Alex and I have always wanted to attempt to make lamingtons. An Australian icon and a delicious treat that we use to eat as kids from the local bakery.  The Lamington consists of a delicate sponge cake, covered in chocolate icing and rolled in desiccated coconut. While most of the recipes we researched did not add jam and cream, we decided to dress our lamingtons up by slicing them in half and adding fresh whipped cream and raspberry jam. We found the addition of jam and cream took the lamingtons to another level and made them slightly more moist and moreish.

As I kid, I never appreciated that the lamington is actually quite a complex little cake – something that Alex and I discovered when attempting to make a batch. I have also never made a sponge cake before and having heard many tales about how difficult a sponge cake is to make, I was hesitant but excited to try and make a sponge for the first time.

Our first attempt involved a lamington recipe that called for a cake that required 250g butter and 4 eggs. While this recipe was not your typical recipe for a sponge cake (using so much butter and only 4 eggs, it resembled more of a butter cake) it was taken from a good source so I was quite confident it would be a good lamington recipe to try.  Well it turn out this cake was a disaster; it sunk in the middle and was very heavy and dense. After some tears on my behalf, Alex suggested we use a recipe in which the sponge cake was made using only eggs and a tiny amount of butter. Our second attempt involved whipping 6 eggs and triple sifting the flour but  it was worth the effort as it resulted in a feather light sponge cake. With the sponge mastered we then had to cut the cake into even sized pieces, dip each piece in chocolate icing and then coat each cake in coconut. This process resulted in a kitchen covered in the above ingredients but the results were better than we had hoped for. Having seen the mess I had made making the lamingtons, I was relieved that they ended up resembling the lamingtons I remember seeing in the bakery.

There are many variations you could use for the sponge cake to make the lamingtons. So if you have your own sponge cake recipe you could use this. Give this recipe a try, its well worth the effort and we hope you enjoy making this recipe as much as we did.

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- Alex & Rani

When the month of December finally arrives, our thoughts start to turn to holidays, how many days of work we have left, how many christmas presents we need to buy at the last minute and the menu for christmas lunch.  Christmas time is that time of year when its not weird to begin planning what to eat for one day at least a month in advance!

The one thing we love about Christmas being during summer in Australia, is that you can still enjoy traditional christmas food such as turkeys and ham, but the stress factor can be minimised by cooking these easily  in a BBQ in the back yard and then serving it with roast vegetables and fresh clean salads. I always love planning the dessert for Christmas day as summer time means there is so much beautiful fruit available that can be used in nearly any dish to give a delicious finish to a meal.

Pavlova is one of my favourite desserts (Sorry NZ but I’m going to have to say it is a traditional Australian dessert!) but really I don’t care who invented it, i’m just glad someone did because it is divine!  I love the crunchy outside, the soft marshmallow meringue and the simple finish of cool cream on top. Paired with summer fruits it makes my mouth water. We decided to wish you all a merry christmas and created this summer berry layered pavlova. Not only does it make a sensational centre piece for the christmas table, it uses cherries and raspberries which are just delicious at this time of year and always look very festive. One of the other things about this recipe is that it is quite easy but looks impressive – an easy recipe at Christmas is a winner.

We created  3 meringue bases, layered them with whipped cream and added cherries and raspberries in between. The final meringue went on to and a mountain of cherries, raspberries and few blueberries topped with icing sugar finihsed it off.

We did learn along the way that you might want to make this recipe in a very well air conditioned kitchen or on a day in December when it is NOT over 30 degrees. Raspberries love to weep and dribble their beautiful juice and meringue can be very fiddle to handle on a hot day.  I pretty much created an eton mess on Alex’s kitchen bench.

However, the finished product tastes like summer, a very delicious summer. We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and holiday season. We look forward to bringing you more yummy recipes in 2013.

- Alex and Rani

Chocolate chips cookies. One of the most loved cookies of our time and a good old fashioned favourite.  However given its simplicity in ingredients, how can it be that one simple biscuit could cause me so much grief?

A few years ago I was content with using any chocolate chip cookie recipe and as long as they didn’t burn I was satisfied.  As I continued to bake I became more interested in finding the best chocolate chip cookie recipe, one that not only produced a cookie with crisp edges but also a soft centre, one  that was not cake like but slightly chewy. Most of all I didn’t want a flat cookie that spread to a undesirable pancake.

After searching various cook books and baking blogs, I decided to try the Nestle Toll House recipe, you know, the one that is on the back of the packet of Nestle Toll House choc chips. The recipe is devised by Ms Ruth Wakefield who accidently created the chocolate chip recipe. She is considered a somewhat heroine in the baking world. Being the recipe that invented the chocolate chip cookie I figured it would produce some pretty awesome cookies (I should also sheepishly insert here that after watching a Friends episode where Phoebe admits that her Grandmother’s secret choc chip cookie recipe that produces the best cookies is actually the Nestle Toll House recipe, I was further convinced!)

I continued to use this recipe for a few years, learning along the way little tips and ticks to make the cookies stop spreading and ending up flat, such as chilling the dough in the fridge before baking and making sure your cookie trays are cold. However I found that despite my best efforts, I would still end up with flat cookies.

I then searched for the reasons why this occurred. There is in fact a science to all that sugar, butter and flour and after reading countless articles on the art of baking cookies, I discovered that the New York Times had the same issues as me a few years ago and David Leite set out on the quest to find the prefect chocolate chip cookie. He ended up publishing this article, which explains the science of producing the prefect chocolate chip cookie and after conducting his investigation, he formulating what has been regarded as the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe. The article is a very interesting read and explains that using both bread and cake flour plays a very important role in producing cookies that are not flat as does letting the dough rest for at least 36 hours. Further, this resting time allows the flavours of the cookie to develop giving you a richer, tastier and all round more delicious cookie. The type of chocolate used is also important, plain old choc chips won’t suffice (sorry Nestle). Instead, disc of coventure chocolate are used as they melt beautifully to produce a rich, gooey chocolate cookie. The balls of dough also need to weight to  at least  about 100g (3.5 ounces)  in order to produce a cookie that is about 12 cm (5 inches) big. This way you can experience all the textures of the cookie that this recipe produced. That is a crisp outside, soft centre and the one and half inch ring in the centre where the two textures meet (told you it was scientific!).

The recipe also calls for a sprinkling of sea salt on top of the dough before it is baked which can transform the cookie as the tastes of saltiness beings out the caramel flavour. In How Baking Works: Exploring the Fundamentals of Baking Science, Paula Figoni explains that salt changes the rate aroma molecules evaporate, resulting in a longer lasting flavor. Apparently salt in baked goods is all the rage now.

Anyway enough of the science, the main things you need to know is that these are by far the BEST chocolate chip cookies that have even passed my lips. They are beyond delicious. Eaten fresh the day they are made you will understand that the 36 hour wait is defiantly worth it. The chocolate is still melted and gooey and they have the most delicious toffee/caramel flavour. Crispy on the outside but soft in the centre, they are cookie perfection.

As the recipe requires the resting time, it does take some planning ahead. You may be tempted to bake the cookie dough straight away. Doing so will still produce a nice cookie, but to really experiment the New York Times wonder, rest the dough for at least 36 hours. It can be left in the fridge for up to 72 hours (if it lasts that long) and it also freezes well for 3 months ( ask Alex, his freezer is now full of glad bags contaninig carefully meaured balls of cookie dough, ready to pop right in the oven.)

I’m so glad that I finally had the chance to try these cookies. I declare this my go to recipe and with all due respect to Ms Wakefield, I will never look at the back of another packet of nestle choc chips again.

What do you do with 15kg of chocolate? Apart from eat it, give it away, eat some more, hide it so you don’t eat it, or share it with the dog, the best thing to do is transform it into something else. This way chomping down copious amount of chocolate is justified. Hey, it’s not chocolate I’m eating, its chocolate cake and its HOMEMADE, so much better for you.

The scenario above is not made up. Yes, Alex and I were once the owners of 15kg of rejected Cadbury chocolate. 5kg of picnics, 5kg of boost bars and 5kg of crunchies to be exact. While we thought we were very clever at the time ( “hey we can get really cheap chocolate, what flavours do you want? You cant ask me to choose, get them all!” was how our conversation went)…unfortunately we could only stomach so much before we would get to the  point of needed to be boosted out of the house having almost eaten half the  weight of a small child in chocolate

Of course we could not waste the chocolate so we decided to get creative and combine our favourite bar, the crunchie bar, into a delicious cake. (Ok I admit now that I could have chosen a favourite flavour and ended up with only 5kg of chocolate) .

The idea of the cake was to combine the flavours of honeycomb and chocolate. After brainstorming a few ideas we decided that a chocolate cake, with a buttery icing with crunchie crushed through it  in the middle, chocolate ganache on the outside and crunchie crumbled on top would meld together into a delicious representation of a crunchie bar.

And let me tell you it was delicious. I used this chocolate cake recipe from one of our favourite blogs, raspberri cupcakes. The recipe has been taken from David Lebovitz’s devil’s food cake recipe. The cake itself was made with cake flour and cocoa so it has a light fluffy texture without being too rich. This meant that the icings did not make the cake too overly sweet.

While the crunchie bars paired fabulously with the chocolate cake, the icing in the middle could also be easily adapted to use any other chocolate bar. Just an idea if you ever have 15kg of chocolate lying around….

A Slice of Family Tradition – Caramel Slice Recipe

This caramel slice recipe is the epitome of a homemade , traditional  family recipe. It doesn’t come from a fancy cookbook, a celebrity chef or from the internet, instead it has been passed down to me by my Nanna, Maureen Beall.

I grew up on this slice. It was something that Nanna would always make us when we came to visit her in Glen Innes, a small country town in north-eastern New South Wales. Or,  when she would travel down by train to Wollongong or Melbourne where we now live, she would carry this slice, packed between layers of baking paper in an old ice cream container. And let me tell you, it never lasted more than a day and we would beg her to make more.

My Nanna was born in England and apart from this caramel slice she would always make for us other traditional english treats. Think steak and deep fried chips, shepherds pie or a roast lamb with mint sauce for dinner and  then for dessert or afternoon tea  she is a master at steamed pudding, scones with jam and cream or pretty butterfly patty cakes. I hope one day that I can prefect the craft of english cooking just like Nanna.

As for the recipe for the caramel slice, it required a bit of trial an error before I finally got it right. When I asked Nanna for the recipe she told me it was in her head and that she would get my Poppy, Basil Beall to type it up and email it to me ( I guess even with a recipe like this you can’t escape the joys of technology). So Poppy did just that and I’m delighted to be able to share the recipe with you. I have posted the recipe, exactly how poppy sent it and like all handed down family recipes, there aren’t precise measurements or quantities.

A Few Tips on Perfecting Caramel Slice

That being said I can offer a few tips to you for getting this slice right but it might require a few goes to work out what works best for the size of your pan, oven etc.

Nanna uses a cookie tray that measures 32cm squared. I use a cookie tray that is about 30cm x 28cm. I find this is ok. In order to get the best ratio of base:caramel:chocolate I would recommend at tray at least this size. Anything smaller and you will have a thicker base (this is not necessarily a bad thing if you like a thicker biscuit).

Nanna also uses two tins of sweet and condensed milk for the size of her tray and so do I. Again if you have a smaller tray, have a go at using just one can.

Nanna only uses Cadbury’s milk chocolate and uses one and half blocks. I have found that for my tray size this works well. You could use one block if you have a smaller tray, again this is a personal choice. If you like a thicker top use a bit more.

Finally, Nanna always runs her fork though the chocolate when it is nearly just set. To me when we were kids if it didn’t have these fork lines, it wasn’t “Nanna’s slice”.

The final result of this slice, if you follow the measurements, is the perfect ratio of buttery biscuit crumb, sweet caramel and smooth chocolate. This definitely trumps those thick bricks of mass produced caramel slice that you can buy from cafes. We have paired this slice with Toby’s Estate coffee, ground and brewed  by Alex. The combination is perfect for morning or afternoon tea. I hope you get as much joy from this slice as I have from having it prepared for me by my loving Nanna. She is someone who I admire not only for her delicious baking but for who she is a person as well. This post is dedicated to her.

Caramel Slice Recipe

One weekend in June, Alex escaped the winter chill of Melbourne and came up for a visit to Sydney. And the Sydney weather didn’t disappoint. We had two days of sunshine, albeit it was a little cold. However with no wind or rain to dampen the day, we managed to cram in a lot into the weekend. On our early morning run we were rewarded with stunning views of the Harbour Bridge.

 On the way home I introduced Alex to whats been labelled a Sydney institution – Bourke Street Bakery. We picked up some coffees and a wholemeal sourdough loaf which became the foundation of our lunch and late nights snacks for the weekend.(word of warning to BSB virgins – the bakery doesn’t have a bread slicer, so don’t bother asking for them to slice your loaf. Alex found out the hard way when he asked  the girl behind the counter to slice the loaf “for toast”( ie thick slices) and she proceeded to slice the whole loaf by hand and put them in the toaster!)

 We also visited another Sydney icon on the restaurant scene, Ms G’s in Potts Point where we sipped alcoholic bubble tea and ate mini bah mi. The rest of  the night was a little less classy than Ms G’s when we watched and laughed at the inappropriate, Inbetweeners Movie.  On Sunday we had breakfast at a Darlinghurst local, The Bunker  and then wandered the wealthy streets of Woollahra to Donna Hay’s General Store for inspiration.

 Amongst all this we did find time to bake and  an we needed an excuse to try out my new Kitchen Aid. When thinking of what we wanted to bake, we were focused on creating something other than your usual cake or muffin and  we also wanted to experiment with some different flavours. Also being on location, we didn’t want anything too difficult. Alex had some small tarts tins that were yet to be used so we thought we would try them out. Donna Hay provided us with a recipe to try – maple cheesecake tarts.  Her original recipe uses gingernut biscuits as the base but we decided to swap spices and biscuits and used plain butter snap biscuits as the base and cinnamon on top. The flavours and textures of these little tarts was wonderful. The filling was sweet but tangy from combining the maple syrup with the cream cheese and the base was crunchy and buttery. Served with whipped cream ( which took seconds in the Kitchen Aid to make!), they were a heavenly dessert.

 Having succeeded with these tarts we are keen to find some bigger cases and make a buttery pasty so keep an eye out for more tarts to come! We also hope you spice up your weekend or (weekday!) and give these little tarts a try!

Sticky Date Pudding Recipe

The second weekend of June each year brings to me the same realisation, that winter is officially here in Australia and that it’s not going to get ANY warmer for the next 3 months! (Actually, I shouldn’t complain too much and also mention that the  second weekend of June brings the consolation prize of a day off to celebrate the Queens Birthday!)

While I don’t have anything against winter personally, I just don’t like the cold! I have to admit I enjoy the change in seasons and I love watching the tree-lined streets of Melbourne become bare and wintery as the final autumn leaves fall to their resting place on the ground. I also enjoy the fact that with a change in temperature comes a whole new array of seasonal produce and a whole new winter  menu of food to cook and enjoy! Winter is one of my favourite times to spend in the kitchen. Dinners that were once vegetables, salad and  BBQ’d meat are now able to be transformed into slow cooked casseroles, curries, pies and roasts. When it comes to baked goods, well winter is designed to indulge in richer sweets (who wants to eat cold fruit when its cold outside!) Instead think puddings, crumbles and warm cakes.

Alex had his heart set on producing a sticky date pudding way back in summer(!), so we decided to celebrate winter and our long weekend by making a delicious sticky date pudding complete with butterscotch sauce and home-made vanilla bean ice cream.

On a dreary Friday, I whipped up the puddings and I have to admit making them  was a risk as, because we were unable to locate a texan muffins pan (i.e. one that has 6 2/3 cup capacity moulds) I had to settle for some ramekins I found in my local $2 shop. I had to guesstimate the amount of mixture to put in each ramekin and I must confess that the first one I made, was pulled out of the oven with half the mixture having over flowed onto the tray. This was not necessarily a bad thing in the end as I was able to sneakily taste the mixture - it was delicious! Despite this small game of trial and error, we managed to produce the puddings and spent Sunday morning admiring them as we took the photos.

By  the afternoon we had worked up an appetite and we were treated to lunch from Hook’d with Alex’s parents, who were visiting from Hobart.  We then wandered through Chapel Street Bazaar for hidden treasures before just missing the rain shower as we walked back home.  By the afternoon, the puddings, warm, gooey and full of caramel goodness were waiting for us, begging to be eaten. They tasted divine and like all good puddings were best enjoyed when it’s cold and wet outside.  Despite the gloomy shadow of winter, I would not have asked for a better way to spend Sunday.

We hope you brighten up your winter too and make a date to enjoy these  comforting and oh so yummy puddings.

Apple, Raspberry and White Chocolate Crumble Cake

The mainland states and capital cities of Australia claim fame to many things. Melbourne, Victoria, calls itself the fashion capital and often jostles with Sydney for  the arts and sporting title. South Australia is proud of its wine country and Adelaide in particular claims fame for being the city of churches. Western Australia and Queensland are renowned for their beaches and other natural beauties. But what about Tasmania? Often our southern most neighbours are forgotten, especially with an ocean between.

You no doubt know the recipe now for how we like to spend our weekend: run, coffee, bake…relax. However this time the weekend recipe called for extra chilling time when we ventured down to Hobart, Alex’s native roots, where the temperature hovered just over single digits.

That being said, the cooler weather allowed for a wonderful weekend road trip and allowed me to (legitimately) hopfoot around in my Hunter Wellington’s.  We started with a refreshing early morning run to Shag Bay (yes that’s its name!) and  then headed to Salamanca Markets where we browsed the bustling stalls full of homemade jam, sourdoughs (and authentic sheepskin ugg boots) after which we stopped at  Machine for Breakfast. After ordering the free range bacon, then recalling the waitress to tell her I changed my mind and then stealing the bacon off Alex’s plate when our dishes arrived, we jumped back in the car and headed to Russell Falls with a picnic lunch of chicken wraps with organic hummus and homemade caramel slice on the way home.

Sunday morning saw us venture into Hobart to have a look at the Tasmanian Farm Gate Farmers Market. I was amazed to find a stall dedicated to my favourite Elgaar Farm yogurt. This yogurt is like gold in Victoria, shipped over  on the Spirit of Tasmania in limited quantities and for a pretty hefty price. To be able to buy this yogurt from the source was a real treat.

Having come to the Apple Isle we also couldn’t go home without a trip to Huonville to pick up some apples from the many orchard stands along the road. We came home with 3 bags and instantly decided on combining the apples with some of our favourite ingredients (raspberries and white chocolate) to produce an apple, raspberry and white chocolate crumble cake.

Alex’s mum suggested we make the cake using her brand new stand alone mixer as oppose to my normal handheld beaters. At first I was hesitant because the mixer had never been used (and Alex’s mum was trusting me with it!)  and I was sceptical that the cake would turn our perfectly. Having never used a standalone mixer before, I was unsure how to control the beating to avoid over mixing. I began to anticipate a flat, over beaten cake after transferring the batter a few times to different cake tins, that all appeared to be slightly too big.  However when we cut a slice, to say I was speechless is not being over dramatic. The cake looked beautiful. It was light, moist, and fluffy with the prefect crumb (I am now one step closer to not feeling  guilty if I were to splash some cash and purchase a Kitchen Aid).

To serve the cake, we made a raspberry coulis and drizzled this on top for an extra zing of flavour. This cake makes a wonderful dessert when gently heated in the microwave or served warm straight from the oven with custard or a vanilla ice cream.

Like all good things, our trip to Hobart had to come to an end and we finished with a delicious thai dinner back in Salamanca. I was treated to a seafood buffet of prawns, scallops, ling and calamari all sizzling on my plate and Alex enjoyed a delicious Thai green curry, a fantastic way to end our trip.  Our weekend trip away , probably proved the obvious, that Hobart takes the cake when it comes to fresh, delicious produce.

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Banana Cake Recipe

Banana cake, Carrot cake, lemon yogurt cake. What is it about baked goods prefixed by a fruit that make them seem slightly healthier for you and therefore quite pleased that you ate them? In this case, I have to admit to you that this delicious banana cake will make you feel pleased you ate it for all the wrong reasons! This easy banana cake recipe is courtesy of a colleague I use to work with. She is my go to chef for traditional recipes that arn’t too fancy and just involve good old fashioned cooking. The original recipe produces an uniced cake that comprises a buttery, caramel flavour with the addition of sour cream for a moist but fluffy crumb. I have made it extra indulgent by smothering it in a delicious cream cheese frosting, with walnuts generously sprinkled on top for extra crunch.

We normally start off with  full fruit bowl on Sunday night and by Friday, it consists of a few rejected overripe  bananas – prefect for turning into a cake. We all know, the less edible the bananas ( read, soft,  brown and spotty), the better the cake! I have to confess I might go grocery shopping and purposefully buy more bananas than I know my household can eat, purely so that by the end of the week I have the essential ingredient waiting and the perfect excuse to bake.

 Alex and I set a challenge for ourselves to cook and shoot a banana cake “on location”. Alex travelled to Sydney, my new hometown for the next 12 months to visit me over the weekend. We managed to cram alot into two days including making a curry from scratch, eating gelato from Messina in Darlinghurst that has been voted the best  in Australia , picnic in Rushcutters Bay Park, a night in the city, breakfast from Pieno in Surry Hills, a trip out to Ikea,  and of course baking.

We spent Saturday like we do most days: morning run (this time with spectacular view of Sydney Harbour), stopping for a coffee and yummy muffin (from Toby’s Estate in Potts Point) on the way home and then making a mess as we cooked, this time in my kitchen. We utilised the utensils I had in my apartment and photographed the cake on my balcony. Despite being out of our comfort zone and cooking with a new oven, the cake turned out better than expected and eating it capped off a pretty sweet weekend all round.

We hope you make use of any overripe bananas and enjoy this banana cake recipe as much as we did!

Anzac Biscuits Recipe

When April 25th approaches in Australia, Two things come to mind: celebrating our war heroes and a day off – Anzac Day.  This national public holiday enables us to remember and celebrate the service of our veterans as well as enjoy the other tradition synonymous with Anzac day, Anzac biscuits.

Anzac biscuits have to be one of the easiest and economical biscuits you can make. Their history does indeed date back to World War 1 when the wives, mothers and girlfriends of the Australian soldiers were concerned for the nutritional value of the food being supplied to their men. The problem though was that any food the women intended to send to their men traveled to them on ships for periods of over two months without refrigeration. So a body of women came up with the answer: to create a cookie that combine rolled oats, sugar, butter, coconut, flour and golden syrup or treacle. All these items did not readily spoil and were staples in many households.

The interesting thing about Anzac biscuits is the omission of eggs to bind the mixture together. Because of the war, poultry farmers had joined the service and therefore eggs were scare or expensive. Golden syrup or treacle thus acts as the binding agent. ( I also think it adds a delicious sweetness that you would not otherwise get if eggs were used).

To ensure the biscuits remain crisp, they were packed in used tins. The tins were airtight and thus no moisture or air was able to soak into the biscuits and make them soft.

There are however two teams when it comes to biscuits or cookies. Those who like them crunchy and those who like them soft; and in my house, a war can often break out as to how I should be making our Anzacs. My mother likes them crisp and my dad prefer them soft and chewy.

To cater for everyone, I bake some of the Anzacs a bit longer, an extra 5 or 10 mins to crisp them up. If making a batch that I know only my mum will devour, I add more sugar, about an 1/4 of a cup, which also helps to make them crunchy.

When mum use to make these biscuits for me when I was young (oh how the tables have turned) she would add sultanas. I have adopted her ways and I nearly always add them to my mixture. They provide a sweet burst of flavour. You can however leave them out if you prefer the traditional Anzac recipe.

These Anzac biscuits are best enjoyed with a cup of tea like a traditional English breakfast or earl grey.  It’s also quite obvious, given their history, that they also make a great lunch box treat. If you make a batch of these, I’m sure everyone will be a pretty happy soldier.