The ice cream cake was one of those experimental type desserts; I only remember ice cream cake very vaguely from my youth, my favorite cake was and is pineapple upside down cake so I haven’t had ice cream cake in awhile, but my husband hates cake & likes ice cream so I figured why not give it a go. It ended up great though. I made it in two 9×3 loaf pans and made two types of ice cream to go in it, vanilla & mocha almond. The base was made of crushed Oreos, and I made an inner layer of almond meringue hoping it would give it a bit of crunch, which it did nicely. I also made a chocolate fudge sauce and a raspberry sauce (which was amazing) to put between the layers. It really turned out pretty good. Once they were all set in their cake pan molds, I eased them out and coated one in meringue and toasted it with a torch, the other I coated in whipping cream which I piped into little stars all around it and then sprinkled with slivered almonds. My husband still wasn’t too interested, though he had a bite or two, and I couldn’t get his family to give any a try, but his best friend devoured nearly a whole one by himself, and the folks at work really enjoyed the other.

The pumpkin pie was actually a special order for a friend who’d never had pumpkin pie before. It’s not really common at all here in Australia, no one at work had ever had one, and a lot of people couldn’t really conceive of it. Everyone really seemed to like it though. I sweeten mine with a bit of maple syrup and add a bit of sweet potato to the mix, so it’s kind of a combo sweet potato, pumpkin pie, but it was really yummy. I was a bit disappointed to see it go .

Well that’s it here. I’ve just been cooking, exercising and working of late, haven’t felt the urge to write much though. Hopefully that’ll change soon now that I’m feeling more energetic.

Share this article:

More »

I woke up on the total right side of the bed this morning, then as on omen of what a great day it was going to be, I made a perfect three egg omelette for breakfast, and I mean perfect. The texture was beautiful and soft, the fold was dead on and it tasted great. I was so excited about it because I’ve been working on perfecting my three egg omelette for awhile now, about three months in total, not that I have practiced it often, I’ve only made four in the whole three months because I have to be in the mood for eggs to make them, and I usually prefer scrambled. I was working during the same period on pefecting my scrambling technique as well.

It all started when I bought a book called Eggs by Michel Roux, a Michelin three star chef I admire; before that I thought I knew how to cook scrambled eggs and omelettes fairly well, but after reading the book I realized there was more to learn. The scrambled eggs came along fairly quickly, and I’ve experimented with techniques from other chefs who are known for their eggs, but I really find the texture I get with Michel Roux’s technique is the best, and for me, where eggs are concerned texture is really important. So now, I’m onto the perfection of my egg poaching technique. I currently suck at that. The first egg I drop into the water is always good, it’s the second that smites me everytime, either sticking to the other egg or worse the bottom of the pan. I’m sure I’ll work it out with enough practice though.

I also bought some chicken wings the other day and today I started a really lovely chicken stock that I’m looking forward to turning into something tomorrow, maybe a soup or maybe I’ll use it in a risotto; who knows. I’m using a recipe from another chef I admire, Shannon Bennett, from his book, My Vue: Modern French Cookery. He’s the owner and head chef at a restaurant in Melbourne called Vue de monde; he’s of the kind of newer breed of chef who offers a dining experience instead of a menu to choose from per se. I’ve read a lot about him, and his recipes are great; one day I hope to have an opportunity to dine in his restaurant. Anyway he prefers using chicken wings to using a whole chicken for his stock, and since I’ve always only used a whole chicken; I’m very interested in trying out my new stock. I did have to quarter his recipe though. He recommends making a massive amount and storing it, but I don’t have that much storage.

I wish I could be this productive and have this much fun everyday. Even work was awesome; I had to make up a bunch of queries for a group looking to get some reports against their database, and all the queries were right on first run. I should’ve played the lotto today.

Share this article:

More »