I sat on this recipe for months literally, trying to find an opportunity where I would have two whole hours to make breakfast. Not surprisingly, it took a while to get a chance to do this. I have possums to either blame or thank for this. Either a possum or a small serial killer hiding in the ceiling. I was awoken at 4am by a strange scratching sound. Actually I was woken by my husband who loves to do diving triple back flips in his sleep making the bed seem like a waterbed. And whilst I was trying to get back to sleep I heard an strange scratching sound which scared me. It was definitely in the house so I woke him and he went to investigate without a weapon despite me trying to give him one (ok a laundry basket won’t offer you much protection). The alarm was still on and after a lot of investigation, we concluded that the scratching was coming from the ceiling cavity.

I was most definitely awake.

And what I like to do when I am woken at ungodly hours is bake. I feel I should at least get a food reward for being up so early. And so I did, with a bit of a false start where I had difficulty dissolving the yeast in the milk. I ended up needing more milk than the 2 tablespoons specified in the recipe and I threw out the greying lump of yeast that I had managed to make and started again with 1/2 cup of milk. The rest was fairly smooth sailing especially once I starting greasing the egg rings. If you eat them straight away, they’re divinely fluffy and gorgeously although once they cool they become a bit more traditional crumpets although much fresher. And instead of dripping honey on them, I used a chestnut syrup, made when I did my 4 day stint in foodie rehab, making Marron Glaces. My husband happily wolfed down 10 of them before bypassing lunch.

On a related note, we had possums in our previous house, as my father, in a streak of brilliance (not!) stored the bird seed in the ceiling cavity. Yes, seriously.

If you’re interested in a bit of background knowledge on Crumpets, Vogue forum member Pinyata who works at the Tip Top factory that makes crumpets had this to say:

I’m working at Tip Top at the moment. And I do believe that Tip Top is the only company to make crumpets in Australia. I’m not really sure why, but there doesn’t appear to be anyone else that I can think of.

Now here’s a story for you, I’m not sure if it’s 100% true, but I’m prepared to make bet that it is. As I mentioned crumpets are notorious for going mouldy very quickly, and this is because they are only partially cooked. Unlike all other baking processes, the top surface of the crumpet isn’t heated above 60degC, so it doesn’t kill off all the bugs and bacteria that is living in the batter. And to make matters worse, since they are heated, it creates a warm moist environment, which is perfect to harbour the growth of bacteria. So by the time it’s packed it already has elevated bacteria levels, and so it doesn’t take long for there to be an outbreak, which can be seen as the mould.

This means that they have a very high return rate of mouldy product, which costs the business money. So they put their noggins together and tried to come up with a way people could have the taste and texture of crumpets, but also cook them fully so as to alleviate the mould issue. And this is when the crumpet toast was born. They don’t make it on this site, but I think it’s made in the NSW site. One of our engineers commissioned that plant, so I’ll ask her.

Now the reason why the crumpet toast is the solution, is because as you can see, it’s more like a baked loaf of bread. This means that it has been through the ovens and heated to over 60degC and all the bacteria is killed off.
So over the last few years the food technologists would have been scratching their heads and experimenting with a way to come up with a batter that could be baked, and have the same taste and texture as a normal crumpet. I personally think they have done a very good job, since it’s very close.

So that’s my belief as to why the crumpet toast was invented. Purely to extend the shelf life of the product so that it becomes more profitable.

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Don’t worry I haven’t taken leave of my senses. Although worringly, I am pretty sure I’ve started off another story by saying the same thing. Which would lead me to believe that I too often act or say things that sound completely batty. I am talking about filling “fried” wontons rather than the boiled ones with goat’s cheese. I got the idea for these from the Donna Hay Magazine that I was reading at Corelli’s Cafe and is based on what I could remember. Relying on my memory made me a little hesitant but they worked so well that I think my memory of it was fairly accurate (for once).

One reason why I like this recipe is because of my deep frying phobia. I am terrified of hot oil in case I get splattered and never deep fry anything. My mother on the other hand will happily do it so it’s not like I miss out on deep fried goodness (is that an oxymoron?). They’re also fabulous finger food for parties which can be made ahead of time, just brush them with oil before popping into oven.

Don’t think that you need to use goat’s cheese. If you can’t get goat’s cheese, cream cheese or another soft cheese will do, indeed a combination of cheese would be fine. I didn’t have a lot of goat’s cheese so I used what I had left and then used light cream cheese.

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I was fascinated by this recipe as I absolutely adore sun dried tomatoes. I don’t care how passé they are, there will always be one or two opened jars in my fridge and a backup jar in the cupboard just in case. And if I don’t sound passé enough, the best brand I’ve found is Aldi’s Romano sun dried tomatoes, as they’re super soft, huge and delicious.

My husband, caveman style, brought these these fabulous little grape tomatoes back home after finding them while he was doing his second favourite hobby, geo caching (treasure hunting with a GPS). I tried one and it was sweet, luscious and gorgeous. Much like a perfect organic grape tomato. And since they had just fallen off the vine, they kept for a while, unlike supermarket ones that have been picked a while back only to sit on a shelf. Not that I’m necessarily advocating finding your F&V in the wilderness but these were simply beautiful. Do stay away from unexpected mushrooms.

I served these Moonblush tomatoes with some baby spinach leaves, bacon, avocado, salt & pepper and used the herbed oil at the bottom of the tray as a dressing. A simple, colourful salad.

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I think the first sign of a food blogger’s madness is seeing a recipe that takes 4 days and delightedly rubbing your hands with glee. Which is exactly what I did (ok perhaps I did not rub my hands with glee, that seems a little old school villain) but when I saw this recipe for these sweet candied little chestnut morsels I had to try and make them. I am not foolish enough to think that mine will turn out as perfectly as Clément Faugier’s but I was happy to give it a go and see how it would turn out. I was also working from home this week so the requisite 4 day cooking time was no problem.

I used a hybrid of different recipes and the biggest problem I had was shelling them and I think I perhaps boiled them for too long (one recipe specified 20 minutes which I think is too long, they became too soft and break up). So all in all, I only got about 12 whole marron glaces and a whole lot of tiny pieces. However this is not a complete loss, the broken up pieces are delicious served in a Mont Blanc style dessert served as they are on top of a mountain of whipped cream. Trust me, this is heaven. And don’t discard the chestnut flavoured syrup, it’s a wonderful alternative to maple syrup on pancakes or ice cream. In fact I ate it with home made crumpets and my husband concurred that it was a fabulous combination.

This is my last chestnut recipe for this season, I am departing soon to warmer lands for a holiday where chestnuts are out of season. So I shall say a sad goodbye to chestnut and will await your return next Winter!

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No, it’s not a rather major typo or a poor attempt at alliteration at all costs. I actually did make cookies made with choc chips and chickpeas. They were from Jessica Seinfeld’s Deceptively Delicious, a book that I received for Christmas but haven’t cooked from lately.

I can see why chickpeas work, they’re like a soft, very mild tasting nut. But the idea of chickpeas in a cookie is somewhat jarring. And given that there are 2 whole cups of chocolate chips, 1 cup of brown sugar and 3/4 of a cup of butter in them, I can see why it would work. I’m sure there’s a rule in baking: just add 2 cups of chocolate, 1 cup of brown sugar and 3/4 cup of butter to anything and it will be fine.

So whilst these aren’t the lowest fat or healthiest cookies, they taste fantastic. You absolutely cannot taste the chickpeas in these at all so if your loved one (I include husbands in this, not just kids as I know many a wife who tries to get her husband to eat more veges), is at all resistant to vegetables, give him or her this. They won’t even guess that they’ve got dreaded vegetable bits in them!

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