liar liar

Not so long ago I said that this was no longer a food blog. I'm obviously an outrageous liar, as I have all of these food posts to give you. Above is my offering for my Australian Day BBQ - it was bring a salad or bring a desert, and so I made a trio of Australian Deserts.

On the far left is a lamington cake. It's fairly straight forward, vanilla cupcake, chocolate ganache with coconut. I'm sure you can work this all out. Although it does make me wonder how coconut companies think I'm going to use a kilo of shaved coconut, as this seems to be the smallest quantity available in your average supermarket. I would suppose my dozen cakes used about 15gm, so if you're ever in need, please let me know.

I got the ganache recipe from Joy the Baker. Most people thing ganache a doddle. It's always failed horribly for me and been runny and useless, even after a spell in the freezer. Joy pours the hot cream over her chocolate, rather than melt them both in a double boiler, and for me this made all the difference.

Also thanks to Joy for the middle cake, my Cherry Ripe cake. Cherry Ripe is apparently the oldest chocolate bar still being produced in Australia. I made a red velvet cake, using Joy's recipe below, but pushed a glace cherry just below the surface of each cake before putting them in the oven. The icing is a sour cream chocolate icing. This was too runny. Next time it's ganache all the way

Joy's Favourite Red Velvet Cakes

60gm unsalted butter, at room temperature

3/4 cup sugar

1 egg

2 1/2 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

3 Tablespoons red food coloring

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup buttermilk

1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons distilled white vinegar

In the bowl of a stand mixer fit with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about three minutes. Turn mixer to high and add the egg. Scrape down the bowl and beat until well incorporated.

In a separate bowl mix together cocoa, vanilla and red food coloring to make a thick paste. Add to the batter, mixing thoroughly until completely combined. You may need to stop the mixer to scrape the bottom of the bowl, making sure that all the batter gets color.

Turn mixer to low and slowly add half of the buttermilk. Add half of the flour and mix until combined. Scrape the bowl and repeat the process with the remaining milk and flour. Beat on high until smooth.

Turn mixer to low and add baking soda and white vinegar. Turn to high and beat a few more minutes.

Spoon batter into a paper lined cupcake baking pan and bake for 20-25 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the center cupcake comes out clean.

Let rest in the pan for 10 minutes, then place them of a cooling rack to cool completely before frosting.

On the far left are my Violet Crumble cakes. Honey cupcakes with the same average icing as the Cherry Ripe ones

Honey Cupcakes
120gm unsalted butter at room temp
3/4 cup caster sugar
1/3 cup honey
3/4 buttermilk
1tspn vanilla
1 egg
2 cups SRF

Preheat oven to 350F.

In a stand mixer using the paddle attachment, cream together the butter, sugar, and honey. Beat for about 3 minutes, until light and fluffy.

Beat in egg, scrape down sides after blended. Add in vanilla and beat for another 30 seconds. Starting with the flour first, alternate between flour and milk, ending with flour. So 1/3 of flour,
½ of milk, 1/3 of flour, ½ milk, 1/3 flour.

Blend until fully combined.

Bake for 20-22 minutes.


Both of these recipes worked divinely, probably largely because I followed the instructions and blended as long as I should have and didn't cut corners. The honey ones in particularly were incredibly light and fluffy, and I allowed the sugars and butter to beat well together. The honey gave it a much lighter texture than just sugar creamed in butter.

So, Advance Australia Fair. Let us all eat cake

kids kicking arse, and winning

Let me start with some banality. It's Australia Day, the day that marks either the arrival of British settlers in Australia, or the day that marks the start of genocide, murder, rape and pillage. Depending on your point of view. Having just re-read last year's 26 January post, I am saddened to note that my fellow countrymen have not adopted my flag-phobia. I went to a BBQ today, hosted by a kind and lovely work colleague and the flags were everywhere. She is certainly no fascist, but it still worries me.

So, today I ate BBQ and a silly amount of dip and crisps and olives and things and now I feel quite unwell. You'd think after 39 years I would have learnt? Apparently not.

Back at home, tired and full and lazy I went into blog-o-sphere, and at Joy the Baker, whom I like incredibly for her style, her generosity of spirit and killer catering tendencies, I noted that Joy is nominated for a 2010 Bloggie. However I do not mention this to encourage you to vote for Joy - this is up to you - but because I checked out some of the other blogs up for a gong.

When We Were Beautiful is up in the music blog category, written by a young guy in Southampton, who like lots of young guys everywhere is into his tunes, and not necessarily the tunes that big record companies want him to be into. They want to him to be into Australian Idol winners, or the next boy band, because these are cheap eats, which require no sustainability, investment or thought. Those of you who have lived in the UK will know that which one of this quick bites ends up at the Number 1 spot on the charts on 25 December any year is a bit of a big deal and the pundits will debate who will occupy the 'top spot' from about mid November. Last year the latest X-factor winner was highly touted.

Until.

Some guy in Essex started an online campaign to get Rage Against the Machine's Killing in the Name Of to the top spot. And won!!!! More than a decade after it was released this catchy, funky, heavy protest song that shouts 'fuck you I won't do what you tell me' more times that most draft offices would care to count made it to the number one spot.

I must say, dear readers, this took me to my happy spot. You may have known this for some time and have been in your happy spot for so long that the floors need mopping, but this is very new for me. What a victory for us all, and how wonderful that someone thought to stand up against the corporations in such a very, very, very public way and won. There can't be a soul in Britain who doesn't know about this, what a fantastic way to bring the concepts of artistic integrity and mass consumption into every lounge room and work space. Not to mention the message of RATM's song in the first place, which unfortunately just as relevant today as when the track was first released.

This song is best listened to LOUD and somewhere where you can jump around and swing your hair about (if you have as much hair as me of course). Please enjoy this immensely!



PS: I was just called by the sound of a significant appeal to the lounge room to find that Pakistan have six out (and a ripper little clean bowl by Clinton McKay). Pakistan need 118 of 90 balls or there abouts. This could a heart racing fight. But I suspect it won't be. Again.

delicate sensitivities

Today was a lazy day, a couple of hours volunteer work at the zoo, followed by a long, luxurious sleep and a take-away pizza. Deck chair cinema is on the cards in a couple of hours.

Tonight's movie is The Castle, chosen no doubt as it is the Australia Day long weekend. Australia Day (26 January) marks the date in 1788 when the First Fleet arrived in Botany Bay, marking the start of the colony of Australia. I think a lot of Australians think Captain James Cook was there. Captain Cook 'discovered' Australia, but Captain Arthur Phillip was in charge of this little voyage and brought with him the kind folk who would colonise Australia (which in those days pretty much meant roughing up the Indigenous population and killing off a lot of fauna and flora. I should expect there was a lot of sweating too).

These days there's much discussion as to whether this is the most appropriate day to celebrate Australia, or Invasion Day as it is called by many Indigenous, and non-Indigenous, Australians. Many think that ANZAC Day, 25 April, is a much more appropriate date for our National Holiday. It marks the landing of allied troops on the beach in Gallipoli, Turkey, during WWI and is very, very much part of the national psyche. If push came to shove and I had to remove a public holiday from the calendar, I would say ANZAC Day is a more appropriate day to celebrate.

This issue aside there is, perhaps, a worrying trend developing with Australia Day. People seem to have gone flag crazy. On their fences, on their cars, draped from every available space.

And it scares me.

To me a national flag is something that flies over government buildings - The Lodge, Parliament House, the ATO etc. It also is a national identifier in the military, so you can work out whose aircraft carried to torpedo and whose not to, or at events like VE Day, as a marker of national successes on the champs du guerre.

However when the average person on the street starts waving one, it makes me uneasy. I think of nationalism, imperialism and jingoism. Frankly I think of Berlin in the 1930s. It's saying 'my country is better than your country' . This attitude can only lead to no good. Would the recent violence at the Australian Open between Serb and Bosnian supporters have got out of hand without flag waving? The Australian flag also made regular appearances at the Cronulla riots, one of the most ugly and shameful events in Australia's short history.

(if you're in this photo, you are a moron)

Surely there are other ways to celebrate what's great about Australia. Invite the next door neighbours round for a snag and an open and frank discussion about foreign policy. Take a bat and a tennis ball down to the beach and start a game of cricket. Have a garage sale and donate the money to a charity overseas where they're not as lucky to have the options that most people in Australia have. Stay at home and count your blessings.

Am I being over sensitive about this issue? Has the display of these type of national symbols changed in their meaning or strength? Or are modern day Australians so far removed from the dangers of these ways of thinking that we're not aware of a dark, dangerous mood that's swelling up from beneath us? Is it my Boring History status that helps to me recognise where this type of behaviour has led before. Should I be afraid? Very afraid?