No TWD for me this week

I am sad to say that for the 4th time in 13 months I wasnt able to complete this week's TWD challenge. We were moving over the weekend and our house is not quite finished, so I dont really have a properly functioning kitchen just yet. I aim to be back on the TWD wagon next week.

One thing I did do in the weekend though was take my 5 year old niece to a cupcake decorating class. We made Easter bunny cupcakes and that is my one above.

Happy Easter!

I havent had much time for baking this week with packing to move and a million other things going on! So this is a very short post. I made these Easter egg cookies in the weekend to send in a gift box I was putting together and also for my 5 year old niece who is visiting with my Mum over Easter. I hope you have a great Easter break

You Want Pies with That - April

The You Want Pies With That theme for April was Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. It took me a lot of thinking to come up with my pie for this theme, but I was really pleased with the results. Be warned, there is a big story that follows.

For those of my overseas readers who don’t know the history of my country, New Zealand was colonised by the English in the early nineteenth century and was part of the British empire (and now part of the Commonwealth). The Queen is still our reigning monarch and I think she is one of the world’s rich and famous. Now, back in 2004 my husband and I spent some time in Europe and part of that was about three weeks in total staying with friends in London. One particularly memorable, trip we took was to Windsor, a beautiful village just outside of London which is home to Windsor Castle. Going to Windsor Castle was just amazing. The history is incredible (incidentally I have a history degree as well as my law degree – history is my passion). But one of the other incredible things about Windsor was the fudge.

There is the most amazing fudge making shop in Windsor. Actually, I think that there are these fudge shops all over England – we spotted one in Bath as well. The varieties are delicious and you can actually see them making the fudge on a huge marble slab – there is an amazing technique which you have to see to believe. But the taste! Honestly, this is some of the best fudge I have ever tasted. So good that we spent 12 pounds on a box of fudge (roughly NZD $36). So, whenever I think of Windsor castle (where the Queen resides at Easter I think), I think of the fudge we ate in Windsor!

So, my pie for this month is Fudge cheesecake pie with a toffee sauce. I made 4 little individual pies but you could do 3 times the mixture to make a large 22 cm round pie. See how others interpreted the theme here.

Windsor Castle Fudge cheesecake pie

125g crushed wine biscuits (Graham crackers)
75g melted butter
80g cream cheese
80g natural yoghurt
120g white chocolate, melted
50g chopped Russian fudge (make your own or cheat and buy it like I did)
80g brown sugar
50 extra grams butter
80ml cream

· Heat cream, second measure of butter and brown sugar together, stirring until the sugar has dissolved, then simmer for 5 minutes until thick. Set aside to cool
· Combine crushed biscuits with melted butter, and press into the base of 4 muffin sized moulds. Chill
· Beat cream cheese and yoghurt, then beat in melted chocolate
· Stir in diced Russian fudge and swirl through caramel sauce, reserving some for the topping.
· Spoon cream cheese mixture over the biscuit bases and chill for at least 3 hours
Serve with extra caramel sauce over the top of each pie

TWD - Banana Cream Pie

Ok, this is another bad photo of a really yummy dessert. This week’s TWD recipe was chosen by Amy of Sing for your Supper and is Banana Cream Pie. This was delicious and definitely a dessert I would make again. It was a little bit like banoffee pie but with a spiced, caramel custard instead of the caramel filling. I do prefer banoffee pie as caramel is one of those things I just cant resist, but this pie was a pretty good second choice.

The pie uses Dorie’s good for everything pie crust. I think if I was making it again I would use Dorie’s go to tart crust recipe – I prefer my sweet crusts to have an egg yolk in them as I think it gives a lighter and crisper effect. The custard was made in the usual way with milk (I used calci trim which is a low fat, high calcium variety and it worked fine) and egg yolks, but uses brown sugar and a hint of cinnamon and nutmeg. I actually left the nutmeg out – only because I was too lazy to grate it! The custard was lovely and caramelly due to the brown sugar instead of white and I think cinnamon is a great spice to use with bananas. You spread half the custard onto the cooked pie crust, then sliced bananas over top, smoothed over the rest of the custard and finally topped the lot with some whipped cream combined with a little natural yoghurt (it was meant to be sour cream, but I hardly ever buy sour cream as the consistency of Cyclops natural yoghurt is similar and it is a lot better for you).

Caramel custard and cream, what could be better! I actually made this pie in a long tart tin and just made 2/3 of the custard. I did use the whole amount of the cream topping though as I wanted to make sure I had enough – I think I could have gotten away with using less cream, because while it was delicious it did take over a little. I will make this pie again though.

Check out what the other TWDers thought here.

A Versatile Loaf

I really like the versatility of loaves. They are delicious warm, straight out of the oven, but I also love them toasted with yoghurt. I usually tend to slice up the whole loaf and then freeze it in a zip lock bag – that way you can take out one piece at a time. I love gingerbread loaf as part of a cheese platter with blue cheese and I have also used leftover banana loaf to make French toast.

This loaf is a toasted coconut and vanilla loaf. It was super easy to mix up and toasting the coconut really brings out the coconut flavour. The recipe uses a combination of vanilla extract and vanilla paste giving the lovely little flecks of vanilla seeds through the loaf. The recipe suggested serving the loaf with maple syrup and yoghurt, which I did and it was the perfect accompaniment.



My favourite meal is salmon and it is what I often cook if it is just the two of us for dinner on a Saturday night. This weekend was a fairly quiet one socially, so it was salmon for dinner on Saturday night. I cooked it quite simply, wrapping it in prosciutto and drizzling with balsamic vinegar and roasting. We had it with a very simple salad and crispy oven roasted potatoes.

Toasted Coconut & Vanilla Loaf (Allyson Gofton from Taste magazine)

100g butter
3/4 c sugar
1 tsp each vanilla extract and vanilla paste
2 eggs
2 c self raising flour
1 c thread coconut, toasted
1/2 c natural yoghurt
1/2 c milk

- cream butter, sugar and vanillas. Beat in eggs, one at a time
- fold in remaining ingredients and pour batter into a lined loaf tin
- bake at 180c for 45-55 minutes or until the blade of a thin knife comes out clean
- cool on a rack

Cookies & Q

We went to a wedding in Matarangi in the weekend. It is the most beautiful place – white, white sand and beautiful clear blue water. We had a fabulous time and the weather was stunning. I made the cookies above for the bride and groom. I thought they were quite cute.

Last night I had to take a client to dinner and I chose Q Restaurant at the Westin hotel in the viaduct. It was wonderful! The meal was very delicious – lots of wonderful flavours. The service was a little bit average, but not too bad. We went the whole hog, having an entrée, main and dessert.

My entrée was pumpkin ravioli with sage butter. It was delicious. Lots of parmesan cheese and delicately flavoured pumpkin filling. Perhaps a little more butter than I would have liked, and I didn’t think it was “burnt” enough – you know when you cook butter to a nut brown colour to give it more flavour, I don’t think it was left to brown enough.

My main was divine. I had seared tuna which was served on a small pasta bed, flavoured with olives and pesto. The flavours were delicious and each mouthful was truly a taste sensation. The tuna was seared to perfection – still very rare but not so it was raw in the middle. This was my favourite course. Apart from the ice cream…

Two scoops of the creamiest gelato chocka full of macadamia nuts and white chocolate. It came with a delicate tuile biscuit.

Not quite as good as the French Café, but I would certainly rate Q Restaurant as one of the best I have been to.

A taste of Quince

Because we have been renting and have only had about 1/3 of my kitchen equipment with us, I have not gone full swing into the jam and relish making that I normally do this time of year. However, I have this fascination with quinces and each year I do try and make something with quince. Quinces are a delightful, old fashioned fruit. They look a bit like a cross between an apple and a pear, but they are hard and inedible without cooking them. Slow cooking turns them the most amazing deep red colour and they have a wonderful perfume. They truly are the most incredible fruit.

Most often I make quince jelly which is fabulous on a cheese board and some quince glaze which is like a reduced quince syrup that you can use on ice-cream, to glaze chicken pieces, to brush over a hot tart, etc. Last year for the first time I made quince paste, which I love. I have read how difficult it is to make quince paste, as it takes a long time to thicken enough to make a paste and spits and hisses at you the whole time as you stir the stuff.

However, I used a recipe which was on the foodlovers web site for microwave quince paste. I made this last year and a friend brought some quinces back from the Hawkes Bay and so I made some more a couple of weeks ago. The microwave quince paste is so easy. You simmer your quinces for 3 hours, then puree the flesh in a food processor, add equal amounts of sugar and then microwave, stirring every ten minutes until the paste is thick. The nice part about this recipe is that you can use the leftover simmering water to make quince jelly – which is pictured above.

Next year, or maybe in April or May when I am back in a fully functioning kitchen (actually more than fully functioning as it has two ovens, two dishwashers, two sinks and a large scullery – I am so excited!!!) I would like to try the same method with pears and apples. I wouldn’t simmer the fruit for as long, but I think the same principles would apply. If you do get hold of some quince though, this is a fabulous way to make the delicious flavour last for the whole year.