I don’t know why I wanted eclairs. I think I saw a picture somewhere in my hours of endless scrolling. Anyway in order to come to a recipe that made a bubble safe number of eclairs I had to myself make an unholy number first. Each recipe I turned to reported that it made upwards of 20 eclairs. I know it is a time for comfort eating but 20 between 2-4 people probably is pushing it.
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Lockdown Chutney: Feijoa and Date
Kia ora from Auckland’s fourth lockdown. Cindy was considerate and threw us into lockdown just as feijoas are coming into season.
As everyone’s neighbourhoods and workplace lunchrooms become inundated with the inevitable glut of fruit I think it is very important to be prepared with such recipes to prevent yourself from drowning in the aromatic excess.
Chutney recipes are very easy to adapt provided you keep the sugar and vinegar amounts constant. For example if you want to swap out the dates for raisins or the apples for pears or the brown sugar for white sugar go right ahead. The important thing with chutney is that you have enough sugar, acid, and salt to stop your brew supporting new life once bottled up.
Make sure your jars are well sterilised before you bottle. I like to rinse all of my jars and lids in water before placing in an oven at 150C for 15 minutes at least. I also like to add hot chutney to hot jars for extra security so it’s a bit of an exercise in timing. It’s a bit of a juggle pulling things out of the oven with tongs and tightening lids with tea towels for heat protection but the more you do it the better you’ll get. Oh and always sterilise one more jar than you think you’ll need just in case one cracks.
For maximum flavour development I would leave your chutney a week before cracking open a jar - I just feel like it gives the flavours time to settle and reach their potential. No idea how long this will last - I still have jars from two years ago going strong in the cupboard.
Feijoa and Date Chutney
Makes 5-6 jars
1.6kg feijoas, skin on and diced to a small dice
6 onions, diced (use a mix of red and brown for fun)
2 large apples, diced
400g pitted dates
1 large red chilli, minced
2 tablespoons cumin seeds
2 cups apple cider vinegar (malt is a good substitute)
2 cups brown sugar
A large knob of ginger, grated
1 tablespoon salt
Place all of the ingredients in a large pot, I use my cast iron Le Cruset for this task. Bring to a simmer for an hour an a half until the feijoa skins are tender and the brew has turned a deep brown colour. Make sure to keep stirring regularly to stop it catching. Add a few more tablespoons of sugar at the end if you feel like it needs a bit more sweetness.
Carefully spoon into sterilised jars and seal securely. Once cool the lids should pop down and at this point fee free to give them a wash in soapy water to remove any sticky spillage from the sides.
Label your creation and store in a cool dark place until needed.
Sweet Lemon and Thyme Marmalade
I haven’t always been the biggest marmalade fan and I’m even still not that keen on bitter grapefruit marmalade. My latest couple batches of lemon marmalade however have been delightful. It is sweet and vibrant rather than bitter. They make your toast taste like lemon syrup cake which makes the commute to work while balancing toast on your lap ever the more enjoyable.
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I don’t know about you but I feel there is a lot of pressure to bake the right thing during this lock down. For starters there are only so many treats one can realistically eat in a day so whatever you make can’t go stale overnight. Then there is the question of finite pantry resources and the effort to reward ratio involved with going out to get supplies and the strip off shower routine upon return. Lastly while I joke about finite pantry resources, flour shortages are becoming a real thing. Not as in a real real thing - there is still the same amount of flour being milled it’s just that literally everyone is baking hot cross buns right now so getting your hot little hands on a bag is near impossible. So whatever flour you do have you want the gratification at the end of be worthy.
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Days before the country was thrust into lock down I managed to sneak in some surprise birthday cakes for a good friend of ours. I never intended to write about these but a request has been made. I veered so far off the recipe I used that it would probably be easier to just put it all down here.
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I make a lot of jam. I don’t eat a lot of it but I love turning abundant seasonal produce into jars that keep for months to come. I used to make a lot of chutney too but that seems to have been put on the back burner since neighbour Barb’s feijoa tree appeared to have died this year.
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I kid you not: this is a Public Service Announcement.
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So if you follow me on the ‘gram or are a friend of mine on Facebook you might have noticed that I haven’t been posting a lot of cake recently and instead I’ve been documenting my one woman battle to save the planet. I’ve kind of come to a compromise with this recipe entry; I have 12 ideas for reducing your waste and then I have a recipe for a delicious cake with a rather high carbon footprint. Both are worth reading.
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This cake never goes stale. Is that because it is a drenched syrup cake with an almond base and many many eggs or is it because it is so damn delicious there are never spare slices left behind to go stale? No one will ever know. . .
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Sweet Sweet Marmalade Cake
So I found myself home alone on Saturday morning and having done all of our much needed house and garden work I decided to count up all of my jars of jam. Oh yeah thats another thing that I have been doing instead of writing here. Jam making. Lots of it. If anyone has ever read Margaret Mahy’s Jam then you can kind of imagine what our house looks like. There are secret depositories of preserved delight hidden all over the show, including in an old shoe box under the sofa!
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