Strange baking: Vanilla and coconut cake truffles (AM)

When I was little, my grandmother used to always make a little something she called snowballs but were in fact akin to something you might know as 'truffles'.

I realise that's not a very helpful distinction, because a truffle can be something like this:

this:

or like this:

What we're talking about here is the last kind of truffle. A treat made from crushed marie biscuits, butter, cocoa, condensed milk and coconut. She used to make those delicious bastards all the time, such that my school lunchbox pretty much always had little bits of coconut in the bottom. This is something I look back on very very fondly, and makes me wish I still got to eat them and that my handbag had little bits of coconut in the bottom, instead of tampons, information leaflets from tampon packets, and general bag detritus stuck to chewing gum stuck to loose change.

But I digress. The reason I tell you all of this is so you will understand why I sat up and took notice when I found this recipe the other day for Vanilla and coconut cake truffles.

I got excited thinking these truffles must be like a blonde version of the snowballs my grandma used to make, just as the blondie is the blonde version of the brownie and the white chocolate mud cake is the blonde version of the chocolate mud cake (Pickle made one once, it was delicious). But then I read the recipe and realised...what this is, is not a truffle. It is some kind of cake bite. This is basically crumbled up buttercake, mixed with vanilla buttercream icing, rolled in coconut.   

What the eff , people. What the eff??!!. Obviously I decided I had to make it immediately.  

It starts with making a whole cake. 

Then crumbling the whole thing up, and making vanilla buttermilk icing.

Then combining the two and making them in to little balls and, as you may have guessed, rolling them in coconut. 

All through this process I couldn't help thinking how idiotic it was. Making an intensely buttery cake only to destroy and then try to rebuild it with icing that really could have just gone on top with a sprinkling of coconut? Why would you do that? No really, why? I needed these blonde snowballs to be super delicious so the questions would stop.

Look, they were fine. But they are very very sweet. And they look so much like lemon slice that I found it disappointing that they didn't taste like lemon slice.

And they really needed to have some crushed marie biscuits involved somehow. They would have been so much better. I think I'm just going to make lemon slice next time. Or snowballs. 

Pity the fool (PM)

Oh, brother. Fool sounds like the worst of the worst. My eyes are sore from my rolling them so much while I was looking at that website.

Get your hand off it, Fool!

Your tagline of Food, Insanity, Brilliance & Love sounds to me like shit, crap, excrement and poo.

And while I am eating something as I write this, it's not because you have inspired me, Fool. It's because I like food, and I like to put it in my mouth where it belongs instead of all gussied up on the pages of your goddamned magazine.

So...wanna know what I'm eating?

This delicious mini-bagel from Aviv. I was just going to get one regular bagel but I got two mini ones so I could spread the joy out a little.
Hooray!

Sounds like my Friday night (PM)

Oh geez, Mate. You should have warned me that the story of your Friday night was a sad story! You know I can't handle stories about ageing institutions that were once thriving but are now struggling to find their place in the modern world. Just the other night I got really depressed watching  We need to talk about Kevin because in it, Tilda Swinton worlds at a travel agent and I kept thinking if this was real, all those people would be out of a job now, which I'm pretty sure is not the reaction the filmmakers were hoping for. Everything about that RSL story makes me feel sad, especially the train drawing. That train looks so so sad! I bet Baby liked it though. And LB. Did LB enjoy his meal? I hope so.

I'm sorry you got sick from the frozen pencil fish, but I think you guys should go back and give them another shot. I'll come if you like. Maybe I'll try to convince Midbro to come, and bring Niecey and Piglet. Anyone who would draw such a sad train needs our support.

What only a mother could love

Did your mother really say those things? The horny dogs? The Benjamins? I can hardly believe it!!

And I think there is nothing wrong with you accepting happy Mother's Day wishes. You are not Jesus, but I bet you accept Merry Christmas wishes. They are just wishing you a happy day. What's wrong with that.

Mother's Day in Melbourne was miserable. It poured rain. But we managed to bring some brightness to our day.

Chickpea, Russeth and I painted a triptych for Mum. This lead to quite a hilarious declaration from her, but I'll get to that.

So Chickers decided we should paint this fluoro triptych. One picture each obviously. She had a couple of ideas for the theme:

1. Draw a creature across the three canvases. So one of us draws a head, another the body, the other the legs. Hilarity! We tried this on paper. Hilarity. We dismissed the idea.

2. Each of us draws a picture of ourselves emerging from our mother. Our births. Dismissed.

Then Russeth suggested Polish landscapes. We researched this on the Google and found some nice landscapes. The idea eventually developed into paintings to represent phases of her life.

Here's a guy that needs no introduction:



And if you don't recognise this as Carlton in the '60s there is clearly something wrong with you.


Cocktail in Elsternwick, anyone?


Mum LOVED them. On Sunday night I saw her looking at the three paintings.



That's when she said that funny thing I mentioned earlier, "They are like Howard Arkley paintings." HAHAHAHAHAHA. Oh mum, you really do love us.

What a pity we can't talk about Marky Mark every day

Mate, I am just going to talk about non-vegetarian things for a minute or two, I hope it doesn't gross you out too much.

So you know how some cookbooks recommend forming a relationship with your local fishmonger/butcher/green grocer so you can learn more about your produce and get them to do special things for you like clean, gut and descale your fish right in front of you or debone a joint of meat for you or do something special with your fruit and veggies that I cant really think of right now? Well I am totally making this happen for myself with the fishmonger and butcher on Nicholson Street. The fruit shop people are also very nice, but there are fewer opportunities for meaningful interaction at a fruit shop. "Do you have any Dill? I couldn't see any with the other herbs." You can only take things so far in a fruit shop

Anyway, I had a very enjoyable encounter at the butcher last night and I think our relationship really turned a corner. First of all, let me say that I love this particular butcher because they make hot salami that is out of this world and the men who work there are nice old Italian men or young enthusiastic boys. So lovable.

So I arrived just as they were packing up, but they let me in anyway because they are very nice. The young fellas were busily packing away all the meat and one of the older guys asked me what I was looking for. I said steak. I was planning on having Aussie meal you see. But as I was saying it I thought gee, it would be kind of good if I had something leftover that I could have for dinner tomorrow night too. The butcher sensed I was faltering. He said "how many people are you cooking for?" and I told him it was just me and then he said "how many meals do you want to get out of it" and I thought YES, this dude is totally on my wavelength. Anyway, he went out the back and brought out this lovely big bit of rump and told me that it was nice and tender and would be delicious roasted. I don't remember what else he said because I was already diving into my bag for money, because he had me at "how many meals do you want to get out of it?". While he was wrapping it up for we talked about Easter and holidays and I told him about NYC and he was excited for me. When I left he said "good luck to you!" and I thought yes! good luck to me and good luck to you too old timer.

I rushed home to make my reconceptualised Aussie meal. As you well know Mate, for me an Aussie meal usually consists of steak, iceberg lettuce salad and oven fries with a little houses of parliament on the side. Last night it consisted of rare roast beef, roast potatoes, beetroot and goats cheese salad and a horseradish and rocket sauce on the side. I would love to show you a photograph but I was so busy having my mind blown by it that I forgot to take one! Sorry.

It really was super delicious. AND I got to use two of my favourite kitchen items when making it. First, my beloved red griddle pan.

I love you, red griddle pan. You are made from cast iron and you are heavy in a pleasing way. I have cooked many steaks on you and chargrilled many vegetables on you. Last night, I used you to sear the beef so that it had nice grill lines on the outside and stayed juicy and delicious on the inside when roasted.
Which brings me to another beloved item.
My heavy based roasting tin with removable roasting rack.

You make roasting so very enjoyable and I love you very much. I like your rack. It allows me to make delicious roast potatoes, because the fat from the meat drips on to the potatoes underneath and basically makes them delicious. I took you with me to Mum and Dad's house on Christmas day so I could cook the pork shoulder inside you. My Mum loved you so much she bought one of your cousins to make her very own.

I really love both of those things, and it was great to use them when making fancy Aussie meal last night.
While I'm on the topic, perhaps I will introduce you to a couple of my other favorite (kitchen) things. While I didn't use them last night, I love them a lot and would like my love to go on the record.

Say hello to small saucepan.

This little guy used to belong to my Mum and has been around since the year dot. It is the perfect size for: soft boiling an egg; making pasta sauce for one person, melting butter, frying onion and garlic, etc. etc. etc. Such a handy little guy.

And let me introduce you to this lovely pot.

Isn't she a beauty? This is the pot in which I make all my chutney. It has also been around for yonks, and in fact was acquired in the 1980's via Coles New World in Elsternwick. Back in the day they had a system where you would get tokens when you bought at Coles New World. They looked like little stamps. Once you had collected enough, you could exchange them for things. This pot was one of those things. The whole collecting tokens and exchanging them for nice pots with flowers on the side captured my young imagination in that way things do when you are little. It was such a great thing! You collect tokens (which in itself is awesome fun when you are little) and then you swap them for a pretty thing! What an awesome idea!

Da, my Mum's mum, cottoned on to the fact that I was captivated by this concept and collected tokens for me whenever she could. I'm pretty sure she invented reason to go to Coles New World because in fact, her house was closer to Tuckerbag, and yet her collection of tokens grew and grew. Eventually we had enough to get the pot and OMG Mate, OMG was that an awesome day. My whole childhood I look at the pot and thought Wow! look what you can get if you just collect enough tokens! Now I look at it just think about how much I love it.

This final item is brand new. It's actually never been used. It's a whistling kettle.

Isn't it lovely? Midbro and Mrs. Midbro gave it to me for my birthday this year and I love it so much I don't want to bust it out until I move in to my little flat later in the year. It's not that I worry my housies will disrespect it, it's just that I love it and want to keep it all to myself. That's normal, right?

How nice are all of my things?!