Repetition is a dangerous thing. If you are commercial radio listener in any country, I think you can agree that any station has killed music. In Australia, it has become so bad that I can almost predict what song will be on the radio next. I do not intentionally listen to it but the back ground noise of a song or (songs) about butts has me hating this female movement of “love your body” message. Taylor’s high pitched dis about haters has me wanting to shake her and! We cannot forget the random psychotic beats of the clubbing/ raving hits.
Of course the others may say that repetition can cure the obsession with it however in my eyes repetition make you hate it more than ever. Songs that I used to cause me to shake my ass like #whitestgirlintheworld, cause me to cringe every time they play. Does repetition make the heart grow more founder of it or does it make you grow tired of it?
Either way repetition is not just reserved for music. Even in our baking/ food blogging/ lifestyle blogging world, repetition is everywhere. No matter how many times I see the stuffed cookie, cookie dough wrapped sweet or bacon caramel wrapped everything ; I can never consider them new. I cannot be the only one who grows tired of seeing the recipe from the New York times’ No knead bread recipe or the hybrid sweet thing with the seasons key ingredient. No matter how “new” you think a recipe is; it never will be (well unless you find a way to apply an unknown heat, to unknown ingredients)
They were nice but not when you read 4 blogs in a row who have applied fake lye water to a baked good. Trashy way has it is place, just like formality; you just cannot have too much of it. I will never claim to completely original with recipes because they are all sourced from other books and pictures. I also do my best the balance what I put on here with sweet, sweet delights of fat kid heaven and the down to earth products that has inspired me.This is why my blog should really be called that an ordinary suburban girl can create with a limited space, too much time and a being a frugal finch.
Being my cheap, cheap self; the winding abundance of pumpkin on special has me crying that I did not buy in bulk, pre roast and puree it for further use. I love pumpkin but not in the traditional manner of sweet pies. I have never had pumpkin pie to be honest. USA readers? What is it like? What’s up with the marshmallows on it? Pumpkin lattes do not register on my craving radar however the use of pumpkin in bread does.
I know it may a bit early to celebrate pumpkins again but I have obtained some saffron threads in a basket of gourmet food stuffs. I am so excited to see what I can create with it, also the little bottle of squid ink has be busting to use it in bread buns too! (more on this later)
I did not intentionally create this loaf with the St Lucia Buns in mind but I did what it see what saffron would be like in a sweet bread. Being true to my nature I was too lazy to roll them out into the buns, so I made it in to a loaf. A twisted sugar loaf in fact but what did my rant about pumpkin have to do with this. The pumpkin puree is the golden base which makes the saffron really shine. Also is anyone else sick of pumpkin spice?
Studded with soaked Marsala raisins, this sunny bread will make any morning just that little easier when spread with yellow butter or honey. Yellow on yellow on gold; what can be more beautiful? This is best on the day but it still has a great texture one day after thanks to the pumpkin. Makes 2 one pound tin loaf but you can freeze one loaf for later date.
Twisted St Lucia Pumpkin Bread
Adapted from Simply Recipes
Make 2 one pound loafs
150g raisins
150ml marsala
100g butter
300g milk
14g dry yeast
4g salt
2 egg yolks
100g white sugar
20 saffron threads
200g pumpkin puree, unsweetened
700g-800g bread flour
Middle: raw, coffee sugar
Optional: Egg wash, Sunflower seeds, and raw sugar for topping
In small sauce pan bring Marsala to the boil. Place in raisins and leave to soak for 15 minutes; drain. At the same time use another small saucepan and bring milk and butter to a lukewarm temperature. Add saffron thread s and yeast; leave to infuse for about 15 minutes as well.
In a large stand mixer place 700g flour, sugar, salt, egg yolks and pumpkin puree. Make a well in the center and pour in the milk mixture when ready. Come on a low speed for 1 minute them a medium for 10 minutes. Add more flour if the dough is VERY sticky but less flour makes nicer bread. Once it becomes smooth and elastic, shaped into a round and placed in oiled bowl covered with a damp cloth. Leave to double in size about 1 hour. Grease too loaf pans with butter.
Punch down dough and form it into two balls. Roll each on a floured surface to smooth it out again. Shape each ball into a rectangles 28 by 16 cm approx. Spread over with half of the raisins and raw sugar. Roll the bread up Swiss roll style from the longest side. Use a sharp knife to cut down the long length ways. Twist the divided dough (like a braid) as carefully as possible to keep the folds and raisins in place. Transfer to loaf pan. Repeat with other dough. Cover with cling film and leave to rise for 45 minutes. Pre heat oven to 180C.
Once risen, brush with egg wash and sprinkle over seeds and sugar. Bake for 30-40 minutes, covering with foil at 15 minutes if too brown.
Only difference between this week and last week is that I am slapping myself that I have come this far. I have hinted in past that my dream right now is to get into the industry. Whether I am plating up desserts in a commercial kitchen or folding a croissant dough in the bakery; either one would be stellar experience. Experience is all I can ask for.
Anyway one thing I have decided is really not just for me is chocolate making. No I do not mean mixing the cocoa butter, sugar and cocoa solids but those fancy filled chocolates you get in the stores. Yes chocolate is a dying art much like the pulled sugar art I did a few weeks back however I do not know if I can grow to like it. Over the past 2 weeks I have been doing a very intense chocolate course as part of earning my credentials in pastry. 8 hour classes may seem long, in reality I could go on for 10 hours and still not get it right.
My main problem is not tempering chocolate. I actually was tempering quite well 90% of the time but when it comes to filling the filled chocolate moulds is a another story. I am about to melt away every time I here the word "chocolate". My hands are not that big, you could say small in fact. So when the teacher ask you to hold the plastic wide mould with one hand and scrape hard with the other is a recipe for disaster. I was covered in chocolate (not as nice as it sounds) once a class was over. However the delicious nibbles you get in class is really worth the cleaning pain; I think I am about to become sick of eating chocolate soon.
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I will update you guys on the final product next week! Finger cross, I get myself one of those muscle grips to train my hands and produce a chocolate box worth displaying.
In case you were wondering, this cake is one I done for a client of mine. Her little girl was turn 1 years old and I had the pleasure of doing this cake for that special day. I am not a fan of great big cakes for kids.
One. They would not remember the effort you went to.
Two. Unless you have a big family, a majority of that cake will be wasted.
Ok let me pull out a pie of humble pie and sit to eat it. It is your baby, do what you want to. If making a gigantic cake is you cup of tea, go with it. By using Apt 2. Baking’s Blog as a guide I did my best try to copy this technique. I have few tips to help people because they do not write it in the recipe. It was good experience and I have few pictures below of the recipe of cake in action that she sent to me! I also did the cupcake and the bird :)
Firstly, you need a semi warm plate knife. I did this by running it over naked flame once or twice. Makes it LOT easier to drag around.
Secondly, DO not leave your cake in the fridge for too long. I cannot stress this enough. I used a French egg yolk butter cream which took FOREVER to get back to a temperature which I could smooth out the icing. Either leave it there for 15 minutes or if your kitchen is cold you can do it straight away.
Lastly, paper towels here are you best friends in the kitchen with this cake. Nothing is worse than having icing everywhere and messing up your hard work.
White chocolate melt and mix mud cake (you will need to make 3 of these cakes in pink, teal and blue)
Adapted from Donna Hay’s Chocolate essentials
185g butter
150ml room temp, full cream milk
90g full fat Greek yoghurt
300g caster sugar
150g white chocolate buttons
300g plain flour
8g baking powder
2 eggs
For each cake; 3g gel pink, teal or blue food dye
Pre heat oven to 160C, line and grease one 22cm pan.
In a large sauce pan place butter, white chocolate, sugar and milk. Cook over low heat until melted. Set aside for 5 minutes.
Shift flour and baking powder in a large bowl.
In a medium jug whisk, yoghurt, eggs and vanilla.
Make a well in the flour bowl; pour in yoghurt/egg mixture and white choc mix. Fold to combine.
Pour and spread into your prepared pan.
Bake for 45-50 minutes. Cover with foil if browning too much on the top.
Leave in pan for 10 minutes to cool before turning out.
Butter cream recipe
French butter cream
6 yolks
250g caster sugar
30ml water
450g butter
2 tsp clear butter flavour
1tsp almond extract
Food colouring in an aqua or light blue. 3 grams for a gel.
In a stand mixer beat egg yolks until pale yellow and fluffy. This takes about 7 minutes.
At the same time, in a sauce pan combined sugar and water. Place on stove on medium heat. You are making sugar syrup.
Heat the syrup, swirling to evenly distribute heat. Bring the mix to 118C.
Once it reaches this temperature, drizzle the syrup into the beating bowl of egg yolks. Make sure to pour down the side to avoid the beaters.
Continue to beat until this mix is room temperature. It will not be as big as the normal egg white mixes but it should be pale and creamy.
Change to paddle.
Add the butter slowly on medium speed. Scrape the bowl often. Continue this process until all butter is added.
Add butter and almond flavour beat on high medium until fluffy. Add colour and beat until combined.
Set aside.
Assembly
Instructions from Apt 2. Baking Co
One recipe of butter cream
3 recipes of the cake
Cake stand
Cake plate
Place a small amount of butter cream on to the cake plate. Fix one of cakes to cake plate. Using a piping bag fitted with 1 cm round nozzle, pipe a broader around the cake leave a gap of 1 cm. Place 1/3 cup of icing in the middle of this circle. Using your off set spatula spread and move the icing to meet the boarder and meld it into together. Top with another cake. Continue this process with the next layer. Finish with a flat side face upwards for the last layer
After the coat the cake in a crumb frosting. Chill for 30 minutes.
Do the final coat of butter cream making it as flat as possible.
Finish the cake by holding the tip your offset spatula at 160 degree angle. Warm up you blade. Pressing gently on the frosting at the bottom of the cake. Smoothly spin the cake turntable while simultaneously dragging the spatula up the side of the cake, stop when you get to the top. Wipe the spatula clean with a towel whenever needed and continue again. TO finish the top, press the spatula tip in to the centre of the top of the cake. While turning the turn table, move the spatula slowly to the outer edge of the cake; creating a continuous circle.
Just a general guess but a majority of you reading this would have ancestors who migrated from another country. Whether you are a second, third or even fourth generation of a convict, farmer or noble man; going to primary school was a cultural battle ground. I am an Australian Born Chinese (or ABC as the young people say); so school was particularly hard time for me. While Australian, American culture pulled me in with it flashy, artful displays; my home life on a completely different colour spectrum. This made itself very clear every time I opened my lunch box.
I had a typical lunch box. Not one that had cartoons on it but a bright yellow one which had the compartments for each food. On the outside everyone’s lunch box look similar in the storage room however once they were opened, it told a different story. My parents did the best they could to provide me with the foods that I whined and complained about. Individually packaged Chips, chocolate bars and the blue coloured juices that looked so attractive in the plastic wrap were the things I wanted most. Sure the colours in them may have driven me in an insane sugar rush but at that time all I cared about was fitting in to the cool crowd.
It is funny how as a kid I thought there was a difference between getting chips in a individual packages compared to buying a whole big package and separating it at home yourself. However you could see who was a fully ingrained in the culture and those who tired. Of course as I got older the lunch box seem to lose it significance in class room status but it still resonates with me as a important memory.
So what was in my lunch box? As I said before it was normally sandwich with some kind of peanut butter or lunch ham filling, a juice or soy milk of some kind, finally finishing with saltine crackers. All of this was obtained from the Chinese store down the road. You might be able to see why the muted tones of the packaging were no match to the plastic fanatic of the supermarket.
So I know that the American kids are going back to school soon; so lunch time snacks that actually have a bit of nutrition are on the menu. The problem is that kids do not really care about healthy as much as the parents do; however in an effort to help anyone battle the kids I made a snack bar you can pack happy in to their lunch box. Bases of coconut oil, whole grain flours, whole seeds and carob are definitely on trend these days; I combined these into Crisp Carob and Peptide Carmelita bars.
The base is a palm sugar oat base which like digestive with that slight salty undertone. The middle filling is a can of caramelised condense milk which all kids would love. Also the appeal of making a can of caramel condense milk would warm your heart to preparing kid snacks. The crispy textured pumpkin seed sand carob chip studded topping stay surprising crisp even once it has been exposed to elements.
My secret? Whole made, wholemeal panko crumbs. I cannot tell you how much this ingredient is a game changer in making crispy toppings for sweet bars. While crumble is not the best thing to pack every day; you can happily take this along and be satisfied at the 3pm slump.
I have made these bars twice so far they are that easy and that good. So let me clear up the bars.
Morish, salt sweet, whole meal cookie base.
Chewy comforting milk caramel.
Long lasting crisp carob chip and seed topping.
You know you want to make these Crisp Carob and Peptide Carmelita bars.
Crisp Carob and Peptide Carmelita bars
Makes 20
125g Melted and cooled coconut butter
190g grated palm sugar
1 egg
5ml vanilla extract
85g whole meal flour
65g oat flour
100g quinoa flakes
5g salt
250g caramelised condense milk
TOPPING
125g coconut butter, softened
75g whole meal flour
3g nutmeg ground
100g grated palm sugar
55g pumpkin seeds, raw
60g carob chips
75g whole meal panko
Pre heat oven to 180C. Line a shallow slice tray (mine is 20 cm by 29cm but anything along those line will do) with baking paper.
In a large bowl combine brown sugar, salt wholemeal flour, oat flour and quinoa flakes. Mix well. Make a well in the centre. Pour in melted coconut butter, egg and vanilla. Use a wooden spoon to mix in. Push into the prepared tray and flatten. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and cool.
For topping, in a medium bowl combine flour, nutmeg, sugar and 30g panko. Rub in soft coconut
butter.
Pour over caramel. Sprinkle over pumpkin seeds. Sprinkle over topping. After sprinkle over carob chips and remaining panko. Bake in the oven for a further 25 to 30 minutes until the top turn light tan colour.
Cool in tray then fridge for 2 hours before cutting into rectangles. I got 20 from my tray but you may cut them larger if you wish.
I think there can only be one word to describe my feelings that winter is coming to an end. Relief. If you have not heard of this year’s Winter in Australia; it has not been nice. It is really windy, cold and dry or wet, humid and yet still cold. As you can guess this is wreaking havoc with my baking, macarons and my sugar pulling art has been a pain to control.
Sure it is not great but hell it is come a long way from the misshapen fruits I did a few weeks ago. Unfortunately both ended up in the bin after a few day because they started to melt away… Oh the 5 hours of work down the drain…
Relief will also describe my feelings about spring and my skin condition. Do not judge my profile picture as what my skin looks like now. Thanks to the harsh temperature changes in Winter and the raging, once dormant hormones; my face has taken on the texture of celeriac.
Not only is making my confidence drop to range of non-existent but I have become so stressed about it. I know this sounds vain but my skin especially on my face is important to me. Like long hair is to a female; having clear skin on my face is my long hair. For anyone who has deal with the winter break outs; please give me your hints for healing and face care.
So finally with winter ending, the weather may warm up and become a regular humidity. However another word can describe winter ending; that has to be melancholy. As you know my father was an avid gardener and he not only grew 4 four trees (lemon, sweet lemons, mandarins and mango tree) but he also took care of the whole surrounding garden by himself.
This marks the end of fruiting for the mandarin tree, the cold is fading and so are fruits on the tree. While my father may not be here anymore; his tree has become so strong to deliver us bucket loads of fruit this season. We had to even give some away. I hope he will be proud, as he always said “I know we can’t eat it all but it is good that we have enough to give away”.
In order to celebrate as the last hurray I created this Coconuty Mandarin Syrup cake with Mandarin jelly and Candied zest. Well the concept was to make a cake that look like a fruit. So in a test of my baking skill and a whole lot of luck; I buttered the hell out of a steel bowl (about 15cm in diameter) and floured it well before baking this sphere shaped cake. Luck was on my side that day before it worked YAY!!!
Based on a those moist and deliciously dense flourless cakes, this one is gluten free base of hazelnut flour and fine polenta. I love the texture that polenta gives to caked goods; the slight sweetness from the corn is a fine paring to buttery and rich coconut flour and eggs. This is one of those times when hazelnut flour is essential for flavour but I guess if you had to you could use almond meal in the cake mix. This may not be vegan; I am sure you could replace the eggs with subs.
The syrup is simple but clearly a key player in this cake. Not only does it save over baked dry cakes (yes I have done this before); it helps balance out the tart and slightly bitter flavour from the sour mandarins. I though the jelly was a cute addition to make it look more like a slice of the fruit. I am not sure if work but the jelly tasted surprisingly good. By cooking down the juice from the fruit on a low heat it made the flavour more sweet, mellow and slightly herbal. Perfect compared to the sweet richness of the cake. While it is not a big cake you do not need a lot.
Coconutty Mandarin Syrup cake with Mandarin jelly and Candied zest
Hazelnut Polenta Orange Cake
Adapted from This orange cake from Taste.com
Makes 1 Fully decorated cakes plus extra ( three 15cm domes)
5 sour mandarin, skin and all
300g golden caster sugar
6 eggs
200g hazelnut flour
60g polenta
7g baking powder
Extra corn flour and butter for pans
Place 5 mandarins in a medium saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring to the boil on high heat, then reduce heat and simmer for 1.5 hours. You may need to top up water. Drain from the water. Cool.
Remove the seeds from the soften fruit but keep the skin. Process in a food processor till well blended.
Preheat the oven to 160C. Grease and corn flour 15cm 3 steel bowls.
Place both sugars in a food processor, add eggs and process until thick and pale. Add mandarin and whiz until smooth, and then add flour, polenta and baking powder. Mix until combined. Pour batter into cake pan about ¾ full and bake for 45mintues or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cover with foil if browning too much.
Cool the cake in the pan. Turn out on to a wire rack.
Mandarin syrup
125ml mandarin juice, seeds and pulp removed
30ml water
160g sugar
60ml coconut liquor
Bring all ingredients to boil in a medium sauce pan on low heat. Give a stir with a spoon every so often to ensure the sugar is dissolved. Continue to boil on low to reduce the syrup by half. Set aside to cool slightly. Stir in 60 ml coconut liquor.
Candied zest
2 whole mandarin fruits
Zest peeler
220g sugar
Use a zest peeler, remove thick (3mm) strips of zest without the white. Trim if too long but they should be about 5-8cm. Place in a small saucepan with cold waterBring to a simmer over medium heat. Cook for 5 minutes. Drain in a sieve and dry well.
Return the strips to the pan and add sugar and 110ml water; bring to boil. Turn the stove to low and cook the zest is translucent. Remove the zest to wax paper with a slotted spoon; let cool.
Mandarin jelly
7 sour mandarins (I got 200ml)
150g sugar
120ml water
4g gold gelatine sheet
Vegetable oil for greasing
Soften gelatine sheet in cold water for 5 minutes. Bring juice, water and sugar to the boil in a small sauce pan. Stir until the sugar dissolve. Remove from heat. Once gelatine is soften, squeeze the excess water out and stir briskly into the sauce pan. Pour mixture into greased 10-13cm bowls, fill to ¾ filled. Chill in the fridge for 4 hours or until set. Tip out of the greased bowls.
Assembly
One recipe of mandarin cake
One recipe of candied zest
One recipe of syrup
One recipe of jelly
Orange coloured coconut
Leaves
Place cakes on a wire rack and brush on syrup heavily. Allow to soak in. Cover the base cake in coconut. Press in coconut to get it to stick.
Place coconut base on the bottom. Brush on more syrup to the up turned hemisphere. Place other cake on top. Fridge for 30 minutes.
On serving place on leaves, candied zest and pour on more syrup if desired. Serve with jelly.