Recipe

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

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

  1. Pre-heat oven to 180c and line a lightly greased, 20cm cake tin with baking paper.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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

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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.

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…

IMG_8155Notice 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.

IMG_8156

 

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