Project B

This pudding was easily my favourite thing I have cooked so far this year. Last month I had friends around for soup, Welsh rarebit, tea, and pudding. They also brought Koko Black truffles, and a huge tray of the most amazing almond biscuits in the whole world (from the Queen Vic markets). Good fare for a stormy night.

Rhubarb apple walnut crumble pudding

Originally I had intended to make an upside down golden syrup apple and rhubarb tart, but a moment’s inattention led to my rhubarb and apples collapsing into an airy puree from overcooking. Never mind, I thought, and decided to try substituting the lemon curd in the Lemon curd crumble cake and adding some walnuts.

Crumble pudding dough:
2 cups self-raising flour (300g)
1 cup caster sugar (220g)
125g butter – chopped
2 eggs – lightly beaten
1 cup walnuts – roughly chopped

Rhubarb apple filling
6 large Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and sliced
2 cups rhubarb, washed and sliced into chunks
1/3 cup water
Sugar to taste, approx 1/3 cup

Preheat oven to 180°C or 160°C fan forced. Grease a 25cm wide deep pie dish.

Prepare filling:
Put water, rhubarb and apples into a heavy-based saucepan. Cover and simmer over a medium heat until the rhubarb and apples are tender or pureed, according to your preference. Stir in enough sugar so that the filling is tart but not inedible.

Prepare dough:
Sift flour into large bowl, add sugar then rub in butter. To speed up this process, you can grate the butter first. Stir through the walnuts.

Using a fork, stir in egg to form a soft dough.

Assemble pudding:
Using wet fingers, press half the dough into base of pie dish. The harder you press it down, the less filling it will absorb and the less cakey it will be.

Pour hot filling over base, then gently crumble remaining dough over the filling.

Bake approx. 50 mins — ensure you bake on tray in case of overflow. Serve hot with custard/créme anglaise, and/or best quality vanilla ice-cream.

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Custard:

600ml cream
1 cup milk
Vanilla bean/vanilla bean paste/vanilla extract
100g caster sugar
6 egg yolks
1 teaspoon cornflour

Whisk together egg yolks, sugar, and cornflour in a heatproof bowl.

Heat milk, cream, vanilla together until almost boiling.

Whist hot milk onto eggs, then pour mixture back into saucepan and continue whisking over medium heat until desired texture is reached. This makes a light pouring custard, not a custard that sets.

It’s almost impossible to provide a proper recipe for tiramisu because, in the first place, there is no standard-sized tiramisu receptacle. You want enough ingredients to be able to have two thick layers each of sponge and cream in the dish you choose. What tends to happen over the years is that you develop a feel for the quantities required for your particular container (and then it’s a tragedy if someone breaks your dish!). What I would say though, is that it just makes life so much easier if you have a dish that can fit one whole large packet (500g) of ladyfingers/sponge fingers.

Secondly — only you can know what balance of flavours and textures you like best. The major elements are:

1) Coffee — strong and bitter, or subtle and smooth?
2) Sweetness.
3) Texture — wet and juicy, or cake-like and spongey?
4) Alcohol — none at all? Brandy, rum, Marsala wine, Tia Maria, Kahlua — or all of the above?

For myself, I prefer a tiramisu with extremely strong coffee — usually a strong pot of French press beefed up with 6-7 shots of espresso. I like it just barely sweet, and for the sponge fingers to be very wet with the sweetened coffee/booze mix. I like a mixture of brandy, rum and marsala wine (I think the liqueurs are a waste of money since you’re using so much coffee) and for the alcohol to be fairly prominent. I use gorgeous dark cocoa between every layer. You can’t cut my tiramisu into pieces (HAHA) but serve it with a big spoon in delicious glops.

Making tiramisu can be easy or complicated. The complicated “classic” tiramisu is made by preparing a traditional zabaglione, letting it cool, beating in mascarpone cheese, and then folding in whipped cream and stiff egg whites. The easy tiramisu is made by beating mascarpone cheese with egg yolks, sugar and alcohol, then folding in whipped cream.

Tiramisu

Cream

• 4 egg yolks
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup Marsala wine
• 220g tub of mascarpone cheese (although to be honest, I usually end up using a tub of Light Philadelphia Spreadable) — at room temperature.
• 1 cup cream
• 4 egg whites

In a heatproof bowl or double boiler, whisk the egg yolks and sugar together until frothy. Stir in the wine. Whisk over a pan of boiling water until the mixture thickens and becomes light and frothy. Remove from the heat. Let this mixture cool, you can speed this up by beating it with electric beaters for five minutes (the air will cool the mixture). This is your zabaglione.

In a very large bowl, beat the cream cheese/mascarpone with electric beaters. Once the zabaglione is cool, pour it onto the cream cheese and beat it in well. This mixture needs to be completely smooth.

In a different bowl, whip your cream.

Clean your beaters thoroughly. In a new bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

Fold the whipped cream into the zabaglione/cream cheese mixture. Now fold the egg whites, gently but thoroughly into the rest.

Coffee

• Coffee: French press and espresso
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 cup alcohol (brandy, rum, Marsala wine, Kahlua, Tia Maria)

Make 5 cups of very strong French press coffee (you can boost the coffee flavour by adding some shots of espresso).

Pour the coffee into a shallow dish (like a lasagna tray) to help it cool quickly.

Stir in about 1 cup of alcohol — I use of a mixture of brandy, rum and Marsala wine.

Stir in about 1/3 cup of sugar. Taste the mixture — it should be strong, but not too bitter. Let this mixture cool completely.

Assembly

• 500g sponge fingers / ladyfingers
• Cream mixture
• Coffee mixture
• 3 tb cocoa

Dip sponge fingers into the coffee — soak them until they are almost falling apart. You must do this individually or they will fall to mush.

Now make a layer on the base of your dish — you are not restricted by the actual shape of the sponge fingers, feel free to crumble and squish them. Ideally you will use half of the sponge fingers.

Smooth out half of your cream mixture on top. Dust 1tb cocoa on top of the cream mixture (using a sieve).

Soak and layer the rest of the sponge fingers. I usually use up every drop of my coffee mixture, and even rescue the soggy mush left behind in the container.

Smooth over the rest of the cream mixture as perfectly as possible. Dust the top of the tiramisu with 2tb of cocoa — I like to place a paper stencil on top before dusting with cocoa for decoration.

Refrigerate the tiramisu for a minimum of three hours, but ideally overnight.

Ready to serve!

Citrus-syrup yoghurt cake with crunchy almond toffee topping

Cake:

Makes two 20cm cakes or one very large and tall 25cm cake

250g butter, very soft
400g caster sugar
6 large eggs
zest of one large navel orange (use a fine Microplane or don’t attempt cake)
zest of one lemon (use a fine Microplane or don’t attempt cake)
330g SR flour
70g almond meal
400g plain Greek yoghurt

Syrup:

Juice of the aforementioned orange – top up with water to make 1/2 cup of liquid
Juice of half of the aforementioned lemon
1/2 cup of sugar

Topping for one cake:

2/3 cup of roasted almonds, roughly chopped
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup water

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 150 degrees fan-forced

Line your cake tin/s with baking paper.

1. In a very large bowl, cream the butter, sugar and zest until extremely light, pale, soft and fluffy. This will take 15-20 minutes if you do not have a stand mixer. Don’t try and skimp on the beating.

2. Beat in the eggs, one at a time.

3. Gently fold in the flour/almond meal mixture with a large metal spoon.

4. Gently but thoroughly fold in the yoghurt.

5. Gently smooth batter into your prepared cake tin/s. If you are at all concerned about your ability to not to burn the cake, I advise using two cake tins, as the one cake tin method calls for a long baking period and vigilance.

6. Bake the cake/s for 40 minutes -1.5 hours. You may need to cover the top with tin foil if it is browning too deeply. It is cooked when it is firm, and a skewer comes out cleanly.

7. While the cake is baking, make the syrup by boiling all the ingredients together for 6-7 minutes.

8. When the cake is done, poke it all over with a skewer. Pour the syrup over the cake, a little at a time, letting it soak up the syrup in between pours.

9. Let the cake sit for 3-4 hours and cool completely in the tin.

8. Turn out the cake. Leave it upside down on a plate, making the flat bottom of the cake the top of the cake. The cake should have soaked up all the syrup and should be fairly easy to persuade to sit flat.

9. For the topping, put the sugar and the water in a saucepan over a medium heat. Let it boil until it is a light golden brown — the colour of light honey. Then tumble in your almonds and pour over the cake, quickly spreading it over the top of the cake with a knife. WARNING: toffee sticks and burns! DO NOT TOUCH IT.

10. Let the toffee cool for a minute, but while it is still quite warm, oil a knife and score the top of the cake into slices.

11. Let the toffee cool completely. Do not refrigerate this cake. Do not attempt to make this cake during summer, or on very humid days.

12. Ta-da!

13. If you were foolish and scored the cake into LARGE slices, you will now need an extremely sharp knife and lots of courage to cut the cake. Swing the knife at the cake with force and speed, as if you were chopping wood through wrist action alone. You need to crack through the layer of toffee and nuts, like breaking through the top of a crème brûlée.

14. Serve the cake with unsweetened double cream. You should have a very moist, tangy, aromatic slice of cake, with bonus crunchy toffee almonds for contrast.