I'm in love - with Nigel Slater's "The Kitchen Diaries"

Yes, I know that Nigel Slater's The Kitchen Diaries has been around for a while. However, I only managed to get my hands on my very own copy this week when inexplicably, there was a copy in the bargain bin of a bookshop in my hometown, where I have travelled for Christmas.

I had heard quite a lot about The Kitchen Diaries from other blogs, including Adam at The Amateur Gourmet, and had been keen to buy it for some time. It seemed the gods were smiling on me for waiting, and I snapped up the sole copy in the bookshop I visited.

Once I got The Kitchen Diaries home, I devoured it from cover to cover. It is really that kind of book - it's Nigel's food journal for one year, complete with mouthwatering recipes. The great thing about his recipes is that, on the whole, they really are the kind of thing that you would make at home. They are no fuss, and use ordinary ingredients that are generally easy to obtain (with the exception of the two or three recipes which use gamebirds like pheasant and partridge, as these are not that easy to come by in Australia and are quite expensive when you can).

Nigel writes in a really relaxed style, just like he's having a conversation with you over the garden fence. He quite openly confesses to his kitchen mistakes and his lazy days where he eats only bread and cold cuts or gets a takeaway. It's the kind of book you can't help but love. He also cooks and presents his dishes in a no fuss, realistic fashion. I particularly adored his cake recipes, all of which I would make, and none of which is extravagant with its ingredients.

Nigel's love of growing his own fruit and vegetables and buying fresh produce shines through the pages. I don't have a garden, but I have been inspired to take more care and attention with buying produce, and hope to apply some of Nigel's tips.

There are photos to accompany a large number of the recipes, and these pictures are so mouth-watering as to make me want to dive straight into the pages and eat them (although alas, I would be bitterly disappointed if I actually tried to do this).

When I get back from holidays, I will be going straight to this book to make one of the many dishes described in it. I am in love with The Kitchen Diaries!

Happy holidays one and all!

Of sunshine and the Land of the Long White Cloud

Aotearoa, rugged individual
Glisten like a pearl
At the bottom of the world

(From Six Months in a Leaky Boat by Split Enz)

This will be the last post for a while, as Cakelaw is taking a Christmas break. First stop is the Sunshine State (although I will be miles from the nearest beach), followed by some time in Aotearoa, land of mountains, lakes, sheep, Split Enz and Daddy Long Legs, among others. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone!

Strawberry vacherin

Our final birthday person for the year at work is Susie, whose birthday falls on 30 December. As with Matt, I did not think it was fair to allow her birthday to pass unnoticed simply because she had the good sense to be born during the holiday season. Of my previous creations, Susie loved my marshmallow Easter bunny (so much that she originally asked for her birthday cake to be a marshmallow Santa!) and the strawberry/sponge/meringue concoction that I previously whipped up for Dawn. However, I wanted to do something different for Susie that reflected her preferences, but which was unique.

I originally envisioned a cake filled with a block of marshmallow, but I couldn't find a recipe for this, and conceptually was too much for me to invent at this time of year. Accordingly, I went back to the strawberries and meringue, and decided to make a gorgeous-looking strawberry vacherin from Delicious - 5 of the Best by Valli Little (Australian Broadcasting Commission, 2006). I had been eyeing up this recipe since I bought the book last Christmas. Although it sounded relatively easy to make in theory, this cake was tricky in practice, primarily because it involves making and assembling three very thin and fragile meringue and almond discs. In addition, the recipe did not give any handy tips and tricks that would have prepared me for potential baking dilemmas.

Despite some close calls, I managed to assemble this cake successfully. If you would like to try it, the recipe (in my own words with hints) is as follows:

175g almond meal (or grind up your own roasted almonds)

5 egg whites

225g sugar

110g melted butter

70g plain flour

300ml whipping cream

150g icing sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

250g fresh strawberries

1 x 100g Toblerone

I recommend starting this recipe a day ahead so that the meringue discs have time to cool and harden.

Preheat your oven to 120 degrees Celsius. Draw 20cm circles on 3 squares of baking paper, and place circle side down on three small baking trays. Spray each square liberally with cooking spray.

In an electric mixer, beat the egg whites and half of the sugar together until they are stiff. (I thought that it was wrong to add the sugar until the egg whites were stiffened, but weirdly, this works.) Beat through the remaining sugar, then remove the bowl from the mixer, and fold through the almond meal with a spatula. Finally, add the butter and sifted flour to the mixture and stir through gently (so as not to knock the air out) to combine.

Divide the mixture evenly between the circles on each of the three baking trays, and spread out the mixture to an approximate thickness of 1 cm within each circle, so that when they are baked, you will end up with three discs of approximately even size and thickness. This is not as easy as it sounds, because the mixture is quite thick and has a tendency to stick to the spatula.

Bake all three discs in the preheated oven for roughly 50 minutes (mine took about an hour, and I cranked up the temperature to 150 degrees Celsius for the last 5 minutes) until the discs are firm to the touch and off white in colour. Remove the discs from the oven and leave on the trays to cool. (The original recipe says to peel the baking paper off as soon as you remove the discs from the oven, but I found that at this stage, the discs tended to stick to the baking paper and to crack.)

The next day, whip the cream, icing sugar and vanilla until the mixture reaches a thick, spreadable consistency. Break the Toblerone into pieces and melt over a bain marie.

Take the sturdiest meringue disc and put on a serving plate. Spread the disc with half of the melted chocolate and one third of the whipped cream, going right to the edges of the disc with each. Place a second meringue disc (use the weakest or ugliest disc, as it is fully supported and will be in the middle of the cake so no-one will see it!) on top of the cream, and then spread it with the remaining melted chocolate and a further third of the cream. Finally, place the last disc on top of the stack and spread with the remainder of the cream.

To serve, slice the strawberries lengthways into halves/thirds/quarters (whatever takes your fancy) and place upright like soldiers on the top of the cake. Finally, dust the top of the cake with icing sugar - voila! (I forgot the icing sugar, but this cake is so sweet that you really don't need it.)

Although the photo of the slice of cake is not artistically great, it shows the various layers of the cake quite clearly.

This cake was very sweet, but was delicious. I prefer the taste of the cream whipped with icing sugar to cream whipped without it, and the delicate almond meringue and berries were a sensational foil for the cream. This cake is the first one that I have made for a while that was universally enjoyed by the team. For a special occasion, this cake would make a pretty centrepiece treat.

Chocolate mud cake

It is Matt's birthday on 29 December, when most people will be on Christmas leave. I think it would be most unfair to miss out someone's birthday cake just because they happen to have a festive season birthday - a bit like only receiving one present for both occasions! Accordingly, I made his cake for work today.

The guys at my work have a general leaning towards chocolate cake, so I decided to make Matt a decidedly masculine, full-bodied chocolate mud cake. It did not disappoint - when Matt sliced into it with a knife for the traditional cutting of the cake, the knife stuck fast about half-way through. For an anxious moment, I thought that I might need King Arthur to get the knife out again, but luckily, this was not the case. I need not have fretted about the end result - this cake not only looked great, but was dense, moist and rich in the centre, just as a mud cake should be. However, it is not for the faint-hearted - one small piece is more than enough, and I am sure that this cake could be a dragon-slayer in its own right!

If you are game enough to take up the challenge, you can make this cake as follows:

250g cubed butter
200g dark chocolate, broken into small pieces
1 2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup whisky
1 tablespoon instant coffee powder
1/2 cup boiling water
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1/2 cup self raising flour
1/3 cup cocoa
2 eggs
2 tablespoons whisky (to pour on the hot cake)

Preheat your oven to 160 degrees Celsius and grease and line a 20cm square cake tin.

Dissolve the coffee in the hot water and put into a medium saucepan with the butter, chocolate, sugar and whisky. Melt the mixture over a low heat, stirring constantly, until completely smooth.

Sift the flours and cocoa together. Pour the melted chocolate mixture over the dry ingredients until just combined. Lightly beat the eggs and stir into the cake batter. Place the cake batter into the greased and lined tin, and bake in the preheated oven for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Once the cake is cooked, remove it from the oven, pour over the 2 tablesppons of extra whisky and leave it to cool in the tin for about 20 minutes, before turning onto a wire rack to cool.

You can make a chocolate ganache for decorating the cake by bringing 1/3 cup whipping cream to the boil, then removing from the heat and stirring through 100g dark chocolate, broken into small pieces. Once the ganache has cooled and thickened a little, spread it over the top and sides of the cooled cake, then refrigerate the cake.

This cake was rich but delicious - it was a real hit with die-hard chocolate lovers, and not such a hit with those who weren't.

I am entering this cake in Zorra and Sandra's Best of 2007, because it was the chocolatiest, richest, most decadent cake that I have made this year - and it smells divine! For the roundup, please check here.

Eagle vs Shark

Jarrod: I'm a loser.

Lily: Doesn't matter.

I went to see Eagle vs Shark for the second time yesterday. I first saw it at the Melbourne Film Festival ages ago, but it has finally hit the cinemas here in Australia (although only on limited release).

Eagle vs Shark is a New Zealand film, and is a quirky romantic comedy with the theme that there is someone for everyone and true love is blind. The quote above comes from the film, and sums it up. The two main protagonists of the film, Jarrod and Lily, lead less than perfect lives, working in boring dead-end jobs and living in circumstances as far removed from Martha Stewart and The Brady Bunch as you can imagine (although probably closer to reality than many of us would care to admit).

Lily is shy and awkward, but very sweet, while Jarrod is a surly boy in a man's body, with the mental age of a thirteen year old. He has a chip on his shoulder because he was bullied at school, and tells "hot ones" and puts down everyone he meets to make himself feel better than them. This chip and Jarrod's pathetic attempt to redress past wrongs which he feels have ruined his life form a major part of the plot of the film.

For some reason, even though Jarrod treats her very badly and is hardly the man of most girls' dreams, Lily falls heavily for Jarrod, and does everything she can to try and make him appreciate her. As the plot progresses, even Lily turns away from Jarrod for a short time before deciding that, despite his very obvious flaws, Jarrod is the man for her (hence the quote at the start of this post).

There is a foodie element coursing through this film. Lily bakes Jarrod a cake decorated with his favourite "animal", an eagle, (which Jarrod later carelessly smashes with his fist) to try and win him over. An animated apple core and a rotten apple join up with each other by way of a ride on a discarded "jandal" (for Aussies, a thong, and for everyone else, a flip flop) across the sea, symbolising the relationship between Lily and Jarrod. (This sounds weird, but it is really rather cute.) Finally, some of the action takes place around the dinner table at the house of Jarrod's sister and brother-in-law, Nancy and Doug, where meat and three veg and salad reign supreme.

If you enjoy slightly off beat comedy, I recommend giving this film a go. (The cinema going crowds on the day did not seem to agree, with a very long line for an Audrey Tatou film and only about ten people in the entire cinema for Eagle vs Shark. They didn't know what a gem they were missing!)

Blog Party #29 - Another Bite of Dessert

Stephanie of Dispensing Happiness is hosting a blog party once again, this time with the theme of Another Bite of Dessert. To attend a blog party, you must make both an item of finger food and a drink that fits with the party theme for that month.

For my dessert, I have chosen cappucino cupcakes, from the May/June 2006 issue of Donna Hay Magazine. Donna calls them short black cupcakes, but with all that frothy frosting on top, they have to be cappucinos from my viewpoint.

To make these little delights, the recipe is as follows:

125g butter, softened and cubed

3/4 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 1/4 cups plain flour, sifted

1 teaspoon baking powder, sifted

2 tablespoons cocoa, sifted

1/2 cup milk

100g melted dark chocolate

For the frosting:

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup tap water

1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

2 tablespoons instant coffee

3 eggwhites

Line a 12 cup muffin tin with cupcake liners (or spray it with cooking spray instead, as I did). Preheat the oven to 160 degrees Celsius. Cream the butter and sugar with an electric mixer, then beat in the eggs. Remove the mixture from the mixer stand, and fold in the flour, baking powder and cocoa with a spoon or spatula. Stir through the milk and chcocolate until combined, then place into the muffin cups and bake for about 15 minutes or until cooked. Cool the cakes in the tin for 5 minutes before turning onto a wire rack to cool completely.

For the frothy frosting, put the sugar, water, coffee and cream of tartar in a small saucepan and stir over high heat until the mixture boils, then simmer over a low heat for 3 minutes. Beat the eggwhites in a separate bowl to soft peak stage, then while the mixer continues to run, add the sugar syrup and beat until thick and shiny. Top each cake with the frosting applied to resemble cappucino froth. (Note that the frosting doesn't set hard, just like froth.)

For my drink, I have prepared the perfect accompaniment to a cappucino cupcake - a short black coffee in a glass. As this is an adult party and it is Christmas, feel free to add a shot or two of Baileys, whiskey or brandy. Enjoy!

Thanks to Steph for hosting yet another blog party, and check back for the roundup. (Postscript: The roundup is now available here.)

SHF #38 - The proof is in the pudding - Eve's Pudding

It is Sugar High Friday time once again, and this month, our host is Zorra from Kochtopf. The theme chosen by Zorra is "The proof is in the pudding". As with the old proverb "The proof of the pudding is in the eating", Zorra asks us to make, test and eat a pudding for SHF.


I love pudding, so the challenge of this SHF was what to make when there are so many things to choose from! Eventually, after much soul searching, I chose Jamie Oliver's Orchard Eve's pudding from his latest book, Jamie at Home. The picture of the luscious pink fruit crowned by a golden sponge caught my eye, and as it is summer in the Antipodes, beautiful fruit is in abundance.

The resulting pudding is absolutely gorgeous - as you can see from the photos, the stewed fruit turns a delicate shade of pink, and the sponge cake permeates the fruit throughout the pan to form a lovely, light, fruity dessert. This is not a diet dessert - as the quantity of butter and sugar can attest - but in moderation, it really is a perfect accompaniment to dinner for a lazy summer evening out on the verandah. (Ed's note - Cakelaw does not have a verandah as she lives in an apartment sans balcony, but wouldn't it be grand ...)

What else can I say - make this dish! There is no higher commendation than that.

You will need:

1.5kg apples, pears, peaches and plums
1 tablespoon butter
100g brown sugar
a pinch each of ground ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon
3 bay leaves
200g butter, softened and cubed
200g sugar (I cut this down to about 120g, and it was fine)
4 eggs
200g self-raising flour, sifted

To prepare the fruit - peel and core the apples and pears, and slice them into wedges. (I have a great gadget from the $2 shop that cores and slices in one go and fits neatly into the gadget drawer). Peel and stone the peaches, and slice into 4 pieces (or more if you have large peaches). Halve and stone the plums - the skins should stay on, as these will give a lovely pinkish hue to the stewed fruit. Put the sliced fruit into a large saucepan with the tablespoon of butter, the brown sugar, the bay leaves and the spices, and simmer gently for about 20 minutes or until the fruit is soft.

For the sponge - Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Cream the butter and sugar in an electric mixer. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Take the bowl out of the mixer and fold in the flour using a wooden spoon, being careful as always not to overwork the mixture. Drain the stewed fruit, reserving the juices, and spoon half of it into a 20cm round baking dish. Spread the sponge batter on top of the fruit, then top with the remaining fruit. Bake the pudding in the oven for about 40 minutes or until the sponge is cooked.

To serve, spoon the reserved juices from the fruit over the top of the pudding, and if desired, serve with ice cream, cream, custard or yoghurt. Personally, I enjoyed this pudding by itself, allowing me to savour the juicy goodness of the fruit.

Thanks to Zorra for yet another great SHF theme, and stay tuned for the roundup.

Postscript: Zorra has posted the roundup of 72 scrumptious puddings here. Do go and check it out - you are sure to find something to tempt you.