Beautiful Cookies

This is for Mo-vember! By Sugar Belle.

Since I came across pinterest I am addicted, and I mean it. I am not watching TV any more I am scrolling through the pins of all the creative people worldwide, what a great idea to come up with.

There are post for food, gifts, DIY, craft, photography... the list is endless, and that's why I spend so much time here, there is always something new to discover or to re-discover.
One of my favourite bloggers and cookie creative is sugar belle from the US. Her cookies are beautiful, amazing and whimsy, I absolutely adore her style. Here is a short compilation of my favourites, although it's hard to really narrow them down as they're all wonderful. Look for yourself, they all come with a tutorial:

By Sugar Belle.

Ombre cookies by Sugar Belle.

Bunting cookie by Sugar Belle.

Subway cookies by Sugar Belle.

Crave Food Festival in Sydney

The October is one of my favourite months in the year and not only because of my daughter's birthday and the Jacaranda tree starting to blossom. It is also the month of the annual Crave Food festival and this year it's going to be huge. South America and Mexico bringing us the new food trends and the festival organisers have invited a broad array of interesting chefs and cookbook authors from that area. I can't wait to see and meet them all in action. Hurray Sydney!

Just to mention a few there will be Diana Kennedy from Mexico, Francis Mallmann from Argentinia, Gaston Acurio from Peru and Alex Atala from Brazil.

This is what the festival site writes about them:

Diana Kennedy

No one has done more to introduce the world to the authentic cuisines of Mexico than Diana Kennedy. Acclaimed as the Julia Child of Mexican cooking, Kennedy has been an intrepid, indefatigable student of Mexican foodways for more than 50 years and has published several classics on the subject, including The Essential Cuisines of Mexico, a compilation of her first three books, The Art of Mexican Cooking and the latest, James Beard Cookbook of the Year winner, Oaxaca al Gusto. Her uncompromising insistence on proper local ingredients and preparation techniques has taught generations of cooks to appreciate the richness of Mexican cooking.

Here is what a fellow blogger "The Wednesday Chef" wrote about one of her recipes:
Last night, I triumphantly held aloft a long-clipped recipe from the LA Times for Diana Kennedy's meatballs that I'd been hoarding all by its lonesome, since it's one of the only Mexican recipes I've clipped over the years. The meatballs are made from a flavorful mix of pork and beef and stuffed to the gills with chopped zucchini and onion more

I've done a bit of research myself and was surprised I hadn't heard of Diana Kennedy before. Her cookbook "The art of Mexican cooking" are amongst the 50 best cookbook of all times, compiled by the Guardian. Her latest cookbook "Oaxaca al Gusto" gets mentioned by the NY Times and she talks about the book which took her 18 years to put together and her busy life in Mexico. Watch it here.

Francis Mallmann

Francis Mallmann is a Argentinian culinary superstar who started as a home cook in Bariloche, Patagonia, Francis worked in eight three-Michelin starred restaurants in France in the 1980s, including stints with nouvelle cuisine godfathers Alain Senderens and Roger Vergé. He has since rediscovered traditional food and cooking - at the centre of his high-heat and short cooking time approach is fire. A recipient of the French Grand Prixe de l’Art de la Cuisine, Francis has owned restaurants in South America, Spain and New York, appeared on TV since the early 80s and has played host to presidents and world leaders. Has written four books, the most recent being Seven Fires: Grilling the Argentine Way.

Gaston Acurio

South America’s most celebrated chef/restaurateur shakes, rattles and rolls out 500 years of food fusion in his 28 restaurants around the world. Gaston’s plan is to seat Peru at the international culinary table — with his signature, warm Amazonian ceviche as the entree. His fellow countrymen want him for president. His haute cuisine restaurant Astrid Y Gaston in Lima, debuted at No. 42 on the S. Pellegrino list this year.

Alex Atala

Brazilian food was turned on its head when Alex Atala opened D.O.M. in 1999. Using indigenous and Amazonian produce, such as açaí, pupunha and cupuaçu, Alex set out to create food that captured the essence of Brazil. His daring creations have seen him awarded every contemporary culinary award in Brazil and ranked at No. 7 on the S. Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants list; the first Brazilian restaurant to break into the top 10 since 2002.

Pineapple and lemon upsidedown cake

Last week my daughter asked me to buy her a pineapple because she loves it so much. At first I was a bit surprised as I can't recall her ever eating pineapple but thought it's great that she is asking for fruit and also interested in different flavours. I showed her how you can tell a pineapple actually is ripe, that a good sign is the sweet smell and also that the leaves should come off easily when you pull them. She even insisted on carrying that pineapple to the cashier and to put it in the shopping bag.
And... that was that! As soon as the pineapple arrived safely at out our house it just got ignored by her. I must admit I am not a big fan of raw pineapple neither is my husband and so had the idea to bake an upsidedown cake. Surprise, surprise, the pineapple cake found much more fans in our house and didn't last very long.

 Recipe for pineapple and lemon upsidedown cake:

520 g pineapple, peeled and cut into 6 slices
200 g butter, at room temperature
130 g brown sugar
170 g caster sugar
2 large eggs
finely grated zest of 1 lemon
200 g self-raising flour
cream, to serve (optional)


1. Preheat oven to 180 degree. Grease and line a 20 cm round tin.

2. Cut core from each pineapple slice. Melt 90 g butter in a frying pan on medium heat. Add brown sugar and stir until dissolves. Add pineapple rings and cook, turning often for 5 minutes, or until softened. Arrange pineapple rings over base of tin and top with syrup.

3. Using an electric mixer, beat caster sugar and remaining butter until pale and creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add lemon zest and fold in flour.

4. Spoon batter into prepared tin and carefully smooth over the top of pineapple. Bake for approx.
40-45 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Invert onto a serving plate, sit for 5 minutes before removing tin. Serve with cream if you like.

Barbie dolly varden party cake

I've made this cake today for a little girl's 4th birthday party and while making it had a very interesting conversation with my daughter who is five.

I asked her if she also wants such a princess cake and she replied this is not a princess, it's a Barbie - which of course is so right! She then went on to say that she doesn't want a Barbie cake as she fears
I will take her Barbie's legs off and it means she can't play with them anymore - point made.
I guess I'll be making a princess castle instead for her birthday. :-)

That's how I made it: You'll need a Dolly Varden or similar shaped tin to bake the cake. In this instance I didn't bake the cake but here are some tips on how to best bake the cake).
You then need approx. 1.2 kg of white ready-to-roll fondant icing and approx. 500 g vanilla butter icing, silver and pink cachous and pink food colouring.

Invert the cake and trim the base to ensure it sits flat. Brush away crumbs. Use a palette knife to spread the cake with a thin layer of vanilla butter icing (crumb coating) and let set in the fridge.

Meanwhile colour 1/3 of the white fondant icing pink. I prefer to use gel colouring from Wilson and always use a skewer to only start with a small amount as the colour is very strong. Knead in the colour until even. Roll out the pink on a piece of baking paper until 2 mm thick and cover the cake board (if you use a very large board you might need more pink fondant icing) with it. Cut along the edges with a knife and keep the leftover for the dress layer (wrap tightly in cling wrap until needed). Set board aside.

Apply a second thick layer of butter icing to the cake and smooth then put back into fridge. Use 1/4 of the white fondant icing and colour light pink, wrap in cling wrap until needed. Roll out the remaining white fondant icing until 3 mm think and cover the cake smoothing the top and letting it crease towards the bottom so it looks like a ball gown.

Wrap leftover icing in cling wrap. Now is the time which for me is always a bit nerve wrecking. You have to move the cake from the working board to the covered board and to place the cake in the right spot. I use a big and sturdy palette knife to lift the cake up and over to the main board. Smooth and trim icing if necessary.

Roll out dark pink icing to 2mm and cut an approx. 24 cm circle (I used a plate or cake tin) and drape over the first layer, allowing the icing to create ruffles.

Roll white icing to 2 mm and cut approx. 15 cm circle and drape over the pink layer. Roll out the light pink to 2mm and cut to 10-12 cm circle and drape onto white layer.

Insert the doll into the centre of the cake and make the bodice dress part. If you don't have the half-doll topper you can use any barbie without legs. You then have to cut a wider hole to fit the torso into the cake (it's a bit of an operation really- but don't tell anyone).

Cut 3 strips from the light pink icing and wrap around two around the bodice and secure at the back. Cut a leaf shape with a cutter to make the front part of the dress. Roll up the long sides of the third strip to make it look like a belt and wrap around waist, secure ends at the back. For the neck use a tiny narrow strip and secure at the back. Cut out little flowers and use silver and /or pink cachous to decorate the doll.

How to make Germknoedel

I don't know exactly why but a few days ago I felt like making Germknoedel for some friends who came over for a late breakfast. I only know Germknoedel from skiing holidays in Austria so it's a bit of a mystery to me why now I craved Germknoedel, it's not even cold enough in Sydney for it, but well.
I used a recipe from about.com and they came out very nicely and are also nice without snow :-). Because they are quite filling we only ate 4 and so I put the other ones in the freezer before steaming them. When I made the frozen ones I noticed that they aren't as fluffy as the fresh ones after steaming so I would probably rather make them from scratch.

I love Sydney winter!

Sydney Fishmarket and Seafood School

Sometimes when I am homesick I need to go to interesting food places to remind me that I actually live in a great city! One of those places is the Sydney fishmarket and also the fantastic Sydney Seafood School where I used to work. To be honest, the fishmarket itself really needs to be redone as it doesn't look too inviting at first - the only thing you notice is the big carpark and the birds. Remarkable however is the variety and freshness of the fish and seafood you'll get here. The cooking demonstrator of the Seafood School told us that the Sydney fishmarket is the second largest in terms of variety of seafood offered after Tokio in Japan, which is in the northern hemisphere (just a pun on the Australian obsession to always claim something in Australia is the best, biggest etc. in the southern hemisphere;-).
Who not only wants to come here to buy fish but also wants to see how it's being auctioned can book a behind the scenes tour at the fishmarket and I highly recommend it. You have to get up quite early but the insight you get is very worth it and the people working at the fishmarket are so lovely and knowledgeable.

Outside the Sydney fishmarket.

The fish for the day arrives.

Filleting station.

Scaling the fish.

Scaling the fish.

New delivery.

Oyster bar at the fishmarket.

Dutch auction at the fishmarket.

It's getting busy.

Fish for the restaurants and fishmongers.

Fish in check.

Having fun.

Fish tail.

So much fish.

Wow!

Yes, I have a big chunk of that!

Tuna on ice.

Selected and tagged tuna.

Checking the order.

Wheeling off.

Even when I still lived in Germany I would always book in for a cooking class at the Sydney Seafood School whenever I was in Sydney. I still don't understand why Hamburg hasn't got its own Seafood School being known for its harbour and high appreciation of fish which also generated the not so flattering nickname "fish head" for the citizen of Hamburg. Nickname aside, fish is great to cook with but if you feel a bit overwhelmed by it enroll yourself in a class at the Sydney Seafood School. You will not also learn how to prepare wonderful dishes you'll also hear about sustainable fishing and farmed fish and you get the chance to come close to very well known Australian chefs such as Matt Moran, Mark Jensen and Christine Manfield (all also cookbook authors).

Cooking demonstration- Quick and Delicious class.

Bridget making red curry with salmon.

Have you heard of John Dory?

Always read the instructions first!

Cooking room.

Dining room.

Three dishes in 30 minutes - we are hungry.

Bridget Treloar, demonstrator at Sydney Seafood School and a former colleague, and myself.

Food run for a hungry friend

My veggie quiche without bacon and cherry-vanilla cake

My friend just gave birth to a beautiful girl and since she had her baby at home another friend organised a food run among us to cater for her lunch so she can fully recover and focus on her baby.
I hope she liked what I cooked for her :-)
She is vegetarian and I am not so coming up with ideas that are purely vegetarian are sometimes not so easy. I love to cook with veggies and we don't often eat meat but every time I looked in the fridge for inspiration I would grab some bacon or chicken stock - so wrong!
Luckily I remembered a very nice dish from a photo shoot a while ago where I cooked the food for this cookbook:
My Kitchen - Vegetarian and decided to make the filled zucchini but didn't bother hunting down the grey zucchini as stated in the book (they are not so common). I also simplified it by halving the zucchini lengthways rather than coring them as I remember from preparing them at the photo shoot that it is a bit tricky and in this case I didn't need to stick to the Middle eastern way of cooking it.

Before shot of filled zucchini w rice and currants in tomato sauce and yoghurt dip.

Ding-dong! Here I come.

This is my version of the filled zucchini from the vegetarian cookbook:

Filled Zucchini with yoghurt dip and tomato sauce

2 tablespoons oil

1 onion, finely chopped

2 garlic gloves, crushed
1/4 preserved lemon

1 tablespoon tomato paste

400 g chopped tomatoes

ground coriander

6 thick Zucchini

80 g Basmati rice, cooked for 4 minutes

2 tablespoons currants

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon allspice

30 g slivered almonds, roasted

200 g Greek-style yoghurt

mint, chopped

For the tomato sauce heat 1 tablespoon oil in a saucepan over medium heat and cook the onion until softened then stir in half the garlic. Use only half of the onion mixture for the sauce and the other half for the rice filling. Cut away flesh from the preserved lemons, rinse rind under running water then cut very finely.

Add the tomato paste, chopped tomatoes and preserved lemons. Let it simmer until it thickens and seasoned it with salt and ground coriander.

Half the zucchini lengthways and with a teaspoon scoop out the flesh leaving 0.5 cm on the edges. Make sure not to scoop right through to the bottom.  Discard the flesh. Mix the pre-cooked rice with currants, cinnamon, allspice, roasted almonds and the onion mixture.  Fill ½ of each Zucchini with rice pilling it up to a dome shape. Put other half zucchini on top to enclose filling. Oil a baking dish large enough to fit in all the zucchini and seal the baking dish with foil. Bake for 45 minutes in a pre-heated oven at 180degrees, turning the zucchini halfway through baking. ( I like it when the zucchini still have a bit of bite but if you like them softer just cook them longer)

Meanwhile make the yoghurt dip. Combine yoghurt, remaining crushed garlic and mint and season with salt.

Serve zucchini with warm tomato sauce and yoghurt dip. 

I don't really have a recipe for the quiche as I was running out of time and just quickly threw some veggies together such as carrots, sweet corn and leek. I cooked the leek and carrots until softened then added the sweet corn. I mixed 3 eggs, sour cream and some grated cheese and chopped parsley together and seasoned it well. As I was running late and I can't stand bought shortcrust pastry I opted for puffed pastry instead to line the cake tin. The good thing, no blind baking required when you use puff pastry. I sprinkled the filling with some sunflower seeds and off it went in the hot oven until set and browned. The smell was fantastic and it was hard for me to not cut it to at least check for taste but I figured it wouldn't look so good when I delivered it to my friend :-)

Provence feature in Vital magazine

 I am very thrilled that the story I produced in Provence got published by Vital magazine in July.

As always we shot so many more photos and portrayed many more interesting foodies but there is never enough room to capture it all. I still so want to live there and I think the layout looks great. Thanks also to the fabulous photographer Carsten Eichner who was never afraid of my ideas.