Berry Orangey Sour Cream Cake

This is an absolute keeper recipe that I discovered this weekend. In the same spirit as the Blank Canvas Cookies, you can just play around with the base recipe, and formulate your own flavourings and embellishments. The cake batter is moist and light, and the zingy sour cream beckons to be supercharged with zests, juices and tart berries.

The original recipe calls for lemons, yogurt and blueberries - none of which I actually had on hand. I swapped these for oranges, sour cream and mixed berries. Someone was "helping" and decided a roughly chopped banana could be thrown into the wet ingredients when mummy wasn't looking. But, who am I to argue with pudgy fingers and blonde curls?

I tweaked this recipe a bit to make it a one bowl cake. Who needs to be washing extra bowls when there are so many other little distractions to play with? *Ahem* Everyone, meet Louey - the newest wannabeafoody apprentice. Awww!

Anyway, this one is really simple, no creaming of butter and sugar, no folding or fluffing or sifting. Suitable for those of us racing after children and/or puppies. Super quick and super yummy. You'd better make two of these if you want it to last long enough to become school or work lunches. You've been warned.

Berry Orange Sour Cream Cake 

3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup sour cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
Zest of 3 oranges
1 1/2 cups plain flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
2 cups frozen mixed berries

Grease a 8" square cake pan and line the bottom with baking paper. Preaheat oven to 180c.
In a mixing bowl, beat eggs, sugar, oil, sour cream, vanilla and zest until well combined.
Mix in the flour, baking powder and salt, stirring until just combined. Fold in the berries and pour into the pan. Cook for around 40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

To make the glaze: Fill a measuring cup to around 3/4 full with icing sugar, and add 2 tablespoons of juice from a lemon or orange. Pour over cake when completely cooled.

And just because puppy noses and paws are the cutest things on earth...

Arroz Con Leche (Rice with Milk)

It's like one of those natural built-in instincts the wild creatures succumb to when the cold weather sets in. Some grow thicker fur coats, build up body fat for a long hibernation, stockpile their feed, or migrate miles and miles to a warmer climate. This animal just starts making feverishly fattening, filling, stodgy food - preferably laced with all things cream, butter and spice and that will summon the gods of heavy eyelids and fluffy blankets early on in the evening. It's Autumn now, so learning from the wisdom of mother nature - it must be the time to build up some (more) bodily insulation for Winter.

Now that we've got it all justified, here it is. It's called Arroz Con Leche and I'm told it means "rice with milk". Uh uh, don't run away - I wouldn't dream of suggesting leftover steamed rice with plain old milk! But this - it's Spanish, it's creamy, it's aromatic, it's immoderately moreish, and hopefully it's sounding a little more enticing than 'rice with milk'. Even Google Translate tries to ham it up and tells me it translates as "Rice Pudding".

As with all ancient traditional recipes, there are as many variations of Arroz Con Leche out there as there are abuelas lovingly stirring away at this dessert for their families. Some of those variations are listed below the recipe. So, after much searching and comparing, I've chosen what I think to be the best points from about two dozen recipes and smooshed them all together here. wannabeafoody approved, abuela disapproved.

Probably Improper Arroz Con Leche
(I suggest halving this recipe if you don't have a hoard of people to eat it - it's rich and makes a lot)
Serves 8 - at least

1 cup arborio rice (long grain will work too)
1 cinnamon stick
2 strips of lemon or orange zest (just use a peeler)
2 whole clove or an itty bitty pinch of ground cloves
1/2 vanilla bean
4 cups milk
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 egg yolk
pinch of salt
ground cinnamon and/or grated nutmeg, to serve


Add the rice, cinnamon, zest, cloves and vanilla bean in a large saucepan with the milk and and soak for about an hour. (You can skip this step no problems) Bring to the boil over a medium heat. Reduce heat and simmer on lowest heat setting for around 45 minutes, stirring often.  Add sweetened condensed milk and stir until incorporated. Take off the heat and stir in the egg yolk with the salt. Remove the cloves, cinnamon, zest and vanilla. Sprinkle with the ground cinnamon or nutmeg before serving.

Variations

• Brazilian and Puerto Rican versions use coconut milk in place of regular milk.
• Long grain rice can be used with good results, however short grain will give a creamier texture.
• The milk can be substituted with evaporated milk, cream, or water. Remember to adjust the sugar accordingly, and that the total cooking liquids for the rice still amounts to 4 cups (or more, but no less).
• Raisins or sultanas are often added at the end.
• Rum or brandy can be stirred in at the end.

Crème Brûlée Tart

This little number haunted my dreams and kept me awake last night, teasing me with it's buttery base, velvet vanilla filling and cracked caramel. I found the recipe right before bed time it just wouldn't leave me. Needless to say, this tart found it's way into the kitchen today. It has all the attributes of a good custard tart - which are ridiculously hard to come by - and a crème brûlée. The recipe was originally created by Michael McCarty of Michael's Santa Monica as an interpretation of the french classic crème brûlée and proved to be one of his most popular desserts. The crisp toffee top that makes a hollow 'crack' when tapped with the back of the spoon, releasing the creamy custard, is the gilding on this lily.

If you do not have a food processor - don't be put off by the homemade pastry. Cut the butter up into tiny dice and rub it in with your fingertips to keep it as cold as possible. A blow torch is handy to have for the brûlée, but if you don't have one of these, chill the tart thoroughly before putting under a very hot grill for a few seconds. The dough can me made up to a week beforehand and kept in the fridge, and the whole tart made 1 day ahead without caramelising the sugar.

Crème Brûlée Tart

Pastry:
1 1/4 cups plain flour
2 tabs sugar
1/4 tsp salt
120g cold butter, cut into 8mm cubes
3 to 5 tabs ice water

Custard:
1/2 vanilla bean (or one bean that has been used already)
1 1/4 cups cream
2/3 cup milk
4 egg yolks
1 egg
6 tabs sugar
pinch of salt

Topping:
2 tabs sugar

To make the pastry:  Combine the flour, sugar, salt and butter in a bowl and rub in the butter until it resembles coarse breadcrumbs with some larger chunks. Add 3 tabs of the water and stir in. Grab a handful of the mix and squeeze to see if it will hold together. If not, add 1 tab of water at a time until it holds. Roll out gently, and fold over on itself a couple of times to stretch out the butter. Be careful not to overwork or the pasty will be tough. Shape into a ball, wrap in Gladwrap and press into a 5" disk. Chill for 30mins or until firm. Preheat oven to 180C/350F. Roll out the dough into a 13" circle between 2 layers of Gladwrap or baking paper. Peel off one layer of wrap and fit into a 9" removable base tart pan. Peel off second layer of wrap, fold overhanging pastry back inwards to reinforce the sides, and chill again for 30mins. Lightly prick bottom of shell with a fork, line the pastry with foil or baking paper and fill with pie weights or a thin layer of rice. Cook for 25-30 minutes or until edges are light golden. Remove foil and weights and cook a further 10-15 minutes until golden. Reduce oven to 150C/300F. (Keep an eye on it - it transitions from golden to dark very quickly - as mine did.)

To make the custard: While the pastry is cooking, scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean and add to a heavy based saucepan along with the bean, milk and cream. Heat gently until hot, turn off the heat and steep for 30 minutes. Whisk the yolks, egg, sugar and salt together and add to the cream mixture. Strain and pour into a jug. Put the tart shell, still in its tin, onto a baking tray, and place in the oven. Pour in the custard mix and cook for 30-35 minutes until just set, but still wobbly in the middle. Cool for 30mins and then remove the base and let stand until it reaches room temperature.

Finishing: Immediately before serving, sprinkle sugar over the tart evenly and using a blowtorch, pass the flame backwards and forwards over the sugar is caramelised and lightly colored. Serve on it's own or with some fresh berries and chantilly cream.

Tarted Up Bread and Butter Pudding

Can you picture your your first dessert memory? The anticipation of that tiny frame of time after being made to eat "just three more mouthfuls" of grey-hued beans, but before being sent off to bed to let the grown ups talk? For me, that short amount of time was all about bread and butter pudding. Even now, the salivary glands kick into gear, the eyes glaze over and I can feel the firm squidginess that was essentially stale bread in custard. Twenty something years on and it's a regular in my own home, for my own family.

Mum's old recipe was designed to be filling, economical and somewhat healthy. The bread was always (at best) 'day old' from the local bakery which was given away to whoever wanted it. Whatever was leftover from the weeks school and work lunches would be used for pudding. The eggs came from our own free ranging, happy girls (who also ate the day old bread and kitchen scraps). The custard was always made with milk, imitation vanilla essence, and the most exotic ingredient by far was the nutmeg sprinkled over the top. But it was wonderful, and boy, did we eat it by the oversized family-of-sixteen-children-style pyrex casserole dish.

But times have changed, it's cheap to use heavy cream, real vanilla, rich brioche or spicy fruit toast to tart up this old fashioned classic. God knows it's well worth the extra dollar or so. If you go to the extent of using a whole vanilla bean, after using it in this recipe, put it in a jar of sugar to make vanilla sugar. Replace the sugar (not the bean) as you use it. I'm sure even mother would approve of using a $5 bean to get that kind of longevity out of it! Use the sugar for meringues, hot drinks, biscuits etc.

So, if you're in the need for a comforting, warming, groan worthy (and who isn't?) dessert - give it a go!

Tarted Up Bread & Butter Pudding
Serves 4

4 cups torn up bread/brioche/fruit toast
60g butter, melted
1 cup milk
4 eggs (free range please!)
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract or seeds from 1 vanilla bean
1 3/4 cups cream

Toast bread in a moderate oven until crisp but not coloured. Pour melted butter over the bread and mix up to coat evenly, and transfer to a casserole dish. Whisk up remaining ingredients and pour over the bread. Chill for an hour. Bake at 180c until *just* set - about 50 minutes.

I usually have mine hot from the oven, drowned in cold milk (old family tradition), but cream or icecream are great choices.

Tart it up further: infuse the milk with citrus zest or the whole vanilla pod, dip the bread into marmalade or apricot jam, add chocolate chips, sprinkle the top with nutmeg or mixed spice, use donuts in place of the bread... you get the idea.