Buckwheat Banana Bread

Buckwheat banana bread! I was looking for a way to use up a bag of buckwheat flour, way too many overripe bananas in my freezer, and this recipe in Donna Hay Magazine's first issue of the year was the perfect solution. I think that buckwheat flour is my favourite of all the "healthy" flours - it has a great nutty flavour, and is really easy to use.  I find that buckwheat flour works easily in cakes, cookies and pancakes, and is easily substituted for regular wheat flour.

The recipe is very easy to make - essentially, it's just a matter of mixing dry and wet ingredients together, and baking.

Buckwheat banana bread, ready for the oven

Although this recipe was found in the Fresh and Light issue of Donna Hay Magazine, I definitely think of this banana bread as a sweet treat, rather than a "healthy" option. The fibre-rich buckwheat flour makes it a bit more wholesome and hearty than banana bread made with plain white flour, but there is still a lot of sugar in the loaf, in the form of coconut sugar and maple syrup.

Pop-Up Scroll

Pop-Up Scroll
86 Smith Street
Collingwood, VIC 3066
Ph: 0433 849 281
Website


Hey hey! So today we felt like a little sweet treat for brunch, and decided to visit Pop-Up Scroll on Smith Street. They're a pop-up cafe-slash-bakery, specialising in freshly baked scrolls. (Although on the day of our visit, they had some brownies and biscuits on offer too!) Their pretty scrolls have been all over my Instagram feed, and I was keen to try them out!

I find it interesting that scrolls have become fashionable again - when I was little, I used to love the Saint Cinnamon chain, and any time we'd visit a shopping centre I'd stare, mesmerised, at the staff making the rolls. (Those huge sheets of dough! All that butter! All that cinnamon! All that sugar!) But they faded in popularity and seem to have all closed down in Australia. And my dad's a big fan of those old-fashioned coffee scrolls from old-fashioned Ferguson Plarre - the antithesis of a pop-up cafe on Smith Street!

Pop-Up Scroll

As the name implies, Pop-Up Scroll is a temporary pop-up, and according to their website they'll be moving to more permanent digs soon. I still thought the current venue was cute, and I loved the retro vibe and pastel coloured cupboards. (The retro-ness only extends to the decor and the scrolls themselves. The cafe is very current - they sell coconut water, do magics, and have coconut milk on offer for their coffees).

Our coffees were very good.

Cappuccino - $4

Yay for magics! Perfect ratio of milk to coffee for me. (As I understand it, a magic is a double ristretto 3/4 flat white, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong!)

Magic - $4

We got a walnut and caramel scroll (with pieces of apple in there), and a Snickers scroll.

Back: Snickers Scroll Front: Walnut and Caramel Scroll

Both were delicious - super fluffy brioche dough, and a good balance between topping and brioche. I personally preferred the walnut and caramel, because I love the crunchy texture contrast. (I think the Snickers would have been even nicer with some crunchy peanuts, rather than just the sweet sauces on the brioche).

Scroll time. Fluffy!

Pop-Up Scroll is a cute little place, and the scrolls were really nice. I'm looking forward to visiting them again! Have you visited? Do you have a favourite flavour? Were you ever obsessed with Saint Cinnamon?

May Unblogged Files Time! You'd think things would have slowed down after the epicness of Sarah's Birth Month, but that was not the case! There were heaps of celebrations in May!

We celebrated my dad's birthday with dinner at Centonove (109 Cotham Road, Kew, 3101). Excellent food and great service. Blogpost to come!

Frangipane and blackberry tart with clotted cream - $16.50

For my friend Kimba's birthday, we cooked her a big roast lunch with all her favourites: roast pork rack with crackling, goosefat roast potatoes, petits pois à la française, and vanilla bean crème brûlée.

Kimba's birthday lunch

We celebrated the lovely Ashley's birthday with barbecue at Le Bon Ton (51 Gipps Street, Collingwood 3066). I liked it even more the second time around - blogpost coming soon.

Le Bon Ton

It was also Mothers' Day in May, and we cooked a special brunch for my mum. There were roast cherry tomatoes, garlic and butter mushrooms, hash browns, Peter Bouchier dry-cured streaky bacon, hash browns and scrambled eggs. Yum!

Mothers' Day Brunch

Scrambled eggs

It was also Sandra's birthday in May - hooray! She didn't want to have a big celebration, but definitely wanted a nice family meal. We had dinner at Bamboo Chopsticks (10 Mitchell St, Doncaster East VIC 3109). It's a favourite of my parents, and the food is awesome! I highly recommend ordering the yam / taro duck if it's on offer, as well as the spicy eggplant and minced pork, and the salty chilli chicken ribs. So basically everything.

Bamboo Chopsticks

And on her birthday itself, we visited our favourite cafe: Beatrix (688 Queensberry St, North Melbourne, VIC 3051)! I loved the meat-free ciabatta they had that day, The Kermit. (Roast broccoli, That's Amore buffalo mozzarella, parsley, green olives, aioli and preserved lemon). We shared a slice of ridiculous Helle's Belle cake (brown butter cocoa sponge, white chocolate mascarpone cream, pear jelly, poached doyenne pears, pear liqueur and cocoa glaze). As you can see, we also brought some cakes home to eat later. Heh. The cocoa meringue roulade was delicious!

Beatrix

And now returning to normal programming... here are some breakfasts. I was pretty slack this month - I managed a nice yogurt-granola-fruit combo a couple of times, but more often than not it was (unphotographed) toast, or quickly inhaling something at my desk. (The pancakes in the photo below were made by Sandra one Sunday and served with a fab lime-verjuice syrup and freshly ground coffee. Yay for weekends).

Figs, yogurt, granola Pancakes with lime verjuice syrup Tea and "Herman the German Friendship Cake" (made by my friend Amelia!

I also received a massive shipment of yogurt with steel-cut oats from Chobani this month (thanks guys!), so I had that for breakfast really often. (Maple-Banana is my fave flavour!)

Chobani delivery!

I also bought breakfast a couple of times.


Burgers at Brother Burger and the Marvellous Brew (560 Chapel Street, South Yarra, VIC 3141). The burgers were really impressive - crispy bacon, juicy and crisp wagyu beef patty, excellent house-made pickles, and lightly toasted buns that didn't fall apart. Sandra declared these the best of the fancy burgers we've had in Melbourne, and I must say I agree.

The "Fair Dinkum" - 100% Wagyu beef patty, bacon, free-range egg, cheese, house-made pickles, BBQ sauce & mustard-mayo - $15.80

There was also a Cinco de Mayo dinner at Touché Hombre (233 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne VIC 3000). Tequila cocktails and tacos, wahey! The dinner was the launch their new menu, but I'm super glad that their fatty lamb ribs have stayed. Blogpost to come, but in the meantime you can read about my previous (and paid for) visit to Touché Hombre.

Fatty lamb ribs

I was also invited to the "Breaking the Rules" dinner at Woodland House (78 Williams Road, Prahran VIC 3181), as part of Good Beer Week. I was thrilled to be invited to this one - five courses with matching beers, specially put together by Woodland House's chefs and sommelier. It was such a great night! Can't wait to blog this and share it with you.

Squid, braised radicchio, lovage, dandelion Dainton Family 'The Good Son' Golden Ale, Kialla, VIC

I did a little baking this month. I loved this plum and apple winter cake I made (adapted from Nigella's Winter Plum Cake in How to be a Domestic Goddess). I served it warm, with lashings of vanilla bean custard (leftover from Kimba's crème brûlées).

Winter Plum Cake

And Mary Berry's loaf cake with apple and cinnamon was very easy and wonderful with a cup of tea.

Mary Berry's Loaf Cake with Apple and Cinnamon

The lovely Mr and Mrs Food Trail hosted a pot luck at their place, which included no less than THREE chocolate cakes! Yum!

CHOCOLATE CAKES

My buddy Duncan had us over for lunch one weekend. Delicious home-made pretzels, Krautsalat and Kartoffelsalat. Oh so lecker!

Pretzels!

And speaking of lovely friends being generous with time and food... my coworker Frank arrived from Germany this month, laden down with Milka treats! Yay! Those Choco Break biscuits (mit Haferflocken!) are off the hook! Cannot wait to go to Germany again and stock up!

Milka

My dad also arranged a stealth delivery of ricotta fritters from Pure Italian (249B Belmore Road, North Balwyn, VIC 3104) after I gushed about them on Instagram. Thank-you dad!

Ricotta fritters, Pure Italian

I did Friday night drinks at Merchant Osteria Venezia (525 Collins Street, Melbourne, VIC 3000) one night. Campari cocktails and complimentary aperitivo for the win.

Aperitivi - the mortadella was awesome!

Front: Negroni sbagliato Back: Some sloe-gin based drink, whatever

Apropos of drinks, Monkey King Bar (360 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne VIC 3000) does $12 espresso martinis during happy hour. You're welcome.

Espresso Martini - $12

I discovered a new cafe this month, Khopcha Coffee (53-61 Toorak Road, South Yarra, VIC 3141). I was in the area for an appointment, and was pleasantly surprised by the great coffee and really friendly owners. Yay.

Magic at Khopcha

Finally, presented without comment. Just a few coffees at Plantation (Shop 253, Level 2, Melbourne Central, 300 LaTrobe Street, Melbourne VIC 3000).

Plantation

Plans for June: A couple of low-key catch-ups with friends, a friend's bridal shower, and a trip to Merimbula!

Spinach, Kale and Triple Cheese Slab Pie

I've recently gotten into the habit of cooking up a big batch of food on a Sunday evening, to have for lunch at work throughout the week. The idea of this was to save money, and eat a little healthier. (Basically, I hate that feeling of being caught short at 1pm and thinking: "Crap! Need to get something quick before my next meeting! Terrible food court takeaway, here I come!") Previous options have included grilled lamb backstrap and chickpea'd couscous, and lean pork Frikadellen with zucchini noodles, roast broccoli and sweet potato mash.

Pie

This week's effort was this glorious slab of a pie - spinach, kale, ricotta, feta and haloumi, all covered in golden rich shortcrust pastry. I can't say that this is particularly health conscious (three cheeses, white flour and a generous amount of butter in the pastry), but it certainly is satisfying. And delicious! (And, it doesn't give me that feeling of self-loathing that I get when I inhale a lemon chicken and fried rice from the food court, heh). It took quite a bit of time to make, and I won't pretend it's a quick endeavour, but I love baking and was happy to spend a few hours pottering around the kitchen on a chilly weekend afternoon.

This is basically a variation on one of my favourite recipes, Nigella's ricotta, spinach and bulgur wheat pie, from How to be a Domestic Goddess. (I say "variation"; I mean "expansion"). I kept most filling ingredients the same, but added extra haloumi and feta for extra salty deliciousness and texture, and increased the quantity of pastry. (Story of my life). I also replaced some of the spinach with kale, because I saw frozen kale at in the freezer at the supermarket and wanted to try it out. (It worked! Yay!) Up to you if you want to go all spinach, all kale, or a mixture of both.

Filling

The filling is easiest mixed together with your hands. Food gloves make this much less messy!

Filling!

Here's the pastry! It's extra golden due to addition of egg yolks, which also makes the pastry extra rich tasting. I used a 20 x 30 centimetre roasting tin with deep sides to make my behemoth slab pie. You can see I lined the tray with baking paper - this isn't strictly necessary, but it does make it easier to remove the whole pie after baking. Also, I usually roll out pastry between two sheets of baking paper anyway, as this makes it easy to move the rolled-out pastry and keeps my bench clean, so it made sense to use the same baking paper to line the tray as well. No point being wasteful! The sprinkling of breadcrumbs on the pastry helps to soak up any excess liquid from the filling.

Pastry

Filled pie

You can see that my pie-lid was a little messy, but it all looked fine once it was baked.

Topped pie

Ta-dah!

Pie

Pie

This pie is super sturdy, and is good warm or at room temperature. I think it would be good picnic food, if you're into that sort of thing. Given our cold weather, I haven't got any picnics in sight, and I'm just eating the pie for work lunches. Hot tip: microwave a slice to heat it through, then toast it in a sandwich press to re-crisp the pastry. BOOM.

Spinach, Kale and Triple Cheese Slab Pie

Adapted from Nigella's Spinach, Bulgur and Ricotta Pie in How to be a Domestic Goddess

Ingredients
For the Pastry
375 grams plain flour
185 grams cold unsalted butter, cut into 1 cm cubes
3 egg yolks
3 tablespoons iced water
1.5 teaspoons salt
1.5 tablespoons caster sugar
For the Filling
100 grams bulgur wheat
1 teaspoon vegetable stock powder
750 grams frozen chopped spinach or kale, or a mixture, defrosted and very well drained
450 grams ricotta
180 grams feta, crumbled
180 grams haloumi, crumbled or grated
4 spring onions, chopped
2 eggs
pinch of cayenne pepper
pinch of dried thyme
Zest of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons breadcrumbs
1 egg, extra, for glazing the pie

Method
To make the pastry
Place the flour and butter into a dish, and place in the freezer for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, whisk together the egg yolks, water and salt, and put this into the fridge.
Once the 10 minutes is up, place the cold flour and butter into the bowl of a food processor, add the sugar, and whizz until the mixture resembles damp sand. (Streaks of butter are fine - desirable, even). With the processor running, add the liquid, until the mixture just comes together. (You may not need all the liquid, or you may need to add a tablespoon or so extra of cold water).
Tip the dough out onto a floured surface, and press it together with your hands. Divide the dough into two pieces, one smaller than the other, wrap in clingfilm and chill for at least 30 minutes, or overnight.
To make the filling
Preheat the oven to 200˚C.
Place the bulgur and stock powder in a bowl. Pour boiling water over to cover. Place a plate over the bowl and set aside for 15 minutes. Drain well, pressing out excess moisture.
Place the bulgur, spinach or kale, ricotta, feta, haloumi, spring onions, eggs, cayenne pepper, dried thyme and lemon zest in a bowl. Season generously with salt and pepper, and mix well to combine.
Roll out the larger piece of dough to approximately 5 millimetres thick. Line a 20 x 30 cm roasting tray with deep sides with the pastry. (If you like, line the tray with baking paper first - this will make the whole pie easier to remove later).
Sprinkle the pastry with the breadcrumbs, then tip in the cheesy kale and spinach filing inside, spreading gently with a spatula.
Roll out the remaining pastry and place on top of the filling. Crimp the edges with a fork to seal. Brush with beaten egg, then slice three steam vents in the top of the pie.
Bake for 10 minutes, then turn the oven down to 180˚C and cook for a further 45 minutes.
Allow to cool for at least 20 minutes before cutting into generous slices to serve.
Makes a huge pie, serves 8-16 depending on how hungry you are