Cherry Pavlova Ice Cream

Kath December 9, 2020

This recipe came about as a way to use up some leftovers from a Christmas shoot I did for Little Big Dairy Co recently. I had a lot of milk (20 litres to be precise!), and some additional Christmas-y things like cherries and pre-made mini pavlovas that were used for the shoot. I hate things going to waste, especially good quality produce like Little Big Dairy Co milk and Australian cherries so I decided I would go on a ice cream making spree in an attempt to at least use up some of the milk that had been sent to me for the shoot.

I bought some Little Big Dairy Co cream to use with my ice cream, and I made one lot of this ice cream plus some vanilla ice cream at the house I was staying in for the shoot. I then brought back one 300ml jar of the cream I had left, and needed to make it last for 4 different types of ice cream I wanted to make (all in an attempt to thoughtfully use up some of the delicious milk I had!).

So for this recipe I have split the amount of cream needed between pouring cream and plain Greek style yoghurt. Greek style yoghurt works well in homemade ice creams along side cream, however if you have enough cream you can just use that (250ml total).

Cherry Pavlova Ice Cream

Ingredients:

165ml milk

5 tbsp caster or white sugar

150ml pouring cream

100ml plain Greek Style Yoghurt

1 tsp vanilla extract or paste

365g cherries (unpitted weight), pitted and roughly chopped

70-75g pavlova*, roughly chopped, plus extra

Edible dried rose petals, optional

Method:

In a large bowl, whisk together the milk and sugar until the milk is frothy and the sugar has dissolved. I use an electric hand held mixer for this, but you can also use a stand mixer if you prefer.

Once the sugar has dissolved into the milk, add the cream, yoghurt and vanilla. Whisk on medium speed until everything is combined and the cream has thickened to form soft mousse like peaks.

Transfer the mixture to your ice cream maker, and churn according to your machines instructions. I use the ice cream bowl attachment to my KitchenAid stand mixer and I find this ice cream takes about 5-10 minutes to churn. I find the ice cream is ready once it has frozen/thickened and is clinging to the paddle of the machine.

Once the has been churned fold through the cherries and pavlova using a spatula. Transfer the mixture to a freezer safe container (about 1.5L capacity). Sprinkle any extra crushed up pavlova over the top, and sprinkle over some dried rose petals if desired.

Allow ice cream to freeze for a few hours before serving.

*I used about 6 pre made mini pavlovas (I got mine from Woolworths). You could also use pre made meringues.

Honey Ice Cream

Kath October 16, 2018

I started making this ice cream a year ago. I thought what a great idea it would be to make a ‘breakfast appropriate ice cream’ and serve it with fresh berries and homemade muesli (which is why some of the photos in this post have jars of muesli in them!). Only for special occasions of course. In theory it was all a great idea, until you have a massive sugar rush before 9 am.

Despite this, I would still recommend this ice cream for serving with waffles or pancakes (or these ricotta hotcakes) for brunch. And of course it is divine on its own as an easy dessert. I would also pair it with the Apple & Honey Cake I posted recently, with my Duck Egg Pavlova, or a fruit crumble (or maybe at a stretch my Muesli Breakfast Crumble if you were feeling a little indulgent!).

My massive sugar rush ‘breakfast’ - honey ice cream with homemade muesli and berries!

For this recipe I used the Honey Malt and Vanilla Milk from Little Big Dairy Co. I love this milk as not only does it taste great (and is truely addictive!), but all Little Big Dairy Co’s products are single source. This means everything is produced from their farm in the Central West of NSW. Having tried a few of their products now, I truely believe you can taste the difference. Everything just tastes so good compared to other milks or creams, in a way that makes me think I hadn’t tried really good quality milk or cream until I tried Little Big Dairy Co.

I buy some of their products from Harris Farm Markets (including the milk used for this recipe), and they are also available in the Food Hall at David Jones in the city (I have been known to take cooler bags and ice bricks into the city and carry some of their products home on the train!).

If you can’t find the Little Big Dairy Co Honey Malt and Vanilla milk, regular full cream or skim will work well too.

Honey Ice Cream

Ingredients:

40g white sugar (Panela Sugar also works well)

175ml milk (preferably Little Big Dairy Co Honey Malt and Vanilla Milk)

125ml pouring cream

150ml Greek style yoghurt

1 tbsp vanilla bean paste

160g mild flavoured honey

Method:

Whisk the milk and sugar together until the sugar has dissolved and the milk has become frothy. Then add the cream, yoghurt, vanilla and honey. Whisk until well combined and the mixture has thickened a little.

Transfer mixture into the bowl of an ice cream machine, and process according to machine instructions. I find the churning process takes about 10 minutes (weather depending), and is ready once the ice cream has thickened, slightly frozen and is clinging to the paddle of the ice cream machine.

Transfer ice cream to a freezer safe container (at least 1L capacity) and freeze overnight.

Remove from freezer when ready to serve - due to the yoghurt in the ice cream it does not freeze as hard as other ice creams and is easy to serve straight from the freezer.

Reference: ‘Lomelino’s Ice Cream’ by Linda Lomelino (Roost Books, 2015), p.13

Honey Ice Cream made using Little Big Dairy Co’s Honey Malt and Vanilla Milk

Buttermilk Crumpets with Homemade Butter, Poached Quince & Cream

Buttermilk Crumpets & Homemade Butter

Kath July 7, 2017

I was inspired to make crumpets again after having an amazing breakfast at Synonymous Cafe in Medlow Bath while I was away a few weeks ago. The crumpets we had there were really good, and the combination of accompaniments got me thinking that I should be serving crumpets at home with more than just butter/margarine and vegemite. Keeping with the travel inspiration theme, I decided to pair my crumpets with quince I had poached after buying some from the Agrestic Grocer in Orange while we were away, and amazing cream from Dubbo based Little Big Dairy Co whose milk we enjoyed at a few cafes in the Central West.

I also Little Big Dairy Co's pouring cream to make the butter as well, and the resulting buttermilk can be used for this recipe also - just top up the quantity with another milk if you don’t get quite enough. I did this the second time I made these, and used Little Big Dairy Co’s unhomogenised full cream milk, which I think is the nicest milk I’ve ever tasted. The first time I made these I used Pepe Saya’s Buttermilk, which is a by product of the butter making process. As you can see I really like supporting great Australian small businesses, and buying local when possible. I love to support people who are passionate about food, and make a top quality product like Pepe Saya and Little Big Dairy Co. And I have to say it’s so worth it when you cook with products from these small producers and the taste is so much better than you’ve had before.

Do you ever find cooking inspiration on holidays? And what are your favourite small food businesses and producers you love to support? Let me know in the comments below, I’d love to add to more to my list!

Homemade Butter

This is well worth the effort, and in fact it’s not really that much effort. All you need is a stand mixer, whisk attachment, muslin and some pouring cream. Use the best quality cream you can find, as it will produce a nicer quality butter and buttermilk. Both the butter and buttermilk can be used straight away for frozen or another time, so no need to stress about using a whole litre of cream, it won’t go to waste. You can however use any quantity of cream, as long as it is enough for the mixer to process.

Ingredients:

1L good quality pouring cream

Method:

Pour the cream into the bowl of a stand mixture fitted with the whisk attachment. Start mixing on medium-high speed, covering the bowl with a tea towel if the cream is jumping out and making a mess. After a couple of minutes of constant mixing, the cream will thicken and become whipped. Continue mixing for a few more minutes (at least 5), and the cream will start to turn a yellow colour. In the next few minutes the butter will begin to separate from the buttermilk - you might want to cover the bowl with a tea towel again as I find the buttermilk jumps out of the bowl quite a lot. Continue mixing for a few more minutes, or until the butter and the buttermilk have completely separated.

Place a large colander over a bowl, and line the colander with the muslin. Pour the butter and buttermilk over the colander, then squeeze out the butter over the colander using the muslin to release more of the buttermilk. The buttermilk can be used in the below recipe, kept in the fridge for a week or frozen for later use.

Rinse the butter in cold water, then knead on a dry surface to release more of the buttermilk. This process is essential to give the butter a longer shelf life as, if too much buttermilk remains the butter will go off. Rinse the butter again and knead until most of the buttermilk as been released. Roll the butter into a log or shape into a disc and wrap with baking paper and seal. Use for the below recipe and store in the fridge (it should keep for a couple of months), or weigh it out into portions and freeze.

Cook crumpets on low heat in a crumpet ring until bubbles then holes appear, then flip

Buttermilk Crumpets

This was my second recent attempt at making crumpets from scratch. I have posted a recipe for crumpets before, but have since found a new recipe I like better and have worked out the best way to cook them. They key is to cook them low and slow, so you give the tops time to bubble and burst, giving that distinctive hole-y top crumpet look, without over cooking the bottoms. You will need crumpet rings for this recipe but you can use egg rings, which will give a smaller fatter or larger thinner crumpet depending on their size. I had been searching for crumpet rings all over for a few years, and finally found some at the Lost & Found Department where they had sourced crumpet rings and handmade cake tins etc from a supplier in Tasmania (if my recollection of the story is correct).

As I mentioned above, I used buttermilk from the butter making process for this recipe. If you can’t get any or aren’t making the homemade butter, just substitute with regular or skim milk. Don’t substitute with cultured buttermilk (the thicker variety found in supermarkets), I’m not sure the thickness of it will work well with this recipe.

Ingredients

275ml buttermilk (not cultured)

55ml water

1tsp caster sugar

250g strong white flour (bread flour)

8g dried fast action yeast

1/2 tsp bicarb soda

50ml warm water

butter for cooking, and to serve

poached quinces, to serve (optional)

thick/clotted/dollop cream, to serve (optional)

Method:

Warm the milk and water (55ml) in a saucepan over low heat, then add the sugar and stir. Don’t overheat the milk. Place the flour into a large bowl and stir in the yeast. Pour in the warmed milk mixture and mix together until smooth. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave in a warm place to rise. The batter will be ready when it has risen and become frothy and full of bubbles, this should take around hour, but leave for longer if the batter hasn’t become very bubbly after an hour.

When the batter is ready, mix the bicarb soda with water (50ml) then mix into the batter until smooth.

Grease the insides of the crumpet rings with butter, and heat a large flat plan on low heat. Grease the pan with some butter and place the rings on to the pan (how many you use at one time will depend on how large your pan is).

Fill the crumpet rings with batter, until the surface of the ring on the pan is fully covered and the batter comes up around a quarter to half way up the crumpet ring (this will depend on how big you want your crumpets to be, allowing for them to rise a little).

Cook for about 5 minutes, keeping the pan on low heat, or until bubbles then holes appear on the top of each crumpet. This is a slow process so don’t be tempted to rush it.

Flip the crumpets over once the holes have appeared on the tops, and cook for another couple of minutes or until golden - you can remove the crumpet rings at this point, and allow them to cool a little before re-greasing them to use again. Continue with the remaining batter. I found the batter made about 10 crumpets.

Serve straight from the pan, or warmed up later on under a grill with fresh butter, cream and poached quinces, or any other topping you fancy.

How to make Crumpets - Kulinary Adventures of Kath

References: ‘Fortnum & Mason The Cookbook’ by Tom Parker Bowles (4th Estate, 2016), p.60; ‘Real Food Projects’ by Kate Walsh (Murdoch Books, 2016) pp.92-3.

A Road Trip to the Blue Mountains & Central Western NSW - Part Two: Central Western NSW

Kath June 29, 2017

For the second part of our road trip (click here for part one) we continued to Central Western NSW. While having gone to Orange a few times as a child, I had not been for over ten years and was keen to go back and check out the food scene I had heard so much about.

Millthorpe

Millthorpe, located in between Bathurst and Orange, was our base for the two nights in the Central West. Boasting amazing old architecture, it was exceptionally quiet, and you couldn’t not be relaxed and follow the slow pace of life there. We arrived on a Wednesday, and almost nothing is open until Thursday! The weekends are meant to be quite busy, with some shops only opening on the weekend. Luckily for us a the pub was open for dinner so we didn’t go hungry on our first night!

Food is a big part of this town, which is one of the reasons we stayed here. The town has a hatted restaurant (Tonic), some lovely small cafes and homewares shops.

We ate at Tonic, the hatted restaurant in Millthorpe, on our last night there. We contemplated long and hard about eating here, not sure if hatted restaurant food was really our thing, and if we really needed to have a full two course meal after having such a food focused trip. I am so glad we did make the effort to go, as the food was great and were much larger portions than I was expecting. We had two courses each, all of which were amazing, and I would highly recommend eating there especially if you are staying in Millthorpe.

The Cork and Fork at The Commercial Hotel in Millthorpe was our only option for dinner on our first night, and it was a cheap and cheerful meal - in the absolute nicest sense of that phrase. The pub was warm and cosy, and nicely decorated. The food was good, and very inexpensive. We decided to share some bruschetta and a pizza, as we had already eaten lots that day. I noticed that the pizzas were only $12.95 each - where they really small, or kids size, would it be enough for the two of us? If you pay $12.95 for in pizza in Sydney you can almost guarantee it is only enough for one, or you’ve ordered off the kids menu. When I ordered and asked the size, the lady serving me said it was definitely big enough for two, that she thought she’d be able to get through half of one herself. When our meal came, it was enough for both of us to share! I was so surprised at the good value of the meal, it’s definitely not something we are accustomed to in Sydney!

Our favourite place to eat in Millthorpe was the Millthorpe Providore. A deli come cafe, selling lots of local Central West food products, as well as other gourmet goods. They serve T2 tea, Bills Beans coffee and use Little Big Dairy Co milk. Bills Beans seem to be well known for their quality and great taste in the Central West and we quickly learnt that any cafe serving it would be good - though Mum said the coffee at the Millthorpe Providore was the best! The combination of Bills Beans and Little Big Dairy Co milk was a winner! I had heard of Little Big Dairy Co through Local is Lovely, and since they recently started selling their products in David Jones in the city, I was able to buy some of their cream not long before our trip. Their products are of exceptional quality, and actually taste like they should - to the point where I feel I’ve never really tasted proper cream until now. I made a note before we left of cafes that said they used this Dubbo based dairy’s products, and they were well showcased at the Millthorpe Providore.

We had breakfast here on our first morning in Millthorpe, most other cafes were not open for breakfast until the weekend, but the Millthorpe Providore was by far the best choice regardless. I had learnt during my research for this trip that the Trunkey Bacon & Egg sandwich was the thing to have here. There weren’t too many other options to be honest, though the quality of this sandwich made me think they didn’t need to offer anything else. I can’t say that a bacon and egg sandwich would be my usual choice for breakfast, but this one was outstanding. They used shaved Trunkey Bacon, which is a product of a local Orange business Trunkey Bacon & Pork. It was by far the best bacon I have ever had and not only had me craving another sandwich the next day, but also looking up where I can buy this bacon back in Sydney (they sell at North Sydney Produce Markets thankfully!).

Our favourite homewares store in Millthorpe was Tomolly Millthorpe. The store has a wonderful aesthetic and Belinda the owner was so friendly you couldn’t help but get chatting. We both walked out with a few gifts for others and I bought a couple of nice tea towels too.

Highlights: Tonic, Millthorpe Providore, Tomolly Millthorpe.

To try next time: The Old Mill Cafe & Le Billot de Boucher.

Orange

We stopped into Racine Bakery, located on the edge of the Woolworths carpark, twice during our time in Orange. We first went there for a quick lunch, having pies and hot drinks (made with Little Big Dairy Co milk no less). We then stopped back to pick up some bread to take home. Next time we definitely need to go to the Racine restaurant, as the photos I’ve seen on Instagram look so lovely.

We drove around most of Orange, taking in the wide tree lined streets and amazing old houses. We spent a little time at Cook Park on our first day in the Central West. Cook Park is a lovely park to be in, and some of the (very) early Spring blooms had started flowering which was nice to see. I had fond childhood memories of going to Cook Park with my friend and buying homemade lollies at the Cook Park Guildry which sells local arts and crafts. We went back to the Guildry just to satisfy the kid me in really, and they had a great selection of homemade slices, biscuits and jams, and I walked away with an ANZAC Caramel Slice (pictured below) that was so sweet and so so good.

For lunch on our second day we made our way to the Agrestic Grocer. After hearing so many good things about it we were keen to check it out. We started by looking around the produce shop, which sported lots of local organic produce and other local deli items. I bought some quinces, which ended up being the most fragrant ones I have ever bought.

Unfortunately we both found The Agrestic Grocer cafe a bit disappointing after all the good things we’d heard and the excitement of getting to actually go there. We both had vegetarian dishes which were really big, bland and just a bit too expensive for what they were. As we drove away, Mum commented that they should get their hands on an Ottolenghi book to learn to cook vegetables in a more tasty and interesting way. It was a shame, but we were definitely beginning to think that the food in Millthorpe was going to be the star of our trip.

After lunch we continued driving away from Orange and ended up in the small town of Molong, and our experience there improved our day significantly.

Highlights: Racine Bakery, Cook Park.

To try next time: Bills Beans Cafe, LolliRedini, Racine Restaurant, Hillside Harvest.

Central Western NSW Kulinary Adventures of Kath

Molong

Molong has one main street for shops and cafes, Bank Street. It was a quiet place, however after walking down the street we found a really nice homewares shop, Booful Gifts & Homewares. Inside the shop was the biggest collection of Robert Gordon ceramics I had ever seen. We jumped at the chance to buy some as the collection was so extensive, and I know from experience that buying directly from Robert Gordon online takes a little while as everything is glazed to order.

The whole shop was so well thought out, and was a beautiful collection of colourful and interesting things. We were able to talk to the owner of the store, and she said it was named Booful, as when she was younger she couldn’t say ‘beautiful’ and said ‘booful’ instead. A very cute story for a very cute store!

We also had a look in The Yarn Market Molong, a similar local arts and crafts shop to the Guildry in Cook Park. The ladies working in the store that day were incredibly friendly, and again they had a wonderful collection of homemade cakes, slices biscuits and jams. I bought a loganberry and boysenberry jam, and some rocky road to take home.

Highlights: Booful Gifts & Homewares, The Yarn Market Molong.

Robert Gordon Ceramics from Booful Gifts & Homewares Molong, Chai Walli Tea from The Essential Ingredient Orange — Robert Gordon Ceramics from Booful Gifts & Homewares Molong, Chai Walli Tea from The Essential Ingredient Orange

Mugs and Tea as above, ANZAC Caramel Slice from The Guildry Cook Park Orange, tea towel from Tomolly Millthorpe.

Rydal

Not far off the Mountains, after Hartley Valley and just before Lithgow, is the opportunity to take sweet detour on the way to or from the Central West. I knew of Rydal from going to a couple of Local is Lovely Workshops on a farm in Rydal, and when Mum and I were driving home we decided to take a short detour through this tiny town. We made our way towards Rydal Train Station, having heard what a lovely old building it was, and soaked in our last views of the countryside on our way back to Sydney.

As our trip came to an end, we reminisced about all the food we ate, and the places we should go next time. I also noticed what a lovely slow pace the few days had been. Often when you plan a holiday, you spend so much time planning it, then when you are actually on the holiday the time flies by. That certainly didn’t happen on this trip, and we were so grateful for it. We both needed some time away from the city, and it was great to enjoy a slower place of life for a little while.

Do you have any favourite places in the Central West? I’d love to hear about them, I’m already starting a list of places to go for next time!

Cherry Pavlova Ice Cream

Honey Ice Cream

Homemade Butter

Buttermilk Crumpets

Kulinary Adventures of Kath

Food Photography, Recipes & Baking