Miso-caramel apple pudding

I wasn't exaggerating when I said I'd been really getting into puddings. In addition to the marmalade toast sponge pudding I posted last week, this miso-caramel apple one is the other I've been making a lot right now. I first made it as I was curious about the use of miso in dessert - something about that deep savoury taste infusing a sweet caramel intrigued. Plus it's a great showcase for apples while they're in season. This dessert comes together in two parts - the apples are softened on the stovetop in butter and sugar and miso, then poured into a baking dish and covered in a blanket of sour cream sponge. The whole thing is baked in the oven, then emerges burnished brown. The fruit below is still nicely toothsome - so not a soggy mess - contrasting nicely with the lightness of the sponge above. The miso manages to make this both comforting and sophisticated. And unbelievably more-ish. If you don't already have miso in your fridge, buying a jar would be a good investment as the two teaspoons required for this recipe will barely make a dent on your supply, which means you can make it again (and again).

Marmalade toast sponge pudding

This winter has been the coldest in a while here in Sydney, and it's been raining for what feels like weeks. I've been really embracing puddings lately and this one is a recent revelation. The recipe comes from Jess Elliot Dennison, a Scottish cook whose recipes are in regular rotation in my repertoire. Her sticky triple ginger cake is a favourite, and now this genius pantry-cupboard pudding that utilises two ingredients I am extremely fond of and thus never without: sourdough bread, and marmalade. It comes together quickly, uses just one egg (a bonus in these dark times of avian flu and eye-watering egg prices) and offers comfort from the cold, and the dark. A bit of decadent dairy is a good accompaniment - ice cream of course, but plain old single cream is simple and delicious, especially soaked in to the sponge.

Blood plum spice cake

A friend of mine had a birthday recently and I wanted to make her a cake. Unlike 99% of the population, she's not a fan of icing (too sweet). While I've nothing against plain cakes (in fact I think I prefer them), for a celebration I think you need something a little bit special. An upside-down cake was the perfect solution. This one showcases plums, in season at the moment. The recipe comes from one of my favourite places in all the world, The Agrarian Kitchen, in Tasmania, so I knew it would be good. And indeed it was - the warm spices of the base the perfect complement to the tart, juicy fruit, which - once inverted - crowns the cake. A cracker.

Yeasted apricot cake

Since returning from my two week trip to colder climes over Christmas, I've been doing my best to make the most of summer fruit. Top of my list was this cake, which I first made a few years ago when a friend gave me a box of apricots as a Christmas present (she knows me well). Apart from showcasing apricots in all their glory - no complicated pre-cooking required, just remove the stones, quarter the fruit, and pop on the top - the enriched dough is lightly infused with lemon and sprinkled with crunchy cardamom sugar. It's simple yet stunning, more like a pastry really than a cake. A warning writ large in the title - yeast is involved here as the rising agent. If you're nervous about that, don't be. The recipe requires only one proofing period, so not a big time commitment. Don't worry if the dough doesn't double in size. I've read only recently this is a fallacy. You just need it to be discernibly bigger. If the dough hasn't noticeably increased in size in the suggested time, let it sit a bit longer. Hold your nerve. All will be well. And you'll have a wonderful cake at the end to show for it.

Browned butter and rosemary apple cake

I got to sit out summer for two weeks when I spent Christmas with family in the Pacific North-West of the US, and the New Year with friends just over the border in Canada. It's been ten years since I made this birthday cake for a then-seven year old, and all these years later she and I are somehow the same shoe size, and she's surpassed me in the kitchen - making dinner many nights for her parents, who really did hit the kid jackpot. I promised her grandmother we'd make a cake together during my stay. She was keen to try out the Danish dough whisk I'd brought her as a present. Given we'd all had more than our fill of chocolates, and puddings, and candy canes, something a bit less OTT was in order. I had a recipe for browned butter and rosemary apple cake from a Scottish cookbook I'd been given for Christmas, which seemed perfect... but for the fact that there'd been a run on rosemary for holiday roasts, so we had to try a few Vancouver grocery stores before we got lucky. Happily we did, as this cake was a winner. Simple and sophisticated - sweet with apple but with subtle savoury notes from the rosemary and nuttiness of the brown butter. Cosy and comforting. Like being with old friends.

Browned butter and rosemary apple cake
Adapted from Midweek Recipes by Jess Elliott Dennison

If you can't lay your hands on rosemary, thyme or sage would, according to the recipe's author, make a good substitute. 

6 sprigs rosemary

200g salted butter

225g self-raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

225g soft brown sugar

2 eggs

300g apples, peeled, cored, and thickly sliced

50g flaked almonds

Place the butter with the rosemary in a pan and heat on medium for 4-5 minutes, stirring regularly. The butter will foam up and become golden before turning dark brown. This is when to turn off the heat. A few dark specks will appear (probably on the base of the pan) and it will smelly really nutty. Strain this liquid (scraping every bit of it out with a spatula) through a fine-mesh strainer. Discard the rosemary and allow to cool. If some rosemary gets in the butter, that's totally fine.

Preheat the oven to 160 deg C (320 deg F) and grease and line and deep 23cm cake tin.

Combine flour, baking powder, sugar and eggs in a bowl and add the melted, slightly-cooled butter. Mix well until combined into a thick batter.

Spread half the mixture over the base of the cake tin, then scatter over the apples, ensuring most go in the centre. Spoon remaining cake batter over the fruit. Don't panic if you can't get your dollops of batter to join up as it will all even out in the oven. Sprinkle the almonds over the top and bake for 45 minutes to one hour, or until golden and coming away from the sides of the tin.

Orange sugar-dusted madeleines

Generally, I don't like to post anything here that requires special equipment but in all other respects this recipe fits my overall philosophy of baking: simple things that satisfy. Though I'd been curious about madeleines for some time, I didn't have a tin, and didn't particularly want to acquire a new piece of kitchen equipment that only had one purpose. But a recipe from Julia Busuttil-Nishimura's new cookbook Good Cooking Everyday pushed me over the edge... or more accurately, to purchase a madeleine tin. The idea of sweet, shell-shaped cakes eaten warm from the oven was irresistible. All the more more given they were infused with orange, a favourite flavour of mine, as the recipe index of this blog can attest. 

The brilliance of madeleines is that you make the batter ahead of time - the night before even - and they cook in a speedy 12 minutes. All you do once they're baked is tip them out of the tin and roll them in sugar. They're extremely low effort but high impact in terms of presentation and, most importantly, flavour. The real test of a new piece of kitchen equipment is whether or not you'll use it regularly, and in this case, I'm happy to report: unreservedly, yes.

Orange sugar-dusted madeleines

Adapted from a recipe by Julia Busuttil-Nishimura, as published in Broadsheet 

I was skeptical about a mixture that used a rising agent yet sat - refrigerated - for so long before baking but I can report the cakes came out perfectly, with the prettiest of little domes.

3 eggs

80g (1/3 cup) caster (superfine) sugar

40g honey

Finely grated zest of one orange

1 tsp orange blossom water

1 tsp vanilla extract

150g self-raising flour

good pinch of salt

150g unsalted butter, melted and cooled, plus extra for greasing

orange sugar

finely grated zest of one orange

80g caster (superfine) sugar

Whisk the eggs, caster sugar and honey in the bowl of a stand mixer for 8-10 minutes or until voluminous and pale. Stir in orange zest, orange blossom water and vanilla. Gently fold in flour and salt - taking care not to overmix - and finally the melted butter. Cover and place mixture in fridge for 45-60 minutes or even overnight.

For orange sugar: in a bowl, rub the orange zest into the caster sugar until the mixture is damp and fragrant. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 180 deg C. Brush a madeleine tin with the extra melted butter, then spoon about one tablespoon of batter into each mould. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until the madeleines have risen and and are lightly golden. Remove from the tin, roll in orange sugar and eat warm.

Italian orange cake

I was recently given a huge haul of citrus from a friend's farm so have been on a mission to make things with oranges, grapefruit, limes, mandarins and lemonades. This weekend I used one perfect orange to make a cake that used the fruit whole, but rather than boiling it first for two hours as with Middle-eastern orange cake, you simply blend it up fresh and integrate it into a simple batter - a little like the famous Sunset cake but with canola oil rather than butter as a base. I like oil-based cakes a lot as they're great as a make-ahead option. In terms of technique, this recipe also appealed as it was just a matter of combining wet and dry ingredients. Almost as soon as I'd started, the cake was in the oven. But my luck didn't last. Shortly after the above photo was taken, my magnificent cake sunk spectacularly as I'd pulled it out too early and the centre was entirely uncooked. Skewer tests are not failsafe as I've learned (the hard way) and next time I will definitely be using the internal-read thermometer I'd bought for this exact purpose (the internal temperature of cakes when fully baked is around 98 deg C / 210 deg F) and forgotten about. Happily, because my orange cake needed to be cut into pieces anyway as it was to be taken on a bush walk, it definitely didn't get wasted and the fully-baked bits around the edges were enjoyed up the top of the escarpment down the south coast on Sunday. They were delicious, a beautiful sweet-bitter burst of citrus in cake form on a sunny day.

Italian orange cake
Adapted from a recipe by This Italian Kitchen

I used a food processor as I don't have a blender so there were little chunks of orange studded through the crumb of the cake. I thought this rather added to its appeal, but if you like things more refined - and you own one - you may like to use a blender.

1 large thin-skinned orange
1 1/4 cups sugar (275g)

2/3 cup canola oil (140g)

3 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla

2 1/4 cups flour (300g)

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp sea salt (use half this amount if table salt)

Preheat oven to 350 deg F. Position a rack in the centre of oven and grease and line a 9 inch springform tin.

Cut orange into chunks (removing any seeds you come across) and combine in blender with sugar, oil, eggs and vanilla. Process til smooth and fruit is completely puréed. Transfer mixture into a large bowl and fold in dry ingredients. 

Pour into prepared tin and bake for 40-45 minutes or until an internal read thermometer registers 98 deg C / 210 deg F. If you don't have a thermometer to gauge done-ness, use your finger to gently prod the middle of cake - if it still feels a bit wobbly, leave it in a bit longer. Use your instincts as to when it is done. The good news is that the cake is so moist from the oil and the whole orange, it's unlikely you'll ever over-bake.

Let cake sit in tin on wire rack for ten minutes, then turn out onto rack to cool completely.