TWD - Coco Rochers

This week’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe is Coco Rochers - or in common parlance, coconut macaroons. They contain just four ingredients - egg whites, sugar, shredded coconut and vanilla extract.

The dough is made by heating all of the ingredients but the vanilla until the mixture is hot to touch, then mixing in the vanilla and chilling the mixture for a few hours.  When ready to bake, take the dough and scoop it, roll it into balls or shape it into little pyramids (the latter of which I did, because why not!).  The macaroons are then baked until they are just golden on the outside and firm to the touch.

I liked these macaroons - they are rather sweet so one or two is enough, but good. They are crispy on the outside and chewy and soft in the middle.

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

Ottolenghi's Spiced Shepherd's Pie with Butterbean Crust

I own a copy of Ottolenghi's Simple, and have baked numerous terrific sweet dishes from that book.  However, I thought it was time to try some of the savoury dishes.  I started with the Spiced Shepherd's Lamb Pie with Butterbean Crust.  If you don't own Simple, Ottolenghi has published the recipe in The Guardian here. 

Traditionally, Shepherd's Pie has a mashed potato crust, so I found the idea of a mashed butterbean crust quite intriguing. Tahini is mixed through the butterbeans to give a lovely nutty flavour.

I also mixed things up by using pork mince instead of lamb mince. 

The mince filling contains green olives and dried apricots, giving the pie an exotic, tagine-like flavour.

I served my Shepherd's Pie with boiled beans and carrots that had a tablespoon of carrots mixed through.  It was a wonderful feast for a cool evening.

Walnut, Apple, Carrot and Honey Cake (aka Canberra Cake)

The Canberra Cake is so called because it is made with ingredients sourced from the Canberra region of Australia.  If the truth  be told, I did not source my ingredients from Canberra, so I will call my cake Walnut, Apple, Carrot and Honey Cake - or even more plainly, Carrot Cake.  This recipe was emailed to me by a friend.

It is quite a delicious cake, especially if you love cream cheese frosting!

To make this cake, you will need:

250g walnuts, roughly chopped
250g apples, peeled, cored and diced
3 carrots, grated
300g plain flour
250g honey
4 eggs
200ml olive oil
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon cardamom
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda

Preheat your oven to 160 degrees Celsius and grease and line a 24cm springform pan.

Sift the flour, spices and bicarbonate of soda into a bowl.

Whisk the eggs, honey and olive oil together in a jug.  Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix together with a spoon to combine.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top.  Bake in the preheated oven for one hour or until cooked through.

Remove the cake from the oven and place on a wire rack in the pan for around 15 minutes before unmoulding onto the wire rack to cool completely.

For the icing, beat together 125g softened cream cheese, 2 tablespoons sifted icing sugar and 1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest (optional).  If the icing is too loose, add more icing sugar.  Once the icing is of a spreadable consistency, spread it evenly over the top of the cake using a metal spatula, and sprinkle with chopped walnuts.

Slice and serve. 

Plum and Custard Streusel Cake

While I was staying with my mother over the Christmas/New Year period, we found ourselves with a glut of plums that needed to be used.  My immediate thought was plum cake!  The only question was which recipe I would choose.

I settled on this  Plum and Custard Streusel Cake - because who doesn't like custard and streusel?  I left out the slivered almonds from the cake, as I did not have any.  I also substituted fresh plums for the canned plums, given that the whole point of making the cake was to use up the plums in the fridge.

My finished cake may not have been as pretty as the photo in the recipe, but boy it tasted good:

If you would like to try this luscious cake, you will need:

8 whole plums, stoned and halved (fresh or canned)

200g softened butter

1 cup sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3 eggs

2 1/4 cups self-raising flour

1/2 cup milk

25g chilled chopped butter

Custard

2 tablespoons custard powder

2 cups milk

Streusel

1/4 cup brown sugar

2/3 cup crumbed walnuts

1 teaspoon cinnamon

For the custard:

Blend the custard powder with a small amount of the milk in a small saucepan to make a paste.  Over a gentle heat, add the remaining milk, and stir until the custard heats and thickens but does not boil.  Remove the custard from the heat and cover with plastic wrap pressed onto the surface.  Allow to cool to room temperature.

For the streusel:

Place all of the ingredients into a bowl and stir well to combine.

For the cake:

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius, and grease and line a 23cm round springform pan.

Beat the butter, sugar and vanilla together for 5 minutes until pale and creamy.  Beat in the eggs, one at a time.  Beat in the flour and milk alternately in two tranches.  Spread half of the cake batter over the base of the springform pan.  Sprinkle half of the streusel mix over the cake.  Dollop the custard evenly over the streusel, and spread out evenly to cover the streusel.   Arrange the plum halves over the top of the custard.  Spread the remainder of the cake batter evenly over the top of the cake to cover the plums. 

Add the remaining flour and butter to the remaining streusel mix, and rub together with your fingertips to form crumbs.  Sprinkle the streusel evenly over the top of the cake, and bake in the preheated oven for 1 1/2 hours.

Remove the cake from the oven and allow it to cool in the tin for 15 minutes before unmoulding, right side up, from the tin onto a wire rack, and allowing the cake to cool completely. 

Serve as is or with cream or icecream.

TWD - Almond Crescents

This week’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe is Almond Cresents. I thought it was quite appropriate because it was the Greek Festival here in Melbourne on the weekend (and these are classic Greek cookies).

These were simple to make and very tasty. There is no chilling or cutting - just roll pieces of dough into sausages, shape them into crescents and bake. I am not a fan of the bought ones, but this home made version of Almond Crescents is a winner. Perfect for Christmas too.

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

The Old Fitzroy, Woolloomooloo

Hidden in a back street of Woolloomooloo is a pub in the grand old tradition of Australian pubs, the Old Fitzroy.  

The pub was first established in 1860, and now serves "pub grub" at its finest.  As well as the pub, there is a theatre at the side.

The interior of the downstairs section of the pub crosses Aussie pub with genteel additions like chandeliers:

Upstairs, the pub has been transformed to resemble an English hunting lodge: 

I ordered the rissole sandwich with beetroot, cheddar and fries ($19):

You just say the word "beetroot" and I am there, and who can resist a rissole - just ask Darryl Kerrigan. This sandwich lived up to its ingredients - a juicy rissole with even juicier beetroot and cheese, served in toasted bread with shoestring fries on the side. I washed it down with a beer, which was the perfect beverage to have with this sandwich.  This sandwich was fabulous - it's a shame The Old Fitzroy is so far away, otherwise I'd be back for this every single time.

They also serve great English pub grub like pork pies, Scotch eggs and terrine.

The Old Fitzroy can be a little hard to find, tucked away as it from the main drag, but it is worth seeking out, especially for those who love the good old Aussie pub of yesteryear, with no beer garden in sight. 

The Old Fitzroy

129 Dowling St

Woolloomooloo NSW 2011

Ph: 02 9356 3848

Yoghurt Cake with Gooseberries and Red Currants

One of the prettiest baking books that I own is undoubtedly Natural Baking by German authors, Carolin Strothe and Sebastian Keitel.  The photos in the book have an other worldly, dream-like quality, and from Carolin's photo, I believe she shares my love of vintage-style dresses.

The premise of Natural Baking is that it contains "healthier recipes for guilt-free treats".  It is true that the recipes use lots of wholemeal and ancient grain flours, and contain lots of fruit; there are also healthy doses of sweeteners from muscavado sugar to maple syrup, so don't go crazy with the healthy concept.  However, baked goods are made to be enjoyed, not to be worrying about calories and sugar.  So my view is, go for it!

I happen to love cakes packed with fruit, so this book is made for me.  Some of the flours are hard to get (I had never heard of einkorn flour!), but you can substitute something else quite easily, and in some cases the author suggests a substitution that is easy to obtain.

I wanted to make the Yoghurt Cake Cake with Gooseberries and Red Currants badly because I just happened to have gooseberries (although they are of the jarred variety imported from Germany) and red currants (frozen from fresh as the ghosts of Christmas past).  Gooseberries and red currants are very hard to come by in this wide brown land, so I was pleased as punch that I had these ingredients, as well as some leftover yoghurt in the fridge that was begging to be used up.  It was providence therefore to find this recipe.

Best of all, it was absolutely delicious!!! No-one at work guessed what the fruits were - the gooseberries were not even mentioned, and people thought that the red currants might be cranberries or goji berries (so rare are red currants here).

If you want to give this lovely cake a burl, you will need:

2 eggs
125g brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
125ml mild olive oil
250g natural yoghurt
250g wholemeal spelt flour
5 teaspoons baking powder
pinch of salt
150g gooseberries, stalks removed 
150g red currants

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius, and grease and line a 20cm springform pan.

Beat the eggs, sugar and vanilla together in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment until  pale.

Add the yoghurt and olive oil to the bowl and mix until just combined.

In another bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder and salt, then mix the dry ingredients in two-three batches into the wet ingredients.

Gently fold the gooseberries and red currants into the mixture using a rubber spatula.

Scrape the cake mixture into the prepared pan, and bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes or until cooked through.

Release the cake from the pan and allow it to cool on a wire rack.

Slice and serve!