Pear & Rhubarb Upside Down Cake

After binge watching Season 5 of The Great British Bake Off this week, I’ve been itching to get back in the kitchen and do some baking. I was going to attempt to create a peach tea cake but when I spotted the rhubarb at my local markets I knew I needed to make the most of this cooler weather and make an upside down cake and serve it with custard.

And when Dad goes back for seconds and takes the leftovers home, you know you are onto a good thing!

Here is a recipe that I’ve slightly modified from the Australian Women’s Weekly

Pear & Rhubarb Upside Down Cake

125g butter, room temperature, chopped
¾ cup brown sugar, plus ½ cup extra
2 cups rhubarb, chopped
1 pear, peeled, cored and sliced lengthways
2 eggs
1 cup flour
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
1-2 teaspoons ground ginger
1/3 cup cream

Pre-heat oven to 180c and line a lightly greased, 20cm cake tin with baking paper.
Add 60g of butter and the sugar to a small saucepan. Stir over a low heat until butter has melted and mixture is smooth. 2-3 minutes. Pour mix into the cake tin, making sure the base is covered. Lay slices of pear on-top of mixture. This will form the top of the cake so arrange in a decorative way for that wow factor. Top with the chopped rhubarb.
Beat remaining butter and extra sugar until pale and creamy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, incorporating well after each addition. Fold in sifted flour, baking powder and ginger. Stir in the cream. The mixture will be a thick batter. This is ok as the fruit will stew while the cake is baking and add more moisture.
Spoon batter on-top of fruit, smoothing the top. Bake for 40-45 mins until cake is cooked. Test with a skewer. When the skewer pulls out clean the cake is done. Cool in tin for 5-10mins then turn out on to serving plate. Serve with cream or custard.

It’s as simple as that.

You could do this with other flavour combinations as well. Banana & blueberry, Apple and cinnamon.

Happy Baking xoxo

Simple Pumpkin and Spinach Salad

So the weather is warming up, the nights are getting longer and the last thing you want to do when you get home is stand around and slave over a hot stove.

Here is one of my favourite salads – it’s super easy to make and it can be made in advance and just thrown together at the last minute. I store the prepared ingredients separately then just toss it all together at the last minute. The roasted pumpkin will easily last in the fridge for 2-3 days or even a week depending on how often you use your fridge.

You’ll notice that I haven’t given measurements for this salad. That’s because I am leaving it all up to you. You can use as much or as little of each ingredient as you like. This works well as a main salad – I love it for work lunches – or as a side salad. The choice is yours.

Pumpkin & Spinach Salad

Butternut Pumpkin
Baby Spinach
Feta Cheese ( a creamy style, I really like Danish Feta)
Pine nuts
Walnuts
Balsamic dressing – optional

1. Pre-heat oven to 180c and line a baking tray with non-stick paper.

2. Cut your pumpkin into small cubes around 1.5cms each and place them on the tray. Drizzle with a little olive oil to help them go crispy. Roast for 20-30mins until the pumpkin is tender but still hold its shape. Once roasted set aside to cool.

3. While the pumpkin is roasting you can toast the pine nuts.
Place a fry pan on a medium heat and add your desired amount of pine nuts. Don’t add any oil as you want to dry toast them to bring out the slightly nutty flavor. This will take a couple of minutes maximum to do. Just keep moving the pan around to evenly toast the nuts. Set aside to cool.

4. In a large bowl, place your spinach and add the pumpkin, pine nuts and walnuts. Cut up the feta into pieces similar size to the pumpkin and add this to the salad. Mix all together and serve.

It’s as simple as that

You can dress it with balsamic of you like, I prefer it without the dressing as the creamy feta ends up coating everything as you mix it, but the balsamic adds another layer of yummy flavor.

Enjoy xoxo

p.s There was meant to be a pic, but out of all the food photos I take can you believe I’ve never taken one of this salad. I’ll update it the next time I make it.

Best in Show Part 2

It’s well and truly over for another year, and the results are in. No prizes for me, but it was so exciting to see my entries on display.

My jam was too thick, as I had gone against my gut and added pectin which I don’t normally do and my ANZACS, I believe were slightly underdone. The first prize ones were a deeper golden colour than mine. My lemon tart was entered in the wrong category. I took the meaning of creative cookery to mean that you could enter whatever you liked, whereas it was more they type of category to get experimental. I’ll be more prepared next year.

It was such a great learning experience though, after speaking to some people and listening in on a few sessions in the IGA Demo Kitchen, I was amazed at the lengths that some of the contestants will go. Want that perfect sponge to wow the judges? Well you can put your chooks on a specific diet so their yolks will come out the perfect shade of yellow for your cake. Talk about extremes!

All of my entries were on display besides the jam (not sure why) and that made it worth it.

Here is my lemon curd – in jar in the middle. And below is my plate of ANZACS. Well I’m assuming they are mine, they look like it but I couldn’t quite see the exhibitor number to know for sure, so lets just call them mine.

Lemon Curd

ANZACS

I can’t wait for next year. I’ll still be entering but I think I will focus on only one entry, that way I can perfect my skills in one area instead of focusing on different ones all at once.

Until next time xoxo

Best in Show Part 1

It’s almost upon us again, that time of year where deep fried things are served on a stick, you make yourself sick on sugar and you get to relive the exuberant joyfulness of being a child again. That’s right, The Royal Show is just around the corner, and this year I am an entrant.

Why you ask?? Well every year I look at the entries on display and think mine look just as good as those, so this year I bit the bullet and registered.

I’ve entered into 4 classes. I’ll be entering Raspberry Jam, Lemon Curd/Butter, ANZAC Biscuits, and the Open Cookery class where you get free choice of either sweet or savoury. I’ve chosen to enter a lemon tart.

Pastry and I have a love hate relationship so it’s going to be interesting to see if I can get the pastry right for the lemon tart and the filling is temperature specific so it’s kind of fun and nerve wracking watching that thermometer go up!
The ANZACS need to be crispy and to snap when broken so this will also be a learning curve for me as I prefer to bake mine chewy.
The jam, I’m not too worried about how I make it. I love my raspberry jam so hopefully the judges do as well.
And as for the lemon curd, well I’ve found a great base recipe and I’m going to use a few techniques I’ve recently learned and hopefully they enjoy it.

Entries are due in 2 days so I’d better get back to the kitchen.

If you are planning on getting down to The Royal Adelaide Show come and check out the entries in the Duncan Gallery between the Goyder and the Jubilee Pavillions.

Wish me luck! I’ll post a follow up and pictures after it’s all over.

Kath xoxo

Crackling

Crackling…. it’s one of the best, if not the BEST thing about pork, I mean what’s not to love about crispy crunchy pig skin combined with that layer of fat that just melts in your mouth. So many people ask me how to do it and how come I find it so easy. So I thought I’d share with you my method. This is how my dad has always done it, he used to be in charge of the crackling at Christmas until I took over, and I grew up thinking his was the best in the world.

What You’ll Need

– Pork with the skin on

– Coarse salt – I use either rock salt or salt flakes

– Oil

1. First, heat the oven. Crackling needs heat and lots of it, I turn my oven up to 250°c to pre-heat while I’m prepping the pork.

2. Rub the pork and skin dry with a paper towel, getting as much moisture as possible off. Crackling does not like moisture, so the drier you get it the better.

3. Score the skin with a sharp knife – making sure that you only go through the skin and not all the way down to the meat. You want the layer of fat to keep the meat juicy and tender. Sounds a bit tricky but it’s not, once you start scoring you’ll know what I mean. – I’ve gone through a bit too far in a couple of places here, you’ll see what happens further on.

4. Rub a generous amount of salt into the skin, making sure that it gets inbetween the the scored skin. I drizzle some oil over it as well, this makes it easier to get the salt into the cracks.

5. Place pork on a roasting rack and put in in the oven. Keep the temperature on high until the crackling starts to get going and then you can turn the heat down to your preferred roasting temperature. It should look something like this…

Notice that I’ve cut a bit too deep in a couple of places – this is what I meant when explaining how to score the top.

6. Now you can turn the oven down to your preferred cooking temperature, the crackling will keep going until your meat is ready.

The end product should look something like this.

7. Resting the meat – DON’T cover the meat. I can’t stress this enough. The steam created from completely covering the meat will undo all your hard work and make the crackling soggy. If you must, wrap the meat from the bottom, around the sides but leave the top un-covered.

Troubleshooting

Not ready at the same time as the meat.

Turn the heat up again for the last 10 or so minutes of the cook to finish it off
Cut the crackling off the meat and place under the grill, this is a sure fire way to get it finished.

Too salty.

This is why I use coarse or rock salt, you can brush it off easier once the crackling has started.

Came out of the oven done, but went chewy/soft.

Has come in contact with moisture, try one of the methods above to crisp it back up.

So that’s it, my almost failproof method of doing crackling. so what are you waiting for? Go get some pork and get crackling.

Until next time x0x0

RedSalt Restaurant – Winter Menu Launch

A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to win a seat at the Adelaide Bloggers Dinner at Redsalt Restaurant, part of the Crowne Plaza Adelaide . It’s a place that has been on my “to-go-to” list for a while and it didn’t disappoint.

We started out with the Chef’s Tasting Plate that consisted of tuna three ways: pan seared with sesame, tartare served on sourdough, and my personal favourite was the beetroot cured with lime creme fraiche. Sticky balsamic pork belly, sautéed calamari, spring onion and tarragon salad; and pan seared scallop with parsnip puree and crispy chorizo. All of it was delicious and can be found as entrees on the new winter menu.

This was followed by a selection of bites. Roman style potato gnocchi, served with harissa paste, kalamata olives, rocket & parmesan salad with sweet balsamic. Goat cheese and lime ravioli with butternut squash puree, sage and toasted pine nuts. And black squid ink and lemon risotto, marinated calamari and fine herbs. The goats cheese ravioli was to die for. I am coming back for more of that. The lime compliments the tart acidity of the goats cheese perfectly.

For the mains we were able to choose from the menu and what a selection of choices it was. Braised Beef Cheeks, Roasted Duck Breast, Angus Pure Beef Tenderloin and Pan Seared Cape Jarvis Snapper. I choose the Classic Bouillabaisse and I was happy I did, it was delicious. A generous amount of seafood cooked to perfection and the serving size was good. Enough to fill you up, but not too much that you are too full after. If I had to make one complaint it would be that I felt there needed to be more broth to seafood ratio.

Last but not least was dessert. Always my favourite part of the menu! Coffee Semifreddo with Frangelico froth and cinnamon doughnut. Served with a smear of raspberry coulis. Yum yum yum. The frangelico froth was so light and fluffy as you would expect from a froth, but it holds a lot of flavour and I loved dunking pieces of the doughnuts into the coffee semifreddo. I may be slightly drooling while just thinking about it!

So make a reservation and try out the new winter menu. I’ll be back, the beef cheeks looked amazing and I think I may just have another semifreddo.

Hello

Hello, and welcome to my little corner of the world.

I should probably introduce myself. Hi my name is Kathy, a little bit obvious given the title of this blog, but hey, I could’ve been tricking you all and had some kind of other name like Gertrude or something.

Anyway, like I said my name is Kathy and this is my food blog. I love cooking and eating and well, pretty much anything that has to do with food and this is where I want to share that all with you.

Here you will find recipes, cooking tips, photos and basically anything that takes my fancy.

Bon Appetit

Kath Cooks

A Blog About Food

Pear & Rhubarb Upside Down Cake