Beechworth Bakery, Echuca

Over the weekend just past, Tim and I went to Echuca-Moama.  Echuca is on the Victoria side of the border, and Moama is on the New South Wales side of the border.  Both towns are set on the banks of the Murray River. Echuca means "meeting of the waters", and you may know it from the eighties TV mini-series All the Rivers Run.  The weekend weather was crisp and cold in the mornings and evenings, giving rise to beautiful clear, warm days.

 While in Echuca, we stopped by the Beechworth Bakery, one of a famous chain of bakeries.  Out the front, they have a lovely old-fashioned bread truck:

Inside, there is a lengthy lunchtime queue, but thankfully, it moves rapidly.  It wasn't a hassle to queue, as it gave me time to admire the baked goods on show in the generous glass display cases at the bakery: 

Of particular note were these lovely riverboat shaped biscuits, perfect for the region:

For lunch, I ordered a Bushranger Foccacia ($8.20), with roast beef, sundried tomatoes and roast pumpkin, topped with fresh spinach, Spanish onion, chutney & tasty cheese:

This foccacia is served toasted and is outrageously good, with two of my favourite things - chutney and pumpkin.

For dessert, I ordered an old-fashioned favourite, the vanilla slice ($3.20): 

The custard in this slice was perfectly light, fresh and tasty, but I would have liked the pastry to be slightly flakier. 

Tim ordered a beef curry pie ($4.95):

and for dessert, a slice of orange and almond cake ($3.95):

He approved wholeheartedly of both.

I also bought the Secrets of the Beechworth Bakery cookbook ($24.95) so I could take a slice of the bakery home with me.  Watch this space as I try out some of their recipes. I like the philosophy of Tom O'Toole, founder of the Beechworth Bakery - keep it simple, and keep it fresh.  He also has no problems with sharing his recipes in the book, because as he says, he has pinched ideas from all over the place over the years, and he believes that ideas are to be shared.  Isn't that so true with recipes - all of them are derivative of what someone else has done before in some way.

If you are near a Beechworth Bakery in your travels and love old-fashioned, "from scratch" baked goods, do drop in - it's definitely worth the visit.

Beechworth Bakery

513 High St

Echuca VIC 3564
Ph: 1300 233 784

Vanilla Cupcakes with Ruffled Piped Buttercream

My colleague, Linda, asked me to make 36 cupcakes for her grand daughter's birthday party.  The party is princess themed, and Linda wanted the icing to be ruffled just like this, with 12 cupcakes each in light pink, light blue and light yellow.

I know that Linda likes the Crabapple Bakery Vanilla Daisy Cupcake recipe, so that is what I used for the base cakes.  It's an old reliable that yields consistent results and tastes good.  I was glad of that, because as part of the cake is left bare by the ruffled icing technique the cakes need to look good!

For the buttercream, I used the Primrose Bakery Vanilla Buttercream icing recipe for its taste and consistency. (Ignore the photo of the icing in the article - it looks nothing like the actual icing, and I suspect that the photo is just a stock photo of cupcakes bunged into the article.)  The trick is to ensure that the icing is stiff enough to stand up and hold its shape once piped.  For the colours, I used liquid colouring, added a drop at a time, for the pink and blue icing, and gel colouring (because I didn't have yellow liquid colouring!) for  the yellow icing.

The technique for the ruffled icing is shown in this video on Youtube.

I did order ribbon to make the princess flags on 3 June from an Australian supplier, but it is yet to arrive - so no flags.  However, I did find Multix pink princess cupcake papers in the supermarket (Woolworths came through for once!).

There is going to be some maxing out on sugar at Linda's party, as there is 1 1/2 kilos of icing sugar in the icing for the 36 cakes - yikes!  But as Linda says, the kids just eat the icing off the cake and the cake gets abandoned, so maximum icing is the way to go. 

Have a great weekend!

FFWD - Sable Breton Galette - er, Cookies

It's Friday again, and that means French Friday with Dorie.  This week's recipe is Sable Breton Galette with Berries.  However, Dorie's Bon Idee  is to turn the galette into cookies by adding a bit more flour and adding two egg yolks instead of one whole egg to the mixture.  As cookies are more portable and I wanted to take the dish to work, the cookie suggestion was perfect.

I used the slice and bake method for my cookies - why make life harder by rolling out the dough?

These cookies may not win any beauty contest, but they taste fantastic - crisp and buttery, and not trying too hard for attention.

To see whether the other Doristas made galette or cookies and what they thought about it, visit the LYL section of the website.

WWDH - Mushrooms with Pasta

This week's Wednesday with Donna Hay pick comes from Margaret, who chose Mushrooms with Pasta from p22 of Off the Shelf.

This dish involves making a creamy mushroom sauce with stock, chilli, basil and cheese to coat fettucine.

I thought this was really quite nice.  I cut down the pasta from 400g to 250g and made the whole amount of sauce, which gave me three hearty serves of pasta.  It was another quick, easy, tasty dish.  I even bought pre-cut mushrooms to cut down in preparation time.

To see what Margaret, Kayte and Chaya thought, visit their websites.  And if you want to cook along with us each week, feel free to join us - just contact one  of us to let us know, and we will add you to our mailing list.

BWJ - Cheese and Tomato Galette

Congratulations to Harrison Craig from Melbourne who was announced last night as The Voice Australia for 2013.  Harrison has a voice that is smooth like honey and deep and rich like chocolate, which is especially wonderful because he has a stutter in his speaking voice and is only 18 years old.  He is marvellous - I'll be watching this space for Harrison's next career move.

This week for Baking with Julia, we take a walk on the savoury side, and make Cheese and Tomato Galette.   For the uninitiated, a galette is a free form pie.  This one is made with sour cream dough, and contains cheese, tomato and basil.

Here is a peek inside:

I used low fat tasty cheddar cheese, as I refused to buy any extra cheese - I am not a huge cheese eater, and it is rather wasteful to throw out cheese that has gone mouldy or hard from lengthy periods spent languishing in the fridge.  I added salt to the filling and sprinkled it on top of the dough because I thought that it needed it.

I took this to work, and much to my surprise, it disappeared.  Lovely Lisa even complimented me on it in the lift going home - yet I was worried that no-one would want it because the dough was below par as I made a boo boo when halving the recipe and ended up having to add way more flour than was desirable.    I am happy that people liked it anyway.

To see what our other merry members of BWJ thought of this galette, visit the LYL section of the website.

Neil Perry's Olive Oil and Sauternes Cake

I came into her room half an hour before the bridal dinner, and found her lying on her bed as lovely as the June night in her flowered dress — and as drunk as a monkey. She had a bottle of Sauterne in one hand and a letter in the other.
“’Gratulate me,” she muttered. “Never had a drink before, but oh how I do enjoy it.”

 

Chapter 4, The Great Gatsby,  F Scott Fitzgerald 

A couple of weekends ago, my family and I went on a day trip to Stanthorpe in Queensland. Stanthorpe is a rich fruit and wine area, so we were looking forward to a day of great eating (which indeed transpired).

At the cafe where we ate lunch, they sold a wide variety of locally made alcohol. I bought a bottle of Sauternes, a sweet dessert wine, having confused it with Calvados, an apple brandy, because of the apple on the label. I was a little disappointed when I discovered my mistake, as I had wanted to cook with Calvados. However, a trusty Google search later, I found that there were plenty of recipes using Sauternes as a component. We were back in business.

The recipe that particularly caught my eye was a one for Olive Oil and Sauternes Cake by Neil Perry, a famous Australian chef.  He served his cake with roasted pears, but as I did not have any pears, I made the cake by itself.  It is a plain but moist affair, and I can see why it would be a perfect vehicle for roasted fruit and syrup or poached fruit, as it would soak it up like a good bread with pasta sauce or rice with a curry.

Despite the non-obstrusive nature of this cake, it was popular at work and was gone in a flash.  The next day, a lovely girl whom I don't know ( but who clearly knows who I am!) complimented me on that cake.  I love getting feedback, so I was very pleased that this cake was a quiet achiever.

Have a great week.

FFwD - Back-of-the-Card Cheese and Olive Bread

It's French Fridays with Dorie time, and this week's recipe is Back-of-the-Card Cheese and Olive Bread.  Why?  Because the recipe was off  card provided by a cheesemaker.

I was sceptical about this one, especially as it is an unyeasted loaf.  However, I needn't have worried - it was absolutely delicious.  I am not normally a fan of savoury cakes and muffins, but I loved this.  I ate slices of it as is - no spread is required.  It is good warm and cooled.

To see what the other Doristas thought, visit the LYL section of the website.