Sweetcorn powder now available at Kiwicakes

 

Every year I make a pilgrimage to Cook the Books cookery book store in Auckland. The knowledgeable owner has over the years recommended many awesome books, that have come home with me.

Some years back, her recommendation to me were the Milk Bar books by Christina Tosi

Christina is as passionate about food/recipes/talking about food/shopping for ingredients as I am. It's refreshing to know I am not a total freak, that there are others like me. The only difference is Christina is famous and I am not (and I'm totally cool with that, I actually don't wanna be famous)

If you haven't watched it already, I suggest checking out Chef's Table pastry episode featuring Christina Tosi.

In this episode Christina talks about creating "crack pie" now renamed "Milk Bar Pie". I immediately wanted to make this, but didn't know where to get sweetcorn powder. (Sweetcorn powder is also used in other recipes in these cook books, such as cookies)

I actually imported some from overseas, to first try these recipes. But now I am thrilled to say, you can buy it at Kiwicakes Now all I have to do is not make them too often!

Gâteau au chocolat et crème de marrons (Chocolate and chestnut spread cake)

This simply yet utterly amazing recipe came from a lovely French friend Aurelia. She is very giving with her recipes, and we are often found discussing food and recipes at length. Now living in NZ, having been born in France, she has a wealth of recipes I've never heard of. This is one of them.

What I still marvel at, with this recipe, is the sum of the ingredients are exponentially more exciting than what you'd expect

 

100g dark chocolate (I used Whittaker's Dark Ghana)

100g butter

3 eggs

Approx. 370g chestnut paste (you can buy this at specialty food stores and online) I buy at La Cave or Maison Vauron

2 handfuls of walnut pieces (optional)

Melt butter and chocolate and let cool 2 minutes.

Mix eggs and chestnut paste.

Add chocolate mixture.

Mix well.

Add walnuts and pour into buttered dish and cook between 20-30 minutes @200°

Bon appetit x

My son who has never liked "cake" is a great fan of this dessert, I made it last month for his 15th Birthday (this blog has featured many of his "not cake" birthday desserts over the years)

It didn't look overly celebratory with just candles so I crushed some chocolate coated honeycomb and sprinkled over the top.

We always serve with vanilla bean ice cream

How to create antique or vintage shades of buttercream icing

The good folks at Sprinks have supplied these awesome colour charts, to show you just how easy it is to create vintage shades using buttercream icing and the Sprinks range of gel paste food colourings.

The Sprinks bottles come fitted with an eye dropper, so you can easily count the drops. You can find the entire range here at Kiwicakes.

Passionfruit Crunchies a childhood favourite biscuit

Passionfruit Crunchies are an absolute favourite from my childhood. Probably because only 1 or 2 batches were made every passionfruit season. Then you had to wait until next year.

Mum (AKA Grandma Kiwicakes) made them every year. This year Grandma Kiwicakes passionfruit vine failed, as ours had taken off prolifically, I decided it was time I gave them ago and asked for the recipe.

Grandma Kiwicakes tells me the recipe was from "the Truth cookbook - an old scandal rag" - seen below without a cover. These recipe books certainly already expect you to know how to cook - with instructions like, "sandwich together with passionfruit icing" I used butter/icing sugar and 1 passionfruit to make my icing.

I doubled the recipe, and used larger than teaspoon sized balls, as mum always made them BIG. This resulted in two oven trays, with 34 halves, resulting in 17 biscuits when sandwiched together. You can make them any size you like.

I baked at 180C