Warm Lamb Salad

May 7, 2012
By

Warm Lamb Salad

I’m interrupting my slapdash baking attempts with a short and savoury dinner recipe that I concocted last week. Look, variations of it probably exist but throwing the feta in the pan and the subsequent taste sensation was delicious.
I wanted to call this Warm Greek Salad but really.. it’s nothing like that and I fear that offending the Greek nation with this hodge podge may be a bit too much for my wee blog to take on.

Warm Lamb Salad
Serves 2

Olive oil
1 x large brown onion
2 x cloves of garlic – finely sliced
½ lemon – juice and zest
Lamb steaks – cubed (I think I used approximately around 200 grams per person)
½ x can of chickpeas – rinsed
Greek feta – cubed (I used low around 5 cubes per person)
2 x large handfuls of mixed salad greens – washed & dried (I used a mix of rocket and spinach. If you haven’t got a lettuce spinner, I highly recommend one – they are the ant’s pants!)
Cherry tomatoes – halved

Heat a lug of olive oil in a medium sized fry pan on a low heat and add the garlic and onion. Cook until the onion is slightly transparent, turn up the heat and add the chickpeas. Cook for a couple of minutes stirring once or twice.

Meanwhile place the mixed greens in the centre of a plate and top with the tomatoes.

Once the chickpeas start to brown and caramelise add half the lemon juice, lamb and then season with pepper. Let the lamb brown on all sides before adding the remaining lemon juice, feta and zest. Cook for a couple of minutes until the feta starts to soften.

Remove the pan from the heat and let it stand for a couple of minutes before piling the lamb and chickpea mixture on top of the salad. Garnish with a wedge of lemon.

It’s not rocket science – or even cordon bleu for that matter but it was quick, delicious and pretty healthy.

Individual White Chocolate Chip Cakes

May 6, 2012
By

After tackling this recipe I had to sit down and remind myself of the reasons why I am doing this. I am trying to teach myself how to bake. I can’t get frustrated on the second recipe and just give up.

You can probably guess by that intro that I didn’t have a fantastic result with these.

The fantasy

I got the recipe from Baking -  a commonsense guide, a book I invested in because I thought it would be the holy grail of baking. This is the second recipe I’ve tried and I don’t remember being impressed with the last one. This book better shape up, or I’ll be shipping it out – straight to Vinnies!

First mistake: Deciding that I felt like baking at 8.40 pm on a Monday night whilst also wanting to watch The Voice. Do I have rocks in my head? What’s wrong with me?! I don’t think I am the sort of person that can bake on a whim – I need organisation and plenty of relaxed time up my sleeves before I can attempt baking. I had the tele on, a messy kitchen and work the next morning. What a thick.

With one eye (and an ear) on the televisual warbling I skimmed the book looking for recipes containing buttermilk as I wanted to use up the leftovers from my Ginger cakes with orange glaze. Later on I noticed on the carton that you can freeze buttermilk. Excellent information, hopefully next time I will not enter into hasty baking decisions to use up leftover goods. This recipe contained buttermilk, white chocolate and cream cheese – ingredients I had so I figured it was a winner.

Second mistake: Not reading the recipe in full before deciding to upon the recipe. When will I learn?! This happened last time!  When I started the batter I realised the recipe specified white chocolate chips, rather than the white chocolate melts which I had (you might think the title of the recipe would be a dead giveaway…) One melt would probably equal about 10 chips so I decided to chop them up with a steak knife as the kitchen knives were all dirty and waiting to be washed. After nearly stabbing myself with the tip for about the 15th time I realised that using a steak knife was a stupid mistake. But I persisted and ended up with chunks of white chocolate, bigger than chips but smaller than melts. In retrospect it’s quite lucky I didn’t bleed on the chocolate, what with it being white and all. Of course as I hadn’t read the recipe properly I didn’t notice that the icing also included white chocolate, I had exactly enough for the cake batter so the icing would had to be chocolate-less.

Third mistake: Over-exuberant use of the Mixmaster. (I don’t even own a Mixmaster, I think it’s a Breville food mixer, but I just call them all Mixmasters). I had to beat the (softened) butter & eggs using an “electric beaters” and then “fold” in the other ingredients. Of course, as I was ill-prepared my butter was rock-hard from being kept in the fridge so I had to zap it into the microwave, long enough to soften it but not too long that it would be melted. Don’t do this. I was supposed to beat the butter and eggs until “pale and creamy”. I just ended up with a large clump of slightly soft, mostly hard butter swinging around on the electric beaters like a drunk on a chandelier, flicking sugar all over the place. It took forever to resemble anything near “pale and creamy”. After this and the hand-chopping of the chocolate I was feeling a little tetchy – I just wanted to sit down and watch The Voice – I didn’t want to miss what was sure to be a glorious showdown between Prinnie and Mahalia! I just had to fold the other ingredients in and I could whack these babies into the oven. Isn’t it fortuitous that my Mixmaster has a folding option?!

Note to self: Probably not..

The batter ended up so ridiculously thick that when I disengaged the metal beaters from the machine they could actually stand up in the batter it was so thick. It made it incredibly difficult to get the batter off the spoon and into the patty pan, and I overfilled some of the them so I ended up with cupcakes that were overflowing by the time I pulled them out of the oven.

If you eat too many of these cakes your thighs will look like this batter

On a positive note, because I think we’re all in need of at least ONE by now, the flavour of the batter was amazing. Have you tried the cake batter ice cream at Cold Rock? The flavour was almost exactly the same. But it was incredibly sweet, it didn’t take much batter to make me feel a bit ill.

Fourth mistake: Incorrect cooking time. After a rather lengthy discussion at work regarding fan-forced ovens and baking temperatures we all agreed that I should factor down recipes by about 30 degrees to avoid the burnt bottom result I got last time. Big mistake. When I removed the cupcakes after the specified amount of cooking time of 20 minutes they were almost still batter. I ended up baking them for another 14 minutes altogether. I let the cakes cool for 10 minutes and then turned them out upon a wire rack and some of them started to fall apart, like they were still a little on the uncooked side.  Mick and I shared one of them that was falling apart, I ate about half of the top (it had grown to look like a muffin) and even though the melted chocolate was delicious they really were too sweet and I think that they also had a slight undercooked flavour.

I let the cupcakes cool and read the instructions for the icing – not only should it have white chocolate, of which none remained, but it also had cream, cream cheese and icing sugar. No way was I covering those cakes in that! It made my arteries harden just thinking about it.. and let’s face it… I was well over baking by this time.

Mick took the cakes to work – I was far too embarrassed to take them to my office.

The reality - note chocolate chunks and greasy patty pan cases

Presentation: 4/10 – Crap
Taste: I’m going to give them 6/10. Mick’s workmates gobbled them all up. They were edible and without the white chocolate the cake itself would have been quite nice.
Texture: 4/10 – Also crap. Could have been improved by the correct temperature and not beating the crap out of them.

Here’s the recipe, I’d love to know if anyone makes these and their thoughts on the end result. Personally, I’ll never attempt these again.

Individual White Chocolate Chip Cakes

Makes 12

Preparation time: 20 minutes (does not include hand-cutting chocolate melts down to chocolate chip size)
Cooking time: 20 minutes (does not include extra 14 minutes of cooking time if you get all confuzzled and bake it at the wrong temperature)

125 g unsalted butter, softened
185 g caster (superfine) sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon natural vanilla extract
250 g self-raising flour, sifted
125 ml buttermilk
280 g white chocolate chips
white chocolate, shaved, to decorate (omitted from my recipe as I didn’t have any left…)

White chocolate cream cheese icing
100 g white chocolate
60 ml cream
200 g cream cheese, softened
40 g icing sugar

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 170ºC (325ºF or Gas 3). Lightly grease twelve 125 ml muffin tins (for some reason I decided to use patty pans in mine – after I’d tipped them out – and finished watching the Voice, I went to wash pans up, I could see droplets of congealed butter in the bottom – these cakes are lardy)
  2. Beat the butter and sugar in a large bowl using electric beaters until pale and creamy. Gradually add the egg, beating well after each addition. Add the vanilla extract and beat. Fold in the flour alternately with the buttermilk and then fold in the chocolate chips.
  3. Foll each muffin hole three quarters full with the mixture and bake for 20 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into each cake. Leave in the tins for 5 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool.
  4. To make the icing, melt the chocolate and cream in a saucepan over low heat until smooth. Cool slightly, then add to the cream cheese and icing sugar and then beat until smooth.
  5. Spread the icing over the cakes and decorate with white chocolate shavings.

Ginger Cakes with Orange Glaze

April 25, 2012
By

I’ve just finished eating one of these, no better time to write about it than when I can still taste it. This recipe came from the The Australian Women’s Weekly (AWW) Retro Cookbook, though in there it’s called Ginger and Orange Cakes. As orange only features in the glazed icing I decided that the name above was more indicative of the end result.

Recipe

The font in the book is a little on the small side, I found it difficult to read the fractions (2/3 cup etc) as they were tiny, and I have great eyesight. I also made the mistake of not reading the recipe in full before I decided to bake these. I went to the shop, bought the ingredients I needed and when I got home discovered the recipe called for mini-fluted tube pans. Which I don’t own and certainly have never heard of.. Oops. I asked the internet and we all agreed I could make do with silicone muffin pans lined with patty pans. I am not convinced these are a common pan in Australia, I can’t seem to find them on many local sites. I could be wrong though, we all know I am not completely au fait with the baking world! If I were to make these again I would invest in 2 x 6 hole pans first, I think the end result would be a lot prettier.

After a disastrous attempt at cooking a chocolate pavlova recently I learned about the difference in temperatures in a conventional oven versus a fan-forced oven. I know… this is probably common knowledge to most people but I do like to think of myself as an individual. Anyway, it’s lucky I know about that now or these cakes would have been cactus, as it was they were a little too brown on the bottom. This is the second time that’s happened on the middle rack so I’ll move them a little higher next time.

Burnt bot bot


The recipe itself was easy to follow, and the steps were simple. Mess was minimal as you don’t need a lot of bowls to make it and they were cooked within half an hour. I loved sifting the flour, sugar and spices, it smelt so Christmassy though I did sneeze like all get out from inhaling the spices floating through the air.

The batter was pretty thick, which made it difficult to get into the patty pans. The recipe makes 8 cakes but a couple of my cakes merged and were a bit uneven on top – does anyone have any fail proof ways of making individual cakes that are even?

Worth licking out the bowl

This is what they looked like when they came out of the oven

Fresh out of the oven


The glaze was pretty delicious, I am a sucker for anything with zest in it, but frankly – the cakes looked a bit rubbish. Also, my glaze was very yellow – maybe I had a bit too much zest. Here’s a pic of one of the better ones.

Yummo!


Mick and I tried a cake after dinner, the rest will go in to work tomorrow and I will report back on their verdict.


Here’s Mick’s feedback:
Presentation – 6/10 – I totally agree with this – he even posted a photo of the cake on Twitter calling it the “Elephant Ginger Cake” – cheeky.
Taste – 9/10 The cake wasn’t too gingery and the flavour of the orange glaze complimented the spices.

Texture – 10/10 – Wow. Big score. The cake was amazingly light but still moist. My only concern was the slightly overcooked base.

This is the first recipe I’ve tried from this book and I am pleased with the result, especially the taste. I’ll work on the presentation. I would definitely make these at Christmas, the flavours and scent of the spices and orange really give them a festive air.

Visit booko.com.au to compare the online stores for the lowest prices.

CAKES – makes 8
2/3 cup (100 grams) plain (all-purpose) flour
2/3 cup (100 grams) self-raising flour
1/ teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
2 teaspoons each of ground cinnamon & ginger
1/2 teaspoon of ground cloves
1 cup (220 grams) of firmly packed brown sugar
2/3 cup (160 ml) buttermilk
2 eggs beaten lightly
100 grams (3 ounces) unsalted butter, melted

GLAZE
1 cup (160 grams) icing (confectioners’) sugar, sifted
1/2 teaspoon of finely grated orange rind
1 tablespoon of strained orange juice
2 teaspoons of hot water

  1. Pre-heat oven to 180°C/350 °F (if fan-forced decrease by 10 – 20 degrees). Grease and flour eight holes of two 6-hole (3/4 cup/180ml) mini fluted tube pans (if you have them!)
  2. Sift flour, soda, spices and sugar into a medium bowl. Stir in buttermilk, eggs and butter. Divide mixture into pan holes. Bake for about 30 minutes. Turn cakes over immediately onto greased wire rack over tray. Cool.
  3. Mark orange glaze. Pour over cakes; stand until glaze is set.

ORANGE GLAZE
Stir ingredient in medium bowl until smooth

*EDIT* My darling friend Ruthie left this comment on Facebook
Re getting cakes the same size, use an ice-cream scoop or measuring cup and level off so each cake has the exact same amount of batter. You’ll still get slight variation due to hot/ cold spots in your oven but overall they’ll be pretty much the same :)

Something to do..

April 25, 2012
By

After wrapping up two weeks on the couch recuperating from surgery I’ve decided I need a hobby. I’ve analysed my life and this is how I spend my spare time:

  • Cleaning
  • Patting the cat
  • Op-shopping
  • Shopping
  • Watching tele
  • Wasting time on the internet
  • Moaning about being bored
  • Talking about losing weight and then failing to do much about it

I used to blog a lot as well but I’ve even been too lazy for that lately preferring to bang out tweets and status updates on FB.

Anyway, I’ve decided to start baking. I’m not a natural baker, I’m the sort of person that can slap together a meal out of veges and meat but lack the discipline to be good at baking.

I’ll blog about it along the way and hopefully reclaim my passion for blogging as well. Never fear, I am not going to eat all I bake (see last bullet point above) but I do foresee that everyone is going to be very well fed..