a few sweet treats for afternoon tea; preserved plum + preserved lemon, pistachio nougat and sweet rice crackers. the plum was to die for. will most definitely be popping back in for more.
all courtesy of the immigration museum, of all places!
(and yes; i’ve been to this exhibition already ;) )
how cute is this cookbook??
more of a brochure, really, it’s from the ‘sweets: tastes and traditions from many cultures’ exhibit on at the immigration museum here in melbourne. i popped in yesterday; i was there to see the ‘on their own’ exhibit for uni (terribly moving; i don’t think i was the only one who had to take a breather). it’s a tiny, tiny exhibit showing equipment and sweet treats from five different communities in victoria – indian, italian, japanese, mauritian and turkish – but it was so vibrant and full of people reading cookbooks and chatting and laughing. super fun :)
needless to say i am now determined to make all five of the recipes shown above.
who wants to come over for mauritian polenta pudding? yum yum yum
i have recently developed an obsession for market lane coffee at the vic market.
i don’t visit the market anywhere near as often as i should – the food selection is truly exceptional – mostly due to a reluctance to catch a tram on the weekends (some may call it laziness; each to their own). but since discovering market lane’s drip coffee (served in samantha robinson cups, no less) things have changed and i have found myself there much more frequently.
the coffee is that good.
i realise that this post probably seems as if it has been sponsored by tourism victoria (melbourne! victoria market! trams! coffee!), but really: it was just an excuse to show you these beautiful pictures…
i could kill for this.
i know what you’re thinking.
these look delicious, right?
freshly baked muffins, still cooling down, ready to be scoffed.
W R O N G.
allow me to present the greatest cooking disaster of 2012 (i hope): the hi-fibre muffins.
this recipe came from a book which will not be named that i was given when i first turned vegetarian as a teenager. okay, so it was the 90s, and cool vegetarian cookbooks didn’t yet exist; most recipes seemed to be for some kind of ‘patty’ or ‘pasty’ and relied on copious amounts of cheese for flavour. thank god things have changed.
anyway, this book which will not be named was slightly more ‘out-there’ than most and included this muffin recipe with notes along the line of ‘we guarantee no-one will ever be able to guess the secret ingredient of these delicious treats!’.
well, cookbook which will not be named: i would change that description to something more akin to ‘we guarantee no-one will ever be able to get the taste out of their mouth, and NOT IN A GOOD WAY’.
for, dear readers, the secret ingredient is baked beans.
okay: i understand that many, perhaps most of you would have skipped straight past this recipe, perhaps with a chortle, perhaps with a strange feeling of nausea in the pit of your stomach.
i wish i had been so wise.
because despite the two cups of sugar, the soaked currants, the vanilla bean and the cinnamon (and i didn’t exactly go easy on the cinnamon), despite all these strong, ‘heroic’ flavours (to adopt a very ‘masterchef’ term), these muffins just TASTE LIKE BAKED BEANS.
the slightly sour, tinny taste of baked beans. minus any kind of nice beany texture as they were beaten into a liquidy pulp before mixing the currants in.
shudder.
as i write this, i realise how foolish i was to think that this recipe would be a success. part of me is in shock; the other part in pain. and i only ate one.
but, readers; the recipe said that you couldn’t taste the beans! i thought it might be like a chocolate and zucchini cake: who can taste the zucchini in a chocolate and zucchini cake?! no-one! and have you ever tried cakes that have red lentils in them? delicious! and not to mention carrot cake. who doesn’t like carrot cake?! no-one!
who likes eating sweet muffins with a vaguely metallic tomato sauce aftertaste?
NO-ONE.
on sunday, despite the plus 30c temperature, i baked.
these are (some) of my christmas treats made so far;
cranberry and pistachio biscotti from the latest donna hay magazine
shortbread from an old cookbook that belonged to my nanna (though of course no shortbread is as good as my nanna’s!)
toasted pine nut and almond toffee (which is jaw-breakingly moreish) from this bargainous book
and rosemary and thyme roasted almonds (adapted from here).
not seen:
these gingersnaps (the dough for which is maturing in the fridge)
a solid chocolate christmas tree (that still needs to be stuck together and decorated)
these snowballs (which i’ll make a little closer to chistmas)
these caramels (forgot to get cream so will make them tomorrow)
and this magic sauce (because even i need to eat something other than sweets all the time, and because it truly is delicious).
meanwhile, i have no idea what i’m going to have for dinner (and no inclination to cook anything). might be reaching for a tin of baked beans tonight, methinks…
last night i went out for korean barbeque which was super, super delicious (and super, super cheap).
i ate beef in all shapes and forms, and pork and kimchi and soup and seafood pancake and and i loved it all. and this is coming from an ex-vegetarian who still very rarely eats meat. it was just that good.
and i also got some surprise gifts from some recently-returned-from-overseas friends. how a c e is this rabbit calendar? thanks ineke + jude!
on way to the design files open house, then dinner and drinks somewhere nearby with my boyfriend.
any suggestions re: where we should go?
i made these mini bread rolls yesterday.
so much fun. i love baking cakes and biscuits and everything else, but there’s something particularly enjoyable about making bread, especially yeasty bread like this.
i got the recipe from this (wonderful) book. the bread mix was nothing fancy, just flour, yeast, salt and water. i used plain flour because that’s all i had, though a mix of half plain, half wholemeal / spelt / etc. would be nice too. because i wanted to make both sweet and savoury rolls, i didn’t add any spices or anything, though you could.
i made about 40 of these rolls, varying from about 4cm – 6cm in size when cooked, and about 3cm – 5cm before.
but the fun part was the toppings.
the savoury toppings were: olives, the seasoned olive oil from the olive jar, crushed garlic, finely chopped shallots, rosemary and rock salt, dill goats cheese (yum), plus various combinations of these ingredients mixed together.
the sweet toppings included: strawberry jam, raisins (that i had soaked in water until plump), flaked almonds and brown sugar, frozen raspberries, poppy seeds with brown sugar, and – my absolute favourite – lavender with honey and poppy seeds.
they took less than 10 minutes to bake in a 220c oven (though i had to do them in about 5 different batches), and they can be partially cooked for 4 minutes or so then stored in the fridge for a day or so before another 5 minutes in the oven before serving.
i would definitely make these again; i think the savoury ones in particular would be good to have with beer on a picnic. and the sweet ones with cottage cheese made a nice breakfast this morning. though next time i’ll make them even smaller, and try to stuff the filling inside the dough a bit more. but, overall, i was pretty happy with these.
now; i’m off to put the rest of them in the freezer so that they don’t all get eaten in one go…
one thing that i like about pinterest is that it kind of brings together everything that you like or are interested in*.
and then after a while you start to notice themes cropping up; i feel like i keep pinning the same kind of images again and again.
things that i knew i liked before pinterest:
1. neon
2. rabbits
3. navy and white stripes
things that i didn’t know i liked before pinterest:
1. animal shaped food (preferably cats)
all images here, or one two three four five
*der: forgive me, i only had 3 hours sleep last night, and i’ve written more than 2000 words in the past 24 hours. and i’m clearly all out of good ones…
