food hits and misses

Another family birthday, another cake to make. This one for little bloke's favourite uncle. He requested a jaffa cake, but I'm a bit over chocolate at the moment, so decided to emphasise the orange instead. The end result has the chocolate and orange flavours, without giving anyone a cocoa overdose.

Chocolate orange cake

Cake

6 eggs
1 cup caster sugar
2 oranges - juice and zest
3/4 cup butter
3 cups SR flour

Orange syrup

1 orange, juiced
4 tbspn caster sugar

Ganache

2 cups cream
700g dark chocolate
1 tspn orange essence

Method

Preheat oven to 180 Celsius. Grease and flour 2 x 20 cm sandwich pans. Beat eggs and sugar together until light and fluffy. Melt the butter and allow to cool, before mixing in orange juice and zest. Slowly add to egg mixture, mixing and low speed. Sift flour and gradually add to cake mixture. Pour into prepared pans and bake 25 - 30 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Allow to cool slightly before turning out on to cake rack. Meanwhile, mix sugar and juice together over low heat. Bring to simmering point, stirring to prevent burning. Set aside to cool. Add orange essence to cream and heat slowly. Add chocolate and stir until smooth. Allow to cool and thicken. To assemble, brush both cakes with orange syrup. Sandwich with ganache, and top with remaining ganache.

Winter time brings out the baker in me, especially when it's cold and wet outside. Since I've been doing so much cake decorating, I'm almost sick of cake. So, the past two weekends I've made biscuits instead. Today's effort comes from the back of the Hershey's Cinnamon Chips packet, translated into Australian and changed just a little bit to add stuff we like and discard the stuff we don't. They spread a long way and make a thin, crispy biscuit. Keep your spoonfuls on the small side to avoid ending up with monster cookies.

Oatmeal Cinnamon Chip Cookies

2 cups butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 tspn vanilla bean paste
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1 tspn bicarbonate of soda
2 1/2 cups rolled oats
3/4 cup dried apple, roughly chopped
1 x 240g packet cinnamon chips

Method

Preheat oven to 180 C. Line a biscuit sheet with baking paper. Cream the butter and sugars together until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well to combine. Add vanilla and mix through. Sift together flour and bicarb soda. Add to butter mix and continue mixing. Stir through apple and cinnamon chips. Drop teaspoons of mixture onto lined baking tray. Cook 10 - 15 minutes until golden brown.

It seems like every day is busier than the last at the moment. That, coupled with the way winter has hit with a vengeance, made getting the slow cooker out seem like a good idea. And so that's exactly what I did yesterday.

I've never done fish in a slow cooker before. It has always seemed like a bit of a waste given you can cook it up in next to no time on a bbq, in a fry pan or in a steamer. But I really felt like stew, and didn't want to spend a mountain of time checking or stirring dinner. The result was just perfect for a freezing night, took very little effort, and was pretty healthy compared to some comfort food.

We had flathead in the freezer, so that's what went in the cooker. I reckon one of the stronger tasting, firmer fish like barramundi or even swordfish would come up a treat.

Fish and capsicum stew

750g fish fillets, cubed
1 leek, thinly sliced
2 capsicum, seeded and sliced
1 tin tomatoes, crushed
300 ml fish stock
1 tspn ground turmeric
1 tspn ground cumin
1/4 preserved lemon, finely chopped
2 tbspn cornflour

Method

Place everything apart from the cornflour in the slow cooker and turn on to high for around 2 hours, or until fish is cooked. Remove some of the liquid and mic with cornflour to form a paste. Stir through stew, and continue cooking until mixture boils and thickens. Serve with brown rice.