Author: Alex

Apple Cake

- Alex 1 Comment

apple cake

We have an apple tree. Last year we didn’t see a single apple – not sure if it was the lack of rain or the local wildlife. In fact, we didn’t even KNOW it was an apple tree.

This year, the planets lined up and, about a week ago, I picked our small harvest. Some research (thanks google!) suggests that our tree might be a Grimes Golden – the apples are like Golden Delicious but tastier and the fruit is very late. Anyway, what to do with all these apples?

If you’re me, the obvious answer is to make cake. A bit of research saw me with a selection of apple cake recipes that didn’t quite fit what we had in the house and some which did, but seemed a bit unexciting. In the end, my cake was very similar to the Dorset apple cake which you can find on both the Delicious website and over at the Goddess’s Kitchen (Maria does loads of baking – if you like cake I suggest you check out her blog).

This is, essentially, a pound cake with apples added. It’s easy and quick to put together but does require a slightly longer cooking time than many cakes. Because I was adding chopped apple at the end, I used my KitchenAid rather than the Magimix for this one. Of course, there’s no harm in doing things by hand, either!

Preheat oven to 180°C (160°C fan). Grease and base line a 23 cm spring form tin.

Begin by softening 225g of unsalted butter. It’s freezing* in Adelaide at the moment and I’m never organised enough to leave butter out so it was the microwave to the rescue. Mix this with 225g of caster sugar and, when the butter/sugar mix is smooth, add 225 self raising flour and 2 tsp of baking powder.

This will be a stiff mixture so now add 3 large eggs, one at a time. Add 25g of ground almonds and 1 teaspoon of allspice.

Peel and cube apples so that you end up with about 300g of apple ready to go in the cake mix. As you work with the apples, toss them in a little lime juice mixed with lime zest which will stop them going brown and will add some crispness of flavour to the finished product.

Gently stir the apples through the cake batter and spoon into the cake tin. Smooth the top as best you can and make sure you push the mix out to the edges. It is quite thick and difficult to manage but you don’t want a lopsided cake.

In my oven, at 160°C fan the cake took an hour to cook. A skewer wants to come out cleanly and the top needs to be set.

The cake kept quite well – thanks to ground almonds. It had lovely caramelised crunchy bits around the sides and if you were after more of this, you could sprinkle the top with a tablespoon of demerara sugar before baking. Everyone liked this cake: it had a good apple flavour and the allspice added a warm lift. And served with cream – what’s not to like?

* I may be exaggerating … but it is pretty cold!

FAQ, Magill Road

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date of visit:  Saturday 23 July 2011

We were off early this morning, puttering about all over the countryside ticking off some DIY and house decorating chores. Our usual leisurely weekend routine (be woken by cats around 0600, be woken by baby around 0730, eventually feed selves around 1100) was disrupted and before we knew it it was time for coffee and cake. OK – in my world, it’s ALWAYS time for coffee and cake, but this morning even Andy felt the need for caffeine and sugar.

And there, fortuitously, just over the road, was a café called FAQ. It’s a lovely bright and clean space, decorated in white and green. Even the high chair in the corner matched the rest of the décor. There wasn’t a massive selection of cakes and pâtisserie but there was enough. I chose a chocolate fudge biscuit and Andy went for vanilla slice (apparently the king of cakes). We ordered a couple of coffees.

The cakes came out quickly but the coffees took an absolute age. Hardly apt for a café which claims to be Fresh And Quick. While we were waiting Andy polished off his vanilla slice and I made my way through most of my biscuit. While we were eating our cakes we were approached by a rather dour lady, carrying plates, who uttered “Soup?”. Yeah – because most people go into a café and order sweets to go on with before their soup arrives …

Even Andy, whose patience far exceeds mine, started to look around wondering where our coffees were. They did eventually arrive and they were pretty good (Andy actually described his long black as ‘very good’ – I’m starting to sound like I was in a bad mood this morning, which I wasn’t).

The door of FAQ was home to a flyer: they’re after staff with coffee experience. Let’s hope new staff members are happy, cheerful types, who can make a coffee quickly and can manage tables.

FAQ
161 Magill Road, Stepney, SA, 5069
phone: +61 8 8362 1127

Dahl Makhani

- Alex 1 Comment

dahl makhni

I love lentils.  I don’t understand how people can NOT like them:  they’re versatile, tasty, cheap and extremely good for you.  I get really cross when I hear people say how difficult it is to feed a family proper food cheaply because they’re clearly not making enough, creative use of lentils.

That said, this recipe is the antithesis of all of the above. It makes use of black lentils which can be a little tricky to track down, it contains a ton of cream and butter, making it neither healthy nor particularly cheap. But it tastes amazing. I was first introduced to this type of dahl by the excellent Shabab restaurant in Leeds. The restaurant was across the road from Andy’s flat so I ordered more than my fair share of dahl makhani both as takeaway and in house. It was pretty much all I ate there (paired with a naan bread and a pint of Cobra).

My recipe comes from the excellent Curry. It’s not identical to that produced by Shabab but it’s close and it tastes excellent. As with Shabab’s, it’s best served with a naan bread and the lager of your choice. That does for supper for a greedy couple, but you can always serve as part of a larger meal.

NOTE: you do need to start this day before!

Take 250g of black lentils (urad) and soak them in lukewarm water overnight (we bought ours from the New India Market on South Road at Darlington).

Drain and rinse the lentils, and in a saucepan cover them with about 1½ litres of fresh water. Bring them to the boil and then reduce to a simmer and cook for about an hour. Keep an eye on the lentils – they’ll need a stir and you don’t want to over cook them and turn them into a mush.

Once the lentils are cooked, add 1tsp each of garlic and ginger pastes, 1½ tsp of salt (don’t leave this out – lentils without salt is just wrong!), and red chilli powder to taste (about 2 tsp gives the finished product some good heat). Simmer for a little longer and then add 2 tbsp of tomato paste and (wait for it) 150g of lightly salted butter (if you use unsalted you’ll just need to add more salt when you adjust the seasoning).

Stir in the butter and keep stirring until the lentils become thick and creamy. If you wander off now you’ll likely end up with a split mix and I doubt very much you want to eat lentils with a slick of melted butter floating on top …

Finish by stirring in 1 tsp of garam masala, a generous pinch of ground fenugreek leaves (methi) – if you have them (we almost never do) and finish with 4 tbsp of cream (get pure cream, don’t use anything with a thickener in it). Check the seasoning and serve immediately.

This does reheat well (making it perfect for work lunch the next day). I’ve never tried freezing it but both the cream and the quantity of butter make me feel that that might not be such a great idea. And to be honest, we’ve never had any problems polishing this off!