Trying to submit this entry to Fanny’s SHF event, before the deadline, was like running desperately towards the closing doors of a train. Just made it, phew! I know it’s months away til Christmas, but seeing as Christmas for us falls in the Summer, it never seems to make sense to be eating heavy, traditional Christmas fare in the middle of a heatwave.

I have been meaning to make Christmas themed cupcakes for ages now; ever since the cold June winds prompted the outpouring of scarves and jumpers from the depths of my wardrobe. Like most things however, there never seemed to be enough time in any given week to get started on it, and now I feel I’ve almost missed the train on celebrating Christmas while it is still fairly cool. I even have a huge jar of homemade fruit mince sitting in my fridge, waiting to be turned into my favourite Christmas treat, mince tarts (and fruit mince cupcakes)!

The mince cupcakes have yet to be made, but I finally managed to make the ones pictured above, that are meant to resemble Christmas trees. Why cupcakes, you might ask. Well, to me, they are “neat, sweet, petite”. Just like the Addams family. And like the Addams family, not everyone likes them, but those who do, absolutely love them!

For the base, I used this recipe. Throw in some heart-warming spices and a thatch of green tinted ultra-smooth buttercream, and what you’ve got is Christmas, any time of the year 🙂

I hurt my ankle yesterday trying to do something stupid. I’d rather not get into the embarassing details, but let’s just say it involved as innocuous a task as hanging up the laundry. Which just goes to show that the path of Domesticity is fraught with too many dangers and should best be avoided at all costs! Lucky for me it’s my day off, as I wouldn’t have relished the thought of having to hobble around work with a dodgy ankle. B has recommended lots of rest and sitting in front of the TV, but stuff that, I’d rather be in our kitchen, trying out a new recipe and listening to something I discovered we had albums of : 80’s Madonna!

So while I’m hobble-dancing around to the ma-ma-ma-material girl, here is something I had bookmarked to try. A deconstructed cheesecake which Elizabeth Falkner calls Waking Up In A City That Never Sleeps. Her version consists of cheesecake custard, sour cream sorbet, graham cracker powder and blueberry paper. I made mine with lemon sorbet, raspberry sorbet, ginger crumbs and raspberry paper.

I’ve never been a huge fan of cheesecake, but was attracted to this recipe because I like the flavours that we commonly associate with cheesecake. What usually trips the whole thing up for me is when the filling is dense and cloying, and the base has lost it’s contrasting texture.

Here however, the traditional cheesecake has been taken apart and each component allowed to shine. The cream cheese custard is light (though not as light as I hoped it would be), the sorbets add a refreshing element to the whole and the raspberry paper is just plain fun.

Fun, because isn’t that what eating dessert is a big part of? 🙂

Being an avid baker ever since I was a kid, I have attempted making many things over the years, often with varying degrees of success and failure. I have impatiently attempted filo pastry from scratch, struggled through bagels and crumpets, pulled a triumphant pan of slightly singed flapjacks out of the oven, fried cinnamon donuts, cannoli and churros, made apple tarte tatin, and watched my thighs swell with pride at the sight and taste of sticky date pudding, pineapple upside down cake, banana bread and carrot cake. I have also baked scones (some heavy like rocks, some light as a feather) and chocolate chip cookies (repeatedly!), and slathered homemade strawberry jam on homemade bread. However, there are still some things that manage to slip past my radar, whenever I find myself in the kitchen.

I recently compiled a mental list of things I have yet to make, and that I would consider a crime if I never got round to attempting at least once in my lifetime. Things on that list include :

– Portuguese tarts
– Seville orange marmalade
– a marble or chequerboard cake
– panettone
– Michel Bras’ chocolate coulant
– a salad bowl of ice-creams (I bought some Dodoni feta the other day and am now obsessed with the idea of making a frozen Greek salad. Tomato sorbet, cucumber sorbet and black olive sorbet with Dodoni feta?)

(If anyone out there has very good and authentic recipes for any of the above (especially the Portuguese tarts), feel free to share! Please. 🙂 )

So with that list in mind, you’re probably thinking, what on earth am I doing making yet another apple crumble? Actually, this crumble is a little different, and does feature something I’ve been meaning to try.

I used to work with a French Canadian waitress who apart from being a fantastic waitress, also had a great love for food (it seems only fitting that she now runs her own cafe). I still recall her stories about the best maple syrup she would get back home, about the feasts she would have with family and friends and how she loved eating apple pie with a big slice of cheddar cheese. Serving apple pie with cheese was a new thing to me then, and I screwed my face up at the thought of it, having grown up with apple pie and nothing else but scoops of vanilla ice cream. Over time, I kind of warmed to the idea, so when I saw Elizabeth Falkner’s recipe for Apple of my eye, featuring tarte tatin apples, cheddar crumbles, cinnamon ice cream and a balsamic-apple reduction, I knew I had to try it. After making a few alterations (I included blackberry in my balsamic-apple reduction, and used a macadamia ice-cream instead of the suggested cinnamon one), I ended up with the dessert as pictured above.

The verdict? The balance of flavours is great and the resulting dish isn’t overly sweet. The cheddar crumbles, which also has bits of chopped pecan through it, is very tasty, even on it’s own, and I especially love the balsamic reduction which I foresee myself incorporating into other desserts in the future. In other words, I now know that I like apple pie (or crumble) and cheese as a combination, but I also know that it’s never going to replace the heavenly combination of apple pie and vanilla ice-cream that I have loved so much, ever since I was a kid.