Macaron Madness

My apologies for neglecting the blog this week, I have been spending way too much time in the kitchen making things to even think of getting on the computer to write it! Let me just say that I'm in love with the Macaron and the Macaron bug has well and truly bit me. I think the most appealing thing about Macarons is that in terms of flavour the sky is the limit. 


My mind is just buzzing with the possible flavours and textures that I can play with and I can't wait to make them all. At this point I think it's only fair that I say a big thank you to my flavour Guinea Pigs (family, long suffering colleagues & husband's colleagues) who have devoured more than their fair share of Macarons this week without complaint. 


My Macaron breakthrough occurred on Tuesday evening when I decided to give a different shell recipe a go and for some reason everything fell in to place, suddenly making these seemed like the most simple, natural thing in the world. Making Tant Pour Tant (or TPT as it is known which is simply a mix of equal parts icing sugar and almond meal) which is then mixed with a fresh egg white, heating a sugar syrup to 115 Celsius, whisking egg whites to soft peaks, slowly adding the hot sugar syrup to the egg whites, then beating the meringue until it is impossibly thick and glossy, folding the meringue through the TPT paste, piping the shells out, leaving them to rest, baking and matching them up. 


Then comes the fun part where you get to play around with the flavour and texture of the filling. This week I've played around with making caramels, ganache & buttercreams, experiencing their different feel in the mouth, level of sweetness and adaptability. Personally I think that the salted caramel I made on Sunday was an absolute winner and very hard to beat in terms of flavour. White cholocate ganache is a little too sweet for me especially when combined with the already sweet Macaron shells but others seemed to love it. I believe the overall winner in terms of a brilliant vessel for other flavours would be the buttercream mainly because there is the ability to mediate the level of sweetness relative to the other flavours in the Macaron. Having said that I'm keen to explore the use of flavour infused marscapone, citrus curds & fruit jams. 


So without further ado please enjoy a few shots of what I have made so far this week.

White Chocolate & Raspberry Macarons

Tasty but the white chocolate made the ganache a little too sweet for me. But they do look perfect!

Fairy Bread Macarons

The idea for these actually came from a colleague of my brother's girlfriend and I have to say that they are very appealing to me, who doesn't secretly still love fairy bread?!

The little ones resting and forming their crust, I was a little concerned that the colour of the 100's & 1000's would bleed on to the mixture.

But luckily it didn't! I just love how whimsical they look.

Filled with a vanilla buttercream with more 100's & 1000's mixed through.

Yum, nuff said.

Why didn't anyone tell me that chicken, haloumi & honey was awesome?!

I started making this a few weeks ago after a few months of hesitation since first spying it in a cookbook I was given for Christmas. I understand the combination of chicken & honey, chicken & haloumi but honey & haloumi?! Upon closer study of the recipe it calls for oodles of lemon which I think act as a sort of middle man between the salty chewiness of the haloumi and the sickly sweetness of the honey. The flavours that you end up with are amazing and this dish is so  simple that it shouldn't taste as good as it does, even my one year old nephew loved it. Oh and thank you to my awesome brother who thought to take photos when the rest of us were digging in!

Baked chicken with haloumi & honey
Adapted from Donna Hay 'Fast, Fresh, Simple'
I'll write this up as a serve per person so just multiply it by the number of people you need to feed.


1 200g chicken breast
75g haloumi, sliced thickly
zest of 1 lemon
1 sprig lemon thyme
1t olive oil
1t honey


Preheat the oven to 180 Celsius. Place the chicken and haloumi in a baking dish and sprinkle over the lemon zest and lemon thyme. Place the honey and olive oil in a watertight container and give it a good shake to combine. Drizzle the honey/oil mixture over the chicken and haloumi. Bake in the oven for about 20 mins or until the chicken is cooked and the haloumi is golden.

I love this particularly with a fig and rocket salad. Just drizzle a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar over some rocket and sliced figs.

Sugar Egg Flour's Belgian triple chocolate fudge brownies

Our signature brownies are dense and fudgy with generous chunks of Belgian Callebaut dark, milk and white chocolate. 

mmmmm... brownie

Now that's just being cruel. Sorry!

You don't win friends with salad.. Unless it's one of these babies!

Unfortunately I wasn't able to bake last night for my normal Wednesday evening stress release baking session due to a horrible migraine which has been hanging around since Monday. Cooking really isn't on the top of my list of priorities when my eyes feel like they are about to make a dash for freedom from my eyelids or when your head feels like it's in an old school wine basket press being slowly turned. Ok ok I promise that  the morbid self-pity session is now over.


I just thought that I would share a couple of quick recipes for some amazing salads. Yeah yeah I know, you don't win friends with salad but these two are beauties! So easy and they will win over most carnivores and are so much more interesting than your normal Greek or garden salad.


The first recipe is one which was given to me by a friend of mine who is the most amazing chef, one night Ben & I went to the little restaurant he used to own and out came the most amazing dish. Duck and pistachio sausages on a beetroot salad with a truffled honey dressing. I had to beg for the recipe for the salad dressing and the truffled honey (I bought mine from The Essential Ingredient) takes a little bit of searching to find in the shops but the effort is worth it.


Beetroot Salad with Truffled Honey Dressing


2 beetroot
2 granny smith apples
200g rocket


1T truffled honey
2T light olive oil
2t good quality balsamic vinegar


Wrap the beetroot in foil and bake for 1 hour at 180 Celsius. When the beetroot is still hot rub the skin off and slice into fine matchsticks (I use a mandolin). Slice the apples into matchsticks (if you want to make this ahead of time but don't want the apple to brown, just toss it in a little lemon juice). Toss the beetroot, apple and rocket together. To make the dressing place the truffled honey, olive oil and vinegar in a little watertight container and give it a good shake. Drizzle over the salad and serve. This is also great with some toasted pine nuts tossed through.


The second recipe is one that I saw on the menu of a restaurant and one which seriously delivers on taste. Hot, salty molten haloumi with sweet fresh figs and peppery rocket... droooool. Then when you throw in the tartness of the pomegranate it becomes an almost religious experience.


Fig & Haloumi Salad with Pomegranate


4 fresh figs sliced into wedges
200g baby rocket
250g haloumi
seeds of 1 pomegranate


1T white balsamic vinegar
2T olive oil


Slice the haloumi into little batons (like fish fingers!). To make the dressing combine the vinegar and oil in a watertight container and give it a good shake. Toss together the figs and rocket. When you are ready to serve quickly fry the haloumi in a pan or on the BBQ until golden. Quickly toss the haloumi through the salad and drizzle on the dressing. Serve immediately.

Ribfest 2011

There is something quite special about ribs, especially ribs which are fall-off-the-bone tender and are smothered in a spicy sweet homemade barbecue sauce. I've always been partial to ribs but feel that they often have a bad reputation through those awful pre-marinated ones you can buy at Coles or Woolies.


Last year my brother introduced me to the most beautiful ribs I had eaten in years they were messy, sticky, gooey, spicy and sweet all at the same time. In short, I was in love. So after a lengthy discussion over how he made them and getting my hands on the recipe I played around with it and tweaked until I came up with something which in my eyes are the perfect ribs.


Just a disclaimer: I know that this looks like a lot of effort but believe me once you have done it one it becomes so simple to do and with one taste you will be hooked!


Pork Spare Ribs - Serves 8
Adapted from Masterchef Australia 




4kg american style pork ribs (the ones which come in the long racks but just cut them into 4 pieces)
Limes, to serve
Olive oil


Spice Rub


2T brown sugar
2T salt
4 cloves garlic chopped
1 onion finely chopped
2t dried oregano leaves
2t ground cumin
2t mustard powder
2t hot smoked paprika
2t hot chilli powder


Combine the spice rub ingredients in a bowl then massage the mixture into the ribs and place in the fridge overnight to marinate completely.


Once the ribs are marinated turn on the BBQ, drizzle some olive oil on the ribs and cook until they are sealed and have a beautiful crust.

Once the ribs are nicely sealed, place in a baking dish and heat the oven to 160 Celsius.


Barbecue Sauce


2C brown sugar
500mL malt vinegar
2t ground cinnamon
2t cumin
2t smoked paprika
4 bullet chillies (or less if you don't like things spicy but please just try it once with all the chilli, it's a whole different experience!)
2t hot chilli powder
2t mustard powder
4T tomato sauce
4T Dijon mustard
250mL bourbon
2 onions finely chopped
2 tomatoes finely chopped
4 bay leaves
the peeled rind of 2 oranges


Combine the above ingredients in a saucepan over a medium heat and simmer for 15 mins. Pour the sauce over the ribs then cover with aluminium foil and bake in the oven for 1.5 hours, turning the ribs every 30minutes. Then remove the foil and bake for a further hour turning the ribs every 20 minutes. You will see the ribs start to fall of the bone and that is when you know you have hit the jackpot.


To serve just squeeze a little lime juice over them. Heaven! Just don't forget copious amounts of serviettes...

mmmmmmm ribs....

Bright Ideas

It just occurred to me that you could substitute the dates for dried figs which would be divine... Or make it with white chocolate, dried cranberries & pistachios... Or just dark chocolate & cashews... Or anything else at all you can think of! Just make sure that the ratios stay the same and you should be fine.

Well hello there world

I never really realised how difficult it is to find the right words to begin something like this with. Well one sentence down, shouldn't be too hard from here on in...


Call me lazy but the reason for this blog is so I can share my recipes with my family and friends and so I don't have to keep writing them down or emailing them!


I started taking an interest in cooking relatively late in my childhood when I realised that if I didn't like what my parents were feeding me (sorry Mum!) I should do something about it and make things that looked good to me. In true form I began to obsess over cookbooks, looking for a challenge, trying things out and seeing how I went. Surprisingly (especially for me!) my family didn't spit it out or drop dead. So from there cooking became like a challenge: Can I make my own pasta? Can I make bread? Can I make a rabbit ragu? What does a fresh truffle taste like? How can I cook with it?


I hope that you enjoy me sharing my kitchen with you.