M.I.A

Wow! My last post was when?? I've got no other excuse but one word- hectic. Since the start of 2012, my days' been zooming past from one Space Mountain to another. The children increased their participation in school and yours truly end up being at the end of the logistics line. Not to say I haven't been baking or cooking, I have. Just didn't have the time snap pictures and write about it. Well, there were a couple of odd pictures but going through them awhile ago, I have no recollection where those recipes came from. At that time, I must have told myself that I should start documenting my other cookbooks, too. I also try out lots of recipes from food magazines...they are actually good resources because various chefs have their recipes featured in them. But yes, I'll be resuming this and will also be putting up full recipes from magazines or websites I've baked or cooked from. Not those from cookbooks though. I advocate supporting these writers/chefs by buying their books. I believe that we cooks ought to look out for each other and by owning just one or two very good books, you're set for great home-cooked meals in a jiffy!

Mulled Wine & Garlic and Parsley Hearthbread

These two items have been a staple on my Christmas menu for years now and this morning, I cooked-up these two as a last minute contribution to a pot luck Christmas party. The hostess was serving lamb and another guest was bringing mince pies, so I thought the hearthbread would be good to mop up the lamb drippings while the mulled wine is excellent with mince pies. Wish I had photographed them better and individually but I was pressed for time this morning.
Let's start with the Mulled Wine. I love to use Merlot for this because it's a light enough wine to complement the spices, orange and tea. A Sauvignon is too overpowering for "mulling" but this is just my personal opinion. Plus, I usually reserve the Sauvignon for Sangria ;-). It really is very easy (or you won't see me doing this every year). Dump everything into a pot and heat it up. I let it simmer and not over boil it  because I like to have a teeny tiny element of alcohol left in it instead of letting it all evaporate. Then turn off the heat, drink warm and be merry!
Next is the Garlic and Parsley Hearthbread. I have since renamed this to Garlic and Cheese Foccacia. Everything's the same as the recipe, except I lightly saute the chopped up garlic in olive oil instead of the whole fiddly garlic preparation in foil and processor. We prefer to be able to taste the garlic. Spread the garlic oil all over the bread dough AND sprinkle finely-grated Parmesan. If I happen to not have Parmesan, I sprinkle salt flakes. That makes the hearthbread yummy even on its own. Yes, I also find that foccacia is more understandable to my guests than hearthbread.

Passionfruit Cheesecake

I thought I'll never get a chance to do this cheesecake because I haven't seen any passionfruit being sold in our local grocer. When I chance upon them last week at a supermarket, I grabbed a box of 6 fruits. I knew how they looked like inside but had no idea how the whole fruit looked like. I haven't seen them before! I even had the impression that passionfruit was an imported fruit until my dad and cousin enlightened me when they were over for the cheesecake. Apparently, the fruit is rarely found now because no one grows them as much as they used to umpteen years ago. One can still see them once awhile in a wet market. Nonetheless, I doubt I'll do much with passionfruit in future. It is a very sour fruit! The cheesecake base was great made with the passionfruit juice I yielded using the food processor. Only complain I have is that the the double cream called for in the recipe resulted in a very soft centre. I couldn't bake it any longer because the top was browning too much. I did bake a little longer than the stipulated time but the centre still didn't set enough. The cheesecake tasted light and un-cheesy. Pleasant to the palate actually -sans the extra passionfruit on top of the cheesecake!

Mini Lime-Syrup Sponges

I don't know why I don't recommend this cake often enough to my clients. My records showed that the last time I baked this cake for a client was a year ago! It's always lemon, lemon, and more lemon cakes.... The texture for this sponge is very much like my Moist Lemon and Lemon Poppyseed Cake. Light, soft, moist and very delightful. Ms Lawson uses the same recipe for the drenched Lemon-Syrup Cake by the way. Since I was  to bake for a client yesterday for a small wedding cake (see Purple & White Hantaran Cake), I decided to do this cake. For one, it's brushed with boiled Lime syrup and that'll help keep fondant cakes moist for a couple of days. Fondant (sugar paste) dries out cakes. The cake is to be picked up on Thursday for a Saturday wedding, so it has to stay moist and yummy at the same time until Saturday! Don't be taken back by the use of limes. We have limes in abundance here and they aren't as tart as the lemons, much cheaper, too. Tangy but not tart. So, that makes the cake palatable.

Cheese, Onions and Potato Pies

It was one of those nights when I was at loss for a dinner idea and wasn't keen on eating out either. I had some bangers in the freezer but did not have enough potatoes for mash. So, I decided to use the potatoes for a couple of accompanying pies with the bangers. Pies, despite them being the yummiest "fast food", there's nothing fast about them except in the speed they enter your mouth. They involve a lot of fiddly prep work especially if they're small pies. Nevertheless, I love this recipe....separately. The pie crust is short as expected but rivals the new Hot Water Pastry I learnt from Donna Hay a couple of days earlier. And the potato filling - yum x 100. I prepared the filling while the dough was resting. After rolling out the dough, I stole a tablespoon of the cold filling and it was the best potato salad I've ever had! The cubes of boiled potatoes were completely flavoured by the two cheeses I used - Red Leicester and (very) Mature Cheddar bound by 3 tablespoons of cream, fresh chopped onions and parsley. Yes, I did tweak the original recipe but not on purpose. The creme fraiche I had in the fridge had gone bad, so I used the pouring cream I had. I did not have any spring onions and since my family never had any trouble with chopped up raw onions (we're Asians), that was used instead. You can taste every flavour in the filling when it's cold. Once baked, the flavours were muted. The pies were fine with the bangers and HP, but not exceptional. It was a good carbo accompaniment though but personally, not pie on its own. Pie filling however, which I have now christened the Double Cheese Potato Salad, is excellent on its own.

Coca-Cola Cake

Hmmm...what can I say about this cake? Rather what the kids said about this cake...."Huh? Coca-Cola cake? Where's the Coke?". That's what I thought, too. Don't get me wrong, love the texture of this cake. As usual, Nigella aced in this bit of the creation. It was absolutely soft and moist, not dense at all. But flavour-wise, it lacked big time. Couldn't taste any distinct Coke flavour (no, I didn't use Diet Coke or Coca-Cola Light) nor the chocolate (used Valhorna cocoa). Just, plain. Yes, even the icing didn't help. Royal icing as usual is very sweet and it didn't complement the cake at all. Just, plain AND sweet now. Maybe Coca-Cola isn't what it used to be anymore? Missing the secret feel-good ingredient?

Fresh Gingerbread With(out) Lemon Icing

Another melt-and-mix kind of cake and awfully easy if you have all the ingredients at hand. I was a little apprehensive when it came to baking this. One, there was too much of a good thing in its ingredient list. Especially in the sweetener department. Though the recipe didn't call for white sugar, I got a bit concerned as I had to tip in nearly the whole tin of golden syrup and a bottle of molasses (I had this in hand, so replaced the treacle) after the muscovado sugar! Secondly, the whole runny batter business always gets me worried. I know I should have complete faith in Nigella's recipes by now as they've not failed me so far in terms of the finished product. But, fears like these comes second nature after many years of runny batter=soggy, dense cakes!! Nevertheless, the whole process went on without a glitch and popped the roasting tray into the oven for about 45 minutes. Kids went "phieeeuuuww" when it came out of the oven. Let's just say the smell of the molasses over-powered the whole gingerbread. I suppose treacle would have been a little lighter. But the texture and taste of this gingerbread was divine. Perfectly soft and light, yet moist. Very good tea cake but not something you can have slice after slice. A bit much. Perhaps a good slather of zingy lemon icing would have done the trick?