Pasta Puttanesca | The Bad Beginning

For most of the afternoon, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny cooked the puttanesca sauce according to the recipe. Violet roasted the garlic and washed and chopped the anchovies. Klaus peeled the tomatoes and pitted the olives. Sunny banged on a pot with a wooden spoon, singing a rather repetitive song she had written herself. And all three of the children felt less miserable than they had since their arrival at Count Olaf's.
The Bad Beginning (A Series of Unfortunate Events)
Lemony Snicket

The intenseness of the Christmas holidays is finally wearing off and I've found myself with time to actually write up some of these recipes I've had waiting. Working in hospitality is both quite lovely and also so awful around the holiday time, while everyone is in a great mood and customers are delightful, I always find myself working a ridiculous amount - coming home and binging on Netflix and leftovers.So it was quite nice that Netflix released the new season of A Series of Unfortunate Events, it really reminded me that I had quite a few blog posts and recipes piled up on here on draft that had to be finalised and published. And this is one such recipe, probably one of the more notable and memorable foods from the beginning of the dismal series. The Baudelaire Orphans cook Pasta Puttanesca for Count Olaf and his troupe of performers - it maybe didn't go down quite so well with them, however, it is indeed delicious and super easy to make.

*Notes: the chilli is optional depending on whether or not you like a bit of heat. I also omitted anchovies, because I don't eat meat, I don't really think you lose anything by not putting them in, but if you want obviously feel free to put in 3-4 finely chopped anchovies. If you do not have a food processor also - you can simply mix the flours and water together by hand.

Pasta Puttanesca 
Ingredients
Pasta (serves just so many, I had pasta for days guys, and no matter how many times I tried to make less it didn’t happen. Or let’s say, 8.)
1 1/2 cups of Tipo 00 flour + extra for dusting
1 cup semolina flour
1 tbsp olive oil
1 - 1 1/2 cups of hot water
Sea salt
Fresh black pepper
Puttanesca Sauce (serves 4)
4 cloves of garlic, sliced finely
2 tbsp capers, drained
1/4 cup black olives, pitted and sliced
5-6 large ripe tomatoes, diced and squished a little
1 red chilli, sliced finely *optional
Handful of roughly chopped flat leaf parsley
1 tbsp olive oil
Fresh black pepper
Sea Salt

Pasta

1. To make the pasta place both flours in a food processor (*see note) and briefly pulse to combine - add in a few cracks of black pepper and about 1/4 teaspoon of sea salt. Turn on food processor again and slowly add in the oil and hot water while running - it will combine slowly until it forms a giant ball of dough.

2. Remove the dough and flatten out as best as possible before cutting into quarters. Cover with a clean towel and leave to sit for 10 - 15 minutes.

3. If you’re planning on cooking straight away, this is a good time to get a large pot of salted water on to the stove to boil.

4. While resting the dough prepare a clean large area with a dusting of flour in preparation of rolling out your pasta. Doing each quarter of the dough at a time, use a rolling pin to roll out the pasta as thin as possible. I made this a few times - and trust me, as thin as possible still ended up being quite thick once cooked - so definitely go overboard in the rolling out of the dough. Having a pasta maker will entirely help with this step.

5. Once rolled out, cut into thin strips of whatever width you particularly feel like, I would recommend hanging the pasta once it’s cut, I just improvised something with a cooling rack, it will just help stop the pasta strands from sticking together. Repeat with the rest of the dough till it’s all done.

6. Cook the noodles a few batches at a time for about 3-5 minutes each and drain and toss amount desired with your puttanesca sauce.

Puttanesca

1. Heat olive oil in a large frying pan, when hot add in diced tomatoes with a pinch of sea salt, making sure to keep them moving in the pan to prevent them burning. Add in olives, capers, chilli and garlic and cook for another minute, mixing them with the tomatoes as best as possible.

2. Remove from heat and season with fresh black pepper, add in the chopped parsley and mix through before serving with your fresh made pasta.

Blueberry Pie | Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

"'Blueberry pie and cream!' shouted Violet. 'Here it comes! Oh my, it's perfect! It's beautiful! It's...it's exactly as though I'm chewing and swallowing great big spoonfuls of the most marvellous blueberry pie in the world!"

- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is the first book that ever scared me - mainly because I knew that if I had the opportunity to go to a chocolate factory in my younger years, I would most likely have no control over myself and end up weirdly deformed like the children within the book, sans Charlie, find themselves. I do love Roald Dahl’s writing though, and recall reading this book countless times in order to fully submerse myself into the magical world of Wonka. There are so many fantastical treats that lie waiting within the pages, a lot that I’m hoping to attempt to make at some stage (once I master using agar agar for marshmallows that is) - so I started with the easiest. Also I was really craving some sort of pie so this worked quite complimentary.

As many probably remember Violet Beauregarde, the driven, ambitious young girl with a chewing gum record, finds herself blown up like a blueberry when consuming one fo Wonka’s not-quite-ready creations. A stick of gum that gives the chewer the experience of a three course meal. A starter of tomato soup, a main of roast beed with roast potatoes, and a dessert of blueberry pie with cream. While there have been some amazing attempts and successes at creating the stick of chewing gum with all those flavours within it, I wanted to make something a little more simple.

Blueberry Pie
Crust
2 1/2 cups plain flour
Pinch salt
2 teaspoons sugar
220g of very cold butter (I measured mine out and popped it in the freezer for about ten minutes before using)
2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
4 - 8 tablespoons of ice water
1 tablespoon milk + 1 teaspoon maple syrup (for glazing)
1 teaspoon sugar (for sprinkling on top)
Filling
4 cups of blueberries (fresh or frozen is fine - just be aware frozen will definitely leak more juices at it bakes and possibly cause a little sogginess)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon flour
2 tablespoons brown sugar
Squeeze of lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1. To make your crust, combine the flour and salt together and cut through the butter (I used a food processor for this - but it can be done by hand, just avoid using your hands too much as it will very quickly warm the butter).

2. Combine the apple cider vinegar and water together and mix with the flour until it resembles a crumble texture (again, I used a food processor for this step, if doing by hand use a butter knife to combine to avoid warming the mix too much).

3. When dough is combined, wrap in cling wrap and pop in the fridge for at least half an hour before using - you can easily make this dough a few days in advance and even freeze it if necessary.

4. While the dough is chilling is a good time to prepare the blueberry filling. Mix all the filling ingredients together until the blueberries are nicely coated. Prepare a pie dish in the meantime by greasing the bottom.

5. Preheat your oven to 190C.

6. Break your chilled dough into two equal parts. Lightly coat a surface with a sprinkling of flour and roll out one part of the dough until it it approximately half a cm thick - lay this into the prepared pie dish and leave the edges hanging over.

7. Fill with the blueberry mix. Now - you can either roll out your remaining dough and pop it on top as is or you can do whatever kind of top you prefer. Trim the edges down once done and crimp around the edge of the pan to prevent any juice spilling out. When your have the top on mix together the milk and maple syrup and brush that over the surface of the pie before sprinkling the teaspoon of sugar on top.

8. Pop the pie in the oven - I recommend putting a tray underneath to catch any wayward drippings that you don’t want to clean out later. Bake for 30 - 40 minutes or until the top of the pie is golden brown.Enjoy!

Tipsy Chocolate Cake | The Rules of Magic

But rules were never the point. It was finding out who you were. In the kitchen there was a chocolate tipsy cake for breakfast. The girls might as well learn early on, this was not a house like any other.
The Rules of Magic
Alice Hoffman

I have a tradition every year in October - I watch Hocus Pocus, The Craft and Practical Magic. Even though Halloween isn’t hugely celebrated within Australia (though it is gradually becoming more popular) it is still quite nice to embrace a little bit of the spookiness of the holiday.

I didn’t realise that Practical Magic is based on a book of the same name by Alice Hoffman - though, very loosely based I have to say. Still quite an enjoyable read though, Hoffman manages to illustrate such a beautiful and mesmerising world with her writing. Her descriptions of food, even something as simple as a burger or a pizza feel almost magical. So, once I saw she had brought out a prequel to the book, The Rules of Magic, I was quite eager to purchase it.

I ended up enjoying Rules of Magic so much more than Practical Magic, the combination of Hoffman’s magical words combined with the scenery of New York in the 1960’s blend together to create a stunning story. The history of the girls aunts from Practical Magic is somehow a lot more enticing in comparison. Plus, a staple within The Rules of Magic is Franny’s tipsy chocolate cake, a cake that “is the most chocolaty chocolate you’ll ever taste.”

This cake definitely ticked all the boxes, I made it gluten free since I had friend coming over to watch said movies that needed that particular dietary requirement. While it is not necessary if you don’t want to make it gluten free, any chocolate mud cake recipe will really work for this - however, the gluten free recipe did make it particularly dense, chocolate addled and overall delicious.

Spending a night watching Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman cast spells, while eating spoonfuls of this decadent cake and drinking endless cups of tea is possibly the cosiest night you’ll ever have.

I based the cake aspect of this recipe off of a great gluten free, vegan one I found at - I’ve got my own good recipes for gluten free cake and for vegan chocolate cake, but struggled finding one that worked for both dietary requirements.

Tipsy Chocolate Cake
Cake
2 cups gluten free flour
1 1/3 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup cocoa
3/4 teaspoons xanthin gum
3 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons of bi-carb soda
Pinch of salt
1 cup of vegetable oil
2 cups of milk (I used coconut - but anything you have would work fine)
Frosting
100g of shortening (softened)
250g of butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
4 cups of icing sugar
1/2 cup cocoa
60ml of whiskey or rum (any dark spirit will taste amazing!)
1/4 cup of melted dark chocolate (not entirely necessarily - I just found it gave an even creamier, chocolatey taste to the frosting and cut through the sweetness of the icing sugar a little)

1. Preheat your oven to 180C and grease the inside of two round cake pans (18cm or alternatively just one big one if you prefer), place a square of baking paper at the bottom of each also to help stop the cake sticking.

2. Mix together all the dry cake ingredients and separately mix together all the wet cake ingredients. Stir very well until the batter is nice and smooth.

3. Divide the batter between the two pans and smooth down the top best you can - don’t stress if it doesn’t look perfect, we’re going to cover the entire thing in frosting anyway. Bake for about 40 minutes until the tops spring back at a touch and an inserted skewer comes out clean.

4. Allow to cool almost completely before removing them from the cake pans.

5. While the cake is cooking is a good time to make your buttercream frosting. This is definitely best to do with a mixer - your arm will likely tire out before the frosting gets anywhere near done .

6. Combine the butter with the shortening in your mixer and combine until fluffy - depending what kind of shortening you’re using it may take up to five minutes.

7. Add in the rest of the ingredients, except for the booze, and mix together until combined - add in the booze a little bit at a time just to make sure it doesn’t go too runny.

8. Once the cake is cooled feel free to spread the frosting on however you like, just use a bit of the frosting to sandwich the two cakes together! I kinda just lumped all mine on and spread it around till I made it pretty - decorations are pretty much up to personal tastes, I imagine chocolate curls and raspberries would be delicious.

Google Buns | The Magic Faraway Tree

“Come on,” said Moon-Face. “Come and eat a Google Bun and see what you think of it.”

Soon they were all sitting on the broad branches outside Moon-Face’s house, eating Pop Biscuits and Google Buns. The buns were most peculiar. They each had a very large currant in the middle, and this was filled with sherbet. So when you got to the currant and bit it the sherbet frothed out and filled your mouth with fine bubbles that tasted delicious. The children got a real surprise when they bit their currants, and Moon-Face almost fell off the branch with laughing.”

- The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton.

Enid Blyton had a way with words - more specifically - a way with food. Her numerous books, while telling the stories of children having adventures in faraway lands or solving mysteries on a private island (a re-read of some of the Famous Five books has now revealed to me at an older age that these families must be loaded. I mean, a private island with its own ruins?!) always seemed to being about the imagery of picnics and fresh baked breads.

I grew up reading so many of her books, I’d think I’d finished the last one and then my dad would arrive home with five more to gift me - I’m pretty sure he was just raiding all of our local op shops. Growing up in rural Australia, more specifically in the middle of the bush with only two neighbours on my street, both at least a ten minute walk away, all of Enid Blyton’s books resonated with me quite a bit. I think I expected to have far more adventures than I actually did, looking back my childhood years were curiously absent of the troubles with smugglers and treasure hunters that I thought I would experience.

While I am aiming to have a Famous Five style picnic soon (I am confident in my ability to provide lashings of homemade gingerbeer), the first few recipes I wanted to tackle came from possibly the most famous of Enid Blyton’s books - The Faraway Tree. There are so many interesting takes on the magical foods that the children feast on when exploring the tree but I’ve yet to see an (what I think is) accurate portrayal of Google Buns.

There are a few versions and recipes online already, but I’ve kinda gone my own way with it, of course the general outline of how this was done can really be done with any particular bun recipe that you want. I used a hot cross bun recipe, I really wanted that fluffy texture that’s not quite so sweet, with the subtle spiced flavours to have as a direct comparison to the burst of sweet sherbet from the inside. I just used a recipe from delightful adventures that I use all the time - I’ve never had it not work. I generally kind of tweak the recipe each time I make it by adding different things so the recipe below will be similar but not identical to theirs.

While the original description of Google Buns are that they contain a large currant filled with sherbet, it was really hard to find any currants bigger than sultanas around my local area, so I cheated and used dried apricots. Also - I used my stand mixer for this and the dough hook so I didn’t have to knead it. It could be done without, you would just have to use your hands to work and knead the dough instead.  

Google Buns
Buns
3 teaspoons dried active yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 cup lukewarm water
3/4 cup milk (I used coconut, but whatever you have will be fine) at room temp + 2 tablespoons for later
1/3 cup oil (vegetable preferably but I’ve definitely used olive before with no bad results)
Pinch of salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamon
1/4 cup caster sugar
Zest from two oranges
Zest from one lemon
3 - 4 cups of plain flour
1 cup of sultanas
Maple syrup
Glaze
1 cup icing sugar
2 tablespoons butter (I used Nuttelex but any you have is fine)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
2 tablespoons of milk (Again, I used coconut milk - but any would work)
Sherbet
1 1/2 teaspoon bi-carb soda
1 1/2 teaspoons citric acid
2 tablespoons icing sugar
At least 12 dried apricots (be prepared to screw a few up when getting the sherbet in)

1. Place the yeast, 1 teaspoon of sugar and the lukewarm water in bowl for your stand mixer and leave to foam up for a few minutes.

2. Add the 3/4 cup of milk, oil, salt, ground spices, orange and lemon zests, and one cup of flour - mix with a spoon to combine.

3. Place the bowl onto your stand mixer with the dough hook and add two more cups of flour - gradually add another 1/2 cup of flour at a time fo your dough is super sticky.

4. Leave in the mixer for another 4-5 minutes, gradually adding in your sultanas at the end. I found I had to manually work the sultanas through at this stage to ensure they would be properly distributed.

5. Lightly oil a large bowl and place your dough inside. Cover with a clean tea towel and let it sit for about an hour in a warm spot - it should double in size.

6. Line a tin with baking paper and allow it to hang over the sides - this will allow you to pull the buns out easily after baking. I’m quite terrible with knowing the dimensions of my baking tins, so I have no idea what I used - find something that will fit roughly 9-12 hot cross buns in it. It’s hard to choose wrong.

7. While the dough is rising we can make our sherbet filled apricots! Mix together the bi-carb, citric acid and icing sugar - feel free to taste and adjust if you want it sweeter, more sour or more foamy. That’s it - sherbet is so easy to make and I’m only now feeling anger at all the packs of Whiz Fizz I bought as a small child.

8. Carefully use a small, sharp knife to slice open the bottoms of the dried apricots until it makes a sort of pouch - then, using a teaspoon, pack it with as much sherbet as you can and use the stickiness of the apricot to close it back up. It can be a bit tricky but it really doesn’t matter if they’re neat, the idea is to just get as much sherbet inside as possible.

9. Once an hour has passed and your dough has doubled in size, take it from the bowl and give it a quick knead before breaking it into roughly 12 equally sized pieces (first time I made this I got 9, second time 12, really depends how big you want your buns).

10. Roll each piece into a ball and place them together in the pan, they should be somewhat tight and touching. Cover again with a tea towel and leave for another 30 minutes in a warm place to rise again. Preheat your oven to 190C.

11. To make the ‘egg’ wash’ simply combine the 2 tablespoons of milk and 1 tablespoon of maple syrup and brush over the tops of the uncooked buns.

12. Bake buns for about 20-25 minutes - they should be a nice golden brown on top and slightly springy to the touch.

13. Remove from oven and allow to sit for a few minutes before removing them from the pan by lifting the baking paper. Leave to cool while we make the glaze.

14. Making the glaze is super simple - combine all ingredients in a stand mixer and whisk till combined, alternatively you can whisk by hand, just be sure to get all lumps out.

15. When the buns have cooled, use the end of a spoon or even a chopstick to make a small insertion on the side, enough to press one of the sherbet filled apricots through, repeat until all buns have a surprise inside.

16. Spoon the glaze over the tops of the buns and either allow to sit and harden or eat them fresh and sticky. Enjoy!