Easter prettiness

I love holiday-themed foods. Being inspired by things I find online, in magazines and in my beloved cookbooks always encourages me to push my own creative boundaries and try my hand at seasonal goodies to be shared with friends and family.

A staple of my gift-giving (and my entrepeneurial pursuits!) for as long as I can remember has been decorated gingerbread cookies - rarely does a holiday or special occasion go by that I don't produce at least a couple of batches of these spicy cookies, sometimes decorated with rolled fondant, but most often iced with a royal icing which allows me to change the texture according to whether I want 'floodwork' pieces (such as the ones above) or delicately piped scrolls, swirls, letters or patterns. I also adore the lemony tang of this icing against the warmth of the deep spiciness in the cookies.

Given that my new freelance career has, for the moment, left me with a little more time than in previous years, this year I'll be selling some of these gorgeous gingerbread treats to supplement my income and stimulate the creative juices. And as I'll be offering them for sale to the family and friends I also give gifts to, I think it's only fair that I find something different to make as gifts for those people, don't you? So below are a few little inspirations I'm hoping to try my hand at in the next couple of weeks before Easter rolls around:

• Sugar-sanded marshmallow bunnies over at the Martha Stewart site.
• Hot cross buns - there are heaps of recipes online, mostly the basic dough is the same, just vary the dried fruits according to your taste. I'll be leaving out the citrus peel but including some dried apricots and maybe some figs, too.
• The very naughty but very nice-looking Chocolate Caramel Tart from a back issue of my Delicious magazine collection.
• Another Delicious recipe, the aptly but perhaps strangely-named Easter Salad, which I'll probably serve as a side dish to some kind of barbecued fish. Not so much a gift, unless you count it a gift to be invited to someone's house for dinner (I certainly do!).
• And while we're on the fish idea, perhaps this Fish with Caper Butter Sauce might be nice too...

What will you be making or serving this Easter?

Good adaptations

I, like many fellow cooks, have a bit of a penchant for adapting recipes to suit my mood, or, perhaps more often, what's in my pantry. In a way it's what cooking's all about - taking various ideas, methods and ingredients and combining them in your personal style to create your own recipes.

Having the confidence to cook this way is truly one of the great joys of the kitchen for me. I can remember just starting to cook as a child, and following every recipe with great concentration, and an emphasis on getting each ingredient and step exactly as its author described. Then, over time, I became a bit more confident and liberal with my food, such that I now know (most of the time, anyway!) what I can substitute or change about a recipe which will make it suit me better.

It's worth adding, however, that this doesn't always work, even if you are experienced - some things don't take kindly to being played with (bread and a lot of baked goods, for example, and confectionery), and others just don't quite turn out the way you'd hoped. I have, needless to say, had some spectacular failures as well as amazing successes!

The two recipes that follow today, though, are great examples of recipe adaptation: the first, a Nigel Slater-inspired meatballs dish; and the second a gorgeous yoghurt cake made a bit special with the use of leftover poached quinces and caramel sauce to turn in into a fabulously sticky upside-down cake.

As promised in a recent post, I've given Nigel Slater's Appetite a bit of a workout and thought I'd share my version of the meatballs recipe from the book. Mr Slater calls for pork mince as the basis for these little delights, and while I only had beef, I thought they were worth a try...good thinking me! Perhaps a little garlicky for my liking, but that could be easily rectified next time, and my scepticism about there not being any breadcrumbs in the mixture proved to be unfounded. The adapted recipe is below.

As for the cake, I've used this recipe for yoghurt cake a few times and it's worked like a dream in every incarnation, including just the plain version with lemon syrup (which is how it appears in Sweet Food, a little Murdoch Books creation from the Chunky Food series). This time, I had some wine-poached quinces in the fridge, along with a little dribble of caramel sauce, so used these to line the base of my tin and poured the cake batter over the top. Bake, turn out, and voila! A sticky Caramel-Quince Upside Down Cake. This kept Chris and I going for dessert (and, I admit, breakfast on a couple of occasions) for about 5 days. And happily it was almost as good on that last day as it was straight out of the oven. No small feat for a cake, and I suspect it had a lot to do with the moistness that the yoghurt adds.

Do try them, either as I've written, or add your own twist and see what you can come up with. As for me, I think my next yoghurt cake will be split and filled with lemon curd; and the meatballs will be made with pork mince and maybe a little ricotta cheese...happy cooking.

Midweek Meatballs

(adapted from the 'really juicy, spicy meatballs' in Appetite, by Nigel Slater)

I loosely based my recipe on the European version described in the book, using the following:

a decent handful of pancetta, sliced into lardons

500g beef mince

2 cloves garlic, crushed

zest of 1 lemon

2 small red chillies, finely chopped

a good pinch of freeze-dried oregano (MUCH better than normal dried herbs, try them if you can find them at your local gourmet store!)

salt and pepper

Mix all ingredients together, trying not to overmix. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes to firm the mixture slightly, then roll into small meatballs (about a tablespoon of mixture for each one is good).

Heat a little olive oil in a frypan over medium heat and brown the meatballs on all sides, then turn heat to low and finish cooking through.

Serve your meatballs hot, with any of the following:

• dropped into a chilli-spiced chicken broth with a few soba noodles and some Asian greens
• briefly tossed with a jar of tomato-based pasta sauce and perched atop a mound of spaghetti
• with mash and steamed vegies
• with tiny pasta shapes or rice (try deglazing your meatballs pan with a touch of white wine and throwing the pasta/rice around in this reduced mixture to coat & flavour), parmesan cheese and steamed broccolini - as per today's photo

Caramel-Quince Upside Down Cake

(adapted from the Yoghurt Cake with Syrup from Murdoch Books' Sweet Food)

8-10 pieces poached quince, drained of any syrup

200ml pre-bought caramel sauce, or you could make it yourself if you're feeling industrious (NOT that nasty fake caramel ice cream topping, please!)

185g softened unsalted butter

250g caster sugar

5 eggs, separated

250g plain Greek-style yoghurt

2tsp grated lemon zest

1/2tsp vanilla extract

280g plain flour

2tsp baking powder

1/2tsp bicarbonate soda

Preheat oven to 180C. Grease and line a 24cm round springform tin.

Spread the caramel over the base of your lined tin, then top with the quince pieces, arranging in neat circles so they present nicely when you turn out your finished cake. Set aside.

Beat butter and sugar until light and creamy. Add egg yolks gradually, beating well to incorporate. Stir in the yoghurt, zest and vanilla. Fold in the flour, baking powder and bicarb.

Whisk egg whites until stiff, then fold into the cake mixture. Spoon carefully into the prepared tin, being careful not to move the quinces too much, and bake for 50 minutes or until a skewer tests clean. Cool in the tin for 15-20 minutes, then turn out onto a serving plate so any sauce/juice runs down the sides of the cake.

Serve warm or at room temperature with double cream.

Sweet treats

Today's delicious post comes about thanks to my brainstorming session earlier in the week regarding possible 'Christmas products' for my business this year. Yes, I agree it is a little early for most of us to be thinking about the festive season, however any additions to my product range need to be thoroughly tested and perfected by about June in order to fit in with production/packaging/distribution timelines for the remainder of the year (it's a long and tedious process the details of which will bore most of you to death, so I shan't go on about the 'un-fun-ness' and lack of spontaneity in developing Christmas products at Easter!).

All of which leads us, in a roundabout way, to caramels.

I suspect that the main reason I have never pursued a career as a chocolatier or master pastry chef may have something to do with the mind-altering effect large quantities of fabulous chocolate, dairy and sugar products have on me. In moderate 'finished product' quantities I have some form of willpower not to eat everything in sight, but put me in a kitchen with a candy thermometer and a few select ingredients and I will taste-test until I make myself sick. Which, though I am slightly ashamed to admit it, is precisely what's been happening with these delicious little salted caramels I tested out a couple of days ago.

After deciding that caramels/toffee could be a great addition to the silly season range, it was straight to my bookshelves for inspiration and recipes. And although I found several ideas which would probably suffice, it occured to me that I am lacking in dedicated candy making books (something which I will shortly be rectifying with the purchase of this book and possibly also this one). So off I went to the great resource of my laptop and its lovely fast broadband speeds - thankyou Chris - and came across the Chocolate Gourmand, aka Brian from San Francisco. Brian's site is a great resource for amateur candymakers, full of delicious sounding recipes and detailed explanations (including step-by-step photos) of how to achieve the right results. The process of candy-making can be quite daunting if you've never attempted anything like it before, so these descriptions and details go a long way to de-mystifying it.

It's Brian's recipe for Classic Cream Caramels I share below, almost word for word, with the small addition of a tiny sprinkling of good sea salt over the top of the finished slab (whoever thought up salted caramels deserves only good things to happen to them). Being a bit of a novice in this area, I was thrilled with my first attempt at his recipe and hope he won't mind me sharing the love. Other things on my list to try soon are his Pecan Maple Caramels and English Toffee.

After making my caramel, I set most of it in a large baking tray lined with silicone paper, but also put a bit into some silicone ice cube trays I bought - they are the perfect shape and size to make individual caramels, however I soon established that my two (36 pieces all up) moulds would be severely inadequate for the quantity of caramel I had made. They are also fiddly to fill and I think on reflection it would be easier (if not so pedantically same-sized) to pour all of it into baking trays and just cut my set slab into individual portions.

I cooked the caramel to about 118-119C before taking it off the heat, which is a bit higher than the normal range specified in the recipe. This is because I knew I wouldn't be dipping the finished pieces into chocolate and wanted it to set hard enough not to run all over the place after being wrapped (not that chocolate-coated caramel is at all bad, it's just that I still haven't managed to get myself the tempering machine of my chocolatier-girl fantasies and can't bear my inadequacy when tempering by hand, or the compound chocolate alternative which would destroy the gorgeous morsels inside its chalky, cheap and nasty coating).

I am undecided about precise wrapping and packaging of these delicious treats, but think maybe the best way to go would be to cut bars of whatever size you prefer and wrap them in waxed/silicone paper before wrapping again in cellophane or boxing. Beware the cut but not wrapped caramel, it will become sticky, oozy and quite unattractive (yet still extremely tasty!) if left out, particularly in humid/damp weather.

Classic Cream Caramel

from The Chocolate Gourmand site

2 cups light corn syrup (for us Australians, liquid glucose is fine - not an exact substitute but pretty close)

4 cups sugar

60g unsalted butter, cubed

4 cups (1l) whipping cream

1 tsp salt

1 tbs vanilla extract (I used vanilla paste)

oil for greasing

Using safflower oil and a paper towel, generously oil a 23x33cm (9x13in) foil-lined baking dish (or do as I did and line your dish with silicone paper, which negates the need for greasing).

Combine the sugar and corn syrup in a large saucepan over medium heat. Stir frequently until it comes to a boil. Wash down the sides of the pan several times with water using a pastry brush. Stop stirring and place a candy thermometer in pan (I bought mine for $4.95 at Kitchen Warehouse) and continue to boil over medium-high heat. You are going to boil the sugar syrup mixture until it reaches 151C (305F), which will take about 10 minutes or so.

While you are waiting for the sugar syrup mixture to heat you can heat the cream in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring frequently until simmering. Remove from heat and set aside.

Once the sugar syrup has reached 151C (305F), reduce heat and slowly add the cubed butter. Slowly add the hot cream to the sugar mixture. I usually do this with a small ladle or measuring cup. Keep the mixture boiling while adding the cream, but beware of boil-over if you add the cream too quickly. The boiling mixture will rise rapidly after adding the cream. Let the mixture settle down before adding more cream. The game is to keep it boiling without letting it overflow.

Once the cream has all been added, continue stirring constantly until the mixture reaches 116C (242-243F) for dipping or 117C (246-248F) for wrapping. If you like your caramel harder, you can keep heating it until you get to around 119C (250F). If you like your caramel soft, be careful not to make it too soft. Extra gooey caramel is hard to package or dip. The caramel will usually continue to heat a degree past when you remove it from heat.

Let sit for 5 minutes before my favourite part: stirring in the salt and vanilla. Once you pour in the vanilla and salt, stir just until blended. As you stir the vanilla into the caramel, the vanilla bourbon will boil off and you can inhale the intense vanilla smell.

Pour mixture into prepared baking pan. Cover well and let cool overnight. Once you are ready to dip or wrap, peel the foil off the caramel. Oil a large plastic cutting board and place the caramel slab there. Slice into pieces and wrap or dip.

I typically prefer to make my dipped caramels more gooey than the wrapped caramels, but note that softer caramels are more difficult to work with and dip. Even firm caramels will succumb to gravity and sag after a few minutes. When dipping, slice off only as much as you need from the main block to maintain rectangular shapes.