A Mocha Bar Variation

Yesterday, Celia from Fig Jam and Lime Cordial posted a recipe for Mocha Bars. These little pieces of heaven are what I would call a brownie-biscotti hybrid. The shape and crisp outer gives the illusion of biscotti, but the decadent, soft interior reminds me of a good brownie. Needless to say, the recipe was so inviting I gave it a go as soon as I'd read it. Here's my adapted recipe, utilising ingredients I had on hand.

• 125g (½ cup) unsalted butter
• 55g (½ cup) raw (natural) cocoa powder
• 3 large eggs
• 150g (¾ cup) raw sugar
• 100g (½ cup) soft brown sugar
• 20ml (4 teaspoons) vanilla extract
• 40ml (8 teaspoons) strongly brewed black instant coffee
• 375g (2½ cups) plain flour
• 1½ teaspoons baking powder, sifted
• pinch of salt
• 180g milk chocolate chips (I used Callebaut 34%)
• 180g dark chocolate chips (I used Callebaut 54%)
• 100g slivered almonds

The original recipe called for Tia Maria, but I didn't have any, nor a desire to buy any so I used coffee. I really could have percolated some but I was lazy so went with instant. I also replaced some of the chocolate chips for almonds, so remove a little of the guilt.

I followed Celia's baking procedure, and the one log that I baked barely cooled before being devoured. Thank goodness I froze the other 3!

Tangerine Custard Cake

"Hey remember that month when I only ate boxes of tangerines. So cheap and juicy!" - Regina Spektor

Good friends of ours, Craig and Kristen, have a very fruitful tangerine tree in their back yard. Their recent harvest saw in excess of 300 edible fruit, about 30 of which made it to my kitchen on the weekend. So what do you do when life throws you tangerines? Drink copious amounts of tangerine juice to ward of the winter cold demons, and then make a Tangerine Custard Cake.

I adapted this recipe from the Orange Custard Cake recipe in my ever-faithful Golden Circle copy of Cooking: a common sense guide. I used my food processor because....well why not? The original recipe called for more traditional techniques like rubbing butter into flour with fingertips, but with my barely-used new food processor sitting there staring at me, I had to give it a go.Here's the recipe as I made it this morning.

2 cups (250g) self-raising flour
1/3 cup (40g) custard powder
80g butter, chopped
1 cup (255g) caster sugar
3 eggs
2 tsp finely grated tangerine rind
1 cup (250ml) tangerine juice

Cream Cheese Icing
125g cream cheese, softened
3 tbsp icing sugar
2 tbsp tangerine juice

1. Preheat fan forced oven to 180C. Line a cake tin with baking paper (I used a 20cm x 20cm square tin but if I owned a bundt tin I definitely would have used that.
2. Sift flour and custard powder into the large bucket of a food processor. Add chopped butter and process until the mixture resembles fine bread crumbs.
3. Add the eggs, tangerine juice and rind and process on low speed until smooth.
4. Pour/scrape batter into cake tin and bake for 35 mins or until a skewer comes out just clean (keep an eye on it in the last 10 minutes to avoid over-cooking).
5. When the cake is completely cook, mix together the cream cheese, icing sugar and 2 tbsp of tangerine juice. The quantities may be a bit out, I just kept adding a bit more icing sugar and a bit more juice until I liked the taste. Spread icing over the top of the cake.

The tangerine juice makes this cake lovely and moist (providing you don't over-cook it), and the custard powder seems to give it a silky texture. 

If anyone has any tried and tested tangerine recipes, please pass them on. Now that I'm starting to feel a little more human as I bid the first trimester farewell, my appetite is encompassing things other than hot chips and Ribena. Hopefully my kitchen will start getting a bit more love and attention, and my family a more interesting range of dishes.

In the Garden - July 2012

While we were off galavanting the country, our garden took a bit of neglect. We had people caring for the animals, and picking any produce that was ready while we were away but we had our reticulation turned off so relied solely on rainfall to water the garden. Perth experienced some crazy storms in June which provided a lot of water, but also destroyed one of our Eucalypts (and at the same time sent out trampoline for a visit over the neighbours' fence). Here is what remains of the tree.

There were some pleasant surprises in the garden on our return too. The chicken run is about half covered by a passionfruit vine which we only planted late last year. The vine has grown prolifically and is now sporting quite a number of fruit. These passionfruit don't go purple, rather turn a yellow colour and have almost orange pulp. We tasted the first ripe one today.

Loretta (the lemon tree) has also come up with the goods this year, after around seven years of dormancy. She gave us one lemon last year, her first fruit, and we were pleasantly surprised to return home and find she has five fruit growing.

Larry (the patio lime) is also oozing with life this season. He is sprouting blossom everywhere so hopefully he'll be a very healthy litte tree and might even bear some fruit.

Given none of the chickens are laying at the moment (I suspect two of the four cochins are roosters), I've given them another important job - preparing the rear vege garden for sowing. They're doing a great job of weeding, turning and fertilising.

 The front vege garden is also coming along nicely. We edged it with old railway sleepers and Hubby has just finished the reticulation for it, adding a zone to our bore retic just for the vege gardens (which were previously watered manually via mains water). Once the chickens have done their job, I can start planting!

As one of my favourite Australian bands, The Waifs, say: "everytime you water the garden, you also water the weeds". Here is one of those weeds that is just too pretty not to photograph. I think I snapped this shot about half a second before Chicky plucked it from its stem, sending seeds everywhere. What can you do?

I have to say I was very pleased with the garden after 10 weeks of neglect. Nature never ceases to surprise. I'd love to hear what's going on in your garden this Winter (or Summer, if you're on the warmer half of the planet right now).

The rebirth...

So I thought I owed everyone a bit of an explanation about going MIA lately. While the gypsy getaway did get busy and exciting and lacking in internet access for the most part, something else happened on the trip that stripped me of all ability and desire to grow, bake, run, blog and well anything for that matter. I fell pregnant with number 3. Normally this wouldn't be too much of an issue, other than a little morning sickness, but the Northern Territory decided to bless me with a little stomach bug at the same time which has knocked me around for over 6 weeks now. 

While the trip was great, and I'll write a bit of a recap soon, I am very glad to be home. At 12 weeks now, I'm hoping the second trimester will bring me some much needed energy and an appetite, for baking, eating and blogging. There is a lot going on in our garden at the moment after 3 months of neglect, which I've snapped a few pictures of so will write a garden update in the next few days, and tomorrow is Chicky's 4th birthday (where has the time gone?) so I will be required to make a cake with some hideously coloured icing.

So we're back from our fantastic adventure, and the blog should be experiencing a rebirth soon, once I can stay awake past 8pm :) Thanks for hanging around!

In My Kitchen - June 2012

Wow, it's been a long time. The Kimberly consumed my energy and attention, and deprived me of electricity, phone reception and internet access. Right now we're in Nhulunbuy, NT, staying with friends, so I have some time to show you what I have in my kitchen.

Before leaving Perth I saw a photo of someone making use of a tiny apartment with a mobile herb garden. I didn't really have the time to set up anything complex, but when I saw these cute containers in Bunnings I thought they would be perfect. It's basically a little tub with some compressed soil, a packet of seeds and a plastic lid. You add water to the soil to make it expand, sew your seeds and cover with a lid until seedlings emerge. The clear plastic lid makes it like a little green house. Once the seedlings are established you can remove the lid. 

The basil is much bigger now than when I took this picture, and it's almost at the point of picking. Dried herbs have served me well on the trip up to now, but soon I'll be able to make use of these fresh ones. The chives have a little way to go but they are growing well too.

In my kitchen is a small set of electric scales. These are identical in design to the ones I have at home and cost me $6 on clearance because apparently no one wanted to buy the random patterned version. I have to admit I haven't been using them as religiously as I would at home. Camping for the last 7 weeks has brought out the less precise and more ad hoc cook in me.

To do the camper trailer justice, I thought I should show case the most valued aspect of the kitchen: the electric water pump and tap. Mk 1 of the  kitchen had a manual pump tap, and after a weekend trip of pumping water by hand, at approximately my shoulder height, it was time for plan B. We carry up to 120L of water in the tanks, and all this I can access with a handy tap. Running water is great! It's just like being at home.

I've recently acquired a camp oven, the type you put in a camp fire. I've already made casserole, muesli bars, damper and a cake in there but I'm still perfecting the art. I'll be sure to snap a picture for next month's In My Kitchen post. Take a look at Celia's blog over at Fig Jam and Lime Cordial to see what's happening in some other kitchens this month.

Chocolate Beetroot Cupcakes

I've heard about putting beetroot in chocolate cake, but never quite understood how or why you would. A couple of days ago I made cupcakes which may just change the way I make chocolate cupcakes henceforth.

With limited internet access on this trip, I'm becoming quite intimate with the May Issue of Recipes+ which I bought before leaving home. This issue has a recipe for Chocolate Beetroot Cake with Fudge Frosting. The recipe calls for fresh, boiled beetroot. I'm in the Pilbara, and the supermarkets I find myself relying on up here are lucky to have two different types of fresh fruit, let alone fresh beetroot so I went for the canned variety. I also substituted white self-raising flour with wholemeal because using white flour in anything makes me squeamish these days. I really have become a health conscious hippy. If I wasn't saving my last little bit of wholemeal spelt four for another batch of Breakfast Muffins, I might have even used that. Other than those two amendments, I kept the ingredient list the same as the original. The method however, I completely made up. Without an electric mixer I had to ad lib, so here is my method.

450g tin whole baby beets, drained and grated
150g butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs at room temp (or at 35C as the case was)
1 3/4 cups wholemeal SR flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder, sifted
1/3 cup milk
100g dark chocolate, chopped

1. Preheat oven to 180C (160C fan forced) and line a 12 hole muffin tray with paper cases, plus a 12 hole mini muffin tray (this mix makes a lot of cupcakes).
2. Melt butter and chocolate in small saucepan.
3. Combine sugar, flour and cocoa in a large bowl.
4. Add milk, melted butter mixture and beetroot and mix as hard as your arm allows with a wooden spoon until combined. The batter will be fairly thick, something like a brownie batter.
5. Spoon into paper cases and bake for 20-25 mins or until they spring back lightly when touched.

Fudge Icing
3 cups icing sugar
2 tbsp cocoa powder
100g butter
80g dark chocolate
1/3 cup milk

1. Sift sugar and cocoa into a medium bowl.
2. Put butter, chocolate and milk in a small saucepan and heat gently until melted and combined.
3. Stir chocolate mixture into dry ingredients until smooth. I used a whisk to eliminate any clumping of my not-very-well-sifted icing sugar.
4. Refrigerate for half an hour or so to set a little.
5. Spread on cupcakes.

These cupcakes were so moist you could eat them without the frosting, but this frosting really is very tasty. They have a beautiful deep red/brown colour due to the beetroot and the wholemeal flour (and probably the lack of electric mixing) adds a texture that I really enjoyed. This recipe made so many that we shared some with the family camping next to us that night and they loved them too. Definitely a recipe I will make again.

Impromptu Crabs

Being on holiday makes me forget which day it is. It's only really important if I need to visit the post office and it's a Sunday, but even then it isn't REALLY important. One day last week, I'm not sure which, we camped on the beach at a place called Herald Bight, north-east of Denham. People often refer to this area as Shark Bay as it is within the Shark Bay Heritage Area. It's a beautiful part of Western Australia, and if there's any opportunity for a simple camp on the beach, I'm there.

I was just making a start on dinner, and hubby and the girls were combing the beach when they noticed a lot of crabs in the shallows. We aren't carrying any crab scoops with us, but hubby thought he'd try his luck with a pair of leather gloves. I laughed, thinking there was no way he could catch adult Blue Swimmer Crabs with his hands, but no more than 5 minutes and 10 crabs later, he was the one having the last laugh. Well we all were actually, I stopped what I was making and threw a salad together. We were having crabs!

Just in case that wasn't enough of a surprise, a film crew from 4WD Touring who happened to be camping up the beach from us saw the crab-catching and came over for a chat. They interviewed hubby about the trip and the trailer, and then took some footage of him catching the crabs with his (almost) bare hands, with Chicky on his back in the ERGO (a child carrier). It was all a bit surreal.

We boiled some salted water in a big pot, put the crabs in and let the water boil again, then pulled them out after 3 minutes on the boil. They were amazing. There really is nothing like freshly caught seafood.