It seems I keep reading about chocolate chip cookies – David Lebovitz had a recipe for salted butter chocolate chip cookies and Tartelette had one for 36 hour gluten-free cookies. A few clicks later and I was suddenly reading an article from The New York Times on the quest for the perfect chocolate chip cookie. According to The New York Times’ research, the key elements of a delicious chocolate chip cookie are as follows:

• serve the cookies warm;
• use good quality chocolate, with a high percentage of cocoa (at least 60%). For an even better cookie, use chocolate féves, which are thin discs of chocolate and which will melt better, resulting in layers of chocolate in the cookie;
• have a high ratio of chocolate chips to dough (the cookie should be between 40-60% chocolate);
• make a large cookie so that there are three distinct textural elements – gooey centre, crisp outer and a strata in the middle where gooey mixes with crunchy;
• add some salt to take away the sweetness of the cookie; and
• rest the dough for 36 hours before baking it.

I was fine with all the tips except for the 36 hour one. As I have mentioned previously, I have a ‘want it now’ mentality when it comes to cooking. The whole concept of finding time to make a batch of dough but not getting to eat the results for several days was just too much for me. I planned to make these on 3 occasions before I actually got around to it… and even when I did get around to it, I confess, I didn’t immediately wait the 36 hours (oh, the shame!). I made the cookie dough, chilled it for a couple of hours, then made a batch of 8 cookies, before resting the dough another 30 odd hours and baking another batch. I rationalised that in baking some immediately and some after the correct chilling period, I could test the theory and determine whether it is worth the wait.

Saskia and I carefully tasted the cookie from the dough that was cooked almost immediately (about 2-3 hours rest time) and the cookie from the dough that had had the full 36 hour treatment. To be honest, there wasn’t a huge difference between them. The New York Times commented that the batch which had been rested for 36 hours baked up much browner than the other batches and had a richer, more toffee like flavour. Our first batch still browned very nicely and as to the toffee notes, there really wasn’t too much of a difference as far as we could tell. My recommendation would be to rest the dough for as long as you can, but don’t get too concerned about the precise timing. These babies were delicious after the dough had been given a short rest and they were delicious later on too.

Spelt chocolate chip cookies

Adapted from The New York Times.

Makes approximately 25 cookies – while this is a lot, I wouldn’t reduce the quantities as the cookies are delicious and the dough will freeze well. After an epic two days of cookie eating, I’m happy to have a rest from them and bake my last 8 another time, straight from the freezer. Yum.

480g plain flour (or 580g if using spelt flour)
1 1/4 tsp bicarbonate soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
pinch of sea salt
280g butter
280g brown sugar
225g caster sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla essence
570g chocolate, chopped (I used a mixture of dark chocolate (80% cocoa) and milk chocolate as I had that on hand)
sea salt

• Sift flour, bicarb soda and baking powder into a large bowl, stir to combine, add a pinch of sea salt and then set aside.
• In an electric mixer, mix butter and both sugars until very light and fluffy (about 5 minutes).
• Add the eggs one at a time and beat well after each addition.
• Add in the vanilla.
• Add in the flour mixture in a couple of batches and mix on low speed until just combined. Tip the chocolate pieces in and stir by hand until the chocolate is mixed throughout.
• Form the dough into a ball and refrigerate, 36 hours is best and you can leave it for up to 72 hours.
• When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 180C.
• Scoop the dough and form into large, knobbly golf-balls. I found it more difficult to shape the dough after it had been chilled for a longer period and used a knife to prise the dough apart, before shaping with my hands. Place the cookies on a tray lined with baking paper, with lots of space between them (I baked batches of 4 to a tray).
• Bake for 18-20 minutes until golden brown but still soft.
• Cool on a wire rack and then eat, still warm. Yum!

I was highly amused when I read about the opening of a new restaurant on Smith St named Huxtable. Naturally, this was the first thing to come to mind:

I have such strong memories of the Cosby Show, many of which relate to those ridiculous jumpers that Bill wore (and if you want a trip down memory lane, check out the theme).

But I digress. Huxtable is the new venture of self-proclaimed Cosby kids Dante Ruaine (Pelican, MoVida), Daniel Wilson (the Graham) and Jeff Wong (Nineteen Squares). The dark and sexy space, designed by architect Byron George (St Jude’s Cellars) has been open just one week.

It is hard to describe the cuisine of Huxtable, other than to say that it is designed for sharing. The menu traverses a number of different continents, with dishes having an Asian bent (Korean ribs, Japanese tataki, Thai coconut mussels), a side trip to the Middle East (Lebanese cauliflower) and European influences, particularly French (quail terrine, fish à la meuniere) and Spanish (white beans with piquillo peppers and pumpkin with piment d’espelette).

The menu is divided into ‘bites’ (which are usually priced for a single portion) ‘to share’ (larger dishes) and ‘sweets’. We were told that a couple of bites each plus three ‘to share’ dishes should be enough for our group of four.

We started with some cheesey bites – olive crumbed anchovy mozzarella, smoked tomato ($4.5 each) and jalapeño & cheddar croquettes ($3.5 each):

The jalapeño croquettes had a fiery kick to them and were much more flavoursome than the mozzarella and olive balls (where the anchovy flavour didn’t come through).

Our other order from the ‘bites’ menu were the Tom Yam school prawns ($12):

Our next dish arrived, the Lebanese cauliflower, harissa yoghurt and pistachio dukkah ($14), that our waitress had highly recommended:

These were simply delicious. Dark, soft, spiced cauliflower with a mild harissa yoghurt and crunchy pistachio.

Next we tried another ‘to share’ dish, a special of chorizo, white bean and mussels:

I liked the inclusion of the grapefruit segments in the dish, which added a tangy burst of freshness. I was less sold on the mussels and think the dish would perhaps work better without them.

Our last savoury dish was the korean bbq pork ribs, spicy slaw, chilli gherkin ($19):

As you can see, this was not a large serve and it was slightly difficult to share the three ribs between the four of us. The ribs were sticky and moist, with a crunchy layer of fat. The thing that bought the dish together was the gherkin, its acidity and heat from the chilli worked incredibly well to cut through the richness of the ribs.

We finished our savoury component and were still quite hungry, so ‘sweets’ beckoned.

Our waitress recommended the ice-cream sandwich and the chocolate mousse. We decided to try those as well as the banana fritters. Behold our sweet treats, ice cream and fudge sandwich ($10):

Banana fritters, coconut sorbet, cuban rum ($12):

Silken chocolate mousse, marcona almonds, raspberry ($14):

The ice-cream sandwich had a creamy orange ice-cream with a frozen chocolate fudge centre. It was a little too frozen but had great flavour. The chocolate mousse was light in texture but had a real intensity of flavour and while I’m not ordinarily a huge fan of raspberry coulis, it was not too sweet and worked well with the mousse. The favourite though was the banana fritters, which were served with a crunchy sesame caramel tuile and a light coconut sorbet. Yum.

You would think that was enough sweetness, but I couldn’t pass up an individual caramel ($3) and neither should you!

I found the sweets to be the highlight of the meal. Everything else was well executed, though I found the meal a bit disparate, probably due to the fact that we ordered quite different dishes that didn’t complement each other all that well. I would also add that portions are quite small so I would recommend ordering more than we did – at least two ‘bites’ per person (if not more) and at least one ‘to share’ dish per person, as well as some desserts.

That said, I had an enjoyable night at Huxtable. The food is good, service is friendly and it is a very comfortable space. I’ll definitely be visiting again for dinner and I’m also keen to try their weekend breakfast (they had me at Istra bacon and gluten free bread!).

Details

Huxtable
131 Smith St, Fitzroy
Ph: 9419 5101

For Christmas last year I received a voucher from my in-laws for the Essential Ingredient Cooking School. It’s fair to say that I absolutely lost it when I was looking through the course guide and found a class hosted by Adriano Zumbo entitled ‘Pastry: Meringue to Macaron’. I immediately booked in and have been eagerly awaiting the class since March.

The class covered quite a bit of ground, with demonstrations on making Italian, Swiss and French Meringues as well as the aforementioned macarons (plain and chocolate) and five different fillings.

We started the class with a demonstration of Adriano’s basic macaron recipe (a version of which is available here), before we tackled making the macarons ourselves.

Adriano recommends using an Italian meringue to make the macarons. A French meringue can be used, but it is a drier style meringue which will produce drier macarons. French meringue is also more difficult to work with and is best suited to making stand alone meringues which are baked or dehydrated. Swiss meringue is similar to the Italian meringue but is used for topping tarts (such as lemon meringue pie) and for aerating mousses and buttercreams. Here are some of Adriano’s creations:

The top picture are little animals made from French meringues and under that, lemon tartlettes topped with Swiss meringue.

The basic way to make macarons is to make an Italian meringue by heating a sugar syrup (sugar and water), then combining with egg whites in an electric mixer and beating until thick and cooled. Make a mixture of almond meal and icing sugar (called tant pour tant, literally ‘half and half’), pour some eggwhite on the tant pour tant, then pour the meringue on top. Gently fold together, then pipe the mixture in circles onto trays and bake.

Easy right?

Regular readers will know I have somewhat of a macaron obsession, despite my inability to make decent ones myself. In fact, my macaron failure was one topic of our very first blog post (which also contains a picture of an incredibly sad macaron). I have since had some other (unblogged) failures and definitely need some help.

Adriano was a great teacher and had lots of tips and tricks for macaron success. Nonetheless, he emphasised that macarons are largely based on feel and practice makes perfect. Looks like I have several more dud batches in my future then!

This perfect macaron was made by Adriano, not me!

Tips for macaron success

1. Ingredients

• Egg whites – old egg whites are more watery than new egg whites and therefore aerate better. Egg whites are used in the macaron recipe firstly to make the meringue and secondly, as an addition to the tant pour tant (almond meal and icing mixture). It is best to use old egg whites for the meringue and fresh for the tant pour tant. Age your egg whites by leaving them on the bench for a couple of days. Egg whites should be used at room temperature.
• Use egg white powder as well as egg whites to help achieve a more stable mixture.
• Use pure icing sugar, not icing sugar mixture.
• It’s okay to use almond meal but you can get better results if you process blanched almonds in a food processor yourself, as the powder will be finer.
• When making the tant pour tant (almond meal and icing sugar) you can process the mixture in a food processor to make it finer. It is very important to sift the tant pour tant (ie. both the almond meal and the icing sugar together) prior to using it. Don’t sift each ingredient separately and then combine them.

2. Technique

• It is best to add any food colourings to the sugar syrup, rather than later on to the meringue. This is because colourings ordinarily contain liquid and adding liquid can change the structure of the meringue.
• When making the sugar syrup, the sugar and water should reach between 118C and 121C. It is easier to get an accurate measurement using an electronic thermometer as the mixture is not very deep. If you overheat your mixture, you can add some extra cold water to reduce the heat.
• If you overheat the sugar syrup and still use it, this is what happens:

Yes, I managed to overcook the sugar syrup and ruin the meringue. Basically, if the sugar syrup is too hot, it hardens when it hits the bowl, rather than being incorporated in the meringue. If this happens it is best to start again as your mixture is ruined. We actually baked up this mixture and you can see the results below (if I could describe them in one word, it would be FAIL).

• Use two trays stacked on top of each other – this prevents the bottoms of the macarons from drying out due to direct heat (though I note that Duncan believes that whether you need to double tray depends on your oven).
• Stop whisking the meringue while it is still a little warm, if the mixture is too cold it will hold too much air.
• Gently fold the meringue together with the tant pour tant and the extra eggwhite.

• The mixture should be fairly loose (some have described it as molten lava). If the mixture is too thick, knock the air out of it by slapping the mixture with a spatula.

• When piping, evenly space the macarons. For beginners it is easiest to draw a template of the circles, this will also help make the macaron shells even in size.

Note that the mixture in the picture above is awful and lumpy due to my overcooking of the sugar syrup. In comparison, below are Adriano’s macarons:

• Once you have finished piping, tap underneath the tray a few times to knock out extra air.
• To create ‘feet’ on the macarons, it is important to dry the shell. You can do this in the oven by heating the oven to 200C, then immediately switching it off when you put the macarons in. Wait 10 minutes, then turn the oven back on at 150C and cook for 5-6 minutes. Alternatively, leave the shells on the bench until they have formed a skin and are touch-dry (ie. you can touch them with your finger and the mixture will not stick). Then cook the macarons for 15-18 minutes at 135C.
• Knowing when the macarons are cooked is a matter of feel. To check if your macarons are cooked, pick one up. It should easily come away from the tray and appear to be set when you gently jiggle it.
• If your mixture wasn’t perfect it will be pretty obvious once the macarons are baked:

The top batch was made by another group in the class. The bottom batch was made with the overcooked sugar syrup.

• Cool the macaron shells on their trays before filling.

Thankfully, one batch we made worked perfectly.

Cool and then sandwich with the filling of your choice. This one is raspberry with a shortbread centre:

Here, the back macarons are filled with salted caramel buttercream, the front with chestnut buttercream and passionfruit ganache

We also made choc-mint aero and chocolate with fig and foie gras.

Finally, we got to taste a batch made by Adriano (something I was very excited about given what happened last time I had Adriano’s macarons):

All in all, it was a wonderful day and I cannot recommend it highly enough. The Essential Ingredient Cooking School organises its schedule in the early part of the year so it is unclear whether this class will be available in 2011. However, I note that Adriano offers classes at his Rozelle premises.

We took our creations home to enjoy. Apparently macarons are best served the day after they are made… though I’m not sure they will last that long!

Details

Essential Ingredient Cooking School
Prahran Market, Elizabeth Street, South Yarra VIC 3141
Ph: (03) 9827 9047
Email: cookingschool@essentialingredientvic.com.au

Saskia and I were very chuffed to be invited to attend a blogger’s session on the opening night of Taste of Melbourne. April has already posted a blow by blow account, so here are some of our highlights of the evening.

We arrived to total chaos as the building had been evacuated after the fire alarm went off. Several hundred people (mostly stallholders) were left congregated at the entrance, waiting for the all-clear. Now for the gratuitous man in uniform shot:

Love the axe!

All was fine and shortly thereafter we were ushered in to the building.

Our first stop was to Regal Salmon where we tried a salmon mousse (which was very cute in its little cone):

We also had a mouthful of some limoncello-cured salmon that Saskia and I both adored:

Regal assured us that the recipe will be put on the Regal website in the recipe section shortly and Saskia and I plan on having a go at making this ourselves. The limoncello worked so well to cut through the richness of the salmon. Yum.

Another highlight was the Sensology ‘Art of cocktail making’ hands on session (presented by Bacardi), which was new to Taste of Melbourne this year. First, we watched the ‘mixologist’ make the cocktail, then we were instructed how to make it ourselves. Look at him go!

In our session we made a Grand Margarita, but other sessions include Tom Collins, Mojito (my favourite!), Martini and Daiquiri.

To make a Grand Margarita, rim the lip of the glass with lime then dip in sea salt flakes. Juice 2 limes, then mix 30ml lime juice, 30ml tequila (we used Cazadores), 30ml Grand Marnier and a bar teaspoon or two of sugar (to taste). Add a lot of ice, pop it into a shaker and give it a vigorous shake. Strain and serve immediately.

It was a miracle that I did not end up with Grand Margarita all over me as I kept holding the shaker upside down and being gently corrected by the instructor. Some important (and somewhat obvious) tips that I learnt in the session are to carefully measure your ingredients, add the cheapest ingredient first (in case you need to start over), add plenty of ice, hold the shaker by the metal base (not by the glass as I did) and shake above your shoulder.

Behold my beautiful (and really tasty) Grand Margarita:

This packs a bit of a punch, so my recommendation is to enjoy it in the accompanying lounge, rather than drinking it in a single gulp (as a couple of other patrons did!).

The next highlight (for embarrassment factor alone) was the Smeg lounge, where there was a cooking demonstration by Daniel Vaughan from The Pantry in Brighton. Somehow or other both Saskia and I ended up assisting Daniel to make a wagyu beef tataki and were mercilessly mocked for our cooking prowess (or lack thereof, although I think it was mostly the ‘blogger’ moniker which was at issue). Saskia made the dressing and my role was to separate an egg (the pressure!!). Here is the final dish:

Next, we popped by some of the restaurant stalls. Another new feature of Taste of Melbourne this year is the pop up restaurant, which hosts a different restaurant each day of the festival. On Thursday when we visited, Koots Salle a Manger was in residence, and subsequent restaurants include Comida Bebe, Izakaya Den (which is such fun and you can read about here) and Embrasse (which I love and will post about shortly). Koots’ seven hour braised leg of lamb looked to die for:

We also popped by the Charcoal Lane stall and met head chef, Damien Styles. Charcoal Lane is a restaurant with a difference as it is run by Mission Australia and provides work experience and training to Aboriginal and disadvantaged young people. The restaurant is a fine dining establishment with a focus on native Australian ingredients. On the menu at Taste, there was wallaby tataki,  seared kingfish with red curry (that Saskia and I tried) and a raspberry and rosella flower cannelloni (shown in the foreground):

We also met with a number of other producers, including Alberto’s Delicacies (a family owned and run pesto, antipasto and pasta operation). I was very excited to hear that Alberto’s is also introducing a gluten-free range of fresh pastas, including a range of filled pastas (which I have barely eaten since going wheat-free 5 years ago). These will be available from their East Brunswick site in the coming weeks.

I also really enjoyed meeting the team at Bultarra Saltbush Lamb and having a taste of their seriously delicious product. Saltbush lamb is a favourite of Maggie Beer and while I have never cooked it before I am keen to give it a try. Here is my artful shot of the saltbush on which the Bultarra lambs are fed:

We then cracked on with some tasting of the dishes that the restaurants had on offer. Saskia and I headed to Mezzo where Saskia tried the Cavatelli di Messina with prawns, peas and lemon oil and I tried the braised pork cheek with polenta:

The pasta was intensly lemony (in a good way) with a nice pop of freshness from the baby peas. The pork cheek was meltingly tender and I loved the crunch from the pistachio.

Time for dessert, Saskia and I shared a bombe from the Stokehouse:

I’ve said this several times – it was the bomb! I loved this dessert, with the white chocolate parfait, fresh and not too sweet strawberry sorbet and soft almost oozy meringue. I had promised to give Claire a taste of this dessert too, but she was momentarily distracted by chatting to a friend and so I seized the opportunity to eat it all (not a particularly nice move, but Claire ended up getting her own portion and was happy with that).

Last taste of the night was Longrain’s dessert of tapioca pudding with poached pears and jackfruit:

I like tapioca but this was a shade bland and a bit too liquid. Saskia reported that the wheaty element (the toile) was a bit powdery and was flavourless.

We then hot footed it to the VIP lounge to indulge in some much-needed sparkling wine and to toast a great night at Taste of Melbourne.

Note: Saskia and I were guests of HotHouse Media and received a number of freebies, including entry, cocktail making, tastes, produce, goody bags and all that sparkling wine above.

  

On my morning walk to work I have been watching with interest the development of a new cafe on Gertrude St. Thanks to Where’s the beef (those organised food-hounds), I found out that Sonido was finally open and organised breakfast there post-haste!

Sonido is a seriously cute little cafe, decked out with artfully mismatched furniture and shelves filled with all manner of quirkiness, including vinyl records, books, posters and shoes(!). The cafe is run by a Colombian couple and the food, music and decorations are all a homage to their homeland. It has been open for about 4 weeks now and I was told by them that mid-week is just starting to fall into a rhythm and that the weekends are ridiculously busy.

On the Wednesday morning we visited, Sonido was very slow and sleepy. Service was at a very relaxed pace, but this was fine and we had time to enjoy our lovely coffees (Supreme):

And look at the cute little wooden spoon:

The cafe doesn’t really have breakfast menu per se, everything is an all day option. You can try an empanada with beef and olive ($7.5), spinach and cheese ($7.5) or chorizo ($8). They also serve arepas (thin, crispy discs of corn) with a range of different toppings, such as cheese ($7.5), egg ($9.5), sweet corn ($6), ‘old clothes’ beef ($11.5) and black beans and feta ($11.5), and you can get a side salad with them too. All the arepas are gluten-free, except the sweet corn. For obvious reasons, I really really wanted to try the ‘old clothes’ beef, but decided it was probably a little much for breakfast. I’ll have to visit another time to try it out.

I went for the black beans and feta:

This was really delicious, thick, rich beans, slightly salty feta on the crisp arepa. The oniony salsa added a nice sharpness. Yum.

Breakfast companion P tried the arepa with eggs:

These were really creamy and P slathered them in chilli sauce, giving them a nice kick.

Sweets include muffins ($4.5), raspberry brownie ($4.5), shortbread hearts ($3.5), almond crescents ($3.5) and cocadas, which are a Brazilian coconut macaroon ($4). While sweets after breakfast are not my standard fare, all the cakes and sweets at Sonido are gluten-free, so I had to try them… right?

I admit that I have been quite taken by the sweets at Sonido (which are actually baked by Hartford Lane Organics) and I have made a few visits for sweets alone. Firstly, I picked up an apple crumble muffin on my way to work:

The top of the muffin was so crunchy and caramelly. Seriously awesome (and I really wish I had one now!)

I have also tried the brownie:

This was dense and fudgy, with a little surprise of raspberries at the bottom. The raspberries added a nice burst of flavour and it reminded me strongly of the chocolate raspberry layer cake I have previously made, I really need to make it again!

All in all, Sonido is a sweet little place with some great options, particularly for those who are gluten-free. I’m looking forward to going back and trying the ‘old clothes’ beef!!!

Note: lots of other bloggers have reviewed Sonido in its short life – have a look Vetti live in Northcote, Fat belly club, Crafty llama and Fitzroyalty.

Details

Sonido!
69 Gertrude St, Fitzroy
0404621946 / 0406850341

Boringly, work has been really crazy lately (hence the somewhat reduced frequency of new blog posts). In addition to feeling like I have neglected the blog a bit, it’s also been a bit a little hard to find time to hang with Mr M. The solution? Mid-week breakfast catch ups with the two of us, starting off first with breakfast at Birdman Eating.

I have eaten breakfast loads of times at Birdman Eating (and a couple of lunches thrown in as well), but to date had decided not to blog it. I decided to revisit this strategy because I just got my hands on a new fancy pants camera and I was overexcited to try it out (and before anyone asks, the camera wasn’t a freebie, I bought it with my own cashola).

Birdman Eating is a quirky little cafe, situated on Gertrude St. Apparently the name Birdman comes from the annual Moomba Birdman Rally as well as the myth of Icarus. I have always been somewhat bemused by the decor, which includes suspended vases and little winged action-figure types hanging from the ceiling. The figurines are actually quite delicate and beautiful and someone spent a lot of time forming those wings from feathers.

Birdman has loads of breakfast options that pleasingly differ from the standard breakfast fare. Tried and tested breakfasts include the black sticky rice with yoghurt and mango ($10 lovely texture, hints of sesame and freshness from the fruit) and quinoa porridge with coconut, banana and palm sugar ($11.5 caramelised chunks of banana, almost toffee flavour of palm sugar). Ricotta features, in hotcake form ($14.5) and baked with fruit ($12.5). Or you can try something more substantial like Welsh rarebit ($8.5), steak sandwich ($16), grilled kippers ($17), black pudding with potato hash and fried egg ($17.5) or kransky with bubble and squeak ($18).

I usually can’t get past the baked eggs ($12), which change regularly. The morning we went there were sweet potato, capsicum tomato and goats cheese, beef stroganoff and pancetta and tomato sugo on offer. Mr M went for the pancetta and tomato and was not disappointed: 

These babies come out piping hot in their little skillets and pack a flavour punch. Here, there was a sweetness from the sugo with salty little bits of pancetta. Yum.

I mixed it up a little and tried the braised beans on toast ($13.5):

Joyfully, Birdman Eating has gluten-free bread on offer and this specimen above was damn good. When I first looked at the toast I didn’t think it was actually gluten-free (it looked too tasty and too normal), though a quick comparison of my bread and Mr M’s bread quickly put my mind at ease. I had an ‘incident’ a while back where I ordered a gluten-free pizza and it wasn’t gluten free. Tummy aches ensued and I am now a little paranoid about making sure what is supposed to be GF is actually GF.

This lovely bread is from Fatto a Mano, just up the road from Birdman Eating. As an aside, they also do a cracking spelt bread (for those who are just wheat-free not gluten-free). I will say that this is one of the best gluten-free breads I have had ever, and certainly the best in recent memory. Unlike other GF bread it wasn’t cakey or falling apart, it had some actual flavour and wasn’t horribly dense (GF will always be dense, but this was acceptably so).

Back to the beans, these impressed me almost as much as the bread (and sorry for the overexcited spiel there!). These were rich and tasty, with a range of different beans, little chunks of carrot and capsicum and a hit of cumin.

All in all, a very satisfying breakfast (and a nice hit of quality time too!). It was lovely to go to Birdman mid-week and enjoy a relaxed breakfast, such a different experience to its crazy pace at the weekends. But, Birdman is worth braving the crowds, it’s been a stalwart for years for a reason. Personally, I’ll be visiting again on a quiet weekday… a perfect start to the day. 

Details:
Birdman Eating
283 Gertrude St, Fitzroy
(03) 9416 4747 

So it seems that this blog is quickly becoming a shrine to David Lebovitz. I do realise that this could get boring for you, dear reader, but, what can I say? His recipes are damned good. I promise to have a break from ‘David talk’ for a couple of weeks. Right after this post.

So I have never been particularly successful at making ice-cream myself, mostly because I lack the patience to do it properly. Usually, when I decide to make ice-cream, its because I want it *now*. Which would be fine if I had one of those impressive machines where you can add in hot custard and out comes ice-cream shortly thereafter. Unfortunately, I have a machine that needs the bowl to be pre-frozen and the mixture thoroughly chilled before anything resembling ice-cream can be made. To add time to the process, I also need to freeze the ice-cream my machine makes (well, lets say, my somewhat frozen custard) before it is edible in ice-cream form. This doesn’t bode well for my ‘need it now’ mentality and as a result, I have made exactly 4 batches of ice-cream in my machine in the 4 years I have owned it.

As soon as I  saw this recipe I knew I had to make it. I also was a little smarter this time and started making the ice-cream before I had any cravings for it. The most difficult aspect of making this ice-cream was realising that the paddle to my ice-cream maker had mysteriously disappeared, just as I was ready to churn it. I made an emergency dash to some friends that live nearby and borrowed their ice-cream maker (thanks V & M!).

So how was it? This ice-cream stays pretty soft, so it was light and creamy in texture. It was rich in flavour, with strong caramel and a hint of salt (I may add a little more next time). It was honestly one of the best ice-creams I have eaten and was hands down the best I have ever made (though to be honest, the bar wasn’t set too high on that count). I will definitely make it again (just need to find that bloody paddle to my ice-cream maker!).

Salted butter caramel ice-cream

From David Lebovitz

For the caramel custard

• First, make an ice bath by filling a large bowl with ice cubes, adding a little water and sitting a smaller metal bowl into the larger one. Pour half the milk (250ml) into the metal bowl and rest a strainer over the top.
• Make another caramel with the 300g sugar (as per above).
• Once caramel is finished, remove from the hear, stir in the butter and salt, then whisk in the cream. Stir in the other 250ml of milk.
• Whisk the yolks in a small bowl, then add a little of the warm caramel mixture. Stir the mix constantly, then scrape the yolks back into the saucepan. Cook the custard over the heat until the mixture thickens (about 71-77C on a thermometer).
• Pour the custard into the metal bowl through the strainer, into the chilled milk. Add vanilla, then stir until the mixture cools. Chill the mixture in the fridge overnight.
• Churn the mixture in your ice-cream maker. Crumble the praline into bits and crumble into the ice-cream. Freeze until firm (or as firm as it will be, this ice-cream is pretty soft).
• Enjoy!

As I have previously mentioned, I recently bought David Lebovitz’s Ready for Dessert. I love sweet things!

After an almost disaster with the Daring Baker’s Swiss Roll challenge, Saskia and I whipped up these cookies. I was headed to an afternoon tea and had planned on taking the Swiss Roll, but when things were looking disastrous we made these as a back up. These were simple to make and pretty damned delicious.

The recipe calls for 260g of peanut butter, although we only had about half that amount. We improvised and whizzed up some macadamia nuts to make a nut butter. These cookies still had quite a peanut flavour but were a bit milder thanks to the macadamia. They were really chewy and buttery, and perfect with a cup of tea. I’ll be making these again!

Peanut butter and macadamia cookies

Adapted from David Lebovitz’s Ready for Dessert

200g macadamia nuts
2 tbs neutral tasting oil (vegetable oil or grapeseed oil, not olive oil)
175g plain flour (or 210g if using spelt flour)
1 tbs baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
115g unsalted butter, melted
100g caster sugar, plus extra for coating the cookies
120g brown sugar
130g creamy peanut butter
1 large egg, at room temperature

• First, make the macadamia butter. Place the macadamia nuts into a blender and blend until broken into small pieces. Add the oil until it forms a paste and a small amount of salt to taste.

• Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt in a small bowl and set aside.
• Beat the butter, both sugars, peanut butter and macadamia butter on medium speed until it is smooth.
• Beat in the egg.
• Add the flour mixture and blend just until the dough comes together.

• Cover the mixture and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or overnight.
• Pre-heat the oven to 175C.
• Let the dough come to room temperature. Line a baking tray with paper. Pour some caster sugar into a small  bowl.
• Roll the dough into 3cm balls, roll in sugar and place on the baking trays. Use a fork to press the biscuits down:

• Bake until the cookies start to brown around the edges (about 9-10 minutes), the cookies will look a bit uncooked in the middle. Don’t wait until the cookies look completely cooked, they will lose their lovely chewiness.
• Cool on the trays until they are firm, then transfer to a wire rack.
• Enjoy!

July is a time full of family birthdays, with Mr M, my mother then my sister-in-law, C all having birthdays in a row, with a week separating each.

When we got together for my mum’s birthday, I naturally offered to do the cake baking, particularly as I was itching to test out my brand new cookbook from David Lebovitz ‘Ready for Dessert’ (and yes, I am *always* ready for dessert). The only stumbling block was that mum requested a caramel cake, which is fine, but it seems David has a thing for chocolate (and so do I) and his book was filled with decadent chocolatey goodness.

I trawled through my cookbooks and was feeling generally a bit uninspired with the suggestions on offer. In Nigella Lawson’s ‘How to be a Domestic Goddess’ she includes a recipe for an Autumnal birthday cake, a layered cake spiked with maple syrup. This looked perfect.

As I was baking the cake I came across a slight problem, that I had bought a bottle of maple syrup, but the original recipe calls for a total of 1 litre of maple syrup (750 mls in the cake and 250mls in the icing). My bottle was a paltry 500mls. Not good (and serves me for being disorganised and not carefully reading the quantities prior to heading to the supermarket). Somewhat panicked, I substituted golden syrup for 250ml of the maple syrup and set about trying to find an alternative frosting that would work with the cake. I settled on a butterscotch cream cheese frosting,  adapted from the Magnolia Bakery Cookbook , basically because we had all the ingredients in the house, and maple and butterscotch go together right?!? I also decided to steal an idea from the Magnolia cookbook and place toasted pecans in between the layers:

So how was this experimental cake? It was very tall (given it was two layers), quite dense and had the very rich frosting, so tiny pieces were required. Since the frosting has cream cheese in it, is isn’t super sweet and there is a little hint of salty savouriness. The cake itself didn’t taste all that maple-y, which is probably because I didn’t use enough of the stuff, though I have read elsewhere  that the original was almost too maple-y (the quote is “it tasted like pancakes”). The toasted pecans gave a nice textural element and a slight earthy, toastiness.

All in all, it “wasn’t my best cake ever” (thanks for that Mr M) but it was pretty tasty and mum reported that it improved overnight and was absolutely delicious when she took it in to work the following day. It would be worth trying the recipe with the correct quantities of maple syrup and seeing whether it made a difference…

Butterscotch, maple and toasted pecan layer cake

For the cake

170g butter, softened
75g caster sugar
3 large eggs
750ml maple syrup (or, if you fail at buying the right amount of maple syrup – 500ml maple syrup and 250ml golden syrup)
400g plain flour (or 480g if using spelt flour)
6 tsp baking powder
180ml hot water

For the frosting

• Pre-heat the oven to 175C.
• Mix the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one by one. Beat well after each egg is added. Gradually pour in the maple syrup and continue beating until smooth.
• Mix the baking powder and flour. Spoon in half the flour mix into the butter and eggs, followed by the hot water, then the remainder of the flour. Beat gently until smooth.
• Divide the batter between 2 8inch round, springform cake tins. Bake for 40 minutes.
• Allow to cool completely before frosting.
• To make the frosting, beat the cream cheese and butter in an electric mixer until smooth.
• Add the sugar, golden syrup and vanilla and beat until smooth and creamy. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour before using.
• Toast the pecans in a 175C oven for about 10 minutes, until lightly coloured and fragrant. Chop roughly.
• To assemble, place one cake on the serving platter, spread with frosting and most of the chopped pecans. Layer the other cake on top and cover the top and sides with frosting. Garnish with more chopped pecans.
• Enjoy!  

Up until recently, I had never heard of whoopie pies. However, suddenly the damned things were everywhere on the blog front and even the New York Times explained that whoopie pies are ‘having their moment‘.

So what is it? It’s somewhere between a cake and a cookie, sandwiched with frosting. This American treat has its origins  in New England, where it is sold in petrol stations and milk bars. According to Wikipedia, an alternative name for a whoopie pie is the gob, which doesn’t sound too appealing to me at all.

Anyway, I decided to give them a try. These are incredibly easy to make and you probably have all the ingredients already (except perhaps the buttermilk, although apparently you can make your own in 5 minutes). These pies are traditionally made with chocolate cookie/cake sandwiched with vanilla frosting, although there are many variations. I decided to make some pies with traditional vanilla filling and the remainder with butterscotch filling, because I love caramel. Traditionally, these pies are also of quite a decent size (the recipe below is meant to make 6 pies), but I decided to make mini versions.  According to the writers of a cookbook titled ‘whoopie pies’, apparently making them mini is also acceptable.

So how were they? I actually preferred the traditional vanilla to the butterscotch filling as the pies are quite dense and the butterscotch was perhaps a bit too subtle. The texture of the pies is different to anything I have eaten before and I can only describe them as a cake-like biscuit. I enjoyed the novelty of these and they were so easy I would definitely whip up another batch again.

Whoopie Pies

Adapted from the New York Times

Ingredients

Note: this recipe originally makes 6 filled pies, although I made smaller pies and made about 16.
Also note, the quantities for the buttercream are enough for all the pies. If you wish to make both fillings, halve the recipes.

For the vanilla buttercream

Method

For the vanilla buttercream

For the butterscotch buttercream

• Beat the cream cheese and butter in an electric mixer until smooth.
• Add the sugar, golden syrup and vanilla and beat until smooth and creamy.
• Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour before using.

• Use an ice cream scoop, spoon or pipe buttercream on flat side of half the pies, then sandwich another pie on top. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days, or wrap individually and freeze for up to 3 months.
• Enjoy!