Pavlova triumph (or 'An eggsellent day')

Today I won 312 eggs. Fortunately not in one go (omelette, anyone?)  but rather half a dozen lovely free range chicken eggs each week for a year. Winning Big Wednesday would have probably been nicer, but even so, I was rather stoked with my poultry prize. But let’s back up a bit....

A few days ago I was flicking through the paper when I spotted a little ad for the Nosh pavlova competition. Ah yes, the great annual pavlova comp. I’d entered last year – naturally, as it was in the throes of my quest to become Baker Queen. I remember walking in with my sugary white concoction and placing it among what looked like a cover shoot for some meringue enthusiast magazine. I remember the lady saying condescendingly, “Well, I'm sure it tastes good, dear.” Unsurprisingly I didn’t hear back from Nosh. And they lost my platter.

This year, I was better prepared. Disposable tray at the ready, I set about making my pavlova creation: a three layered pav with homemade lemon curd cream and blueberries between each layer and on top. I made the pavlovas (pavlovai? plural of pavlova anyone?) last night but got tired of waiting for them to cool so left them in the oven overnight. This morning, before the school/pre-school run, I whipped and swirled and drizzled and generally felt quite Nigella-like (apart from the cocaine addiction bit of course) as I put the finishing touches and then I played my trump card:

“Neil, could you please enter this pavlova at the Nosh competition for me?”

I’d done my homework. Neil has Tuesday mornings off work (which, to digress for a second, is rather disconcerting to anyone who calls round our house at that time because, as I work from home, they are confronted with two, perfectly healthy, young, of-working-age professionals, seemingly childless, sitting at home on a Tuesday morning; you can almost see them fighting not to yell “dole bludgers!” at us). Normally Neil would be out cycling to prepare for the big Taupo bike race, but as the race was on Saturday (he did it in just over 5 hours – go Manlet!) he had no reason to be out on his bike again just yet.

Annnd, I knew he needed to go to sort out something for the kitchen at a shop just down the road from Nosh. See, homework – done. Some might call it manipulative and conniving. I call it well played.

So, poor Neil really had little choice to respond to my request with a dull “yes”, that reminded me of that guy from the DB Export ad (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwOxqBOYdiI ) which takes viewers back to the 1980s when beer was “out” and wine was “in” and a girl says to her partner, “Hey hon, want some wine?” to which her long suffering partner says in a pained voice, “yeees”.

For those who have no idea what I’m talking about (check out the ad link above - it's hilarious), suffice to say a little part of Neil's masculinity died as he trudged off to his car with a towering fruity meringue in tow.

That was the last I saw of my perky little pavlova, but he must have duly delivered it, because this afternoon I received the words anyone would be delighted to hear: “You’ve won a year’s supply of eggs”.

Yes, my pav came second. Music please. I hadn’t officially closed the door on my baking escapades, but I had let the oven gloves slide a bit farther in the drawer. My little eggy adventure has inspired me to get them out again.

 

 

 

TTFN x

It’s my daughter's party and I’ll feed Twisties to the kids and pastries and bubbly to the adults if I want to...

Ordinarily I love Bite, the New Zealand Herald’s foodie supplement that comes out every Monday. I like to pretend that I, too, will forage for mushrooms and make a hearty venison stroganoff, or whip up a hollandaise sauce for a leisurely eggs bene with the family.

My eyes lit up as I opened Bite a few weeks ago; it featured an article on catering for a little girl’s birthday party. How timely, I thought ─ me too!

But as I read the article and looked at the pictures of the table adorned with hydrangeas and orchard apples, the strings of homemade bunting, the homemade lemonade served in those achingly cool old-fashioned bottles with those retro red and white striped straws, the pastel macarons and cake pops, my delight slowly dissipated.

The reality of preparing for Emily’s third birthday party was somewhat different. Think classic Kiwi kid kitsch. Instead of homemade lemonade ─ Just Juice cartons. Instead of bunting ─ garish pink balloons. Instead of macarons ─ fairy bread, popcorn and Twisties. (As a quick digression, I was relieved to see they still make Twisties – for my British friends, they are sort of like Wotsits; they are the lurid orange morsels in the centre of the pic below. They also still make Burger Rings – I spent a good few minutes in the snack aisle of Pak n Save gazing nostalgically at the junk food of my childhood, trying to choose which I would lovingly pour into a bowl for my soon-to-be three-year-old and her friends, and ignoring the judgmental looks from other trolley pushers.)

Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, children’s parties. Here’s what I have learned about kids’ parties. From about five years old and onwards, kids’ parties truly become kids’ parties. Upon receiving an invitation (and this is important – dropping your uninvited child at a party for a spot of free childcare is generally frowned upon) you can leave your child and gift with some poor frazzled parent who has agreed to turn their house into a pirate ship or fairy castle out of love (and a smidgen of peer pressure) for their little birthday sprog. There is no need for adult catering, or even a particularly gleaming house. There is no need to learn the names, occupations and interests of all your son’s friends’ parents. Sausage rolls and pass-the-parcel will suffice. Meanwhile, two hours later, the drop-off parent returns – filled with the warmth of coffee, shopping and alone time, maybe even with a sneaky haircut – to find their child, face-painted and cake-filled, sporting party bags, blowing those party whistle things, balloons tied to ears, shrieking that he also wants a monster truck that talks for his birthday.

Of course, this is how I imagine it will be, having not yet entered ‘drop off’ party zone yet; we’re still in the pre-school years (although this household will see a fifth birthday before the year is out!) A three-year-old’s party needs to be tolerable for the long-suffering parents who sacrifice their Saturday mornings to be dragged by their kids to these parties.

So, I decided whatever shortcuts I may have taken at the crisp aisle and bulk bins of Pak n Save for the kids, I would attempt to make up for with pastries for the adults. While I’m getting better at Danish pastries, they still took me a ridiculously long time to make, but worth it I think.  The savoury pastries and brioche featured feta, pesto, sundried tomatoes and spinach. Their sweeter equivalents had different combos of frangipane, dark chocolate, lemon curd and cream cheese.

 

 

The party was a success, which, considering we had fifteen kids and sixteen adults in our less-than-palatial house on a winter’s Saturday, was a relief.  A magician kept the kids (and adults!) entertained and the pastries went down really well ─ I was delighted to find them all gone at the end of the party... until Neil declared that he’d eaten six himself. While he meant this as a compliment, I had to explain the FHB rule to him for future reference – Family Holds Back.

One aspect of the party that I was never going to compromise on was, of course, the cake. I know some people favour the surprise-the-child approach to birthday cakes, but I love the build-up, the planning, the short-listing of potential cake candidates, the input into the design, and even the “help” in making it. For those of you who know Emily well, you will believe me when I say she was very involved in each of these stages. She chose several cake books from the library and then deliberated over their pages for several weeks. With some gentle dissuasion from a rather evil looking snake cake (what IS it with Emily’s love of snakes?!) and an extremely complicated Noah’s Ark masterpiece (a very accurate interpretation featuring virtually every creature two-by-two in fondant icing glory), she eventually settled on a fairy toadstool. Voilà!

 

And here is her somewhat less inspired cake for her pre-school party the day before.

 

And if anyone dares mention that the roses and butterflies look strangely similar on both cakes, I’ll have you know that is a result of my meticulous cake decorating skills. I would never repurpose fondant decorations from one cake to another.

Never.

TTFN x

Matariki meringues and other misadventures

If you have a little boy and a little girl helping you bake cupcakes, you can be certain there will be requests (translation: demands, usually accompanied by a stroppy foot stamp) for both blue and pink icing. I’m definitely looking forward to some more creative colour choices in the adolescent years (although perhaps not the black and purple teenage goth phase). For now, however, the only little bottles of food colouring I need to have in stock are blue and pink.

To be honest, I was relieved when Emily asked if we could make cupcakes this afternoon – she has had a cookie cutter or “shapes” obsession in recent weeks. So much so that when I hear those three words, “Let’s make shapes!” I can rustle up the ingredients in two seconds flat without even opening my trusty Edmonds cookbook to the Shrewsbury biscuit page, and before you know it we have ducks, dogs, T-Rexs and flowers (I have a rather eclectic selection of cookie cutters) all over the kitchen.

But not today; today was all about the cupcakes, which was rather fitting as the challenge on

New Zealand’s Hottest Home Baker was to make 100 cupcakes and assemble them into a structure that told a story. The contestants had to have a partner or friend to help make the cupcakes, and I couldn’t help but think how hilarious it would have been, if I had been on the show and brought Dan or Emily in as my helper. Could you imagine Colin Mathura-Jeffree’s face?

Perhaps it was a good thing this plan didn’t eventuate as here were the results of Dan and Em’s cupcakes.

 

 

 

Despite being fairly underwhelmed in the first few weeks, I’m really enjoying the Hottest Home Baker comp. I keep wanting to try my hand at the challenges each week, but in all seriousness when will I ever have a spare uninterrupted four hours to make a St. Honoré gateau? (I haven’t ruled it out yet though, so watch this space!)

Last week they made brioche and Danish pastries. Now, as you all know, I laugh in the face of brioche (*arrogant cackle*) as I make it all the time, but I’ve never had a go at Danishes, although I’ve made croissants a few times. It’s a timely exercise – rising and fridging (a verb I just invented then which means to take items in out of the fridge on a regular basis) of the pastry dough. Once the pastry had been folded and turned and fridged (loving my new verb; I see it becoming a culinary term used by pastry chefs all over the world) and rolled within an inch of its life I set about making all sorts of creations. I made an almond and apple braid; pain au chocolat; blue cheese, pear and pecan windmills; parmesan, sundried tomato and rocket envelopes; frangipane twists. It was all most excellent. Fridging delicious.

 

I didn’t see what the contestants have to produce next week – too busy quickly changing channels to Miranda (such a rockstar existence I lead) – but I guarantee you it won’t be these, which I took to Dan and Emily’s Matariki (Maori New Year) pre-school disco: meringue nests bought from Pak N Save, hurriedly filled with whipped cream, topped with decorations and edible glitter and thrown on a plate.

 

Until next time!
TTFN x

Chopsticks and Chutney

I’m actually nursing an indirect baking injury. I have a strand of steel wool embedded in my thumb nail – a result of some overzealous Steelo pan-scrubbing after my attempt at making spiced feijoa and date chutney left the bottom of the pan scarred with charred chutney.

Despite the damage done to my pan – and my thumb - the chutney is delicious. The long, hot summer has left the feijoas smaller but sweeter than other years, but as with our plum trees, I never know what to do with the hundreds of feijoas that our two trees produce. There’s only so many feijoas you want your two young children to eat, only so many feijoa crumbles you can guzzle. So I was pleased to hear of a chutney recipe that required two kilograms of the fruit. Basically, the chopped feijoas are boiled - skin and everything - with dates, chillis, ginger, limes, lemons, honey, apple cider vinegar and a whole host of spices and other goodies. Feeling very smug as I filled jar after jar with the stuff, I then confronted the inevitable question that probably faces every chutney, jam and preserve maker: what do I do with all these jars?

So far I’ve discovered my spiced feijoa and date chutney works well in baguette sammies, on crostinis with a slab of brie, and also as a filling for pinwheel scones. That’s three uses and approximately half a jar. Only six and a half to go. Any ideas? Any takers?

I’m well aware that this foray into feijoa is the first mention of baking to make its way onto the blog in a long time. I’ve been baking away of course, but nothing particularly new and adventurous and worth talking about...

...until our recent trip to Hoi An, Vietnam, where we went for the wedding of our good friends, Johanna and Aidan. It was an amazing, relaxing, hot, kids-free, friends-filled time spent in a culinary and shopping paradise. Suffice to say we had fun. Amid hen and stag parties and getting clothes tailored Neil and I found time to do a cooking class. While not strictly baking, it was definitely a different sort of kitchen experience and warrants a mention on this blog.

Having ventured into the pungent and noisy (think clucking chickens) Hoi An food market a few times, I was happy to forgo a trip to the market with the chef to pick the ingredients. I know this was opting out – I will clearly never be a Masterchef contestant - but once we found ourselves upstairs in the kitchen above the restaurant, with our lovely chef Lam, I was in my element. We made spring rolls, pork and prawn rice pancakes and a beef noodle soup (or pho).

As we begin our lesson, Neil informs Lam that I am an excellent cook. For a second I consider being humble and rejecting the praise, but then decide, no dammit, I’ll take it, I am awesome, thank you very much. For all Lam knows I could be Annabel Langbein on some intrepid, undercover mission. At this point Lam hands me a carrot and a peeler and I fumble with it like I’ve never held a peeler. Or seen a carrot. Very embarrassingly, Lam has to show me how to peel a carrot, while Neil smirks beside me. I’m fairly certain Lam worked out I wasn’t Annabel at that point. It seems pride does come before a fall, whatever language you’re talking.

I then tried to redeem myself with my deft knife handling and nifty wok work, but Lam did not seem particularly impressed. The end result was great, however – the spring rolls were especially delicious. Of course, the real test is being able to replicate at home, and my first attempt was not baaaaad, but I’m looking forward to having another bash.

Meanwhile, the ads for New Zealand’s Hottest Home Baker have started appearing and I must admit to overwhelming relief at not seeing myself on the screen, dropping cupcakes and whatnot. I am quite looking forward to being an armchair critic after all.

TTFN x

 

The Aston Martins of the cake world

1^st March marked the first day of autumn here in New Zealand. But at 31 degrees, with not a cloud in sight, it is clear that summer is showing no signs of relenting just yet. What a summer! It has become the sort of season where jumpers and jeans have gone into complete disuse, the sort where you get dressed in summery clothes before even looking outside, such is the certainty that the sun will be beating down. The last time it rained was about four weeks ago - for approximately 8 minutes. It hasn’t been so long since I’ve abandoned the gumboots of my childhood that I don’t feel for the dairy farmers facing a drought, though.

The 1^st March was significant. It was my second cousin Chelsea and her fiancé Craig’s wedding day. Beautiful day, beautiful bride, beautiful event. And, as this is a baking blog, beautiful cake.

Wedding cakes are the Aston Martins of the cake world. A chance for truly gifted bakers to really show off. Chelsea and Craig’s cake was exquisite – a tower of meringues.

It got me thinking back to our wedding cake (made by Sue Pedley – family friend and gifted cake maker): three gorgeous white tiers, each a different flavour, each separated by layers of strawberries and red roses. Again, exquisite.

It makes me wonder, if I keep it up, my pursuit of baking excellence, will I ever be capable of making something so amazing? I’m beginning to think the self-taught method (i.e. devouring cook books like novels) may have its limitations, and that perhaps there may be a reason why brilliant pastry chefs have usually undergone extensive training. Having said that, I have many friends who simply have a knack and a passion for baking and produce works of art.

I may be lacking in knack, but have plenty of passion! Check out my recent birthday cake attempts. Here is the cake I made for Neil’s 31^stbirthday. Somewhat lacking in theme (I had considered a bike cake in honour of his newfound cycling obsession but ruled it out on the grounds of difficulty and lack of time), but given his advancing years (31 - blimey!) I thought understated might be best. After all, is there any birthday more insignificant than the 31^st? It’s not a big round number, you’ve just had a big party last year, you’re launching out into the wilderness of those middle decades... 

 

Hmm, if my wedding cake was an Aston Martin, this was probably a Toyota Corolla. The observant among you will have spotted the embossed icing – yes, new cake decorating toy. I got to use it again a few weeks later when making my cousin Renée’s birthday cake. Renée turned 12 – a decidedly more exciting age! Pink and girly was the order of the day and I was thrilled to oblige. Here was the result...

 

Hmm, Volkswagen Golf? Birthday cakes aside, I’ll be honest: the sunshine and the busy humdrum of work and kids has kept me out of the kitchen lately and my baking output has been rather pitiful. However, I did whip up these lemony-coconutty-passionfruity little cakes for afternoon tea today. Fortunately my icing bowl lickers weren't far away...

 

Perhaps with the new season will come a surge of productivity.  We’ll see.

TTFN x

 

And the verdict is...

....unfortunately, I didn’t make the cut for New Zealand’s Hottest Home Baker competition.  I feel a mixture of things: a little disappointed, as it would no doubt have been fun to experience my 15 minutes of fame (and given I am still very much a baking novice, 15 minutes is probably all I would have had); a smidge embarrassed, since my pursuit of a place on the show has been so public (mild inner cringe); quite relieved, as I hadn’t really worked out how I was going to take time off work and who was going to look after the kids, and so on. There is also the very real possibility that I would have been way out of my depth and fallen at the first floury hurdle!

So, mixed feelings. But I can now reveal what I made for my audition! We had to make something sweet, something savoury and something ‘uniquely me’. My something sweet was a lemon, coconut and blueberry layer cake. My something savoury was brioche with sundried tomatoes, feta, pesto and spinach. My ‘uniquely me’ dish were little tarts with layers of lemon curd, blueberry coulis, frangipane and crème patissiere (all homemade!) topped with summer berries. I was very proud of this effort!

 

I’m still not sure if we were supposed to bring such large examples of our baking or not – they looked a little surprised at all the trips to the car to bring everything in, and when I left the audition laden with baking tins, baskets and platters, the guy who was auditioning after me had a little plate with a three little morsels on it. It was a funny moment in hindsight – you could see he was packing it, thinking ‘oh, no, I’ve misjudged it’ and I was thinking ‘oh no, I totally overdid it!’ My inner try-hard still lurks within.

So. Where to from here? I’ve come to a bit of an impasse with my baking, now that the show is no longer an option. Funnily enough, the few people I’ve told so far have all said, ‘Please don’t stop your blog’. And I haven’t had any desire to stop baking – if anything, I have more urge than ever to get better. I guess there’s always next year...

Meanwhile I'm still baking, still learning, still making works of art one minute, absolute disasters the next. Here are some of my latest accomplishments:

Passionfruit and coconut meringues

 

Tomato and feta tart with thyme pastsry

Herby focaccia bread

 

Blueberry, lime, coconut and passionfruit cake

 

Baking for the sake of baking is fine, but I feel I need another challenge or goal – so any ideas are welcome!

TTFN x

The mother of muffins

I had a good haul of pressies this Christmas. I suspect by the time you hit thirty you should perhaps have outgrown that smug feeling of receiving a large stash of excellent gifts, but just as Dan’s eyes lit up when he opened his remote control car, Emily squealed with glee at her new doll’s house and Neil pronounced himself “stoked” with his new chilly bin (what? that was what he wanted!), so too did I feel a rush of giddy delight upon receiving some great new recipe books (including Thomas Keller’s ‘Bouchon Bakery’ and Paul Hollywood’s ‘How to Bake’ – thank you Steve and Heather respectively!)

Among them was Peter Gordon’s ‘Everyday’ (thank you, Tristan and Jen!) – a book I’ve been lusting after ever since I spent ten minutes ogling it in Paper Plus, while Dan and Emily ran around the shop and I pretended they weren’t my kids.

I’m somewhat in awe of Peter Gordon, the so-called ‘father of fusion cuisine’, with his Kiwi-British restaurant empire, his column in the Herald and now his amazing new cook book, from which I tried my first recipe last night: blueberry custard tarts. Partly through burning creativity, although more accurately through lack of correct ingredients, I adapted the recipe somewhat to more of a blueberry peach cheesecake tart. 

His sweet pastry is a Spanish version, made with sherry. I was somewhat surprised to find we had sherry in our rather sparse liquor cabinet; even more surprised when I realised post-tart that I’d used brandy instead of sherry (which we actually didn’t have as it turned out), however the texture and taste were great.

 

The pastry was cooked beautifully, or so I thought, until Neil says, in the manner of an airport security guard who has just spotted something dodgy in your hand luggage, “Waaait. Mine is slightly undercooked on the bottom.”

Sure enough, there was a very fine transparent line of raw pastry in the centre of the tart.

“That’s the sort of thing they’ll have a go at you for on the show,” says he, who claims to have never watched it.

The ‘show’ he refers to is, of course, 'Chelsea New Zealand’s Hottest Home Baker'. Applications close about now so I should hear soon...

I’ll be honest, the tarts were the first thing I’ve made in a while. The Kiwi summer has morphed into a series of endless, hot, beachy, loll-about-on-a-sun-lounger-with-an-iceblock days, which don't lend themselves to time in front of the oven.  However, summer also means summer fruits – stone fruits, berries, pineapples, melons: I love them all. Neil, on a particularly inspired Daddy daycare morning, took the kids to boysenberry-picking.  They returned with full juicy punnets, so boysenberry muffins with lemon curd centres and cream cheese icing were the order of the day.

 

 

 

If Peter Gordon is the father of fusion, does that make me the mother of muffins? I don’t think anyone’s claimed that yet, so I’ll take it.

Next post, I shall have NEWS! Good or bad, you’ll hear it here first.

 

TTFN x