Tisn't the season: Buche de Noel

 Christmas in July. Only in Australia. And why not?

The mornings as cold and the days are cooler. Cooking a full roast dinner in an un-airconditioned kitchen is not the trial that it is in December.

So today we decided to go ahead and take the festive plunge. I'd never done a real Christmas in July meal before and I wanted to make it really special so, beyond the roast beef, Yorkshire puddings, chipolatas in bacon and roast vegetables, I decided to try making a traditional French buche de noel or Yule log and that way, no one would be in any doubt about the nature of our celebration.

The recipe I decided to adapt came from BBC Good Food and I chose it because it was flourless. I liked the idea of a softer, less cake-y, dessert. The reason that I decided to adapt it was that I thought the double cream would be a bit rich, especially when there was 250g of chocolate and 6 eggs in the mix. I wanted something a bit more tangy to offset the richness, so I bought a tub of mascarpone and a tin of black cherries and I was ultimately glad that I did.

Ingredients

For the base:
150g golden castor sugar
6 large eggs, separated
250g good quality dark chocolate 

For the filling:
250g mascarpone cheese
1 tin of pitted black cherries drained
a few drops vanilla extract

For the buttercream
125g unsalted butter, softened
225 g icing sugar, sieved
25g good quality cocoa powder
2 tbsps milk

• Pre-heat the oven to 200C (gas) or 220C (electric), then grease and line a 23 x 33cm Swiss roll tin. Whisk castor sugar and egg yolks until pale. Melt the chocolate either over a bowl of hot water or in the microwave. Add the egg and sugar mix to the chocolate.

• Whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Slowly fold into the chocolate mix. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for about 12 - 15 minutes. Allow to cool in tin.

• Place a sheet of baking paper on the counter. Flip the base onto the baking paper and peel off the lining.
• In a bowl, beat the mascarpone with the vanilla extract. Spread all over the base. Scatter the drained cherries evenly over the mascarpone.
• Hold onto the long side of the baking paper and turn the base over, rolling it until you have got a log shape. Mine broke - right across the middle and in several other places. Do not worry about this. Keep rolling! It will hold together and it will look more convincingly log-like this way!
• Leave rolled in the paper and place in the fridge to cool for 20 minutes.
• Beat the butter then add the cocoa and the icing sugar. Add milk and stir until you have a smooth consistency.
• Remove the cake from the fridge. Working at an angle, cut off about a quarter and place alongside the main long, so it resembles a two-pronged branch.
• Cover with butter cream, use a fork to give texture.
• Dust with icing sugar to give a snowy effect.

To make chocolate leaves:
100 g white chocolate

1 tssp cocoa

10  - 12 small leaves, washed and dried (I used rose and lemon leaves) 

• Place the clean leaves on a baking tray lined with baking paper
• Melt the chocolate in the microwave until runny
• Use a spoon or pastry brush to coat the back of the leaves (the back of the leaves will make a stronger impression in the chocolate)
• Leave to dry for 20 minutes then peel the leaves off
• Use a pastry brush to dust the leaves with cocoa so that the impression is clear.
• Use to decorate log

This is an utterly delicious cake. The base is more like a mousse and so very, very rich and chocolate-y. The mascarpone is creamy and tangy, the cherries are sweet and also have a little bite. I can imagine this with a little kirsch or rum. I had some fresh cherries so I threw these onto the serving platter to add a little colour to the sepia-toned yumminess.

It was a wonderful finale to our Christmas in July feast.  We did go all out to make things traditional as you will see from the pictures below. I was particularly pleased with the Yorkshire puddings!

You'll be glad to know that we took a walk between the main course and the dessert. After all, the sun was out, the skies were a true, clear blue and the temperature was a mellow 23C. That's the great thing about winter in Perth - we often have the best of both worlds, and it is on days like this that it really hits home how lucky we are.

Japanese Cheesecake - Totoro-style

Last week, I was sitting at my desk, doing my day job and generally being gainfully employed when I was surprised by a knock at the door and the offer of a piece of Japanese cheesecake. One of our administration staff is Japanese and she had been baking. It had been ages since I had had any Japanese cheesecake so I was thrilled. 

Of course, I rushed to Twitter to brag about my good fortune - Japanese cheesecake delivered right to my desk, oho! Lucky moi! -  only to be asked, "What is Japanese cheesecake?"

Japanese cheesecake is a baked cheesecake. It has flour added to the mixture which makes it less dense than, say, a New York cheesecake. It is also curious in that it doesn't have a biscuit base. The mixture is simply poured into the lined baking tin and is 'self-supporting' if you will, because it is that little bit firmer.

I was then asked by eatmeetswest if the cake had come with a 'Hello, Kitty' embossed on the top. Such things do indeed exist (in fact, you'd be amazed what other products you can find Kitty's face on), and so I countered with this picture and the promise to try and make one of my own as soon as could be managed. 

However, when I declared my intention of baking a Hello Kitty cheesecake, my 11 year old son (who loves all things Japanese) decided that he would prefer to have a cheesecake with the image of 'My Neighbour, Totoro' instead of Hello, Kitty because he adores the films of Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli and he thinks Totoro, a large bouncing Japanese forest troll, is 'awesome'. (I love the film too and, if you haven't seen it, it is well worth watching!)

So please find the cheesecake recipe below. The Totoro  image was made by fiddling around with a sharp knife and a packet of Cadbury chocolate buttons. I'm very pleased with it and think it is so kawaii!

Classic Japanese Baked Cheesecake

Ingredients

250g packet of cream cheese
30g melted butter
100g caster sugar
juice of half a lemon
3 eggs, separated
50ml milk
50ml cream
40g plain flour

Method

• Preheat oven to 160C. Brush a 20cm springform pan with butter and line with baking paper.
• Beat together cream cheese, 80g caster sugar and melted butter in a bowl (or use an electric mixer) until the mixture is light and creamy. Add the lemon juice, 3 egg yolks, milk, cream and flour. Beat until well-combined and fluffy.
• Whisk the 3 egg whites with 20g sugar in a medium mixing bowl until stiff peaks form. Add cream cheese mixture and use a large metal spoon to fold until just combined.
• Pour mixture into lined pan. Bake in preheated oven for 50-60 minutes or until golden and just set in the centre. Remove from the oven and leave in the pan until cooled completely.
• Cover loosely with plastic wrap and place in the fridge overnight to firm. Remove from the fridge 10 minutes before serving.

いただきます !

A thing of beauty is a joy forever: Nakamura Chocolates

 It took me two days to open the chocolate box, it was that beautiful.

I brought it home with me. I put it on my bedside table. I photographed it from all angles. I stroked the golden ties and admired the chrysanthemum designs on the cover. 

When I was ready, I eased open the seal and unboxed the treasure within – slowly.

Then I saw the chocolates.

It took me three days to eat the chocolates.

When quality food products and gorgeous design meet, the result is a feast for the mouth and the eyes. Such is the experience with Nakamura chocolates. I was recently lucky enough to be given a box of the Nakamura Dark Selection by my friend, Marlon. It is his wife, Yuki Nakamura, who is the artisan behind Nakamura Chocolates.

From her kitchen in Coolbellup, Western Australia, Yuki produces the most amazing handcrafted chocolates.  In this little box of art there are flowers and spheres, flecks of gold, chequers of magenta, strata of aqua and viridian, glossy marbling in lilac and ruby. I promise you, you will stop and look. These are not just chocolates you scoff. You marvel at them, then you make your selection and you consider.

I wanted to give each chocolate its due attention and make tasting notes which is why there was a three day duration between starting and finishing them. Normally, I am not so hesitant when it comes to sweet things. I also wanted a chance to try each chocolate (not easy when my children wanted their fair share of the goodies) so there was the process of dividing each one up into three or four pieces so we could all try some.

So here, in the order that they present in the box, are the chocolates of the Nakamura Dark Selection.

Triple Espresso

Coffee is high on my list of favourite flavours. As a kid, whenever we had a box of chocolates in the house, I would watch wistfully as my father took the one and only coffee cream (it was high on his list of favourite flavours too). Now I am the grown-up and I get the only and only coffee cream while my son looks on with longing in his eyes. The triple espresso is a moment for the coffee lover. You will love the melting coffee fondant layers inside and you will not want to give this to anyone else.

Cardamom citrus

A dark, truffley ganache is concealed below the delightful chequerboard – the citrus notes are strong, the cardamom is a more subtle spicy touch – subtle be damned, I want more cardamom! I’d also love to see how this worked with a really creamy milk chocolate as opposed to the dark. This is a winter chocolate, a hot posset of a chocolate.

Lemon mint

As I cut into the chocolate, the scent of mint filled the air. It was a very, very intense peppermint flavour. The lemon lasts a moment, the mint lasts and lasts. My palate was well and truly cleansed. This is the ultimate after-dinner mint.  It was a little too much for me on its own. I would recommend having it with a strong cup of black coffee late at night.

Hazelnut honey

The least controversial combination, but a happy mouthful nonetheless. The honey is there to add scent, not just sweetness. A whole hazelnut hides in the centre. My camera doesn't do justice to the glossy surfaces or the gold-speckled coating.

Salted caramel

I have watched the growth of the salted caramel trend with interest. Most of the time, my complaint is that there is never quite enough salt – I didn’t experience this with the chocolate. The salt was definitely perceptible and added to the silky smooth texture of the caramel.

Coconut Noir

I don’t mind coconut but I don’t usually seek it out either. I did enjoy this chocolate – the coconut presence was strong and the texture was interesting. The coconut pieces were gritty, almost like traditional coconut rough, but the chocolate was so smooth and creamy.  I think using dark chocolate works particularly well here.

Cherry blossom and milk

I liked this one very much indeed. I am finding these days cherry doesn’t feature as a flavour in chocolate as much as I’d like (Cherry Ripe bars don’t count). What we have here is a lovely, creamy super-sweet cherry filling contrasted with the dark chocolate shell.

Pistachio and marzipan

Ohh, marzipan! You either love it or you hate it. I love it. I could eat it by the block. When I was a kiddie, my mother would take the marzipan, wrap it in cling-wrap and put it in the fridge so that I would think it was cheddar cheese (which I don’t like) and not eat the whole slab before she got it onto the Christmas cake. The marzipan in this chocolate is more your home-made marchpane than your shop-produced almond paste. Coupled with pistachio, the flavour of which is quite subtle by comparison, it’s another ‘trad’ choc that you could happily serve up to guests.

Woodberries

Of all the chocolates, this was the prettiest to look at. A wee flower, rainbow sparkles and a golden centre. Be still, my inner princess! It’s tangy, it’s fruity, raspberry essence dominates. I can imagine a whole box of these as a Mother's Day gift.

Jasmine and Orange Blossom

Wonderful florals here – there’s a sense of tea, then one of orchards in bloom, so much so that I recalled a time when I was driving through the orange orchards in Gingin. Of all the chocolates in the box this was the most intriguing, the most different. The colour is dark, dark maroon but I haven't caught it in the picture.

Now, I said earlier that when quality food products and gorgeous design meet, it was a feast for the mouth and the eyes. All credit for the design around Nakamura Chocolates goes to Marlon. The chrysanthemum print, reminiscent of William Morris florals, is his own design. He came up with the overall look of the box with its effortlessly sliding sections, its colour scheme, the golden ties (the string, I was told, comes from Paris) and the seal which shows the Nakamura family crest. 

 This is a very happy partnership on all fronts. Between them, Yuki and Marlon have created a little box of joy to keep artists and the foodies very content indeed. 

I personally can't wait to try the rest of the range. The dark selection was fantastic, the milk is, I predict, in my not-too distant future, I am sure. I am also very keen to organise one of the chocolate tastings that Nakamura will host if you contact them. These chocolates are far too intriguing, are too exsquisite, not to share with the wider world.

Leave a little light on for me: Red Lantern, Surry Hills

You know how people say that it is better to travel hopefully than to arrive? Well, they’re wrong.

Welcome to Sydney

I travelled hopefully to Sydney a few weeks ago and arrived with the chance to visit Red Lantern, the Vietnamese Restaurant in Surry Hills which is co-owned by Pauline Nguyen, author of “Secrets of the Red Lantern”, her partner, Mark Jensen, and her brother, Luke Nguyen, who are the chefs. 

Many of you will know Luke Nguyen from his television appearances and certainly Red Lantern has its fair share of buzz in the foodie community. However, it was hearing Mark Jensen speak at the Perth Writers’ Festival back in February that my reason for booking a table. Mark was part of panel discussing food (of course!) and his book “The Urban Cook: Cooking and Eating for a Sustainable Future” which focuses on producing, sourcing and eating food ethically. I was impressed by his commitment to provenance and sustainability so when I got the go-ahead for my Sydney trip, I was determined to get a chance to sample the Red Lantern fare for myself.

The Red Lantern website, however, offers the daunting comment that there is about a 2 month waiting list for a table at the weekend. That being said, I reasoned they might possibly have a place early on a Monday for a lonesome Perth girl. (Insert violin music here…) I filled out the online reservation form, hit send then was completely elated when called me on my work phone the next day to confirm my booking. That evening I settled down to do some research. For the most part, Red Lantern has a great reputation – customers usually rave about the food. However, some of the reviews on UrbanSpoon were less than flattering, complaining about the quality of the service and the food. When you are a long way away, you do wonder if you've made the right decision.There was no way to know what it would be like unless I found out for myself. A-quiver with anticipation didn’t even begin to cover my state of mind.

I was staying in Surry Hills so the restaurant was only a five minute walk from my lodgings. I arrived there right on 6pm hoping that I didn’t look too eager. I was hungry (I had only got off the plane from Perth at 4pm) and I was ready for whatever deliciousness they could put in front of me.

I climbed the steep steps at the front of the restaurant to the front porch where a line of red lanterns glowed in the dusk. After the pleasant buzz of seeing my name on the reservation list, I was shown through to a table in the front area of the dining room. I was sitting near a bricked-in fireplace, an old Chinese radio was on the mantle and so was a jar containing a preserved snake! The bookshelves had copies of “Stories from the Red Lantern”, “Tales of Sa Pa”, “Indochine” and “The Urban Cook”

The waiters were all just lovely, can I say that right away? There I was, Nigel (Nigella?) No-Mates, taking up a perfectly good table for two all by myself, but they were so welcoming and didn't make me feel awkward for being a solo diner.  I ordered a glass of Lowe 2006 Cabernet Franc and checked out the menu. There was so much that I wanted to try!  Friends had made recommendations about the pork ribs and the squid and other Red Lantern specialities. How could I possibly limit myself to just one of two dishes? Then one of the waiters told me that as I was dining alone, they could devise a ‘menu for one’ using half-serves and entrees as mains so that I could try a few things. I almost cried with happiness, placing my choices in her hands and knowing that she would take care of me.

She put copies of "Indochine" and "Stories of the Red Lantern"on my table for me to read while I waited. I didn't have to spend long browsing the beautiful photographs and recipes before she came back with my first course – a half serve of prawn and perilla rice paper rolls with dipping sauce (Goi Cuon). What a wake-up call for my jaded traveller’s palate! The minty perilla hit first, super-fresh and filling my whole mouth with vapours that were quickly followed by a wave of ocean as I chewed through the juicy prawn. The dipping sauce was a nutty balance of sweet, salty, tart, mellow. It was a great way to start.

Next came the chili salt squid (Muc Rang Muoi). At the time, I said it was going to ruin me for salt and pepper squid forever, because nothing could be as good as that ever again. I think I was right. When I think of squid now, I just think of this dish. It was so light in colour and texture, a delicate golden mass on a bed of shredded cabbage. There was nothing oily or cloying about it, each piece was dainty and crisp, the chili providing warmth and the lemon-pepper dipping sauce adding tang and zest. Now if I could get a paper cone of this glorious stuff at the Perth Royal Show, I would be a happy camper indeed!

I ordered another glass of wine. Then my main courses came – Asian greens with mushrooms (Cai Xanh Xao) and deep-fried rice cakes with tiger prawns, caramelised pork strips and pork floss (Banh Tom). Up until this moment, I had forgotten how much I enjoyed meat floss, either pork or chicken. When I was a child, I knew it from the plastic packets that our Singapore relatives brought with them when they visited the UK. Of course, the Red Lantern pork floss was a far-superior version to the highly-preserved one that I knew from the past. It melted over the prawns which themselves offered a textural counterpoint to the deep fried rice cakes which were divine – crispy on the outside, soft on the inside. The whole dish was lifted by drizzles of shallot oil. Of everything I ate that evening, this was my absolute favourite. I know this because when it was all gone, I was very sorry that there hadn’t been more.

The Asian greens were tasty – I gave up counting how many varieties of mushroom were concealed among the oyster-sauce-drenched leaves. I had as much of this as I could before I abandoned it, believing myself full. I had eaten well – there had also been a fluffy bowl of white rice. Four courses were more than I had ever hoped for! I was done.

But then I was asked if I would like to see the dessert menu.

Well, I’d come a long away (over 4000 kilometres!) so I thought I’d better just take a little look. To be polite, you know? And that was when I saw the Vietnamese Espresso Martini and the Banh Cam Mang Cau – otherwise known as sesame and rice flour dumplings with soursop and served with black sesame ice cream. Sesame! Soursop! I would have been crazy not to.

What makes a Vietnamese Espresso Martini Vietnamese, is the fact that the martini-glass has been coated with condensed milk. If you’ve ever lived and worked in Asia, you’ll have memories of tea time with a tin of condensed milk and a spoon there on the table ready to stir into your beverage. Or you might even have been lucky enough to be treated to condensed milk sandwiches. At any rate, condensed milk can and should be considered an Asian cooking staple and it was a delightful moment to find it incorporated into a cocktail that I love.

The dumplings arrived hot, straight from the deep fryer – three blond spheres speckled with white and black sesame seeds sitting in a puddle of soursop juice as the black ice cream melted over the top. Me, full? Ha. I ate ever last bit. And I scraped the plate. Perhaps I even skimmed it with a finger-tip to get that last little drop of ice cream… The memory of the warm glutinous dumplings and heady sesame fragrance is making my mouth water as I type (not good for the keyboard but you get the idea).

At the end of the meal, I was asked if I would like to buy any of the books. I seriously considered this as I don’t own any of them. Alas, they are big, heavy books and I had a baggage allowance of 23kg only, so I had to say no. Now that I am home, I will definitely be finding copies for my kitchen.

I don’t normally post about the cost of food but I think it needs mentioning that my five-course meal including rice, two glasses of wine and a cocktail only set me back $119. You’d be hard-pressed here in the West to get a meal for this amount at a restaurant with a similar reputation.

I travelled hopefully to Red Lantern, I arrived, and all my expectations were not only met but surpassed. Any worries that had been generated by my reading of UrbanSpoon comments quickly disappeared. I could not work out why some people had been so critical - I found everything to be of an extremely high standard.I cannot recommend the food and the service highly enough and strongly suggest that you check out the option of an early weekday booking if you can’t wait 2 months for a table. A second Red Lantern is opening in Sydney soon, so there will be more chances for people to try this amazing cuisine and be offered this excellent service.


I'll be back in January - travelling with certainty and arriving with an appetite. I will definitely be booking ahead.

Easter - who said it was just for kids?

Who doesn’t love a Cadbury Crème Egg? Well, loads of people as it turns out, but I am not one of them. When I was a child, the whole idea of a CCE was made even sweeter (if that is possible) because of the parental disapproval that accompanied their consumption. Not just chocolate, but oozing fondant as well, it was a parent’s and dentist’s and nutritionist’s nightmare. Nightmare or not, the CCE Wikipedia entry tells me that they are produced at the rate of 1.5 million per day in Cadbury’s Bournville factory. I am not the only one, it seems, who delights in this sweet treat.

So when a challenge was put forward to create a recipe involving a CCE, I thought it would be fun to get involved. The symbolism of Easter also worked well for me – time to resurrect the ol’ blog – especially as one of the criteria was that the recipe needed to be posted by Easter Sunday.

So, my tribute is a grown-up spin on the taste of my childhood; still sticky and sweet, still a tooth-shocking mouthful, still an indulgence, still bad for you but still so good. Here is the Cadbury Crème Egg shooter:

I was concerned to get the flavours as close to a real CCE as possible. There had to be chocolate, there had to be something approximating fondant. It had to look like a CCE as well as taste like one.

The advocaat was a no-brainer for the yolk. The colour and consistency of the scented egg liqueur was just what I needed. There had to be chocolate too. I knew the Cadburys actually does its own liqueur – Cadbury Crème Liqueur, and I did have a good hunt around for that. However, it was not to be found which was disappointing as it would have been so perfect. I ended up buying some Crème de Cacao instead. 

This left just the ‘egg white’ to find. I had thought at first that I would use white Crème de Cacao, but when I got to the bottle shop, my eye was immediately drawn to the bottle of Sheridans and the pure white of the ‘cream’ side. It was too good a match to go past.

At home, a bit of experimenting proved that the Crème de Cacao had to go first, then the advocaat, then the white cream. I didn’t have any shot glasses in the house (I know! What is wrong with me???) but an old-fashioned sherry glass yielded a pleasing egg-like shape and I was delighted with the result.

And what did it taste like? It tasted  like a CCE - with a kick. It was just a rich and sweet - more genuinely eggy because of the advocaat but still as gooey and sinful, perhaps more so because of the booze.

 Flash on. It's crude, I know, but it shows the layers more clearly.

However, I was aware that I hadn’t actually used a Cadbury Crème Egg in my recipe so just to take it one step further, I hollowed out a CCE that I had to hand, and filled it with the same 3 liqueurs. I have to admit that this idea was inspired by recent photographs I had seen of a “Bunny Alexander” cocktail ( a brandy Alexander served up in a Lindt Gold Bunny). The result was a much smaller shooter but with the reward of eating the chocolate shell afterwards.

 Almost indistinguishable from the real thing...until you drink it!

If you would like to check out some other interpretations on the theme, then there's a savoury option offered by Blue Apocalypse on her blog and a sweeter-than-sweet CCE pavlova made by Eatmeetswest on hers.

 It was a fun challenge and, with luck, the start of a new life for this blog. I'm all about coming back from the dead. Let's hope it lasts! Happy Easter, everyone!

Everything in the garden is lovely.

Well, right now it isn’t. Right now, it’s a blistering 36 centigrade at just half past eleven in the morning. Summer, true summer, is finally here and out in the garden, the yellowing leaves and drooping stalks attest to the unrelenting Western Australian heat.

But I’m not writing about my garden today. 

There’s a little corner of Fremantle where I like to go because I have friends there and because their gardens are that happy mix of form and function that I can only dream about. I have every admiration for people whose gardens are full of little crops and fruiting trees; where the water from the laundry goes straight onto the banana plants and where the happy ranks of nodding sunflowers are destined to become chicken feed eventually.

Such a garden is Katy’s garden in South Fremantle where we went for a truly memorable meal the other day. I have been privileged to watch this garden transform since Katy bought the house just under a year ago and am even luckier to have been able to be on the receiving end of the goodies it is now producing.

A shady veranda is a good place to drink a cold glass of sparkling wine on a hot day. Home-grown cumquats, preserved in vodka and spices, gave a great marmalade taste when the fruit and the liquor were added to improvise a cocktail as well as providing a golden Christmassy colour. It is the season to be jolly and after six or so glasses of marmalady fizz, jolly is all that you can be.

 Drunken cumquats

 Cumquat & liqueur in a glass (and a bit of free promotion for Happs Winery in Margaret River...)

 Golden cocktail

Once the sun is down, however, the back garden, a wide space, flanked by eucalypt and Norfolk pine, and with brick-edged beds of veggies, was also pleasant as the Fremantle Doctor rolled in off the ocean.

Our meal came from the veggie beds in front of us and from the chicken coop at the side of the house. A fluffy frittata was the tasty combination of heirloom tromboncino and the eggs which Kay, Effie and Celia (the names are a chicken joke, you work it out) had laid.

 Curly tromboncino

The cherry tomatoes were superb. Pulled from a vine outside the kitchen door and slow-roasted in herbs and olive oil, they were sweet and flavoursome and my favourite part of the whole meal.

 Sweet scarlet tomatoes

The salad was home-grown peppery rocket with shaved parmesan. Once again, the freshness was so apparent in the crispness of the greens. 

 Homegrown deliciousness

As darkness fell, Katy got out a mosquito coil (it’s a West Australian summer – you have to keep things real) and some dessert wines. We had the choice between a Redgate white port and a Talijancich 10 year white liqueur. We decided on the latter because it smelled of Christmas pudding and it went down so well with coffee.

 A Tale of Two Stickies

 Vintage glasses

If there is anything better than good simple tasty food and plenty of good wine to drink, with friends, outside, in the summer, I have yet to find it.

I came away with a box of fresh eggs, a full tum and a wonderful sense of well-being. Yes, everything in the garden was indeed lovely - the food, the setting and the friends.