Melting Moments

From a really young age I always loved being in the kitchen and this was where my lifelong love of food and cooking began - watching my mum cook and picking up basic skills that I built on as I got older. There were surprisingly few cooking disasters along the way (the notable exception being a misguided attempt to make honeycomb which resulted in the totally trashed, burnt saucepan being buried in our back yard in suburban Perth to hide the evidence. It's probably still there!)

Today's recipe goes way back to my childhood and early cooking days - and is one of the first things that I remember making all by myself. Andrew has been asking me to make biscuits for him to take to work this week, so I thought I would dig in to my childhood repertoire and make a batch of Melting Moments.

These biscuits are simple to make, but require a light touch. The mixture is super soft, but cooks to a gorgeous, melt in your mouth consistency once cooled. I played around a little with the the filling - normally I would just make a basic icing with lemon juice and icing sugar  - but I had some lemon curd in the pantry, which I added along with lemon rind and some fresh lemon juice. The result was a lovely tangy filling with a much richer depth of flavour than the standard one. Passionfruit is also great as a filling flavouring if you have any. My recipe makes 12 generous sized Melting Moments - but you could make little bite size versions if you wanted something a bit more dainty. Here is what mine looked like -

Melting Moments

With Lemon Curd Icing Filling

In other news, regular readers might have noticed my new blog header banner at the top of the page. I had been thinking about refreshing the design for a while, when out of the blue my gorgeous and highly talented artist and designer friend Blair Parkinson sent through a new design he had been working on to get my feedback. Well of course I absolutely loved it, and it now holds pride of place here at Gourmet Goddess. Blair specialises in Opera design, as well as having a considerable portfolio of evocative and beautiful original works, many based on ancient mythology. As if that wasn't enough, he also offers a design service. He really is a man of many talents. His work is available for sale and he also takes commissions, so check out his website for more - http://www.blairparkinson.com/

It's struck me that I've been posting a lot of sweet things in the past few months, so I'm hoping to balance things with some more savoury dishes very soon. We are nearing the end of Summer here in Australia, so we will be seeing a change in the produce available too - always great inspiration for new dishes. In the meantime, enjoy these delicious Melting Moments....

Melting Moments
You will need: 
For the biscuits: 250g butter, 1/2 cup sifted icing sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla. 2 cups plain flour, 1/3 cup cornflour.
For the filling: 3 Cups Icing Sugar, Rind of 1 lemon finely grated, 3 tablespoons lemon curd, Juice of 1 lemon.

Method: 
Preheat the oven to 160C. Line two baking trays with baking paper or silicone baking mats.

Beat together the softened butter, icing sugar and vanilla until light and pale. Fold in the plain flour and cornflour to make a super soft dough.

With floured hands, lightly roll the dough into balls and place on the baking trays, leaving at least a couple of finger widths of space between them. With a floured fork, gently press the balls down to form disc shapes.

Bake for 15 minutes. Allow to cool on the trays completely before filling them.

To make the filling, mix the icing sugar, lemon curd and rind well. A teaspoon full at a time, add the lemon juice until the mixture forms a firm icing (you may not use all of the lemon juice, that's ok)

Put a spoonful of the filling onto half of the biscuits and put the remaining biscuits on top. Cover and refrigerate for at least 20 minutes to set.

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The GG Test Kitchen: Adriano Zumbo Macaron Kit

 Hi folks - I thought I would share with you a bit of a test kitchen experiment that I did this week with something that caught my eye at the supermarket recently. Normally I'm not a fan of packaged mixes, preferring to make things completely from scratch - but when I saw this Adriano Zumbo macaron kit when out shopping the other day I was really curious to see if they actually worked. Living where we do in the Inner West of Sydney, we are pretty close to Zumbo's flagship Balmain patisserie and sometimes pop over to indulge in something from his sweet treat wonderland. One of our favourites is the delectable salted caramel macaron. The Zumbo macaron kit in the salted caramel variety was the obvious choice for my experiment. The kit comes in a passionfruit variety too if you want something fruity and less rich.

The kit sells for $8.50rrp and contains pretty much all you need to make about 15-20 macarons. For a price comparison, a single macaron from Zumbo's patisserie costs $2.50. Apart from the kit, the only extras you will need are baking paper and a little butter for the filling but everything else is included. As well as the mixture components, there is also a template for when it comes to correctly piping the macaron mixture and two piping bags for the base mixture and the filling. The instructions are very straightforward and I was careful to follow them to the letter, despite my usual tendency to not follow instructions at all and do my own thing. I did as I was told this time I promise!

The Zumbo Salted Caramel Macaron Kit

- it also comes in a passionfruit variety

So, how did I go? The process of making up the two components - the meringue part and the filling - was pretty straightforward and I was happy with that side of things. When it came to piping the macaron mixture onto the baking trays, I found it quite fiddly and I imagine that any self respecting pastry chef looking over my shoulder would have been mortified at my technique - but hey, these kits are pitched at home cooks like us, right? I did notice that the mixture was looking very smooth and glossy, which I knew was how it is meant to look at that point in the proceedings (that Masterchef episode with the Zumbo macaron tower challenge was all coming back to me!) Despite my clumsy piping technique, all was looking good.

The moment of truth, and I took the first tray of macarons out of the oven. Most of them looked pretty good but a few had cracked a little here and there. I don't have the best oven in the world, so I suspect that this may have been the cause of the cracking on some of the macaron shells, as I really was careful to follow the instructions on the box exactly.

Piping the filling and assembling the final product was fun (I think I perfected my piping technique by then and was more confident with it) and for the most part, I was reasonably happy with how the batch turned out - notwithstanding the odd crumbly macaron here and there.

Salted Caramel Macarons - 

the finished product

Taste wise, the macarons were sweet and tasty with a decent salted caramel flavour - but I have to be honest here, they aren't in the same ballpark as the genuine Zumbo article from the patisserie. The filling they make in the shop is a lot deeper and richer in colour, with that slight touch of bitterness that a good salted caramel should have. The kit filling lacked that bitter/salty counterpoint to the sugar/meringue, resulting in the macarons being far too sweet for my taste.

The Verdict
The Zumbo Macaron Kit certainly makes whipping up a batch of macarons pretty easy, with all the equipment the home cook needs. The end result is a very sweet (perhaps over sweet for some)  macaron that you would be quite happy to serve. For me though, they lacked the perfect texture and extra salted caramel punch of the genuine article. I guess the real test is, would I buy the kit again? For me, the answer is no. I wasn't completely won over - maybe I'm too aware of how different they are to what Adriano sells in his shop and it was impossible not to compare. Overall I give the kit a score of 6.5/10.

The kits are available from some supermarkets and from Adriano Zumbo stores. For more info, head to the website: http://adrianozumbo.com/

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Gourmet Goddess goes festive!

I cook a lot, but baking has never really been my thing - possibly something to do with that fact that I would rather have cheese and olives than a piece of cake or a biscuit any day. Another factor could be my aversion to sticking to a recipe and measuring ingredients properly, something you need the discipline to do if you are a baker or pastrychef. I'm not very good at taking instructions :) But tonight I thought - what the hell! I felt like hitting the kitchen and doing something a bit festive (unusual for me, as I tend to give the whole Christmas thing a miss most of the time) I cranked up Duran Duran's Greatest Hits - I always cook better with Simon Le Bon -  donned the apron, headed to the kitchen and whipped up these very Christmassy biscuits, full of white chocolate, beautiful green pistachio nuts and garnet red cranberries.

These would be ideal as Christmas gifts - bake a batch, tizz them up with cellophane or some pretty boxes, tags and ribbons and voila! Instant gift. These biscuits will last for about a week in an airtight container (if you don't scoff them all before then) My recipe will make about 40 small biscuits.

The little pink baking cups in the picture are by Paper Eskimo, who specialise is quirky kids party products. You can actually bake cupcakes or muffins right in them and they keep their colour. I loved these when I saw them and bought them in green too, they cost around $5.00 for a pack of twenty.  I found them at Octopus gift store on King Street in Newtown, NSW. To find your nearest stockists and to check out other Paper Eskimo products go to their website :  http://papereskimo.com/theretailers.php

White Chocolate, Cranberry and Pistachio Biscuits

You will need: 250g butter (at room temperature), 1 tsp vanilla essence, 2 cups plain flour, 1/2 cup dried cranberries (sometimes called craisins), 200g white chocolate chopped quite finely, 2 tablespoons shelled, chopped and unsalted pistachios, 3/4 cup icing mixture.

Method: Preheat the oven to about 160C. Line baking trays with non stick paper.

Cream together the butter, icing sugar and vanilla with an electric mixer until it turns pale and is very creamy. Stir in the flour, half of the chocolate, pistachios and cranberries. Mix until the dough comes together. If the dough is very sticky, or the weather is hot, put the mixture in the fridge to firm up a little for 20-30 mins.

Roll the dough into small balls the size of a walnut and place about 3cm apart on the baking tray. Flatten slighty with a fork.

Bake for 15-18 mins until lightly golden. Allow to cool on the trays for a few mintues before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.

When your biscuits are cool, melt the remaining white chocolate and drizzle over the top. Allow to firm up before storing them in an airtight container.


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