Little Box Brownie

A Baking Blog from Melbourne, Australia

Blackberry

Blackberry Slice

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A few weeks ago months ago (man times flies), I headed to the country in pursuit of an old 50’s bond wood caravan. I found one on gumtree which was 3 hours away. I know totally nuts, who drives 3 hours to look at a old caravan? Me, thats who! I put it down to my mid life no scratch that my quarter life crisis, most people buy fast red cars, not me I go looking for the old vintage stuff.
So I headed off to the country with my Mum, who I persuaded to come along with me for the company, that and I need a car with a tow-bar on it. See totally nuts I don’t even have a car that can pull a caravan!! Anyway we headed off and because we where out in the county I figured that would be the place to find an old caravan just incase the one we where off to see wasn’t right, which sadly it wasn’t. So this is how the trip went the whole way there and back, yep 6 hours of it, well something to this effect.
Mum is that a caravan?
No its a truck
Is that a caravan?
No its a sheet on someones clothes line
Mum is that a caravan?
Yes but too modern
Is that a caravan
No its a goat
Is that one?
No its a car
Is that one?
Yes but too modern
Until…
Is that a caravan??
No its not a caravan its just an over grown carport
Are you sure, it looks like a caravan to me?
So Mum jumps out to have a look and sure enough its an old wooden caravan.
The owner a older gentleman, Joe, happened to be in his garden and comes out. He shows me the caravan which sadly had been sitting there a very long time and the whole back of it had fallen out and the contents of the caravan were slowly finding there way to the great outdoors. It was a bit far gone for my handy woman skills.
Joe lives in a little town about 1.5 hours from Melbourne, where he has an amazing garden filled with all types of veggies. Joe and my Mum got on like a house on fire, as they both share a love of gardening, we were at Joe’s for about an hour with them discussing the way to plant different types of plants. We left Joe’s with a few rather large bags of plant cuttings for my Mum to plant.
Dotted all along the road side near Joe’s where blackberry plants which reminded me of where I lived as a child, there were no blackberries on the bush, however it gave me a craving for that sweet juicy taste that only blackberries have, so when I got back to Melbourne I decided I would whip this next recipe up for you, which unfortunately uses canned blackberries rather than fresh ones but hey, its sweet and delicious.
Blackberry Slice
 
Filling
 
1 can blackberries with liquid (415g)
1 cup sugar
 
Pastry 
 
200g butter
2 cups flour
1/3 cup almond meal
1/2 sugar
1 egg
1 tablespoon water
 
Pre heat oven to 150C
 
Place the blackberries and sugar into a saucepan and simmer until  the mixture starts to thicken. Remove from the heat and set aside.
 
Place the butter, flour, almond meal and sugar in a food processor and pulse until it resembles fine bread crumbs. Then pulse in the egg and water until a dough forms. Remove from the processor and knead a couple of times. Press half the dough into a lines 25X20 cm tin. Pour in the filling and then roll out the remaining dough and cut into strips, lay these over the top to form a lattice pattern. Place in the oven and bake for 30mins or until golden.
 
 

Chocolate Pavlova

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So I made Julie and Julia’s chocolate pie in the last post with 3 egg yolks and I had the whites remaining. So naturally I had to find a way to use them up, and really what on this earth could be more delightful than a pavlova? Nothing, nothing at all, well I thought maybe chocolate pavlova but I’m a traditionalist at heart and do prefer a plain pavlova, I know!! How can that be being the chocoholic that I am, but come on who messes with a good pavlova? Me, I do, but I wish I hadn’t. Its good don’t get me wrong but it’s not like Mum’s pavlova, which you can find here.

Anyway my great scheme to uses up the egg whites resulted in me having too use more eggs thereby having left over yolks again, but don’t worry I solved this by making some ice cream. Waste not.

 
Chocolate Pavlova
 
6 egg whites
2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon vinegar
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
2 teaspoons cornflour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
 
Pre heat the oven to 180C
Place the egg whites in a clean dry bowl. With an electric beater whisk until the eggs form peaks, then slowly pour the sugar in, while still whisking. Sift in the cornflour and cocoa powder and pour in the vinegar and vanilla and fold through.
Draw a 20cm circle on three pieces of baking paper and place on baking trays. I do this so they all end up about the same size. I also put a little blob of the meringue on the down side of each corner of the baking paper so it doesn’t move. Place the pavlova’s in the oven and turn down the temperature to 100C. Bake for 1 hour then turn off the oven and leave the pav in the oven until cooled.
 
I have decorated the pavlovas with whipped cream, pomegranate and black berries from a tin. I also reduced the juice from the berry’s with about 3/4 of a cup of sugar then swirled it on top.

Steamed Orange and Berry Pudding

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Thank you for stopping by Little Box Brownie. If you have been here before, welcome back! If its your first time here please have a look around and say hello.
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For todays recipe I have made a bit of an old school dessert, a boiled pudding. Which doesn’t sound like the most appetising recipe, its sounds rather lifeless and bland – a boiled pudding. I personally think of over cooked vegetables whenever the word boiled is used. But this is great, its moist and tastes like summer with hits of orange zest and berries which is wonderful when winter is in full swing. I hope you enjoy it.
Oh and if you have the time please check out Gallery 36 Magazine I have a feature profile in it. Which is very exciting as they haven’t featured a food blog in it before, but thought Little Box Brownie was perfect for their magazine, so very exciting.
 

 

 

Orange and Berry Steamed Pudding
 
150g butter
3/4 cup sugar
2 tsp orange zest
2 eggs
2 cups flour
1/2 cup of orange juice 
1 teaspoon baking powder
250g frozen mixed berries
 
Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, add the zest then add the eggs one at a time beating after each addition. Sift in the flour and baking powder and stir through. Pour in the orange juice and stir to combine. 
Place the frozen berries in the bottom of a greased pudding bowl and pour over the cake batter. Take a piece of tin foil and a piece of baking paper sized to fit over the top of the bowl. Place them together and place a fold in them so that the pudding has room to rise if it is needed. Place the foil and paper over the pudding and tie in place with a piece if string. Place this in a big pot with a saucer in the bottom (this will stop the pudding from burning). Pour in some boiling water so it covers about 2/3 of the pudding bowl. Then place the lid on and simmer for 2 1/2 hours or until cooked. You will need to continue to top up the water with hot water from the kettle as the pudding cooks.