Strawberry almond tart

The wisteria is flowering and strawberries are delicious and plentiful. It feels like Spring!

The Weekend Australian Magazine had a very tempting recipe for a strawberry almond tart.

Resistance was futile!

Crustless strawberry almond tart

• 150g butter, at room temperature
• ²/³ cup (150g) raw caster sugar
• 3 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 200g almond meal
• ¹/³ cup (45g) self-raising flour
• 200g strawberries, hulled and halved
• A large handful of flaked almonds

Preheat oven to 170ºC (fan); grease a 23cm spring form tin.

Beat together butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, almond meal and flour until just combined. Yes its that easy!

Spoon into tin; top with strawberries and scatter with flaked almonds.

Bake for 35-40 minutes until golden and cooked through.

Allow to cool; remove from tin.

Serve with chopped strawberries and cream.

Serves 6-8 (or 10 if you have that many people to feed and you cut thinner slices. Some people will come back for more…)

Recipe adapted from David Herbert’s version in the 25-26 September edition of The Weekend Australia Magazine.

My next version will be made gluten free using either gluten free SR flour or more almond meal plus 1 teaspoon baking powder.

What I’ve been cooking this summer

This summer I’ve discovered a fabulous new salad, two great cakes and a new gluten free cookie recipe.

Carrot and edamame salad with soy ginger dressing

Salad:

• 1  x 450g packet of frozen shelled edamame beans
• 2 medium carrots, shredded or grated
• 2 spring onions or half a red onion, finely sliced
• a generous few handfuls of salad greens, some shredded
• 2 tablespoons sesame seeds, lightly toasted

Dressing:

• 1 tablespoon grated ginger
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 3 tablespoons lemon juice
• 4 tablespoons soy sauce
• freshly ground black pepper

Bring a large saucepan of salted water to the boil and cook the edamame for 2-3 minutes or until tender (they float to the surface). Drain well and run under cold water to stop them cooking further.

To make the dressing, put everything into  screw cap jar or small bowl and mix well to combine.

Combine all the salad ingredients in a large serving bowl. Mix well then drizzle over the dressing. There will probably be more dressing than needed, but it is delicious with whatever salad you are making the next day, or over cooked rice or noodles.

This is a slight adaptation of a recipe by Emma Galloway published in Cuisine in issue 197, Nov/Dec 2019.

Chocolate chip sour cream coffee cake

Cake

• 120 grams unsalted butter at room temperature
• 300 grams caster sugar
• 3 large eggs, separated
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups sour cream
• 390 grams plain flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons bicarb soda
• 3/4 teaspoon fine salt

Filling and Topping

• 2 cups dark chocolate chips
• 100 grams granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Heat oven to 175°C.

Butter a by 23 x 33 cm baking pan and line the bottom with baking paper. This makes a big cake! I used a roasting pan because none of my cake tins are that large.

In a large bowl, cream butter and 300 grams sugar. Beat in egg yolks and vanilla.

Whisk flour, bicarb soda, baking powder and salt together into a separate bowl.

Alternately mix in sour cream and then dry ingredients into butter mixture until both are used up and the batter is smooth and very thick.

In a medium bowl with clean beaters, beat eggs whites until stiff, then fold gently into batter.

In a small dish, combine the cinnamon and remaining 100 grams caster sugar for filling and topping.

Spread half the cake batter in the bottom of prepared pan and spread smooth. Sprinkle with half of cinnamon-sugar mixture and 1 cup of chocolate chips. Dollop remaining cake batter over filling in spoonfuls. Use a spatula to gently spread it over the filling and smooth the top. Sprinkle batter with remaining cinnamon-sugar and remaining chocolate chips.

Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, rotating halfway through, until a tester inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Let cool in pan.

This recipe is from Smitten Kitchen, published online at https://smittenkitchen.com/2006/11/chocolate-chip-sour-cream-cake/

Lemon blackberry yoghurt loaf

• 1 1/2 cups (190 grams) + 1 tablespoon (10 grams) plain flour (if you’re skipping the fruit, you can also skip the last tablespoon of flour)
• 2 teaspoons (10 grams) baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (230 grams) plain whole-milk yogurt
• 1 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
• 3 extra-large eggs
• 2 teaspoons grated lemon zest (approximately 2 lemons)
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 cups (about 255 grams) blackberries, frozen
• 1/3 cup (80 ml) freshly squeezed lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 175°C. Grease a 22 by 11 by 7 cm loaf pan. Line the bottom with baking paper. Grease the sides of the pan.

Sift together 1 1/2 cups flour, baking powder, and salt into 1 bowl. In another bowl, whisk together the yogurt, 1 cup sugar, the eggs, lemon zest, vanilla and oil. Slowly whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.

Mix the berries with the remaining tablespoon of flour, and fold them very gently into the batter. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 50 minutes, or until a cake tester placed in the center of the loaf comes out clean.

Meanwhile, cook the 1/3 cup lemon juice and remaining 1 tablespoon sugar in a small pan until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is clear. Set aside.

When the cake is done, allow it to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before flipping out onto a cooling rack. While the cake is still warm, pour the lemon-sugar mixture over the cake and allow it to soak in (a pastry brush works great for this, as does using a toothpick to make tiny holes that draw the syrup in better). Cool.

This recipe is from Smitten Kitchen, published online at https://smittenkitchen.com/2008/04/lemon-yogurt-anything-cake/

 

Salted Peanut Butter Cookies (gluten free)

Makes 26 to 28 cookies with a 1 2/3 tablespoon scoop. I used a 1 1/4 tablespoon quenelle scoop loaded up generously and made 25 cookies

• 1 3/4 cups (335 grams) packed light brown sugar
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 3/4 cups (450 grams) smooth peanut butter
• Coarse-grained sea salt, to finish

Preheat the oven to 170°C. Line a baking sheet with baking paper.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the light brown sugar and eggs until smooth. Whisk in vanilla extract, then the peanut butter until smoothie and completely incorporated. Yes, that’s all you need to do. So easy.

Scoop out mixture onto the prepared baking sheet.  I had an appointment to attend to I put the scooped out cookies on the baking tray into the freezer for over an hour before I baked them. This is recommended to get the tallest cookies and the striations across the top of the cookies, but I did it out of necessity and poor timing.

Sprinkle the cookies lightly with coarse-grained sea salt just before baking. Bake cookies for 14 to 15 minutes. When finished, cookies should be golden at edges.

They’ll need to set on the sheet for a minute or two before they can be lifted intact to a cooling sheet. Once they have cooled completely they are crisp outside and soft inside. Delicious!

This recipe is also from Smitten Kitchen, published online at https://smittenkitchen.com/2015/10/salted-peanut-butter-cookies/

Peanut butter, bacon and dark chocolate cookies and chocolate whoopie pies: gluten free goodness

Now that’s a blog title I never thought I’d write!

The cookies were polarizing. I mean. Come on. Peanut butter, bacon and dark chocolate??

A little bit greasy, but the flavours were fabulous. They were made for craft night a few weeks ago. Rory devoured the leftovers. I might have helped a little bit too.

Peanut butter, dark chocolate and bacon cookies

recipe from Joy the Baker

• 1 cup chunky or smooth peanut butter
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 6 slices of bacon, cooked, cooled and coarsely chopped
• 1 large handful dark chocolate pieces

Method

1. Preheat oven to 175 °C. Line trays with baking paper.
2. In a medium bowl, combine peanut butter and sugars until well combined. Add egg and baking soda and mix until well combined. Fold in cooked bacon and chocolate pieces. That’s it. It really is that easy
3. Roll into large walnut sized balls before placing on the baking tray and squishing to flatten slightly.
4. Bake for 10 minutes, until lightly browned. Cool on a baking sheet for five minutes.

The whoopie pies were not such a hit, but this was mainly the fault of the filling because the cakey-cookie part of them was delicious. The filling was too sweet and didn’t have enough flavour. Easy to change this though: Even a teaspoon or three of instant coffee would make a big improvement.

 

Chocolate whoopie pies

recipe from Taste

• 125g butter
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups gluten-free plain flour
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon gluten-free baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 cup buttermilk

Filling (add instant coffee or orange zest or something else to lift the filling out of blah)

• 125g unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups pure icing sugar, sifted
• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder, sifted

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Line 3 large baking trays with baking paper.
2. Using an electric mixer, beat butter, vanilla and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition
3. Sift flour, cocoa, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda into a large bowl.
4. Add half the flour mixture to butter mixture. Stir to combine. Add half the buttermilk. Stir. Repeat with remaining flour mixture and buttermilk until just combined.
5. Spoon batter in a large piping bag fitted with a 1cm plain nozzle. Pipe 3cm wide rounds onto prepared trays, 5cm apart, allowing room for spreading. Stand for 15 minutes. The recipe said to pipe 32 of them. We had lots more than this
6. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until tops are firm. Cool on trays.
7. Make Filling: Using an electric mixer, beat butter in a bowl until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in icing sugar and cocoa. Spoon mixture into a piping bag fitted with a 2cm fluted nozzle. Pipe filling onto 16 rounds. Gently top with remaining rounds.

Zucchini fritters with salmon, lemon slice and orange muffins. All gluten free

Are you lucky enough to have a group of likeminded sewers, creative knitters, crocheting geniuses, embroidery queens and other crafty people to share your obsessions with?

I am. And they are fabulous.

My group has a very healthy emphasis on delicious food and wonderful conversation as well as endless cups of tea and craftiness. One of the crafty people is a coeliac, so gluten free food is the go.

This is what we enjoyed this week:

Zucchini fritters with smoked salmon

Ingredients

• 4 cups grated zucchini (about 3 small to medium sized zucchini)
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1 cup gluten free flour
• oil and/or butter for shallow frying (we used a mixture of both)

1. Drain the zucchini in a strainer for 10 minutes then place in a clean dish towel and wrap up tightly and squeeze out as much liquid as possible. It’s amazingly green! Yay for chlorophyll! (mix the green juice with the left over lemon juice from the other things you’re cooking, drink it and feel like a super hero)
2. Add zucchini and the rest of the ingredients and mix well.
3. Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a large frypan over medium heat. Drop and flatten slightly a spoonful of batter onto hot pan

4. Cook 2-3 minutes on each side or until browned. Even better, get He who Cooks to cook the fritters. If he is wearing his favourite old green jumper, even better, it looks great in the photos.

.

5. Place cooked fritters onto a plate lined with a paper towel then continue with the rest of the batter.

6. Enjoy immediately with sour cream and smoked salmon, garnished with coriander or refrigerate the leftovers and scoff the next day while you’re cooking dinner.

Makes 12. (I made 1.5 times the recipe because I had lots of zucchini. That’s why I had leftovers)

Recipe from sugar free mom

Lemon and Coconut Slice

It’s winter in Australia. My sister in law is over run with lemons. I had to make a lemon slice! Lucky I love anything with citrus. Yes pity my poor family and friends.

• Crust
  5 T coconut oil
  3 T maple syrup
  2 cups shredded coconut
  1 cup almond flour
  1 pinch salt
  2 egg whites (save the yolks for the lemon curd)
  
• Filling
  3 eggs + 2 egg yolks
  6 T maple syrup( or if you run out like I did, 1 T maple sypup and 5 T honey)
  1/3 cup lemon juice + 1 T zest (around 2 lemons)
  1/3 cup almond flour
  

1. Preheat the oven to 170°C.
   
2. Melt coconut oil in a saucepan on low heat. Add maple syrup, shredded coconut, almond flour and salt. Stir around until everything is combined. Remove from the heat.
   
3. Crack two eggs, save the egg yolks for later and add the whites to the sauce pan while stirring. Keep stirring for about a minute. The mixture should be quite sticky now.
   
4. Line a 30×20 cm baking dish with baking paper and pour the coconut mixture into it. Use your hands, a spatula or the backside of a spoon to flatten it out. Press it down firmly so it becomes quite compact.
   
5. Bake for 10-12 minutes
   
6. Beat the eggs and the 2 egg yolks until frothy. Add the rest of the ingredients. Beat for two more minutes.
   
7.  Pour the mixture over the baked crust in the baking dish. Bake for around 16-19 minutes or until edges are light brown and center is set. Let cool for at least 10-15 minutes before slicing up the bars.
   
8. Cut into roughly 3 x 3 cm rectangles. Dust with icing sugar.
   

Recipe from  green kitchen stories

Yummy moist little orange cakes

This is my boiled orange almond cake that I make. All. The. Time. ( ask my long suffering family). This time I baked it in muffis cases and topped with He Who Cooks’ fabulous almond brittle: flaked almonds cooked in a pan with butter and sugar. Quantities? Don’t ask? He never measures).

I love this recipe!

Gluten free lemon friands

Thank you for all your lovely comments about Felicity’s Formal Frock made from Funky Fabric with some Flares of Frustration but now Finally Finished.

Clearly, I like F-words, and need to keep using them.

Words like Friands.

These were made by He who Cooks. And they were Fabulous!

Ingredients

• 180 g butter melted, plus extra for greasing
• zest of 2 large or 3 medium lemons
• 200 g pure icing sugar
• 80 g gluten free plain flour
• 125 g almond meal
• 5 egg whites, lightly whisked
• flaked almonds to sprinkle on top

1. Preheat fan forced oven to 165°C (180°C for conventional oven)
2. Grease 12 hole friand tin with extra melted butter
3. Combine melted butter and lemon zest, then sift in icing sugar and flour, and almond meal ( if it will go through the sieve)
4. Add egg whites and mix until combined and smooth
5. Spoon into the holes of the friand tin and top with flaked almonds.
6. Bake for 25 minutes.

Makes 12.

Recipe from For my Senses

Delicious with raspberries too.

Perfect autumn fare!

Lime balls

Have I told you about my great new cooking book?

One of my Christmas presents was the My Petite Kitchen Cookbook.

I love Eleanor’s blog and have been very happy with how her gluten free recipes have turned out (here and here).

I was keen to try some of her other recipes in my “Christmas” book, and New Years Eve was the perfect opportunity for her lemon coconut balls. Not too sweet and refreshingly citrusy. Perfect for a hot summer evening down under. Plus super easy to make.

I repeated the recipe the other weekend with limes. Even better!

I love limes

 

Recipe

• 2 cups (180g) desiccated coconut
• 1 cup (100g) almond meal
• 80g butter
• 1/3 cup (115g) honey
• grated zest and juice of two limes (or one lemon)

1. Set aside ½ cup of the coconut and put all the rest of the ingredients in a food processor.
2. Blend for 1-2 minutes, or until the mixture starts to form a dough.
3. Use your hands to form small balls.
4. Roll the balls in the extra coconut (or use prettier, larger coconut flakes instead).
5. Place in the fridge for at least half an hour to set.

The truffles can be kept at room temperature, but are best kept in the fridge. Makes around 25 truffles.  Will keep for 3-4 days. In theory.

 

Sewing update:

I’m still auditioning patterns for my lovely landscape print

I weakened. Vogue 9021 has been purchased.

I haven’t yet pulled it out of the envelope to see if it fits on my fabric, but I do like this pattern a lot! Also, red booties as cover art. What’s not to love?

And, I have made a teensy bit of progress on my vision of a lovely winter coat in this delightful laminated tweed

“Progress” = pattern traced and IKEA upholstery fabric cutinto for a muslin of BurdaStyle 11/2014 #111

No actual sewing has yet been done…

Chai Carrot Cake and Floral Nettie

This blog needs to be renamed from He Cooks… She Sews! to He Cooks…. She Shops, She Bakes and (just sometimes) She Sews…

The Shopping.

See previous post.

The Baking.

Chai Spiced Carrot Cake:

• 3 eggs
• 175g honey
• 125g gluten free SR flour (2/3 cup)
• 155g grated carrots (2 to 3 carrots)
• ½ tsp ground cardamom
• ½ tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• ½ tsp ground cloves
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 200g almond meal

1. Preheat the oven to 160°C (150°C fan forced). Line a 20cm cake tin with baking paper.
2. Put all the cake ingredients in a large bowl, mix until well combined, then carefully pour the batter into the cake tin. Yes, that’s all you have to do!
3. Bake for 40 minutes.

Recipe adapted from My Petite Kitchen Cookbook by Eleanor Ozich (Murdoch Books) accessed at redonline.co.uk

I iced mine with the same cream cheese icing as the ‘real’ red velvet chocolate cup cakes then sprinkled a mixture of pepitas, sesame and sunflower seeds on top.

The Sewing.

Another Nettie bodysuit

Worn here with Burdastyle’s soft pleated waist skirt 05/2011 #116A

Pattern: Closet case Nettie Body Suit.

Size: 2-18. Same as last time; graded from a size 12 shoulders to a 14 bust, then 10 waist and then out to 12 hips.

Fabric: A slinky polyester knit from Spotlight. The knit version of silk chiffon. Utterly horrible to sew.

This fabric has 80% stretch widthwise but only 40% lengthwise. Heather Lou says at least 50% stretch both ways is needed for the fabric to work as a body suit.

So I decided to experiment.

Not always a good idea. But hey, what was the worst thing that could happen? Sewing it and then having to chop it off the bottom to make a regular top?

I added 4 cm total to the length of the front and back pieces

• 1 cm just below the scoop neck( just below the armscye)
• another 1 cm mid way between armscye and waist,
• another 1 cm just below waist
• the last 1 cm between the waist and the bottom edge/hip

I also added 2 cm to the sleeves, but turned up the hem 1 cm more than the instructions, so really just 1 cm extra length.

It worked! This bodysuit is firm fitting but comfortable enough to wear.

 

And whats next?

I need to sew some of those lovely new fabrics.

First up is a ‘poodle’ coat for Felicity. The plan is to use this fabric

in BurdaStyle 10/2012 #131, without the scarf

Christmas fruit cake in June

Being baked on the winter solstice makes it Christmas cake doesn’t it?

Even when the winter solstice is in June? The cake can’t help being in the Southern hemisphere can it?

Whatever.

This isn’t ordinary fruit cake anyway. Its delicious.

And very easily made gluten, dairy and refined sugar free, if that’s what you need to do.

 

Honey sweetened Christmas cake with cranberries, hazelnuts, apricots and figs

• ½ cup olive oil
• 1/3 cup honey
• 250 g jar (a eensy bit more than ¾ cup) apple sauce
• 5 cups of mixed dried fruit (I used 1 cup each of cranberries, apricots and figs, and 2 cups of sultanas, the figs and apricots got chopped to about sultana size)
• ¼ cup brandy
• 3 large eggs, lightly whisked
• 1 ¼ cups gluten free SR Flour
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon nutmeg
• ½ cup hazelnuts, roughly chopped
• grated zest of 2 oranges and 1 lemon

1. Preheat the oven to 150ºC
2. Line the base of a cake tin with 4 circle layers of newspaper and then a sheet of baking paper. (I used the motoring section. I’m sure this is an important detail). Line the sides too. I used baking paper on the sides, not newspaper as well
3. In a large saucepan over medium heat, melt together the oil and honey. Add the apple sauce and dried fruit, stir to coat well.
4. Continue to cook on low, while stirring until slightly softened, about 5 minutes. Then add the brandy and stir some more.
5. Add the fruit mixture to the remaining ingredients and mix until very well combined.
6. Pour into the prepared cake tin and smooth out evenly.
7. Bake in the oven for 1 hour or until a skewer comes out clean once inserted.

Recipe adapted from Petite Kitchen

 

Delicious with a cup of tea in front of the roaring fire while listening to the rain.

Or as part of a cheese platter after that difficult jigsaw is finally complete…Its time to reclaim the coffee table!

Cheese and fruit cake you say?

Try it, I say!

 

 

Little lemony syrupy polenta cakes

Craft night at my place = gluten free yummy things (one of the crafty peeps is a coeliac). Tonight we had individual serves of nachos and these little cakes.

The cakes have that distinctive grainy polenta texture with moist lemon syrupy goodness.

Lemon polenta syrup cakes

• 160g unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup caster sugar
• 3 eggs
• 3/4 cup fine polenta
• 2 teaspoons gluten-free baking powder
• 1 1/2 cups almond meal
• 1 teaspoon finely grated lemon rind
• 1/4 cup lemon juice

1. Preheat oven to 180°C/160°C fan-forced.
2. Grease a 12-hole, 1/3 cup-capacity muffin pan with butter. Remember to grease just outside the holes too.
3. Cream butter and sugar with lemon rind
4. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.
5. Mix polenta, almond meal and baking powder and then add to butter mixture with lemon juice and mix gently.
6. Spoon mixture into prepared holes. It will come almost to the top of the holes. Smooth tops.
7. Bake for 25 minutes.
8. Cool in pan for at least 5 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack over a baking tray.

Lemon syrup

• 2/3 cup caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon finely grated lemon rind
• 1/4 cup lemon juice

1. Combine sugar, lemon rind, lemon juice and 2 tablespoons cold water in a saucepan over low heat.
2. Cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until sugar has dissolved.
3. Increase heat to high. Bring to the boil. Boil, without stirring, for 2 to 3 minutes or until slightly thickened.
4. Remove from heat.
5. Carefully pour syrup over cooling cakes on the wire rack.

from Super Food Ideas – May 2009

And what’s on my sewing machine?

BurdaStyle 10-2012-118 in a navy and oyster striped stretch cotton

I’m not doing the bias cut layout for the front skirt, but placing the thicker navy stripes of the fabric at the hem. I’m using the thick stripes on the sleeves too, and made them short sleeves, not ¾ length as in the photo. Its looking good so far!

 

Winter comfort food

Let’s start with dessert

Chocolate cake

I think you know what my priorities are. Yes. Chocolate is one of them. It’s a vegetable with lots of antioxidants. What’s that you say? Something about fat and sugar? Surely not!

This is the second time I’ve made this cake. First time was for craft night and exactly to David Herbert’s recipe. There were 8 lovely crafters and everyone had a slice. There was more than a quarter of the cake left.

Second time was in a smaller tin just for Sunday lunch (5 people). My cut down recipe was a little less than half of everything and is just right for a 16 cm tin. It also looks cute on He Who Cooks new mini cake stand. This time there was half a cake left. Its very rich!

Cake
70g butter, plus extra, melted, for brushing
90g dark chocolate, broken up
2 large eggs
90g granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon gluten-free baking powder (I make this by combining two parts tartaric acid with one part sodium bicarbonate).
70g ground almonds
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
50g caramel chips

• Preheat oven to 170°C (mine is fanforced, 180°C for regular ovens).
• Line base of a 16cm-round springform tin with baking paper; and butter the sides ( squish a small piece of butter all the way round with your fingers).
• Melt butter with chocolate carefully in the microwave (mid to low power, check every minute or so and stir, until smooth).
• Crack eggs into a mixing bowl then add sugar, baking powder, almonds and vanilla. Mix to combine.
• Pour in chocolate mixture and beat until creamy, then fold in chocolate chips.
• Pour into tin, place on an oven sheet and bake for 30-35 minutes (don’t do what I did: set timer for 20 and then another 5 and another 5. The top should spring back when pressed. Mine almost did and I thought it should be cooked because the full size one was in this time so I took it out. Gooiness ensued. I did have fennel roasting in the oven at the same time. Perhaps that changed the timing?)
• Remove from oven and leave to cool for 1 hour.

One way to disguise the sunk-in centre:

Topping
25g butter
50g dark chocolate, broken up

• For topping, melt chocolate and butter and drizzle over top. Leave to set for 2 hours.

Roast lamb for main course

He Who Cooks put a crust of garlic, re-fried beans and taboulleh (parsley, onion and cracked wheat salad) on the lamb and roasted it on a rack above a bed of borlotti beans with stock, cherry tomatoes, diced celery and carrot. He also roasted root vegetables (heirloom carrots, butternut pumpkin and potatoes) in the same pan.

Pork Belly starter

• Rub Chinese five spice liberally over the skin of the pork belly.
• Use a slow cooker to braise the pork belly for about 4 hours in a 50/50 mix of cider and soy sauce (enough to come up the sides about 1 cm).
• Drain the fat off and then reduce the cooking juices on the stove top with a splash of port until thickened slightly.
• Crisp pork belly skin up in a hot oven.
• Slice and serve with a drizzle of the reduced sauce and blanched greens (we used slivers of snow peas and the outer leaves of young brussels sprouts).
  

A fabulous Sunday lunch.

Now its time to go up to the sewing machine and make a casual winter coat (BurdaStyle 12-2011-114). In a boule style, to give plenty more room for more cake and other comfort food.

Burda uses faux fur, but I’m going to use this poly wool knit.

Looks like it’s going to be a great Sunday!

Sephardic Flourless butter-less orange-and-almond cake

Pssst Can you keep a secret? Yes? Good…. now what I am about to tell you must NEVER be told to anyone that is not a cook. Here it is …the secret handshake of the food lovers fraternity…. we share recipes….yep its true …and we pass little jars of quince paste, capsicum relish, greens picked from a home garden, a slice of the best fruit cake you could dream of, super fresh eggs, figs and more…(by the way, thank you, you know who you are)… it’s like our secret motto, our handshake or symbol, it helps define who we are. So now that I have told you my secret, what has someone clandestinely slipped your way recently?… saying ‘try this’ or thanks for inviting me please have this little jar of something? hmmm go on tell us!.

The recipe for this cake was given to me recently on a little slip of paper… “really weird orange cake” it said, and it was a bit like Alice in Wonderlands bottle saying ‘drink me’ …except this recipe was whispering ‘bake me’. Now a cake recipe that has no wheat flour and no butter does sound weird so I did a little research. The recipe here is based on the Sephardic orange-and-almond cake in Claudia Roden’s comprehensive book A New Book of Middle Eastern Food (yes you may borrow it if you want). The recipe was originally Jewish and the cake was baked during Passover.

This cake is a winner for me for two reasons; firstly all the ingredients can be bunged ( is that a cooking term?) into the food processor, saving on washing up ( though if you do it properly it could just be that little bit nicer) and secondly because Claudia Roden says that the cake can never fail ( you have to like that). Claudia says that if the cake is not cooked enough, it is moist enough to became a pudding served with a dollop of cream or mascarpone, and the moistness helps prevent the cake becoming too dry if it is overcooked ( I proved this having not checked oven temp properly and it had been set too high)

I have found several variations to the ‘original’ recipe that you could try; Jill Dupleix separates the eggs, making a cake that is lighter, my good friend who gave me the recipe said that a heaped tablespoon of poppy seeds added to the batter was good, and I made mine with a sort of almond brittle topping.

So have a go and remember keep on sharing those recipes and other goodies, oh and thanks again Mr R.

Ingredients

2 large or 3 medium oranges

6 eggs

225g caster sugar (or make it sugarless too and use 3/4 cup honey)

200g ground almonds

1tsp baking powder

Method

Place the clean, whole and unpeeled fruit in a little water, and bring to the boil. Simmer for at least 1½ hours or until soft, adding more water when necessary.

Drain the oranges, cut into quarters, discard any major pips, and whiz (including peel) in the food-processor, then cool. Throw in the rest, egg*, sugar, almonds, and baking powder.

Heat the oven to 180C

*Jill Dupleix  says to just add the yolks then beat the egg whites until softly peaky and fold gently into the mixture.

Pour into a 23cm (9in) springform cake tin and bake for an hour, until firm to the touch (cover with a loose sheet of foil if over-browning). Cool in the tin and dust with icing sugar to serve.