inner pickle

apricot lunchbox snacks

My friend Lucie put me onto this book, for which I am very very grateful. 

Julie Maree Wood is full of truly excellent ideas about boosting the nutrition in the food of a small person who won't eat much of anything. 

These apricot balls, which she calls Iron Booster Balls, went down pretty well here. They look and taste like a treat! What's not to love.

Unless you buy organic apricots you'll be using apricots with preservative 220 (sulfur dioxide) which can be dangerous for asthmatics and has been shown to cause hyperactivity and behavioral problems. Like many additives and preservatives, really. 

I'll be honest: I don't always buy the preservative-free apricots, even though I know this. We have so few additives and preservatives around here that if I saw any effect of a handful of apricots a couple of times a week, I'd abandon them. Sometimes the rotten look of blackish organic apricots is a little too much for me. 

Apricot Balls (Iron Booster Balls)

Recipe by Julie Maree Wood, Feeding Fussy Kids

INGREDIENTS

½ cup dried apricots

½ cup dried peaches

2 tbsp boiling water

¼ cup almond meal

½ cup desiccated coconut

1 tbsp orange juice

2 tbsp wheatgerm

¼ cup skim milk powder

½ cup extra coconut

METHOD
Put the apricots and the peach into a food processor and pulse until finely chopped. Add boiling water and leave to soak for ten minutes. Add almond meal, coconut, wheatgerm, milk powder and orange juice. Blend until a firm dough forms. Add extra water if needed. Roll into balls and roll in coconut. Store in the fridge. 

xxx
 

Easy sponge cake recipe

First, I have to admit, this is not my Grandmother's award-winning fabulous spongecake recipe, which I committed to making before June, along with other un-accomplished things on that list over there on the left which I will address shortly.

This is what my mother and aunt thought might be the recipe, but having made the original cake in question three times in a row when I was fourteen years old, until I got it perfect, it was as I was not separating the eggs here that I realised we had the wrong recipe. 

This one is pretty good:

Light, fluffy, perfectly spongy. And very straight forward. But not as good as Grandma's.

Mum and I spent an hour scouring her old recipe collections on the weekend and we now think we've found Grandma's original. It looks familiar. And with four eggs, not three, which sounds about right. 

But this is delicious and easy and worth a whisk!!

Sponge Cake

Ingredients:

3 eggs

½ cup caster sugar

½ cup cornflour

2 tbsp self raising flour

Method:

Grease, flour and line 2 x 20cm cake pans. Using an electric mixer beat three eggs on high until thick and creamy. 

Gradually add sugar and keep beating. 

Sift together your two flours and quickly and very lightly fold into the egg mix. 

Divide evenly between the pans and bake at 180 C for 15-20 minutes. 

Allow to cool for a few minutes in the pans then turn onto a wire rack. 

Fill with jam and cream, or apparently passionfruit cream which is essential in a sponge according to Adam or in my case left over pink butter cream from the many many cupcakes I made for a small catering gig on Saturday morning!!

Grandma's recipe to follow...

xxx

all in the name of research

OK so the David Lebovitz icecream was very good, but a little fiddly. 

Having a dedicated tendency to err on the simpler side of things, I remembered a friend talking about icecream made with condensed milk. Mmmmm, condensed milk. Another good reason to have it in your pantry, right!

So I tried this: 

BASIC VANILLA ICECREAM

1 x 400g tin condensed milk

1 x 600ml pot of thickened cream

1 x tsp vanilla extract

THAT'S IT!!

And oh my goodness, here it is:

Apart from being dead easy to make, it's so creamy and delicious, and you know exactly what's in it. No hidden "natural" colour 160b (careful one that little one.)

I poured the three ingredients into a big bowl and used a hand beater to whizz up well first. Then put in into an icecream maker and pulled it out after three hours or so and beat it again. You really don't need an icecream maker for this - but you do need to re-beat it once it's partially set to get that whipped up icecream texture. Handbeaters will do the job or a wooden spoon and some good elbow grease. Think about those burning calories. Or not. 

Store it in the freezer (obviously) - mine's just in a plastic container with a lid on it. You don't need anything fancy. And damn it tastes fancy. You'll LOVE this. 

xxx

Homemade Vanilla Icecream

Yuuuuuummmm. 

Ever made your own icecream? I've made it a few times, including a semifreddo phase I went through in the early nineties. THAT one was bad for my bum.

But I've never made a 'custard' based icecream. I wanted to try this because being pregnant I can't eat anything with raw eggs in it - which most homemade icecreams have.

This recipe is based on the AMAZING David Lebovitz's vanilla recipe here, with, I admit, a few steps skipped out. He's the king of the scoop, David Lebovitz, and I wonder if I'd stuck to his method, if it really could have been any more sublime. Truly. This stuff rocks. 

I served it for lunchtime dessert to a bunch of friends on Sunday (with this pavlova) a pairing which conveniently uses up all the whites of the yolks you used in the icecream! 

SO good. 

Here's the recipe:

Vanilla Icecream (Recipe by David Lebovitz - with a couple of minor adjustments (*cough*, short-cuts)

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup (250ml) whole milk

A pinch of salt

3/4 cup (150g) sugar

1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise

2 cups (500ml) heavy cream

5 large egg yolks

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

METHOD:
1. Heat the milk, salt, and sugar in a saucepan. Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean into the milk with a paring knife, then add the bean pod to the milk. Cover and remove from heat.

2. In a separate bowl, stir together the egg yolks. Gradually pour some of the milk into the yolks, whisking constantly as you pour. Scrape the warmed yolks and milk back into the saucepan.

3. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly and scraping the bottom with a heat-resistant spatula, until the custard thickens enough to coat the spatula.

4. Stir the custard into the heavy cream, add the vanilla extract and remove the vanilla bean.

5. Either put into an icecream maker (which has a pre-frozen bowl and freezes the mix quickest) or a container with a lid or foil over it, in the freezer. Needs at least 8 hours to really freeze through. If you're using an icecream maker make you would usually pull it out and blend it again when semi-frozen (after 3-4 hours). I don't think this is necessary though. Still the creamiest, vanilla-y, most delicious icecream I've ever tried. 

There's about 2 small scoops left. Which I think Ad and I might polish off shortly with a small slice of this (even though it's not Friday night dessert night!!)

A new chocolate cake recipe with 4 eggs in it! (I only ever use 2.) Will try it and if it's any good, will blog it!

(All in the interest of recipe testing, of course. The things my bum and I do for you gorgeous people.)

xxx

little apple teacakes

I've been thinking about cupcakes this week after a friend emailed me for a cupcake recipe and I realised I didn't have one (rather, I just split the good old butter cake mix into cupcake pans when the need arises.)

So while I'm thinking about cupcakes and looking at a box of apples that will need stewing sometime soon, I imagine this:

hmmm.

And so I put these things together in a bowl:

INGREDIENTS

125g butter, softened

⅔ cup sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1½ cups plain flour

½ cup custard powder

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp cinnamon

½ cup milk

2 green apples, sliced

1 tbsp butter, melted

extra cinnamon and sugar

METHOD

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs one by one and mix well. Add vanilla then sift in flour, custard powder and baking powder. Stir through cinnamon and milk.

Makes 12 cupcakes. 

Press sliced apple into tops of cakes and bake in moderate oven (180deg) for about 25 mins. 

While still hot, brush tops of cakes with melted butter and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.

Lovely with tea.

xxx 

strawberry shortcake

Shortcake is one of the things I don't make. 

I don't make it, because my Mum does.

And man, she makes a good shortcake.

I think in every family somebody specializes in something, right? Maybe you are the excellent birthday cake maker. Or the beloved scone bringer. Maybe you're known for your lasagne or your perfect roast. 

Mum has always made shortcake. Given that my aunts on my Dad's side also make it, I wonder whether it was my Grandma's recipe (she of the award-winning sponge, very soon to be forthcoming!!)... I'll ask Mum when they're back from galavanting around South Australia. 

Anyway, Mum makes passionfruit shortcake. Always has a passionfruit vine growing somewhere, always has frozen fruit in ziplocks in the freezer. It's the passionfruit shortcake she makes for her adored sons-in-law. And for Dad, for super special treats (when she has a house-full and can be sure he'll only get one piece, being diabetic and all that...) 

So I never make it. It's her thing. 

'Cept I have all these strawberries, and we were going to a friend's house for Sunday lunch, and I thought, why not...

I bought a couple of these cool bakers boxes at The Essential Ingredient (somewhere I should never be let loose) and boxed it up. 

 I neglected to take a 'slice-of' photo at lunch - too busy talking. And eating. And laughing. Sorry.

STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE

Ingredients:

2 cups self-raising flour

1 cup sugar

125g butter

1 egg

1 cup icing sugar

60g butter

1 cup chopped strawberries

Method:

Mix flour and sugar in a large bowl then rub in the butter. Make a well in the centre and stir in the egg. It will feel really dry, keep mixing until you can knead it well into a ball. 

Push into a round 7 inch (20cm) tin, rough up the top with a fork and sprinkle with sugar. Cook at 160° for 35 mins or until golden. When cooled, split into two.

To make the filling, mix the icing sugar with the butter and fruit. (This works really well with passionfruit too - probably better than my strawberry version.) Mix well to a cream then spread onto one half of the shortcake. Put together, and enjoy! 

Perfect with perfectly-made espresso (our friends run a coffee school!)

Highlights of the week so far:

* Having my seven year old nephew Doug to stay for a few nights. Awesome little dude that he is. Henry is now at my sister's place for a short holiday, and I am loving the time just with Tilly. We are having a truly lovely little break, just us. (Although she's pretty excited about bringing him home tomorrow night.)

* It's not often you can say that something helped you be a better parent, but I think this book has. I highly recommend it. I found it via Soulemama and am now on a mission to find out more about Buddhism generally.

* I'm not particularly religious but am always inspired by faith in other people. I stumbled on this blog tonight, via Mammajoy (finally posting again! hooray!) and read the story of Audrey Caroline. It's astonishing how strong some people can be. I thought this woman, Angie Smith, was amazing and I was really inspired by her perspective.

* Learning about white balance for photos from my friend Katie who in 10 minutes gave me a crash course and helped me take better 'inside' photos!! She is the best!

Hope you are having a fab week. 

xxx
 

yoghurt maple balls

You mean I need to stop eating these long enough to write a post? 

Naaah. I can multi-task.

Yoghurt maple balls. *sigh*. 

You know I'm pretty finicky about recipe provenance. I always try to credit anyone and any recipe that has influenced one of mine. 

This one is a wee problem though. 

Adam and I stayed at a friend's weekender in the Blue Mountains one weekend a long time ago and I found this recipe in a magazine. It was a long time before I started blogging and I wrote the recipe down but didn't think to write down which magazine it was. Maybe Gourmet Traveller? Maybe Donna Hay? Maybe Delicious??

So, I'm sorry to the creator of this recipe, whoever you are. I'm reproducing it here because it is perfect and needs to be shared.

These little yoghurty nutty mapley things are gorgeous. I've scrawled at the bottom of my original page the author's suggestion to serve with balsamic pears or berries which is all very nice but totally unnecessary. Enjoy solo.

INGREDIENTS

1 kg thick greek style yogurt

1/2 cup maple syrup

1 tblsp cinnamon

2 tbslp caster sugar

hazelnuts, roughly chopped and toasted

METHOD

Combine the yogurt and the syrup. Place onto a large square of doubled muslin and gather together tightly with string. 

Loop string around a chopstick and suspend over a bowl or container in the fridge for four days to remove the liquid.  

 

 After four days mine looked like this (above).

 And out of the muslin, like this (above). Weird!

Form tablespoon-sized balls with wet hands...

and roll in mix of cinnamon and sugar. 

Then toss to coat in the hazelnuts.  

Aaaaah. *gargle in back of throat.*

They are fabulously dense and not too sweet and totally delicious. 

Dear Greeninkgirl, this spoonful is for you. If I thought they'd ship, I'd send 'em. 

Meanwhile I'll just enjoy them on your behalf, I hope that's OK. (Thanks for the push to make these. A little encouragement goes a long way with me!)

Let me know if any of you make these!

(And in my next house, whenever that is, let's put an order in for natural light in the kitchen. Gosh that'd be awesome. The 'yellow' photos are taken in the kitchen, everything else I carry outside to photograph!)

OK, just one more spoonful...

xxx

dulce de leche

DID IT!!!

As I wandered about my kitchen at 5.30pm this afternoon with my friend Yvette, who was picking up her son who'd come around the corner to my place because he'd forgotten his keys, and I was telling her that I was about to take Tilly to the doctor because she had a raging ear infection and a persistent temperature, I referred to the Dulce de Leche simmering on the stove and Yvette said, "Today? Why would you make that today, with a sick toddler?"

Yes, a very good question.

Because when things get blue, I cook.

Because Tilly conked out around lunchtime and I looked at the tin of condensed milk in my cupboard and thought, hello.

Because if I don't get seriously started on my list of 20 New Things it'll be one more thing I didn't do this year.

Because if I wasn't Inner Pickle, I'd have to be Curious Cook. Don't you just want to know what happens inside that can for three and a half hours?!?!

Here's how I started:

One tin of Nestle Condensed Milk, label taken off, in my biggest stock pot, covered with water.

David Lebovitz makes this by pouring the condensed milk into a baking dish, covering it and baking for an hour and a half.

LIVE ON THE EDGE, people.

Unless there's a real risk of boiling exploding cans, you're only half alive. 

Chocolate Suze has made this and warned of not puncturing the can, which would have been my impulse, and as some sites suggest, as it's easy for water to get in and crystallize the caramel. 

(She also very strongly recommended letting the can cool down before cracking open, to avoid scalding molten caramel geysering into your eye. Good advice.)

There's conflicting online advice about whether the water needs to be part-way up the can or totally and absolutely 100% covering the can at all times, don't doze off or go cuddle a sick kid because the can will EXPLODE if it is not covered with water even for a nanosecond. 

You know, I like risk. But not of the it'll-take-me-three-hours-to-scrape-that-off-the-ceiling kind. So BIG stockpot, lots and lots of water. Three and a half hours and there we have it, folks:

Dulce de Leche.

Now what do I do with it? Eat it by the spoonful and fall into a sugar coma? 

These alternatives look awesome:

* Smitten Kitchen's Dulce de Leche cheesecake squares

* David Lebovitz's Dulce de Leche brownies

* And how about Dulce de Leche ice cream with salted pecans?

You could put it in a tart or warm it and drizzle it over vanilla icecream.

I reckon at Christmas time I'll leave it on the stove another hour to make it firmer and roll it into chocolate coated balls. 

SO good. Not so good for you. You don't come here for diet tips, right?

xxx

Signature

Do you have a signature dish? Something people ask you to make? 

I wish my signature dish was an awesome Boeuf Bourguignon, or breathtaking hand rolled sushi or a specially delicate lemon tart. Nope. I'm pretty sure this is my signature:

Caramel.

Now, before we get into Dulce de Leche, I HAD to talk about caramel. This is one of those things I shudder to think of how many batches I've made in my young life. SOOO many. I haven't made it for ages, I obviously wouldn't let the kids eat it and Adam just doesn't really eat sweet stuff. (Leave the olives out and it's all over, though.) 

I bought a tin of condensed milk to try Dulce de leche, I had it in my hand today and thought, have to make caramel first.

A neighbour of ours when I was eight years old, Mrs Deasey, used to bring little foil pans of this to us, two doors down, as a treat. I'm not even sure we ever wrote the recipe down. I remember learning it very very young, and it's still in my head.

I remember making it at college, in the college kitchens late at night, and a bunch of us would sit around and not even let it cool.

I've made it thinner to pour over icecream and pour in tart cases but it's best left unadulterated. 

Caramel

Ingredients:

3oz (about 95g) unsalted butter

2/3 cup brown sugar

1 tin condensed milk

Method:

Start the butter melting in a heavy based saucepan on the stove then add the other ingredients and start stirring. Don't make this if you're likely to get interrupted, you can't stop stirring for a 2 year old bathroom emergency or 5 year old battery replacement drama. It'll burn in a breath.

So stir stir stir, the butter will melt and the sugar dissolve and it'll be a pale camel colour. Be very careful not to let it get too hot, use a moderate heat on the stove, if you can see it starting to burn pull it off and stir stir stir!! Basically you stir it fast for 6-8 minutes on a moderate heat until it turns a deep golden colour. It'll get quite thick, too.

When it looks like this (below) pour it onto a greased and lined plate and let cool for a minute before putting in fridge.

Mine's a tad speckled because I let it get too hot and and I got a couple of burnt bits! oops.

Chop it up with a sharp knife once cooled and hard, put it in a container and take it to work for the fellas to eat. I seriously don't need it in my fridge!! It's like the inside of a cobber. SO yummy. 

What about you? What's your signature?

xxx

Chocolatey Awesomeness

I've blogged this slice previously, without a photo. And it's so damn yummy I had to make it again and am hoping a photo will inspire you to try it! It's dead easy and quick. Awesome with an espresso!

No Nutella this time (I didn't have any) and it's still as good. Here's the recipe again, I've mucked around a little with proportions and ingredients. I think this one is better:

FABULOUSLY EASY DELICIOUS CHOCOLATE SLICE WHICH IS KINDA LIKE A HEDGEHOG

3 oz copha, melted

1 x 250g pkt milk coffee biscuits, crushed

1/2 cup cocoa

1 tsp vanilla

1 tin condensed milk

1 cup shredded coconut, more for the top

Method:

Crush the biscuits to a fine consistency in a food processor. If you don't have one you could bash them in a bag with a rolling pin till finely crushed. Might take longer but would be quite cathartic.

Melt copha in microwave. In a big bowl mix the crushed bikkies, the copha, vanilla, condensed milk and coconut. Mix well and press into slice tin (make sure slice tin is well greased and floured and lined with baking paper, this is a sticky slice until set.) Use wet hands to press down into tin. 

Cover with shredded coconut.

Set in fridge for about half an hour, turn out and cut into bars. YUMMO.

xxx

P.S. A note on "Australian-ness" 

It's been brought to my attention that some of my recipes have ingredients only available in Australia. Hmm. Good point!

Here are some note on the ingredients in this one that you might not recognise if you don't hail from Down Under!

** "English" version **

(a) COPHA: Solidified coconut oil that stays solid at room temperature. It's white and comes in blocks, but turns clear when melted. Palmin is the German brand name of the same stuff we have in Oz. An alternative is 2 parts shortening or lard with one part creamed coconut.

(b) BISCUITS: Any of these will work perfectly, whatever you can find: Milk coffee, Arrowroot biscuits, Morning coffee, basically a plain sweet biscuit. In fact, a Digestive would work well too, they're just a bit softer so would alter the texture

(c) COCOA: as in the powdered chocolate stuff. You gotta be able to get that at Tesco.

(d) VANILLA: I should have specified, Vanilla extract. You can use vanilla essence if that's all you've got.

(e) CONDENSED MILK, as in Nestle sweetened condensed milk... hopefully you can get this? It also makes fabulous caramel - we'll get to that another time.

(f) SHREDDED COCONUT: you can use desiccated if that's all you can find, shredded just has more texture.

xxx