The Daring Bakers’ July challenge was a Swiss roll ice cream cake (see here). We made all the essential elements but did not quite manage to put them together. I was in charge of making two ice creams. Emily and I made the Swiss roll together. Here follows our recipes…

I’ve tried making ice cream a few times before but have not had oodles of success. I’ve gleaned from the blogosphere grapevine that David Lebovitz is the guru of ice cream, so I spent a little time perusing his blog and came away with some great ideas. I now know that the key for quality homemade ice cream is to not be afraid of fat. It is fattiness that gives ice cream its creaminess. Similarly, the key for quality homemade sorbet is to add liquid sugar such as glucose, golden syrup or honey or a little alcohol (or in my version, both). This stops the sorbet becoming too frozen and icy.

I’ve also run into trouble before by being impatient and pouring my custard or sorbet juice into the ice cream maker before it is thoroughly chilled. Don’t do this! Be sure to chill your custard or juice before putting it in the ice cream maker – preferably overnight. And then, after you take it out of the ice cream maker, chill it again so that it is properly frozen before serving. In my opinion, the Orange and Campari Sorbet was the winner of the day. It was incredibly easy to make and easily incredibly delicious.

Orange and Campari Sorbet

Adapted from David Lebovitz (but changed quite a bit)

Ingredients
1000mL orange juice (about 10 oranges)
100g granulated sugar
80mL Campari
75g golden syrup

• Place your oranges in hot water for a few minutes to heat them up. This helps to extract extra juice. I used about 10 oranges.

• Squeeze your oranges to create juice. There is no need to strain out the pulp; it adds to the texture!

• Put the sugar and golden syrup in a small non-reactive saucepan. Add enough juice to cover the sugar and syrup. Heat the mixture until the sugar is completely dissolved.

• Stir the sugar mixture with the remaining juice.

• Chill overnight before freezing in your ice cream machine. I then re-froze the mixture after taking it out of the machine to help it become completely frozen.

Mint Choc Chip Ice Cream

Adapted from David Lebovitz

Ingredients
250mL full fat milk
150g granulated sugar
500mL heavy/double cream
Pinch of salt
60–80g fresh mint leaves
5 large egg yolks
140g dark chocolate, chopped

• Warm the milk, sugar, half the cream, salt and mint in a medium saucepan.

• Scald the milk, then remove it from the heat. Cover and let it stand for 1 to 2 hours to infuse.

• Strain the milk mixture to remove the mint. Press the mint with a spatula to extract as much flavour and colour as possible. Discard the mint.

• Pour the remaining cream into a heavy bowl and place a clean strainer over the top. Set up an ice bath or sink-full of very cold water.

• Warm the milk mixture again but keep it well below simmering point. In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolks well. Very slowly whisk the warm milk into the yolks and then pour back into the saucepan.

• Warm the custard and stir constantly until it thickens and coats the back of a wooden spoon. It should reach about 77°C. Don’t let it simmer or boil – it will curdle!

• Strain the mixture into the cream and stir over the ice bath to stop it cooking and cool it down.

• Place the custard in the fridge overnight before freezing it in your ice cream machine.

• Place a storage container in the freezer to cool it down. When the ice cream is nearly ready, melt the chocolate slowly in a double boiler until just melted and smooth.

• When the ice cream is ready, remove the cool storage container from the freezer. Drizzle some of the chocolate over the bottom of the container. Pour some of the ice cream over the top. Drizzle some more chocolate over the top of this and quickly stir through to break up the chocolate. Continue layering and stirring the ice cream and chocolate until it is all used up. Place in the freezer to chill for several hours.

• Enjoy!!

Grated Chocolate Swiss Roll

Adapted from the 1989 Australian Women’s Weekly Cakes & Slices Cookbook

Emily and I made the Swiss roll together. The recipe we used is from Emily’s mum’s 1989 Australian Women’s Weekly Cakes & Slices Cookbook. Emily used to make this when she was six years old, but two fully grown women still managed to have some extreme troubles with this dish! The roll broke up a lot when we rolled it up the first time (it was undercooked) but we just rearranged it so that the cracks were all underneath and cemented together with cream. Our advice is not to panic – like we did – if it looks like things might go awry. The roll was surprisingly salvageable. In terms of taste, it was pretty good. The cake part was lovely and light due to the whipped egg whites and grated chocolate. An oldie but a goodie.

Ingredients for roll
4 eggs, separated
½ cup caster sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
2 tbs hot water
60g dark chocolate, finely grated
½ cup self-raising flour

Ingredients for vanilla cream
½ cup thickened cream
2 tsp icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence

• Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a 25cm x 30cm rectangular baking pan with baking paper and grease well.

• In a small bowl, beat the egg yolks and sugar for about 5 minutes until it is thick and creamy.

• Grate the chocolate finely and weigh out 60g.

• Transfer the mixture to a large bowl. Fold in the hot water, chocolate, then sifted flour.

• In another small bowl, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Fold this into the other mixture and pour into the prepared pan.

• Bake in the oven for about 15 minutes. It should be just cooked. Meanwhile, sprinkle some foil (or baking paper) that is larger than the Swiss roll tray with some caster sugar.

• When the Swiss roll is ready, turn it immediately onto the prepared sugared foil or paper.

• Trim the crisp edges from the Swiss roll. Roll it up in the foil or paper from the long side. Stand for 2 minutes, unroll, and cool.

• Do not stress if you have a disaster like we did! You can patch up the breaks with cream and manoeuvre them out of sight.

• To make the vanilla cream, beat the cream, icing sugar and essence in a small bowl until soft peaks form. Spread the vanilla cream on the cooled Swiss roll and roll up. Voila!

The July 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Sunita of Sunita’s world – life and food. Sunita challenged everyone to make an ice-cream filled Swiss roll that’s then used to make a bombe with hot fudge. Her recipe is based on an ice cream cake recipe from Taste of Home.

The Daring Bakers’ challenge for June was chocolate pavlova. We decided to go a little off track this month and make a dish using chocolate and meringue, but – let’s be honest – this really isn’t a pavlova at all! This chocolate-coffee-meringue cake was made by my grandma throughout my childhood and it starred in a few birthday parties during my formative years. The recipe is originally from a school fundraising cookbook, potentially from the 1960s (though I would have to double check that). It’s a real nostalgia dish for me. Somehow my grandma’s version usually turns out twice as high; but we tried our best!

Ingredients
6 egg whites
12 oz (340g) caster sugar
2 level dessert spoons of ground instant coffee
6 oz (170g) dark chocolate
600mL cream

• Preheat the oven to 120°C.
• Prepare the baking trays: trace 3 circles on baking paper that are nine inches each in diameter. You can use a nine inch dessert plate to create the circles. Place the baking paper on baking trays and stick them down with some canola spray or meringue mixture.
• Whip the egg whites until firm. Be sure that the bowl and beaters are clean and dry because any contamination will prevent whipping.

• Add the sugar gradually, ensuring that the grains dissolve as much as possible. Continue to mix, but be careful not to overmix.
• Grind the instant coffee into a powder if it isn’t already fine. Add the coffee to the egg whites as they are nearing stiff peaks.

• Divide the mixture evenly onto the three circles.

• Try to make the circles equal in size and as flat as possible.

• Put the meringe circles in the oven for 2 and a half hours until they are very crisp but not burnt. Let them cool out of the oven.

• For the cream filling, whip the cream.
• Melt the chocolate in a double boiler or microwave. Ensure that it doesn’t get too hot and burn. Cool the melted chocolate a little and then mix with the whipped cream.
• Then, construct the cake. Spread the chocolate cream over the top of the meringue circles. Place one on top of the other to create the cake.

• Finally, spread the cream over the sides of the cake and cover up any messiness. Place the cake in the fridge overnight to ‘combine’. To serve, grate chocolate over the top.

The June 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Dawn of Doable and Delicious. Dawn challenged the Daring Bakers’ to make Chocolate Pavlovas and Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse. The challenge recipe is based on a recipe from the book Chocolate Epiphany by Francois Payard

I won’t lie. We are pretty proud of this! Croquembouche seems like the kind of thing that would be inordinately difficult, but it was surprisingly pretty simple.

When we found out that this was the Daring Bakers’ May challenge, we felt a little intimidated. But it all turned out well.

There are three fairly easy steps. First, make the pastry cream. Next, make the choux balls. Finally, construct your tower!

Pastry cream

I was in charge of the pastry cream. I based this on a recipe by Pierre Hermé included in The Cook’s Book. I reduced the sugar a little because I found it quite sweet, but otherwise all was good. I got a little inventive and decided to make three flavours: dark chocolate, raspberry and coffee.

Ingredients
750mL milk
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped (optional, depending on flavourings)
9 egg yolks
¾ cup castor sugar
70g cornflour, sifted
70g dark chocolate, chopped or grated finely
1 cup raspberries, fresh or frozen, cooked to a jam in a saucepan for ten minutes
About 200ml espresso coffee, reduced to 1 tbs in a saucepan

• Bring the milk, vanilla pod, cornflour and half the sugar just to the boil in a heavy based saucepan, whisking all the time. Remove from heat.
• In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and remaining sugar until they are thoroughly combined. Pour the hot milk onto the egg mixture, in a steady stream. Whisk continuously.
• Transfer mixture back to a clean pan and bring to the boil once again. Continue to whisk constantly. When boiled, immediately remove the pan from the heat. Remove the vanilla pod. Divide the mixture into three and add your choice of flavouring. To cool quickly, place saucepan in a bowl of iced water and stir. Leave to cool in the fridge (or freezer) for a few hours.
• Stephanie recommends mixing these with some whipped cream to reduce the richness. We tried this but the cream became too liquid. If the mixture is too liquid, you can reheat in a saucepan again with some cornflour. Be careful of overdoing the cornflour though, the pastry cream can become claggy. (We speak from experience here.)
• My personal favourite was the raspberry. Yum.

Choux balls

We based our choux pastry on Stephanie Alexander’s recipe from our old favourite, The Cook’s Companion. It’s just such a reliable old tome; I can’t go past it. This probably makes about 60 choux – plenty for constructing and eating.

Ingredients
120g unsalted butter
pinch of salt
1½ cups water
300g spelt flour (or use 250g normal wheat flour), sifted
6 eggs

• Preheat oven to 180 Celsius.
• In a saucepan, combine the butter, salt and water. Bring to the boil and remove from heat.
• Add the flour in one go and stir to combine. Return pan to a medium heat.
• Continue stirring until the mixture dries out a little and starts to leave the sides of the pan. For us, this happened immediately (see picture).

• Put mixture in a food processor or mixer with a paddle beater. Add the eggs one at a time. Ensure that each egg is well combined before adding the next one.
• Pipe or spoon the mixture onto baking paper lined trays. We piped balls of about an inch in diameter. Leave some space in between for them to puff. You can push down the tips with a finger dipped in hot water to make a spherical ball.
• Pipe a few long ones if you want to make eclairs as well!
• Bake in an oven for 40 minutes until they are golden on the outside, but dry on the inside. Cool.

Construction

Next up, you must construct your croquembouche. For this, you must make a toffee, which is basically the cement for your little tower.

Ingredients for toffee
1 cup sugar
½ tsp lemon juice

• Fill your piping bag up with the pastry cream.
• Use a small knife to make a hole in the balls, and stick the nozzle of the piping bag in. Pipe away until all your balls are full.

• Finally, make the toffee/cement. Simply combine the sugar and lemon juice in a saucepan and stir.
• Place saucepan on a medium heat. Dissolve the sugar and bring to the boil. When the syrup becomes a light caramel colour, remove it from the heat.
• Working quickly, dip the choux balls into the toffee and begin your construction. If the toffee begins to harden, you can reheat it. Be careful; it burns! (But you survive. I had many a toffee burn on my fingertips after the gingerbread house construction and I lived to tell the tale.)
• When the croquembouche is constructed, it is time to decorate. We went down the traditional route and spun some toffee round and round. We then decorated it with some little rose buds from the garden.
• Delightful!

The May 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake. Cat challenged everyone to make a piece montée, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump’s Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri.

The April 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet.

Saskia and I were excited about the prospect of making a traditional British pudding and were quite familiar with the, shall we say, challenging aspects of using suet, thanks to Saskia’s Christmas pudding.

We were given quite a bit of latitude as to what type of pudding to make and our first port of call was the fabulous Mrs Beeton. Mrs Beeton wrote her Book of Household Management in 24 Monthly Parts from 1859–1861. It covers everything from how to deal with your housekeeper, cook, kitchen-maid, butler, footman, coachman and maids to cookery, medical issues and legal issues. Mrs Beeton’s book is such a book of it’s time, there is a real emphasis on frugality -  most recipes include very few ingredients, some recipes are marked as ‘simple family recipes’ and the recipe includes an estimate as to how expensive it will be to make (for reference, our pudding would cost approximately 10d.  I’m not sure what this equates to, but the d is short for a denarius which is less than 1 shilling). Interestingly, the book does not provide a lot of details regarding exact quantities or method, which I would attribute to the fact that at the time, women (and it would be women) probably had a better base knowledge than we do today. It is well worth a read and the entire Book of Household Management is available online.

We settled upon the steamed apple pudding and put aside some time over the Easter weekend to prepare and steam the pudding. We decided to actually make the pudding on Easter Sunday as we were having a sit-down lunch with friends. Unfortunately, this meant that almost all of the shops were closed, and those that were open did not carry suet. We decided to make do, and instead used the butter pastry from Mrs Beeton’s book instead.

The pudding was reasonably easy to make and our friends were suitably impressed that we had made a pudding from Mrs Beeton. As an aside, Saskia and I thought it was pretty amusing that we were making a pudding from the 1800s the very same weekend that we also made preserved tomatoes . I guess we should have just darned some socks as well while we were at it!

All in all, it was an enjoyable challenge and I am happy that we could do Mrs Beeton proud. The pudding pastry itself was a little bland (I have included some sugar in the recipe below, which was not in the original recipe) and the pastry had a slightly odd consistency, which may be due to the fact that it was made with spelt flour due to my dietary requirements. I don’t imagine I will be making it again, but at least now I know how to make a traditional steamed pudding! Thanks to Esther for the challenge!

Boiled apple pudding

For the butter crust

450g flour (or 540g if using spelt flour)
170g butter (very cold)
240ml water
3 tbs caster sugar

For the pudding

4 apples, pared, cored, and cut into slices
4 tbs sultanas
4 tbs caster sugar
1 tsp grated lemon rind
2 tbs lemon juice
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground nutmeg

Directions

• With a knife, work the flour and sugar to a smooth paste with the water.

• Transfer the pastry to the bench and form it into a ball.
• Roll the pastry until it is thin,  place a couple of tablespoons of butter over it in small pieces:

• Lightly cover with additional flour, then fold the pastry over again.
• Roll the pastry out thinly again and repeat adding the butter and flour. Continue until all the butter is used.

• Roll the pastry over your rolling pin and transfer to the pudding dish:

• Trim the edges, there should be a lot of pastry left over for the lid.
• Add the apples, sultanas, sugar, lemon rind and juice and spices:

• Cover with a layer of pastry and pinch the edges together tightly.

• Place a layer of kitchen paper over the pudding, then wrap in aluminium foil.
• Using kitchen string, tie the cloth and foil to the pudding bowl and make a loop so that the pudding can be easily removed from the steaming basin:

• Place an upturned bowl (we used a tart tin) inside a large saucepan. The pudding will sit on the upturned bowl.

• Put the large saucepan on the stove on low heat. Place the pudding in the large saucepan and carefully pour in boiling water, cover with the lid.
• Let the pudding steam for between 1.5 and 2.5 hours. Mrs Beeton notes that “if the dinner hour is uncertain” the apple pudding can be cooked for longer than this and it will be fine. Just make sure that the water has not boiled away.
• Serve warm, with plenty of pouring cream.

The April Daring Cook’s challenge was a Brunswick stew. According to our reliable old friend Wikipedia,  this stew originates from the Southern states of the USA, though both the Georgians and Virginians claim it as their own.

Traditionally, Brunswick stew is made with rabbit or squirrel but today, more common meats like chicken or pork are used. It also includes several vegetables such as lima beans, okra and tomatoes. There is no one definitive recipe, luckily for us, because our interpretation was fairly loose.

My first thought when reading the recipe was that it seemed kind of meaty for a semi-veg girl. I wasn’t entirely sure whether I wanted to participate. Then, after a little thinking, I thought that we could probably make a good vegetarian version with black turtle beans. I had made a pretty successful soup using black beans the week before, and still had half a packet of beans to use up!

On the forums, I asked the lovely Daring Cooks whether they had any good ideas regarding how to turn Brunswick Stew vegetarian. Thanks to everyone who replied – there were some extremely helpful suggestions, especially from the font of knowledge, Audax. The secret of converting a meaty dish into a vegetarian version is to add, add, add. Not simply exchange. Like it or not, beans just do not have the flavour of a good ol’ bunny.

This is how I decided to make our conversions:

1. Replace the meat with soaked black turtle beans and dried mushrooms for a ‘meaty’ base.
2. Replace the bacon with sprinkles of paprika, for ‘smokiness’.
3. Replace the meat stock with vegetable stock.
4. Add some spices such as cumin and thyme, for flavour.
5. Add some red wine, for richness.
6. Add some Vegemite, for mysterious umami (thanks Audax!)
7. Fry up the onions and add garlic, for sweetness and flavour.

Our stew was relatively successful. It would be particularly good on a chilly Wintery night. And healthy. And a good way to use up spare vegetables. And possibly an easy way to feed a crowd. It would also probably work better with meat – though this version was still tasty!

Ingredients:

2 onions, diced
2 cloves garlic, sliced
1 dried red chilli, ground to flakes
1 tsp smoked paprika
2 tsp cumin, ground
The leaves from a few sprigs of thyme, fresh
Olive oil
250g black turtle beans, soaked overnight
A small handful of dried mushrooms (we used porcini)
500g waxy potatoes, diced (we used kipfler)
2 celery stalks, sliced
3 carrots, chopped
2 corn cobs, kernels removed
1-2 cans peeled tomatoes, crushed
½ cup red wine vinegar
A dash of white wine (we drank all the red!)
1 bay leaf
Tamari or salt, to taste
Vegemite, to taste
Pepper, to taste
250ml-1L Vegetable stock
Juice of 1 lemon

Method:

• We were in a bit of a hurry so we used a pressure cooker to make this meal. This could not be beat for convenience; all was done in half an hour. However, this could easily be done in a conventional pot on the stove.
• Fry up the onion, garlic, chilli, paprika, cumin and thyme on a low heat. Cook until the onion is soft, about 10-15 minutes.
• Chuck in all of the rest of the ingredients, apart from the lemon juice. We used 250ml of vegetable stock and only one can of tomatoes, as the pressure cooker doesn’t need much liquid. If this was being made on the stove, I would have used at least a litre of stock and 2 cans of tomatoes (plus some water).
• Cook for about an hour on a low heat if using the stove. Cook for about 20 minutes if using a pressure cooker.
• When ready, squeeze in lemon juice, to taste.
• Serve with some fresh herbs and crusty bread.

And finally, the obligatory blog checking lines: The 2010 April Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Wolf of Wolf’s Den. She chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make Brunswick Stew. Wolf chose recipes for her challenge from The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook by Matt Lee and Ted Lee, and from the Callaway, Virginia Ruritan Club.

Thanks must go to Wolf for choosing this recipe. I enjoyed this challenge, even though it wasn’t something that I could eat in its original form! I also love learning about ‘traditional’ recipes from all around the world. The Daring Kitchen is pretty special, ain’t it?!

The 2010 March Daring Baker’s challenge was hosted by Jennifer of Chocolate Shavings. She chose Orange Tian as the challenge for this month, a dessert based on a recipe from Alain Ducasse’s Cooking School in Paris.

The term ‘tian’ means layered, and the challenge recipe consisted of a layered orange dessert, comprising a pastry base (Pâte sablée), topped with a combination of cream and gelatine, with marmalade and orange segments on the top.

Saskia and I decided to make a berry tian as berries are still in season here in Australia, while oranges are not. We also decided to tweak the recipe and make a berry mousse instead of the cream layer, as neither of us were keen on a layer that was essentially plain cream.

The tian turned out very well, with the berry mousse having a lovely light, aerated texture, gorgeous colour and a good berry hit. We also included a strawberry jam layer and fresh berries on top to continue the theme. This was a delicious dish that will definitely be made again! Thanks to Jennifer for a great challenge!

Berry tian

You can choose to make individual serves or a single, large version of the dessert.

First step is to make the pastry base – Pâte sablée.

Pâte sablée base

2 medium-sized egg yolks at room temperature
80g caster sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
100g unsalted butter ice cold, cubed
2g salt
200g flour (I substituted with spelt and used 240g)
1tsp baking powder

160g berry jam (we used strawberry, since I had a lot of excess from my jam taste test)

Directions:

In a bowl, add the eggs yolks, vanilla extract and sugar and beat with a whisk until the mixture is pale.

Put the flour, baking powder, ice cold cubed butter and salt in a food processor fitted with a steel blade.

Pour the egg mixture in the food processor.

Process until the dough just comes together. If you find that the dough is still a little too crumbly to come together, add a couple drops of water and process again to form a homogenous ball of dough (I used about 2 tbs extra water, bit by bit). Form into a disc, cover with plastic wrap and leave to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 350F/180C.

Roll out the dough onto a lightly floured surface until it is .5mm (¼ inch) thick. As spelt dough is so sticky to work with, we rolled the dough out between two pieces of baking paper

Using a cookie cutter, or tracing around a cake tin, cut out circles of dough and place on a baking paper lined baking tray. If you are working with spelt, simply discard the top layer of paper, and transfer the dough on the sheet, on to the baking tray.

Bake for 20 minutes or until the circles of dough are just golden. Note – it is crucial to keep an eye on the pastry, mine only took about 10 minutes.

Allow the pastry to cool, then spread with strawberry jam.

For the raspberry mousse

This is based on a recipe from The Cooks Book, by Jill Norman

Crème chantilly

250ml double cream
15g caster sugar

Raspberry puree

300g raspberries (frozen would be fine here, although use fresh on top)
½ tsp lemon juice
5 gelatin leaves, about 12g (note, if substituting powdered gelatin for a leaf, ½ tsp of powder is equivalent to a leaf.)

Meringue

60g caster sugar
2 tablespoons water
4 egg whites

To serve

400g mixed berries (strawberries, raspberries, blueberries)
mint leaves

For Crème chantilly:

• The cream should be really cold. Pour into a shallow bowl standing in another bowl filled with ice cubes.
• Whisk cream with a balloon or electric mixer on a medium setting.
• Slowly add the sugar, whipping as you go.
• Stop whipping when the cream is nearly firm but still fluffy. Chill until ready to use.

For raspberry puree:

• Purée the raspberries and lemon juice and sieve into a bowl.

• Soften the gelatin in cold water for at least 10 minutes. Squeeze out as much water as possible. Then place in a pan with a quarter of the raspberry purée. Heat gently.
• Whisk to dissolve the gelatin, then pour onto the remaining puree.

For the meringue:

To assemble

• Fold the puree into the meringue.
• Fold in the crème Chantilly.
• Spread mousse over the base. Use a ladle and a spatula.

• Chill in the fridge for 6-8 hours or freezer for 1-2 hours.
• Remove ring just before serving.
• Arrange mixed berries on top and serve with mint leaves.
• Enjoy!

I made a roast cauliflower salad to accompany the tomato salad and vegetable tagine that we served as part of our mezze.

The recipe is based on a roast cauliflower salad from the beloved (and sadly departed) television show ‘The Cook and the Chef’, although I tweaked the ingredients to have more of a Middle Eastern flavour. I have made the original version of this salad several times, to much acclaim!

The first step is to roast coriander and cumin seeds in the oven for a couple of minutes, until fragrant. Then crush the seeds, toss them through the cauliflower and add olive oil. Bake them in the oven until they are lightly browned and tender:

Prepare the other ingredients – pan fry the haloumi (sprinkle a little flour on top so that it colours), roast the pine nuts, zest the lemons and make your own breadcrumbs. Below are all the ingredients, ready to be mixed:

Clockwise from top, haloumi, lemon zest, pomegranate seeds, cauliflower, pinenuts, currants, breadcrumbs, onion and garlic

In a large bowl combine all the ingredients together with lemon juice, salt and black pepper and oil. Add parsley and toss altogether. Check the seasoning then pile onto a serving plate or in a bowl. Enjoy!

Ingredients

1 small cauliflower, cut into florets, stem attached
1 tablespoon coriander seeds, roasted
1 tablespoon cumin seeds, roasted
1/4 small red onion, sliced
1/3 cup fresh breadcrumbs, toasted (about 2 slices of bread)
Zest and juice 2 lemons
50g roasted pine-nuts
50g currants
100g pomegranate seeds
Olive oil
100g haloumi, pan fried and cut into small pieces
1-2 cloves garlic
1/2 bunch flat leaf parsley, chopped

Method

• Roast coriander seeds and cumin in the oven. In a separate tray, roast the pine-nuts.
• Crush coriander seeds in a mortar and pestle. Combine crushed coriander, cumin seeds and cauliflower in a bowl and lightly coat with olive oil. Season. Bake at 200C until lightly browned and tender, but still with a bit of bite, about 25 minutes. Cool slightly.
• In a large bowl add the cauliflower and toss with onion, toasted bread crumbs, lemon zest and juice, cheese, pine nuts, pomegranate, currants salt and black pepper and oil. Watch how much salt you add as the haloumi is quite salty. Cut the garlic into little slivers, and add with the parsley and toss altogether. Check the seasoning then pile onto a serving plate or in a bowl.

This lovely tagine formed the substantial part of our vegetarian Mezze.

The method for making this tagine is a little unusual – first you make the sauce, then roast/fry the vegetables and combine. Nonetheless, this is seriously tasty and great for a crowd. It also can be made ahead of time – it gets tastier.

Making the sauce

First step was to get all the spices together – coriander, cumin, caraway seeds, allspice, sweet paprika, chilli powder and ginger:

Spicy!

Fry up the onion and garlic and then add the spices in and cook for 2 minutes:

Next, add the tomatoes, honey and water:

Bring to the boil, then simmer uncovered for 45 minutes – it gets all thick and tasty:

Vegies

Roast the pumpkin in the oven until it is soft but not coloured:

Meanwhile, cut the zucchini and eggplant into little chunks. Cover in salt and leave to drain for 15 minutes (this gets rid of any bitterness). Wash the salt off, then fry them in batches until dark all over.

Finishing

Add the vegetables, chickpeas and olives to the sauce, stir to combine. Serve with coriander on top and couscous, rice or quinoa on the side:

Details

Sauce

100ml olive oil
2 onions – diced
3 cloves of garlic, crushed with salt
1 lge tbs coriander seeds
1 lge tbs cumin seeds
1 lge tbs caraway seeds
2 tsp ground allspice
1 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp ginger powder
2 x 400g tins of tomatoes
6 long green chillies, whole (I forgot to buy these so omitted them and added extra chilli powder instead)
1 tbs honey
600ml water

• Fry onion and garlic in oil until soft.
• Crush the coriander, cumin and caraway seeds. Remove the husks. Mix with other spices.
• Add spices to garlic and onion and fry for 2 minutes.
• Add tomatoes, chillies, honey and water.
• Bring to the boil, simmer uncovered for 45 minutes.

Vegies

1 kg pumpkin
2 small eggplant
2 small zucchini
olive oil
1 x 400g can of chickpeas (drained weight, 240g)
100g pitted black olives
handful of coriander, chopped

• Pre-heat the oven to 200C.
• Cut pumpkin into small pieces and roast until cooked but not coloured (about 15 minutes).
• Cut eggplant and zucchini into small pieces, cover in salt and put them in a colander in the sink to drain.
• Wash and dry the eggplant and zucchini and fry in batches until dark all over.

To finish, add vegies, chickpeas and olives to the sauce. Serve with coriander on top.

As part of our vegetarian Mezze, we decided to make our own falafel.

I have actually never made falafel before, but these were so quick, easy and delicious I will definitely be making them again.

We had a couple of recipes as a reference point in making these, but didn’t follow any of them too closely. The main issue we had with the different recipes was that they largely required you to soak your own chickpeas (a simple but overnight process) and often only gave the weight of chickpeas pre-soaking not after soaking. We wanted to use canned chickpeas and we didn’t know what the right quantities would be.

Saskia had read that an additional problem with using canned chickpeas is that they can be too moist and the falafel mixture won’t stick together. To avoid this, we drained the chickpeas then put them in a low oven (about 160 degrees C) for about 10 minutes until they dried out.

The next step was to blend the chickpeas with parsley, coriander, salt, onion, garlic and cumin:

We pulsed this until it came together, then added baking powder and flour and pulsed the mixture. The mixture is the right consistency when you can form a small ball in your hand and it holds together. Here is our mixture:

We refrigerated the mixture for about 30 minutes (although it can be refrigerated for several hours). Some recipes stated that the mixture should be formed into balls first, then refrigerated. We hedged our bets by refrigerating the mixture first,  forming the balls and while waiting for the oil to come to temperature, briefly refrigerating the balls.

We heated our vegetable oil in a steep sided pan until it reached 180 C. We gently lowered the balls into the oil and cooked them for a couple of minutes until golden brown:

These were drained on paper towel, sprinkled with some sea salt and then promptly devoured by our guests!

Details

2 cans chickpeas (each can was 400g with 240g drained weight)
1/2 large white onion (roughly chopped, about 1 cup)
2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped
2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped
pinch of sea salt
4 whole garlic cloves, peeled
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon baking powder
4 tablespoons all-purpose flour (1 ounce/24 grams) (you may need a bit extra)
tasteless oil for frying (vegetable, canola, peanut, soybean, etc.), you will need enough so that the oil is three inches deep in whatever pan you are using for frying – for our pan we used 2 litres

Directions:

• Drain the chickpeas then spread them on a baking dish and bake for about 10 minutes at 160 C. Let them cool.
• Place the chickpeas and the onions in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Add the parsley, cilantro, salt, garlic, and cumin. Process until blended but not pureed.
• Sprinkle in the baking powder and 4 tablespoons of the flour, and pulse. You want to add enough flour so that the dough forms a small ball and no longer sticks to your hands. Turn into a bowl and refrigerate, covered, for 30 minutes or more.
• Form the chickpea mixture into balls about the size of walnuts. Refrigerate while the oil is heating.
• Heat 3 inches of oil to 180C in a deep pot or wok and fry 1 ball to test. If it falls apart, add a little flour. Then fry about 6 balls at once for a few minutes on each side, or until golden brown.
• Drain on paper towels. Sprinkle with a little sea salt and serve!

The 2010 February Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Michele of Veggie Num Nums. Michele chose to challenge everyone to make mezze based on various recipes from Claudia Roden, Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Dugi.

A mezze is an Eastern Mediterranean/Middle Eastern spread of small dishes. When we were reading up on what a mezze involves, it became apparent that there are about a zillion different ways to create a mezze spread. Greg Malouf, in Turquoise, has declared that a mezze always includes a salad and some pita to scoop it up with. Wikipedia says that it should be served with an aniseed liqueur. No one can agree on how it is spelt, or how it is pronounced. We have come to the conclusion that there is not really one ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way of doing it, as long as you stick to creating dishes from the vague geographical region. That said, it makes sense to put together a nice range of complimentary dishes.

The feast

The requirement for this challenge was to make hummus (which is pretty easy for us, since Saskia is “the Queen of dips“) and pita bread. We decided to go all out and make a huge, all vegetarian, Middle Eastern feast. We hosted a dinner for 10 people. On the menu was: the required hummus and pita bread; baba ghanoush; labne balls with za’atar and dukkah; dolmades; falafels; cauliflower salad; heirloom tomato salad; vegetarian tagine; and, to finish, a watermelon and rose-water sorbet, which was served with fresh berries and halva. Behold our feast!

Hummus, baba ghanoush, dolmades and turkish bread

Labne balls with za'atar & dukkah

Pita bread

Falafel

Heirloom tomato salad

Roast cauliflower salad

Vegetarian tagine

Birds nests, kadaif, turkish delight and baklava

Watermelon sorbet, halva, summer berries with vanilla syrup

Set out below are the recipes and instructions for making the hummus and pita bread. The other recipes (except the dolmades and pastries, which we bought) will be on the blog in the coming days! (Edit: click here for falafel, cauliflower salad, vegetable tagine, labne balls, heirloom tomato salad and watermelon sorbet with halva and summer berries)

This was a great challenge and a very fun evening with our vegetarian friends!

Hummus

The challenge recipe was based on a recipe by Claudia Roden. This was fortunate, because our favourite hummus recipe (in Stephanie’s) is also based on Roden’s recipe. So, luckily, we did not have to stray too far from that which we know and love. The only difference from our usual recipe was the inclusion of tahini paste.

We made the hummus according to the Daring Baker instructions. However, we used a few extra chickpeas because just some hummus is never enough!

The Daring Baker recipe ingredients are:

1.5 cups of drained canned or soaked overnight chickpeas
2 lemons, juiced
2-3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 pinch of salt
4 tablespoons tahini
optional flavourings (we used ground cumin, smoked paprika, ground black pepper, and EV olive oil. (We considered using sumac, but decided against it.))

The magic ingredients...

To make, simply cook the chickpeas until tender, and drain (if using dried). Then, just blend all the ingredients in a food processor. If the mixture is too dry, add more water or olive oil. Then, adjust seasonings to taste. I prefer plenty of lemon juice.

To be honest, I still prefer my hummus without tahini paste. But I guess it’s just a personal thing. It still tasted excellent.

Pita bread

We decided to make two batches of pita, one from spelt flour so Emily could eat it and one from regular flour (to ensure success!).

The first step was to make a ‘sponge’ by sprinkling dry yeast over warm water, then adding 3 cups of flour, stirring to incorporate:

'Sponge': Top is regular flour, bottom is spelt flour

We rested this mixture for about an hour, then added olive oil and more flour and kneaded it until it was smooth and elastic. This was easy thanks to the beloved KitchenAid:

Top is regular flour, bottom is spelt. Spelt is certainly looking 'elastic'!

We then returned these to their bowls, covered and left in a warm spot to double in size, this took about 1.5 hours. Here is the dough while it is proving:

Top is regular, bottom is spelt

We popped our pizza stone in the oven to heat up, while we worked the dough. This involved punching down the dough, dividing it into pieces and flattening the pieces with your hands. Mr M found his dough scraper to be very helpful at this point!

Mr M working the dough

The next step is to roll out each piece to a circle 8 to 9 inches/ 20 cm in diameter and less than 1/4 inch or 6mm thick. We baked the breads one by one on the pizza stone for about 3-4 minutes – this took quite a long time!

The end result:

Top is regular flour, bottom is spelt

Emily really enjoyed the pita bread – particularly as she cannot ordinarily eat it. That said, it was quite involved to make pita from scratch and we don’t think we would do it again. Other aspects of the feast were as labour intensive but well worth the effort.

Recipe

Pita Bread – Recipe adapted from Flatbreads & Flavors by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid

Prep time: 20 minutes to make, 90 minutes to rise and about 45 minutes to cook

2 teaspoons regular dry yeast (.43 ounces/12.1 grams)
2.5 cups lukewarm water (21 ounces/591 grams)
5-6 cups all-purpose flour  (17.5 -21 ounces/497-596 grams) – note, we used a combination of 50% whole wheat and 50% all-purpose. We also needed to add extra flour for the mix to come together, probably an additional cup.
1 tablespoon table salt (.50 ounces/15 grams)
2 tablespoons olive oil (.95 ounces/29 ml)

Note: for the spelt pita bread, we used the same ratio of dry ingredients but reduced the wet ingredients by about 20%.

Directions:

• In a large bread bowl, sprinkle the yeast over the warm water. Stir to dissolve. Stir in 3 cups flour, a cup at a time, and then stir 100 times, about 1 minute, in the same direction to activate the gluten. Let this sponge rest for at least 10 minutes, or as long as 2 hours.
• Sprinkle the salt over the sponge and stir in the olive oil. Mix well. Add more flour, a cup at a time, until the dough is too stiff to stir. Turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 8 to 10 minutes, until smooth and elastic. Rinse out the bowl, dry, and lightly oil. Return the dough to the bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise until at least doubled in size, approximately 1 1/2 hours.
• Place a pizza stone, or two small baking sheets, on the bottom rack of your oven, leaving a 1-inch gap all around between the stone or sheets and the oven walls to allow heat to circulate. Preheat the oven to 450F (230C).
• Gently punch down the dough. Divide the dough in half, and then set half aside, covered, while you work with the rest. Divide the other half into 8 equal pieces and flatten each piece with lightly floured hands. Roll out each piece to a circle 8 to 9 inches in diameter and less than 1/4 inch thick. Keep the rolled-out breads covered until ready to bake, but do not stack.
• Place 2 breads, or more if your oven is large enough, on the stone or baking sheets, and bake for 2 to 3 minutes, or until each bread has gone into a full balloon. If for some reason your bread doesn’t puff up, don’t worry it should still taste delicious. Wrap the baked breads together in a large kitchen towel to keep them warm and soft while you bake the remaining rolled-out breads. Then repeat with the rest of the dough.