Here goes another school lunchbox bake. This one is born out of last week storms. From Friday to Sunday, we had strong lightning storms at the end of the days, the storms were quite gusty too! As a result we lost power for a couple of days from Sunday. Not just our house, but all of Scotland Island and the western foreshore actually (map here); a couple of trees brought lines down.
Back to my story, I had this block of beautiful ricotta in the fridge which on day two I realised was not going to last much longer. What do you do with ricotta. Ricotta pancake? Yum, but, no thank you that day. Pasta ricotta bake? Yum, well, one of my daughter is not fan. I was also planning to bake a plain cake of some sort and divide into portions for the children’s lunch boxes. Think a second, what do you like ricotta with? Orange, honey, rhubarb, figs, berries, nuts…all those end of summer, early autumn flavours.
The cake of the week, a 4 minutes chocolate mousse cake
This is the cake of the week. I had been going through my list of recipes “to try”. I must have had this one for a few years!
In essence it is a chocolate cake. What is great is the texture, light and soft. The taste is intense chocolate heaven! Ahah! It is very strong in chocolate warning. We had this cake over two dinners. Try it, it will take 10 minutes to prepare and 4 to bake!
It is not a very tall cake (or use a smaller diameter tin than me, it was my smallest at 18 cm). The recipe is HERE.
Here is a raspberry and ricotta muffin recipe which is another great way to use excess ricotta, something different to making ricotta pancakes (which is really good too!). I made up another ricotta muffin recipe the same day, they are pretty good too: Walnut, honey, orange and ricotta muffins (CLICK HERE).
Makes 15
Ingredients:
1 ½ cup of ricotta
250 g of plain flour
2 tsp of raising powder
130 g of melted butter
200 g of white sugar
3 eggs
1 cup of milk
2 cups of frozen raspberries (do not thaw them)
Some coarse granular sugar for the top
Method:
Pre-heat oven to 180°C
Mix the ricotta, milk, sugar and eggs until the mix is completely smooth (no ricotta lumps left)
Add the flour and raising powder, mix well
Add the raspberries gently.
Using a large spoon, spoon mixture in muffin cases. Sprinkle with granulated sugar. Bake until well golden.
Yoghurt cake (gateau au yahourt) is a french classic. Each kid would have made it quite a few times. One of my brother use to make it for quite a while every Wednesday (we didn’t have school Wednesdays) for afternoon tea (he was about 8 and unhelped after a couple weeks). The cake weight reference or rather volume reference is the little pot of yogurt. Since here, yogurt is found in larger quantities, I use a measuring cup as a reference or a glass.
This recipe is the “original version” as you will encounter most of the time. I love the crusty edges of the cake and the unctuous interior. It is very good as well dipped in tea or milk.
You can reduce by 1/3 the sugar if you find it to sweet as this is quite a sweet cake. You may found this cake a bit floury, sometimes it annoys me, this is why I alter with another recipe (CLICK HERE).
One very important thing, respect the quantity of baking powder (1 level teaspoon, which is less than the amount suggested on the baking powder box per cup of flour), or your cake will have a great ride (it has happened to me)!
In the photo here, I used the mix as a base to cup cakes. Two 7 y.o. did the recipe and obviously decorating under light supervision. I have used this recipe for birthday cake (reducing the sugar) with pink food colourant added.
A yoghurt cake is normally cooked in a round cake tin 20-25 cm diameter.
Ingredients:
1 yoghurt pot (about 125 g natural yogurt, unsweetened) – the container is then used to measure the other ingredients
3 pots of white sugar (about 300 g)
3 eggs
3/4 pot of oil (I use a light taste oil such as sunflower)
1 pot of cornflour
2 pots of plain flour
1 level teaspoon of raising powder (or one sachet if it comes under that format)
Method:
Preheat the oven to 170°C . Butter and flour you tin well, alternatively line it with baking paper.
Empty the yoghurt in a large bowl. Rinse and dry the container. You will use it to measure the other ingredients.
Add the sugar. Mix
Add the eggs one at the time mixing well between each addition.
Add the oil and mix.
Add all at once the cornflour, four and baking powder. Mix from the centre including in your circle the dry ingredients as you go. If there are lumps, use a large whisk and mix energetically.
Transfer the mix to the tin and place in the oven.
It takes about 40 minutes to cook (until a skewer come out dry) and may have a little hump and a crack in the middle. If it becomes too dark early either reduce the oven or cover with aluminium foil.
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.
The orange, honey, walnut and ricotta muffins
