Kitchen Alchemy

This past week we have enjoyed watching the Diamond Jubilee celebrations of Queen Elizabeth II who is, in fact, the reigning monarch of Australia. How odd that, at the far end of the world, we are ruled by a monarch instead of being a republic. While I'm all for a republic I absolutely enjoy the pomp and pageantry the Queen and her family bring to our lives. Even more, I enjoy reading about her ancestors, most notably Henry VIII, his six wives (I am extremely fond of Catherine of Aragon and despite her behaving a shrew, Anne Boleyn). So much so, a few years back I was motivated to take a trip to Britain to trace Anne's footsteps and that of some even earlier kings who built their castle at Old Sarum. So for the past few months I have been thinking how I might pay tribute to the Queen, and the idea that sprang to mind was a cake version of Queen Pudding. It is a bread and butter pudding, with jam added to the equation, and meringue baked over the top. I don't like

When I was little my mother always included a pavlova as part of our Christmas fair. She loved Christmas pudding with brandy custard, but it just wasn't the kind of thing that kids enjoyed. So she would always make a pavlova for my sister and I - of course she and Dad ate the pav as well as the pudding. That pavlova has legendary status in my mind. I remember watching Mum mixing the merignue in a steaming pot sitting in another filled with boiling water on the stove. She'd have her electric hand mixer working over time as the meringue thickened and began to crust around the edges of the pot. Mum always coloured the pav - pink or green were the only colours in the seventies. When the meringue was ready she'd draw the outline of a dinner plate on a tray covered in foil, spread some meringue around the shape, then pipe a wall of meringue around it. Mum would put the pav in the oven, we'd go to bed, and in the morning, there it would be, a pink confection, still coo

Flush from the success of our first market stall, we've decided to plunge in the deep end and do it all again this weekend! It was hugely exciting to take our cupcakes to market last weekend. We were up and running by 8.15am, but didn't serve our first customers for at least another half an hour. When I finally relented and went off to get a latte, Murphy's Law kicked into play and Mark made our first sale in my absence. But further sales were fast to follow. It's great to see people we don't know happily purchasing our product and enjoying it! Apart from the odd homeless person (pickled in Jim Beam) we found the Bondi Junction Organic Food Markets an extremely pleasant place to spruike our wares. So we'll be there again this Saturday, July 12. Hope you can make it down to see us this time - and of course partake in a little piece of cupcake heaven.

One of the main items I keep in my pantry is the full range of essences and colourings made by Queen Fine Foods. If you live in Australia you probably know them really well yourself - they are famours for their Natural Vanilla Essence, and in more recent years, their range has expanded to include flavourings like Almond Essence, Orange Essence, Rose Water Essence and so on. I recently went to my local Food For Less store, which is owned by Woolworths, to stock up on vanilla. I looked up and down the baking aisle for the vanilla essence and strawberry flavouring but never found it. I thought nothing of it until I mentioned it to my neighbour who told me Woolworths had removed the essences because of the recent scare mongering in the media over kids buying the stuff instead of booze. What???? I thought the exact same thing. So the next time I was at the supermarket I asked the checkout guy whether they were now keeping the vanilla essence and pink food colouring behind the counter