TWD - Pink Peppercorn Thumbprints

The first Tuesday with Dorie recipe for me in February is Pink Peppercorn Thumbprints. These biscuits have pink peppercorns in the dough to add a little flavour (though not really any colour, at least not in mine).

I used cherry jam without the rosewater to fill my biscuits. For me, a half batch yielded nine biscuits made with a small cookie scoop.

These were really nice biscuits - the kind of basic biscuits I grew up with. I made them while my Mum was staying with me, and she enjoyed them too.

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

Don’t miss the next post in my travels through New South Wales, this time regarding the food and wine destination of the Hunter Valley.

Chocolate Tart with Orange, Rosemary and Hazelnut from Ottolenghi Sweet

Who doesn't love a chocolate tart?  When my team had a lunch at my boss's house late last year, and I was in charge of dessert.  One of the things that I had to make at a team mate's request was a Strawberry Watermelon Cake based on the Black Star Pastry recipe.  My other choice was the delicious sounding Chocolate Tart with Hazelnut, Rosemary and Orange from Sweet by Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh.

What is not to like?  A shortcrust pastry shell is sprinkled wit hazelnut brittle, then filled with a rosemary and orange filled ganache.  Yum!   

This tart is easy to make, but involves a number of do in advance steps, and hence the method is fairly lengthy.

Accordingly, rather than me repeat the recipe here, you can find it in the excellent book, Sweet, or online here.  If you are a lover of decadent chocolate desserts, I encourage you to make this tart.

Raspberry, Pistachio and Lime Tray Bake

We are enjoying a bumper summer raspberry season at present.  It is a great time to enjoy recipes containing raspberries while they are cheap, abundant and in their prime.

A little while ago, Helen Goh published a recipe for Raspberry, Pistachio and Lime Tray Bake in the Good Weekend magazine. 

This delicious cake is made in a tray cake tin so that it is easily transportable and can be conveniently cut into squares.  It has a tangy cream cheese icing in the original, but I didn't have any cream cheese, so I just used vanilla buttercream.

Isn't this a pretty cake with its red and green contrasting topping:

To make this cake, you will need:

100g pistachios plus 3og extra for garnishing
3 teaspoons lime zest
125g sugar
110g plain flour
50g almond meal
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
150g butter, cubed and softened
3 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
300g fresh raspberries (I only used half this quantity)

Your favourite vanilla buttercream or cream cheese icing

Preheat your oven to 195 degrees Celsius.  Greases and line a 23cm x 33cm tray cake tin.

Put the 100g of pistachios and 3 teaspoons lime zest into a food processor and process until finely ground.

Add the sugar, flour, almond meal and baking powder and pulse for a few seconds to combine.

Add the butter and pulse until completely combined. Add the eggs and vanilla extract and process the mixture until smooth.  

Scrape the batter into the prepared cake tin and smooth the top with a spatula.

Bake the cake in the preheated oven for 25-20 minutes or until cooked through.  Remove the cake from the oven and allow to cool completely.

Spread the icing evenly over the top of the cooled cake and top with the fresh raspberries and 30g chopped pistachios.

Cut the cake into squares to serve. 

Also, check out my latest post from my New South Wales travels, this time focussing on the South Coast and Southern Highlands.

Honey Soy and Chicken Stir Fry

I love a good stir fry.  Stir fry is such a versatile dish - you can include whatever meat, vegetables, carbs and sauce that you have, and end up with a tasty, hearty meal within minutes.

You don't really need a recipe for stir fry.  However, p24 of the September 2019 edition of Woolworths Fresh magazine featured a recipe for Honey and Soy Chicken Stir Fry that inspired me, and was a little different from what I normally make.  This stir fry contains lots of delicious vegetables, making it an easy way to get your "5 a day".

For this stir fry, you will need:

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
500g chicken thigh fillets, trimmed and diced
2 tablespoons honey
1/2 cup soy sauce
1 crushed clove garlic
2 carrots, grated
1 sliced brown onion
1 green capsicum, deseeded and sliced
1/4 red cabbage, shredded
2 zucchini, grated
150g sugar snap peas, trimmed
steamed or boiled rice, to serve

Heat the oil in a wok over high heat.  Add the chicken and cook until golden brown.

Put the honey, soy an garlic in a small glass jar, put the lid on the jar and shake until the contents are well combined.

Add the carrot and onion to the chicken in the pan and stir fry for 2 minutes.  Add the capsicum and cabbage and stir fry for a further 2 minutes.

Add the zucchini, sugar snap peas and honey-soy sauce from the jar to the pan and stir fry for a minute.

Serve with rice.

TWD - Canneles

This week's Tuesday with Dorie recipe is one of my favourites - Canneles.  Canneles are a classic French pastry with a crisp, dark, crunchy shell encasing a soft, custard-like interior. They really are unlike anything else and are hard to describe - you really need to taste the to understand them.  Canneles are not very common in Australia, so being able to make them is a huge plus for fans of these French delicacies.    

I used silicone moulds, and made a half recipe to yield six medium sized canneles.  I only let my batter rest for 7 hours, and that seemed like plenty of time, judging from the end result.

I think my canneles are better this time than the first time I made them - no odd shaped ones in this batch.

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

If you are thinking of heading to Australia for your next holiday, check out Part 2 of my post on the Blue Mountains in New South Wales.

Iced VoVo Cupcakes - Queen Baking Club

This fortnight’s Queen Baking Club challenge is Iced VoVo Cupcakes to celebrate Australia Day on 26 January. Iced VoVos, for the uninitiated, are vanilla sugar cookies coated with two stripes of pink fondant on either side of the biscuit, with a stripe of raspberry jam in the centre, and the whole lot is sprinkled with coconut. 

Currently, Arnotts makes Iced VoVos, which are thought to have been invented by Hudsons Biscuits in 1904. Of course, there is a Kiwi challenger to the title, which you can read about here.

Queen Fine Foods’ recipe for Iced VoVo Cupcakes is online here. Just like the biscuit, it is a vanilla, raspberry and coconut flavoured confection. The cupcakes contain frozen raspberries and dessicated coconut, while the icing contains raspberry purée topped with dessicated coconut:

These cupcakes were a big hit at work - I received more compliments about these than I have about anything for ages.  Thanks for the recipe Queen!

You can join the Queen Baking Club on Facebook. There is a new challenge from the Queen recipe collection every fortnight.

TWD - Puffed Grain and Miso Cookies

This week’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe is Puffed Grain and Miso Cookies. These are novel savoury, gluten free biscuits made from puffed rice, puffed barley (I used puffed corn instead), dried fruit (I used cranberries), peanuts, sesame seeds, rice malt syrup, sesame oil (mine was not toasted), olive oil and miso paste. 

The mixture is pressed into muffin tins and baked into cookies.

The end result is a delicious, crispy savoury sensation, quite unlike anything I have tried before.

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

If you would like a visual treat, check out my first Blue Mountains post on my travel blog, showcasing some of Australia’s wonderful natural landscape.