Food porn

There’s something in females’ DNA that gets us really, really excited about cake, pudding and all manner of sweet stuff. Some women pretend not to give a fig, as it were, but they’re either lying, unhealthily obsessed with the size of their thighs, or are coming down with something.

Men are different. Although some probably spend quite a bit of time obsessing about thighs – usually someone else’s – many men genuinely don’t care for cakes and desserts. No strategic eating at restaurants for them; they simply flick straight past the dessert menu and head for (horrors of horrors) – the cheeseboard or – worse still – opt for nothing to round off the meal.

So, guys, you might want to go and get your kicks somewhere else on the Internet today because this blog is graphically and gratuitously all about cake and dessert.

Yum.

I won’t, however, be regaling you with accounts of sweet treats I’ve whipped up out of the Edmonds cookbook. Nope, every offering involves something I've invented.

My profiteroles dinner party dessert offering looked like mutants, but they tasted great. I experimented
with using freeze-dried plum powder when making the filling. The plum crème patisserie filling was tasty
but a little gluggy. Plum powder folded into sweetened whipped cream worked best.

I made two different versions of this spice cake, one that used the traditional all spice,
cinnamon and nutmeg spice mix, and one that used five-spice instead. Both versions of
the cake were lovely. Do you like freeze dried lychee nod to the East on the five-spice version?
A bit over the top maybe, but then again, I reckon 'more is more' when it comes to food.

Readers of my Horror Food blog may recall the sauced duck tongue surprise I took to our
friends’ dinner party, and write me off as the dinner guest from hell. At the risk of ruining my
reputation, here’s the dessert creation I took to offset the duck tongues.
(See the end of this post for the recipe.)

I could go on, but I’m worried all that sugary, creamy excitement might prove too much for my female readers. So let’s plummet back to Earth with a bump.

Domestic goddess I may be, but even goddesses have their off days as I discovered when I attempted to make a sponge cake using a liberal measure of freeze-dried passion fruit powder in the batter.



L-R: Dish sponge, my sponge...or was that, my sponge, dish sponge?



Not even lashings of whipped cream could
redeem this sad puppy. 
PS: The right hand photo above was the dish sponge.

Anna’s cardamon scented roasted apple custard tart

Roasted apples

1.7 kg Granny Smith apple slices (peeled and cut into quarters or eighths)
½ c soft brown sugar
32 g butter

Toss apple slices in butter and sugar and roast until golden.  Leave until completely cool before using.

Sweet short pastry

170 g softened butter
85 g sugar
1 small egg
4 drops vanilla essence
260 g standard plain flour

Lightly cream butter and sugar. Add egg and vanilla and beat until just combined. Add flour and mix until the pastry comes away from the sides of the bowl. Be careful not to over mix. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour before using (overnight is fine).

Custard

5 eggs
6 tbsp sugar
2 tsp ground cardamom
1 tsp vanilla
2 c lukewarm milk
1 c lukewarm cream

Beat eggs, sugar, cardamon and vanilla together.  Pour in warmed milk and cream while beating, and mix until combined with egg mix but not foamy.

Method

Roll out the pastry to about 3 mm thickness and line a greased 28 cm, deep flan dish. You can brush some lightly beaten egg white over the pastry to help prevent leakage.

Place roasted apples over the pastry case then gently pour in custard mixture. Bake at 180 degrees C for 50 minutes or until the custard sets.

Social experiments

As much as I enjoy trying new foods out on myself, it’s far more fun experimenting on friends.

Don't get me wrong; I enjoy solitary pleasures as much as the next person, particularly when it comes to sneaking the cake mixing bowl leftovers before the kids spot them.  But, as you know, food usually tastes better when eaten in company.

Last year an acquaintance attended the master class at the Melbourne Food and Wine Show and ended up with an extra copy of the recipe book, which she very kindly gave to me.

I’ve cooked a few things out of it – all delicious – but one in particular caught my eye: Melbourne chef Adam d’Sylva’s Vietnamese inspired “crispy prawn and tapioca betel leaf”. It comprised a paste of Vietnamese spiced prawns; wrapped in betel leaf; coated in a batter comprising tapioca, rice and glutinous rice flours; and deep-fried.

Betel nuts, wrapped in betel leaf, are chewed in many Asian and African countries for their stimulating effects. The idea of cooking with betel leaves rather appealed and, although a cursory trawl through my local Indian grocery stores drew a blank, the recipe stuck in my mind.

  

Last week I nipped into my local Spice Invader (love that name) to top up on a few Indian supplies when what should I spot but fresh betel leaves! I bought some and promptly invited friends and willing lab rats, Lindsay and Freeman, over for lunch.



Crispy prawn and tapioca betel
leaf fritters.


And what a success it was. The fritters were absolutely delicious. On their own, betel leaves taste surprisingly spicy and unsurprisingly vegetal – a quality that became virtually unnoticeable when they were wrapped around shrimp paste, battered and fried.

I’d definitely cook this again, using spinach or sorrel leaves if I couldn’t get hold of betel leaves.

The following evening provided another experimentation opportunity when we had Mark and Fiona over to dinner. I'd never cooked any of it before, with main and dessert being drawn from cookbooks. Peter Gordon’s Moroccan lamb shanks were delicious, as was the Australian Woman’s Weekly Dessert Cookbook’s crepes with pears, fresh dates and spiced mascarpone.

Rather than play safe with another cookbook experiment, I decided to cut loose with the pre-dinner nibbles and made this creation – a savoury ‘ice’ cream.

I bought fresh wonton wrappers, brushed them with a little oil and sprinkled them with sea salt and sesame seeds. The wrappers were then wound around cream horn moulds and baked 10 minutes or so until golden and crispy.

Great idea so far, but what to put in them? I’m not sure why, but something about making finger food sends me into a total brain freeze. Hurrah for supermarket dips and pita crisps, is all I can say.

I ended up putting some fried strips of lemony leek in the bottom, then piled creamy spinach moose on top. A blob of harissa provided a colourful finish. The 'ice creams' were edible – but only okay at the best. There was far too much cream in the spinach moose, making for an overly rich and sickly effect. Mark and Fiona politely ate them but I don’t think that creation is ever going to win me Master Chef.




Everyone's still smiling
despite my creative capers.

I think the wonton cones worked well though, so I’ll keep working on the idea.

As much as I love to involve friends in my experiments, some investigations are best left unshared.


While buying the betel leaves, I spotted this rather intriguing looking "eating gum" amongst the packets of whole spices.

When I asked the storekeeper what it was used for, he disconcertingly gave me a really odd look and informed me it was “medicinal”.

He didn’t proffer any further information about what it was supposed to cure, but did volunteer that it needed to be soaked in water and could be consumed when it had gone all "fluffy".

I could, of course, have put it back on the shelf at that point.  But I was feeling bored and buying a $4 pack of mysterious medicinal Indian 'eating gum' provided the welcome diversion of a cheap thrill.

I briefly considered offering some to Lindsay and Freeman when they were here for lunch but decided against it, so they remain blissfully unaware of their narrow escape. After they left, I soaked a few grains in a ramekin of water until, sure enough, it dissolved into fluffy ooze.

Tempted though I was to abort the mission at this point, I scooped up a finger full and tasted; it was gummy, sour, revolting. Ugh!

Who knows what I was trying to cure myself of? Whatever it was, I think I’d rather keep the disease, thanks.