A is for April like April is to Lemons: Lemon Yogurt Cake

OK first things first- I am covered with sugar syrup, and by covered I mean imagine those girls at those lesbian mud wrestling contests, now dim down the sexiness and made the mud something sweet and edible and you have me at this very moment. It is DISGUSTING. My feet are sticking to the floor, my fingers are glued to each other- and I can feel it between my toes...

You may be wondering why I am covered in sugar syrup, and no its not some weird perverted sex kink, and to those who like being covered in sugar during sex, well hey thats your business.

ANYWAY I digress, I am covered in sugar syrup because I tried my hand at making Lemon Yogurt Cake for my first application into the Sweet Adventures Blog Hop and Lemon was the chosen ingredient for this fine month of April. I used so much sugar. So much. My teeth want to kill me as much as my tongue wants to kiss me (yea! try thinking that one through)

But anyway this is my (slightly stolen from Ina Garten) Lemon Yogurt Cake.


You need:

1 1/2 cups plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup plain full fat yogurt
2 1/3 cup sugar, plus more for coating the outside of the cake
3 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup lemon juice (preferably freshly squeezed, if not thats cool too)
1 lemon


The Harder Bit:

Preheat the oven to about 180C and prep a cake pan.

Sift together the flour, sugar and salt into a bowl.

In another bowl whisk together the yogurt, eggs, 1 cup of sugar and vanilla essence. Make sure that as soon as the sugar and eggs touch you mix them immediately, as one of the properties of sugar is that it can chemically cook the eggs :/

Slowly whisk the dry ingredients into the wet, and using a spatula fold the vegetable oil into the batter.

Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan and bake for about 50 minutes, or until a toothpick slid into the middle comes out cleanly. If your cake starts to get burnt at the top, but isn't finished yet you can always put some aluminium over the top, like so:

Meanwhile, slice up your lemon into teeni tiny slices, wrench out the seeds and fit them into a frying pan and cover them with 2 1/2 cups of water. Bring to the boil then leave to simmer for about 35-40 minutes, if you have to refresh the water to keep them all below the surface do so.

MEANWHILE, combine 1/3 cup of sugar with 1/3 cup of lemon juice and bring to the boil over the stove, leave to simmer until the sugar is dissolved and the liquid is clear. Set aside for later. 

45 minutes later: Take out your lemons and place them on some paper towel and pat them dry.

 Pour in the final cup of sugar into the lemon water stuff in the pan and bring to the boil, re-add your lemons. Let those two simmer together for the next 10-15 minutes. (let them get all hot and sticky together ;D) 

I digress: after the 15 minutes remove the lemons from their spa and place them on a wire rack over the sink. (Don't even think of putting them on paper towels to drip dry- they will STICK! and you will have to eat paper towel along with your candied lemons)

Your cake should be out of the oven by now, and if it isn't, my god, you better go check on it. Let it cool for about 10 minutes in the pan, then transfer it to a wire rack. 

While its still warm, pour over the lemon juice and sugar combination and let the syrup sink into the cake (make sure you have a container underneath the wire rack!!) , I've also found using a brush and brushing down the sides of the cake with the syrup helps with the absorption. Let it cool completely. 

Next move: cover the cake with sprinkled sugar, all over, on every single side, then cover it with your candied lemons.  

and you are done! one beautiful lemon yogurt cake on its one way trip into your stomach. 

SO fellas at the Blog Hop, I hope you enjoy (:

Awesome Sauce! Literally, this sauce is awesome...

Just a simple, dessert sauce that in my opinion goes best with plain ol' vanilla ice-cream, it will never steer you wrong.

This sauce is so simple to make, so very very easy that if you didn't try it I would have to condemn you to the lowest, deepest, coldest part of Hell- oh yes thats right, Hell is cold, trust me.

But yes, *ahem* back on topic, Mars Bar Sauce.

What you need:

4 Mars Bars

90ml of double cream

(realistically you can mess with the measurements all you like if you want the sauce thicker on thinner, it all depends on how you like it.)

And the hard part:

Chop up the mars bars, (it'll help with the melting process) and melt them in a double broiler, or just a glass bowl sitting on top of a pot of simmering water.

When the chocolate is all melted and the nougat all gooey gradually add in the cream, stiring the entire time to make sure it doesn't burn at the bottom.

And there you have Mars bar sauce, in absolutely no time, all you need to do now is make sure you have some ice-cream handy

Variations include:

snickers/any other chocolate bar instead of the Mars bars

addition of brandy or a liquor for an extra punch

again realistically this recipe is so simple that you can do anything to it, so do it, give it a try...

taxi xoxo

Inspiration and Crumbles

Inspiration, when found, is better then sex. And this guy, Foodie at Fifteen is inspiration; or too me at least. See me and him = same boat... almost, was in the same boat ( he has succeeded mostly) , but anyway he is the person that I want to be one day.

He was fifteen when he started his blog, i'm sixteen; he wants to be a chef/ pretty much is a chef now, i'm starting my apprenticeship next year; he is a foodie, lo and behold I'm a foodie too!

The only thing different is that he's a much better blogger then me, and he manages to find himself in positions that further his education and experience, I mean he meets the coolest people almost by accident.

But maybe i'm just being jaded, because life is what you make it right, if i don't think i'll ever meet people then I won't right? or atleast that's what i've been taught... that could just be my hippie parents though :P

But anyway, back to my main point, this guy, "Nick" i think his name is, is awesome and you wouldn't be harming yourself one bit by checking out his blog that i've tagged up the top of this post.

Also; today, driven by my hunger and desire to use up all vegies from the Subi Street Markets (still so in love with them all) I made Apple and Rhubarb Crumble; not the best creation i've concocted, I think maybe more butter in the crumble next time, or melted butter.... hmmm... food for thought (no pun intended)

Anyway here we go!

What you need: (in picture form)

Filling:

A few apples, I used 4 ( I got too excited and peeled the one on the end before taking the photo...oops..)

Rhubarb, I had two stalks, however in hindsight with 4 apples maybe use 2 and 1/2 or 3 stalks...

Sugar

Butter

Cinnamon (just a touch for flavouring)

For the Crumble:

Some Flour

Butter

Some brown sugar if you really want it...

Method:

Peel and cut your apples, cut them anyway you like (I stood in front of the pan with a small knife and just cut any which way, however personally I like big chunky pieces)

Cut up your Rhubarb, again anyway you like.

Mean while, you'll need to melt some butter, a good chunk, with a nice sprinkling of sugar, stir them together.

(side note: half my butter had melted by the time i'd taken the photo- so don't take my photo as a reference to the sugar butter ratio)

Once all the butter is melted, and the sugar is incorporated, add your apple and cook it for a few minutes, giving it a good shake every now and then, next dump in the rhubarb.

stir that through with a sprinkling of cinnamon, now you'll just want to cook that for another few minutes until the fruits start to give off their own juices. Let them cool after that.

While your fruits are cooling start making the crumble ( as I said before, my crumble didn't turn out to perfect, try and add melted butter instead and give it a shot- I know I will next time)

combine all the ingredients in a bowl, then all you need to do is rub all of it together, till they resemble bread crumbs, adding each ingredient to the ratio that you think is right.

However if you are a wet blanket and don't want to get butter and flour under you nails (my god it's hard to get out) feel free to use a fork and the side of the bowl, using a press and slide motion, rubbing the butter and flour and sugar together.

I've just found out that i've been making crumble the wrong way my entire life, i've only been putting the crumble on the top! can you believe it? The other day, my friend came into the art studio with a home baked pear crumble from his darling mother, imagine my surprise when I took a chunk with my spoon ( we're teenagers, we don't need plates) and found out that she'd crumbled both sides! Top and bottom! It was a revelation, no longer will i have to hoard the top coating of crumble and annoy my entire family when they get only apple! it was amazing! .... ok so i just went on a bit of a tangent; but the moral of the story- layer the crumble! are you listening?

(oh my god! double the crumble!) ( and you have to wonder why i've put on 3 kg lately)

now you need to whack it in the oven, feel free to plop some butter on the top for the nice golden melty effect, at 180C for about 20 minutes, or atleast until golden, it shouldn't matter too much because your fruits are already cooked (:

Mine didn't turn out as golden as i would have liked, and the crumble was a bit floury, so next time melt the butter, or just add more butter, or maybe if i added butter on the top before baking it... oh well only the next time will tell :P

taxi out xoxo

Creme Caramel!

wow... this has been a while... my dear apologies to those who actually read this every once and a while. :D

anywhoo today, on the bus home from school I was over come with the sudden urge to eat something really really sweet! (and really with my lit teacher The Sharpie talking about Red Velvet wedding cakes all afternoon, who could really blame me?) and since I'd become addicted to this awesome guy called The Aubergine Chef (seriously go check him out www.theauberginechef.com, this is his recipe)

I thought I'd try my hand at making my own photo recipe post...thing....

SO, this is what has been shat out of my wednesday afternoon (when I really should be doing homework due tomorrow...><)

First! you will need:

milk - 13oz

eggs - 6oz (or just 3 large ones)

sugar - 3 1/4 oz

then some extra sugar to melt for the carmel bit (:

( I haven't converted the measurements because I thought I didn't want to confuse them, like 13 oz is 384.45 ml, now who really want to pour that out to the exact measurement ><)

Second! what you need to do:

Put the extra sugar into a pot on the stove over a low heat and melt the sugar, giving the saucepan a good shake every once and a while to make sure it doesn't stick to the bottom and BURN!! This process is called "caramelisation" as my Food Science teacher continues

to tell me. Now make sure it doesn't get too brown, other wise it will just taste bitter, you wan

t a nice golden rich colour- I let mine get a bit too brown ):

Once the sugar is nice and in a liquid state, you wanna pour it into an oven proof dish, suitable for Creme Caramel, and swirl it around the bottom and a bit of the sides, this makes the lovely caramel sauce over the top of the baked custard.

Next thing you will have to deal with is the heating of the milk, ( a very hard task i'm sure of) remember don't let it boil, just heat it to below the point.

With your milk slowly heating up, and your sugar setting up to the side now is the time to whisk the egg and sugar together to make a uniform consistency. But beware, you will have to stir in the sugar immediately or the sugar might chemically cook it, and sorry guys but the cooking process is coming up a bit later in this recipe, and if the egg is premature it will just be awkward on all of us (*seeedy eyes*) ( oh god there's something wrong with me if I can be dirty with chemically cooked eggs (oh god the images!!!))

Ok so once your eggs have been whisked and your milk has been sufficiently heated you will temper the hot milk into the egg mixture, and 'temper' is just a fancy word for saying pour the milk in slowly at first while whisking the eggs at the same time, so as to make sure the whisked egg doesn't turn to scrambled egg because of the heat of the milk (man there are so many things that want to cook this egg! poor thing :3)

Once it has all been combined you can now feel free to pour it into the previously prepared oven dish that the egg will finally be legitimately cooked in. yay!

Then you will want to put this dish into a water bath, that is put it in a bigger container and fill it up with hot water till half-way up the sides of the oven proof dish that we're using.

Now all you have to do is shove it in the oven at 325F (or about 160C) for 30-40 minutes, this of course depends on the size of your creme caramel, but if you keep an eye on it i'm sure it'll be fine (:

You can tell its done when, if shaken, the entire top has a uniform wave motion. When this occurs, take it out of the oven and let it cool.

Once nicely chilled you can see that it will have set a bit, take it out of the water bath and run a knife around the edges of the dish and invert the custard carefully onto another plate, and voila! you have creme caramel!

Now to the final and most important step, GET A SPOON OUT OF THE DRAWER AND EAT THE JIGGLY BAKED CUSTARDY GOODNESS!! omnomnomnom

taxi out xoxo