Tag: Cake

Savarin Au Rhum – Dining With The Dame 8

Hello crime readers and food lovers!  Today we are boarding a luxury train (No, not the Orient Express…but we will get to that one eventually) for murder, robbery and other hijinks.  Luckily Poirot is on hand to bring justice to all.  And, even better, while we read we can munch on some cake.  Tbook is The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie, first published in 1928 and it features a Savarin Au Rhum.

Savarin au Rhum

The Mystery Of The Blue Train – The Plot

Heiress Ruth Kettering is taking the luxury “Train Bleu” from Paris to Nice.  Also on the train is Katherine Grey, a young girl who is on her first trip out of England after inheriting a large amount of money.   When they meet in the dining car  Ruth tells Katherine that she is unhappily married and that she is on the train to go to meet her lover.

The next morning Ruth is found dead, strangled in her sleeper compartment and the gorgeous and very expensive  “Heart of Fire” ruby which had been given to her by her father is missing.  Moreover, not only has she been strangled but her entire face has been bashed in.

Luckily for all, Hercule Poirot is also travelling on the same train and is engaged by Ruth’s father to find the murderer and the missing ruby.

Savarin au Rhum8

 

On top of murders and missing jewels we have

  • About to be ex-husbands with money issues
  • Ruth’s somewhat shady lover
  • Ex-lovers with axes to grind,
  • An infamous international jewel thief known as The Marquis
  • Shonky secretaries
  • Male impersonators

Ooh la la…Poirot’s little grey cells have to go into overdrive on this one!

The Covers

Many of the covers feature versions of trains, murdered women etc.  I particularly like the skulls and bones level crossing!  Then there are the covers that take a less obvious route.  These are of course my favourites!

Mystery of The Blue Train Collage

The Recipe – Savarin Au Rhum

For the recipe for Savarin au Rhum, I turned back to one of the vintage cookbooks I looked at a few years back, The A-Z of Cooking.  The Savarin is a French cake which is why I chose it.  Who knows, a Savarin of Rhum may well have featured on The Blue Train’s menu back in the day!.

The Savarin would be a great recipe to serve guests who claim not to like cake (although why are you friends with people like that?) as it is not overly sweet.  The recipe says it is meant for  6-8 people.  We are 2 people but the Savarin did keep nicely in the fridge for close to a week.  Once it got a teeny bit stale, it made a lovely scone substitute if you toasted a slice or two and added some jam and a dollop of cream!  So, even even if you have fewer than the required number of people, it will not go to waste.

Savarin Recipe

The Comte de la Roche had just finished dejeuner, consisting of an omelette fines herbes, an entrecote Bearnaise and a Savarin au Rhum. Wiping his black moustache delicately with his table napkin, the Comte rose from the table.  He passed through the salon of the villa . noting with appreciation the few objet’s d’art which were carelessly scattered about.

Agatha Christie, The Mystery of the Blue Train

Savarin au Rhum 3

Other Food Mentioned in The Mystery of The Blue Train’

This book mentions so much food it was hard to decide what to choose!

Have a wonderful week!

Next book in the list, if you want to read along, is The Seven Dials Mystery.

 

Hasta Luego Cantina!

Hola amigos!!!!  It’s done!!!  It’s taken me SIX years but have finally finished cooking my way through Cantina by Paul Wilson.  Not every recipe mind you, just the ones I wanted to cook.  Sixty-one recipes.  Which is more than enough I feel to pass judgement on this as a book.  But first, let’s celebrate with some cake!

 

This was my birthday cake this year, a cake spent in the middle of lockdown when we were allowed no visitors.  So a very solitary birthday.  But we’re not here to talk about that.  We’re here to talk about Cantina as exemplified by this recipe. Because everything that is wrong with this book is in this recipe.  As is everything that is right.  So let’s get to it.

A Rose is A Rose is A Rose

A rose may be a rose.  And a rose by any other name may smell as sweet.  (Ooh la la – look at me, with the Gertrude Stein and the Shakespeare refs in the one post!!!)  But, apart from me showing off my fancy book learning, seriously, Cantina bandies about terms that have one meaning to mean something different.

(I have already waxed lyrical about how annoying this book on this point ere.  So if you want to see my earlier rant click here.)

This is quite clearly a cake.

Except in Cantina where it is called a Lemon Aspen and lime Slice with Mescal Roasted Pineapple. Maybe I’m being really pedantic here but I’ve been cooking out of this book for 6 years. Believe me, I need to vent!

But everybody’s like Cristal, Maybach, diamonds on your timepiece…

You may have noticed my slice..erm cake is missing the Mescal Roasted Pineapple. The cheapest mezcal I could find was $55 a bottle.  Most were in the range of $90-100.  Of which I would use 80ml of a 750 ml bottle.  I’m sure that over time I would be able to find other uses for the remaining 89% of that bottle.

This seems likely given the general state of the world

 

Seriously dropping that much money to use less than a tenth of the bottle for is frivolous at the best of times.  Let alone during  a global pandemic / economic crisis etc.  Fair enough the book was published in 2014 so way before covid but the cost equation still stands.  It’s a lot of money to drop on one recipe.  And you know it’s not like you can use the remainder on the recipe for Chorizo with Apricot and Mezcal Aioli (again, not an aioli).  Because when you read that recipe it contains no goddamn mezcal at all.  None.  Nyet. Cero.

I was so incensed at this the first time round I tweeted the publisher.

They responded that it was a typo.

Eerrrrrrmmmmmm … no. 

Speaking from embarrassing experience, a typo is when you work for an accounting firm and you hand your boss a report that leaves the o out of the word accounting.

Twice.

 

Cantina 5

Why’d you have to make things so complicated?

This slice is made up  of a  lemon cake, a lemon syrup, a mousse, a lime curd glaze and the mezcal roasted pineapple.  Five components.  Thirty-two ingredients if you make your own lime curd (I did not) and the pineapple (which as per above, I also did not make).

Included in these thirty two ingredients is 100g of lemon aspen.  Do you know what lemon aspen is?  Nope, me either.  According to Cantina’s glossary, it is

“A small, pale yellow fruit, with a lemon flavour and aroma and spongy flesh…it is available from bush food specialists and gourmet greengrocers”.

Let’s just put aside the fact that it was neither available from gourmet greengrocers or bush food specialists when I was looking for it.

Because you know what else is a small pale yellow fruit with a lemon flavour and aroma?

A  lemon.

Readily available all over the damn place.

I also made the soft shell crab tacos with guacamole, shaved fennel and sweetcorn salad  for my birthday dinner.  Softshell crabs weren’t available for love or money so I made these with lobster tails. Because you know, it was my birthday and dammit if I wasn’t going to get fancy!!!

Cantina 6

 

It’s delightful, it’s delicious, it’s de-lovely

You know the absolute worst thing about Cantina?  It’s cheffy, it’s pretentious, it’s fiddly, pretty much everything was a pain in the arse to cook.  But when they worked, which was most of the time?  They were so damn tasty that they almost made all the effort worthwhile.  So, whilst I part of me really wants to consign this book to the second-hand shop pronto, I am going to hang onto it for a little while longer!

Both the cake/slice and the tacos were mouthwateringly delicious, even if they were also a lot of work to prepare!

The standout recipe for me from Cantina was the Heirloom tomato escabeche.  It was so good!!!!!

I have a challenge with myself that I will reduce either through binning or donating 1000 things in the next 12 months.  Twenty days in I am up to 190 so it is going well.  But there’s a long way to go I may need to put Cantina on the donation pile later in the year!  

Cantina3

Next up on my Tasty Reads book cook though  Silvia Colloca’s Made in Italy.  I only have about ten recipes left to cook from it so I should easily be done by the end of the year.  And based on everything I have already cooked it is pretty down to earth which is exactly what I needed after the high-end madness that was Cantina!

So tell me, do you have a cookbook you find infuriating?  What was frustrating about it? Did you keep it or give it away?

And have a great week!

 

Simply The Best Carrot Cake

I don’t think I have mentioned this before but I absolutely hate cooked carrots.  I don’t mind them chopped up really small in a Bolognese or Shepherd’s Pie but to this day, if I go to my mum’s for a family dinner I get raw carrots on my plate instead of cooked.  This hatred of cooked carrots meant that I did not eat carrot cake until well into my thirties and even then, my first taste was by stealth!

Carrot Cake1

I clearly remember my first taste of carrot cake.  It was someone’s birthday at work and I was too busy to attend the celebration but one of my friends brought me back a piece of cake.  Still concentrating on what I was doing, I took a bite.

“OMG…this is delicious!!!!  What on earth is this?”

My friend looked rather non-plussed.  “It’s carrot cake…”

“This is carrot cake?”

“Yes”

“Is there any more?”

 

Carrot Cake2

Since then I have been making carrot cake on the reg so I was a little surprised  when I mentioned that I was going to blog my “Classic” carrot cake recipe  and the fussiest eat in the world said

“I don’t think you can call it classic”.

“Why not?”

“Well….it has pineapple in it…It’s delicious.  But it’s not classic carrot cake”

“Carrot cake has pineapple in it”.

“No other carrot cake I ever ate had pineapple in it”

“It’s based on a recipe by Tina Turner”

“That doesn’t make it a classic”

Well, I beg to differ.  I think that absolutely makes it a classic.  And you can argue with me all you want.  Try arguing with her!

She will kick your ass all the way to Nutbush City Limits!  Anyway, I changed the name so it homaged Tina a bit more!

Carrot Cake4

The Recipes

As mentioned my recipe for carrot cake is based on a recipe by Tina Turner from the book “Cool Cooking” by Roberta Ashley.  I have adapted it in minor ways:

  • My version uses butter not margarine
  • I leave out the currants
  • I add some rum.  Pineapple and rum is a great flavour combination and the rum works really nicely with the brown sugar and cinnamon too!  Plus, now more than ever, what isn’t better with a little bit of booze!
  • I prefer cream cheese icing rather than the cream suggested by Tina

The OG Tina Version

Here are the original recipe and the front and back covers of the book it comes from.

Carrot Cake Collage

 

My Tweaked Version

Print

Simply The Best Carrot Cake

A delicious cake, based on a recipe by Tina Turner.  This cake is easy to make and keeps beautifully!  This will last for a week if kept in the fridge – if you don’t eat it all first!  

Ingredients

Scale

For The Cake

  • 120g butter
  • 1 1/2 cups firmly packed brown sugar
  • 3 eggs, well beaten
  • 2 1/2 cups flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp bicarb of soda
  • 1 cup chopped walnuts
  • 1 400g can crushed pineapple (drained)
  • 2 cups grated raw carrots
  • 3 tbsp dark rum
  • 1 tsp vanilla essence
  • 1 tsp cinnamon

For The Icing

  • 80g icing sugar
  • 250 grams cream cheese
  • Zest of a lemon
  • Juice of 1/2 a lemon
  • Additional walnuts, toasted and chopped to decorate

Instructions

For the cake – Preheat your oven to 170C (150 Fan forced).

Lightly grease a 20cm (base) round cake pan and line with non-stick baking paper.

Cream the butter with the sugar until pale.  Add the eggs one by one, mixing thoroughly between each addition.

Add the flour, baking powder, bicarb and cinnamon.

Mix again until all the ingredients are well combined.

Add the carrots, pineapple, walnuts, rum and vanilla. 

Stir through so that all the ingredients are well combined.  

Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin and bake for around 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. 

Set aside for 5 minutes, before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely

For the icing – place the cream cheese, icing sugar and lemon juice in a bowl. Beat together unitl well combined.  

  • Spread over the cooled cake.
  • Top with addtional chopped walnuts and lemon zest.

Carrot Cake 7

Hope you all have a wonderful week!

Stay safe!

Semolina, Coconut and Marmalade Cake

I’ve been reflecting on the comment I made in the post on the Stuffed Monkey about how I don’t like the taste of orange peel and, to be honest, I feel it made me sound like a big baby.  I mean, don’t get me wrong, I actually don’t like the taste of dried orange peel but….and it’s a big but…(not a big butt, I’m no Sir Mix A Lot) I thought that in the general spirit of pushing myself out of my comfort zone that is this blog, I should try things before dismissing them.  And my last recollection of dried orange peel comes from Hot Cross Buns from back in the days when I was kissing tv screens. Which is all a very long way of saying that I made Yotam Ottolenghi’s Semolina, Coconut and  Marmalade Cake. 

And it was delicious.

Marmalade Cake

Who knew marmalade was actually quite nice? I bought one that was full of peel too!  They don’t call me a dare devil for nothing!  Yes, you’ll lfind me and my newly found tolerance for slightly bitter jam living right over there on the edge!

The recipe for this cake came from Yotam  Ottolenghi’s book Jerusalem.  The recipe can be found here:

Semolina, Coconut and Marmalade Cake

Marmalade Cake2

I should mention here that this is a syrup cake.  Which means that once the cake is baked you add some sort of syrup to it.  In this case it is an orange blossom water flavoured syrup.  HHowever,one thing that was very different in this cakes to other syrup cakes I have made is the technique off applying the syrup.  In previous recipes that I have made you usually stab the cake all over with a skewer and pour the syrup over.  In the Ottolenghi version you kind of paint the syrup into the cake.

Marmalade Cake3

This seemed daunting at first.  There was a lot of syrup.  And initially ,I thought it was going to take forever.  And you know, I have things to do!  In the end ,the slow painting of syrup onto cake became quite meditative.  

This is a good cake to make if you need time to ponder an issue…like does God exist? Should I buy those shoes? And what exactly is semolina anyway?

So, fear of marmalade conquered. I have a bit left in the jar, maybe in the not too distant future, I will tackle my dislike of bourbon enough to make these babies!  

Bourbon and Marmalade Glazed Drumsticks

Although, come to think of it, I’m not that fond of drumsticks either.

In the meantime though, I feel like I have earned the title Lady Marmalade. Except that song was about a hooker so I may have to rethink that title!

Have a great week!

Torta Mimosa

Happy International Women’s Day!

Today we are celebrating with an Italian treat called a Torta Mimosa.  In Italy, men give the women they love a sprig of mimosa on International Women’s Day (March 8th).  In Australia, it is autumn and we will not have mimosa (what we call wattle) for another six or so months so swapped in some gorgeous lilies instead.

The Torta Mimosa is also traditionally served on International Women’s Day in Italy. Or as the Italians would say, Festa Della Donna – it sounds so much more glamorous when you say it like that doesn’t it?

Torta Mimosa2The Torta Mimosa, as the name suggests is meant to look like a sprig of mimosa.  I’m not entirely sure that it does but damn it tastes good!

Torta Mimosa

It’s a sponge cake, filled with creme pâtissière (and I added some lemon curd), then covered with small squares of sponge to create the mimosa look.

It’s light, fresh and a lovely way to celebrate all the wonderful,amazing women in your life!

Torta Mimosa4

I am so very lucky to have a many inspirational women in my life – from family, friends, work mates, the tasty reads crew, friends from the gym, to the people who I have met through doing this blog.  I feel privileged to know such a number of smart, witty, sassy, strong women, each of whom help to make my life, and the lives of all around them better and brighter.

Torta Mimosa3

Oh boy…this recipe is not hard to make but there are lots of parts.

  • I made Margaret Fulton’s sponge cake from The Great Australian Cookbook.  Twice.
  • I used the creme pâtissière from The Joy Of Cooking
  • And I also used some bought lemon curd in the layers to add some tanginess.

Here is a link to a very similar recipe on Epicurious:

Torta Mimosa

Torta Mimosa5To all you wonderful women, I wish you a very happy International Women’s Day!

Signature 1 Vintage Valentine Quick as Wink2