My chocolate cake quest continues

I cannot resist a chocolate cake recipe. Just when I think it is not possible to add yet another one to my burgeoning files - there must be at least 100 chocolate cake recipes already there - along comes a new one.

My latest cake recipe comes from New Zealand food writer and author Annabel Langbein. My friend John, a secret foodie at heart, has discovered Annabel through her series screening on ABC 1, and he kindly sent me a link to her website, thinking I would enjoy it. And I have. Annabel has travelled extensively and written 10 cookbooks, one of which, Assemble - Sensational Food Made Simple, won the Gourmand World Cookbook Award for "Best in the World for Easy Recipes".

Annabel also features recipes on her website, one of which is for "Magic Chocolate Cake and Chocolate Ganache". This is a brilliant cake, which can be made either as one large cake, two medium cakes, or 10 small ones. It has a reasonably long list of ingredients but you throw them into a food processor, whiz for 30 seconds, pour into a cake tin and then bake, making it possibly one of the easiest cakes ever to make. As Annabel notes in her recipe introduction, "If you have never made a cake before, let this be your first. It is so simple and the results are satisfyingly impressive."

The secret ingredient in this mix is 100g grated carrot (or pumpkin), which adds a lovely moistness to the cooked texture. It also has mixed spice, cinnamon, golden syrup and espresso coffee, which sounds like a lot of flavours to pack into one cake but it really works, adding a lovely spicy undertone to the chocolate notes. I encourage you to head over to Annabel's website to check out this cake recipe, as well as the other recipes and features.

Slice of heaven

My family's first stop at the Royal Melbourne Show is always at the Country Women's Association stand for Devonshire tea. Textbook perfect scones, baked fresh that morning by one of the CWA's army of talented bakers, accompanied by a small pot of thick cream and some strawberry jam, is one of life's wonderful little indulgences.

This year, I explored the sale stall at the back of the room, with knitted tea cosies, printed tea towels and recipe books all jumbled together. When I picked up The A to Z of Cooked and Uncooked Slices, I knew this was one purchase I had to make. It was impossible to resist seventy pages of good old-fashioned slices, most made with plain ingredients found in any self-respecting country larder, and designed to feed hungry mouths in search of a sweet treat, whether hard-working farmers or children after school.

Chocolate, caramel, apricots, cherries, ginger, walnuts, coconut, coffee, dates, hazelnuts, lemon and passionfruit are just some of the stars of this book. The beauty of slices, particularly old-fashioned ones, is that they turn simple ingredients into something special with a minimum of fuss and effort.

It was difficult to choose which slice to bake first but I narrowed down my list to those with ingredients I already had in my larder: cherry nut slice and coffee streusel slice. I love the short no-nonsense tone of the recipes, which assumes a large degree of knowledge by the cook (but one that was perfectly in tune with the times - any self-respecting home cook would have known this information). These slices are suitable for a morning tea at home or they can be dressed up and taken out for company - in my case, these slices went perfectly with coffee during half-time at a friend's AFL Grand Final party.

Cherry nut slice
Recipe from Isobel Green, Member of Honour, CWA Victoria branch

Base
1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup icing sugar
125g butter

Rub butter into flour and sugar and knead well. Press into 18cm x 28cm greased tin.

Topping
Combine 2 eggs and 1/2 cup sugar into a bowl and beat well. Add 1 cup coconut, 30g chopped walnuts or pecan nuts and 30g chopped glace cherries. Add 1/2 cup sifted self-raising flour and mix well. Pour over prepared base and bake in a moderate oven (160 to 180 degrees, not fan-forced) for 25-30 minutes. Ice with pale pink icing (made with 2 cups icing sugar mixed with enough boiling water to be spreadable) and sprinkle with chopped walnuts,

The perfect neighbourhood bakery

You can smell Levain Bakery before you see it. The unmistakable odour of fresh yeast and hot-out-of-the-oven cookies wafts up from the underground bakery and out into the street.

Located in one of the Upper West Side's many leafy streets, Levain is an artisanal bakery that opened 15 years ago. Its French-style sign at the 167 West 74th Street site is understated but the delicious smells mean you won't miss the subterranean bakery. The bulk of the shop is given over to the kitchen, and you can perch at the little counter and watch the bread and cookies being made.

Levain Bakery is best known for its divine six-ounce (approximately 200g) cookies but it offers a full range of bakery goods, including bread - sourdough loaves and rolls, ciabatta, wholemeal walnut raisin rolls and olive bread - pizza slices, muffins and cakes (sour cream coffee cake on our first visit).



Pizza slices ($7.75) make a fabulous late morning breakfast. We chose the caramelised onion with parmesan reggiano. The crispy, flat bread base was generously layered with sweet dark onions and melted drops of parmesan. The staff thoughtfully cut it into four pieces for us and we ate it in raptures on the park bench outside the bakery.



A sweet treat was next and we chose a sourdough brioche stuffed with Vahlrona chocolate ($3). The dense and chewy texture of the brioche perfectly offset the richness of the dark chocolate. It is served either hot or cold - we chose it cold but next time I would try it warmed.

While the breakfast was delicious and I was keen to return to sample more goods, the real reason for our visit was the Levain Bakery cookies ($4), which are justifiably celebrated. They come in four varieties: chocolate chip walnut, dark chocolate chocolate chip, dark chocolate peanut butter chip and oatmeal raisin. Each cookie is at least an inch thick and about four inches in diameter. The biscuits are decadent - each chewy mouthful delivers a chunk of chocolate and walnut, or a nutty undertaste to the rich chocolate. The double chocolate version was extremely rich and we definitely could not devour it in one sitting. In fact, the cookies were perfect for all-day nibbling - a piece here and a piece there were often enough to satisfy any sugar cravings.

Unfortunately, but understandably, Levain Bakery does not publish its recipes but many people have tried to come up with their own version, which is available on the bakery website (http://www.levainbakery.com/)

While in New York, we tried to visit as many new places as possible. But we returned several times to Levain Bakery for its cookies. I only wish I could have brought lots home with me!

Levain Bakery
167 West 74th Street, Upper West Side
Mon-Sat 8am-7pm, Sun 9am-7pm
There is also a Hamptons outlet, open seasonally - see www.levainbakery.com for more details

Fast and tasty muffins

Some people don't believe me when I tell them I find it faster and easier to bake than I do to buy a cake or biscuits. Because I have a well-stocked pantry, I can mix up flour, eggs, butter and sugar into a tasty cake as quickly as if I loaded two children into the car, drove to the supermarket, agonised over the multitude of choices in the biscuit aisle and then queued to pay.

Of course, there are always times when convenience will win out, but a recipe such as for these tasty muffins shows that baking can be just as quick and easy. There's also the added bonus of minimising preservatives and additives and, to me, home-made always tastes better.

Not only are these muffins, which come from Allan Campion and Michele Curtis's excellent In The Kitchen cookbook, very quick to whip up, they are also toddler-friendly: it's easy for little hands to mix together, although you might find a few of the white chocolate bits make it into little mouths rather than the finished product!

Raspberry and white chocolate muffins

Recipe from In The Kitchen by Allan Campion and Michele Curtis

200g self-raising flour

150g caster sugar

Zest of 1 lemon, chopped

60g melted butter

125ml milk

1 egg

100g raspberries

95g white chocolate chips

Icing sugar to serve

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Line a muffin pan with paper cases.*

Mix the flour, caster sugar and lemon zest together. Beat the butter, milk and egg together in a separate bowl. Mix the dry and wet mixes together to form a smooth batter, then fold through the raspberries and chocolate.

Divide the mix into the muffin cases and bake for 20 minutes, or until risen and golden brown. Allow to cool, then dust with icing sugar to serve.

* Note: the recipe says this makes 10 muffins, but I found it made 18 small-sized (not Texas) muffins.

The ultimate comfort food

Baked custard might be an old-fashioned dessert but it is a dish that deserves to be made more often. It is the ultimate comfort food: its silky-smooth texture makes it deceptively easy to eat half of the dish before you realise how much you've eaten, but it also has an easy elegance to it that is more than the sum of its simple parts of cream, milk, eggs and sugar.

Thankfully, Donna Hay has resurrected this lovely dessert in the latest issue of her magazine. There's a step-by-step guide to making basic baked custard, plus twists to the base recipe using spices, chocolate, rice and brioche for a modern take.

I had forgotten how much I loved this dessert until I made it recently. Surprisingly, my toddler was not overly enthused by the custard, but Adam and I quickly polished off the dish before we realised how quickly we'd eaten it! Not to worry - this is a dish that doesn't keep and tastes best warm from the oven. Its comforting texture will enfold you like a cosy doona and it is a dessert to enjoy on cold nights.


Baked custard
From Donna Hay Magazine, issue 50

500ml single (pouring) cream
250ml milk
1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped, or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs and 3 egg yolks, extra
110g caster (superfine) sugar

Preheat oven to 150 degrees Celsius (300 degrees Fahrenheit). Place the cream, milk, vanilla bean and seeds in a saucepan over high heat until the mixture just comes to the boil. Remove from heat and set aside.

Place the eggs, extra yolks and sugar in a bowl and whisk until well combined. Gradually add the hot cream mixture to the egg mixture, whisking well to combine.

Strain custard into a 1.5 litre capacity (6 cups) ovenproof dish.

Place dish in a water bath* and bake for 1 hour 25 minutes or until just set.

Remove from the water bath and allow to stand for 15 minutes before serving. Serves 4-6.


* To make a water bath, place the custard dish into a deep-sided baking dish and pour in enough boiling water to come halfway up the sides of the custard dish.

Hot pies

Subscribing to food magazines makes me realise how quickly the months slip away. I feel like I've just opened an issue and a new one is already on the doorstep. Donna Hay Magazine's 50th birthday issue has just arrived, and it has a magnificent chocolate layer cake on the front cover that is begging to be made.

I haven't missed an issue of Donna Hay Magazine since I first subscribed to it and I find inspiration in every issue. To make sure I get the most out of my food magazines, I file them according to season (so I put all the autumn issues together). Each year, when the season changes, I take out that season's past issues and flick through them to see what I've made in the past that I enjoyed, or to get some new recipes to try.

Tonight's dinner came from my random flickings. I rediscovered this easy but tasty pie dish that I had first made in 2008 and marked as "definitely make again". It is such an easy dish to make but it is very impressive, whether you serve it as a weeknight dish for the family or dress it up for dinner with friends. The Dijon mustard is the hidden secret here, adding piquancy to the pie filling. I made two large pies, as specified by the recipe, some smaller pies for the children, and had some filling left over that I piled into ramekins and topped with leftover pastry scraps to make a lid. The pies are easy to reheat as leftovers.

Easy chicken, leek and mushroom pie

From Donna Hay Magazine, issue 38 (April/May 2008)

1 Tb olive oil

50g butter

1 leek, sliced

200g button mushrooms, chopped

2 x 200g chicken breast fillets, trimmed and chopped

sea salt and cracked black pepper

2 tsp Dijon mustard

6 sheets store-bought butter puff pastry

1 egg, lightly beaten

Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Heat the oil in a non-stick frying pan over high heat, add the butter, leek and mushrooms and cook for 5 minutes. Add the chicken and cook for 2-3 minutes until sealed and lightly browned. Add salt, pepper and mustard and mix to combine.

Cut 4 x 14cm rounds from 2 sheets of pastry and 4 x 16cm rounds from remaining sheets. Place 14cm rounds on baking trays lined with baking paper, top with chicken mixture and brush edges with egg. Top with remaining pastry, press edges to seal and brush with egg. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden. Serve with steamed green beans or a simple salad.

Preparing for an Easter feast

My latest issue of delicious magazine has arrived and I've already bookmarked lots of recipes to try. My favourite spread is the Easter baking
feature by editor Kylie Walker. White chocolate truffle cake, Easter biscuits, braided fruit loaf, orange drops, chocolate coconut Easter cakes - I want to try them all!

The hot cross muffins particularly attracted me. I like the idea of an alternative to hot cross buns, which, while fun to make and delicious to eat, are reasonably labour-intensive. These looked easy to make and I had all the ingredients in my larder, so I decided to try out a batch in preparation for Easter. This recipe gets the thumbs-up: easy to make and even easier to eat! The aromatic muffins are a cute twist on tradition and, if you leave off the cross, they are also yummy enough to whip up year-round

Hot cross muffins

From delicious magazine, April 2010

135g dried cranberries

1 cup (150g) currants

2 1/2 cups (375g) self-raising flour

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

2/3 cup (165ml) sunflower oil

1 cup (250ml) buttermilk

2 eggs

200g caster sugar, plus extra 2 Tbs

80g icing sugar

1 tsp lemon juice

Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Grease a 12-hold muffin tray and line with paper cases.


Soak dried fruit in just enough boiling water to cover for 10 minutes. Drain well, then pat dry with a paper towel.

Sift the flour, soda and spices into a large bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the oil, buttermilk, eggs and sugar until combined. Add to the dry ingredients and stir to combine. Gently stir in the fruit. Divide the mixture among muffin cases, then bake for 20-25 minutes until lightly browned and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool completely on a wire rack.

Meanwhile, place the extra 2 Tbs sugar in a pan with 2 Tbs water and simmer over a low heat, stirring, until sugar dissolves. Brush the glaze over the muffins.

Sift icing sugar into a bowl. Add lemon juice and just enough hot water to make a thick, pipable icing. Use a piping bag, or drizzle from a spoon, to draw a cross on each muffin, then serve.

A cure for most ills

When you enjoy baking as much as I do, baking for others can sometimes be more stressful than people expect. Friends and family are surprised if I stress about what cake to bake or dish to cook. "But you're a good cook," friends say. "You have heaps of recipes to choose from."



And that, in a nutshell, is the problem. Too many recipes, too much choice, too much pressure to come up with the perfect dish for the occasion. A simple slice is easy to make but will it have the 'wow' factor? Should I risk making a new cake that I haven't tried before? Biscuits are a nice treat but will they seem too small and boring?



Of course, all this pressure is self-imposed. Most people are impressed simply by the fact that someone has gone to the trouble of baking something homemade for them. The cook may bewail the fact that the corner of the cake broke when it came out of the tin, that the icing didn't set properly, or that the finished product doesn't look picture-perfect, but I guarantee that most of the recipients won't even notice.



If you want to impress people, I find that a homemade chocolate cake is always a winner. A chocolate cake can be dressed up or down, adorned with simple butter icing or a rich ganache, filled with whipped cream, or left plain. Morning tea, afternoon tea, dessert, birthdays - chocolate cake suits all occasions.



This chocolate cake, from Allan Campion and Michelle Curtis's excellent In The Kitchen, is a recent addition to my repertoire but an instant hit and one I've made several times since. I made this cake recently for the regular Friday morning tea at my work. Although I normally serve it plain at home, usually dusted with a mixture of icing sugar and cocoa, this time I dressed it up with a chocolate ganache. It is a rich fudgy cake that is guaranteed to impress - there were definitely no seconds when I served this one!

Rich iced birthday cake

I'm an absolute sucker for magazines that feature Christmas feasts. It doesn't matter how many recipe features I have with Christmas dishes (and I already have my own extensive collection of family favourites that I usually make each year), if I see a new magazine with an enticing spread, I buy it.

I admit that the December issue of Notebook magazine was one such purchase. I am a big fan of Notebook magazine, which seems to be one of the few women's magazines that addresses women who might want to read something more substantial than celebrity gossip and sealed sex sections. There's always lots of inspirational reading, with articles on finance, personal improvement, spiritual wellbeing and work-life balance interspersed with fashion and cooking spreads.

One of the dishes that caught my eye in the December issue was the rich iced mud cake with boozy berries. I didn't have time to make it at Christmas (nor did we really need extra cakes!) but I bookmarked it and decided it was the perfect cake to make for Adam's birthday.

It's always a risk to make a new cake for a special occasion, in case it doesn't work, but the method was easy and the combination of chocolate, coffee, Marsala and mascarpone was tempting. It's a big cake, suitable to serve at least 12 people, so it's an excellent occasion cake. The original method called for the cake to be made in two loaf tins but I made it in one big square cake tin and just had to adjust the cooking time accordingly.

The end result was enthusiastically received by both the birthday boy and the family members who attended the birthday feast. The cake is moist and dense, with the subtle coffee and Marsala flavours blending harmoniously with the chocolate. A mixture of mascarpone, whipped cream, Marsala and icing sugar sandwiches the cake together. The alcohol softens the rich mascarpone and ensures that this cake, while rich, is not overpowering and will not leave you feeling like you've overindulged.

We made it: homemade crumpets with raspberries and lemon

There is something quintessentially English about crumpets. To me, they evoke images of lazy breakfasts in summer, taken at a little table on the terrace overlooking sweeping gardens brimming with the colours and scents of masses of flowers.

Of course, the supermarket variety aren't that glamorous and I'm more likely to eat them in winter slathered with melted butter and honey.

But Jamie Oliver's recipe for homemade cinnamon and lemon crumpets with raspberries and honey in the Dec/Jan issue of delicious magazine sounded heavenly and perfect for a summery morning, especially with berries from our recent berry picking expedition in the Otways.

I've made Bill Granger's homemade crumpets before, which are absolutely divine but a little fiddly, requiring a long proving time for the yeast to activate (not the thing you can whip up for a hungry tummy after a sleep in). The beauty of this Jamie Oliver version is that the yeast requires only 10 minutes and the crumpets can be cooked. The drawback is that they take up to 25 minutes to cook, so you might want to have several fry-pans on the go at once or you will be spending a long time at the stove while everyone else is tucking in! Aside from this minor qualification, these crumpets were delicious - heavier and more bun-like than the supermarket variety but more hearty and delicious because of that - and the honeyed ricotta and raspberries are a perfect combination - all the flavours of summer packed into one small dish.

This recipe is part of the "We Made It" challenge that Suzie from Munch+Nibble and I are giving ourselves: the challenge is to actually use our food magazines rather than just bookmarking them.

Jamie Oliver's homemade cinnamon and lemon crumpets with raspberries and honey

Recipe from December 2009/January 2010 issue of delicious

250g fresh ricotta
Zest of 1 lemon
2 Tbs honey, plus extra to drizzle
3 large handfuls fresh raspberries
Sunflower oil, to grease

Crumpets
500g strong (baker's) flour
1 tsp caster sugar
7g sachet dried instant yeast
A pinch of bicarb soda
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Place all the crumpet ingredients into a food processor with 2 tsp of salt. Pour in 600ml tepid water. The water needs to be warm enough to activate the yeast but not so hot that it kills it. Blitz all the crumpet ingredients together until you've got a loose batter. Leave to stand for 10 minutes to let the yeast develop. The mixture should be quite wet, just about dropping consistency.

While the yeast develops, make the topping by putting the ricotta, lemon zest and honey into a bowl and beating together until light and fluffy. Place half of the raspberries into another little bowl and mash up with a fork. Fold the mashed raspberries into the ricotta - don't be tempted to over-mix it, as you're looking for a beautiful pink rippled effect.

You may need to cook the crumpets in batches. First, grease the inside of metal crumpet rings (I used egg rings) with some sunflower oil. Place a non-stick fry-pan on medium heat, and put the rings into the pan. When it's nice and hot, spoon some mixture into each ring, to about 1cm deep. Turn the heat to low and leave for 15 minutes to cook through. Check the pan is not getting too hot and burning the bottom of the crumpets. After about 15 minutes - once the bubbles on top have formed into crumpet-like dimples - turn them over, using tongs to lift away the rings. Cook for another 5-10 minutes, until cooked right through.

Serve the crumpets with a generous spoonful of ricotta, an extra drizzle of honey and some lovely raspberries.

A spicy side of Christmas

Heady spice mixtures and plump dried fruit feature heavily in Christmas baking. Many of the traditional dishes we've inherited from England, such as Christmas cakes, fruit mince tarts and plum puddings, are chock-full of these ingredients. But other nations have similar traditions: the spicy Dutch speculaas biscuits and golden fruit-studded panettone or panforte, a spicy mix of glace fruit and nuts, from Italy, for example.

For many years I've made a chocolate panforte at Christmas. No matter how full we are, everyone always finds a small hole in their stomach when the plate of panforte, dusted with icing sugar, comes out with coffee. In last year's Christmas issue of Gourmet Traveller, I found a recipe for panpepato, which is very similar to panforte. With a newborn in the house last Christmas, there was no time to make the panpepato but it was one of the first things on my list for this year (as this recipe came from the December 2008 issue, it doesn't strictly fit into the We Made This challenge that Suzie from Munch+Nibble and I are doing, but I'm including it anyway, as I haven't had a chance to cook as much from this year's edition as I'd hoped!)

According to Gourmet Traveller, panpepato is a Christmas specialty from the Siena region of Italy. It is similar to panforte but is spiced up with black pepper and cocoa or chocolate. "The hsitory of panforte and panpepato are intertwined and it's difficult to distinguish which came first and what their true provenance is," Emma Knowles wrote in her article on panpepato. "Legend has it that panpepato possessed powerful aphrodisiac qualities and also had the ability to stop husbands and wives from fighting, both of which are great reasons to whip up a batch yourself."

Panpepato is easy to make, although you will need a sugar thermometer and some confidence in cooking a soft caramel. The mixing stage needs to be done very quickly or you end up with a big, gluggy, unusable mess on your hands.

The recipe specifies that the panpepato should be baked in five 10cm-diameter springform pans. I made mine in a 20cm springform pan, as I don't have the smaller pans, and adjusted the cooking time slightly. The end result was fine but I do think the smaller versions would work very well if you wanted to give these away as gifts. Panpepato would make a wonderful gift for your friends: this is a wonderful cake, like a sexy older sister version of panforte. The dark cocoa gives it a luxurious element, while the spicy aftertaste of peppercorns lingers teasingly on the palate. This is a dish that I will definitely be making again.

Panpepato

Recipe from Gourmet Traveller, December 2008 (available on the GT website)

2 sheets of confectioner's rice paper
50gm plain flour
40gm Dutch-process cocoa
1 Tb ground mixed spice
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 tsp coarsely crushed pink peppercorns
200gm candied orange, coarsely chopped
80gm almonds, roasted
80gm each walnuts and hazelnuts, roasted and peeled
150gm caster sugar
150g honey
Pure icing sugar, to dust

Preheat oven to 150 degrees. Lightly grease five 10-cm diameter springform pans, line bases with baking paper and then rice paper, trimming to fit. Sift flour and cocoa into a bowl, add spices, orange and nuts and toss to coat well in the flour mixture.

Heat caster sugar, honey and 2 Tb water in saucepan over medium heat, stirring until sugar dissolves. Do not stir again, as mixture may crystallise. Bring to the boil and cook until mixture reaches 120 degrees on a sugar thermometer (soft ball stage). Working quickly with a lightly oiled spoon, pour caramel over nut mixture, mixing well. Spoon into prepared pans and smooth tops with an oiled spatula. Bake for 10-15 minutes (time it carefully because this cake will not firm up or colour as it cooks). Cool completely in pans, turn out, then dust liberally with icing sugar. Serve cut into wedges (note that this cake is rich and a little will go a long way).

Panpepato will keep, wrapped in baking paper, and then plastic wrap in an airtight container in a cool place, for up to one month. To present as a gift, wrap panpepato in baking paper before wrapping as desire.

We made it: Speculaas

Suzie from Munch+Nibble and I are taking part in the "We made it" project, where we choose a food magazine each month and cook as much as we can from it. It's an attempt to actually use the magazines we subscribe to, rather than just bookmarking them.

This month's magazine is Gourmet Traveller and the first dish I made was from the "Classic Dish" section: speculaas. This is a thin and crispy spiced biscuit from Europe. According to GT writer Emma Knowles, the Dutch and German versions of speculaas are heavily spiced, with cardamom and ground white pepper added to the mix. Emma also added star anise and mace to her interpretation.

I have a simplified speculaas recipe from Miranda Sharp that appeared in Epicure a few years ago and it makes a very moreish biscuit. But the spice mix in this GT version sounded more robust and interesting, with cardamom, cloves, star anise, white peppercorns, mace, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg all featuring. Rather than using ground spices, you grind up the cardamom, cloves, star anise, peppercorns and mace yourself. I made it the old-fashioned way, using a mortar and pestle, and it does produce an intense spice mix with an almost medicinal smell. However, letting the dough rest overnight softens the harsh edges of the strong spices and mellows them into an aromatic biscuit. The aroma while baking is heavenly. As Emma notes, it's a good thing that the recipe makes a lot of biscuits, as it is almost impossible to stop at just one.

The verdict: An intense, addictive biscuit that would find favour at any time of year but is particularly welcome at this time of year; aromatic spices feature heavily in Christmas baking. While this is an easy biscuit to make, it does involve some labour and you need to allow time for the dough to rest (at least eight hours, but preferably overnight), as well as chilling the cut biscuits before making them. So while I thoroughly enjoyed this biscuit, it is not something you can whip up in a hurry. My simplified speculaas recipe is better if you're in a hurry; but the intense spices in this version make it a winner.

Speculaas

Recipe by Emma Knowles, p 38, Gourmet Traveller, December 2009

500g plain flour, sieved

2 tsp baking powder

220g butter, softened

250g dark brown sugar

2 Tb milk

Speculaas spice

8 green cardamom pods

8 cloves

5 star anise

1 tsp white peppercorns

1 piece of mace

2 Tb ground cinnamon

2 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp finely grated nutmeg

1. For speculaas spice, finely grind cardamom, cloves, star anise, peppercorns and mace in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle. Transfer to a large bowl, add cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg, stir, add to flour and baking powder and set aside.

2. Beat butter, sugar and a pinch of salt in an electric mixer until creamy (3-4 minutes). Add milk, beat to combine, then add flour mixture and mix until just combined. Form mixture into a dough with your hands on a word surface (add extra milk if the mixture is too dry), shape into a disc and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate to rest (eight hours to overnight).

3. Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius. Roll pastry on a lightly floured surface to 5mm thick, then refrigerate until firm (30 minutes). Cut into desired shapes and place on trays lined with baking paper. Chill until firm (20 minutes), then bake in batches until light brown and crisp (10-12 minutes). Cool for 5 minutes on trays, then transfer to wire racks and cool completely. Speculaas will keep, stored in an airtight container, for 1 week.

We made it: Gourmet Traveller

Addict: devote, apply habitually or compulsively (to a practice); person addicted to a habit.

My name is Melinda and I'm addicted to food porn. My books are pushed aside to make way for more glossy cookbooks, out-of-season food magazines are stored in boxes in the cupboard until their seasonal time arrives, and I have storage boxes stuffed full of recipes clipped from magazines and newspapers. I want to organise them and file them but every time I pull out the box to do so, I get side-tracked by hypothetically conjuring up the dishes until I've run out of time. The clippings are piled back into the box and put away until the next time.

Thankfully, I'm not alone in my addiction. My friend and fellow blogger Suzie from Munch+Nibble is a fellow food porn addict - and possibly even more addicted than me! Whenever Suzie has spare time on her hands, she dives into a newsagent for another hit.

Several months ago, I surprised myself by cooking at least 10 dishes out of that month's issue of Gourmet Traveller. Suzie was suitably impressed, as we both tend to drool over each issue, bookmark dozens of recipes, and then file away the magazine without actually making anything. We have now set ourselves the challenge of picking a different magazine each month and try to cook, review and post as much as possible from that magazine in that month. Hopefully our pristine copies will soon be covered with the splotches and splatters of use in the kitchen.

If anyone else would like to join in with our "We made it" project, you are more than welcome - just drop a comment to either Suzie or me.

So, for our inaugural "We made it", we have chosen the December 2009 issue of Gourmet Traveller. This magazine is a favourite of mine: it is beautifully written, photographed and edited. I believe that Australian food magazines are among the best in the world, especially in the way the food is photographed and presented.

Gourmet Traveller has several regular columns that I really enjoy: Fare Exchange, where readers can write in and seek recipes of favourite dishes from chefs around Australia; Classic Dish, where a classic dish is featured, including its history and a recipe to try; Perfect Match, a wine and food match dish, and In Season.

A stunning trifle, glossy dark berries perched on top of a custard and sponge base, is the enticing cover photo of this month's issue. Inside is lots of inspiration for Christmas, with some old favourites given a modern twist, and Sydney star pastry chef Adrian Zumbo providing some zany Christmas dishes to make.

If you would like to join in the fun of cooking from Gourmet Traveller this month, leave me a comment, and make sure you go and visit Suzie at Munch+Nibble to see what amazing dishes she is whipping up. Check back regularly this month, as we plan to post throughout December about the different dishes we're trying.

If you are unable to buy Gourmet Traveller, you will find many of the recipes from each month's issue featured on its excellent website: http://www.gourmettraveller.com.au/

Snowy drifts of sugar

So many of the traditional Christmas baking dishes that we favour seem wrong for our climate: hot roast dishes, rich puddings and dense spicy treats are perfect for a snowy, northern hemisphere Yuletide but seem inappropriate when we're more likely to be heading to the beach.

Yet the tradition persists. To me, the aroma of spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and cloves are the essence of Christmas and conjure up images of sweet treats that we can eat with a reckless abandon that doesn't exist during the rest of the year (or why else are the January magazines full of post-Christmas diets?)

It is a time of excess, particularly in relation to baking. A slice of panforte here, a wedge of fruit cake there, here a mince tart, there a spiced biscuit ... there's plenty of excuses to indulge.

Despite my mounting pile of recipes, it's nice to return to some old favourites. I adore spiced biscuits and cakes - put the word "spiced" into the title of a recipe and you have my attention immediately. These cute little spiced biscuits by Donna Hay, finished off with a dusting of snowy icing sugar, are a perfect way to offer season's greetings.

Sugar-dusted spice biscuits

125g (4 0z) butter, softened
3/4 cup (150g/5 oz) brown sugar
1/4 cup (95g/3 oz) golden syrup
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 3/4 cups (235g/7 oz) plain flour, sifted
1/2 cup (55g/ 1 3/4 oz) hazelnut meal
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
icing sugar, for dusting

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 degrees Fahrenheit). Beat butter, brown sugar, golden syrup and vanilla extract with an electric mixer until pale. Add the egg and beat well. Add the flour, hazelnut meal, spices and soda and beat until just combined.

Roll two teaspoonfuls of mixture into balls and place on baking-paper-lined baking trays, allowing room for spreading. Bake in batches for 8 minutes, or until light golden. Cool, then dust with icing sugar.

Recipe from Donna Hay Magazine, issue 12

Melbourne Larder Christmas cake

When I started planning to make my Christmas cake, I didn't factor in the weather. I imagine that it would wonderfully comforting at this time of year in cold England to have an oven emitting warmth and a kitchen filled with spicy aromas as a fruit cake gently cooks in the oven, but it is definitely the wrong thing to be doing in a hot Australian kitchen when the temperature is already 30 degrees at 7am.

But the dried fruit had been macerating in Irish whisky for three days and I couldn't put off the baking any longer. It was time to whisk up the cake batter and turn on the air-conditioner and let my cake bake slowly for three hours.

Fruit cakes seem to have fallen out of favour over recent years. I know very few people who still bake a Christmas cake every year. Fruit cake is certainly not glamorous or showy like a chocolate or celebration cake but it does have a certain richness and comfort factor. A rich cake densely studded with plump fruit and nuts and laced with alcohol is a delicious afternoon treat with a cup of tea, especially in winter. And, although it is not ideally suited for a hot Australian summer, fruit cake has a Christmassy air about it to me. I confess that my favourite Christmas treat is now a slice of spicy, chocolatey panforte but I still have a soft spot for a good old-fashioned Christmas cake.

In Christmas 2007, after reading through my collection of fruit cake recipes, I came up with my own version, which was a hit with the family. Most fruit cakes are quite similar - it's a matter of choosing your preferred dried fruit and then working out the proportions of butter, sugar, eggs, flour and spices for the cake batter.

People often think they need to set aside a large portion of time to make a Christmas cake. However, the cake is actually very easy to make and just requires preparation and forward planning in order to allow time to macerate the fruit and then to bake the cake. Long, slow baking is the key that turns the thick batter into a rich, dense cake. The other secret is to line the cake tin with brown paper to help protect the cake from drying out through its long cooking time.

Melbourne Larder Christmas cake

250g sultanas

250g currants

250g raisins

60g prunes

100g dates

100g dried apricots

100g glace cherries

300g plain flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

250g butter

250g brown sugar

4 eggs

150ml brandy (or sherry, port or whisky)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon mixed spice

1 teaspoon ginger

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 tablespoon golden syrup

zest of 1 lemon

Soak dried fruit in 100ml brandy overnight. (This year I soaked the fruit in 150ml Irish whisky for three days in the fridge and this gave a deeper, mellower flavour. If you have time, I recommend this; but the cake will still taste fine if you only macerate the fruit overnight.)

The next day, pre-heat the oven to 150 degrees and sift together the flour, baking powder and spices.

Cream the butter and brown sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and flour mix alternately. Lastly mix in the vanilla extract, soaked fruit, golden syrup and lemon zest.

Turn into a lined 20cm square cake tin.* Scoop centre into a light hollow to allow for rising. Place whole blanched almonds in a pattern around the edges of the cake. I sometimes make a little flower pattern in the centre as well.

Bake for 2 to 3 hours (cover with foil if the top is browning too much). Remove from oven and drizzle over the extra 50ml brandy. Cool completely in the tin and then turn out. Wrap the cake in several layers of greaseproof paper and then in foil and store in an airtight tin in a cool place until Christmas.

* The base and sides of the cake tin are lined twice - with brown paper and greaseproof paper. Lay two sheets of brown paper onto the bench, making sure it is larger than the tin. Trace around the base of the tin and then cut diagonally in from the sides to the base-line. This will allow the paper to fold neatly into the tin with no cracks for the cake to leak through. Repeat with a sheet of greaseproof paper.

Preparing for the festive season

Christmas-time is my baking highlight of the year. I stress the word "baking" because savoury dishes such as turkey and ham don't really come into the equation, although I do enjoy planning the main meal as well. I love baking Christmas treats: gingerbread, panforte, panettone, lebkuchen, shortbread, mince tarts, Christmas cake ... the list is long.

It's time to load up my shopping trolley with bags of dried and glace fruit, different types of nuts, spices such as ginger, cinnamon and mixed spice, and plenty of flour, sugar, butter and eggs. The kitchen fills with the heady, mouth-watering aroma of cakes and biscuits as they cook - a spicy smell that I always associate with Christmas and its delicious traditional dishes.

There are many cliches associated with Christmas and it can be a difficult time of year for people who feel forced to try and live up to the ideal of "festive cheer". But I'm fortunate in that Christmas was always a fun and social time of the year for my family. With relatives spread around the state, it was a good chance for everyone to get together and indulge themselves with good food.

The Christmassy treats that we served up for morning and afternoon tea were just as much a part of our celebrations as the turkey, ham and plum pudding. Everyone had a specialty and we eagerly looked forward to the chance to savour delicacies only available at that time of year.

I love learning about the different traditional dishes and adding them to my repertoire. To my Anglo traditions of shortbread and mince tarts, made to my grandmother's recipes, I've added a decadent chocolate panforte and my auntie's lebkuchen biscuits. Other dishes I've tried included buche de Noel (France), stollen (Germany) and panpepato (Italy).

But each year the list grows longer, as I find more books and recipes to add to the pile. Murdoch Books has recently released Cooking for Christmas, a sumptuously photographed book that has recipes for soups, entrees such as potted prawns, main dishes with all the trimmings, puddings and edible gifts. I'm trying to resist buying another cookbook but there are some excellent recipes in there...

I have the delicious magazine Christmas special from last year, to which I've added a Women's Weekly version that I bought last week. I'm eagerly awaiting the December issues of delicious, Gourmet Traveller and Donna Hay Magazine to find out what goodies are on offer this year, and I've been busily combing through past issues of Donna Hay Magazine to gain inspiration.

What dishes will make it onto my baking list this year? Chocolate and Grand Marnier buche de Noel from Gourmet Traveller? Stefano de Pieri's panettone? Gourmet Traveller's recipe for panpepato? Or old favourites, such as my chocolate panforte or a panforte that matches perfectly with Rutherglen muscat? It's time to write out the shopping list and fire up the oven ...

Going dotty

Certain things are guaranteed to always catch the eye of children, particularly if it involves lollies or bright colours. Smartie-studded biscuits, cute little iced gingerbread men and sugary honey-joys are a magnet for my son Daniel's eyes.

I believe that moderation is the key to eating well and I have no problem with the occasional treat of a cake or biscuit. However, I very rarely buy them. Sometimes it's because the promise never seems to live up to the taste (many cafe cakes are disappointingly dry) but it's mostly because I prefer home-made because I know exactly what is going into it and there's no hidden preservatives or additives.

So these sweet little vanilla-scented buttery biscuits are perfect. Budding little cooks will enjoy helping mix up the dough and will most of all love to decorate the biscuit with brightly coloured smarties. Quick to mix, quick to cook, a creative outlet in designing patterns on the biscuits ... this is a lovely little project that has kept Daniel amused many times. Best of all, these are certainly a lot cheaper to make than the cafe versions, which often sell for $2.50 each.

Dotty biscuits

125g butter, softened

125g caster sugar

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

125g plain flour

125g SR flour

1 cup (250g) smarties

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Line a baking tray with baking paper.

Cream butter and caster sugar together until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla and mix in.

Sift the flours together and fold into the butter mixture with a wooden spoon to form a soft dough. Turn out onto a sheet of non-stick baking paper, cover with another sheet and roll out to about 5mm thick. Cut out circles with a biscuit cutter (I used a 6cm diameter), place on the lined baking tray and press smarties into the biscuits.

Bake in the oven in batches for 10-15 minutes or until golden. Cool on a wire rack.

Party time!

I wanted to show photos of platters filled with tasty morsels of food but, sadly, the guests gobbled them up before there was time to organise the camera. So here are the remnants of our feast, a lonely plate of leftover savouries: caramelised onion tarts, potato and fetta pastries, and corn and ham mini-muffins.

The potato pastries were served by my colleague Susie at a work morning tea recently. They were rapturously received and we requested the recipe from Susie. She happily provided it, although she said that the dish was really too simple to require a defined recipe. She's right; you can mould the basic ingredients to fit your own requirements. Best of all, the pastries can be baked the night before and refreshed in a hot oven for a few minutes before serving.

Susie's potato pastries

I haven't given defined amounts for these pastries, as you can adjust the amounts to suit the number of servings you want to make. Each pastry sheet made about nine squares. For the party, I used four sheets of pastry and about three large potatoes.

The beauty of this recipe is that you can tailor the ingredients to suit yourself: perhaps substituting goats' cheese for fetta, or adding a sprinkling of finely chopped prosciutto.

potatoes (ones that are good for cooking)

marinated fetta (I used South Cape marinated fetta, which is absolutely delicious, as the cheese is marinated in herbed oil

sheets of ready-rolled puff pastry
sprigs of rosemary, finely chopped

sea salt and black pepper

Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Set out the puff pastry sheets to defrost.

Peel the potatoes and slice into thin slices. Bring a saucepan of salted water to the boil and cook the slices until just tender (about five minutes or less), then drain.

Lay a sheet of pastry on a lightly floured bench (to stop it sticking). Place slices of potato across the sheet (I got about nine slices to a sheet, but you could get more or less, depending on how big your potato slices are. You want a little border around each slice.)

Top the potato slice with some crumbled fetta, chopped rosemary, a sprinkle of sea salt and some grindings of black pepper. Pop into the oven and cook until the pastry is puffed and golden (about 20 minutes). Remove and cool on a wire rack.

Pastry pinwheels

These pinwheels came about because I had two sheets of puff pastry left over from the potato pastries. This must be the simplest snack ever and disappeared quickly, with the adults clamouring for them as much as the children!

I used pesto and parmesan for the adult versions, and promite and cheddar for the children's version but the adults loved the promite version just as much, so I would suggest making a mixture of both to serve.

Again, adjust the quantities to suit the number of servings you want.

sheets of ready-rolled puff pastry

home-made or store-bought pesto

Promite or Vegemite spread

parmesan and cheddar cheese

Spread pesto over a puff pastry sheet and sprinkle over finely grated parmesan. Roll up like a sausage and slice into 1-cm pinwheels. Repeat using Promite and finely grated cheddar.

Place pinwheels on a baking tray lined with non-stick baking paper and bake at 200 degrees Celsius for about 20 minutes, or until pinwheels are puffed and golden.

The gift of food

Slices are wonderful. They are usually easy to prepare, quick to cook and are generally good for feeding large groups. Because slices are generally baked in large slabs, you can stretch them out to accommodate numbers and I find that a small piece of slice is a lot more satisfying than a small biscuit.

Slices can be simple concoctions of a few pantry staple ingredients or elaborate mixtures with a base, filling and icing. When I was growing up, afternoon teas at the local primary school or tennis club always featured several slices, including hedgehog, jelly slice and lemon slice. A good housewife always had several decent slice recipes in her repertoire, and at least one slice in a cake tin in the pantry.

This week at work, we held a morning tea to farewell a colleague off on a six-week European and US holiday. With no sure idea of exact numbers, a slice seemed the safest bet, offering a slice of sweetness to break up the morning workload, without going over the top. One of my favourite cookbooks is Belinda Jeffrey's Mix & Bake, which has a whole chapter devoted to simple slices. Her walnut and caramel bars were the perfect morning tea solution, supplemented by some rich chocolate brownies. Although the brownies disappeared in a flash, the walnut and caramel slice receive rapturous admiration and requests for the recipe. It is extremely simple and incredibly moreish - Belinda writes in her introduction to the recipe that she is "forever trekking to and fro [from the fridge] for just another fine sliver!" Enjoy!


Walnut and caramel bars

Base
160g plain flour
70g caster sugar
120g cool, unsalted butter, cut into small chunks

Topping
2 eggs
70g caster sugar
70g brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
200g walnuts or pecans, coarsely chopped
Icing sugar, for dusting

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Butter a 23cm square cake tin and set aside.
For the base, put the flour and sugar into a food processor and whiz together for a few seconds. Add the butter and whiz again until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. It will seem a bit dry but that's OK. Tip the mixture into the prepared tin, shake to level, and then press down firmly on the mixture to form an even layer. Bake for 20 minutes, or until the edges are golden brown. Remove from oven and sit it on a wire rack while you make the topping.

For the topping, put the eggs, caster sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract into a large bowl and whisk them together until well combined. In another, smaller bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt, then sift them into the egg mixture. Stir until it is well combined, then mix in the nuts.

Scrape the mixture evenly over the warm base. Return to oven and bake for another 20 minutes or until the topping is brown and firm to the touch. Leave to cool in the tin on a wire rack.

When the slice is cool, cut into fingers or squares in the tin. Dust with icing sugar to serve. Leftover slice can be stored in the fridge for up to a week.

Recipe from Belinda Jeffrey's Mix & Bake.

Review: Donna Hay chocolate cookies

Packet mixes of cakes and biscuits are not often a feature in my trolley. I prefer home-made treats where possible, mostly for taste reasons but also because I know exactly what's going into the final product and there's no hidden preservatives or chemicals.

But I admit to a twinge of curiosity when Donna Hay recently launched her own brand of cupcake and cookie mixes. I'm a huge Donna fan and have all her cookbooks. I couldn't imagine her putting her name and brand to any product that wasn't of the highest quality.

Last week, when visiting Andrew's Choice in Yarraville, which is so much more than a butcher's shop and stocks a great range of deli items, my son Daniel found a box of Donna Hay chocolate chunk cookie mix, conveniently placed at exactly his eye level. He was entranced by the enticing picture on the front of the box and no doubt thought he could open the box and find the biscuits inside, waiting to be devoured by a hungry toddler.

So, in the interests of research, the cookie mix came home with us and we baked the biscuits. Making biscuits is not a hugely time-consuming exercise at the best of times, but mixing up the biscuits was so fast that the 12-minute cooking time felt like an eternity. We provided 80g of soft butter and a melted egg, and the box provided the cookie mix and a generous bag of dark chocolate buttons.

The raw dough tasted as good as anything else I've made and the final product was delicious - one of the best chocolate chip cookies I've eaten. In fact, it tasted exactly like the Donna Hay chocolate cookies that I make from her cookbooks. Checking the ingredients list, I discovered that the mix contains wheat flour, brown sugar, natural vanilla flavour and raising agents 450 and 500. There are no added artificial colours or preservatives.

The verdict? This product gets a huge thumbs-up. Most people would not be able to pick that the biscuits originate from a box and it certainly does save time in the kitchen. The only slight downside is the price: on the Donna Hay website, they are listed at $14.95 (although currently on special at a more reasonable $8.95). I know choc bits and other baking goods have recently increased in price but $15 seems quite steep for a box of biscuits - I don't think it would cost that much to make a batch from scratch.


But that is a minor quibble - chocolate chip cookies are a treat, rather than an everyday indulgence anyway. As Donna says on the box, these biscuits is "as good as baking from scratch, only foolproof." I'll definitely use this product again.