Lemon Tart | Nakano Thrift Shop
'Hitomi, you must like pie.' '
Excuse me?'
’See here- cherry pie, lemon pie, millefeuille, and apple pie.’
Like a bird singing, Masayo cheerily recited the different pastries I had brought from Posy.
Nakano Thrift Shop
Hiromi Kawakami
My motivation is slowly coming back to me and that means the urge to read and bake is also returning. I haven’t read a book entirely for a good three months, I’ve had zero motivation and energy - turns out lockdown number 6 hits the hardest.
A friend from work dropped off an utter abundance of lemons from her mother’s backyard though, and trawling through previously dogmarked pages of books on my shelves made he glance to Nakano Thrift Shop - a delightful and surprisingly moving read. Obviously the mention of a lemon pie jumped out at me as i had a ridiculous amount of lemons to use up.
This tart is creamy with a perfect balance of sweet and sour. it’s perfect for the warming days of spring and so easy to make.
Lemon Tart
Ingredients
Tart case
420g plain flour
40g raw caster sugar
180g cold butter
150ml cold milk
Filling
200ml of lemon juice
Zest of 1 lemon
350ml coconut cream
2 tbsp corn flour
1/2 tsp agar agar
1 tsp vanilla extract
300g raw caster sugar
1/2 tsp tumeric powder
Combine the flour, sugar and butter together in a bowl. Using your fingers to rub the butter into the dry ingredients until it resembles wet sand.
Make a well in the middle and pour in the milk, mixing until it comes together with no lumps. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before use.
Once your tart pastry is ready, prepare a loose bottom tart pan by greasing the sides and bottom well. Preheat the oven to 160C.
Roll out the pastry until it is about 2 cms thick and then gently press it into the prepared case, let it hang over the edge and trim it until it is neat.
Line the tart case with baking paper and use dried beans, rice or baking beans to weigh it down before blind baking for 15 minutes with the pastry weighed down. And then another 10 without it. Remove and put to the side to cool.
To prepare the filling, in a medium saucepan combine the sugar, lemon juice, agar agar, corn flour and vanilla. Mix well.
Heat on a medium heat until it begins to thicken, making sure to continually stir to stop it sticking to the bottom. Now is a good time to stir in the turmeric powder, to give it a nice yellow colour.
Once the filling has thickened - if you draw a spoon across the top the drag marks should remain, you can remove from the heat. Pout into the prepared tart case and leave to cool for 3 hrs to overnight. Top with fruit or whatever you like and enjoy!
Coffee and Walnut Cake | The Thursday Murder Club
‘So you have a suspect? How wonderful! What do you make of the coffee and walnut?’ says Joyce.
Chris lifts a slide of coffee-and-walnut cake to his mouth and takes a bite. Also better than M&S. Joyce, you wizard!
The Thursday Murder Club
Richard Osman
I have a vague memory of last updating this blog and thinking, yep - I’m totally going to be more frequent with my recipe updates. Cut to more than a month later and apparently that was a lie. Slowly sorting my brain out.
Took some time this week to make a cake for the house, an amazingly spiced walnut and coffee cake that was so delicious. From the fantastic Thursday Murder Club, a hilarious novel that I recommend picking up if you have time.
Coffee and Walnut Cake
Ingredients
150g roasted walnuts
2 tsp ground cinnamon
215g butter
1 tbsp dark brown sugar
300g raw caster sugar
210ml milk
2 tbsp instant coffee
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
360g plain flour
2 tsp bi-carb soda
Pinch salt
1 tsp vanilla
Icing sugar, to dust
Preheat oven to 160C and grease a bundt cake tin and dust with flour.
On a low heat melt 30g of the butter, mix in the dark brown sugar, cinnamon and walnuts. Put to the side to cool.
Combine 110ml of the milk with the apple cider vinegar and mix, leave to the side to curdle.
Combine the remaining milk, vanilla and instant coffee, whisk until the coffee is mixed in and frothy. Put to the side.
Cream together the remaining butter and raw caster sugar until light and fluffy. Add in the milk and vinegar mixture and stir. Add in the flour, salt and bi-carb soda and then the coffee milk mixture. Mix well until all flour has been combined.
Pour half of the cake batter into the prepared tin, pour the walnut butter mixture over the batter in the tin and then add in the remaining cake batter over the top and smooth over.
Bake for approx. 55 minutes. Leave to cool before turning the cake carefully out onto a cake tray to cool. Dust with icing sugar and serve with coffee or tea. Enjoy!
Apple and Blackberry Pudding | A Winter Story, Brambly Hedge
'Is that you, dear?' called Mrs Apple as he let himself in through the front door. Delicious smells wafted down from the kitchen. Mrs Apple had spent the afternoon baking pies, cakes and puddings for the cold days to come.
Winter Story, Brambly Hedge
Jill Barklem
I’m writing this entry while firmly wrapped in a blanket with a hot water bottle tucked up under my feet. It’s officially winter here and my favourite time of the year. There’s nothing better to me than walking home from work, headphones on and hood up, as the rain drizzles around me. I adore being able to spend my days inside with endless pots of tea and soft music filling the air. Being able to keep the balcony doors open as the rain pours down just outside, and that utterly lovely smell of fresh, clean rain spreads through the air.
Anyway, I really enjoy winter.
The Brambly Hedge books are a memory from my childhood that I think will always have a space in my mind. Growing up in the middle of the Australian bush, I remember wishing desperately that I could build a tiny home in a tree stump and have my days spent baking pies and jams for the native mice. Much like the mice within Brambly Hedge, stocking up a tiny larder for the colder months, with a fire warming the rooms.
Alas, I moved to a city, to a tiny apartment. Instead I’m spending my winter days making stews, soups and puddings to combat the cold. The below apple and blackberry pudding is one such, it’s got enough fruit that it feels somewhat healthy (…sure), while also being delicious. The recipe comes from Julia Busuttil Nishimura’s cookbook, A Year of Simple Family Food. I’ve changed the recipe slightly to be plant-based.
Apple and Blackberry Pudding
Ingredients
3 Granny Smith apples, peeled and cored
300g blackberries, frozen or fresh
1 tsp vanilla paste
1 lemon, zested and juiced
100g raw caster sugar
100g butter
50ml milk
2 tsp No Egg, mixed with 4 tbsp water
150g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
To Serve
1 tbsp melted butter
1 tbsp raw caster sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
Cream or ice cream
Preheat the oven to 190C, and grease a baking dish with butter.
Slice the cored and peeled apples thinly and place into a bowl along with the lemon juice and vanilla paste. Toss to combine, add in the blackberries and fill the prepared baking dish with the mixed fruit.
Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl until pale and fluffy. Add in the no egg and water and mix together. Stir the milk in, and then add the lemon zest and flour, mixing until the batter is smooth.
Spread the batter over the fruit, smoothing it across. Bake for approx. 45 minutes or until the top is a golden brown.
5 minutes before the pudding is ready to come out, combine the cinnamon and raw caster sugar together. When the pudding is done and removed from the oven brush the top with the melted butter and sprinkle the cinnamon sugar over the top. Serve with cream or ice cream. Enjoy!
Four Kinds of Cookies | The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The Monkeys had set them down near a farm house, and the four travellers walked up to it and knocked at the door. It was opened by the farmers' wife, and when Dorothy asked for something to eat the woman gave them all a good dinner, with three kinds of cake and four kinds of cookies, and a bowl of milk for Toto.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
L. Frank Baum
Melbourne lockdown v.4 (I think…) and apparently all I will do during this time is bake things. I’m not really the biggest sweet tooth around, give me some vegemite on toast over chocolate anyway, but everything I’ve made seems to have been whisked away anyhow.
For the principle of the matter, I would refer to these as biscuits usually - because that’s really what they are. But the pages of the book that this recipe hails from, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, is an American tale and thus I have given in and shall refer to them as cookies.
The base recipe for the cookies is taken from the Smith and Deli-cious cookbook, I have made some changes to it, removed some parts that really added nothing to the recipe and changed a few little things. The real delicious part of the recipe comes from what you can add in, my variations of them kind of rotate around chocolate (because honestly, what else) but you can basically substitute the nuts and chocolate for other things if you want.
Cookies, four kinds
Ingredients
270g dark brown sugar
150g butter
1 tsp vanilla extract or paste
1 tbsp No Egg, mixed with 3 tbsp water *see note
250g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
Add ins
Salted Chocolate Cookie
160g dark chocolate, chopped
2 tsp flaky sea salt
Peanut Butter and Chocolate
160g dark chocolate, chopped
3 tbsp crunchy peanut butter
White Chocolate and Macadamia
80g white chocolate, chopped
80g macadamias, chopped
Biscoff Double Chocolate
4 tbsp Biscoff spread
80g dark chocolate, chopped
80g white chocolate, chopped
Preheat oven to 180C.
Cream together the sugar and butter until it is fluffy and a little lighter in colour. Stir in the No Egg and water mixture, and then add in the flour, baking powder and salt. Mix until the dry ingredients are completely combined in.
Now is when you can add whatever add-ins you like to it as well! Which chocolates or anything you want, add it in now. If you’re doing the peanut or Biscoff variation, save a little of the spreads to the side.
Roll the mixture into even sized balls and place onto a baking tray lined with baking paper. Make sure they’re distanced enough to allow for the spread when baking.
If making the Biscoff or peanut butter ones, bake for 7 minutes and then spoon the remaining spread lightly on top of each before returning them to the oven for a further 8 minutes. The spread will melt in and be delicious on top.
For the others, bake for around 15 minutes, for the chocolate ones sprinkle a little flaky sea salt on top once they come out.
Leave to cool on the tray until they harden and enjoy!
Lamingtons | Behind the Scenes at the Museum
As well as the scones, she has also produced plates of ham sandwiches (ham courtesy of Walter, the philandering butcher), 'Coconut Madeleines', 'Lamingtons', and 'Little Caramel Pastries' (Very Special!), not to mention 'Piccaninnies' (from Australia) and 'Dago Cakes' - these last two presumably in honour of all our little Commonwealth friends.
Behind the Scenes at the Museum
Kate Atkinson
2021 has crept along at a pace so fast it’s been hard to even see glimpses of it go by. And by that I mean it’s Winter already in the frosty streets of Melbourne and suddenly I’ve realised it’s been two months since I’ve posted anything on here. My brain hasn’t been working of late, my carefully laid plans of recipes to try from stacks of new cookbooks and piles of books with hastily underlined mentions of food through their pages have basically disappeared the moment I’ve had any time. Instead my weekends have been spent under a blanket on the couch, watching reruns of television shows I don’t even particularly enjoy.
But I guess that’s just how life goes.
Anyway - a small spark of motivation came through this weekend so I’ve taken full advantage and made a batch of the classic Australian treats, lamingtons. From the pages of Behind the Scenes at the Museum, which is really just the most amazing book. Atkinson’s incredible work has left me a little sleep deprived this week, as I found myself many nights realising it was 2am and I was fighting to keep my eyes open and get through another page. There are just so many foods referenced through this whole book, and making such a classic Australian food from a non-Australian book feels little sacrilegious. But, I couldn’t stop thinking of lamingtons once I saw them down on the page, and thus sometimes you just have to cave to your cravings.
Lamingtons
Ingredients
Cake
400g plain flour
250g raw caster sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bi-carb soda
100ml vegetable oil
380ml milk
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp vanilla paste
Pinch sea salt
+ jam to fill
Icing
200g chocolate pieces
500g icing sugar
2 tbsp milk
15g butter
200g desiccated coconut
Preheat oven to 180C and grease and line with baking paper a square/rectangular baking pan.
Combine the milk and apple cider vinegar together, leave to the side to curdle.
Combine the flour, bi-carb, baking power, sugar, and salt together into a bowl and add in the oil and vanilla. While mixing steadily pour in the milk mixture and combine until the mixture is smooth and there are no lumps.
Pour your mixture into the prepared tin, making sure that it reaches all sides. Smooth it out on top if needed and bake for approx. 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
Once the cake has baked leave to cool before using a serrated knife to carefully cut through the middle until you have two halves.
Seperate the two halves and spread a nice layer of jam across the middle, sandwiching the two cake halves together. I recommend popping this into the freezer for around 30 minutes or so, this will help stop the cake bits from sliding around when you coat with chocolate.
While the cake is in the freezer, you can make the icing. Bring a small pan of water to the boil, place a metal bowl on top of the pan (making sure the water does not touch the bottom of the bowl) and place into it your chocolate pieces and butter. Stir until the chocolate has melted.
In a largish bowl, combine the icing sugar and milk, using a whisk to bring them together.
Pour the melted chocolate and butter mixture into the icing sugar - it should be not too thick, you want to be able to easily dunk the cake bits into it. If it feels too thick add a little more milk in.
Remove the cakes from the freezer and using a sharp knife, slice them into squares (I got around 12 from mine! Don’t forget that once you add the chocolate and coconut on they’ll end up a lot bigger!).
Set up your coconut by pouring the desiccated coconut onto a large plate and make sure you have another plate nearby to put the finished lamington on.
Using two forks, gently dip the cake squares into the chocolate, making sure to coat all sides. Press each side into the coconut afterwards, adhering it to the chocolate and place this onto a plate in a fridge to set. Repeat with all the cakes.
Leave for about 30 minutes to set in the fridge before enjoying!
Rhubarb and Apple Pie | The First Four Years
There was a pieplant in the garden; she must make a couple of pies. The morning flew too quickly, but when the men came in at noon from the thresher, dinner was on the table.
The First Four Years
Laura Ingalls Wilder
I’m making an assumption that most people have read the Little House on the Prairie series as a child and spent a numerous hours wishing they lived on a farm on a prairie. Or maybe just me. I did a reread of these books recently and was surprised to realise how much I still enjoyed them. Reading them at an older age however does mean that you become a little more aware of the basically terrible racist overtones (overtones is putting it a bit mildly) and the romanticism of colonialism.
That being said, I still enjoy them. I think the nostalgia of rereading something from my youth overpowered any other thoughts. My mum’s workplace when I was quite young, was attached to the town’s library and I used to sit in it every week reading through any book I could get my hands on. I powered through the library’s entire collection of The Babysitter’s Club (and the subsequent spin off Little Sister books), Deltora Quest, Tamora Pierce’s collection, and of course - the entirety of Laura Ingall Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie series.
The mention of pieplant pie in The First Four Years caught my eye on my recent reread. A bit of a google later revealed that pieplant is rhubarb. A vegetable named pieplant because it used to primarily be used within pies. I created my recipe with the addition of apples - growing up a rhubarb and apple pie was a regular appearance after dinner most nights. With the rhubarb picked straight from our garden and the apples from a tree my dad had happen-chanced upon during the day. This recipe is based off that one I spent so many nights eating as a child, the rhubarb even is straight from my parents garden.
Rhubarb and Apple Pie
Ingredients
Pastry
450g plain flour
2 tbsp golden caster sugar
200g cold butter
150ml ice cold water
Pinch of salt
Filling
450g rhubarb, cut up
2 Granny Smith apples, peeled and diced
1 tbsp golden caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
One orange. juiced and zested
+ milk to glaze, and extra sugar
Pastry
Combine the flour, salt, and caster sugar into a large bowl and stir to combine.
Break the butter into small pieces and rub it into the flour mixture until it resembles wet sand.
Make a well in the middle and pour in the water and mix until it forms into a ball with no lumps. Wrap in cling wrap and put into the fridge to chill for at least 30 minutes before using.
Filling
Place the rhubarb, apple, orange juice and zest, caster sugar and vanilla into a saucepan. Cook for around 20 - 30 minutes, until the rhubarb has softened and turned into a puree and the apple has softened also. Put to the side to chill.
Once you’re ready to assemble the pies preheat the oven to 200C.
Remove the dough from the fridge. On a lightly floured surface roll the dough out until it is about 2-3 cms thick. If you’re making one big pie, place the rolled out dough into a lightly greased pie tin. If you’re doing small hand pies, use something to cut the circles out, placing half onto a baking paper lined baking tray. Leave the other to use as lids.
Spoon your rhubarb and apple filling into the middle of the pastry circles (or pastry lined pie dish), brushing the edges with water and topping them with the pastry circles that had been set to the side.'
Use a fork to seal the edges and and brush with the extra milk as a glaze, sprinkling a little sugar on top.
Bake for 30 - 35 minutes or until the pies are a golden brown. Enjoy!