: the quality of the ingredients
If there is something I do not like it is to get tinned vegetables on my pizza, let it be artichokes, peppers or others, yuk! They taste of tin food, most of the time because they have not been rinsed.
For me, a pizza is a great opportunity to use these remaining mushrooms, or that lonely capsicum which otherwise may have to wait a little longer until I get an idea of finally chuck the all in a soup or casserole! Be creative! And if you are not the creative kind, don’t worry, planning for pizza in your shopping will at least mean no bad surprises!
Secret No 4: limit the amount and numbers of ingredients
Caution! You are not trying to replicate Mt Everest, nor are you trying to empty your fridge. If so, invite your friends and have a pizza party!
For me, a maximum of three core ingredients is like an unspoken practice. Then there are the small garnishes which can add a lot to a pizza. See the table below.
Base
Core ingredients
Additions
Tomato
red onions
fresh thyme, rosemary
salami, ham
little specks of goat cheese or blue cheese
pinapple
olives
mushrooms (white or the asian styles, which then go on top)
capers
capsicum cut in long strips
dash of olive oil
green asparagus
pressed garlic (small quantities here and there)
thinly sliced potatoes (the waxy style)
cherry tomatoes (cut in halves or full)
anchovies
fresh salmon, prawns, fish pieces, mussel and other seafood (all in raw form)
for a cheese pizza, the different cheese
bocconcini
Thinly sliced fresh tomatoes
Sour cream
Salmon (fresh), capers
olives, fresh dill (once cooked)
red onion cut in circles
Tahini
spiced mince (mix mince with 2 tbsp tomato paste and marocan spice mix)
pressed garlic
olives, rosemary, fresh herb (once cooked)
cherry tomatoes (cut in halves or full)
Asian mushrooms and asparagus. This one was a trial, it was actually quite beautiful!Hawaiian pizza
Secret No 5: the cooking of the pizza
Now, you need a super hot oven to start with and as importantly a hot base. Either you use a pizza stone or a pizza tray, up to you. The bricks of a wood fired pizza oven play a great role in getting that base cooked and crispy. If you base is too thick, you will most likely overcook the top. What temperature? I preheat my oven at 250 °C, and bring it down at 200 for the cooking.
Cooking time ? 10 minutes roughly. Just enough to prepare the side salad!
How to get that amazing pizza at home? The secrets of a good pizza are many but they are simple and accessible to anybody. I stumbled on them through trial and errors and input from different people, including my brother or a previous flatmate. Now I think we have nailed it! I say we, because my two daughters are now in charge of the topping and are getting pretty good at it.
We do pizzas regularly, maybe a few times per month. A pity I don’t take more photos or them, the ones last weekend were amazing! My children invariably ask for the Hawaiian pizza (ham, cheese, pineapple). Not my favourite! The “grown up” pizza is different depending what we have in the fridge: a salami pizza, a three cheese pizza, a vegetarian pizza and even a tahini based with spices mince pizza.
A variation of the traditional Hawaiian pizza, swapping ham for sausages
Here are my secrets, I expend on each further down:
The dough: keep it thin and simple
The order of the ingredient: cheese does not go on top but directly above the tomato sauce
The quality of the ingredients: good quality ingredients and please no tin food (exception of the pineapples pieces!), use fresh food!
Limit the amount of main ingredients: there should be up to 3 key ingredients above the cheese layer, no more. See the list below
The use of a hot oven and pizza tray or pizza stone: make sure your oven is super hot, same for the pizza tray. I use these large aluminium pizza tray (less than $10 each at hospitality stores, same as in pizza shops), they do a great job and are easy to handle. I prepare the pizza on baking paper which when ready I slide onto the hot tray.
Here we go in more details.
Secret No 1: the dough
Making your own dough at home is not hard nor does it require hard labour. Feel free to use a food mixer (dough hook) but if you are making just one pizza, your food mixer may be too big for the small amount of dough. For pizza, I don’t mind doing it by hand from the start.
Preparing the dough
A very large pizza (or 2 medium) will need 250 g plain flour (bakers flour if you have some), 150 g of warm water, 1/2 sachet of dry yeast (4 g), a good pinch of salt, 1/2 tsp of honey, a drop of olive oil.
Note here that honey and olive oil are not strictly necessary t the process. I find that the olive oil makes the process easier and smoother and gives the pizza base a little extra taste. The honey is not necessary to the rising of the dough, it does help accelerate it and more importantly for me, give a tiny sweet touch to the base.
It is important not to put the salt in direct contact with the yeast (it kills it).
Mix all together, if the dough is a little dry add additional water one spoon at the time (it can happen as some flours require more water). Once you have a ball, punch that ball on the counter back and forth. it is very easy if you alternate hands each time: push with the right hand to the back (and a bit left for ease), bring back, push with the left hand to the back (and right) and bring back. This move is effortless.
Last weekend, I had some friends of my young children wanting to help in the kitchen towards the end of their playdate, the 6 years old little girl did a great job while chatting away, just to show you how effortless it is.
After 5 minutes your dough will be quite soft and flexible. This is enough, let it to rest in a bowl covered with a cloth. If you don’t have much time, give it 1/2 h rest minimum, otherwise, wait until double, knock back gently, this is then ready to use.
A thin dough
Unless you train again and again to master extending the dough when suspended on the top of your fist, you need to find something that works for you. For me, I simply use a rolling pin with a little flour for dusting . I roll the dough quite thin over a baking paper. Make sure it does not stick to it, and rest for a few minutes while getting all the ingredients ready (or calling in the kids to do the topping). And don’t worry if the form tends to look like the map of Australia, even better!
Secret No 2: the order of the ingredients
The order should be:
Tomato sauce
Cheese
If I am using white mushrooms very thinly sliced, this is when I put them
Meat or vegetable
Additional item such as olives, capers, small quantities of blue or goat cheese
And finally some salt if necessary and a filet of olive oil
Secret No 3: the quality of the ingredients
If there is something I do not like it is to get tinned vegetables on my pizza, let it be artichokes, peppers or others, yuk! They taste of tin food, most of the time because they have not been rinsed.
For me, a pizza is a great opportunity to use these remaining mushrooms, or that lonely capsicum which otherwise may have to wait a little longer until I get an idea of finally chuck the all in a soup or casserole! Be creative! And if you are not the creative kind, don’t worry, planning for pizza in your shopping will at least mean no bad surprises!
Secret No 4: limit the amount and numbers of ingredients
Caution! You are not trying to replicate Mt Everest, nor are you trying to empty your fridge. If so, invite your friends and have a pizza party!
For me, a maximum of three core ingredients is like an unspoken practice. Then there are the small garnishes which can add a lot to a pizza. See the table below.
Base
Core ingredients
Additions
Tomato
red onions
fresh thyme, rosemary
salami, ham
little specks of goat cheese or blue cheese
pinapple
olives
mushrooms (white or the asian styles, which then go on top)
capers
capsicum cut in long strips
dash of olive oil
green asparagus
pressed garlic (small quantities here and there)
thinly sliced potatoes (the waxy style)
cherry tomatoes (cut in halves or full)
anchovies
fresh salmon, prawns, fish pieces, mussel and other seafood (all in raw form)
for a cheese pizza, the different cheese
bocconcini
Thinly sliced fresh tomatoes
Sour cream
Salmon (fresh), capers
olives, fresh dill (once cooked)
red onion cut in circles
Tahini
spiced mince (mix mince with 2 tbsp tomato paste and marocan spice mix)
pressed garlic
olives, rosemary, fresh herb (once cooked)
cherry tomatoes (cut in halves or full)
Asian mushrooms and asparagus. This one was a trial, it was actually quite beautiful!Hawaiian pizza
Secret No 5: the cooking of the pizza
Now, you need a super hot oven to start with and as importantly a hot base. Either you use a pizza stone or a pizza tray, up to you. The bricks of a wood fired pizza oven play a great role in getting that base cooked and crispy. If you base is too thick, you will most likely overcook the top. What temperature? I preheat my oven at 250 °C, and bring it down at 200 for the cooking.
Cooking time ? 10 minutes roughly. Just enough to prepare the side salad!
Spare time this weekend? What about homemade Easter eggs?
I tried this last weekend with my daughters. This is a lot of fun, and yes, the children do tend to eat a fair bit of the chocolate in the process. I used couverture dark chocolate, couverture milk chocolate and couverture white chocolate. Now if you do not have the couverture chocolate, use a good quality one from the supermarket. For white chocolate, it will not change anything because white chocolate is purely cocoa butter (and sugar). What is important to ensure the little eggs and bigger eggs too come off the moulds in one piece and all shiny, is to temper the chocolate. You do need a special thermometer with a range at least between 25 and 55°C. Those are easy to find in any cooking shop. And since you are going to that shop, get a few moulds for chocolates! For small pieces, silicone or plastic moulds are fine, for larger pieces, I prefer the plastic ones, they are easier to use when comes the time to pop out the piece from the mould.
Tempering the chocolate is a three stages process, the chocolate needs to be melted slowly (ideally on a bain marie), then cooled down to about 26-27°C. For that stage, there are a few approaches. Finally, the chocolate is slightly warmed up to 31-32°C which makes it easier to work with (a little more runny).
The cooling down of the chocolate (step 2) can be done by:
Waiting until the chocolate cools down mixing from time to time. Pretty straight forward but the longest in term of time.
Adding to the melted chocolate some finely cut pieces of the same chocolate. This exchange of energy will make your mix cool down much quicker. Keep mixing until the added pieces are fully melted.
pouring the chocolate on a marble top, spreading and gathering it with a flat spatula. You may have seen that method on TV cooking shows. Go for it if you want to try it, I can’t tell you much about it.
Measuring the temperature during the tempering process
Now is the time to use your little moulds, if you want to have them hollow for filling latter, pour tempered chocolate over the mould, distribute to each print, it must be full. Then place yourself over the bowl of chocolate and pour back the excess. Use a large knive to clean the top surface and place to cool down in the fridge. Once they are hard, you can do the filling.
If you want full eggs (or other shape), keep the print full, clean the top surface and let to cool down and harden (again quicker in the fridge). You can choose to mix up colours or to have a little of another chocolate for a feature part of the item, as is the case on the flowers we made.
To attach two halves together, heat up a baking sheet (not too hot). Place each half on it to melt the edges a little. If you are filling the eggs with a truffle, fill them ensuring they do not overflow. Then stick the two halves together!
Tips: try to keep clean hands to avoid leaving traces on the tempered chocolate
Tips: White chocolate, then milk chocolate will harden much quicker than dark chocolate. Tis is directly related to the proportion of cocoa butter in the chocolate.
Making larger pieces
This can get a little tricky. The key is to make sure the thickness of the chocolate is sufficient in the fragile parts: the edges, the collars of the bunny, ears of the bunny , etc.
Pour the chocolate, remove the excess after 2 minutes. Cool down (quicker in the fridge). When solidified repeat and place face down on a baking paper sheet. If you judge that the edges are too thin, use a kitchen brush to add chocolate along the edges. Cool down completely. The shapes will actually come undone from the mould on their own, this can take overnight. Alternatively, when you see it has solidified, you can pull out opposite sides of the moulds to check if the form is ready to come out. Then you just need to assemble by melting the edges of both pieces on a warm baking sheet and joining together.
I was watching Masterchef the other night and Nigella (Lawson) had included in a challenge a coffee pannacotta. I am not a coffee fan, but I do like a nice pannacotta from time to time. This chai pannacotta is great! It is simple to make and apart for some cooling time, quite quick too. The recipe is adapted from Valli Little book “Home Cooking”.
Plan to make it at least 4 hours before serving to ensure it sets.
I used a chai tea mix, but if you don’t have access to a good chai tea, you can make your own.
Makes 4.
Ingredient:
300 ml milk
3 teaspoons of good quality chai tea. To make your own combine 1 cinnamon quill, 6 cloves, 6 cardamon pods, 1 tsp fennel seeds, 1 tsp mixed spices, 1 tbs black tea leaves.
55 g caster sugar
1/2 vanilla bean, split, seeds scrapped. I alternatively used ground vanilla beans (1/2 tsp)
3 leaves of gelatin gold strength
300 ml thickened cream, whipped to soft peaks
To serve: rhubarb compote or chocolate sauce, poached fruits would also work very well.
Method:
Place the milk, chai tea, sugar and vanilla in a saucepan and heat up on slow heat until sugar dissolves. Brings to a small simmer and allow to cook for a few minutes (3-5). Remove from the heat an leave to infuse.
In the meanwhile, break the gelatin leaves an place in a bowl with cold water to soften. 5 minutes is enough. Squeeze out the excess water and add to the warm milk mix, stir and make sure it is fully dissolved.
Pass through a thin strainer and let to cool close to room temperature (or you whipped cream will liquefy if incorporated in too hot a liquid).
Fold the whipped cream into the cooled mixture. I like using a very wide whisk holding it on its size and turning the mixture gently from bottom up (like if inserting egg whites).
Pour into 4 darioles or silicone darioles moulds. Place in the fridge.
To unmould, if using rigid darioles moulds place the base of the dariole mould quickly in hot water, then turn over the serving plate. Wih silicone darioles, you can use a sharp knife around the edge, turn over the serving plate and “massage” the bottom until the pannacotta gently pops on the plate.
Sydney bakeries part 2 (of 2 for now) is ready for you! Last week, I posted on recipes tried from Bourke St Bakery, essentially from one of their book. This week, it is about another bakery I have discovered at the Orange Grove Market . I am speaking about Flour and Stone. What I like about this bakery is the home feeling, the products look beautiful and somehow rustic at the same time. The other reason I like them, is that I have been making some of the same products at home, same same!
The recipes I am providing are mine. I have not consulted the Flour and Stone’s recipes (yet), only googled quickly to check if some were online. If you are after some of their recipes, there are a few on the web (google Flour and Stone or Nadine Ingram).
The recipe I am not giving, I would have to work it out to do so, is the one for this yummy lemon curd doughnut pictured above. Really nice!
Tarte fine aux pommes (apple tarte fine)
This is a traditional French tarte, most often found in bakeries. The tarte consists of puff pastry, apples, butter and sugar. My full recipe is HERE.
The next recipe is a bit of a mouthful, hang on:
Raspberry and buttermilk flourless chocolate cake
The name says it all, it is a moist chocolate cake (addictive actually!), it uses buttermilk and almond meals and with the raspberries, it is simply irresistible!
You can make it as a large cake or in individual portions (which is great to!). I made that cake up (and wrote the proportions down) about 8 years ago! I remember because it became the favourite after diner snack of a Swedish flatmate at the time, when she left, she specifically asked for the recipe (which I gave her). The recipe is HERE.
The recipe for this flourless raspberry, almond and chocolate cake was created out of a test I did one night some eight years ago. I had completely forgotten about it, until I visited the Orange Grove market a year ago where the same cakes in individual portions are sold.
When I first made this cake, we lived in Bondi Beach. I remember because it became the favourite after diner snack of a Swedish flatmate at the time, when she left, she specifically asked for the recipe (which I gave her).
Now, more important for some of you, this cake has no flour! If you run out of almond meal as happens to me from time to time, you can swap for hazelnut meal, I tried, it works!
Ingredients:
Makes a 20 cm ring cake.
40 g butter
2 tablespoon cocoa powder
100 g dark cooking chocolate
1/2 cup of buttermilk
2 eggs
50 g of caster sugar
75 g of almond meal
1 cup of frozen raspberries
Method:
Preheat oven to 160°C, line the bottom of a 20 cm diameter (or close to 20 cm) circular tin.
Melt the chocolate and butter together.
Add one after the other one, mixing well in between: the sugar, cocoa powder, and buttermilk.
Now, add the egg yolks one at the time keeping the eggwhites in a separate bowl.
Add the almond meal.
Beat the egg white to snow and gently fold in.
Pour the batter in the tin and spread delicately the raspberries on top.
Bake until the centre is settled (no longer wobbly).For the baking the key is to cook slowly to prevent burning.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool down completely before removing the cake from the tin.
Am I the only one being tempted by a good bakery? I don’t think so. Here are a few words and recipes from a few tempting Sydney bakeries.
Today’s post is going to be challenging, first because of computer issues (mine is at the computer doctor) and also because I am missing a few photos because i could not complete a recipe… Not a complete disaster but well….I ran out of eggs ! I was making the first stage of a brioche dough which I will use to make small brioches for school (and me at work :-)) lunchboxes, when I realised the egg-situation. I was short of one egg! How could that be possible? There were two boxes of eggs in the fridge, but, as i found out, almost empty ones. No blame there on households habits! I should have known better, it is towards the end of the week.
I manage for my brioche dough, being one egg short but using some egg-wash from yesterday as a complement, however I did not get to prepare my gluten free raspberry chocolate fondant! You will understand the link in a moment.
Some bakeries I like in Sydney…
What do I like in a bakery? First I would have to like the products, maybe not all, but enough to come back (except if really outpriced!). Second, it is about the people and how the bakery comes through on the social plan.
Do you know that on weekends, you can make great bakeries discoveries when you wonder to some markets like the Paddington market, the Orange Grove market, the Carriage Works market, Pyrmont market (which I have never been to) and so on.
There are quite a number of good bakeries these days: Iggys, Bourke St bakery, Brickfield, Labancz, Grumpy baker, Zumbo, Bondi Organic Republic (thought I have not been there for ages, this is their new name), and plenty more. Let’s chat about Bourke St Bakery, Flour and Stone, and Brickfield Bakery.
Bourke St Bakery
Bourke St Bakery opened quite a while ago, initially in Surry Hills, they quickly became a reference bakery. The products are very good as you will first experience by the size of the queue, then directly trying not to buy too much! There are now a number of other shops, often easier to get to. Their bread is really good!
Bourke St Bakery, Surry Hills
Apart from their amazing bread, Bourke St bakery does a lot of small cakes and viennoiseries. They have a book on pretty much most of their products called “The ultimate baking companion”. I borrowed the book recently at our local library and have been trying a few recipes. I still have not returned the book, I would like to try some of the shortcrust pastries! I found that for a novice to bread making (I am not one of them) the bread recipes are a bit too technical or skipping a few explanation which would be very useful. For the other recipes, the recipes are great, beware of the quantities, they are designed for large volumes! Also beware that they use fresh yeast and not dry yeast. I did get caught on one recipe, I was furious with myself!
Tip: Rule of thumb: Dry yeast x 3 (in grams) = fresh yeast in grams
I tried a bread from that book, it was nice, oups, no photos. Otherwise, from that book:
The Dark Chocolate and Raspberry Muffins (CLICK CLICK FOR RECIPE). They are truly delicious, I highly recommend you do them. They please adults and children!
The chocolate prune brownie (CLICK CLICK !!!). I love the use of the soaked prune in that brownie, but it is very strong in chocolate (too much) and way too sweet for me. That said, I brought it to work, left it on the bench with a little note in the office shared kitchen and I could hear people coming back from the kitchen and their comments of appreciation (most had not even read to the bottom of the very short note to check who baked them!). Of course, there was no left overs. I also recommend respecting the cooking time, if the top seem stable, the bottom may be too gooey, decrease the oven and keep baking! I had to put mine straight back in the oven (the photo was taken when i first got it out).
The croissants and pains au chocolat. They were extra! Since we cannot eat 24 croissants and 24 pains au chocolat upfront, I froze the croissants and pains au chocolat just after making them (uncooked, before the last rising). I take them out the evening before breakfast, egg-wash them and let them on the kitchen bench on the tray i will bake them in, i cover them with a large humidified plastic box and bake in the morning. In terms of aesthetics, it does the trick, but i find they do not taste as good as when not frozen. I am not placing the recipe here, if you want it, contact me.
The rest very soon! I need to do my raspberry chocolate cake before speaking of Flour and Stone and it is getting late for today.
This Dark Chocolate and Raspberry Muffins recipe from Bourke St bakery (the Ultimate Baking Companion) is a winner! Light, with chocolate and raspberries (what else?) and easy to make.
A couple important comments :
The recipe calls for large muffin trays, it is definitely the very large ones! The large ones you may have at home are perfect too, you will just end up with more muffins!
Use good quality muffin paper cases as the mix is quite liquid and otherwise will end up soaking the paper and the muffin will stick to the tin, it will be harder to remove them.
Makes 12 (or about 20 if you use the “home size” muffin trays)
A recipe from Bourke Street Bakery
Ingredients:
• 400 g plain flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 300 g caster sugar
• 310 g unsalted butter
• 480 ml buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 eggs
• 225 g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
• 225 g raspberries, fresh or frozen
• 55 g raw sugar
• Icing sugar, for dusting
Method
Preheat the oven to 190°C (375°F). Lightly grease a 12-hole muffin tin and line with paper cases.
Sift the flour and baking paper into a bowl and add the sugar, mixing well to combine.
Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat, then remove from the heat and stir in the buttermilk. Using a whisk stir in the eggs to combine. Pour over the dry ingredients and whisk to combine. Use a large spoon to gently fold through the chocolate and raspberries. Don’t overmix.
Spoon the mixture into the prepared muffin tins. Sprinkle the tops with raw sugar. Reduce the oven temperature to 180°C (350°F) and bake for 20-25 minutes. For smaller ones, cook for around 10 -15 minutes. It may be necessary to drop the temperature about 10 minutes before the end of baking time if the muffins are starting to brown on top.
To test if the muffins are done, push the top gently to feel that it is firm. Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tins for 10 minutes before eating. Dust with icing sugar to serve.
To attach two halves together, heat up a baking sheet (not too hot). Place each half on it to melt the edges a little. If you are filling the eggs with a truffle, fill them ensuring they do not overflow. Then stick the two halves together!
