Eggs Benedict from the very start!!

As you can see, my presentation leaves ALOT to be desired!! It's a wonder that I remember the photos at all!!

We had a very dear friend come to stay on Thursday night so since it's school holidays and I have a bit of spare time on my hands, I thought I'd plan something a bit mor special that would see us through a dress-up sewing frenzy!

For Friday breakfast I thought it might be nice to do a super simple Eggs Benedict but from scratch, so making the muffins and hollandaise sauce myself, in the thermo of course, and also poach the eggs in their shells in the egg basket! It's kinda cool to crack a beautifully poached egg on to your freshly toasted English muffty (muffin) and then add a little (or a lot) of the sauce. I have yet to decide whether to serve it on it's own, or on a bed of baby spinach or with some of my Dad's home made bacon currently curing in the back fridge, hmmmmmm...decisions, decisions!!! I guess I'll decide on the morning depending what people feel like.







Thermo English Muffins

So to start, I found a great recipe on another fantastic thermo blog

http://opiefamilyfood.blogspot.com/2011/01/thermomixing-up-some-english-muffins.html
and proceeded to make it!
As I was looking for a recipe, I read other non thermo recipes and many left the dough to rise over night to create a sour dough muffin...yummmm!!!

Start by heating up 235g of milk 3mins/90degrees/sp1.

Add 25g sugar (it says white but I used raw sugar) and mix 10sec/sp2.

Pour into a bowl/jug and leave to cool.

Put 235g water into the jug and heat 1min30secs/50degrees/sp1 (doesn't need to get to 50degrees)

Take off lid and sprinkle 1 packet (7-8g) of yeast on top of the water, (make sure you sprinkle it around the blade, half of my yeast landed on the top of the blade and stuck there).

While your waiting for the yeast to wake up, melt 50g butter (pop lid back on and put a small bowl/jug on top and press the scales button, making sure the scales are zeroed before weighing the butter) in the microwave or on the stove top.

After 10 minutes, add the milk mixture, the melted butter the first half of 750g plain flour (so add 350g now) and mix to a smooth wet dough for about 20secs/sp6.

Add the rest of the flour and the salt and mix 10sec/sp4.

Knead for 3min/Interval sp (wheat symbol)

For quick muffins, let rise in the machine til double the size. Or leave over night and continue from here the next day.












Punch the dough down and turn onto a well floured bench or thermomat (floured with corn meal, purchased or pre made in thermo by milling plain dried corn kernels like popping corn kernels on sp9 until it has a grainy texture, like polenta)

















Push or roll into a large rectangle approx 3cm thick and cut out rounds using a scone/biscuit cutter, a large glass dipped in flour, or other round cutter available. Lay rounds out on a baking tray covered with baking paper well dusted with cornmeal and dust tops with the cornmeal also. Leave on tray to rise again, covered with a damp tea towel for about a 1/2 hour.






While the muffins are rising, make the hollandaise sauce in the thermo.












Put the butterfly attachment in the jug, and place 4 egg yolks, 130g cold butter, 1tsp lemon juice and a good pinch each of salt and pepper. Cook 8min/90°C/sp3, pour out and keep warm in your thermoserver or an insulated jug or something similar. I absently put the hollandaise sauce in the microwave on high (i was gas-bagging on the phone) and I ended up with oily scrambled eggs, it looked like yellow chunder, not cool!!





So DO NOT microwave the sauce unless it is able to heat at a very low temp and you stir it every few few seconds I suppose (I don't know much about microwaves so don't quote me on that, but that's how I would have done it if I had actually thought about it)!!





Heat a heavy based frypan with a lid to low/med and grease well. Place the muffins in the pan and pop the lid on for the first 5 mins and then flip the muffins every few minutes until they are cooked through. Repeat with remaining muffins until all cooked.





The dough the day after being left over night.






If I was doing this on the same morning as breakfast (I made my muffin dough one day, let rise over night and cooked them the next day and then toasted them for brekky the next day), I would put the eggs on to cook when the first lot of muffins are cooking away, the eggs need to be timed so that all the muffins are cooked, cooled slightly, split and toasted ready for when the eggs finish cooking.





To split the muffins, stab at intervals around the middle of the muffin and then carefully pull apart a little at a time as you turn it. This creates lots of lovely nooks and crannies for the butter and egg yolk to ooze into, yummm, it's so much better than cutting them open...boring!!

Poached eggs












Place as many eggs as you need in the steamer basket (make sure you use the spatula as your handle), 6-8 should fit, depending on the size of your eggs. Fill the jug with about a litre and half of water, lower basket in and top up to the 2 litre mark. Cook for 46min/60°C/sp3.
Serve immediately!!





While the poaching and muffin cooking is going on, whack another heavy based saucepan on the stove and cook up some bacon or ham if you like!! Wait until the eggs are about 10 mins off being finished.
You could also place ham on the toasted muffin for Ham Benedict.












- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Seriously Rustic Hot Cross Buns

As it is almost Easter I thought I'd give the EDC HCB a crack!!
I must admit that, while I love baking, I'm not extremely good at it. The flavors are always beautiful (thanks to the beast) but for me, it doesn't always look as good as it should, I'm somewhat of a slap dash cook so baking is not my forte!!
I like to think of myself as a 'rustic' baker, which is why most of my baking efforts require the word 'rustic' in it's title to prepare people for it's dodgy looks!!

Anyway, I just followed the EDC recipe with a few adjustments to suit my pantry.

There are quite a few ingredients so I'll give an ingredient list so you can make sure you have everything you need!!

20g citrus peel or glazed peel
250g warm milk
500g bakers flour
2 tsp salt
70g butter
45g sugar
1 egg
20g fresh yeast or 2 sachets of dry yeast (15g)
1 1/2 tsp each of ground cinnamon and nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cloves
100g sultanas
70g currants or dried cranberries
(I used about 220g mixed fruit, included mixed glazed peel, sultanas, glace cherries, and omitted the citrus peel and other fruits)


The fruit mix I used as it was in the cupboard already.

So first, if using, pulverize the peel for 10sec/sp10, remove and set aside.

Heat milk for 50sec/90° C/sp1.
Add all remaining ingredients except the currants and sultanas and mix 6sec/sp7.
Knead 3min/Interval sp (wheat symbol)

Add fruit and mix 10 sec/sp 5 (I mixed mine for a bit longer on 'reverse' as I didn't want my fruit to be cut any more)





Wrap the dough in your thermomat or in a lightly oiled bowl covered with a tea towel or glad wrap and set aside for a couple of hours, until the dough has risen and at least doubled in size.


When the dough is ready, roll into a long sausage and cut into 8-10 small pieces and roll into balls, place them closely together on your thermomat or on a baking paper lined tray and leave to rise for about 15 mins.


Preheat oven to about 220°C, (this is what the recipe says, but I thought my buns were a bit dark on the outside and still a bit under cooked on the inside, so I would preheat to 180-200°C next time) but it just depends on your oven.


Make the piping mixture while you wait. This includes 80g plain flour, pinch of salt, 1tsp light olive oil and 100g water, pop it all in and buzz it for 30sec/sp4.





The mixture needs to be quite thick, mine was a bit runny (but it looked rustic, right!!!). I poured the mix into a snap lock bag and then snipped the corner off to create a simple piping bag, but any plastic bag with a corner will work, or use a proper piping bag if you feel like cleaning it after.

Pipe the mixture on top of the buns and pop them in the oven for approx 15-20 mins.


When they are almost cooked, make the sugar syrup using 2 tblsp each of sugar and water and cook for 2min/100°C/sp4.
Brush the tops of the buns when they are still hot from the oven, and voila, the buns are done!!!


My motley crew of Hot Cross Buns!! Hmmm...rustic!! Slightly burnt and the big hunka chunka one is probably not cooked all the way through, but I'll let someone else discover that, hehe!!

These can be turned into a pull-apart loaf by mixing only half the fruit in, and after it's first rise, roll the dough to about 1cm thick, sprinkle with fruit and cut into slices, one long slice down the middle and then slice it up in 2-3 cm strips which are then concertina'd back and forth and placed on the side in a spring form tin and left to rise for about half an hour before baking. It is also bloody delicious served with honey butter, made in the thermo of course!!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

8 Minute Smoked Salmon Soup

I saw this at our first 'Team Rene' cooking class. I'm generally not a huge fan of smoked salmon but it smelt and tasted pretty damn good, and as I only got a tiny finger tip taste I went out the next day and bought all the ingredients to make it straight away as I am a soup freak!! It's not the most healthy or cheap soup, but is a rather decadent soup that can be whipped up in just a few minutes when your feeling indulgent or for a special occasion!! I must admit that as I used the potatoes as a thickening agent the soup had to be cooked for longer than the 8 mins but I think I figured I should try and get 'some' goodness in it (hmmm well I can dream can't I) so I used them instead of the full amount of cornflour (I did half and half) but if I were to make it again, I would use cooked potatoes (left over mash if u have any, or cook and mash the potatoes before you start the recipe) as the recipe states, or skip the potatoes and just go with the corn flour!!




So here are the ingredients for a normal batch.
500 gms milk
250 mls cream
100 gms tomato paste
3 potatoes or 30 gms cornflour
150-200 gms smoked salmon (in a packet). Keep some to the side if you want to have salmon chunks in the finished soup.
1 tblsp Thermomix vege stock concentrate
Finely chopped fresh dill to taste.


Pop all the ingredients except the smoked salmon and stock concentrate and dill in the bowl and cook for 8 minutes/100 degs/sp 3. When the timer gets down to 2 mins add the smoked salmon and stock concentrate through the hole while the machine is still cooking.
As I prefer smooth soups and because the potatoes were being cooked in the soup I cooked this soup for a good 25mins to make sure the potatoes were cooked and then whizzed (another technical term) it for a minute or so starting on speed 1 and slowly going up to speed 10 for 1 minute.


Oops!! This is what happens when u try and get clever and double the batch using potatoes instead of corn flour as a thickening agent!!

Because I over filled the jug (my bad) I emptied some of the cooking liquid into a Thermo server and continued to cook it, as the max liquid amount is 2L!!
I then processed the soup and added the soup liquid to the bowls before topping them up with the lovely thick smooth soup!! If you prefer it with more texture, add the salmon cut into strips that was kept aside and stir 10-20 seconds on sp 1.
Pour into bowls and sprinkle with the fresh dill!!

Because I was so excited to taste it, I completely forgot to take photos of the finished product!! But I can tell you it looked rather sexy in the bowl and tasted amazing, though quite rich, and it was seriously good when served with garlic bread!!!!
Yummmmmm!!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Grown-up Chocolate Custard

This custard is seriously decadent, it uses raw cacao (pronounced ca-cow) powder and muscavado sugar that gives the custard a 'rum and raisin' taste, this would be amazing served with fresh (or frozen I guess) raspberries, don't you think??


Raw cacao powder is like cocoa before it has been heat treated and had sugar added.




Muscavado sugar is very dark brown sugar that has not been refined. It has a strong molasses flavour and is used to make rum!!

I just followed the EDC custard recipe and substituted the normal sugar for muscavado sugar and added 20 grams of the raw cacao.



I milled 80 grams of the muscavado sugar and the raw cacao powder and 50 grams plain flour (or 30 grams corn flour) together 10secs/sp 9.



Then I added 500 grams of full cream milk (any milk works fine) and 2 eggs and cooked it 7mins/90 degs/sp 4



Pour it out into a container and devour!!

Like I said, this custard is very decadent and has a very grown-up taste to it, almost rum and raisin tasting!! The silky smooth texture is just divine!!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhoned

The Best Banana Bread

I got this recipe from my soon to be sister-in-law Lindy Loo, it can be made into muffins or be made into a loaf and enjoyed with some Thermomix butter or even some honey butter if you have a sweet tooth!! This is a great recipe for using up those super expensive and precious bananas that haven't been eaten and have gone brown, this recipe actually works much better with over ripe bananas like the ones below!! I found these in the fridge and should have frozen them (i peel and freeze bananas in snaplock bags) but I forgot about them til a week later!! So no matter how old they are (as long as they are not fermenting and festy) they are just fine for this recipe!!





Ummmmmm...no comment!!

I had 4 small bananas but 3 would be fine.

This cake is so quick, you'll need:

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees.

150 grams sugar (white or raw would be fine)
125 grams butter (room temp)
2 eggs
3-4 over ripe bananas
1 tsp vanilla bean paste (cake aisle of supermarket) or 1 whole vanilla bean milled with the sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tblsp milk
165 grams wholemeal SR flour (make your own by milling 165 grams whole wheat and adding 2 tsp baking 'powder' before starting the recipe)

Mill grain 1 min/sp10 (if using wholegrains) and baking powder and sift on turbo for a second (closed lid position on dial)

Set aside

Mill sugar (with vanilla bean if using) for 10sec/sp 9.

Add butter and mix 20sec/sp 5.



Add bananas and mix 10sec/sp 5.

Pop in the butterfly and add all remaining ingredients including the flour and mix 20secs/sp 4.

Pour into cake tin or muffin tins and bake for 15-20 mins for muffins and 35-44 mins for loaf or when a skewer comes out clean from middle of the cake!!


Enjoy on it's own, with butter or even warm with some ice cream, deeelicious!!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

The BEST Christmas EVERRRRRRRRRRRR!!

You are probably wondering why I'm talking about last Christmas, but it was ONLY the GREATEST day of my life!! I got the surprise of my life when my mum and dad bought me a tv for chrissy. THEN when I opened the box, I saw 'TM31' and was so stunned that I burst in to tears!! SERIOUSLY!!

I learned later that EVERYONE knew about it but me!!

Aaaaanyway, I used it sooo much, as we had both sides of the extended family up at our place for chrissy.

I made a couple of sauces for the prawns (Dad buys 20kg every year), some cocktails, a couple of loads of the most AMAZING mashed potatoes to go with the spanish 'carriella' (braised beef cheeks) and all sorts of bits and pieces that made everything so much easier!!

Because I couldn't WAIT to use it, I decided to help Dad make some beer mustard to add to their chrissy hampers.

We used black and yellow mustard, and soaked it over night in some dark beer, then we mixed and cooked it in the beast, as you can see, we 'slightly' over filled it, and at one point, I thought we'd broken it, when I hadn't even had it for 24 hours!!!

Errrmmm, my bad!!

I DO NOT recommend to overfill the jug (this was before I'd had delivery from my wonderful consultant). Hehe

Dad jarring the moutard.

I thought I'd just throw this photo in to make you carnivores jealous. This is pork knuckle (the hind knuckle) that I bought from the good fellows at 'The Corner Butcher'. I cooked it in the German style, with a whole lot of beer and wacked it in the pizza oven, it was bloody amaaaaaaazing!!!

Crunchie Icecream Slice

Hello hello hello

I spent the arvo with my doll of a cousin today, Manfa.  She had borrowed her mum's machince for a few days and enjoys making all the 'sweet stuff'!! While she slaved away chop chop chopping 10 humungous sweet potatoes, I busied myself by making a delicious ice cream slice. 

A tupperware container was lined with 'Malt 'o' Milk' biscuits.  The biscuits didn't quite fit the base, but that was fine, as the mixture was thick enough to prevent an unsightly and unfortunate ooze!!

The Crunchie/Violet Crumble (with half missing...Josko!!!) was crushed in the thermo using the turbo button a couple of times in closed lid position.  This was then set aside in a bowl for later.

I popped 100g sugar, 10g cocoa (the recipe calls for 30g, but Sam preferred it with less cocoa), and an egg in the bowl and milled it for 20 sec on speed 10.

I then put the butterfly in, poured in the 600gms of cream and whipped it on speed 4 for about 1 minute, at this point, the crunchie could have been added in to be mixed into the mixture, thought Sam prefers it sprinkled on top of the mixture.

I carefully splodged (technical term!!) the mixture evenly on the biscuits, trying to make sure that the mixture touched every biscuit so they stayed together and didn't move around before I gently smoothed it down to create a level surface.

I sprinkled the Crunchi mixture on top.

Mmmm...delicious!!

And then the jigsaw begins, make sure you place the top biscuits to match the biscuits underneath so you are able to get a 'sandwich' style piece when you are ready to serve it.

\

After I'd finished, we put the lid on and popped it in the freezer...I'm hoping Sam will save me a piece for the next time I randomly pop over for a visit!!

Yummoooooooo!!