it's really hot

REALLY hot.
On the verandah at the moment it's 46.5 degrees Celsius.

And the oven is not going on again today!

Also, this is late. But aren't they pretty?
This month's challenge is brought to us by Karen of Bake My Day and Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte aka Kochtopf. They have chosen Tuiles from The Chocolate Book by Angélique Schmeink and Nougatine and Chocolate Tuiles from Michel Roux.

I made plain sweet tuiles with raspberry filling, raspberries and mint leaves. The raspberry filling has lemon. My brain isn't working enough to tell you any more because the heat is making me act irrationally and yell at my siblings.

Happy January!

january, just summer

I was in Brisbane for a festival/conference about sacred music, which was interesting. Ab Fab caterers were true to their name, incidentally. But I didn't photograph the food, because I got distracted by the food.
Moreton Bay figs..
...and the bougainvillea, and forgive me for not looking up that bird. Is it an ibis?
I love a sunburnt country, but it's a bit dry, the trip back south confirmed.
...Beach.
Check out that pastry. Finest I've yet to meet in a vanilla slice, and shall certainly be informing the Vanilla Slice Blog of Louttit Bay Bakery, so good I don't even care if you don't go there when you're in Lorne (but you'd be missing out).
The pastry, though. Flaky, slightly sweet, not buttery, just the right amount of dry between all that oohhhhggg custard. And the icing on the top sweet, just enough to balance.. Perfect!
There is fine eating to be had in Lorne. But I am too lazy to blog about it, and too embarrassed to take photos in public. So you can observe my home adventures.


Must be the first meal I made this month, approx two days ago. My fingers smelled like garlic until, oh, about now. It was worth it... say ricotta, I'm yours. and parmesan. Plus all the other usual suspects, yes, and How I love them.
And summer.

december away... the away part

December away...

I am trying to track down this Donna Hay cake I saw the recipe for in that No Time to Cook book in a bookshop recently. It was like a giant raspberry friand (siiiiiiiigh) and I need to use up the egg whites in the fridge. It is not to be found! I'll have to wing it.

So on the topic of December away, it has been quite a month for fruit picking, just wait for my photos, but they shall be in the next post, because this one goes to those crazy 'bakers'. More like daring freezers, ha. Yes, darling readers. I complain, but do I stop following?

This month's challenge is brought to us by the adventurous Hilda from Saffron and Blueberry and Marion from Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux.
They have chosen a French Yule Log by Flore from Florilege Gourmand.. search it if you like. It's an ice cream cake, AKA a litre of cream and a few blocks of chocolate, with layers amillion. Well, eight-ish.
The half piece is because it was really hard to cut without breaking, even left out of the freezer. Some components softened more quickly than others. So we just cut huge fat pieces and served them in halves.

Starting from the top, we have:
chocolate icing (does that need stating?)
milk chocolate semifreddo in which everything else is set, i.e. frozen mousse
baked creme brulee
more chocolate mousse
praline feuilleté (hazelnut praline crushed with crisp-baked crepe biscuits, chocolate and butter)
mousse again
dark chocolate ganache (hands up if this is your favourite part. me, pick me!)
and hazelnut dacquoise, of which I could have happily eaten a bit more.

Yum. I won't be making THAT again anytime soon!

spring-clearing the klog

PP. I am having date problems with when Blogger is saying I published. This post was written on the 30th of November.

It's the last day of spring in Australia. For fifteen minutes. Here I go!In no particular order, a backlog of spring things:
Above, barbecued ocean trout and potato salad (adapted from Sally James' recipe from Simply Sensational, an aptly named favourite book of mine), scandalously and deliciously bastardised with iceberg lettuce and salmon.
On the sides - not really spring, but we had them in spring anyway.
What began as that nigh-orgasmic (see how close nigh is to thigh? interesting..) appley dessert I had in France, became known as Sophie's 'the french apple crumble' and to me, now, is Dad's specialty. Nothing crumbly about it, this was in our house about the same time as my sisters made Donna Hay's caramel slice (even better, don't kill me, before they had added the chocolate) and was THE thing that I had thought I was over and not been so keen on in a while but that night at 11pm when I'd got home not having had the roast lamb that had filled up everyone here, well, this was what brought me back around to the idea of caramel. I accepted for what it was this non-crumble. Caramelised apple slice? It's like a solid, crisp biscuit on top.mmmmmmmm.

Back to spring..
asparagus quiche. Actually inspired by a vegan friend of my sister's, but don't let that put you off. It didn't me, that's the important thing. Bench art...














...a delightful by-product of florentines.


Below, roasted cauliflower salad from dear old Maggie and Simon. Not the best photo, but never mind. This was the second time I've made it, and won't be the last. A new favourite lunch, methinks! Neither of the times have I had quite the right herbs.. it's been parmesan instead of gruyere or goaty, parsley for coriander, etc. Burnt cauliflower, possibly both times. Do the antioxidant properties of cauliflower, olive oil and walnuts cancel out the carcinogens of burntness? I'll eat it anyway.yummo.
I don't even SAY yummo.
yummO.
As I hope you have been waiting for, Yoghurt Goes with (Chocolate, Coconut and) Cream Part 2.
It was good.. not as moist as the first one. I probably wasn't paying enough attention because there was another seriously worthwhile distraction in the oven.

My best sourdough yet.
It's been UBERbusy around here lately.
Including some baked and unbaked goods and very goods.
I hope you have enjoyed feasting your eyes on my mouthwatering photography (ha).

you put the salt in the caramel and eat it all up!

This months' darling bakers decided on a caramel cake with caramelised butter icing (defiantly Australian am I, frosting I will not acknowledge) (and yes we caramelise with an S).

I admit I reduced the sugar, but I can't remember how much.. a good amount. And made somewhat less of the icing, with not too much syrup. The icing turned out to be a very repeatable thing (mmmm). I made a half quantity of the suggested syrup and had enough left over for a toffee and banana cake.
Even reduced in syrupiness I doubted my friends and family's will to demolish the golden thing, so I took it to an all-day choir rehearsal where it happily disappeared. Thanks singers!

Anyway, as you can probably tell from my flattish tone, I have never been that excited about caramel, except obviously for sticky date pudding! and banoffee pie which I have yet to try! and homemade caramel slice!
ahem.
This was a nice cake. I could even have eaten some hokey pokey ice cream with it. Hokey pokey ice cream is a bit like English toffee flavour, for any non-Australasian readers.

And now the referencing.
Recipe courtesy of Shuna Fish Lydon from Eggbeater as published on Bay Area Bites, challenge hosted by Dolores of Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity and co-hosts Alex (Brownie of the Blondie and Brownie duo, Jenny of Foray into Food and for gluten-free daring bakers not quite daring enough to eat the gluten, help from Natalie of Gluten-a-Go-Go.
Optional was an extra challenge, Golden Vanilla Bean Caramels from Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich, Artisan Press, Copyright 2007, ISBN: 978-1579652111

salted caramel

Back to fashion.

It's my fashion to be frantic and slightly late everywhere I go. Which is part of the reason I am typing this when I should perhaps be in the shower, knowing I have to leave the house in half an hour.
That rhymes.

When I read Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in 2000, it was after a couple of years of wanting to resist, purely on the basis that everyone was reading it and it was everywhere. But the thing about a book in vogue is no matter how many people talk about it, you read it alone (just like you die, apparently, but I haven't done that yet, plus it was a bit of a morbid analogy). It's still your own discovery when you read it for the first time. And the next, and the next.

Well, I bet you know it: so it goes for flavours.

Thank you trendies for alerting us!

I am converted.