Christmas Tree Meringues and the Sydney Food Bloggers Christmas Picnic

Photo credit: Simon from the heart of food

Oh yes, it's that time of year again - when shopping centres play carols that get stuck in your head for the rest of the day, and reindeer horns and red noses start appearing on cars around Sydney. It's Christmas, which means it's also time for the 2nd annual Sydney Food Bloggers Christmas Picnic!

As usual there were copious amounts of food present which were arranged on the makeshift dining table. As much as I wish I had the stomach space to try everything, I never quite get around to it all but everyone's contributions looked delicious!

Clockwise from top left: Ribs by Billy from A Table for Two; Macaron tower by Cleony from I Eat Sweet; Chocolate Christmas tree by Lisa from Lisa Perkovic; Orange, pistachio and cardamom cupcakes by Angie from Angie Lives to Eat (and Cook)!

There were more sweets than savouries as expected and even though I keep telling myself to make a savoury item for the next food blogger meet-up, I ended up making a sweet item... oops! Luckily there were savoury contributions from other people but you had to be quick otherwise you missed out (case in point: Billy's ribs - gone in 60 seconds!)

Clockwise from top left: Mini pecan pies by Rhonda from The Dainty Baker; Mini Christmas puddings by Vivian from vxdollface; Cheese bread by Tammi from Insatiable Munchies; Strawberry Santas by Ayana from Absolutely Ayana

I ended up making meringues to bring to the picnic. Midway through beating the egg whites I realised that I could Christmas-ify them up by colouring them green and putting little stars on top. And voila - Christmas Tree Meringues!

These were really easy to make, and also relatively quick although they do need to be in the oven for a while. Even though it's only egg whites and sugar beaten together, they do become strangely addictive and I may or may not have munched on a few on the way to the picnic...

A big thank you to Helen from Grab Your Fork and Suze from chocolatesuze for organising the picnic, I had an awesome day! Looking forward to the next one already :)

Apple and Cinnamon Macarons

After making some successful macarons with lemon and passionfruit fillings, I wanted to try and flavour the shells themselves. Sir D is a big cinnamon lover, and since cinnamon and apple go together like a fat kid and cake, I decided to make cinnamon flavoured macaron shells with an apple compote.

It's been a while since I made my last batch of macarons and I seemed to have lost my touch. The first batch of cinnamon macaron shells failed miserably with cracks appearing on the surface. The second batch was much better because I stood in front of my oven and watched them lke a hawk, but some of them still had a few imperfections on the surface. Seems like I need a lot more practice!

To make the cinnamon flavoured macaron shells I replaced 5g of the icing sugar from the basic macaron recipe with 5g of ground cinnamon. If you like it more or less cinnamon-y just adjust the amount of ground cinnamon you replace for icing sugar.

I was really happy with the overall flavour and that the shells actually tasted like cinnamon. Sir D thought that the combination of the apple compote and the cinnamon shell reminded him of McDonalds apple pie! And anything that reminds people of pie has to be a good thing :)

Cookie Monster Cupcakes and the Sydney Food Bloggers Spring Picnic!

Cake made by Anna from Diary of a Ladybird

As I'm sure you have all read about already, the awesome Billy from A Table for Two and Karen from Citrus and Candy organised a picnic for the Sydney Food Blogger community a few weeks ago. There was a great turn-out, with lots of new faces as well as familiar ones, and of course there were mountains of tasty food which spanned across at least 3 picnic rugs!

We were all encouraged to bring a plate to share, and to put some effort into it as well since there were some great prizes up for grabs, including restaurant vouchers and a brand spanking new KitchenAid which was won by Anita from No Red Meat. Congrats Anita!

It was the weekend before my thesis was due so I decided to whip up something easy like cupcakes. Since Nuffnang was sponsoring the picnic one of the categories included a prize for the best blue dish. Whilst trawling the internet for some cupcake decorating ideas I came across this Cookie Monster cupcake which I thought was an awesome idea and I set out to replicate it.

It seems great minds think alike, since there were two other offerings of Cookie Monster cupcakes at the picnic (one of which was made by Sook from Nommy Nom Nom). Even though we all had the same basic idea, all the cupcakes were slightly different. I decorated mine with dessicated coconut which had been dyed blue to give it a 'furry' effect and piped dark chocolate for the eyes instead of using choc chips.

My favourite part of the cupcake though is the cookie that is shoved in Cookie Monster's mouth! If you're going to make these it's probably best to insert the cookie on the day you're going to serve them to avoid the cookies going stale as mine did. I was getting worried at the amount of blue food colouring that was going into the whole product so I skimped a bit on colouring the coconut (you can see some white flecks where the coconut didn't manage to be dyed blue), but feel free to go crazy on the blue food colouring if you want a really vivid, intense blue colour.

Strawberry Tarts

Just a quick post today. My poor blog has been neglected lately but with good reason - I'm in the process of writing my honours thesis which is due in exactly 3 weeks! What with all the statistics analysis and writing everything up for my supervisor, it's been a hectic two weeks and I can only imagine it wil only get worse until October 13th when it will all be over. Luckily thanks to a few people I have plenty of fun things lined up for after I finish which gives me something to look forward to while I'm staring at a screen full of words for hours on end.

Sometimes when life gets crazy busy it makes me appreciate the simple things in life, like this strawberry tart. There's no fancy brulee and no fancy decorating. It's just pastry, creme patissiere and strawberries, with a light dusting of icing sugar. No more, no less. 

And while it may not have the delicacy of a macaron, or the richness of a chocolate brownie, it tastes just as good, if not better. I can say with certainty that it tastes a thousand times better than thesis-writing.

Tarte Aux Pralines: A Lyonnaise Specialty

I was super jealous when I found out that my sister was going to France on exchange for 6 weeks. I was even more jealous when I found out that not only was she going to Paris but also to the French capital of gastronomy, Lyon. Thankfully she was kind and after tantalising me for 6 weeks via email about eating foie gras and macarons and quenelles (which Lyon is famous for), she brought home some foodie gifts including a book on macarons, a kilogram of chocolates from Lyon and these strange pink, rock-like things called pralines.

I asked Charm what it was and she said it was pretty much ground nuts and sugar. Why it was pink I'm not sure, but these little pink rocks form the basis of the filling of another specialty food of Lyon, the tarte aux pralines. Although my sister helped her host family make one during her stay in Lyon, she had forgotten how to make it so I stumbled through the French instructions attached to the packet with my year 10-standard knowledge of the French language.

It ended up being simple enough though - I just had to make my sweet shortcrust pastry, dissolve the pralines in some cream and pour it into the baked pastry and let it set in the fridge. When I added the pralines to the cream and it started dissolving it turned a bright red colour and here is the finished result:

It was rather lurid and to be honest the striking red colour was a bit off-putting at first. But I cut myself a slice and tasted it.

It was sticky and sweet with some crunchiness from the nuts and a subtle almond flavour as well. As much as I liked it, the sugary-ness meant that a small slice was enough for me, but Charm really enjoyed it and she ended up finishing it off in the next few days. I'm hoping that means it's a sign that my version of this special dessert from Lyon was close to the real thing!

Bourke Street Bakery's Strawberry Vanilla Brûlée Tart

There's always one thing that I absolutely HAVE to get every time I go to Bourke Street Bakery, and that's a strawberry vanilla brûlée tart. I went to Bourke Street Bakery a few weeks ago late in the afternoon and I was so disappointed that they had sold out of them that I went back the next week just to satisfy my craving. And oh it was so good, the crispy, buttery pastry with the creamy custard filling and of course, that crunchy, slightly bitter toffee on the top.

Sadly Bourke Street Bakery is quite far from me and so I thought I'd try making these yummy tarts at home using the recipe from the Bourke Street Bakery cookbook. It was surprisingly straightforward and to me the worst part was having to wait for the pastry to relax because I just wanted to bake them, blowtorch the hell out of the sugar on the top and devour them all!

Ok, so I admit I was still impatient and I didn't go through all the resting periods for the pastry which is why it shrank in the oven. But apart from having slightly shallower tart shells, the pastry was still as flaky and crisp as I remember it to be from the actual shop. I was also a bit ambitious with the amount of strawberry puree at first so when I put the custard into the tart shells it started to displace the strawberry puree that was in there - that's why there's not much strawberry in the photo unfortunately.

I've provided the original recipe below but since I only had 6 small tart tins that weren't quite the same size as specified, I just adjusted the measurements for my requirements. I found that even after doing that I still had some leftover strawberry puree but you can always use this as a topping for ice cream or another dessert. Or just do what Sir D did and drink the leftovers!

Lemon and Passionfruit Macarons

Oh macarons. You are such tasty creatures but so fickle when it comes to creating you! I've had intentions of tackling macarons for a long time, but it wasn't until recently that I mustered up the courage and found the time to attempt them. My sister even bought me a macaron set from France which included a little book on macarons published by Larousse and a piping bag, which I took as a sign that I should hurry up and make them already!

Passionfruit macarons

So I started off the long road to making perfect macarons and began by asking people on twitter for macaron tips. And I got replies from seasoned macaron makers who told me to make sure I don't overmix my batter, not to overbeat my egg whites and to be prepared for failures.

Passionfruit Butter

Have you ever hung around someone who likes a food that you don't particularly like, and somehow over time you gradually get converted and end up a big fan of the food? This is what happened to me and passionfruit. I never hated the stuff, but I just didn't particularly enjoy eating it, especially the crunchy seeds.

But Sir D loved passionfruit and he absolutely couldn't get enough of the stuff. He'd buy it when it was cheap at the supermarket and we'd end up getting passionfruit gelato whenever we went to eat ice cream. And he converted me - I don't know how it happened but I've developed a love for passionfruit, and now I'm the one who insists on getting passionfruit gelato when we go out.

I first came across passionfruit butter at my school's Garden Party (read: posh term for school fete) where they sold it at the Jams and Preserves stall. I bought a jar home for Sir D and while we spread the liquid gold dotted with black seeds on toast and savoured the sweet passionfruit flavour, I thought, why can't I make this myself?

So I did. The next time I saw passionfruit on special at the grocery store I grabbed six of them and set about making my own passionfruit butter. I was surprised at how easy and simple it was to make and wondered about all the things I could use it in. You could smother some between cakes, put it in tart cases or sandwich it between macaron shells (yes that's macaron, not macarOOn!).

But my favourite way of eating it is just spread simply on a slice of toast for breakfast in the morning. Mmmm yes, tastes like sunshine.

Bourke Street Bakery Carrot Cake

The other day, I received a random facebook message from Rachel, another food-loving friend of mine. This came across as a bit strange since we haven't spoken for a while. "I love Bourke Street Bakery!" it read, "and their pork and fennel sausage roll is AMAZING!"

I completely understood her need to extol the virtues of Bourke Street Bakery - the first time I tasted their strawberry vanilla brulee tart I was telling anyone who would listen how awesome their stuff was. I was so sad when their store in Broadway closed because I used to visit their frequently for post-uni pastries and other carb-laden goodies.

When I came across this fluffy looking carrot cake on Almost Bourdain and saw that it was a Bourke Street Bakery recipe, I had to make it just to get another taste of that BSB awesomeness. And it didn't disappoint - it was a light and moist cake with bags of flavour and of course it just gets better with lashings of cream cheese frosting and candied walnuts. This may just be the best carrot cake ever.

Lime Soufflés

I always like to finish off my meals on a sweet note. It just doesn't feel right sometimes to eat all that savoury food for dinner and not enjoy dessert at the end to balance it all out. But I hate when I've eaten way too much food and then out comes this rich, cloying dessert which I struggle to finish - not because it doesn't taste awesome but because even my reserve dessert stomach is reaching its limits. Sad, but true.

That's why this lime soufflé is so great - the tartness of the lime means it's not sickeningly sweet and the light, marshmallow texture of the soufflé almost makes you think you're eating lime flavoured clouds which melt away in your mouth. Better still, it's the dessert which I can eat heaps of without feeling like I'm going to explode afterwards.

The great thing about this recipe is that you can pretty much use whatever fruit you have on hand, just adjust the amount of sugar according to how sweet the fruit is. My favourite part of making soufflé though is taking them out of the oven to see them standing tall and proud above the edge of the ramekin and the lovely golden brown tops. And then eating them afterwards!

Apple Cinnamon Tea Cake

Dad: "Bake me a cake for afternoon tea!"

This is what happens when people start realising that you can bake half-decent cakes. You get requests for healthy birthday cakes and spontaneous afternoon teas.

My dad requested I make him a cake for afternoon tea one day after my parents had come back from shopping and were unsuccessful at purchasing any afternoon tea-worthy from the shops. I happily obliged - any excuse to get out of doing uni work to bake! I noticed that we had a lot of apples in our fruitbowl so I decided to make an apple cinnamon tea cake.

This cake has a slight spicyness from the cinnamon and an almost crunchy crust. But the inside of the cake is lovely and moist with surprise slices of caramelised apple hidden away at the bottom of the cake.

I cut myself a warming and comforting slice when it was still fresh out of the oven and it was perfect for the chilly weather we've been having in Sydney recently. Serve thick slices of warm cake with a cup of tea, and you have one content Dad :)

Easter Eatings - Hot Cross Buns and Fairtrade Chocolate

Happy Easter everyone! It just isn't quite Easter without some hot cross buns and this year I decided to bake some for my family instead of buying them.

To be honest, I've never been a big fan of hot cross buns but my parents seem to love them so I baked some for them. But I do know that I love freshly baked bread so eating these buns still hot from the oven and slathered with melted butter made them taste much better :)

And just in time for Easter, I received a block of Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate from the lovely people at The Online Circle.

The great thing about Cadbury Dairy Milk is that it now uses Fairtrade products which means that the cocoa farmers get a fair price for their products as well as extra money to invest in social, economic and environmental development in their own communities. Yet another reason to indulge in some chocolate this Easter!