TWD - Rousquilles

 This week’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe is a Spanish cookie known as Rousquilles. These comprise a dough flavoured with orange flower water and aniseed, and cut into rings, then glazed.

I used licorice powder in place of aniseed, and my glaze didn’t work so I just dusted them with icing sugar.

I wasn’t sure about these when making them, but they actually taste pretty good. They are quite soft and break easily, but that certainly doesn’t affect the taste.

To see what everyone else made this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

TWD - Torta Sbrisolona

This week’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe is Torta Sbrisolona. I have never heard if it before and I am sure I can’t pronounce it correctly, but it is a delicious crumbly almond cookie, made like streusel.

I made a half batch, which cut neatly into 8 bars:

 I really enjoyed these cookies, more than any we have made for a while. Thanks to Dianne’s husband for choosing them.

To see what everyone else made this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

Harry the Hairy Nosed Wombat Cake - Book Week 2021

 This week is Book Week, so I thought I’d share a cake I made for the Threatened Species Bakeoff, but which also fits neatly in with Book Week. I dub this cake Harry, after Harry the Hairy-Nosed Wombat, the title character in a 1970 children’s book written by Australian author, Jill Morris.  This book was read to our class at primary school by the librarian, Mr Broom. It follows the adventures of Harry when a man comes to disturb his habitat by building a highway through it.

The basic concept for my cake design came from Willie the Wombat in Aussie Cakes.  However, Willie is a common wombat, so I made some modifications to end up with Harry. Hairy-nosed wombats have pointier ears than common wombats and squarer, almost pig-like snouts. 

To that end, I shaped the “ears” of my cake more sharply and used a Monte instead of a Mint Slice for the nose, which I gave some details in black icing writing.  Aussie Cakes doesn’t provide any templates for the cakes - you have to design your own from the photo in the book.

The book says to use packet cake mix to make it accessible and easy, but I made the Dutch Chocolate Cake from Christine McConnell’s Deceptive Desserts as my base cake.In hindsight, this light spongy cake was not ideal for shaping, but I got it to work. (It is a delicious cake, BTW.)

Once you have shaped the cooled cake, it literally is as easy as icing it with chocolate buttercream (use your favourite recipe, making sure to crumb coat it), smothering it in brown tinted shredded coconut (I used dessicated coconut because that’s what I could get) to resemble fur, piping details on with black writing icing, and sticking on a chocolate biscuit nose, two Dairy Milk rollos for eyes, and licorice claws. I used the cake that I cut off to make chocolate soil to hide the cake board.

I am pretty happy with this cake.  It looks deceptively simple, but it was actually quite time consuming to make. I think Harry is rather handsome, and he tastes delicious! 

Are you celebrating Book Week? I would love to hear if you bake any literary themed goodies.

TWD - Baby Buckwheat Bars

 This week’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe is Baby Buckwheat Bars. As the name suggests, these bars are made with buckwheat flour, and flavoured with vanilla, rum and chocolate.

Dorie recommended caramel chocolate so I used Caramilk. I have to say I didn’t really taste it though.

These bars were not really my cup of tea. They were ok, but the overwhelming flavour of buckwheat flour made them a bit meh for me.

To see what everyone else made this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

TWD - Three-ways Sugar Cone Pizzelles

This week’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe is Three-Ways Sugar Cone Pizzelles. The recipe is what it says on the tin - pizzelles moulded into cones, or bowls, or just left flat.

I don’t have a pizzelle press and don’t intend to invest in one, so I used my jaffle maker to make my Pizzelles.

 I wanted to try out moulding the Pizzelles, so I used cream horn cones and a glass to make cones and bowls respectively. I found the cones challenging to mould and had holes in the base of my cones - not so great for icecream but still delicious.

To see what everyone else made this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

Bridget Jones’ Pan Fried Salmon with Pinenut Salsa

 

"Bridget, this baby situation threw me initially. We squashed an entire relationship into one night and skipped straight to the starting a family phase. We never even had a real second date, but just so you know I would have taken you to Ottolenghi’s, an amazing place in Notting Hill. You would have had the grilled salmon and pine nut salsa. It’s unbelievable AND healthy." Jack in Bridget Jones' s Baby

In the movie, Bridget Jones' Baby, Jack tells Bridget that he would have taken her to Ottolenghi's restaurant for their second date, and that she would have ordered the grilled salmon and pine nut salsa.  That dish did not exist  on Ottolenghi's menu, but to fill the gap, Ottolenghi developed a recipe for this dish for his cookbook, Ottolenghi Simple.

I have Ottolenghi Simple, and I am also a Bridget Jones fan, so I had to make this salmon dish for myself.  And I am glad that I did.  It is tasty, with a mix of sweet (from currants) and savoury flavours.

If you fancy bringing a little movie magic into your life by making this dish, you will need:

100g currants

4 salmon fillets, skin on

100ml olive oil

4 celery sticks cut into 1 cm dice

30g pine nuts, roughly chopped

40g capers + 2 tablespoons of their brine

40g large green olives cut into 1cm dice

a pinch of saffron mixed with a tablespoon of hot water

20g parsley, roughly chopped

1 teaspoon lemon zest

1 teaspoon lemon juice

salt and pepper

Cover the currants with boiling water and soak for 20 minutes.

In the meantime, mix the salmon with 2 teaspooons olive oil, salt and pepper.  Set aside.

Put 75ml olive oil into a large frying pan over high heat.  Add the celery and pine nuts and fry for 4-5 minutes.  Once the nuts have browned, remove the pan from the heat, and stir in the capers, the brine, the saffron in its water, the olives and a pinch of salt.  Drain the currants, then add them, the parsley, the lemon juice and lemon zest to the mixture.  Stir through, then set aside.

Put a tablespoon of olive oil into a fry pan, and once hot, add the salmon, skin side down, and fry for 3 minutes or until the skin is crisp.  Flip the salmon and cook for another 2-4 minutes, dpeending on how you like your salmon.  Remove from the pan and set aside. 

Place each of the salmon filets onto a plate, and spoon over the salsa.

Enjoy!  

TWD - Caramel-Sugar Pufflets

 This week’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe is Caramel-Sugar Pufflets. 

These yeasted dough biscuits are made from the same dough as last fortnight’s savoury biscuits, but instead of being blended with seeds and spices, the dough is blended with sugar. I used cardamom pistachio sugar from Gewurzhaus, because I could.

These biscuits were ok, but not as good as the savoury ones.

To see what everyone else made this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.