Coffee cake

I've been getting more interested in coffee cake lately, after one of our guests brought a particularly delicious one to the Lasagna Lunch. I've also recently rediscovered one of my favorite flavor combos from my first stint in Australia - rhubarb and peaches - when the first peaches of the season turned up at the farmer's market. I combined them to make a coffee cake which, though I say it myself, was thoroughly delicious.

Rhubarb-peach coffee cake

Dry ingredients

8 oz/240 g self-raising flour

1 tsp/5 g salt

4 Tbsp/60 g sugar (I used my citrus sugar here)

Wet ingredients

4 oz/120 g milk

4 oz/120 g Greek yogurt (for a slightly denser and more complex muffin)

1 tsp/5 g vanilla

2 eggs (= 4 oz/120 g)

4 oz/120 g (1 stick) butter, melted

Embellishments

1 cup chopped rhubarb and peaches, tossed with 1-2 oz/30-60 g sugar

Crumb topping (I used a combination of roughly 2 oz/60 g each butter and sugar + 4 oz/120 g flour)

Heat oven to 350F/180C. Line an 8 in/20 cm square cake pan with parchment paper. 

Make the crumb topping by whisking together the ingredients. (I also added some cinnamon, cardamom, and ginger to the mix.) Set aside.

In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. In a medium-sized jug, whisk together all the wet ingredients except the butter; add the butter slowly and carefully last, so as not to scramble the egg. Dump wet into dry and whisk until just combined.

Scoop all but about one cup of the batter into the prepared baking pan. Scatter the fruit across the surface of the batter, then do the same with the remaining cup of batter and the crumb topping.

Bake for 25-30 minutes or until lightly browned, rotating pan halfway through.

Throwback Thursday

NaBloPoMo, Day 20.

Speaking of rhubarb, as I did yesterday, reminds me of how blase I've become about having year-round unlimited access to it. It's apparently always in season in Australia - which I didn't know when I first got here six years ago and was rhapsodizing about my unexpected second season of 2008. I don't eat it nearly as much as I used to when I thought it would disappear at any moment. There's a lesson in there somewhere.

Bluebarb jam

NaBloPoMo, Day 19.

So here's that jam I promised you the other day; I'm pretty sure the flavor combination isn't original, but it popped into my head when I came across a stand selling blueberries at the farmers' market the other day. I grabbed a bunch of rhubarb as well, and prepped it all on Saturday afternoon. I got about a kilo of fruit, roughly 50/50, added in half the weight of sugar, zested and squeezed in a lime, stirred, and left it to macerate over Saturday night. I cooked and canned it following the usual procedure on Sunday morning, getting 7 jars of jam out of it -  4 of the 4 oz/120 g size and 3 of the 8 oz/240 g size.

(The upside-down one in the picture is the only one I didn't hot-water bath can, as it wasn't quite as full as the others; I decided to try an old-fashioned method, and turned it upside-down to see if it would seal just from the heat of the jam - it did. Not only that, but the jam is now stuck that way, with the gap at the bottom, even when right-side-up. Not bad for a jam with  no added pectin!)

So the holiday prep continues apace. Which reminds me that Thanksgiving is looming on the horizon - more on that tomorrow....

Wayback Wednesday

This concoction - slow roasted rhubarb and peaches - was one of my favorite things to eat during my first stint in Canberra, and was strongly associated with my memories of Australia after I left - mainly because this is the only place I've ever found rhubarb and peaches in season at the same time. (Although I suppose you could use frozen.) The other day, I made my first batch in nearly 3 years. Just as good as ever.

Sweet/Tart

I believe my love of rhubarb is well documented here. I first encountered it when I was already an adult, so I’ve had to make up for a lot of lost time. I can rarely pass it up when I see it for sale, and it’s unparalleled as a conversation starter in the checkout line. If you, like me, have a salt/tart tooth (as opposed to a sweet tooth) and you haven’t tried rhubarb, don’t waste any more of your life missing out on it.

I was fortunate enough to find an early batch in the midst of preparing a selection of homemade jams to stockpile for Easter brunch. I debated about pairing it up with something else—either its most famous partner, strawberry, or my more recent discovery, apple—but in the end I decided to let it stand alone.

Rhubarb jam
I based this recipe, as usual, on Dinner with Julie’s simple formula for jam without a recipe, using the higher ratio of sugar to compensate for rhubarb’s characteristic tartness. This allowed the flavor of the rhubarb to shine through without being overpoweringly puckery.

4 cups rhubarb, chopped
2 cups sugar
2 Tbs lime juice

Combine all ingredients in a large pot over medium-high heat and stir to combine thoroughly. Continue stirring regularly while mixture comes to a boil; mash chunks of rhubarb with a potato masher or similar as they start to soften, to assist with breaking up and make the finished jam a more consistent texture. When mixture boils, lower heat as necessary and continue cooking until it has reduced and is starting to look like jam. (There are various tests you can use – thermometers, saucers in the freezer, and so on – but when I can draw a line across the bottom of the pan and see it for more than a few seconds, I shut the heat off.)

When it has cooled a bit, spoon into jars and refrigerate for immediate use. To can, follow the usual method and process in boiling water for 10 minutes.

This amount made 2 half-pint jars of jam with a bit left over.

Rhubarb-apple jam

I don’t buy jam at the store anymore. Which – considering I canned my first-ever batch of marmalade just about one year ago – kind of blows me away. I don’t even buy it at the farmers’ market. If I want jam, I just go to my storecupboard and dig out some of last summer’s bounty. Or I make up a batch from something serendipitous that crosses my path, or falls out of my freezer, even in the middle of winter.

I am definitely a late arrival to the Canvolution party. But a very enthusiastic one nonetheless.

Rhubarb-apple jam
I found rhubarb for sale in the supermarket a couple of weeks ago. Normally I try very hard to buy produce that’s in season, but rhubarb is my downfall and I cannot pass it by.

I got the basic idea for this concoction from A Year in a Bottle, an Australian canning cookbook, and then fiddled with it based upon this advice on making jam without a recipe from Dinner with Julie.

- roughly equal amounts of rhubarb and tart apple (weighing or measuring to be done after all cleaning, peeling, coring, chopping etc. completed)
- 1 cup of sugar for every 2-3 cups of fruit
- ½ cup apple juice or water
- 1-2 Tbsp lime juice

Combine all ingredients in a large pot over medium-high heat and stir to combine thoroughly. Continue stirring regularly while mixture comes to a boil; mash chunks of fruit with a potato masher or similar as they start to soften, to assist with breaking up and make the finished jam a more consistent texture. When mixture boils, lower heat as necessary and continue cooking until it has reduced and is starting to look like jam. (There are various tests you can use – thermometers, saucers in the freezer, and so on – but when I can draw a line across the bottom of the pan and see it for more than a few seconds, I shut the heat off.)

When it has cooled a bit, spoon into jars and refrigerate for immediate use. To can, follow the usual method and process in boiling water for 10 minutes.

Yields will vary depending on the amount of fruit you use.

English influences

Quinces are not indigenous to Australia, but this is the first place I’ve encountered them in the flesh (as it were). I heard many tales of them while I was living in England—cookbook authors in particular rhapsodizing about their scent and their quintessential, historic Englishness—but I never actually saw one, not even in a farmers’ market. Then, as my first summer in Australia turned to autumn, I walked into the supermarket one day and saw something that looked like a large, bulbous pear with five o’clock shadow. The sign over the bin said “Quince,” and I took one home to see what it was like.

Since our first fortuitous meeting, I’ve cooked and consumed several (you can’t eat them raw), and can report that they are delicious—like the very subtle and superior offspring of an apple and a pear. I’ve also found out a few other things: that they are not actually English, or not originally anyway (they’re from the Caucasus and really prefer a warmer climate, something they have in common with many other inhabitants of England); that they do not require a sledgehammer or a meat cleaver to open, as my sources led me to fear (although a heavy, sharp knife helps); that the longer you cook it, the redder the originally creamy flesh turns; and that they do in fact make your kitchen smell delightful.

And, since I am nothing if not loyal to my previous produce-aisle discoveries, I will also share that poached quince mixed with roasted rhubarb is fan-tastic in any of the iterations mentioned below.

Poached quince
This is really just a guideline for quantities, flavorings, and timings; fiddle around to get the texture and taste you like best.

2 quinces, peeled, cored, and cut into eighths (allocate a bit of time, patience, and muscle power for this)
3 Tbsp wine of your choice
1 cup water
2-3 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp each lemon/lime zest and juice
Dash of salt
Sprinkling of any combination of the following spices: cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, cardamom

Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan. Bring to the boil and simmer until the quinces are tender, which will take at least 30 minutes. Serve as is, over ice cream, alongside cake, mixed with yogurt and granola for breakfast….

Farmers' Market

I finally made it to the Canberra Farmers’ Market last weekend. (It only took six months.) This is one of the things that I want to do here that is difficult to do without a car, since it’s several miles north of the city center, and it’s only open from 8-11am on Saturdays (farmers are busy people, you know). Difficult, but not impossible; it is on a bus route, and now that I’ve scoped it out, we’ll see just how devoted I am to the Farmers’ Market (FM) ethos when I have to schlep all the way up there on a bus and lug all my produce home on my back.

The Canberra FM may well be worth all that effort. It is by far the biggest FM I’ve been to, with a couple of dozen stalls in a big open shed selling produce, meats, fish, cheeses, baked goods, plants, flowers, and more. Even having gone by car, I still didn’t have enough time to see everything I wanted to (I’m not sure even three hours would be enough), but I still managed to do plenty of damage.

Of course I was thinking the whole time about how excited I was, and how I was going to blog about it, and taking pictures, etc. But then afterwards I was thinking, what is it? What is it about the FM that would drive me (a seriously lazy person, as anyone who knows me personally can attest) to get up early on a Saturday morning and spend an hour each way on public transport to buy potentially more expensive versions of the same things that I can find at the supermarket? I know everyone talks about buying organic, buying local, buying seasonal: and those are all good, compelling—even noble—reasons for going to FMs. But none of them adequately explains the sense of excitement, of possibility, of rightness that I get every time I walk into one.

Five Reasons Why I Love the FM
1. There is no better way to see what is actually in season where you live. When you go to the supermarket, you can buy pretty much the same stuff all year round. The only way you can tell if something is in season is that it gets cheaper (assuming you notice that sort of thing).
2. Things that are in season are not necessarily more expensive at the FM. In fact, when they are at the height of their season, they are quite likely to be cheaper, as farmers will have a glut that they want to get rid of.
3. Much as I enjoy food shopping in any form, there’s no question that the supermarket is a pretty sterile environment. Sometimes, even standing in the middle of the produce aisle, among all those shiny, perfect displays, it’s hard to imagine or remember that someone actually grew the stuff. Not so at the FM: often the produce is still dirty, the displays are haphazard at best, and chances are good that the person you are buying it from is also the one who pulled it out of the ground or off a plant early that morning.
4. You can find things at the FM that you will probably never, ever see at the supermarket. My find of 2008 was a basket of sour cherries from the Greenfield (Mass.) FM. On this, my first trip to the Canberra FM, I found finger limes (see above), an indigenous Australian variety that I had heard about but not yet seen anywhere.
5. FM food just tastes better. It hasn’t been shipped as far as supermarket food, so it’s fresher; it hasn’t been bred to look good, travel well and last forever, at the expense of its flavor; and it’s grown in small, specialized varieties and quantities, rather than mass produced.

**********************

PS: I know I sound like a broken record, but I have to reiterate yet again how good roasted rhubarb is, and how amazing it is mixed with fresh peaches. I made it again this week with some of my FM booty, and this time I added cardamom as well as cinnamon (and sugar). It was so good I nearly floated away. I've already eaten it twice today. Those of you in the northern hemisphere, please make a note for when there's some seasonal produce handy. As far as I'm concerned, this leaves the time-honored strawberry-rhubarb combo in the dust. And not just because of the Fail Jam incident. Although I did think, when I was eating this, "Why would I bother trying to make jam again when this is so much better?"

Slow learning

[In case anyone is still wondering: no, we in Canberra have not been affected by the recent bushfires, for which we are very grateful. Please spare a thought—and maybe a few bob or bucks—for the people of Victoria after last weekend’s terrible events.]


And now to return to our regularly scheduled nattering…


I love my slow cooker, and always feel as though I want to be using it more than I am. So when I came across A Year of Crockpotting a few months ago, I squealed with joy and promptly started working my way through the archives from January 1. If you’re not familiar with it, the blog arose when Stephanie, the author, made a commitment to using her slow cooker every day of 2008. She did it, too, and along the way used her slow cooker in ways heretofore unimagined, at least by me.

I’ve bookmarked dozens of recipes, most of which I have yet to try. But in the course of my reading, I did absorb two important concepts about using the slow cooker:

1. It’s a good tool for cooking things that are likely to burn in the oven.

2. It’s a good substitute for the oven when you don’t want to turn the oven on—the obvious reason being that you don’t want to leave the oven on in an empty house, and the less immediately apparent reason being that it’s too #@!$%?& hot to turn the oven on in the first place.

With these two ideas in mind, I’ve been doing some experimenting over the last few weeks, when the temperature has consistently been hovering in the high 30s C (around 100F). I’ve made:

- Baked potatoes
- Croutons
- Roasted tomatoes
- Granola
- Pizza sauce
- Chicken stock
- Roasted zucchini
- Bacon

My favorite so far, though, has been a slow-cooker version of this roasted rhubarb recipe, taken to another level with the addition of fresh sliced peaches during the last hour of cooking. Mixed into a bowl of Greek yogurt, with a generous fistful of (slow-cooked) homemade granola sprinkled over the top, it provided a transcendental breakfast every day for a week. Which is really saying something when it’s so hot that even I don’t feel like eating.

Seasonal disorientation

It’s the middle of November. What does November make you think of? Changing leaves, football, pumpkins? Warm woollies, gray skies, stews and pies?

How about blazing sun, fresh cherries and flip flops? Picnics in the park? Ice cream?

Welcome to the southern hemisphere.

And you know all that stuff they say about how your body responds to changes in seasons, light, and temperature?

Well, I’ve decided that’s all hooey as far as appetite, or my appetite anyway, is concerned. The calendar says November, and therefore my brain says “apple pie.” Incessantly. The fact that it’s 85 and sunny outside doesn’t make as much difference as you might expect.

What does make a difference, though, is those dispiriting, unnaturally shiny end-of-winter storage apples that are all the average supermarket has to offer in the middle of spring. Kills my apple pie buzz dead every time. For a while.

Sigh.

I guess I’ll just have to take consolation in the fact that I can eat my own body weight in rhubarb for the second time in six months.


Rx4 Rhubarb
This is my adaptation of Ruth Reichl’s Roasted Rhubarb, from her wonderful memoir Garlic and Sapphires. It tastes good at any temperature, and can be eaten at any meal of the day, or indeed straight from the pan or fridge if necessary. But it is especially good served warm, as dessert, with a crisp sugar cookie or two alongside.

2 lbs/1 kg rhubarb, sliced into 1-inch pieces
¼-½ cup cinnamon sugar

Place rhubarb in an ovenproof dish, which can be lightly greased with butter if desired. Sprinkle liberally with cinnamon sugar and toss to coat. Repeat. If you like it on the sweet side, repeat again. Roast in a hot oven (anywhere from 325F/165C to 425F/210C—it can adapt to whatever else you might need to cook in the oven simultaneously) for about 30 minutes.

Serves 1. Okay, 4 if you decide you want to share.