Blackberry Apple Muffins | The Tale of Peter Rabbit

Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton-tail, who were good little bunnies, went down the lane to gather blackberries.
The Tale of Peter Rabbit
Beatrix Potter

There is nothing more nostalgic for me than stories from Beatrix Potter. A friend of mine has a great online op-shop where she sells some amazing vintage finds, I was able to get from her some classic Beatrix Potter books recently which reminded me of my utter love for the characters within.

I grew up in the middle of the bush, with rabbits playing in my backyard and fox pups wrestling nearby. I have memories of a child of attempting to leave them little treats outside that I imagined they would like based off the homely characters from books such as The Tale of Peter Rabbit.

Now I'm in Melbourne and far away from the picturesque area I spent my younger years, it can be hard to recall that particular kind of nostalgia. While when I was younger I would be used to wandering down the dirt roads at home picking wild blackberries throughout summer, instead now I must compensate by picking blackberries up at my local farmer's market.While not exactly what Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail may have had, I'm sure those three bunnies would have enjoyed these muffins immensely.

Blackberry Apple Muffins
Makes 7-8 muffins approx
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups plain flour
3/4 cup raw sugar
2 tsp baking power
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup oil (vegetable or canola is best)
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp vanilla essence
100g fresh or frozen blackberries
2 small Granny Smith apples, peeled and diced small

1. Prepare a muffin tin (or two depending on how many the tin holds) with liners or by greasing the tin.

2. Mix together all dry ingredients in a largish bowl.

3. Whisk together all wet ingredients except for the fruits and add wet mix into dry. Mix until just combined.

4. Add in the apple and berries and mix until just combined. Try not to over mix.

5. Spoon into the prepared tin(s), filling them up with batter right to the top in order to get the nice, raised muffin tops. Place in oven and bake for 20 - 25 minutes.

6. The muffins are done when an inserted skewer into the middle comes out clean. Leave them to cool in the tin for at least five minutes before removing. Best enjoyed with a cup of tea.

Coconut Cream Cake | The Reptile Room

Both the kitchen and the cake were still warm from baking. The cake was a magnificent thing, rich and creamy with the perfect amount of coconut.
The Reptile Room
Lemony Snicket

I’m not a huge cake eater, I much prefer the savoury side of eating and tend to find cake just not quite satisfying. However, I kind of love making cakes. Which is quite fortunate for my housemates and neighbours. This particular cake is so delicious during hot weather, the frosting is creamy, with the notes of coconut throughout creating an almost refreshing mouthful. While the cake itself isn’t too sweet.

Obviously I’m on a little bit of a Series of Unfortunate Events kick at the moment. My parents recently dropped off a lot of my childhood books that were still at their house. Including a heap from the above mentioned series. I think the finishing up of the recent Netflix series has inspired me to do a bit of a reread - I have no memory of reading some of the parts, so it’s definitely a fascinating thing to revisit. I genuinely have no idea how the book series finishes at this stage, and am super curious to whether it’s the same as the television show.

Of course I had to make Uncle Monty’s (was the death of any guardian quite as awful as this one?) coconut cream cake from The Reptile Room.

Coconut Cream Cake
Ingredients
Cake
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 tsp bi-carb soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 cups desiccated coconut
1 1/2 cups coconut milk
1/2 vegetable oil
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
Frosting
100g vegetable shortening, softened
1/2 cup coconut cream, can kept in fridge over night, scoop the solid cream from the top
1 cup cream cheese (I used Sheese brand, but any works well)
4 cups icing sugar

Cake

1. Preheat your oven to 180C and prepare two round 18cm cake tins. I highly recommended both greasing the pans and also placing a square of baking paper at the bottom to assist in getting the cakes out.

2. Sift together the four, baking power, bi-carb soda and salt, add in the desiccated coconut, sugar and mix to combine.

3. Mix in the vegetable oil, coconut milk, vinegar and vanilla and stir. It will be quite a thick batter, but take care not to mix too much.

4. Divide the batter between both pans evenly and smooth out the top best you can - the thickness of the batter can make this a little hard but just do your best.

5. Bake for around 30 minutes, check by inserting a skewer into the middle to see if it comes out clean. Leave to cool completely before frosting.

Frosting

1. I recommend using either a stand mixer or hand mixer for this process - however it can be done by hand - it’s just hard.

2. Combine the cream cheese and the vegetable shortening in a mixer until light and fluffy.

3. Add in the icing sugar - about a cup at a time, along with spoonfuls of the coconut cream (make sure the coconut cream is properly solid when doing this).

4. Keep adding the icing sugar until it is all gone and the frosting is mixed well - but still nice and fluffy.

5. You can frost the cake however you like, I recommend a layer in-between the two cakes and some on top. While I did frost all the sides, it can be tricky to do without creating a bit of a mess and potentially ruining the cake - however as long as it tastes good does it really matter what it looks like?

6. You can decorate with a little left over desiccated coconut and kind of whatever you like. I used fresh raspberries, but that’s just because raspberries make everything better. The cake will last roughly three days before becoming stale, and tends to dry out a little if kept in the fridge. Still delicious though!

Caramelised Pear and Walnut Porridge | The Secret Garden

 ‘Tha’ doesn’t want thy porridge!’ Martha exclaimed incredulously.
‘No.’
‘Tha’ doesn’t know how good it is. Put a bit o’ treacle on it or a bit o’ sugar.’
The Secret Garden
Frances Hodgson Burnett

Porridge for breakfast is memory that is forever buried in my mind. Oats cooked with honey and bananas, sometimes even on the old wood fire stove that sat in the middle of the house I grew up in. I’m not sure exactly at what point I decided I didn’t like porridge, but at some moment throughout the years I must have come to the conclusion that I hated it. Much like Mary from The Secret Garden I would push it away with barely a spoonful eaten if I had the misfortune of having it placed in front of me at breakfast time.

It was only a few years ago that I began searching for an easy breakfast in the morning that the prospect of porridge suddenly became appealing again. I generally get up for work at about five am most morning, which is quite tough during the winter months. Summer was easy, I’d just make a smoothie, but the cold months of winter left me wanting something far more nourishing before I’d step outside into the frosty mornings.

Porridge is a great option for an early morning, while this particular recipe does take a little longer to cook, you can instead simply use quick oats to speed up the process. Obviously you don’t need to top them with caramelised pears every morning - there’s many more options, such as honey, brown sugar, nuts, apples, bananas, or basically anything that you want.

Porridge
Serves 2
Ingredients
1 cup steel cut oats
2-3 cups of coconut milk + 1/2 cup coconut milk
2 pears, sliced however you want really
Small handful walnuts, chopped roughly
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp brown sugar
Vanilla pod or vanilla essence
Sea salt

1. Place the oats into a medium saucepan along with the 2 cups of coconut milk (leaving the extra cup to add in if the porridge thickens too much) and vanilla essence or vanilla pod - ensure if using the vanilla pod that you open it before putting it in the porridge to ensure the inside flavour comes out.

2. Place on the stove on a medium heat and remember to keep an eye on it, stirring every few minutes. Porridge will quite easily overcook and stick to the pot if you don’t stir frequently. Add in the extra coconut milk during this time if the porridge thickens to much before cooking thoroughly.

3. While the porridge it cooking, you can caramelise the pears and walnuts. Heat the butter in a small frying pan until it is foaming. Add in the pears and cook until browned before turning to the other side and repeating the process.

4. Once the pears are nicely browned scatter the brown sugar over them evenly, keeping them in the pan and on a low heat. After a few minutes the sugar should dissolve in with the butter - turning into an almost thick syrup. Make sure you use a wooden spoon to keep it all moving in the pan during this time so it doesn’t burn - plus it’ll coat the pears nicely.

5. Add in the remaining half cup of coconut milk, it will sizzle quite a bit, but that’s fine, just keep it moving in the pan. Add in the walnuts at this point also and gently mix the pears and walnuts around so they get coated in the caramel.

6. Serve the porridge immediately with the pears and walnuts spooned on top, and the caramel drizzled over.

Leek and Potato Stew | Coraline

Coraline was disgusted. 'Daddy,' she said, 'you've made a recipe again.' 'It's a leek and potato stew with a tarragon garnish and melted Gruyere cheese,' he admitted.
Coraline
Neil Gaiman

I don’t know how many times I’ve mentioned that I dislike summer but here’s another one; I dislike summer. I am not built for Australian summer’s, we’re currently on a 30+ heatwave in Melbourne this week and one day in and I’ve had enough. Also, hot weather means I can’t justify making soups and stews like this one - except I did because it’s delicious and I don’t care.

This particular stew was taken from the pages of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline, a delightfully dark children’s book. Throughout Coraline laments the home made food that her father makes, stating with disgust that he’s made another recipe. As an adult I feel that most of the recipes mentioned throughout sound delicious, hand stretched pizza’s anyone? But memories of turning my nose up in disgust at the mere touch of ginger in any dish, or the weird texture of fish when I was younger definitely brings about a sense of relation to Coraline’s prospective.

This stew however is simply a bowl of deliciousness and comfort. You can add more stock and blend it up into a soup if you prefer, but personally, there’s some sort of cosy appeal to hugging a bowl of stew close while watching a movie or reading a book at night. Also! While I am aware that it is rosemary in the photo, not tarragon, however I forgot to buy tarragon but had rosemary growing in the garden - so, laziness prevailed. 

Note: I did not leave myself enough time to find a vegan gruyere cheese for this so I just used a vegan cheddar I had in the fridge. Still delicious!

Leek and Potato Stew with Tarragon and melted Gruyere Cheese
(Serves 4)
Ingredients
5-6 red potatoes, diced
2 leeks
4-5 cups of vegetable stock
2 tbsp tarragon, roughy chopped
3 tbsp butter
1/4 cup gruyere cheese grated or crumbled *see note
Sea salt
Fresh black pepper

1. Slice the white part of the leek finely and then dice up (if you’d prefer not to discard the green parts you can save them and use them in a homemade veggie stock later).

2. Place the butter - it is a lot of butter but honestly the more you use the better it will taste - into a large saucepan on a medium heat until it is melted and bubbly. Add in the leek and cook for around 2-3 minutes while stirring to ensure they don’t stick and burn.

3. Add in the tarragon and diced potatoes and mix to coat with butter before adding in stock (reserve about a cup for later).

4. Leave on a medium heat for around thirty minutes so it’s bubbling just a little(it could take a little less time depending on how small you dice your potatoes). During this time you may want to add in the remaining cup of stock if the stew is reducing too much.

5. At this stage the potato should be well cooked and slightly mushy, I mixed my cheese through so it would melt in throughout the whole thing but simply melting it on top would also be super yum. Enjoy!

Pasta Puttanesca | The Bad Beginning

For most of the afternoon, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny cooked the puttanesca sauce according to the recipe. Violet roasted the garlic and washed and chopped the anchovies. Klaus peeled the tomatoes and pitted the olives. Sunny banged on a pot with a wooden spoon, singing a rather repetitive song she had written herself. And all three of the children felt less miserable than they had since their arrival at Count Olaf's.
The Bad Beginning (A Series of Unfortunate Events)
Lemony Snicket

The intenseness of the Christmas holidays is finally wearing off and I've found myself with time to actually write up some of these recipes I've had waiting. Working in hospitality is both quite lovely and also so awful around the holiday time, while everyone is in a great mood and customers are delightful, I always find myself working a ridiculous amount - coming home and binging on Netflix and leftovers.So it was quite nice that Netflix released the new season of A Series of Unfortunate Events, it really reminded me that I had quite a few blog posts and recipes piled up on here on draft that had to be finalised and published. And this is one such recipe, probably one of the more notable and memorable foods from the beginning of the dismal series. The Baudelaire Orphans cook Pasta Puttanesca for Count Olaf and his troupe of performers - it maybe didn't go down quite so well with them, however, it is indeed delicious and super easy to make.

*Notes: the chilli is optional depending on whether or not you like a bit of heat. I also omitted anchovies, because I don't eat meat, I don't really think you lose anything by not putting them in, but if you want obviously feel free to put in 3-4 finely chopped anchovies. If you do not have a food processor also - you can simply mix the flours and water together by hand.

Pasta Puttanesca 
Ingredients
Pasta (serves just so many, I had pasta for days guys, and no matter how many times I tried to make less it didn’t happen. Or let’s say, 8.)
1 1/2 cups of Tipo 00 flour + extra for dusting
1 cup semolina flour
1 tbsp olive oil
1 - 1 1/2 cups of hot water
Sea salt
Fresh black pepper
Puttanesca Sauce (serves 4)
4 cloves of garlic, sliced finely
2 tbsp capers, drained
1/4 cup black olives, pitted and sliced
5-6 large ripe tomatoes, diced and squished a little
1 red chilli, sliced finely *optional
Handful of roughly chopped flat leaf parsley
1 tbsp olive oil
Fresh black pepper
Sea Salt

Pasta

1. To make the pasta place both flours in a food processor (*see note) and briefly pulse to combine - add in a few cracks of black pepper and about 1/4 teaspoon of sea salt. Turn on food processor again and slowly add in the oil and hot water while running - it will combine slowly until it forms a giant ball of dough.

2. Remove the dough and flatten out as best as possible before cutting into quarters. Cover with a clean towel and leave to sit for 10 - 15 minutes.

3. If you’re planning on cooking straight away, this is a good time to get a large pot of salted water on to the stove to boil.

4. While resting the dough prepare a clean large area with a dusting of flour in preparation of rolling out your pasta. Doing each quarter of the dough at a time, use a rolling pin to roll out the pasta as thin as possible. I made this a few times - and trust me, as thin as possible still ended up being quite thick once cooked - so definitely go overboard in the rolling out of the dough. Having a pasta maker will entirely help with this step.

5. Once rolled out, cut into thin strips of whatever width you particularly feel like, I would recommend hanging the pasta once it’s cut, I just improvised something with a cooling rack, it will just help stop the pasta strands from sticking together. Repeat with the rest of the dough till it’s all done.

6. Cook the noodles a few batches at a time for about 3-5 minutes each and drain and toss amount desired with your puttanesca sauce.

Puttanesca

1. Heat olive oil in a large frying pan, when hot add in diced tomatoes with a pinch of sea salt, making sure to keep them moving in the pan to prevent them burning. Add in olives, capers, chilli and garlic and cook for another minute, mixing them with the tomatoes as best as possible.

2. Remove from heat and season with fresh black pepper, add in the chopped parsley and mix through before serving with your fresh made pasta.

Blueberry Pie | Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

"'Blueberry pie and cream!' shouted Violet. 'Here it comes! Oh my, it's perfect! It's beautiful! It's...it's exactly as though I'm chewing and swallowing great big spoonfuls of the most marvellous blueberry pie in the world!"

- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is the first book that ever scared me - mainly because I knew that if I had the opportunity to go to a chocolate factory in my younger years, I would most likely have no control over myself and end up weirdly deformed like the children within the book, sans Charlie, find themselves. I do love Roald Dahl’s writing though, and recall reading this book countless times in order to fully submerse myself into the magical world of Wonka. There are so many fantastical treats that lie waiting within the pages, a lot that I’m hoping to attempt to make at some stage (once I master using agar agar for marshmallows that is) - so I started with the easiest. Also I was really craving some sort of pie so this worked quite complimentary.

As many probably remember Violet Beauregarde, the driven, ambitious young girl with a chewing gum record, finds herself blown up like a blueberry when consuming one fo Wonka’s not-quite-ready creations. A stick of gum that gives the chewer the experience of a three course meal. A starter of tomato soup, a main of roast beed with roast potatoes, and a dessert of blueberry pie with cream. While there have been some amazing attempts and successes at creating the stick of chewing gum with all those flavours within it, I wanted to make something a little more simple.

Blueberry Pie
Crust
2 1/2 cups plain flour
Pinch salt
2 teaspoons sugar
220g of very cold butter (I measured mine out and popped it in the freezer for about ten minutes before using)
2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
4 - 8 tablespoons of ice water
1 tablespoon milk + 1 teaspoon maple syrup (for glazing)
1 teaspoon sugar (for sprinkling on top)
Filling
4 cups of blueberries (fresh or frozen is fine - just be aware frozen will definitely leak more juices at it bakes and possibly cause a little sogginess)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon flour
2 tablespoons brown sugar
Squeeze of lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1. To make your crust, combine the flour and salt together and cut through the butter (I used a food processor for this - but it can be done by hand, just avoid using your hands too much as it will very quickly warm the butter).

2. Combine the apple cider vinegar and water together and mix with the flour until it resembles a crumble texture (again, I used a food processor for this step, if doing by hand use a butter knife to combine to avoid warming the mix too much).

3. When dough is combined, wrap in cling wrap and pop in the fridge for at least half an hour before using - you can easily make this dough a few days in advance and even freeze it if necessary.

4. While the dough is chilling is a good time to prepare the blueberry filling. Mix all the filling ingredients together until the blueberries are nicely coated. Prepare a pie dish in the meantime by greasing the bottom.

5. Preheat your oven to 190C.

6. Break your chilled dough into two equal parts. Lightly coat a surface with a sprinkling of flour and roll out one part of the dough until it it approximately half a cm thick - lay this into the prepared pie dish and leave the edges hanging over.

7. Fill with the blueberry mix. Now - you can either roll out your remaining dough and pop it on top as is or you can do whatever kind of top you prefer. Trim the edges down once done and crimp around the edge of the pan to prevent any juice spilling out. When your have the top on mix together the milk and maple syrup and brush that over the surface of the pie before sprinkling the teaspoon of sugar on top.

8. Pop the pie in the oven - I recommend putting a tray underneath to catch any wayward drippings that you don’t want to clean out later. Bake for 30 - 40 minutes or until the top of the pie is golden brown.Enjoy!