Nigel Slater's Christmas cake, Pyengana Cheddar

It's the Friday night before Christmas, and I've taken Monday off work, so it's going to be a five-day weekend for me. Woohoo! It's been a hectic few weeks, but I finally have some time for a little rest! We're having our big festive family feast on Christmas Eve, and we already did all the shopping tonight after work. Gifts are (finally) all organised too! So for now all I need to do is curl up on the couch with a thick slice of Christmas cake and a mug of tea. Bliss!

For this year's Christmas cake, I decided to return to an old favourite: Nigel Slater's Christmas Cake. The recipe appears in his books: Appetite, (where it's simply, and aptly, titled: "A Big Fruit Cake"), and also in The Kitchen Diaries. Luckily for those of you who don't have these books, it's also available online - Nigel has posted the Christmas Cake recipe in his Guardian column.

The last time I made it was three years ago (see Christmas Cake post here) and it was definitely due for a repeat! (Just quietly, I like Nigel's Christmas Cake much better than Nigella's Classic Christmas Cake. Although having said that, I remember really liking her Chocolate Fruit Cake - so perhaps I'll give that a go again next year).

But, back to Nigel's cake: I baked it at the start of the month, and let it mature for twenty torturous days, only digging into it this week! Please, a round of applause at my amazing self-restraint. (Well, I did have a little sneak preview, but I'll tell you about that below).

Ingredients

I chose Calvados for my "feeding brandy" of choice - I got the idea from the lovely Gemma at Dressing for Dinner, and thought it sounded amazing. I still have the expensive bottle of Calvados I bought almost seven years ago for my Sarah Discovers How to Eat project - it's been with me through five jobs and three houses, and you know what? It was time to stop saving it and start enjoying it!

That's not to say that I'd be pouring the Calvados willy nilly - this is definitely a cake worthy of a $70 bottle of booze! I love the buff, cappuccino-coloured batter...

Obligatory whisk shot

I also really like the pleasing graininess of the different dried fruits. I found a packet of "fruit salad" dried fruits at the supermarket, which contained pretty much the perfect amounts of dried apples, pears, peaches, apricots and prunes, and were of an impressive quality. I just needed to add some dried figs and glacé cherries.

"Fruit Salad" mixed dried fruits

There are, of course, sultanas, raisins, currants and dried cranberries!

Cranberries, raisins, sultanas, currants

The whole cake is pretty easy to make - in fact, the hardest thing about it is chopping up all the sticky dried fruits. But it's worth it - look how pretty they all are - like gleaming jewels!

Christmas cake batter

Cake, pre-baking

I bought a deep 20-cm tin years ago, but have no idea where I put it, so I ended up using a normal 20cm springform tin and had quite a bit of batter leftover. I baked the remainder in mini-foil muffin tins. Cute, right?

Mini Christmas Cakes

This also meant that - muahaha! - I got to eat one on the same day it was baked! Christmas cake always smells so good baking, and it's so hard not digging in straight away! Of course, they taste better after having matured, but that freshly-baked aroma is just too tantalising to resist...

Mini Christmas cake on day of baking

Shall we have a look at the large cake, after its maturation time?

Christmas cake

I'm know there's a school of thought that prefers cute little mini-Christmas cakes, especially all tied up in pretty ribbons to be given as gifts. (And if there's a time to indulge your love of twee and dainty crafts, surely Christmas is it). However, I actually love the glorious, hefty stodginess of one large cake - especially when it's undecorated. It's so uncompromisingly old-fashioned and plain - no need for bells and whistles, white icing or the like. It practically cries out: "I am fruitcake, love me".

Christmas cake

Honestly, I know that one full-sized fruitcake is far too much for one household to eat over the Christmas period. Rather than trying to scale it down, however, I love the idea of gifting people generous wedges of the cake, wrapped up rustically in waxed paper and tied with kitchen string.

Christmas cake

As you've seen, I've been eating this cake with a sharp cheddar on the side. I fell in love with the sharp-cheese-sweet-spiced-pastry combo back when I made Heston Blumenthal's Eccles Cake with Potted Stilton. At the time, my friend Kate suggested Christmas cake with a sharp cheese as an alternative, and ever since then I've been looking forward to trying this out. (And if you think about it, it's not too different from having dried fruit on a cheeseboard.) Such a fabulous combination! I felt it was a rather grown-up, chic way of serving the cake. (If "chic" is really a word you can apply to fat wodges of British fruit cake and crumbly cheese!)

If you love fruit cake like me, then this truly is the one to try.

I am super, duper excited for Christmas!! Speaking of excitement, I was pretty chuffed when Nigel himself responded to one of my early tweets about the Christmas cake. Fangirl freakout!


I hope Nigel's right! I'm really looking forward to Christmas! I hope you all have a great little break!

So, for the first time in three years, I made mince pies. And I went all out! Long, detailed mince-pie related post coming up right now. Get yourself a cuppa (and preferably a mince pie too!), sit back, relax and enjoy.

Mince pies

My love of mince pies knows no bounds - I love baking them, but even on years when I choose not to bake, I go a little crazy when they start appearing in bakeries and stores. (Remember my frantic search through different Coles to find Heston Blumenthal's new range?) My favourite type are the ones with thick, crumbly shortbread pastry. Super sweet, excessive and rich, yes, but it's Christmas! Live a little!

Mince pies, Adventskranz in the background

To demonstrate my love of the mince pie, here are all the mince pie-related posts I've ever done:

• Star-Topped Mince Pies (2005) - Shortcrust pastry, storebought mince with extra rum and fruit 
• Frangipane Mince Pies (2005) - Almond pastry, storebought mince with extra rum and fruit, topped with frangipane (Including a 20-cm sliceable pie)
• Frangipane Mince Pies (2008) - Almond pastry, storebought mince with extra rum and fruit, topped with frangipane 
• Classic Mince Pies (2009) - Rich shortcrust, Nigella's suet-free mince from How to be a Domestic Goddess 
• Eccles Cakes (2012) - not strictly a mince pie but very Christmassy nonetheless

Despite all the previous posts, I've never published a full recipe for mince pies on this blog (or my Sarah Discovers How to Eat blog, for that matter), seeing as I've usually just followed recipes to the letter - I usually just point y'all in the direction of the original recipe and give you my thoughts on how they turned out. This year, however, I feel like I made enough significant changes to make these my own. Crucially, I loved these so much that I want to be able to make them exactly the same way next year, and not have to flick through four different books, and compare them to my own notes to figure out what I did.

So, let's talk about the structure of these mince pies!

I made a delicate vanilla-bean shortbread pastry (AKA pâte sablée), filled it with an apple-rhubarb-vanilla mincemeat (adapted from Feast), and topped it with frangipane (AKA almond cream). I baked them in mini-muffin tins, ensuring a high ratio of crumbly pastry-to-filling. Super love! For fun, I did a few variations, which I'll talk about in more depth, but the full recipe given below is for the frangipane-topped, apple-rhubarb-vanilla mincemeat-filled mince pies. Phew!

This is a very long, involved recipe, but you can definitely stagger the preparation over many days, just assembling and baking them on the day you want to eat them. I make no apologies for the length of the recipe though - if you want a light and crumbly, perfect mince pie with little effort and time, just go out and buy them! There are loads of great ones out there. Besides, baking is fun!


Apple & Rhubarb Vanilla Mincemeat

I was searching for a mincemeat recipe that used real suet in it, but the only one I could find in my books was Nigella's quincemeat (HTBADG). Seeing as quinces aren't available right now, there went my dream of a suet-filled mince pie. Perhaps next year. (Does anyone have a good recipe?) Back in 2009, I tried Nigella's suet-free mincemeat, but don't remember being blown away by it. So I thought it was time to try a brand new one, and flicking through my books I decided on the rhubarb vanilla mincemeat from Feast. I love rhubarb, and I have heaps of lovely moist vanilla beans in my fridge. Perfect!

Ingredients for the mincemeat

I halved Nigella's recipe (a kilo of rhubarb and 660 grams of dried fruit - woah!) My bunch of rhubarb, once trimmed and sliced, only weighed 400 grams, so I made up the remaining 100 grams with some apples. In the recipe below, I've stated that you can use any ratio of apple-to-rhubarb as you like, seeing as they both provide the same, pectiny, function.

It's very easy to make - essentially you toss all the ingredients into a pan...

Fruit mince, beginning of cooking time

...and simmer over a low heat for about half an hour until the whole mixture is fragrant and the rhubarb has melted into a softly sticky, delicious paste binding the dried fruit together. Heavenly!

Cooked fruit mince

My scaled-down recipe still makes twice as much mincemeat as you'll need for the 42 mini-mince pies below, but it didn't seem worth it to make the mince in even smaller quantities, especially as you can't buy rhubarb in 250 gram quantities. Either keep the remainder in a sterilized jar, or double the amount of pastry and go crazy!


Vanilla-Bean Shortbread Pastry

Pâte Sablée

So, pâte sablée is easy to make, but very difficult to roll out as it is so light and delicate. I used a Roux Brothers' recipe, adding the seeds of a vanilla pod to the dough for extra flavour, and making it in a mixer instead of using their complicated manual method. You just cream together butter, sugar and vanilla, beat in an egg and a pinch of salt, and then very gently fold in some flour and almond meal.

Here are my little patons of pastry resting in the fridge.

Resting patons of pastry

Assembly

I'd made the mincemeat and pastry earlier in the week, and assembled and baked the pies on a Saturday afternoon, to bring to a Christmas party.

I found that the pastry was very difficult to work with, especially because it was 38 degrees that day - so hot! I rolled out the pastry between sheets of greaseproof paper, and chilled it for another half hour before cutting it out, but it still started melting and breaking up very quickly, before I could even cut out all the circles.

Cutting out pâte sablée

 See, all melty and sweaty!

Lined tins, using pastry cut out with a cookie cutter

I didn't have time to keep chilling the dough, so for the remainder of the pies, I ended up breaking off small balls of dough and pressing them into my mini muffin tins to line the base and sides. This was much easier, and actually turned out really well - you couldn't tell the difference once baked. As a general rule, if a pastry is easy to work with, it can end up tough. Once baked, these were incredibly light and crumbly - definitely worth the hassle! (Although if it's a colder day and you're more skilled than I am, you may find that you can roll it out with no trouble).

Filled mince pies!

To make the frangipane topping, you just stir together egg, almond meal, sugar and flour. That's it!

Frangipane-topped pies

I prefer the pies to be filled with mince and topped with only a thin layer of frangipane, but use a thicker layer as you wish. (You will need to scale up the frangipane recipe below if you want a thick layer in each pie).

And here they are, baked! Yay!

Frangipane Mince Pies!

This is what they looked like on the inside. So delicious! I loved the crumbly pastry against the richly spiced, almost creamy, fruit mince. The double vanilla hit from the pastry and the mince was so luxurious, and they smelled and tasted divine! These are my favourite mince pies I've ever made.

Cross-section of mince pie. Super yum!

Variations

I made a few with a pastry topping, just to see how they'd look, but I must admit I prefer the contrasting texture and flavour of the frangipane topping. (As mentioned above, it's also a huge a pain to try and roll out the pastry and cut it out in tiny circles!)

Pastry-topped mince pies

Pastry-topped mince pies. Baked!

Internal shot of pastry-topped mince pie. Check out the crumbliness!

I also filled some with apple instead of mincemeat (again an idea from Feast, for those people who, unfathomably, don't like fruit mince). Peel and core an apple, then finely chop or grate it. Place in a small saucepan with a squeeze of orange juice, a drop of vanilla extract and a teaspoon of sugar. Cook until softened, and use instead of fruit mince. (This can obviously be scaled up depending on how many you want to make! I found that one medium apple filled six mini pies).

Baby apple pie

These were incredible! Crisp, buttery vanilla pastry, filled with soft, cinnamon'd apples and topped with soft frangipane. Gorgeous! Definitely one to try at any time of year. If you happen to have any crème anglaise lying around, (it is Christmas, after all), know that it makes a gorgeous, totally over-the-top accompaniment.

So. What are you waiting for? Go forth and bake!

Mince pies, apple pies

Sarah's Favourite Mince Pies
Apple Rhubarb Vanilla Mincemeat recipe from Nigella Lawson's Feast, Pâte Sablée recipe from The Roux Brothers on Patisserie, and frangipane recipe from Nigella Lawson's How to Eat, with many of my own modifications to the method

(See above notes for further clarification on each element).

Ingredients
For the mincemeat
500 grams apple and rhubarb (any ratio you like)
150 grams brown sugar
1 vanilla pod
1 teaspoon mixed spice
110 grams raisins
110 grams sultanas
110 grams currants
1 tablespoon calvados, or a brandy of your choice

For the vanilla bean shortbread pastry (pâte sablée)
140 grams unsalted butter, very soft
1 vanilla pod
100 grams icing sugar, sifted
1 egg
A pinch of salt
30 grams almond meal
250 grams plain flour

For the frangipane
1 egg
45 grams castor sugar
45 grams almond meal
45 grams butter, melted


Method
For the mincemeat
Trim and finely slice the rhubarb. Peel, core and finely chop the apples. Place into a large saucepan with the brown sugar. Slice the vanilla pod lengthwise and scrape out the seeds. Add the seeds and pod to the fruit in the saucepan. Add the mixed spice, and cook over a low heat for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the fruits start to soften.
Add the dried fruits and simmer for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in the calvados and take off the heat. Remove and discard the vanilla pod. Allow the fruit mince to cool before using it to fill the mince pies. (N.B. You will only need half the mince for this recipe, place the remainder in a sterilized jar and save for another time... or double the amount of pastry and go crazy!)

For the pastry
Slice the vanilla pod lengthwise and scrape out the seeds.
Place the butter, vanilla seeds and icing sugar in the bowl of a freestanding mixer, and beat until very soft. Add the egg and salt, and beat until combined. Sift over the almond meal and flour, and very gently mix in using a spatula. (No more electric mixer here! Once the flour is added, you'll want to work the dough as little as possible so it remains crumbly).
Scrape into a rough ball shape, cover tightly with clingfilm and refrigerate overnight.

To assemble and bake
Preheat the oven to 180C.
Make the frangipane by whisking the ingredients together to combine. That's it!
If it's a cold day and you're very confident, roll out the pastry between two sheets of greaseproof paper until approx 3-5 millimetres thick. Cut circles of pastry out using a 5cm fluted cutter and use the circles to line the indentations of a mini-muffin pan.
Otherwise, pinch of small balls of dough and press them up the sides of the muffin tins to line them.
Spoon a teaspoon of mince into each pie, and top with a scant teaspoon of frangipane to cover. Sprinkle with flaked almonds.
Bake for 10-20 minutes (depending on your oven), until golden brown and cooked through. (You may need to take a pie out to check that the bottom is lightly golden brown, not pale and undercooked).

Allow to cool slightly before dusting with icing sugar and inhaling.

Makes approx 42, depending on the dimensions of your tray and how generous you are with the filling and pastry

Peanut and Carrot Salad

The full recipe is available on Nigella's website, but in brief: slice carrots thickly, add salted peanuts, and toss through a dressing of red wine vinegar, peanut oil and a few drops sesame oil. I used purple and orange carrots for a pretty colour contrast, and sprinkled with chives because they taste so good!

My favourite blade on the slicer is the plain one, which I use to slice vegetables paper thin, way thinner than I can manage even with my sharpest knife.

Check out those onions! When they're sliced that thinly they practically melt when cooked. Perfect for making gravy, sauces or onion jam.

Finely sliced onions

A cute thing to make at home is a potato galette (a recipe I learned at Fast Ed's Jazz Apple Masterclass).  It's great as a side dish, but even better as dinner in its entirety! Super easy: you finely slice some floury potatoes, and layer them up in a non-stick frying pan that's been greased with melted butter.

After about five minutes, or when the bottom is crispy and the potatoes are almost cooked (use a fork to test), flip the whole thing over using two egg flips and a great deal of confidence. (Or slide it onto a plate and then flip it back into the frying pan).

Ta-dah! Season generously with salt to serve. Super delicious!

Crispy potato goodness

Apple pie

Lydiard Street, Ballarat

In my last post, I mentioned that I spent a lovely weekend in Ballarat as a guest of Ballarat Regional Tourism, discovering some of the food and wine delights that the region has to offer. Before this trip, I'd only ever been to Ballarat on school excursions to Sovereign Hill - this trip was less about the history, and all about the food! It was a full-on weekend of food, food, and more food - phew! Let's have a look at the different restaurants and cafes we visited.

Lydiard Wine Bar
15 Lydiard Street North
Ballarat, VIC 3350
Phone: (03) 5327 2787
Website


Friday evening saw us stop into the Lydiard Wine Bar. Housed in an old bank, this restaurant has a wide-ranging menu, encompassing European and Thai influences. Normally this type of menu sets alarm bells off for me, but the Asian dishes were well executed, (indeed, they all were), and we really enjoyed the meal.

Lydiard Wine Bar

After a hard week of work and a long drive to Ballarat, we decided to have just a light meal, sharing a few entrees and nibbly dishes. However, if you wanted to hunker down for three courses with wine (and cocktails!) you could definitely do it here.

Chilli and Lime Oysters - $3.50 each

The chilli and lime oysters were fantastic - very fresh, with a nice strong kick from the chilli. (These are priced at $3.50 each on the menu; however these were given to each table as a complimentary starter).

House made potato bread, herb oil - $3

We couldn't resist the sound of house-made potato bread, and were impressed when it came out - it was served warm and had a pleasantly moist and dense crumb, with a crusty exterior.

Fresh fig with labneh, cured spiced Wagyu - $8

This isn't normally the type of thing I'd order, but I'm glad I tried it - the sweet crunch of the figs against the creamy labneh and soft cured wagyu was just delicious. Come to think of it, if you were able to find good quality ingredients, this would be an easy and impressive starter to make when entertaining.

Crespelle- Italian crepe filled with pumpkin, parmesan, sage & pinenuts - $20

Pumpkin, sage and pine nuts, bathed in nut-brown butter? Yes please!

Salad of lime cured swordfish, lemongrass, chilli & mint - $18

I thought the swordfish salad was excellent - I loved the fresh slivers of swordfish, and the punchiness of the herbs, chilli and the astringent dressing. The chef certainly didn't hold back on the strong flavours, and the salad was all the better for it.

Baby cos salad, radish, cucumber & Crème fraiche - $9

Less intense but no less tasty was the baby cos salad, with the crunch of radish and cucumber, and a light coating of a creamy dressing.

Eclectic Tastes
2 Burnbank Street
Lake Wendouree, VIC 3350
Ph: (03) 5339-9252
Website

Eclectic Tastes cafe

Breakfast the next morning was at Eclectic Tastes, a cute little cafe with a fantastic interior, full of mismatched retro items. I loved they way they decorated the place! (I think we actually spent more time admiring the decor than eating!)

Eclectic Tastes Cafe

Vintage Asian ads

I think this was my favourite wall:

Vintage Bollywood

The menus were housed in old Little Golden Books - blast from the past! (Did anyone else read these as a child?)

Menu

Our Turkish Breakie - baba ghanoush, poached eggs, sumac and pomegranate molasses on Turkish bread - $16

My eggs were poached perfectly, with oozy runny yolks. I did feel that this dish veered towards being too sweet, with the pomegranate molasses and roast tomatoes, and would have benefited from some strong saltiness - say haloumi, or even bacon.

White chocolate and Bailey's Cheesecake - $7.00

Sandra clearly went for the healthy option, with a white chocolate and Bailey's cheesecake. Ahem. I tasted some (for research purposes, you understand) - it was a gelatin-set cheesecake, but still had a decent creaminess to it. I'd definitely suggest sharing this with a friend for afternoon tea, rather than as breakfast in its entirety!

That afternoon, we visited two venues on Main Road. Even though Main Road is in walking distance of central Ballarat, it feels like a different place altogether - you really get a sense of Ballarat's history here.

Open Pantry
22 Main Road
Bakery Hill, VIC 3350
Ph: (03) 5334-4007
Website


Open Pantry is a beautiful cafe, serving housemade pastries, salads, focaccias and cakes, and selling a range of grocery items too.

Open Pantry

Open Pantry

Pumpkin soup

After having had cheesecake for breakfast, Sandra was in the mood for a light lunch, and this smooth and creamy pumpkin soup fit the bill.

Housemade lamb pastry, salads, relish

Open Pantry offer a different pastry each day, with which you can choose salads from their cabinet. The lamb pastry I ordered was very generous, with a flavoursome lamb filling. I particularly liked the pastry - it was flaky, short and very tasty. Love!

Mmm... lamb goodness

Open Pantry - this shot reminds me of Freddy Pharkas, Frontier Pharmacist. Hehehe

They had a rather decadent-looking peanut butter and chocolate cake on the counter, which I was so tempted to order... but we had another bakery to get to! (Next time, next time...)

Cake Bakeshop
30 Main Road
Ballarat, VIC 3350
Ph: (03) 5333-3384
Website

Right next door to Open Pantry is Cake Bakeshop, a very pretty bakery selling cupcakes and macarons. I have to admit that I wasn't too keen when I first saw it on the itinerary (cupcakes and macarons are everywhere these days!), but I was happy to be proven wrong - it was a great little place, and absolutely worth a visit!

How cute is the wall of baking accessories? I wanted to buy everything and take it home, but managed to limit myself to some yellow cupcake papers.

Wall of awesomeness

Cake Bakeshop

Cake do a range of cupcakes and macarons in classic flavours (see their website for cupcakes and macaron flavour lists), and also host functions like hens nights and children's parties.

Mini chocolate cupcake with cream cheese icing - $1.80 Salted caramel macaron - $2.40 Pot of T2 English Breakfast tea - $4.00

Mini red velvet cupcake - $1.80 Pot of T2 Melbourne Breakfast tea - $4.00

We were so impressed by the sweet treats here! The macarons, which are notoriously tricky to bake, were very good: smooth and pretty shells with little feet, and a good ratio of filling-to-shell. If I were going to nitpick, I'd say that the shells were very slightly on the crunchy side, but overall they're one of the better quality macarons I've had in Australia. The cupcakes were moist and fluffy, with lusciously smooth and soft icing. (None of that hard grainy cupcake icing here!) We loved the cupcakes so much that we bought a box of cupcakes to take home the next day at the SpringFest Market.


Bibo Cafe
205 Sturt Street
Ballarat, VIC 3350
Ph: (03) 5331-1225


Bibo is a small yet comfortable cafe, located on the main drag of town. (And yes, by the time breakfast on our last morning in Ballarat rolled around, I felt rather like the girl on their menu!)

Grilled Tuki Lamb sausage on potato rubble with onion jam, roast red peppers & toasted foccacia - $17

We'd tried the fabulous Tuki lamb sausages at the Tuki Trout Farm the day before, and combined with "potato rubble" I was expecting a delicious breakfast. Unfortunately, the potato rubble was nowhere to be found, but I did enjoy this relatively healthier, veggie-filled breakfast. (The toasted foccacia is not pictured, but definitely arrived!)

Some questions: Have you been to Ballarat? Did you go further than just Sovereign Hill? Do you have a favourite Ballarat cafe or restaurant?

Sarah visited Ballarat and ate at these venues as a guest of Ballarat Regional Tourism.