Cake stand

Pavlova shell

I also made Nigella's Nutella Cake, from How to be a Domestic Goddess - also good for coeliacs (there was at least one on the guest list), and most people I know like Nutella! The batter for this smelled so good - just like the inside of a Ferrero Rocher. Mmm...

Nigella's torta alla gianduia

And here it is topped with ganache and toasted hazelnuts.

Nigella's torta alla gianduia

Caramel slice

... and some lemon slice.

Lemon slice

All packed up and ready to go!

Caipirinhas made with aged cachaça

Bobó de Camarão - prawn stew with cassava meal, tomato and coconut milk

Cassava pancake with prosciutto, tomato, cream cheese

Bobó de camarão and cassava pancake

Bolinhos

Bolinhos - some filled with minced beef, some filled with olives and cheese

My work wasn't quite done - I still had to decorate the pavlova and slice the cakes!

(Messily) decorate pavlova

And while we're here, I thought I might show you some innard shots. First up - fluffy pavlova...

Pavlova

Nutella Cake

The other week, I suddenly realised it had nearly been a year since I'd last seen my family friends Uncle Mike and Aunty Helen, and swiftly issued an invitation for dinner.  I also thought it would be the perfect opportunity to try out a full-on British roast beef dinner that I'd been wanting to do since, well, forever!

Mmm... beef.

A full English Roast Dinner for 6
Roast Rib of Beef
Roast Potatoes
Savoy Cabbage "the best way"
Cauliflower Cheese
Yorkshire Puddings
Horseradish Sauce
Onion Gravy

Bakewell Slice

The above recipes are all from Nigella's Feast, although various incarnations of most of those recipes appear in other books of hers.  In Feast, she refers to it as the Ultimate Sunday Lunch.  Who am I to argue?

Beef Rib

The beef in question was a gorgeous organic beef rib from Rendinas Butchery.  Beautiful!  We bought all the ingredients the day before, and then made our way over to Mum and Dad's place on Sunday arvo and spent the whole afternoon cooking.  Let's have a look, shall we?

Mmm... beef

I rubbed the beef in a mixture of garlic oil, porcini powder and mustard powder, for extra deliciousness.

Now, the all-important side dishes!

Savoy Cabbage "the best way"

Nigella's recipe for savoy cabbage is simply stir-fried with a bit of stock and other flavourings.  It complemented the rest of the menu well, but was a bit boring on its own.  I must admit, I only made the cabbage to be a bit healthy, and to try the complete menu.  But now we get on to the fun sides!

Cauliflower Cheese

I frikkin LOVE cauliflower cheese.  It's so easy, and now I want to make it all the time.  Just blanch the cauliflower, make a white sauce, add unholy amounts of grated cheddar and bake it!  It goes with everything.  However, when you make it yourself, you see (there's no way you can avoid it), just how terribly rich and unhealthy it is.  Small portions, small portions!  You may remember that I had a wonderful cauliflower cheese at the Black Cow Bistro in Launceston, from whom I took the idea of sprinkling chives on the top.

Roast Potatoes

Nigella's recipe for roast potatoes.  Still the best.  This time, I eschewed the goosefat for slightly healthier olive oil, and they still turned out well.  You don't get the artery-clogging tasty coating, but they're still crunchy outside and fluffy within.

Yorkshire Puddings

Yorkshire puddings are also super-easy to make, but I've only ever made the savoury version once before. I just can't go past a sweet Yorkshire pud, whether it be plain with golden syrup and ice-cream, or studded with apples.  The savoury version, however, is perfect Sarah-food - crunchy on the outside, and mega-doughy on the inside.  Mmm.. stodge.

Yorkshire Puddings

Fluffy insides

But I know what y'all are really here for... pictures of the beef!  I tend to either overcook or undercook my meat, so I was relieved that the roast came out just the way I wanted it - browned and slightly crusty on the outside, and tenderly pink on the inside.  (Using a meat themometer makes it really easy!)

Medium rare slices

Mmm... beef

Interestingly enough, after sitting around for a little while, the slices lost their pinkness and became more brown.  I'm not sure if it's because they were continuing to cook, or if it was a reaction with the air. Ideas?

Not pictured but most definitely eaten were a marsala-onion gravy, and a horseradish sauce.  Nigella's horseradish sauce is a mixture of (amongst other things) Greek yoghurt, cream, horseradish and chives, and it was absolutely wonderful!  I tell you, chives make everything taste awesome.

Well, after that massive meal, there isn't really room for a proper dessert, so I did the Bakewell slice in half-quantities, just something small and sweet to mark the end of the meal.

Bakewell Slice

Bakewell pie consists of a shortbready pastry, topped with jam and then an almondy frangipane.  (I previously made a version with fresh raspberries here, and very good it was too).  This time, I made it in a mini-foil barbeque tray, which means it's very easy to make (no need to roll out the pastry, just press it into the tin).  The foil tray also means that the base cooks evenly all the way through, and is incredibly buttery and crispy.

The Bakewell slice went down really well - I didn't think we'd get through more than half of it, but we polished the whole thing off!  Even German Sandra, who was suspicious of this strange-sounding British dessert, loved it and had seconds.  Even more exciting, Uncle Mike asked for the recipe. That means my attempt at cooking English food for an English person was a success!  Yay!

Bakewell slice, sliced

I spent the next week eating the most wonderful roast beef sandwiches - cold roast beef, grainy toast, cheese and horseradish cream.  As if you needed another excuse to get roasting!

Condensed Milk Lemon Slice

Label on the tin!

Lemon slice!  It used up a whole tin of condensed milk, and I had the rest of the ingredients at home.  Perfect! (Although after I made this lemon slice, I realised that Nigella's blondie recipe in Kitchen also uses a whole tin of condensed milk. And I've wanted to make that one for ages!  D'oh!)

Anyhoo, this one is a bit different from the standard Aussie lemon slice.  It's a shortbready base, covered with a sweet and densely creamy lemon topping. 

In progress!

You start by mixing 1.5 cups plain flour with 1/2 cup icing sugar and 150g melted butter.  Press it into a tray (I used a 20 x 30cm foil tray - I bought some recently because Nigella has a zillion recipes using foil trays in Kitchen.)...

Shortbread base

... and bake for 15 mins in a 180C oven, until golden!

Baked shortbread base

For the topping, you mix a 400gm can of condensed milk, 1 egg, 1 tbs grated lemon rind, 1/2 cup lemon juice, 2 tbs plain flour and 1 tsp baking powder.

Condensed Milk Lemon Filling

Pour it over the shortbread base...

Condensed Milk Lemon Filling

...and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until set.

Condensed Milk Lemon Slice

The recipe says to let it cool in the pan and refrigerate, before eating it.  Y'all know I wasn't gonna do that, haha.  I prised out the slice while it was still warm, dusted it with icing sugar, and sliced it into squares.  On a side note, the foil tray worked really well!  The base was crispy all the way through and there was no greasing or lining required.  (On an environmental note, the trays are recyclable and no detergent is needed to clean them, yay!)

Condensed Milk Lemon Slice

As you can imagine, it was very sweet, so was best enjoyed in small slices with a cup of tea or coffee.  Although there was something very compulsive about it... with its rich, caramelly filling, and crispy base, I found it hard to stop at just one piece!

Condensed Milk Lemon Slice
Recipe from the back of the condensed milk tin in 2010, rewritten in my own words

Ingredients
For the base
1 + 1/2 cup plain flour
1/2 cup icing sugar
150 grams butter, melted and allowed to cool
For the topping
1 x 400 gram tin sweetened condensed milk
1 egg
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest
1/2 cup lemon juice
2 tablespoons plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder

Method
Preheat the oven to 180C.
Grease and line a 20 x 30 cm lamington tray. (Alternatively use a foil tray, no need to line or grease).
For the base, stir together the plain flour, icing sugar, and butter.
Press this mixture evenly into the prepared tray. Bake for 15 minutes, or until golden.
For the topping, whisk together the sweetened condensed milk, egg, lemon zest, lemon juice, plain flour and baking powder until smoothly combined.
Pour the topping over the base (you don't need to wait for the base to cool completely). Return the tray to the oven and cook for 25-30 minutes, or until set.
Allow to cool completely, then refrigerate. Cut into small squares to serve.
Makes 24 squares, depending on how big you cut them

Have you made this recipe? Leave a comment below! Tag me on Instagram @sarahcooksblog and hashtag #sarahcooksblog

Hedgehog
Lemon Slice - my favourite!

Following the success of the charity cupcakes, but before the Lunch itself, Adri and I sold some slices to raise more money for the Lunch for Leukaemia. (Pics still to come!) We thought slices might sell a bit faster, as they could be sold for cheaper, requiring less commitment and thought from the consumer.

Lemon slice is part of the homely Australian repertoire, easy to whip up, and a regular feature at afternoon teas, school fetes and the like. Whilst different versions and recipes abound, the lemon slice of my fond memory is always unbaked and contains a base of crushed biscuits, lemon juice and rind, butter, condensed milk and coconut, which is refrigerated, and then topped with a lemon icing.

My lemon slice recipe came from a decades-old Women's Weekly book entitled The Big Book of Beautiful Biscuits, but this one online is pretty much the same. Give it a go, lemon slice is fabulous!

I didn't have an appropriately sized lamington tin, so I used a baking sheet with a new expandable tin that I bought in Germany. It's ausziehbar in alle Richtungen!


At first, I was just going to make the lemon slice, but it was so quick and easy that I thought, "hey, why not make some chocolate hedgehog as well?" (I had been drooling over the recipe, found here at the Cadbury website, for days beforehand). The method is similar to lemon slice, although the ingredients differ. The biscuits aren't crushed as finely as for a lemon slice, and the base is made up of sugar, eggs, cocoa, nuts, melted butter and coconut.

The topping is made of a heart-stoppingly delicious mixture of dark chocolate and butter.


As with the lemon slice, it needs to be refrigerated until firm, and then sliced. As you can see from the photo below, I cut the hedgehog into the same sized squares as the lemon slice, but if I weren't selling these, I'd definitely cut the hedgehog into smaller fingers. It's incredibly rich, and tastes better eaten in tiny pieces. (This is purely for taste reasons, not portion control. In fact, I tend to eat more of something when it's cut into bite-sized pieces).

Packed and ready to go...

The sales of these ones went really well too - Adri sold them all for a gold coin donation each (well done!!!) and I think only ONE lemon slice got stolen! Yay!