Chocolate Chilli Focaccia

                                    chocolate chilli focaccia

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My Step son Daniel is in a world of pain at the moment as he remains sleepless and stuck in front of his Mac editing his end of year movie for film school. 

Though he could always swap career paths and become a chef... one of Daniel's fab recipes today. A chocolate studded focaccia with a little warmth from chilli and cinnamon. Enjoy :) 

Oh, and don't forget if you have a spare minute go push that "like" button on facebook to support a young film maker. You do want to see the promised trailer for a romantic comedy featuring beards don't you!!

Daniel getting some love from one of his actors in A Bearded Tale

Foccia Dolce (sweet focaccia) - Chocolate Chilli  Focaccia

Preparation Time 30 minutes 

Rising Time 30 minutes

Cooking Time 30 minutes

Makes 1 loaf

Ingredients

310ml (1 1/4 cups) warm water

2 tsp (7g/1 sachet) dried yeast

2 tablespooons caster sugar

3 1/2 tbs olive oil

450g (3 cups) plain flour

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp dried chilli flakes

1 tsp of salt

200g (7oz) dark chocolate cut into chunks

coarse sugar to sprinkle

Plus icing sugar (confectioners sugar) to dust on top of finished focaccia

Method

Combine the water, yeast, sugar and 2 tablespoons of oil in a small bowl. Set aside in a warm, draught-free place for 5 minutes or until frothy.

Place flour and  the sea salt, chili and cinnamon in a bowl… whisk with a wire whisk. Make a well in the centre and pour in yeast mixture. Use a wooden spoon to stir until combined, then use your hands to bring the dough together in the bowl.

Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 10 minutes or until smooth and elastic. Brush a bowl with oil to grease. Place dough in bowl and cover with plastic wrap or a damp tea towel. Set aside in a warm, draught-free place for 30 minutes or until doubled in size.

Preheat oven to 200°C. Brush a 20 x 30cm (7.87x11.81 inches approx) Swiss roll pan with 2 teaspoons of remaining oil. Punch down centre of the dough with your fist. Press into the prepared pan. Cover with a damp tea towel and set aside in a warm, draught-free place to prove for 20 minutes or until doubled in height. Use your finger to press dimples into the dough. Brush with remaining oil. Press the chocolate chunks into the dough. Sprinkle with a little coarse sugar.

Bake in oven for 20-30 minutes or until golden and focaccia sounds hollow when tapped on base. Serve warm or at room temperature, dusted with icing sugar.

Star Wars Cookbooks and Salt and Pepper Squid

many mini wookie cookies & one mad Star Wars fan

Off the shelf

baking book reviews

Bringing you food from a galaxy far, far away today with 'Wookie Cookies and other galactic recipes: A Star Wars Cookbook' and 'The Star Wars Cookbook 2 - Darth Malt and More Galactic Recipes' 

Both these books are loads of fun and make perfect gifts for Star Wars fans from 4 to 40! Both books are hard bound spiral books with laminated pages. 

spiral bound, the food is photographed with accompanying star wars toy figures

To you and me this might look like a standard cinnamon choc chip cookie, but Star Wars fans will tell you "NO!!" it's a "WOOKIE COOKIE!!"

Nearly all the recipes in the book are standard servicable recipes for pasta, soup, brownies, shakes, cookies and the like renamed with a Star Wars theme. There is Darth Maul Dip (stencilled with the enclosed Darth Maul stencil), Anikin's Apple Crisp, Jedi Juice Pops and some even take Star Wars shapes like TIE Fighter Ties. 

TIE Fighter Ties page 45 'Wookie Cookies and other galactic recipes'

book one comes with metallic stickers to label your food gifts

book two comes with a Darth Maul hard plastic stencil

Of course you will now need something to eat your Star Wars cooking with, apparently Star Wars chopsticks, (oops sorry that should be "chop saber's") can be used with everything including cookies ;)

the tops of Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker chopsticks

Red Darth Vader blue Luke Skywalker Chop Saber's (chopsticks) also available in Darth Maul, Yoda and Mace Windu from Think Geek. 

According to my step-son Dan (pictured at top) these cookbooks are a "must have" for any Star Wars fan... so are the chopsticks, and lets face it I think we could throw any Stars Wars merchandise here and a Star Wars fan is going to list it as a "must have" ;)

Books from Amazon...

And now on to the totally unrelated post of Salt and Pepper Squid..... 

                                   salt and pepper squid

Well, there is was an upside to blackouts we have been experiencing with the storms, I had to cook up what was in the freezer over the weekend so we got to eat lots of delicious foods!! Of course we will all have to fast for 4 days to "pay for" the over indulgence, but hey we got to eat salt and pepper squid!  

There is many, many versions of salt and pepper squid available... this is ours;

I had squid tubes in the freezer, but fresh is always better so if you can get your hands on fresh squid use that instead. I'm using black pepper and Chinese five spice instead of Sichuan peppercorns. 

Ingredients

5 small or 3 three large squid tubes

1 litre (4 cups) of vegetable oil (I use grapeseed oil for it's high smoke point and mild flavour)

1 tsp coarsely ground black pepper

1 tsp sea salt

1 tsp Chinese five spice 

1/4 cup flour 

Optional; small red chilli, spring onions and shao xing wine for finishing

Method

In a medium bowl whisk flour, salt, pepper and Chinese five spice together and set to one side.

Pat your squid dry with paper towel.

split squid tube length ways and then flip over

With a sharp knife split your tubes length ways, flip the pieces over so the interior of the squid piece is facing you. Score diagonally, turn the squid and score again to create diamonds. 

Heat your oil to 180c (360F) 

Toss your squid in the seasoned flour making sure all pieces are coated. 

Dry fry in batches until golden brown... drain on paper towel. 

Serve with lemon wedges or sweet chilli sauce.

Optional; heat one tsp of oil in a small pan, add chopped chilli and sliced spring onion plus two tsps of Shao Xing wine. Sprinkle dressing over squid just before serving. Note the Shao Xing wine is salty, you may reduce salt in main recipe to 1/2 tsp if preferred. 

Variations; omit the black pepper & Chinese five spice and replace with 1 tsp each of ground black and white Sichuan peppercorns. Flour can replaced with corn-flour (corn starch) or mix of rice flour/corn flour for a gluten free salt and pepper squid.               

May the force always be with your baking :)

Dan's "just hell" Cookies

Dan's "just hell" mudslide cookies

I had to laugh when I overheard Daniel talking to his Mum on the phone giving her suggestions about what would be a good recipe to try out in her brand new mixer. It went like this "NO! not the mudslide cookies Mum, they taste amazing but it's like hell making them, just hell!!"

I don't know about the "hell" part, but Daniel sure makes a decadent cookie with his adaptation of Martha Stewart's Mudslide cookies ;) They're not inexpensive to make due to all the chocolate, but they do make fabulous gifts packaged in cello bags, boxes or tins, also ideal for church/bake sales/fetes.. large enough to sell singularly too.

Ingredients

Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

2/3 cup plain flour  (all-purpose flour)

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

170g (6 ounces) 70% or bitter chocolate, coarsely chopped

450g (1 pound) dark eating chocolate, coarsely chopped

6 tablespoons unsalted butter

5 large eggs

1 3/4 cups sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract/essence

450g (1 pound) cadbury dairy milk chocolate, coarsely chopped

*extra chocolate (optional) Daniel adds any extra chocolate he finds in the house... up to another 450g (1 pound)... makes an extra 1/2 dozen to a dozen cookies all up.

Method

Preheat the oven to 200C (400 degrees F). Line baking sheets with non stick mats or silicone baking paper; set aside. In a small bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.

In a heatproof bowl, or in the top of a double boiler, set over a pot of simmering water, melt together unsweetened and semisweet chocolates and butter; set aside to cool.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat eggs, sugar, and vanilla on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add cooled, melted chocolate mixture, and combine on low speed.

Add flour mixture, and continue to beat on low speed until almost combined, about 1 minute. Remove bowl from mixer; stir in milk chocolate & extra chocolate if using by hand.

Using a standard sized ice-cream scoop, drop dough onto prepared baking sheets about 3 inches apart. Bake until set, 12 to 15 minutes. Let cookies cool completely on baking sheets.

Alternatives; replace some of the chopped chocolate that is added to the dough with nuts. Or do what Dan does and look around for what you can add... maybe crushed peppermint candy, maybe raisins.... probably not a good idea to add the different things in one batch of cookies ;)

recipe adaptation, baking and photography; Daniel Paxton-Zahra

Chilled White Chocolate Risotto

chilled white chocolate risotto

Hey, it's Dan I'm sharing one of my recipes with you as step-mother aka 'The Lone Baker' can't be here tonight. Oh yeah, Elly and I are doing another café/cake review soon so watch out for that should be awesome.

Chilled White Chocolate Risotto

I've adapted this from one of Jamie Oliver's recipes.

 

Ingredients

4 tbs caster sugar

85 gram (3oz) butter

2 teaspoons of vanilla essence or extract

½ cup water

325 gram (11.5oz) risotto rice

1 litre (4 cups) full fat milk

100 gram (3.5oz) best white chocolate grated

100 gram (3.5oz) dark 70% chocolate chocolate in chunks or curls

extra one to two cups of milk

 

Method

In an appropriately sized high sided, thick bottom pan with a lid, slowly melt two-thirds of the butter. Add your rice and the sugar. Turn the heat up to medium, stir the rice, and add the water, continuing to stir until it has almost cooked away.  Now add the milk little by little. Keep the rice on a slow but constant simmer for about 16 or 17 mins and stir it as often as you can. In this way you move the starch out of the rice and this will give you creamy end product, much like the classic Italian rissotto. When the rice has cooked through it should be soft yet still holding its shape. You may need to add a little more milk or water just to adjust the consistency. Remove for the heat, stir through vanilla, add the grated white chocolate and the rest of the butter, then stir, place a lid on top and leave for a few minutes.

If serving chilled: stir through one to two cups of milk into risotto. Transfer to a refrigerator container, lightly press a piece of baking paper on top to stop a skin forming, cover with lid or plastic wrap and chill for two hours before serving with fresh berries and curls of dark chocolate. 

 

If serving warm: Spoon the rissotto on to plates, then push a couple of chunks of dark chocolate into the middle of each one and serve immediately. 

'Laurent Patisserie, Melbourne' ... Review

Laurent Patisserie Boutique Collins Street Melbourne

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Daniel Teenage Stepson of The Lone Baker;

So okay, I’ve been sick, fatigued, busy, lazy, homework-y... plus I am the king of procrastination... because of this combination this review entry is beyond late, and for this I apologise. To make up for it, I will try to get another review up ASAP, and it will be awesome. ;)

Eliza and I recently went to Laurent, one beautiful (in our winter-loving eyes) morning, the air was cool and the rain was falling just enough to not saturate us and turn us into cold complain-y teenagers. We found Laurent in Little Collins St, on the corner of Little Collins, and some nice looking Alleyway ‘thing’ with a street sign titled ‘The Causeway’. I was very attracted by how French Laurent’s exterior looked, and how warm the yellow glow inside appeared.

warm yellow glow

We entered the the Patisserie while also entering our usual zone of indecisiveness, though this time it was warranted because of its insanely vast selection of everything ever. Breads and cakes, pastry, other sweets... I could list everything... but I won’t. The point is, it was amazing, EVERYTHING looked and smelled delicious, high quality, and presumably baked on premises. Because of a little food excitement, we ordered quite a lot, a plate of three different macaroons, a beautiful almond croissant, and the ultimate chocolate-y bastard, by the name of ‘Christine’.

the 'Christine'

I won’t go into detail about the food, Eliza’s review is coming up and it covers everything awesomely, but I’d just like to mention that this food was amazing. I was sick with a horrible virus during this day, making my throat and neck insanely sore, so it was painful to actually swallow the food... but it still ended up being the most enjoyable beautiful food ever!

OH! And I forgot to mention that the woman who served us had the cutest French accent EVER! 

But now to Elly...

Eliza teenage friend of the the teenage stepson of The Lone Baker;

BAM!

There are some foods that are just plain sinful to eat, whether it’s because they’re incredibly decadent or they’re too gosh darn pretty to devour… or both. In the case of our brunch at Laurent’s Little Collins St store, it was most definitely both. Thankfully,Laurent isn’t a patisserie that I’m unfamiliar with; there’s one just by my work, as a matter of fact- God bless Chadstone’s ubiquitously pretentious stores. But standing under our umbrella in the rain, staring up at the elegant bakery with its alley way seating arrangements, I couldn’t help but feel like we’d stepped directly into a scene from Roman Holiday (Except Laurent is French, not Italian… And Dan’s about a foot too short to pass for Gregory Peck). Fortunately, we managed to order and eat without too much embarrassment this time… if you don’t count giggling for five minutes at the selections of Croque-Monsieur, and Dan dropping his cutlery all over the floor…

part of the selection

Personally I’ve always had an immense love for Almond Croissants, so when I saw a whole line of them in their lovely little display, I insisted on having one. While the croissant itself didn’t really look appealing at all – in fact, it looked more like a baking disaster than a piece of culinary excellence – it was certainly the best almond croissant I’ve ever had, and I’ve had a lot. Dan had never had one before so I was hoping that they’d choose the one that looked the nicest out of those on display for his first try, unfortunately all of them looked more like a (excuse the use of the vernacular) dog’s breakfast rather than a French breakfast. The edges were slightly burnt and the only solution they seemed to be able to come up with to fix it was to bury it in almonds and icing sugar. Luckily I’m not superficial, and what it lacked in appearance it made up for in tastiness. I definitely recommend trying one, especially how I had it- on a cold morning, watching the rain outside and drinking tea (I sound like an old woman).

almond crossiant

Next up were the macaroons, and at a steep $2.20 each, they’re definitely not an everyday snack- although I’d happily hand over an hours pay for a box of these babies. We decided on three flavours: pistachio, lemon and strawberry, and Dan once again proved himself to be inept at fractions when he was unable to divide them in half. While I found the lemon to be slightly too overpowering and the strawberry slightly too flavourless, the pistachio was by far my favourite. I certainly didn’t find any of the three bad though, quite the contrary. In comparison to the macaroons Dan and I tried at the Lindt Café, those at Laurentwere more of the classic French style in that they were much chewier on the inside than those at the Lindt Café, which took more of a biscuit form. And the three looked so cute on the plate together that I just didn’t want to eat them… that of course didn’t happen, they were destined to be in my belly.

We saved the prettiest ‘til last, though. Something that was called a Christine, and it’s safe to say is the epitome of all desserts.To put it bluntly it was a chocolate mousse cake with crème brulee and macadamia nuts buried at the bottom of it, decorated chocolate panelling, and topped with a small chocolate with ‘LAURENT’ printed on it and what, if the world were made of chocolate, would be your television antenna.

While this epitome cake lacked the fun of cracking the top of a crème brulee with a spoon, the richness of the mousse and the gratuitous amounts of chocolate made the cake worth it’s money- I wasn’t even able to get through half of it before I was going to burst (keeping in mind that I had just eaten three quarters of an almond croissant and a few macaroons). The whole cake itself was so pretty and well presented that it broke my heart to see it cut in half and even more so to see it eaten by Dan and I. But that’s what it gets for being so tasty.

worth the money

Thanks again to Eliza, for the amazing review, she has done the best job. In the next review I will give her a better hand, I swear!

review & photos; Eliza Nicoll & Daniel Paxton-Zahra

Laurent Patisserie

• 306 Little Collins St
  Melbourne 3000 VIC
• Phone: (03) 9654 1011

Website; www.laurent.com.au

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'The Cupcake Bakery' Review

Is Bacon Optional? Cupcake

Maple Pumpkin spiced cupcake with Maple Buttercream and Bacon Toffee Topper

My Step-son Daniel looking dubious asked when I was about to make pumpkin cupcakes with bacon toffee topper "is the bacon optional?"

Ha! This comes from someone who made "Bitchin Chocolate Bacon" this year for his high school cooking portfolio. Not only did he make it, but I dutifully tried it... my first meat in 25 years! 

Photography & food styling Daniel Paxton-Zahra

Daniel's Bitchin' Chocolate Bacon

INGREDIENTS

4 slices of bacon, rind removed, finely diced

450g (1lb) milk chocolate

100g (4oz) dark 70% chocolate

I cup of slivered toasted almonds

PREPARATION

1. Preheat oven to 190c - 375 degrees F.
2. Place bacon on a baking tray and bake until crisp, about 15-20 minutes, stirring once. Melt chocolate in double boiler over low heat. Stir crisp bacon bits into chocolate and place back on the baking tray. Sprinkle with almonds and refrigerate for 30 minutes or until ready to serve. Cut into wedges. 

Surprisingly moreish. 

Adapted from Iron Chef Michael Symons Chocolate-Covered Bacon with Almonds

Daniel sits his final ever High School exam today, Food Tech. Good Luck Dan! 

The boy is good!

Still out with the spider bite, so I thought I'd feature my 17 year old step sons patisserie skills! 

Chocolate mudslide cookies
baked & photographed by Daniel Paxton-Zahra

Chocolate Peppermint Fudge Sauce over Vanilla bean ice-cream
all made and photographed by Daniel Paxton-Zahra

 Daniel has 6 days of High School left, culminating with Food Tech theory exam next Tuesday. See Daniel's bio and short film on the About Me page.