ragingyoghurt

Category Archives: cake

my stats tell me that 80% of the traffic to this page comes from saffron and santos, so, well, you probably already know this story. but anyway.

the ballad of the green tea lamington
a little while back, a cheap and nasty supermarket raspberry lamington prompted the following discourse in my comments box:
santos. 13.09.05 – 12:58 pm: hallo! so lamingtons don’t have to be chocolate covered to still be called lamingtons? oh the possibilities!
bowb 14.09.05 – 6:38 pm: santos: i would like to see you make a maccha lamington please, with a red bean cream filling. on your site in say, a month?
santos. 15.09.05 – 12:48 pm: it’s a deal 😀
saffron 15.09.05 – 10:04 pm: oooh can i try too? pleeeeeeeaaaaaase?
bowb 16.09.05 – 9:06 am: hurrah! a bakeoff!

and so in the ensuing weeks, two cakeheads got busy. me? i figured my work here was done. hey, thinking up ideas for cake is hard yakka.

sadly, because the technology to send food molecules through the ether and have them regroup on the other side hasn’t yet been invented (hurry up, boffins! or, oh wait, you’ve invented it and are keeping it a secret!! which is even worse!!!), i’ve only been able to look at pictures of the wonder that is santos’ lamingtons.

happily, because saffron is only a busride away on a saturday afternoon, i was the lucky and extremely pleased recipient of a cluster of green tea lamington cupcakes.

all the components are present: light and moist maccha-tinged sponge, a glorious purple heart of yam jam, whipped cream and shaved coconut dusted with maccha. an inventive and delicious interpretation!

and now, alas, there are no more of these little beauties. the last one, i just ate her, and scraped the paper clean.

meanwheel, most of the the remainder of visits to this page are from people googling “raging yoghurt”. who are you, mysterious people?

posted by ragingyoghurt on 9 November 2005 at 10:18 am

permalink | filed under blog, cake

what is this ethereal thing, all nestled in white tissue?

there is a stall at the balmain markets, selling small, gluten-free cakes. you may think that small, gluten-free cakes would be mean little pellets, like hockey pucks… but they are not. after standing in front of the display trying to choose between the raspberry-coconut (pictured above, so you already know who won) and the lemon curd (a sunny yellow thing topped with a swirl of meringue), the shopman helped me out.

“the raspberry-coconut is very good” he said.
“yes, i cannot decide between that and the lemon curd.”
“ah,” he said. “that is very good too. but take the raspberry-coconut.”
“i’ll come back next week for the lemon one.”
“yes, come back, next week is my last week here.”
“…” my face was a question. “and you’re never coming back, ever?”
“i have a baby,” the shopman said, “and so i have found another job, working for someone else, less hours for the same pay. so i get to stay at home sometimes and my wife can work too.”

to which i nearly fell over, because goddammitt, that is the complete opposite of the life i live. i’m not bitter, o wait, yes i am.

i came away from the markets with a short stack of old books, despite my resolve not to buy any more cookbooks. but one was a 1970s penguin paperback of japanese recipes, written by a european couple who had lived in japan for a few years “and spoke the language”. and another was a slim hardback, also from the 70s, called “chinese dinner party” from the “international party series”, offering not just a menu and recipes, but advice on “dressing up for your party” (“oriental styled clothes are fairly popular and easy to find. specialty shops and department stores often carry beautifully designed oriental dresses, jackets, slacks and fashionable slippers.”) and “oriental hospitality” (“you can create a relaxed party atmosphere with a smile and a simple bow as you welcome guests to your home for a happy and wonderful time.”)

the raspberry-coconut cake was a layer of almondy-biscuity stuff, with a raspberry-studded cakey bit, and then a macaroony crust on top. it tasted of sweet, and i wanted it to be somehow better. i think i should have picked the lemon curd.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 7 November 2005 at 12:01 pm

permalink | filed under around town, bookshelf, boy, cake, grumble, kid

are some cakes created better than others? is it just, four cakes good, two cakes bad (well, ok, less good)? if a dainty little cake sat next to a homely lamington cream sponge, i know which one i’d pick.

but there were no lamingtons on offer at la renaissance patisserie francaise, so friday lunchtime, after sharing a boeuf, leek and mushroom pie with the baby, and after she discovered how to suck lemonade and peach sirop though a straw, i picked out monsieur coupe cézanne from the display case.

he was: moist, alcohol-soaked sponge cake, mousse — chesnut mousse?, surprise chunks of marron glacé, cream, cream, cream, chocolate and pistachios, all sitting in a crisp, dark chocolate cup. he was délicieux.

but the thing is, now i also have lamingtons! [more to come on this matter…]

posted by ragingyoghurt on 7 November 2005 at 12:00 pm

permalink | filed under around town, cake, kid, lunch

of course, the good thing about making something that requires two egg yolks (refer: gnocchi, previous entry) is that it leaves you two egg whites with which to fashion a pavlova.

i once helped to make a four-egg white pav, a pav so big we ended up making it in two parts: a large meringue at the base, and then the whipped cream and fruit, and then another, smaller meringue covered in more cream and fruit, and shaved chocolate, which was a bit controversial with the purists at the table. finally assembled, it looked rather like the titanic, suitably festooned for its maiden voyage. the pav, though, never even made it through the first night.

two egg whites yield a much more modest and manageable pavlova. this is the third pav i’ve made, and all according to stephanie‘s recipe. sort of.

sort of, because this time ’round, i thought i’d try and get the meringue into the oven before putting the kid to sleep, and in my clock-watching, distracted state, i managed to forget all the ingredients after the sugar.

which is exactly half the list. oh no! while waiting for the meringue to be done (done for?), i googled such questions as “what does vinegar do in a pavlova?” but my research proved inconclusive.

so i asked the boy, “is there such a thing as a bad pavlova?”, and his reply, “hmm… i do not think there can be a bad pavlova,” spurred me on to whip the cream, fold in a dollop of yoghurt, and arrange a bloom of thinly sliced mango on top. it were pretty good.

i ate the last wedge tonight while watching “save the last dance“, which i think i like because it reminds me of being eleven and watching “fame” on tv.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 28 October 2005 at 11:15 pm

permalink | filed under boy, cake, kid, kitchen, tv

when i made the banana frosting on saturday, i read the recipe then cleverly deduced, “feh, 1/4 cup butter and 1/2 cup mashed banana — that will surely yield me enough frosting for like, seven cupcakes. hence, i shall double the recipe.”

and so it came to be that on monday, i still had a sizeable tub of leftover banana frosting in my fridge. clearly, i had to make another cake.

that is all.

oh, and also that my mother, who only ever has two mouthfuls of cake at the most, ate the entire slice that graced her plate, and then picked off the crumbs one by one with her fork. i don’t expect this will ever happen again. i just wanted to record this moment for posterity.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 26 October 2005 at 3:28 pm

permalink | filed under cake

i think you know that i really, really like cake. however i am not so much of a baker. my electric mixer broke down a few years ago, and it always seems easier to walk past a shop window with a cake inside, and suddenly i am in there too, buying the cake! than to sit in the kitchen for an hour or so creaming butter and sugar with a hand whisk, and even then not getting the mixture soft and fluffy enough.

but in the tradition of libra babies, whose birthdays stretch across a week, and maybe into a month, saturday meant a birthday picnic in the park. and what better to bring to a picnic than cake?

i anticipated the gasps of glee and horror from the gathered grandparents as i wheeled out the enormous cake with a photo of maevis printed onto the thick white fondant icing… however in the end i opted for cupcakes. sensible yet fun! and the one bowl chocolate cake from “martha stewart kids”, which required half a cup of olive oil rather than a block of wrist-spraining butter, made the choice clear.

when it came to the frosting, i again felt a twinge in my wrist (i have small, delicate wrists). but i found a recipe for banana buttercream frosting which actually contains real mashed banana and not so much butter at all. the instructions said to beat until frosting is fluffy, but alas, my hand-whisking was no match for a pink kitchenaid. in the end, it wasn’t a big swirl atop the cupcake like those lickable american ones, but it did the job, and looked vaguely natural and healthy (because you couldn’t see the three cups of icing sugar that went into it)… and well, the kid seemed to like it.

no, really.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 23 October 2005 at 10:01 pm

permalink | filed under cake, kid

happy birthday, munchie!
may you always be in cake.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 18 October 2005 at 10:10 pm

permalink | filed under cake, kid

it’s been a maccha kind of weekend.

first up, a saturday rendezvous in a pretentious frainch bakery with saffron, who immediately plied me with a brown paper bag tied up in pretty green ribbon.

perhaps you are unaware that when i moved house the other month, it took most of a large packing carton to hold my extensive brown (and white and pink and… you get the idea) paper bag collection. yes, i purged myself of stacks and stacks of magazines and somehow couldn’t put a single brown paper bag into the recycling bin.

um, anyway. so the brown paper bag was good, but inside was, as the girl herself said, “a lamington degustation. heh.” — better.

several hunks of sponge cake, a tub of red bean paste, a tub of maccha icing and a package of shaved coconut. intriguing, no? it’s just, there was a green tea lamington challenge sort of put out there, and a rising to the challenge, and a last minute maccha mishap… and thus, a serendipitous hamper. and saffron, i think it could still come together as soon as i go out and get a tub of cream.

cream will make it all better.

although i fear i will devour the yummy sponge before i get myself organised.

my mum arrived from warmer climes later in the day, and plied me with a lovely cardboard box, wrapped in beautiful japanese paper, wrapped in more beautiful japanese paper, in a gorgeous japanese print paper bag.

perhaps you are unaware that when i moved house the other month, it took quite a bit of a large packing carton to hold my extensive cardboard box collection… i’m not kidding. and of course you already know the story of the paper bags. sigh.

inside the box was a tray of minamoto kitchoan daifuku: six maccha-white chocolate and six dark chocolate. and two ceremonial toothpicks for impaling them like the sacrificial desserts they are. i had to immediately excuse myself and make a pot of genmaicha, and soon a fat, green thing was in my mouth. it tasted of green, then cool, and its core was soft white chocolatey.

at this point i want to share with you this message from the president of mitchoan kitchoan: “flavorful desserts can do much to bridge hearts when people get together. sometimes the dessert itself can serve to invent fresh topics of conversation. the joy of eating is only one of many roles a dessert or confectionery plays. it can enhance the moment when people cross paths, or it can convey a person’s true feeling toward someone very special.” yes.

sunday found us — sisters, mothers, daughters in a group of four, sitting in a bustling starbucks after the rest of the shoping centre had shut itself up. the baby had a hot chocolate all to herself, or at least the four centimeters of chocolate crema you get on half a cup of hot chocolate ordered off the kids’ menu. i’ve always found that i’m saddled with more hot chocolate than i want (yes, it is possible) when i buy one at a shop, so this is now my preferred hot chocolate. and only .85.

but my favourite starbucks treat is still the green tea frappacino, though sometimes i think it could taste a little more green. as my aunt observed this afternoon after sampling a spoonful from my cup, “it tastes like powdered non-dairy creamer”. but it’s green! specifically, that green.

and so, this third maccha confection brought the weekend to a close. there is a fourth for later: maccha biscuits studded with red beans, bought during a “supermarket sweep”-type frenzy earlier in the day, at a very cool asian grocery in chatswood. i’ve just looked at the receipt, and in fact the shop is called “miracle supermarket”, which it is.

if memory serves me correctly, my exchange, in mandarin, with the boss lady at checkout, went something like this:

“your stuff is really exciting!”
“exciting meh?”
“yes, there’s all this pocky i’ve never seen before!”
“oh, haha, thank you.”

i’ve never made anything with maccha, not even the tea itself. it’s mostly due to laziness, and partly due to not knowing which brand to get. as saffron apologetically explained, the one she bought tasted like rancid water. mmm. perhaps, santos, you could recommend a brand? you who seem to have had spectacular success with this, and this and especially this. i salute you.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 16 October 2005 at 9:38 pm

permalink | filed under around town, cake, drink, snacks

a quiet start to the trip away: a slice of passionfruit tart from a bakery in berrima.

two weeks in a sparsely-furnished house in still-wintery north-eastern country victoria, we knocked together such treats as:

a homemade vegetable soup standing triumphant on the base of a tin of five-bean mix. five!

a grand breakfast of fried egg on buttered toast, mushrooms and bacon.

a main course that was supposed to be a grilled lamb chop, but really, it was the enormous tin of sauerkraut.

…which lasted for another couple of meals, including this grilled chicken wing with three white vegetables. yes, i’m counting the mashed potato as a vegetable.

there were cakes of course, many other cakes, but they were eaten too quickly to be documented, which is a pity because the gooey chocolate nougat cake, as big as a car tyre and covered in a mound of shaved chocolate, was a sight to behold. there were scones with cream and lemon butter. there were meat pies and pasties… which, if i lived in the country is surely what i would become. pasty.

there was breakfast at the tourist cafe in cooma (also serving greek meals and continental meals), which was so old skool that the mushroom omelette had the consistency of a kitchen sponge studded with tinned champignons, because indeed the cook had used tinned champignons…

see? see that rubbery little mushroom?

…and everything on the breakfast menu came with buttered white toast and chips. which ordinarily would have been a cause for celebration, but i was already full from the massive swirl of soft serve ice cream floating atop my iced chocolate, and so. uneaten chips. most unusual.

ah, the country.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 11 October 2005 at 9:59 am

permalink | filed under breakfast, cake, dinner, kitchen, trip

my desk is littered, happily, with little dishes and tea cups. three dishes and two cups now unburdened of their treats — surely they haven’t been there that many days — and the currently active set bearing tea, and a lamington and a truffle.

the lamington is not just notable for the fact that it was marked down for quick sale at woolworths yesterday; the boy came at me, brandishing the package. six for a dollar, and three whole days before they expired. they are frosted in raspberry butter cream, which seems like a bit of a luxury, no? for a dollar?

the truffle is notable for the fact that it is perhaps the best damn truffle i have ever eaten. it tastes of dark and bitter, and chocolate and cream, and it melts away on your tongue, leaving behind a rabid desire for more! more! you can avail yourself of one such truffle (or an entire bag) at la renaissance patisserie down at the rocks.

the tea is tetleys, and is best forgotten.

these little plates of sugary snacks fuel me. i am drawing again, only small drawings for small sums of money in the small amount of time i have, but it feels good to do, and i shall try to do more.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 11 September 2005 at 5:49 pm

permalink | filed under around town, boy, cake, chocolate, snacks, werk

Category Archives: cake

Click

Search

Categories

Archives