Mulberry Muffins

Spring is here, and the Koel cuckoos are making enough noise to drive us crazy. Other animals are less noisy and more fun to watch. Flying foxes are feasting on bottlebrush blossom and loquats in my local streets each night. In my parents’ backyard they’re feasting on mulberries. So are we.

We eat mulberries on our cereal, Alloronan makes mulberry smoothies, and my mum serves them with berry liqueurs (like creme de cassis) and icecream for dessert. Recently I made mulberry muffins.

These mulberry muffins are very moist and super-crumbly – you’ll need a plate. The LSA and almond meal give them a pleasant nutty flavour. Of course the big moist mulberries hidden inside are the highlight. I can see why the flying foxes are so enthusiastic about them.

Ingredients
250g brown sugar
80ml oil
1 egg
vanilla
250 g mulberries (stems cut off)
100g almond meal
100g quinoa flour and 100g rice flour (or 200g gluten free flour blend)
50g LSA (linseed, sunflower and almond meal)
2 tsp baking powder
1tsp bicarbonate of soda

Method
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celcius.

Combine the wet ingredients in a bowl.

Sift in the dry ingredients and combine.

Gently stir in the mulberries.

Divide the mixture between 12 muffin cases.

Bake for approximately 20-25 minutes, or until risen and springy on top.

Quince and Almond Cake

Spring is coming and going. We’ve had heatwaves and cold snaps. Stone fruits are only just flowering, and I saw grape vines on the weekend that hadn’t even grown leaves yet. Of course there are some new fruits after winter. Berries are here, and there’s rhubarb and citrus. I’m still eating a lot of winter fruit though, and pulling my stewed quinces out of the freezer was a real pleasure.

The quinces had stayed in the freezer for ages, because it seemed like they deserved a better fate than topping a bowl of cereal. Finally I pulled them out and forced myself to find an inspiring way to use them. I’ve been enjoying reading Nigella Lawson’s book Feast, and her moist apple and almond cake looked like a promising gluten free option. At last I’d found the recipe to adapt for my quinces.

The cake is quite moist, and the eggs allow it to rise without any raising agent. Made with quinces it is the faintest bit pink, which is lovely. The quinces are stewed with spices, so the cake is richly fragrant, and heavy and moist with almond meal.

This cake is for my dad. Happy Birthday!

Ingredients for the Cake
285g cooked quince
8 eggs
325g ground almonds
275g caster sugar
a handful of flaked almonds

Method for the Cake
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celcius. Line a 22cm springform tin with baking paper.

Mash the stewed quinces with a fork until they form a puree.

Combine the pureed quince with the eggs, ground almonds, and caster sugar. Beat well.

Spread in the tin and sprinkle with flaked almonds.

Bake for about 45 min or until the cake springs back at the centre.

Ingredients for the Quinces
4 quinces
whole cloves, ground cinnamon
lemon rind

Method for the Quinces
Core the quinces and dice them up. It is ok to leave the skin on.

Put them in a saucepan with a few strips of lemon rind, about four cloves and a teaspoon or two of cinnamon. Just cover them with water.

Bring them to the boil, then simmer for at least an hour. If you want a really good pink colour they need to cook for ages. Just top up the water and boil them until you are satisfied.

This method will make more stewed quince than you need for the cake. You can use the rest on your porridge, or make some quince muffins.

Chocolate Gingerbread Cake

The chocolate cake hall of fame sounds like exactly the kind of museum I’d like to visit. Sadly it isn’t really a place, but a chapter in Nigella Lawson’s book Feast. It’s not as good as a room full of cakes, but it’s a good read.

Flicking through the hall of fame it can be hard to decide what to bake, but I was happy with my choice. When I read Nigella’s description of her chocolate gingerbread as a “glottally thickening wodge”, I knew that the cake would be beautifully moist. It’s the kind of recipe that’s perfect to adapt for a gluten free cake. I’ve used a combination of almond meal and a gluten free flour blend in my version.

This cake keeps well because it’s so moist. It even travels well because the icing sets firm, making it less vulnerable to damage during transport. The only thing that stops it from being perfectly presentable is the slicing. This cake is moist and rich, and it will stick to your knife. The crumbs are sticky and black, chocolatey and spicy. Eat this cake with people who recognise taste over looks, and who won’t fight you for knife-licking rights.

Chocolate Gingerbread Cake
Adapted from Nigella Lawson’s Feast (my version is gluten free and uses Australian sized tablespoons)

Ingredients for the cake
To heat together
175g butter
125g brown sugar
1 1/2 tabs caster sugar
200g golden syrup
200g treacle
1/4 tsp ground cloves
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp ground ginger

To add next
1 1/4 tsp bicarb soda
1 1/2 tabs water
2 eggs
1 cup milk
150g almond meal
125g gluten free plain flour
40g cocoa
175g choc chips

Ingredients for the icing
250g icing sugar
30g butter
1 tab cocoa
60mL milk

Method
Preheat the oven to 175 degrees Celcius. Line two springform pans (22cm round) with baking paper. Choose a large enough saucepan to contain all the ingredients so that the entire recipe can be prepared in this.

Melt together the butter, sugars, golden syrup, treacle, cloves, cinnamon and ginger.

Dissolve the bicarb soda in the water in a small cup.

Take the saucepan off the heat and beat in the eggs, milk and the bicarb dissolved in water.

Sift in the flour, almond meal and cocoa, and stir to combine. Finally stir in the chocolate chips.

Divide the mixture evenly between the two springform pans.

Bake for about 40 minutes until risen and set on top. Cool in the tin.

When cool prepare the icing by melting together the butter, cocoa and milk. Then sift in the icing sugar. Spread over the top of each cake.

Crème Caramel

When you’re learning a new language there’s usually a lesson on food quite early in the course. Food vocabulary is really important when you get to your destination, since you’ll want to buy meals quite frequently. Food lessons give you an insight into culture too. Applying these lessons needn’t wait until you travel overseas – why not visit a restaurant or bake a treat to get into the swing of things?

James has been learning French, which has turned out to be an excellent source of food inspiration. A listening exercise gave us a crêpe recipe, and the resulting spinach and fetta crêpes made a great change from pasta and rice for dinner. To follow up from a French main you need a delicious dessert, and crème caramel is a perfect choice.

Crème caramel is a baked custard with caramel sauce. This one is rich and eggy, with a simple caramel sauce. After reading this month’s Donna Hay magazine I’d be tempted to try some flavour variations, particularly an orange version. It’s nice to start simple though, and traditional crème caramel is beautifully smooth and fulfilling.

Crème Caramel
Recipe adapted from the Hampden Park Public School 30th Anniversary Cookbook.

Ingredients for the sauce
1 1/4 cups caster sugar
1/3 cup water

Ingredients for the custard
1 1/2 cups milk
1 cup thickened cream (we used light cream)
4 eggs
2 egg yolks
1/4 cup brown sugar (firmly packed)
2 tabs golden syrup

Method
1. Preheat oven to 160 ^∘C
2. Heat caster sugar and water until dissolved, then increase the heat and boil without stirring for 5-8 minutes or until golden.
3. Pour evenly between 8 half-cup ramekins and allow to set.
4. Combine milk and cream in a saucepan and heat to a simmer without boiling. Remove from heat.
5. Whisk eggs, yolks, brown sugar and golden syrup together in a heat-proof bowl.
6. Gradually whisk the the warmed milk mixture into the egg mixture.
7. Pour this over the caramel in the ramekins.
8. Put the ramekins in a large baking tray and fill with hot water to half-way up the ramekins.
9. Cover with foil and bake for 40-45 mins until the custards have set.
10. Allow to cool before serving.

Quark Cake

How do you say Eischnee in English? A direct translation from German would make it egg snow, which is rather pretty. Unfortunately the idiomatic version in English is probably the less poetic beaten eggwhite. The reason for translating a German recipe is that James has been raving about Quark Cake since he came back from Germany. Quark is a German curd cheese, which is more sour than sour cream, but similar in texture. Since James is not normally a lover of cheesecakes, the quark version must have been pretty special. The difficult part about making this cheesecake is that quark is not readily available in Sydney.

One Austrian friend managed to find organic quark at a speciality deli, but the price was exorbitant. Luckily another friend is both a home cook and a native speaker of German. She has been missing quark, so before long she found some recipes for both the quark itself, and for Quark Cake. Knowing James, she didn’t translate them, since that would be denying him the opportunity to practise his German.

Having made some quark (see the post on homemade quark), all that remained was to choose a Quark Cake recipe. Since James had amnesia regarding all features of the cake he’d had (barring its yumminess), all options were open. Why not choose something out of the ordinary then – a baked cheesecake with beaten egg white? It sounded different, and the lemon zest and rum-soaked raisin flavours were appealing.

In a last-ditch attempt to reduce the saturated fat content of this recipe I used a sweet, gluten free version of Heidi’s Olive Oil Shortcrust for the pastry case. This crust is a little crunchy for a cheesecake, so feel free to substitute your favourite melt-in-the-mouth short crust recipe. After all, you can’t be good all the time.

This Quark Cake is soft, and well endowed with rum-soaked raisins. The lemon zest keeps it from being too sweet. The tang of quark makes the cake quite different from a cream cheese-based cheesecake, so it’s definitely worth making quark for it. It’s not too fiddly, and it’s a less time consuming way to get your quark fix than a trip to Germany!

Ingredients for the Quark Filling
fills a 22cm short crust pastry case
250g quark
130g castor sugar
2 eggs, separated
rind of half a lemon
50g butter (melted)
30g gluten free plain flour
80g raisins soaked in rum

Method for the Quark Filling
1. Preheat the oven to 160 degrees Celcius.
2. Separate the eggs.
3. Combine the yolks and half the sugar with the quark. Mix it thoroughly.
4. Add the lemon zest, then the melted butter and mix well.
5. Sift in the flour and combine.
6. Drain the raisins (which you’ve soaked in rum for at least an hour), and add them too. Ensure they are well drained or the alcohol could curdle the mixture.
7. Beat the egg whites with the other half of the sugar until stiff peaks form.
8. Add 1/4 of the egg white to the quark mixture and fold in.
9. Then fold in the remainder of the beaten egg whites.
10. Pour into a cooled pastry case (22cm diameter).
11. Bake at 160 degrees Celcius for ~45 min. When the cake is cooked the centre will spring back when lightly touched and a skewer will come out clean.

Ingredients for the Olive Oil Short Crust (gluten free)
alternatively blind bake your favourite short crust pastry in a 22cm tart tin
200g gluten free plain flour
50g brown rice flour
50g castor sugar
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup water

Method for the Olive Oil Short Crust (gluten free)
1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celcius.
2. Combine the sifted flours and sugar with the olive oil.
3. Add the water very gradually until the dough comes together in a ball. You won’t need all the water, so add it only a little at a time.
4. Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured board until it is the right size for your 22cm tart tin. Loosen the pastry with a palette knife and roll it around your rolling pin while you transport it into the pan. If it cracks (and since it’s gluten free you’re a hero if it doesn’t), then poke it together with your fingers.
5. Prick the pastry with a fork and cover lightly with uncooked rice, then bake blind for ~25 mins at 200 degrees Celcius.