Dessert anyone?

Why is there not more dessert pizza in the world? Why is it that the only time dessert pizza seems to come into the picture is right after Ive already gorged on pizza. Isnt that the last thing I want? Does it not make more sense to have a mousse, or soufflé, desserts comprising of mostly air, after eating a greasy heavy dinner, and visa versa enjoy a delicious lamb salad or some other low carb dinner and follow it with an amazing mango and icecream dessert pizza so as to avoid the carb coma?

This epiphany came to me last night when I hosted a Thermomix demo at my house on behalf of a friend. Seeing as it was at my house I decided to play by my rules and change it up a bit, so instead of wholegrain bread and chocolate custard, two of the usual 6 courses at a demo, I made sweet pizza dough topped with strawberries, and then chocolate sauce to top the pizza. And now, I want it every day.

Here is my recipe

500g bakers flour

1 Tablespoon dried yeast

2 Tablespoons raw sugar

1 Tablespoon salt

2 Tablespoons olive oil

300g warm water or milk

Mix speed 5 for 5 seconds, then interval speed for 1 minute 30sec.

Allow to prove then take the dough and roll out onto 2 floured pizza trays and top with a few frozen strawberries. (I’m sure this would work fine with fresh too but I’d cut them up if using fresh or they’ll dry out in the oven).

Allow to prove another 10-15 mins while preheating oven to 200C.

Bake at 200 C for approx. 15 minutes until edges are just starting to brown and dough is just cooked.

Dust with icing sugar.

While the pizza is cooking,  place in TM-

400g  55% Belgian chocolate buttons (or any dark chocolate you have)

Chop at speed 9 for 5 seconds then add

400g sweetened condensed milk

120g cream (not low fat!)

and mix on 50deg, 5 mins, speed 3.

Serve drizzled over cooked pizza, go ahead and have some icecream with it too…. Why not…..

Now here’s the thing, don’t wait, don’t say, yeah that sounds nice, next time we have pizza we’ll do that, make it now! Make it today, tomorrow and any other day you feel like dessert, experiment with flavours and sauces, I have learnt from experience that chocolate sauce is best added after firing, but nutella seems to hold up to the heat a bit better. Nutella and marshmallows, Banana and caramel, mango, pineapple and praline, go nuts……..

Through chef's eyes

Yes, well its been ages. Don't be mad at me and I won't be mad at you.  A friend told me my blog was a SHAM! Because I started it then just stopped, all i'll say is, how did we ever live without the internet?!
Life as a consultant is treating me so well! Work?, I dont feel like I work at all and people are so grateful for my demos! (Except Rory because every time I do a demo I take away his Thermomix!).  My customers are all lovely and very keen to share their cooking experiences with me, we're just lucky the machines' life expectancy is around 40 years as it will take that long to simply scratch the surface of what this machine is capable of!
Ive made sooooo many things with my thermie since my last blog, Ive used it to cater a couple of events, my favourite thing being just how quickly and perfectly it  helps me make pastry!  Ive tweaked the TM mash recipe to make it like the french style truffle mash I used to make at my old job, and served it at a function. Everyone was drunk and loud but as the meal was served all I could hear was 'aklsjdhdfohawrf MASH klsajhfdfgjjhd MASH aljshhff MASH!' as people took their first bite.
I took thermie on a girls weekend and as soon as I arrived made strawberry sorbet for our champagnes, and an assortment of dips to last the weekend.  Then cooked the bechemel for lasagne in the thermie and sat back and relaxed shortly after, with a champagne or ten....
I kept revisiting the kitchen thinking about what else I could whip up, and then getting told to sit down and relax, but as I'm sure every chef will know, we are most comfortable in the kitchen.  I became a chef because I love cooking, but even more than cooking, I love cooking for a reason, that's when you really get 'in the zone', under pressure and focussed, it'[s meditation for us.  Sometimes, I have to remind myself that not everyone else is on the same wavelength as chefs, not everyone wants their chocolate factory experience tarnished by me exclaiming, 'You know they don't actually make chocolate here!',  or their cheese factory experience with me saying 'You know they don't actually make cheese here!'.  Later as we were walking along the beach admiring the beauty of washed up sea urchins, I picked up one and excitedly exclaimed 'This one still has food inside!' At that point we realised I view the world slightly differently than my friends,  through chefs eyes.....

Thermomix vs Kitchenaid

Thermomix vs Kitchenaid

Subject: Shortbread Dough.

Thermomix= 30 seconds. (perfectly fine breadcrumb like)
Kitchenaid= 15 minutes. (and still not perfect)


.........Thermomix wins.

Soy Good!

Once I heard you could make your own soy milk in the Thermomix I was dying to try it out.  I went out for yum cha with a good friend (also a chef) and we decided that afterwards we would make something yummy in the Thermomix.  We started with the idea of soy milk and built from that, soy milk pannacottas with palm sugar syrup and poached tamarillos.  Because we decided to make our own soy milk recipe we played with the process a number of times but we pretty much settled on the following;
If you want to make a delicious refreshing warm soy milk drink:-
450g final weight, soaked soy beans (i think this was about 200g dried weight)
1.5 lt water.
Blitz the soaked soy beans for about 10 seconds, add the water and cook on 100 for 20-30 minutes on speed 3 (in that last 10 minutes the flavour evolves and the rawness really leaves it.)
Blitz on 9 for 1 minute.
Strain through a muslin cloth (or whatever you have handy!).
For making our soy milk pannacottas, follow the same procedure but use only a litre of water.
We made a palm sugar syrup with pale palm sugar and water and poached the tamarillos in it. We tasted the tamarillos raw, poached whole, poached pieces, poached for a short period, poached for ages...... and they still tasted like an overripe, bruised, tangy tomato.
But all was not lost, once we added the gelatine and some syrup to the soy milk and let it set, then served it with extra syrup they were delicous! The fresh soy milk has a totally different flavour to store bought soy milk. It tastes way better!, not nearly as nutty or strong in flavour, and not as rich to drink.
With only 2 ingredients vs 10 that are listed on a carton of Organic soy milk from my cupboard (one of which is gluten!!), AND with the cost of 1lt carton of soy milk around $3.50-$4.00 and the cost of my soy milk for 1litre came in at a grand total of .35c, its a great argument for the Thermomix saving you money.
Oh because we were experimenting for a good 3 hours, we stopped twice for refreshment breaks, once drinking the thinner soy milk with a dash of our sugar syrup, and once for espressos with a dash of our thicker version fresh soy milk.
Oh, and we will never eat tamarillos again!
the adventure continues....

Lip smucking good

Yesterday I went for a big run, then Rory used the thermomix for the first time and made pumpkin soup. He just followed the recipe in the everyday cookbook and it was delicious!. Also he was very impressed with the machine. At one point he chopped the vegies for about 2 seconds on speed 7, stopped and took the lid off for a look and said 'Wow!'. I said 'are you being sarcastic?' but he wasnt, in just 2 seconds everything had chopped into perfectly even pieces, something he had never seen before.
So anyway after the run, and then the soup I was sitting on the couch feeling far too healthy and started dreaming about Smucker's chocolate fudge sauce. My first ever cooking job was with the Lonestar steakhouse chain and they were well known for their chocolate brownie with icecream and warm chocolate fudge sauce. It still remains the best, in my mind anyway because its been years since Ive eaten it, but Im not the only one. For those who know of it would agree its the best. Chocolatey, almost chewy, sweet, warm fudge sauce. So I asked google what was in it?

Ingredients:

NONFAT MILK, CORN SYRUP, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, SUGAR, SOYBEAN OIL, COCOA PROCESSED WITH ALKALI, COCOA, CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF: FULLY HYDROGENATED COTTONSEED OIL, CORN STARCH- MODIFIED, MONOGLYCERIDES, SALT, SODIUM PHOSPHATE, SODIUM CITRATE, SALT, VANILLIN (ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR), TBHQ (ANTIOXIDANT).

Hmmm, no wonder it tastes so good. Ok so I think I have re-invented Smucker's using all pronounceable ingredients, here goes

400g Sweetened condensed milk (Ingredients: milk, sugar.)
3 Tbs pure dutch cocoa
100g 70% chocolate, Lindt (Ingredients: cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter, natural vanilla)
1 Tbs glucose syrup
Chuck it all in the thermomix and cook on 70deg for 4 minutes. If you want to be really bad try adding some butter, I havent tried it yet but I have a feeling it might just be amazing.

I ate this last night on top of some of the left over strawberry rosewater icecream from the day before, it was like eating a turkish delight bar only way, way better.
the adventure continues...

3 Michelin stars ***

To celebrate the return on some friends from 11 years abroad I had a little luncheon. Its still the middle of winter and I wanted to have us sharing something communal and relaxed so that we all felt like no time had passed between us. So I decided on a slow roast leg of lamb with cous cous followed by icecream. Keeping in my style I thought of the menu first then thought of how I could incorporate the functions of the thermomix to help with it. The night before I made a marinade of cumin, coriander, garam masala, cinnamon, gently dry roasted in the thermomix, then chopped with pepper corns, salt, rosemary, garlic and finally some oil. I set the lamb atop some sliced onions and carrots, red wine, stock, a little tomato paste and coated in the marinade so it was ready to go straight in the oven in the morning. The cous cous I pre made to save time but chose to hand chop all my vegies because I like perfect little squares of vegies about 1mm.
I then made some icecream, a basic cream milk anglaise but then added strawberry flavoured jelly crystals and rosewater to it. The instructions were to freeze it down, then put it back in the thermomix to blitz again, and finish freezing.
So the next morning the lamb went straight in the oven, the icecream re blitzed, stirred in some bought pistachio nougat, cous cous fried in some butter to heat, yoghurt and cumin combined for dressing, and eggplant wedges added to roast in the last half hour.
Then I made swiss meringue. I have been dying to try this out as I have wanted to make swiss meringue for years but was always too lazy to stand over a bain marie whisking by hand. The traditional method is to mix your egg whites and sugar in a bowl by hand over a pot of simmering water. So I just put my ingredients in the thermomix with the butterfly attachment, and set heat to 70 and let it go. Perfect! and so easy! and safe for my pregnant girlfriends, and ready to be piped on top if the set icecream, (did individual cups and torched them to serve).
So now everyones arrived, the lamb is cooked and rested, I have a big bowl with the cous cous and eggplant and sliced lamb, just need a sauce. Everything that remained in the roasting pan went straight into the thermomix, temp set to 90, cornflour slurry added and in 2 minutes I had the most delicious and smooth gravy.
When I first brought the thermomix home, I unpacked it and looked at it and thought, now what? what do I cook? like as if it was going to tell me. That night I made a curry but I was thinking, hmmm I could have done that in a pot... I now realise for each person the thermomix is different. Theres nothing you 'should' make in it, theres nothing you 'should' use if for, it just simply slots into your life like an extra arm would, sometimes just hanging to your side doing nothing, sometimes reaching in to make your task easier and quicker, and sometimes saving your life.
So the luncheon was a success, enjoyed by all, and from my boyfriend I received 3 'Michell-in' stars.
...the adventure continues

Schumacher

So my latest thing is I like to make a big choux pastry ring, like a donut but the size of a cake, then make two flavours of creme patissiere, and make it into a giant eclair cake thing. Ive make two recently without my thermomix. Its not hard but man, the dishes! One pot for the choux, mixing bowl and beater from the kitchenaid to finish the choux. Mixing bowl again for the yolks and sugar, a pot to heat the milk, a fresh pot to finish the creme pat. So tallied up thats 3 pots, the mixing bowl twice, whisk attachment, and paddle attachment. You can see where Im going with this right. So I made it again the other day for my dads birthday. So with the thermomix, in goes the water, butter, heat it up, flour, cook it out bla bla this isnt a pastry lesson but you get the picture. Once the choux was in the oven i put some water into the thermomix and turned it on high to clean it. It didnt clean it perfectly but hey, it was a lot easier than my usual method!. So it was clean enough anyway, in went ingredients for the creme pat, 5 minutes later, (no slaving and stirring required) and its ready! pour half out, throw in a few blocks of 70%, one more minute and i have chocolate creme pat, YUM! The result, the smoothest creme pat ive ever made for sure, and a delicious birthday eclair.
Oh yeah and joke of the day from big sis (yes her sense of humour is just as bad as mine), 'yeah she had to wash it out after mixing all those shoes in it!'
The adventure continues.