Easter Time

Finally what you have all been waiting for, Lush’s first recipe blog post.

Easter is one of my favourite times of the year – the joy of the Easter Egg Hunt, eating chocolate (especially if you gave it up for lent), and the public holidays in which to spend some much needed time in the kitchen cooking for friends and loved ones.

This year I decided to venture away from the traditional Easter delights, and incorporate the Easter Egg in a more inventive dessert – and voilà – the Easter Egg Cupcake is born.

To start – use your favorite chocolate cupcake recipe and icing recipe, I recommend using:

CUPCAKES:

Raspberri Cupcakes adaptation of Nigella Lawson's Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake (since they already converted a great cake recipe into cupcakes).

Ingredients:

• 100g plain flour
• 100g caster sugar
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp bicarb soda
• 20g Dutch process cocoa powder
• 85g unsalted butter, softened
• 75g sour cream
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract 

 

Method:  

Sourced from Raspberri Cupcakes website

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.
2. Place flour, caster sugar, baking powder, bicarb soda, cocoa, butter, sour cream, egg and vanilla (aka all ingredients) into a food processor .
3. Pulse until all the ingredients come together and you have a smooth, thick batter
4. (If you are using a hand mixer instead: just mix the flour, sugar and leavening agents in a large bowl and beat in the soft butter until you have a combined and creamy mixture. Now whisk together the cocoa, sour cream, vanilla and eggs and beat this into your bowl of mixture)
5. Spoon the batter into a lined mini muffin tray (about 3/4 full) and bake for about 10 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean and the cake springs back slightly under your finger when you press it gently.
6. Remove from the tray and cool completely on a wire rack.

Alternatively Raspberri Cupcakes devils foodcake cupcakes – adapted from David Lebovitz's Devil's Food Cake recipe also works a treat.

ICING:

I used Nigella Lawson's recommended icing recipe from her Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake recipe, I mean why reinvent the wheel when someone has already perfected it.

Ingredients:

• 75g unsalted butter
• 175g best quality dark chocolate, broken into small pieces
• 300g icing sugar
• 1 tablespoon golden syrup
• 125ml sour cream
• 1 teaspoon real vanilla extract

Method:   

Sourced from:Nigella Lawson's website

1. Take everything out of the fridge so that all the ingredients can come to room temperature.
2. To make this icing, melt the butter and chocolate in a good-sized bowl either in the microwave or suspended over a pan of simmering water. Go slowly either way: you don't want any burning or seizing.
3. While the chocolate and butter are cooling a little, sieve the icing sugar into another bowl. Or, easier still, put the icing sugar into the food processor and blitz. (to remove the lumps)
4. Add the golden syrup to the cooled chocolate mixture, followed by the sour cream and vanilla until all combined
5. Then whisk in the sieved icing sugar. Or just pour this mixture down the funnel of the food processor on to the icing sugar, with the motor running.
6. You may need to add a little boiling water - say a teaspoon or so - or indeed some more icing sugar: it depends on whether you need the icing to be runnier or thicker; or indeed it may be right as it is. It should be liquid enough to coat easily, but thick enough not to drip off.

Decorating:

Ingredients:

• 4 x Cadbury Flakes
• 1.5 dozen Mini Easter Eggs – various colour wrapping

 

Method: 

• Once the cupcakes have cooled, use a pipping bag (alternatively a ziplock with the corner cut off works a treat) to apply the icing (room temp) on top – about one cm thick evenly across the top (don’t worry if it is messy).
• Next – break up the flakes into 3-4 cm pieces, and half the thickness, and building in a donut pattern around the top of the cupcake a bird nest (pushing them into the icing to hold in place)
• Last – place three Easter Eggs in the center of the “flake nest” to create the final Easter touch (alternatively you can use Cadbury mini eggs for a softer pastel colour look).

Serve with Coffee and forks.

Lush

Pei Modern

What: Pei Modern
Where: Collins Place, 45 Collins Street

Chef Menu (that day at least):

• Gazpacho with Blue Swimmer Crab  (see picture)
• Bullhorm Peppers, grilled Ox Heart & Harissa
• Streamed Barramundi, Sea Urchin Butter & Sweet Corn
• Coffee Sorbet w/ Chocolate Sponge

Wine:

• 2011 Enigma ‘Variations’, Syrah Rose (suited the meal wonderfully - its more full bodied than a white, but clean and light enough to eat with Seafood)

Review
The chef menu is set (but they will make alterations if you have dietary allergies) – as we had to in our case.

The Gazpacho was delicious, the coriander, grapes and parsley perfectly complimented the cold soup and blue swimmer crab chunks.

Ox Heart (which I had never tried before) was tender and delicious. However I did think the texture of the pepper seeds was not harmonious to the rest of the meal (therefore suggest scrapping them out when eating the dish).

The barramundi was perfectly cooked, but beware the Sea Urchin Butter is very fishy (to me the sea urchin tastes as intensely of sea as wheat grass does of grass). However it complimented the dish wonderfully – so glad I tried it, because I normally would not have ordered it.

Dessert of coffee sorbet with Chocolate sponge crumbs was wonderful. However – the caramelized tomato dessert which my friend had (as she is allergic to chocolate) looked amazing, and when I sampled it – this was the true winner of the day. Amazingly creative and flavorful!

Lush

Crumpets

There is nothing better than waking up to a fresh cup of coffee (long black thanks) and enjoying a fresh, warm crumpet slathered with homemade jam. Now, you might not be aware of this, but you can actually make crumpets - scandalous I know - especially on a food blog. However they do take at least an hour to make so if you're planning on breakfast in bed, I'd suggest making these in advance and stocking the freezer.

I was first inspired to make crumpets by my favourite blog Trotski & Ash, but was put off by the 3 hour preparation time. Luckily, last weekend Lush & I had the offer of a holiday house on the Mornington Peninsula that came with it's own Thermomix (TM). For those of you who haven't heard of this ridiculously expensive wonder machine (AU$2000!); it is a kitchen in itself. I won't go on a sales pitch now, but suffice to say that once I have my own house, with more than one powerpoint in the kitchen, I will be investing in a TM - possibly adding it into a sizable mortgage.


Back to the crumpets: TM ready to go I followed the instructions of Thermomixer and closer to 2 hours later had my (and 3 other peoples) breakfasts on the table. A TM isn't necessary for this recipe other than to save you some muscle work so I've put the instructions for both below.

Ingredients:

• 375g plain flour
• 1/2 tsp caster sugar
• 1 tsp dried yeast
• 300ml warm milk
• 200ml warm water
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp bicarb soda

Method:

Mix 1 tbsp of the flour, all the sugar and yeast with 100ml of the milk until combined. It should become frothy. If using a TM, mix for 3 minutes at 37°C on speed 2.

Add remaining flour (roughly 350g), 200ml milk, water, egg and salt and combine [10 seconds on speed 7].

You should have quite a thick batter, add more warm water if needed and mix the mixture again. Or for 8 minutes at 37°C on speed 1.

Leave the mixture to prove (rise) for at least 1 hour; the surface should be covered in bubbles.

Dissolve the the bicarb soda in a few tsps of warm water and add to the mixture. Beat vigorously for a few minutes to whip as much air in as possible. For the TM gradually increase the speed to beat the mixture for 2 minutes at speed 5. Leave for another 30mins or so.

If like my mixture yours is a bit gluey and without bubbles, add another glug of warm water and beat just before using.

I prefer my crumpets free-form, but if you like uniformity then oil some egg rings and place in a hot oiled frypan.

On a medium to low heat, cook batter for 5 -10 mins, or until the surface is dry and is full of holes. Remember that the mixture will rise so don't fill your rings too much! We ended up cutting ours in half.

For a bit of crunch briefly cook the top as well.

Serve warm with butter and your favourite topping (homemade apricot jam is mine!)

Freeze any leftover and toast when you want to enjoy them.


Glutton