Elise's Kitchen

Destination: The Fat Duck

One of the great adventures of travel for me is the magical view of a new country when seen from the clouds; ‘tis almost dreamlike in its perspective, and arriving into London I was blessed to enjoy that great rarity of Great Britain, a blue cloudless sky which showcased the patchwork of forest green countryside and staccato sunshine rapeseed rhomboids, knitted together with a tufty thread of hedgerow and leaf. From the seat of a train bound for Maidenhead I could appreciate further the fresh spring green and moments of lingering cream blossom which adorn the British countryside. Maidenhead is the home of The Fat Duck, the restaurant belonging to celebrity chef, food scientist and all around genius Heston Blumenthal.
The Fat Duck sits in a wealthy little village, in a humble brick building rubbing shoulders with million pound country estates and mansions. Although the restaurant interior is that of an upperclass restaurant furnished in the late nineties; all white table cloth, plastered walls, sculptural fireplaces and small floral table pieces, the dated decor ends there. The cutlery and crockery, not to mention branded packaging of each little culinary delight, is modern and beautiful with exact attention to detail.
To call this experience a meal is an understatement. To eat at The Fat Duck is an experience of a lifetime. It is the culmination of food imagination. It is a sensory extravaganza, so much so that after 4 hours of wining, dining and exclaiming, one becomes quite fatigued. A fatigue worth enduring of course.
To describe each dish (all 15 of them) would require an essay, one which my vocabulary certainly won’t do justice to, or perhaps my memory. Although they did send us home with a duplicate menu all bound in a satiny white envelope and a wax seal embossed with the restaurants logo, such is their understanding of the special nature of dining at The Fat Duck. My absolute favourite dish was the red cabbage gazpacho with mustard ice cream. Mustard ice cream you exclaim? Heston turns food on its head, he makes hot things cold, drinks hot and cold simultaneously and playing cards edible, all the while ensuring each moment is delicious!
I do fear the experience was lost on a few of our fellow diners…a man at the table next to us shotted his hot and cold tea in one mouthful, seeming to miss the purpose of the tea in which each sip was hot in one half of the mouth, cold in the other.
Well not a moment of the experience was missed on me, from the unpasturised butter rich as cream, to the apple tart flavoured toffee in an edible wrapper and certainly not the mock turtle soup, one of my edible dreams come true.
I can’t wait to see how Heston continues to take dreams and make them reality, edible reality. It’s unlikely I will get to experience his food firsthand again, but reading his books and watching his shows will suffice until I can dream again.

Early Autumn Cake

I’ve had a craving for a pear and walnut cake since these beautiful lingering autumn days started; the foggy breath of the morning lifting to clean blue skies striped by cirrus, the sweet and comforting smell of fallen leaves on freshly damp earth, the crisp cleanness of morning yielding to soul warming sun in the afternoon and the arrival of pears and feijoas in the fruit bowl. It takes me straight back to childhood memories of gumboots, pin oaks and mud under the walnut tree. I think of traipsing through paddocks to collect feijoas from the ground, deftly kicking away any cowpats claiming feijoas of their own. Autumn is the season of delight (sans cowpats), and like the bitter sweetness of the gloaming it leaves one relishing every last moment before winter digs its toes in for a long trimester. This cake is all caramel, fruit and slight savoury crunch of nut. If you can take the time to get panela from your local health food store, your palate will certainly thank you for it, this unrefined sugar is where the notes of caramel and molasses come from and the cake wouldn’t be as autumnal without it.

290g chopped and peeled pears (approx 1.5 large firm pears)
70g walnuts
3 eggs
165g butter softened
165g panela (a form of unrefined sugar, use brown sugar to subsitute)
165g spelt flour (sifted) (plain flour if no spelt around)
1tsp baking powder
1tsp vanilla essence
Zest of 1/4 lemon
Icing sugar to dust (1/2 tsp), double cream to serve (1 tsp per piece)

Grease and line a square cake tin 21cm diameter, preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (160 degrees for fan forced). Cream butter and sugar - be patient, it will take a few minutes to come together; it’s nicely creamed when it is the colour of a brown paper bag…mmm appetising. Add eggs one at a time, don’t be concerned if the mixture separates at this point, add vanilla and zest and mix well. Fold the flour in half way, add nuts and pears and continue folding until the batter is smooth and the fruit is well coated by the cake batter. Smooth into the cake tin as well as you can. Bake for 30 minutes, check if skewer comes out clean, cool in tin for 5 minutes before cooling on rack for a further 5-10 and dust with icing sugar so it looks like the first fall of snow on bare ground. Do yourself a favour and serve the cake warm with a dollop of double cream on top.

Buon appetito

Tis the season of Easter, and as this season becomes ever more choco-centric, we slip further and further from the true celebration of Easter. I am thankful that hot cross buns still exist as they point ever so subtly to the reason for the season…The Cross of Christ.
In the past few years, since leaving the comfortable smells of home and familiar tradition, I’ve embarked on the adventure that is starting ones own traditions. And hand made hot cross buns is it!
Buns from the supermarket are superfluously fluffy, scrimping on spice and fruit to make the bun more palatable for naive tastebuds. The kind of taste buds that believe Cadbury cream eggs are still the same.
So I have become strict in my hot cross production….they must have spice, they must have fruit and they must have love.
I have made and remade these buns to produce a recipe I feel is reliable and above all delicious! This recipe also has a lovely heritage, being handed down from my mother, who received it as a teenager…the first edition of this book it comes from was printed (on a type writer) in 1979. I have adapted it significantly to make it spicier, fruitier and fluffier.
Hot cross buns take time and are a labour of love which everyone who eats one will see. I hope they point to you freshly to the true meaning of Easter.

As in all baking, weighing your ingredients will have a much more reliable outcome, but for those lacking in kitchen scales,I have given you cups and spoon measurements also.

Handmade Hot Cross Buns
(approx 3 hours to make from start)

Ingredients
200ml milk
100ml boiling water
17g instant dried yeast
450g white flour ( 3.5 cups)
60g brown sugar ( 4 tbsp)
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ascorbic acid (unflavoured, can be purchased cheaply from the chemist, 1g = 1000mg)
15 g butter (1 tbsp)
200g sultanas or mixed fruit (just under 1 and 1/3 cup)
2 tbsp mixed spice
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp Garam masala

Put milk and water into a jug to give you 300ml of lukewarm water, add the yeast, stir and leave to froth slightly.

In a bowl mix flour, sugar, salt, ascorbic acid, and rub in butter. Mix in spices and fruit. Add yeast liquid mixing thoroughly and finish off by hand.

Knead dough on a lightly floured bench (don’t be tempted to keep adding flour as this will make the dough heavy) for 15 minutes - its a great shoulder workout. The fruit will keep escaping you but just shove it back into the dough at the end. The dough should be elastic and smooth and spring back gently when pressed.

Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl and turn once to grease the top. Cover with a clean tea towel and leave to rest in a warm place for 15 mins. My warm place is the oven which has been on the lowest temperature for 10mins and then turned off.

After resting, cut the dough into 12 equal pieces, draw up the edges and pinch the bottoms together to make a seam. Place seam side down on a lined baking tray. For soft sided buns place them 1 finger width apart. Cover with a clean tea towel and return to the warm place until almost double in size (about 90 mins).

Cross mixture

2 tbsp each of cornflour, flour and milk
1/4 tsp baking powder
Pinch salt

Mix together to form a thick smooth batter (a little more flour may be needed). Place into a zip lock bag and snip the corner off, pipe crosses on the buns

Preheat the oven to 220 degrees, if you have a pizza stone, get this hot in the oven at the same time. Transfer dough onto pizza stone and bake for 10 mins, reduce heat to 180 degrees and bake for 5 mins. If your buns were a little small, bake for slightly less than 5 mins.

Remove from oven and glaze while hot with a mixture of 2 tbsp boiling water, 2 tsp sugar and a pinch of salt basted on with a pastry brush.

Enjoy warm or toasted with salted butter

Buon apetitto

125g flavourless oil (like ricebran or vegetable), approx 3/4 cup of oil
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup best quality cocoa (as there is no chocolate in this recipe it’s essential to use delightfully rich cocoa)
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla essence
A pinch of salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 c plain flour
2 small handfuls each of mixed dried fruit and roasted peanuts

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees normal bake (160 degrees on a fan forced oven)

Gently warm oil in a saucepan over a low heat and stir through sugar until softened and combined, add cocoa and vanilla essence and remove from heat stirring well.  When cooled ever so slightly add the egg, mixing well.  It will all be a bit gloopy but fear not and press on.  Add the dry ingredients after lightly sifting them, and then mix through the fruit and nuts.  The mixture should be smooth, thick and sticky.

Pour into a buttered and floured tin…or baking paper lined tin.  Bake for 25 minutes until the top and edges look set and cooked.  Remove from the oven when it’s smelling like brownie, and leave to cool completely before removing from the tin and slicing.  This is a super chewy centered brownie.  I like it 2 days after it’s out of the oven, my husband enjoys the brownie still warm (except that’s cheating).  A delightful alternative is replacing the fruit and nuts with white chocolate bits! 

Buon appetito