Dad's Favourite Carrot Cake with Whiskey Praline Cream Filling

This recipe is from The Newlywed Kitchen -- Delicious Meals for Couples Cooking Together by Lorna Yee and Ali Basye, page 206. Once again they're limiting their market by not only the book title but now also the recipe title! Why dad is involved I have no idea. Well, actually I do - it says it at the front of the recipe that the recipe was created for the author's dad, but still, it seems rather odd now announcing "Dad's Favorite Cake" when it's not my dad. I shall refer to it from now on as the Awesome Whiskey Carrot Cake.

This cake is amazing. I actually cooked something with whisky a while ago and had some leftover, so went looking for other recipes that also use whisky. That's when I stumbled on a couple of blog posts that described preparing this recipe. The blogs didn't have how to make the recipe though, so I had to order this book at my local library. It's finally arrived and I get to use the brand new book for free (Did you know you can order books  at your local library? Brilliant!)

This is not an easy cake. It's two layers, has a filling between the layers and rather ostentatious frosting. I think there is two much frosting, so you could probably make less. There is probably about a million calories per slice, so don't you be thinking about your waistline when you're eating it. It's just as well it's Easter and I've let myself go :) (I ate a block of chocolate in one sitting on Friday!)

Another annoying thing in this recipe is some weird measurements. I guess it's the American way, but I have no idea what a stick of butter or a cup of butter is (unless it's a cup of melted butter!). Luckily, Google came to the rescue with a butter converter! So I've added grams below.

Preheat the oven to 350F (180C). Grease two 9-inch (23 cm) round baking pans and line the bottoms with baking paper.

In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking powder, and salt. This is just your dry ingredients.

In a large bowl, with an electric mixer on medium speed, beat the butter and sugar together for about four minutes. I found it helpful to cut the butter up into smaller chunks and microwave it for 20 seconds (I have a 1200 Watt microwave), otherwise all the bits of sugar and butter will just fly everywhere.

Add the eggs and oil and beat until just combined. With a wooden spoon, stir in the carrots, walnuts, pineapple, and coconut, and thoroughly mix together. Add the dry ingredients mixed earlier and stir until well combined.

Divide the batter into the two pans and smooth the tops with a rubber spatula. It's a really heavy cake, so it won't rise much more. Bake both of them for about 35 minutes. Check with a toothpick or a bamboo skewer -- it should come out clean. Both of my pans fitted into the oven on the same level, but it might be different if they have to go on separate levels. You don't have to do anything while the layers are baking, so just clean up the dishes or whatnot.

Cool the baked layers on a rack. I don't have a cooling cake rack, so I just turned a drying dishes rack upside down and put some baking paper on it. It took about an hour or two for the layers to cool.

While the cakes were cooling, we made the praline and the cream cheese frosting.

The praline is quite fiddly and you have to make sure all the ingredients are measured out and are sitting within the hand's reach before you start. It took three of us to make it, mostly because the cake was getting baked at the same time and it rang the timer at the same time as critical steps of praline making were taking place. It was a bit chaotic! I'd say just take a breather while the cakes are baking, and make the praline while they're cooling.

Combine the sugar and water in a small saucepan and put them on a high heat. It'll soon boil and not do much else for a little while. Just keep watching it. Soon you will notice light brown colour appearing. When that starts happening, start dragging the edges with a wooden spoon into the middle, kind of like making scrambled eggs. You want to keep it moving so it doesn't burn in some places more than others, but you do want it to go deep amber colour. Keep watch because once it goes brown, it starts darkening really quickly. As soon as it's gone dark, take the pot off the heat and drop in the cold cream. It'll bubble and boil, keep stirring. Add the butter and stir some more until it's all melted. Put the pan back on the stove, lower the heat, and cook it until it's reduced and thickened, about two minutes. Add the walnuts, salt, and whiskey, and set the pot aside to cool.

For the frosting, beat the butter and cream cheese (once again, nuke the butter a little bit first) until smooth. Add the icing sugar, orange liqueur, and orange zest. Beat for about six minutes. The orange liqueurs are Grand Marnier or Cointreau. The bottle stores often sell sample sizes of expensive stuff, which is perfect for baking. I bought a small Cointreau bottle for seven dollars. Same with Whiskey actually, but my friend gave it to me :)

To assemble the cake, place one layer on your plate or cake stand, put the praline on top, cover with the second layer, and then frost the entire cake, sides and all. You can then press the walnuts to the sides for garnish. I added almost an inch of frosting and still had some leftover, so I think you can reduce the amounts there.

Also, we went a bit overboard with the alcohol in this cake. I suggest following the recipe as I think adding too much means both the praline and the frosting stayed too soft. I will probably be making this cake again soon and will try to contain myself with the alcohol addition :)

Once again, I have no photos because my phone is still getting repaired, but this photography blog has some.

Ingredients:
Cake:
2 cups flour
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened = 225 g
1 3/4 cup sugar
4 large eggs
1/4 vegetable oil
3 cups grated carrots
1 cup chopped walnuts
One 8-ounce can crushed pineapple, drained well = 230 g
1/2 cup flaked coconut
walnuts for garnish
Whiskey praline cream filling:
1/4 thickened cream
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/3 cup sugar
3 tablespoons water
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
pinch of salt
1 tablespoon whiskey
Orange cream cheese frosting:
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter = 225 g
Two 8-ounce packages cream cheese = 450 g, but I think less is better
2.5 cups icing sugar
1 tablespoon orange liqueur
zest of a medium orange

Zucchini Fritters with Tangy Yoghurt Sauce

This recipe is from a book called The Newlywed Kitchen -- Delicious Meals for Couples Cooking Together by Lorna Yee and Ali Basye, page 8. I don't know why they limited their market with such a title because this book has the most delicious recipes I've ever seen. Silly marketing strategy if you ask me!

First you mix the grated zucchini and the salt. Then you're supposed to squeeze it out over a sieve to remove about the half a cup of liquid that is in it. I don't have a sieve! So we just used our hands and squeezed out handfuls over the sink.

Then mix the zucchini with the garlic (I just use minced garlic that comes in jars -- one teaspoon = one clove), egg, pepper, Parmesan, and flour. Stir and fry tablespoonfuls in oil. About three minutes each side, until browned. It's pretty easy! We got 10 fritters out of this mixture.

Yoghurt is even easier! Mix the youghurt, lemon juice, chopped parsley, salt and pepper in a bowl. Done!
By sheer coincidence the flavourings in the yoghurt were the same as what went on the fish, so it was a perfect match! Yay :)

Ingredients:
Fritters:
3 cups grated zucchini
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 large egg
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup grated Parmesan
1/2 cup flour
olive oil
Yoghurt:
3/4 cup plain Greek yoghurt
1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
salt and pepper

Crunchy Fish Fillets

This is a recipe I picked up at a supermarket -- those little leaflets you get near the checkout.

Recently I've decided that once I've stocked my pantry and freezer with some essentials, I'll just go to the fresh markets on the weekend and get the vege/eggs/fish/meat for cheaper and any dairy stuff at a supermarket. I've spent $280 on countdown online shopping, my freezer is overflowing with frozen meals, and I still spent $40 at the supermarket and $40 at the markets. Hmmm! Oh well, hopefully it'll even out eventually.

I recently watched Hairy Bikers on the Food Channel, and they had a segment on how to butterfly a sardine (now, this is a large sardine, not the type you get in a can!). It seemed easy enough, so I was kind of inspired to get a whole fish. So at the markets I got a whole butterfish to go for this recipe. It was already gutted, but needed filleting.

I've never filleted a fish before, but it seemed easy enough. I probably didn't get as much meat off it as I was supposed to, but butterfish seems like a really meaty fish, so it worked out.

The recipe is really easy - just cover the fish fillets with mayonnaise, and then with a mixture of breadcrumbs, parsley, and lemon zest. Then put under a grill for eight minutes.

It was absolutely delicious. I think it's because the fish was so fresh -- not just freshly bought, but also freshly cut. I have a feeling that the fish starts going 'fishy' as soon as it's filleted, so the meat being inside the fish protected it from that.

Filleting the fish was a fun experience too :)

I served the fish with zucchini fritters and tangy yoghurt sauce.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
2 Tbsp chopped parsley
grated rind 1/2 lemon
4 x 125g white fish fillets 
1/2 cup Heinz Seriously Good Original Mayonnaise

Doom, Gloom, and Comfort Food

The weather is giving us a taste of winter, gail winds, rain, really cold. I leave work at 4.30-5, and still get home in the dark. Miserable. The house is cold and uninviting. The birds go to sleep when the light dims, so even they're not awake to greet me when I arrive.

My phone is broken, so no pictures. No recipe either because there isn't much in the way of ingredients at the house today. Just kinda all doom and gloom really.

But I was feeling motivated to cook something. So I grabbed a pasta bake sauce from the pantry. However, it called for pasta and some bacon and I had neither! So instead I cooked some potatoes and saveloys and mixed those up with the pasta bake, piled some cheese on top and voila! tasty, fattening, and very much the perfect comfort food. For all those times when I need reminding that I still have a mortgage to pay and not that much money to pay it with. ¡No Pasarán!

Lamb cutlets with grilled goat's cheese

I found this recipe in The Instant Cook by Donna Hay, page 102. It's actually a very simple recipe, not needing a lot of time or preparation, but I managed to stuff it up nevertheless!

Problem number one: it's not easy to get lamb cutlets in New Zealand. You'd think in the land of sheep, we'd have every cut of lamb available, but noooo, lamb cutlets can be bought only from Moore Wilsons and are expensive. It's basically a cut up rack of lamb, so I guess I could have bought one and separated them, but meh! I went with lamb steaks.

Now, there's a difference between lamb steaks and lamb steaks. I had a pack I bought from a supermarket and a pack I bought from Saturday markets, and what a difference! The smaller tender ones come from Wai-Ora Farm, and they usually go to various markets around the country. Those three were only $3.50 and way nicer than the pack of the two large ones from the supermarket.

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

The different size of the steaks also contributed to my failure in preparing this recipe, as I overcooked the meat and it was rather dry and chewy.

The other difficulty in this recipe was finding the goat's cheese. I thought it'd be just feta, but then wasn't sure what the big deal is with it being goat's rather than cow's. But the picture in the book makes it obvious that it is not feta as it appears more solid and not crumbly. A quick google fu pointed me towards chèvre. Luckily New World Metro at the Wellington Railway Station is poncy enough to have a cheese island with all sorts of different (and ridiculously) expensive produce.

Place the lamb cutlets in a dish with the combined lemon juice, oil, salt, and pepper, and set aside for 5-10 minutes. Now, the book does not explain how you're supposed to spread the three tablespoons of liquid amongst 10 cutlets, so I just laid them out on a tray and brushed both sides.

Place the cutlets under a preheated hot grill and cook for 1-2 minutes on one side. I was too scared the meat would be raw and ended up overcooking it. Don't be scared, two minutes is plenty! Turn the cutlets and cook for one minute. Sprinkle with oregano or marjoram and top each cutlet with a slice of the goat's cheese. Grill for three minutes or until the cheese is golden. This instruction might have additionally contributed to my timing failure as the cheese never went golden. It didn't melt outside, it didn't brown, it just basically warmed. Once we started eating it, we saw that it had liquefied in the middle and was rather delicious, but the lamb overcooked :(

Serve with the lemon wedges and steamed greens or a simple salad.

Looks can be deceiving :)

Ingredients:
8-10 lamb cutlets, trimmed
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon olive oil
sea salt and cracked black pepper
2 tablespoons oregano or marjoram
8-10 thin slices goat's cheese
lemon wedges to serve

Gü desserts

If you have not tried these yet, you must definitely check them out. It's a British brand and has recently become available in New Zealand. It's very expensive ($8 for two small serves) but my god, it's so very much worth it.

Tried these chocolate puddings the other night, 70% cocoa chocolate, microwave for 20 seconds, and voila, the most delicious thing you've ever tasted.

I've also tried the lemon cheesecake, it was so good I couldn't resist and ate both. The little cheesecakes come in glass jars, which you can reuse for storage or whatnot, the presentation is really superb.

Chicken in Hoegaarden with prunes

I found this recipe in Leiths Simple Cookery by Viv Pidgeon and Jenny Stringer, page 214. It's actually an excellent book -- it contains not only recipes but also explanations of how to make basic sauces, cuts, roasts, what to stock your pantry with, and what vegetables are available in each season. Although, I imagine, the season stuff is irrelevant to New Zealand, and the varieties of potato, for example, aren't the same here either.

I used chicken thighs (tenderloins) instead of chicken breasts because they are cheaper and taste far far better. It's impossible to overcook chicken thighs, they always come up juicy and delicious. I find chicken breast meat too dry. Instead of sunflower oil, I used olive oil because, once again, there is some sort of New Zealand specific or maybe just Wellington specific shortage on what seems like such a staple ingredient. And I didn't have dark brown sugar, so just used soft brown sugar.

I imagine the fact that I used thighs and not breasts and the obvious lack of chicken weight in this recipe is why my casserole was more liquid that I expected it to be. I used about 500 g of chicken thighs, so use more if you're going to do what I did :)

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Trim any fat off chicken. Heat a little of the oil in a frying pan and brown the chicken on both sides. Transfer to a casserole dish. Now, to the same pan where the chicken was cooked, add the onions and sweat over low heat for 10 minutes. Sweating means not letting them brown but just making them very soft, so it's important to leave the heat quite low.

Add the tomato purée and flour, and cook for another minute, stirring well. Slowly stir in the beer, bring to the boil, and simmer for two minutes. Pour into the casserole with the stock, sugar, mustard, bay leaves, and vinegar.

Cover the casserole and bake in the oven for 45 minutes.

Add the prunes, then return to the oven for 20 more minutes. If the casserole is too thick, add more liquid; if it's too thin, remove the lid for this part of cooking.

Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serve with mustard mash or steamed green vegetables.

Yummo!

Ingredients:
4 chicken breasts, skinned and boned
2 tablespoons sunflower oil
2 onions, finely sliced
1 tablespoon tomato purée
2 tablespoons plain flour
300 mL Hoegaarden beer (or pale, blonde beer)
300 mL chicken stock
1 heaped tablespoon soft dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon wholegrain mustard
2 bay leaves
1/2 tablespoon white wine vinegar
12 ready-to-eat prunes, pitted
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Mustard mash

You'd think mashed potatoes are mashed potatoes are mashed potatoes? And you'd be wrong! Turns out there is more than one way to make this delicious accompaniment to all things delicious! Of course, the ingredients are what you would normally use for mashed potatoes, but it's the technique that makes these something out of this world.

I got this recipe in Leiths Simple Cookery by Viv Pidgeon and Jenny Stringer, page 359. It's suggested as something to serve with Chicken in Hoegaarden with Prunes.

Place the potatoes in a saucepan and add enough cold water just to cover them. Salt the water well and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat slightly and simmer for about 15 minutes, until the potatoes are tender.

Drain the potatoes well and mash them with a potato masher. Heat carefully, stirring, to allow the potato to steam-dry a little.

Push the potato to one side of the pan. Set the exposed part of the pan over the direct heat and pour in most of the milk. Add to the milk the butter and salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste. Tilt the pan to allow the milk to boil and butter to melt.

When the milk is boiling, or near it, beat it into the potato. Check the seasoning and add a little more milk if necessary. Stir the mustard into the completed mash. I used two tablespoons of wholegrain mustard, because it tastes super awesome!

Ingredients:
900 g floury potatoes, peeled and cut into large even pieces
150-200 mL milk
60 g butter
nutmeg
salt and freshly ground pepper
1 tablespoon mustard (wholegrain, English, or Dijon), or more mustard if you prefer a stronger flavour.

Knife

Was a little bit dissapointed with the knife that arrived in the mail -- it does not have a slightly curved edge, so I cannot get the piston motion going that is suggested in the video. Oh well, used Flybuys to pay for it, so no big deal. Will be looking to find the 'perfect' knife for me -- I think I need a slightly shorter edge that a chef's knife, with some carbon steel content, a curved edge. Found this one online, but will make do with what I have for now, until at least I have the cutting skills down pat.