The Culinary Explorations of Mrs Cake

Our Wedding Dessert Table

2012-10-12T21:45:00.005+13:00

I've written about the wedding as a whole on my wedding blog, so as to avoid boring you all with soppy details (if you like soppy wedding stuff you can read it here), but thought I'd show you my special project, which was the centrepiece of our reception and much enjoyed by guests.

For the last few years there's been a trend to present luscious banquets of sweets in style, and I've been desperately wanting an excuse to execute something over the top and completely ridiculous. Amy Atlas is my main inspiration - her tables are always stunning, and her approach is pragmatic, using unexpected household items to decorate and assemble her displays.

Anyway, a wedding seemed like the perfect excuse to pull a little something together.

The first rule was that I wasn't going to make the desserts. Well, maybe one. But definitely not the cake. Quite aside from the fact that making wedding cake is downright stressful, I know too many purveyors of excellent cake, and here was my opportunity to let them show off a bit.

Were there other rules? Not really. I compiled a list of the things I particularly wanted on the table (Denheath custard squares! Macarons from J'aime les Macarons! Bohemein chocolates!) and sought prices (ouch). And then I moved on to modelling the proposed layout in Microsoft Visio so I could source appropriately sized platters and stands (proportions are important! And yes, I'm obsessed). This is the diagram (top elevation and side elevation)(did I mention that I'm obsessed?):

Presentation
Once I had done this I could start looking for platters properly. I wanted plain white, because there was enough going on already, and I thought they'd be easy to hire. Wrong! Apparently only caterers use these, and apparently caterers don't like to hire out plates for not-their-own food (fair enough). I scoured TradeMe, rang hire places, asked around... And eventually bought a stack of Maxwell Williams ones from Briscoes at half price. I also found some nice wooden trays on TradeMe, bottles and jars from Arthur Holmes, and hired some pretty glass candy jars from Oh Buttercup. At the last minute I got my Dad to chop up some bits of 2x4 to elevate the black forest jellies we made, and Mum wrapped them in tissue paper so nobody could tell they were just lumps of wood! Innovation for the win. :-)

Purchasing
Once we had an idea how many people were coming I ordered the goodies - over ordered in most cases, but who's complaining about leftovers? Not me!

I'm a big fan of a bargain if they're going, and if you're buying a lot of something make sure you ask if they have a bulk discount - as an example Bohemein apply their loyalty scheme so basically for every $100 you spend you get about $20 worth of chocolate free. Also, some companies can personalise their product for you - J'aime les Macarons regularly colour-match macarons to wedding themes and it doesn't cost any extra.

I had a list of what had been ordered, when to pick it up, and if it was paid or not. Most places were paid in advance to reduce the thinking we had to do the week of the wedding - it meant I could send whichever brother-in-law or parent was available to do pick-up duty!

Assembly
Pulling it all together was the part where I failed slightly. I spent some time the night before putting chocolates on plates, and then wafted about during the hair-and-make-up time putting macarons and doughnuts on plates (for me putting pretty food on pretty plates in pretty piles is pretty much the best relaxation activity around - perfect for pre-weddingitis!).

We had told the caterers in advance what we needed them to do during the party (plate custard squares at the beginning of the reception; pour chocolate milk at dessert time; provide plates and cutlery) but I didn't leave instructions for putting things on the table, so Mr Cake and I went off to have photos taken and get married and stuff, and when we arrived at the reception the table still needed to be set up. It was fine, as the caterers were supremely helpful and we got it all sorted in a matter of minutes, but would have been a bit better to have sorted it out earlier.

My table isn't as styled as some of those I admire, but then adding much more might have been over the top - and a pet peeve of mine is that the pretty tables tend to have plates with, say, eight items on it. Are there more than eight people at your party? Yes? Then that is just mean! So my focus was ensuring that the supply was ample, which does affect aesthetics.

Most items were just set out on their plates. The doughnuts were piled high (and yes, I planned the number of doughnuts perfectly so that I could make them into pyramids, don't judge me) and the jellies we on the aforementioned timber. The custard squares, which come frozen, were set out at the beginning of the reception and defrosted on the table, which meant they were just right at dessert time - otherwise chilled things would need to go out when dessert was served. And the chocolate milk was poured (with a funnel!) into the mini milk bottles just before serving, because warm milk is not all that awesome.

The desserts were:

wedding cake (carrot, chocolate and red velvet cake layers) by Sweet Kitchen
jellybeans from The Lolly Shop (jars from Oh Buttercup)
treat size custard squares from Denheath
sea salt caramel and melting passion ganache chocolates from Bohemein
black forest jellies, made by us (very easy - recipe to follow!)
caramel hit and dusted sugar doughnuts from Couplands
passionfruit and salted butter caramel macarons from J'aime les Macarons
chocolate milk from the supermarket
dessert cakes from Just Desserts

What do you think? Completely over the top, or within acceptable parameters for Mr and Mrs Cake? Would you (or have you) ever planned something like this?

Photos by the amazing Frank Visser.

Chocolate Degustation at Chameleon

2012-08-21T20:23:00.006+12:00

One of the (okay, many) things I was sad to miss during last year's Wellington on a Plate was the chocolate degustation at Chameleon, so when Mr Cake asked me where we should have dinner on Monday night it was top of my list of things to do. In the very early days of the blog we went to a three course chocolate dinner at Vivant, which was interesting, but not particularly impressive. This one was a different story, though. :-D

The first course was an aperitif, a shot of Tuatara London Porter with Valrhona 66% chocolate. The cracker on top was delicious, particularly the cheese which was good and strong. The porter was okay but isn't really my thing so Mr Cake got extra - he loved it (disclaimer: I'm not too much of a fan of the hoppy/malty flavour profile. And it wasn't bad, which is pretty much high praise from me).

The next course was scallops, poached in pinot noir and served on swede mash. And yes, a little chocolate on top, as well as some dehydrated ginger. We weren't too impressed by this one - the swede was a little on the sweet side and the scallops were quite bland. But fear not - things are looking up!

Course 3 is a chorizo lasagne, which was rich and morish, with the chocolatey sauce balancing out the spicy sausage. A nice twist on comfort food.

Of the savoury courses (and they were generally pretty savoury, in case anyone was worried) the main was definitely the star, though. The venison chop was succulent and tender, green beans (which were cooked just so, crunchy and fresh) have never been so welcome, and the pie - I can only hope that Chameleon might keep this on their menu a little longer. The filling is beautifully cooked, hearty, rich, chocolatey, meaty, and the mashed potato topping is crispy on the outside and fluffy within, and melds perfectly with the filling. My biggest complaint: too much food! It mightn't look like much but the gigantic plate distorts reality almost as much as eating it distorted my belly. ;-) (full disclosure: I actually left some of the pie filling, for fear I might not be able to enjoy dessert which would clearly have been a disaster)

And speaking of dessert - oh my word! It was AMAZING. Caps are necessary. It was described as a mille-feuille of Valrhona Ivoire parfait and Kapiti marscapone with Ivoire mousse and a bitter orange salad. Translated, that reads: utter deliciousness, perfectly balanced sweet with bitter, creamy with crisp, rich with tangy. The parfait itself was a delight to eat, and the oranges/orange foam/orange zest made great accompaniments. The dark chocolate pouring sauce (which we think might have featured Grand Marnier) was scrummy too. I wanted to lick my plate clean (I didn't though).

So the dessert - I would go back for anytime. The waitress expressed surprise we had finished it - personally, I can't see how we could have not finished it. Even Mr Cake, who was disappointed to see the dessert was white chocolate centred, polished it all off.

The chocolate degustation is on until the 26th of August, so you only have a few more days. It's $85 per person, which I think is pretty good value. My advice if you're worried about running out of belly real estate would be to ease up on the swede mash, and make sure you save room for dessert.

What have you eaten as part of this year's Wellington on a Plate? I can't wait for the Food Bloggers' Conference this weekend, which incorporates the Chocolate Festival - and I guess next week I'll be on salad and soup in preparation to pay penance. ;-)

The chocolate degustation is available at Chameleon in the Intercontinental Hotel, 2 Grey Street, Wellington, until 26 August 2012. Ph 04 495 7841, http://www.chameleonrestaurant.co.nz/

Titanic Dinner

2012-07-28T18:30:00.002+12:00

First, I must confess that this was ages ago - April in fact. I have been very distracted with wedding stuff (so much fun!) and know this poor old blog has been quite neglected. Hopefully in about 8 weeks, once I'm really a Mrs, you might see the frequency of posts picking up again. ;-)

A couple of weeks before Mr Cake's birthday I was chatting to an old friend on Facebook and he told me he was coming to Wellington for a Titanic dinner to commemorate the 100 year anniversary of the sinking. I had been desperately trying to think of a cool birthday present, and this seemed to tick the box.

The event was hosted by Wellington Coastguard as a fundraiser, and the tickets were pretty snazzy. It was on the anniversary of the sinking and featured a menu based on one of the menus served in one of the ship's restaurants. The original menu was 11 courses; our chef combined them into a restrained eight courses. ;-)

For some of the dishes only the name of the dish is known, so some improvisation would have been required on the part of the chef.

The first course was oyster - which were quite nice, with a zingy salsa-type garnish. The second was consomme Olga (a beef broth) and cream of barley, which was served with little toasts. Both broths were very tasty, and I enjoyed the cream of barley in particular - though perhaps not something I'd expect to be served in a high-end restaurant these days.

Poached salmon with mousseline sauce was course three - pretty tasty, and would stand its own on a modern menu.

The main was somewhat overwhelming, with three kinds of meat on the same plate! Not something you would encounter in many restaurants these days, but I think this was where courses were combined and perhaps 100 years ago it was more common to combine proteins in this way. The side dish seemed more of an afterthought but the unadulterated broccoli was a refreshing change.

This 'course' was delicious - a very sweet champagne cocktail. I was so keen I drank half before I remembered to take a photo. Oops!

Roast squab turned out to be quail, and was quite tasty, and the pate was also lovely. Another slightly unusual combination by modern standards (but again I think this was a combined course).

Dessert was interesting - I didn't much like the Waldorf pudding, which is one of the unknowns - it was particular to White Star Line and no verifiable recipes are known, so this version was improvised with walnuts and apple - I guess the dessert version of Waldorf salad. Unfortunately it was quite heavy and dry. The ice-cream was very nice, though, and helped. The little chocolate eclair was nice enough, and though it didn't really fit with the meal our chef was just being true to the original menu! By far the star of this course was the peaches in chartreuse jelly - I really enjoyed the sweet, not too jellyish jelly. If that makes sense. ;-)

As well as endless food, the evening featured a talk by a gent who has gone down on the submarine to see the Titanic wreck, and a very moving letter read by a woman whose grandparents were on the sailing - her grandmother made it onto a lifeboat, but her grandfather didn't. Quite sobering!

It was pointed out that many of our current coastguard practices originated from that terrible event - so the fundraising element was certainly apt.

I see there's another interpretation of the Titanic dinner being put on at the Wellesley Boutique Hotel as part of Wellington on a Plate - and if you're anything like us, you'll seize the opportunity to dress the part:

Have you ever been to an event like this? Do you enjoy dressing up?

Visa Wellington on a Plate - my picks

2012-06-22T17:00:00.000+12:00

Unbelievably it's almost that time again... It seems that just when my waistline has forgiven me for my transgressions at last year's Wellington on a Plate events it's here again to taunt me with amazing food and fantastic but bank-account-draining events.

I thought I'd give you a rundown of my top picks for this year. My favourites are always the one-off events - out-of-the-ordinary and behind-the-scenes stuff you don't usually get the chance to do.

Pecha Kucha: Imbibe looks entertaining, and furthers my goal for this years festival of still being able to fit my wedding dress at the end of it. Talking about food = low calorie fun! ;-) At $10 per person it's also at the more affordable end of the scale.

The same can't be said for the Enchanted Cinderella Feast, which is definitely at the pricier end of the scale but hey, it sounds pretty good to me - especially if Ruth Pretty serves up any more of the incredible chocolate creme brulee she provided for the VWOAP launch event.

Chocoholics are well catered for with both the Chocolate Festival (loved it last year, will definitely be back!) and this most excellent tasting event at L'affaire au Chocolat. Mmm, chocolate...

The festival coincides with the opening of the Wellington Le Cordon Bleu cooking school, so they're hosting some interesting events - you can bet on seeing me at the Patisserie Introduction, and I'm also quite interested in the Reviewing the Reviewers discussion.

Also in the food blogging vein there's a food photography workshop which looks pretty promising, and a special festival viewing of the movie Julie & Julia, followed by a three-course meal inspired by Julia Childs. And last but not least I'm hoping to get to Finishing Touches, to glean some presentation skills that might assist both blogging and wedding planning.

What are your picks?

Tips for the Time-Poor - Menu Planning

2012-04-29T21:01:00.001+12:00

I'm probably not as time-poor as some of you, but still struggle to fit everything I want to into the constraint of the 24-hour day. And let's be honest, it's not just about time - it's also about motivation. Both of these things have been affecting my presence here, but they affect other things too - like how healthily we eat. A recent revelation to me is that planning your menu precisely not only saves you money but also makes cooking easier.

The saving money part is logical - if you know what you're cooking you buy exactly what you need and don't end up turfing out limp lettuce or droopy carrots at the end of the week. It becomes easier to make shopping lists and easier to stick to them (no point being tempted by some exotic new foodstuff if it's not on the menu - but if you're keen enough you can put it on the roster for the next round).

There are tons of different ways of planning your meals - you can do a week, fortnight or month in advance; you can plan new meals all the time, one or two new meals a week, or stick with family favourites; you can record your meals on paper, on a snazzy fridge chart, or electronically... Pretty much you can do what suits you.

We have planned our meals loosely for the last couple of years, by thinking of vague ideas of what we will eat over the next week when we make our shopping list. This didn't work as well for us for a couple of reasons. For one, we usually only shopped for 5-6 dinners, and though we do eat out sometimes, once a week is more than our optimal frequency - so we'd end up eating junk at the end of the week or revisiting the supermarket. Also, without specific meals mapped to days I would often come home from work at 5.30pm hoping Mr Cake would acquiesce to some unhealthy substitute in order to avoid cooking. Weak! So I decided we were going to get serious. Not that serious, but you know, a little bit serious. Here is what I reckon you need to do to make this work:

Step 1 - List your meals
Our meal planning is electronic, so I created a Google spreadsheet and listed all the meals we usually make for dinner. I find that this makes it easier to choose meals for a given day, since they're all listed. I try to choose a red meat meal for each week to make sure I get enough iron, and then just to get a reasonable variety. My sister has a prettier system - fridge magnets for each meal they have often. She does her planning monthly, so puts a printed calendar of the month on the fridge and sticks the magnets to the days.

Sister Cake's excellent magnet system

Step 2 - Plan when you'll eat what
Working out which day of the week you eat each meal is also important - you probably want to make sure that veggies that benefit from quick turnaround (like the bok choi we have on hand for tomorrow's Thai green curry) get used early in the cycle. Also, you probably want to make sure you're not going to wind up with really similar meals grouped together. This is the putting-the-magnets-on-the-calendar part - we don't have magnets, but a Google calendar. This has the added bonus of me being able to check the menu before I leave work so I can psych myself into the cooking process. ;-) I also spied this simple but effective peg system on Pinterest the other day, which might suit some of you.

Step 3 - Shop
Self-explanatory, really - the only notable part of shopping is that you should now only need to buy the ingredients for what is on the list for dinners, and hopefully you'll end up with a lower grocery bill (we've easily carved $20-30 a week off ours, which, ahem, may have been a bit on the generous side). We do our main groceries fortnightly via Countdown online shopping, but buy our produce ourselves weekly (cheaper and we can perform quality control).

Step 4 - Cook
And the final part - making the food. Unfortunately there's no magic to this part (I'd love if fairies came and made my dinner sometimes, after a long day at work), but at least you shouldn't need any panic supermarket trips before you get into the cooking.

Do you plan your menu in advance, or do you prefer to cook on a whim?

The Ultimate Custard Square Hunt - Asda Reading, United Kingdom

2012-04-22T14:19:00.001+12:00

So it's been a pretty long time since I've posted a custard square review - I just haven't encountered many new ones lately, sorry! But my friend Belinda has come to the rescue of the custard square with her review from afar.

Today we bought a box of four bakery treats at Asda. One of the treats was a custard slice. I thought it would be wrong not to do a review for Mrs. Cake!

The icing was lovely, sweet and not sickly, no coconut but it didn't matter, and as this is England, I didn't set my hopes too high anyway! The custard filling was so delicious, it had an almost caramelized vanilla flavour, if that is possible! The pastry was perfectly acceptable, broke easily enough when bitten or cut and wasn't chewy.

I'm actually going to award it a surprising 9/10.

(the scone, chocolate éclair and cream doughnut were yummy too)

Asda Tilehurst is located at Honey End Lane, Tilehurst, Reading, RG30 4EL, Berkshire, UK.

Why I have been suspiciously absent for the last 5 months

2012-04-14T16:31:00.005+12:00

I know I've been pretty scarce around here for the last wee while. There are lots of things that have distracted me from blogging - work is busy, my little sister got married a few weeks ago, there's lots of other stuff going on - but one big thing I've been keeping secret.

My moniker here is Mrs Cake - but really that's a bit misleading, it should be Ms Cake. Except that Mr Cake proposed to me in November - on the night I came home from the inaugural New Zealand Food Bloggers' Conference - so in September I will become Mrs Cake for real. ;-)

We've only just announced it - so I had to keep it under wraps here too. And unfortunately for this poor little blog, gazing at pretty wedding photos and imagining the possibilities for our celebration can suck up a lot of time (very enjoyably, I might add, it's not like I'm suffering - it just means I haven't been baking so much).

I will still blog here (I still gotta eat, after all!) but since I have wedding brain I've decided to dedicate a blog to that obsession, so if you're interested in weddingy stuff feel free to follow my train of thought over at The Wedding Hacker - and if you're not I'll try not to mention too much here. Just thought I should let you all know. :-)

Easter Rocky Road

2012-04-05T12:53:00.001+12:00

On Monday my office had an Easter bake-off. We've had a couple of bake-offs this year, and it's quite fun - full participation is not necessary but a bit of healthy competitive spirit makes for fun office banter in the days leading up to the event - not to mention a great morning tea on the day itself.

On Sunday afternoon I was feeling particularly lazy and uninspired, when I recalled the magic of rocky road. So if you want to make people happy on Sunday and haven't figured out yet, this is your easy key to success. And apparently the key to winning a giant bunny (well, it worked for me).

This is less a recipe than a method, and my rule of thumb is:

chocolate to bind
something chewy (Turkish delight, caramels)
something squidgy (usually marshmallow)
something crunchy (I tend towards nuts, with a strong preference for almonds)

I used all the ingredients above (well, only a handful of the almonds) - the white chocolate was to drizzle on top.

Then you melt the chocolate, chop up every thing else, stir everything through the chocolate, and set it in a pan. So easy - and yet so good. I Easterified my rocky road by using marshmallow eggs instead of marshmallows, and I also put caramel filled eggs on top. Hint: for extra decadent looking rocky road, save some of your add-ins to sprinkle on top.

I made my rocky road in brownie pans, and it goes a pretty long way - or at least, there was enough for people to have seconds and thirds. ;-) Once it's set just cut it into squares or break into chunks - it might not be pretty, but taste overcomes that.

Credit goes to my workmate Fraser for these pretty photos - and also to colleagues Sarah and Stacey who made amazingly pretty Easter treats - check out Stacey's fantastic cookies:

(Sarah made gorgeous cupcakes with coconut nests on top, each with a couple of wee eggs inside - adorable!)

I'm heading for a quiet Easter weekend with lots of reading and hopefully lots of chocolate - do you have any plans for over the break, or are you, like me, looking forward to some R&R?

Excuses and Black Forest Trifle

2012-02-15T21:20:00.001+13:00

It's been a while. I'm sorry about that - but only a little bit, if I'm honest. I'm sorry I haven't been writing, and hearing back from everyone and all of those things - but I'm glad to have had a bit of time out. Thanks for your patience!

This recipe is a mash-up of a variety of ideas and is really pretty flexible - it can be astonishingly easy, or a little more complicated if you want. It's a trifle, but perhaps not as you know it.

Firstly, please excuse the slightly burnt cake - I've done so little baking lately (our apartment gets so hot in summer that increasing the temperature further by turning on the oven seems folly) that I forgot our zealous oven overshoots the mark on temperature by about 15 degrees. However, that sort of helps illustrate one of the best parts of this recipe - it's a great way of making people rave about a seemingly ruined cake. Just scrape/break off the charred parts and it'll be all good!

You don't have to use cake - if you're going for the path of least resistance and don't have a charred cake to rescue use a supermarket cake or trifle sponge (better than regular sponge, though I'm still not sure why). It'll probably even be cheaper (sad though that is).

And if the path of least resistance doesn't beckon go ahead and make a chocolate cake like I did - and if you still hanker to exert yourself go ahead and make chocolate custard from scratch too. Me, I'm sticking with Meadow Fresh.

To make the regular vanilla custard chocolate, simply melt in a block of Whittaker's chocolate. I say simply but there is a wee trick to this - add about 1/4 of the custard to the chocolate as you melt it, so that it becomes more akin to ganache and doesn't seize up when you add it to the rest of the custard. You could heat the whole lot but it will take longer to chill so only do that if you have plenty of time up your sleeves.

The most time consuming part of making this trifle was actually the bowl. We made it to take to a barbeque, and though I have wanted a trifle bowl for some time (oh the desserts I could make!) so far I've only managed to acquire individual serving ones - probably not the best look to show up to a barbie with four mini trifles. ;-) So Mr Cake offered to go on a mission to get the bowl while I made the cake. Off to Moore Wilson's he went - I knew they had them, I had seen and approved. Alas - sold out! He rang me to consult, and agreed to go to Briscoes, since we had both seen them there. I think you can see where this is going... Next was The Warehouse - perhaps not the most logical place but the website said they had them - before he finally found success at Stevens. And in the end we decided the salad bowl (sans pedestal) was a better bet, at half the price and with potentially more applications. It is perfect for its job, but how ridiculous acquiring it was!

Trifle/salad bowl, not without its share of angst

The recipe below will make a lot of trifle - feel free to only make half the quantity if you're not feeding masses of people. Of course, if you (like me) enjoy leftover trifle for breakfast, lunch and dinner go ahead and make the full recipe. ;-)

The jelly is made with the liquid from the cherries, so the flavour is a bit more cherry-centric (I use raspberry jelly which works fine, though if you can find cherry jelly that will obviously also work), and the mixture is then poured over the cherries and cake. Slather the custard on top, and then the optional presentation bonus is to grate a little bit of chocolate over the top and pop a couple of leftover cherries on top.

Trifle always seems to be a hit but this one gets people raving - I couldn't believe how many comments it got. If you wanted to glam it up you could serve it in cute little glasses but I love spooning a generous dollop into a bowl and scoffing it down, carefully balancing each spoonful to contain some of each layer.

Have you got any hit barbeque/potluck recipes that get everyone going back for seconds?

Black Forest Trifle
Ingredients
20cm cake or sponge
1 jar morello cherries (600-700g)
1 packet raspberry jelly (to make 500mls jelly)
1 litre of thick custard
250g 70% dark chocolate

Break up the chocolate and place in a microwave-proof bowl with about 1/4 of the custard. Microwave for one minute then stir to melt the chocolate. If after a couple of minutes of stirring some chocolate remains unmelted, blitz in 10 second intervals, stirring between each one until smooth. Stir in the rest of the custard and chill until needed.

Break the cake or sponge into a large trifle bowl. Drain the cherries, reserving the syrup, and scatter over the broken cake.

Make the cherry syrup up to 500ml with water and microwave or simmer in a saucepan to bring to the boil. Dissolve the jelly as per instructions on the packet and pour over the cake and fruit, distributing as evenly as possible. Chill for half an hour then spread the custard on top and chill for a further 2-3 hours or until needed. Grate chocolate on top to serve, and top with a couple of leftover cherries.

Afghans and Bathrooms

2011-11-27T20:26:00.003+13:00

A large part of the reason I've been a bit infrequent with my blog posts lately is a family project that has consumed quite a lot of my time for the last two months. If you've been reading for a while you might already be aware that my family have an old home, Merchiston, in Christchurch - it was built in 1879, and has been in our family for over 80 years. It's a rather unique situation, as the house is in a trust and is used for family, church and community events.

The kitchen, before and after

A couple of years ago the family banded together to do a big kitchen renovation, which solved some ongoing issues with a leaky roof as well as bringing the kitchen up to a level where it's very easy to use for the various groups who come in, and easier to keep clean (key when lots of people pass through!). Shortly after that we started talking about doing the same for the main bathroom - we even ran some fundraising high teas to get some money in the (always sparse) kitty. That was July; in September Christchurch started shaking, and that changed all the priorities.

Between September and February the house suffered quite a lot, though it is still standing and will hopefully remain so for at least another couple of generations. Unfortunately, like many others in Christchurch, waiting for insurance means we can't work on remedying earthquake issues just yet (and though we'd like to be able to fix quake damage we are fortunate in that no-one needs to seek alternative accommodation while we wait, so we are better off than many). The bathroom wasn't affected by the quakes, though - and Baby Sister Cake will be having her wedding reception at Merchiston in March, so it seemed like a good time to freshen things up.

The family are all very involved in the house, so there was lots of discussion around how to best combine practicality and heritage, and the final product represents a bit of everyone - one cousin suggested the colours for the walls and ceiling; another suggested the toilet be shifted away from the window, where it can be slightly unsettling if someone walks by; my aunty picked out accent colours to pull the room together and spoke up for the stunning old shower rose (some of us thought it had seen better days but it cleaned up amazingly!); my electrician uncle gave practical advice on wiring (and more importantly, did it!); Mum located a mirror which used to hang in my great-grandparents bedroom to go over the basin; Sister Cake pointed out that wrought iron would go really well with the leadlight window; Dad did the hard yards breaking up ancient concrete to redirect the plumbing. Everyone was involved in some way!

The bathroom, before and after

It turned out to be a huge project - I went to Christchurch for two weekends to help out, and I was completely exhausted on arriving back in Wellington after both - I'm way too soft to be a labourer! Anyway, hard slog requires some good snack food - Dad is a hard taskmaster and works long days, but don't you dare get in the way of his morning and afternoon tea breaks. ;-)

Afghans are possibly my favourite biscuit - they're pretty quick to throw together, rich and chocolatey, crunchy and dangerously moreish - so I made some to take down on one of my trips. I've previously shared my afghan recipe with you, though I did add a touch more butter this time and think they're better this way (of course they are, adding butter always makes things better!).

For the icing, if you want a nice glossy pool atop your biscuit it's important to make it a bit ahead of when you need it. After it has cooled give it a quick whisk to smooth it out before spooning it onto the biscuits, and if it's too stiff you can apply a little heat, but if you make it when you plan to ice them it will be too runny (you can also add icing sugar to help with this, but I prefer not to as that can make them a bit sweet).

I also mixed things up a little with the topping - traditionally a walnut half sits proudly atop each biscuit, but alongside the walnuts in my pantry were some coffee beans I was given - and I don't drink coffee. So for a more adult twist I topped half of my afghans with two or three coffee beans, which I can definitely recommend and others seemed to enjoy as well. Feel free to make them either way, or, if you prefer leave your biscuits naked - they'll still taste good!

Definitely a favourite - and full of energy, to aid you with whatever exhausting projects you have on your agenda.

Are morning and afternoon tea compulsory break stops in your life, or reserved for special occasions?

Afghans (makes 12-14)

Ingredients
180g butter, room temperature
1/2 cup/100g brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence or extract
1.5 cups/180g flour
3 Tbsp cocoa
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 cups/60g cornflakes
Icing
3 Tbsp water
45g butter
45g caster sugar
1 1/2 cups/190g icing sugar
3 Tbsp cocoa
walnut halves or coffee beans

Preheat oven to 180 C. Line a cookie sheet with baking paper. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in the vanilla, then sift in dry ingredients and mix together. Use your hands to crumble the cornflakes into the bowl so they are in smaller pieces, then mix in with your hands.

Form into balls, place on baking sheet and flatten (either with the palm of your hand or a fork). Bake for 12-14 minutes.

While the biscuits are cooking, mix together the water, extra butter and caster sugar in a saucepan. Heat until butter is melted then simmer for a minute to form a syrup. Add the icing sugar and cocoa and whisk to combine. When cooled, ice the biscuits with a dollop of icing (it should sort of pool on top - if you need to warm it slightly give it 10 seconds in the microwave) then press a walnut half or 2-3 coffee beans into each one.

For the Love of Food!

2011-11-20T13:22:00.003+13:00

To emphasise the super-busy element of my life I signed myself up for the first ever New Zealand food blogger's conference - aptly titled "For the Love of Food." Actually, I managed to be the very first ticket holder, by virtue of seeing the tweet announcing tickets were up and leaping straight on to reserve my place. I guess I've become accustomed to the world of "Sevens tickets sell out in four minutes" and "Buyers queue for 16 hours to buy iPhone 4S" which is perhaps not quite the case in the food blogger realm yet. ;-)

Tickets did sell out, though - in fact, there were only originally going to be 25 spaces but 26 places were booked. I flew up late on Friday night, and the lovely Mairi (from Toast) hosted me, along with three other Wellington bloggers for the ultimate food blogger slumber party. ;-)

The conference part was held at The Tasting Shed in Kumeu, so we roused ourselves nice and early on Saturday, battled for the shower, and got on the road, travelling in convoy (we picked up another blogger + car on the way).

On arrival we were presented with amazing goodie bags, and I do mean amazing! Some seriously generous sponsors meant that those of us who had skipped breakfast in favour of a little extra sleep did not go hungry. I had my Kokako brownie (I've met this delicious creature before, so it was an easy decision to hone in on it first), which definitely spurred me on to, uh, the next brownie at morning tea time.

Meeting all the bloggers I've been following for ages was fantastic - it's a funny thing, because it is all very easy and you feel like you've known each other for years, despite never having met before. Quite a great way to be - and the cause of some amusement when Jaco Swart, who presented on social media, asked who had met someone through social media and then met them in real life.

The content was also amazing - I expected great things from the conference, but I was thinking mainly in terms of enjoyment and fun, rather than learning. We covered all sorts of topics, including web design, social media, writing for different media, and photography. It was really full on, though we did of course have breaks for morning tea, lunch and a wine tasting, as well as the mingly canape dinner - but definitely very educational.

The Q&A after lunch (which was delicious by the way - notable mention to the braised and rolled pigs' head - so tender and tasty) was probably the most interesting part for me, because learning what drives other people to write, where their focus is, and where they'd like it to lead is not something you can read up on. The more formal segments taught me new things too - my biggest learning curve was definitely the photography session, with lots of tips and tricks from the wonderful Bron Marshall.

Dinner was at Cook the Books, which is a fabulous bookstore and cooking school in Grey Lynn. It was a very casual affair, which was perfect, since we'd all been dying for the chance to chat to those we hadn't sat with during the day, and the food was great - very flavoursome little morsels, including some amazing pulled pork. I have to confess, though, that as is often the case with these things, I peaked waaaaay too soon and was feeling pretty stuffed by the time the pork was wheeled out. I absolutely found space for it, though, and for the Kohu Road mango sorbet (oh how I love Kohu Road!).

Eventually we made it back to slumber party central, but the night was still young, and Mairi knew that we would not regret a trip to The Bramble, where we indulged in stunning cocktails to finish off a marvellous day. Mine was tiramisu, and it was fantastic - as close to the real thing as you can get without needing a spoon. The perfect ending!

Sparkle & Style, Maginnity's, Wellington

2011-11-09T21:29:00.001+13:00

Christmas is sneaking up on us, and my first festive event of the season was Sparkle and Style on Saturday. Though not strictly Christmas-themed it had a definite festive feel, and is well-timed to inspire those of us who like to plan such things as table settings.

The event is an annual affair, and brings together a refined high tea menu with spectacular centrepieces. Each creation is sponsored by a local business, and is themed accordingly. For example, the Zealandia table boasted a "Deck the Halls with Nature's Finery" theme.

On arrival we were offered a glass of bubbles, and to help ourselves to the chocolate fountain (strawberries! chocolate! Life is good). Judging sheets were offered, and we all wandered about ranking the tables before being seated to enjoy our afternoon tea.

I was at the Glitz and Glamour table, which I agreed with my fellow diners was the best, for its generous use of colour. I love bright and cheery, and though there is definitely also a place for understated glamour we all thought our table was pretty fabulous.

The other favourite (which was probably the most popular overall) was the Wellington Fantasy Gingerbread centrepiece, featuring gingerbread cookies of Wellington landmarks like the Beehive and Old St Pauls, painstakingly (and beautifully) decorated by the very talented Michael Gray of Nada Bakery.

Much better than my own photo above but doesn't show the cookies properly!

And you won't be surprised to hear I also really liked the Bohemien chocolate display, with edible decorations (though we all exercised excellent self-control and left this intact).

Once we were seated we didn't have to wait long before afternoon tea was served - an amazingly generous offering, with (yes, I counted) 12 items for each person.

That's a lot of eating - fortunately, that is something I happen to be quite good at. Everything was lovely, with special mention to the perfectly fluffy scones, and the beautifully rich brownie. I did try everything though (purely for research, you understand), and there weren't any duds. ;-)

We were also very impressed at the range of gluten-free goodies the kitchen assembled for one of the ladies at our table - this is the assortment shown above left, and believe it or not that's all for her!

We were able to choose two pots of tea per table, though most of our table were fairly unanimous in wanting to try the Turkish apple flavour, which was amazing - the teapot still had bits of apple steeping, and the tea was fragrant but not overpowering - perfect with sweet little afternoon tea treats and dainty teacups.

While we were completing our demolition of our afternoon tea the lovely Donna, who runs these every year, announced the winning table setting - and our table took out the prize! A perfect ending... Or was that the delicious gingerbread cookie offered to us all before we took our leave?

I got some fun ideas for table setting - I like making things look just so and do put some thought into that sort of thing, so it's good to have inspiration, and for those without the DIY bent (or who simply don't have the time), some of these arrangements are available for hire, or in the case of the cookies, able to be replicated to order.

The Sparkle and Style Facebook page has loads more photos of the events in case you're curious - check them out, some are stunning! Are you a planner and decorator when it comes to your festive tables, or do you prefer to keep it simple?

Mrs Cake attended as a guest of Sparkle and Style. Some photos were provided by Sparkle and Style. For information on hiring or recreating the centrepieces please contact Donna McCormack on 04 934 3753, events@sparkle-and-style.com, www.sparkle-and-style.com.

How to Pipe Icing Roses

2011-11-05T11:09:00.001+13:00

First of all, sorry for my long absence. Real life has been pretty busy, between work, avoiding rugby, having wisdom teeth removed, sickness, and bathroom renovations (long story) - and unfortunately the blog loses out when I run out of hours and/or energy. However, I am back! With a decorating technique which you may remember from my Grandmother's 80th birthday rainbow cake.

This is my favourite decorating discovery in quite a while - probably since I figured out how easy it is to pipe cupcake swirls and impress everyone. All you need to make this cake is a bit of control over a piping bag - actually, if you don't have it when you start have a few practice goes then scrape the icing off and start again. Even if you're a complete icing novice you should be able to do this!

Unfortunately a cake covered in rose-like swirls isn't appropriate for every occasion, but there are still opportunities and if there aren't make your own. I made this cake (which, incidentally, is kumara and ginger cake, very yummy!) for my dentist, who I don't imagine is much a fan of swirly roses but who needed a cake on account of removing five teeth from my mouth with relatively minimal discomfort and generally being a good sort. Most people are accepting enough of cake that they will eat it regardless of the decoration. ;-)

To ice a cake this way, you need a few things;

1. A cake

2. Icing soft enough to pipe but firm enough to hold its shape

3. A large piping bag

4. A large open star piping tip (Wilton 1M or equivalent)

5. A spatula

6. Gel colour and a paintbrush (optional)

For icing, buttercream is the easiest to get the correct consistency, and any recipe will do - generally, if it's not stiff enough add a little more icing sugar. I frequently use cream cheese icing, though cream cheese and icing sugar can do strange non-Newtonian liquid type things so make sure you use butter as well. Ganache also works but you'll want to whip it so that it's not too heavy and pipe it soon after.

The dual-colour effect is optional, but pretty simple to achieve - paint a stripe of gel colour (your accent colour) down one side of the piping bag before filling it (if you need to refill the bag, which you probably will, do this again each time).

The icing on one side of the bag will be tinted by this, and the rotation of the bag as you pipe will naturally swirl the colour through each rose. The saturation of colour will diminish as you go (i.e. the first couple will be darkest) so you might want to pipe in a semi-random order rather than progressing around the cake.

Getting down to business; piping the rosettes is really easy, and (bonus) you really can scrape the icing off and start over (just don't put crumb-infested icing back in with pure icing - use it for filling your next cake instead, or just eat it off a spoon) so there's no need for stress.

Scoop icing into the piping bag, filling it no more than two-thirds (if you over-fill it the icing will squeeze out the top end when you're not looking). Try to squeeze any air out, then twist the top of the bag and grasp it firmly in whichever hand feels more natural - probably your writing hand.

Squeeze a bit of icing out into the icing bowl to get any air out of the tip and get it flowing. Position the piping tip where you want the centre of the first rose to be, apply firm, even pressure, and move the tip in a close spiral out from the centre point, allowing the icing to lay on the cake. When the rose is large enough (size is up to you), release the pressure so the icing stops flowing, then pull the icing tip away. Voila!

Repeat this to cover the cake. Once you get the hang of it it's pretty speedy.

Try to arrange the roses so there aren't huge gaps, but you can fill the holes by piping semi-circles as needed. Use the same technique but just run the nozzle along the gap you need to fill. When the cake is complete these bits will just blend into the overall picture.

To do the sides the technique is the same, just make sure you get the nozzle nice and close to the cake so the icing sticks on, since gravity won't be on your side. Again, swoopy semi-circles will fill large gaps.

If there are small holes between roses (i.e. measurable in millimetres; too small to pipe into) use something small (the end of a teaspoon, as I did, or a skewer) to poke into the holes - you'll be able to push the icing around a little until it joins up. Sort of hard to explain but just give it a go - it will make more sense when you're doing it!

And that's that. You have a cake worthy of a dentist... Or a grandmother... Or another deserving person or occasion. And the dentist loved it. Would you give your dentist a cake? What's the most unusual occasion you've ever applied cake to?

Easy Cake Decorating: Chocolate Overload

2011-10-09T17:59:00.000+13:00

This is a win-win cake; super easy to do, and you'd be hard pressed to find someone who wouldn't like it (I've heard that some people don't like chocolate but refuse to believe it - how can this be true???). The first part is perfect for me, since I've been alternately under the weather and super busy for the last month (sorry about the lack of posts!). Hopefully I'm done with being unwell and swollen-jawed for a while but the busy-ness doesn't look like it's letting up - actually what I usually do at this time of year is try to squeeze yet more into the days, since there's extra daylight. Unfortunately since I'm not afraid of the dark and most of my activities aren't reliant on daylight this logic is a little flawed... But hey, it's good to be motivated, right?

Last weekend was Baby Sister Cake's 21st, so I was down in Christchurch with all the family - fun but manic! Because my other sister and I had decided to take the birthday girl on a big shopping mission for a party outfit as her present I didn't have a whole lot of cake decorating time up my sleeve. I was planning to do something more elaborate with fondant but knew I'd probably be short on time, and as we were waiting for our flight on Friday night I mentioned to Mr Cake that I had this in mind as a back-up plan, in case the shopping ran overtime. He said "That sounds cool. You should just do that anyway." So I did.

I had premade the cake and ganache - any kind of cake/icing combination will do, though chocolate is naturally the best. ;-) I used chocolate mud cake, and had made a gargantuan two-layer version (1kg each of chocolate and butter!). However, I must warn you about the down side of this cake - it is not cheap, and the smaller the cake you make the less of the costly 'decorations' you'll need.

Once you have your cake all iced up, it's as simple as this; cover it with chocolate bars!

And with a little more detail: I used flakes around the outside, and broke each one in half with my fingers (cutting made the edges funny) before sticking them on. I used 24(!) Flakes (it pays to get the chocolate on special!). To decorate the top, I first stuck in the candles at random angles (much easier to do this at the beginning!) then cut Crunchie, Pinky, Bubbles, Kit Kat and Moro bars into rough chunks and broke up some Maltesers. With not a great deal of science I mixed these up, scattered them over the cake and sprinkled M&Ms over the top. And there we have it!

I chose my chocolate bars based on colour - the chocolate might all be brown but the different fillings make for better eye candy (groan). I used about two of each chocolate bar for toppings, but this is a gargantuan cake - 30cm in diameter - so you could probably get away with less. However, a recommendation from one who is all too familiar with last minute cake decorating disasters - get more chocolate than you think you need if time is not on your side. Having a few extra chocolate bars to stash away for a rainy day is vastly preferable to running out!

The party was great fun - the theme was basically all the birthday girl's childhood toys, so we had rooms full of big kids (and a few little ones) playing with Duplo trains and colouring in. How did you celebrate your 21st?

Triple Chocolate Cheesecake

2011-09-23T22:32:00.059+12:00

I've been a bit out of commission lately, and so have been a bit sporadic with my updating here - sorry! Unfortunately sometimes life gets in the way of itself. The last week hasn't been as busy, but I had my five (yes, five) wisdom teeth removed last Thursday so eating hasn't been so easy.

Mum was telling me that the art of invalid cooking has been lost, but after she recommended I eat junket and I looked it up we realised the so called "dairy food" I was consuming is basically the same as junket, so perhaps it's just a rebranding thing - ambiguous as "dairy food" is I know which I'd rather eat!

Until yesterday I was still mostly veering towards soft things, as the stitches (sorry if that's too much info for a food blog!) only came out yesterday, so I was subsisiting in yoghurt and dairy food, Up&Go, soup, sieved mash - and last Friday I had KFC potato and gravy for dinner and it felt like the best meal I'd ever eaten - judge me as you will...

I've gotten a bit more adventurous now but my mouth is still pretty sensitive to anything that's a bit hard - I can't wait to eat crunchy things!

It was my birthday on Wednesday (poor planning to have teeth out the week before a birthday, I know, but it was that or risk jeopardising some of Wellington on a Plate!) and I still had my stitches, so I was trying to decide whether to make a cake and watch everyone at work eat it for me, or delay. Until it occurred to me: there are cakes without crumbs! Ice-cream cake, while it would be wonderful, is a tad impractical for the workplace, but cheesecake is a word I've been hearing a lot of lately and the filling - which constitutes about 95% of the cake anyway - is squidgy enough to be eaten by invalids like me. ;-)

This is a cheesecake I've made (and written about) before, but I wanted to reprise it - for one, the photos last time were terrible, and I thought it might be possible to make it prettier. And hey, chocolate and cheesecake together, how can that go wrong?

This is a pretty easy recipe to make, so long as you have lots of bowls, either a very strong arm or an electric beater or stand mixer, and can overlook the whopping 900g of cream cheese (hey, no-one said it was supposed to be good for you!). ;-)

Last time I made it I went for the zebra effect, which is done by scooping 1 cup quantities of the alternate batters into the tin (i.e. 1 cup dark choc, 1 cup milk choc, 1 cup white choc, repeat), but the OCD in me wanted a neater (though less cool) result this time so I did simple layers. The flavours of the different layers are more distinguishable this way though it doesn't have the same crowd-pleasing effect so it's up to you how you want to do yours.

I forgot to cover it with tinfoil, which just means the top was darker than it should have been, but I think it looks caramelly and alluring anyway so wasn't too worried. I also ran out of cooking time (I will never learn, always start baking too late in the evening!) so instead of baking at 160 for 1.5 hours I turned the oven off after an hour, went to bed, and woke up in the morning to a pretty spot-on cheesecake. Last time I made it I baked it the proper way so I know that works, but it's good to know what you can get away with. ;-)

It was a pretty good substitute for normal birthday cake - though I'm definitely looking forward to fully normal eating again. I should have known better than to schedule an appointment so close to my birthday, too - when I was 9 I had a tooth extracted (I've now had three bonus teeth grow in that one spot - the first one was a baby tooth so fell out on its own) on the day of my birthday party, so I've already suffered through an invalid-food birthday! Have you had your wisdom teeth out? What did you subsist on?

Triple Chocolate Cheesecake
Ingredients
200g gingernuts
1/4 cup brown sugar
115g butter
1 Tbsp cocoa
900g cream cheese
4 eggs
1 1/4 cups caster sugar
1 cup cream
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
100g 70% dark chocolate
100g milk chocolate
100g white chocolate

Preheat the oven to 160 C. Prepare a 22.5cm springform tin by greasing, cutting a round of baking paper to fit the bottom of it, and a strip to line the edge (so the edges are smooth when you unmold it), and firmly wrapping in tin foil. The tin foil is to prevent water from leaking in when baking in a water bath.

Crush the gingernuts and mix with brown sugar, cocoa and melted butter to make the crust. Press into your prepared tin, evenly coating the base.

In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese until smooth. Add the sugar and beat well, then gradually add the eggs, beating between each addition. Add the lemon juice, vanilla and salt and mix just to combine.

Melt the chocolate in separate bowls and allow to cool slightly. Separate the filling mixture into three even portions and mix in the chocolate.

Spread the dark chocolate mixture evenly onto the crust, followed by the milk then white chocolate mixtures. Cover with tin foil, place in a roasting dish of boiling water, and bake for 1 hour 15 minutes to 1 hour 30 minutes, until the mixture is mostly set but slightly wobbly in the middle. Cool, then chill overnight or for 8-12 hours before serving.

Bordeaux Bakery: Scrumptious Temptations

2011-09-11T22:33:00.000+12:00

I've been so busy lately time seems to be flying by - the whole year seems like a bit of a blur, really (how is it September???) but the last couple of months in particular. I love being busy but there's a balance somewhere that I haven't quite hit. Anyway, this event was a few weeks ago, as part of Wellington on a Plate - so apologies for my tardy informing.

Scrumptious Temptations was hosted by Feast and Vine, and all I needed to hear were the words "watch their acclaimed pâtissier demonstrate a scrumptious chocolate temptation" and I was scrambling to book my spot (that we'd get to take a chocolate treat home with us helped too!).

Bordeaux Bakery was set up with a demonstration table when we arrived, and we were welcomed warmly by Donna of Feast and Vine. Once everyone was assembled (there were perhaps 15 of us) Jean-Louis let us into his inner sanctum - the kitchen!

Jean-Louis is an extraordinary man who is clearly passionate about what he does, and he starts baking at 1am (before some people I know go to bed!) each morning to ensure his product is fresh each day for all his bakeries. Most of his equipment is imported from France, and as you can see he has some fairly impressive machines - you could sit in that mixer bowl if you wanted to! I was amused by the baguette shaping machine - it had never occurred to me such a thing would exist, but I daresay shaping them by hand gets tiresome when you make hundreds at a time.

There were dozens of racks of croissants proving, taunting us with their buttery goodness (he showed us a box of the butter he uses - a box weighs 25kg. The glory!). I was a little gobsmacked that some of the ladies attending didn't know how to keep their hands to themselves, and prodded at the pastry - a bit disappointing but I guess there are greater crimes.

Once we'd seen the kitchen we moved back into the cafe area, where Nicola Belsham (owner of the Wineseeker shop) talked to us about wine and food matching while we sipped on Bordeaux Bakery's sauterne and munched on a (well-matched!) mini fruit tart. I really enjoyed Nicola's explanations, and in particular liked her attitude that everyone has different tastes, and that really it's what we enjoy that we should drink. That said, there are general guidelines - you should try to pick wines that balance and complement flavours in a given dish. The sauterne is very sweet, which offset the tartness of the blueberries - perfect!
You can get both from Bordeaux Bakery on Thorndon Quay if you want to try for yourself. ;-)

The final element of the evening was for Jean-Louis to show us how he makes his duchess cake, which is his most popular cake. He starts by making meringue, which is cooked very slowly into discs, then a rich chocolate mousse is piped into the centre, they're chilled, then finally more mousse is spread over each cake and they're coated in chocolate flakes. Enough chocolate? Just right, I reckon. ;-)

It was a lovely evening and very interesting to get the behind-the-scenes view - it was a bit shorter than advertised, but it didn't feel rushed - Jean-Louis does speak quite quickly though! Feast and Vine do similar things from time to time and have a Christmas high tea event coming up in November, which sounds like a fun afternoon out.

Sadly, the duchess cake didn't last long after I got home - that's a common problem with chocolate things in the Cake household - they don't stick around. For that reason I've decided to abstain from chocolate for the rest of the month. Every once in a while I realise it's becoming more a dependency than a treat, and a period of chocolate famine resets my cravings to a more managable level. ;-) So if I seem a little grouchier than usual in the next wee while, you'll know why! Do you ever withhold specific treats from yourself to blitz cravings or am I the only one with this problem?

Mrs Cake attended Scrumptious Temptations as a guest of Feast and Vine. Bordeaux Bakery is located at 220 Thorndon Quay, Wellington, ph 04 499 8334. For info on similar events check out Feast and Vine's website.

Grandma Cake's 80th Birthday Rainbow Cake

2011-09-07T22:10:00.003+12:00

I've spent the last few days in Christchurch as my Grandma turned 80 last week so had her birthday party on Sunday. I am often on cake duty for family birthdays, and try to make something that suits the person - however I can work that in. Grandma Cake is a very sunny, happy person and loves bright and cheerful things, and she also loves the garden and flowers (which kind of fit into the bright-and-cheerful category, but stay with me here).

I remembered seeing somewhere in the universe of the internet a rainbow cake - actually, in the realm of Pinterest (which is scarily addictive - don't click through unless you have too much time on your hands!) there are a huge number of rainbow foods. I'm not a huge fan of excessive food colouring, but sometimes the occasion calls for it, and using gel colours you don't need all that much to get a pretty intense colour. You can get gel colours from most cake decorating stores (like Kiwi Cakes) and a pottle will last ages.

To produce a rainbow of cake, choose a light-coloured batter (I made an orange cake recipe, though I thought it was too dry cooked in thin layers so I won't share the recipe - lemon yoghurt cake would work well). Work out how much batter you need - each layer should be a couple of centimetres thick - and divide it into seven. I made such a large cake (and actually I made a second cake, as there were 150 people at the birthday party) that I made a batch for each layer. Then use gel colours to dye the batter before baking - start with a little and add more until you like the colour. You only need red, yellow and blue colour - red and yellow make orange; blue and yellow make green (though I had green colour so used that) and blue and purple make indigo.

Because the layers are quite thin they cook quickly. The layers for my 30cm cake took about 15 minutes each - the smaller 25cm cake only took about 10. Once cooked and cooled you'll want to trim the tops to make each layer nice and flat. You'll end up with a very colourful bowl of cake scraps. Which you can then feed to your six-month-old nephew, though I can't guarantee they'll impress him:

(also: don't do this unless you're prepared to clean up a lot of mess!)

When the layers are flattish spread a thin layer of icing (anything firm enough to hold - I used a basic buttercream) on each - you don't want too much as it'll detract from the colour, just enough to hold the layers of cake together. I think it looks better with the darker colours at the bottom, so started with violet, building all the way up to red. When they're stacked apply some pressure on top to ensure they're nicely stuck together (sort of smush them down, but not too heavily!) and then ice around the sides, filling in any gaps. I did a thin coat of icing and then covered the cake in these cool (and amazingly easy) roses (you use the Wilton 1M/large open star tip and just pipe swirls from the inside out - I'll write more about this sometime, but I didn't get pictures as by the time I got to this part I was pressed for time!).

I was going for the ultimate deception - see how grown-up it looks? And sort of fits with the whole garden thing for Grandma. The most suspicious thing about the cake was its height - you can see below that it swallowed the whole blade of the knife when cut - those layers do add up!

Grandma was a little confused when we told her she had to cut a wedge - I think she thought we were going to make her eat a huge piece of it! It had the desired effect, though - see her face in the photo on the right! And the whole room gasped with delight when she lifted the slice - audible appreciation definitely massages the ego of the baker, and on the impressing-the-audience scale it possibly even beats my uncle's party trick of eating birthday candles to amuse small children. ;-)

So; a great cake to make to impress; reasonably low effort, just takes a while to bake the layers. Grandma loved it, and had a ball at her party too - many family and friends, and lots of little children to liven things up. It was a stunning day (I guess the weather was trying to live up to Grandpa's party back in February, when it got to 36 degrees!) and it was nice catching up with everyone and gorging on sugar.

What's the best birthday party trick you've seen?

Feast of Canterbury and She Chocolat, Governors Bay

2011-09-04T22:38:00.000+12:00

Okay, so you know how obsessed I am with chocolate, so it's hardly going to be a surprise that dining at a chocolate cafe is something I'd enjoy. I've been to She Chocolat in Governors Bay a couple of times, the latest being yesterday, coinciding with the start of Feast of Canterbury.

Feast of Canterbury is a great intiative to showcase Canterbury's finest food and drink, but was a bit thwarted last year by the shaking of the ground and interruption of service for restaurants and other event venues. Some things went ahead but this year is shaping up to be bigger and better and there are lots of cool things happening. There are events (check out the website for these - my picks are Dining with the Stars and Stop and Smell the Macarons) and Dine restaurants, who are offering special menus starting at $15 for cafes and $25 for restaurants. My sister and I visited She Chocolat in Governors Bay yesterday to test out the Dine menu there - at $39 it's at the pricey end of the Dine offers for lunch, but includes two courses and a glass of wine and the dessert (because seriously, would you go to a chocolate shop and not have dessert?) is a stunning array of their chocolates which is quite excellent.

As I mentioned I've eaten at She before, and they have a delightful habit which I can completely get on board with - incorporating chocolate into their mains. Not all mains - usually just one or two - but the option is there if you want it (and I do!). Last time we visited I had the molé short ribs, which were fantastic, and I was pleased to see that the duck on the Dine menu was accompanied by a chocolate chutney. Sister Cake opted for the duck, though, so I went with the interesting-sounding beetroot cured salmon.

The confit duck was absolutely divine - beautifully cooked, with lovely greens, parsnip mash and the aforementioned chutney, which was exceptionally good. I commented to the waiter when he cleared our plates that I'd done the chocolate tour last year and there were rumours of the chef bottling his chutney and offering it for sale, and asked if that had come about, and though sadly it's not available to buy, the chef kindly gave me some in little pottles to take home! How lovely is that?

My salmon was pretty good, lovely and tender and not strongly beetrooty, though the caramelised beetroot pieces served with it were, and were sweet and delicious. I found the watercress a little too strong for the dish and slightly awkward to eat (you know that moment when you realise you have too much salad on your fork to get it gracefully into your mouth at once, but you're committed to the mouthful?), but the croquette was lovely, crunchy and delicious, and not overpoweringly goats cheesy (actually, I love goats cheese and wouldn't have minded more of it, but it was still a yummy croquette and would still suit folk who are not so keen on the strong cheeses). Overall the food was great, though I was a little jealous of my sister's delicious duck so that's my pick of the two. ;-)

We were basking in the sun outside - though there are plenty of inside seats on a sunny day it's glorious outdoors and the views are spectacular. What a lovely way to enjoy your chocolate! The dessert tasting platter has several of their chocolates (which I've raved about before), as well as a florentine, a meringue, some chocolate-rolled cacao beans and a wee piece of brownie - it takes sustenance to get through it all but it's worth it because every bite will be delicious. My favourite is the "She" - white chocolate with a dark chocolate and rosewater centre, it's very tasty. If you need to take a break sit back and admire the surroundings - if you're lucky you might be able to spy the Kereru in the trees down below:

We had a lovely meal, and I wish I was in Christchurch longer to check out some of the other venues on offer but sadly work awaits me in Wellington - if you're in Christchurch, though, have a look at the Feast website and make some eating plans. I'll live vicariously through you. ;-)

She Chocolat is located at 79 Main Road, Governors Bay, Lyttelton, Christchurch, ph 03 329 9222, www.shechocolat.com. Mrs Cake and Sister Cake dined courtesy of She Chocolat and Feast of Canterbury.

Gourmet Ice-Cream Company and The Dessert Room, Dunedin

2011-08-30T21:50:00.001+12:00

When we were visiting Sister Cake in Dunedin we did squeeze in a couple of foodie activities - just after we arrived there I was reading Becs' post on Lovely Wee Days about her trip to Melbourne, and how she has a spreadsheet of foodie destinations, and had to giggle because when we go on holiday (and indeed for Wellington on a Plate) I do exactly the same. I didn't have a spreadsheet for Dunedin because food wasn't intended to be the focus - it was more about relaxing completely and spending time with family - but that is my usual modus operandi.

Even without a spreadsheet I had a mental list of must-visit places - you've already seen the Cookie Time Factory, Denheath and the chocolate shops we went to on the way, but these are some of the other eating highlights.

Near my sister's place is a lovely cake shop called The Dessert Room. I had done my Dunedin research and already had it on my list when a voucher for their cupcakes popped up on GrabOne, so I snapped one up and we paid them a visit the day after we arrived. The shop is well presented, if a bit sparse, but the cakes look amaaaaaazing (sadly I didn't get any photos in the store, but check out the website if you want to drool).

Our voucher secured us six cupcakes, which were presented very well (I love the window in the box!) and also pretty tasty - nice and moist, not at all dry as cupcakes can sometimes be, and the icing wasn't overpoweringly sweet. The flavours weren't too distinctive (the two chocolate-oriented ones were pretty similar) but they were a nice treat all the same.

I had emailed Mark from the Gourmet Ice-Cream Company before we embarked on our trip, and he kindly agreed to meet me (he spotted my brandy snap ice-cream recipe write-up last year and wrote to me about it, which was cool, and while I think my recipe is pretty good so is their original - and buying some is definitely a quicker way to get your hands on it!). I had asked if we could see behind the scenes but he said he'd have to erase my memory if he was to allow that, and I like my memory. ;-) He did come and chat to us about their ice-cream, though, and told us all about a new product they're putting out, which I reckon is quite cool - Blis. It contains a probiotic ingredient, and the idea is that it helps balance the bacteria in the mouth and throat, which can help with various things, including helping with winter colds and the like. They're promoting it for rest homes and hospitals and I'm not sure if it's available generally but if you like the idea of medicinal ice-cream and you're in Dunedin you can get it from their store there. ;-)

The store is well worth a visit if you are in the area - the ice-cream is cheaper than in supermarkets and is available in bigger (and smaller) containers - so you can try lots of different flavours, or stock up on your favourites.

Mark very generously gave us some of their ice-cream to try, including the Blis, which is a nice vanilla - not as rich as the other products but more of an everyday treat - it would be ideal with say, chocolate self-saucing pudding or apple crumble, where their other products are pretty much standalone desserts. I completely fell in love with the fig and honey, which I hadn't tried before - and re-met old friends in the brandy snap and Whittakers peanut slab flavours.

We also had takeaways from Paascha, a Turkish restaurant in central Dunedin, and thought they were excellent. I didn't take any photos, but the store hosted the most palatable looking doner kebab I've ever seen and our pita pockets were packed full of salad and well seasoned meat. I'd love to go back and dine there to try their full menu, but probably won't be back in Dunedin for a while so that might have to wait. Highly recommended, though!

Do you know Dunedin? Any foodie secrets I missed that I should make a priority for my next visit? How do you plan your foodie holidays? ;-)

The Dessert Room is located at 594 Hillside Road, Caversham, Dunedin, ph 03 456 3537, www.thedessertroom.co.nz

The Gourmet Ice-Cream Company is located at 10 Birch Street, Dunedin, ph 03 474 0773, www.gourmeticecream.co.nz

Paascha is located at 31 St Andrew Street, Dunedin, ph 04 477 7181, paascha.co.nz

(Almost) Boneless Roast Chicken with Apricot Walnut Stuffing

2011-08-23T22:04:00.001+12:00

Now that Wellington on a Plate has wrapped up I think there's a rather large group of happy but slightly cuddlier-than-usual Wellington foodies who have sworn off unhealthy food for a bit. I definitely consider myself to be in this category - there's nothing like a spell of gruel to make you appreciate fine food again, it's not just my health which benefits from my restraint but also my tastebuds. ;-)

With all that in mind, today's recipe comes to you from the good old-fashioned family feed category - while you could coat your chicken in gravy and serve it with amazing glazed carrots and buttery brussel sprouts, I've chosen to just do the chicken and the stuffing and leave you to devise your own steamed veg combo to work away your sins (in case you haven't overindulged I'll come back to you later with a recipe for killer roast spuds - just give me a week or two to recover!).

Sister Cake was keen for me to help her debone a chicken when we were at her place in Dunedin - neither of us had ever done it before, but one of our aunts had suggested it to her as a good way of serving roast chook. My job, in this instance, ended up having more to do with entertaining my nephew while Sister Cake's hands were covered in raw poultry than actual assistance, but I managed to snap a few photos, and decided it was something worth mastering myself once we returned home.

Now that I have done it myself I'm not sure - on the one hand, I really loved having a boneless roast, and you really can fit an extraordinary amount of stuffing in (great if you prefer the stuffing, like me, or just want the roast to go further). On the other hand, it took quite a while - close to an hour - and while I'm sure I'd get a lot quicker after a couple of tries it's an extra time commitment. I guess it's something I'd make only for a special meal - it certainly wouldn't be the standard method for Sunday roast if that was a household fixture, but for Christmas dinner perhaps...

We found our technique on youtube - I love videos for this kind of thing, and though I've provided the photos I think watching a video helps with understanding. I'm not ready to star in my own chicken-deboning feature film, so you can click through to the video we watched here for a more in-depth look. ;-)

The basic technique is:
- cut right through the skin and flesh all the way down the back of the bird
- use your knife to separate the flesh from the bone, as close as you can to the bone, as far as you can around the body
- use your knife to separate the flesh from the bone at the wing and leg, and then cut the tendons and work the joints until you can separate the joints. It's up to you whether you leave the wing and the drumsticks in the roast to cook but if you do you can still remove the upper leg/wing bones
- continue to work around the bird until the meat can be removed from the frame
- make your stuffing, plonk it in the middle, roll the roast around it, and tie at intervals with kitchen twine
- roast as usual

The stuffing I made up based on what sounded yummy, and it worked a treat - apricot and chicken go together quite well (and I prefer this to the very saucy, sweet apricot chicken dish which haunted the 80s and 90s - do people still eat that? I'm sure it has the potential to be delicious but it seems to have fallen off the radar) and walnuts are excellent in stuffing. Feel free to tweak to your tastes - the formula I use for stuffing is something like breadcrumbs (I pulse frozen bread in the food processor until smallish) + herbs and spices to flavour (sage is classic) + onion + nuts and dried fruit if desired.

I pulsed first the bread and then everything else except the egg in my mini blitzer, then mixed it all together in a bowl. I made way too much stuffing for my normal-sized chicken, so the recipe below is adjusted to make a more sensible amount.

It's easier to tie the bird up if you have an extra set of hands, but it's still doable on your own - I'm all for making life easier where I can, though, so like to have Mr Cake lined up to help with awkward bits like this.
I did my roast in tinfoil because I didn't have a roasting bag, and I probably should have sprayed the foil with non-stick stuff and/or used it shiny side in, but apart from sticking to the skin a bit it worked a treat.

And how did it come out? Well, the chicken tasted like roast chicken (funny that) but was fantastically easy to serve - I'm all for slicing instead of carving. The stuffing was great, and will definitely be featuring again. I think I'll leave the butchery for a wee while, but it was a good experience, and a yummy meal, and I'm sure someday I will want a boneless roast enough to put in the time. Is this something you've tried and mastered? Or does it seem like more effort than it's worth?

In other news, today the tickets for the inaugural New Zealand Food Bloggers' Conference were released, and somehow I managed to be the first to snap one up (what can I say? I'm keen!). It sounds like an excellent day of food-centred fun, and I love to meet other bloggers because they don't think I'm weird for taking photos of everything I eat. ;-) If you, like me, have more photos of food than people you should join us!

Boneless Roast Chicken with Apricot Walnut Stuffing
Ingredients
1 medium chicken
3 slices of bread
1 small onion
1 clove garlic
70g walnuts
100g dried apricots
1 egg

Follow the instructions above to debone the chicken. Preheat oven to 180 C.

Pulse the bread, onion, garlic, walnuts and apricots in a food processor until finely chopped. Add egg and season with salt and pepper.

Place stuffing down the centre of the deboned chicken, then tie the chicken together to enclose the stuffing. Place in a roasting bag (or greased tinfoil) and in a roasting dish and roast for about two hours or until cooked. Slice to serve. Serves 6.

Royal Banquet, The White House

2011-08-21T21:47:00.004+12:00

First up, sorry for my slack blogging this week! I have heaps to write about and have been trying to blog all week, but apart from being quite busy eating (sorry, I must get my eating in!) Blogger has been giving me grief over photos, so at present I can only upload them one at a time, which makes getting a post up take a lot longer than it ought. I've tried everything obvious to me so if any of you have any ideas about possible resolutions please tell me - and be patient with me while I get it sorted. :-)

I've done quite a few things for Wellington on a Plate,and while I love all the Dine menus which make it so affordable to go to fancy-pants restaurants, my absolute favourite bit are the events - and as well as Blind Dining at Capitol, Mr Cake and I signed up (after a bit of bank account angst - it wasn't cheap!) for the Royal Banquet at The White House.

We didn't really know what to expect, other than fantastic food, but by the time we arrived after a very chilly, windy and wet walk around the bay just getting in the door was a relief! The red carpet was out to welcome us, along with a photographer, but we didn't linger to have our picture taken. We were guided up the stairs to the bar on the top level, where we were served champagne and canapes - smoked salmon on beetroot blini; crab salad, and mini asparagus and watercress tarts. They were all lovely but the crab salad was my pick - lovely and fresh with plenty of crab meat through it - very yummy.

After a few canapes we were asked to proceed down to the dining room, and truly, my photos do not do it justice but it was very grand (my photos don't really do anything here justice, but hopefully give a bit of an idea. The restaurant was quite dark and I prefer not to use flash if I can, but partway through decided it was required - however, because it's obtrusive I didn't want to take more than one photo of anything, so some are truly terrible!).

As well as a stunning array of cutlery and glassware, each person had a sealed page (real wax seals!) at their place and opening it revealed the menu for the night, along with an explanation of the royal association of each dish - the canapes, for example, were based on the canapes served at Will and Kate's wedding reception.

The first dish served at the table was Pheasant Consomme a la Royale, apparently served at a dinner hosted by King Leopold II and Queen Marie-Henriette in 1870 - I'm picking our version may have been modernised a bit, and it was absolutely stunning! The foam in the middle of the plate was topped with gold leaf (essential for that royal feeling?) and the rich aroma of the consomme reached us as soon as the wait staff walked into the room, so everyone watched it being poured with great enthusiasm - it smelt so amazingly good! The taste was amazing too, very deep and perfect to ward away snow chills. The darling little mushrooms and petals which were arranged in our bowls pre-pour were delicate in flavour and the consomme itself was definitely the star of the show - I must have a go at that sometime, it just seems so overwhelmingly difficult! (I have no idea whether it truly is very difficult or if Masterchef failures are distorting my judgement)

The second course was poached fish fillet (John Dory) with crayfish beurre blanc, which was a dish apparently served at Charles and Di's wedding. The crayfish beurre blanc was stunning (not that there was anything wrong with the fish but the sauce rather stole the limelight), and the seaweed powder around the plate I'm picking is a modern touch and likely wasn't a feature of the 1980 royal wedding. ;-)

My top pick of the night was this rather blurred dish - quail, liver foie gras, hazelnut butter and pumpkin puree. Very rich, but such flavours! The hazelnut butter had that perfect brown butter nuttiness melding in with the hazelnut nuttiness, and having a bit of crunch really elevated the dish. The quail was lovely and went oh-so-well with the foie gras. I tend towards keeping my food separate on the plate, and I know dishes like this are made to be combined and always try a forkful with a bit of everything, but in this case every forkful had to have a bit of quail, a bit of foie gras and some buttery nuts because the combination was sublime. Am I a bit ravey? Sorry... ;-)

Before the main appeared we had a palate cleanser of (I think) mandarin granita and mandarin foam - it was just the ticket after such a rich dish and could just about have served as dessert and been the end of the evening. Far from it, though!

The main (not that our bellies needed any more food!) was beef wellington, served with duchesse potatoes and beans. The plates were presented with just the beef wellington, and the vegetables served to us, which frankly I thought a bit too much bother, but it really didn't matter. I found both the potatoes and the beans reasonably unremarkable (though the beans were a welcome flash of green!), but perhaps being past my normal satiation point didn't help there. The beef wellington was excellent, though, with the meat very tender, nice and pink, and the rich mushroom/pastry/meat/bernaise combination hit all the right notes. Many of our fellow diners (Mr Cake included) thought this was the dish of the night, though I'm sticking by my quail.

I was seated to Mr Cake's right, and to the right of me was one of the evening's two hosts, Brandon Nash, of Dhall & Nash Fine Wines. This was great for us as Brandon had matched all the wines for the evening and clearly knows a thing or two about the stuff, so his commentary throughout on the pairings and flavours heightened our awareness of what we were drinking. Though I doubt I'll ever reach any sort of wine snob status it's nice to have a bit of an appreciation for the stuff, so it was a boon for me to be seated where we were!

The next course was the cheese course, and though I have a photo it's so terrible (and cheese really isn't that interesting to look at anyway) that I've left it out! However, and you won't hear these words from my lips often, I do believe the cheese beat dessert on this occasion. We were each served a slice of Windsor blue (which was already a favourite of mine) on an equally proportioned slice of quince paste, on an equally proportioned slice of gingerbread - cheese on toast? But it was so good - the spicy bread (which was more like biscotti in texture, so I suspect twice baked), the sweet paste, the rich cheese. It doesn't overtake the quail but probably somewhat easier to assemble at home, so it gets points for accessibility!

The grand finale was the snow egg, which I'd already heard some excited murmurings about in the foodie realm so was keen to try. The theme here was passionfruit, which is definitely pretty high up my dessert flavour rankings (nothing can beat chocolate, but chocolate might have been the straw to break the camel's back after this particular meal!) - such a zingy, fresh flavour. The snow egg itself is meringue, lightly poached so it's very foamy and light in texture. It was sitting on passionfruit fool and passionfruit granita, and all the elements were packed with intense passionfruit flavour. The dessert wine was the 2009 Johner Estate Noble Pinot Noir, which was very nice and my wine pick of the evening (though the unusual And Co. The Supernatural Sauvignon Blanc served with the fish was also notable).

Dessert was followed up with petit fours and tea and coffee, but while we did nibble on the marshmallows and fudge presented to us we didn't stick around as it was past 11pm and a school night so we hit the road and waddled home. ;-)

It was a fantastic night out, and though pricey I think worth it (though it will depend where your priorities lie!), and The White House created a wonderfully royal experience for us - we were thoroughly spoiled. I think I still need to work on my royal manners - I'm willing to bet that the likes of Princess Kate and her equally slender sister wouldn't eat everything served to them in an eight course meal - but then, it's safe to say I'll never be walking down the aisle of Westminster Abbey with the eyes of the world upon me, so I can savour every last bite!

Are you into events, or do you prefer to make the most of dining out on a more normal scale?

The White House is located at 232 Oriental Parade, Wellington, ph 04 385 8555, www.whr.co.nz - and they have a degustation menu so though the table might not be quite so large you can still have the royal treatment.

Lunch with Chef Wan and the Malaysia Kitchen Night Market

2011-08-20T19:57:00.004+12:00

Unbelievably Wellington on a Plate is drawing to a close for another year - though I'm sad it's almost finished my body is slightly relieved, as my food consumption has been a bit excessive over the last couple of weeks and I have that permanent sort of food baby feeling going on. However, it's not over till it's over, and the grand finale is the Malaysia Kitchen Night Market tomorrow.

Today I was fortunate enough to have lunch at Kayu Manis with a munch (that's the collective noun for a group of food bloggers, as defined by Jo from Wellingtonista) of lovely ladies and the great Chef Wan, to prepare my tastebuds for tomorrow and to further enhance my food baby.

Having Chef Wan at the table was not only highly entertaining (he talks a mile a minute) but very informative - he really is an ambassador for Malaysian food, and as we ate he told us about ingredients and variations on each of the dishes we were trying.

For example, as we ate the cucur udang (prawn fritters) he told us that these are an everyday snack in Malaysia, and are treated as breakfast or perhaps as a teatime snack. Fillings can be varied, and apparently when made for children for breakfast anchovy is often used instead of prawn - I can't help imagining the reaction I would have given my mother if she'd tried to substitute fish for my cornflakes when I was a kid! ;-)

If you're dining at Kayu Manis and get to sit downstairs you can watch the roti being made. When the chef started on this our food-obsessed table all got up and swarmed around to watch - it's an impressive process, with a great deal of skill (sadly the really impressive bits are performed too quickly for me to capture without huge amounts of blurring, so you'll have to go see for yourself), and the resulting roti are amazingly fluffy and very authentic according to Chef Wan (who would know!).

While the bloggerati were busy snapping the roti action Chef Wan turned the tables on us and whipped out his camera - so I created an infinite loop by photographing him photographing me photographing him...

Once we were done snapping pictures of each other we returned to the table for the main part of our meal. The mains were all so very, very good - the fish sambal was full of huge pieces of crunchy fried fish and the sambal sauce was lovely, and the rendang (which I've had before) has a lovely rich flavour, though is a little dry for my liking. The star for me was the lamb kuzi - it's the unpretty dish in the middle above, but it well and truly made up for its looks with flavour. The sauce for this dish is made with raisins and milk or yoghurt, and the sauce was creamy and rich, with incredibly tender lamb - just fantastic!

In case you're wondering what a "munch" looks like, this is us, with Chef Wan hamming it up in our midst - such a friendly soul!

Chef Wan will be demonstrating at the night market tomorrow, and there'll be various stalls with food available for purchase. It's in Opera House Lane, so hopefully will be nicely sheltered from any crazy weather conditions Wellington chooses to throw at us, and sounds like a great afternoon/evening out - hopefully I might see you there!

What Wellington on a Plate events/restaurants have you been to? Are you using tomorrow as a final opportunity to squeeze some eating in?

The Malaysia Kitchen Night Market is tomorrow, Sunday 21st August, 4pm-7pm in Opera House Lane, Wellington. The event is free and food is available from $5. Mrs Cake dined at Kayu Manis as a guest of the Malaysia Kitchen programme.

Bahamian Rum Cake

2011-08-14T21:21:00.003+12:00

Last week we celebrated a friend's 30th birthday, and naturally I offered to provide a cake to aid the festivities. We spent a while trying to think of a cake that might go down well - Mr Cake suggested my [not very] healthy cake (I recently made one of these for a gym instructor's 40th - taking cake to the gym was a new level, even for me!) but I wanted to try something different, so we leafed through David Lebovitz's Ready for Dessert, and stumbled upon this very appealing sounding creation.

I bought Ready for Dessert because I absolutely love Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop for its myriad ice-cream recipes, and figured a book of desserts by the same man couldn't go far wrong. I was a little disappointed when it arrived (I ordered it online) as I usually don't buy recipe books without pictures of at least most recipes, and probably only a quarter of the recipes in this one appear in photos. I'm very visual (that's one of the reasons I like blogs - you often get many more photos with a recipe than you would in print) and like to know what the product will look like. Anyway, the book is great, all the recipes I've tried have been tasty, but I tend to overlook the ones without pictures - this, until last week, was one of those.

On the cake scale, this is probably about as unhealthy as you can get, though surely worth the calories - loads of butter and sugar, with both a syrup and a glaze. Just the way cake should be. ;-) It's pretty easy to put together, though, and packs an impressive punch, so if you're wanting to wow somebody without too much effort this might be just the thing.

The syrup is very simple and is made while the cake is cooking - a few ingredients in a saucepan and just warmed enough for the sugar to dissolve.

When the cake is done you poke a lot of holes in it (Lebovitz suggests around 60 - it needs lots for the syrup to get where it needs to go!) and spoon most of the syrup over it. This makes the cake super moist and infuses a lovely rum flavour (not too strong - I don't go for really boozy recipes; this one seems to strike a nice balance).

My first attempt at this cake was a bit overcooked, as I often underestimate the power of a Bundt tin to keep cooking after the cake is out of the oven, so I had a second crack at it. The first version was still well appreciated by the crowd we fed it to but I don't think it was quite up to scratch. The syrup/gaze combo does help hide a bit of overcooking (actually a simple syrup poured over any cake you've accidentally left in the oven a few minutes too long will do wonders).

A bit too dark! I trimmed some of the worst bits off after taking this photo.

The glaze is just as difficult to make as the syrup - that is, not very! Again, a few ingredients in a saucepan, a bit of simmering, add rum. The glaze and cake should both be cool when you put them together, or the glaze will soak in.

The recipe advises adding the toasted coconut to the glaze, which I did for attempt one, but decided the second time around it might work better with the coconut sitting on the cake and glaze poured over, and I preferred the way it looked the second time.

This is the first attempt:

It looks a bit globby if you ask me! Delicious, but globby.

The second attempt yielded a better shade of cake, though I was pressed for time and poured over the glaze while it was still warm, so it doesn't have the same luscious look. I do prefer the coconut this way, though.

I'm glad I gave it another go - this particular cake/syrup/glaze combo makes for a delicious and decadent dessert (or morning tea, as my workmates will attest) and it's also really good warmed up with a wee bit of ice-cream (when cake starts to age a bit 15 seconds in the microwave can work wonders!).
I'm glad I overcame my fear of picture-free recipes to make it.

Do you prefer your recipes to come with photos, or are you happy with the words only approach for your kitchen escapades?

Bahamian Rum Cake (from David Lebovitz's Ready for Dessert)Ingredients
3 cups/420g flour
½ tsp baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
225 g butter, at room temperature
2 cups/400g sugar
3 eggs
2 egg yolks
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
¾ cup/180 ml coconut milk

Rum Syrup
¾ cup coconut milk
6 Tbsp sugar
½ cup dark rum
Glaze

½ cup coconut threads
60g butter, cut into pieces
6 Tbsp cream
6 Tbsp brown sugar
pinch of salt
1 Tbsp rum

Preheat your oven to 160 C. Spray a bundt pan with baking spray and coat with flour.

In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutmeg. Set aside.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar. In a small bowl, beat together the eggs, egg yolks and vanilla. While beating, slowly drizzle the egg mixture into the creamed butter. Once the eggs are incorporated, stir in one third of the dry ingredients, then about half of the coconut milk. Repeat for the next third of the dry ingredients, remainder of coconut milk, and the remainder of the dry ingredients.

Pour the batter into the prepared bundt pan. And bake for 50 to 60 minutes – until the cake is just set in the middle.

While the cake is baking, prepare the syrup. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, warm the extra coconut milk and 6 Tbsp sugar, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Remove the syrup from heat and add the rum and stir to combine.

When the cake is cooked, use a skewer to poke about 60 holes in the cake. Spoon two-thirds of the syrup over the cake, allowing it to soak in. Leave the cake in the tin and allow it to cool completely. When cooled, turn the cake out onto a rack and brush with the remaining syrup. I recommend placing the rack over a plate to catch the drips.

Toast the coconut in a frypan over low heat, stirring constantly, until golden brown - this will only take a couple of minutes.

To make the glaze, combine the butter, cream, salt and brown sugar in a small saucepan over high heat and bring to a boil. Stir until the sugar is dissolved. Remove from the heat, whisk in the rum, and let cool completely.

Top the cake with the coconut flakes and spoon the glaze over the top, allowing it to drip down the sides - you can rewarm the glaze slightly if it's too thick.

The New Zealand Chocolate Festival and Wellington on a Plate Masterclasses

2011-08-13T22:27:00.001+12:00

Both the New Zealand Chocolate Festival and the Fisher and Paykel Masterclass are inaugural events as part of Wellington on a Plate. I attended the opening of the Chocolate Festival yesterday (and will be going back tomorrow - I'm committed to the cause!) and it looks terrific - there are six elements to the festival, including a bevy of chocolatiers from all over New Zealand, with many of my favourites in attendance (it was embarrassing how many of them recognised me from my frequent visits). There's a chocolate fountain (naturally!), chocolate tasting sessions (very informative) and demonstrations - that's if you can pull yourselves away from the chocolatiers and their various samples and wares.

The good news of today is that, although all the weekend sessions sold out on Wednesday, there are limited door sales depending on venue capacity - so if you're free tomorrow aim for a time you think will be quiet and you might be able to go. The session times are 10-2 and 2-6, and door sales are $25. Mr Cake and I have tickets for the afternoon session, so might see you there (I'll be the one wading into the chocolate fountain!).

I think it's great value for money, and of course there's lots of chocolate to be had which surely is all you could ask for in your weekend entertainment. ;-)

Also announced this week was the release of single-issue Masterclass tickets - so if you have an hour free on Friday, have $50 to spare and want to catch Chef Wan, Justin North, Al Brown or Martin Bosley (among others!) ring Ticketek (0800 Ticketek) to book your spot!

Toasted Coconut Ice-Cream Bars

2011-08-11T22:10:00.002+12:00

A while ago I spied a very summery, totally weather inappropriate DIY concept - homemade ice-cream bars. I am not to be deterred by silly little things like the outside temperature (though I'm sure I'll get even more mileage out of these in the summer!), love ice-cream year round, and spend more than I should on over-rated, unsatisfying bought ice-creams, because I like the chocolate/ice-cream combination. I'd never thought about making my own - it was one of those things I had assumed into my too-hard basket - until I saw this site.

While you could buy your ice-cream, soften it and spread into a tray, then refreeze, homemade ice-cream is denser and therefore takes longer to melt, so gives you a longer window in which to work with it - and I reckon it also tastes yummier! I won't go into the ice-cream making process (click here to see some of my favourite recipes) but more how to make it into single-serve, chocolate covered treats.

The first time I made these I went for regular vanilla ice-cream, with dark chocolate. I used quality couverture chocolate, which should be tempered (a bit more on that soon) but actually, because you freeze these and eat them cold you'd probably be able to get away without tempering (the chocolate won't have the nice gloss and may bloom (i.e. go whitish) but it should still taste fine).

The general idea is that you make the ice-cream, churn it and then set it in something that allows you to cut it into bars to your liking. The bars from my first batch were waaaaaay too big - the ice-creams were about the same dimensions as a bought ice-cream, but then I dipped them (which makes them thicker), and the ice-cream is much richer anyway so you don't need anywhere near as much. For the second batch I went for more bite-sized portions, and they're much more sensible. If the cravings don't go away after one you can always sneak another! ;-)

To coat the bars in chocolate, first make sure your ice-cream is really cold. You should be able to turn down your freezer - ours has a thermostat in the freezer, and older models are usually set by the same thermostat as the fridge, so turning the fridge down makes the freezer colder (just move lettuce and tomatoes and anything else that might suffer from frost away from the coldest bits if you do this!). This will of course make any other ice-cream unscoopable and generally be colder than necessary, so remembering to turn it back up afterwards is good.

Tempering chocolate seems pretty fussy, and a digital thermometer is fairly essential (as well as a hairdryer!), but the actual process isn't so much hard as time-consuming. For a while in the middle you can wander off and read a book/watch telly/play on your computer though, so it's not that bad. The overall idea is to warm the chocolate enough to melt it, not past a certain temperature (the temperature itself will vary depending on whether you're using dark, milk or white chocolate), cool it to a lower temperature at which it's still liquid but crystallisation starts to occur, stir it for a bit, keeping it at that temperature, then warm it up a tiny bit to remelt it so you can do your thing. If you want to master this I strongly recommend the courses run by Jiri/George at Bohemien - he really knows his stuff!

Melting the chocolate you want to make sure it doesn't get too hot - 45 degrees C for dark chocolate, or 40 C for milk and white chocolate. Stir it for a bit and set it aside to cool - you want to bring it down to 27 degrees. At that temperature the magical happy crystallisation occurs - that's what makes the chocolate set hard and glossy. They take a wee while to seed, and stirring helps ensure they form throughout the chocolate so once you get to 27 stir for a few minutes while keeping the chocolate at that temperature (use a hairdryer on low power to bring it back up if it drops slightly). You should notice the chocolate thicken as the crystals form, and you can check if it's ready by dipping a knife in it or spreading a little bit on baking paper and seeing how quickly it sets - it shouldn't take more than five minutes to harden. If it doesn't set keep stirring until it does!

When it's ready to use, heat it up to between 32 and 34 degrees C - this should bring it back to liquid without destroying the chemical structure you've just carefully created. You can then use it for whatever you want - for example, for dipping ice-cream bars into!

Bring your chocolate to temperature, and get the ice-cream out. I found it easiest to work in batches - just leave the rest in the freezer until you're ready. My second batch made 15 bars, and doing five at a time is a good manageable amount.

Have some baking paper ready to put your dipped bars onto, then just go ahead - put one into the chocolate, then turn it over until fully coated and take it out. You could use two forks for this but I found my fingers to be the best tools - messy, but you get to lick them at the end! ;-)

I also decided to top the bars with a bit of toasted coconut - to be honest this didn't add much to the eating for me, but they look pretty! If you want to do this heat coconut in a frypan for a few minutes before you get to the dipping stage, then add it immediately on removing each bar from the chocolate bowl.

As the chocolate cools down you can rewarm it, again with a hairdryer (this allows you to control the heat more effectively, and as soon as the heat source is turned off the heating stops), to the 32-34 degree range to keep it workable.

When the bars are finished package them up and put them in the freezer. I wrapped mine in tinfoil as it does a good job of protecting against freezer burn, but an airtight container (perhaps with layers of baking paper to prevent sticking) would also work. And you're all ready to enjoy them as you please!

I thought these were delicious - they're not lasting anywhere near as long as I think they should but I'm definitely enjoying them so I guess that's all right. They're fernickety to make but I think worth the effort - ten times better than store bought and I can make whatever flavour combo I feel like (toasted coconut/white chocolate is a major winner, by the way).

Do you save ice-cream for the summer months, or enjoy it year round? Do you have a favourite bought ice-cream?

Toasted Coconut Ice-Cream Bars (Coconut Ice-Cream from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz)

Ingredients

1 cup dried shredded coconut (extra 1/3 cup for topping optional)

1 cup milk
2 cups cream
3/4 cup sugar
Big pinch of salt
1 vanilla bean, split in half lengthwise or 1 tsp vanilla paste
5 egg yolks
1/2 tsp vanilla extract, or 1 tsp rum

600g good quality chocolate (white, milk or dark; it's up to you!)

In a frypan over medium heat gently stir the coconut until it turns golden brown, 3-4 minutes. Remove from heat.

In a medium saucepan, warm the milk, 1 cup of cream, sugar, and salt and 1 cup of toasted coconut. Add the vanilla seeds and pod or vanilla paste to the warm milk. Cover, remove from the heat, and let steep at room temperature for 1 hour.

Rewarm the coconut-infused mixture. Set a mesh strainer over another medium saucepan and strain the coconut-infused liquid through the strainer into the saucepan. Press down on the coconut very firmly with a spatula to extract as much of the flavor from it as possible. Remove the vanilla bean halves (both the vanilla pod and coconut can be used for other purposes - vanilla to flavour sugar; the coconut makes good macaroons, though you may need to add extra coconut to account for the wetness)

Pour the remaining cream into a large bowl and set the mesh strainer on top. In another bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm coconut-infused mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.

Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula. Pour the custard through the strainer and stir it into the cream. Mix in the vanilla or rum and stir over an ice bath until cool.

Chill the mixture in the refrigerator for 6 hours or overnight, then churn in your ice cream maker. While churning, line a shallow tin (e.g. a brownie tin or square cake tin) with baking paper. When thick and creamy, spread the ice-cream into the prepared tin, cover and place in the freezer for several hours until firm.

Cut the ice-cream into bars, then place back in the freezer, turning the freezer as cold as it can go to ensure they are as firm as possible.

Place a large bowl over a saucepan with a couple of cups of simmering water in it (the water shouldn't touch the bowl). Add the chocolate and stir until melted and smooth, removing the bowl from the saucepan once the temperature reaches 40 degrees C (45 for dark chocolate).

Leave the chocolate to cool, checking periodically. When it reaches 27 degrees C, stir constantly for several minutes, until the chocolate starts to thicken. Test by dipping a knife in and waiting to see if it sets - it should harden within 5 minutes. Once the chocolate is ready rewarm it to between 32 and 34 degrees C.

Remove the ice-cream bars from the freezer and lay a sheet of baking paper down. Dip the ice-cream bars into the chocolate one by one, using forks or your fingers to ensure they are fully coated. Top immediately with additional coconut if you wish. Wrap in tinfoil or place in an airtight container and store in the freezer until ready to be eaten. These will be best eaten within two weeks of being made.