Spicy Cointreau and Fruit Pudding

I was just going through some old pictures on my phone and found this photo of a fantastic pudding myself and one of my girlfriends made on an amazing camping/cooking holiday on Lady Musgrave Island. This pudding is a favorite food memory of mine and I hope it seduces your senses as it did mine.

Ingredients:

1 kg sultanas
600g dried apricots
2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger
2 teaspoonful cumin
2 teaspoonful cinnamon
2 teaspoonful nutmeg
3 teaspoonful bicarb
6 eggs
2 cups flour
250g butter
2 cups brown sugar
1 cup cointreau
100g slivered almonds

This pudding was made in a double boiler and was devoured within minutes. The double boiler used was quite large to accommodate the number of us camping so feel free to reduce the recipe and use a smaller pot. We served this with vanilla custard which I highly recommend. 

Method

Soak dried fruit in a generous amount of cointreau and set aside

Cream butter and brown sugar until pale and thick, whisk your eggs then add them to the butter and sugar, stir them through until you have a silky mix

Mix in the spices, slivered almonds and bicarbonate of soda, tip the soaked fruit into the mix and stir it through.

Sift in the flour and stir it through, making sure it is mixed in well

Pour the batter into a greased double boiler and Cook in on a medium heat for 3 to 4 hours

Spatchcock

I decided to make a romantic dinner for my handsome boyfriend and I generally couple this idea with an excuse to cook something that I would never eat myself I’m not the biggest fan of cuisine of the fleshy kind but I absolutely love to cook it and furthermore would love to advance my butchery skills, you never know one day I may even partake in the end product.

Firstly, there seems to be some confusion about what spatchcock is so allow me to clarify if you will. Spatchcock typically refers to baby chicken. Spatchcock is also a cooking term referring to a chicken or game bird that has been split down the back bone and butterflied for grilling or barbequing. On this occasion I was cooking the little wrinkly baby chicken kind. The sides I served it with are really quite simple so let me first talk about the preparation, I decided to quarter mine.

Firstly un-wrap your delicate little bird and you may, as I did, discover that the neck is still attached, you should really remove this even if it’s just for presentation purposes as it looks rather creepy. The next thing to do is open up the cavity of the bird a little and see if you can get a good kitchen knife inside, you want to be cutting down the middle of the back bone. After the unnerving amount of crunching you will have a butterflied bird. You can use kitchen shears for the rest. The wing and breast will come away from the thigh quite easily if you follow the rib line.

To cook your bird you need to first render out some of the fat from the skin by placing it skin down onto a hot pan

Cook the little birdie until the skin is nice and golden then turn the pieces over and pop them into a preheated oven at 180 degrees for about 15 mins but keep an eye out because it really doesn’t take long

I served mine with a sweet potato mash with a hint of freshly grated nutmeg, some quickly wok tossed snow peas with a sprinkle of sesame seeds and a good dollop of my plumb and ginger sauce (if anyone is interested I am happy to post the recipe of the plumb sauce) there was little left on the plate so I reserve the right to conclude it was a success.

The Dreaded Sponge

The dreaded sponge has been something that has plagued me for years. Previously mine have always turned out more like sweet frittatas than lovely light fluffy clouds of cake, this is something I have been meaning to remedy… So I decided IT JUST CAN’T BE THAT HARD! I looked at several recipes and decided I’d put them all aside and make up my own and low and behold, I made sponge.

The day of this attempt was 40˚c and my best girlfriend told me it was just crazy talk attempting sponge on such a desperately hot and sticky day so true to form I took her wise suggestion and used it as all the inspiration that my stubborn being needed to prove everyone wrong! I set about my task with a little newly acquired knowledge, a fair lack in skill and a bucket load of determination, not to mention 4 organic eggs at room temperature (40˚c) needless to say all of which were desperately clinging to their liquid form. 

There is a bit of science in this one so allow me a small amount of time to explain. Self raising flour is just plain flour mixed with some baking powder ( I never buy it as I never get the same result as adding my own baking powder), baking powder is a combination of cream of tartar and bicarbonate of soda….. so as it was such a hot day I wanted to use the cream of tartar separately to stabilise the egg whites and allow them to go nice and stiff, therefore I have added some bicarb and some baking powder to the dry ingredients to even out the mix so in fact the recipe actually ends up with a total of about two heaped tsp of baking powder overall.

Now for those of you who haven’t already nodded off below is my recipe, give it a go I hope it gives all of those who have always struggled with this precious little cake a new found love of baking it.

                                                                           

Ingredients:

4 eggs separated

½ cup caster sugar

½ cup plain flour

½ cup corn flour

1 heaped tsp cream of tartar

1 level tsp bicarb soda

1 level tsp baking flour

50g butter

1 dessert spoon of vanilla extract (as opposed to vanilla essence)

Picture by Jamieanne

Method:

First you need to grease and line two spring form tins and set your oven to 180˚c – if you are making lamingtons just grease and line one small to medium lamington tray and vary the baking time slightly.

Cream the egg yolks with half of the caster sugar until they are thick and creamy, turning almost white in colour.

Melt your butter, mix it with vanilla extract and set it aside

Beat your egg whites with the cream of tartar until tripled in size then gradually add the sugar while beating until mix forms stiff peaks

Gently fold the yolk mixture into the whites

Sift the remaining dry ingredients into the egg mix and softly fold it through until there are no lumps and bumps but do not overwork it!

Now pour your melted butter and vanilla in and repeat the gentle action of folding. The batter will now start to become really silky and shiny

Pour half the mix into each tin and bake for about 15mins making sure a skewer comes out clean. Or pour the whole mix into a lamington tin and bake for 15-20mins

These cakes should be taken out of their tins quite quickly and allowed to cool to prevent continuing cooking from the hot tins.

To serve either fill the middle with cream and berries or do what I did and dip them in a chocolate icing mix and dust them in coconut to make the good old fashioned lamington, either would be the perfect afternoon tea for a hot summer’s day.