Mandarine and almond syrup cake

I get my fruit and veg delivered by The Local Grocer these days, partially because I can't deal with Woolworths and Coles, my local IGA is pretty shit, and they pay farmers fair prices for their goods. Everyone is a winner - especially those who have to endure me whinging about how evil the duopoly supermarkets are, or me whinging about why some IGA's are awesome and why mine is crap and THEY HAVE NO BREAD AT ALL? I'M GOING HOME! I just let The Local Grocer do it. I don't even have to make a decision about what I want that way, they just tell me - this is what is in season, this is what we can get, so this is what you have. You can choose, I just choose NOT to choose.

This time I got 6 mandarines. I don't mind them, but I don't really like the smell of them when you peel them, and it sticks under your nails and on your skin all day. Do not like.

Photo c/o The Local Grocer with the caption "Eating seasonally? Time to start on the mandarins as local valencia orange supply has stopped. Only Californian and Egyptian navel orange imports available in any quantities at the moment and we won't be selling those! Our local navels come in around late May to early November so if you can hold off on oranges for just a few weeks you can avoid any imported produce :-)"

So these were my options;

Option 1 - let them sit in the box until they go off without eating them.

Option 2 - let them sit in the fridge until they go off without eating them.

Option 3 - eat them.

Options 1 and 2 have happened before. Don't judge me, you too have left stuff in your fruit n veg drawer in the fridge so long it no longer resembles what it once was. I refuse to believe I am the only one this happens to.

Anyway obviously, option 3 has to happen, because waste sucks.

I made cake. It is delicious. 

Dense but not claggy, sweet but with a punchy lemon edge. Much better than a similar cake I had made before, which requires the lengthy boiling of the mandarins, that stunk the house out. This one is just gorgeous, all over.

It looks plain... Don't judge a cake by it's cover.

Mandarine and almond syrup cake

Adapted from Ottolenghi's cake from Jerusalem

Ingredients
200g unsalted butter
380g caster sugar
4 clementines, zest grated, and juiced
Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
280g ground almonds
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
5 medium free-range eggs, beaten

Method
1) Preheat the oven to 160C. Lightly grease a 24cm spring-form tin, and do what you gotta do to stop the cake sticking.

2) Put the butter, 300g of the sugar (the remaining 80g is for the syrup) and citrus zest in a mixer bowl, and use a paddle attachment to combine. Add about half the ground almonds a spoonful at a time and continue mixing.

3) Add the eggs one at a time, scraping the bottom and sides of the bowl as you go. Add the remaining almonds and ground cardamom and work until the mix is smooth.

4) Spread the cake batter inside the tin, and bake for 50-60 minutes - a skewer should come out a little bit moist.

5) When the cake is almost cooked, in a small pan bring to a boil the remaining sugar and citrus juices (the juices should add up to about 120ml), then remove from the heat. The moment the cake comes out of the oven, pour over the hot syrup, making sure it all soaks through. Leave to cool down in the tin. 

A short tale of Kuihs - Red Hot Spatula

As most of you are aware, Carolanne and I organise the Perth Clandestine Cake Club (CCC), and last months theme was gluten free. To see the awesome range we got from our talented bakers, have a look at THIS post. It was a day of cake heaven! One of the cakes that was a real standout was the one that broke the rules of the CCC - ONLY CAKE ALLOWED! These were mini cakes, and as Yvonne from Red Hot Spatula explained, thats just how they are served in Singapore, where they originated. So it was totally fine with us when Yvonne showed up with these renegade cakes. They had a really unique texture, a subtle flavour and loads of fresh coconut mixed with a bit of salt on top. They were really something special!

So you guys are all lucky enough to get the recipe, and this guest post from Yvonne of Red Hot Spatula!

A short tale of Kuihs

Growing up in Singapore, I was always spoilt for choice when it came to food. The absolute favourite time of day –especially weekends- was afternoon tea. In Asia there are dedicated shops selling all manner of savory or sweet delicious bites. 
One huge thing I took for granted was all the gluten free options we had. Back when I was little, gluten was not even thought of as a meal definer. Now, practically every other person you meet wants to have some sort of gluten free option available.

The local bakery – which is now a huge baking franchise in South East Asia – had more than just one or 2 things on their menu which I now know is gluten free. So, feeling nostalgic for tastes of the yesteryear and wanting to create a gluten free option for the Clandestine Cake Club I decided to bring out the Kuih Kosui – a fabulous bite sized cake made with rice flour, green pea flour and tapioca flour with the added plus of being dairy free, as well as using coconut sugar. I did not even know it, but I had hit the motherload of the holy trinity of what a percentage of people are now learning to use (to think I was brought up on this)!
Kuih – the Malay/Bahasa name for cake- is always served in small individual serves and in a variety, being, of course, the spice of life, in comparison to western cakes which are whole and often shared as such.

Now, the story behind the Kuih Kosui is quite interesting – it is a cross culture cake brought in from Indonesia, loved in Singapore and greatly duplicated by everyone.

Asian Kuih’s are mostly steamed, not baked, and always using natural colourings to bring forth a variety of festive colours. Some Kuihs are made traditionally to celebrate weddings, birthdays and even 1 month anniversaries of a baby’s birth. 
I can go on at length and wax lyrical about the history of the Kuihs – because there are heaps and heaps of tasty options, some savoury and some sweet. It’s more interesting to talk about the recipe though!

Ingredients

(A)
180 gm wet rice flour* (knead 105g rice flour with 75ml water and knead it)
50 gm green peas flour
30 gm tapioca flour
240 ml water
1 tsp alkaline water (lye/ki water - from asian shops)

(B)
240 gm dark coconut sugar
540 ml water

To serve
200g fresh desiccated coconut
1/2 tsp salt

Method
Boiled ingredients (B), set aside.

Combine all ingredients (A) and mix well.

Mix in the ingredient (B)in the flour mixture and strain.

Use LOW heat to cook the batter until slightly thick.

Pour into a small tart mould and steam on a high heat for about 15 minutes until cooked.

Steam the coconut for 10 minutes after you remove the Kuihs from the steamer. Mix in the salt and toss well.

Once the Kuihs are cooled, roll them in the dessicated coconut.

Ready to serve!
Check out Red Hot Spatula on their facebook page, as well as at Subiaco Farmers Market where they sell their delicious range of spice pastes! See also this post from Col Panna with a special deal on her products!
 

June Clandestine Cake Club - Gluten free!

What an awesome spread our talented bakers bought to the June Clandestine Cake Club, Perth! The theme was gluten free, which gave us an amazing range of cakes! We expected almond/hazelnut meal cakes but we had a range of cakes made with all kinds of different flours, as well as an espresso roulade made with no flour or nut meal at all, and a raw cake! Big thanks go out to Liv, who hosted this months event - she was the hostess with the mostess!

Our cake club numbers jumped significantly when Renee Bergere of Great About Perth, Agenda City and Scoop featured a write up about us, and we were stoked when there were so many people interested!

What is kinda funny is... you'd expect the organisers of cake club to be fab bakers right? Well, Carolanne is, but of course, my cake didn't work! I made a baked cheesecake with roast pineapple in it, but it WOULD NOT set! ARGH! I learned something though, so now I know for next time to add a lot less pineapple! It goes to show that you do NOT have to be an amazing baker to come to cake club! You just have to have a love for baking and a want to socialise!

We're going to try and get a collection of the recipes, so if you're reading this and you attended, please get in touch if you'd like to include your recipe!

Have a look at the amazing range of gluten free cakes below!

For the recipe for Martines' delicious coffee pecan bundt cake, check her awesome blog Chomp Chomp!

If you're interested in attending the next cake club, then please check in HERE for updates!

Fondant au Mocha

The Clandestine Cake Club of Perth recently had its 2nd meeting, about 6 weeks after we recovered from the first one! We started our cake club with the theme of autumnal fruits, but this time we went as far away as possible from anything remotely healthy. This time, the theme was decadence! What a rich, over the top afternoon! There was some bubbles to start out with, and as an antidote for sugar overdoses, we had some salted nuts and chips stashed away, just in case!

But the stars of the show were obviously the cakes. We had some awesome creations, but the best thing about it was everyones' interpretation of the theme! It was a really impressive display of baking, exactly what the theme demanded! It turns out that our interpretation of decadence has something to do with chocolate and booze!

We had a delicious bourbon chocolate cake, with bourbon cream cheese icing and a bourbon cider jelly on top from Ai-Ling, the brains behind Food Endeavours of the Blue Apocalypse! This was so impressive and such an original idea... The cake was Nigellas' Chocolate Guinness cake, but used bourbon instead! This cake is a go to fave of mine, so I was pretty much sold as soon as I tried it. I was really surprised how well the cider and bourbon went together! Such a great cake! We couldn't help but wobble it every now and again!

Bri of the fabulous blog Eat Meets West made a ridiculously impressive crepe cake, with something like SIXTEEN crepes! WOMAN! You crazy! But it was SO NICE. I thought it would be a bit sickly, as crepes have never agreed with me, but the swiss meringue buttercream between each layer did something to my cakey soul. It was so nice. We needed some teamwork to get the first slice out, but after that it was pretty special. Did I mention the chocolate icing that had been poured all over it? Bitch please.

To follow that was Liv's creation from Col Panna - Caprioska cake! She explained that to her, decadence meant cocktails, so she designed a cake to fit her favourite cocktail! There was lime, vodka in the cake, icing AND a glaze, as well as a coating of sugar with the vodka syrup, to replicate the crunch of the sugar in the cocktail. It was another really creative cake, as well as obviously being delicious! It was a nice change from all the chocolate too!

Then there was fellow organiser Carolanne, of Carolannes Kitchen, who, inspired by a recent trip to see Heston Blumenthal live, replicated one of his recipes - the exploding gateaux! Pop rocks in the base, and she used a water gun to squirt the top of the cake with chocolate! Very cool!

Then finally, my cake, which was a pimped up version of Trish Deseines Fondant au Chocolat. This, along with the choc guinness cake by Nigella is one of my go to choc cakes (along with the choc red wine cake I made last meeting!), because it is so simple, has few ingredients and is totally decadent! It is very rich, which is why its perfect for a Parisienne lady, as she only wants a tiny slice! I changed the recipe, but only slightly. I used almond meal rather than flour to make it gluten free, and to make it a bit more decadent I used espresso in the glaze rather than water. I made a coffee almond praline, blitzed it up and crumbled it on top for some crunch against the fudgy cake!


Here it is below...

Fondant au Mocha


Cake
200g Dark chocolate (minimum 65%)
200g butter (softened)
200g Sugar
1 tbsp hot espresso coffee
5 eggs
2 heaped tbsp almond meal


Glaze
100g Chocolate (minimum 65%)
50g butter
2 tbsp espresso coffee


Praline
1 Cup sugar
1/2 chopped almonds
Rest of the espresso (1-2 tbsp)


Method

1) Preheat the oven to 180C, and prepare a 25cm round cake tin.

2) Break the chocolate into small pieces and place in a mixing bowl, set over barely simmering water and pour on the hot coffee.

3) Let it sit until the chocolate is mostly melted, then add the butter. Again, leave it until it has melted then give it a quick, gentle stir to incorporate everything together.

4) Add the sugar and stir well, then break the eggs into the mixture one at a time mixing well after each egg has been added. Finally mix in the almond meal.

5) Pour the mixture into the cake tin and bake for 20-25 minutes, you'll find the cake very moist in the middle - it shouldn't wobble still, but if it does, a couple more minutes and it'll be done! Just keep an eye on it. Note this is not a cake that rises much, and any rise that DOES occur, it falls back pretty flat once its out - don't worry, that's normal!

6) Leave the cake to cool completely in the tin/mould, and if you can, leave it overnight before serving.

7) While its cooling (or while its cooking!) put the sugar and coffee into a pan on a medium heat, and watch it bubble up and thicken into a caramel - DO NOT STIR!

8) Once its thickened, add the almonds and swirl the pan to combine. Pour it out onto grease proof paper and let set.

9) Crack the disc of caramel up, and put it into your blitzing device and blitz away! You decide how fine/chunky you'd like it, but don't go too far with it or it'll feel like you're eating sand!

This is also my entry to the We Should Cocoa challenge! This month the challenge is to pair chocolate with coffee, which is a pretty easy task as I LOVE it together! We Should Cocoa was started by Chocolate Log Blog and Chocolate Teapot but this month is hosted by The Kitchen Maid! 

Chocolate Peanut Cookies

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who gets a craving for something baked and chocolatey sometimes... It happens to the best and worst of us! But what happens when you have no flour in the house? Ran out of butter? What can you bake when you're missing half the essentials, and you NEED chocolate and sugar? Or when you realise that tomorrow is your day on morning tea duty, its 10pm and your care factor is sub-zero?


Chocolate peanut cookies is what. 


This is a recipe that I have adapted from the very well tested Jon Mac cookies, which contain only sugar, eggs and peanut butter. I wanted a chocolate hit in my cookies, and a bit of a lighter feel.


This is also a gluten free recipe - provided you use gluten free baking powder/peanut butter/cocoa - just check the labels, some have added fillers etc that contain gluten. Mine are standard brands, and they have no gluten, but check!


Here's what you need...


Ingredients
1 cup peanut butter (crunchy or smooth)
2 small eggs 
1 cup sugar
4 tbsp cocoa
1/2 tsp baking powder


Method
1) Preheat the oven to 180C, then beat the sugar and eggs together until they're creamy and form ribbons.
2) Add the peanut butter, cocoa and baking powder and mix until combined. Here, you can seperate the mixture if you like and only add half the cocoa to the mix, then combine the 2 mixtures to create marbled cookies!
3) Make tablespoon sized balls and place them about 5cm apart on baking paper and pop them in the oven for about 15-20mins or until they've spread out and are soft to the touch. Don't be tempted to leave them in longer, once you take these out of the oven, and they cool, they will be super chewy and delicious! Don't also be tempted to move them when they're hot out of the oven - they're fragile until they cool down!


You will end up with delicious, chewy, peanut butter chocolate goodness! 

Tamarind Asian and Cambodian restaurant, Mt Hawthorn

On a friday night after a long working week, S and I decided to finally try Tamarind, an asian restaurant that we had driven past loads of times but never actually gone into as yet... We looked at the menu, decided there were things we could both find that we would like, and made a booking easily.


Parking isnt great around there, right in front of the place, but the Mezz shopping centre is behind it and so we just parked in the carpark round the back - theres plenty of parking there.


We were seated quickly, in the corner, we were a bit against the wall, I had to move the table out so I could actually get in! Its BYO so we cracked open our bottle of wine, just after the waiter had asked if we needed our wine glasses and we said yes, S said he'd also use the water glasses. Then the waiter took my glass. Huh? I just took another glass from their table where they store everything...


We ordered chicken spring rolls which came out really fast, and were as to be expected. They were pretty tasty, but much  better with the sauce, which was a sweet, spicy thin and clear dipping sauce which comes standard with most spring rolls. Sometimes this sauce is a bit hit n miss but this one was great. Forgot to take a pic though, as we were starving and they were gone in a few mins!


For mains I ordered a chicken laksa with yellow noodles (egg noodles, you could also choose rice noodles, seafood or vegetarian), and S had Jungle Curry.

Jungle Curry

They both came out just as we had finished our spring rolls, so any chance for a bit of a drawn out meal weren't happening. The Jungle curry came out first, with the rice we had ordered in a little metal bucket which were cute. We werent sure if what had been put down on the table was the right thing, as the waiter muttered something incomprehensible when he delivered the food and we didnt hear if he said Jungle Curry. It didnt look much like a curry. It did say that it was a dry curry, using Nyonya curry powder, but this looked like it had very little sauce at all! I might be wrong but I expect curries to have a thicker coating than what this curry offered. Nevertheless, it was tasty, and a bit spicy! I only tasted a few pieces and it had some heat, so no doubt after a couple of mouthfuls you'll be feeling the fire! It was served with stirfried bok choi and broccoli, and was a generous serving. I think it would have been 2 breasts of chicken worth - S was stuffed once he finished! He enjoyed his meal and finished almost all of it (cept alot of the greens, which is no surprise!). He ordered some extra chillies on the side which he really enjoyed - they were really fresh and hot, with a strong chilli flavour which he loves. If you were expecting a saucier curry then this might dissappoint, but it didnt lack flavour which is the most important thing! It resembled more of a stir fried dish.

Chicken Laksa with yellow noodles

My order came a couple of minutes after the S's, and it looked awesome. Like I said, we were hungry, and having this massive, steaming bowl of laksa put in front of me was a definate win! It smelled great. There were plenty of veges (sugar snap peas, brocolli and asian greens), and good chunks of chicken. Underneath were lots of egg noodles and bean sprouts. The sauce was rich, coconutty and spicy with a great flavour. It warmed me to my bones! I loved it, to me it was exactly as I was expecting, and as I wanted it to be. It was a big serving and I ended up being greedy and putting rice in the leftover sauce to soak up and spooning it up into my mouth to finish it off. I was stuffed. I ate way more than I should have of it, but I couldnt help it. It was a delicious laksa. It did remind me ALOT of the bamboo chicken from Hans Cafe, but I love that dish, so didnt mind that it tasted the same! Ill definately go back there for another one - but there were a few other things I wanted to try as well!


Tamarind also do takeaways, and we noticed alot of people coming in and out picking up orders. The restaurant was pretty busy, but not too busy that we were neglected, and it wasnt too noisy. There were alot of kids there though, Im not sure if that was just last night or if its like that all the time, but it seems like a kid friendly place to go! I dont mind kids and even though some of them were being a bit loud and acting up a bit I didnt really care, it was more funny than anything. However if you're easily annoyed by kids then it would have been an average night out for you!


Our food came out really fast and we only managed to have one drink each, we were booked in for 6:30 and were out of there by about 7:15 or so. If youre looking for a fast feed this is the place to get it!


Things to note;

• Tamarind is BYO everything (we rang and checked) and they had no probs with S bringing in a 200ml bottle of whisky to mix with coke we bought there, and I had a bottle of wine. They charge $3 per person.
• The menu is gluten and MSG free, so those sensitive to these, come and get a belly full of food without the bellyache!

We paid about $60 for spring rolls (4), 2 mains, 2 serves of rice and corkage, which isnt too bad, but Ive been to asian places that were cheaper, but not really by that much...  Atmosphere is a bit average, but that was ok. Place was full of the sound of diners and chatter.




Considering its walking distance away, Id come back here!

Mandarin Cake

When you have a glut of fruit or veges, you end up searching for ways to use them to avoid chucking them out. This is what I've done when we had about 14 mandarines to use. Eating them is obviously an option, however they need to be eaten soon... They just wouldnt make it...

So I decided to make an adaption of Nigella Lawsons Clementine Cake - but with mandarines. The added bonus of this cake is that its gluten and dairy free! I dont follow either diet but its handy to have that kind of recipe in your recipe bank, should someone roll up with those requirements. This recipe also appeals to the frugal - you use the whole mandarin, skin and all. Ive read that this recipe can be adapted to use any thin skinned citrus fruit, and that its a very forgiving recipe - so if you try this with another fruit I'd love to hear about how it goes! Click on the link above for the recipe, Ill just describe how I did it and how it turned out.

Anyway... to start off you place 4-5 mandarins (I used 6 but 2 of them were really small) in a pot of cold water and bring it to the boil, and leave it on the stove for 2 hours. Depending on how you feel about the smell of mandarines, you'll either find the aroma the simmering fruits sweet, citrusy and warming, or weird. I found it pretty weird. It kinda reminded me of deep heat mixed with mandarin. Not the best combo. The recipe said nothing about whether or not you keep it boiling for 2 hours, or simmer... I pretty much just simmered it,but it boiled for a while. I dont think it really matters. The fruit will go from being shrivelled and bumpy, to smooth, plump and soft! Once they're done, drain them and leave them to cool somewhere for a while (be careful, as they're pretty hot!).
Once they're cool cut them in half and remove the pips, then blitz them whole. Skin and all! You can add the almond meal, sugar (I used half vanilla sugar and half caster, as I was unsure how strong the vanilla sugar would be), eggs and baking powder to the mixer, followed by your blitzed fruit, and give it a mix till its combined.

I found that the mix was really wet, and was a bit concerned that I had added too much fruit, however I was assured that it IS a wet mixture, and to have faith, Nigella wont fail me!!

Pour the mix into a greased 21cm tin, or as I used, a silicone mould. Make sure you have a baking tray or something similar underneath your silicon moulds, they're floppy and you might break your cake in half when you take it out of the oven!! I did admittedly use spray oil... I was in a hurry and couldnt be bothered to do it any other way. The purists will poo poo my decision to use it, however I had just spent half an hour scrubbing the shower, as well as the oven. So I earned a short cut, I think!

Pop your golden almond speckled gem into the oven for about an hour at 190C. You might find after a while that your cake is going a little tooooo golden on top (aka burnt) so after about 30mins cover it with baking paper to stop it going any further.

You can smell it now... and its smelling goooood! It will rise a bit, and I think I got lucky with mine, it was all uniform and looked good enough to be in a cafe - though it was slightly darker than I wanted in places... You need to let the cake cool completely before you try and get it out of your tin/mould. Its a really moist cake and when its hot its way too fragile to move it too much, just let it sit there for an hour for it to settle down and chill out.
For some reason, my cake seemed to be darker and moister than the rest in the middle, no taste difference really though! Its a bit sticky on the top, and came out nice and flat looking like a pro made it! Ive been told it improves in taste on the 2nd and third day, which is pretty sweet. So Ill have to report back tomorrow on how it tastes then. My bf and I had some tonight, and it was pretty nice. It was fairly sweet, as the boiling of the fruit really brings out the natural sugars. For some, its perfect, however for me, if I make it again Ill put less sugar in. It had a decent texture, however I noticed it being slightly eggy (there ARE 4 eggs in the recipe), which isnt something I really want my cakes to feel like, however it was negligable. Bf said that it was a good way to use up fruit that needs eating, however I dont think he was crazy about it. He said it needed a good bitter chocolate sauce on it, and I think it would be great with spiced lemony natural yoghurt or mascapone, as I think it definately needs something else.

However, in saying that... its meant to taste better tomorrow! So ill get back to you when I do further tests ;-)

UPDATE: have tried this cake day 2 and Nigella was right, it DOES taste better today. The citrus flavour has come out stronger and evened out the sweetness a bit. Its much better today - had it with some greek yoghurt which should have been toned down with something, but still really nice, with a healthy persuasion!

Related post: Ottolenghi's Clementine and Almond syrup cake - MUCH BETTER!

Food Discovery!

I have recently discovered a packet meal, that are preservative and gluten free and 100% vegetarian... Im not a huge fan of packet meals, as they always taste the same and I would prefer to cook it myself anyway, then I know whats in the food Im eating. However my old roommate Rose turned me onto these little packets of wonder! Theyre all indian meals, and vary in range of heat from one to three chillies (though I have only ever found 2 chilli meals, which vary in heat anyway lol) and are really tasty! The brand name is Gits, its made in India and exported (the food miles are the only negative I have found so far...), and I buy them from the Waneroo Market "supermarket", and they're about $3 each, which I think is reasonable!

Today for lunch Ive eaten Pau Bhaji, and the description on the back says "the original fast food from Bombay, Pau Bhaji literally means bread and mixed vegetables. The Bhaji, ie mixed veg, is cooked with a medley of spices and herbs, cooked to perfection in large pats of butter and garnished with coarsely chopped coriander leaves and diced onions. The Bhaji is served with small loaves of bread called Pau. An ideal snack that can be a meal in itself, Pau Bhaji offers you a taste of Bombay that leaves you craving for more". Aside from the marketing talk, its pretty accurate in whats in the box, and I love that they explain what the name means. Not many people really understand the Indian words used in menus etc so its great that they're demistifying the terminology! Now I know what Pau and Bhaji mean when I encounter them on a menu!

Most important thing is the taste though... yum!! Im no Indian food buff but to me, its nice. It would be great mopped up with some garlic naan, and its full of flavour and has a great texture. Its very tomatoey, which is explained when I look at teh ingredients - 35% tomatoes. Followed closely by potato at 31%. Over half of it is already just vegetable, which I love to see. While it DOES taste a little like something from the packet, its still one of the best foods Ive had thats packaged - and as a former uni student I tried one of everything at some stage!! I would serve the better ones of these (Im on my way to figuring out which ones are the best!) as sides if I were to cook an Indian feast for friends, simply to cut corners (as I know some of my friends would never know the difference!).

The list of ingredients shows only herbs, spices and vegetables, NO E numbers, perservatives, random thickeners, stabilisers, flavour/colourings... not one.

Happy days :)