All things ginger

My weekend begun at 7am Saturday; I baked a Sour Cream and Ginger cake from the Kylie Kwong recipe book, for my brother in law who recently lost his mother after a long illness.

It's a simple, unassuming looking cake.  Golden and rustic-looking, sunken in the middle.

But cutting into it reveals the delicious and unusual little secret - an inside layer of sour cream.  I'm never sure what the ethics of reproducing other people's recipes in my blog are - particularly when I can't find it published anywhere online.  So let's just say this: before baking, the cake batter itself is quite thick.  You make an indent in the top of the batter after you've spread it into the cake pan, and pour in some light sour cream, which then bakes through the whole cake, making it moist and slightly savoury on the inside - a little like having a cheesecake centre.  On the top, raw sugar is sprinkled so that it forms a sweet crust above the sour cream.  It's a nice combo of sweet + ginger + savoury + tart flavours, as well as several different textures; cakey + soft + a gentle crunch on top.

Sunday I took a friend to Gingerboy for her birthday, for the Sunday Hawker lunch.  A whopping FOURTEEN courses consisting mostly of different types of dumplings, along with some obligatory chinese broccoli and sticky rice.  Some favourites:  spicy fried calamari, chicken satay dumplings, oxtail potsticker dumplings, salt and pepper tofu, and the apple & cinnamon dumpling at the end.  Oh, and the Cherry Gimlet cocktails were a lovely tangy accompaniment to the flavours on the degustation menu.

Where are the photos of the actual food?  Sorry, it simply wasn't on the agenda today, I was too busy enjoying the flavours to worry about the visuals.

Buttery almond coconut cake (gluten free)

A fellow food blogger posted this recipe from a book I have in my collection - Belinda Jeffrey's "Mix and Bake".  It's a favourite among friends who've had the pleasure of indulging in the buttery, almost fudge-like cake.

Rather than reproduce the recipe here, I'll let someone else deal with potential copyright issues (I'm never quite sure what the protocols are) and instead refer you to http://ieatthereforeiam.blogspot.com/2008/08/buttery-almond-and-coconut-cake.html

Soft chocolate and apricot biscuits

I love the food blog world.  Thousands of people, from all over the world, all baking and blogging in delicious harmony.

On a rare day of "nothing", after having dusted (yes! dusted!) our many bookshelves, I spent an hour or two trawling the many interesting food blogs I've accumulated in my favourites list over the last 9 or so months.  I came across a simple recipe for soft chocolate cinnamon and apricot biscuits and decided to give it a go.

The recipe can be found here, in the "I Bake For You :-)" blog.  I had to improvise a little (no SR flour = added extra baking powder; ganache = used 80g dark choc melted with a splash of cream in the microwave), but they still turned out very well.  You could add extra apricots for a more rustic texture, or slightly more sugar or milk chocolate instead of dark for a sweeter biscuit.

These ones were light and fluffy, 'cakey', and not too sweet.

Funeral Food

My poor old Nanna Z lost her battle against old age and a raft of illnesses this week, and was farewelled at a small and simple country funeral yesterday.  Being a flower freak, she would have loved the floral arrangements adorning every spare surface.  As for the food ... while I can imagine her salivating over the range of delicious rustic looking home made cakes and slices; she would certainly have had some "constructive feedback" for the well intentioned caterers.

She was very creative but an absolute perfectionist as well; resulting in her producing some pretty spectacular craft work over the years, including watercolour paintings, flower arrangements, and a visually stunning garden.  But the thing Nanna Z was best admired for was her was her baking.

A perfectionist to a fault, she would have made a fantastic pastry-chef.  Things that I still struggle with after years of practice - spongecake, eclairs, scones, blinis - she would whip up one handed in a matter of seconds, without ever referring to a recipe.  Once I asked her "how do you make your scones rise so high?"  She responded, without batting an eye, "don't bugger around with them too much".  Another oddly fond - if somewhat confusing - memory, was when she grabbed some exposed skin where my jumper had crept up over my jeans, accused me of putting on too much weight, at the same time serving me up a huge plate of jam drops to have with my tea.

She was your quintessential ex-C.W.A. queen, a no-nonsense, frugal, post-war, straight-talking, teetotaling, grey-haired pocket rocket.  Always confrontational, never boring, at times highly entertaining (even if it was occasionally at her expense).  She would bring me to tears of frustration and anger many times - I once went through a period of not speaking to her for almost a year, after a particularly fraught Christmas lunch.  She could be abrupt and rude, controlling, and downright mean.  But that was Nanna.  My mother's mother.  She taught me how to bake, and bake well.  

The Perfect Hollandaise

It's no coincidence that the word "hollandaise" bears a remarkable aural resemblance to "holidays".  And don't we all tend to associate a good hollandaise accompaniment to a lazy long late breakfast of perhaps eggs and some perfect pairings: smoked salmon, baby spinach, grilled tomatoes, avocado, good sourdough, or anything else which takes your fancy at that time of day.

I think I need holidays, I mean, hollandaise.  Here's my almost foolproof version:

Simmer some water in a small saucepan, and put a heatproof bowl over the top (I use a small ceramic pudding dish).  Add 4 room temperature egg yolks and add 2 dessert spoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice, whisk with a fork until combined.  Dice up an entire stick (250g) of unsalted (also room temp) butter, and add in one piece at a time to the yolks.  Keep whisking, adding a few pieces of butter at a time, until melted and the sauce is thick.  If it starts getting too thick just remove from the heat immediately and add in a small splash of hot water if necessary (keep the kettle boiled in case you need this contingency).  Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Let cool slightly to thicken more, then spoon over your favourite breakfast.  Try not to eat it by the spoonful - remember how much butter went into it!

Taste Melbourne wrap-up

I've just arrived home from a day out in Carlton, exhausted and full to bursting, but satisfied and happy.  The wonderful people at Hothouse Media & Events were kind enough to not only provide three double passes for me to give away to some lucky readers for Friday's long lunch; but also gave me a double pass for me to enjoy.  At $30 a pop on the door - and considering you need to purchase all food and classes (excluding free tastings) in addition - it's pricy, so I really appreciated not having to pay the entry fee. 

Okay, so let's be honest about the negatives:  it's a heavily commercialised event where you essentially have to pay to have a bunch of companies market their stuff to you at every turn.  It's packed with people, in-your-face and noisy.  Events like this tend to turn us into animals; the chocolate stands in particular attracted hoardes of jostling piglets, hogging spaces in front of the free samples, grabbing multiple handfuls as soon as the plates of 70% cocoa were replenished.  I'd like to say I wasn't one of them but I'd be lying. 

That aside, I still think the festival is well worth a visit.  Especially if - like me - you're a passionate foodie with a list a mile long of fabulous restaurants you want to visit, but the budget won't allow it more than once every couple of months.  Where else can you sample some of Melbourne's best signature dishes from our top restaurants, for around ten bucks a plate, all on the same day?  The highlight for me was the King Island Dairy and James Squire's cheese and beer tasting session.  $12 bucks got us generous chunks of several different cheeses, matches with various accompanyments and different kinds of beer, plus a comprehensive commentary from two very bubbly hosts.

Other highlights included dishes from Embrasse (crispy pork belly with purple potato, hazelnuts and chocolate parfait & meringue in the shape of a mushroom on a 'forest floor' of chocolate 'soil'), The European (duck tortelloni with truffle oil), The Palace (wagyu burger), and Stokehouse (bombe - strawberry sorbet, white chocolate parfait and toasted meringue).  The exhibitor stalls were ok (some better than others) and the marketing people at Smeg would be pleased to know their new range of bright, pretty, retro fridges took my breath away - although for a 270 litre at over $3200, I think I can get something that holds more food.

A simple vanilla Creme Brulee

I'm going through a stage of searching for good old fashioned and simple comfort food recipes.  The classic winter staples - student pasta, slow cooked casseroles, apple pie.

It happens to be a perfect time for me to reflect on this because I've succumbed to one of those nasty colds every other person seems to be walking around with at the moment.  And while I'm hardly in the mood to get up from the couch - let alone cook - I did feel motivated on the weekend to try making one of my all time favourite desserts:  creme brulee.

Creme brulee is one of those things I tend to order at any given opportunity simply because I'd never made it myself and because it seemed like a difficult thing to do.  There are literally dozens of variations on making the custard, on flavouring, and on how to achieve the perfect "crack" texture on top, further adding to my creme-brulee-reluctance.

After some experimentation, I managed to work out a super simple way of making the perfect, classic, vanilla creme brulee. 

Basic vanilla creme brulee.

Pre-heat oven to 120c.  Put 600ml cream and a split vanilla pod (or 1/2 tsp vanilla essence) into a saucepan and heat to scalding point - take it off the heat just before it boils.  In a bowl, beat together (with electric hand mixer) 6 egg yolks and 1/2 cup caster sugar until pale and creamy.  Pour over the hot cream mixture (take out the pod first) and keep beating for a minute.  With a large metal spoon, skim off the froth from the top of the mixture and discard, then pour mix into four small/medium size ramekins.  Put the ramekins into a deep sided baking dish, and pour in boiling water until it comes halfway up the sides of the ramekins.  Place into oven for 40 minutes until just set - a slight wobble in the middle of the custards is good.  Cool before chilling them in the fridge for a few hours.  When ready to serve, evenly sprinkle 1/2 tsp caster sugar over each custard.  Place under a hot grill, or use a domestic blowtorch to heat the tops until browned.  It should "crack" with the back of a teaspoon when you hit it, and the custard underneath should be semi-set.