Thursday 17 April 2008

Homemade Crumpets


Thursday mornings are my sleep in mornings, because I don't have to start uni until 1. So, this morning I woke up and decided that I would have a go at making some crumpets. I had never had homemade crumpets before, in fact I'd never seen them before. I have never been a huge fan of crumpets, because the supermarket ones are pretty awful. Let me tell you, these are nothing of the sort. Soft and fluffy, moorish and just altogether fantastic. You must all try them! You'll never want a storebought crumpet again. Try them and you'll see why. For recipe visit the BBC food website.

Sunday 13 April 2008

Apfelstrudel- More apples to use



Yesterday, having an enormous quantity of cooking apples on hand, I decided to challenge myself with an Apfelstrudel . The thing is, it really wasn't that much of a challenge. I have rarely heard of people making strudel dough from scratch, instead opting for store bought filo pastry. But now that I have made strudel dough from scratch, I wonder why on earth I hadn't made it before. Admittedly it must be rolled out very thinly- thin enough for you to see your hand through the sheet of pastry- but it isn't hard. I found the recipe from aboutaustria.org. I wouldn't pay attention to the time and temp indication, if I were you, because mine was a little more browned than I would have liked and I had in fact set the oven at a significantly lower temperature than indicated and left it in for only about 40 mins. Here is the recipe and some photos. Do check out the site though; they have some other great austrian fare there too.



Apfelstrudel

IngredientsPastry
300 grams bread flour
pinch of salt
30 ml vegetable oil
0,2 l water (lukewarm)
Filling
2 kg apples (Golden Delicious)
150 grams granulated sugar
30ml dark rum
150 grams raisins
1/8 tsp. ground cinnamon
2 lemons (juice and peel)
Buttered breadcrumbs
300 grams butter (unsalted)
300 grams bread crumbs
RecipeKnead flour, salt, oil and water into a medium-firm dough. Divide into 3 small round loaves, brush each loaf with melted butter and let sit for 1 hour. Peel, core and slice apples. Mix in granulated sugar, raisins, grated lemon peel, lemon juice, rum, cinnamon.Roast butter and bread crumbs.Roll the dough loaves with a rolling pin, then stretch rolled dough on a strudel sheet with the backs of your hands. Coat 2/3 of dough sheet with buttered breadcrumbs, spread apple filling over remaining 1/3 of dough. Tear off edges, shape strudel into roll by lifting strudel sheet. Place strudel on a buttered baking sheet and brush with melted butter.Bake strudel for 60 to 90 minutes in a 400 degrees F to 425 degrees F (200 to 220 degrees Celsius) oven.

Thursday 3 April 2008

I saw Nigella Lawson- Yay!

Oh, I just have to share this with you all. I was so excited two days ago, because I met Nigella Lawson. I am a huge fan- she is my no. 1 cooking idol and she was in Sydney signing at the ABC store in the Queen Victoria building. She signed two boks for me, and she said a few words extra to me than all the other hundreds of people there, because I bought a beautifully wrapped box of handmade chocs.

I hope she appreciated them- I like to imagine her sneaking into the bar fridge of her hotel room in the wee hours of the morning to indulge on one or two of the treats that I gave her. May she always remember the girl with the chocolate box at the Queen Victoria Building.