Chocolate brownies (cakey)

As many people like their brownies fudgy as those who prefer them cakey – when I put the question out to my Facebook friends, the responses were evenly split. A few weeks ago, I posted my recipe for lovely, dense and fudgy brownies. Since then, I’ve gone through kilograms of chocolate and butter, trying to perfect lighter, “cakier” brownies… and I’ve finally done it!

The secret seems to be cutting back drastically on the quantity of butter and sugar. I’ve added some sour cream because I saw it used in a brownie recipe in the Bourke Street Bakery cookbook and it seemed like a good idea.

I’ve also started using a metal tin when I make brownies (instead of my old ceramic slice pan) because I’ve read that it gives brownies a better “crumb”.

Of my two versions of brownies, this one has to be my personal favourite.

Ingredients

200 g dark chocolate (buttons, or roughly chopped)

50 g unsalted butter, chopped

2 eggs

200 g caster sugar

100 g plain flour

1½ tsp baking powder

Pinch salt

65 g sour cream

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170°C. Grease a 26 x 16 cm slice tin and line with baking paper.
2. Melt the chocolate and butter together in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water, ensuring the bowl never touches the water. Stir occasionally until butter completely melted. Mixture will stiffen. Remove from heat and allow to cool.
3. Beat eggs and sugar together with an electric mixer until they are well combined and light in colour.
4. Add the cooled chocolate (it will have probably formed a ball) and mix well. Scrape bottom and sides of bowl with a spatula.
5. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt, then add to the chocolate mixture. Mix lightly until colour is even. Scrape bottom and sides of bowl again.
6. Add sour cream and mix until just combined.
7. Turn out into prepared tin and spread out evenly with a spatula or knife. Bake for 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
8. Cool completely in tin before turning out, removing the edges with a big, sharp cook’s knife and slicing into squares. Dust with icing sugar if desired.

Makes 10–12.

Tips

• When melting chocolate in a bowl over simmering water, be careful not to burn yourself on steam escaping from between the bowl and the saucepan - especially when you're stirring the chocolate. You can actually buy double-boilers to use for this exact kind of thing, but I haven't bothered yet.
• The very top of the brownies will probably wrinkle or pucker during cooking because the brownies rise then deflate. If it worries you, leave the brownies upside down for a while before cutting them- it could “squash out” the wrinkles; honestly, I don’t bother.
• Ensure the brownies are completely cold before slicing, or they will end up with sloppy, rough-looking edges.
• I think these are best eaten within 24 hours of slicing.

Lemon delicious

To continue the theme of my last post, I’ve found another pudding that’s not common, but is definitely a crowd-pleaser. While it belongs to an earlier generation than mine, I’ve noticed lemon delicious is making its way back into the cookbooks recently. It’s one of those Australian recipes handed down through families over the years, so I’d say there’s quite a few version of it out there. A few weeks ago, I sat through an in-depth discussion between my grandma-in-law and an aunt-in-law as they debated whether or not you should strain the pulp from the lemon juice (I’d love to give you a run-down of both sides of that argument, but I was too busy stuffing my face to pay close attention).

If you have no idea what lemon delicious is, imagine a light lemon sponge floating over a creamy lemon sauce, and pure heaven where the two meet.

Now, the word on the street (okay, in the recipe books) is that it’s necessary to bake lemon delicious in a water bath. “What’s that?” you wonder. A water bath is a basin (usually a large, deep roasting pan), filled with water, into which you place the pudding dish. The purpose is to prevent the mixture curdling during cooking.

Due to the fact that every single lemon delicious recipe I’ve seen requires this water bath, I have included the step in my recipe here; however, I have made lemon delicious sans water bath before, and there were no dire side effects. Perhaps I was just lucky.

Place the dish in a water bath

Lemon delicious can be served warm or cold. I don't like to hoe into lemon delicious fresh from the oven, because the sauce is still thin, runny and too hot for my greedy little mouth. I prefer to leave the pudding on the bench for an hour or so and serve lukewarm, or pop it into the fridge and serve cold later on. The sauce will thicken up nicely as the pudding cools. This makes lemon delicous a fantastic dessert to prepare the day before you need it, and keep in the fridge overnight.

Fresh from the oven, the sauce is quite thin

The sauce will thicken as the pudding cools

Ingredients

70 g unsalted butter, softened

200 g caster sugar

Zest of 1 lemon

3 eggs, separated

90 g self-raising flour

400 ml milk

80 ml lemon juice

Method

1. Preheat oven to 160°C and grease a 2.5 litre baking or casserole dish.
2. Beat butter, sugar and lemon rind with an electric mixer until very well combined.
3. Add egg yolks, one at a time, beating well after each.
4. Add flour, lemon juice a milk, and beat on low speed until combined.
5. In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until the form soft peaks. Fold the egg whites into the mixture.
6. Pour mixture into prepared dish, place in water bath and bake uncovered 50 minutes.
7. Leave to cool or refrigerate before serving. Dust with icing sugar and serve with cream.

Serves 6.

Beat egg whites to soft peaks

Tips

• If you’d like to use fresh lemon juice, I suggest you use more than 80 ml. I find that bottled lemon juice has a more concentrated flavour than lemons I squeeze myself (perhaps I should try straining).
• Put a twist on this dish by using lime instead of lemon. Remember that lime has a stronger, sharper flavour than lemon, so you won’t need to use as much zest and juice.

Banana and butterscotch pudding

As winter closes in on us and evenings grow darker and colder, it's time to bring out that most comforting of all comfort food: the pudding. This unstuffupable self-saucing pudding was published in The Herald Sun nearly ten years ago, and I've kept the clipping in one of my books of miscellaneous recipes. I've made some small changes to quantities and added some cinnamon. The flavour is more like golden syrup dumpling than a true butterscotch taste, so if you don't like the sound of that, you'll need to add more brown sugar into the sauce.
This pudding is best served fresh from the oven, so when I need to make it ahead of time, I assemble the entire pudding (leaving it uncooked), cover with cling wrap and refrigerate. When I'm ready to cook it, I simply peel off the cling wrap and whack the pudding in the oven.

Ingredients 

125 g plain flour

Pinch of salt

120 g caster sugar

3 tsp baking powder

⅓ tsp ground cinnamon

1 banana, mashed

250 ml milk

80 g unsalted butter

1 egg, lightly beaten

1 tsp vanilla extract 

Sauce 

140 g brown sugar

3 Tbs golden syrup

250 ml boiling water

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C and grease a 2.5 litre baking or casserole dish.
2. Sift flour, salt, sugar, baking powder and cinnamon together into a mixing bowl.
3. By hand, or using a mixer with a whisk attachment, whisk in the banana, milk, butter, egg and vanilla until combined. Don't overmix.
4. Pour mixture into prepared dish.
5. Heat sauce ingredients in a small saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally until boiling. Remove from heat and slowly drizzle the sauce over the pudding mixture.
6. Bake pudding uncovered 40–45 minutes.
7. Serve with ice cream.

Serves 4–6

Tips

• The simplest way to mash bananas is with the back of a fork.
• Don't skimp on the ice cream, because it's necessary to offset the very sweet golden syrup flavour of the pudding.
• The sauce is quite gluggy and doesn't reheat back to its former glory – so it really is best fresh from the oven. 

Sideways Deli Café

 

I figure it’s time I spice up my blog a bit with some non-recipe posts in case I have any readers who don’t cook – and what better way than to occasionally review some places I like to eat at?

 It’s no coincidence that Sideways Deli Café is the first eatery I’d like to draw your attention to; I can’t stay away from the place!

Situated at the intersection of five quiet residential streets, it would be easy to overlook Sideways, but you’d be really missing out. The peaceful location is the perfect setting for a relaxing Saturday brunch with friends, and even if you choose to dine al fresco and soak up those sweet weekend rays, there is no noisy traffic or bustling of dozens of passersby to disturb the conversation at your table.

The cheerful yet efficient demeanour of the staff makes the experience all the more relaxing. Here you can be confident you won’t be left waiting, won’t be rushed, and won’t ever feel like an annoyance. Service is quick, but you'll be left to enjoy your meal at your own pace.

On weekends, the café is packed to the brim with locals, and other customers who (like myself) don’t mind a bit of a drive when there is a treat like this at the end of it. And my favourite treat is the ricotta pancake topped with stewed rhubarb and a dollop of yoghurt, served with maple syrup on the side. Sweet but not overpoweringly so, filling, quite lovely to look at, and with such a soft and fluffy pancake, this is one of those meals you could look forward to all week.

Food choice isn't limited to what you can see on the menu; there’s also a host of goodies available at the counter – from cakes, slices, muffins, brownies and friands, to pies, croissants, gingerbread men and even nougat.

For a Sydney café that is consistently well-reviewed in local food guides, the prices at Sideways are very easy to swallow (pardon the pun). I am told that the steak sandwich is to die for, but haven’t managed to move past my darling ricotta pancakes yet – hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

Where?

Sideways Deli Café

37 Constitution Rd

Dulwich Hill NSW 2203 (Sydney)

Ph: 02 9560 1425

www.sidewaysdelicafe.com.au

When? Open every day from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

How much? Mains $9–$15

A bonus Tiny Teddy comes with every hot drink

My pal Jenni obviously enjoying her smoked salmon bagel!

Oreo truffles

If you think the taste of an Oreo can't be improved on, you're wrong. When mixed with cream cheese, shaped into balls and coated in chocolate, Oreos can become even more magical. Also referred to as Oreo balls, these delicious Oreo truffles are quite rich, with an intense flavour not unlike cookies'n'cream.
They are fantastic as snacks or bite-sized desserts, and the good news is that the recipe only requires a few ingredients, all of which you can store in your kitchen for months - so if you have the ingredients on standby, you'll be able to whip up a batch without making a special trip to the supermarket.

Ingredients
3 x 150 g packs of Oreo biscuits (or similar)
250 g cream cheese, softened
320 g milk chocolate melts
320 g dark chocolate melts

Method

1. Crush or chop Oreos into small pieces
2. Mix softened cream cheese on low–medium speed for about 30 seconds just to loosen the cream cheese a little. Add the crushed Oreos and mix on low speed until well combined. Refrigerate mixture for 1 hour.
3. Take 2 or 3 large dinner plates (note that they will need to fit in your freezer later). Shape tablespoonfuls of mixture into balls by rolling between your hands. Sit the rolled balls on the dinner plates. Freeze the plates and balls for at least 1 hour.
4. Melt the milk chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water, ensuring bowl never touches the water. Stir occasionally until chocolate is melted and smooth.
5. Remove half the quantity of Oreo balls from the freezer. Using two forks, dip each ball into the melted chocolate to coat completely, then carefully place back onto the cold dinner plate. Refrigerate.
6. Repeat Steps 4 and 5 with the dark chocolate and the remainder of the quantity of balls.
7. The coated truffles will not take long to set. Serve cold.

Makes approximately 40.

Tips

• The quickest way to break down the Oreos is to lay one packetful at a time on a chopping board, and chop into small pieces with a big butcher's knife
• You can experiment with different quantities in order to find you perfect ratio of cream cheese to Oreos.
• When melting chocolate in a bowl over simmering water, be careful not to burn yourself on steam escaping from between the bowl and the saucepan - especially when you're stirring the chocolate. You can actually buy double-boilers to use for this exact kind of thing, but I haven't bothered yet.
• To remove excess melted chocolate from the balls, scrape the underside of the fork with the other fork before placing the ball onto the plate.
• If you have time to decorate the Oreo truffles, you could sprinkle Oreo crumbs over them before the chocolate sets, or, after the chocolate has set, drizzle with melted white chocolate
• Why freeze the balls on dinner plates? Firstly, freezing the balls ensures that they won't become too mushy when dipped into the warm chocolate (which would leave you with very messy-looking truffles). Secondly, having the dinner plates extremely cold means that the melted chocolate won't spread too far before it sets. If you use room-temperature plates, the truffles will turn out with large "feet" and you could even end up with your truffles sitting in one big puddle of melted chocolate.
• Once the truffles are set, if you think their "feet" are too big, just sit them on a flat surface and carefully cut away the excess chocolate using a small, sharp knife.
• Oreo truffles are best served straight from the fridge (or at least below room temperature), otherwise the cream cheese flavour will be too intense.

Chilli prawn tagliatelle

I don't know whether tagliatelle is recently experiencing a huge increase in popularity in Australia, or if I've just had my head in the sand for the last twenty years; suddenly, tagliatelle leaps out at me from every restaurant menu and foodie mag.
Tagliatelle is similar to fettucine, but even wider, and according to Wikipedia, is pronounced taʎʎaˈtɛlle (which I interpret as tal-ya-TELL-a).
Anyway, keen to try out this fettucine-on-'roids in my own kitchen, I scooped up a packet from the supermarket, and I'm happy to report it's as easy to cook as any other packet pasta. I'd like to challenge myself by making the tagliatelle from scratch, but I don't have a pasta maker... yet!
I've teamed the tagliatelle with one of my favourite flavour combos: chilli prawn. And I've thrown in a good dose of cherry tomatoes  to assuage my guilty conscience (I wish I could tell you that the basil counts as a green vegetable). Enjoy.

Ingredients
400 g pack of tagliatelle
50 ml olive oil
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
4 red chillies, finely chopped
600 g prawns, raw with tail on
350 g cherry tomatoes, halved

⅓ cup basil leaves, chopped

Method

1. Cook tagliatelle according to packet instructions, then drain (not quite completely - leave a little bit of water in the pan to help later). Leave tagliatelle in its saucepan to rest while you prepare the rest of the meal.
2. Heat olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Add garlic and chilli, toss for 1 minute.
3. Add cherry tomatoes, cook 2–3 minutes, then add prawns. Cook, turning occasionally, until prawns are pink on both sides.
4. Add basil and toss for a few moments, then tip everything from the frying pan into the saucepan containing the tagliatelle. Toss together and serve immediately.

Serves 4.

Tips

• Have all your ingredients out on your kitchen bench, chopped and ready to go, before you start preparing this meal. You don't want the pasta to grow cold while you fiddle around with the rest of the ingredients. Steps 2–4 should only take about 5 minutes.
• If desired, you could serve this meal with a bit of parmesan cheese grated over the top. Personally, I prefer a bit of cracked pepper, but it depends on how hot your chillies are.