recipe
My Christmas Menu
I’m a little more organised this year compared to last, and spent Wednesday scouring the Internet to put together my Christmas menu. Wow, a whole two weeks before! This is something that I usually put off until the very last minute as I see to all of the other urgent things like – presents! I also don’t have the pressure to be super prepared because it’s usually just us on the day. I still like to do something special though, and the kids adore the pretty table and whole experience.
Banana Buttermilk Layer Cake
For the first time in years I have an oven that bakes cakes perfectly. The temperature is exact, the heat even. We’re on a bit of a roll with birthdays in this family at the moment so it’s been getting a bit of work out and each and every time, the cake has been baked to perfection. I’m pretty excited by this and I’m in the baking mode! I experimented with an old recipe for my son’s class birthday cake, which turned out well. This weekend I expanded on it again, and I’ve come up with a pretty delicious banana buttermilk layer cake. It’s also fairly simple to make.
Friends for Dinner | Hot Smoked Salmon
Our friend Teia, has spoilt us many times with his homemade hot smoked salmon. I remember the first time he made it for us; Guillaume and I felt like it was a bit of a revelation. It’s something we quite often purchased pre-made, but when you taste the homemade version… well it really is something else.
Sonia’s Silverbeet Soup
With the weather turning a little cooler in the southern hemisphere, I always turn to soup. Well I lie a little, I do tend to eat soup all year round, but you know what I mean.
Chocolate & Pear Cake
Happy first day of spring! Okay not exactly the spring weather that we were hoping for here in Auckland but we have seen the back of winter, which always puts me in a good mood!
Lemon, Lentil & Spinach Soup
Lentil soup. It takes me back to when I travelled through Turkey. My friend and I were on a backpacker’s budget so we’d quite often find ourselves eating a bowl of this soup at cafés along the way. It was nourishing and utterly delicious, I always had to resist from ordering more.
Orange Pippin Apple Tart
The Sunday before last I was strolling through the La Cigale French Markets in Parnell and saw a bucket of orange pippin apples. I’ve never been so excited about seeing a particular variety of apples before. What made these apples so special to me was a tear sheet out of Vogue Entertaining & Travel of an Orange Pippen Apple tart recipe that I’ve been hording for years. Fifteen to be precise! While the recipe calls for orange pippin apples, I’ve never had any luck finding them and I’ve only ever made it with pink lady apples before.
Chocolate & Meringue Cake
We had a couple of celebrations for Guillaume’s birthday this weekend. He actually turned 40 a couple of weeks ago but he was working in Sydney at the time, so it really wasn’t until this weekend that we were able to celebrate it. On Saturday night, we hired a babysitter and I took him out to dinner at Depot, a very cool restaurant here in Auckland and last night we did the birthday cake. With kids you just can’t escape the birthday cake and candles, they’ve been hassling me for it all week – not that I’d want to miss it anyway, I’ll take any excuse for cake…
