Three Cheese Scones

Seven years ago we renovated our kitchen. My original plan was to refurbish the existing, serviceable footprint with a few tweaks. A recurring oven fault and tight squeeze around the dinner table were the tipping points, a third thermostat in 8 years on a supposedly high-quality oven will do that. While waving my arms around sharing my vision with my co-chair of Frawley Inc I noticed his distraction and, as you can probably imagine, asked if he was listening. Then he shared his vision. A far bigger project. One involving the deletion of a wall and moving of the whole kitchen to the room behind the wall.

The room in question was an under used home theatre style room we’d inherited on purchasing the home. It all seemed a bit fabulous and exciting when we bought the house, the notion of a fancy home theatre room, but in reality in the space it inhabited with young kids it just never worked. Consequently, it sat largely unused taking up space, a great source of frustration but a puzzle I didn’t know what to do with. Relinquishing the space he imagined as a haven, my husband made his own suggestion expanding the existing kitchen to be an enlarged dining and relaxation space and pushing the kitchen into the ‘home theatre’ area. In doing this we were able to deal with a pesky aspect of a staircase encroaching into the room and hide it in a butler’s pantry and most importantly take advantage of the natural light from a floor to ceiling window. With stars in my eyes imagining my new food and cooking temple I was laser focussed on appliances, benches, storage and design. It felt like my own taj mahal story, boy builds temple of love for girl, minus the tomb factor of course… a stretch? Not for this starry-eyed cook, I was on board and so the ‘project’ began.

It was a largely hurdle free project, presenting few hiccups and coming together as we imagined. My beautiful Falcon oven, engineered stone bench, stone sink and walk in pantry. She was a thing of beauty. I felt inspired and on completion stood at my bench like a queen presiding over my kingdom. After unpacking and restoring the space to a liveable workable hub for the family, my cooking life returned to normal. The flow of the day beginning and ending in our sparkling new white kitchen my routine and life revolved around the new room. I’d gained room to move and create, store my ever-growing collection of cooking paraphernalia and host friends and family. What I didn’t anticipate amidst our winter build was the warmth and light. Facing the optimal southern hemisphere northern aspect our kitchen became an area flooded with gorgeous all-encompassing sunshine fuelled light. Shadows danced across the floor and bench gamboling like an aurora, starburst patterns peaked through the trees adorning the corners of the windows and warmth flooded the room. We embarked on our renovation in winter. Obsessed with all that would come in my new kitchen dreaming only of the food and joy it would bring I never thought of the architectural aspect in any great detail apart from the obvious internal aspects. But on that first morning alone in my glorious light filled hearth of home, coffee in hand, cookbooks spread before me I was struck by my warm back. Bathed in winter sunshine, gorgeous crystal light and birdsong I was filled with joy. He was right (don’t tell him I said that), it was the perfect idea.

Born of a wonderful idea my kitchen has become home to many of my ideas. The birthplace of inspiration for all manner of creations some triumphs, some mainstays and some unmentionable ‘lessons’ committed to the ranks of ‘lessons learned.’ Thankfully the renovation was not a lesson learned but rather a triumph and has created a place for all to gather.

As a family we’ve gathered at the end of our days to debrief while I cook dinner, or on weekends to enjoy breakfast and catch up in a more relaxed fashion. With our friends we’ve kicked off many evenings in our kitchen enjoying a welcoming drink while we indulge in a pre-dinner nibble and of course we’ve gathered for a coffee and catch up with a morning or arvo tea snack. Three Cheese Scones seem to fit many of these occasions. Made small to enjoy with a glass of bubbly, perhaps hot with lashings of butter for a weekend breaky with eggs, after school to fill hungry bellies and soothe a day away or to split with a pal bathed in beautiful winter sunshine warming hearts, minds and bellies.

Ingredients:

450 gm (2 ½ C) self raising flour

½ tsp dry mustard

¾ tsp salt flakes

1 ½ tbs chopped fresh chives (dried is fine if that’s all you have, use 1 Tb)

90 gm cubed cold butter

75 gm grated cheddar cheese

20 gm finely grated fresh parmesan cheese

40 gm crumbled Greek feta cheese

350 ml buttermilk plus a spoonful extra to brush/glaze the scones before baking

Method:

Preheat oven to 200c and line a large baking sheet with baking paper.

In a large bowl combine dry ingredients and chives and mix using a whisk. Scatter in butter cubes and rub in until butter is well combined, some butter lumps are fine. Sprinkle in cheese and lightly toss together with your fingers tossing from the bottom to the top to evenly distribute.

Make a well in the centre and pour in the buttermilk. Using a butter knife or palette knife mix through to a shaggy dough. Tip onto bench and using your hands, gently bring any remaining dry bits together. Once combined gently press (don’t use a rolling pin just gently press with your hands) out to a rectangle roughly 24cm x 14cm cut in half forming two pieces 12x14 and place one on top of the other. Press out gently again to form a 20cm x 15cm rectangle. Now cut into 12 pieces cutting three by four pieces. Place your square scones on the tray, brush tops with remaining buttermilk and pop in the oven. Bake for 18 minutes or until golden brown on the tops.

Allow to cool five minutes while you boil the kettle, serve broken apart not cut and spread with lashings of butter.

You could make these in smaller sized scones and serves with a charcuterie platter and drinks. They’ll also be delicious with salmon and pikcles.

Potato Pancakes

Today is my 100th edition of Food, Finds and Forays!! Cue champagne corks, poppers and fireworks. I perhaps should have written a recipe for a celebratory cocktail with froth and bubbles or a layered cake, cream oozing from the sides crowned with lavish florals atop lashings of flavoured Swiss meringue butter cream but alas the last two weeks had other plans for me.

Winter arrived like a dame on the stage, arms out swept, cape draping from her arms in grandeur singing her aria. Not an arrival like a loud rock band crashing through the stage curtain with its thunderous arrival, rather a resounding entrance that gets your attention and respect in one fell swoop making you sit up and take notice. The mornings are frosty, the nights chilled and the air icy from foggy starts. With the cold blanket that’s swept over us so too did the season’s ills.

With a winter bug nipping at my heels like a pesky puppy I was grounded last week. A bit of a phantom bug of sorts, one day laid low with an overwhelming malaise the next seemingly fine, finally I was felled with whatever it was. Thankfully not the dreaded winter bug we all dread these days. Hot on the heels of that, a quick winter camping trip on a friend’s farm. Mad perhaps but a lovely getaway none the less. Days of winter sunshine and frosty nights around the campfire was strangely just the ticket.

And now here we are, number 100! So I thought we could have a quick wander down memory lane. Two and a half years ago we started with this humble chai cake. A lovely melt and mix her golden crumb with a hint of gentle spice was both enticing and a firm favourite. Her reliable comfort makes her one of the most cooked recipes on the blog. Following on with easy theme has been some delicious easy to throw together dinners that have been popular with my boys, always simple to put together and usually provided loads of leftovers. This one pot meat, veg and pasta dish from my childhood is one of my faves, but I also love this hacked paella to stave off the craving without the faff.

There’s been a strong curry theme too with another one pot number of chicken and rice or a slow cooked lamb and carrot dish for when there’s a little more time and a wintry noodle soup.

But bakes have always had a big run. Both an easy and heirloom chocolate cake and chocky cookies of course. And because we must keep our fruit up, strawberry sheet cake and raspberry and mandarin olive oil cake.

Sooooo many delish recipes that I still love and am super proud of. It’s actually made it hard to decide how to celebrate reaching 100!!! For a person not known for necessarily lasting for 100 of anything it feels like quite the achievement, one worthy of some grand feast. Perhaps a luxurious fillet of beef with a red wine jus or dinner of Lobster with a rich butter sauce of sorts. Or maybe we should toast 100 with a fine champers and luscious cake of fine crumb, clouds of cream and sugar and fairy floss. Yeah all sounds wonderful but it wouldn’t really be in keeping with its 99 predecessors. You see I like to keep things simple fast and tasty here. So simple it is.

My mum loved potatoes. I mean really loved them. Her love of hot chippies and every other iteration of the humble spud is the stuff of legend. As a career woman who was one of the hardest working women I knew and someone who didn’t like cooking potatoes and meals based around them were often her go to. Comfort food for her after perhaps a hard day’s work and indeed an ingredient she could wield into a plethora of meals. 

A frequent recipe on our tables, one taught to her by her great grandmother was what Mum called Potato Pancakes. Somewhere between a rosti, hash brown and pancake and an homage to her German/Jewish heritage of a few generations prior, they were a family favourite. We had them as the star of the plate, but I prefer to cook them with a salad and oozy poached egg. We’ve also had them with leftover corned beef and smoked salmon amongst other things. A little more substantial than a breakfast rosti, perhaps almost a fritter, they make a delicious base for an easy light meal after a busy day.

So my hundred newsletters are bookended with simple humble recipes full of flavour and easy to put together.

Ingredients:

50 gm (1/4 c & 1Tb) of plain flour

1 tsp salt flakes

¼ tsp grated nutmeg

¼ tsp garlic powder

2 pinches ground white pepper

2 eggs

2 Tb crème fraiche or sour cream

500 gm grated peeled potato lightly squeezed of excess liquid

Oil to fry with

Method:

In a large bowl combine dry ingredients. In a medium bowl beat together eggs and crème fraiche and add to dry ingredients combining well with a whisk. Set aside.

Peel and grate potatoes and gently squeeze excess liquid from the flesh. Discard liquid and tip potato into dry ingredients. Mix well with a large spoon until completely amalgamated. It’s important to only prepare the potatoes just before you’re ready as they will discolour if left too long and more liquid will leach out making it too wet.

Heat a large pan over medium low heat covering the base with the oil. We’re not deep frying but we want the base covered with oil coming up 1-2 mm when the mixture is in the pan.

When ready, using a ¼ cup measure drop mounds of mixture into the hot oil and flatten out. Cook gently until golden brown then flip and cook the other side. It’s important to use a gentle heat  so the potato has time to cook through as well as the out side go crispy and delicious. Cook in batches so as not to over crowd the pan.

Drain on paper towel until they’re all done and serve with your favourite accompaniment.

Makes 8 fritters.

Apricot and Cardamon Sweet Buns

Earlier this week I was coaxed out early in the morning for my walk by the sudden burst of warm spring weather. My usual listening wasn’t available at the earlier hour so I searched for a podcast to keep me distracted. I was up to date on all my usual favourites so thought I’d search for something new and landed on this one. Listening to Ruth and Julia chat all things food was obviously right up my alley but the premise of the podcast and where that went was of greater interest. Julia invites older women (she’s 61) on Wiser Than Me, to chat about life and what it’s taught them. I was taken with the conversation enjoying listening to Ruth’s recollections on her career in food writing, but one statement jumped out at me, “the only thing that really keeps you young, is constantly doing things you don’t know how to do.” Somewhere in my subconscious I knew this to be so. We’re advised to do puzzles, learn a language or even a musical instrument to stay young, but hearing an older woman (she’s 75) who I admire, state it as her greatest piece of life advice brought it to the surface.

Also this week this substack dropped. I love reading Kate’s words, always beautiful describing her world and observations in a captivating and artful way. She described her experience of being stopped in her tracks, quite literally while driving from home through country Victoria, by the captivating site of a landscape jewelled by shades of gold and emerald. This moment in time that drew her to the roadside to inhale the ‘wonder’ of its beauty was the theme for her ponderings this week. Wonder and it’s importance in life, in moments and in the everyday. It felt both fitting and in keeping with the thoughts of Ruth. Wonder and knowledge and a fulfilling life.

A month or so ago I enrolled in and began an online course to improve my baking skills called The Science of Baking. I have a reasonable knowledge base for baking but lots of gaps and no real understanding of the chemistry of the ingredients I use and how everything interacts. Working my way through this course has been both enlightening and exciting. I know, very geeky of me but we all have our thing right? Anyway what’s been most exciting is the learning, joining the dots, filling the gaps and gasping at all the ‘lightbulb’ moments. Whilst educational it’s been enlightening and invigorating.

With a lifelong innate sense of curiosity flavour ideas often come to mind. Some work, some don’t. Sometimes my curiosity is driven by an unusual recipe with an ingredient combination I may not have previously tried or one I can’t even imagine tasting. Like the ‘Secret Ingredient Spaghetti” recipe, spoiler alert, dark chocolate in Spaghetti Bolognese doesn’t work. Other times classic combinations reimagined into something new is a delight and revelation all its own.

My newly acquired skills have inspired many flavour ponderings recently. Often popping in my head in the middle of the night, hi there hot flushes and insomnia, remembering these can be a challenge, “sit down brain fog.” Sometimes though I do manage to retain the idea and see it through to fruition.

Golden tangy apricots came to mind when my face was warmed by all this premature balmy weather. Juice dripping from glowing orbs one of summer’s great joys. But alas not yet. Still weeks to go until they, with their orchard fruit family, appear in stores, but the dried variety are ever present and available. Richer in flavour I remembered enjoying them in a sweet, yeasted bun as a child, encased in fluffy sweet dough and drizzled with white chocolate, they were a favourite bakery treat. As is my wont however, and armed with my burgeoning knowledge of yeast and wheat I pondered a reimaging of sorts of my much-loved childhood favourite. Imagining a more mature flavour pairing than the one of my youth I mixed and measured, waited and shaped and waited again. Like that child with anticipation, I perched near my oven, its light on, peering through the glass watching the ‘show’ of yeast, sugar and all their comrades at play growing into plump, fluffy yeasted buns of my own.

And there it was…wonder!

The union of learning and wonder colliding to create delight and awe. The invigorating realisation that at any step in our day and journey there’s always something round every corner to learn and take our breath away.

Seeing an idea evolve to a successful completion is a wonder all its own and one urge you to try. Don’t be shy of trying to cook with yeast. It’s an ingredient that can intimidate even the most skilled and experienced cook but one that is the root of some the most delicious foods in life and that has endured throughout centuries.

Ingredients:

Buns:

120 gm Dried apricots, roughly chopped

500 gm bread flour

3 tsps dried yeast

½ tsp all spice

2 tsp ground cardamon

80 gm golden caster sugar (white is fine if that’s all you have)

100 gm of very soft butter

200ml of room temp milk (you can microwave this for 30 seconds if you’re in a rush or baking spontaneously)

2 eggs, room temp again please

50 gm candied citrus peel

Finely grated zest of one orange

1 heaped tsp salt flakes

Icing:

2/3 c icing sugar

2 Tb sour cream

2 tsp orange juice from the zested orange.

Method:

In a small bowl cover apricots in boiling water, set aside to soak while you prepare your other ingredients.

In the bowl of a stand mixer combine all other ingredients. Drain, apricots and press you’re your hand to squeeze out remaining liquid and add to the bowl with other ingredients.

Set stand mixer to med low until all dry ingredients are amalgamated, 1-2 minutes, then increase speed to med and knead for 8 minutes. It’s quite a sticky dough, don’t be tempted to add flour, just let it do its thing. I like to stop a couple times during this part and scrape the sides down to help things along.

While the dough is mixing, grease a large glass bowl with butter (see notes), set aside.

When kneading is complete, turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Again, don’t be tempted to add more flour, just a light sprinkling if it needs help to not stick to the bench and your hands. Give the dough a light knead by hand just to make sure the fruit is evenly distributed. Place smooth side up in the greased bowl loosely covered with cling wrap and set aside in a warm draft free spot to prove until double in size.. see notes.

If proving in the oven, remove. Preheat oven to 180c and line a baking tray with baking paper.

When doubled in size (about two hours) turn out onto a lightly floured surface again. The greasing in the bowl should help this along. Gently divide the dough into 12 equal sized pieces shaping into ball shapes. Line up on the tray and leave in a warm spot again with a tea towel over the top. This will let them puff up slightly and relax after being handled. Rest them for 30 minutes.

Brush with an egg wash and bake for 30 minutes.

Allow to cool completely and ice with combined icing ingredients. You may like to sprinkle with roasted almond flakes or toasted coconut flakes.

Or you could rip one open hot and slather in butter and enjoy with the oozy butter running between your fingers, your choice.

Notes:

If it’s cooler where you are or you lack a warm spot for your dough try this tip. Turn the light on in your oven when it first occurs to you to cook buns. The ambient warmth from the light will be just right for a consistent temperature to help your yeast along and of course an oven is guaranteed draft free.

While your dough is in the mixer fill the glass bowl with hot tap water to warm it up. The dough will be a nice temp from mixing to kick off the proving process, warming the bowl first ensures the dough isn’t ‘shocked’ by being transferred to a cold bowl.

GF Almond Spice Granola

The alarm gently trills from my watch. It feels loud this morning ‘til I realise its right next to my head. I fumble for the button to quieten it, snooze a few more minutes. It trills again, I know today I can’t hit that button again. Magpies warble at my window sill, I hear my husband moving around getting ready for his day, run through the day in my head, I fumble for the button and turn off the alarm. Blinking a few times forcing sand from eyes I reach for my glasses check my phone (I know) and surrender to the inevitable. The day begins, showered ready to go. After squeezing in an early morning appointment I’m off for jaunt down the coast to work on a wonderful project, it’s going to be a big day. With my photographer’s hat on, my mind is ticking through all the wonderful possibilities for today’s shoot, the creative joy of working with a like-minded soul on a shared passion coursing through my veins. I wander downstairs very grateful for yesterday Sally who prepared brekky for today Sally. What a clever gem she was, because no matter how invigorated I feel I’m still not a morning person. I try, I want to be, I make plans to reach that goa, but I never quite make it. I’m also a brekky lover, indeed it’s the only way to get me fired up, that and a strong almond milk flat white coffee….very strong. The delicious spicy crunch of nuts and seeds held together with honey burnished in the oven to crisp the mixture up to little clusters atop creamy thick Greek yoghurt and the tang of fresh berries is one of my favourite ways to start the day, and when I know I have big schedule ahead of me a delicious meal I can make ahead and ignite my mind and body.

Whilst I’m lucky enough to not be a coeliac sometimes a brekky heavy in grains can still feel a little heavy in the morning for me. With that in mind I’ve leaned on gluten free ingredients for a satisfying and nourishing mix to top my yoghurt with a little crunchy sprinkle. A nice little handful of clusters also makes a great snack or even a lite sprinkle over ice cream to almost give a feel of a crumble type dessert. If not with fresh fruit this compote is perfect alongside the granola both at breakfast with yoghurt and of course at the other end of the day over ice cream.

Ingredients:

1 ½ c raw buckwheat

2/3 c whole raw almonds skin on

2/3 c slivered raw almonds

½ c raw macadamias either halved or roughly chopped

¼ c pumpkin seeds

¼ c sunflower seeds

2 Tb sesame seeds

1 c coconut flakes

2 ½ tsp ground cinnamon

¼ tsp ground allspice

½ tsp ground ginger

½ tsp ground cardamon

1/3 c olive oil

1/3 c honey

1 tsp vanilla

2 tsp brown sugar

Method:

Preheat oven to 160c (140c for fan forced).

Line a tray large enough to hold the ingredients in a single layer. Use two if you need to.

Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl, set aside. Combine Olive oil, honey and vanilla in a bowl whisking until combined. You can zap in the microwave for ten seconds if you need to loosen it.

Pour over drive ingredients and mix well to combine. Spread evenly on tray in a thin layer. Bake 15 minutes taking out to stir and turn well half way through cooking.

Remove and cool on bench. I like to slide the paper off the hot tray onto the bench. It’s coolness shock the granola and stops the cooking process.