Beetroot, Goats Cheese & Thyme Frittata

Kath October 20, 2017

Here are some things I have been enjoying this month:

Wandering around Wooloomooloo in Sydney and stopping in at Flour and Stone, and buying pretty flowers from Petal Met Sugar.
Sewing some vegetable seeds and planting some tomato plants - we’ll see how they go! I bought some interesting varieties of beetroot and carrot seeds from this website.
I am on a quest to find the best banana bread recipe, and this one is next on my list.
I received a care package as part of the My Open Kitchen E-Course (which I am really enjoying so far), and the stand out from the package has been the Rainwater Mint Tea from Scullery Made.
The October issue of Jamie Magazine arrived this week, and there is a feature on making sourdough. I have attempted homemade sourdough before, so maybe this will prompt me to try again!
I really enjoyed this podcast episode from Radio Cherry Bombe.

Beautiful ranunculus from Petal Met Sugar

But now to the frittata.

Frittatas are easy to make, and you can really add anything you like to them. I really love beetroots, especially the golden or chioggia varieties. Now that I have attempted to cook chioggias myself, rather than rely on the views of others as I did in this previous post, I have found they do keep some of their colour once boiled. They aren’t quite as pretty as they are raw, but they still look pretty good (and taste really good) once cooked.

Frittatas are a really great way to have some meals prepared for the week, and are super easy to take to work and heat up at lunch. Add a salad on the side and you’ll have a work lunch better than anything you could buy! Making the frittata in advance won’t take too much time out of your weekend or weeknight, and using leftover veggies from dinner (like sweet potato, carrot, broccoli etc), will make the whole process even quicker and make use of things that might have otherwise gone to waste.

Beetroot, Goats Cheese & Thyme Frittata

Ingredients:

850g mixed golden and purple beetroot

150g sour cream (reduced fat sour cream works well)

75g cheese e.g. cheddar, parmesan etc, grated

8 eggs

150g goats cheese

1 small or half a large carrot, grated

1 zucchini, grated

8 sprigs of fresh thyme

Canola oil spray

Method:

To cook the beetroot, cut away any stems or leaves, and wash off any dirt. Place beetroot in a large pot, and cover with water. Bring to the boil and cook for 20-30 mins or until the beetroot are tender (use a fork to check). If using different varieties or colours of beetroot, have a separate smaller pots of water for each variety.

Once cooked, drain and allow to cool a little for a few minutes. Once they are cool enough to handle, peel away the beetroot skin - the skin should gently peel away if you pull it with your fingers (wear gloves for this!). Chop the beetroots into halves or quarters depending on their size, and set aside, keeping the different colours separate if you are using different beetroot varieties.

Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius, and spray a baking dish (I use an enamel one that is approx. 28 x 20 cm) with the canola oil spray.

In a large bowl, whisk together the sour cream, grated cheeses, eggs, carrot, zucchini and most of the thyme. Whisk until all the ingredients are well incorporated. Pour the egg mixture into your prepared baking dish, and place the cooked beetroot evenly though out the tin. Then cut up the goats cheese into chunks and do the same.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until the frittata is gently browned on top and is cooked through. Serve warm sprinkled with remaining thyme, with a simple salad or as a side to a main meal.

Duck Egg Pavlova with Fresh Honeycomb

Kath October 13, 2017

As you may have noticed from the number of times I have posted a recipe for Pavlova on this blog, I love Pavlova! It was my favourite thing my Grandma made, and I seem to be unable to stop coming up with new adaptations to it.

After making a Duck Egg Sponge a little while ago, I knew that next time I was able to find duck eggs I would try and bake something different. So when I finally found them again, I decided to make a duck egg Pavlova! A quick Google told me that duck eggs make great Pavlovas so I was keen to try it out. The flavours for this Pavlova are inspired by the honeyed cream from the Duck Egg Sponge I made. Adding honey to whipped cream is just about the most simple thing to do, but it tastes so good! I also love fresh honeycomb, so I couldn’t resist using some to decorate the Pavlova.

I buy my honeycomb from a farm stand in the north western suburbs of Sydney, and it is super fresh, and not too expensive ($15 for 500g). Fresh honeycomb is the purest form of honey you can eat as it has not gone through any filtering processes. The comb of the honey is fine to eat, and actually contains many beneficial properties. The honey this particular farm stand sells is amazing as well, and is also raw so all the good things are left in the honey rather than being striped out.

I have found these types of honey’s have a more complex and interesting flavour than the honey sold at supermarkets, and buying it straight from the producer means you can buy it in larger quantities and at a better price than honey’s sold at gourmet food stores. Depending on where you live, you might even be able to find fresh duck eggs at farm stands or farmers markets, its always worth keeping an eye out!

Duck Egg Pavlova with Fresh Honeycomb

Ingredients:

6 duck egg whites

375g caster sugar

1.5 tsp white vinegar

1.5 tsp vanilla bean paste

30g cornflour

To decorate:

300ml pouring cream

90ml honey

fresh honeycomb

dried edible lavender

edible flowers, to decorate, optional

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Line a large baking tray with baking paper.

Separate the duck eggs adding the whites to the bowl of a stand mixer. Duck egg shells are tougher than chicken eggs, and take a little more effort to crack, and I have found in the process the shells won’t crack ‘cleanly’. I suggest cracking each over a glass then separating the yolk and the whites over another glass or small bowl so you keep as many shell fragments contained and away from the pavlova mixture as possible!

Beat the egg whites for 5-6 minutes, whilst gradually adding the sugar. Add the vinegar and vanilla and beat until the mixture is stiff, glossy and holds its peak (for an example of what this looks like see this video on my Facebook page).

Sift cornflour over the mixture, and gently fold to combine.

Use a little of the mixture to help keep the baking paper in place. Spread the mixture into a rectangle, approximately 20 x 35 cm (this will depend on the size of your tray). If you want a pavlova with a more marshmallowy centre, make the rectangle smaller than 20 x 35 cm, so it will be thicker rather than wide. Try to keep the edges a little higher than the middle so any filling can sit comfortably later.

Turn the oven down to 125 degrees Celsius, and cook undisturbed for 1.5 hours.

After 1.5 hours, turn the oven off and leave the pavlova to cool completely in the oven (or overnight).

Just before you are ready to serve your pavlova, whip the cream until it has thickened and is forming soft peaks. Add the honey and whisk until combined. Spread the cream over the centre of the pavlova. Decorate with a small sprinkling of dried edible lavender, small chunks of fresh honeycomb and some edible flowers.

Note: If you are preparing the pavlova in advance of serving it, or know you will have left overs, I suggest serving the honeycomb on the side as the honey from the honeycomb will start to drip away when stored in the fridge.

Pistachio Loaf Cake

Kath September 29, 2017

I really love this cake. It is something I crave and always want to make. It comes from Molly Yeh’s (of the blog My Name Is Yeh) book ‘Molly on the Range.’ And I think the fact that it is so good and moorish is a testament to her cake making and recipe creation skills (but if you have seen her blog you’d never doubt those anyway!). The first time I tried this cake however, someone else made it for me.

In February my Grandpa died, and one of my friends made this cake for me. It was really special as I had given her a copy of ‘Molly on the Range’ a few months before, for her birthday. This same friend made a cake when my Grandma died four years earlier, a chocolate vanilla marble cake. It was at that time that I learnt that giving flowers when someone is grieving was not a universal custom. Often, giving food is. And as a great lover of food, I think this particular tradition is something I can get behind. Food is one of the greatest comforts we can give one another, and I think that is why it is so fitting to receive food during times of grief, and why it is customary for some.

On both occasions I was so humbled by my friends generosity, and the knowledge that she had gone to so much effort. The pistachio loaf cake was so good, I’m pretty sure I ate most of it myself. My friend made some alterations to the recipe, substituting the almond extract for vanilla extract (thankfully, as unbeknownst to her I hate almond extract, and always leave it out of every recipe that asks for it), and that is what I have done each time I have made this cake as well, so I have included that in the recipe below.

Unfortunately I was able to return the cake making favour only a couple of weeks after my friend made this cake for me. Needless to say February wasn’t a great month, or start to the year for either of us. However for me, feeling the support of such friends and having a tangible (and edible) measure of my friend’s support made that time just that much easier.

Pistachio Loaf Cake

Ingredients:

220g pistachios

75g plain flour

45g almond meal

225g margarine/softened unsalted butter

335g caster sugar

4 eggs

zest of 1/2 a lemon

1 tsp vanilla extract

For the icing:

75g icing sugar

1 tbsp lemon juice, approx.

Method:

Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius, and grease and line (allow some of the baking paper to hand over the edges, this will help later when you are removing the cake from the tin) a loaf pan - mine is 31 x 7.5 x 8cm so it’s quite long and thin, you can use a loaf tin that is shorter and wider just keep in mind that the middle of the cake might take longer to cook than the timings mentioned in this recipe.

Grind the pistachios down (using a food processor is best for this) until you have an almond meal like texture. Measure out 1.5 cups of the pistachios and reserve any left overs to use when decorating the cake later. Add the pistachio meal, flour and almond meal to a bowl and whisk to combine and get rid of any lumps.

Add the margarine and sugar to the bowl of a stand mixer, and cream using the paddle attachment until it is light and fluffy. Add the eggs separately, mixing in between each addition. Then mix in the vanilla extract and the lemon zest. Add the flour mixture with the mixer on low speed, and mix until everything is just combined.

Transfer the batter to the prepared tin and bake for about 45 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Allow the cake to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then carefully remove on to a cooling rack.

Once the cake has cooled, make the icing by whisking together the icing sugar and lemon juice. Add a little more lemon juice if the icing is too dry, more icing sugar if it is too runny. Spread the icing over the cake, allowing it to drip down the sides. Decorate with the remaining pistachio meal.

Reference: ‘Molly on the Range’ by Molly Yeh (Rodale, 2016), pp.220-221.

Baked Vanilla Doughnuts with Blood Orange Icing

Kath September 22, 2017

Since I really enjoy reading other people’s favourites lists, I thought I would start my own and post some here on the blog or in my newsletter now and then. I find I discover new blogs, recipes, books and podcasts through other bloggers lists, or through similar round ups on podcasts, so I hope you can find the same here!

This new blog post from Beth Kirby of Local Milk - I love Beth’s honesty, and acceptance around the fluidity of her blog and it’s changing focuses over time, and her talk of slow living as “deciding what really matters to you and saying no to everything else”.
This Carrot Cake from My Name is Yeh - I made this (sans tahini) for my Dad’s birthday last month. It is now my favourite carrot cake, as the combination of the hawaij spices, carrot and caramel were just perfect!
A Bookish Baker’s blog post on why she is no longer niching her blog - In all the noise around monetising blogs, being an expert on one thing and there only being one path to follow for all this to be successful, sentiment such as that expressed in this post are so welcome and necessary.
Courage & Spice Podcast: The Podcast for Humans with Self-Doubt - This is a fairly new podcast from Sas Petherick, who has done extensive research on self-doubt. I am loving hearing Sas’ advice and interviews so far, they often feel like they are great personal pep talks letting me know that self doubt isn’t just something I experience, and there are things I can do to alleviate these feelings and start to boost my confidence.
‘Not Just Lucky’ by Jamila Rizvi - I can’t stop recommending this book (sorry to those who have already heard my insistent arguments on why they should read it!). If you are female you will probably be able to relate to this book. Jamila focuses on women and the work environment, and I can honestly say I related to so much more than I ever thought I would. There were so many moments where I thought, ‘Oh other women feel this way too?’, ‘I’m not the only one?’, and ‘OMG it’s like Jamila knows me’. It’s good to know you aren’t alone in how you feel, particularly in the work environment, and Jamila gives some great advice on how to deal with the gender inequalities that plague our workplaces.

But now on to the doughnuts (or donuts? 🤔I never know which). They are extremely simple to make - they take about 10 minutes to cook, which makes them not only slightly healthier than the traditional fried doughnuts but also much quicker to make. To intensify the vanilla flavour a little, you could use some vanilla sugar instead of the white sugar. I used blood orange juice in the icing, because I love the colour, and I still have lots of blood orange juice frozen from last season!

Baked Vanilla Doughnuts with Blood Orange Icing

Ingredients:

135g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp bicarb soda

65g white sugar

60ml milk

60g Greek yoghurt

1 egg

40g margarine/unsalted butter, melted

2 tsp vanilla bean paste

canola oil spray

For the Icing:

200-250g icing sugar

2 tbsp blood orange juice, approx.

selection of sprinkles, 100s & 1000s, dried edible flowers etc, to decorate

Method:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius, and spray a 12 hole doughnut pan with canola oil spray.

In a medium bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, bicarb soda and sugar. If your bicarb soda is a bit lumpy, sift to remove the lumps - there’s nothing worse than biting into a baked good to find a lump of baking soda in there!

In a jug, whisk together the milk, yoghurt and the egg. Ensure the egg has been fully mixed into the other ingredients. Add the melted margarine and the vanilla bean paste and whisk until combined. Pour this into the flour mixture and mix until just combined - don’t over mix. Similar to muffins, these will toughen up if over mixed.

Place a medium/large piping bag or zip-lock bag over a large glass to it is easy to fill. Spoon in the batter, then pipe into the donut pan, ensuring you only fill each about three quarters the way up - there is plenty of raising agent in the batter so they will rise and expand, and if each doughnut is overfilled the hole in the centre will disappear!

Bake for about 10 minutes, or until the doughnuts are slightly golden and spring back to the touch.

Allow the doughnuts to cool in the tin for a few minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack, using a small icing spatula to gently prise the out if necessary (don’t use a knife as you may scratch your tin in the process).

Once the doughnuts have cooled, make the icing by mixing the 200g of the icing sugar and 1 tbsp of the blood orange juice together. If the icing is too runny add more icing sugar, if it is too dry add a little more blood orange juice. You don’t want to the icing to be very runny or it will all run off the donuts, and take any decoration with it!

To ice the doughnuts, dip the top side of each (the side that was facing down in doughnut pan), into the icing and twist to ensure it is evenly coated. Remove and allow any excess icing to drip off. Leave each doughnut to sit with the icing on for a minute or two, then decorate with the sprinkles etc.

Reference: ‘Sally’s Baking Addiction’ by Sally McKenney (Race Point Publishing, 2014), p.27.

Pistachio & Pomegranate Cake

Kath September 8, 2017

The idea for this cake came to me whilst I was having coffee with a friend. I can’t quite remember how it came about, but we were talking about pomegranates and how common place they have become now thanks so chefs like Yotam Ottolenghi, Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver. Then it hit me, could you make a cake with pomegranate?

The answer, is yes, kinda. I juiced half a pomegranate for the icing and that worked well. A better colour than any food colouring could give I think! I also added some seeds to the cake batter, however I’m not sure I would add them again. They gave a little crunch and colour to the cake, however they don’t add a lot of flavour and made the process of making the cake more time consuming (and messy). I added them into the batter gently once some of the mixture was already in the cake tin as I didn’t want the seeds to burst before they had gone in the oven.

I think if you are short on time (or patience) ditch the seeds in the cake, and use the other half of the pomegranate to decorate the cake at the end. I also find that pomegranate juice freezes well, so there is always that option - and then there is definitely no food wastage!

And don’t be alarmed about using spelt flour in this cake. It does have a more ‘healthy’ connotation (a quick Google search of ‘benefits of spelt flour’ returns some pleasing results, making me think this cake is on it’s way to being healthy 👍🏻😂), but in this recipe it adds an almond meal like denseness to the cake that gives it an excellent crumb. And it doesn’t taste any different to regular plain flour so no one will even know it’s even there! Plain flour can of course be substituted for the spelt if you don’t have any - but give it a go if you can!

Pistachio & Pomegranate Cake

Ingredients:

175g margarine or softened unsalted butter

175g light brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla bean paste

125g pistachios, shelled

175g spelt flour (plain or wholemeal)

2 tsp baking powder

pomegranate seeds from one small pomegranate, optional

Ingredients for the Icing:

200g icing sugar, confectioners

juice from 1/2 small pomegranate

1 tbsp pistachios, roughly chopped

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 160 degrees Celsius and grease and line a 22-23cm springform cake tin.

Using a food processor, grind the pistachios into a fine crumb/meal (the same consistency as almond meal). Don’t over process or you may end up with pistachio nut butter, rather than pistachio meal.

In the bowl of a stand mixer add the margarine and sugar. Beat using the paddle attachment until light and fluffy. Add the eggs separately, beating well after each. Add the vanilla and the ground pistachios and mix until combined.

In a separate bowl whisk together the spelt flour and baking powder, then gently fold into the main cake batter.

If using the pomegranate seeds, spread a third of the cake batter into the prepared tin, then sprinkle half the seeds over the top. Top with another third of cake batter and sprinkle the remaining seeds. Finish with the remaining cake batter. If not adding the pomegranate seeds, transfer the cake batter into the tin and smooth the top.

Bake for about an hour, or until the cake is springy to the touch and a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the cake.

Leave the cake to cool before removing from the tin.

Once the cake has cooled make the icing by whisking the icing sugar and pomegranate juice together. Add more juice if the mixture is to dry, and more icing sugar if the icing is too runny. Ice the cake with the icing, then sprinkle over the chopped pistachios.

Reference: The Violet Bakery Cookbook’ by Claire Ptak (Ten Speed Press, 2015), p.137.

A Cirtus Tart & Surviving the 9-5

Kath August 31, 2017

I found this recipe in Catherine Phipps' book ‘Citrus’ and found the book, via the podcast ‘Stir the Pot’ by Edd Kimber. I have really taken to listening to podcasts in the past year, after my initial introduction to Cherry Bombe magazine’s ‘Radio Cherry Bombe’, my list of favourites has grown. At first these podcasts, were my way of doing something for myself on my commute to and from a job I really didn’t want to be doing anymore. My emotional health was suffering a lot because of this job, and having something that was just for me on a topic I am obsessed with made each working day a little easier. I had a little bit of a walk from the train station to my old work, and I will always remember the sense of dread I felt once I got closer to work. I would turn the corner and the knowledge that my time was up, until 5pm, would hit me. The following 7-8 hours were all about spending time in an often toxic environment, doing a job that was literally going nowhere.

The highlights of those work days mostly involved food. Apart from the podcasts, what I planned to eat at lunch, what ingredients I would buy on my lunch break or having a quiet lunch with other like minded colleagues were the moments that kept me going. I also stress purchased many a cookbook from the couple of bookstores in the area, which is where I found ‘Citrus’. I had listened to Edd Kimber’s interview with Catherine on his podcast, and had made a mental note to keep an eye out for Catherine’s book. During the interview they had discussed cooking with citrus, and to my delight, cooking with bergamots (see more on my bergamot obsession here). When I found a copy of the book, I instantly knew I had to buy it. I hadn’t been expecting to find it so easily, and being so unhappy in my job made my weakness for buying cookbooks all the more feeble.

There are so many good recipes in ‘Citrus’, covering all types of food and occasions. This tart comes from the Desserts section, which also includes recipes for a Blood Orange and Rhubarb Meringue Pie, Bergamot and Rose Turkish Delight Pavlova (be still my heart) and a Earl Grey and Rose Parfait (was this book actually written just for me?!). I love Catherine’s flavour combinations, and the information on how to use particular and less common citrus.

You don’t need a food processor for the pastry in this recipe, which I loved as we no longer have one (we weren’t using it so gave it away!). I used a selection of citrus for the filling, lemon, lemonades and bergamots. You could just use one type of citrus, it just depends what you feel like. However as a guide, the original recipe stipulates the zest of 2 lemons and the juice of 3 lemons for the filling - use this as a guide re the quantities of juice in particular as for example, a large orange will hold more juice than a lemon.

Winter Citrus - Lemons, Bergamots & Lemonades

Citrus Tart

Ingredients for the Pastry:

200g plain flour

pinch of salt

125g unsalted butter, cold & cubed

50g icing sugar

2 egg yolks

Ingredients for the Filling:

6 eggs

300g caster sugar

250ml heavy cream

finely grated zest of 2 citrus (lemons, lemonades, bergamots etc) and the juice of three citrus (lemons, lemonades, bergamots, small/medium oranges etc)

Method:

To make the pastry, put the flour and salt in a bowl, and rub in the butter until it looks like almond meal. Stir in the icing sugar, then add the egg yolks and mixing it all together with your hands. If the dough is too crumbly at this stage, add a small amount of ice cold water to help bring it together. Shape into a disc and wrap in plastic wrap, and leave to rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Once the dough has rested, preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius and lightly flour a work surface. Roll out the pastry, dusting with extra flour if necessary. Roll it fairly thinly, however don’t go so thin that it will easily break when you are placing it into the tart tin. The pastry needs to have the circumference to line a 24cm tart tin (approx.). Gently place the pastry over the tart tin, and gently push it in to the sides of the tin, trimming the edges that hang over the sides. Keep some of the left over raw pastry for later in case you need to patch up your tart case after the blind baking process.

Put the raw pastry case in the freezer for 10 minutes, then prick the pastry all over with a fork. Crumple up a piece of baking paper, then place it over the tart and fill with pastry weights. Bake the tart for 15 minutes, then remove the pastry weights and the baking paper and bake again for about 5 minutes. At this stage you don’t want any of your tart shell to be raw. Leave the tart shell to cool while you make the filling, and turn down the oven to 150 degrees Celsius.

To make the filling whisk the eggs and caster sugar together until they are well combined, then whisk in the cream and citrus zest and juice. To fill the pastry case, place on a lined baking sheet and pull out one of the oven racks and place it on the rack. Gently pour the filling into the case from here (best to use a jug for this), then gently push the oven rack back in and bake for 30-40 minutes until the tart filling is just set (it will still wobble slightly). Leave the tart to cool before serving, and store in the fridge if there are leftovers!

Reference: Citrus by Catherine Phipps (Quadrille, 2017), p.168.

If you are struggling at work…

I would highly recommend one or more of these books/podcasts. While I am no longer working in the environment I mentioned in this post, I still find these resources immensely valuable.

Beetroot, Goats Cheese & Thyme Frittata

Duck Egg Pavlova with Fresh Honeycomb

Pistachio Loaf Cake

Baked Vanilla Doughnuts with Blood Orange Icing

Pistachio & Pomegranate Cake

Citrus Tart

If you are struggling at work…

Kulinary Adventures of Kath

Food Photography, Recipes & Baking