Smug carrot cake

I call this my smug carrot cake because I made the cream cheese icing myself with my Mad Millie kit!  This is another Ray McVinnie instant classic, I made it today and everyone went nuts for it.  Carrot cake can be quite ordinary, but this version transforms carrot cake into something other-worldly!  Ray's version is gluten free.  Mine is gluten.  I'll note my other changes too.

Ray McVinnie's Carrot Cake (Sunday Star-Times, 10 April 2011)

3/4 cup rice flour
1/4 cup corn flour  (I replaced these first two with a cup of flour)
1/2 cup ground almonds
1/1/2 cups caster sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda (measure really carefully, you don't want that soapy taste from using too much)
3/4 tsp baking powder
1 TBSP ground cinammon (I only had half a TBSP left so made it up with mixed spice)
1 TBSP ground ginger
1 cup walnut pieces (use really good quality walnuts.  I only had 3/4 cup so I added half a cup of sultanas)
3/4 cup dessicated coconut (I only had the long stuff)
3/4 cup grapeseed or vege oil
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups grated carrot
3/4 cup crushed pineapple, well drained.

Preheat the oven to 180C.  Butter a 23cm-diametre loose bottomed cake tin and line with paper (I decided to use a 20cm tin and make some cupcakes at the same time).
Place the dry ingrediants in a bowl and mix well.  Add all the rest and mix well. Pour into the tin and place in the oven for 45-50mins until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.  Remove from the oven and cool completely.
When cool, remove from tin and cut in half so that you have two layers.   Spread half of the icing between the two layers, then put the rest on the top.

Icing:

3.5cups icing sugar
100g softened butter (I used my freshly made cream cheese)
zest and juice of 2 lemons (I used 3 - I like it runnier)

Mix until smooth.

Ray McVinnie is awesome.

Ray is my fav.  Every now and then one of his recipes leaps out, grabs me and demands that I make it.  In this week's Sunday Star-Times he published a recipe called Torta Di Mele (Apple Cake).  He describes it as '...simply a batter holding together sliced apples.'  What a gift this man has - I consider him a fantastic writer, as well as an inspired cook.  The research into different cuisines, as well as the techniques he use mean that his recipes are lovely to read, and often a real joy to cook.

I made this within four hours of reading the recipe!  It is delicious, and would be awesome with cream or yoghurt.  It was just as nice the next day, and the fennel makes it really interesting.  A classic for a cold Sunday afternoon or evening.

Torta Di Mele - Apple Cake  (Ray McVinnie, Sunday Star-Times 10 April 2011)

100g butter
100g caster sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
3 eggs (I used size 7)
1tsp vanilla extract
zest of 1 lemon
2 tsp fennel seeds
100g flour
1 tsp baking powder
4 apples, peeled, cored, thinly sliced (I used granny smith)

Preheat the oven to 180C.  Butter and paper the bottom and sides of a 23cm diametre loose bottomed cake tin.  Beat the butter and sugar until pale and creamy.  Beat in the eggs one at a time.   Stir in the vanilla, zest, fennel, flour and baking powder, then stir in the apple slices.  Allow to sit for ten minutes, then sprinkle well with sugar, place in the oven and bake for 45-50 mins until very well cooked.  Remove from the oven and serve in wedges warm or cold.  It is best to slightly overcook the cake as the juice from the apples will make it wet when cold.

Cream cheese and Mad Millie

While down south for Christmas I brought a  Mad Milliebrand cheese making kit from a Bin Inn.  I'd had a couple of goes at making marscapone (actually very easy) and wanted to have a go at making mozarella.  I made the most delicious, rich ricotta from the kit and so was naturally keen to have a go at making a couple more.

A friend directed me to their first ever stall at the Frank Kitts Park Saturday market and the idea of a 10% discount was enough to wander down to get another kit.  I purchased the fresh cheese kit, which can make haloumi, cream cheese, feta, quark and cottage cheese.  And it comes with spores!!!

So I'm having a go at making cream cheese right now - two litres of silver top milk, spores and a small amount of rennet dissolved in water.  Now I just leave it for 24hrs.  Honestly, the actual cheese preparation took half the time of sterilising everything first.

Lets see how it works....

ETA:

When I woke up this morning the spores and rennet had done their work!  The bowl of milk was now solid, four hours later you can see whey forming as it firms up.  Tonight I will remove and hang overnight!  Yum!

Further ETA: The cheese is now draining.  I got a bit bored while waiting for it so made some marscapone at the same time (I found ladyfingers on special at the Mediterranean Food Warehouse so Tiramisu is in my future).

Baby advice.

I've started a new job as a Plunket Educator. It is for the Plunket 'Education In Schools' programme.  It is a six week course taught in schools with an emphasis on safety.  For me it is basically like listening to a Plunket Nurse tell you what to do constantly - the messages are the same as I get for my girls, and the reactions of the students when you give them the 'E: True Hollywood Story of Parenting' is just hilarious.

So I was particularly pleased when my Mum sent me my Plunket Book.  It has a white and blue cover and is falling to bits.  I was 3.12kg and 3.3kg when first seen by Plunket at 2.5 weeks.

There is a suggested routine at the front of the book, which is about as laughable as any other timetable oriented routine I've seen for babies.  It does include sun bathing time(!) and lots of outside sleeping time.  It allows thirty minutes relaxation and recreation time for the mother in the evening, so perhaps I should consider it!

What I find really interesting is the six important headings that the book includes:  they are very close to the eight needs of children that I teach in my course.

Six 'headings'

1. Love
2. Food
3. Cleanliness
4. Rest
5. Clothing
6. Exercise (fresh air and play)

Eight 'basic needs'

1. Love and Security
2. Food
3. Hygiene
4. Rest and Sleep
5. Clothing
6. Development (physical and mental)
7. Shelter
8. Learning

There is not a single mention of breastfeeding in the old book (I was formula feed), but a formula fed baby today will still have approximatly 10,000 mentions of breastfeeding in their Plunket book.  There is a definite emphasis on 'motions.'  The standard headings for each visit are:

• Date
• Age
• Weight
• Nurse's Comments and Advice
• Motions.

My formula feeds were being watered down at night from five weeks, I guess as part of a plan to get me sleeping through the night.  I was on solids from nine weeks (the norm these days is from six months).  In the seven weeks old entry there is a mysterious recipe for baking soda in cooled boiled water.  It doesn't mention what it is for.

There is an emphasis on iron rich foods that is familiar to today's parent.  Meat juice is suggested, and egg yolks every other day.  Sieved meat pulp (made from liver or kidney) was one handwritten recipe and there was a suggestion of fruit juice in the afternoon (at seven and a half months old).  Plunket nurses today would cringe at the fruit juice recommendation!

Anyone else have their old Plunket Book?

Rose hip jam.

I mentioned in a previous post that I really wanted to make rose hip jam and had started collecting the rosehips.  The rosehips outside my lounge window have been enticing me for a few days so I put the baby in the high chair with some toast, pulled her right up to the window (separation anxiety) and clipped away.  I cut about two cups worth before I got bored/ realised that effort involving the step ladder would be required.  Later I pulled out the little stems and any leaves and put them in a pot with some water to boil.

Rose hip syrup is a traditional baby tonic - rosehips are full of vitamins and iron so teaspoon fulls were often given to children as a pick me up.  I don't know if the jam has any particular health benefit, or could given the amount of sugar in it, but I think that if I can be bothered picking more rosehips then I'll try this next.

Many of the recipes that I looked up recommended cutting the hips in half and removing the seeds.  This seemed ridiculous, and way too full off effort for me.  I found a local NZ food writer who pointed out the futility of this step (rose hips are small, cutting them in half is hard but then removing the 'seeds,' honestly).

I refilled the pot while simmering a few times then left to infuse overnight.  All the recipes that I read recommended really squishing the pulp to get out all the juice.  This is at odds with most jam recipes, but I decided to go for it.  I lined a sieve with a couple of muslins and left to drain for a couple of hours.  Occasionally I would mix round the pulp and really push it through.  Finally I had about two cups of liquid (I knew I should have picked more rosehips).  I boiled up with an equal amount of jam sugar, a squeeze of lemon and about a TBSP of pectin (this particular bag of 'jam sugar' has not worked well for me).  It probably took about ten minutes of hard boiling to reach the appropriate stage.  Voila, one jar of rust orange jam, the colour of autumn.

The smell and taste are awesome.  I recommended crumpets.

Biting. Mothers: you know where.

I'm mostly pretty pleased that my baby has never had a bottle of formula.  Breastfeeding is hard work, the health benefits for Mum and Baby are well established and it can take a lot of effort on the part of the breastfeeding mother to go without sleep and never being more than four hours away from their baby.  It wasn't easy the first time round, so I'm really pleased it is going well with my daughter.

So I mostly just quietly grumble about the restrictions because I know that the benefits make the effort worthwhile. 

But I don't like being bitten.

It is the worst, most shocking sensation.  Breastfeeding can be quite tranquil, and last night's dreamfeed proceeded in the usual way:  me idly reading a book, my daughter drinking in her sleep.  Until she finished.  And she bit me.  It took everything not to scream and wake her up.  This was not the first bite - there have been a number over the last few days.  I've done the typical 'say No' firmly thing.

But I do think if anything could make me quit it would be biting.  It is so horrid.

When you need to show off/ Chocolate Passionfruit linzertorte

So we have grown up friends coming over tonight who are visiting from Australia.  We need grown up delicious food, but Tuesdays are quite busy for us.  My husband volunteered to cook the main (yay) so I decided to make a dessert.


Our friends are expecting their first baby so I needed to be mindful of pregnancy food requirements as well. Linzertorte was on my mind as a friend had brought by the most delicious chocolate and raspberry linzertorte from Arobakerei.  A bit of googling and frank assessment of the ingredients I had to hand and this is the recipe I came up, combined from about four different ones.  I really like ingredients that require three and a half hours cooling time immediately before serving!

Chocolate passionfruit linzertorte.

Ingredients

1 cup ground almonds
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Pinch of salt
150grams butter
2/3 cup icing sugar
1 large egg yolk
1 1/4 cups plain flour

1/4 cup really nice cocoa 
3 passion fruit

150 grams dark chocolate (I used 62%)  

Method:

PREHEAT oven to 180C.

Mix ground almonds, cinnamon, flour and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, sugar and egg yolk in medium mixer bowl.  You want a mixture that will hold together and form a dough. Put 2/3 of the mixture in a nine inch tart tin, making sure it goes up the sides and is pretty even.

Melt chocolate in uncovered, microwave-safe bowl on HIGH (100%) power for 1 minute; STIR. If necessary, microwave at additional 10- to 15-second intervals stirring just until chocolate is melted. Open up the passion fruit and mix passion fruit juice and seeds in with the chocolate.  Spread over base of tart.

With the remaining dough I crumbled it up and sprinkled it casually around the edge, given it a kind of rustic look (rustic is my word for not being bothered rolling it out and creating lattice work pastry).

Bake for 35-45 minutes (watch the crust to make sure it isn't burning) . Cool completely in pan on wire rack.  Refrigerate for at least 3 1/2 hours or until well chilled. Remove side of tart pan and place on serving platter before serving.  If I feel fancy I may make some marscapone and serve it on the side, otherwise I will pop down to the diary and get some cream.  I reckon a sprinkling of raspberries or blueberries would be nice with this too!

Variant:  Most of the recipes I read called for 'seedless raspberry jam' as the fruit flavouring.  A cup of any berry or plum jam would also be nice.  I also felt like a chocolate tart, but most recipes I found called for plain crusts.  Just substitute the cocoa in my recipe for flour if you want a plain one.