It is wonderfully dense and moist and has a marmalade-like flavour that is incredibly moreish. I especially love the way it fills our home with the most intoxicating smells of tart orange and earthy almonds. Now if only I could bottle that scent…

The presence of cooked and pureed whole oranges gives the cake an enticing depth of flavour. It is important to use beautifully sweet oranges. If they’re bitter, the cake will be bitter. Totally reasonable, right?

Bring a pot of water to the boil. Wash 2 large oranges and cook in the boiling water for 1½ hours. Drain and leave the oranges to cool a little. Remove the pips and then puree in a food processor – skin and all! This step can be done ahead of time.

Preheat the oven to 160°C. Grease and line a 22 cm springform tin with baking paper. In a large bowl, beat 6 eggs and 200g caster sugar until well combined. Stir in the orange puree followed by 250g almond meal and 1 tsp baking powder. Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake for around 1 hour or until the top is golden and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Cool in tin on a wire rack to room temperature. This cake needs no frills to be splendid but serving it with the best thick cream or simply dusting some icing sugar on top won’t hurt.

{recipe adapted from Stephanie Alexander’s The Cooks’ Companion}

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The gnocchi recipe my Great Grandmother taught us is made up of boiled starchy potatoes combined with flour and an egg.  She doesn’t measure the ingredients (Italian Grandmothers never do) – it’s all by taste and touch.

She turns 90 years old this month and continues to astound me with her strength and resilience. She is a tiny woman who laughs easily and loves to cook and feed the people she loves. Her door is always open to family and friends. Side-by-side in her kitchen on a Sunday afternoon, we made the kind of gnocchi she has been making for years.

We were careful not to over-knead the dough to avoid tough and chewy gnocchi. We rolled out the dough into long thin ropes then cut small pieces to roll on the gnocchi boards or forks. Everything was lightly floured to avoid the dough sticking and we worked fairly quickly. The process doesn’t take kindly to interruptions because the longer the dough sits, the softer and stickier it gets.

We’ve since tweaked her version a little. We bake the potatoes whole in the oven for an hour instead of boiling them. We also use a lot less flour – just enough doppio zero to form a smooth, slightly sticky but workable ball of dough. The secret (we’ve come to realise) to light and delicate potato pillows, is getting the potatoes as dry as possible and then little flour is needed. We’ll be making gnocchi our own way but thinking of my Great Grandmother – it’s dishes like these that memories are kept.

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We just moved into our new home and surprisingly I’m feeling somewhat calm among the unopened boxes. There are light, airy spaces throughout our house and yet places that are wonderfully bold and moody. Even though our home doesn’t really feel ‘lived in’ yet, I’m enjoying how peaceful it is.

Last weekend we whipped up a shepherd’s pie adapted from Jamie Oliver’s Comfort Food. It uses falling-off-the-bone tender lamb shoulder instead of mince and it was the richest and most heartening thing we’d eaten since moving. Jamie’s Comfort Food is one of those books you’re going to really spend some time with – our copy is heavily bookmarked.

This shepherd’s pie is perfect to use up leftover roasted meat but we roasted a small lamb shoulder especially to make it.

I often tell B that the one thing stopping me from becoming a vegetarian is lamb. Beef, chicken, pork – they are all superfluous to me. When it comes to lamb on the other hand – I am thoroughly and unapologetic carnivorous.

Roast shoulder of lamb gives you the most tender, succulent meat that will fall away from the bone. We rubbed the lamb all over with a little olive oil and added a pinch of salt and pepper. With a splash of water in the tray, we roasted the shoulder for 4 hours in an oven set to 170°C.

Cooking in moist heat accelerates the process of reducing the connective tissue of the meat to gelatinous goodness that falls off the bone making it utterly delicious. We took all the meat and crispy skin off the bone and roughly chopped it. Any fat from the tray was skimmed and put aside.

For the filling, we roughly chopped 3 red onions, 4 carrots, 2 sticks of celery and 1 medium parsnip. Then all it went into a large pan on medium-high heat with 2 tablespoons of reserved lamb fat and some picked rosemary leaves.

After 20 minutes or so the veg were lightly caramelised. We added a tablespoon of plain flour, the lamb meat and bones along with 1.5 litres of water. Once brought to a boil, we popped the lid on, reducing it to a gentle simmer for 40 minutes (stirring every now and then) until it looked stew-like in consistency.

2 kg of potatoes were peeled, chopped and cooked in boiling water until they were soft about 15 minutes. Peeling potatoes is never fun – am I right? I always end up accidentally peeling my fingers.

Once the potatoes were drained and left to steam dry a bit, we added a good knob of butter, grated some cheddar cheese and a good pinch of salt and pepper. We used a food mill to give our mash a smooth consistency then left it to cool completely.

Back to the filling mixture. The bones were removed and in batches we poured the lamb stew into a sieve over a bowl letting the gravy drip through. We then popped the gravy in a small pan on a low heat to reduce slowly.

The oven was set to 200°C. Using a little reserved lamb fat, we greased the inside of two medium sized casserole dishes (what you do when you don’t have 1 large pie dish). Rosemary leaves were picked and sprinkled on the base with a handful of fresh breadcrumbs.

The cooled mash was pressed into the dish, covering the bottom and sides in a layer about 1 cm thick. We then spooned in the filling and a couple of spoonfuls of gravy then topped it with the remaining mash. Over the top we grated another handful of cheddar cheese, some breadcrumbs and drizzled olive oil.

Into the oven it went for about 1 hour – turning perfectly crispy and golden. This dish was brilliantly satisfying. When I think of some of my favourite comfort-food eats, this shepherd’s pie is pretty high on the list.

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I have a sentimental soft spot for crêpes. I remember my Mum making them when I got home from school and eating them with a spread of jam or Nutella. I’m sure at the time I didn’t appreciate her efforts nearly as much as I should have.

This is my favourite recipe for crêpes. It makes lovely delicate crêpes without too much work. Some recipes we’ve tried call for the batter to rest in the refrigerator for up to 2 hours but this recipe makes light, airy crêpes without needing to rest the batter.

To achieve the perfect crêpe, it’s best to use a proper crêpe pan. I absolutely love mine. Otherwise you can use a shallow non-stick frying pan, of about 24cm in diameter.

• 2 free-range eggs
• 250ml of full cream milk
• ½ tablespoon sugar
• 75g plain flour sifted (organic/biodynamic flour preferable)
• 12g unsalted butter (extra for cooking)

Whisk the eggs, milk and sugar in a large bowl. Gradually whisk in the flour. Melt the butter in a small pan until it turns a light nut-brown and bubbles. Pour the melted butter into the egg mixture and whisk.

Melt a little butter in a crêpe pan or a shallow non-stick frying pan over medium heat. Holding the pan at an angle, ladle a small amount of the batter into the top of the pan and move the pan to form a thin even layer.

When small bubbles appear on the surface and the base is light golden, flip the crêpe and cook for a further 1-2 minutes. Transfer the crêpe to a plate lined with baking paper and repeat with the remaining batter. Coat pan with butter as needed. Makes 5.

Serve warm with whatever you like. These can be dressed up with any sweet filling. We love our crêpes with a splash of maple syrup, passionfruit pulp and seasonal berries. There’s no limit to what you can come up with.

{recipe slightly adapted from Gary Mehigan’s Comfort Food}

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I posted about our foray into homemade sourdough bread last month and you can re-visit that post here.

Our sourdough starter was in a pretty bad state due to inactivity. Serious sluggishness. After a while, starters will start to smell sour whether you are using your starter regularly or not. This happens due to the natural build-up of organic acids in the starter.

Once a month or when your starter is smelling too vinegary, it is a good idea to purge it. You do this by throwing away all of your starter except for 1-2 tbs. Add the 1-2 tbs in a new clean container along with 100g of rye flour and 150g of water. Give this a good stir and leave somewhere warm. The mixture will ferment and become bubbly when it is ready.

Our starter was in a bad way. Not only did it smell really sour but it had also separated with a brown liquid on top. This means our starter was feeling neglected. Guilty as charged.

To purge our unloved starter, we fed the remaining 1-2 tbs with 50g of rye flour and 75g of water. We stirred it, let it ferment in a warm place and then repeated the whole process again. Threw away half of it, re-fed it and let it do its thing. We did this 3 times over the course of a couple of days and voila – our starter was back to its old self again.

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If you’re like us and love eating sourdough bread, have a go at making it at home. If you are not familiar with bread making, I recommend attending one of Yoke’s beginner’s classes. The class really helps you to understand what is involved and on top of that, Yoke gives away her sourdough starter culture as part of a take home pack – that is one handy shortcut!

Yoke advocates using only biodynamic or locally grown organic ingredients. This is back to basics stuff: unbleached flour, water and salt. No commercial yeast, additives or preservatives of any kind are used.

Life with home baked sourdough has been very exciting. We’re certainly not experts at it yet and find ourselves still referring to our notes from Yoke’s class frequently. In saying that, the whole process isn’t overly complicated. The tricky part lies in the planning and fitting in all the steps around your day.

All you need to prepare a sourdough starter at home is flour and water. Our sourdough starter is like liquid gold. You can leave it alone for a few weeks at a time in the fridge in-between feeds and neglected starters can generally be saved by a process of purging. A well-cared-for sourdough starter can live for many years.

This is what our starter looks like after being fed with rye flour and water to activate it (rye flour tends to produce a more reliable starter than wheat flour). It has been left with a lid on in our warm kitchen for around 8 hours. The lactobacilli bacteria in the rye flour combined with the water cultivates the natural yeast causing the mixture to bubble and grow.

For a white sourdough bread (or a pain au levain for you fancy folk) here are the steps involved.

Firstly, measure out the ingredients starting with 200g of the activated starter, 600g of filtered water, 1kg of organic unbleached white wheat flour and 20g of fine sea salt.

Using a spatula or a wooden spoon, mix the ingredients until it forms a compact mass.

Rest the dough in a bowl for 20 mins. It will start to relax and loosen which is essential for the activation of gluten.

This is the fun bit – air kneading. Rub some olive oil on your work bench and hands to help prevent sticking. Pick up the dough and throw it hard onto your bench. Do this for 2-3 mins for it to develop some elasticity. It’s surprisingly therapeutic slapping a dough around.

Let the dough rest for 2-3 hours in a bowl at room temperature. This is a good time to go out for a walk, watch season 6 of Mad Men (again) or pick up that novel everyone’s been saying you have to read.

Add some more olive oil on your work bench and hands. Take the dough and stretch it towards you gently then fold it over itself. Turn the dough 90° and repeat a few times.

Rest the dough on your work bench for 20 mins. Then divide the dough in two and shape each mass into tight rounds by tucking the dough firmly at the base whilst turning it so it becomes smooth and taut.

Place the dough in the tins and leave for 3-4 hours at room temperature for the final rise.

Once the dough has risen to just over the top of the tin (roughly doubled in size), spray the tops with some water to help form a crust and then bake in the oven for 235°C for 10 mins. Reduce the oven to 225°C for the next 20 minutes. Turn off the oven and leave the loaves in there for 10 mins.

Remove the tins from the oven and tip them slightly so the loafs come out, letting these cool on a wire rack for at least 1 hour before slicing.

Baking bread from scratch really is satisfying and attending a class like Yoke’s will make it less daunting if you are new to bread making. Her website is very informative and you can purchase her ebooks, hard copy books as well as her rye starters (she also has gluten-free starters) from her site too.

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First thing to do is place 180g of dark chocolate in a medium bowl. We love our dark chocolate and typically have many varieties on hand – Green & Black’s, Blanxart, Lindt, and if we really feel like splurging, Valrhona. This time we chose to use single origin (Uganda) 80% from the Margaret River Chocolate Company we purchased on a recent visit to the Swan Valley.

In a bowl, whisk 6 large egg yolks with 1/3 cup of sugar (the original recipe says to add 1/2 cup of sugar but we’re using less) until smooth and thick.

Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, heat 1 ½ cups of whipping cream and 1 cup of milk until small bubbles appear around the edges of the pan.

See that green silicone spatula? It is one of the most important utensils in our kitchen. It’s not fancy, but does an amazing job of scrapping all those little bits from the sides and corners of bowls.

Whisk 1/2 cup of the hot cream mixture into the yolk mixture then gradually whisk the yolk mixture back into the hot cream.

Cook over medium heat and stir constantly (seriously, don’t even think about anything else other than stirring right now) until the custard thickens. It should take approx. 2-3 minutes, don’t leave it for too long or on too high a heat otherwise it will scramble.

Pour the mixture over the chocolate and whisk until the chocolate is melted and becomes silky smooth. Strain the custard through a sieve into a jug.

From here you need to refrigerate the custard for at least 6 hours. Once it is completely chilled, stick your oven on 180°C. Scoop the custard into 6 buttered porcelain ramekins (approx. 100g in size).

Take a roasting tray and line it with a tea towel. Then arrange the ramekins on top of it and fill the tray with enough hot water to reach just shy of halfway up the ramekins. Cover with aluminium foil and bake for about 25 minutes. The middles should have a little wobble but the outsides firm.

Once cooked, remove the ramekins from the water and let them cool on a wire rack. Then stick the ramekins in the fridge again to chill for a bit. After about an hour, I am unable to hold off any longer but B likes his custard very chilled so you can leave them overnight. It just depends on what you like…and how eager you are to get stuck into them. This dessert is wonderfully satisfying.

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A little while ago, we decided to road test a number of different approaches to find the holy grail of poaching methods. Cue many pots filled with spidery tendrils of egg white, rock-hard yolks and most of all frustration. We tried the whirlpool technique, adding vinegar, oiled cling wrap, poaching cups and even slow poaching.

Many thwarted attempts later, we tried Heston Blumenthal’s method and success!

This method is so simple and pretty fool-proof. Firstly, fill a pot nearly all the way up with water. The water temperature should be 80°C or 176°F. Enter our nifty Thermapen. The water will be at a bare simmer not a rolling boil.

Heston places a plate upside down in the bottom of the pan so the eggs don’t come into contact with direct heat. We don’t add the upturned plate. It makes it easier to remove the eggs when they are done and we can’t tell any difference in the result.

Strain the eggs before cooking them to get rid of the watery white bits. The fresher the egg the better as the whites will be firmer and less watery. Lower the slotted spoon into the warm water and simultaneously slide/flip the egg into the water. B has mastered this move. This bit isn’t too tricky so don’t worry.

After 4 minutes (for a large egg approx. 58g), remove with a slotted spoon and dab with a paper towel lightly before plating.

I feel this way of poaching eggs is so fantastic that it needs a hurrah. The whites are set but not rubbery and the yolks are deliciously creamy and oozy.

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I’m not the cream-sodden white sauce pie type. Enter our version of Jamie Oliver’s fish pie from Ministry of Food. We’ve made it our own. We use large plump chunks of bright salmon and omit the prawns altogether. We also ramp up the amount of chilli & parsley and use less cheddar.

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Peel 5-6 medium potatoes and cut into small pieces. Add them to a pot of boiling water for around 15 minutes until soft.

Stand a box grater in a deep baking tray and grate the celery, carrots and 75g of good-quality cheddar. Grate the zest from a lemon. Finely chop a few chillies and a good bunch of parsley leaves and add these to the tray along with a roughly chopped tomato.

Add 500g of bite-size chunks of salmon and a handful of chopped spinach to the tray. Squeeze over some lemon juice, a generous drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and add a good pinch of salt and pepper. Mix everything together really well.

Once the potatoes are cooked and drained, drizzle with some extra virgin olive oil and season. Mash until smooth and spread an even layer over the top of the grated vegetables and fish. Place the tray in the oven for around 40 minutes or until crispy on top.

Eat straight from the oven (it will be very hot so watch out) with a dollop of tomato sauce on the side. Nothing is more comforting than a plateful of this pie, it really is a lovely way to start the working week.

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