Roasted Carrot and Orange Salad

I remember how I began 2012: in Central Otago, the peak of summer, drinking local wines and eating freshly picked stone fruit. We all sat outside on the first day of the year, in short sleeves, probably drinking rosé, rolling the number around on our tongues, 2012. It sounded good, clean, even. It was going to be a good year and, for the most part, it was. I was sorry to see 2012 roll ever so easily into 2013, with little ceremony or pomp. Thank goodness for Christmas.

Christmas always seems a far better way to say good-bye to one year and welcome in the next, and our Christmas this year, well, we let 2012 go out with a bang. On Christmas Eve, the temperature in the late 20s (celsius), Mum and I made mayonnaise, furiously whisking until perspiration glistened on our foreheads. But it was beautiful mayonnaise, the real deal, a shiny yellow and a flavour that you just want to keep in your mouth.

The next day was hot, fan yourself with your napkin hot – the hottest Christmas day in Wellington since 1934. We started with fresh summer fruit – melon, green and coral pink, nectarines and white flesh peaches, strawberries and plump blueberries. We stuffed a turkey breast then set a leg of lamb onto roast. I stirred a handful of finely diced dill into half of the mayonnaise and wasabi into the other half, just enough to make the back of your throat tingle. We began with a smoked salmon platter – buckwheat toasts, fried capers popped open like crunchy salty flowers, gherkins and oat crackers, and so began our afternoon, a tide like motion of ebbs and flows between the kitchen and the table.


There were scallops marinated with citrus, chilli and coriander – their delicate orange and cream spheres bursting with a soft sweetness and a mere whisper of heat. There was the leg of lamb, rubbed down with rosemary and garlic and roasted to a perfect medium – sweet, savoury, herbaceous – New Zealand lamb at its best. A turkey breast nearly halved, flattened and therapeutically beaten then stuffed with Big Bad Wolf sausage, char grilled capsicum and spinach from our garden. Our favourite Christmas salad, a trio of red, green and white, green beans blanched to a pleasing snap and brighter colour, crumbled feta with plum coloured smudges from the roasted beetroot. Boiled new season potatoes, the joy of summer Christmas, with curls of butter and torn herbs.

Then this salad, my new favourite, roasted carrot and orange salad. It is no secret my love of roasted carrots - their tender sweetness and bright warmth pull me in every time, no matter the weather. The salad is a wonderful mess of shapes, colours and textures – long rectangles and full rounds, burnt orange and near yellow, flecked with dark spices.

In between courses we drank lemoncello, declared how much we all love it, and opened another bottle of Riesling. My uncle Adrian and his partner Nicola made dessert: fresh fruit of every colour, strawberries, grapes, nectarines, peaches and my first raspberries of the season. A dairy free and gluten free trifle that, had we not been told the slight nutty flavour was rice milk custard and the nubbly texture a ground almond sponge, would have fooled us for the more traditional cream and plain flour variety. We ate trifle by the bowl full. There were home made brandy snaps – thin and wafer biscuit like, holding within their lacy edges the taste of real ginger rather than a generic sweetness like the store bought sort. We filled them with cream as we ate them – fill, bite, fill, bite.

It’s mid-January already. Christmas feels long gone and with it, 2012, but the feast we shared that day seems a good a way as any to welcome in a new year. There is not much we can do about the speed at which the years change, except to live each year wholly and fully. Perhaps that is why I loved 2012 so much and, also why I have barely realised 2013 is well under way.

Roast Carrot and Orange Salad
Taken from the Cuisine Christmas issue 2010 The salad is a cinch to make if you happen to have a bottle of orange blossom water lying around, but I’m sure it will be fine without.

600 grams carrots, scrubbed and halved lengthwise
4 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
sea salt to taste
4 oranges
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon orange water
1/4 cup finely sliced mint

Pre-heat oven to 200°C. Place the scrubbed and cut carrots in a bowl with 1 tablespoon of the oil, cinnamon, cumin and salt. Stir well to combine. Place on an oven tray lined with baking paper and roast for 40 minutes or until tender.

Meanwhile place the juice of one orange in a large bowl with the remaining oil, sugar and orange flower water. Slice the rind and the pith off the oranges and slice into rounds. Set the orange slices to one side.

When the carrots are cooked add them to the orange vinaigrette and set aside. The salad can be served warm or cold so just before serving add the sliced orange rounds and sliced mint, toss well and place on a serving dish.

This salad goes very well with lamb.

Spiced Apple Cake

I’m not sure what else can be said about spiced apple cake that hasn’t been said before. I could follow suit of the northern hemisphere at the moment and talk about the latest windfall of apple picking, and how ever to use up 20 pounds of apples if not in a spiced apple cake, earthy and sweet and unequivocally autumnal? (Although they would say fall.) But it is not fall here, and apple picking, for all its romance, is not available.

I could write of the warming homeliness of cinnamon, allspice and ginger, of how it seems appropriate to bunker down, perhaps beneath a blanket and with a mug of black tea when eating spiced apple cake. But here, summer is finally waving hello. It is the time of year to stay outdoors, to eat ice cream and, in a few months, juicy stone fruit.

I could write of the nubbliness of rolled oats. Of how oats undergo an amazing transformation from plain cereal to soft and luxurious and worthy of the title sweet treat or dessert when mixed with butter and brown sugar. I could write about the contrast in texture with, perhaps, broken walnut pieces. But truth be told, this is a simple spiced apple cake, plain and sweet, no walnuts or nubbly oats, just apple, spice and a few raisins.

I could write about the spiced apple cakes my mother used to make, for there have been several. Our most popular apple cake has a strudel-esque topping that always seems to marble with the cake batter, ruining the effect, but is no less delicious.

Perhaps, like banana bread, we do not need any more words or recipes for spiced apple cake.

And yet, here I am.

For me the most surprising part of this cake is the preparation of the two apples. Peeled, yes. But rather than roughly diced apple breaking the surface of the cake and creating little pockets of soft apple within the batter, the apples are thinly sliced, as you would for an apple tart. The sliced apples are then covered with all of the sugar, not a modest few tablespoons while the rest of the measure is creamed with butter as we would expect.

The two apples go a long way. The thin slices fill the cake out nicely; no ounce of batter is left apple-less. The slices cook down to near nothingness, their fragrance seeping throughout the cake, but cut a slice and pale streaks of apple are throughout.

I may make apple cakes like this from now on – apples sliced over apples diced.

And there we are, those are my words on spiced apple cake.

Spiced Apple Cake

I doubled the measure of spices and reduced the amount of sugar by 25 grams; below is the recipe to my adjustments. I also used one Granny Smith and one braeburn apple as that’s what I had on hand, but any good cooking apples will do. If you are using a sweeter variety, or adding more dried fruit the sugar can be further reduced to 200 grams.

The cake is best served warm with crème fraîche.

2 apples (see note above)
1 egg
1 teaspoon nutmeg
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
125 grams butter
225 grams sugar
185 grams flour
75 grams raisins

Pre-heat oven to 180°C. Grease and line a 20 cm round cake tin.

Peel and slice apples thinly. Place in a large bowl and mix in the sugar.

Melt butter then leave to cool for several minutes before mixing in the egg. Pour the butter mixture over the apples and stir well. Sift dry ingredients over the apples and combine until just mixed.

Pour into cake tin and bake 50 minutes to an hour or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Dust with icing sugar to serve.

Sweet Pumpkin Cake

Pumpkin is an ever versatile vegetable so why is it often in a roast, soup, mash rotation? Roast, soup, mash, roast, soup, mash. Perhaps, in New Zealand, this a nod to our Sunday roast, meat-and-three-vege traditional fare. Pumpkin should be treated more like the apple or the carrot, something that closes the gap between sweet and savoury, compliments the savoury or brightens the sweet.
I made this cake following the instructions of a banana yoghurt cake, but changing quantities and ingredients on a whim, hoping for good things. The colour is quite startling, as you would expect from a cake made with pumpkin. It’s autumnal, perhaps a shade of rust. The flavour mellows out; there is a whisper of nutmeg and cinnamon, and not a lot of sweetness. The pumpkin sits on the back burner, not saying a great deal, instead bringing a certain warmth and richness to the cake.
You could easily ice this cake, an orange drizzle icing could be nice, or make it up like carrot cake with a cream cheese frosting. Although, I feel icing takes away its ability to be a light snacking cake, perfect for breakfast.

Next I’m thinking pumpkin bread; savoury, light orange in colour, perhaps of the yeasty variety. Bread and butter pudding with sweetened pumpkin purée, brandy soaked raisins, cream and nutmeg. Cannelloni stuffed with pumpkin and feta; a savoury crumble with pumpkin and parsnip – a crumble laden with walnuts; maybe grated pumpkin will work in a rosti. May winter continue long enough for me to try all these ideas.

Sweet Pumpkin Cake

1 1/4 cup sugar
100 grams butter, melted
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups pumpkin puree (I cooked about 2 handfuls of pumpkin in sugared water until tender, drained the water and blended with a dash of cream)
1/2 cup natural yoghurt
2 cups self raising flour
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda

Pre-heat oven to 160°C. Grease a large rectangular or round tin.

Beat the butter and sugar together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition, until thick and creamy. Stir through the pumpkin puree, then the yoghurt. Sieve dry ingredients into the bowl and fold together until just combined. Pour into tin and bake for 35-45 minutes, depending on the size of your tin, until a skewer inserted comes out clean.
Leave in the tin for 10 minutes before turning onto a wire rack to cool.

Serve with yoghurt, delicious afternoon tea cake.

N.B. This is a large mix.

Jam Doughnut Muffins

We have been living in our little house for a year now, about the same time as I have been writing this blog. There are quirks to this house, as there are with any old house. Wooden houses built pre-1900 on a fault line are perhaps what real-estate agents call “character homes.”

Draws don’t slide smoothly, windows don’t properly meet with their frames, and doors sometimes swing open or stay firmly stuck. There is natural ventilation: curtains sway as the breeze whistles through the cracks and broken seals of our windows and doors. During an earthquake it is the noise our house makes that scares me the most – glass rattles and the wooden joints seem to push and pull away from each other in deafening tones.

But here we have had dinner parties, planted a garden, drunk coffee and eaten brunch on the balcony, blasted dirty country music to the traffic and runners of Thorndon. There are often flowers on the mantel piece, or new things on our walls – feather masks made by Francesca, cake  plates, posters, mirrors, teaspoons. We like that people like our little house.

For the days we spent moving into our flat I made jam doughnut muffins. Despite the name, these muffins are light, moreish really. I like the process by which you create the “doughnut” effect: dip their rounded tops in melted butter and roll them through cinnamon sugar. These muffins feel carefully made, more so than the ‘whip up in 10 minutes variety.’ I like breaking them apart to reveal their dark pink jam centre.

My mother is good at making muffins and we have them for many occasions, but for me, muffins seem synonymous with busy days. Days for painting, or working outside, for long ambling walks, or picnics, or for car trips. And for days spent packing, sorting and heavy lifting.

I baked these muffins again, as a one year anniversary of living here. Now I only need for this flat to be full of people again.

Jam Doughnut Muffins

This recipe comes from an old fundraising muffin book for Kimi Ora School in Thorndon. We have been making these muffins for as long as I can remember.

1 3/4 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/3 cup canola or sunflower oil
3/4 cup caster sugar
1 egg
3/4 cup milk
jam

For the topping:
1/2 cup melted butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Pre-heat oven to 180°C. Grease or line a muffin tray. Combine the flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon in a bowl. In a separate bowl mix thoroughly the oil, first measure of sugar, the egg and the milk. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the liquid. Mix until just combined. Fill half of each muffin hole with batter then place a half teaspoon of jam in the centre. Top with another teaspoon of batter. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

Shake out muffins while hot and dip the top in melted butter followed by the cinnamon-sugar. Leave to cool.

Enjoy x

Lois Daish’s Raisin Bread

Fruit bread holds a certain healing power in my mind. It must be heavily spiced and laden with fruit. These sorts of breads, whether buns or loaves, speak of comfort and cups of tea, a sunday afternoon wrapped in a blanket watching movies. A few weeks ago I received two text messages in less than a hour from friends telling me how their days had been improved, or could be improved, with fruit toast. Not even chocolate has the same capacity to bring such homely comfort.

It may seem I have missed my opportunity for spiced fruit bread immediately after Easter when I am sure many of us have eaten our fill of hot cross buns. Though, in saying that, I could live on spiced fruit bread. Every Easter I gorge myself on hot cross buns. I can’t get enough. Cut in half and toasted, slathered with butter and jam. Or heated in the microwave with thin slices of butter already inside the bun so the slightly salted butter melts within the bread. I like the hot cross buns that are so loaded with fruit and candied peel they appear almost undercooked and soggy.

Hot cross buns come and go so quickly, like other autumnal delights – feijoas, quince, radish. When Easter is over I wonder why hot cross buns aren’t available year round, knowing full well that hot cross buns hold such magic only because of their brief appearance. But dried fruit embedded in heavily spiced bread can be eaten any time of year. Think of this raisin bread as a hair of the dog type treatment to get us over Easter, and if you are this way inclined, this bread may keep you going until next year’s buns roll around.

Lois Daish’s raisin bread is from her beautiful book A Good Year. This is a book I have written about before; a book that appears rather plain until you start flicking through and realise you could quite easily make every recipe. It is a book I turn to often, sometimes just to read, because not only are the recipes wonderful, so are the words which describe them.

Daish makes this raisin bread in April which is rather fitting, not only for its Easter connotations but we are also just beginning to get cold here. The leaves are starting to change and the wind has a bite to it. The next time it rains the gutters will flood, the water bursting its dried-leaf banks. It is a nice time of year to make bread.

There is something quite special about making bread, coaxing the dough along, keeping it safe and warm, only then to knead and pummel it, lovingly so, but pummel it nonetheless. Bread making is a soothing process and the home-maker in me revels in it.

There is also something in the taste of home made bread, something quite different to store-bought or bakery bread. The yeast taste is a bit like the malty, hoppy after taste of home brewed ginger beer. The yeast has some weight to it, it seems to anchor all the other flavours of the bread, sort of rounding them out. I imagine yeast to be like the little baker within the bread, kneading and pushing all the actors together, the flour, spices, currants and sultanas, rallying the troups so to speak. I guess that’s the role of yeast in any baking but the flavour of the home baked variety is lovely.

I took two thick slices to eat on my way to work the other day. They barely fit in the toaster but crisped up wonderfully. It was the perfrect start to my day. I thought about texting my friends about my bread, but it was not yet 7am. Even in the name of fruit bread, that might have been too much.

Thank you dear Georgie for the lovely photographs.

Lois Daish’s Raisin Bread
Adapted from A Good Year

The original recipe made two loaves so I halved the quantities but added more spices and more dried fruit. Next time I will add even more, perhaps some candied peel too. Daish made her bread in an electric mixer, using dough hooks and beaters but I do love hand kneading.

2 tablespoons Surebake yeast
1/4 cup warm water
1 cup milk
85 grams butter, cut into thin slices
1 egg
2 tablespoons soft brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
425 grams high grade white flour
1 to 1.5 cups raisins, currants or sultanas (or a mixture of these)

To Glaze:
1 tablespoon milk
1 tablespoon sugar

Sprinkle the yeast over the warm water in a small bowl and set aside for about 10 minutes. Put the milk in a pot and heat unitl lukewarm. Pour the milk into a large bowl, add the chopped butter. When the butter has almost melted add the egg, sugar, salt, spices and yeast mixture. Whisk to combine. Add about half of the flour and continue to whisk until a smooth batter forms. Add the remaining flour and the dried fruit, mix until just combined then turn onto a lightly floured bench. Knead until smooth. Cover the dough with a damp towel and place somewhere warm to rise for 3 hours, or until doubled in bulk.

Turn the risen dough onto a lightly floured bench and lightly knead. Form dough into an oblong shape and place in a large buttered loaf tin. Cover the loaf tin with the damp cloth and leave to rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk. While the dough rises preheat the oven to 220°C. Put the risen loaf in the oven. After 15 minutes, lower the heat to 190°C and bake for a further 25 minutes or until the loaf is deeply browned. (I covered my loaf in tin foil for the last 5 minutes.)

While the bread is baking make the glaze by heating the milk then stir through the sugar until dissolved. Remove the bread from the oven, tip onto a cooling rack and brush on the glaze.

Eat fresh or toasted. This loaf freezes well and can be toasted straight from the freezer.

Apple Crumble Cake

*I started writing this post about a week ago, but due to technical difficulties it’s been a while in the making.

I’d like you to think back to last Sunday, when it was considerably warmer than it is now. Do you feel that mid morning Sunday sun warm against your curtains? Can you see your coats, hats, scarves and gloves hanging empty on hangers and hooks? Can you feel a hint of spring?

As my friend, Francesca, and I walked to the market, there were rowers on a near-flat harbour, children on scooters and roller-blades and the waterfront cafés spreading out along the boardwalk. People wandered back from the markets, green market bags in one hand, coffee in the other. It was the very definition of a perfect Sunday morning.

On our way to the market I let myself think, for only a second, of spring pasta with fresh asparagus. I thought maybe winter had released her grip and we could start to think about storing our woolen jackets, unplugging the electric blankets and, of course, fresh asparagus.

Upon arrival at the market, the winter staples sat smugly in their crates, confident of their position in our kitchens for at least another month. My hopes of new asparagus dashed, Francesca and I bought winter greens: petite broccoli heads, spinach bunched roughly with an elastic band, half a savoy cabbage with a scorpion shaped core and a tall leek with leaves perfect for poking out of a market bag; you’re a proper market goer with a leek sticking out of your bag. We wore sunglasses and made summer plans for barbeques on the balcony and long, icy drinks with Pimm’s.

Then, later in the afternoon, the deep clouds rolled in, the hail started and flurries of snow hovered in the half darkness. And now, this week: snow in the city centre, the pine covered hills behind Thorndon are speckled in white and the roads resemble cookie and cream ice cream.

We still have a while to go until blossoms and tulips. I’m ok with that.

Because what this polar blast really means is hearty stews, thick soups, a dozen cups of tea a day, steamed puddings, warm bread rolls hiding meltey butter and, apple crumble cake. Thrashing storms, house-shaking thunder and slushy rain are really the only conditions in which one should eat apple crumble cake.

An apple crumble cake spiked with spices, the slight tartness of apples and the maple, caramel flavour of butter and brown sugar. This cake cum crumble cum strudel has a slight nutty texture and taste, as if made with soft chips of walnut. Instead, rolled oats slathered in a bit more butter and sugar.

Francesca made this cake using her Mum’s tried and true recipe. It was not intended for our flat, but when the snow and the hail forced us to bunker down inside we were glad to have this apple crumble cake. It is best eaten warm with yoghurt or ice cream, but it lasts for days, perfect for a lunch time baked treat.

So, forget the Pimms and new season asparagus. Tuck your trackpants into your socks; relish wearing two merinos, a hoodie and a dressing gown; pull a blanket up to your chin and simply let apple crumble cake work its winter magic.

Apple Crumble Cake

Cake ingredients:

125g butter, softened
2 medium apples
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cups flour
1tsp baking soda
2tsp cinnamon
1tsp allspice
1tsp salt

Topping ingredients:

25g cold butter
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup brown sugar
1tsp cinnamon

Cake:
In a food processor put butter, apples (unpeeled), sugar and the egg. Mix briefly until the apples are roughly chopped. Sift in the dry ingredients and mix until just blended.
Pour into a 23cm baking dish lined with paper.

Topping:
Clean and dry the food processor well before making the topping. Mix cold butter, oats, brown sugar and cinnamon in food processor until just mixed.
Sprinkle the topping on top of the cake.
Bake at 180°C for 40-45minutes.

N.B The topping mix will spread through the rest of the cake.