Kitchen Drama: the Gingerbread Theatre

Achievements should be celebrated - on that, I think, we can all agree. When you are only just 11 years old and you have been through a long and trying process to reach a particular goal, and you have succeeded, then the celebration should be all the bigger.

My younger son had recently received the long-awaited letter telling him that he had been successful in gaining a place in the high school course of his dreams. Since the beginning of the year, he had been required to participate in workshops and auditions, write essays, do a major test and at long last we had written proof that his hard work and persistance had not been in vain. He had been selected for a place in a Gifted and Talented Drama Programme.

This is why we decided on a tea-party and this is why I decided to attempt gingerbread once again.

If you know me, you will know that I go down the gingerbread route once a year, and once only for good reason. I usually over-task myself with a project on a mighty scale and everyone has to live with the angst and the frustration as I make it happen. My previous edifices have been houses, churches and the very memorable TARDIS.

This time, in keeping with the drama theme, I decided I was going to make a theatre - a little gingerbread theatre which would be simple and low-key and fun to do. I would be a happy baker and a happy mother and everyone around me would be happy too.

It didn't happen this way.

The first thing I was determined to do was to find a gingerbread recipe that was not too heavy. In previous years, I have had tried recipes that use SR flour and baking soda - the dough has risen too much and softens too easily after building and the walls come tumbling down. This time I found this recipe from the ABC and it worked really well. I actually halved the quantity of baking soda and rolled the dough very thinly. This gave me more 'well-behaved' gingerbread for my construction. I used the other quantities exactly and it gave me enough gingerbread for the whole theatre plus enough left-over for emergencies (and in the end, I needed it!)

Warm gingerbread dough

My plan. I am the first to admit that I am no architect.

I based my measurements on an A4 piece of paper. The idea was to make a base and on the base place a back wall and a proscenium. The proscenium would be set back slightly to allow an stage apron at the front. The back wall would have a scene drawn on marzipan. There would be 'red velvet' curtains and flats made to look like trees and bushes. I was aiming for a scene out of Macbeth as my son had had to recite a soliloquy from Macbeth for his final audition.

The base and back wall pieces.

Proscenium and supports.

 I had got up early in the morning (about 6.30am) and so by about 9am, I was ready to build. All the sections were baked and cooled. I had my 'cement' ready. Before I had always used royal icing to stick the gingerbread sections together, but my experience with the Danish wedding cake had shown me that chocolate was an easier way to go. It is also less messy if you pop your chocolate pieces into a disposable piping bag and melt the chocolate in the microwave.

Chocolate 'cement'

Building the base

While I was waiting for the base to set, I got into the fun part. I rolled a very thin sheet of marzipan and stuck it to the back wall section using melted raspberry jam. Then I got busy with melted chocolate, edible sparkles and edible ink...

It's a blasted heath or Birnham Wood or something of which Shakespare would have approved.

This was then affixed to the base.

It took a lot of chocolate and a lot of propping up but eventually it was standing.

Then it was time to put the rest of it together. The proscenium was propped up with little triangles of gingerbread. I made the curtains out of pre-coloured red fondant. I also made a playbill with my son's name on it as well as the Masks of Comedy and Tragedy to decorate the front of the stage. This was ironic as a kitchen tragedy was only hours away...

It's either one or the other in this house.

I couldn't believe it! I was finished. A mere 7 hours and it was all done. Everyone was summoned to admire my work and the boys were cautioned 'not to touch' several times.

Lead on, MacDuff!

The view from above.

 So I washed up and tidied the kitchen and washed all the chocolate and sparkles off my hands. Then it was time for a cup of tea and an afternoon nap.

While I was sleeping, my older son decided to get up close to the proscenium. Up close as in touching it until it came away from the base. He is 15, has autism and his impulse control is usually better. He was fascinated by the theatre though and I guess that it was too much for him to resist. He loves cooking and cookbooks and food. Most of the time I involve him in any cooking that I do - perhaps I would have been wise to let him help?

There were tears - his and mine. I had no excuse except exhaustion and the disappointment of seeing my day's work literally in pieces.

The ruins

I tried to fix it with extra chocolate and hold it up with satay sticks but it had been weakened where it had snapped and there was nothing for it but to rebuilt the whole proscenium section. This included remaking the curtains which had also been crushed and snapped. I couldn't face anymore baking and put the renovations on hold until Sunday morning.

Proscenium Mark II - it was moved forward where the foundation was stronger.

 So, up early on Sunday morning (another 6.30am start!) and I did it all again. I was so glad to have kept the extra dough in the fridge - at least that was one thing that I didn't have to make again. New proscenium, new curtains, more melted chocolate. All of this knowing that by 3pm that same afternoon, the whole structure was going to be ripped to pieces and eaten anyway.

But the most important thing is a happy child, right?

11 year old and his special theatre

The next stage I want to see is a real one - with 11 year old on it.

Later that day, in front of friends, having been congratulated on his success and wished all the best for a happy high school experience, 11 year old brought down the house, literally.

And just in case you were wondering, yes, it tasted great! Especially the back wall with the marzipan and raspberry jam - that was a great combo. I know because even when we'd given gingerbread to our guests to take away and eaten some ourselves, we still had enough to last us for a week.

And that's enough about gingerbread for this year. Unless I can be tempted to create something else at Christmas - you never know...

 

TGIF! Lemon sour-cream syrup cake

I was reading an online article this morning entitled “Are your colleagues making you fat?” A mere three hours after reading said article, I was slapping down a Lemon Sour-Cream Syrup cake on the staff-room table.

I must say that we like our treats in our office and we are lucky enough to havea colleague who is a professional baker of cakes when she is not working with us.This means that we are regularly provided with amazing cup-cakes, macarons, cookies and cake-pops. It’s a given that if something edible is placed on the staff-room table that it’s a) first in, best dressed and b) it will get finished, oh yes, it will.

This working week has been long, difficult one for everyone and I thought it would be nice to finish on a high note so last night I baked. Baking at night takes on a very different quality to baking in the day. The kitchen is cooler in the evenings, cold even when it is winter, and you usually have it to yourself. The light is different – for me an orange glow bounces off the vintage wall-paper and gives the tiny room a cocoon-like feel. It’s so quiet that you can hear the gas roaring as you heat up the oven. I got flour all over my pyjamas but I was okay with that. It’s all part of the night-time baking fun.

The cake, fresh from the oven, looking a bit orange under the kitchen lights.

I like this Lemon Sour-Cream Syrup cake because it is a great ‘stand-by’ cake. The ingredients are basic and easily available; it’s quick (just over an hour); plus it is a tasty, traditional tea-time kind of cake that will go down well with hungry families or colleagues alike. It’s sweet and tangy, moist and sticky. The lemons are candied in the syrup and placed on top. I love it.

Making the syrup: lemons, sugar and water all cooked up together.

I use this recipe from taste.com.au , have used it many, many, times in fact, and I make no changes to it except, in this instance, to double the quantities, because the family would be most put out if I made cake for my work-mates but not for them, so there were actually two cakes in the end rather than the one that you are seeing.

TGIF!

On the staff-room table for Friday's morning tea.

Cake Club and Kransakaka

Kransakaka or Overflodigshorn

You could say that I have control issues. You'd probably be right. I'm am one of life's organisers. I live for detail and the ticking of boxes, the crossing of t's and the dotting of i's. Knowing that all is running smoothly, that the cogs are turning in a well-oiled machine (be it at home or at work) makes me really happy. 

Others might say I need to relax more. Whatevs...

I think that's why I really enjoy challenging cooking projects where structure and appearance are as important of the taste of the food. This has been reflected in my gingerbread making and most recently in my buche de noel cake, and here it is rearing its head again in my Scandinivian kransakaka.

The Clandestine Cake Club Perth (run by the two gorgeous gals behind wherethewindblowsme and Carolanne's Kitchen) is fast becoming popular in Perth. The idea is that once every 4 to 6 weeks, you bake a cake according to the theme that the hosts set, front up with your cake, talk about your cake, eat some of everyone else's cake and take boxes of cake home. Win win!

My busy schedule (of which I am completely in control) has meant that I was unable to attend a Cake Club meeting until yesterday when I went for the first time. The theme for this meeting was "Scandinavian and Eastern European Cakes" and when I saw this I knew I could not stay away and that I had a show-stopper of a cake to offer.

*Philological Interlude - feel free to skip*

The kransakaka is a traditional wedding cake from Scandinavia. It is called 'kransakaka' in Sweden and Iceland, 'kransekage' in Denmark and 'kransekake' in Norway. It is a tower of concentric baked marzipan rings decorated with chocolate swirls, candies or toffee. The variant to the kransakaka is the overflodigshorn ( or overflodigshedhorn) when the kransaka is shaped to form a cornucopia or horn of plenty.The idea of abundance is symbolised by candies or little cakes spilling from the mouth of the horn.

I wanted to have an overflodigshorn for my wedding many years ago. It wasn't to be (and I was delighted with the wedding cake that I did get) but I never forgot it. Now, in the time of the Internet and online recipes, I came across this video recipe and decided to give it a go.

It wasn't easy. I halved the quantities of the ingredients to give me a more manageable-sized cake. I think my poor maths abilities resulted in a dough that was a little too soft. As a result, some of the rings didn't hold their shape and the horn was not quite as perkily curved as it was meant to be, but it didn't matter. I got control over that marizpan pastry and shaped it to my will (I feel a sense of megalomania coming on...) It was the work of less than a day, it was a realistic (stumpy) horn, self-supporting on a base, and the decorations looked baroque and beautiful. 

One of the most intriguing parts of making the cake was cutting the dough and realising that I was cutting it in a Fibonacci sequence (my maths abilities might be poor but my inner geek is trying hard to compensate). As best demonstrated by the chambered nautilus, the growing spiral is developed by applying Fibonacci numbers to the dough. Professional pastry chefs can actually get their kransakakas curl right over, just like a ram's horn.

Oh, and it tasted amazing! Like a marzipan macaroon, firm on the outside but soft and squishy in the middle. If you love marzipan, you will love this cake.

Then I took the kransakaka to Cake Club where it got to sit on a table which was overflodigs with at least a dozen other cakes and there was abundance indeed.  

I've photographed some of the steps below, but for the best results, I recommend that you watch the video that I linked earlier if you too wish to battle marzipan and gravity and be victorious. The end result is completely worth it.

750gms marzipan and 250gms sugar mixed with one egg white

Fibonnaci marzipan dough

Little 'cigars'

Sitting by the oven, waiting. The dough needs to be just toasted golden. Don't let it burn!

The pieces come out of the oven. The small ones have held their shape, The large ones have not.

The iced pieces are stuck together with melted chocolate. The back section needed some support while the chocolate dried.

Overflowing with sugar flowers

My horn-shape was rather stumpy but still a self-supporting structure!

Baroque chocolate swirls feature on traditional kransakakas.

In a box, being transported to Cake Club. Longest car journey of my life!

Finally on the table surrounded by other Scandinavian and Eastern European goodies

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.