Tuesday, September 23, 2008

In Celebration Of Eggs

The recent bouts of strange and unpredictably cold weather provide the perfect excuse to try a recipe from Alice Medrich's book 'Pure Dessert'. I've been eyeing off this torta cioccolata for a few days now. It looks deliciously light and simple, the picture alongside the featured recipe screams out "eat me!". Unfortunately I can't seem to follow a recipe without tampering with it just a little..

To celebrate World Egg Day with Abby at Eat The Right Stuff I had to get off my backside and make this very rich, very fabulous chocolate torte smothered with cocoa mascarpone, covered with lush chocolate glaze and toasted almonds.

Torta Cioccolata
140 g raw almonds, chopped
200 g dark chocolate, chopped
1/4 tsp salt
145 castor sugar
250 g egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar or juice of half a
lemon

Preheat oven to 175ºC.
Butter 2 x 8 inch cake tins and line bases with baking paper.
Whisk egg whites with cream of tartar to medium peak.
Slowly add sugar and continue whisking until it reaches stiff peak.
Throw in chopped almonds, chocolate and salt and fold gently a few times to incorporate evenly.
Divide mix evenly between the 2 tins and slide straight into the oven.
Bake for approximately 18 minutes, turning and rotating shelves halfway.

Cocoa Mascarpone
320 g mascarpone
20 g icing sugar
12 g unsweetened cocoa
Mix all ingredients until smooth.

Chocolate Glaze
22.5 g unsweetened cocoa
45 g castor sugar
100 g water
150 g dark chocolate
100 g milk
15 g unsalted butter
Combine cocoa, sugar and water in a small pot.
Simmer for 4 minutes, stirring continuously with a spatula.
Add the chocolate and milk, stirring until melted.
Remove from heat.
Throw in the butter and mix until emulsified.

To assemble, sandwich cakes with a generous layer of cocoa mascarpone.
Cover with hot chocolate glaze.
Press roughly sliced toasted almonds into the sides of the cake.
Refrigerate until set.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

A Little Flaky.. Pastry That Is!

It seems to me that every successful and thriving restaurant I have worked at so far caters for private canape functions. I've made pies, sushi, spring rolls, chocolate truffles, an assortment of tartlets, spoonfuls of pearl ceviche, teeny tiny wagyu crostinis with truffle aioli and microherbs - each placed exactly parallel to its neighbour, and now i can add mini crispy fish wontons to my repertoire.

2 coffees, 6 and a half hours, 10 trays and 500 mini fish wontons later I swore never again. It takes such an incredible amount of willpower to stay focused on each deliberate fold and turn that what normally seems easy and fun in small doses becomes an exasperating and mind-numbing job.

I began the day by sorting through 8 kilos of Flathead, pin-boning, dicing, drying, and all the while running in and out of the cool room to keep everything as cold as possible. Then I had to turn all the diced up fish into a giant wonton mix with finely chopped ginger, coriander roots and shallots. By the end of it I though I was going to snap. I was starving, my eyes were watering and my apron pockets were filled with crusty lumps of flour. All I wanted was some normal comfort food.

I had planned to make apple pie on my day off. Of course, that didn't quite happen and to shake things up a little with my favourite traditional home bake, I added a few small tweaks here and there. Apple seems to be a convenient vehicle to use when wanting to convey other flavours. Last week I dabbled with candied chillies and chilli caramel so I thought to follow suit with chilli sugar.

With savoury dishes, chilli is often found balanced with the presence of dairy, whether it be yoghurt, milk or cream. I began with the idea of a pie but it soon transformed into small bite-sized tarts as I quickly tired of the idea of struggling with a fancy pie lid on top of it all. Eventually, and after much internal conflict, I decided upon chilli apple tarts with basil mascarpone, drizzled with a little chilli caramel.

According to a bounty of hot versus cold infusion experiments by Alice Medrich "Each sample was good in the hot infusion, but spectacular in the cold. Cold cream coaxed forth the high notes and the floral flavors; hot cream produced more earthy vegetal notes.. once the infused materials (leaves, petals, etc.) were spent and discarded, the infused cream could then, if necessary, be heated (to make ganache, for example) without damaging its exquisite flavor." so of course for my first submission to Art You Eat I just had to attempt the cold-infusion method, combining milk and basil which I later used to make a pastry cream.
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Flaky Pastry
455 g flour
300 g unsalted butter
2 heaped Tbsp icing sugar
5 g salt
150 ml water, chilled
Sift together the flour, sugar, salt and spread onto the work bench in a rectangular fashion.
Chop or grate butter and spread over the top.
Cut with pastry knife until lumpy.
Make a well in the centre and add chilled water.
Mix gently with a fork from the centre outwards until it becomes a shaggy mass.
Roll and turn 3 or 4 times.
Wrap tightly and refrigerate for 2 hours.
Roll to fit tart shells and freeze until firm.
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Apple Pie Mix
4 cooking apples
1 lemon, zest and juice
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 Tbsp apple glaze
3 Tbsp castor sugar
50 g unsalted butter
Peel, core and roughly chop apples.
Toss in lemon juice, drain and place in a pot.
Add remaining ingredients and cook, stirring until lightly caramelised.
Set aside to cool.
Stir through chilli sugar to taste.
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Chilli Sugar
1 Tbsp dried chilli flakes
3 Tbsp castor sugar
Combine in a mortar and pestle and grind until it becomes a powder.
Sift and discard seeds.
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Basil Mascarpone
200 g milk
1 C. packed basil leaves
1 Tbsp icing sugar
2 egg yolks
1 tsp cornflour
5 g salt
25 g unsalted butter
150 g mascarpone
1 egg white
Tear up basil leaves and submerse in milk.
Refrigerate for half an hour, stirring every now and again.
Cream yolks, sugar, salt and cornflour in a medium bowl.
Strain milk into yolk mix, discarding basil.
Whisk all to combine and pour into a small pot.
Bring to a simmer to thicken, stirring continuously with a spatula.
Remove from heat and stir in butter.
Refrigerate until cool then combine with mascarpone and egg white until smooth.
Half fill frozen pastry cases with apple mix and bake at 200ºC for 25-30 mins or until crisp.
Cover apples with paper if they begin to darken.
Fill to the top with basil mascarpone and bake for additional 3-5 minutes.
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Sunday, September 7, 2008

Tastes Better Cold

Citrus are typically winter fruit. That's right all you 'Eating with the Seasons' readers - it's winter here! So it may have technically ended a few days ago but it darn well still feels like it! If not for a small handful of cherry blossoms colouring my street, I doubt I would have noticed the change in season. With the end of high quality citrus looming, a tin of coconut milk in the pantry and a cake recipe I jotted down on a scrap piece of paper 6 months ago from god only knows where, I thought I'd take the opportunity to be a little crafty.
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I thought about coconut cake. My mind began to wander off onto other very much unsavoury things so I did a quick search on cakes - coconut layer cake, traditional coconut cake, coconut cake from the Midwest, coconut cake layered with lemon curd, coconut cake smothered in buttercream and dessicated coconut..
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I gave up on my search for inspiration. You know, I've always had a slight fear of making cheesecake, ever since my InterContinental Hotel trainee days where I once found myself up to my armpits in cream cheese, desperately trying to scrape the bottom of a humongous Hobart mixer with a tiny little pastry card that seemed ridiculously minuscule for the task at hand. Admittedly, I don't have the patience to watch anything that takes longer than half an hour in my crappy home oven that tends to burn everything near the fan.
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Sitting in the shower, I finally decided on a deconstructed sort of cheesecake. I'd make little muffin-sized coconut cakes with erm.. ahh.. hmmm.. crushed cookie cream cheese and blood orange curd! This mysterious cake recipe includes milk or buttermilk which I planned to substitute with my tin of thick coconut milk.
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Well, as my fortune usually goes, when I went shopping at 11:40pm after work, the only citrus I was presented with were 'Murcott' mandarins (the giant sort) but no matter. Ginger Snap cookies were on sale so I grabbed a box (ginger and citrus seem to go together well so why not?) along with a bagful of fresh ginger roots.
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Candied Ginger
250 g ginger, peeled
500 g castor sugar
500 ml water
Slice ginger roots into matchstick-sized pieces.
Combine all ingredients in a small pot and bring to the boil.
Once it becomes syrupy, reduce to a simmer and continue cooking until all ginger pieces are translucent.
Be warned: the whole process may take upwards of an hour.
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Murcott Mandarin Curd
600 ml Murcott mandarin juice
4 egg yolks
2 Tbsp icing sugar
1 tsp cornflour
pinch of salt
50 g unsalted butter
Boil mandarin juice in a small pot until reduced by half.
Combine yolks, sugar, cornflour and salt in a bowl and whisk together.
Slowly pour hot mandarin juice into the egg mix, whisking continuously.
Pour into the pot and bring to the simmer, stirring continuously with a spatula.
When thickened, remove from heat and add butter.
Whisk until combined and refrigerate until cold.
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Crushed Cookie 'Cheesecake'
250 g cream cheese, soft
150 g unsalted butter, soft
100 g icing sugar
3 Tbsp ginger snap cookies, crushed
1 tsp butterscotch schnapps
pinch of salt
Combine all ingredients in a mixer and leave at room temperature until ready to use.
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Mystery Coconut Cake
100 g ginger snap cookies, finely crushed
250 g SR flour
1 tsp salt
300 g castor sugar
120 g unsalted butter, soft + extra
for brushing

2 Murcott mandarins, zest
4 egg whites
400 ml coconut milk
Preheat oven to 170ºC, spray and line a tray with non-stick baking paper.
Brush 8 heatproof aluminium/ stainless steel rings with soft butter and coat with crushed cookies.
Sift flour into a large bowl.
Cream butter, sugar and zest with an electric mixer.
Add egg whites one by one, mixing thoroughly.
Stir in coconut milk then fold in flour.
Pour into rings and bake for 25 mins or until cooked through.
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Feeling Hot! Hot! Hot!


My last attempt at making marmalade was marked with horrendous results. I had thought about what I wanted to do all week and finally decided upon a combination of blood orange and chilli. Unfortunately, not everything went to plan. The deliciously red blood orange peels lost their deep hue during the blanching process and the chillies which I had spent vital minutes of my life chopping into perfect little squares decided that they would piss out dirty looking liquid into the pot.

I was so upset. I cried. Well, no, not really. But being the perfectionist that I am, I was determined to try again until i achieved the results I wanted! I did a little thinking while crying myself to sleep that night over the unfinished marmalade which closely resembled dirty dish water. What would be the technique to pre-process the chillies and prevent this strange occurrence? I'd read about jams containing things like candied ginger. Perhaps I could try candying chillies too?

I set about trying to find a recipe for candied chillies.. It seems good fortune was not on my side. I supposed I'd have to figure it out myself. Luckily there were no mishaps this time. I also ended up with a jar of hot red syrup which I turned into a caramel afterwards!

Candied Chillies
250 g castor sugar
200 ml water
4 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
150 g long red chillies, finely sliced
In a small pot, bring sugar, water and vinegar to the boil.
Reduce until it becomes syrupy (about 10 minutes).
Throw in chopped chillies and remove from the heat.
Store in syrup.
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