inner pickle

chocolate self-saucing pudding

If you visit here at all regularly you'll be aware of my tendency to make stuff over and over until I find the perfect recipe. It's a personality flaw.

When I first met Adam, I made him chocolate self-saucing pudding.  I think it was actually for our second date (chronology dependent on who you ask). He said he loved it. So I made it again. And again. And sometime after we were married (that would be SEVEN years later and heavens knows how many puddings) he confessed that he really didn't like chocolate self-saucing pudding. Any of them. 

So this week, while Ad was out of town overnight, I made one just for myself. (Because it wasn't Friday night dessert night and seriously, the kids would think it was the weekend next if I gave them pudding mid week.) 

I halved this recipe for my own sake given I knew I would not throw it away. 

 And I figured: 21 weeks pregnant. Earned it.

MICROWAVE SELF-SAUCING PUDDING

Original recipe from The Australian Women's Weekly and can be found here

60g butter

1.5 cups self raising flour

200g (1 cup) caster sugar

25g (1/4 cup) cocoa

180ml (3/4 cup) milk

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 cup brown suagr

35g (1/3 cup) cocoa (extra)

2 cups boiling water

Place butter in dish, melt in microwave. Stir in sifted flour, sugar and cocoa, milk and vanilla, beat until smooth. Sprinkle with combined sifted brown sugar and extra cocoa and pour boiling water over. Cook on high for 12 minutes or until just cooked in centre. Stand for a few minutes before serving because it will be piping hot. Awesome with icecream.

Sometimes just seeing these things on the bench is all I need:

Now I'm sure there is a spoonful left in the fridge and given Adam will ignore it... if you'll just excuse me...

xxx 

things are happening...

1. Friday night dessert night

We don't usually eat dessert in our house but (at Henry's suggestion) we started Friday night dessert night a few weeks ago and it's a highly anticipated new addition to family ritual. Here's tonight's: the recipe is at the end of the post.

2. School

or: Breaking in the new school shoes.

I've done a lot of reading about homeschooling in the last few weeks which I'll definitely talk about in a future post, but Henry is enrolled at our local school and due to start next Thursday. All very exciting. We've done a lot of preparation (particularly for a kid who doesn't transition well or 'do' change very well) and I'll tell you all about our school prep next week. He is super excited though. Me too.

And still on schools, of all the conversations I've had over the past two days, hardly one does not involve some discussion about www.myschool.edu.au

In Australia, the federal government has created what amounts to a 'league table' on school's performances. From a parent point of view it's very interesting seeing how your local school ranks (incidentally ours ranked very highly) but the rural and regional schools I suspect must be hating this system, and there are many issues with comparing apples with bananas (as my sister Suze, a teacher, described it.) 

For New South Wales our main broadsheet The Sydney Morning Herald actually provided school's rankings from 1 to about 800. A tough business. Great if you're in the top 20, not sure how the teachers in the smaller schools in the 700s will be feeling about this. Or the parents of the children at those schools... Very interested in your thoughts on this!

  

 3. Artificial colour in the garden.

I have somehow managed to kill the majority of my herbs in the past fortnight. Not from neglect, but perhaps too much water and/or fertiliser (from the worms). Very disappointing. Resorted to spinning cheerfulness to inspire the geraniums not to die too.

4. Beloved neighbours back home

Gosh we missed our lovely neighbours next door when they went away for two weeks! We do see quite a lot of them, most of all this family member above ('Cow') who has spent this week almost entirely at our place. I think she missed us too.

5. Sleeping!

Thank you you beautiful people for all the emails and suggestions about sleeping issues in our house. We are now (touch wood!) all good. 

6. Proud mum

Henry and Tilly made some chocolate chip cookies this afternoon almost unsupervised, and gave a little visiting playmate jobs to do that they thought he could manage. Henry retained the egg-cracking responsibility and only Tilly is allowed to handle the vanilla. I'm really so proud of my budding cooks. 

So what should we call this? Peach and blueberry pie, I think.

Peach and Blueberry Pie

You need 1 portion of short crust pastry, I always use this super quick and easy pastry recipe.

I then used half a portion of this recipe: PLEASE NOTE, Estelle's Mum's recipe, NOT mine... ie the one with the milk powder and water. If I want cold custard, this is the one I make. It sets really well, unlike mine. I used half the recipe because I made it a few days ago and that's all that was left!!

I pressed the pastry into the dish, spooned the custard on top then sliced fresh plums and peaches on top and sprinkled with blueberries. 

Bake for 20-30 mins (my oven was quite hot because I was cooking roast beef and baked potatoes at the same time.)

Anyway, it was delicious. Perfect with a spoon of good greek yoghurt. Yum. I love Friday night dessert night.

xxx

 

heaven-sent cheesecake

I have a proclivity to fixate on a food and make it repeatedly in varying versions until I get it right. 

You saw this here.

I admit I have also done this with cheesecake. I don't know how many cheesecakes I've made in my life. Many. Oh so many. 

But the best one I've ever tasted came from a cafe where I worked as a cook about a hundred years ago, and I could never recreate it. I knew the head chef had given me the recipe but I was 19 and I'm lucky if I can find my head at all from 19, let alone a recipe on an index card.

Then one day about 2 years ago it showed up. At Mum's place. 

I don't mean to overstate it but I don't think I've ever been so excited to see a recipe in my whole life. (I have a committed relationship to cheesecake, you have to understand.)

Anyway, for your enjoyment, here it is. 

 The Rose Blues Cheesecake

INGREDIENTS

(this makes a large cheesecake in a 24cm round springform pan)

2/3 box of tiny teddy biscuits (if this doesn't translate to UK or US, try plain chocolate biscuits, about 2 cups)

1/2 packet shredded wheatmeal biscuits

135g melted butter

500g philadelphia cream cheese

3 tablespoons sour cream

juice of 1 lemon

2 eggs

3/4 cup sugar

METHOD:

Crush biscuits in a food processor. Tip into a bowl and stir in melted butter thoroughly. Press into base of springform pan put into fridge while you make the middle.

Soften your cream cheese really well - either in a microwave until you can really poke it, or at room temperature. This will make it smooth. Using a mix master (ideally) or if, like me, you don't have one, hand beaters will do, whizz in the sour cream, lemon, eggs and sugar and beat until smooth. 

Pour onto cold base and bake in oven set to 100 deg for an hour. Then allow to cool/set for another hour in oven ideally or if you're making it late at night as I tend to be, wrap your pan in cling wrap when it's cool enough to go in the fridge.

Please make it, enjoy it, and if you lose the recipe you know it'll be indexed here.

xxx

a custard kinda day

{photo by Adam}

Some days are easy. Some days aren't. On those not so easy days nothing beats stirring up a delicious custard in the quiet kitchen after the two smallies are fed, bathed, storied, teeth-cleaned and bedded. 

(Or even better, stirring while Adam does the bath-story-teeth routine in time for me to creep in for a bedtime song or two. Bless him.)

I've talked about custard at length before. 

And tonight, because I just can't leave well enough alone, I tried a variation on those two perfect custard recipes. And this one is a keeper. It has just enough milk powder to give it that creamy solid feeling and enough fresh whole milk to satisfy a dairy-farmer's daughter. 

My absolute favourite custard

INGREDIENTS

2 tblsp custard powder

4 tblsp sugar

half cup cold water

2 eggs

half cup full cream milk powder

1 cup boiling water

2 cups full cream milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

METHOD
In a saucepan mix the custard powder with the sugar and the cold water. Then add the eggs and whisk. Then mix in the milk powder, not made up, just the powder. Stir in the boiling water then the milk. Cook over a low heat until thickened. Add vanilla at the end.

Divinely easy. Delicious. A perfect way to end a day.

xxx

the perfect custard

Is it possible? Is THIS the perfect custard?

My friend Estelle, also a custard fanatic, sent me this recipe yesterday. It's her Mum's custard recipe and Estelle warned that it's so good I may need to eat it all standing at the stove.

This is always possible.

I was surprised to see full cream milk powder in the recipe, in place of milk. But always willing to give something a go for the sake of food exploration, I also happened to have milk powder in my cupboard as it's an ingredient in a protein bar I make for Adam when he's endurance training.

So late last night I made Estelle's Mum's custard.

Ingredients:

2 tblsp custard powder

4 tblsp sugar

Half cup cold water

2 eggs

2 cups full cream milk powder

4 cups boiling water

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method:

In a saucepan mix the custard powder with the sugar and the cold water. Then add the eggs and whisk. Then mix in the milk powder, not made up, just the powder. Stir in the boiling water one cup at a time and cook over a low heat until thickened. Add vanilla at the end.

Now this is interesting! Someone other than me uses custard powder!! You'd never find it in a professional kitchen but what I love about it is it's stability. There's nothing tricky about custard with custard powder.

Nigella Lawson has a kick arse custard in Nigella Bites which involves plunging saucepans into sinkfuls of cold water etc, plus half a litre of cream and 5 eggs. 

But when it comes to the end of a rotten day and all you want is custard, you need to be able to make something you can trust. Something that will never split and will work every time.

Estelle's custard rocks, it really does. It's even better cold.

But being the daughter of a dairy farmer, I'm not sure if I can revert permanently to the superior custard... I also wonder if there's something about the custard your Mum made you when you were growing up that will always taste like the proper custard.

So in the name of exploration, I made another batch today, this time of my Mum's custard, just to do a scientific comparison. Of course. I did this because the recipes were so close, I had to see the difference.

My Mum's custard

Ingredients:

2 tblsp custard powder

4 tblsp sugar

4 cups full cream milk

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method:

In a saucepan mix the custard powder with the sugar and half a cup of milk. Then add the eggs and whisk. Add the vanilla. Whisk in the remaining milk and cook over a low heat until it almost comes to the boil and thickens. 

One last little note: If you're making a dish with only a few ingredients, it makes sense to use the best you can afford. The fewer the ingredients the more you taste the individual quality. For an awesome custard use organic milk, free range eggs and good quality extract (or even better, a split vanilla bean in with the milk and take it out at the end.) Or not. It's still awesome. 

I wonder if your kids will have a thing about your custard?!

xxx

what not to eat when you're diabetic

My Dad (D.O.D, he always signs notes to me, Dear Old Dad), retired dairy farmer, currently coffee farmer, strong as an ox, fit as a fiddle: diagnosed with type 2 diabetes last year. 

He managed to shed about 15 kgs in the blink of an eye, walking every day (not just running after cows) and completely changing his diet. And no insulin required. Excellent work. 

Given that Mum keeps him on a super healthy diet, it's really VERY NAUGHTY of me to rock up to Gerringong and make Thai noodles with fish and coconut cream, beef and Guinness pie with pea puree and cheesecake. 

But it's because he's so good all of the time, that I'm allowed to spoil him some of the time.

And when there's eight adults at the table, logic is that everyone will only get a small portion, right? 

Right. Here's the cheesecake. The thai fish was so yummy Adam has requested it again as soon as possible so will make again this weekend and try to photograph before it's all eaten. It really was yummy scrummy (Matilda, 2.)

Blueberry Baked Cheesecake

1 pkt sweet plain bikkies (I used Arnotts Nice)

125g butter, melted

500g cream cheese, soft at room temperature

1 cup castor sugar

1/2 tsp vanila

2 teaspoons lemon zest

1 tbls plain flour

4 eggs

1 x 300ml ctn sour cream

1 box frozen blueberries

Method:

Preheat oven to 160 deg. Grease and line a 23cm springform pan.

Usually I crush biscuits to fine crumbs in food processor but Mum doesn't have one. Turns out bashing them enthusiastically in big ziplock bags with a rolling pin works beautifully too, thanks Mum and Adam.

Add butter to crushed biscuits, combine well and press into pan, very firmly over bottom and up sides. Cover with clingwrap and put in fridge for 30 mins to chill.

Use an electric beater to beat cream cheese, sugar, vanilla and lemon rind in a large bowl until combined. Beat in the flour then add the eggs one at a time. Stir in sour cream until combined. Stir in still-frozen blueberries until combined.

Pour into tin, place pan on baking tray (otherwise the butter from the base might run out and burn on bottom of the oven. Yep, this is learning from my mistakes.) Bake for about 1 and quarter hours or until just set in centre. Turn off oven and leave cheesecake in oven for 2 hrs with door ajar or until completely cooled. This stops it cracking. Then put in fridge to chill for about 4 hours. 

That's it. Cut into wedges and serve. Delicious. Make sure you go for a big walk the next day and no other sugar for a week and everyone's fine. Marvellous.

xxx

quickest apple pie ever

OK. In a recipe for a super quick apple pie you might think making your own pastry might be ridiculous.

But seriously, this pastry is SO QUICK to make you'll have it rolled out quicker than defrosting a piece of store-bought stuff, I promise. 

I had a moments notice that Ad was bringing some friends home for dinner. One was a friend he worked with in Brisbane who I (and Adam) adore so I wanted to whip up something quick and yummy. 

I don't normally go in for tinned fruit, as you know, (less nutrients and all that) but if you have a tin of apple in your pantry or frozen berries in your freezer you've usually got these ingredients to hand.

Try it. If you're not totally sold on homemade pastry after this, I'll.. I dunno... eat my hat?

QUICKEST APPLE PIE EVER

Pastry:

Put 250g of self raising flour and 125g cold cubed butter in a food processor and whiz up. Add 1 egg yolk. Whiz. Add about a tablespoon of icing sugar (this is optional). Whiz. Add about 5-6 dessertspoons of iced water (I get a cup of tap water & add ice from freezer) until it binds together. This will depend a little on your flour so sorry I'm not being precise. When it's ball-like, take out, roll in cling wrap and put in fridge for 10 mins or until stiff when poked.

Construction:

Break pastry into two pieces, one about 2/3 of whole, the other about a third. Roll out larger bit of pastry on greaseproof paper. When right shape for your pie dish (I use an average pie dish which I think might be 20cm across? Really I have no idea,) up-end the greaseproof paper over the pie dish and peel off the pastry. Much better chance of it coming off in one piece.

Fill with one big tin (800g) of pie apple. Or stuff you've cooked yourself, even better. Or some berries too. DELICIOUS. If just apple don't forget a good sprinkle of nutmeg and cinnamon. A wee sprinkle of sugar over the fruit doesn't hurt either.

Roll out smaller piece of pastry and place over top of pie. Crimp edges. Brush with milk. Bake in moderate oven (180deg) for about 20 mins or until golden.

Serve with icecream or cream or yummy vanilla yoghurt or custard. Oh. Yeah. 

xxx