Archives for "Food"
Pea Shoots
When I was still living at home, dad used to take the family out for dinner. One of the dishes that was very tasty, but rarely ordered was pea shoots stir-fried with garlic.
With that in mind, I ordered some from my favorite online seed shop (http://www.kingsseeds.co.nz/). They had this variety called Fiji Feathers (Product Code 5525) that I thought I’d try.
So, the peas arrived about a month ago, and I sowed some in 6 small-ish containers and a container each of mustard and cress. Within 2 weeks, I had mustard and cress tall enough to snip with scissors.
Cress and Mustard
The WhiteOut Cake
So, Mr K’s mate at work turned 30 today. So rather than make another dark chocolate cake, I decided to make the Vanilla & White Chocolate Cake found in Baked: New Frontiers in Baking.
I made this cake over 2 days – bake the layers one day and then ice/frost the next day. I read somewhere that baking a day or two in advance helps the cake layers to keep its shape and not crumble when it’s cut.
By itself, the cake tastes… um… well, let’s just say I prefer a rich and moist vanilla pound cake. However – combined with the frosting, it’s just perfect. (I must admit I cringed at the amount of butter in the frosting.)
The White-Out Cake
Will I make this again? I’m not sure… but it sure did look pretty and sophisticated once it was done – even though my attempt at icing was very uneven in a lot of places.
Here’s the recipe on http://sweetapolita.com, if you’d like to give it a try. 
Another post about blueberries..
So… after lunch today I decided to make a Blueberry Crumb Cake for dessert after dinner. I saw that The Pioneer Woman had a recipe on her site and it was on my list of things to try. After all, we have a freezer full of blueberries and can spare a couple of cupfuls for this cake.
I got all the ingredients ready, but could not find my brownie tin. So I used an 8-inch round cake tin, which meant that it took much longer to bake and it would have overflowed if I didn’t have a baking paper fence surrounding the batter.
The verdict? It was yummy – we couldn’t wait, so Miss S and I had a slice each (that was a quarter of the cake) – still piping hot with a big dollop of vanilla ice cream on top for afternoon tea. Mmmm… cake for dinner?
Blueberry Crumb Cake
Big Chocolate Cookies
A few days ago, Annie’s Eats posted this recipe on her blog. Her photos are so incredible, I can almost taste the cookies! Almost, but not quite… so I printed out the recipe and decided to make a batch.
As I didn’t have enough chocolate drops/bits, a whole block of dark chocolate went into the mixture.
250g block of chopped dark chocolate
It was a very simple recipe to make. It wasn’t too sweet (which was great). It was rich and chocolatey, and I would definitely make this again – Miss S sized, so she can have a “whole” cookie rather than a 1/4 of a massive one.
1 large cookie waiting to be eaten
Chomp.. yum.... soft cookie, melted chocolate... you get the idea..
Spinach and Broccoli
Mr K walked in the door after work yesterday and said “Yum. Pizza.”
Then, “It’s vegetarian, isn’t it?”. His enthusiasm fell a notch.
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When I saw this recipe on Annie’s Eats, I wanted to try it. It’s like a broccoli and spinach gratin but in pizza form – who wouldn’t love that? Well, apart from those who do not like broccoli or spinach or both.
I overloaded the pizzas with baby spinach leaves and went overboard with the cheese and baked them till the cheese was bubbly and golden. Then, I topped it off with flaked salmon pieces (salted a fresh salmon fillet liberally and grilled it while the pizza stones were heating) – so, it’s not vegetarian.
Mr K took a bite, “It’s not half bad.” And proceeded to eat 4 more pieces. Miss S loved it too, despite the adamant “I don’t want any green stuff”.
Salmon, Broccoli & Spinach Pizza Slice
It tastes nice by itself, but the grilled salmon adds another dimension to the taste and texture.
Proof in the telling – Miss S asked to have the leftovers for lunch just now and polished off 2 pieces with no complaints – greens and all!
BAKED brownies
Yep.. this is the 3rd recipe I’ve tried from the Baked book. And I have to admit, I really REALLY wanted to drizzle the tops of the little brownie cakes and the big pan with a LOT of chocolate ganache.
But I held back. After all, I’d already used 350 grams of good chocolate in the mixture (minus a couple of pieces – hey, I had to sample a few pieces) and the cream I had in the fridge had expired. Besides, chocolate ganache on top seemed to be over-kill – NOT.
Verdict? They are just about the bestest (if there’s such a word), moistest brownies that I’ve ever tasted.
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- Melt the butter and chocolate over a pan of simmering water
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- Get your tins ready while the choc + butter is melting
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- Stir in the sugar
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- Add the first 3 eggs and mix well
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- Add the last 2 eggs + vanilla extract
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- Add all the dry ingredients
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- Fold in the dry ingredients gently
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- One final stir
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- Look at that chocolatey mix!
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- Uncooked brownie cakes ready for the oven (12 are sprinkled with dk choc drops)
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- Ready to be baked in the oven
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- Warm brownie cakes
Here is the purple foodie’s adaptation of the recipe. Definitely a ‘must-try’ for people who love chocolate.
Malt-Ball Cake
When I saw this recipe in the Baked book, I thought, “Hmm.. interesting…”.
It’s 9:30 pm and I’m waiting for the last of the cupcakes to finish baking so I can make the frosting. See, the husband has to go to work at 2:30 am tomorrow (in 5 hours time), and I thought why not try this recipe on him and whoever is game enough to sample it.
Anyway, the recipe calls for malt milk powder. Here we were, combing the aisles in the supermarket trying to find this, then Mr K googled it on his phone. Horlicks! So we got a container and the other ingredients and trotted on home.
The recipe makes one 8-inch cake, but I managed to get 24 medium cupcakes and 24 mini cupcakes out of the mixture.
If you like Horlicks, Maltesers and chocolate, this is definitely a recipe to try. The end result is delicious!
Malt-Ball Cupcake
Sweet and Salty Cake
I love cook books – especially ones with LOTS of pictures. I don’t have a collection of cook books (even though I would love to have one). However, my local library does and I usually “max out” my library card whenever I visit. What’s even better is I can order the books from the library’s online system and pick them up when they are ready – at no charge. Pretty cool, isn’t it?
Anyway, a few months ago, I borrowed a book from the library. It was called Baked: New Frontiers in Baking. It was a gorgeous book – the pictures made me want to make and eat all the cakes I saw. But I had never attempted big cakes like the ones in the book. They all looked pretty daunting to make.
I was browsing through www.marthastewart.com one day. I was after some new cupcake recipes and happened to click on this page which featured one of the cakes in the book. There were a couple of video clips to show how it was made. I asked Miss S who was watching along next to me if I should even attempt to make it and she said “yes”. What almost 3 year old would say no to cake?
I had most of the ingredients in my pantry except for corn syrup and fleur de sel. Didn’t have any of that fancy salt but I did have a little package of pink salt flakes that came with a goodie bag from the Auckland Food Show.
It took one whole day to make – the cake, the caramel, then the butter cream. My poor hand mixer nearly had a heart attack. But ta-da, my first “proper” cake.
Sweet and Salty Cake
It was a very rich cake. One small slice was all I could eat, but thankfully Mr K took the rest to work for morning tea the next day.
Would I make it again? Probably, but not with the caramel buttercream – I think it would taste better (to me, anyway) covered with a dark chocolate ganache. And the salt does add an interesting talking point to the cake. If I do happen to find fleur de sel, I’d make it again to see what the differences are.
Note: I substituted veg shortening for butter, the fleur de sel for sea salt and pink salt flakes, and omitted the corn syrup.
Of Lemons and Other Things
We have 2 lemon trees in our garden. One came with the house, and the other was a tiny little shrub that we transplanted 3 times before we were satisfied with its location.
Cupcakes
I love cupcakes – both the making and eating parts. And I love cupcake cases. They make the simple cupcake look so pretty and dainty. I’ve amassed a small collection and I must say, I’m on the lookout for some more!
Cupcake cases