Wildfell Hall Butterscotch Peach Cake

It was destined to be a nutty day.  I had been to my in-laws' chestnut farm earlier picking chestnuts, which incidentally is rather gruelling.  You're stooped over picking chestnuts strewn on the ground, sometimes extracting them from their prickly encasings.  Despite wearing gloves cactus -like prickles invariably find themselves impaled in your hands.  So by the end of it, you're battling sore back and leg muscles and stubborn prickles.  Thankfully, the chestnut harvesting season is short lasting for around 6 weeks in autumn.

Anyway, later in the day inspired by the chestnuts I decided to make one of Belinda Jeffries' nut-based creations, for my monthly bookclub.  We were discussing Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, which was considered hugely shocking for it's time given the themes of marital abuse, divorce and alcoholism.  Published in 1848, it is supposedly the first feminist novel.  It made for a very scintillating discussion.  Because Anne is undeservedly the lesser known of the Bronte sisters and because she was brave and honest enough to bring to light the injustices suffered by women in the 19th century, I thought I'd name this cake after her pioneering novel.

If you want the heavenly effect of the butterscotch sauce cascading over the cake, the right sized tin is imperative.   Belinda used 24cm round cake time.  As you can see by the photo, my tin was a little too large!  Supposed to serve 8...

100g almond meal

90g SR flour

160g caster sugar

3 eggs

200g butter

1 tsp vanilla extract

Peach and caramel topping

80g unsalted butter

½ cup brown sugar

¼ tsp salt

3 largish, just ripe peaches

Preheat oven to 180⁰C.  Lightly butter a 24cm round cake tin, lining base with baking paper.

For the topping, melt butter in a small saucepan over low heat.  Add the sugar and salt and stir until the mixture is smooth.   Pour it into your prepared tin, tilting it so that the bottom is coated evenly.  You will need to hold it with a tea towel so as not to get scolded by the heat.

Leaving the skins on the peach, slice them into 6mm segments.  Lay the peach slices over the top of the caramel, layering as you go so the base of the tin is completely covered in peaches.

Whiz the almond meal and flour in a food processor for 10 seconds until well combined. Tip them into a bowl.

Whiz the sugar and eggs in the processor for a minute then add butter and whiz a little more to combine thoroughly.  The sides of the machine may need to be scraped down with a spatula so that all the butter is incorporated.  Mix in the vanilla.  Return to the almond mixture to processor and pulse briefly, just enough time for the liquid and dry ingredients to combine. Dollop the subsequent batter into the caramel and peach covered tin as evenly and gently as possible.

Bake for about 45 mins or until a fine skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean.  Leave it to cool for a few mins then run a blunt knife around trhe inside of the tin to loosen the cake.  Leave it another couple of minutes then invert it onto a serving plate.  For an extra sheen, brush the peaches gently with golden syrup.  Serve warm with a dollop of cream or scoop of vanilla ice-cream.  This cake really needs to be eaten on the day it’s made, for a superior taste sensation.

 

Boot camp gnocchi

Maybe it was the guilt of having a sackful of organic potatoes from my in-laws’ farm languishing in the cellar.  Perhaps it was the potent sense of wellbeing after a long, soul -enriching bike ride on a trail replete with nature’s bounty….but I decided to make gnocchi.  This involves boiling potatoes then peeling them whilst hot, before passing them through my manual rotary food mill.  It is a mammoth effort using this contraption which involves holding the long handle with one hand whilst rotating the blade with the other.  And when you’re using 1 kg of potatoes it is a workout.  It made me think of other manual kitchen activities that require exertion such as using a mortar and pestle to grind spices, kneading and rolling out dough, juicing oranges…it’s boot camp but with delicious results!

I first made gnocchi 10 years ago after following a recipe in a food magazine.  It was just potato and flour.  No egg.  And so I have never used egg and either has Stephanie Alexander.   To achieve the desired result of light and velvety dumplings  incorporate as little flour as possible.  So do not delay the shaping and cooking of the gnocchi otherwise the dough will become sticky and require more flour.  In this recipe I make a  neapolitana sauce using the last of the late summer tomatoes and bake in the oven with a layer of grated cheese.  When my son first looked at his plate he declared with disdain that he was not having any of this dinner.  But after some gentle coaxing, he tried some.  And just like his name sake in Seus’ Green Eggs and Ham, he loved them!  He even said they tasted like ‘clouds’.  The sheer effort of this dish was worth it….Serves 4.

Olive oil

1kg potatoes

Salt

325g plain flour

Neapolitana sauce

1 kg of tomatoes, peeled

¼ cup olive oil

2 tbs dried oregano

1 bay leaf

4 garlic cloves

Handful of basil

200g of mixed cheese, mozzarella, parmesan, cheddar

In a large saucepan, boil potatoes in lightly salted water for 15 – 20 mins till tender.  Drain and peel swiftly using a teatowel to hold potato if too hot to handle. Pass potatoes through a food mill or potato ricer directly onto work surface, then sprinkle with salt.  In the meantime, have a large saucepan containing at least 3 litres of water boiling in preparation for cooking the gnocchi.   With one hand sprinkle potato with some flour and, using the heel of the other hand, work it in.  The skill is to be as deft and quick as possible.  Continue until dough is a pliable consistency.  You may not even need to use all the dough.  When cooking water is at a fast boil, roll potato mixture into a long rope and cut into 1cm pieces.  

Reduce heat slightly so that water is simmering.  Drop in some gnocchi, but not too many at once as they do expand.  After a few mins the gnocchi rise to the surface.   Lift them with a perforated spoon, drain momentarily over the pot before laying them flat on a large roasting tray smeared with olive oil.  Repeat with remaining gnocchi.

Preheat oven to 180⁰C.  Make sauce by heating oil first.  Then pour in all other ingredients excluding the basil.  Cook for about 20mins on medium heat mashing the tomato as you cook it.  Adjust for seasoning with salt and pepper.  Add 2 ladlefuls of the potato cooking water to thin it out a little.  Stir in basil at the end before pouring over the gnocchi in the roasting dish.  You may not require all the sauce, so keep the rest in the fridge for use at a later time.  Then sprinkle cheese evenly over the top before putting into the oven to cook a further 10 -15 mins when it will be golden and bubbly.  Cloud-like indeed!

 

 

 

Cauliflower and beetroot salad with harissa dressing

It’s become an obsession ….salad making.  Recently, I watched with a sense of wonderment and awe an episode of Ottolenghi’s “ Mediterranean Feast”which featured Tunisian cuisine.  To my shame, I had never heard of him until I stumbled upon this TV series.  Against a bejewelled Mediterranean sea or in the bustling markets of Tunis he beguiled his guests with his keen interest in their food.  I loved his warm and engaging manner, he is what Italians would call a ‘sympatico’ spirit.  I have read a little more about him since then.  ‘Otto’ is a regular food writer for The Guardian and renowned for being inventive with his flavours, incorporating less commonly used ingredients in his dishes. He challenges cooks not to be intimidated by the use of caraway, cardamom or verjuice. To me his adventurousness encapsulates what a culinary dalliance should be! In this episode Otto concocted a most magnificent salad, his take on the Nicoise salad, with a harissa dressing.  Harissa is a piquant chilli sauce used in almost all Tunisian dishes. Like wasabi, a little goes a long way.... I subsequently was inspired to create this colourful salad which uses caraway seeds and harissa as stellar flavourings.  Serves 4 – 6.

1 head of cauliflower, separated into florets

2 large carrots, cut into 2cm lengths

4 small beetroots, quartered

1 red onion, cut into 8 wedges

100g baby spinach

1 tbs caraway seeds

¼ cup olive oil, plus extra 4 tbs for dressing

1 tbs dried oregano

2 tbs roasted pepitas

2 tsp harissa paste

2 garlic cloves, crushed

2 tbs red wine vinegar

2 squeezes of lemon juice

Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 200⁰C.  Grease 2 roasting tins.  Thoroughly mix first 4 vegetables with olive oil, oregano and caraway, seasoning with salt and pepper.  Place on trays and roast for 40 – 50 mins till caramelised.

Make dressing by whisking olive oil, vinegar, lemon, garlic and harissa in a large salad bowl.  Then incorporate roasted vegetables with spinach leaves in the bowl.  Scrape any juices remaining in the trays to augment the flavours. Scatter with pepita seeds.

cold soba noodle salad

The heat continues and we're all positively fed up in Melbourne with hot days and nights in early Autumn.  The meteorologists are prognosticating these above 30 degree celcius temperatures will continue well into the next week.  Who wants to be standing over a hot stove in these conditions??  Well, my fetish with salads seems very sensible under the circumstances.  This recipe is from goop, an e-newsletter founded by Gwyneth Paltrow which contains information from parenting, to spirituality to healthy eating.  It's lately become a little too consumer-focused for my predilections, but some of the recipes are fabulous.  Like this salad which features soba noodles and coriander.  I altered the original recipe to include enoki mushrooms and roasted pepitas.  Thanks to Gwyneth I have discovered agave nectar, a natural sweet liquid from Mexico, the taste of which I prefer to honey and I'm told has a much lower GI.  But it is a lot more expensive, I hasten to add...  Serves 4

8 oz (226.80 g according to my weight conversion calculator) buckwheat soba noodles
1 tbs Japanese soy sauce
1 tbs agave nectar
1 tbs mirin
2 tbs rice wine vinegar
2 tbs toasted sesame oil
1/4 cup flavourless oil (perhaps corn oil)
2 tbs black sesame seeds (or toasted sesame seeds)
2 tbs toasted pepitas
100g enoki mushrooms
1/4 cup coriander, chopped coarsely
5 spring onions
1 red chilli pepper, chopped finely

Cook the soba in boiling water, according to packet instructions (4 mins usually).  Immediate rinse the soba under cold water and drain thoroughly. Meanwhile whisk all the liquid ingredients in a large salad bowl to make the dressing.  Toss in the cold soba with the dressing and mix in the rest of the ingredients.  Enjoy with a glass of ice cold sake!

carrot salsa

We’re all feeling a little desiccated and wilted in Melbourne, like 3 day old tulips in a quarter-full vase.  We’re actually experiencing a proper summer where the temperatures remain above 30⁰ C for days and days on end.  This not usual for our town where we’re languishing  in sleeveless tops for 2 days followed by an extreme cool change and we’re back to entombing ourselves in pashminas and peacoats.    Because we pride ourselves on being tres chic….Well, nothing screams more tres chic than an elegant summer salad.  This recipe for a very modern, light carrot salsa is from a distinctly un-chic  tome, The Cooking Book, which is furnished with 1000 recipes including coronation chicken rolls and couscous royale.   But don't let that put you off.  When I served this recently at a matinee, it was greeted with much fervour!  Serves 6.

5 large carrots, peeled and grated

1 red onion, finely sliced

2 garlic cloves, finely sliced

Juice of ½ lemon

2 tbs pomegranate molasses

Handful of coarsely chopped mint

Handful of coarsely chopped parsley

 ¼ cup light olive oil/ vegetable oil

100g toasted pepitas

 Just combine all ingredients excluding pepitas, cover and set aside for at least an hour (overnight would be sensational)for flavours to develop.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.  Add pepitas just before serving.

 

DBFG Cornflake and Coconut Biscuits

My 7 y.o daughter's book du jour is The Daring Book for Girls . On the back cover it announces that this book is ‘for every Australian girl with an independent spirit and a nose for trouble…” and it contains a plethora of information such as ‘how to fold a sari’, ‘putting your hair up with a pencil’, ‘ the story of Joan of Arc’, amongst others.  I used it as a reference book when I needed to identify the snake I encountered on my maiden bike ride down the Kew Boulevard with my new bike last December.  As I careered down the steep descent on the bike track in a state of unalloyed exhilaration, I notice something  grey with white stripes coiled ahead.  At first, I assumed it was a garden hose but then when it began unwinding I knew it was definitely not an inanimate object!  My joy morphed into sheer panic and so I swiftly swerved off the bike track onto the road narrowly eluding  a collision with a car.  I made it home in record time and later, in a somewhat becalmed state, I referred to the heading on ‘Snake Sense’ in DBFG and learnt that it was the venomous  tiger snake.  Did you know that Australia has 8 of the 10 most venomous snakes in the world?

Well, this charming book also has a couple of pages devoted to baking.  It contains a simple recipe for  cornflake biscuits, which I’ve altered by substituting  the sultanas for coconut.  I’ve made them so many times with my children who adore them.  And because they don’t contain nuts they are a superb addition in school lunch boxes.    Makes about 24.

140g butter

¾ cup sugar

2 drops vanilla extract

1 egg

1 cup self-raising flour

1 cup desiccated coconut

Cornflakes, to coat

Preheat oven to 180⁰.  Grease and line with baking paper 2 baking sheets.

In a bowl, cream butter and sugar until pale in colour.   Beat in vanilla and egg, combining well.  Stir in the flour and coconut.  Roll teaspoonfuls of the mixture into balls and roll in Cornflakes to coat, flattening them slightly.

Place 10 biscuits on each baking sheet, leaving plenty of room between them as they disperse quite brazenly in the oven.  Cook for 12 to 15 mins.  Transfer to a wire rack to cool.  They will look and feel soft, but they will harden up. 

Languorous Custards with rosewater flavoured strawberries and rhubarb

Making food look pretty is not my forte. So when I was called upon to host a bridal shower recently, I decided to rise to the culinary challenge and asked my friend Sharon for help.  She bought these beautiful paper baking cups.  No need for fancy piping or a deft hand in sugar art, with these polka dot wonders.  And of course I needed something with which to fill them.  Again, referring to my cook book du jour, Janelle Bloom’s fast, fresh and fabulous I drew inspiration from her recipe for roasted fruit custards.

 

This silky custard dessert with rosewater flavoured roasted rhubarb and strawberry, evokes a sensation akin to observing a belly dancer languorously emerging from a mound of velvet cushions to the plaintive sound of the nay.  Makes about 20 small paper cups

1 bunch rhubarb, trimmed cut into 1 cm lengths

400g strawberries, hulled and halved

4 tbs caster sugar

2 tbs rosewater

Stirred vanilla custard

1 vanilla bean, halved lengthways

300ml pouring cream

250ml milk

4 egg yolks

½ cup caster sugar

2 tbs cornflour

Preheat oven to 220⁰.  Lightly grease a baking tray.  Combine rhubarb and strawberries with the rosewater and sugar and place in a single layer on the baking tray. Roast for 10 mins till fruit is just tender. Remove from the oven and stand for 5 mins to produce syrup.

For the stirred vanilla custard, scrape black seeds from the centre of the vanilla bean halves.  Place cream, milk, vanilla bean halves and seeds into a heavy-based saucepan over medium heat.  Cook stirring often for 10 mins or until mixture just comes to the boil.  Remove vanilla bean, wash and set aside to dry.  (Place in a jar of caster sugar to make vanilla sugar).

Using an electric mixer, beat egg yolks, sugar and cornflour until pale.  Add the warm cream mixture and beat on low speed to combine.   Pour mixture back into saucepan and cook, stirring constantly, over a low heat for 12 mins or until custard thickens and coats the wooden spoon. 

In the meantime, place a tablespoonful of roasted  fruit into each cup until all is used.  Pour custard over.  Maybe you can make it a little prettier with a diminutive sprig of mint on top.