Crow Sonts

 Hi Friend!

Croissants are tricky little buggers. We tried to make them in the summer and although they proved scrumptious they were right assholes, slopping around all over the place in the heat. So we tackled them in the winter this time. They were a fair bit of work but there is really nothing like a fresh croissant. We used the Bourke St Bakery cook book, which is generally pretty good but takes lots of deciphering. I'm convinced they make it sound more complex than it is so you'll still go to their bakery, and if we lived around the corner I'd certainly be tempted to buy a few and pretend I did the hard yards. I tell myself this so I don't feel so bad about it taking me a solid 30 minutes to make sense of the recipe.

They weren't quite as crispy as I would have liked, but I guess that comes with practice. From what I gather, the real croissant-y flavour comes from a yeast starter that is made the day before. I would recommend using a recipe that has the little starter, even though it takes a bit of time, the taste is well worth it.  

     We made quite a large batch, so froze the rest and they came up a treat under the grill and in the oven. With some of the remainder I also made a Bread and Butter pudding with the croissants and our quince jelly. Croissants are one of those things that make you feel like royalty, slathered with butter and jam first thing in the morning or in the middle of the night for a snack. I don't know how Marie Antoinette was so thin... I think I'd take a croissant any day

Would you like a map of Tassie?

 You know you're a proper adult when you go on holidays. Not so proper when you choose a destination because of cheap flights. Even though we had heard only good things about Tasmania, we didn't really think out travelling, pretty much, to Antarctica in the middle of winter. It was freezing, I mean freezing, so cold your chest hurt to breath- freezing. Well, that was at night and I am the kind of person that thinks having the heater on in spring is acceptable/perfectly normal. BUT it was still cold.

Us in our thermals, before our extra 5 layers

  There are a few things I will never understand about holidaying and one of them is exercise and the other is dieting. Not only do people go to this freezing cold part of the world they also walk around for days on end in the highest parts of the island eating rations and sleeping in tents, for fun! I can barely believe it let alone begin to understand why. So this holiday was designed to be a holiday. We woke up at 12noon had coffee for an hour and read the paper then meandered around the city until we got hungry. Then we ate lots for dinner.

  We found the most lovely little bakery / cafe called 'Pigeon Hole Bakery', a gorgeous husband and wife team with mighty fine bread and very good coffee. We spent a lot of time there as well as a cafe called 'Pilgrim Coffee', they use Axil coffee from Melbourne. It's a bit of a wanky place in the middle of Hobart, but the coffee was rather good, if you don't mind the 5 minute spiel on the raspberry flavours  you'll be tasting five hours later.

  We also had a marvellous time sampling all the cheeses from Nick Haddow's Bruny Island Cheese Company. James favoured the 'Tom' but I absolutely loved the 'C2', the only raw milk cheese commercially produced in Australia. The rest of Bruny Island was also quite enjoyable, it was very rugged and wild and very cold, but absolutely beautiful and full of kangaroos and wallabies (my favourite).

  MONA was, of course, amazing. We caught the ferry over, the most upmarket ferry I've ever seen, and made a day trip of it. Rather nice indeed.

On the Ferry

At MONA

Pretty Mona staircases

And that's all the photos we took, because we're rats

Home Sick

 Winter is one of those times when I get home-sick. I only really notice what it is that's wrong when I think about what I've been cooking. It's always comfort food, not really in the 'Donna Hay' sense of the word with chocolate or lard and potatoes, but things I grew up eating. I've been covered in flour and butter for about a week cooking things that make me feel warm and cuddly. Like 'Gingernut biscuits', how could anything be wrong when you have a cup of tea and a gingerbut (as James' calls them)? They are so hard and gingery you don't even need to worry about it falling into your cup, let alone the woes of the world.

Polenta porridge is another one of those things, my dad used to make us eat it for breakfast nearly every morning. No fruit-loops or nutrigrain- not even weet-bix, it was oat porridge, rice porridge, semolina or polenta porridge with honey and milk. I used to feign death to get out of eating it but now polenta or semolina porridge is prized. I have it for dessert with our home-made quince jelly and cream.   Mostly though, I think bread is one the most comforting things in the world. I sit munching away on bread thinking that even old Jezey ate this- I must be doing something right. Then I look at James and curse Jesus and his beard that has regained fashion.

Dad's sourdough just before baking

  I'm not sure if it's because my dad is a baker or if it's because bread is one of the only traditions I can truly relate to in my mostly cultural-less Australian background but freshly made sourdough is a little bit  of old magic. When I go home I often wake up with the sound of the mixer and sit on the bench chatting away while my dad makes bread. I couldn't resist sharing these with you...

My Papa and all his dough

Little Turkish bread bunnies

Beasty Easty

Five years later

 Remember Easter? I can’t really but we did take all these photos of my papa’s scrumptious hot cross buns. Those I remember. 

Although sourdough hot cross buns are one of god's gift to earth we made yeasted buns, and by we I mean my dad and I ate them with a whole stick of butter. 

Yeasted because Dad couldn't find the book with the recipe in that we usually use for sourdough and they are pretty damn-near-close as good. The book mysteriously went missing about the same time as I moved out. I swear I don't have it, but I still get suspicious looks every time Easter comes around. 

 Anyway here are the little bunnies