Fig and Olive Oil Cake

I truly believe that there are few things in the world that a cup of tea and piece of cake cannot fix. Bad day at work, cup of tea and cake make it better. Kids channelling the devil, tea and cake to the rescue. I’m quite sure many of the world’s conflict could be chatted out over a cup of team and a piece of cake.

I was recently given a bag of figs. These figs were bordering on over ripe and were sweet and soft. I felt rather lucky as they are so expensive at the shops and never as nice as home gown as they are so fragile. Given they were pretty ripe I set to working out what I could do with them. Of course being the baking addict I am I was like let’s make a cake with them. Out came the recipe books and internet searches before I settled on this recipe. I was a bit hesitant a you 1/2 bake the cake then add the figs, but it totally worked. It was moist, citrusy and figgy and perfect with a cup of tea.

Fig and Olive Oil Cake – recipe adapted from Shutterbean.com

1 3/4 cups flour
1 cup ground almonds
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs
grated zest of 1 lemon
grated zest of 1 orange
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 cup extra olive oil
1/3 cup milk
5 figs, cut into quarters
1 1/2 tbsp. honey

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Grease a loaf tin and line with baking paper.

Mix together the flour, ground almonds, and baking powder in a bowl.

Using a whisk attachment in a mixer whisk the sugar and eggs until fluffy. Add the citrus zest and juice, then stir in the olive oil and milk. Gently fold in the flour mixture then pour the batter into a prepared tin and bake in the oven for approx. 40 minutes.

Push the figs into the top of the loaf. Drizzle with honey and bake for another 30-40 minutes, or until the top is caramelized and a skewer inserted comes out clean. Cool fully in tin, then remove from the tin.

Brew cup of tea, cut a large slice of cake and enjoy

coconut icecream

Ice cream is usually made using eggs, and I have been known to make it that way (see champagne ice cream). But the problem with this is I use at a minimum twice the amount of ingredients. This would be because I get very easily distracted. So whilst I’m meant to be carefully stirring the egg mixture of a pot of simmering water I’m off getting distracted by glitter and unicorns or life. This means that if I’m not stirring the eggs at the right moment they over cook and turn into scrambled eggs. Now it may be just me but this is not really a desirable ingredient in ice cream.

So my go to everyday vanilla ice cream recipe is one that may not be as rich as others but it requires no eggs or stirring of ingredients of any kind over heat. I just chuck them in my mixer whisk to a bit frothy then pour in ice cream maker, which churns away for 20 mins and gives me ice cream (well it does after I freeze churned mixture for a few hours).

Anyway I got possessed by the need to make and eat coconut ice cream. After examine a few recipes on the internet I just decided to adapt my standard recipe and threw in some shredded coconut. Topped with melted dark chocolate it was rather like a frozen bounty bar.

Coconut Ice Cream

1 cup chilled cream
1 cup of chilled coconut cream
1 cup chilled milk
3/4 cup sugar
small handful of shredded coconut (optional)

In mixer with whisk attachment whisk together cream, coconut cream, milk and sugar. You want to whisk till the sugar has dissolved and its kinda frothy on op top. Pour into ice cream maker, churn. When it nearly done add in shredded coconut. Then pour into container freezer for a few hours till full frozen. If you don’t have an ice cream maker that ok, whisk it up then pop in freezer then whisk every 20 mins for a about 2 hours and it should get to the consistency of soft serve ice cream at which point add in shredded coconut stir and freeze.

I drizzled over some dark chocolate melted in the microwave and it set pretty quickly (a la homemade ice magic)

Part of the Sweet Adventures Blog Hop – Licence to Chill Hosted by the Kitchen Crusader

Saturday is for pancakes, Sunday is for bacon and eggs

I love on the weekends having time to make a really nice big breakfast, most people who know me know that in our household pancakes rule the breakfast choices on Saturday. But Sunday, well Sunday is for bacon and eggs.

One Sunday recently we sat down for bacon and eggs and assorted accompaniments and I looked at the plate and started to think about what makes the perfect bacon and egg breakfast.

Obliviously it starts with the bacon. Good quality Australian bacon is a MUST. My butcher does pretty good bacon, all made on site, the rashes are not too thin and not to thick and taste amazing. The only flaw is that they are short cut bacon rashes and my husband in particular misses the crispy fattiness of the middle bacon rashes.

Eggs well it’s a given they should be free range, and free range as in really free range, not oh look we meet some flimsy guidelines so can stamp free range on the carton, but ones that come from a farm that actually give their chickens access to free range. We are lucky that we have our own chickens who give us the best eggs. How you cook the eggs is up to you, we prefer to have ours scrambled. Usually I whisk up some eggs with a bit of cream, melt some butter in a saucepan, add eggs and stir with via wooden spoon till done. I’ve even been known the add in some pesto and fetta too.

Tomatoes, now some people grill this or fry them up, but I prefer to drizzle them in olive oil and sprinkle some fresh basil on them and roast them. Obliviously if you are doing whole or even halved tomatoes this takes a bit of time and planning, but I’m not an organised person so usually just throw some cherry tomatoes in the oven as they roast in no time.

For me spinach is a must (for husband it’s a avoid at all costs). Fav way to cook it for breakfast is to sauté it in butter and an whole garlic clove (discard garlic when serving)

And lastly there needs to be toast. Preferably thick cut sourdough toast, with butter, real proper fantastic tasting butter. Others in the family also put things like, honey, jam vegemite etc. on their toast. Not me, when it comes to bacon and eggs I like it with just plain butter.

Others might add sausages or mushroom or even a has brown and I’ve been known to add corn fritter to the list of things on the plate. But what’s above well I think that makes a pretty perfect bacon and egg breakfast.