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Archive for the ‘Winter’ Category

12
Sep

Winter Wishing – Quince Cake

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What’s in the pot?

Well… now that the weather has turned in time for Spring, do you really care what’s in the pot? Clearly it’s something that involves baking and we all know that the hot Australian summer is not conducive to baking. But Spring/Summer baking is not what this post is all about. While I love the sunshine and flowers, a part of me yearns for the sharp clarity of winter mornings and the satisfaction of warm winter desserts. So this post is a throw back to all the things we wish for during winter. Mostly…

Quinces!

I hate that the Quince season is so woefully short. I hate that Quinces are not readily available as they should be. I hate that I don’t have my own Quince tree in my own backyard. And while I am trying harder to make the most of produce that is in season, I wish that Quinces that had been transported in cold storage did not taste so awful. Then we wouldn’t have to wait until winter to enjoy them. But all things come to those who wait, and as I wait patiently all year I know that I will always have time for at least one Quince Cake during winter.

Look at those beautiful pieces of quince. Yummo!

This particular recipe is quite simple, the only time consuming part is poaching the quinces but

1. having the oven on for so long keeps the house warm

2. the smell is gorgeous! I would like nothing better than to have my house continuously smell like quinces poaching


 So in the end, after all the deliciousness and warmth of the poaching process you end up with a wonderful buttery, soft, sweet, spicy cake. Particularly tasty with the crunchy munchy cinnamon topping and jewels of quince peeking out.

mmmmmmmm!

So, my lovelies, what seasonal food would you eat all year round if you could? I’ll give you three wishes!

 

Poached Quince – From The Cook’s Companion by Stephanie Alexander

Ingredients

6 Quinces, peeled and cored

2.25 litres sugar syrup (2 parts water to 1 part sugar, heat and dissolve sugar to make the syrup)

1 vanilla bean

juice of 1 lemon

 

Method

1. Put sugar syrup into a large enamelled cast iron casserole dish along with the quinces, vanilla bean and lemon juice

2. Cover tightly and bake at 150 degrees celsius  for at least 4 (and up to 8) hours until the quinces are a deep red colour. Do not stir.

3. Cool

 

Quince and Cinnamon Cake - From The Cook’s Companion by Stephanie Alexander

Ingredients

180g softened butter

150g caster sugar

135g plain flour

135g self raising flour

pinch of salt

2 large eggs (lightly beaten)

70ml milk

1/2 cup almond meal

poached quinces

Topping

60g butter

1/2 cup caster sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

2 large eggs

 

Method

1. To make the topping, melt the butter and stir in the sugar and cinnamon, then allow to cool a little. Whisk the eggs and stir into the cooled butter mixture

2. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy

3. Mix in flours and salt

4. Mix the eggs with the milk and add to the flour mixture. Mix to a softish dough.

5. Spoon the batter into a prepared tin (it will rise quite a bit so don’t overfill) and sprinkle the almond meal over the top

6. Arrange the quinces cut side up on top of the batter and spoon the topping over and around the quinces.

7. Bake at 180 degrees celsius for 50 mins-1 hour

8. Serve warm with cream

 

 


CATEGORIES: Cakes, Comfort Food, Winter

COMMENTS: 2 Comments »

30
Apr

Going nuts for donuts! (version 2.0)

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Who could forget the fabulous month where Daring Bakers‘ introduced us to the joys of home made donuts? I certainly couldn’t! Which is why I found myself craving the yeasty golden goodness of these treats in the chilly lead up to Easter this year. I had a few issues with the recipe from the October challenge and wanted to see if following the advice of other Daring Bakers would further improve the results of this already astounding recipe. Turns out, they do. Sorry for the anti climax.

But what could be anti climactic about risen dough? Look at this baby rise! I followed the instructions to the letter this time and resisted adding any more flour, despite the extreme wetness of the dough. Sometimes I think that there is nothing more joyous than coming back after an hour and seeing that beautiful crown of dough peeking over the rim of the bowl!

I didn’t have the luxury of using the S family kitchen with all its adult supervision and granite benchtops, not to mention tiled floors. So I was extra careful in my own kitchen (particularly after the poached pears debacle! My stove top is still recovering…). I kitted myself out with numerous bath towels to smother any small fires that may arise and was generally much more careful than I would otherwise be.

This is one well risen dough! Look at that honeycomb of air bubbles…

I patted the dough out onto my baking mat. It was still much too wet to roll out, although it had dried a little during the rising process.

I cut the dough into donut shapes using concentric circles

and banished them to their oily doom!

Muahaha!

Mmmmm… golden fried goodness

After dipping them into the sugar cinnamon mixture they came out looking perfect!

Light and tasty and just pretty damn good!

I think the long cold rise over night in the fridge gives it a greater depth of flavour

And so my second foray into donut making was a great success. But do you think I stopped at just sugar cinnamon donuts? Of course not!

So I made sugar cinnamon strawberry jam donuts!

These babies went down even better than the original recipe donuts. I’m sorry I don’t have a middle shot to show you, but the insides are filled with strawberry jam. Mmmmmmmmmmmm….

The only alteration you need to make to the recipe is to cut one round without a hole in the middle, let the donut cool and cut a slit into the side of it. Insert a piping nozzle and squeeze strawberry jam inside. Fill up as much as you want!

The recipe can be found here.

So my lovelies, what is your favourite flavour of donut? Do you like them plain, or do you go all out with jam and cream?


CATEGORIES: Comfort Food, Daring Bakers Challenges, Winter

COMMENTS: 3 Comments »

27
Dec

Daring Bakers’ Christmas Stollen Challenge (December 2010)

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The 2010 December Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Penny of Sweet Sadie’s Baking. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make Stollen. She adapted a friend’s family recipe and combined it with information from friends, techniques from Peter Reinhart’s book………and Martha Stewart’s demonstration. You can download the recipe and instructions in PDF style here.

So…. Stollen. To be honest, i’ve never given it much thought. In Australia it’s usually so hot at Christmas that you would have to be pretty hardcore to be baking Stollen so it’s not something I have ever thought about cooking before. I haven’t been much into the bread making as of late so I thought that this beautiful fruit bread would be the perfect way to get back into it!

Im not a big fan so I thought that instead of adding the mixed peel, I would add Craisins. They’re tasty and a festive red! I also substituted 70g of the raisins for 70g currants just to shake things up a bit.

I love kneading dough. I love the way it transforms beneath your hands from a sticky, lumpy mess…

To a silky smooth ball of yumminess.

I opted for a slow rise in the fridge over several days. And boy did it rise!

After bringing the dough back to room temperature, I popped it onto my nifty silicone kneading mat to roll out nice and thin. I LOVE this mat because 1. it’s huge and 2. it has measurements along the sides so I dont keep having to use a ruler. Yay!

So I rolled that sucker out nice and thin (and relatively rectangularly…)

rolled it up

and cut it into 7 4cm long pieces to put into a bundt pan. I decided that the traditionally rolled Stollen might not fit properly into my oven once it had finished its second rise. I didn’t realise that the recipe made so much!

Then I left those babies to rise again

Ok. So I may have overcooked it a touch. I wasn’t quite sure how long to leave it in the oven seeing as it wouldn’t be as dense as the original recipe. I left it in for around 35-40 mins but it probably could have come out 5-10 mins earlier. It was still super tasty sliced and buttered and it looked very pretty dusted with icing sugar.

See!

Overall, it was a thoroughly enjoyable challenge. I normally wouldn’t have baked something fruity at Christmas (i’m not a fan of traditional puddings or fruit cakes) but this forced me outside my comfort zone. I loved the finished product and found it tasty and festive. It felt like it should be snowing outside and I should be eating this toasted and buttered with a glass of mulled wine. Oh well, maybe next year I will have a European Christmas and whip out this Stollen recipe! Thank you to Penny for a fantastic challenge. I hope everyone had a wonderful and safe Christmas. Have a happy new year!!


CATEGORIES: Christmas, Daring Bakers Challenges, Winter

COMMENTS: 9 Comments »

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