Apricot and Chocolate Bread and Butter Pudding

I don't know if I convinced you regarding bread and butter puddings last time I gave them a try, though I see there was some interest and maybe even some willingness to come round to the idea. I was pretty convinced myself, enough so to try another version that I came across recently.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

I visited a friend last week and arrived just as she was finishing off baking. Great timing huh? Her teenaged children had been eating, and raving about, red velvet cupcakes so she decided to make some for the first time. I was fascinated of course, and barged in, stirred the icing, licked the icing, read the recipe and asked a million questions. When it comes to something a little bit different like this, I am always curious to know what makes it different. What IS a red velvet cupcake?

Victoria Sponge

I think I MAY have done it. No doubt you will remember my sponge challenge, and the raging success I had with the Cornflour Sponge. But while I was happy to bask in the glory for a short while, I soon realised that I still hadn't mastered a Victoria Sponge, or, some would say, a real sponge. I still hadn't really nailed it, and I was still feeling a little defeated.

Something happened the other day that made me want to get back in to the kitchen, and back to the sponge challenge. I think it was the fact that I had a few moments of child-free daylight hours - an extremely rare thing of late.

Hot Cross Buns

Reuben hopped in to bed with me the other morning after the Monkey Clock told him he was allowed to get up, and I decided it was time I explained Easter to him. You see, apart from it being probably the most important event to have happened in the history of the world, we have this whole "Easter" "Esther" problem to contend with. It has arisen (ha ha) a couple of times - we saw hot cross buns in the supermarket a while back, and when I said they're for Easter, I admit it did sound a lot like "they're for Esther."

Panko Breadcrumbs

I have a refreshing change for you today. It's not baking! I've been curious about panko breadcrumbs for a while, and my supermarket conveniently placed them in a basket by the fish counter, so after walking past them for a few weeks I finally fell for their trick and bought a packet. But at least my curiosity has been satisfied.

Just one pic today I'm afraid. Only truly professional food bloggers are prepared to let their dinner go cold for the sake of photographs.

Sesame and Oregano Lavosh

Around the time I was getting excited about making crackers, a friend of mine was visiting her niece who had not only recently given birth and brought a newborn home (enough of an achievement don't you think?), but was also was also pulling crackers out of the oven and serving them up to her guests with blue cheese.

Summer Jam

My friend Summer emailed me recently to talk about the possibilities of making jam with glucose. I've never made jam before, though hope to one day, so really didn't know what I was talking about. Summer has, however, and we had quite a discussion about the properties of sugar and about pectin in fruit and decided it was well worth a try. So she went away and did the hard work, while I just watched my letterbox for a few days until some was delivered.

Cornflour Sponge

It's probably time I told you the truth. I've been trying to achieve a few things soaking-up-culinary-knowledge-wise and they've been miserable failures. I mean really miserable. I suppose there is nothing wrong with posting about failures, but instead I have decided to plug away on these in secret, and reward you when I get a result. And my goodness what a *triumph* I had this week!

Scottish Oatcakes

Kent's Mum likes to cook and bake things she has never done before (perhaps she should write a blog), and we have often been recipients of her experiments. Recently she dropped off a few samples of some Scottish Oatcakes, and I must say they didn't look very appealing. They just looked so plain, but I think I also expected some unpleasant flavour lurking beneath. But I had a try, and they were indeed plain, pleasantly plain, fairly crunchy, and just right for carrying butter/cheese/avocado/cream cheese, or whatever you like on your crackers. 

I have been looking at cracker recipes lately, I'd love to be able to make my own, and just needed to decide on a recipe to begin with and get going. Reuben loved Gran's Scottish version and I was curious, so what better place to start.

Focaccia

I have been thinking of tackling bread for a long time. It's on my list of things to try and has kept coming to mind lately. Today I had some semi-quiet time at home, as in, Reuben was out and Esther was at home. Despite the great opportunity, I frankly didn't feel like doing anything. I do get stuck like this as times. I tried to settle in to making christmas stockings for the kids, a job I was in the middle of at this time last year, when my whole world fell down around my ears and I haven't looked at them since. It didn't go very well. So I abandoned it and escaped to the kitchen, and, once again, getting out the flour and the mixing bowls and turning on the oven brought the life back to my bones.

Butter

Oh my GOSH I made butter! I know. I just overwhipped the cream and made butter. On purpose.

 
I had a rush of blood to the head recently and picked up (I mean bought) a magazine about making cheeses, and it included a recipe for making butter. I've always known that if you look like you're about to overwhip the cream (I'd just like to say I never get close these days), somebody will say "careful, you'll turn it in to butter," but I've never thought about the fact that butter really is just overwhipped cream.

Raspberry, Cherry and Coconut Slice

I try to be good and blog about cooking that is challenging, or requires a bit of technique or something I haven't done before. And I wasn't sure if this was really going to be different enough to qualify. Just sending a few different ingredients round the mixer isn't really what The Cook's Sponge is all about. But actually, this was really different. The ingredients were unusual for me (I mean who buys glace cherries except maybe at Christmas?). I have, believe it or not, never made a three-different-layers slice before, and if you want challenging and nifty techniques, just you try cutting this baby. Oh and also, never in all my life have I ever put a tablespoon of vanilla extract in to anything. That alone is worth blogging about.

  

Biscotti

I have a gorgeous friend who comes to see me regularly. We get all of our children in to bed and she races across town feeling youthful (I think) and child-free (definitely) and we have a quiet evening of real conversation, something mothers of toddlers never get between the hours of 7am and 7pm. The truth is I do most of the talking and she does most of the listening and there is such a heaviness in my heart and in my house that I wonder how she enjoys herself so much. So last time she was here I decided that her next visit would have to include some real fun.

Pasta Sauce

I've thrown tinned tomatoes at pasta many a time, adding some kind of herbs/garlic/wine combo to try and make it interesting, but it's always disappointing.

Recently I bought a jar of pasta sauce and it was good. Really good. The little guy gobbled it down and I enjoyed it too. But for a long time I have wanted to try and nail a good homemade version, and last week I finally did. Well, I made a good homemade version, but I'm not sure if I quite nailed it... I would have liked a bit more depth and richness to the flavour, it was a little light and tangy. But it's a good place to start, nothing beats cooking something off like this to bring stronger flavour. You can play around with this recipe as much as you like - barely anything in it is essential.

I read a few recipes and put together some different ideas, starting with one I found on the Taste website. All recipes suggested fresh basil but we're in the wrong season for basil in my garden, so I used dried oregano and fresh parsley. I chose to add a teaspoon of sugar towards the end of cooking as the sauce was very tangy. The sugar added a little depth and softened it a bit, though not as much as I wanted. I almost wondered if it needs a little stock added - call me crazy, but I did come across the idea of adding a mirepoix which is a vegetable base for many stocks and sauces. I may not go this far next time, but I would probably add more tomato paste, and go out of my way to get some really good tinned tomatoes. For now though, feel free to just grab what you have in your pantry. If you have any thoughts on improving this recipe, I would love to hear them.

I wanted a smooth texture, so blitzed it in the blender after cooking.

Pasta Sauce

1 tablespoon oil

1 tablespoon butter

1 onion

1 clove garlic

1 tablespoon tomato paste

2 x 400g tins whole plum tomatoes

Splash of wine (red is ideal, white is fine)

1 teaspoon sugar

Salt and pepper

Herbs

Simmer chopped onion and garlic in the oil and butter until softened but not brown.

Add the tomato paste and stir for one minute, then add the tomatoes and wine and simmer for 30 minutes.

Add sugar, salt and pepper and herbs to taste.

PS - an easy meal idea is to chop up some mushroom, capsicum and really fine bits of broccoli and add it to the sauce. You may even want to do this before you freeze it. A great way to get more veg in to kids, if you find that a challenge. I had some of this leftover recently and put it in an omelette for lunch. Yummo!

Roasted Chickpeas

I have been starting to think about healthy snacks recently. I eat a huge amount when feeding a baby, and it seems to be difficult to find healthy things to reach for at short notice. Lara recently put a comment up on Last Night about roasted chickpeas, and then my Mum sent me a link about the same thing, so I decided it was time to get some in to my cupboards. I was also hopeful that Reuben would enjoy them, and perhaps even Esther, who is munching on all kinds of exciting foods nowadays.

The first time I tried this I found the chickpeas a bit too overdone and crunchy for my liking - I wanted them to retain some of their softness on the inside with crunch on the outside. So I turned the oven down a little and shaved off some time, but you may like to experiment a bit to get the level of crunch that you prefer. I went for healthy options for seasoning too, so as not to ruin my original intentions, but I can see that adding something salty would be tempting. Plenty of herbs is a very satisfying alternative though. I also realised once they were cooked that a 10 month old is far better snacking on un-roasted, well rinsed chickpeas straight from the can, but she'll catch up with us before long.

Roasted Chickpeas

1 can (390g) Chickpeas

1 tablespoon oil

drizzle of lemon juice

shake of oregano and thyme

(try also garlic salt, chilli powder, cayenne pepper, moroccan spices, rosemary...)

Wash the chickpeas and dry well with a teatowel.

Toss them in the oil and seasonings.

Bake at 200 degrees for 25 minutes (or longer and hotter for more crunch).

Sweet Chilli Sauce

I heard on the radio recently that now is the time to buy chillies, so decided now was the time to try making sweet chilli sauce. And this one really was easy-peasy - even more so than the mayonnaise. There is quite a range of recipes out there with more or less ingredients. I went for the most basic but the results were fantastic and I see no reason to mess with it. I love that four simple ingredients can create something better than you can buy, and that it's so easy.

But (I'm sorry there's a but). The challenge is with the chillies. Firstly, you need to find them. I rang Moore Wilsons to check that they had them in (they did), and I needed half of what they had on the shelves. It wouldn't have taken many sweet chilli sauce makers in town to have taken them all. And secondly, they're expensive. I made a small bottle of sauce and it cost me a whopping $7 in chillies. So, much as I would love to make this a regular in my house, it may have to be a rare treat. Give it a go so that you know what you're missing out on, and then we might all be inspired to grow our own chillies. Now there's a topic for another day. 

You'll need a stick blender, food processor or some kind of effective chopper for the chillies.

I used a recipe from taste.com.au but reduced it to one third to make a small bottle and save (quite) a few dollars. Below is the reduced version, it made me 1 cup.

Sweet Chilli Sauce

160g red chillies

1 garlic clove

1 cup white vinegar

1 cup caster sugar

Slice the chillies in half, and remove the seeds & discard from approximately 3/4 of them. Put all the chillies in to the blender, along with the garlic and approximately 1/4 of the vinegar. Process until finely chopped.

Put the chilli mixture in to a pan and add the rest of the vinegar and the sugar. Stir on a low heat for about 5 minutes (until sugar has dissolved), then bring to the boil. Turn down again to a low heat, and simmer for 40 minutes, stirring occasionally.

You may like to replace some of the chillies with red capsicum/peppers. I love my sweet chilli on eggs, on cheese and crackers for a 5pm snack, and mixed in with plain yoghurt and chopped fresh mint as a dip.

Mayonnaise

I had a go at making mayonnaise a while ago, with the hope I would one day post about it on my future food blog... Here's what happened:

I love the idea of making cheaper, healthier, tastier versions of food I regularly buy at the supermarket. It's just a question of learning how, and hoping it's not too complicated. And hoping it is cheaper, healthier and tastier!

I've only been a regular buyer of mayonnaise in recent times, as I've discovered it's an essential addition to a hot chicken sandwich - a recent favourite in our household. I quite like to slip it in to a lunchtime salad sandwich too. But a read of the label made me wonder what mayonnaise really is. Knowing that is it egg based, and finding "egg powder" well down a very long list of ingredients made me think I could do better. Egg powder just doesn't sound that tasty, and there are a lot of things on that long list that I bet are not in the homemade version.

So I had a go. I decided to hand whisk rather than just use a beater as it sounded somehow easier to control and appealed to my old fashioned-ness. It was fairly quick but certainly took some muscle. And there it was, a jar of mayonnaise in our fridge, simple as that.

But. Well. The thing is. Well, you see... I didn't really... like it. What a terrible beginning to my new venture. Here I was, being a healthy, wholesome, back-to-basics, home-cooking queen, and, um... I just wanted the stuff in the jar. And funnily enough, the problem was that it tasted too eggy.

I dodged the issue for quite a few days, and hoped my husband would eat it up in his sandwiches (he did). But eventually I decided that this wasn't right, so I had a look at some more recipes and decided I would try again. One recipe suggested white wine vinegar as an alternative to lemon juice and suggested adding WAY more than my original recipe. And that, I realised, had been the problem. As well as it tasting eggy, there wasn't enough tang.  More lemon juice or white wine vinegar would certainly add tang.

So I had a go again. I divided my mayo mixture in half after adding the first 4 ingredients, and added plenty of lemon juice to one and white wine vinegar to the other. The white wine vinegar really gave the tanginess I was after where the lemon juice couldn't quite keep up, and I even added a little more. The added vinegar also turned the mixture from a rather distressing bright yellow to a beautiful, creamy buttery colour, and more importantly, it hid the eggy taste. Phew! I liked it.

Mayonnaise

2 egg yolks

1 tablespoon dijon mustard

Salt and pepper

250ml oil (mildly flavoured, eg canola or groundnut)

2-3 tablespoons white wine vinegar

Whisk egg yolks, mustard and a little salt and pepper together

Slowly add the oil in a thin trickle to begin with, whisking all the time, and continue to add in a steady stream. Continue to whisk for a few seconds after all the oil is incorporated. 

Add the white wine vinegar (or lemon juice), tasting as you go and adding more as you wish.

The Consumer recently tested supermarket bought mayonnaise and they had some interesting comments. The first being, "For a quick salad or a last minute sandwich there's no time to whip up a batch of real mayonnaise. So is there an acceptable version straight out of a jar?" But the verdict was "none of the mayonnaises came anywhere near matching the real thing." So I have to say, whipping up a batch of the real thing is pretty quick and, given the verdict, why wouldn't you?

Omelette

My brother and I used to make omelette together when we were just old enough to be left at home and cook for ourselves. We had a recipe book for kids called "Hot Things" that had pictures of very little people cooking very big meals, and it was our staple for experimenting. Along with "Eggy Bread," omelette was one of our favourites. We would whisk up the eggs with some milk, put them in to the pan and let it sit, gently cooking, eventually tipping the pan back and forth to slide the runny bits of egg out to the edge and under the cooked omelette to ensure it was all well cooked. Topped with cheese, tomato and probably luncheon sausage then folded in to three, it was a real feast.

It's my impression that if someone wants to find out in a short space of time if you know how to cook, they'll ask you to cook an omelette. Omelettes are the litmus test of a good cook, it would seem. And so this is where I start.

As much as we enjoyed our omelette cooking and eating, I'm not sure that the Hot Things recipe covers all the techniques required to cook an omelette that will impress the professionals. But never mind techniques and professionals, I do think they could be better. So I've been experimenting, following some advice, and have found something a little lighter and fluffier. It's worth giving it a go.

Omelette

Lightly mix 2-3 eggs and heat up a pan with a knob of butter and a glug of oil. You may like to add a splash of milk to your eggs too, though the experts tend to agree that if you've got plenty of good eggs, there's no need. If you want to make your eggs go a little further though, I think why not. Pour the eggs in to the pan and let them sit for a few moments until the underside just begins cooking. One this happens take a fork (if your pan can handle it), or a frying-pan friendly utensil, and gently draw the egg from round the edges in towards the centre. Uncooked egg should slide in to its place, or tilt the pan a little to help it along if need be. Once the egg is becoming firm enough that uncooked egg can't slide in behind your utensil, stop. You don't want it all piling up in the centre. By this stage the surface of the omelette will be bumpy and uneven.

This is the point that required huge self control from me, as I'm really not in to uncooked egg. But you don't want to overcook it, and turn your fluffiness in to rubber. I did just knock a few bits to the edge to ensure they were cooked, then I hardened up and carried on... And remember, the omelette will continue cooking while you add your fillings (you may like to turn the heat down), fold it in half and carry it to the table.

So choose your favourite fillings. I went with some of egg's best friends - cheddar, ham, tomato, parsley and sweet chilli sauce (yes, egg has a lot of friends). Ease a fish slice or spatula under the omelette and then flip one side over the other. Pass your new knowledge on to your meal buddy so they can cook their own while you get on and eat yours (while it's still a Hot Thing).