Crema Cafe, Hay Street, West Perth

Today as a bonus for hitting are targets for the first time since they were set my bosses from my day job took out the client services team out for a celebratory dinner at Crema Cafe on Hay Street. I had never heard of or been to the restaurant and was very happy to be going to a contemporary restaurant where I wouldn't have to fit the bill.

Crema Cafe had a sweet little eating area outside but as it was fairly chilly so I was happy to be eating inside. Our table of 10 was a bit tightly squished in, but it had comfy leather covered seats or soft covered benches. A couple of the Crema plates were ordered to nibble on, which included a selection of olives, feta, chorizo, Tadzhik, smoked salmon, Turkish bread and normal bread. The chorizo had a fresh and tangy flavour and was some of the nicest I've had since being in Perth and the smoked salmon was a dark pink colour, fresh and succulent. The Turkish bread was lightly toasted crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. The olives were plump and soft and juicy.

I ordered the lamb rump, marinated, medium rare roasted with white bean mash, wilted spinach and red wine jus. It was a very good portion with heaps of gloriously pink rare lamb marinated with a juicy rosemary flavour. It was tender and melted in the mouth, the jus was sweet and brought the dish beautifully together. The white bean mash had an interesting earthy flavour, was light and seasoned well and the delicious spinach and brocollini were cooked perfectly. I cleared my plate and was left with a satisfying full feeling, not to full to turn down dessert though.

Before I go to any planned restaurant I usually check out the dessert menu first. This would have been no exception although there was no menu online, there was a fresh looking custard/creme brulee slice with ice cream and chocolate shortbread so I was disappointed to realise there was no dessert menu, just a cake counter.

They had a normal selection of mud cake, tarts, slices, I opted for a berry meringue tart. It wasn't the best pudding I had had but certainly wasn't the worst. The pastry was crisp and buttery and the berry filling was lightly sweetened with a soft meringue topping. True to my form it could have been improved with a little heat and some ice-cream.

The staff at Crema were very attentive and welcoming, and the flavours and dishes were beautiful. I want to go back and try some of their pasta, it looked divine and there were plenty of other recipes which were enticing. The special of Baramunddi with a panzella salad almost made me jealous, if I weren't having my favourite meat I could have easily had food envy.

Check them out http://www.cremacafe.com.au I would happily go again :)

Birthday Baking

So after trialing out the cheesecake last weekend ready for the Birthday party I am going to this weekend I decided with ultimate wisdom that I wasn't going to do the baked cheesecake, instead I would make a passion fruit layer cake. I mean how hard is a cake, I make them all the time, should be a breeze, or so I thought.

I chose a recipe with the help of my friend Camaryn, it gives a very impressive 4 layer cake which will be filled with cheesecake frosting and passion fruit and decorated with flowers. Perfect. As I only have a little oven I had to make the sponges one at a time, I'm also one of those people who beats everything by hand as I don't have a food processor or kitchen aid. So on Saturday I made a point of buying a nice posh large wooden spoon which I thought would be perfect to help with my mixing. I split the ingredients in half and beat together my first sponge, its was quite hard as it was a lot of mixture.

It had been in the oven for perhaps 5 minutes and I was licking the spoon testing out the recipe of course when i noticed a good notch in my spoon, I stared at it for a while before screaming naughty words. Yes the notch wasn't there when I started cooking, which meant the notch of wood was somewhere in the cake. Crap. I stared in disbelief at the oven for a few minutes weighing up my options. Option one, leave it in the cake and warn people that if they get a hard piece, if could be part of the spoon, option 2 try and find it, option 3 make a new cake. Option 1 was out, there was no way I could make a birthday cake and announce over dinner that there might be a small piece of wood in the cake. I can picture people now, fork with cake mid-air not wanting to eat but not wanting to be rude. Option 3 - not that I'm stingy but with the 8 eggs in this cake, I wasn't up for going back to the shops to get more ingredients to make more cake. Option 2 seemed like my only option.

I got my now very liquid cake out of the oven, the mixture was only mildly warm, now, do I dive straight in with my hands? Well I'm figuring its not gonna be that easy so I take out the metal sieve and start spoon the gloopy mixture and creaming it back into a bowl with a spatula. After removing half of the mixture, hey presto one piece of wood. Right mixture back into the cake tin and back into the oven, fortunately it was quite a lot of mixture for one tin so I was hoping I wouldn't have lost too much height.

Once the first sponge was out of the over I started to work on the second sponge which went without too much fuss, compared to the first sponge it was higher, but not too bad. I decided to leave the filling to the next day as I wanted it to be fresh.

I got up bright and early on Sunday and started to make my filling, first I made the passion fruit syrup, which went without any problems. Then I moved onto the cream cheese filling, I don't know what happened but for some reason my filling went very runny, almost the consistency of cream. I had followed the recipe exactly so was very confused, I checked the blog, no mention of a runny topping. I stared hopelessly at it, I tried adding more icing sugar which didn't help, I had no option but to use it as time was running out.

I cut the sponges and spread some mixture onto the first sponge and then dotted over some of the syrup, I spread a little on top of the other sponge and carefully put them together, not too bad, the filling stayed inside. I moved onto the next bit and as I spread filling onto the top of the stacked sponges the mixture started to ooze out of the bottom one. It didn't get any better as I layered the next to sponges and by the time it was finished instead of a beautiful and impressive layered caked I had a tall and messy cake which quite frankly looked as if a child had filled it. I was gutted. I hate taking something i have created which is anything but perfect.

In the end the cake went down very well, it had a beautiful lemony flavour and wasn't too heavy, it actually got better the day after as the cheese cake filling had soaked into the sponge, I would happily make this recipe again but would add the sour cream bit by bit to avoid a sloppy filling.

I decorate the cake with Singapore orchids which took the emphasis off the messy layers of sponge. You can find this recipe from Homelife.com

http://www.homelife.com.au/food/935/recipe%3A+passionfruit+layer+cake

Brownie Biased

I'm a fan of everything chocolate, the richer, the better and I absolutely love chocolate brownies, but am quite fussy about them. They have to be rich, dense and preferably only chocolate - I'm definitely not a fan of brownies with nuts! My friends all know one of my favorite sayings 'don't contaminate the chocolate'.

However whenever I go out chocolate brownies is not something I ever order as to be fair I am usually disappointed, they're either too dry, not chocolaty enough or have nuts in them. You see I found a really fantastic brownie recipe by Nigel Slater which I used as my base and changed around a few ingredients and have never looked back. I try not to stray from this recipe as nothing ever compares.

However today on a very windy yet sunny Sunday morning I am going to have a go at making Recipe Girls 'Chocolate Mascarpone Brownies. Will I regret it? I hope not. For a start they look absolutely amazing, dense and fudgey, with a thick chocolate topping so here goes nothing.

The Recipe

1 cup unsalted butter (250 ml)

3 ounces best-quality semi-sweet chocolate, finely chopped (90 g)

1 cup sugar (250 ml)

1/2 cup best-quality cocoa powder (125 ml)

1/2 cup mascarpone cheese, softened (125 ml)

3 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract (10 ml)

1/2 cup flour (125 ml)

1/4 teaspoon fine salt (1 ml)

for the topping - Ganache

6 ounces best-quality semi-sweet chocolate, finely chopped (170 g)

6 tablespoons heavy cream (90 ml)

3 tablespoons unsalted butter (45 ml)

1. Preheat oven to 325°F. Butter an 8-inch square pyrex pan.
2. Place chopped chocolate in a mixing bowl; set aside. In a small glass bowl, melt butter in microwave (take it out before it starts bubbling.) Pour butter over the chocolate and let stand for 30 seconds. Stir until chocolate is completely melted. Sift in sugar and cocoa powder.
3. With a wooden spoon, beat in mascarpone, eggs and vanilla, mixing until smooth. Gently fold in flour and salt.
4. Pour batter into prepared pan and spread evenly. Place into preheated oven and bake 45 to 50 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean.
5. Place pan on cooling rack and let brownies cool 10 to 15 minutes while you make the ganache.
6. Place chopped chocolate in a mixing bowl. In a small saucepan, bring the cream and butter to just below boiling point, over medium heat. Pour this hot mixture over the chocolate and let stand for 30 seconds, then stir until smooth. Pour ganache over brownies while still warm, and spread to cover evenly.
7. Let ganache firm up before cutting. It’s best to refrigerate them until quite firm. Once the ganache is firm and the brownies have been cut, they do not need to be kept in the refrigerator.

This recipe is from Recipe Girls website: Chocolate Mascarpone Brownies

The recipe was fairly easy to make, I didn't use the microwave method of melting my butter and instead did it in a bain marie and I also lined my dish with a little greaseproof paper as I wanted to ensure the brownies came out easily. I was quite surprised at spreading the warm ganache over a non cooled brownie. In their dish the brownies took quite a while to cool enough for me to put them in the fridge.

As a brownie recipe goes, this one's not bad, it leaves a dense brownie with a delicisou rich topping, and as nice as it is, it's just not as yummy as my recipe, my recipe has more chocolate and different flavour due to the coconut flour.

I'm glad I tried this recipe and will enjoy eating it, but from now on I'll be sticking to my recipe. :)

Baked Vanilla Cheesecake

It's a friend of mines Birthday next weekend and her favorite dish is baked vanilla cheesecake, it's not something I've ever made before. Don't get me wrong I love cheesecake and I've made plenty of cheesecakes which do not require cooking but don't think I've made a cheesecake which has required baking for a very very long time!

This is my practice round and although I am thinking it should be ok, I've read nightmares about cheesecakes cracking and that is not what I want to happen to mine!! I am hoping I am not tempting fate by attempting a second recipe of the day - my focaccia turned out so beautifully this morning - have I used up all my luck for the day? I hope not. So here goes...

The Recipe is taken from Stephanie Alexander's book 'The Cooks Companion' so far I have been fairly disappointed by this book, from first site its a mass of really great information - which in itself is very good but its the recipe's for me so far which has been what has let this book down. Mind you it could be the cook and not the recipe of course.

Not only is this a baked cheesecake recipe but its labelled the best-ever cheesecake, and if anything is going to jinx it the name is. I already know the best cheesecake recipe ever is my mums white chocolate and raspberry recipe. Anyhows here goes...

The Recipe - Best-Ever Cheesecake by Stephanie Alexander

100g butter melted

300g wheatmeal biscuits

500g cream cheese at room temperature

200g caster sugar

1 tbsp cornflour

3 eggs

2 tbsp lemon juice

few drops of pure vanilla (i used vanilla bean paste)

pinch of salt

2 cups sour cream

The Method

1. Preheat the over to 180 degrees, brush base and side of a 22 cm x 6 cm deep springform tin with a little of the melted butter. Remove base from tin. Cut a round of baking powder to fit base of tin, brush paper with a little butter and set aside. Tear off an 80 cm sheet of foil and double it over so it measures 40 cm in length. Lay foil over base of tin, then put buttered round of paper on top. Sit springform tin over base and lock sides in place, leaving excess foil outside of the tin. Draw up the excess foil and fold it out of the way. You now have a water tight container.
2. Crush the biscuits in a food processor. Add remaining butter and process. Press crumb mixture into the base of the tin, tapping firmly with the base of a glass.
3. Beat the cream cheese and sugar in an electric mixer until smooth. Beat in the cornflour and then add eggs 1 at a time, beating each time until just smooth. Add lemon juice, vanilla and salt. Add sour cream and beat gently yo combine.
4. Pour batter into tin and stand tin in a larger baking dish. Pour in boiling water to come up halfway up the sides of the tin. Bake for 50 minutes then turn off the oven but do not open the door for 1 hour.
5. Lift tin from water bath and flatten foil away from the sides just in case there is any water trapped inside. Cool completely in the tin on a wire rack. Refrigerate for several hours or over night before serving.

Preparing the tin actually took longer than making this dessert, it was quick and easy to put together. I did struggle finding a water bath to fit my cheesecake pan, and ended up using a pyrex bowl. After an hour cooking and an hour in an off oven it looked beautiful but still had a slight wobble which worried me somewhat thinking that perhaps it might not be set, but as it got cooler it wobbled less. The cheesecake had come slightly away from the side of the pan which was good and helped it come out of the tin.

My Very First Focaccia

Another Saturday begins with a slightly fuzzy head from the night before and thought of baking. I have already lost my fight with my conscience to go to the gym and have consigned myself to a day of baking instead!! A much better idea.

So, I've been meaning to make bread for ages, I tried a loaf not long after I moved into my little fairy cottage. It didn't turn out very well, it was dry and hard so I am hoping todays recipe will be much better. I am trying a Focaccia with onions, Genoese style from Marcella Hazan's 'The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking' and am parying my little oven doesn't incinerate my efforts!!

The Recipe - Focaccia With Onions, Genoese Style from Marcella Hazan's 'The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking'

For the dough

1 packet of active dry yeast

500 ml lukewarm water

750g plain unbleached flour

2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

1 tbsp salt

For baking the Focaccia

a baking stone

a heavy-duty rectangular metal baking sheet, preferably black about 35 x 45cm

2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil for smearing the pan

a mixture of 4 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil, 2 tbsp water and 1 tbsp salt

For the onion topping

2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

2 large or 3 medium onions sliced very, very thinly.

The Method

1. Dissolve the yeast, stirring it into 100 ml of lukewarm water, letting stand for about 10 minutes or slightly less.
2. Combine the yeast and 110g of the flour in a bowl, mixing thoroughly. Then add the olive oil, salt, half the remaining water (200 ml), and half of the remaining flour. Mix thoroughly until the dough feels soft, but compact, and no longer sticks to the hands. Put in most of the remaining flour and water and mix thoroughly once again - you need to hold back some of both and put in as much of either as you need to make the dough manageable, soft, but not too sticky.
3. Take the dough out of the bowl and slap it down very hard several times, until it is stretched out lengthwise. Reach for the far end of the dough, fold it a short distance towards you, push it away with the heel of your palm, flexing your wrist, fold it and push it away again, gradually rolling it up and brining it close to you. It will have a tapered, roll-like shape. Pick up the dough,holding it by one of the tapered ends, lift it high above the counter, and slap it down hard again several times, stretching it out in a lengthwise direction. Reach for the far end and repeat the kneading motion with the heel of your palm and your wrist, bringing close to you once more. Work the dough in this manner for 10 minutes. In the end pat it into a round shape.
4. Smear the centre of a baking sheet with 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil, put the kneaded round dough on it, cover with a damp cloth and leav to rise for about 1 1/2 hours.
5. Put 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil and the sliced onions in a saute pan, turn the heat to medium-high, and cook the onion, stirring frequently, until it is tener but not too soft. It should still be slightly crunchy.
6. When the indicated rising time has elapsed, stretch out the dough on the baking sheet spreading it out to the edges of the baking sheet so it covers the entire sheet at a thickness of about 1/2cm. Cover with a damp cloth and allow to rise for a further 45 minutes.
7. At least 30 minutes before you are ready to bake put the baking stone in the oven and preheat it to 230 degrees.
8. When the second rising time for the dough has elapsed and you are ready to bake, keeping the fingers of your hand stiff, poke the dough all over making little hollows with your finger tips. Beat the mixture of olive oil, water and salt for a few minutes to form an emulsion, then pour it slowly over the dough using a brush to spread it all of the way to the edges of the pan You will find the liquid polls in the hollows made by your fingers, spread the cooked onions over the dough and place sheet in the centre of the pre-heated over. Check the focaccia after 15 minutes. If you find it cooking on one side faster than the other, turn the pan round. Bake for another 7 to 8 minutes, lift the focaccia out of the pan using spatulas and transfer to a wire rack to cool.
9. Serve the focaccia warm or at room temperature

This recipe was remarkably easy to make, a little time consuming but perfect for a weekend where are you are pottering around doing other things. It looked beautiful and a real rustic centre piece for the table. Light and fluffy bread with a salty crisp toping and crunchy onions. A total success hurrah, even in my little oven. One to make again for sure.

The recipe goes on to state that the focaccia is best eaten on day of cooking or frozen until you are ready to eat it.

A Different Kind of Bolognese

Normally when cooking a bolognese sauce I do the simple recipe my mum taught me using tinned tomatoes, mince meat and vegetables. Tonight I tried doing Marcella Hazan's Bolognese from her book 'The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking'; I've been going through a fad of cooking Italian food and I purchased this book in aid of making an Italian meal for my friends, I really like her anecdotes at the start of the recipes and the tips and tricks on doing things better.

Bolognese Meat Sauce by Marcella Hazan (The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking)

The Recipe

2 tbsp vegetable Oil

45g butter

85g onion, chopped

3 sticks celery, chopped

4 medium carrots

350g ground beef chuck (i used minced lamb, I prefer the flavour)

250ml full-fat milk

whole nutmeg

250ml dry white wine

500g tinned imported Italian plum tomatoes, cut up with their juice

The Method

1. Put the oil, butter and chopped onion in a pot, turn the heat to medium and saute the onion until it becomes translucent. Add the chopped celery and carrot. Cook for 2 minutes, stirring the vegetables to coat them well.
2. Add the ground beef, a large pinch of salt and a few grindings of pepper. Crumble the beef with a fork, stir well and cook until it has lost its red colour.
3. Add the milk and let it simmer gently, stirring frequently, until it has bubbled away completely. Add a tiny grating - about an 1/8 tsp of nutmeg and stir.
4. Add the wine, let it simmer until it has evaporated, and then add them tomatoes and stir thoroughly to coat all of then ingredients well. When the tomatoes begin to bubble, turn the heat down so that the sauce cooks at the laziest of simmers, with just an intermittent bubble breaking through the surface. Cook uncovered for 3 hours or more stirring from time to time. Whilst the sauce is cooking you are likely to find that it begins to dry out and the fat separates from the meat. To keep it from sticking, continue cooking adding 125ml water whenever necessary. At the end, however no water at all must be left and the fat must separate from the sauce. Taste and correct for salt.

I have to admit I have never cooked a sauce for over 3 hours before, so this was a first, when I started writing the post I was hoping all this time would bring a very satisfying result and as luck would have it the wait was worth it, the resulting sauce was sweet, delicious and will no doubt be made again soon. I have always wondered how to get the bolognese sweet without an acidic taste from the tomatoes and it turns out that's what the milk does, cuts down the acidity and the sheer length of cooking time aids in the sweetness of the sauce.

What also surprised me about this recipe was the lack of garlic - I put garlic in pretty much every thing and was extremely surprised to not see it in this recipe, the lack of garlic did not upset the beautiful flavour of this dish.

Cranked, Leederville, Peth

I love Leederville, the permanently busy streets, the girls and guys dressed ready for a night at the Leedy or the Garden. I love the tiny boutique style shops with their expensive clothes and interesting and beautiful gifts. I am lucky to live in walking distance and am finding my trips to Cranked more of a weekly occurrence.

Their coffee turn around seems to be much quicker compared to Sayers and I actually prefer their coffee, perhaps it's because I adore their chocolate syrup they use in their mocha's. I can't help spooning the rich heavenly syrup into my mouth after I've finished my mocha.

So on a spir of the moment Saturday night myself and my partner decided to go out and grab a bite to eat, full well knowing that in most places in Leederville you have to book. We checked out Monza, but it looked pretty empty, which is always a bit of a put off for me, plus there was nothing that much on the menu that really grabbed me. Next on the list was Kalis Brother - full of course. My back-up plan being Ria (one of my favourites) or Cranked which I hadn't eaten out in the evening before.

We headed into cranked which had a guy on a guitar playing beautiful Spanish style music. If it hadn't have been so freezing outside with the plastic shutters down I could have closed my eye's and been in Spain. What I hadn't realised was that Cranked only serves Tapas in the evening and to be honest I'm not much of a fan of Tapas. None the less we decided to give it a try so ordered a glass of The Riddler and settled down to view their Tapas menu, it wasn't extensive but there were plenty of dishes to suit most tastes.

We ordered Chorizo and Chicken Paella, Lamb Kofta with a yogurt and cucumber dressing and Turkish breads with a trio of dips. The restaurant at this time had been quite empty but was slowly filling up with groups of young ladies, we waited a fair amount of time, not enough to be worth complaining, but a little to long that made us notice. When our dishes finally arrived one was wrong...oops, our Turkish bread had been replaced with Empanada (small pastry parcels filled with sweet potato and chickpea served with harissa and a yogurt and mint dip).

The waitress was apologetic and went off to replace the dish, she returned minutes later once again apologising and still brandishing the Empanada, offered us them for no charge whilst our Turkish breads were prepared. I thought that was a lovely touch, the waiter who was had taken our order came out and also apologised explaining it was all his fault, exactly what you would want from a restaurant who had made a slight mistake. Our breads arrived shortly afterwards, the lemon infused olive oil served with the breads was light and fruity and delicious as were the two other dips of hummus and blue cheese, the breads served warm with a crispy top were light and soft in the middle, plenty of salt on the outside of the bread added extra flavour. The paella was as to be expected warm, with very spicy chorizo and the chicken had a smokey flavour which added to the overall taste of the dish, cherry tomato's added a freshness which pulled it all together and took the edge of the spicy chorizo. Our free dish of Empanada had a smooth almost sweet tasty filling, the pasty on mine seemed a little well done on its edges and feel apart when I cut into it - perhaps it would have been better eating it with my fingers. The harissa was sharp and spicy and added a fantastic kick to the dish and with the added yogurt dip to cool your tongue made a surprising accompaniment to our dinner. Our final dish of lamb kofta lost its heat quite quickly, and was less spicy than I had expected but none the less was tasty and enjoyed, it was just not a remarkable kofta.

I like Cranked; the easy going waiters, the live music, dinner and wine served by candle light and delicious coffee. We both enjoyed our tapas more than we would have expected and will no doubt be returning there again soon.