Honey Crunch

Granola and home-made cereals just win. The crisp and light texture with endless opportunities of flavour combinations, not to mention the health benefits with no artificial sweeteners and weird stuff. WIN. Today's granola is wholegrain oats with toasted almonds and honey, top it off with some natural unsweetened yoghurt and a sliced banana and you are off to a fantastic day!

Honey Crunch

Prep time: 5-10 minutes

Serves: About 6

1 1/2 C oats

6 tbsp honey

1/3 C almonds, roughly chopped

2 tbsp sunflower seeds

1 tbsp neutral oil (I used grapeseed)

Preheat the oven to 120 degrees celcius, fan bake.

In a small saucepan, gently heat the honey and oil until they are combined and runny. Remove from heat and fold in the rest of the ingredients, making sure all the oats are coated well.

On a baking tray lined with grease proof paper, spread over the mixture so it has all been separated and flat on tray.

Bake for about 30 minutes or until golden, giving the oats a toss at about 15 minutes in.

Remove from oven, leave on tray and let cool; this is when they will harden and go crisp. Store in an air-tight container.

Enjoy!

Savoury Pinwheel Scones

I went to a cooking demonstration last night where Natalie Oldfield made these scones. They we so good I just had to make them the next day! The recipe is from her new cookbook Dulcie May Kitchen Everday, you can buy the book online here!

Savoury Pinwheel Scones

Makes 10

Time to make: 20 minutes

3C self raising flour, sifted

1/2 tsp salt

50g butter

1/2 C parmesan, grated

1 1/2 C milk

1 red onion, diced and fried

100g feta

1 tbsp parsley, chopped

Preheat oven to 120 degrees celcius. And line a baking tray with non-stick paper

Sift flour and salt together in a large bowl. Rub the butter into the flour to make it like breadcrumbs.

Add the parmesan and milk to make a firm, moist dough. Only mixing until it just comes together.

Turn onto a floured board and roll into a 25cm x 25cm square. Sprinkle over the parsley, feta and onion. Roll up to form a log and cut into 10 rounds.

Bake for 10-12 minutes.

Serve with a good lashing of butter!

Roasted Tomato Soup with Basil Sour Cream

This is delicious. We had this for lunch at cooking school today made by some advanced students and I just had to go home and make it!

Roasted Tomato Soup with Basil Sour Cream

Serves 2

1kg of vine ripen tomatoes, halved

1 Onion, peeled and halved

2 whole cloves of garlic, skin removed

1/4C of cream (I used light evaporated milk to keep it healthy)

A pinch of both: dried oregano and thyme

2 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Salt and Pepper to taste

In a baking dish/ pan (just something with sides), place the halved tomatoes, and onion (cut side up) in the dish and roast for 40 minutes at 180 degrees celcius, fan bake. Once the 40 minutes is up, place the garlic in the dish also and put back into the oven for 10 minutes.

Once the tomatoes have cooked down, transfer all of the veges plus any juices in the pan into a pot, add the herbs and salt then blend with a stick blender. Remove any skins that may have blackened (if this has happened your oven may of been too hot, as all ovens are different!) Once blended, push through a strainer to remove seeds.

Bring the now soup to a gentle simmer and add the cream in at the last minute. Mix 2 tbsp of sour cream with 1 tbsp of chopped basil and place a small dollop in the middle of the soup. Serve with hot crusty bread. Enjoy!

Tasting Food and Wine

Learning about tasting foods is important to know before we get into cooking and more importantly, learning how to taste wine. So, me and my friend Paint had a bit of fun this afternoon and made a little picture of a tongue to help understand taste buds. Yup, it's a tongue...

Back of tongue

Front

Okay so, there are four main regions of the tongue which the tastebuds react differently to all types of foods. The middle part of the tongue is more of a neutral/ savoury sort of area. Without getting into the chemistry of things, these regions are where you will 'sense' all the different aspects of tasting.

Bitter: At the back of the tongue, foods like a coffee, unsweetened cocoa powder and grapefruit.

Sour: On both sides of the tongue which detects acidity of the food being consumed for example lemons, citric acid and off-milk. The higher the acidity, the more sour it will taste.

Sweet: At the tip of the tongue, foods like lollies, fruit, desserts etc

Salty: Also at the tip, so foods with high amounts of sodium.

With learning about the tongue, it is also important to think about what you are eating (Very important for wine tasting). For example: At school we were given a platter of different foods to taste so we could decide which category they fell into on the tongue and what they tasted like, one of them was jelly beans. Students were saying they smelt like sugar because they are sweet. But what does sugar smell like? If you smelt a bag of sugar would it smell similar to jelly beans? No. So its a tough one. Just like a white wine, it doesn't just smell like 'wine' there are many scents and tastes such as green capsicum, stone fruits, oak and the list goes on and on. More about that later, but the point of this post was to just to start learning about what you are actually eating and what the true smells are, what you are tasting and the where it hits on the tongue.

Killer Choc Cupcakes

Before I start with posts from culinary school I thought I might post a welcome recipe, the BEST ever ever chocolate cupcake recipe. I've tested a load of cupcake recipes, and I have finally found IT. The one, the only recipe I know I will use over and over.

Chocolate Cupcakes

Adapted from: 52 Kitchen Adventures

Makes: 15 cupcakes

1/2 butter, softened

1 1/4 C sugar

2 eggs

3/4 flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cocoa powder, best quality you can afford

1/2 C buttermilk (normal milk would be fine)

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius on fan bake.

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (do this until the butter turns white from yellow). Add the eggs one at a time and beat well to combine.

In another bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa, salt, baking powder and baking soda. In another small bowl combine the buttermilk and vanilla.

Add 1/3 of the dry ingredients to the butter mixture then 1/2 of the buttermilk mixture and alternate until all the ingredients are combined.

Fill cupcake cases 1/2 full and bake for about 20-25 minutes or until skewer comes out clean.

Once baked, take them straight out of the cupcake tin and put on a cooling rack to cool.

Whipped Chocolate Ganache

200g dark chocolate

100g cream, room temperature

Melt the chocolate in the microwave until just melted ( watch carefully as you do not want it to burn)

Once melted stir in the cream and mix until combined. Refrigerate until cool and slightly firm then with an electric beater, beat until fluffy.

Pipe onto cool cupcakes and enjoy!

Hi!

Welcome to my new blog! About three weeks ago I started a culinary and wine course so I thought as revision, why not blog about it? I love cooking! Yet I don't have much experience, so to whoever would like to follow what I am doing, the whole years worth of study will be on this blog. Sooo, anyone wanna learn with me? Without having to pay the 8k?

In this blog there will be:

Learning how to taste food and wine

All aspects of wine tasting

Cooking and baking starting from the basics right up to fine dining

And everything in between!

Peace