Aussie Invasion

Recently we had some friends from Australia to stay with us for the weekend and those of you who see my on Facebook know that I agonised about what to make for dessert for a few days. What better conversation starter to have for dessert than a Pavlova. Our rivalry for ownership of this classic dessert is well known

I'm not a huge fan of Pavlova and it wouldn't be my first choice if I was presented with it on a dessert menu but I wanted something that I could make the night before and I didn't want to do a tart or a pie or anything to "bready" since we were having a pasta bake with fresh bread a salad for our main course.

A friend at work suggested Pavlova roll filled with lemon curd but the recipe I had from the cookbook I started as a newlywed called for crushed pineapple and toasted almonds.

Pavlova Roll
Serves 6

Ingredients
4 egg whites
2 teaspoons vinegar
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 teaspoon cornflour/cornstarch
8 tablespoons caster sugar
1 bottle cream, whipped
1 medium tin crushed pineapple, drained
Flaked almonds

Method
Beat egg whites and add cornflour
Beat slightly and add vinegar and vanilla
While still beating add 6 tablespoons of sugar and beat until stiff and glossy
Fold in remaining sugar
Grease bottom and sides of a swiss roll tin and line with baking paper
Spread mixture into tin and sprinkle with almonds
Bake at 180 degrees C for 15 minutes or until brown
Take a piece of baking paper and sprinkle it with sugar
Tip cooked pav onto this and gently peel the paper lining off
Cool slightly
(At this stage it can be stored loosely wrapped in the fridge until a few hours before serving)
Spread with whipped cream
Top with fruit
Roll up long edge to form a log - good luck with that!
Refrigerate for at least two hours

I used my stand mixer and got great volume with my egg whites so my pavlova was too thick to roll and didn't look very pretty it still tasted great though. The tart pineapple, and crunchy almonds are a good foil to the sugary marshmallow and velvety whipped cream.




On Saturday the weather was revolting so we took a drive to the Wairarapa to visit a few wineries. We picked up some nice Pinot Noir from Te Kairanga and some Pinot Gris from Ata Rangi. At Ata Rangi I picked up a very styley t-shirt.




We also visited Shoc Chocolates in Greytown and purchased some yummy treats. Check out their interesting flavour combinations such as Tequila, Lime and Rock Salt which are exquisitely hand painted white chocolate hearts streaked with red, yellow and green or Wasabi and Ginger Truffle. Their tablet chocolate comes in amazing flavours and I sampled some strawberry and black pepper. I picked up a trio of treats to send to my BFF but their flavours will have to be a surprise. I hope she likes them.

ANZAC Self-saucing Pudding

I'm really behind in my posting and completely overdue to share my adventures in the kitchen creating the Daring Bakers' April Challenge. To tide you over here's a recipe I made over ANZAC weekend in keeping with the ANZAC-ey theme of coconut and rolled oats. It's a really old fashioned, comforting pud and when my husband takes a second helping of dessert it's high praise indeed. Golden syrup, butter and hot water form a delicious caramel-like sauce. You could probably substitute maple syrup if you're unable to find golden syrup where you live. The recipe says it serves 4-5 and while that's true, I feel that the recipe doesn't make enough sauce for my taste. Your options? Half the pudding or double the sauce! I didn't decide to half the recipe until I had all the dry ingredients in the bowl so all I did was divide it in half and put one portion in a ziplock bag in the freezer. I then halved the milk measurement but used a whole egg as it's kinda hard to half a raw egg.

You'll find the recipe on the Taste magazine website.

But wait.... there's more .....

The next weekend when I was again in the mood to make a warming winter pud I got creative with the leftover batch of pudding mix. I melted some butter (about 100g I think) and mixed it with some brown sugar which I spread over the bottom of a pyrex baking dish. Then I sliced some bananas which were past their best for eating and squeezed over some fresh lime juice to cut the richness of the butter and sugar. I added milk and egg to the pudding mix and blobbed it over the top. No time for photos after it was baked but here's what it looked like prior to the addition of the pudding. It was very nice but I think I prefer my ANZAC self-saucing pudding straight up.

Lest We Forget

Today I went to a potluck lunch at work to farewell a co-worker who is going on maternity leave. She's having a boy so the theme was of course BLUE but you'd be forgiven for thinking the theme was teal. We had bluberry loaf, blueberry muffins (my contribution), a vanilla cake with blue icing and blue lamingtons as well as some savoury items; although who'd think there would be such a thing as too much sugar?

Tomorrow is ANZAC day which is a day of commemoration for those who died in the service of their country. The poppy is an international symbol of rememberance and explains the decoration on the star of the lunch - an ooey gooey citrus cake. I'm pleased to be able to share the recipe with you.


Sonya's Lemon and Orange Crumble Cake

Ingredients
Cake:
1 ¾ cups self raising flour
3/4 cups caster sugar
90g/approx. 3 ounces unsalted butter, chopped
Finely grated rind of one lemon
2 eggs, lightly beaten
Filling:
¼ cup orange juice
¼ cup lemon juice
¾ cup sugar
2 teaspoons cornflour/cornstarch
90g/approx. 3 ounces unsalted butter, chopped
Sifted icing sugar/powdered sugar for dusting

Method
Preheat oven to 160 degrees C/320 degrees C
Line the base and sides of a 20cm/8 inch round springform tin with baking paper
Put the flour, sugar, butter, rind and eggs in a food processor and pulse to combine
Press 2/3 of the mixture into the prepared tin, reserving the remainder
For the filling:
Put the juices, sugar, cornflour, eggs and butter into a medium pan and stir over a low heat until the mixture comes to the boil
Reduce heat and cook for 2-3 minutes
Remove and stand for 10 minutes to cool
When the citrus filling is cool pour it over the mixture in the tin
Crumble the remaining cake dough on top
Bake for 30-35 minutes
Stand on a wire rack before removing from the tin
Dust with icing sugar

Hay Hay it's Donna Day - #19 The Clafoutis Edition

Is it a batter? Is it a sponge? Is it a custard? No - it's clafoutis!

Bon Marshall is the happy hostess of this round of Hay Hay it's Donna Day and I was delighted to see that she chose something that I've wanted to make for ages - clafoutis. Originally from Limousin in France, clafoutis is traditionally made with unpitted cherries. Donna Hay's version, which Bron selected, is made with plums and chocolate or should that be prunes et chocolat?

My blog friend Tammy recently made her clafoutis and she altered the recipe slightly and used a combination of milk and lite cream instead of just cream. Since I'm always trying to make my recipes a little healthier I thought this was a great idea. I also thought that the cup of chocolate that the recipe called for was a little over the top, especially if you're going to the bother of using less cream! I probably only used about a 1/4 of a cup. In hindsight the amount was perfect for my taste but I should have left it in bigger chunks. Like Tammy, I used canned black doris plums.

You can find the original Donna Hay recipe on Bron's blog.


I loved this recipe, the rich chocolate and the tart plums were an outstanding favour combination and the recipe was quick and easy to do. I am keen to try other variations over my winter entertaining season.

Hey Hey It's Donna Day #11 - Mousse

mousse
[MOOS]
A French term meaning "froth" or "foam," mousse is a rich, airy dish that can be either sweet or savory and hot or cold. Cold dessert mousses are usually made with fruit puree or a flavoring such as chocolate. Their fluffiness is due to the addition of whipped cream or beaten egg whites and they're often fortified with gelatin. Savory mousses can be made from meat, fish, shellfish

Some people,like me, are squicked out by the thought of eating raw eggs and some
people, like me, are put off at the thought of working with gelatine for fear of ending with something that feels like rubber. So when Helen of Tartlette named mousse as the theme for Hey Hey It's Donna Day #11 I had a wee challenge ahead of me - to find an eggless, gelatineless mousse recipe.

I now present to you the easiest lemon mousse you will ever make. No seriously! It is dead easy and takes just minutes to prepare. No eggs, no gelatin and only three ingredients. The recipe is courtesy of my mum and she can't remember where she first saw it but has been making it for years and receives rave reviews. It's an ideal recipe to remember if you get caught and have to make a dessert at the last minute. As long as you can run to the store for some cream, if you have lemons in the fruitbowl and a can of condensed milk in your pantry you are good to go.

The Easiest Lemon Mousse You'll Ever Make

Ingredients
1 can sweetened condensed milk - not lite
150-300 mls cream (less will give you a thicker end result)
Juice of 4 lisbon lemons - this recipe does not work with meyers and I can't vouch for any other varieties
Finely grated zest of 2 lemons


Method
In a medium sized bowl, beat the cream until soft peaks form
In another bowl mix together the condensed milk, lemon juice and lemon zest
Fold the cream into the lemon mixture until combined
Pour into your chosen serving dish/dishes and refrigerate until ready to serve
The mixture will thicken up on standing and will be quite stable for several days
It is particularly nice served in a brandy snap basket or as a filling for brandy snaps themselves. The brandy snaps will melt if left too long so it's best to fill them just before serving

For a recipe to make your own brandy snaps check out the Chelsea Sugar website here. Or, for a brandy snap basket recipe see here.

Hay Hay it's Donna Day #10 Cheesecakes

The prodigious Peabody won the hosting rights to the lastest round of HHDD and chose cheesecake as the theme.

I am so indecisive and I'm such a procrastinator that I usually miss deadlines by the time I have selected my recipe. I knew that I wanted a baked cheesecake because I didn't want to mess with gelatine but other than that I could have gone in any direction. I thought I was onto a good thing by asking my work pals to choose and there were a few interesting contenders; a Russian fudge cheesecake or a baked cheesecake with caramel apple topping - both from Cuisine magazine or raspberry and milk chocolate cheesecake from Taste magazine. But then, as fate would have it, the April Taste magazine arrived in my mailbox last week and on the cover was a picture of the cutest little cheesecakes you've ever seen.

Due to copyright I can't share the recipe here but you can check it out online in April by going to Taste and searching for cheesecake. I can tell you though that the cheesecakes contained all the usual suspects - cookie crumb base (in this case ginger flavoured), cream cheese, sugar, eggs, vanilla, lemon rind and of course raspberries. The swirl idea is a great way to improvise and I imagine that a wee dollop of chocolate fudge sauce or caramel sauce would be an interesting variation. In real life the cheesecakes didn't look so yellow but hey I'm a crap photographer - get over it.


I'm still on a healthy eating kick and didn't dare try any of the cheesecake (OK so I might have licked the bowl) so I brought it in to work to share. There were a a few cheesecakes left over I said to one gal who had missed out during the day that she should take a couple home and share one with her husband. Let's just say he didn't get to try any - I guess they must have been good.

Lemon & Coconut Impossible Pie

Our neighbours invited us over for dinner last weekend and I was asked to bring a dessert. I love it when I get to make dessert. My lemon tree is still laden with fruit so my first inclination was of course something lemony. On Christmas day my contribution to the family table was a citrus curd tart – a recipe I’d tasted at a recent potluck lunch at work. The general consensus of my family was that they’d prefer the tart to be a little more... well... tart! That was not a surprising comment given that the recipe called for a mixture of orange and lemon juice. From memory I also used tangelo juice since I happened to have one in the fridge. Here’s the recipe which I think came from some egg promotion recipe book.

Citrus Curd Tart
Serves 4-6

Ingredients
4 eggs
1 cup sugar
½ cup melted butter
2 teaspoons grated lemon rind
2 teaspoons grated orange rind
1 cup desiccated coconut
½ cup flour, sifted
½ cup lemon juice
½ cup orange juice
1 cup milk

Method
Preheat oven to 180 degrees C/ 350 degrees F
Grease a 20cm (8 inch) diameter pie dish (I used a cake tin)
Place all ingredients in a food processor and blend until mixed
Pour into the pie dish and place in the preheated oven
Cook for 45 minutes or until firm and golden brown on top
Serve sprinkled with icing sugar

For Saturday’s dinner I figured I’d just make the same citrus curd tart but use all lemon juice and see how it turned out. Could I find the recipe? No of course not. I googled “lemon coconut impossible pie” and came up with this link

Lemon & Coconut Impossible Pie

Ingredients
60g (2 ounces) soft butter
½ cup self raising flour
¾ cup caster Sugar
¾ cup desiccated coconut
3 large eggs
grated rind of 2 lemons (or limes)
½ cup lemon juice (or lime)
1 cup of milk

Method
Put all ingredients except milk into a mixing bowl and beat with a balloon whisk until combined
Add milk and whisk for 1 minute
Pour into a greased 23 or 25 cm (10 inch) pie plate and cook in a preheated moderate oven(180C/350F) for 50 to 60 minutes until gold brown and set
Test with point of a knife inserted in centre. It should come out clean
Stand for 10 minutes before serving
Serve warm with cream or ice cream (we had ours cold and it was fine)



My version of impossible pie turned out a little less eggy and a little more cakey than the previous recipe I’d used but it was definitely more lemony. Next time I might add a tad more lemon juice and see if that alters the consistency too much. I served it with fresh strawberries and blueberries and some Kapiti Lemon Meringue Pie flavoured icecream on the side. Kapiti’s Lemon Meringue Pie icecream won the supreme award at the 2006 New Zealand Ice Cream Awards (I didn't even know there were such awards) and I can see why it won as it was the perfect balance of rich creaminess and tangy lemon flavour. I hope they keep it as a regular flavour.

Our neighbours are passionate gardeners and they have a lovely outlook over the golf course. Imagine having this view from your kitchen/dining windows – isn’t it peaceful.

Pavlova and L&P - New Zealand Icons

Recently we had a American couple as guests for dinner. I wanted to give them a homestyle meal rather than something they might get at a restaurant. As many Kiwis are descended from immigrants from England, Ireland and Scotland most of us have grown up with a "meat and three veg" kind of menu and a roast dinner on a Sunday. New Zealand is well known for its sheep production as we have approximately 12 times more sheep than people. We are the butt of many sheep jokes usually told by Australians.

I served roast leg of lamb with gravy and mint jelly on the side. For veges we had roasted potato, pumpkin and kumara which is New Zealand's sweet potato. There are three different varieties of kumara, the traditional red and the more recent gold and orange. One of them is very similar to the US sweet potato but I can never remember if it's the gold or the orange one. For something green we had steamed asparagus and some canned green beans.

To drink we had Lemon and Paeroa or as it's more commonly known L&P. It is a pleasant lemon flavoured soda and was originally made from mineral water sourced for a place called Paeroa in New Zealand. If you visit Paeroa you will see a 7 metre high replica of an L&P bottle. These days L&P is made by Coca Cola and the current tv ad rates L&P as "world famous in New Zealand - since ages ago". You can watch it here.


I also made a very lame attempt at making iced tea for our visitors thinking that they might be in withdrawal after a few days without it. If the tea tasted bad my dinner guests were too impressed by me walking out the door and picking a lemon off my tree to comment otherwise. If you ask for iced tea in a restaurant in New Zealand you are likely to receive a very strange look. We typically drink hot tea and usually with milk. I enjoy iced tea (sweet of course with lots of lemon) but have never had very much luck making it myself.

To finish, there was no other choice but pavlova - New Zealand's national dessert. Although, if you ask an Austalian they will claim the dessert as their invention.

There are as many pavlova recipes as there are preferences for how it turns out. Some like theirs very crispy like a meringue, others like them marshmallowy, some like them chewy. My mother's pavlova is the best of both worlds - a crispy shell with a thick marshmallow middle. Here's her recipe:

Morag's Pavlova

Ingredients
6 egg whites
1 and 1/2 cups caster (superfine) sugar
2 tablespoons cold water
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 and 1/2 teaspoons vinegar
2 teaspoons cornflour (cornstarch)
Pinch of salt


Method
Preheat oven to 125 degrees C/ 250 degrees F
With an electric beater, beat egg whites in a clean bowl until stiff


Add half of the sugar and beat well
Add the remainder of the sugar and continue to beat until stiff and glossy


Beat in the rest of the ingredients
Line a baking sheet with foil and lightly grease it
Dollop the meringue mixture in a tall pile in the centre of the foil and stack it as high as you can
Run a fork up the sides to even it up and create a bit of height


Bake for 1 and 1/2 hours
Turn oven off
Leave pavlova in the oven to cool


If your pav drops like mine did never fear - that's why God invented whipped cream. Decorate your pavlova with whipped cream and sliced seasonal fruit as desired. Kiwifruit would be a good choice.


You can make your pavlova several days in advance, just store it loosely covered in a dry place and decorate it close to serving.