ragingyoghurt

Category Archives: cake

so guess who doesn’t have diabetes anymore.

there was cause for a celebration a couple of nights ago (not the return of normal blood sugars at that stage, although i’d had my fingers crossed for the last week and a bit following my post natal glucose tolerance test), and we found ourselves around a table at hellenic republic, bathed in the golden light of the early evening, with lamb and potatoes and cypriot grain salad (and cabbage salad, yes, and eggplant dip and calamari and octopus, and hell why not, a spanakopita and three lamb chops), and these amazing chargrilled green chilli peppers all smoky and succulent. the platters are small at hellenic republic, but when one of the birthday girls orders double of everything for the table, you suddenly find yourself approaching a dangerous level of satiety.

dangerous only because you must leave room for dessert. the kid and i are never two to go past a mess, so we got the hellenic mess to share. unexpectedly, it was plated in a bowl — a jumble of rosewater meringue, orange blossom jelly, vanilla-infused cream and a dribble of strawberry ouzo sauce poured at the table. (the waiter dispensed it from a small bottle, and i thought he might leave it after the ceremonial pour, but no, he whisked it away.)

mmm… it was a lovely mishmash of flavours and textures. the pistachios were crunchy to offset the crisp meringue; the jelly was wobbly and ethereal. in fact, the delicate orange blossom flavour was probably a bit overwhelmed by the strawberry sauce. but then i was a little too: the ouzo made my belly clench. perhaps if there had been more cream…

no matter. it was gone in minutes (the kid had three helpings), helped along by a pot of mountain tea. see how pretty, the basket of pale green herbery. the internet tells me it is ironwort.

it was still daylight when we left the restaurant. it was a jolly walk home.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 30 December 2011 at 6:55 am

permalink | filed under cake, dinner

what is this charred and glistening beastie?

do not be afraid. it is a fresh-out-of-the-oven torta di mela which the kid and i whipped up in our slightly dysfunctional kitchen a few sundays ago.

a backstory: packing up the house in sydney earlier this year, i discovered that i had two electric hand mixers: one, which i’d been using regularly, and one which i unearthed from the back of a deep kitchen cupboard, that i’d forgotten all about. this forgotten mixer had been entombed with a box of attachments — a stick blender! a mini food processor! — and in a fit of why haven’t i been using this one instead? i walked old faithful up the street and gifted it to my friend on the corner.

and then we moved to melbourne, and one day i tried to cream softened butter for a batch of biscuits, and the mixer’s spindly little arms, spinning so merrily in the air, immediately ground to a halt when confronted with the soft yellow clumps. i was mostly inclined to not continue with the biscuitry, but these were for the kid to bring into class the next day for a classmate’s farewell do. so i grabbed a wooden spoon and went at it. people in ye olden days used to do this all the time, didn’t they?

i wore the blisters halfway into the week. and in the end, only six biscuits out of the entire batch were eaten by the kids (someone else had brought a bowlful of nerds, and those turned out to be the biggest hit, alongside the potato chips. pah, kids.)

but i was willing to give it the benefit of doubt: maybe the butter hadn’t softened quite enough for a domestic handheld mixer. even my metal whisk had had a hard time. however, some weeks later, i tried the food processing attachment on what i’d hoped would be a salsa verde for dinner. the blades hit a parsley leaf in a puddle of olive oil, and stopped cold.

i took great pleasure in exorcising any ill feeling by bashing together the parsley, oil, garlic and anchovies with my trusty pestle-and-mortar, and we did eat copious amounts of delicious salsa verde that evening. but also, i started visualising how good a pistachio green kitchenaid would look on my benchtop. later in the night, i accidentally dropped the errant mixer on the floor while putting it away, and i didn’t feel a shred of remorse.

but kitchenaids take a while to materialise (i’m thinking a birthday present to myself in a couple of months), and a few weeks ago, i came across a recipe for the apple cake in a freebie gourmet traveller cookbook. at the height of apple season, it called for a cheap kilo of granny smiths, and just under half a block of melted butter. it was all i needed to ignore the shortcomings of my inherited oven: the worn-away temperature markings, the peeled-off door seal, the heat escaping through the door which made any contact with the stainless steel exterior painful and burny…

the kid and i worked away for twice as long as the recipe indicated, building up layers of lightly spiced cake batter, toasted almonds, dried figs and sliced apples (she is quite the apple arranger, the kid, and also an expert breaker of eggs), and then, there was cake. it tasted wholesome, and almost healthsome and made us feel that we were still in charge of our appliances.

it made a good breakfast over the next few days, with a spoonful of thick cream and a cup of milky tea, eaten after the school run, nestled in my new $10 ikea cushions on the old couch in my sunny backyard.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 14 September 2011 at 10:31 am

permalink | filed under breakfast, cake

the salted caramel cupcake from little cupcakes is another beastie altogether: a fine-crumbed chocolate cake topped with a sculptural spiral of thick, sticky caramel. this one’s for the sort of person who would mainline dulce de leche if such a thing were possible. or, the kid. (i know it doesn’t look like it, but i really don’t feed her cupcakes every day.)

we ate these sitting on a step in the city one overcast afternoon, and i wish i’d had a cup of black tea handy to keep things in check; even the small, bite-sized version was enough to render me slightly delirious. it’s good though, knowing there’s a little place downtown where a lovingly hand-crafted sugar jolt can be had for a scrape over $2.

(my favourite city cupcake is probably still the pistachio cupcake from little cupcakes, which you might remember from this time last year.)

posted by ragingyoghurt on 26 August 2011 at 2:21 pm

permalink | filed under cake

the initial dewy-eyed glimmer of love does not last long. take this mighty cookies and cream cupcake for instance, with oreos blended into the frosting and the cake, enough to make up for the sleight-of-hand optical illusion of just half a cookie tucked into the crest of frosting. mighty as it is, ’tis no match for the superhuman cake demolition power of a kid moments out of a screening of “kung fu panda 2”. in no time at all, it is but a pile of crumbs.

i don’t expect it comes as a surprise to you that around these parts cake is its own food group. at the tail end of the last school holidays, the cupcake central workshop put out its shingle on the shiny white honeycomb tiles in a tucked-away corner at the melbourne central food court. good timing!

after you get over your mint green envy of the instore bakery’s mint green smeg fridge, the vintage kitchen scales and the cluster of luscious peachy blooms in old drink bottles, you can wrestle with the task of choosing your cupcake. i picked two: a chai latte babycake, with a salty caramel chaser.

the chai cupcake was quietly pleasing, with a subtly spiced, delicate crumb and a sprinkling of cinnamon sugar on the creamy frosting. the salted caramel number, on the other hand, was an assertive mutha: rich chocolate cake made even moister with its secret puddlicious heart of salted caramel, and an artful drizzle of the same. it really was the perfect little mouthful… and i could’ve had another five.

though i didn’t.

some weeks later, lured into the city with the promise of a special run of bacon and maple syrup cupcakes, i succumbed to this adorable red velvet cupcake. it was typically, classically cake, impecably-frosted, moist and just short of chocolatey, and in some ways better than the main event.

now, i do ordinarily love the combination of salty bacon and sweet syrup, and this cupcake, with its hidden nubbins of meaty bacon and swirl of mapley frosting was just that. the feather in the cap of course, was the generous shard of bacon, but i dunno, i found it too chewy in this instance. consider, if you will, rather than a strip of lean oven-baked bacon, a streakier alternative: a blistered red ribbon fried crisp in oil, the fat offering a little explosive crunch with each nibble. perhaps it’s a salty little foil, maybe it has a sweet maple edge. either way, mmm…

of course, the kid was nowhere as critical. after inhaling her raspberry-white chocolate cupcake, she made happy noises at all the bacony bits through her second course. she saved the meaty garnish until last, and then chewed on it for twenty minutes or so as we wandered through the city. as far as she was concerned, it was the gift that kept on giving.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 25 August 2011 at 2:39 pm

permalink | filed under cake

look what i ate during the just-gone school holidays: a small harvest of potatoes, fried up two ways. i blame the kid. we’d ambled up to the local takeaway on the main street of a little town in a northeastern corner of victoria — it’s the sort of place where under the counter there are lollies in jars to be had for 5c a piece, and behind the counter there is a handwritten board boasting such delicacies as hamburgers with the lot, pineapple fritters, banana fritters, and fish and chips and salad (which we’d ordered the last time we were in town; the salad was composed of a couple slices of tomato, some shredded carrot, a couple more raw onion rings than necessary, and half a dozen slices of tinned beetroot). this time, though, we were just after the chips… until the kid sang out, “and potato cakes. two each.”

i’m sorry to say that they were still mostly uncooked on the inside, crunchy, rather than just short of al dente. but you can tell, can’t you: compared to the golden brown chips below, the batter on the rounds of spud looks pale and flabby (much like one might look after subsisting on a winter diet of fried potatoes). not to worry. there was such a bounty of chips that even divvied up three ways (the wafting aroma of hot fat and vinegar was enough to lure the boy out from retiling the bathroom of his country estate), they proved unconquerable.

another day, i orchestrated a detour to the resurrected myrtleford butter factory, housed in a handsome brick building dating back to 1930. just look at the lovely lettering! here they churn out batons of cultured butter, salted and un-, wrapped in printed foil in a most fetching olde time design.

they had sold out of butter that day (and i can’t seem to track it down in melbourne — the perils of artisanal production, i suppose) but fortunately, mid-afternoon, the kitchen was still open for lunch.

i was having trouble picking one thing off the menu — garlic prawns? blue cheese tart in a buttermilk pastry? — when the waitress came over with a litany of specials. after she spoke the words “corned” and “silverside”, i only pretended to dally for the smallest moment before picking that.

beneath the rather aggressive balsamic glaze — to me it bordered on caustic — the meat was tender and comforting, and all sorts of salty-sweet-smoky. i was most won over, though, by the generous tumble of winter vegetables on the side. behold happiness: carrots, beans, tiny beets, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, a roasted onion and two waxy little potatoes. once my tongue had been beaten into submission (or perhaps the sauce actually did mellow over the course of the meal), the balsamic glaze served as a most agreeable accompaniment to the vegetables as well.

i was too full for a sit-down dessert after that, but from the counter display, i picked a a wedge of chocolate truffle tart to come away with me. it was thoughtfully boxed with a small tub of thick cream and berry compote. i dipped into the rich sludgy slice at random moments over the rest of the day — just a spoonful at a time was enough for an intense chocolatey burst. right before bedtime, i gave in and finished it off, inordinately pleased.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 19 July 2011 at 12:42 pm

permalink | filed under cake, chocolate, lunch, trip

so it’s not just outside trendy cafes and mexican cantinas that you have to queue; friday afternoon at the olde time hopetoun tea rooms in the block arcade, we waited behind the red velvet ropes for 15 minutes or so before a table became available. nevermind — the bejeweled waitress was kind enough to give us frequent updates on the table situation (“there should be people leaving soon, but they are just sitting there sipping at their tea.”), and we had ample time to consider our choices from the two cake-laden shelves in the window. on top: fruit crumbles, tarts of lemon or lime or pecans, teacakes and, yes, macarons…

down below: a spectrum of technicolor cheesecakes, and a couple of sponges layered with cream and festooned with berries and flaked almonds. inside, perched atop the counter, above a display of antique silver and heavy crystal, sticky date puddings with a towering jug of toffee sauce, caramel slices, and chocolate and strawberry swiss rolls. it really was quite overwhelming.

i’d been working myself up to a simple afternoon tea of scones and cream and jam, but as we approached the front of the queue, the thought of two lumps of breadiness sitting in my belly so close to dinnertime saw me veer towards a slice of the sunny orb of passionfruit tart in the corner of the window.

at our cosy table in the small and tightly packed dining room, i found that the filling was, as i had hoped, bright and tangy, but the pastry, though a fetching shade of golden brown, was much less crisp than i would have liked. it had a lovely buttery taste, but its texture lacked any real distinction from that of the passionfruit curd.

both my tart and the slice of pavlova that the kid picked to celebrate the last day of term were thoughtfully plated up with artful puddles of passionfruit and/or raspberry coulis, dollops of thick cream and extra bits of fruit. but i must say that the attention to detail might have extended, if not to removing the skin from the kiwifruit, then at least to removing the stickers from the kiwifruit skin. gah!

the tea service, when it first arrived, looked promising despite the splodge of red jam on the strainer. alas, my dahl house tea — black, flavoured with ginger and peach — was served with a litter of leaves on the floor of the pot, so while the first cup was light and fragrant, by the third cup, it had brewed itself bitter.

i’d really like to like this place. i mean, i’d like to like it more. i mean, i think, i like it fine. the waitresses are friendly, and will not rush you on even though a queue is forming outside. the decor, with the marble table tops, emerald green wallpaper and swathes of stripy fabric hanging from the rafters, is not without its charm. when you look closely though, at the lingering produce stickers, and the just-short-of-soggy pastry, and the endlessly steeping tea, and the torn and peeling wallpaper, you get a sad little feeling that this is not so much the grande dame of tea rooms as it is the slightly doddery aunt.

(which is not to say i wouldn’t visit again. because after all, who doesn’t like a homely tea-and-cake sit down with a doddery aunt in her well-worn sitting room? it’s just a little bit of pomp and some tired splendour. perhaps next time, i will have the scones.)

posted by ragingyoghurt on 2 July 2011 at 8:53 am

permalink | filed under around town, cake, grumble

happy sunday!

yesterday, after the kid’s last chinese class of the term, i orchestrated the proceedings to the lunch counter at milkwood, where the kid, without hesitation, went for an encore of poached eggs on toast with avocado, and i ventured into baguette territory with a sandwich of thinly sliced pickled beetroot, creamy fetta, avocado and a generous thatch of rocket.

of course, the real reason we were at milkwood again was so that i could get one of those monster lamingtons i saw last week. this time there was also a sunny display of lemon meringue cupcakes to sway me, but my resolve was strong.

my reward, for breakfast this morning, was a hefty block of cake with a sturdy crumb. look at those fleshy chips of coconut! unlike so many lamingtons with their dusting of dessicated coconut and their dry spongy insides, the milkwood lamington gives a serious bite, through the thick chocolate-soaked layer all the way to its heart of tart raspberry jam.

perfect sustenance as we head out into the surprise sunshine in search of german sausages and gelato.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 26 June 2011 at 11:15 am

permalink | filed under breakfast, cake

there was talk of a mamak roti breakfast, but by the time we got round to it, it was lunch with another kind of flatbread: pizza at D.O.C.! i’d been wanting to come here for aaages — a couple of months, anyway — and beloved interstate friends with errands in carlton and a penchant for pizza were the perfect excuse. arriving at the tail end of conventional lunchtime, we were lucky to get the end of the long table by the big window, and i was lucky to have the winter sun streaming through said window, warming my back.

a compact, handsome italian man presented us with menus, typed up in a 90s typewriter font: it felt like coming home. we saw the antipasti at the next table, and smelt the truffle oil wafting from passing pizze. we took too long to decide; we wanted one of everything. what we ended up with was a fat plait of mozzarella with a small salad of shaved fennel and sweet, meaty mouthfuls of whole white anchovies…

a pizza of salsicce and pureed broccoli — which caused me to gasp in amazement when it was placed in front of us. it was like a platter of spring meadow, with the delicate green crema di broccoli and the rosy blossoms of sausage meat. i believe i may have clapped, and then when i actually did bite into it, the applause rang loud in my head. i find myself thinking about it a day later, and plotting my return.

and the pizza abruzzese — topped with paper thin slices of porchetta, mustard fruit and radicchio. how festive! if it is the intriguing premise of mustard fruit that compels you to order this pizza, be warned that an uneven distribution of the tiny cubes of candied fruit means that your slice might only be pork belly fatty crunchy. even though it will be delicious, you may be disappointed. fortunately, my slice had two bits of mustard fruit on it, and i can tell you that it made my experience a little bit like christmas. the combination of pork belly fatty crunchy and candy sweet fruity softness made my brain wobble with glee. (of course, the stern radicchio kept deliriousness in check.)

we also had a salad of rocket and pear dressed in pecorino and the tiniest hint of honey, and then we sat, sated, and considered the dessert menu: a tiramisu made with sweet goat cheese; a nutella calzoncino, before taking ourselves, after a detour at the spice shop round the corner, across the road to brunetti.

here is how you cap off a meal of gold standard pizza: behold the piemontese with its jaunty golden hazelnut crown, a crunchy profiterole filled with an almost unnecessarily tall column of hazelnut cream — that’s cream, flecked with ground-up hazelnuts — all the better to hide its central artery of sweet-savoury hazelnut praline. there will be waddling after, waddling to the corner to bid your farewells, and then waddling the three blocks to the homeward-bound tram… but absolutely no regrets.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 13 June 2011 at 11:06 pm

permalink | filed under around town, cake, lunch

apparently it is 19° today, and sunny. i should pop outside.

we did pop outside last sunday, when it was cloudy and grey, and some 4° cooler. no matter. a good section down by the yarra was festooned with big orange balloons (and all manner of installation and artwork) to celebrate the 150th birthday of the art gallery. lured by the promise of a dancing rhinoceros (and for some of us, a taco) we sauntered across the river, impressed in varying degrees by: an ancient indian carpet recreated in coloured rice and lentils; a staircase covered in ornamental stenciled mud and ash; the goddess guanyin sculpted in sand; a painting of a digger rendered in real life by a street performer; a bronzed and smiling buddha walking serenely down the avenue… and then, finally, across the road: the rhinoceros. the kid was surprisingly disappointed to find that it was only a puppet, albeit a life-sized puppet operated by two concealed humans.

nevermind. life’s great disappointments can be soothed with a cupcake. outside the arts centre, at the very edge of the sunday craft market, sophisticakes had a stall with some very compelling specimens. billowy buttercream, sugar butterflies… that sort of thing. a sea of pinks and pastels which the kid eschewed for a brown on brown cookies ‘n’ cream cupcake topped with a miniature oreo. i was sucked in by the gold-glittery new york, new york — chocolate cake with tahitian vanilla buttercream. the frosting was not great; it had a rich vanilla flavour, but it was more sugary than buttery, a little too crunchy and harsh. the cake, on the other hand, was quite amazing: all dark chocolate moistness. when it was gone, i was immediately wistful.

in lieu of more cake, we tracked down the taco truck, tucked away amid a grove of orange balloons, and ordered lunch. from a modest menu of three tacos — fish, chicken or potato, i got us a taco plate: two tacos and corn chips for $12. and then we waited, and waited, and reminded ourselves that it was fresh food, cooked to order, and then after a few more minutes of admiring the lovingly handpainted truck (sweet video on the painting of here)…

…

…a waxed paper box traversed the pass.

mmm… my fish taco had a freshly fried bit of fish — succulent in its crunchy batter. the red cabbage slaw was a perfect purple foil, cabaggy juices mingling with the poppyseed mayo to leave trails of vibrant violet as i made my way through it.

the kid was similarly impressed with her grilled, marinated chicken taco, and especially with its sublimely sweet and juicy corn relish.

we sat in the shadow of the truck and ate, and just a couple of bites in, a tableau of the sydney nolan footballer painting sprang to life around us. the kid ran off to play pretend footy, leaving me with a cluster of corn chips. i’m pleased to say they were all limey tang and salty crunch.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 1 June 2011 at 2:44 pm

permalink | filed under around town, art, cake, lunch

why, hello!

it’s been a lovely afternoon… and — at the time of the photograph — it isn’t yet noon.

some minutes before, i polished off the most delicious mushroom sandwich that ever crossed my plate. it was a handful of fat field mushrooms, roasted until plump and moist, tucked into a tidy ciabatta, nestled in pillows of mild goats’ curd. there was pesto, and a few sweet chestnuts, and a good thatch of rocket. i ate it slowly, relishing the luxury of the pre-lunch crush at earl canteen (yes, it is possible, if you get there at 11.30am). there was no line forming at the counter, and nobody hungrily eyeing my spot along the polished concrete slab.

so i sipped at my hot chocolate — crowned with a smattering of solid chocolate chunklets, turned another page in my magazine, and asked for a rose macaron from the tidy rows in the glass case. it arrived swiftly on an adorable little metal dish, and when i thanked the waiter, he replied like he really meant it, “my pleasure”.

but the pleasure was mine. though small, the macaron was perfectly formed, and heavy with its delicately scented buttercream filling. it doesn’t look like a lot of filling in the picture, but once i bit into it i found it had pushed its buttery, creamy way into the surface of the biscuits, oh yeshh. from my stool i eyed off the salted caramel chocolate tart, and contemplated a takeaway black sesame macaron, but i figured i should leave a reason for a revisit sooner rather than later.

(in the interest of full disclosure, i feel i must tell you that just over an hour later i was having second dessert — a well-executed eclair — at the shiny brunetti outlet at myer, to celebrate finding the almost perfect pair of boots for winter.)

all this gallivanting around the city: early lunches, second desserts, boot shopping… it reads like i’ve fashioned a life of leisure for myself in melbourne, no? the sad truth is that most days in the four months i’ve been here are spent at the computer pushing words and pictures around a page as the little oil heater by my side labours towards cultivating an electricity bill whose arrival in the mail i’m dreading. still, i’ve somehow managed to sample macarons from all corners of the city, and there were times in the last month, as i juggled projects for five different clients, where i felt useful, and alive, dammit!

all in all, it’s been pretty good. and how are you?

posted by ragingyoghurt on 20 May 2011 at 1:58 pm

permalink | filed under around town, cake, lunch

Category Archives: cake

Click

Search

Categories

Archives