Melbourne Blogging

Flourless Hazelnut, Chocolate and Raspberry Cake

October 18, 2018 by Rachel Daisy Leave a Comment

Flourless Chocolate, Hazelnut a Raspberry Cake

So Miss Daisy was having guests come over and she knew they were gluten free and health conscious, and yes she specializes in traditional cooking but that wasn’t going to stop her from making a cake. Armed with memories of her mothers Hazelnut cake and her adaptation of her Chocolate Mousse cake she came up with this scrumptious cake.

Daisy’s Flourless Chocolate, Hazelnut and Raspberry Cake
(also milk, oil and butter free)

Ingredients

30cm Spring Form Tin
Olive Oil to Spray tin only

300 grams Fresh Beetroot
(approx. 3 med)
Punnet of Fresh Raspberries
4 Free Range Eggs
300g Dark Chocolate
150 grams Caster Sugar
12o Grams Ground Hazelnut
1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
2 tablespoon Cocoa
1 Teaspoon Good quality vanilla paste or 2 Vanilla Beans scrapped

Half a Pomegranate deseeded
12 springs of Fresh Mint

Lets Bake a Cake!

Firstly lets prepare the cake tin, line the base with baking paper and then spray the tin with olive oil. Then put aside until you are ready to use it.

Heat your oven to 180 degrees.

Now lets get the messy part done, the beetroot. Peel the beetroot and cut in to quarters so they fit through a food processer. Then put your grating attachment on and process, if you don’t have a food processer you can hand grate the beetroot – sorry messy job.

Get a pot of boiling water and place a heat proof bowl (large enough to hold all the ingredient’s) on top and put 200 grams of the chocolate in to melt.

While the chocolate is melting separate your eggs, and mix the yolks in with the beetroot. Then whisk your egg whites until fluffy. In another bowl mix your sugar, ground hazelnut, then sift in your cocoa and baking powered.

Once the chocolate has melted add the vanilla and beetroot, fold through. Then add the hazelnut mix and combined together. Now it is time to add the egg whites, I use a hand whisk for this and add them in four stages to ensure the mix stays light and fluffy. Once this is done with a spatula fold through the punnet of raspberries.

Then spread the mixture into the tin and place in the oven for 50-55 minutes, until the cake is cooked.

Leave to cool. While cooling melt the remaining chocolate and once cooled have your pomegranates ready to go.

With an icing spatula spread the chocolate over the cake and then spread the pomegranate seed over too and garnish with mint leaves.

Absolutely lovely with Vanilla yogurt.

Happy baking.

With Daisy Love. X

Bringing Home a New Puppy

September 24, 2018 by Rachel Daisy Leave a Comment

Welcome home Beso and welcome to the family

My father was awfully generous and kind, and got me little Beso. It was like a count down from the moment he said would you like another schnauzer. I think he was just as excited insisting he would go to the airport to pick her up.

My father used a beautiful breeder who specialized in black schnauzers. When I met her I was outside Dad’s place and they were just arriving home from the airport, he got out of the car and had this tiny bundle in a white bamboo blanket chewing his finger off. And all he said was I think shes hungry.

So we feed her and then the sweet little puppy went straight to the door to go outside, as she was already toilet trained. That night I went back to my hotel with her and had so much fun but was nervous about her meeting Baci. The next morning we headed off to Daylesford early in the morning.

The meeting.

The meeting went well Baci was not to phased by her and that night we all slept on the bed together.

Then over the week came the getting to know you and the playing increased. And I love watching her play with Baci.

You can visit my you tube channel for lots of videos of them playing.

Little Miss Beso is a chewer and was a biter, to stop the biting habit I used a technique called the yelping method.So it is mimicking the other pups in the liter, so when she bit I yelp and eventually this stopped her from biting. The chewing she started on the furniture and now she knows if she gets caught doing that she will go into her crate with a raw hide chew for a while. Now she has stopped on the furniture.

I keep my house pretty tidy and for a week there we looked like a total mess.

So far Beso has learnt to sit, drop, toilet, and follow. We are working on a hand shake and down at the moment. She has been getting a mixture of liver treats and affection as a reward.

I have both Baci and Beso on an ethical diet so I had to set out and find locally made dog treats and chews. I found this wonderful company Blackdog who does all natural, Victorian made treats.

http://www.blackdogpetfoods.com.au/

It has been the most beautiful and calming thing watching Baci and Beso form a bond. They even play on the bed at night. For a puppy Beso doesn’t sleep much as they are playing however she will sleep through the night,

I hope all you puppy lovers are loving puppy hood as much as myself and find as much comfort in your animals as I do.

With Daisy Love. x

Brooklands Sausage Ragu

September 18, 2018 by Rachel Daisy Leave a Comment

Ingredients

Ragu

3 Tbs of Olive Oil
1 Onion Diced
1 crushed clove of garlic
4 Brooklands Garlic and Pepper, Fennel or Toulouse Free Range Sausages
1 cup red wine
400ml Chicken Stock or Vegetable Stock
1 can of diced tomatoes
2 Bay Leaves
Salt and Pepper
Parmesan Shavings to serve

Polenta

250ml Milk
1 cup Polenta
1/2 cup cream
100 grams Butter
100g Parmesan
Salt and Pepper

Lets get cooking

Firstly deskin sausages and roll into little balls about 4 per sausage,then heat oil in a large sauce pan.Add olive oil and heat, then add sausage balls and cook until they have color all over. Add onion and bay leaves until golden, add wine and bring to boil then turn down and simmer until wine has evaporated.

Add tomatoes and stock then cook until you have a rich sauce and salt and pepper to season.

Polenta

Heat the milk with 1000ml water and a good pinch of salt once boiling reduce heat and rain in your polenta while whisking to prevent clumping. Cook on a low heat until the polenta has absorbed all the liquid. Then whisk in the cream, butter and parmesan then season to taste.

Serve the ragu on top of a serving of polenta with a lovely garden salad.

For more on Brooklands Free Range farm and their sausages, and the markets they visit head to this link

https://www.facebook.com/BrooklandsFreeRangeFarms/

With Daisy Love. x