Red plums are in season at the moment and they are perfect for making this very special cake. However in North Queensland, unfortunately it's a short season and they aren't available for long. This cake makes an incredibly delicious dessert, or is perfect to serve if friends are coming over for coffee, or even have it ready for Easter, which will be upon us before we know it.
With our cherry season almost over, and consequently the prices of cherries creeping up again here in Northern Queensland, I am reminded of how much I adore fresh cherries and how I will miss them when they have disappeared from our shelves again. Here's a delicious Cherry and Cheesecake dessert with a crumble for you based on one from the repertoire of Yotam Ottolenghi in his exceptional cook book, Simple. His recipes are timeless.
Passionfruit Flummery, aka Frumentary, celebrates the intoxicating, aromatic and uniquely sweet and tart flavours of the tropical passionfruit. If you are lucky enough to be growing a healthy and mature passionfruit vine, it will hopefully be flowering and fruiting for you throughout Summer, just when you need the pulp for fruit salad, a pavlova, or light, fruity desserts like Flummery.
This is a stunning fruit dessert, inspired by the Savoy region in France. It consists of the simplest ingredients and is delicious despite containing no wine, but it will pair beautifully with your best bottle of dessert wine or sticky. It really is an exercise in simplicity, with pears, butter, cream, sugar, a vanilla bean, and that's all. The pears cook to perfection, surrounded by the most delicious sauce. This is a French recipe so there's no shortage of beautiful butter. Thanks Stephanie Alexander for the inspiration to take the humble pear to the next level for dessert. It's interesting that Stephanie in her acclaimed cookbook, "Cook's Companion" doesn't provide any illustrations for most of her recipes but she doesn't need to, her reputation speaks for itself. There are photos on her website though.
This avocado cheesecake is creamy, tangy with lime, and beautifully garnished with fresh berries. It's cinch to make, and only the lime syrup needs to be cooked. I've used a Shepard avocado for this delicious dessert cheesecake.
We camped at Takarakka Bush Resort for two nights last week. Takarakka is used as the base for those wanting to experience the Great Walk through the spectacular Carnarvon Gorge located in the rugged highlands of Central Queensland. The Gorge is about 35 km long, created mostly by very significant water erosion, where many natural features exist such as the dripping Moss Gardens and the cavernous Amphitheatre. There are many examples of impressive red ochre rock art painted by the local Aboriginal tribes, thousands of years ago, which are still in remarkable condition in the "Art Gallery". Local Aboriginal peoples such as the Garingbal, Gayiri, Gungabulla, Nguri, Wasjigu and Yiman have all believed through time that the Rainbow Serpent, Mungagudda, began its movement through the landscape here and formed the waterways including the sandstone gorge itself.
Most people access Carnarvon Gorge via Rolleston to the North or Injune to the South. This is a rough terrain walk, best attempted during the dry Winter months, however we gave it a go in November, it was quite the challenge for me. Walking poles were my saviour, that's for sure, and I've never used them before, but keen bush walkers swear by them.There are about 13 creek crossings across strategically placed rocks to the top of the walk, I think I crossed about 7, and emerged with dry feet. A real test of balance was that little exercise.
The Carnarvon Gorge Great Walk begins at this sign, which is about 10 minutes drive from Takarakka.
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| Photo of a cattle truck on the Capricorn Highway taken from our car. |
Coal trains run back and forth along the railway tracks beside the highway transporting coal from the Bowen Basin to Hay Point and Dalrymple Bay terminals near Mackay, for export.
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| Coal carriages neatly loaded with coal |
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| A cattle truck ahead of us in the distance, and a coal train on the track beside us. That's Central Queensland, busy busy. |
Empty coal train carriages below on their way back to be refilled.
Now for some cooking, thank you for your patience. Our Irish Brother in Law, Jim, lives in Rockhampton and when we called him we discovered that Mr. HRK's cousin and his wife were there for dinner, and Jim said I'm making Fowl Pie, come and join us. Lynette, who is another lovely cousin, also arrived. Jim is an amazing person, and is completely blind, and has been for many years. His sense of humour has inspired our family through many difficult situations. He lives independently, and loves to cook. His Fowl Pie was the Turkey pie that we ate for dinner. So the night we arrived he had two sous chefs at his disposal, Annette and I, and he cooked up a storm. I was so inspired by his cooking expertise, and I hope you will be too. He obviously has these two recipes down to a tee, cooked from scratch though, knows where everything is in his kitchen, but he also makes the family gluten free Christmas Cake each year, and loves to have people for dinner. He's a writer, enters short story competitions, has published a book of poems and is a qualified social worker. He has also been a very active campaigner in Rockhampton for people with disabilities.
Unfortunately I don't have any photos of the Turkey (Fowl) Pie. I was too busy cooking and laughing with Jim and Annette while Mr. HRK and his cousin Ross, caught up on old times. I thought I could make the pie again so I could post some photos, and I might still do that but not in the next few days. I really want to post this now, so please try and imagine a long pyrex baking dish with a filling of delicious cooked turkey mince, and a topping of creamy potato with a golden grated parmesan cheese topping. I know you can imagine such a pie very well.
Turkey Pie with creamy Potato topping
Ingredients:
500 g Turkey mince
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic
2 teaspoons dried mixed herbs
3 large carrots, finely chopped
3 stalks celery, finely chopped
1 cup hot water
2 teaspoons Gravox thickener
8 large potatoes, peeled and sliced
1 tablespoon butter
1/4 cup milk
Grated parmesan cheese to cover the potato
Method:
Lightly saute the onion in oil, add the carrot, celery and garlic and saute until slightly softened. Add the turkey mince to the saucepan, then the herbs, and cook until the mince and vegetables are cooked. Add the gravox to the hot water to dissolve, and add this liquid to the mince mixture.
Cook until slightly thickened. This is the easiest way for Jim to thicken the mince mixture.
Add a good teaspoon of salt to a large saucepan of boiling water, and boil the potatoes until soft but not falling apart, and ready to be mashed. Drain the potatoes, and add some butter and the milk and mash the potatoes until smooth.
Grease a large baking dish with butter, add the turkey mixture, cover evenly with the mashed potato.
Rough up the surface of the potato with a fork. Jim was very specific about how this should be done. Sprinkle parmesan cheese over the top of the potato, and place the baking dish in a preheated moderate oven. Bake for 30 minutes, or until golden on top. (Then we had a well deserved glass of red wine.)
When I make this pie again I am going to add fresh herbs instead of dried mixed herbs, such as finely chopped parsley and thyme, and a tablespoon of finely chopped tarragon. The fresh herbs will take the turkey to a whole new tasty level.
Now for dessert. Annette and I had peeled and cored the apples for which Jim was very thankful, and he located the bottled cherries in his pantry.
Cherry and Apple Crumble
Ingredients:
8 Granny Smith cooking apples
2 x 680 g jars of Pitted cherries
1 tablespoon sugar (optional)
1/3 cup water
Let's cook the apples
For the Crumble:
1 cup plain flour (wholemeal is preferable)
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons brown or demerara sugar
3 tablespoons coconut
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon Rolled oats optional (use a little bit less flour)
(Jim used a variation of this crumble recipe which was delicious. He used Honey and Nut Granola cereal for crunch, add this after the flour, butter and demerara sugar are rubbed together into a crumbly consistency).
Serving up the Cherry and Apple Crumble
Serve the Cherry and Apple Crumble with homemade custard. Jim made custard by hand on his stove top using Uncle Toby's custard powder. He just knew which ingredients to measure out, how long to stir it and it was a perfect consistency. If he can do it, well so can anyone.
It was a great family night, and Jim's love of food and cooking shone through.
Happy thanksgiving holiday to my readers in the United States. I expect you will be very busy in the kitchen today. I had my Turkey dinner with family a week early.
Thanks for dropping by and take care.
Warm wishes,
Pauline
"IT'S ALWAYS ABOUT THE FOOD"
(Monday Morning Cooking Club, 2017)
Perfect for morning tea and for dessert as well, I adore baking and eating this plum cake. The cake batter after beating, has a light and fluffy creaminess to it, and then when taken out of the oven, the tart yet sweet cooked plums taste heavenly in this nostalgic style of cake. Surprisingly, it is also delicious eaten cold out of the refrigerator, in fact that is how Mr. HRK prefers it, with thickened cream on the side of course. For dessert we prefer it with ice cream.
Serves 14-16 (18 at a stretch)
180 g (6 1/2 oz) unsalted butter, at room temperature
345 g (1 1/2 cups/12 1/4 oz) caster (superfine) sugar
4 eggs at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
finely grated zest of 1 lemon
300 g (2 cups/10 1/2 oz) self-raising White Wings Flour (A good quality flour must be used)
12 medium plums, or 25 sugar plums, halved and pitted
Icing sugar (confectioner's sugar), for dusting
double cream or ice-cream, to serve
Method:
Preheat the oven to 180 deg. C (350 deg. C/Gas 4)
Line a 33 x 23 cm (13 x 9 inches) rectangular baking tin. Leave an overhang of baking paper up the sides of the tin to make lifting the cake out easier. (I bought a new baking tin from Woolworths supermarket just this morning ($11.00), to cook this cake in as my other one this size is very old and has other uses now in Mr. HRK's man shed!)
Cream the butter and sugar in your electric mixer on quite a high speed, around 6 on my Kitchen Aid, until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs to the mixture, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the vanilla extract and lemon zest.
By hand, use a large spoon to fold in the flour gently until just combined.
Now spoon the cake batter into the lined baking tin and spread it evenly with the spoon. Lay the halved plums cut side up in rows on top of the batter, trying not to press them into the batter.
Bake for 1 hour, and test after 45 minutes by inserting a skewer lightly into the centre of the cake. It should come out clean when the cake is cooked. It took exactly 1 hour in my oven. Even though it was browning nicely on the surface, it still wasn't cooked through at 45 minutes.
Cool the cake completely in the tin, and lift out using the baking paper. It is much easier to cut into slices when cool.
I made this for afternoon tea yesterday when my group of friends came to play our weekly game of Mahjong. I dusted slices with icing sugar and we ate it with some thickened cream. For dessert, I would serve this warm or cold with ice-cream, and with more fruit on the side if you like.
This cake should keep well in a tin for up to 4 days in a cooler climate, however in the North Queensland tropical heat that we have been experiencing when I baked this, I store leftovers in a covered container in the refrigerator. Reheat gently if you wish in Winter, but as I said above, it is also delicious cold. Needless to say, the leftovers didn't last long this time.
Hope, my Mother, was also a very good cook, particularly sweets, which I really appreciate now, and she loved to serve good food within the confines of our budget, so my love of cooking and eating good food is definitely genetic. If you are reading my blog and this story, I think you must love quality food with traces of nostalgia as well. Is your love of food genetic or acquired and is there a nostalgic element to some of your cooking?
Happy baking,
Pauline
Lamb is often the meat of choice on Australia Day for the BBQ, or seafood, however we will be enjoying beef ribs this year with our good friends who are doing the marinating and we are doing the cooking.
It's my job to provide dessert, and generally host the meal, so whilst I still have some of the delicious Caramel Mango and Coconut Ice cream from a previous post still in my freezer, I also still have a few of the fresh mangoes in the frig that we picked ourselves. A chilled mango Panna Cotta with sweet fresh mango seemed perfect as it can all be prepared the day before, and perhaps we will have just a smidgen of ice cream as well. The two desserts really are a perfect pairing, as the ingredients are quite similar, both cold, and will complement each other beautifully. Add a couple of meringues in place of the pavlova if you have them, and we are set. My friends are you still enjoying mangoes this summer? It is a short season for them from November to March approx., however they can be bought frozen now, so we can enjoy mango desserts all year round. No complaints here. As we had a few extra, we sliced and froze some mangoes last week, so now we can eat them throughout the year, much more reasonable than buying frozen mango at the supermarket.
INGREDIENTS:
300 g fresh diced mango (2 cups) , or thawed frozen mango
600 g Vanilla Custard, homemade or from a carton
70 g caster sugar (1/3 cup)
1/4 cup fresh lime juice (60 ml)
1 tablespoon finely grated lime zest
6 g small gelatine leaves (about 4)
2 cups (560 g) coconut flavoured yoghurt, lactose free will be fine
1 medium ripe mango (430 g), extra, thinly sliced for garnish
100 g mini meringues for garnish if using
METHOD:
Pour your custard into a large bowl. I'll admit I guiltily bought the custard for this dish, as I was also baking sourdough bread this morning so time was at a premium.
Then process the diced mango until smooth in your food processor.
Place the gelatine leaves in a small bowl of cold water until softened, allow about 5 minutes. Do this as close as possible to coincide with the lime mixture being taken off the heat, which is the next step. Squeeze the excess moisture from the gelatine, and add the gelatine to the saucepan of heated lime juice and mango puree. Stir until the gelatine is dissolved.
Place the sugar, lime zest, lime juice, and just 1/4 cup of the mango puree in a medium saucepan. This mixture needs to be stirred over a medium heat until it reaches just below simmering point. You will see some steam start to come off the surface, but no bubbles. Allow about 3 minutes for this.
Now you need to work quickly. Immediately whisk the lime mixture, including the softened gelatine, into the custard. Spoon in the yoghurt and the remaining mango and whisk until smooth.
Strain this mixture through a fine sieve into a large jug. This might take a little time because of the sieving process, and you will be left with a small mixture of thick fruit pulp and custard in the sieve. It is quite tasty and nice with any leftover yoghurt, waste not want not. The panna cotta should be smooth and lump free.
Select 6 x 1 1/4 cup (310 ml) shallow bowls or ramekins, and pour the panna cotta mixture into them . Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, or overnight until set.
I made these dishes late in the morning before lunch, and they were beautifully set by 5 pm that afternoon. Garnish the dishes with sliced mango, and mini meringues or whatever you wish really. Some toasted coconut flakes would also be nice. There was some multitasking this morning, with three sourdough loaves baked, whilst I did the prepping for the panna cotta. \
After I had taken the photo for this post, I said to Mr. HRK, " I think I might have put too much mango on the panna cotta for the photo." He said, " You can never have too much mango." Always helpful, he said, "I wouldn't use the toasted coconut flakes next time."
This is the cob loaf I made this morning, and two other sandwich loaves to be sliced for the freezer.
Happy Australia Day, and to my Australian friends and any Aussies overseas, how are you celebrating tomorrow?
Warm wishes
Pauline
