Baklava Slice - QBC

A while ago, the Queen Baking Club recipe was Baklava Slice - a mashup between baklava and a slice, making it a little easier to eat than a traditional baklava.

This nutty slice contains cinnamon, pecans, walnuts and in my case, almonds, smothered in an orange-kissed honey syrup. 

If you are looking for a break from chocolate treats, or have some leftover nuts from the Christmas feast, this slice is a delicious treat which is sure to be a crowd pleaser.

You can join the Queen Baking Club on Facebook here.  A new recipe is posted every second Friday.

Beef and Lemongrass Meatloaf - Helen Goh recipe

How were your Christmas celebrations?  I hope you had a fabulous time with family and friends.

Now that Christmas is over, it is back to normal in the eating and drinking department.  If you are looking for a break from that leftover turkey and ham, I can highly recommend Helen Goh's Chicken and Lemongrass Meatloaf.  Helen states that it can also be made with pork or beef mince, so I chose beef.

This meatloaf is unique in that it contains lots of Asian flavours - lemongrass, chilli, ginger, coriander, fish sauce and soy.  It is quite a big meatloaf - I got 10 serves out of it, perfect for freezing some for another day.

If you would like to try this meatloaf, you will need:

2 slices white bread
120ml milk
2 tablespoons oil
1 chopped onion
2 minced cloves garlic
thumb sized knob of ginger, minced
2 minced stalks lemongrass
1 minced red chilli
1/2 cup chopped coriander leaves and stalks
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 lightly beaten eggs
1 kg chicken, pork or beef mince
2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

Glaze

2 tablespoons sriracha sauce
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 1/2 tablespoons light brown sugar
1 tablespoon soy sauce

Tear the crusts off the bread and rip the slices into small pieces. Put the bread pieces in a large mixing bowl and sprinkle over the milk, and set aside to soak.

Heat the oil in a frying pan. Add the onion and cook until soft and translucent. Add garlic, ginger, lemongrass and chilli, cook for a minute, then remove from heat. Add the onion mixture to the bread mixture and allow to cool.

Add the coriander, fish sauce, soy sauce, eggs, sugar, salt and pepper to the bowl and mix with your hands to combine. Add the minced meat and mix gently until combined. Chill the mixture in the fridge and preheat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius.

Press the mixture into a 23cm x 12cm x 7cm loaf tin, packing it down to remove any air pockets. Cover the pan loosely with a large, double layer of aluminium foil, then place a rimmed baking tray over it. Carefully flip over the tray so that the foil is on the bottom and the meatloaf is upside down, with the loaf tin over it. Loosen the foil and spread it out, as if lining the base of the baking tray. Put the meatloaf in the preheated oven and bake for 30 minutes. 

Remove the meatloaf from the oven and carefully lift off the loaf tin. Return the meatloaf to the oven without the loaf tin and bake for a further 20 minutes. 

While the meatloaf is cooking, make the glaze by combining the glaze ingredients in a small bowl.

Remove the meatloaf from the oven and raise the oven temperature to 22o degrees Celsius. Spoon the glaze over the top of the meatloaf and return it to the oven to bake for another 10 minutes, brushing the meatloaf with the glaze a couple of times during that time. 

Take the meatloaf out of the oven and allow it to rest on the baking tray for 10 minutes before slicing and serving.

Merry Christmas from Melbourne!!

Mitre Tavern

St Collins Lane

Federation Square

Federation Square

St Collins Lane

Auburn Hotel

Malvern Town Hall

Work choir (Photo credit: Anh Nguyen) 

Arts Centre

Federation Square

TWD - Alsatian Christmas Bread

Merry Christmas! For the last Tuesday with Dorie this year, our recipe is Alsation Christmas Bread.  It is not bread in the traditional sense, but rather is comprised of dried fruits, nuts and almond meal.  It is also known as "baerewecke", meaning "pear bread".

As its name suggests, dried pears are an important element of the dried fruits.  I used some glace pears that I had bought at a French festival. There are also prunes, dried apricots, dried figs and sultanas.  These are joined by chopped walnuts, black pepper, cinnamon, star anise, cloves, ginger and cardamom.

The result is not pretty, but if you are a fan of dried fruit, it is utterly delicious.  the spices make the Alsatian Christmas bread perfect for the holiday season.

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

May your Christmas be blessed.

Nectarine and Blueberry Cake

It is summer in Australia, and with summer comes all of the best fruits.  I love stone fruits, tropical fruits and berries, and they are all cheap and available at the moment.

A great way to enjoy your favourite  fruits, apart from just eating them au naturel, is to include them in your baking.  Recently, Jordan Rondel featured a lovely recipe for a nectarine and blueberry cake which is a perfect way to showcase two summer fruits.  Best of all, it is very easy to make. 

The cake is double layered, and sandwiched together with a luscious cream cheese frosting:

If you'd like to try this wonderful summery treat, you will need:

150g butter

150 sugar
3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

100g almond meal

100g flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

pinch of salt

1/2 cup sour cream

2 nectarines sliced into thin sections

1 cup fresh blueberries

Frosting*

150g butter

2 cups icing sugar

100g cream cheese

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius and grease and line 2 x 22cm cake tins.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together the butter and sugar until pale and creamy.  One at a time, beat in the eggs, then beat in the vanilla.  Fold in the almond meal, flour, baking powder and salt, then the sour cream.

Divide the mixture evenly between two tins.  Evenly place the nectarine slices and blueberries on top of each cake and press down lightly.    Bake for 30 minutes or until cooled through, rotating the pans half way through the cooking time.

Remove the cakes from the oven and allow to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before unmoulding onto wire racks to cool.

To make the frosting, beat the butter in the bowl of a stand mixer until smooth and creamy.  Beat in the icing sugar.  Cube the cream cheese, then beat it into the mixture gradually until the frosting is smooth.  

Spread half the frosting between the cake layers to sandwich them together, and spread the remaining half of the frosting over on top of the cake.  (* Or do what I did, and halve the frosting and only put frosting in between the two cake layers.)

Mini Plum Puddings

Are you looking for an easy recipe for Christmas treats? Well, you have found the place. These mini plum puddings could not be easier. Just crumble up ready made plum pudding or Christmas cake, bind with melted chocolate, add some booze for a little cheer and roll into balls. Simple!

The recipe for these puddings comes from Best Recipes. You will need:

700g plum pudding or Christmas cake
250g dark chocolate
1/4 cup brandy
50g white chocolate
Glacé cherries

Crumble up the pudding or cake in a large bowl (I used my own homemade cake but store bought is perfect). Melt the chocolate and add it to the bowl with the brandy. Mix well to thoroughly coat the cake with chocolate.

Roll the mixture into walnut sized balls. Chill for an hour or so to set up the balls.

Quarter the glacé cherries.  Melt the white chocolate and drizzle over the top of each ball to resemble custard. Top each pudding ball with a quarter of a glacé cherry.

TWD - Christmas Spiced Greek Honey Dainties plus Miss Biscuit

For the last Dorie's Cookies Tuesday with Dorie this year, the recipe is Christmas Spiced Greek Honey Dainties.  I looked at the photo of these in the book and wasn't taken with them, but the photo does not do them justice - these cookies are delicious, if a little fiddly.

First up, you make the dough, which is surprisingly sturdy.  You can leave out the Christmas spices for other times of the year, but there was no way I was not going to make the Christmas spiced version.  The smell of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves is just devine.  The dough is shaped into little eggs and baked.

The cookies have holes poked in them before baking so that after they have baked and cooled, you can drench them in a honey syrup.  After applying the syrup, you put chopped walnuts on top of the cookies, which adhere to the sticky honey syrup.

These cookies were fabulous - I had two in a row.  I would definitely  bake these again.

On Sunday, I attended a Christmas cookie decorating class at Miss Biscuit in Seddon.  I did one of her courses over two years ago, but was intrigued by her Christmas cookies and wanted to know how to make them.  

A few things have changed since the first class, with the equipment becoming a little fancier - a Joseph Joseph rolling pin instead of two dowels to measure cookie dough thickness, and proper cookie tools for the whole class instead of skewers.  At home, I'll be doing it the old way!  I don't make decorated cookies enough to worry about things like a dehydrator, but that doesn't mean I can't have fun.  

I learned from the last time that when flooding cookies, you are better to go big, otherwise your flooding won't have a smooth finish.  

I think you will agree that these cookies are just gorgeous.  These cookies are iced gingerbread, whereas last time, I did a vanilla cookie selection.  And yes, they are easy enough that this was the selection from the beginner's class.  The white Christmas tree with roses was done more to show us the technique (which is nifty and very very easy.)

If you are interested in learning the art of royal icing cookie decoration, or just want to learn some new techniques, I highly recommend taking a Miss Biscuit class - she has shops in Sydney and Melbourne but also travels to Brisbane to host classes.   

Miss Biscuit

65a Charles Street

Seddon VIC 3011

Australia