inner pickle

Recipe for utterly awesome chocolate cake

Er, am I allowed to say things like that?!

I'm not blowing my own trumpet. I didn't create this recipe, just tinkered with it a bit. 

It's Australia Day here tomorrow and while my mind is wandering to Lamingtons and Pavlova, here's one I made before the move which DAMN I wish I had a piece of right now to go with my cardboard boxes and my where-the-heck-should-this-live? routine. 

 

Like it? 

It's a thing of beauty, right? 

You know this blog is not about fancy food. If you want amazing looking food that's innovative and smart and genuinely talented go see Lemonpi or Mowie. Over here you get the down-home version. Usually triple tested, always photographed with a bunch of sticky fingers just outside the viewfinder.

Truly, this cake rocks. My friend Anne-Marie made it last year and I begged the recipe. It was, in turn, her friend Carol's recipe. I reduced the sugar and the oil and upped the cocoa and here we are.

A gloriously chocolately chocolate cake that doesn't need chocolate which is convenient because it's a lot harder to snack on a box of cocoa in the pantry, than on a block of 70%. Or budget cooking chocolate.

Everything that looks good at three in the afternoon. 

 

Utterly Awesome Chocolate Cake 

Ingredients:

1½ cups sugar

¾ cup oil 

2 eggs

1 cup (hot) coffee

1 cup milk

2 cups plain flour

1 cup cocoa

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

2 tsp bicarb soda

 

METHOD:

Preheat oven to 165 degrees celcius.

Mix together:  sugar, oil, eggs, coffee and milk. 

Sift together: flour, cocoa, salt, baking powder, bicarb soda. 

Add dry ingredients to wet mix and beat well. 

Pour into cake tin (I make 2 x 20cm pans, the recipe suggests this or one large tin or three loaf tins.)

Bake for approx 35 mins on fan forced, (longer on regular oven.)

 

For the chocolate cream I used:

2 tbsp soft butter

2½ cups icing sugar

½ cup cocoa. 

Mix well and spread onto cold cakes. 

 

(With abject apologies to Fran if she's still sipping vegetable soup and trying to look away.)

xxx

 

 

looking for my mojo

I'm sure it's around here somewhere. 

Hello? ... Mojo?

Dammit I need it. And totally do not have it. 

Right when it's all systems go, I seem to have hit the wall. Which could have something to do with about four weeks of religiously interrupted sleep (not just the six month old I must add. We could be running a good Catholic establishment here - up for Compline, Matins, Lauds. There's a bit of invoking the Lord's name on Adam's part which I guess might disqualify us.) 

Two. Weeks. Left.

As I am perennially guilty of burying fairly major news at the bottom of posts, may I refer you to the bottom of the previous post on Emily and the Wiggles?

Yep, we're moving to a distant green hill.

And seriously, I'm not kidding about the tiled orange bench top. You wait. 

But after catering Christmas and keeping up the energy through a gorgeous celebratory New Year with friends, we seem to have ground to a halt. Well, I say "we" but actually I can smell the chemical not-home-made cleaner which Adam has just attacked the oven with. Plus he de-spidered all the outdoor furniture today ready to move it. And he has a Master List. And a clipboard. 

Obviously, notwithstanding my lethargy, I'm in good hands. Lucky!

Meanwhile, shall we have cake?

Here's one I made earlier. For Tilly's last day of daycare, actually. She wanted to take cupcakes, but has a couple of severely allergic kids in her class. So the cook gave me her "allergy-free" cake recipe and actually it's pretty good! 

I fiddled with it a bit and reduced the sugar, but it rises well and tastes like cake. (Doesn't have the heart of a good butter and eggs cake, but sometimes you need something different.)

Egg-free, dairy-free and you could easily sub in gluten-free flour, which I didn't need to for this group. 

I made vanilla ones (above) for daycare but was pretty impressed with the simplicity of the recipe so made a chocolate batch for the next gathering of kids at my place to see how they went down. Quickly! Enthusiastically! 

 

 

Egg-free, dairy-free Cupcakes.  

INGREDIENTS
3 cups self-raising flour

2 cups warm water

1.5 cups sugar 

Half cup vegetable oil

1 tsp white vinegar

1 tsp vanilla extract (don't use imitation if you're making these for really sensitive kids)

 

METHOD

Prepare cupcake tins -either butter and flour them or use cases. My mix makes (weirdly) 23.

Combine all the ingredients together and whisk well until smooth then pour into pans. 

Bake at 160C (or 150 fan forced) until cooked and golden (approx 12 mins).

ICING: I mixed pure icing sugar and water to a paste and just piped it from a ziplock bag with the corner cut off. 

 

Right. Maybe my mojo is at the bottom of a cup of camomile tea. Better be somewhere. There is a giant bookcase waiting to be culled by 25% tonight. Yep, much smaller house, no built-in bookshelves. Adam is standing next to me with a determined look and a big box. 

P.S. If you find my mojo, please send it home? I'll send you back cupcakes with grins?

xxx 

lastminute dot chaos

Ah well. When it falls apart it kind of makes sense for it to all fall apart. 

I have a pretty solid habit of leaving things to the last minute. Er, make that everything. I know better. I do. I just never learn. 

Here's what happened yesterday.

Yesterday was Henry's last day of school. Very exciting. The end of Kindergarten. Un-freaking-believable in many respects.

Tilly and Ivy and I had a lovely day - a last minute dash out to IKEA for fabric for gift-making and at half-past two we were at home, both girls sound asleep. Need to leave at quarter to three for pick up. Last one. 

I'd made a last minute big chocolate slab cake to take to the park where Henry's class were gathering to celebrate the end of the year. I'd quickly finished balling up the chocolate brandy balls in a glass jar for the teacher (a little extra gift from Henry, the whole class went in on a big gift for her earlier in the week.)

It's quarter to three, and I transfer Ivy, asleep, to her carseat and wake Tilly, bribe her out to the car with a handful of smarties, and we're off. 

'Cept we're not. 

I'm turning the key in the ignition and nothing's happening. Turning over, not starting. Then it hits me. We are driving a Peugeot, and there's something about the fuel tank and parking on a slope and even at quarter of a tank it not starting. *cough* I may have done this once before. 

I could call the NRMA and I know (from experience) they will bring you $20 worth of fuel, enough to get you started and to the petrol station, but you have to pay them cash.

And I gave my last $20 to my fifteen year old neighbor half an hour previously when he came in, cashless, needing a loan to get into the city. 

I turn the key once more in desperation. The whole damn remote locking thingo crumbles to pieces in my hand. There's a tiny bit of metal left stuck in the ignition. It's been threatening to do this for weeks. Of course it's today that it carks it. 

It's almost three and it would take almost half an hour to walk up to school now, so I start calling my school mum friends to pick up Henry. No one picks up their phones. I finally get onto my friend Vanessa who's not there but her husband is and in a complicated series of mobile semaphore Henry gets collected by multiple people as the first messages filter through. I worried he'd fuss about me not being there with the gift for the teacher, but my friend Gaye managed to herd him down to the park with her tribe without incident. 

Meanwhile I piled a very grumpy Tilly and woken-up Ivy out of the car and got Ivy into the pram and balanced the big slab cake on top. We walked to the park. 

We met our friends, everyone had cake and biscuits and a big play and it was lovely. 

The kids and I stopped on the way home at the ATM. I called the NRMA and the nice man arrived with his jerry can. 

And even though I had sworn off chocolate (seems to affect Ivy), I may have indulged in a couple of the teacher's chocolate balls. Now destined to be eaten by us. Sorry Mrs Fisk. 

Here they are:

I love these. 

My Mum used to make them, but we made them into sausage shapes and always called them 'hairy sausages'. Then when we were teenagers we made them ball-shaped just for the sheer joy of serving around elegant plates of 'hairy balls'. 

I've altered the recipe slightly, it needs just a little bit of copha to set them nice and firmly, and also protects them a bit if they're gifts and they're not going to be refrigerated immediately. Mum's had sherry in them, I prefer brandy (and a bit more of it. I'm a dreadful glophead.) I use arrowroot biscuits, but you can use any crushed plain biscuit you like. 

RECIPE FOR BRANDY BALLS

1 (250g) pkt arrowroot biscuits

1 (395g) tin condensed milk

2 tbsp cocoa

2 oz copha

2 tbsp brandy

coconut for rolling

METHOD

Crush biscuits finely - I use a food processor but have used a rolling pin in the past which works fine. In a large bowl mix the crumbed biscuits, the condensed milk, cocoa and brandy. Melt your copha over a low heat. Add to the rest of the ingredient and stir to combine. Place in the fridge until firm (half an hour min?). 

Using small teaspoons full, roll into balls and roll the balls in coconut. 

Keep refrigerated. 

 

And you know what? Leave these to the last minute to make. It's a safe bet. They take no time at all and if they're in the fridge you run the risk of eating them before you give them away. 

Or, do my trick, and mess up your day so sufficiently you fail to give them away at all. 

I really wouldn't be taking any planning advice from me.

You should see my Christmas gift sewing list.

Last week before Christmas - a bit last minute?

xxx

recipe for frozen yoghurt

So we have a bit of yoghurt here - I've kinda gotten into making it in a big way. Once you get the hang of it it's dead easy and makes itself, mostly. Culture and all that.

Anyway, we were out of icecream so I thought - wonder what happens if you churn yoghurt? 

I have an icecream maker (wedding present) but you could do it with beaters just as easily. 

This is the first one I made:

Strawberry Frozen Yoghurt

500g strawberries (2 x Australian punnets)

half cup sugar

2 cups yoghurt

 

Stir the sugar through the strawberries and leave for an hour to soften the fruit.

Then stir through yoghurt and put into icecream maker and churn for half an hour or so. 

Alternatively, whizz up with handbeaters (or a whisk if you are totally insane and have stronger arms than me) and semi freeze then whizz again. 

The yoghurt I use is my homemade stuff but any nice thick yoghurt would work. I'd go greek-style rather than natural and steer clear of low fat. (Too icicle-y I'd guess.)

So simple. So yummy.

Here was number two:

Photo hurriedly taken before someone scooped up the last scoop!

Passionfruit frozen yoghurt

2 cups yoghurt

half cup sugar

pulp of 4 fresh passionfruit

 

Mix all ingredients and churn in icecream maker for about half an hour. Freeze. Enjoy. Hide from children and husband. 

I reckon it's better than icecream. 

xxx

stopping by for a scone

Hi!

Can't chat, am actually working tonight (for Amazon book money!) so better get back to the numbers and thought I'd leave you with a snack. 

Morning tea (or afternoon). 

Fresh scones with butter and jam. Does it get any better?

I think this recipe may be my Nan's. Or Grandma's. Unsure of origin. Have made these so many times this may be the first time I've written it down. 

Champion Scones!

INGREDIENTS

3 cups self raising flour (I use wholemeal or unbleached)

About a tbsp sugar

Approx 80g butter

1 cup milk

METHOD:

Mix the flour and the sugar then rub in the butter. Stir through the milk. Knead, and cut into scone-like shapes (scone cutters are good for this.)

Cook on about 210 for about 15-20 mins or until golden on top. 

That's it. 

I actually like it better than this recipe because I don't have to remember to buy lemonade. 

Unsure if scones work with gluten-free flour, for the gluten-free readers? Anybody?

Better get to it! (Motivated by this book on my Amazon list which isn't in any of the libraries around me!)

See you tomorrow.

xxx

 

Gluten-free orange and almond cake

It's rare for me to seek out a gluten-free recipe. I am a dedicated full wheat bread baker (and eater.) Pasta, too. And pizza. You could in fact call me Fiona Gluten Walmsley. 

I'm baking for a school cake stall this weekend though, and apparently the gluten-free options are big sellers.

I also coincidentally happened to flick past SBS's Food Safari last week and saw these fabulous Jewish ladies making orange and almond cake. A quick web search found the recipe. 6 EGGS?!!! That's way more than my baking budget allows per cake. Besides I just can't seem to follow instructions. 

Here's my version.

Orange and Almond Cake

based on this recipe by Batia Slater

Ingredients:

2 oranges

4 eggs

200g (1 cup) raw sugar (or use white - I ran out)

200g almond meal

1 tsp baking powder

 

Method:

Wash the oranges and cover them with water (skin and all) in a saucepan and boil for 1.5 hours. Set aside to cool. 

Preheat oven to 190°. 

Crack your eggs into a big bowl. Use a slender blender if you have one, and whizz. Or whisk. Add the sugar and whizz. Put the whole oranges into the bowl and whizz with the slender blender. If you don't have a hand blender, you'll need to process them in a food processor. Or normal blender. If you live in an Amish community and have no electric kitchen gizmos whatsoever, then bash up the oranges, taking out your frustration with these people who insist on posting recipes requiring equipment for heavens sake. Then chop as finely as you possibly can.

After the oranges and eggs and sugar are all beautifully combined, stir in the almond meal and baking powder.

That's it.

Too easy.

Pour into a 20cm round springform tin if you have one. Or not. It's not going to fail if you bake it in a ring tin. It might not work in cupcake tins but knock yourself out. 

Mine took 45 mins. 

Henry has decided it's his favourite cake in the known universe so I might have to knock out a 3-egg version, will let you know.

I don't think I've ever been as happy in my whole life as I am right now. And I'm not entirely referring to that empy plate. 

Hope you're feeling awesome today.

xxx

killer caramel recipe!

So, do you want to know that you can make kick arse caramel with stuff already in your pantry?! Butter, sugar, milk? If this sounds just too damn dangerous, exit now. 

Right. It started like this.

I wander around the supermarket shunning bad food. No, not buying chocolate. No, not buying biscuits. Not even buying condensed milk which will be turned into something naughty and if I'm really lucky I can use a recipe which does not use a whole can and leaves remnants which need cleaning up. 

You know. 

And it's nine o'clock at night and it's been a lovely day and what would make it even more lovely would be some kind of chewy sweet marvellousness. 

Dried fruit and nuts in the cupboard. 

Not going to cut it.

So, standing at the pantry I'm thinkin', you know, if you cook sugar and butter long enough it caramelizes. Wonder what happens if you add milk? Would you get a caramel-y caramel?

YOU DO!!!!!

I cannot tell you how dangerous this discovery is to my bum. Oh so dangerous. 

And I have to say I'm a little bit proud of myself. 

If you have fillings these will pull them out for sure. (And if you don't yet, eat a few of these.)

It's that good, solid, chewy caramel that used to be in the middle of cobbers. 

Little bit proud. 

 

KILLER CARAMELS

Ingredients

125g butter

1 cup brown sugar

½ cup white sugar

1 cup full cream milk

1 tsp vanilla

METHOD

(Caveat: if you like the precision of a candy thermometer I'm afraid I'm going to disappoint. Don't have one. You'll be able to do this without one, I promise.)

In a heavy based saucepan melt the butter and the sugars. When melted, add the milk. Stir, stir, stir. It'll froth up. It won't look like caramel. Stir, stir, stir. It'll change colour (gradually go darker.) The earlier you pull it off the stove, the softer and 'fudgier' it'll be. So be brave, leave it on, keep the heat low and stir. The longer you leave it, the harder the caramel will set. 

I can't tell you exactly how long because it depends on the heat, gas or electric, whether you've got a window open and if you're wearing high heels. 

It'll eventually start to thicken up nicely, the frothiness will subside by almost half and start to pull away from the sides of the saucepan. Maybe 20 minutes? Watch it closely. 

Add the vanilla at the end, as you take it off the heat.

Pour it into a greased pan, I used a loaf tin, and let it cool. Mark out the squares when cool then put into fridge. Depending how long you left it on it might be rock solid in the fridge but it will soften up if you leave it out for an hour. 

It truly rocks. (She says, licking her fingers.) Add nuts. Dip in chocolate. Or enjoy unadulterated. 

You're very welcome. 

xxx

(edited post: I made this again after posting this and it timed closer to 20 mins than 10, which was in the original post. Next time I make it I'll take and publish process shots so you can see what I mean by 'frothiness' and 'pulling away from edge of saucepan' etc.)

delicious

What's delicious around here at the moment:

:: School holiday mornings! No rushing, no "come ON get your shoes on!", no "PUT THAT AWAY WE HAVE TO GO!"; rather, a bit of lego, a cup of tea, a nice slow start, and if you're lucky a bit of a sleep in. 

:: Warmer weather. The washing dries on the line in one day not three! 

:: (Mostly) chilled out babes. Particularly the smallest one. And who is *touches wood* sleeping very well. (I just totally jinxed it, didn't I.)

:: Family coming to stay for the long weekend. 

:: A very favorite old friend getting married on the weekend, to the best person imaginable. Hoorays all round. 

:: My book club, Reading Between The Wines, who met here last night. (Hence no post - it was a bit late and I was a bit cactus!) It always leaves me super happy. I love my book club. Last night we did The Elegance of the Hedgehog, so great!

:: Strawberry jam!!!

We went for a bit of an exploratory drive recently, around an area of Sydney I didn't know, and at a funny little fruit barn on the side of the road they were selling five punnets of strawberries for $1. Five! HAD to make jam.

My recipe isn't a recipe, it's more of an idea. I cannot face the gallons of sugar in most jam recipes! I basically weigh my strawberries and add half the weight in sugar. 

You stir through the sugar and leave for an hour or so (softens the fruit)...

Then you add a squeeze on lemon juice and cook on low, stirring often, until the fruit dissolves. Spoon into jars.

Dead easy. 

The hardest bit of making jam is sterilizing the jars!

I do this by boiling the jars (and lids) in a big pot of water for 10 minutes and then drying them out in the oven for about 10-15 minutes on a low heat (110°C). Handle with tongs by the way!! Super hot!

Strawberry jam spread on a slice of toast at afternoon tea time? Oh yum.

Hope you're having a delicious week.

xxx

Lazy lady

Some people cook with a recipe most of the time. Some people never use recipes and just wing it. 

I have to admit to supreme dorkdom: I memorize recipes. Always have.

I carry quite a lot around in my noggin, most of them very basic, Country Women's Association-type recipes.

This one, it is actually called Lazy Lady, I used to make when I was a kid. 

This recipe is in Mum's recipe book, but when the idea of Lazy Lady struck me this afternoon, Mum was not at home. So I made it from memory. I got to about the end and it didn't look right with one cup of flour so I added another cup of flour and the milk and it looked perfect. And tastes exactly like I remember it. 

It's just a good old chocolate slice really. It's quick to make and not too fudgy or brownie-like, it's just a bit crumbly and delicious with a cup of afternoon tea. 

Here it is.

Lazy Lady. Recipe provenance unknown - from a friend of my Mum's, I think. 

125g butter, melted

1 cup brown sugar

1 egg

2/3 cup cocoa

2 cups self-raising flour (or plain flour + 4 tsp baking powder)

1/2 cup dessicated coconut

1/2 cup milk

 

Melt the butter and mix in the brown sugar. Add the egg and mix well. Add the cocoa and the flour and the coconut and stir. Add the milk and stir. 

That's it. 

Pop it into a 20cm square tin and bake on 170°C for approx 15 mins or until springy in the centre. 

Ice it in the pan, while still hot.

ICING: 

1 cup icing sugar (or CSRs Icing Mixture which is sugar + tapioca starch)

1/2 cup cocoa

1 tbsp soft butter or margerine

3 tbsp milk

coconut for sprinkling

Mix all your icing ingredients together and slather on.

Oh, and if you lick the bowl at all, make sure you wipe your face before you answer the door or it might be only after the organic vegies delivery dude has left that you notice the chocolate streak from mouth to ear.

Dorkdom. On so many levels. 

xxx

 

Lemon and Passionfruit Cupcakes Recipe!

Here is the recipe I promised yesterday. It's a minor variation on the good old butter cake, but the yoghurt makes it so moist and light and the passionfruit flavour is delicious. They really don't need icing but a cream cheese icing or lemon icing does nicely too!

INGREDIENTS

125g butter, softened

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 cups self raising flour

2 tablespoons vanilla yoghurt

2 tablespoons passionfruit pulp

½ cup lemon juice

METHOD

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and mix well. Stir in yoghurt and passionfruit and then sift in the flour and mix well. Add the lemon juice and that's it! Bake as cupcakes (makes 12) or in a ring tin or bundt pan or whatever you like. Next time I'll make it as 2 loaves and freeze one I think.

Oh, um, bake at 180°C for approx 20 mins or until golden and springy.

Other things happening around here today:

:: I made yogurt!! From scratch! And gosh it was yummy. Will post about this soon!

:: I am so inspired by the yogurt making, am looking into cheese making and wishing I could go and scoop several litres of raw milk from the vat in Dad's dairy. Sigh. Anyone know anywhere around Sydney to buy raw milk?

:: I am admiring Henry's Lego skill. Seriously. The little dude can build.

:: I am snacking on small desiree potatoes baked in their skins in a slow oven in good olive oil. With a smudge of sea salt. SO good.

:: I am still besotted with my no-knead bread recipe (a fresh loaf today and a container-full squatting in the fridge, ready to go) and am overdue to post about bread. I love bread. Maybe I could go right now and just have one small piece of toast with peanut butter...

:: I have cut a pattern from the dress Ivy was wearing yesterday (no I didn't make that one, it was a gift from a friend who didn't make it either, although she has plans to pimp it once Ivy's outgrown it and give it back to me in a new form!) Anyway, it's a simple pattern and I have plans for that sweet birdie fabric from Tilly's skirt...

:: I am busy making my first Book Week parade costume for Henry, who wants to be the Gruffalo. So that's not very hard at all. For heaven's sake. The Gruffalo??! Although no Julia Donalson would have been easy and they're all his favourites: Stickman, Tiddler, Snail and the Whale...

:: I am throwing a small splash of eucalyptus oil in with my washing after reading this tip on Fox's Lane, (a delightful blog) and cheering the idea, it just makes the whole wash smell lovely.

:: I am all inspired after Adam and I went to the Organic Expo at Darling Harbour on the weekend, and am dreaming of becoming an organic vegetable farmer. Or producing organic snacks for kids. Or at least keeping chooks and having a lovely vegie garden.

What are you doing 'round your place?

xxx