Cooking 9/10ths of the time

I am going to share the easiest muffin recipe in the world, nay the galaxy, with you. Why do I do this, possibly opening the culinary culture up to appalling mutant muffin creations? Why? I do it in the name of adventure, in the name of experimentation, in the name of all that is good and right. Make your weird muffins, baked foodstuff lovers, make them. Steer clear of dung though. Even dung with ganache. We love imaginative combinations in muffin format, but we are not coprophagous. This really is an excellent recipe, it tolerates all sort of additions, the only thing to be wary of is if you are changing the ratios of wet to dry ingredients significantly. Example: if you want to make banana and passion-fruit muffins, then you are adding two liquidy ingredients. Reduce the amount of milk a little bit, or take it easy when adding the milk and when you get a good consistency cease your milk adding. I'll elaborate more on consistency later.  Zest for life This lemon zest is a day...

Yes, lets just say straight up that it's a packet mix, I was curious to see if a packet mix could be any good. Frankly if Donna Hay couldn't pull it off then no-one can. That woman is a goddamn marvel. The Macarons looked good on the cover too, virginal white with some exceedingly naughty looking ganache in between. Oh Stop it! What is the difference between a macaroon and macaron, is it just fancy pretentious spelling? Or is one actually correct and the other some bastardised Anglo version, it's generally the way it goes. The box is sort of gratifyingly heavy too, with an expensive look matched only by it's price. I forget what it cost, but more than White Wings. I have wanted to make macarons before but they look fiddly and like you need a piping bag and I find that the more that eggs are involved the higher the bad mojo for me. So actually this was a blessing in a blue box. There are three packets inside the box, the "egg mix", the almond mix and...

Sometimes I bake for the challenge. Sometimes because there is a deep need in me. Sometimes because the muse calls. And sometimes, just sometimes, because my son says "Make that!". The pink marble slice is just such a recipe. Whilst we watched "Miniscule" this morning, and the various bugs went through their antics, I thumbed recipe books.  Keen to take a little something to a friend we were visiting in the afternoon and also to try something new. Gabe was immediately much more interested in what I was doing. Gabe : You read this one and I'll read that one Me : I was reading that one. Gabe : Read this one. Me : (Sigh) Gabe : What's that one you have? Me : The one you just had. Gabe : I want it. Me : You just had it! Gabe : Look at that picture! That's pink! Make that one! I have to say, the power of pink is overwhelming. The recipe is easy and frankly, kind of boring, but, but.... it's pink. Pink and white - marbled. I'm a wee bit o...

What is the difference? No idea. My mate Greg was coming for one of his now habitual Saturday morning visits with his similarly aged child - Emmett. The idea being that we get them together they play harmoniously for about 2 hours and we chat in an amiable and focussed manner. I see that some parents out there already are getting the joke. Ha yes. Of course it's nothing like that. At any rate I like to bake a little something and today it was apple cake. A spur of the moment idea, I was greatly moved by the picture of the cake, which looked sort of country style, homesy, kind of warm and as if some rosy cheeked, buxom, delightful older woman had whipped it up. Sometimes I like to imagine that I am that woman. no, not like this yes, exactly like this I was mixing and matching a bit, I didn't have any Granny Smith apples and they are my favourite to cook with. I noted, however , that the recipe didn't do anything quite so Nazi as actually dictate what sort of...

Ok folks, I finally made a vanilla slice. In fact I made a Chantilly Vanilla Slice, which means that there is another layer, a "second" layer, if you will. It goes a bit like this. (Recipe is from Taste.com.au) Pull out square tin and realise that it is 3cm smaller than what is required and  that the sides are not high enough. Forge on anyway. Buy copious amounts of cream and wonder what you will do with it all should you never get the energy up to make the slice. Important Step: Wait until your small child is out of the house. This recipe requires lots of maintenance along the way and you can't nip off to untangle your child from a marionette toy or lift him off the top of the fridge. Step 1 .Pastry. I bought it from the shop. I don't need to make an already overly step laden process more difficult by making pastry and that's that. Cook three sheets at high heat and let them puff up.. They look like adorable little pillows, and then they p...

It's the plum cake. It's back, and so heartbreakingly lovely I might cry. This is called Mieze's Plum Cake, I don't know who Mieze is, but she's friends with Stephanie Alexander and that's good enough for me. The cake is lovely and buttery and moist. The plum are caramelised on top and, WARNING, so piquant and divine you may well swoon if you come within 2 metres of the cake. As always I am happy to post the recipe, which is extremely easy! Delightfully so. Mieze's Plum Cake Ingred - a - ments 180g softened butter 150g castor sugar 135g plain flour 135g self-raising flour pinch of salt 2 large eggs, lightly beaten 70ml milk 1/2 cup ground almonds (or fresh breadcrumbs) 10-12 ripe blood plums, halved and stoned Topping 60g butter 1/2 cup castor sugar 2 tsp ground cinnamon 2 large eggs Preheat oven to 200C and lightly grease a 26cm springform tin. (I used a silicone 23cm "tin" which was fine, I just made sure to line i...

What a combo I thought nuts, caramel and chocolate together at last AND upside down!!! What a crazy, zany idea. So the basic concept is that you make a caramel, put chopped nuts on that and then the batter on that and cook, When you turn it out the nuts have all melded to the cake with caramel goodness. The cake itself is easy to make, apart from the fact that there are a few steps and a bit of chopping, the gotcha is in the actual cake tin. Mine wasn't high enough in the sides. Make sure that you genuinely have a high sided tin. The caramel gets hotter than the mix and bubbles up around the sides and makes a bit of a mess, I imagine this is mitigated somewhat by a higher sided tin, or make it in a 23 cm tin. Recipe (From the the Women's Weekly chocolate cook book) 2 Tblsp chopped macadamias 2 Tblsp chopped roasted pistachios 2 Tblsp chopped roasted walnuts (I used pecans) 125 g butter chopped 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar 3 eggs 1 cup SR flour 1/4 cup p...