Autumn tartine brunch

Although you wouldn't know it from the humid, sticky weather here this week, Autumn is upon us, and so are some of my favourite fruits; figs, apples, pears and quinces.

The last few weeks of summer have been mostly dry and dusty here, and we are so ready for the change of season. So keen to feel the cool air settle down around us, to start collecting pinecones and wood, smell that first fire of the season and to see the farm change colour (hopefully from brown back to green thank you very much).

The orchards of Orange, are thick with fruit right now. Pickers are hard at it and the markets and shops are full of late Summer and early Autumn's best. So, to celebrate this time of plenty, why not have a few friends over for a tartine brunch? Go on. It'll be fun and really delicious.

A tartine is basically a French word for an open sandwich, and in this case we've used a beautiful fruit and nut sourdough loaf, sliced thinly and toasted, then spread with homemade ricotta and topped with any of the below. This is a really great way to easily feed a bunch for brunch as you can have everything done in advance (and even that is hardly any bother) and just lay out all the different elements with a pot of coffee and one of tea for everyone to help themselves. So here's what we have here, all four tartines were delicious but my favourite was the fig one.

Homemade ricotta with quince butter
Homemade ricotta with apple butter
Homemade ricotta with poached pears and vanilla salt
Homemade ricotta with fresh figs and sweet dukkah

Vanilla salt and sweet dukkah

Both of these 'condiments' are my new addiction. They both are great to have on hand to pep up pretty much any dish, are easy to make and lovely to give away in little jars as prezzies. The vanilla salt is incredible lightly sprinkled over everything from a tomato salad to a chargrilled venison steak and in this case, poached pear tartine. Thank you so much to my new favourite food writer Renee Erickson for the idea (if you haven't seen her book A boat, a whale and a walrus, yet, please check it out).

To make the salt, just take about 1/4 cup sea salt and place in a bowl. Split the bean using the tip of a sharp knife then scrape along the cut surface to collect the vanilla seeds and mix these into the salt. At this point you can just seal the salt, with the vanilla bean pieces in a jar, ready to use. Or you could place the vanilla salt with one of the bean pieces in a food processor and whizz to combine. I do this because I quite like the little woody pieces of vanilla bean in there but you mightn't so just stick with the seeds! Keeps for a month or so.

As for the sweet dukkah, I used this recipe and am now using the end result on pretty much everything from breakfast cereal to platters of fresh fruit and bowls of natural yogurt. Warm with cardamom, cinnamon and coriander, aromatic with toasted hazlenuts and pistachios and sweetened with dates, it's just delicious and particularly good with these fig and ricotta tartines.

Homemade ricotta

Homemade ricotta is infinitely better and entirely different in taste, texture and cost, to its heavy, store-bought counterpart. Truly, it takes only minutes to make ricotta at home and the results are just beautiful. All you need is muslin (cheaply available from most kitchen shops) and a candy thermometer (again from kitchen shops, mine cost about $8 and I use it often). 

Here we spread the ricotta over thinly sliced, toasted fruit bread before topping with seasonal fruit. You can also sweeten then bake the ricotta or serve in dollops over a homemade pizza (with rocket and proscuitto).

Please give this recipe a try, it’s so satisfying and easy. Makes about 1 1/2 cups ricotta.

3 cups full fat milk

1 cup cream

1 pinch sea salt

Juice of one lemon

Heat the milk, cream and salt together in a medium-sized saucepan until the temperature reaches 190C. Remove from heat, squeeze in the lemon juice and whisk well. Let sit at room temperature, whisking every now and then, for 15 minutes then pour over a metal sieve lined with 6 pieces of muslin. Make sure the sieve doesn’t touch the whey at all.

Leave for one hour then transfer the ricotta to a bowl, cover and leave in the fridge for up to one week. Fluff up with a fork before using.  Note - We give our whey to the chooks and they seem to love it!

 

Quince butter

This post seems to be full of favourite new recipes so please excuse the superlatives. But hello quince butter...you are incredible! I've been making lots of the apple butter below recently, mostly because my kids adore the stuff and Tom, particularly seems to have it on everything from toast at breakfast to yogurt after dinner. And because we have lots of quinces on hand at the moment, thanks to my mother and mother-in-law's prolific gardens, I've been poaching them like crazy. So I thought I'd apply the same idea to one tray of quinces as the apple butter; i.e pureeing then roasting in the oven to thicken up. The result is a smooth, brightly coloured and flavoured butter-free butter.

Use quince butter wherever you'd reach for lemon curd or similar. I think it's amazing with the mellow, creamy ricotta on these tartines but it's also great with yogurt, and, we discovered yesterday, on toasted banana bread.

4-6 quinces, peeled, cored and cut into quarters (reserve the cores)
2 cups sugar
1 lemon
1 tbsp vanilla paste
1 cinnamon stick

First you need to poach your quinces. So to do this, start by preheating the oven to 150C. Combine the sugar, lemon, vanilla and cinnamon in a saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring so the sugar dissolves. then let simmer for a few minutes. Meanwhile, arrange the quince pieces in a deep baking tray, all in one layer (try not to pile them on top of each other as they may break up while cooking). Don't worry if they colour a little, this won't affect the end result at all. Tie the cores together in a piece of muslin if you have it, and add to the tray (I never seem to have any muslin on hand so just scatter a few cores over the top of the quinces then fish them out later). This serves to add colour and pectin to the fruit while cooking.

Pour the sugar syrup over the quinces and cover tightly with foil. Place in the oven for 3-4 hours or until the quinces have turned a ruby-red colour and are deliciously aromatic.

Let them cool a little then tip into a food processor, syrup and all, and blitz until really smooth. Pour the pureed quince back into your baking tray, and return (uncovered) to the oven for a further hour. This will really thicken things up nicely and, I think, intensify the flavour too. Stir every 20 minutes to make sure the bottom doesn't burn at all. Transfer to jars and seal, then keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks.

Apple butter

8 large cooking apples
2 cups water
2 tsp vanilla paste
1/2 cup golden caster sugar

Preheat oven to 150C then peel* core and cut the apples into quarters and place in an oven-proof saucepan with the water, vanilla and sugar and cook, covered for about 20 minutes (stirring every now and then).  Puree this mixture until smooth then return to the pan and place (covered) in a preheated oven for 1 hour (stir every 20 minutes though to make sure the mixture doesn’t catch at the bottom). Keep in the fridge until needed (or for a couple of weeks). Makes about 3 cups.

*You don't really need to bother with this step if rushing, it just makes for a slightly smoother, less 'green' coloured sauce in the end but I often leave the peel on and the end result is just as delicious.

So, once you have all the elements in place, just make up some nice strong tea, set a table outside if possible and have a beautiful Autumn brunch. I can't think of a yummier way to ring in the new season. x

Poached pears 

Because there's lots going on in this little brunch scenario, I kept this element pretty sweet and simple. Here's my basic recipe for poached pears. 

4 cups water

1 tsp vanilla paste or seeds of one vanilla bean

1 cup sugar

6 firm Beurre Bosc pears

Combine the water, vanilla and sugar in a large saucepan and bring to the boil. Meanwhile peel the pears (leaving them whole), and gently lower into the warm poaching liquid. Cover with a layer of baking paper (to protect against discoloration) and simmer for about 25 minutes. 

The sweetest thing; apricot brioche

There are few things nicer in life, I think, than a perfect apricot, picked and eaten warm from the tree. Almost overpoweringly fragrant and juicy; ripe apricots are on another level to the cold, hard and mealy ones we all get stuck with from the shops from time to time (though if you do find yourself with a kilo or two of these, all's not lost - just dust them in cinnamon sugar, dot with butter and roast for a bit - they'll come up beautifully).

Here in Orange, many orchards have just finished picking their apricots. These locally harvested ones can be found at our monthly markets (which are on tomorrow morning) and shops like The Agrestic Grocer and Hillside Harvest. And they are superb.

We went straight to the source the other day and asked some friends, who happen to have their own orchard, if we could please come and pick a basket or two. This family have 800 or so apricot trees on the slopes of Mount Canobolas and a pretty incredible view too. Our kids are at school together and so they all had a ball picking and playing while we did the same. 

It almost seems a shame to do anything with perfectly ripe apricots like these, being as they are, just perfect on their own. But because I was in a baking mood on the weekend, a handful or so of our haul, were tucked into soft discs of brioche dough, sprinkled with sugar and baked until collapsed on their buttery base. And actually, they were one of the best things I've made all year. Though as we're only a few days in that's not saying much. Kidding, they were amazing. 

There are plenty more apricot recipes here in the archives too; including recipes for apricot ice cream, apricot chicken, apricot frangipane tart and apricot curd.There's also one for apricot and vanilla jam, this was one of the first recipes I ever posted here on the blog and is still a favourite of many lovely readers!

Brioche isn't a particularly useful thing to make; a little too rich for breakfast and not really sweet enough for pudding. But in my opinion, absolutely perfect for a nice little brunch or morning tea.

It's also a real joy to make. Rich, golden and bursting with butter, I love working with this dough and the way it makes my hands feel and smell. I love and the gradual process of rising, shaping and pressing into smooth round discs. And of course, I love the end result.

Apricot Brioche

You can swap the apricots with pretty much any seasonal fruit, figs would be beautiful here as would berries or sliced peaches. If making these for brunch, just make up the dough the night before then divide up into smaller balls when you wake up, let them rest for a couple of hours and pop in the oven just before your friends arrive and/or you fancy eating them. This recipe is adapted from one in my new favourite cookbook Huckleberry. If you like baking, then you'll absolutely love this one.

4 tbsp full fat milk
2 tbsp active dry yeast
3 1/2 cups 00 baking flour (plain is ok too if that’s what you have)
1/4 cup caster sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
1 tsp sea salt
5 eggs, beaten
220g unsalted butter, cubes, very soft
1/2 cup almond flakes

Warm the milk just a little then place in the bowl of a stand mixer with a dough hook. Sprinkle in the yeast and whisk to combine. Set aside for a few minutes or until frothy. Add the flour, sugar, salt and eggs then mix on low for a few minutes or until the dough comes together.

Increase the speed a little and work the dough for five minutes, stopping every now and then to scrape the dough down from the sides of the bowl.

Now, reduce the mixer speed again to low and add the butter a little at at time. Pausing every now and then to scrape any dough down the sides of the bowl. Mix until all the butter is completely integrated into the dough and you have a beautiful smooth mixture. Remove from the mixer bowl and with lightly floured hands, work into a ball.

Transfer to a greased bowl, cover with plastic and place overnight in the fridge.

The next morning, take your dough out of the fridge and gently cut into four or six small balls, depending on how big you want them and how many you want!

Gently work the first piece of dough into a smooth dough, pinching the sides down to the base so the sides are all even. Then, using the heel of your palm, flatten the first into a disc (keep the remaining covered with a damp tea towel while you work), with a gentle indentation in the middle. Place on a greased, lined baking tray and repeat with the remaining dough.

Cover loosely with plastic and set aside at room temperature again for two hours. After an hour and a half, preheat the oven to 180C. Slice the apricots into halves or quarters and arrange in the indent of each brioche.

To make the egg wash, combine two tbsp double cream with 1 egg and whisk well. Brush this over your brioche and then sprinkle liberally with the extra sugar and the almond flakes.

Bake in preheated oven for about 20 minutes or until the brioche are golden brown. Serve straight away!

Local is Lovely workshop - day 2

Day two of the Local is Lovely workshop began bright and very early. Fired up by our photography teacher Luisa's completely infectious enthusiasm, we met at dawn and each carried a chair, bench, jug of coffee or stack of bowls out through the dew and early fog into a field just by the house.



With sunrise breaking through a row of Radiata pines and our small group of early risers pouring coffee and sharing out granola with yogurt and berries - it was the best, and I have to say, most photogenic breakfast I've had in a long time. Probably ever.



The granola recipe was one from my book, it's full of honey, nuts and spices, lasts for ages and is really great over yogurt, even ice cream and as I found out on the weekend - served with sweet pickles.

The recipe itself is easy, but if you have a small oven like me, just takes a little time if making a big batch as you need to cook it in three or four lots.

Honey Granola

I make this recipe all the time. The kids take little bags of it to school for morning tea (nut free), I have it over yogurt for breakfast and it's also great as a crumble topping but in this case, cook the fruit on it’s own and sprinkle with granola before serving. Makes about 7 cups.

5 cups rolled oats
1 cup shredded coconut
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 cup sesame seeds
1/2 cup almonds, roughly chopped (or any other nut)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1tsp ground cinnamon
1tsp ground ginger
Pinch of salt
50ml sunflower oil
1/4 cup brown sugar
150ml honey

Preheat oven to 140C. Combine the oats, coconut, seeds, almonds, spices and salt in a large bowl. Place the oil, honey and sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat and stir until combined. Set aside to cool for a moment then stir in the vanilla. Pour this mixture over the dry ingredients and mix well, ensuring that all ingredients are well incorporated. Spread across one large or two small trays and cook for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until the granola is a golden brown. Turn the muesli around a bit every 20 minutes or so to ensure that one side of the tray doesn’t cook faster and burn. Cool completely before stirring through any additions (dried fruit or chocolate chips). Then store in an airtight container. 

After breakfast we began the studio session by styling and shooting the cheese plate below. I know. So beautiful.

Our teacher in styling Stephanie Stamatis created the scene then Luisa gave everyone guidance on how to shoot it according to their own style and camera. The background was a slab of zinc that we all fell in love with. Such a fantastic surface, pretty much any food looks great on zinc, particularly raw meat as we found later in a mini-demonstration on shooting this often tricky subject.

The day moved on, all to quickly. After the cheese plate shoot above, I brought over a few fruit tarts which were styled and shot by the group. My favourite was this vibrant apricot version (below). Again the recipe comes from my book, and again you can find it here below.

This recipe is perhaps my favourite sweet thing to make. It takes a little time and love but isn't hard and can be adapted to suit any fruit that's in season (I make it with fresh figs, poached quinces, cherries and stone fruit).

Frangipane fruit tarts

As mentioned above, you can make this with pretty much any seasonal fruit. I particularly love piling mine up with halved fresh apricots but on the day we also made one with cherries, strawberries and rhubarb.

For the pastry
150g cold butter
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1/2 cup icing sugar
1 egg
1 x quantity frangipane filling (recipe below)
2 cups apricots, halved

Place the flour and icing sugar in the bowl of a food processor and blitz for a moment. Add the butter and blitz until you have a coarse sand-like texture. Tip this out onto a work surface and bring together with the palm of your hand and work until you have a lovely, smooth disc of dough. Wrap this in plastic and pop in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. Roll out between two sheets of baking paper until about 5mm thick and drape into a loose-bottomed tart tin. Return to the fridge for another half an hour. The tart shell can wait for you in the fridge for up to a day at this point, or you can pop in the freezer and bake almost from frozen (just let it sit on the bench for 10 minutes before going into a preheated oven). 

Blind bake the tart shell in a preheated oven at 180C, then spoon in the frangipane mix and smooth out. Press the apricots into the mixture, sprinkle with extra caster sugar and bake for 30 minutes or until the frangipane is golden brown and cooked through.

For the frangipane filling; 
100 salted butter, softened 
1/2 cup caster sugar 
1 egg 
3/4 cup almond meal* 
1 tbsp plain flour 
1 tsp vanilla extract


Preheat oven to 180C. Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy and add the egg, mix to incorporate well. Fold in the almond meal, flour and vanilla and beat until you have a smooth paste. This can be kept in the fridge or freezer until needed but it's much easier to work with if you bring back to room temperature before spreading over the tart base. 

*It makes all the difference to this recipe if you make your own almond meal. To do this, just dry-roast natural (skin-on) almonds in a moderate oven for about 10 minutes or until fragrant. Let cool then blitz in a food processor until coarse. Almond meal freezes really well so make a double batch then stash some away for next time.

As well as the tarts, we also made and shot a batch of buttermilk jam scrolls. 

Buttermilk jam scrolls

For sweet yeasted doughs like this, I try to use fresh yeast*, but as this isn't all that easy to come by, dry/instant yeast is completely fine. If using dried yeast though, general wisdom says you just halve the quantity of fresh yeast to get the right amount of dried to use. So for example in this case, where we use 60g fresh yeast, just weigh out 30g dried.

This recipe is one of my current favourites. Its genus comes from Danish food writer Trine Hanneman but I've changed it a bit over the past few months. The dough is soft, beautiful to manage and just sweet enough, and the scrolls really not hard to make, you just need to practice a bit to get a feel for the dough. I often make up a batch and then let the un-baked scrolls rest/rise slowly overnight in the fridge. You then just take them out of the fridge, let the oven heat up and bake them as per the recipe below then wake your special people up to freshly baked buttermilk scrolls and I promise they'll feel the love. And really, to make people feel special - isn't that why we bake? Makes about 12.

60g fresh yeast

200mls buttermilk

1 egg

3 cups (450g) 00 flour

1/3 cup (80g) caster sugar

100g unsalted butter, softened

1 1/2 cups jam (we used blackberry)

1 egg, extra, for brushing

1/2 cup toasted almonds, roughly chopped

Crumble the yeast into a bowl, pour over the buttermilk, add the egg and whisk to combine. Or if using dried yeast, sprinkle this over the buttermilk, add the egg and whisk. Place the flour and sugar into the bowl of an electric mixer with a dough hook and add the yeast mixture. Mix for a couple of minutes then add the softened butter and then let the machine knead the mixture for about five minutes (you can do all of this by hand of course!).

Tip mixture onto a lightly floured surface and finish off the kneading with a few minutes by hand. Place in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a clean tea towel and set aside to rise for an hour or until doubled in size.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and gently roll into a large rectangle shape. Spread this with the jam then gently roll (from the longest edge) into a nice fat sausage. Use a serrated knife to cut this into scrolls about 3cm thick and lay on a tray lined with baking paper (give them a cm or so on every side to rise). At this point you can return to the fridge to rise slowly or leave at room tempearture  

for half an hour before baking. Brush with the beaten egg and scatter with the chopped almonds and bake for 30 minutes or until golden. Serve warm.

*If keen to try using fresh yeast yourself, just poke your head around the counter of your local bakery or even supermarket bakery and ask if you can have/buy 100g or so. Works for me! 

After the scrolls we also made pasta, turned it into ravioli filled with goat's curd, lemon zest and peas then shared this for lunch (recipe coming in a separate post). And somewhere in between, Luisa talked about and demonstrated how she edits and organises her images and gave us some really useful advice on the business-end of being a professional photographer (pitching stories, charging fees and so on).

Straight after lunch we were back to the studio for an afternoon session on watercolours and sketching by my mum, art teacher and artist Annie Herron. It was so lovely to step away from our cameras, pick up pencils, crayons and/or watercolours and create images in such a different medium (see below). And  as usual, Mum coaxed some beautiful work out of her students. 

And almost at the end of the workshop, we did one more demonstration session with pickles (here's my recipe) before Stephanie and Luisa encouraged and helped everyone to choose from the food and prop 'library' on hand to style their own scenes.



I think we were all a little sad to bring this workshop to a close. And in a slow trickle, we said our good byes as the group departed. Thank you to everyone who participated in this workshop, it was the best.

Buns in the oven

Yesterday we made our first batch of hot cross buns. It was time. And they were delicious.

Making any kind of yeasted, sweet, sticky buns is cooking nirvana for me. The way the dough feels, the kitchen smells and the end results taste - it really is my idea of a good time. So yesterday Alice, her cousin Grace and I hit the kitchen. The girls helped measure out the ingredients then knead, pipe and glaze, and the whole process put us all in a warm/fuzzy/Easter-y mood. In case you feel like a spot of aimless baking too...here's our recipe.

Cocoa and spice hot cross buns

This is a fairly sticky dough so it helps if you have a mixer with a dough hook. Otherwise of course you can knead the dough by hand but prepared to get a little bit messy!

4 cups plain flour
4 tsp instant yeast
1/4 cup caster sugar

1/3 cup best quality cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons Herbies ‘sweet spice dust’ mix (this stuff is amazing) or mixed spice
pinch of salt
1 cup currants
40g butter
300ml milk
2 eggs, lightly beaten

For the flour mix - about 1/2 cup plain flour and 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Combine the flour, yeast, sugar, cocoa, spices, salt and currants in the bowl of an electric mixer with a dough hook or just a large bowl. Then place the butter and milk in a small saucepan over medium heat and cook until the butter has melted into the milk. Remove from heat and let cool a little (you want the mixture to be lukewarm). Add the milk and butter mixture to the dry ingredients then pour in the eggs.

Knead with the dough hook for 10 minutes or until the mixture is smooth and elastic (but still a little sticky). Or tip mixture out onto a lightly floured surface and knead by hand. If using the electric mixer, still finish up with a few minutes kneading by hand. Place dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a clean tea towel and leave in a warm place for 1 1/2 hours or until it has almost doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 180C. Divide the dough into 12 even-sized pieces (this is fun for the kids to do), and place them about 1cm apart on a tray lined with baking paper, leave to rest again for 30 minutes more.

Meanwhile, make the flour paste by just mixing together the flour and spice mix (or cinnamon) and just enough water to make a thick paste. Spoon this into a piping bag or plastic sandwich bag and snip off the bottom corner. Once the buns have rested, pipe crosses on each. Your buns are now ready for the oven!

They should take between 30/35 minutes to cook but check after 30 (the buns will sound hollow when tapped on the bottom). Towards the end of the cooking time, make the glaze by combining the sugar and water in a small saucepan. Bring to the boil, stirring often, and cook for a few minutes until you have a nice syrup happening. Brush the buns with sugar syrup as soon as they come out of the oven and they are done! We had these yesterday with just a smear of butter and cups of tea and hot chocolate. Makes 12.

The Friday List and honey buns

Weekday Carnival from Finland is my find of the week

A great round-up of covetable cookbooks

Chocolate and custard peanut cream from Citrus and Candy...wowsers.

Bali's food markets by the lovely Fliss of Udder

We are cooking for lots of people this weekend; both at the Farm Kitchen and a 5th birthday party for Alice, so I turn to Hugh for inspiration

A pizza truck like this would be very welcome at our front gate tonight at around 5.30pm

Milk and honey pudding. Yes please

How to make great granola every time 

Take me to this Turkish village for profiteroles please...via a new favourite food blog, Cafe Fernando. 

These tarts look so beautiful, maybe those of us in the middle of winter could make them with a dollop of jam or some frozen berries instead?

My posts elsewhere this week
Baking our own olympic rings at Village Voices
Prosciutto and egg pies over at Justb
Chorizo and haloumi pasta for Village Voices

Honey and spelt buns

These buns are lovely warm from the oven and spread with butter and jam. If you have little people in the kitchen, this is also a great recipe to cook together as the dough is easy to knead and very forgiving. I've made these with dark chocolate chips and dried cranberries instead of the sultanas and both options were very popular, the first slightly more so. The recipe is founded on one given by Nikki Duffy in the wonderful River Cottage Baby and Toddler Cookbook.

1/2 cup milk
50g butter
4 tbsp honey
250g wholemeal flour
250g spelt flour
3 tsp instant yeast
1 tsp ground cinnamon
3/4 cup sultanas
1/2 cup apple juice
2 eggs, beaten


Bring the milk to steaming point in a small saucepan, remove from heat and stir through the butter and honey. Whisk well and then set aside for the butter to melt and then the mixture to cool a little. Combine the flours, yeast and spice in a large bowl. Make a well in the centre and pour in the warm milk mixture, the apple juice and one of the beaten eggs. Mix into a dough and then turn this out onto a lightly floured work surface. Knead for between 5 and 10 minutes or until the dough is smooth and elastic. Place in this in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a tea towel and sit in a nice warm place for one hour. The dough should have almost doubled in size by this time.
Turn out the dough, divide into about 12 small balls about the size of a golfball. Place these on baking trays lined with paper and return to that warm spot for another hour. Meanwhile, heat the oven to 200C. Brush the buns with your remaining beaten egg and bake for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown.

Raising the jar - Kate McKay

Kate McKay is one of those cooks with a natural instinct for flavour and putting food together. She's the lady behind jam and relish range Lynwood Preserves and is also my oldest friend. 

Alice, Tom and I are just back from a few days over at Collector (about three hours from Sydney, towards Canberra) with Kate and her family. Lynwood Preserves was founded 18 years ago by Kate's mother Robbie Howard (above), also an artist and wonderful cook. If ever you stopped at (the now closed) Lynwood Cafe on the way to or from Canberra from Sydney, you might have met Robbie and been lucky enough to try some of her beautiful cooking. She now writes a regular recipe column for the Canberra Times newspaper and many of these can be found here on the Lynwood website.

Kate took over the business a few years ago and produces some of the best jams and relishes going. She's constantly developing new flavours and recently added a quince jelly to the range. My favourite is the apricot and vanilla jam which is particularly good on crumpets - something we discovered on Monday after a session in the kitchen. We used a recipe by Gourmet Traveller magazine, but because we didn't have a crumpet ring, thinned the batter a little with some water and made them more like yeasted drop scones. Kate's girls Lucie and Sophie and my two polished off a big plate-full with jelly while we had ours with butter, jam and lots of tea.

Having spent many happy school holidays in Collector with the Howard family when I was younger, it was really lovely to be back with my own kids. Thanks Robbie, Alan, Kate and James! For information on purchasing Lynwood Preserves please contact Kate or check out their online store.

Local is Lovely on the Country Style blog!

Australian Country Style's beautiful blog features a Local is Lovely recipe today! Head over here for a harvest time afternoon tea, grape schiacciata 

Hot cross buns and a local, weekly meal plan

We are just back from a great weekend at Mum and Dad's place near Rydal just over the Blue Mountains. Mum is an artist and art teacher (the bronze birds pictured above are one of her works) and so her studio is heaven for Alice who is all about drawing and craft at the moment. Yesterday while they pottered in there I pottered in the kitchen and made some hot cross buns. 

Not being a big fan of currants etc in cakes (controversial I know), I make mine with apple and cranberries. The recipe given here makes sweet, cake-ey buns that are at their best the day they are made (or warmed gently in an oven the next day). 

Today we 'helped' Dad move his herd of Belted Galloway cows which sort of went pear-shaped when Tom decided to go swimming in mud puddles instead. 

Mum also runs residential art classes from Kimbri, she is an incredible teacher, the farm is beautiful and the food delicious, you can read more about them here.

Cinnamon and apple hot cross buns

1 cup caster sugar
1 lemon
2 apples, unpeeled, cored and diced
1 cinnamon stick
5 cups plain flour
50g Craisins
14g instant yeast
3 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
380ml milk
100g butter, cubed
1 egg

Combine half of the sugar and 375ml water in a saucepan, add the juice of the lemon and the cinnamon stick and stir until the sugar dissolves. Add the apple, bring to the simmer and then reduce heat and let cook for about 25 minutes. Strain, reserving fruit and the syrup but separately.

Combine all but 1/3 cup of the flour in a large bowl, add the craisins, yeast, 2 tsp of the cinnamon, the ginger and remaining sugar. Pour the milk into a small saucepan, add the butter and stir gently until the butter is mostly melted. Remove from heat and whisk in the egg.

Make a well in the dry ingredients and then pour in the warm milk mixture. Add the diced and cooled apple then either knead in a mixer with a dough attachment or by hand on a floured board for about 6 minutes or until smooth and elastic. Place in a lightly oiled bowl, cover and let rise for about 30 minutes.

Pre-heat oven to 200C, Knock back the dough and then divide into about 12-15 pieces, kneading each one into a smooth ball. Arrange these on a baking tray and let rise for another 30 minutes. Meanwhile mix remaining flour with a little water to make a thick paste, spoon this into a piping bag fitted with a small nozzle or a small plastic sandwich bag and then snip off the bottom to pipe a cross on each bun.

Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown. While this is happening, bring the reserved apple syrup back to a simmer, add the cinnamon and grab your pastry brush. As soon as they buns come out of the oven brush them with this glaze and set aside. Serve warm with jam or just a smear of butter.

This recipe borrows heavily from one printed in the April 2010 issue of Australian Gourmet Traveller. The original can be found here.  

Local Harvest Local Eating Challenge and our meal plan for this week

This week we are teaming up with a few friends in the area to take the Local Harvest Challenge. This means we have committed to buying (almost) all our food locally for the next seven days. Our major ‘suppliers’ this week will Slice of Orange, a fantastic shop in the centre of Orange stocking only products sourced from within a 160km radius. Through them we have sourced the biggest, most beautiful box of fruit and vegetables from Katie of the Nashdale Fruit Company. For bread we will look to Shaun and Willa Arantz of Racine Restaurant and we'll also pay a visit or two to our clever local winemakers.

Unfortunately we won’t be able to source absolutely everything we need from the area, particularly dairy products which we can’t really forgo because the kids love their milk etc. I’ll also have to source things like salt, flour and yeast elsewhere but that’s about it.

So to keep me honest and organised, here is the Hansen family’s meal and shopping plan for this week. The recipes are all pretty simple though possibly some are a bit ambitious; I'm not sure I'll have the time to make gnocchi on Wednesday so may have to give in and buy some dried pasta. I also haven’t put in all of our lunches and snacks as I thought that might border on over-sharing. If you feel like doing the challenge with us and are keen for any of the recipes listed below please do let me know and I’ll email them through (most will pop up on the blog over the next couple of weeks though). And if you live in Orange, please contact Slice of Orange as they will happily organise you a produce box and sort you out with other local produce too.

Happy local shopping, cooking and eating!

Monday
Dinner - Venison scallopine with chestnuts and sage
Dessert - Fresh Turkish Brown Figs

Tuesday
Afternoon tea/lunchbox- Chestnut and rhubarb cake
Dinner - Quince, kale and hazlenut salad with Goat’s curd croutons

Wednesday
Lunch - fennel and mint bruschetta
Dinner - Classic ragu with gnocchi and steamed broccoli

Thursday
Tomato, goat’s curd and rainbow chard pizza
Apple crumble (VV - cooking with kids)

Friday 

Afternoon tea - Spelt, Pear and honey cake
Dinner - Hit one of our great local restaurants

Saturday 
Lunch - Sorrel soup with corn fritters
 

Dinner - Roast garlic chicken with spiced pumpkin  (LIL)
Dessert - Poached pears with honey’d yogurt

Shopping list

From A Slice of Orange
pasta
honey
goat’s curd
olive oil
hazlenuts
chestnuts
eggs
Venison (Mandagery Creek of course!)
Pork
Beef
Goat’s curd

Fresh produce via the Nashdale Fruit Company at Slice of Orange
Turkish brown figs
Apples
Cloudy apple juice
Rhubarb
Pomegranate
Dutch cream potatoes
Rainbow chard
Fennel
Broccoli
Tomato
Sorrel
Corn
pears

From our garden
Quinces, cherry tomatoes and herbs

From our local cellar doors
Red and white wine!

Bread by Racine via Slice of Orange

Exceptions....ie ingredients we need to source from outside the region
Cream
Milk
Butter
Sage
wholemeal flour
spelt flour
yeast
Porridge oats
Tomato paste
Spices
Salt

Grill seeking - venison burgers with juniper poached pears

Last week was a busy one for us. We had lots of visitors, a run of runny noses and Tim was pulling 12-hour days on the farm. So it was perhaps inevitable that come Friday night we would turn to the drink. Our lovely neighbours came over for an early dinner and we cooked a few little venison steaks and shoved them into brioche style bread rolls with poached pears. The grown-ups drank lots of bubbles by Orange winemaker Philip Shaw, left at our place this week by his son Damian (above) who brought a bunch of customers over to do a little farm tour and tasting of their brand new sparkling wine Edinburgh on our deck. We gave them venison carpaccio with pickled cherries (recipe here) on little rounds of bread and I think it was a pretty good match.

Hope you all had a great weekend.

Juniper and brown sugar poached pears
1 tbsp juniper berries
3 tbsp brown sugar
1 litre water
4 pears, cored and thinly sliced

Place everything but the pears in a saucepan and bring to a gentle simmer, stirring to ensure the sugar has dissolved. Add the pears and simmer for 10 minutes. These keep for a couple of months in the fridge and are great with all sorts of grilled meats and cheeses.

Brioche-style bread rolls
This is a great recipe for kids to help with, it comes, only slightly adapted, from Nigella Lawson’s book Feast and makes the loveliest, fluffiest little rolls that everyone always seems to like. 
500g 00 flour
3 tsp instant yeast
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp caster sugar
350ml milk
30g butter
1 egg, beaten
2 tbsp sesame seeds

Place the yeast, flour, salt and sugar in a large bowl and mix together. Warm the milk and butter in a small saucepan until the butter is just beginning to melt. Pour this into the dry ingredients and stir together until just incorporated. Here you can either use your mixer with a dough hook to knead for about 5 minutes or do it by hand. Let the dough rest in a slightly oiled bowl covered with a tea towel for about one hour, or until doubled in size. Now here’s where it’s quite fun to get the kids to help - pull off small amounts of dough and roll into smooth balls. Preheat the oven to 200C. Place the little rolls on a baking tray with about 1cm between each and leave to rise again for about half an hour. Brush with an egg wash, sprinkle with sesame seeds and cook for about 15 minutes or until lovely and golden on top.

Venison steaks
6 x venison leg steaks, for a full list of where to buy our venison have a look here (or of course, any other protein you have on hand, actual hamburger patties of mince would be great too)
Olive oil
Mixed salad leaves
 
Rub the steaks with olive oil, heat a frying pan or grill to high and cook for a minute and a half on each side. Serve with a few green leaves and the pears, above.

Venison carpaccio and peach brioche for a picnic

Orange’s Slow Summer festival closes tomorrow a big family picnic at Lake Canobolas. We often go to there for picnics as our kids love to swim from its little sandy ‘beach’ and the surrounding views of Nasdhale valley are some of the prettiest in NSW. So here’s what will be in our picnic basket this Sunday. Or on the table for lunch if it rains...

If the venison recipe appeals and you happen to live in Sydney, come and see us (Mandagery Creek Venison) at the Pyrmont Growers Market next Saturday, February 4th.

Seared venison carpaccio with pickled cherries, horseradish cream and thyme
This is an ideal recipe for an easy summer dinner at home or a picnic. It looks and tastes beautiful and comes together very quickly. Please do try it one day, this is the kind of recipe that lets venison really shine and makes the most of the meat's beautiful tender texture and subtle flavour. If making for a picnic, have everything ready to then sear the meat and assemble just before heading out. We are going to pack a couple of baguettes too and make up carpaccio ‘sandwiches’ with a little rocket salad on the side. Fancy!

400g Mandagery Creek Venison leg piece*
1 tbsp juniper berries
1 tbsp black peppercorns
1 tbsp sea salt
2 tbsp horseradish cream
1/3 cup creme fraiche
1/2 cup pickled cherries (recipe here), you could also use thinly sliced fresh figs or even fresh cherries here
1/2 cup shaved pecorino or parmesan cheese
Thyme (to serve)

Crush the juniper, black peppercorns and sea salt together in a mortar and pestle. Rub the spices over the meat and set aside for a moment. Heat a tablespoon or two of olive oil in a frying pan over high heat. Add meat and brown on each side for a minute on each side. Let rest under a tent of foil. Mix the horsedradish cream and creme fraiche togehter with a squeeze of lemon to taste. Slice the meat thinly and place on a serving plate. Top with the cherries, shaved pecorino, creme fraiche mix and thyme. Beautiful. Serves 4.

*I cut one of our 1kg leg pieces in half across the grain for this. The other half I sliced into steaks, wrapped each one in plastic and stashed them in the freezer for a dinner next week.

Peach Brioche
Not too sweet but soft, rich and delicious, this brioche recipe is great with any kind of fruit. It holds together well and is great for a picnic as you can serve it in nice big wedges and forget the plates. If we remember on Sunday we’ll pack this with some natural yogurt to dollop on top before eating. This recipe asks only ten minutes of your time but needs up to three hours to prove.

2 tsp dry yeast
2 tbsp warm milk
90g caster sugar
280g plain flour
1 tbsp salt
3 eggs
150g butter, softened
3 peaches, halved and thinly sliced
3 tsp sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon mixed together

Place the yeast and milk together in a small bowl and whisk together. Leave for five minutes until frothy. Add the flour, sugar, eggs and salt and beat with the dough hook attatchment of an electric mixer or briskly by hand with a wooden spoon. Add the butter a little bit at a time, waiting until each nob is completely incorperated before adding the next. Keep kneading/beating until the dough is smooth, glossy and elastic. Turn out into a lightly oiled bowl and cover with a dry tea towel. Set aside in a warm place for 1 1/2 hours or until doubled in size.

Knock back the dough a little and roll into a ball (you might need to coat your hands with flour to do this as the dough can be quite sticky). Place on a floured baking tray and gently push down so you have a disc about 3cm thick. Leave to prove again for another hour or so.

Preheat oven to 180C. Top the brioche with peach slices, dust with cinnamon sugar and brush edges with eggwash. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until edges are golden.

 

Spiced fruit scrolls and roasted vanilla berries, a make ahead Christmas breakfast

Whoohoo it’s almost Christmas! We are in serious festive mode here and Alice is beside herself that it’s just three sleeps till Santa arrives. We have family arriving for the weekend before the main man so in a nod to organisation have just stashed the below in the fridge for Christmas morning. Snaps for me. They really are beautiful recipes and worth trying if not on the 25th, for any special brunch/morning tea over summer. Happy Christmas and thank you for supporting Local is Lovely in its first few weeks.

Spiced fruit scrolls

Prep time 30 mins Cooking time 25 mins (plus 2 hours proving time)

Allow an hour or so to put these scrolls together; while they are simple in terms of technique they do need a little time and love. They reheat beautifully and as I can’t think of anything worse than rolling out dough on Christmas morning so made a couple of batches this morning, wrapped them in foil and tucked them in our overcrowded freezer to gently reheat in a moderate oven as soon as we wake on the 25th. The alcohol-free spiced fruit mix is beautiful in this and lots of other tart/cake/pudding recipes.


4 tsp yeast1 cup warm milk
1/4 cup caster sugar
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup/125g butter, melted
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
4 cups strong flour
 1 cup warm milk 1/4 cup caster sugar 1 egg, beaten 1/2 cup/125g butter, melted 1 tsp salt 1 tsp cinnamon 4 cups strong flour
  1 cup warm milk 1/4 cup caster sugar 1 egg, beaten 1/2 cup/125g butter, melted 1 tsp salt 1 tsp cinnamon 4 cups strong flour  filling 2 cups Christmas fruit mix (recipe below) 120g chocolate, chopped into small pieces 60g melted butter 1 tsp cinnamon glaze 1 egg beaten 1 tbsp water

Sprinkle the yeast over warm milk. Add a teaspoon of the sugar and stir. Let stand for a few minutes. Add the remaining ingredients and knead for 10 minutes, either using a mixer with a dough hook or by hand. Set aside, in a lightly oiled bowl covered with a tea towel, in a warm place for one hour or until dough has doubled in size. Transfer to a floured board and roll out to a large rectangle, the dough should be about once centimeter thick. Spread with the butter, sprinkle with the fruit and chocolate and dust with cinnamon. Roll into one long sausage and then cut that into slices, about three centimeters thick. Place these in a greased and lined 28cm cake tin (or square baking tray).
Cover and leave again to prove for one more hour, or thereabouts. Preheat the oven to 200C. Brush the scrolls with egg mixed with the water and bake for 25 minutes. If making this ahead, wrap in foil and freeze, otherwise serve warm with lots of milky tea. Pull out of the freezer the night before you want to serve it, leave in the fridge and then gently reheat in a moderate oven.



Spiced Christmas fruit mix
2 cups mixed dried fruit (raisins, cranberries, lemon and orange peel etc)
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 tsp cloves
1 cinnamon stick
peel and juice of one orange

Place all ingredients except for the fruit mix in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer. Let bubble for a few minutes until the sugar has dissolved. Strain out the cloves and then add the fruit mix. Pour into a glass jar and keep in a dark, cool place for a month or so. It does get better the longer it sits but is fine to use after just a few hours. 



Roasted vanilla berry parcels
Serves 6
Prep time 5 minutes, Cooking time 15 minutes
This will be the most delicious and aromatic present you’ll open on Christmas morning. Make it up a day or two before and keep in the fridge ready to pop in a hot oven just 15 minutes before you need it. The hot, vanilla syrup and soft, sweet berries are just beautiful with toasted granola and berries, or served next to a stack of toasted panettone or brioche. This is also a great dessert idea, I’ve just tried it with a stack of little meringues and whipped cream. Yummo. Thank you to the latest issue of Donna Hay magazine for inspiring this recipe.


700g mixed berries
1 cup caster sugar
juice and peel of one orange
1 vanilla bean, seeds scraped

Mix everything together in a large bowl. Cut two large strips of baking paper, lay them in a cross, pour the fruit in the centre of the cross and wrap up so the berries are tightly bundled up. Tie with kitchen string and place in a baking tray, in the fridge or on the kitchen bench until you need them.