Apple and Passionfruit Crumble

Following on from my love of Passionfruit Self-saucing Pudding which I have made many many times, I have another great passionfruit recipe; apple and passionfruit crumble. Bill Granger came up with this genius combination. I didn't love his crumble mix though and have created my own below. I suggest watching out for bags of passionfruit that work out quite cheaply. Scrape out the pulp of any passionfruits you haven't devoured and freeze ready to use in recipes like this. I am coming to the conclusion that all fruity desserts taste better with passionfruit, I bet it would be good added to apple pie...

Crumble
serves 4-6
You could use this crumble topping on any fruit combination that takes your fancy, I have suggested two twists to the traditional apple.

1 C plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
100 g brown sugar
100g butter, diced and softened
1/2 C oats
Apple and Passionfruit
6 apples, peeled and thinly sliced
4 passionfruit, pulp removed and stirred to loosen
1 tbsp sugar
Apple and Berry
4-6 apples, peeled and sliced
2 tbsp water
1/2 C blueberries or other berries (frozen is fine)

Place the flour, baking powder and sugar in a large bowl (as large as you can find if you are going to let the kids help and if you have a 2 year helping like I did I would also place it on a clean tray so you can rescue the spillage). Add the butter and rub it in to the flour with your finger tips to make a crumbly topping, stop before you make dough. Add the oats and rub through.

Place the apples, sugar and a splash of water in a saucepan and simmer on low for 5 minutes to soften. Place in baking dish and add passionfruit or berries if using. Sprinkle crumble mix over the top. Bake at 180 for about 25 minutes until golden and bubbling.

Lemon Delicious in the Slow Cooker or Oven

Lemon Delicious is my absolute favourite dessert and tonight I successfully made it in the slow cooker for the first time. To those unfamiliar with it, this is a lemon self saucing pudding with a light sponge cake layer on top of a runny lemon custard, I like it with a generous serve of cream. It takes one hour to cook in the oven and the batter needs to be made shortly before cooking so the egg whites don't deflate, so this means it needs to be made just before you serve dinner which isn't exactly convenient. In the slow cooker it takes 2 hours on high or 3-4 hours on low meaning you can make it hours before your guests even arrive and you can eat it in summer without heating up the kitchen.

Whichever way you make it, you have to try this! The passionfruit version is also a good option.

Lemon Delicious
serves 4
Most recipes where you beat egg whites have you beat the butter and sugar first then the egg whites meaning you need to wash the bowl in between which drives me crazy. I have written this recipe so there is no washing in the middle - you beat the egg whites first and as long as you have everything measured and work quickly they won't deflate.

50g butter

grated rind and juice of 1 lemon

3/4 cup sugar

3 eggs, separated

3 tablespoons flour, sifted

1 C milk

Preheat the oven to 160ºC. Grease a small casserole dish that fits in your slow cooker or a roasting tin. Boil the kettle.

Using an electric mixer, beat the egg whites until stiff, scrape into another bowl and set aside.

In the same bowl cream the butter with the lemon rind and sugar. When it is creamy and light, beat in the egg yolks. Stir in the sifted floured alternately with the milk.

Fold the whites into the mixture with the lemon juice, lightly yet thoroughly. Pour into the prepared dish. Place the dish in your slow cooker or roasting tin and pour boiling water half way up the sides.

Cook in the oven for 1 hour or in the slow cooker for 2 hours on high or 3-4 hours on low. It is cooked with the top sponge layer is cooked and there is a runny custard beneath. If you cook it too long the custard will set and the top layer will dry out; still edible but not as good.

Serve with cream or icecream or both!

Hot Date Cake with Caramel Sauce

I made a very old favourite last night, the recipe comes from an old Vogue or Gourmet Traveller, my Mum was making it before I had heard of sticky date pudding, which this is a grown up version of. I think anything would taste good with caramel sauce on it, but this cake really is delicious!

Hot Fresh Date Cake with Caramel Sauce

I have halved the amount of sauce from the original recipe and there is still plenty. The leftovers are great on icecream or pancakes, or on a spoon straight out of the fridge! The sauce can also be frozen, as can the whole cake.

serves 8

250g                dates, fresh or dried

185g                firm unsalted butter

185g                sugar

3                      eggs

1½ tsp             vanilla

185g                self-raising flour

¾ tsp               baking powder

150ml              water

75ml                milk

Sauce

225g                brown sugar

40g                  unsalted butter

225ml              cream

1 tsp                vanilla

2 tsp                pecans

1-2 tbsp           brandy (optional)

                       thick cream to serve

Line and grease a 22-23cm round springform tin or 20 cm square tin, make sure it has a good seal as this is a very runny cake batter and will leak through a loose tin. Preheat the oven to 180C.

If using fresh dates, stone and coarsely chop and set aside.

Place in a food processor, the butter cut into pieces, sugar, eggs, vanilla, flour, baking powder, water and milk. Process 15 seconds only or to just mix. Add dates and process 2 seconds to mix through. Alternatively, in an electric beater, cream the butter and sugar, beat in the eggs and vanilla, then add flour, baking powder, water and milk and mix.

Place the sloppy mixture in the tin. Bake at 180C for approximately 1 hour or until a skewer comes out clean from the centre of the cake. Remove from oven, run knife around the cake and cool in the tin. Cake can be frozen at the point or stored for a few days.

An hour before serving, place cake in an ovenproof tin and marinate with some of the sauce. Fifteen minutes before serving, reheat in the oven at 180C. Serve with sauce and cream.

Sauce

Place all ingredients except the thick cream, bring to the boil and simmer for 6 minutes.

Old Fashioned Favourite - Eton Mess and Trifle

My lovely friend Skye gave me some of the berries she picked at the local berry farm - delicious raspberries and strawberries that were perfectly ripe. These were sitting in the fridge with several egg whites left from another recipe, so I was inspired to make Eton Mess which I have always wanted to try - I don't know what took me so long! A fantastic combination of whipped cream, berries and meringue, the adults and children were fighting over the last serve. I looked at lots of recipes but based it on one from Taste.com.au that used a combination of cream and yoghurt. The yoghurt gave it a nice tang and made it feel not so decadent!

Following this I decided to give trifle a go, another classic I have never tried. There are a lot of varieties out there, from the basic with packet jelly, tinned fruit and packet custard to gourmet versions with marscapone and lemon curd that are verging on a tiramisu. I decided on berry trifle, with sponge finger biscuits (savoiardi) for the base. I wanted to make my own jelly but didn't have any suitable juice on hand to make it with, so used packet raspberry jelly with real raspberries in it - this really ruined it for me, but everyone still managed to finish a bowl full! The recipe below includes a jelly recipe that I will use next time, or if I couldn't make jelly I would just use a layer of sweetened raspberries. I finished the trifle with strawberries and crushed meringues (sounding familiar?) which gave it a nice texture. Here are a few other trifle recipes that inspired mine or that I would like to try:
Middle Eastern Trifle @ SBS Food, pictured in the latest Feast Magazine
Limoncello Trifle @ Taste.com.au - with blueberries, lemon curd and marscapone

Eton Mess

The original recipe suggested cooking the raspberries and sugar and then pureeing and folding through the mess. I didn't want to do this to my beautiful fresh raspberries but might try it next time with frozen. I have no idea how many berries I used so just add to taste or what you have.

serves 6

1/4 C caster sugar

450g strawberries, hulled, quartered

225g  raspberries, fresh or frozen

300ml thick cream, whipped

300ml thick Greek yoghurt

4 large meringues, crumbled - see recipe below

Slice strawberries and place in a bowl with sugar for several hours.

Place strawberries and half the raspberries in a bowl with the puree, cream, yoghurt and the meringue. Fold everything together until just combined. Serve in a large glass bowl or individual glasses. Sprinkle with remaining raspberries.

Meringues

This makes 6 very large meringues, good for breaking up into the eton mess, or many more small ones.

3 egg whites

1/8 tsp cream of tartar

1 C caster sugar

Preheat oven to 120 C.

In an electric mixer, whisk egg whites until frothy. Add cream of tartar and whisk on high speed until stiff peaks form. Add 2 tablespoons of sugar and whisk for a few minutes more. Add the remaining sugar and fold through.

Spoon or pipe onto trays. Bake for 1 hour. Then leave in oven, switched off, for 30 minutes.

Berry Trifle

serves 6-8

~10 sponge finger biscuits

100ml Cointreau, grappa, sweet white wine, limoncello or any other sweet alcohol that takes your fancy (optional)

3 tbsp berry jam

1 punnet or 200g frozen raspberries

300ml cream, whipped

3 large meringues, broken into pieces (recipe above)

125 g berries

Custard

3 egg yolks

3 tsp corn flour (some recipes use plain flour)

caster sugar

300ml milk or cream

Jelly

500ml juice of your choice

2 tbsp caster sugar

1 1/2 tbsp powdered gelatine

1 punnet or 200g frozen raspberries

Warm the jam and thin with a little water or your alcohol of choice if too thick. Dip the biscuits in the  jam and line the bottom of your glass bowl. Drizzle over the alcohol if using and remaining jam.

Pour over the cooled custard, refrigerate. Follow with the cooled jelly, you can even set the jelly in another bowl and break it up a little to spoon over.

Top with whipped cream, meringue pieces and berries.

Custard

Whisk together the yolks, sugar and cornflour in a large bowl.

Heat the cream/milk until nearly boiling. Pour over the yolks whisking continuously. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan and heat gently, stirring constantly, until thickened.

Jelly

Place 250ml juice and sugar in a small saucepan over high heat and stir until sugar has dissolved. Sprinkle over gelatine and stir to dissolve, strain mixture into a bowl. Add remaining 250ml juice, then the berries, stirring until combined. Refridgerate til set.

Passionfruit Self-saucing Pudding

The Good Living section of the Sydney Morning Herald on Tuesday this week had a selection of passionfruit recipes by Jane and Jeremy Strode. I couldn't resist the self-saucing pudding, especially as I had passionfruits in the fruit bowl. The recipe is just like lemon delicious - a light spongey self-saucing pudding that I love but possibly even better! We all devoured it and I am going to have to make it again soon.

You can find the recipe here at cuisine.com.au. I followed the recipe exactly but stretched it to 3 larger and 2 smaller serves.

Chocolate Ripple Cake

This would have to be the easiest dessert in the world, but anyone who eats it thinks you have gone to a lot of trouble. I have been making it since childhood and my husband has now adopted it as his own. It is best made the day before so the biscuits really soften.

Chocolate Ripple Cake
serves 6 (but I could happily eat more!)
For an adults only version dip the biscuits in liqueur of your choice before layering with cream - I like Baileys!

600ml thickened cream
1 tsp caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 x 250g packet Arnott’s Choc Ripple Biscuits
1 x Peppermint Crisp bar, finely chopped

Place cream, sugar and vanilla in a bowl and beat using an electric beater until stiff.

Spread one biscuit with a blob of cream then sandwich with another biscuit. Top with another blob of cream then place biscuits on their side onto the serving plate, at a slant. Repeat until all biscuits have been used and form a log. Unless you have a very long plate you might need to make two logs side by side.

Spread remaining cream over log to cover entirely. Cover loosely with foil, then place in refrigerator overnight, or for a minimum of 6 hours to soften. If you are in a hurry you can quickly dip the biscuits in milk before layering with cream, but this isn't as good as the slow way!

Just before serving, sprinkle with peppermint crisp. Serve.

Teriyaki Chicken followed by Toffee Oranges

We had a family of 4 over for dinner and I cooked teriyaki chicken followed by toffee oranges.

The oranges were so good there was bowl licking going on! They really are delicious, I used to make them years ago and don't know how I forgot about them. You just pour hot toffee over orange slices and it dissolves to make a yummy sauce leaving behind some crispy toffee. This dish is also partly an excuse to eat King Island Creamy Indulgent Yogurt!

My Mum did a Japanese cooking course in the early 1990s and my whole family are still using the recipes. This teriyaki chicken is fantastic, it tastes like what you get in the restaurants and nothing like what comes out of a bottle.

You need mirin and sake for this recipe. These are both Japanese alcoholic beverages made from rice (though mirin is never drunk and is only used in cooking). Mirin is stronger and sweeter than sake. Sake can be used as a substitute for mirin (with an added pinch of sugar), and vice versa. If you cannot get a hold of either, you can use sweet sherry or Chinese shiaoxing wine or dry white wine at a stretch.

Mirin is easy to buy, they sell it at Harris Farm among other places. Sake is a bit harder to get, Essential Ingredient sell it although it is much cheaper at any asian supermarket in a city. If you are not a regular Japanese cook for the first time try and get some mirin and use it to replace the sake.

Teriyaki Chicken
serves 4
750g chicken thigh fillets, or steak scotch fillet - or enough to feed your family
1/4 chinese cabbage, sliced - enough to cover a plate
Sauce
¼ C soy sauce
¼ C sake
¼ C mirin
1 tbsp sugar

Place the sauce ingredients in a saucepan and reduce by about one third.

Heat a frypan and lightly grease with oil. Add the meat and pan fry on both sides; quickly for the beef, longer for the chicken. Add the teriyaki sauce, it will bubble up. Continue to cook and turn the meat once or twice to coat with sauce as it continues to reduce, until thick and sticky. If you want your steak rare, keep an eye on it, take it out when done and keep the sauce bubbling if not thickened.

Slice the meat into fingers and place on chinese cabbage on a serving plate and pour the sauce over.

Toffee Oranges
You could serve this with any number of things besides yogurt - cream, icecream, panna cotta, cake...
serves 4-6
4 oranges, peeled and sliced into 1/2 - 1 cm thick slices
350g caster sugar
1/2 C water
1 cinnamon stick
4 star anise
3 tbsp liqueur - whiskey, drambuie, grand marnier... (optional)
vanilla yogurt to serve - King Island is my favourite

Place orange slices in a shallow dish and drizzle with 1 tablespoons of the liqueur.

Place the sugar, water, cinnamon, star anise and 2 tablespoons of the liqueur in a saucepan over low heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Turn heat to medium and simmer for 10-15 minutes until golden WITHOUT STIRRING, brushing down the sides of the saucepan with a wet pastry brush to remove any sugar crystals.

Immediately pour the caramel over the oranges and set aside for 2 hours, by which time some of the caramel with have liquified to make a sauce, leaving some shards of toffee.

Serve with vanilla yogurt or anything else that takes your fancy.