Nothing makes me happier than sunny, warm weather, exploring open spaces, taking photos in magical light, spending quality time with my boy and indulging in good food and wine. Luckily for me, I was able to have all of it on the weekend.

I have just returned from a weekend getaway to the Yarra Valley in Victoria’s north-east. This place is known for its lush greenery, wonderful regional produce and fabulous wineries. It is only 45 minutes from Melbourne, yet it feels like a totally different world and is a fantastic place for a foodie/wino to visit, even if it’s just for the day.

The weather was so lovely and warm and on our last day there, I wanted to finish with a simple dessert which wouldn’t take too much time to prepare.

As there is nothing better than seasonal fresh fruit, we happily consumed a big bowl of fresh local strawberries with a rich cinnamon mascarpone cream. Just perfect for Spring!

I hope you enjoy the random photographs that I shot whilst in the Yarra Valley too :)

Strawberries and Cinnamon Mascarpone

500g strawberries, washed

250g mascarpone cheese

a few big tablespoons of icing sugar

ground cinnamon

1. Mix the mascarpone with the icing sugar and cinnamon to taste.
2. Serve with the strawberries. That’s it!

I was going to experiment with chai-flavoured cupcakes this weekend, hence the photo, but ‘unfortunately’ I don’t have time to because I’m too busy celebrating my birthday! I know, what a shame :) I turned the big 22 yesterday and I have the whole weekend filled with food, fun and friends. Yay!

So in this lazy post, I’ll share with you a few of my sweet favourites of the week:

• Melissa at The Traveler’s Lunchbox has just returned from a trip to Abruzzo, Italy and her recipe for Gelato di Fragola e Balsamico (Strawberry and Balsamic Vinegar Gelato to you and I) is a winner. It’s made with mascarpone cheese, so it will definitely be luscious and creamy. Her photos on the blog are always gorgeous and her foodie/travel stories are wonderful to read. I love her blog!

• Next is the ultra talented Tartelette. Her unique creations, photos, stories and recipes are always fabulous and her macarons are to die for. As soon as I saw her drool-worthy Snickers Macarons, I knew they were a must on my ‘To Bake’ list. I can’t wait!

• Lastly, we have the lovely Bea at La Tartine Gourmande. Every foodie/blog reader knows about her and she is a food stylist/photographer extraordinaire. Her photos are simply beautiful and I only wish I had some of her creativity and talent. Her Apple Juice Sabayon looked absolutely amazing and I am looking forward to summer when I can make this with the season’s best berries.

Have a great weekend everyone and I’ll be back in the kitchen again next week :)

After last month’s nasty incident (see here), yesterday I finally managed to visit the Collingwood Farmers’ Market with my great friend Bree. The market is held at the Collingwood Children’s Farm and it’s a good place for young children to interact with the herd of animals that call the farm home. The children are able to feed the animals, milk the cows and search for eggs in the chicken cage.

The market is rather small, but there is plenty of produce to buy. Fruit, vegetables, cheese, eggs, bread, meat, poultry and more – just don’t forget to bring your own bags/baskets to carry it all home.

Shown below are a few of the goodies that are available at the market:

Free-range eggs and the menu for the ‘Farmer’s Breakfast’.

Homemade biscuits made by Michel’s Fine Biscuit Co. Castlemaine were absolutely delish! I was very close to buying a packet of pistachio white chocolate biscuits, but I knew that if I did, we would have eaten the whole packet before we got back to the car! The company also produce a gluten free and savoury range of goodies.

Dawson’s Honey had four types of honey on offer and they were more than happy to let us sample them all. I purchased a 500g tub of Yellowbox honey at the bargain price of $4.50 (1kg tubs were $8.50 each).

Parsley and Swiss brown mushrooms from CERES. CERES host their own organic market every Saturday and Wednesday in Brunswick East.

Mountain River Berries’ jams to taste (and thank you to my lovely hand model, Bree). My favourite was plum and raspberry.

I was tempted to purchase a few herb seedlings to grow my own herbs at home, but I don’t have a big pot as yet, so I will have to buy these next time. The Tiny Tim tomato variety was so cute!

After a busy morning browsing the stalls at the market, we went to Brunswick Street, Fitzroy in search of a good coffee and picked up a loaf of bread from the always busy Babka. I know I could have purchased a loaf at the market, but the yeasty parcels of goodness from Babka are simply magnificent. Babka produce several types of bread, from white sourdough to multigrain, rye and more. I went for the classic casalinga – with a crisp and chewy crust and beautiful crumb on the inside, these loaves are fantastic! The wait for breakfast can become very long on the weekend and the queue often snakes its way out the door! Their shoo-fly buns are a must too. Full of currants and oranges, they are perfect with a cup of Earl Grey tea. :) If you’re after a good feed and need to pick up a few loaves of bread, Babka is one of Melbourne’s best bakeries/cafes.

How to get there…

Collingwood Farmers’ Market

• Located at the end of St Heliers Road, Abbotsford.
• The market is held between 8am and 1pm every second Saturday.
• It is located only 5km from the CBD and there is plenty of off street parking available. To get there by train, you will need to catch either the Epping or Hurstbridge line trains and depart at Victoria Park. It is a short 10 minute walk from the train station (the train timetable can be found here).

Babka

• 358 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy.
• The bakery/cafe is open from 7am to 4pm, Tuesday to Sunday.
• It is located just over 2km from the CBD and the easiest way to get to Babka from the city is by public transport. You will need to take the 112 tram and get off at the Johnston Street intersection and walk (the tram timetable can be found here). If you’re taking your car, let me warn you that parking can be difficult to find on weekends!

One last thing… My lovely friend Bree kindly offered to pose for me and yes boys, she is single. If you would like her number, just send me a quick email and I’ll see what I can do! ;) Haha!

Question: What can I bake without an oven?!

Answer: nothing!

After 18 looooong years, my parents have finally decided to update our kitchen. Currently it is an empty shell, with bits of plaster and tiling just lying about… Gone are the cupboards, the sink, the oven, the tiles, the benchtops, the fridge, the rangehood, the shelves, everything! I have no idea why it’s taken them this long to renovate, because seriously, who wouldn’t want to keep the poo brown laminex benchtops, a broken Mistral rangehood and 80s beige cupboards? (that’s a rhetorical question, people!)

So, no kitchen = no oven = no baking = something non-baked for the blog. We have an additional kitchen outside in our carport/garage (all of you who have Asian or European parents will understand) but the oven isn’t all too flash, so I can’t use it.

In anticipation of summer, I decided to make ice-cream this week. Many people scoff at the idea of going to all the trouble of making your own ice-cream, especially with so many good-quality ice-creams on the market. But real ice-cream, made from scratch, lovingly stirred and whipped, is quite simply, one of the greatest pleasures in life (oh, I’m in love!).

Homemade ice-cream is easier than it sounds. It is easy as making a custard base, adding a few flavours, popping it into the freezer and taking it out every few hours and beating it up. The constant beating breaks up any ice crystals that form and incorporates air, giving it that dreamy and light mouthfeel. If you own an ice-cream machine, it’s even easier, less labour intensive and much quicker (I’ve had my eye on a few on eBay, so fingers crossed I can get one soon!).

I decided to make strawberry ice-cream because after visiting the Queen Victoria Market today, strawberries seemed to be everywhere, and luckily, they were rather cheap. To be honest, I used to hate strawberries. I was even given a strawberry adorned cake for my 17th birthday (or was it my 16th?) by Z (bought, not made) and I turned my nose up at it. Of course I ate it with a smile on my face, but I didn’t enjoy it (we’ll see if he mentions anything – I don’t believe him when he says he reads this blog).

So as I wait for summer to approach me with the sunshine and heat, I’ll just continue to make batches of ice-cream, sit outside and eat it all.

I made Vanilla Bean Ice-cream and a variation: Strawberry Ice-cream. The vanilla flavoured ice-cream is fantastic on its own, but I use it as an ice-cream base for different flavours.

Vanilla Bean Ice-Cream (makes 1 litre)

(adapted from a recipe in Delicious magazine)

5 egg yolks

125g caster sugar

400ml milk

half a vanilla bean

300ml cream

1. Place egg yolks and sugar in a large bowl and using an hand-held mixer, beat until it is thick and pale yellow. Pour the milk into a small saucepan, scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean and put the whole bean into the milk. Cook over medium heat until the milk comes to the boil. Remove the pan from the heat and allow the pod to infuse its wonderful flavour into the milk for 15 minutes.
2. Add the milk to the egg/sugar mix and whisk well. Strain this custard base into a new saucepan. Place the saucepan over low heat and stir continuously until the custard is thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon – unfortunately this can take up to 15 minutes, but be patient! Don’t let the custard come to the boil and if it splits, plunge the pan straight into a sink full of cold water and whisk madly.
3. Once the custard is thick, place a large metal bowl in the kitchen sink, half full with water. Let the custard sit in its bath to cool down. Add the cream and mix until well combined.
4. Pour the custard into a shallow plastic container, cover and freeze until it is frozen at the edges (approximately 3 hours).*
5. Beat the ice-cream with a hand-held mixer until smooth and repeat this process four more times after every few hours.

* If you have an ice-cream machine, churn the custard at step 4 for approximately twenty minutes or according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Strawberry Ice-Cream

1 quantity of Vanilla Bean Ice-Cream custard mix

500g strawberries

1. Process the strawberries in a food processor or blender – I like to leave it a bit chunky as it adds a bit of interest to the ice cream. Add this fruit puree to the custard at Step 4 and continue on from Step 5.

I originally intended to make Strawberry Ripple Ice-cream and I even prepared the syrup to mix into the vanilla ice-cream base, but I fell asleep and it was too late to marble it through. Oops! I’ve still included the recipe though:

1 quantity of Vanilla Bean Ice-Cream (partially frozen)

250g strawberries

75g sugar

1. In a small saucepan, combine the sugar and 60ml of water and heat until dissolved. Set aside.
2. Process the strawberries in a food processor or blender and strain the puree, removing all the seeds and lumpy bits.
3. Add the strawberry juice to the sugar syrup in the saucepan and return to the heat. Boil the syrup for around 2 minutes. Allow to cool and place in the fridge until you are ready to use it.
4. Once the ice-cream has been placed in the freezer and beaten a few times, it should be partially frozen and quite thick. Remove from the freezer and alternate spoonfuls of the ice cream and syrup to another plastic container. Using a spatula, stir through the syrup and ice cream to create a marbled effect. Freeze and beat the ice-cream with a hand-held mixer until smooth and repeat twice more every few hours.

Baking can be quite overwhelming at first. When you start getting into it, you may burn a few lots of cookies, a cake or two may come out a bit flat or it just doesn’t taste right. I first started baking when I was around 13 and it’s taken me a while to get the hang of it. After years and years of experimentation and many, many, many disasters, I’ve been able to learn a few nifty tips to make it all an easier, and enjoyable, process. I still do have my bad days when things fail miserably, but it’s all a learning curve. The more you bake, the better you become!

I am in no way a baking expert or culinary genius, but I’ve listed a few pointers which might help in making you (yes, you!) a better baker!

EQUIPMENT

• Necessary equipment: assorted tins/trays, measuring cups/spoons/jug, scales, spatula, whisk, sieve, non-stick baking paper, mixing bowls, cooling rack.
• Non-stick baking pans tend to create a darker crust on cakes. Best to use these tins for cheesecakes, especially springform ones. Non-stick muffin trays are excellent too.
• For cakes and slices, I use aluminium baking tins, I find they conduct heat better and work best.
• Look after your equipment, especially your appliances. They will last longer!

INGREDIENTS

• Don’t be a tightarse. Use the best ingredients you can buy and you will notice a difference in taste! I always use good quality chocolate (not the nasty compound stuff), fresh spices, fresh fruit (the only approved frozen fruits are berries), fresh eggs and always buy the nuts on the day I need them.
• Use vanilla extract, not its unwanted cousin: vanilla essence. Vanilla beans are the even better option, but are very expensive (I only use them when I have cash to splash). Extract is good enough.
• Use caster sugar, not the regular sugar you use in your tea/coffee. Caster/superfine sugar is more refined, dissolves more easily and doesn’t create that grainy texture.
• Use butter. Never margarine. Only butter. Unsalted. Full-fat. Artery hardening. Cholesterol increasing. Always. Mmmm, butter…

PREPARATION

• Always read a recipe in full before attempting to put it all together, making sure you have the correct equipment and ingredients.
• All ingredients should be at room temperature before you begin (this mainly applies to butter and eggs – unless you keep your flour or sugar in the fridge. You freak).
• You must always sift your dry ingredients to avoid lumps.
• A spatula is your best friend. Regularly scrape the sides of the bowl during mixing.
• If you are time-poor, you can soften butter in the microwave. Cut it into large chunks and blitz it in the microwave on 15 second bursts on medium-power. You want it soft, not melted!
• It can be tricky spreading batter into a tin when the baking paper is sliding about (this occurs when there is not enough grease holding the paper in place. If it’s too late to add more grease (i.e. half the batter is already in the tin), use wooden clothes pegs to hold it in place while you spread (just don’t forget to remove them when you place it in the oven!)
• If using berries in baking, dust them with a spoonful of flour before adding to the mixture. This helps to prevent bleeding into the batter.
• When mixing, gently fold the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients. You don’t want to lose all that precious air which makes your cake rise.
• When trimming pastry, use smooth, downward strokes with your knife (as my best pastry friend Bec used to tell me, “Be graceful, Linda. Be graceful”).
• Always grease and line your baking tin. I prefer to use canola spray and non-stick baking paper and this works well for round tins, square/rectangular tins and trays. For odd shaped tins such a muffin tray, I use paper liners. For a ring, Bundt or Kugelhopf tin, I grease with butter and dust the insides with flour (if it is a chocolate cake, I would replace the flour with cocoa powder).

BAKING

• Always preheat your oven (no-one likes a cold oven).
• When placing the prepared tin/tray in the oven, position it as close to the centre of the oven as possible. This allows optimum air circulation.
• Always use a timer when your baked goodies are in the oven. A few minutes too long can result in burnt cookies or tough cake! (I’ve been there before!)
• If your cake is ready, the sides should have slightly shrunk from the edges. Also, test your cake by inserting a skewer in the centre . If it comes out clean, it’s ready!
• Cookies are tricky ones. It entirely depends on the recipe, but if you like them chewy, remove the cookies from the tray as soon as they are out of the oven. If you like them crunchy, bake them for a bit longer and leave them on the tray to cool.
• Remove cookies from a baking tray with a fish slice so that you don’t break them in transit.
• Always cool your cakes on a wire rack. Depending on your recipe, if you leave the cake to cool in the tin, it may go soggy.

Spring is almost here! Warmer weather, beautiful sunshine, flowers in bloom and longer days. I am so over Winter and I am glad that Spring is just around the corner.

Yesterday was such a glorious ‘Winter’ day that I thought an early dinner and some quality chill-out time in St Kilda with friends was in order. The temperature peaked at 22.7 degrees and it was just perfect.

My originally intended having a Spring-inspired recipe to accompany this post, but I kind of got distracted and decided to stay all night at the beach instead of coming home early to bake (can you blame me though, when the weather was as glorious as this?) So, this will just be a short post, full of random photos. Enjoy!

One of Acland Street’s patisseries displaying their wide array of yummy treats…

And you can only top off the day with a big cup or cone of gelati from 7 Apples (75 Acland Street, St. Kilda). Try the pannacotta flavoured gelati – it’s my favourite!

The Esplanade…

Of all Melbourne’s beaches, St. Kilda’s beach doesn’t rank that very high at all. It is rather blah (it has lumpy/pebbly sand and the gross murky water isn’t very attractive), but this sunset just made my day…

Check out my new keyring! I bought the mini whisk keyring and a separate little wooden spoon, got my boy to drill a hole in the handle (it’s what boys are for), put it all together, and voila! Cute new keyring!

I’m on the lookout for a mini pastry brush now…

Stay tuned until tomorrow people, I’m making a banana and chocolate cake! Yum! :)

I have an obsession. Okay, ‘obsession’ may be little strong to describe it, but I like to read about food, baking and all things kitchen related (and no, I don’t mean the the back of cereal boxes or tinned tuna). From cookbooks and magazines to newspapers and the Internet, I read it all. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not a full blown foodie or culinary expert, I don’t eat out at fancy restaurants every week and there are particular foods that I just can’t stand but might seem normal to others (mushrooms, most cheeses and natural yoghurt). In particular, I just have a fascination with books and magazines with beautiful photography and easy to follow recipes.

Embarrassingly, I purchase a copy of Delicious, Gourmet Traveller and Donna Hay each month. Usually I don’t even make anything out of these magazines, I just enjoy looking at the food styling and photography and keep up to date with the latest food trends, or learn what’s in season. I like to flick through my books and magazines when I need some inspiration or want to re-visit a favourite page.

I like cookbooks… Below is part of my collection (I’m terrible I know):

I also never miss a Tuesday edition of The Age newspaper either – I love reading Epicure and discovering where new Melbourne foodie places exist.

As geeky as this sounds, I love heading down to Fitzroy and visiting Books for Cooks. This place has hundreds of books about food, often hard to find books or good quality seconds. From books solely about potatoes and eggs, Moroccan cuisine and Korean food, Pierre Herme to the Roux Brothers, this place has it all. I’d happily spend hours sitting on their comfy couch flicking through a tall pile of books and dreaming of what to bake/cook next (which I have been known to do).

Every now and then, I will randomly post bits and pieces that aren’t really baking related (for example, this one!) but they will usually be food-related and describe my adventures in exploring new foodie places in Melbourne!

I never thought I would be writing and sharing thoughts and ideas about baking in my very own blog, but here I am. I have been an avid follower of many different baking and food blogs over the years and have always wanted my own.

Since this blog is about me and my adventures in baking and all things sweet, here are a few points about me:

• I’m 21 and live in Melbourne, Australia.
• I used to be a chocoholic and have recently converted. I’m a vanilla girl now!
• I own almost one hundred biscuit/cookie cutters (which I hardly ever use).
• I have a degree in food science and nutrition (everyone knows 99% of what I bake is not good for the arteries or the waistline, but I can tell you why).
• I love to cook regular food too, I’m just more interested in the sweet stuff.
• I used to be a pastry chef apprentice (but only for 5 months).
• I don’t just love baking… I am also in love with a boy. Let’s call him Z :)

There’s nothing I love more but to bake. Without sounding too poetic, to me, I find it truly amazing that with a handful of simple ingredients, a bit of love and patience, you can produce something special as a cake for a birthday, biscuits to share over a cup of tea, or a delicious crumble for dessert.

Sometimes I wish I was just able to bake and make a career out of it, or even be blessed with the artistic eye as a food stylist/photographer (ooh, I wish I was a food stylist – it would be so interesting and creative, but I’m not that creative). And having been down the path as a pastry apprentice, the scale at which I would have to bake/produce and the pressure involved, it just doesn’t feel right to pursue that career. So I only bake for pleasure now. Which is fine for me! :)

This blog is simply a place where I can put my thoughts to paper (well, web-page actually). I’m not a literary marvel, nor am I an outstanding photographer. I’m just your average, everyday kind of girl who simply likes to bake (and lick the bowl). So I hope you enjoy my blog, where I will post recipes, display my lame attempts at photography and discuss Melbourne food, with the occasional rambling rant about nothing in particular :)

Welcome to butter sugar flour…

Linda xx