Apple & Ginger Brioche Scrolls

The combination of ginger and apple has been banging around my head for a few weeks and finally this weekend I managed to satisfy my imagination and tummy at the same time making these brioche style rolls. I have used quite a bit of ginger in this recipe as I like to the hot bite of ginger but if you prefer it a bit milder then used less.

I can be quite impatient waiting for bread dough to rise, a bit like the watch pot never boils but as I had finished rolling these up and putting them in the muffin tins my surfing buddy called. It was like Malibu surf out at Muriwai, for those not familiar with Muriwai that means a drop in waves from a regular 5-7 foot to a mini 2 foot, perfect for a lazy Sunday surf after a busy week at the office and a wedding catered for on Saturday. So no pot watching…well dough watching today, the dough had risen perfectly by the time I came out of the surf, in the oven and ready to eat after a shower, maybe even two after all that exercise. Then enough time to fit a siesta in before getting dinner on.

Ingredients-makes 8
3 cups high grade flour
2 tsp dried yeast grains
1/2 cup warm milk
50g butter, soft
2 small eggs
3 tbsp castor sugar
1 apple, cored and grated
2 tbsp brown sugar
3 tsp ginger powder
2tbsp sugar & 2tbsp water for the sugar glaze

Method
Preheat oven at 180C and cut 8 squares of baking paper to fit 8 muffin tins.
Place the flour and castor sugar in a bowl and make a well in the middle.
Put the yeast into the well and pour the warm milk over the yeast and leave to dissolve for a 2 minutes. It will start to bubble.
Stir the milk into the flour, it will be quite dry at this stage.
Add the butter and eggs and bring the ingredients together to form a bread like dough. If it is too sticky (depends on egg size) add more flour so you can knead the dough without it sticking to your hands.
Knead for 5-8 minutes, the longer you knead the better.
Put the dough back in the bowl and cover with a plastic bag to stop dough from drying out. Rest for 10 minutes.
While the dough is resting, place the grated apple into a bowl with the brown sugar and ginger and mix together.
Roll the dough out to 12 inch x 8 inch with the longer side closest to you.
Spread the apple and ginger mix over the dough.
Roll the dough up, away from you, into a sausage shape so that once rolled it still measure 12 inch.
Slice the dough into 8 rings and place each one in the middle of a square of baking paper. Put each one into a muffin tin/cup and allow dough to prove and double in size.
Bake for 25 minutes, until golden brown.
Remove from the oven and set aside.
Put the sugar and water for the glaze in a pan and bring to the boil for 1 minute.
Brush brioche rolls with sugar glaze and its best to eat them warm.

Diesel is a little exhausted after all the baking and surfing too!

Frangipane Tart with Fresh Berries & Figs

We, meaning the girls and I, have become Farmers Market junkies of late but what a nice addiction to have don’t you think? Not something we could have boasted six months ago since there were no markets in our area. In the past few months two have popped up, Kumeu Country Market which is not strictly a farmers market since it sells more than just produce and the Hobsonville Point Farmers Market which is every Sunday morning.

We like to head out early to Hobsonville to get the pick of anything new on offer and enjoy breakfast while there shopping, starting with a great coffee and a lots of sampling of produce its the perfect way to kick start the day. The bag was full on the homeward journey this Sunday, full of Razor Back prosciutto, Freedom Farm streaky bacon, olive oil and lime syrup and spices bought by the 100gram, I consume a lot so it’s the perfect way for me to buy. Beautiful fragrant local grapes, mini courgettes, micro greens, chillies and blackberries, blueberries and figs to decorate this tart with.

There are many reasons why I love to buy at a farmers market, everything is under one roof, it is all locally grown farmed products and the people selling the produce are so passionate about what they are selling. There’s always a buzz, everyone seems to be enjoying themselves, it makes shopping a pleasure not a chore.

If you would like to find out where your local Farmers Market is (in NZ only I’m afraid) or vote for your favourite Framers Market hop over to: http://www.tastefarmersmarkets.org.nz/

Ingredients – pastry

• 110g Butter
• 180g flour
• 50g icing sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp iced water

Method – pastry

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees centigrade.
2. Grease and flour a 24cm loose bottom tart tin or 6-8 small ones.
3. Place the flour, butter and icing sugar in a bowl.
4. Work the ingredients together until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs, if it gets too soft put it in the fridge to chill further then continue working it together. If you have hot hands put your bowl on top of an ice pack to keep it cool while mixing.
5. Add the egg and water and bring dough together.
6. Rest dough in fridge for 30 minutes before rolling out.
7. Roll out pastry to fit bottom & sides of tin.
8. Allow to rest in the fridge until tart filling is prepared.

Ingredients – tart filling

• 150g butter
• 150g castor sugar
• 150g ground almonds
• 2 tbsp plain flour
• 3 eggs
• 3 tbsp apricot jam
• Berries to top tart with

Method – tart filling

1. Make the frangipane filling by creaming the butter & sugar together until light and fluffy.
2. Gradually beat in the eggs one at a time.
3. Fold in the ground almonds.
4. Spread one tablespoon of apricot jam over the pastry base then cover with frangipane batter.
5. Bake for 35-40 minutes for the large tart or 20 for the smaller individual tarts, or until the frangipane is golden and risen slightly and is like sponge to touch.
6. Allow to cool before arranging the fruit on top.
7. Heat the rest of the apricot jam in a pan and strain through a sieve.
8. With a pastry brush, brush the top of tart with some jam and arrange fruit on top of the jam glaze, this will hold the fruit.
9. Brush all the arranged fruit with the apricot glaze. This not only makes it look nice and shiny it also stops the fruit from drying out.
10. Store in fridge and allow to come to room temperature before serving.

Lemon Chia Seed Cake with Blackberry Drizzle

Delish Cupcakes in Forest Hill, has organised a bake sale to raise funds for the Canterbury Earthquake relief, Saturday 5th March, 10am to 3pm. I am baking and contributing a larger version of this lemon chai seed cake with blackberry drizzle so if you would like to sample a slice you can do on Saturday at their store! If you live in the Auckland region and would like to donate your own cake you can get the details of how to from the Delish Cupcake website. And if you aren’t a baker but love cakes you can still do your bit by popping down and purchasing what is on offer!

I can do a collection on my way from Muriwai to The Shore via West Harbour or Whenuapai if you would like to offer some baking but aren’t able to get to the shop. Just leave me a comment or email me at allison.gourmetgannet.co.nz
Delish Cupcakes
Shop 4, 14-16 Raines Ave
Forest Hill
North Shore
(just of Tristram off ramp)
http://www.delishcupcakes.co.nz/

Recipe for Chai Seed & lemon Cake with Blackberry Drizzle Ingredients

• Zest of 2 & juice of 1 lemon
• 2 cups castor sugar
• 250g butter
• 6 eggs
• 2 & 1/4 cups self raising flour
• 200g sour cream (lite if you prefer)
• 50g chai seeds (or you can use poppy seeds)
• 200g blackberries
• 3 tbsp icing sugar

Method

1. Below is the option to make either a large cake or cupcakes out of the mixture.
2. Pre heat oven 160C
3. Grease and flour a 24cm cake tin or prepare 18 cupcake cases in muffin tins.
4. Cream together the butter & sugar.
5. Add the juice and the lemon zest.
6. Beat in eggs one at a time, until combined.
7. Stir in half the sifted flours then half the sour cream. Then stir in the remaining flour and cream.
8. Spoon mixture into the cake tin or cupcake cases to 2/3 full.
9. Bake large cake for 1 hour until golden, then test with skewer to see if it comes out clean, if not bake a little longer and test again until it does come out clean. Shouldn’t be more than 1.25 hours altogether. For the cupcakes, bake until puffed and golden, approx 25 minutes.
10. Stand 5 minutes before turning onto cake rack to cool.
11. Put the blackberries and icing sugar in a blender and whiz together. You can strain the mix or use with the seeds. Pour over cool cake and serve.

Baby Dragon Cake & a Workshop

I held a cake decorating workshop on Saturday at Gourmet Gannet so I thought I should share a few pic of our creations. The theme was to make a baby dragon cake and I am unsure why these ladies attended the workshop, they were all so very talented as you can see from the group picture below. I’m sure there was a lot of happy children over that weekend polishing of their Mums or Grandmothers creation that took a few hours to make but probably a few seconds to demolish.

The Gourmet Gannet offers a variety of workshops covering sausage making to cheese making, sweet pastries to savoury pies or Tapas to three course meals. We are also available for corporate group workshops and ‘mobile’ workshops where we come to you depending on your facilities. www.gourmetgannet.co.nz

Black Doris Plum Mousse Chocolate Cake

In the mad pre Christmas rush our Muriwai crowd managed to hold a surprise party for a dear friend of ours on the 22nd December who often misses out since her birthday is so close to Christmas. I volunteered to make the cake and knowing that her favourite ice cream is black Doris plum I set to creating around this theme. Initially I was going to make an ice cream cake but changed my mind and decided on a mousse cake. There’s nothing like attempting a new creation the day before the event and not really knowing what the result will be. Of course I have made fruit mousses before which always work so I wasn’t too concerned, until of course it didn’t look like it was going to set! It did eventually overnight in the fridge…must have been the warm weather but it had me worried for a while! The chocolate ganache was the icing on the cake as they say giving it that rich velvet look and texture and the mousse was sandwiched between a rich sour cream chocolate cake. It all worked perfectly and there wasn’t a single piece left on the plate!

Prepare the chocolate cake and allow it to cool before making the mousse.

Ingredients – chocolate fudge cake
This recipe makes double the amount required for the mousse cake so you can either used your own favourite chocolate cake recipe or freeze half of this one once cooked and use it another time or try my black forest trifle recipe that’s coming up next week. Alternatively you can half the quantities below.

• 250g butter
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 250g sour cream
• 2.5 cups flour
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 2tsp baking soda
• 100g dark chocolate (preferable 70% cocoa)

Method – chocolate fudge cake

1. Preheat oven 180C and grease and flour a 26cm spring form cake tin
2. Cream the butter and sugar.
3. Beat in the eggs then the sour cream.
4. Melt the chocolate.
5. Add the dry ingredients and melted chocolate to the mixture and combine.
6. Pour into prepared cake tin and bake for 60-80 minutes, checking with a skewer after 60 mins.
7. Allow cake to cool in tin, once cooled slice in half, horizontally through the middle. Wrap one half to freeze and the second half slice through the middle again to create the top and bottom of the mousse cake.

Ingredients – black Doris plum mousse

• 2 tsp agar agar gelatin
• 2 tablespoons water
• 2 cups black Doris plums, I used tinned
• 2 tablespoons castor sugar
• 1.5 cups whipping cream

Method – Mousse:

1. Mix the gelatin and 2 tbsp water in a small container and put aside.
2. Puree the plums in a food processor until smooth, or just mash them if you want a textured mousse.
3. Place the puree, sugar and gelatin in small saucepan set over medium and bring to the boil. When using agar agar you need to cook it through for two minutes and it will thicken.
4. Remove from the heat and allow to cool. In the meantime whip the cream to soft peak consistency.
5. Once the plum mixture starts to cool and set, gently fold the cream into the mixture. Do not add the cream while plum mixture is warm as it will turn the cream to liquid and loose volume.
6. Pour onto the cake base immediately.

Assembly

1. Clean the cake tin and line with plastic wrap which will help remove the cake from it’s mould once set.
2. Place one half of the cake in the cake tin, pour in the mousse then place the second piece of cake on top.
3. Place in the fridge to set for 2-3 hours.
4. Pour over ganache the top of cake and allow drip down the sides.
5. Decorate with chocolate shavings, the easiest way to make shavings is to slide a knife down the side of the chocolate block or use a potato peeler to shave along the side.

Chocolate Ganache

• 50g dark chocolate (70% cocoa), chopped
• 50ml cream
• scald cream then add chocolate, stir till smooth and pour on cake.

Strawberry Ripple & Lime Cheesecake

It’s getting to that time of the season when you know the strawberries will not be round for much longer so I have been busy preserving the ‘seconds’ so I can use them throughout the year in other recipes. In fact I was hoping to give the girls at afternoon tea yesterday a bag of strawberries each so they could create but we all got distracted chatting and as they went I saw they had forgotten them so I will be busy again preserving next week. Although P suggest freezing them for summer cocktails which is not a bad idea either.

Instead of using your preserves just for toast in the morning you could spice up a baked cheesecake with a strawberry jam ripple through it. It’s an easy recipe but best cooked in a ‘water bath’ for even cooking.

Ingredients – Base:

• 150g plain biscuits, crushed into fine crumbs
• 100g butter, melted

Method

1. Preheat oven to 160C. Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.
2. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into 24cm cake tin. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too – baker’s choice. Set crust aside.
3. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.

Strawberry Ripple

For this you can make your own quick jam or purchase a good ‘fruity’ jar of jam.

• 300g strawberries
• 150g sugar

Method

1. Remove hulls and half or quarter strawberries depending on their size and place in a pan with the sugar over a low heat.
2. Once the sugar has dissolved turn the heat up to medium to create a gentle boil.
3. Cook the jam until it reduces by half and has thickened slightly.
4. Allow to cool before using.

Ingredients – Cheesecake:

• 500g cream cheese
• 200 g castor sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 100g
• zest & juice of 1 large lime

Method

1. Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth.
2. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg.
3. Add lime zest and juice to the mixture and combine.
4. Pour mixture into cake tin on top of crust.
5. Put blobs of strawberry jam on top of the cream cheese filling and push down into the base with a chopstick then make swirls through the jam and cheesecake filling by dragging the chopstick through the cheesecake filling.
6. Place cheesecake tin into a larger pan/deep roasting tin and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake tin.
7. Bake 45 to 55 minutes, until it is almost done, it should still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center but be set.
8. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won’t crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath.
9. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, it is ready to serve.

Afternoon Tea and meeting a few other Food Bloggers

It was a balmy afternoon in Muriwai, not quite the temperatures I had expected for the afternoon tea planned but we still managed to sup several pots of tea between us.

I have not met another food blogger before so after two years of blogging it was quite exciting to be meeting Plum Kitchen, Sasasunakku and Mairi-Toast who were all popping out to Muriwai for afternoon tea with me a the Gourmet Gannet. It was great to meet the girls behind the blogs I have been following and share a few stories with them in person.

We were all introduce to some new teas I had discovered this week from a local distributer in Kumeu, Harney and Sons(www.harneyteas.co.nz ) We started with their White Earl Grey, progressed onto a Valentines tea which had hints of chocolate and roses and finished with their Tower of London with hints of bergamot and honey.

On the menu was; cucumber sandwiches, asparagus and feta canapes, fennel & onion tarts, lavender shortbread, scones, strawberry jam & cream, chocolate fruit christmas cake, chocolate mousse cake and strawberry tarts, all homemade of course!

We hope to hold a few more afternoon teas next year so let me know if you would like to join us and I will keep you posted!

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Strawberry Cupcakes with Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting

This Saturday I held a cupcake decorating demonstration at our local kitchenware store, Mix & Match, in Waimauku. The charming owner, Soohee, is holding several events each week until Christmas and she had asked if I would like to take part in one. Since I am no blushing violet I readily accepted, it would give me an opportunity to meet new people in the neighboughood  and introduce the Gourmet Gannet workshops. It was a fun afternoon with quite a big crowd in the shop, the day was rather humid and warm which played havoc with the cream cheese frosting, but we got there in the end. The young girls who came along also had fun making fondant flowers and decorating the cakes and we all enjoyed sampling the final product.

Mix & Match has an amazing range of cupcake products with the cutest boxes to present them in as gifts, as well as kits for making them and decorating them. The range is perfect for the cupcake fanatic or keen teenage baker in the house but you may need to beat me to the shop as I have my eye on a few more things.

For those of you who are local here are a few other events happening at Mix & Match, which I will be popping along too:

Thursday 25th November, 5pm – 8pm – Mix n Match is offering cheese tasting with Crescent Dairy Goats from Taupaki.

Saturday 4 of December,  11:30-12:20 Christmas cake & topper decorating demonstration

Ingredients for Cupcakes

• 125g butter
• 125g sugar
• 150g SR flour
• 2 eggs
• 2 tbsp milk
• 2 chips of strawberries
• 50g 70% cocoa chocolate

Method

1. Place 12 cup cake cases into a muffin tray, this helps hold the shape of the cup cake.
2. Put butter & sugar in a bowl and beat with an electric whisk or good old fashioned wooded spoon until light and fluffy.
3. Add one egg at a time and whisk in between both additions.
4. Sift flour into mixture and fold gently through with a metal spoon so not to loose all the air that has been beaten in.
5. Add the milk and fold into the mixture.
6. Spoon mixture into cases to half full and then insert a small strawberry into the mixture. Add some more cake mixture on top of the strawberry. The case should be a little more than 2/3 full, but need space to rise.
7. Bake in oven for 25 minutes until golden and risen.
8. Allow to cool slightly then removing from muffin tin.

Ingredients – strawberry cream cheese topping

• 2 tbsp strawberry jam
• 2 tbsp icing sugar
• 250g Cream cheese, softened

Method

1. Beat all ingredients together to a smooth consistency.
2. Fill piping bag and the fun starts!
3. Pipe swirls onto the top of cooled cupcakes.
4. Melt chocolate and dip the strawberries into it. Allow them to set on a plate before placing on top of the swirl of strawberry cream cheese.

Lemon Meringue Cupcakes

I much prefer cupcakes to muffins, the texture is much lighter and they are a little treat you don’t feel guilty about having whereas the muffins sold here are dinosaur sized and leave you waddling around for hours afterward. I know you don’t need to eat a whole one at once but that is easier said that done when it is sitting in front of you. I’d like to say this was my invention a lemon meringue cupcake but I did first try them at the fabulous cupcake shop Delish in Forest Hill, Auckland and just knew I had to make my own. It’s a gorgeous little shop which sells many varieties of cupcakes as well as products to make and decorate you own cupcakes, they even take online orders.

Ingredients – cupcakes

• 125g butter
• 125g sugar
• 125g SR flour
• 2 eggs
• 2 tbsp milk

Method

1. pre heat oven 160C
2. Place 10-12 cup cake cases into a small cupcake tray, this help hold the shape of the cup cake.
3. Place butter & sugar in a bowl and beat with an electric whisk or good old fashioned wooded spoon until light and fluffy.
4. Add one egg at a time and whisk in between both additions.
5. Sift flour into mixture and fold gently through with a metal spoon so not to loose all the air that has been beaten in.
6. Spoon mixture into cases, about 2/3 full. I was offered a great tip from someone who read my blog and suggested using an ice cream scoop to get a consistent size, brilliant.
7. Bake in oven for 25- 30 minutes or until an inserted knife comes out of the sponge clean.
8. Allow to cool before removing from tin. Hollow out the centre and fill with ½ tsp lemon curd.

Making the curd and meringue means you use all of the eggs, yolks in the curd and white for the meringue. You will find a lemon curd recipe here, you will only need half the quantity.

Ingredients – meringue

• 2 free range egg whites (keep yolks for curd)
• 100g castor sugar
• 1/2 tsp white vinegar

Method – meringue

1. Pre-heat oven to 120C and line a baking tray with grease proof paper.
2. Place egg whites in a large bowl and whisk till fluffy
3. Gradually add the sugar 1 tbsp at a time, whisking in between each addition until firm peaks have formed.
4. Add vinegar and whisk again.
5. Spoon all meringue into a piping bag with a large nozzle and pipe onto the baking sheet enough meringue crowns for the top of the cupcakes.
6. Place in the oven and bake for 40 minutes or until crispy but not brown.
7. Place crown on top of the cupcake and serve

Master Chef & a Croquembouche Workshop

With Master Chef being all the rage and the topic of conversations here in New Zealand at the moment, yes..yes..I know we are a bit behind, I though it would be rather appropriate to hold a workshop with one of the ‘hardest’ challenges from the series. Croquembouche, something a lot of people had not even heard of until the final round of the NZ Master Chef and I was going to get everyone recreate there own in a three hour session! A mini one of course, not the huge tower one associates with a French wedding croquembouche but we were going to make everything from scratch; profiteroles, pastry crème & caramel toffee. The girls did an excellent job and here is their evidence, although I don’t think the evidence was around for long!

Below is the recipe we used from the Australian chef Adriano Zumbo, it isn’t difficult it just takes some time and you really need to put about 3 hours aside to complete it. Alternatively you could prepare the profiteroles and pastry crème a day ahead and then make the caramel and assemble the tower the day you are going to present it. I say present as it is rather impressive to offer guests even if it isn’t perfectly symmetrical. We ‘free formed’ ours rather than use a cone, in which case you start at the base and and allow each profiterole with caramel on it to set before adding the second layer, this takes no time at all.

Makes 50 – 60 profiteroles, the ones pictured are half of the below mixture each.

Choux Pastry Ingredients

• 200g Water
• 275g Milk
• 10g Sugar
• 10g Salt
• 200g Butter
• 265g Flour
• 8 Eggs

Choux Pastry Method

• Preheat the oven to 200C fan bake and lightly grease 2-3 oven trays and set aside.
• In a large pan combine the butter with water, sugar, milk & salt and bring to the boil.
• Remove from the heat and using a wooden spoon quickly beat in the flour.
• Return to the heat and continue cooking & beating until the mixture comes together and leaves the side of the pan, about 2 minutes to cook flour.
• Remove from heat and allow cool slightly.
• Transfer to a large bowl beat the mixture to release any more heat.
• Gradually add the eggs, one at a time.
• Beat well between each addition until all the eggs have been added and the mixture is thick and glossy. Beat for a few more minutes, or until thickened.
• Allow to cool before piping
• Spoon the mixture, in batches, into a piping bag fitted with a 1.25-1.5cm nozzle.
• Cover remaining pastry with cling film to prevent drying out.
• Pipe mixture onto trays about 3cm x 2cm high leaving room for spreading.
• Bake for 25-30 minutes, in batches, or until firm and hollow when tapped.
• Transfer puffs to wire racks.

Pastry Cream Ingredients

• Milk  600ml
• Eggs Yolks 165g
• Sugar  165g
• Cornflour 65g
• Butter  65g
• Vanilla 1 bean

Pastry Cream Method

• To make the pastry cream, place milk and vanilla bean in a saucepan.
• Heat gently until the milk almost boils, remove from the heat.
• Whisk the yolks, sugar and cornflour in a bowl until thick and pale. Gradually whisk in the warm milk.
• Return mixture to same saucepan and stir over medium heat until the custard boils.
• Spread over a tray to cool rapidly. Cover the surface of the custard closely with plastic wrap to prevent a skin forming, at 55°C transfer to a bowl and stir through butter and refrigerate to cool completely.
• Put custard into a piping bag with a nozzle less than 1cm.
• Poke a small hole in the base of each puff and fill with custard

Caramel Ingredients

• Sugar  330g
• Water  100g
• Glucose 130g

Caramel Method

• For the caramel, combine water and sugar in a saucepan until it boils.
• Add glucose, and cook until caramel in colour.
• Remove from the heat and dip the base of the pan in a bowl of water to cool slightly. Grease a cake ring and place ring mould on a baking paper lined tray, pour enough caramel to coat the base 5mm. This is the base for the croquembouche
• Dip the puff bases in enough toffee to coat and place upside down on a tray lined with baking paper.
• To assemble, oil the croquembouche cone.  Dip the sides of the puff balls in the toffee one at a time and place around the base of the cone. Continue adding balls until the cone is covered.
• Transfer the base for the croquembouche to a serving plate. Place a small amount of caramel on the base. Grasp croquembouche gently and lift from the cone and place on the caramel base.
• Re-heat the remaining toffee then dip two forks back to back in it. Spin toffee around the Croquembouche. Decorate with violets or sugar flowers.