When you’re renovating, a trip to Ikea is one of those many things that you do quite often. So one afternoon while browsing light fittings there, we went downstairs to the Swedish food section after paying. We always stop and get a 50c ice cream cone which tastes like milk powder, something that I love the smell of as it reminds me of my late grandmother who would always mix up a drink each morning with powdered milk eschewing the fresh milk in the fridge. But I digress, what should I happen upon amongst the herrings, Daim bars and meatballs? Yellow string that looked like spaghetti! I grabbed it straight away and took it home, knowing that it’s future lay wound around the top of a cupcake.
A few days later, we were meant to do work on our new place but that morning, a bizarre thing happened to Sydney. It had turned red overnight. Thankfully I wasn’t awake at 6am when it was at its worst or I would have completely freaked out. My husband managed to take a couple of shots around 7.30am. Apparently the wind from Broken Hill (a mining area) had carried through to Sydney and blanketed us with this absolutely vivid red haze. We were warned to stay inside if we could so of course we gladly put off cleaning the new house in favour of staying home and baking.
The view when Mr NQN woke
Due to this happy state of house arrest, I managed to tick off three things that day as I took over the kitchen and this was one of them. There are several parts to make to this but it’s not impossible . I really liked the taste of the cupcakes-the cupcake is light and fluffy due to the carbonation from the creaming soda and the strawberry jam and buttercream give it an old world butterfly cupcake sort of taste. As for the spaghetti and meatballs, I ate those separately and they were both good.
By the end of the day the haze had died down and all returned to “normal” and I was left to ponder what a fantastic setting for a horror movie it would have been. And for my next trick Pizza cupcakes?
So tell me Dear Reader, were you or would you be scared to be woken up in a red haze?
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October 6, 2009
by Not Quite Nigella
One of the biggest complaints when I was a child was not being listened to. My parents, at their peril, ignored me on several choice occasions (children were meant to be seen and not heard). Let me tell you of one such story where they should have listened to me. We were on holiday and travelling in Taiwan and our tour bus had spent hours circling this mountain and it had finally reached the top. I was full of Toblerone and food and when we sat down at the dining table along with the rest of the tour group my stomach was still swirling around continuing to do the countless loops around the mountain. I grabbed my mother’s arm and implored “I feel sick”. She ignored me and kept chatting to the woman on her right. Frantically I looked around for a bathroom and it was only seconds later that I threw up all over the dining table in front of the thirteen other diners at the table. As I said, ignore me at your own peril.
Another less dramatic instance involved donuts. I loved jam donuts but my parents always bought cinnamon donuts. No matter how many times I asked for a jam donut I was always passed a cinnamon donut. I resented cinnamon donuts for the longest time. To me they represnted being ignored. When I got a jam donut I felt like someone had actually listened to me.
Fast forward many years later and I have of course gotten over this cinnamon donut loathing although they never were my favourite taste wise – my favourite of course is still is a jam donut. And when long time friend Miss America was having a birthday, I knew he’d love a Jam Donut pudding. I did use cinnamon donuts as that was what they had at the store and he has no such cinnamon donut loathing and I spread them with strawberry jam but of course feel free to use jam donuts or Krispy Kreme or whatever ones you like.
This is one of those puddings that it also fabulously easy to make-freakishly so. All you need is a large jug and a little weak wristed beating action. Like all bread and butter puddings this can be done with staler donuts or breads but I have done this with both fresh and stale so don’t fret and feel that you necessarily need to make them stale. The jam dotted custard and cinnamoney and jammy donuts are gorgeously soft and very moreish and comforting as bread and butter puddings tend to be. I like to keep the donuts whole so that it’s easier to serve but of course you can cut them up but then you don’t get the cute bear face appearing. You can see him can’t you? 
So tell me Dear Reader, what’s your favourite type of donut?
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September 14, 2009
by Not Quite Nigella
My friend Kathy is one of my biggest supporters. She’s always finding very cool and quirky things to make and when she shows me something, I know it wil be a goody. Case in point is these Cheeseburger Cupcakes. As soon as I saw these I got all excited and starting pointing at the computer excitedly trying to get my husband’s attention. “Look! Look!” I mimed as my mouth was full of juice. His chuckle assured me that to make these was a no brainer.
I’ve mentioned the cheeseburger is my favourite burger. When I was young, I was never allowed a Big Mac, only the cheeseburger and whilst I never flipped the pickles onto the window sill as some of my friends did during a rowdy, fun 8th birthday party, I never liked the pickles. Nowadays I make up for my previous pickle shunning by requesting extra pickles in my cheeseburger.
The “cheese, sauces and lettuce” for these are created via icing tubes and I did a shortcut and made 6 cupcakes in total which you can do using the one 12 muffin tray and making 6 chocolate cupcakes and 6 vanilla cupcakes. The chocolate centre is a mud cake centre whilst the bun is a regular vanilla butter cake. It doesn’t get much harder than that and there’s no buttercream to make after it or god forbid any spun toffee. In fact these were amongst the easiest cupcakes I’ve made in a long time and the most rewarding.
In the absence of any real icing or filling, these are more what I’d call novelty cupcakes although you could certainly dig a bit of a hole and add some jam, cream or curd in it. If you don’t, I’d try and eat these on the day you make them or the day after as icing often helps to keep a cupcake moist. For an authentic measure which also aids in keeping the cupcake moist, do as you’d do a cheeseburger and wrap it up in some wax paper.
So tell me Dear Reader, which type of cupcake would you like me to make next?
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September 8, 2009
by Not Quite Nigella
Have I ever told you what wonderful people my readers are? I’m sure I have on many occasions. The best thing about having wonderful readers is when they tell me about very cool things to make. Case in point is reader Carol who left me this comment stating simply: “Oh go on … make us Panda Bread!” and linked me to a blog who had indeed made a gorgeous Panda bread based on a Japanese blogger’s brilliant idea. My heart skipped a beat with excitement when I saw it and I knew I had to make it. There was only one thing stopping me. It was the 20 boxes of things that I was in the middle of moving.
Luckily things such as fate intervened and I hadn’t yet packed some of the final boxes. The ones that were left outstanding were a packet of green tea and Valrhona cocoa powder that I bought from our Tokyo trip. So I stashed these two packets in my already bulging handbag along with a host of other necessities that I didn’t want lost in the boxes like drawings that my Mother in Law did for me, anti Swine Flu hand sanitiser, Crabtree & Evelyn Earl Grey Teabags, a camera battery charger along with my normal ramshackle mix of things.
When we had finally settled in, I unloaded the Kitchenaid onto the counter at my parent’s house which is where we are staying while renovating our kitchen and bathroom. My mother had never used one before and I warned her not to pick it up or move it as it was heavy. “You mean this stays here all the time?” she said somewhat curious and perhaps a little wary of this new benchtop intruder.
As for my styling, I admit I’m the least clucky person I know except for perhaps my friend Gina. However I couldn’t resist buying this Tiffany & Co. child’s cup and saucer for an imaginary child. My imaginary child wouldn’t break it, be well behaved, eat adventurously, be kind to strangers and nice to animals and love to eat Panda Bread. Although if this imaginary child were to materialise I could only guarantee the last point.
So tell me Dear Readers, what is your imaginary child like?
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August 4, 2009
by Not Quite Nigella
It all started with a Laduree cooler bag. We had brought one back from our trip to Paris and I was desperately looking for it. We have an apartment so there are very few places that it could hide and I turned the whole place upside down in search for the elusive bag and in turn I found a scribbled note saying “Bannoffee Peanut Butter Cup” in my typically messy handwriting (a handwriting profiler would think I were a doctor). Given my adventure making Peanut Butter cups only a few days before I wasn’t able to put this to the back of my mind like I had when I had written the note. The stars and planets aligned perfectly at that moment and I had everything there was including the motivation and knowledge of how to make them so of course I did.
The Bannoffee Peanut Butter cup of course this would have to be a fresh cup and not one that could sit on the counter for days on end on account of the fresh banana and cream. And would I be able to keep them true to the many layers? Could I fit them in the mould? I decided that if I did want to have the cream, banana, caramel, biscuit, chocolate and peanut butter the Wilton mold wouldn’t do. I’d have to make them in taller patty pans (albeit mini sized in diameter). This would allow for a good ratio of flavours to chocolate and peanut butter.
I tried to variations as the biscuit crumbs had me stumped. How could I get the crumbs to stick without baking it? I didn’t want it to be harder than it already was and omitting them wasn’t an option as Bannoffee absolutely needs to crunchy biscuit. It’s all about balance: the buttery crunchy biscuit, the thick, rich caramel, the simplicity and trueness of fresh banana, the decadence of cream and chocolate and of course the thick tongue sticking peanut butter. Yes it’s all about balance.
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April 29, 2009
by Not Quite Nigella
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