Friday, October 14, 2011 by honey
à bientôt!
Why hello again! We have sadly, been very quiet in cyberspace, and we’ve decided to officially take a short hiatus until Honey finishes her doctoral thesis. We have still been busy enjoying food in all its glory where we can, and have had delicious experiences in Singapore, Bali, Malaysia, Canberra and Sydney over the last few months, and hopefully we will be able to share these with you very soon when we come back to regular blogging.
In the meantime, we wanted to share some good news with all of you: we finally bit the bullet and are one step closer to living sustainably- we got chooks!
Chickpea and Mrs Brown are 20 weeks old and seem to be settling into their new home in our backyard. There have been a few escape attempts and hilarious episodes of us chasing them around the garden, but we have now safely clipped their feathers so they should happily remain within their fence, away from our veggie garden! As we learnt from Celia, the chooks are in a moveable pen so they will move all around our backyard, helping us to till the soil and keep our grass in control. It has been fascinating watching them so far, scratching around and digging holes for dust baths.
The girls happily pecking away from the feeder that Soy so proudly made from scratch!
After 2 weeks of waiting, we got our first egg 2 days ago! We hope all of you are doing brilliantly, and until next time, we wish you many new and exciting food adventures!
Honey and Soy xx
» 7 Comments
Tags: chickens, Garden
Monday, May 30, 2011 by honey
Princesstårta (Swedish Princess Cake)
Last Christmas, we received Hembakat är Bäst (Home made is best), Ikea’s baking recipe book direct from Sweden, lovingly flown to Australia into our hands. The book is beautiful, and the way the ingredients are laid out pictorially borders on abstract art. Even now, when I flip through the book, I gawp in awe of the perfection and meticulousness involved in putting the book together.
As we were first flipping through the book, Niklas told us how much he loved princess cake, and that it reminded him of home. I promised to make it for his next birthday, in return for an English translation of the recipe, and I made good on that promise!
What I found interesting was the use of potato flour in the sponge, which I’ve never used before. And I was pleasantly surprised to realise that I could easily make the entire cake gluten free by substituting the small amount of flour with more potato flour. Soy and I tried bits of the sponge that we pulled off the tin, and the sponge just melted in our mouths. I think that if you used wheat flour, the texture of the sponge may be slightly firmer, but we were happy to have the cotton-like texture of the potato flour sponge for something different, and best of all, make it gluten free so our friend K could eat it without worry.
Continue reading the full post…
» 6 Comments
Tags: cakes, Swedish
Thursday, April 7, 2011 by honey
Chocolate Chip Hot Cross Buns
Easter is just around the corner! Regardless of one’s religious orientation, in Australia, we look forward to Easter every year because it is an extra-long weekend! Neither Soy nor I have ever been huge fans of traditional hot cross buns with the dried fruit and spices, however, a few years ago we tried the chocolate chip version and fell in love. We spent Easter that year with Soy‘s sister and brother-in-law in an apartment right on the water in Jervis Bay and ate copious amounts of these cinnamony chocolate chip buns.
Unfortunately ever year after that, I felt more and more disgruntled at having to buy these treats as the prices rose, and thought to myself that there has to be a recipe out there for buns as good as the ones you can buy in the shops. And finally, I found it! Initially I was daunted, but making hot cross buns aren’t as hard as I imagined, and believe it or not, they actually taste better than those store-bought ones, because the flavour is much more intense, and the buns are extremely moist. I usually zap the baked hot cross buns in the microwave for 10 seconds before eating so the chocolate is gooey inside and the bun is warm. No need for any extra butter!
Continue reading the full post
» 7 Comments