Coconut Macaroons

I love coconut - especially in its oozing Raffaello form! It must be my Filipino ancestry that accounts for this - I even prefer curries that are laced with coconut cream. And coconut flavoured yoghurt is delicious too!

I had a bag of dessicated coconut in the pantry, and some leftover egg-whites from a crème brûlée I had used the yolks for, so I put two and two together!

COCONUT MACAROONS

Into my mixing bowl my 3 leftover egg-whites went and mixed just until frothy.
Add 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar then increase mixing speed until you see soft peaks.
Gradually add 100g caster sugar while mixing until stiff peaks.

Slowly fold in 250g of dessicated coconut and 30g almond meal.

Lastly add a dash of vanilla extract. I used coconut essence though to make it extra coconut-ey!

Dollop onto a lined baking tray. I decided to be fancy and make quenelles.

Bake at 170 Celcius for approximately 20 minutes. They're done when they're golden!

Sorry Teddy, you can't have any

Our 4 Year Wedding Anniversary

As I mentioned in my previous post, Paul and I got thoroughly spoiled by Audi Australia again! This day happened to fall on the week of our wedding anniversary. Every now and again I'll get an email from Audi Lifestyle Experience for an upcoming event. Last year we got to dine at Matt Moran's Chiswick (you can read about that here). This year we got an entire morning with Matt Moran! Because limited places are available for these events, I always try to reply to the e-mail and RSVP straight away. Best of all, it's completely FREE! Apologies in advance for the bad quality photos taken with my phone.

We spent the night before at the Four Seasons Hotel. We absolutely love staying here for its comfort and luxury, and because it happens to be Canadian in origin it's Paul's favourite. But I absolutely love it for the stunning views. This was taken at about 7AM.

After a delicious coffee prepared by our church friend who works at Mecca Espresso (across the road from the Four Seasons, in Circular Quay), we waited for our driver for the day to pick us up. Yes, Audi even gave us a free driver to take us around in an Audi A8 - which meant no worrying about our blood alcohol concentration :)

Matt Moran (right) with the owner of Sonoma Bakery

Our first stop was Sonoma Bakery in Alexandria - the bread supplier to Matt Moran's Aria restaurant. We had flaky golden croissants, pains au chocolat and Danishes with Sonoma's own coffee. We discovered that Sonoma doesn't only do bread, they also create their own muesli and have recently started roasting their own coffee - amongst other products you can get here. Our group of about 20 people donned hairnets before getting a walking tour of the premises.

Sonoma had very humble beginnings - it all simply started in the 1990's with a jar of sourdough starter smuggled in a bag on a flight to Sydney from the Sonoma Valley in California. We got to meet the starter - still surviving today in large vats, we observed dozens of workers pounding, folding and shaping dough and also marvelled at the cutting edge facilities - from flour storage in warehouse-height silos imported from Canada, to the temperature and humidity controlled rooms for proofing dough.

My hubby Paul with Matt Moran in the 0 degrees celcius room

Our next stop was at the seafood supplier to Aria, Cleanfish Australia in Botany. We were told about their fishing methods and shown a few different fish they had caught that morning. As it was a chilly winter's day, no one stayed in for too long - especially when they allowed us to tour the 0 degree C room! Matt Moran agreed with Paul that Canadian Sea Scallops were the best in the world. You may remember that dish from my 28th birthday here.

Suet coating on the ageing meat

Matt Moran with Vic's son, at Vic's Meat

We then hopped over to Mascot to visit Matt Moran's butcher, Vic's Meat. Here they talked about the ageing process of meat before it is sold. The meats are hung in a temperature and humidity controlled room to "age" for several days to weeks - in this process a lot of moisture is drawn out of the meat, giving it an old, crusty appearance on the outside and encasing the tender, extremely flavoursome meat inside to be cut out. Vic's Meat is currently experimenting with ageing beef for 150 days and they claim to be the first in the world to try it.

We finished our visit with a tour of their storage room (another cold room people didn't hang in for too long) filled with stock ready to be shipped. Matt Moran was snooping around at what the "competition" was ordering - this included restaurants such as Neil Perry's Rockpool, Peter Gilmore's Quay and Peter Doyle's Est.

The hired drivers were ready as always to drive us to our final location, Matt Moran's restaurant, Aria in Circular Quay. We were given a set menu to choose an entree, main and dessert from, and the wine flowed!

Matt Moran with Audi Australia managing director, Andrew Doyle

Peking Duck Consommé with Dumplings, Shaved Abalone & Shiitake

Roasted Lamb Chop & Ragu with Curly Kale

Cone Bay Barramundi with Fennel, Mascarpone & Salted Grapes

Banana Cheesecake with Salted Caramel, Hazelnuts & Banana Sorbet

Petit Fours - how pretty is this arrangement!

Paul with our take-home pack Audi gave us with a Cleanfish voucher, Sonoma sourdough,
Sonoma Muesli, apricot jam, olive oil and herbs

Croquembouche

I had a beautiful 4 year wedding anniversary last month. Paul surprised me with tickets to see City & Colour at the Sydney Opera House. He'd bought the tickets early this year and had them hidden in his bedside table drawer all along!

We also got to attend another FREE Audi Lifestyle Experience day with Matt Moran, getting a tour of his baker, fishmonger and butcher and learning about their produce, prior to a divine lunch at Matt Moran's restaurant, Aria. But more on that another time :)

I wanted to surprise Paul with something special. I cook for him all the time so I wanted to impress him by testing my skills! So I decided to try and recreate our wedding cake from 4 years ago, a croquembouche.

Croquembouche or croque-en-bouche meaning "crack in the mouth" appeared in 19th century French cookbooks (in a savoury form). It is traditionally presented at celebrations such as baptisms and weddings.

Four years ago our wedding took place in Tadoussac - a small harbour town where the Saguenay and Saint-Laurent Rivers meet, north-east of Quebec City. It is very French-Canadian; English is pretty much not spoken in these parts! So I chose a French wedding cake.

I once watched a guy make a croquembouche on French Food Safari so I thought, how hard could it be? Well for one it's very time-consuming and secondly it's extremely messy so make sure you have lots of bench space! My best tip is to clean as you go - wash your utensils and keep clearing benches. There are 3 components - making the profiteroles/puffs, the custard filling and the caramel/spun sugar.

CROQUEMBOUCHE

Crème Pâtissière

Make this first as it needs to be refrigerated.
Add the seeds from a vanilla pod to 1/2 a litre of milk in a saucepan on medium heat. Remove from heat when you see the first few bubbles.
In a bowl combine 125g egg yolks with 50g cornstarch and 125g caster sugar.
While whisking, slowly add warm milk to egg mixture then pour back into the pan.
Boil for a minute or so, whisking the whole time - it will thicken.
Pour into a bowl then cover the surface with cling wrap (prevents a skin forming) then refrigerate.

Choux Pastry Puffs
Preheat oven to 200C and grease 3 baking sheets with a buttered paper towel.
Into a saucepan add 100g chopped butter, 100g water, 130g of milk, 1 tsp sugar, and 1 tsp salt.
Bring to a boil then remove from heat.
Dump in 130g plain flour and use your guns to beat it in with a wooden spoon! It's a GREAT workout.
Return to the heat and keep beating for a couple of minutes to dry the mix.
Now, on the TV shows the chefs like working up a sweat when they add the eggs. But I'm lazy.
Transfer your pastry mix to your stand mixer! Turn on to low speed. Some steam will escape.
Gradually add 200g eggs and beat until thick/dense. At first it will look like the mixture is separating but I promise it will come together.
Put into a piping bag with a plain nozzle then pipe the puffs (approx 3cm wide) onto the greased trays.
Leave space in between as they puff up quite a lot when baking.
Bake for 25 minutes or so. Cool on wire racks.

Remember what I said about cleaning as you go? This is the perfect time to create ample bench space!

Poke 1 tiny hole into each profiterole.

Retrieve your custard from the fridge and place into a new piping bag with a plain nozzle.
Pipe custard into each profiterole until it feels "heavy".
You'll stuff up the first one and get an idea of how it feels. Just eat the first one. Or two.
I made the mistake of piping into the base of each profiterole - poke the hole in the side so the custard doesn't seep out. Like I said, I made a huge mess.

I had to turn them upside down to stop the custard from seeping out

Caramel
This is the easiest part - and the messiest.
In a saucepan dissolve 300g caster sugar in 100g water and bring to the boil.
Add about 100g of glucose - it's pretty impossible to weigh it, let alone get it out of the jar so I just guesstimated.
Boil until it turns golden brown.

Remove to a heatproof pot stand near your prepared profiteroles.
I found that the cold winter day made the caramel set so I had to reheat it on the stove from time to time. Watch your fingers too!

Take each profiterole and carefully dip it into the caramel then place onto your cake base.

I used a cake stand but you can make a disc out of caramel too if you're not lazy like me.
Arrange the cream puffs in a circle and upwards into a cone shape.
I built mine free-hand but there are cone moulds available to make it look perfect.

For the spun sugar, get yourself one of those claw head massagers or you can take an old wire whisk and cut the end off.
Dip the tines into the caramel to pick up gooey strings then swish them all about your croquembouche, turning your cake base as you go. Keep dipping to pick up more caramel.
And there you have it.

Normally edible flowers are added to decorate but I only have weeds in my garden.

Lemon Cupcakes

I keep thinking about how quickly time keeps escaping from us. This year is my second year owning my own business, my fourth year of marital bliss and my puppy who is a puppy no more, turned 3. Naturally I threw him a mini birthday party.

Teddy was born on April 24th, 2011 so with the 25th being a public holiday it provides an opportunity for his birthday celebrations. This year I went helloooo, mellow YELLOW!

The yellow simply brightened the day - especially with the bright colours in the bunting (and sticky fingers) I created.

I even got the boys matching yellow party hats (trimmed to their little head size of course!)

My absolute favourite picture of the day! My mother with Teddy and his brother Robbie. Look at Teddy's smile!

When I think yellow, I think lemons! I can't stand lemons or lemon juice consumed straight - not to mention the acid erosion it's probably doing to your tooth enamel, but its sweetened form is simply divine! Plus it makes me think that I'm getting my daily fruit needs ;)

LEMON CUPCAKES

Preheat oven to 160 C and prepare cupcake tins in the usual fashion.
In a bowl, mix together 3 cups of self-raising flour with a pinch of salt.
Into your stand mixer bowl whip together a whole 250g block - yes an ENTIRE block of chopped unsalted butter at room temperature with 2 cups of caster sugar.
With the mixer running, add 4 eggs - one at a time, followed by a teaspoon of vanilla extract and the zest of one lemon.
Put the mixer to low speed and add the remaining ingredients in the following order:
- 1 cup of the flour mixture
- 1 more cup of the flour mixture
- 1/2 cup of milk
- The last cup of the flour mixture
- 1/2 cup of milk
- Juice from half a lemon
Ensure each addition is incorporated well before adding the next!
Pour into cupcake cases and bake until a skewer comes out clean
The time will vary depending on the size of the cupcakes so keep a close eye on them!

Lemon Cream Frosting
While the cupcakes bake and cool you should clean your mixer bowl and attachments!
Place an entire 600ml pot of thickened cream (yes the whole thing!) into your clean and dry mixing bowl with 3/4 cup icing sugar (icing mixture will work fine too)
Mix until thickened then add the juice of half a lemon.
Mix until soft peaks form.
Fill your piping bag with nozzle of your choice and pipe, pipe away!

I topped my cakes with "peaches and cream" sprinkles for that extra yellow touch :)